My daughter is 18 months old. She likes to read the same handful of books on repeat, including Little Blue Truck, Change Sings, and Wacky Wednesday. Her knees are scrapped and bruised, and I often find rocks in her diaper because she has spent the day in nature. The best sound in the world is her deep, stuttered laughter. When you can get her to laugh like that, you feel as if you have won the lottery.

Tonight, as we watched our daughter make silly faces and try to act out “Baby Shark”, I turned to my husband. We’ve had meals on foreign beaches, at top-ranked restaurants in one of the nation’s biggest food cities, and in the intimacy of our home. Still, we both can’t remember  what we used to talk about when we dined. She is always the main attraction.

There is the before life, and the after. Before children, after children. I am pretty sure the before life existed, but I often have to remind myself those were my real experiences and not dreams.

It’s been over two years since I posted about our fertility journey, and about a year and half since I posted at all. In general, I don’t write as much, sometimes not at all, but also I had a hard time making sense of my emotions, thoughts, and feelings after I became a mother.

There was the intense newborn-period when the main goal is to survive. My only objectives each day were to feed the baby and make sure she slept, then feed myself, try to sleep, and maybe shower. It was exhausting and scary and overwhelming, but I kept going.

Then, I went back to work. I had used up all of my leave time (and still had to take a chuck of my 12-week maternity leave unpaid), so I couldn’t ease back into it. Pumping was an obstacle and a burden in my chaotic hospital schedule, and my supply took a hit. The pregnancy weight had not just melted away as I hoped, and 30 pounds seemed to linger. My mental health plummeted. I got in more fights with husband. My patience with my daughter was thin. I dreaded work each day. I didn’t know how I could be a mother, a counselor, and myself. There was only room for parenting and work, and the me I was before barely existed.

Those first four to five back months at work were probably the worst, in terms of postpartum recovery. However, things began to change. I found a good therapist and started back on psychotropic medications for the first time since college. My daughter’s schedule and sleep started to even out, so I could start relying on having me time daily. One day, after getting a total of an ounce in three pumping sessions, I gave up pumping and breastfeeding. My supply had whittled down to nearly nothing, and I finally let go of what I thought the expectations were for me. The next day, I wore a dress that zipped in the back and drank an extra cup of coffee; I was liberated.

And, I started running again. I worked a long weekend for an extra paycheck that paid for a treadmill, which allowed me to run before the baby was up or after she was asleep. I joined the local running group and vowed to make running friends. My body slowly settled back into its natural weight. Finally, I could see me again.

By February, I felt like I had achieved a balance between Mom Heather, Therapist Heather, and Heather Heather. I had gotten into a really good groove at work and was enjoying it more than I ever have. Our daughter was developing her personality, so we did more family activities. I was running more and more and starting to think about a fall marathon. The summer seemed bright. We were planning trips to and visits from family and friends. I wanted to spend the summer taking my daughter to the farmer’s market and the pool while also running every local race and meeting runners after for beers. Plus, by the summer, I would be finally a fully licensed therapist and that would open more doors for my career.

One day, I came home from work and didn’t feel good. I told my husband that not only could I not cook dinner, but I couldn’t be in the kitchen while he warmed something up for the baby. The next day at work I still felt nauseous. I didn’t think much of it, because I’ve had on-off nausea for years, especially before my period starts. My husband also had gotten a stomach bug later that week, so we thought maybe that was it. By the end of the week, I was better but still had my moments. I checked the calendar. My cycle should have started a few days before, but again, it wasn’t uncommon to be late.

Some coworkers and my husband joked that maybe I was pregnant. I insisted that I wasn’t. These are just symptoms I sometimes have before my period starts. Many, many times, I have felt nauseous, oversensitive to smells, and a bit sore, only to take a test that immediately came back negative and my cycle to start the next day. However, their slight teasing put a seed in my head, and I decided I would test on Friday just so I could shush that voice.

Because of all the time, resources, emotions, and energy that went into conceiving our daughter, we had not made any specific declarations about having a second child. We for sure knew that we would not be going through fertility treatments again, but we were also leaving the possibility open. It would happen if it was supposed to happen. There were times when I wanted my daughter to have a sibling, but I refused to put any hope into that idea because I couldn’t go through the emotional drain of trying again. However, there were times when we thought maybe we would stop at one child. Put all of our resources and energy into her. We could be happy with this one magnificent child.

Before going to bed, I set out the one pregnancy test I had with the objective of taking it first thing in the morning. It seemed silly, as I already knew it would be negative. Every other home test that I took before it was negative. I just couldn’t imagine a world in which I was pregnant.

I woke up needing to the use bathroom. I looked at the clock and it was 3:30 a.m. Well, now is as good of a time as any, I thought. I activated the test and put in on the sink. I turned my head for 15 seconds, but when I looked back, I saw the control line turning solid but also the test line. It faded from white to a very distinct pink line. I blinked and readjusted my eyes. Yes, there were two lines. My mouth dropped open and for several minutes and I kept glancing at the test and then at myself in the mirror, as if to say, “Can you believe this?”

In that moment, I was also trying to decide what to do with that information. Do I go back to bed and keep it to myself until morning, or do I wake up my husband? I chose the latter.

In grogginess, we both sat with the news for a minute and then decided to go back to sleep. Of course he did, and I did not. There was just too much to process.

The next day, we made two calls – one to my OB for an appointment to confirm the pregnancy and one to our daycare to get on the waiting list for a second child. We then called our parents. They were almost as surprised as us.

Having another baby meant changes. Our daughter was not yet 1, so we would have two kids under two. We needed a bigger car for two car seats and a 50-pound dog. We would also need to double up on diapers and daycare payments.

It also meant another personal re-shifting. There would not be trail races followed by pints this summer. Any big career moves I had thought about would likely wait because I need consistent pay and health insurance. The shorts I had worked so hard to fit back into would not be wearable in a few months. The two to three hours I had between when my daughter and I went to bed would be replaced with the uncertainties of an infant’s sleep schedule. Heather Heather would disappear again, and this time, with two children, it would be harder to find her.

Honestly, there were times that I didn’t want to have this baby, that I wasn’t willing to sacrifice the little bits of me that I was able to reclaim (not that I ever considered terminating the pregnancy). I wondered (and still do) how it is even possible that I could love another tiny human as much as I do my daughter. I worried about the strain on our finances and not being able to give our daughter all that I want to.

I watch our daughter play by herself and see a small yearn for a playmate. I think about them becoming close as adults and depending on each other to get through life. I imagine hold this newborn in my arms for the first time, and I can’t believe I get to do this again. Our daughter was our miracle through medical intervention. This baby, our miracle through divine intervention.

I am 37 weeks pregnant with a boy. He is measuring big, so big that he cracked one of my ribs as my organs made room for him. He is due October 31, but given how big he and I both are, he will be an early pumpkin. He is healthy. I am healthy. It’s almost as boring of a pregnancy with my first child, except the huge shock of him coming.

Yes, I am scared about having a second kid and losing myself, but I also know I am destined to be this child’s mother. He was meant to be here. For such a long time after my daughter was born, it felt like something was missing when the three of us would be together. As soon I as learned I was pregnant, I understood why. It was him. He was the last piece to our family.

Eventually, I will find myself again and we’ll have two kids that sleep through the night. We’ll go on family trips, and I will run again (maybe not a marathon). I’ve done many incredible things and have had great experiences, but now is my time to be a mother. I have wanted this role for so long, and now I get to do it with two gorgeous children. The before Heather, she’ll always be there because she is what led to the after Heather. Now, it’s her time.

I became a mother at 4:33 p.m. on a Tuesday.

It was a short delivery, via cesarean. Our little one flipped in the last week of pregnancy and was breeched. This was far from the natural, unmedicated birth with dim lighting and classical music that I had envisioned, but it was our safest option. I was in the operating room less than 20 minutes, with my husband by my side saying sweet things that neither of us remember now, when the doctor, short of breath, said, “There she is. There she is.”

I’ve been a mother for nearly seven weeks, and yet that word when assigned to me feels like an awkward fit, like trying on a pair of poorly shaped pants. It could be that I am still unseasoned in this role. My mothering so far has consisted mostly of feeding, diapering, bouncing, and shushing with intermittent times of staring into each other’s faces, trying to figure one another out. I live in three-hour chunks, and it’s only when I look at a calendar that I have a concept of how much time has passed since our daughter arrived. Sometimes calling myself mom helps me understand who I am now, because I am not the same person I was 40-some days ago. Honestly, though, I am not sure who I am anymore.

I often envisioned motherhood to be just another cap one puts on, like painter or cook. It seemed like an eventual stop on my life path, and despite brief moments in my late 20s and early 30s, I had every intention of deboarding there. When pregnancy didn’t come quickly, I became frantic about it. Anytime a woman with a stroller came into the running shoe store where I worked, my heart pulled. Dear friends around me advanced into motherhood, while I stayed behind in a different life phase. Motherhood seemed elusive, like some mystical place I would only read about but could not experience. It was a threshold I wasn’t allowed to pass into. My husband and I had many talks about how being parents may not happen for us, and how we would have to learn to be OK with it. I told him that I could be, as I racked my brain with hobbies and vacations to make up the deficit, but I wasn’t sure that I would be. I had known that I would be a mother for so long that letting go of that identity would be to kill a piece of me.

Then, after a great deal of time, money, and heartbreak, I finally got my positive pregnancy test. I loved being pregnant. I enjoyed moving through the world as an expecting mother. It was comforting to me that I could walk through a store or a restaurant and strangers wouldn’t know anything about my background or my personality, but they knew I was growing life. Pregnancy felt like my superpower. It held the excitement of transition the way an airport does, as you linger between destination A and destination B. I was transforming, passing through one phase of life to another.

Now that I am here, I do not know how to make sense of motherhood. Everything is polar. I love this new role while also longing for my old life. I feel confident in my ability to care for her, but also breakdown in fear that I might screw her up. My body is unfamiliar and now in service to someone else. I miss her when she is on the other side of the room, and yet I need a break. I am content and terrified. When she smiles at me, I fall into an abyss of love that’s so deep its petrifying, and yet I feel lonely. I knew being a mom would be hard, but I didn’t know how categorically different it would be from all the other experiences in my life. It is absolutely unlike anything else, making it unpredictable and outside of what I can control.

As a mother to a newborn, taking care of her is my entire life. It’s a draining existence. I miss long runs on Saturday mornings followed by brunch, planning vacations to faraway countries, and slow mornings with coffee and a good book. But, then she smiles at me, as if to say, “I know who you are. I know that you are my mother. I know this love between us is the purest of any in the world.”  I don’t care then about the life I could be living; I only want this one with her in it.

In a few short weeks (quick mention of how a country without paid paternal leave is everything but pro-family), I will return to work and will have to somehow make room for my career, which is itself still in the infant stages. I hope that eventually I can also reclaim other identities, like runner and writer, but it may be a while before I do. There are certain pieces of me that are just gone now, and that’s a price I willingly paid. (Those friends who moved into motherhood before me have been incredibly kind to check in frequently and offer reassuring words that it does get better).

Bringing this little girl into the world unearthed emotions in me that I did not know I had. While I will always miss who I was before I had a child, a better version of me now exists in the world. I am still figuring out my role as a mother, and it will shift and expand as she grows, but being her mom is the greatest thing I have ever done.

This is the fifth installment of six about our struggles with infertility. Read parts one, two, three, and four. This is our story, nothing more, but we share it to add another voice to this often unspoken struggle.

There was no plan after the third IUI. If it didn’t work, we wouldn’t be able to jump into the next thing or begin preliminary conversations for a different kind of treatment. After this, it was unknown territory.

During the initial conversation with our doctor, he indicated that we would start with several cycles of IUI, and then, if none of them took, we would discuss IVF. I’ve always been hesitant about IVF. I did not want to put my body through daily shots of hormones nor the stress of going through the egg retrieval and embryo transfer. Also, I was very worried about the cost, even with insurance coverage (it’s about $25,000 a pop without insurance). Like IUI, I understand that it may take a few rounds, and the entire process seemed daunting and incredibly expensive. However, with each failed IUI, I started to consider it more and more.

For many people, IVF works. One former colleague told me that her IUIs were basically useless and that it wasn’t until she and her husband tried IVF that they were finally able to conceive. Sometimes, IVF is the only option. The success rates of IVF are almost double of IUI. Now I can see why many go down the IVF route. Many women in the RESOLVE group that I attended had gone through IVF, and hearing their stories gave me more confidence that I could endure it. Maybe I could put up with the surgeries and the self-administered shots. Maybe we could apply for grants or take out a loan. Maybe IVF wouldn’t be so bad.

The possibility of IVF died when we decided to move to Wyoming. While there are a few fertility clinics in the state, not a single one does IVF. This could be because of access to doctors or for religious reasons (I suspect both), but the closest IVF doctor would be somewhere in Colorado. Given the daily appointments one needs to do for any kind of fertility treatments, driving that far would not be feasible with my new job in Wyoming and would greatly add to our costs (let alone the stress). Plus, most of it would likely not be covered by insurance. As long as we lived in Wyoming, IVF would not be a suitable option.

Without IVF as a backup, there was immense pressure on our third round of IUI. We would have to do some searching to find a fertility doctor in our new town, but it would be more costly as it might not be covered by our employer-provided insurance. Adoption was still an option, which I was willing to consider, but I was not yet ready to give up on being pregnant.

Even with a bleak plan moving forward, some things were in our favor this round. For the first time, I had three mature follicles that were ready for fertilization. Also, my husband’s specimen numbers were better than ever. We stuck to our vitamin regiment, and I started getting acupuncture treatments. Again, I quit running and stayed off alcohol while limiting my caffeine and sugar intake. This was our last, best chance.

Because of everything that had to be done for the move, I wasn’t as caught up in symptom spotting and counting down the days until by beta test as I had been in the two previous cycles. Not long after my husband received his offer, I got one of my own for a therapist at a behavioral health hospital. We found an apartment, bought a car (need the AWD for those Wyoming winters), and began shifting our belonging into sell, donate, trash, and pack piles. Of course, the two-week wait was still on my mind, but it couldn’t consume my thoughts this time.

I didn’t seem to be as sick this cycle. In fact, many of the symptoms that are associated with my medication hadn’t hit me as hard. I chalked it up to my body adjusting to the medication.

My stress levels were not great. There were a million little pieces of the move. Weeks later, we still hadn’t signed a lease, even though our application was approved. Also, I needed to apply for provisional licensure in Wyoming. It was easy to concentrate on the move and all the things we needed to do for our new life because it kept me from thinking about our fertility journey. If this didn’t work, would it be the end of the road for us? What would happen next? Would we ever have a baby?

Throughout this cycle, unlike the other two, I took my body basal temperature. I had taken my temperature for a few months when we were trying to conceive on our own but found it cumbersome and gave up. However, charting my BBT could help me better understand if I was pregnant or if my period was coming.

The first half of the cycle was a bit of a wash, because I was taking my temp at different times (you are supposed to do it at the same time every day). Once I got into the rhythm, it all looked good. There was a sharp increase to note ovulation, and my temp stayed high, which is an indication that there are high levels of progesterone in the body.

However, a few days before my beta pregnancy test, my BBT temp was dropping, an indication that menses will start soon. I was distraught. My body was clearly telling me that this did not work. I would have to wait for the bloodwork to confirm, but I was convinced that three days of a temperature drop were telling me what I didn’t want to hear.

It was still three days until my pregnancy test. I had taken home pregnancy tests before, but I wouldn’t let myself this time. I just couldn’t see another negative. My husband told me that we should remain hopeful until we know for sure, but I didn’t fake it well.

On the day of the test, my husband went with me to clinic. We decided to run some errands after, and even though I was popping in for a few minutes for blood work, it seemed more significant with him nearby. In the time that I have been going to the clinic, they have completely rotated through their phlebotomy staff. All the more experienced techs, the ones who could actually get into my small veins, were gone, and the lead phlebotomist was a nice individual who even struggled drawing blood from the big veins in my hands. He called me to his chair, and after unsuccessfully locating a vein, moved to my hand, where he had to move the needle several times before it hit blood. The currier arrived to pick up the first batch of blood draws, and they asked him to wait until mine was ready. I watched the tech put it into a bag and hand it to the man.

We then went to get bagels at our favorite place in Chicago. I felt nauseous that morning and couldn’t eat before our appointment. At another time, I would have taken this as a sign of pregnancy, however, I’ve had fairly consistent bouts of nausea since I was in the Peace Corps, and combined with the medication, thought it was nothing more. I also couldn’t drink my coffee, too bitter. Maybe the barista miscalculated this batch.

I was napping when the nurse called. For most of the morning, I had felt tired and nauseous, which at this point could be symptoms of anything. I saw the number flash across my screen and picked up. The nurse said hello. Her voice seemed softer this time, but I hushed away any detective work so I could focus on what she said.

“Your HCG was 300,” she said.

I gasped.

“Which is positive.”

Then she said I needed to come back to the clinic in two days to make sure my numbers are rising, and if they did, we would schedule an ultrasound. I couldn’t remember much of what she said because I was in shock and I needed to ask a few important questions, like what does all of this mean if we are moving in two weeks.

My husband overheard the conversation from the other room and came in. We hugged and cried. “We are going to have a baby,” we kept saying. Yet, the words didn’t feel real. We had had such a tumultuous journey to this point, why would it all of a sudden start to work out?

I had one home pregnancy test that I was keeping for I don’t know what, and we decided I should take it. Even though bloodwork will always trump the home test, I still wanted that confirmation. After years of negative tests with that awful stark white next to the control line, I finally got a positive. The test changed immediately, and there was no denying it. I was finally pregnant.

We had initially decided not to tell our parents until the next week, when we would see them in person to help us move, but we couldn’t wait. I’ll never forget their faces when they heard. This would not be their first (or even second or third) grandchild, but it would be a grandchild they were eager to welcome.

Two days later I went in for another blood draw to confirm that my HCG was still rising. The doctors want to see the number double within 48 hours.  The day before I convinced myself that I wasn’t pregnant anymore. I knew that idea was ludicrous, but my anxiety often gets the best of me. I decided to walk over to the Family Dollar to get a test, just to calm my nerves, but they were all out. Maybe my aching back, relentless fatigue, and persistent nausea were enough confirmation that I was indeed still pregnant.

A few hours later, the nurse called and said that my HCG rose to 899, almost triple of my initial beta. I had to come in a week and half later for an ultrasound. This put a small dent into our moving plans, but we could adjust. Everything from now on would take a backseat to this baby.

My in-laws, my mother, and my youngest brother came a week later to help us move. The plan was for my husband and his parents to go to straight to Wyoming while my mom, my brother, and I went to the Twin Cities and then South Dakota for some family time. Everyone loaded up our belongings into four cars, and I found other tasks to keep me busy, hoping my lack of carrying heavy things down steps wasn’t a tip off to my brother, who didn’t yet know about the pregnancy. Our mothers were worried I would overdo it and quietly told me to rest while feeding me snacks. My nausea had turned into full-on morning sickness, which lasted most of the day, and fatigue overwhelmed me. After my husband and his parents left for Wyoming, and my brother back to his home, I spent hours on an inflatable mattress, trying not to get sick, as my mother deep cleaned our apartment.

Our first ultrasound was on my very last day in Chicago. Our fertility doctor wanted us to come in one more time before transferring to an OB, but we didn’t have the time. Instead, they settled on letting me see an OB in Wyoming at eight-weeks and then sending them the ultrasound. It wasn’t ideal, but it had to work.

My husband was already in Wyoming and checked into our new apartment when my mom and I went to the fertility clinic. It was the last time I would have to make the hectic drive down to River North. The last time I would have to fill out the two check-in slips of paper at the reception before entering into the main lobby. The last time I would have to sit in the waiting room, wondering if all of this time and money was worth it.

I had a habit of arriving at the clinic 15 minutes early so that I could be the first in my timeslot to be called. This little plan worked only half the time, not including when I went in for my ultrasound. My mother, who had to show her proof of vaccination to come in with me, was nervously checking her phone, putting it her purse, and pulling it back out. I was too. There was a chance that no baby was growing or that a baby was growing in the wrong spot. When you are pregnant and have dealt with infertility, these are the stories you linger on, where your anxiety blooms. The time continued to pass, and I shifted my worry to getting out on the road soon enough to avoid Milwaukee rush hour.

Finally, my name was called. I was too early in my pregnancy for a regular ultrasound, so they did an internal one, like the ones I had been doing during my monitoring appointments. From my online research, I knew there was a chance they might not be able to see much this early on, but I held my breath as the tech moved the probe around my uterus. There, she found a big black blob and inside that blob a small figure that looked like a diamond ring.

“That part,” she pointed to a circle, the ring portion, “is the yok sak. And that,” she pointed to the diamond part,” is your baby.”

She told us to look closely, and we could see the baby pulsing. That was the heartbeat.

We then Facetimed my husband and told him that the baby was measuring right at six weeks and had a heartbeat of 100, which is exactly where it should be at that time.

My mom and I both cried. After I was dressed, the tech handed us a little folder with a few photos, and we called my husband as we walked to the car to recap the appointment.

Then, we left Chicago.

This is the third installment of six about our struggles with infertility. Read parts one and two. This is our story, nothing more, but we share it to add another voice to this often unspoken struggle.

They say athletes should have short-term memories. To continue after a setback, you must forget the failure. You can learn from it, but do not let it taint the path forward. Marathon runners are experts at this, especially after a particularly painful race. They train for months, but then race day doesn’t go accordingly to plan. They shuffle and scoot forward, in physical and mental anguish, for hours. They finish tired and defeated, swearing that they will never do this again. The next day, though, they are browsing races and planning their next marathon. (As a marathoner, I have lived out that exact scenario.)

This selective amnesia also exists in the fertility world and accurately explained my transition from the failure of the first cycle to the hope of the second.

My husband and I went to that party while I tried to keep it together, draining beer after beer, and then I broke down when I got home into shaking sobs. I didn’t sleep much that night, and I cried on my way to work the next day when I saw women pushing strollers on the sidewalk. It felt so cruel for all of my hopes and big dreams to be ripped away. For two weeks, I had been thinking about that Monday pregnancy test and how I would pass the time until the nurse called with the results. If positive, I had planned to go out and get a sweet treat to surprise my husband. I cried and cried for having just that piece of my dream ripped away.

However, instead, when Monday came, I was frantically calling the clinic, hoping to speak to a nurse before my appointment so I could change it from just bloodwork to a baseline ultrasound and bloodwork. I wanted to move right into the next cycle. The nurse agreed, and then asked if we would continue with an unmedicated cycle. While that was the original plan, things were changing. My husband and I were planning to leave the city in the next month or two (timeline and location still TBD), and we wanted to put more effort behind this cycle. She suggested that we meet with our doctor to revise our plan. We met with him Tuesday, virtually, and after explaining our situation, he agreed that we should try a medication that would stimulate more follicles for ovulation, releasing more eggs, and increasing our chances of conceiving. This could also increase the probability of twins, which was a risk we were willing to take.

Suddenly, we had hope again. It was unlikely that the first cycle would work, anyway. It was a practice round. We just needed a practice round. 

I started with five days of Clomid, dosages twice a day, to stimulate my follicles. I also started on another medication that seemed to be for women in menopause. My doctor never explained why I was on it, but I also didn’t question it and took that twice a day as well. Dr. Google says that a patient will be ready for ovulation about five to 10 days after finishing the medication. Three days after I stopped the Clomid, I had a monitoring appointment. At this point, I’ve had all of the ultrasound techs at the clinic, and yes, I do have a favorite. She is in her 50s and has an accent that I can’t place but assume belongs somewhere in Eastern Europe. Part of the reason she is my favorite is that she has a bathroom attached to her room, so I can empty my bladder, change, and then hop on to the table. On this day, I was randomly assigned my favorite tech and she led me into her spacious room. With the probe inside, she started looking for enlarged follicles, with the ultrasound monitor pointed towards me so I could look with her. On the left side, we saw a few measuring at 10 to 12mm. Those are decent, but I now know that I would only be ready for ovulation once they are greater than 18. We moved to the right side, and a big black blob appeared. We both gasped. The tech recorded it at 21mm. “That’s your baby,” she said.

My fertility clinic typically calls between 2:30 and 4 p.m. to discuss that day’s appointment. I had to go to at my retail jo work, but I kept my phone with me on the sales floor, waiting for that call. I had assumed we would be doing another round of IUI over the weekend or that I would need to come in again the next day, but I wasn’t entirely sure. At 4:00 p.m., I still hadn’t received a call from the clinic. I was worried and didn’t want to wait another day, so I went to the patient portal to send my nurses a message and saw an unread waiting for me. Don’t worry, it said. We haven’t forgotten about you. We will be calling soon.

Finally, at 4:30, the nurse called. It was time. She instructed me to take my trigger shot that evening and then schedule the IUI for Saturday morning. This round seemed to move so much quicker than the other, which it did. In the first cycle, we waited for my body to be ready to ovulate. This time, though, the medications dictated the cycle.

That night, I pulled the trigger shot out of the fridge. I had bought it for our first cycle (at $200 a pop) but did not use it. Luckily, it was there waiting for me. Like most people, I had never given myself a shot before, however, poking yourself with needles is just another part of the fertility world. I watched the demo video that my doctor sent a couple of times, and then followed the instructions, my hands shaking with nerves. My husband wasn’t home, but he isn’t good with needles and would have been useless. I cleaned the insertion area. Tapped the air bubbles out of the test tube. Grabbed a piece of flesh from my abdomen. Inserted the needle at a 45-degree angle. Pushed the clear liquid into my body.

Another prescription of the IUI process is sex. With instructions of what medications to take and when, the doctor also indicates what days we should, as the fertility forums call it, “baby dance.” It seems a bit silly, but it is actually very stressful and removes the intimacy and romance. We felt pressured to do this now, and that if we fail, it will be on us. Sometimes my husband doesn’t get home from work until 10:30 or 11, and by that time, we are both tired and not in the mood. Or, we are stressed about other things. With fertility, sex becomes forced and a means to an end, and for most couples, this is a damning part of their relationship. Honestly, scheduled sex is not that much fun, and it’s hard not to get in your head. There are times when we can follow the doctor’s recommendations, other times it just isn’t going to happen. That’s a really sucky feeling.

This second round of IUI came on a weekend when family had decided to visit us. While everyone was still sleeping Saturday morning, my husband and I snuck off to the clinic. I fell asleep in the car while I waited for him. When it was my turn, I went into the clinic expecting to be called within a few minutes, like last time. However, 10, 15 minutes passed, and I was getting anxious. Some of the other waiting patients started to annoy me, including one woman who was very upset that her nurse did not tell her that she needed a full bladder. I watched other women get called before me, and I couldn’t help but think I was being denied something. It had been nearly three hours since my husband produced his specimen, which is when sperm outside the body start to die, and I panicked. Surely, it was stress and anxiety speaking, but each minute passed felt like an opportunity slipping through my fingers.

Eventually, it was my turn.

The procedure was similar to the first time. I verified mine and my husband’s info. A probe and catheter were inserted. It was all over within a few minutes, and then I waited 10 minutes. The worst part of all of this is the full bladder, which is required because it makes the cervix easier to access. However, I am worried about losing my restraint as I sit there for those 10 minutes (and honestly, in the waiting room beforehand) and forget about cramping from an irritated uterus.

After, we went sightseeing with our visitors. I was in pain much of the day, and often had to take breaks and sit, which put a slight damper on the day. Also, I couldn’t enjoy cocktails with my brother and sister-in-law and ended up insisting they drink all the booze in my house, hoping that I wouldn’t be able to anyway. By the next day, I still had slight cramping but was better.

In addition to booze, I gave up running during this cycle. My doctor confirmed that I shouldn’t get my heartrate above 130 and that the bouncing up and down motion of running is not good for implantation. I’ve been a runner most of my life and very consistent with my mileage in the last few years. It was hard to take a step back, specifically after I had already reduced my running due to finishing my master’s degree and studying for my licensure exams. Had I not been desperately trying to get pregnant, I would have probably been training for a fall marathon, excited like all runners to have in-person races back. Now, I was not running at all. Thankfully, a few of my running friends invited me out on walks, giving me an excuse to be outside and social. Still, I missed running, and it was now another item on the list of things I’ve had to sacrifice for fertility treatments.

During this two week wait, I decided to stay off the fertility forums. They gave me false hope and no amount of Googling could predict if I was pregnant or not. I did fairly good with this refrain up until the final days. As I got to 10, 11, and 12 DPIUI (days past IUI), I wanted to know what symptoms to look for and tried to gleam any information that could indicated pregnancy without taking a test.

Around 10 DPIUI, I thought I could feel my period coming. I was crampy in a different way and my breasts were sore, as they usually are before my period. My menstrual cycle was to begin in three days, and I cried that night, thinking it was all over.

I was expecting spotting in the morning, but there was none. Same with the next day and the day after. Maybe it wasn’t my period after all. Maybe I was really pregnant.

When the day of my expected period came and went, my hopes started to rise. It’s been 13 days. No period. I was tired and crampy at times but mostly fine. All things were pointed in my favor. There was one small shred of doubt, though. The progestogen that I take is known to delay periods, and it can be inconsistent at times. Meaning, because it did not delay my period last month, doesn’t mean that it would prevent it this month.

There was only one way to know for sure: take a pregnancy test.

My bloodwork, or beta test, wasn’t until Monday, but my husband and I agreed that it wouldn’t hurt to take a pregnancy test two days before. We were visiting family in another state, and I had packed one. Up until that point, I had only ever used “cheapie” tests purchased on the internet, and this was a Clear Blue test, which could predict more accurate results. I had bought this many months ago (not yet expired), and I wanted to save it for when I knew I could get a positive. This seemed like that day.

I woke up before anyone else, hoping to get that early morning urine when the HCG (human chorionic gonadotropin) levels are the highest. I pulled out the stick and went into the bathroom. After the test was activated, I stared at it. Waiting, finally, for two lines to show up. I kept my eyes fixed on it. Several minutes passed, and still only one line. Negative.

The desolate white that is next to the control line on a pregnancy test is one of the most heartbreaking colors.

I didn’t want most of my family to know that I had taken the test. I had gone out to the living room to hang out with my early-rising nephew who was busy snacking on toast and playing with cars. Other family members woke up and joined us. When my husband came into the room, I shook my head and held back tears.

Infertility brings out an irrational side, such as going back to the test hours later, hoping it had magically changed. Or, Googling stories of women who received negative tests at 14 DPIUI but then got a positive a day or two later through bloodwork. Or, researching to find out that First Response tests are actually more accurate than Clear Blue. Infertility drives you to attach on to hope, even when there is not much. But I found that hope, and I prayed that the negative test was an error, that my bloodwork would bring me different results.

When I went into for my appointment, I still did not have my period. I needed a miracle at this point, but a small piece of me knew that the miracle was a possibility. Unlikely but still. I went to the appointment, watched as they searched for my minuscule veins before deciding to go in my hand for bloodwork, and then tried to figure out how to spend the rest of my day. I did some grocery shopping and went on a walk with a friend. I was napping when the nurse called.

“You HCG was zero,” she said with a flat tone. “So, the test was negative.”

Before the phone call, I had received an email about an online fertility support group. There is a lot of ways for one to connect with others in the infertility world via social media. However, I couldn’t feel at home in those places. I followed infertility Instagram accounts and listened to other women’s stories, but I did not see myself in them. In sharing my own story a few months ago on social media, many people—from friends to former colleagues to acquaintances—had reached out about their own struggles. While their encouragement and support embraced me like a warm hug, I still felt like I was missing something. Someone had suggested a RESOLVE group, and I found one in Chicago that was conducting online meetings. I hadn’t been able to make the previous sessions, but on the Monday of that negative test, I received an email for tonight’s meeting. The timing was kismet.

The RESOLVE group was very similar to AA meetings. All members were invited, but not required, to share their progress and what had been going on with them. Each member had their own struggle, from several rounds of IVF to exploring surrogacy. I shared my story, how I had learned that day that my second IUI had failed. I explained our long journey and how if we do another IUI and it fails, I do not know what’s next. I expressed grief for missing running. I even told them that the first thought I had when I saw that negative was about how many people I know who have good jobs and are financially stable get pregnant on the first try while we are already financially limited and yet we are pouring more and more money into these treatments.

These strangers on a screen listened. They nodded their heads in acknowledgement. They understood. We were all at different points in the journey, but we held the same pain. They couldn’t tell me that everything would work out, and they could not point to babies as notes of perseverance. Yet, together, we quietly encouraged each other to keep going. It’s the only thing we could do.

I stopped the progesterone, and my period came a few days later. Then, I went to the clinic to prepare for our third round of IUI.

Chicago was a curve ball.

In the winter of 2014, after returning home from my Peace Corps service in Lesotho, I took a non-profit job in Washington, D.C., and relocated to the nation’s capital. As a wander lusting youth, I had long hoped to end up on the East Coast, and there I was, in the transient city of people trying to go up. It was less glamorous than I had pictured. Half of my monthly salary went to rent, and outside of the few fellow former volunteers I knew, it was hard to make friends. I couldn’t tell if it would just take time to adjust, or this wasn’t the place for me.

Not long after I started my new job, I received an email inviting me to apply for a public affairs position with the Peace Corps regional recruitment office in Chicago. They had used the non-complete list (which all returned volunteers are eligible for up to a year beyond service) to find former volunteers who also happened to have journalism experience. It was a short list, but my name was on it. I applied for it and didn’t hear much for weeks. As I was struggling to find a home in D.C. and get my footing at work, Chicago was a daydream. The city was bigger and closer to home. Not only was the job more aligned with my interests, but I was struggling with the transition home after service, and being close to the Peace Corps community, was alluring.

In talking with a friend over coffee in D.C., she said, “I think you just need to go somewhere and settle down.” I had lived in D.C. for a few months, and I could already tell that this was not the city I wanted to put down an anchor.

The offer for the Peace Corps job came, and in June 2014, I landed in Chicago with just two suitcases. A taxi took me from Midway Airport to my new apartment on the northside. As we snaked our way through rush-hour traffic on Lake Shore Drive, I stared out to Lake Michigan. I live here now.

Chicago was to be the setting in which I redefined my life, after having left home and gone into the Peace Corps. I came here hoping to build the life I always knew I was capable of. 

As a South Dakota native who grew up in a town of 13,000, it had long been my dream to live in a bustling city, and the urban life suited me. I spent my first year in Chicago mainly overwhelmed by the never-ending list of events and things to do. I started volunteering, went to a weekly meditation group, joined a book club, and said yes to any social invitations. I spent the weekends reading the Chicago Tribune and going to the beach. I went for runs along the Lake Shore Path. After work, I walked through downtown, taking in the big buildings, fast-moving crowds, and ever twinkling city lights.

While that first summer in Chicago involved a lot of cheap red wine and binging 30 Rock, by the second, I had made the city a home. I was no longer living with a roommate but on my own in a small studio. I had a budding social life (mostly friends made through my job at Peace Corps and other Peace Corps connections) and one of my best friends from Lesotho was moving back to the city. I was going to musicals and happy hour and concerts in Millennium Park. I was training for the Chicago Marathon and had gotten into storytelling on stage. And, I had recently started dating someone (non-Peace Corps), my first real relationship in eight years. When traveling or back home, pride rose to my voice when I said, “I live in Chicago.”

Throughout time, I changed jobs and eventually decided to leave the communications world to go back to school to become a therapist. I stayed on the northside, only living in two neighborhoods. I married that guy, and we adopted an anxious hound mix. I went to weddings, held babies, and attended goodbye parties. I learned to navigate parts of Chicago without Google’s help, and ran up and down some of the city’s main arteries. I could join conversations when people said, “Oh remember that café that you used to be on Thorndale and Kenmore?” Eventually, I clocked enough years in Chicago to out-pace any other place I had lived, outside of the town in which I grew up.

I had settled down, finally. I became a Chicagoan.

If my arrival to Chicago was unplanned, my departure was intentional. After struggling professionally for a few years, my husband wanted out of the city. He decided this not long after I started a three-year master’s program, so his hopes of leaving had to wait. But, once I graduated, we would go. I owed that to him.

At times, I didn’t want to go and wondered if I could convince him of staying. I couldn’t imagine giving up the long runs along the beach and the nights among the sparkling city lights. However, we’ve had a lot of setbacks the last few years, and it was easy to blame it on the city’s harshness. We struggled to stay afloat financially, and too many late-night trips on the CTA after class gave me severe anxiety when taking public transportation. When the pandemic came, we were stripped of all of the things that make city living enjoyable. Instead, we were paying gobs of money to live on top of other people. Chicago had been a home and had given me so much, but it was time to go.

For months, we had discussions about where we would go next and settled on Minnesota. It was close to family, and we could live in my brother’s basement until we were settled. My husband looked for jobs in the Twins City, but nothing materialized. I, too started, to look for positions but was overwhelmed. Something didn’t feel right.

Then, my husband heard about a job in Casper, Wyoming through a good friend. Because the job was in higher education, the hiring process moved slow. For months, we didn’t know when or where we were moving, only that our lease ended on July 31.

When the job offer in Wyoming came, everything fell into place quickly. I got a job, we found an apartment, and all the little pieces of moving lined up.  We moving to somewhere smaller with less hustle but also a place that was quieter and more affordable. After several years in the city, we both wanted a slower pace of life. Just like how everything came together when I moved to Chicago, this, too, felt right.

A few weeks ago, I went to The Loop to run errands. I hadn’t been down there in months because of the pandemic and spending the last year working and taking classes online. While many people are still working remotely, many have returned to the physical office, and downtown had a familiar, if lessened, buzz. I completed my tasks with a bit of time to spare before I needed to be at work. I used that time to wander, just like I often did after work when I first moved to the city. On my way to the Riverwalk, I walked past the first building where I worked, the one for that Peace Corps job that brought me to Chicago. Seeing that façade again made me cry. That job changed my life. It gave me many of things I have today.

As I continued on, I thought about some of my favorite memories of living in Chicago: attending live tapings of “Wait Wait…Don’t Tell Me!” in Millennium Park; running the Chicago Marathon and feeling the intense support of the crowd; walking in the Chicago Pride Parade days after the U.S. Supreme Court declared gay marriage legal in all 50 states; singing “Go Cubs Go” in Wrigley after a Cubby win; Chicago Architecture Foundation tours with friends and family; afternoons in the Chicago Art Institute’s members’ lounge; dinner parties with new and old friends in small, quaint apartments; summer night walks in tree-lined neighborhoods, trying to get glimpses of others’ décor styles from open windows; the first day of spring when the entire city comes out to celebrate winter’s passing; annual holiday trips with my mom, sisters-in-law, and other family; sunny afternoons at the beach; telling personal stories on stage; and countless nights that reminded me of how grateful I am to call this incredibly city home.

Then, I got to my favorite part of the city—a stretch on the Chicago Riverwalk that stares up to the Tribune Tower and the Wrigley Building. I thought about all the dreams and hopes I had when I first arrived, and all the amazing blessings I am leaving with. I spent seven important years here, and while I know it was time to go, I will miss this city. I will likely write love letters to Chicago for years, as it will take time to truly understand its imprint on my life. 

There, in my favorite spot, I could proudly confirm that here, in Chicago, I lived a very good life.

Goodbye, Chicago. You will always be home.