National Infertility Awareness Week 2021 is here.

You should know, though, that for those who struggle with infertility, we don’t really need a day, a week, or month to be reminded of it.

It’s with us all the time.

Noelle from the Well-Fed Women Podcast reached out to see if I wanted to come chat all things gut health on her podcast. Not only did I say “yes,” but I may have even done a little dance. I’ve listened to her podcast for quite some time now; a huge fan.

Anyways, before the show, she sent me all the questions and things we would discuss.

Here was the first, the opening, if you will:

As you mentioned in your bio, you have your own personal story and experience with gut issues. What made you so incredibly passionate about healing gut issues and helping others find resolution?

To be succinct, here they are:

1. Because it’s awful feeling miserable day-in and day-out.
2. I do it for my dad, in so many different ways.
3. The repercussions might leave you “infertile.”

To be clear, I only really talked about numbers 1 and 3 on the show.

Anyways, I’m only talking about number 3 today.

National Infertility Awareness Week {2021}

This year’s National Infertility Awareness Week (NIAW) theme is,

Empowering you and changing the conversation.

What they want people to do is show the daily impact of infertility and the challenges people face to build a family through the lens of your own camera.

Empowerment

With A Gutsy Girl, I am not a doctor or a registered dietician. I do not have any fancy letters attached to my name, and I never will.

But I spent a decade going through the motions of gut h#$% and back again.

I tirelessly studied the entire digestive system from the point where we think about eating to the point where it’s nothing but leftover waste. And I spent thousands upon thousands of dollars researching, studying, asking questions, and experimenting.

If it takes 10,000 hours to become an expert, then yes, I am definitely an expert. Along with it, I finally healed my gut.

And today, I teach women worldwide how to do the same.

But listen, it’s not from a medical place. I don’t give a prescription, run tests, provide supplements, or anything else.

What I do is serve every last drop of water in the oversized bucket of information surrounding the gut so that they feel nothing less than empowered.

And when we’re empowered, hope begins and change happens.

Empowerment and Infertility

Now let’s turn this over for infertility.

I’m out here doing this exact same thing after a very similar road.

I don’t believe the way I healed my gut was overly conventional. And in a similar way, I don’t believe that the way I approached infertility was overly conventional either.

And that’s the message I want you to receive in order for hope to begin and change to happen.

There is no right way or path to move forward once you’ve been told, “infertile.”

On my own journey, we did all the things that lead to a final culmination of an IVF cycle.

It ended with me in the ER and Ryan and I broken hearted. The full story can be found HERE.

Anyways, I can’t tell you the number of times I heard,

Do it again. Try IVF again. Don’t give up.

But I knew deep down that was not in my cards. I didn’t want to; I literally had zero desire to go through another IVF process again.

People will tell you what they think is right for you, but just as the strict Vegans say “nothing but Vegan-ism heals the gut,” there is no one right answer.

For us, the answer was adoption through the fostercare system. (And believe me, along the way to that decision, we got many, “Are you sure’s?”)

Today it’s been 9 years and some several days in change that the IVF cycle ended abruptly.

It has been some over 7 and a half years since our first miracle baby was born. And then almost 6 years since miracle two baby was born with the third miracle baby happening almost 5 years ago.

IVF vs Another Route

I’ve been seeing these signs all over the gram, probably because April is Infertility Awareness Month. The signs are a couple, standing there with their current IVF round number. They are waiting for the IVF to work.

So I made my own to share with you to show another answer to infertility.

I did this so that someone who is not feeling empowered to quit the IVF cycle or quit anything else that they don’t feel is right for them just might get what they need.

And yes, if you were to go back to the top of this post then click to read the full story, that’s what I shared back in 2013 (it all happened in 2012).

Our IVF cycle led to 17 total eggs, 9 were retrieved, 2 were fertilized (and put back into me), and then the 8 leftover in my body burst and I was in the ER. It all ended, and I said, “1 and DONE.”

……my little angels were waiting for me soon after.

Now, here’s what I want to share mostly in this message:

YOU are empowered to do what’s right for YOU.

Even though people told me to “not give up on IVF,” giving up led to the most incredible beings in my life.

If your gut is telling you that IVF, IUI, surrogate, adoption, or any other way for bringing a child into your life is not right for you, then it’s not.

I created a women’s 90-day healing journal to empower women on their health journey to see that every last thing is 100% unique and custom to them and only them.

I’m telling you the same today.

There are layers of complexities that come along with every decision that leads to the road to your child.

When we enter the long road of infertility, we each arrive at that place from different circumstances.

So just because IVF or surrogate worked for Jenny’s sister’s friend’s cousin, doesn’t mean it’s right for you.

This is your journey.

The only thing required from here on out is that while you might need to give up the current path, you do not need to ever give up hope.

Join the magic and chaos.

p.s. This is take 4,323 trying to get this picture with them.

Xox,

SKH