My name is [Her name], also known as Aunt [Her name] or Coco. I am a 40-year-old single dog mom that dreams of becoming a mother. It is nice to virtually meet you. Becoming a mother is one of my greatest hopes and dreams. I believe that I have a special talent with kids from working as a summer camp counselor for so many summers growing up. I felt like I could always get past the barriers of the children quickly and make them laugh and feel comfortable with me.

MY FERTILITY JOURNEY

I started my official fertility journey in 2019 when I went in to get information about freezing my eggs and quickly realized that I couldn't afford it on my own. Then, all of the craziness of Covid took over the world… In 2021, I restarted and found out right away that I had hypothyroidism and low ovarian reserve. My Dr recommended starting with IVF. Low ovarian reserve was likely due to my age and if IVF was successful this would not hinder my body's ability to carry a healthy baby.

Have you ever met someone that takes on a mission and dives in head first? Well, just call me an Olympic fertility diver here because I dove right into everything fertility… I updated the vitamins that I was taking, I started eating healthier, due to my hypothyroidism I started eliminating gluten from my diet, I changed my personal products to products with less chemicals, I started getting fertility acupuncture treatments around IVF cycles to promote more circulation in my womb. I decided that if there was something that I could do to help the chances of having a baby that I would happily try it.

During my first IVF cycle while doing the stimulation shots as advised, I somehow messed up the timing of the trigger shot. Looking back, I don't know how on Earth I did this, but (as you already know) this entire process can be quite overwhelming. My Dr told me due to this error that my only option was trying an IUI. During the days after my IUI, I tried to remain positive and even started thinking and praying that maybe it was all God's plan for me to "mess up" the shot and get pregnant via IUI. How amazing would it be to be able to only spend $1,200 instead of $22,000++ and to finally be pregnant!?! Sadly, the IUI didn't work so I started my next IVF cycle right away. I was so upset with myself for such a silly error on shot timing and didn't want to waste anymore time. I don't have any fertility insurance so every procedure, appointment and medication was all out of pocket.

Round 2 of IVF began and due to my low ovarian reserve I only had 2 follicles long enough for egg retrieval. My Dr wanted to go ahead with the retrieval regardless - saying that it only takes 1. 1 follicle ended up being a cyst and the other follicle fertilized but didn't turn into a blastocyst.

I felt like I was back to square one. What am I doing wrong? Did I not give my fertility diet changes enough time to take effect? I was also frustrated with my Dr and fertility clinic because they weren't interested in changing any of my protocol or trying to figure out a root cause on why my cycle didn't work. There are only 2 fertility clinics in my immediate area so they aren't lacking for business or worried about losing a customer, sadly. I decided to take a stand and advocate for my own health and make some changes. (Yes, some more changes...)

I heard about a new special treatment that was only being done in certain states called Ovarian PRP. During this treatment the Drs take platelets from your blood and inject these platelets back into your ovaries. These clinics were having some luck in patients with increasing egg quality and stimulating more eggs. (Hey, what's another needle? We have to have some type of comic relief during these times) This clinic was out of state which made flights, a hotel room and someone to travel with me necessary to have the procedure. The effects of this procedure also only lasted 60-90 days so I would have to flow right into my 3rd IVF cycle. I did the PRP and then my new Dr wanted to do a different kind of IVF cycle called a Mini IVF. This mini used much less stimulation medication but took longer than the standard cycle. For my egg retrieval, I started with 4 possible follicles and ended everything with no embryos, again.

I knew that I couldn't do anymore to my body and to my spirit. I took some time off to treat myself, take a break (my last cycle ended in March 2023) and then find out about next steps with embryo adoption. Embryo Solution and this amazing embryo adoption program was such a great discovery. I am so blessed to take part in this program and be able to experience the miracle of life. I am happy to say that I am trying every single possibility to become a mother. What brought me to meeting you and your family was my persistence in knowing that I will become a mother and I won't stop until that dream comes true.

ABOUT ME

I am from a small family of 4 and we are very close. My older brother is 4 years older than me, which makes me the baby of the family. Even though my family is small, we are mighty. I also have a crew of friends that have been around so long that they have become family to me. All of "my people" are crazy excited, (crazy in a good way) and have been supporting me at each step in my fertility journey. They have been around for me for all steps in my different life journeys, but this is by far the most exciting one! Please know that even though I will be a "single" mother, my future baby will be loved and have the support of each and every one of "my people" too.

I grew up with my great grandmother, my grandmother and my mom all loving to cook for our family. Where I am from, we make eating an event and we are very passionate about it. I think it’s our way to show love, so we are always planning our next meal. Some of our traditions include gathering for holidays surrounded by good food and drinks. (I once talked my family into forgoing turkey and stuffing for Thanksgiving and boiling snow crabs instead, after all, it's not about the turkey, it's more about creating memories with your family.) We travel together for vacations, we fish together and my brother and I have season tickets for our local NFL team. We call those Sundays our "brother/sister time". (I never claimed that our NFL team is good, but we are local fans and it's always fun getting to spend time together) The biggest thing that I can also say about my family is that they are good as gold. There will always be an extra seat or 3 at our table and we are happy to have you. (and you'll never go hungry, but my waist line isn't always thrilled about that)

As a child, I was always the tallest girl (and taller than most of the boys) in my class. I did usually get "talks too much in class" on every report card (I had a lot to say). I also was very active and my favorite childhood memories are spending time outside in our backyard pool, swimming like a fish. After every baseball game, for every holiday and every summer my family would spend time in our backyard. I did gymnastics for many years as a child too, until I became literally too tall for the uneven parallel bars. (which is pretty funny looking back, you don't see any tall girls in the Olympics) I started playing basketball and volleyball in grammar school and continued with volleyball into high school - both for school and a travel club team. I loved the team dynamics that sports teach us and I will forever be grateful for my time learning about myself back then. My parents were amazing and made sacrifices for my brother and I to be able to join sports teams and make those priceless memories. I want to do the same thing for my child.

My college degree is a Bachelors in Hotel, Restaurant and Tourism Administration and I was the first of my family to ever graduate from a 4 year college. In college, I knew immediately that being in hospitality was what I wanted to do for a living. Hospitality is a huge part of the culture of my home town and it just came natural to me. I had worked in restaurants in college, but started my career as a front desk agent for one of the largest convention hotels in my city. I worked my way up from Front Desk Agent, to Sales Assistant to Sales Manager then moved to a different city as a Senior Sales Manager to stay with the same hotel brand. I always worked in convention hotels and my job was to win business with different companies/associations/organizations to host their meetings at my hotel. I would travel to different conferences and client events to meet with meeting planners and try to form relationships with them so that they would want to do business with me and my hotel. This business was competitive and being "the face" of the hotel could be exhausting, but I thrived in this environment. I did this for 16 years, up until Covid when I got furloughed and the hotel ended up eliminating my job position.

While I was searching for a new career, I unknowingly was also finding myself again. I say this because I started babysitting for a friend's small children and I fell so hard in love with these two little people (C, age 4.5 & T, age 2.5 at the time). I look back on that weird time for everyone in the world, due to Covid, and think that I helped "my babies" make some special childhood memories. They helped me too, by bringing me back to the magic of being a kid again and enjoying the simple pleasures of life. And oh my goodness, they made me laugh! C and T are also IVF babies so I had the chance to really talk with their mother about how long and hard their fertility journey was, but also how lucky they are. PS- I already booked C and T for future babysitting duties, so they are pretty excited too.

My dog mom duties are for my 12-year-old Boston Terrier, Scarlett and 7-year-old Pug, Lulu. These two small furry bundles of energy/joy ARE MY LIFE and I call them “my girls”. My love of dogs also helped me during Covid too when I was looking for a new full-time job, I started dogsitting. My business card says that I am a "dog whisperer/sitter" and my dogsitting “regulars” are cute, enjoy treats and love coming to my house for a doggy vacation. I guess my hotel experience came in handy. Even after finding a full time job that I love, I continue to dogsit to help pay for my fertility loan and hang out with my furry friends.

I am the Godmother and lovingly called Coco for my friend A and L's son, K. Coco is a good Godmother name, I think and I got to pick it, which was also exciting. I felt so honored to be asked by my friends to be the Godmother of their son, K. It might be “expected” to some people because they have multiple siblings that have chosen them to be the Godparent for their children, but my brother doesn’t have any children. I struck gold with K and I adore how his little mind works. My little man is 7 now and growing up so fast.

Never in a million years would I have imagined going through this journey as a single person, but I also cannot imagine living the rest of my life without becoming a mother. My parents also deserve a grand baby, they call my dogs their grand dogs and already affectionately refer to themselves as “Pee Paw” and “Mee Maw”. I am so blessed to have such a loving and supportive family, and I certainly do not take that for granted. I want the kind of relationship with my future baby that I have with my mother. We are very close and she has helped me to grow up to be the independent, loved and determined person that I am today. Like mother, like daughter could never be truer words. (okay, okay my mom still cooks much better than me)

I asked my friends and family (my army of support) to help “describe me” for this introduction. Here are a few words that they shared: accountable, brave, caring, compassionate, dependable, devoted, driven, energetic, empathetic, funny, giving, generous, hardworking, inspirational, kind, loved, loyal, magnetic, passionate, positive, patient, resourceful, reliable, resilient, sincere, strong, sweetheart, trustworthy, quick witted and witty. My mom started with relentless and I don't know whether to be proud or ashamed of myself - kidding, of course. I have been secretly sitting back waiting for one of my joker friends to say something like, tall as my description and they wouldn't be wrong. They also said that I am sarcastic, but since that is a hard adjective to translate in just words without a back story, I am officially changing that to "spicy". It is so humbling to get such authentic feedback from your friends and family, but I am also confident in myself. I know that I will be a good mother, not because I am perfect, but because that little baby will have my whole heart and I will give motherhood my all.

Thank you for giving me the most precious opportunity.