I've been living with Infertility for 4+ years now. In the two years leading up to Brooklyn's conception, I was the first person I knew to talk about IVF, and how it made me feel. The ways it impacted my body and my heart, my identity and my relationship, my home and my finances. To put it bluntly, Infertility has impacted me more than anything else in my lifetime.

Infertility is something that I literally never stop thinking about.

I’m talking when I’m awake, and my mind wanders - this is where it lands.

It’s no secret that this last year of trying to conceive, again, has been full of heartache and challenge for our family. We lost two baby boys, and had to start IVF treatments all over again.

It’s been a lot. Physically, mentally, emotionally, financially, etc. And honestly, if you haven’t been through it, you just simply cannot relate. You can sympathize, and you can empathize, but really understanding it from the outside looking in is virtually impossible.

I’ve been lucky enough to have friends who have showed up in the best ways. Ways I desperately needed but didn’t know how to communicate. And, I’ve had friends who have asked, time and time again, how they can help. But I never knew what to say.

Recently, I realized the type of support I actually would really like. And in turn, I’m learning how to ask my friends and my family to help fill back up my cup.

Let me rewind a bit, and share with you some backstory.

I have made some incredible friends through the Infertility community. Individuals who I've been lucky enough to connect with during our Infertility journeys. But this year, I had two separate friends, friends I've known and loved for a long time, who shared with me that they had been diagnosed with Infertility. As they've spent this season walking through tests and treatments, incredible and dramatic ups and downs that I’m all too familiar with, I've found myself pouring out to them in a way that felt almost therapeutic.

I realized, in a way, what I was saying to them I was saying to myself, too.

There are no right words to talk about someone else’s grief. There is only love.

So, love it is.

Love, and cheerleading.

I’m trying to become the queen of messages that say “I see you” and “You’ve got this” and “You’re not alone” - they don’t have to be long, or wordy, overly dramatic or full of emojis and graphics. They just need to be sincere.

They need to expect no response. They need to come with no strings attached. They just need to be deposited, from sender to receiver, on the regular.

This is how we show up for people going through something we can’t understand. Or something we do understand, all too well. This is how we show up for each other. We say “Hi, how are your butt cheeks?” and “You’re a freaking superhero” and we mean both of those things, intimately. I’ve found that popping up in my friends inboxes or on their screens can send a virtual hug across the distance, at a time when they might need it the most. I’ve found that I’m not the only one who doesn’t know what I really need from my tribe, or how to ask for it.

So, I’m giving you the advice I wish I could’ve given myself a long time ago. And, I’m taking this advice too, as I prepare for my upcoming embryo transfer.

If you’re in a season of difficult, in the thick of your feels, ask your closest people to sign up as your cheerleaders.

Ask them to text you randomly. To send pics and gifs and songs and notes. Ask them to send things that you can screenshot and save. Put those things in a folder, title it Love, and open it all the freaking time. Open it and fill back up your cup, friend, because Infertility drains it. Grief drains it. Hardship drains it. Pouring out to others drains it. Trying to survive drains it.

And if you love someone walking this pathway, do the thing. Send the text. Drop a card in the mail. Send an electronic gift card from your phone to theirs.

Between distance and COVID and life, it’s really hard this season to show up physically and share space with one another. So, let’s make the internet loud. Let’s sing each others praises. Let’s send love when we know that people are aching. And let’s ask for love when we need it.

We aren’t meant to do this alone.

I see you, friends.