June 2017. At the time, I thought this was the hardest period of my life. Years of infertility, failed medicated cycles, and no answers or end in sight. I couldn’t imagine anything more difficult that this.

Hindsight is always 20/20, but if I could go back in time and shake this girl, I would. She was so hard on herself and grieved so privately. Society taught her that her sadness was her burden to bear alone. She has since experienced so much- difficult conception, complicated pregnancy, birthing death, and chronic medical trauma- and in those experiences she has learned the most important lesson life: there is no strength in silence.

We are here, together. Members of the shittiest club©️, those who can imagine when others “can’t”. We walk a line between life and death, joy and despair, longing and hope. We commiserate, support, make morbid jokes, and cry as a community of mothers who have traveled the same path. And I’m damn proud to be here.

And so, I’ll continue to speak. I’ll speak to heal, to bond, to foster acceptance. I’ll speak for those who aren’t quite ready, just as others have spoken for me.

And when you’re ready, I want to hear your voice too.