The Journey, Stage By Stage
Family building is not one moment. It is years. Find where you are right now, and what helped me get through it.
Everything here is my lived experience and what I learned from the professionals on my own care team. None of it is medical advice, and none of it assumes your path looks like mine. Always take your own decisions to qualified healthcare providers.
Stage 1
Trying To Conceive
The month-after-month part nobody warns you about — where hope and dread arrive on the exact same day.
What helped
Tracking your cycle without letting it run your whole month
Knowing when it's reasonable to stop waiting and ask for testing
Protecting your relationship from becoming a scheduling app
Stage 2
Testing & Diagnosis
Walking into a fertility clinic for the first time and realizing nobody handed you a vocabulary list.
What helped
Writing your questions down before the appointment, not after
Understanding which results you're allowed to ask for copies of
Bringing someone with you who can take notes while you absorb it
Stage 3
IVF & Treatment
Medications, monitoring, retrieval, transfer — and a mental load that no calendar app is built for.
What helped
A system for meds so the schedule lives somewhere other than your head
Deciding in advance who you're telling and who you're not
Naming what you need from your partner instead of hoping they guess
Stage 5
Pregnancy After Infertility
Everyone expects relief. What actually shows up is joy braided together with bracing for bad news. If your pregnancy ended, you belong here too — that loss is part of this journey, not a detour from it.
What helped
Letting yourself be happy in increments instead of all at once
Telling your care team you're pregnant after treatment, so they hear you differently
Finding people who understand why the milestones feel dangerous
Stage 6
Birth & The Fourth Trimester
The first six weeks home, where recovery, exhaustion, and love all show up at full volume at once.
What helped
Setting up the night shift as a two-person plan before you need it
Recovery being slower than the internet implied — and that being normal
Lowering the bar for what a good day looks like
Stage 7
Feeding
Breastfeeding, pumping, bottles, or all three — and the guilt nobody should be handing out about any of it.
What helped
Asking an IBCLC early instead of white-knuckling it alone
Taking supply and latch questions to your pediatrician or lactation consultant, not to comment sections
Building a setup that works at 3am when you are not thinking clearly
Stage 8
Postpartum Recovery & Trying Again
Your hormones, your energy, your body, and your sense of self are all renegotiating at once — and then you start thinking about the next one.
What helped
Treating your own postpartum appointments as non-negotiable
Saying out loud when your mental health needs a professional, not a routine
Knowing that going back to treatment for baby number two is its own grief and its own hope
And then it starts again
Trying for the next baby means going back to the beginning with a toddler on your hip. That is why this stays a journey and not a phase.
I'll meet you at the next stage
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