One Year of Embracing Choice Motherhood
January 10th marked the one-year anniversary of starting my Instagram account solely for my fertility journey to become a single mother by choice. While I didn’t actually post my first blog until February, I figured with the new year, this was a good time to reflect on the past year, how far I’ve come in my journey so far and what lies ahead.
By January of 2020 I had decided that I would go public with my decision and be 100% open and honest about my journey. I didn’t know of any other women doing this in my personal life and I figured if people have questions, I want to be the one to answer them. One of my missions with this blog is to de-stigmatize the thought and belief that children need two parents to thrive. If we want to de-stigmatize something like non-traditional families, we need to be talking, learning and unlearning about it. I had to decide if I wanted my whole life to be out there on the table and open for discussion, which is so freaking scary and not easy, but I decided to go for it. And anyone that didn’t support me could get to steppin’.
So, I started this website, Instagram and Facebook accounts in January, and in February I wrote my first blog post. I think this one is by far still my favorite post because I had to be the most vulnerable I’ve ever been, spilling most of the dirty details of my failed marriage and everything that led to the decision to become a single mother by choice. It was so cathartic and therapeutic for me. I still think there’s probably even more to share but I’ll save that for another time.
March of 2020 had me busy with lab testing, freaking out about my thyroid numbers, and paying a buttload of money out of pocket for all of these tests. I was also doing my best to eat right and take all the right supplements, quit drinking, as well as decrease my environmental toxins in preparation for my first round of IVF, tentatively scheduled for April. Little did I know how the world would change in a matter of a few weeks. With CoVID came the questioning and uncertainty if I would even be able to do my IVF. Would the clinic stay open? Will the virus make its way to me and my residents that I am ethically obligated to protect?
Luckily, my clinic did stay open and the virus stayed away for the time being so I began birth control on March 19th (so that my cycle could match up with the clinic’s schedule), had my donor picking party with my girls via Zoom on April 9th, and had my first baseline ultrasound on April 18th. I then started my stimulating medications (stims) the next day on the 19th, and taped and shared every night of injections for the next 10 days. I took my trigger shot on the evening of April 28th, drove the five hours to my parent’s house the next day, and went to the clinic for my egg retrieval, accompanied by my mom, in the early morning of April 30th. I got a total of 13 eggs, which was a loss than I was hoping for given my antral follicle count of 19 (the most eggs you can hypothetically get) and my good AMH (measure of ovarian reserve) for my age.
After the clinic performed ICSI (intracytoplasmic sperm injection) with my chosen donor sperm, I had to wait five days, with updates from the clinic every 1-2 days, to find out how many of my eggs made it to the blastocyst stage. By day 5 (Cinco de Mayo) I learned that all six of the embryos that fertilized continued to grow to day 5 but not all of them grew enough to be biopsied for genetic abnormalities. Two days later I had a final embryo count of four and they were sent off for pre-implantation genetic testing for aneuploidies (PGT-A), which you can read more about here.
Eight days later on May 15th, I was bummed to learn that only one embryo came back as “normal,” and I had a nice little pity party, cry it out sesh or two for myself over the next week or so, maybe longer. Back to the drawing board I went since my original plan of doing IVF first to bank at least 2-3 embryos for baby #2 and/or #3, then moving to IUI to get pregnant with baby #1 didn’t seem to be a viable option anymore. I decided to look into doing another round of IVF instead to try to get more normal embryos.
my pity party
Of course with this, the biggest stress and worry was how the hell am I going to afford to do this?! I don’t want to take out another loan, and though my clinic offered a discount for another round, there was no way I could afford it out of pocket, so I would have to find a cheaper option.
By June, I was grieving with the rest of the country about the social unrest, and trying to do what I could to address my own need to learn and un-learn about racism, something that I continue to do to this day. But I was also ready to explore another clinic and made an appointment for a consultation with a lower-cost one in Arizona. I had my baseline labs done again, and did some further fertility testing of my own. Around this time I also decided that I wanted to work with single mothers by choice in my private practice. I remember having a “lightbulb moment” that this is what I was meant to do in my career and I am forever grateful that this fertility journey is what brought that to me.
That month I also found myself ready to start thinking about dating again. I started a Bumble account and quickly deleted it 20 minutes later, also the same with Tinder about 10 times over the previous month, but I remained curious about the prospect of actually dating while trying to have a baby on my own. It had been about a year since my divorce was final, mixed with the isolation of CoVID lockdowns, I was just about ready to get myself out there again.
Back in January 2020, I had heard about Lux and Noir Boudoir Photography on the Dear God it’s Me Thirty podcast and signed up immediately, as it had always been something I wanted to do and thought it would be a perfect bucket list item to complete before getting pregnant. After many setbacks and re-schedules due to CoVID I was finally able to do my photoshoot on July 31st in Ventura, CA. That same weekend I got on Tinder (after finally taking the step to pay for an account a couple of weeks earlier) just for fun to see what was up with the prospects in Ventura County. Plus, I was feeling super sexy and empowered after my photoshoot!
The day after my photoshoot, on August 1st, I went on my first (and only) Tinder date, socially distanced at the beach, then later went to dinner in Downtown Ventura. Well, I guess you could say things went well, because we are still seeing each other! Albeit in a semi-complicated, but not complicated since we’re on the same page, long-distance, mutually casual, but not wanting to date anyone else, but technically not exclusive either….It works for us for the time being and we will figure out the rest once I move back home.
Yes, he knows about my journey to SMC. I told him right away, probably within the first 20 minutes of meeting, and he didn’t run away screaming, in fact he seemed to appreciate it, and obviously supports my choice fully.
Either way, I am happy and that’s all that matters for right now. I deleted Tinder after my month subscription was over and haven’t looked at it since. I was going to write a blog post about dating as a SMC in a pandemic but honestly I figured it wouldn’t be very interesting as I only went on one first date!
Despite meeting someone special, August was not a fun month for me however, because when I returned home after that weekend I was thrown into CoVID hell at work as the virus had finally made its way to our small town of Bishop, CA. For the next 5-6 weeks I worked 60 hour weeks, basically living at the facility, working more as a CNA (nursing assistant) than a dietitian, trying to save our resident’s from the ravages of the pandemic. We lost a lot of people and it was one of the hardest things I have ever been through. I had virtually no time to think about myself and my fertility journey. I simply put myself aside and worked as hard as I could until we all got through it.
By mid-September, after recovering from our CoVID outbreak it was time to get back to it. I had my consultation with the doctor in Arizona on September 23rd. It went fine, no groundbreaking new information, the doctor was perfectly nice and answered all my questions. I would feel good going to this clinic but when I added up the travel costs and time off of work, it was only a couple thousand less than staying at my current clinic and I didn’t think it was worth the change so I decided to stay with my original clinic. I would just have to save up the money and pay out of pocket.
Which meant that I needed to make a lot of extra money somehow, as soon as possible. I resolved to get my private practice up and running so that I could get paying clients to help me afford another round of IVF.
I worked hard with my website designer and by mid-October I had my lead magnet and my new website complete and ready to put out into the world. This new website was a year in the making and I’m so glad I invested in my business to get it done. I started posting on Instagram for my private practice, now called @the.smc.dietitian, on a regular basis and marketed myself in the facebook groups where my ideal clients hang out the most. Within the next two months I got paying clients for my budding private practice but it is going to be awhile until I can build it to full time since I still have to work my full-time job to be able to pay my bills, have insurance and benefits and be able to save money towards more fertility treatments, oh and also have time for my baby-diva pup Ruby.
My Free Checklist for SMCs
Over these two months I also realized that saving up for IVF was just not ideal and was going to take way too long. I needed another option. I was reminded of the well-known low-cost clinic in New York called CNY Fertility and learned that they offer payment plans as well, which I didn’t know about previously. As soon as I re-visited the website and learned more about the payment options, I decided that this was the option for me. They also have recently taken over a clinic in Colorado Springs so I might not have to travel all the way to New York.
On November 24th I spent an hour on hold, knowing very well that it is usually at least a 3 month wait to get in, and that long hold times are common, but you have to be persistent. I got an appointment for an initial consultation on March 15th. Which was perfect, about three and a half months to prepare my body and mind, although I never really stopped with the diet and lifestyle changes from my previous round, but it was good to get my mind wrapped around the idea of doing IVF again.
I had a lovely small family Thanksgiving, and continued to work hard on my business ventures. In mid-December I was asked to be on my first podcast, Dear God It’s Me Thirty and I had a blast talking about both my fertility journey as well as my nutrition private practice. I also lined up two or three more podcast interviews, one of which I’m scheduled to record this week. I’m so excited and honored to be able to share my journey with whatever audience I can.
Unfortunately, our Christmas had to be postponed a couple of weeks due to a CoVID scare but thankfully everyone is healthy and CoVID-free and we are celebrating this weekend instead.
To end the year on a great note, on December 30th, after calling CNY relentlessly for any cancellations I was lucky enough to get a much closer date for my consult and I am now scheduled for February 3rd, a whole month and a half sooner than expected, and only three weeks away! It’s a good thing I have been preparing my mind and body for this for the last year, now I am just excited to move forward and will hopefully be doing my IVF round #2 in March, followed by either an IUI or a frozen transfer (i.e. actually trying to get pregnant) in April. It seems so close now, I almost can’t believe it’s actually going to happen.
I spent New Years Eve in my home sweet home of Mammoth Lakes, with my sweetie, watching the east coast ball drop and in bed by 10pm. Then started 2021 by snowboarding on a near-empty mountain, and soaking in the local natural hot springs. All in all a good way to end the year of 2020 and start the new year of 2021, the year that I (fingers crossed) become a Single Mother by Choice. 💛
