Soul Food

The theme for our first round of IVF was IT'S GONNA HAPPEN. It came about one day by an old man walking out of the bank in a sleeveless shirt while I was on the verge of tears/craving a Hannah Dixon cupcake.

Ryan Dixon, brother to the cupcake maker and one of my former Primary kids, made me a t-shirt a few days before the embryo transfer that said IT'S GONNA HAPPEN. He brought it down to the house and after I closed the front door I sat on the bottom stair hugging the shirt. I was so touched that a 12-year old boy would have the creativity/nerve to do such a thing. I was wearing his shirt as he ran beside our car cheering us on as we drove up our street towards the big appointment.

In this photo I had just had three embryos implanted and was waiting out the twenty mandatory minutes of rest before standing. I was also super doped up on Valium. Valium makes the uterus say, "Come here little egg and burrow into my super squishy wall that is not contracting."

As we all know the first round didn't work. It didn't happen. But it was still gonna.

When I had resurfaced to the land of the living I framed a sign that said NOTHING IS IMPOSSIBLE. I looked at it often from my computer and dared myself to believe again.

Greg started sporadically saving his fortunes from Panda Express if they seemed like positive IVF outcomes. He would give them to me after work and I hid them in a little box while I seriously stewed over the future.

Midsummer nights brought the determination and resolution to try IVF one last time. Greg and I chose to do this round secretly. We didn't even tell RE. I printed this verbal boost from the internet, ostensibly for RE's junior high locker, and stuck the "extra" print on the inside of our front door. I read it multiple times a day during the two months of meds and shots and blood draws.

An hour after my second egg harvest I bought a sweater at the mall. I was hanging on Greg's arm big time because my anesthesia was still wearing off but I was alert enough to spot the words I loved on flaming red cotton through a store window. CARPE DIEM. It signified everything about the second round since we were seizing our fate if it was to be had. The following day I wore it to my second embryo transfer where the doctor placed three more fertilized embryos into my Valium-hushed uterus. Déjà vu.

And we all know that the second time was the charm.

Words matter.

What you feed to your eyes matters because it goes from your eyes to your brain.

What you repeat to yourself in hard times matters

because the words you digest

      over and over

      again and again

             will become the etchings of your soul.

*Last month when I flew to Missouri to hang out with Sister Suz she gave me a locket. Inside was the phrase SHE BELIEVED SHE COULD, SO SHE DID. I did a double take and then explained to her that this was the phrase that had fortified me enough to try again. These were the words that were precious to me. I don't know how she knew other than she must be my Brain Whisperer (as evidenced by the locket and vintage circus tin she bought my baby).