Eggcellent Mom Chronicles

It’s the last week before returning to work and the inevitable, “How was your summer?” It’s easy to say it was great, or that it went by too fast. But the real answer is, where do I even start?

How do you explain that for the one thing you want the most, you’re in the exact same place you were a year ago? How do you explain that you’ve been tested in ways you never thought possible, or that you still do everything you can to simply move forward? While summer does move incredibly fast, it was also a season of painstakingly slow waits: waiting for follicles to grow for a retrieval, waiting for results, and waiting for results again. And now, the final weekend of summer brings another wait and another new beginning.

Teachers report on Monday for a new school year, and I report to my doctor’s office Monday morning to find out if my modified natural cycle will now become a fully medicated one. It’s an unexpected turn that wasn’t in the original plan, but one that might still get me to an embryo transfer in an optimal environment.

This is what hurts the most right now: wishing my body could just do what it’s supposed to do. So another year begins in the same place I was last year, with more waiting.

My summer was full of friends, family, sunshine, and settling into my new place. My summer was also agonizingly slow with disappointing results and endless waiting. I’m ending my summer by trying to rebuild hope on my personal journey to motherhood and by finding renewed excitement to welcome in my new students.