11% Chance of Success Would you risk it?

Feb 24

Extra Extra ... Drum Roll Please... Get the confetti out!! The SECRET is out!!!! Let’s Celebrate!!

I've got big news, probably the biggest news of my life. It has been an absolutely incredible journey. The dream that people told me that I was crazy for. That it was impossible. That was too expensive.

The dream, the mission, the goal. The one thing that is not easy to accomplish on your own, because nature is involved, is the current journey I am on. Because there is a part of it you can not do solo. We haven’t evolved to that as humans…yet? Maybe science will find a way but until then this is something you need another human for. Or in my case humans.

There are things outside of your control that can happen with this dream. We can control so much and create and take the “right” steps. And yet unlike other dreams, this one may not happen.

So many times you hear that phrase “you have plenty of time to do….” To that, I have always said fuck that!! Because life is fucking short. Go do the thing. And in this case yes you can be too old to have this dream happen. You can’t keep waiting if your life’s path hasn’t organically taken you there. Some paths you need to create yourself because you want them bad enough!!

Unlike achieving other dreams of growing my business, going to graduate school, and some of the adventures I have been on, those have very clear steps to take to get there. You can very much do those on your own. And now I’ve been working on my ultimate dream and doing it on my own. Again, not completely on my own because I have had to rely on others to get me there which was really uncomfortable for me.

So what's this dream?? A dream that only had an 11% chance of success. Would you take those odds?

So come on Abbey!!! What is the news!! Drum roll, please!!

I'm PREGNANT!!!!

Every time I say those words tears spring to my eyes. I want to blame all these hormones but this is something very emotional. I may love a rollercoaster ride but this ride has had so many ups and downs, scary moments, heartbreaking, gut-wrenching moments, and such joyful moments. Now let me share more about this personal journey. There are lessons in there for anyone who is reading this. It's about persevering, taking risks, finding support, giving your all, and believing in yourself when so many told you “It's impossible” or “You are crazy” or “Don’t be a mom it's hard” or “God you are so lucky you don’t have kids”.

I've been on this journey for the past year, but really it has been my whole life. Becoming a mom has always been something I wanted to be more than being a therapist, paddleboarder, entrepreneur. More than anything else that I have done and accomplished in my life. And man I have done a lot of things people have told me are impossible or too hard or too risky. This is the one thing that I always truly dreamed of.

I always thought I would become a mom. No doubt I would until one day I woke up and was like I’m in my late 30s time is running out. Then my mom got sick with stage 3 Pancreatic Cancer so any thought of going through IUI or IVF to become a mom was put on hold. I had also met someone at that time and thought/dreamed we would have a family one day. After making it through that time and then I turned 40, which happened in a flash, I knew I couldn’t wait for the perfect partner. I don’t feel 40 (now 41) but your body has its own biological age that no amount of healthy eating and caring for it can reverse.

I'm not someone who was ever lucky. Like, that doesn't happen for me. Everything that I have, I've had to work extremely hard to get. I’ve gone through many hardships and dark days. Days of doubting good things would happen. I’ve come from nothing and created this whole world for myself. So when I found out what my ovarian reserve levels were, and looked at the statistics online along with talking with my Reproductive Endocrinologist, I had an 11% chance of success on the first round of IVF. 11% chance of success!! Would you take those odds?

Here came the second gut-punch!!

I had no idea that my insurance would cover ZERO of this. To be honest, I had just gotten health insurance for the first time in over 10 years. I’ve been healthy, rarely get sick, and actually, it was always cheaper for me to pay out of pocket than to pay for health insurance. I know many of you will not agree with this choice but I would rather have money in my pocket than to pay for something that I was never using. I was taking a huge risk not having it. I know this. The only reason I got health insurance was that I thought it would cover at least some of the expenses.

What I did not know is that even if NJ had some state mandates of covering fertility this did not apply to me. Why? Because as a small business owner and entrepreneur, you cannot get the same insurance as other people. No matter how much I was willing to pay for coverage or add on fertility services, I could not get this.

So my insurance was gonna cover ZERO of my IVF which meant I would need to completely drain all of my savings for ONE ROUND!! One chance was all I had!! I was distraught at this news, I was so surprised how little insurance covers. I looked at many grants and loans. Again I was turned down. I was not a candidate for any of these. Either my sexuality, my age, my religion, my marital status, all of those things kept me from getting grants and loans. I didn't make enough money to get one loan. But wait, isn't that what loans are for? I could buy raffle tickets… yes raffle tickets like you would at some fundraising event…to win an IVF cycle at one clinic. Imagine every way you turned the answer was “We can’t or won’t help you”.

Here I was a hardworking, healthy, successful, educated, loving person who felt her mission in life was to be a mom. Yet there was no support because I made the choice to be able to be the best therapist I could be. I chose to be an entrepreneur and have my own business. Because I made those choices, I could not get access to the same health coverage as other people. Because I did not settle in any relationship with a guy so I could have children. I made these decisions consciously without knowing I would be penalized for them. Yes, this made me undeniably angry, frustrated, but it did not stop me. I just had to shift focus and find another way.

A friend of mine encouraged me to start a GoFundMe page. I didn’t want to ask for help. I’m actually awful at asking for help and putting myself out there. I wanted to keep going through IVF a secret. To just one day be magically pregnant and then tell the story. I didn’t want people to feel sorry for me or to see me fall apart if this dream failed. I was so scared of the comments I would receive. I had already had in the past friends who were already parents tell me having kids wasn’t worth it, that they wished they didn’t have kids or that I was lucky to have the life I did. Every time I heard those words it was a stab in my heart. After much deliberation, I went ahead and did the GoFundMe and then turned my phone off for the weekend because I was anticipating negative responses. Do you know what happened? From some of the people who I thought were my close friends, I got no response… not even good luck which may have broken my heart even more than a response. I had people tell me how they got pregnant taking herbal medication, that I should go to a bar and have sex with a random guy, adopt, take another job that would have those benefits and give up my business and being a therapist, people telling me it was impossible, or I was crazy… the list goes on. Or telling me they couldn’t donate because they were saving for vacation yet I’d then see them donate to other places, or tell me they only donate to larger causes. I was crushed. Was my dream to be a mom not good enough? To create a beautiful life wasn’t enough to donate to. How many GoFundMes have I donated to, how many events and races have I done all over the world to raise money for cancer, dog rescues, clean water, friends’ kids' sports teams, PTA, homeless… You name it I probably fundraised or donated to. And oftentimes when I was almost broke. Even that summer I had donated to a bunch of causes.

And then an amazing thing happened… I woke the fuck up! I wanted to say fuck all of them and never give again. That just is not me. Will I be more selective… YES. But I will not stop giving and I hope to keep inspiring others to give. I also started focusing on who was giving!! Those amazing souls who felt in their hearts to give to me. To become my village for me and my future child. They have all been in my heart this whole journey and I don’t know how I will ever repay you. These amazing souls, some of whom I have not spoken to in a very long time, decided to believe in me. And random strangers who heard my story and helped. Some who shared they too struggled with infertility and told me their story. So thank you all.

The part of me that wants to stop giving will never stop because all that giving brought me this baby. All the goodness I have done and given to others came back to me in the form of my baby. I already have plans for the future to create a paddleboard event to be a fundraiser for other women.

Have you read this far? I know I can be long-winded but I want you to see the full picture of how this started. I’ll share more of the steps along the way that happened in other posts.

From heartbreak to my heart being more full than it ever has been!!

Once I figured out the financial part, I thought it would be easy. Hahaha, Joke on me. There was much more to come but I believed. In every ounce of me, I believed in myself. Not going to lie, this was very difficult at times when new challenges came up.

1 in 7 women will have fertility challenges. 1 in 7!!! There were mornings I was at my fertility clinic for blood work and monitoring after an hour of them opening and more than 30 women had already been in for their monitoring!!

Let's get even more personal. Dr. Osman, my reproductive endocrinologist at RMA of NJ, and I did not know if I had any fertility issues as I had never been pregnant and never had tried. Funny how many times in your life do you pray you aren’t pregnant or curse getting your period. Now I was praying for the opposite. Well, you pray for a period at certain times during your IVF process and then you pray really hard you don’t get it! The data we had was my ovarian reserve, age, and other health data but there was still that risk. At my age, even couples trying to get pregnant had a very small chance of getting pregnant each month. Ladies, I encourage you to ask your doctors at a young age to test your AMH levels and keep doing it if you want kids in your future. You can always freeze unfertilized eggs.

What is an SMC or Single Mom by Choice?

So until I started this journey I didn't even know there was a term for what I was trying to do. Thank you to the social media gods. A few years ago I stumbled upon a woman's story and so I messaged her. She’s the one who introduced me to a FB group and told me the term. Single Mom by Choice are women who for whatever reason are single and want to have children. These women are fucking warriors. What we put our bodies through without a partner is just amazing. It really is. I’ve lost count of how many needles I’ve put into my body. That's a post for another time.

And why was I doing this single??

I thought I had met the love of my life. My person. In so many ways, he was everything I had wanted in a life partner except for one huge way. He did not want children. Felt he would not make a great father (although I believe he could have). So I had to make the hardest choice. To be with that person or become a mom. My heart was destroyed when we were no longer together. After time apart (lots of time) and reflection, he was not the love of my life or my person because if he was he would have had the same morals and values as I did. He too would have wanted to have children. So in many ways, we were in love and had so much love for each other but he was not completely the right person for me. I was not the right person for him because family was more important than the lifestyle he wanted. I would have never been whole if I had not become a mom. We had different dreams of what a future would look like. Neither of our dreams should be ones we had to compromise on and we could not integrate the two even if we tried. We are better off not being together now. Having loved each other but had the courage to follow our fullest dreams even if it meant never talking or seeing the other again. Feeling this way did not happen overnight. He would have been a great partner through all of this and I miss him often. As time goes on though, the less I miss and think of him and the more I feel complete and know that I made the right decision.

Being a mom outweighs any relationship, travel, or things. I have sacrificed so much to get here. I’m better for it. I will be a better mom, therapist, and person for it.

How did you do this and not have a mental breakdown?

Oh, there were plenty of tears… full-on sobbing. Days of anguish and feeling crushed. Dark days and moments. Days of doubting myself and my decision. Days of pure exhaustion. Waking up at 5:30 am to drive 1.5 hours to be at an appointment or monitoring for about 30-45 minutes to then drive home every 2-3 days for months. All while seeing my individual clients, running my practice, and growing a business. I could do all this because along the way I have learned skills to EVOLVE WHOLE. What I teach in my courses and sessions, is how I live my life. If I did not know how to stay WHOLE in times when everything felt IMPOSSIBLE, then I would not have the success I have. And I would not be pregnant. My perseverance comes from Evolving Whole. Believing in myself comes from Evolving Whole. My resilience comes from Evolving Whole.

You don’t have to wait for the perfect time, the perfect person, to have the money… The time is now. The time to pursue your dreams is right at this very moment. Learn how to Evolve Whole and those dreams will happen. I am proof in so many manys.

If I did it the “right way” or “wait for the perfect time or person” this baby would never exist. Who they are meant to be and will be would not happen.

Make sacrifices for your dreams. Don’t listen to those who say you can’t or it’s impossible. Surround yourself with people who will cheer you on, even if it is only one person. Even if it is only yourself. And I will always be that person for anyone who dares to do the impossible. Go after what you want. Go after your dreams. Don’t let 11% chance of success keep you from trying that path. Don’t let money stop you. You will find the money. Believe in you. Do it WHOLE.

I’M PREGNANT!! I’M PREGNANT!! Words that I can’t believe I finally get to share with all of you!