By the time we actually started IVF, I understood the medical process fairly well…but there was so much more to it that I never anticipated. Nobody told me how much waiting was involved, or that I’d become emotionally attached to microscopic embryos, or how much IVF would affect my husband, or how it would completely change the way I viewed hope, grief, and motherhood. These are the lessons I still think about most, not because they were the hardest, but because they were the ones I never heard anyone else talk about.

I pictured motherhood starting with a positive pregnancy test, a growing belly, and eventually bringing our baby home from the hospital. Instead, my journey began with negative pregnancy tests month after month, fertility appointments, countless painful injections, grief, and learning how little control we actually have over the things we want most. IVF didn’t just change how I became a mother; it changed how I think about motherhood itself.

I wasn’t prepared for how much motherhood would change the way my brain works. None of these lessons came from a parenting class or a baby book; they came from actually experiencing those first few months. These are the mindset shifts that enabled me to not just survive, but truly thrive in those first few months of motherhood.