I have a cracked screen in my phone.
This is not the life I used to live.
I had just gotten the XR iPhone and traded in my previous version, after I got the cracked glass on that phone repaired at one of those shops that fix what I break.
Then I was loading my life in to my car and low and behold, boom. My new phone fell out of my grasp and straight onto the epoxy flooring.
New cracked screen.
So, I put my life on hold and went to get that screen fixed. A few painful, lost-out-of-society hours later, I get the phone back with a new screen and a “protector,” aka a covering that makes typing and touching your phone a complete nightmare.
Then the other day, managing too many things at once, my phone fell onto the kitchen floor hard enough that when I picked it up, a new spider web of soft cracked glass formed.
My eyes have become accustomed to the subtle imperfections. It’s not that I am lazy or cannot afford to get it fixed. It’s that I am smart enough to see that there is a pattern here. Every time I get it fixed, it only seems to break again, driving me crazy on what I went through to fix it in the first place.
I often think of my body and IVF like my cracked screen.
I eat well, most of the time. I take vitamins, and exercise. I dress to impress, and I am always there for my family and friends. Yet, my body has failed me when it comes to reproducing.
I had a surgery to clear a blocked tube and went through IVF to still experience a miscarriage. Because I do believe in a higher power, God and science helped my last embryo to stick, and I was able to carry a beautiful, healthy baby boy named Ferris.
Carrying and delivering Ferris is like the short window of time when my screen is new and not cracked.
However, I know today, that my body is back to being like a cracked screen.
And guess what? I am okay with that.
Because I will get the next phone in the future and the screen will be shiny and new and what I could consider perfect. But that is not what my reality is, and perhaps there is a reason for my body to be damaged but not broken.
Ferris is here today because of the power of medical science, in vitro fertilization, and faith in trusting the process.
He doesn’t care if my phone, or my body, is not perfect. He cares about living each day with giggles and smiles, and you know what, so do I.
2019 has been an incredible year. Launching I’m Very Ferris, a child’s story about in vitro fertilization has been something I never saw in my cards, and yet, here I am today; a published author and an infertility advocate.
And not every day is wine and roses. There is kickback and negativity at times because you cannot, and will not, please everyone.
But like my cracked screen, I am a hardworking mama who will not let a few bumps along the road stop me from the exciting things the future holds.
Because the world already has everyone else, but not another me. Perhaps my body is what it is so I can help others accept and find balance in their lives.
Imperfections make us beautiful and unique.
Happy 2020 to all my cracked screens out there.
We are in this together.