I recently sold my house. To do this, I was advised to stage it.
Full disclosure: I was asked, and I agreed to it. No one forced me or told me it was the only way to sell.
My apologies to my fantastic realtor, but…NEVER AGAIN.
If you have never staged a home before, let me fill you in on the unique, invasive process.
Interior designers come to your house, and tell you exactly why it will not sell the way it is currently decorated.
Too personal.
Wrong vibes.
Not the trending looks and colors.
And then they take pretty much everything you have and put it in storage. Only then to bring in various items that have zero personality so that your house looks like the most boring furniture store. No sign of real life here. Fake plants, ugly photos, and lots and lots of vague and pointless knickknacks.
Anyone who knows me probably got really tired of the complaining I did about the staging…because I hated every minute of it. (The moment our house went under contract, you best believe that I “de-staged” almost immediately!).
Now do I believe the staging helped sell the house? Well, since I don’t know what would have happened if I had not staged, I can only speak to what I DO know. In that theory, yes. Staging helped sell my house.
So where is this ranting and venting going, you may ask?
It hit me the other day…staging reminded me a lot of IVF.
IVF, for me, was invasive. Doctors and nurses basically took over the interior of my body to help “stage” it to carry a positive pregnancy. And yes, I had a choice if I wanted to do IVF or not, and I chose to do it knowing it was the best option I had. However, internal ultrasounds, shots left and right, blood tests all the time, drink this, don’t drink for this long, eat this, don’t eat these foods, take these pills at this time, so many times a day…
It was as if I left the control of my body at the door, and let medicine and science take over the staging of my body.
Did it work and was it worth it?
Absolutely.
Nothing was happening when we tried to have a baby without medical intervention, and since I had a miscarriage and then a positive, full term pregnancy once I did do IVF, I know that we needed to “stage” my body in order to become parents this way.
Did I enjoy it?
No.
Will I do it again?
No.
I said in the beginning I recently sold my house. I am also the mama to a little heartbeat, and his name is Ferris.
Sometimes, we have to do things that make us uncomfortable and angry, or fatigued and restless, or take us waaay out of our comfort zones because it is the only path to get out of the storm.
I am grateful everyday of my life that I went through IVF. My comfort levels aside, it brought me the purest joy I would never have known if I had decided to go another fertility route.
Now that it is over, my body is not the same as it was before, but it’s better than it used to be. It tells a story, and it has scars and lumps and bumps that remind me of how strong I am.
And just like the memories made in this house, before and after staging, I am proud of the life that I had here…with the life that I created before and after IVF.