My name is Rebecca.

I never wanted to be here creating this journal for you, just as I know you never wanted to be looking for it. Yet, here we are, together, on this unscheduled detour.

When we are young and innocent, the plans we make seem so simple and straightforward. Everything is going to go exactly as we lay it out, hopefully down to the minute, so we don’t get behind schedule.

Move down the line a few years or even a decade and we realize, life rarely works out the way we planned it at 25 and life usually isn’t fair, the way we may have thought it was when we were young. Be a good girl, follow the rules, and you can have anything you want in life…including a biological family, conceived for the price of a good bottle of wine and some pretty lingerie. Not so fast…right?

I had eight miscarriages between the time I was 26 and 36. I underwent every test imaginable, sometimes more than once, between 32-36. I tried progesterone and meditation and contacting my spirit baby and blood thinners and supplements, loads of supplements. I had IVF in my early 40’s and despite being a very good girl, who followed the plan to a tee, finished graduate school with high honors, married the sweet guy I met in college, got my career perfectly lined out to have room for a family and bought the beautiful home to raise them in, I was left with one major problem. Those babies never showed up. I’m 44 now and they still haven’t. To be honest, I’m not sure where that leaves me when I look down the road for the next 40 years that lay ahead of me.

So I won’t pretend to have all of the answers for you, to me, finding such answers is likely a life long process. However, I have spent the last 18 years asking all of the questions you are asking yourself or want to ask yourself, but haven’t been able to get there just yet. Including the ones everyone else is asking you, like “why don’t you just adopt?” or “why don’t you find a surrogate?” Or the best one of all, “why don’t you just get over it?” And maybe you will, or maybe you won’t.

I wrote this journal, built this journey and started this community circle, because when I went searching for something, anything, after my failed IVF and multiple miscarriages, I couldn’t really find offerings for women or couples to turn to, when everything had failed them. There’s plenty out there if you are still trying to conceive, if you are pursuing surrogacy or adoption.

But what is there for those of us, who may not be sure which route we want to take when a biological child or a child we carry in our own wombs is out of the question? What is there for those of us who are grappling with the possibility of not having children at all, perhaps for financial reasons at the end of a pricey fertility journey, or because of the desires of our partners, or because we ourselves are tired and ready to consider the alternatives?

Well, now I can tell you, there is a journal, and a journey, and a community…where you are welcomed, not judged, not required to keep thinking only happy thoughts. Where you can be yourself, accept all of the possibilities, and explore all of the options in a safe space held just for you, for your journey, at your own pace, in your own time, on your own terms. Because nothing else has likely been on your terms along this journey, so you should at least get it your way now. Apologies for the sarcasm, but sometimes, humor is my only coping mechanism.

Genuinely though, I hope you can open your journal, listen to a session or join in on a conversation here and find PEACE.

You deserve nothing less than the best and now is your time to figure out what that means for you.

I wish you a safe and peaceful journey, I hope you find the answers I know your heart seeks and I give you permission to rest, your soul and your body, because a pause after life events such as the ones you’ve survived is only reasonable and very necessary, so you can find the strength to paint a new path and take the first step towards a reimagined life.

All My Love,

R~