A tale of two tests

Spoiler alert: The wrong one came back positive

Wednesday Wisdom

“All of it in due time. Not late. Not early. Aligned.” ~ Arielle Estoria

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Morning Musings

Well, similar to last week, this is not the newsletter I’d intended on writing. However, unlike last week, this one is a lot more personal in nature (although still with pop culture ties). Walk with me…

It’s early Thursday morning and I’m boarding a flight to Seattle, Washington from Chicago’s O’Hare airport. It’s so early (and so cold!) that we spend an additional 40 minutes on the tarmac getting de-iced, which means I had to sprint to make the connection for my flight to Redmond, Oregon, where I would board a shuttle to a snowy lodge just outside of Sisters, Oregon and meet roughly 20ish other women entrepreneurs as part of

Jenni Gritters

’ first-ever business retreat.

The view from my room at Suttle Lodge

It was exactly what you would imagine—scenic snow-capped mountains, beautiful Ponderosa Pines (which the East Coaster in me originally mistook for Redwoods), cozy fireplace cabins. And then…COVID.

I woke up the next day with a headache, which I initially attributed to a change in barometric pressure and/or elevation. But combined with a congested nose and sore throat, I decided to take the COVID test that was generously supplied in our goodie bags. I’ve never seen two lines pop up so fast, which is disheartening as I’ve taken more than my fair share of negative pregnancy tests (which we’ll get to later).

I immediately texted my roommate and Jenni to inform them of the situation and went into isolation. I mean, each room had a fireplace and ours had an amazing view of the frozen lake, so don’t feel to bad for me. Symptoms were mild overall and the unexpected alone time actually turned out to be quite productive leading me to accomplish my three main goals for the retreat:

1. Empty my inbox (shoutout to everyone who got wayyy overdue responses from me)

2. Apply to the Torch Retreat for Black women writers (again, because I was rejected last year, but if at first you don’t succeed, try and try again)

3. Make progress on my pitch deck for potential sponsorships (because mama needs to get PAID, okay?!)

I also masked up for the group coaching sessions and got some much needed clarity around wtf to do with Werking Moms Club (more on that in another post). So all in all, it was a great trip. Until…another failed embryo transfer.

Yup, we’re back at again with IVF and silly me thought the second time around would be a breeze. I was wrong. I’ll spare you all the details that led to this point (gotta save something for the memoir, amirite?), but long story short: the blood pregnancy test came back negative.

But I already knew that. Because, unlike our last rodeo, I tested (multiple times) before our official beta day. As I told my therapist, I didn’t want to know the outcome so far away from Jeff (yes, I had to leave the retreat site briefly to go into town to the nearest lab because IVF doesn’t give a damn about your travel schedule or life outside of the clinic). At-home tests can be finicky, so there was still some hope heading into the beta test. But the lab results, which I saw in the portal before the clinic called me with the bad news, confirmed the worst: I wasn’t pregnant. The wrong test came back positive last week.

For those of you who aren’t familiar, or came to know me after Violet was born, our infertility story began back in 2017 when I had nearly 20 fibroids removed from my uterus. Fast forward to trying to conceive in 2019 and we learned that my Fallopian tubes were blocked—most likely due to scar tissue from the aforementioned myomectomy. Two years, two egg retrievals, three failed transfers plus one canceled transfer (not to mention a whole lotta perinatal and postpartum depression and anxiety), we finally had Violet.

So forgive me if I thought we’d already paid our infertility dues and I was halfway expecting this embryo transfer to go smoothly. But like I said before, IVF doesn’t give a flying f*ck about your feelings. And now here we are…at the precipice of deciding next steps with our last embryo.

We’ve got one shot or one opportunity to seize everything we ever wanted (shoutout to Eminem). The infertility life is not for the faint of heart and somehow (perhaps thanks to Jesus, therapy, Zoloft and/or the fact that Violet is already here) it doesn’t feel as devastating as last time, when we had no idea if we’d ever become parents. Disappointing? Sure. Disheartening? Absolutely. But devastated. Not this time around.

“And I’m taking that to heart,” as Bitsy (Violet’s favorite character on SuperKitties) says. 💜

Plus, I guess God figured I’d been through enough last week that She saw fit to bless me and my bestie Pam with GOODT seats to the Beyoncé Cowboy Carter tour, so there’s that! 🤠

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Upcoming Events

• Feb. 13 (TOMORROW!): Galentine’s Day. I’m thrilled to be moderating friend and fellow author Erin Gallagher’s Hype Women Book kickoff party in Chicagoland on Galentine’s Day!

What I’m Reading: Cowboy Carter Edition

• A Guide For Dealing With The Beyoncé Hater In Your Life (

  Notes From A Trap Feminist
  )

• I Want To Read The Best Writing About Beyoncé (

  Hung Up
  )

• Beyoncé’s Country Pivot Illuminates the Genre’s Black History (and Present) — But Don’t Call It a ‘Reclamation’ (Billboard)

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My Latest Obsession

serenawilliams

A post shared by @serenawilliams

IYKYK…

(And, if not, might I suggest this post and this post)

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Now Hiring

1. Chief Philanthropy Officer for Women Moving Millions

2. Senior Director, People & Culture for The Mozilla Foundation

3. Deputy Data Editor for ProPublica

4. Director of Communications for In Our Own Voice: National Black Women’s Reproductive Justice Agenda

5. Communications Director for The Partnership for the Future of Learning

6. Executive Vice President, Marketing and Communications for The National Multiple Sclerosis Society

7. Director, Communications for Red Bull

8. Senior Cultural Researcher, Cultural and Societal Insights for NIKE

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