The Thing About Refusing to Shut Up
I've been telling my story out loud for a long time.
Nine years ago I was on the front page of USA Today talking about IVF, miscarriages, and the winding road to parenthood during National Infertility Awareness Week. I was terrified. I did it anyway. Because I knew — even then — that silence was the enemy. That the only way to make people feel less alone in the waiting rooms and the two-week waits and the devastating phone calls was to refuse to shut up about it.
So I kept talking.
A couple weekends ago I stood at the Akron Walk of Hope with a microphone in my hand and a crowd of people in front of me who know exactly what this fight costs. People who've done the injections and the retrievals and the transfers. People who've gotten the worst news on the best days. People who've had to explain to their HR department why they need another day off for "a procedure" they can't bring themselves to fully describe in a work email.
I know those people. I am those people.
And while I was standing there talking about why this month matters, why right now matters, why we can't afford to be quiet anymore — I looked down.
My daughter was standing right next to me. Staring up at me with those big eyes like I was saying the most important thing she'd ever heard.
I don't have the words for what that felt like.
She exists because of IVF. So does her brother. There were years — real, grinding, grief-soaked years — where I genuinely didn't know if this life was possible for me. Years of miscarriages. An ectopic. Failed cycles. The kind of loss that doesn't have a funeral but still hollows you out completely. I used to wonder if I'd ever stop being the person in the waiting room and start being something else.
And there she was. At my feet. While I begged a crowd of strangers to keep fighting for the thing that made her possible.
If that's not full circle I don't know what is.
Here's what I need you to know right now: access to IVF is not guaranteed. The family building rights that gave me my kids are under real threat, and the people who understand exactly what that means — who have lived it in their bodies and their bank accounts and their marriages — are the ones who need to be loudest right now.
May is RESOLVE's Month of Action. It's 31 days of learning, advocating, and showing up for this community in whatever way you can. You don't have to give a speech. You don't have to walk. You just have to do something.
Send an action alert to your lawmakers. Share your story once. Grab an Action Card and track your impact all month. Show up to a webinar. Tag a senator. Do the small thing that feels like nothing but adds up to everything when enough of us do it together.
I'll keep talking as long as I have to. But I'd really love it if you talked too.