Ground to Grow

Welcoming a rainbow baby can hold so much at once. Love for the baby who is here, alongside an enduring love and longing for the baby or pregnancy that came before.

For some, that means saying their baby’s name and wanting others to remember them too. For others, the loss may be held quietly, with a love that remains, always.

And for those still waiting and hoping for their rainbow, I know today may feel especially tender.

Holding you in my heart today. 🤍🌈

Trying to conceive can take up so much space in your mind and heart.

The waiting. The uncertainty. The appointments. The hope. The disappointment. The constant wondering what comes next.

This September, I’m leading two small live Ground to Grow groups for people navigating trying to conceive or pregnancy loss.

🌿 Trying to Conceive
Thursdays, Sept 24–Oct 29
5–6:30 pm PT / 8–9:30 pm ET

🌿 Through Grief & Loss
Tuesdays, Sept 22–Oct 27
5–6:30 pm PT / 8–9:30 pm ET

Each group meets live online for six weeks, with guided mindfulness & self-compassion practices, discussion & reflection, and practical ways to work with stress, uncertainty, and difficult emotions.

The classes are small and intimate, with just 10–15 participants.

**Save 20% with code FALL20.**

Details + registration at the link in bio.

If the live times don’t work for you, or you’d rather move through the program at your own pace, on-demand options are available too.

I’ll never forget the moment this photo was taken.

Two embryos.

One became our daughter, who recently turned 14.

When I look at this image now, I think about everything it represents. The years of infertility that brought us to IVF. The hope we carried into that moment. And the remarkable science, and the incredible people behind it, that helped bring her into our lives.

Fourteen years later, this image still reminds me how much can be held in a single moment: hope, uncertainty, possibility, and a future you can’t yet imagine.

Since the birth of the world’s first IVF baby in 1978, more than 13 million children have been born through IVF worldwide. Ours is one story among millions, and each began with someone’s hope for a family.

On World IVF Day, I’m especially thinking about the embryologists whose skill, precision, and compassion are at the heart of every IVF journey.

Over the years, I’ve had the privilege of getting to know many embryologists. What has always struck me is how deeply invested they are, not only in the embryos they care for each day, but in the people waiting and hoping on the other side of every update and every transfer.

To every embryologist, and to everyone whose skill, care, and dedication make IVF possible, thank you. 🤍

I looked out into the backyard this morning and noticed this first bloom.

It usually flowers closer to August, so seeing it in mid-July caught me by surprise. It called me out into the garden.

Years ago, after we made the heartbreaking decision to come to the end of growing our family, a counsellor gently suggested planting something in memory of an embryo that wasn’t meant to be.

We chose a Rose of Sharon.

A few years later, its roots were nourished with the ashes of our beloved dog, Tosca. Beside it sits a piece of driftwood I found on the beach after he took his last breath in our arms, its grain holding a knot in the shape of a heart. A lantern from our neighbours still hangs there and its nightly glow is something I will always cherish.

Over the years, this little corner of our garden has become a place of love and remembering.

When I came back inside today, I opened my phone and the first thing I saw was someone sharing a vivid memory of someone they loved deeply. As we exchanged a few messages, there was such tenderness in simply remembering together.

There is something deeply healing about having our love, our loss, and our longing witnessed.

Our Rose of Sharon will bloom for a while. Autumn will come. The leaves will fall. Winter will leave the branches bare. Then spring will quietly begin again.

Watching these seasons unfold has become part of my own healing.

Today’s first bloom felt like a gentle invitation to pause, to remember, and to feel grateful for a love that continues to find new ways to meet me.

🤍

If you’re walking with grief right now and would welcome some support, I’ll be holding space again this September in Ground to Grow’s live Through Grief & Loss classes. The on-demand course is also available year-round, whenever the time feels right. More information is available through the link in my profile.

One of the hardest parts after embryo transfer is not knowing.

There’s been so much leading up to this point. So much timing, tracking, medication, monitoring, and instruction. Then transfer happens, and for a while there is no answer yet.

No way to control what’s happening.

Just waiting.

And in that space, the mind can start looking for clues.

A cramp. A twinge. A little heaviness. No heaviness. Feeling hopeful. Feeling anxious. Waking up and wondering if your body feels different than it did yesterday.

I’ve seen this so often in clinical practice, and I remember it from my own IVF experience too: a distinct hyper-awareness of the body, where every sensation feels like it might mean something, and every absence of sensation somehow feels like it might mean something too.

This is where it can help to gently come back to what is actually known.

What I know right now is that there is an embryo inside me, and for now, that is all I can truly know.

The rest is the mind trying to anticipate what might happen, and how it might feel.

What I know right now is that not knowing is hard, really hard, and I can care for myself through this part.

It likely won’t stop the checking completely.

But it may create a little pause before you follow every thought all the way down the rabbit hole.

A way back to the room you’re in.

The breath you’re breathing.

And one small act of care you can choose in this moment.

If you’re in this wait, Ground to Grow has free guided practices for before and after embryo transfer, and for the hCG wait. You can find them through the link in bio.