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So.  Here we are.  It took me a while to write this blog, and not just because I was in Ann Arbor on a rotation at the University of Michigan for 3 months.  Mostly, it took me a while because things just kept changing.  I guess life is like that.  In my mind, there have been multiple, multiple versions of this blog.  I can’t jam everything into one blog, but I want to at least get a few things out there and finally write this. 

Back in December I was celebrating the wedding of my wonderful friends and fellow Stellafly teammates, Abby and Kyle.  During one of my breaks from the festivities, I found myself sitting at a table with two very strong women that I clearly have not spent enough time talking with: Laura Caprara (Team Stellafly leader extraordinaire) and Amy Bross-now-Anderson.  Even though I hadn’t spent a ton of time talking with them, there is something about sweating and giving everything on the same course and for the same team that brings people together.  So, I began opening up about one of the most difficult things I had been struggling with: infertility.  It was such a frustrating thing to me because, even though I’m a physician, I just couldn’t understand it.  Oh I knew the science behind it, but science is just an obnoxious thing when it applies to yourself.  Why was this happening?  I was healthy, I was young, I was active, why wouldn’t my body do this one “little” thing?  I felt so helpless.  Infertility was not something I could beat, it wasn’t something I could just train harder at and get better.  It haunted me every single day.  It was something I felt like I couldn’t share with anyone.  I was even reluctant to share my feelings and my sorrow with my husband because being “infertile” made me feel like I wasn’t really a woman.  Because clearly, in my deranged-baby-craving mind, all my body was meant to do was make a baby… and I just couldn’t do it. 

I won’t go into all the science behind what was going on and I will stick to farm animal metaphors because I just like them better!  Basically, after some lab testing, it turned out that, had I been a chicken, I just wasn’t laying eggs.  Well how the freaking freak does a woman get pregnant if she isn’t laying any eggs?!  And every day I would think and google search and try to read in my text books about WHY.  WHY wasn’t I laying eggs?  WHY was this happening?  WHY was I so broken that I couldn’t do this simple little thing that women do every single month?  Between finally talking openly and honestly with my very supportive husband and talking with Laura and Amy, I realized something on the drive home.  Yes, I was struggling with infertility, but I am NOT infertility.  I am not broken because of this little thing.  I am still a strong, smart woman who is passionate about her career, loves her husband dearly and trains like an animal for triathlons.  These lab results, these struggles did not change me.  It was something that I would deal with, but I would not let it BE me.  My husband and I decided that I would see a fertility specialist and we would to the medications and the hormone treatments and all that jazz for one calendar year.  If nothing happened, fine.  Then I would train for an Ironman and plan to race somewhere gorgeous!  I didn’t want infertility to take over my life, so I decided how I would handle it.  I felt much better and scheduled my intake with a specialist. 

Laura encouraged me to write about my experience with infertility.  I will admit, I was reluctant at first.  I have always tried to be candid in my blogs, but infertility seemed so much… bigger.  But that was what made me finally decide.  NOT writing about it would be making infertility bigger.  Instead, by writing and sharing, infertility was just a part of my journey and not some big, dark secret to be ashamed of because it is certainly not something to be ashamed of.  It just is.  Like my hypothyroidism or my asthma.  And I’ve never let either of those diagnoses define me!  But things were so busy at U of M and I was driving so much that I didn’t have time to write.  But in my head on the drive to U of M, I would plan my blog.  Then everything changed. 

I went to that infertility specialist and went through the very long intake process.  We went through all my medical history and discussed options for medication.  I agreed with the plan.  Last step was to get an ultrasound just to double check that my two little egg makers were looking good.  Well, turns out, as I’m sure you can guess, that the ultrasound tech found more than just two ovaries.  She found a baby. 

When she told me I was in complete and utter shock.  It wasn’t possible.  I wasn’t laying eggs!!  This just wasn’t possible!!  But she swung the screen over and showed me this blob that apparently represented a little tiny just starting to form baby.  Apparently my egg makers were on their own schedule and decided to lay an egg after the lab results and no one has been able to figure out why the heck it happened, but it was a complete blessing and now I had a little tiny life in my uterus. 

I wasn’t sure if I should still write about infertility or not.  It seemed hypocritical that I should write about infertility when I’m sitting here at my computer almost 17 weeks pregnant.  But that was a struggle I endured for a number of months and it was part of my journey, so I decided to share.  And maybe, just maybe, by writing this it would be of some sort of use to other women.  I have no idea, but if it’s possible that by writing this it could help anyone, then I’m all for it.  Plus, I can’t really tell the now very amusing story of how I found out I was pregnant without sharing that I was at an infertility clinic, so it is solidly part of my journey and that is also okay. 

But with the swinging of the ultrasound screen, suddenly everything had changed.  I had been pretty certain there was no baby in my near future, so I had planned my 2018 race season.  But now, for the first time in 12 years, I would not be racing triathlons.  What did this mean for training?  Heck, what did a BABY mean for my future in training… or in everything?  Don’t get me wrong, I was super excited, but I was also terrified.  I take HUGE comfort in the women I see on Facebook who are training and racing with families because it must be possible.  I began following triathletes on Instagram who were posting about their own prenatal and postnatal journeys.  I also felt really, really bad that my dad had to cancel his trip to the USAT Age Group National Championship because my due date is 4 days after the race.  Oops.  Sorry dad!  So I convinced him to get a coach and work on qualifying for 2019… that made me a feel a little less guilty.  I told myself repeatedly that I could do this, I could be a mom and I could train and it would be awesome.  And my husband began researching jogging strollers with the attitude of “well obviously you’re going to keep training, you’re Sam.  It’s who you are.”   And he’s right, it is part of who I am and I’m excited (and a little scared) to find out who I am with a mini-Sam or a mini-Todd.  Although maybe a mini-Todd would be better for my sanity…