Spreading Awareness

The cover photo I chose for my ReadWave story

I came across a new social media outlet today. It's got a setup visually similar to Pinterest (huge fan of that, by the way!), but allows you to read and share 3 minute stories. It's called ReadWave and it's pretty unique. 

I'd say I happened across it by accident, but really it found me. I received an email a few weeks ago from Robert Tucker, one of the site's co-founders. The email said that he had enjoyed my blog and encouraged me to check out his site and submit a story. To be totally honest, I thought it was a complete scam and just ignored it, thinking every blog out there received this email and it wasn't even a real site. While I am sure millions of people received this same exact email, I did decide today to check out the site and it does seem pretty legit, and actually very interesting.

So, today I set up an account (for free) and submitted a story. You can write about anything but the catch is that it has to be 800 words or less. I love the concept of this because it forces you to be concise. (We all know I have major issues with that! haha!) It forces you to get to the point and keep it simple. Of course, I fit mine in at exactly 799. (wink, wink) This technically makes it a 4 minute story (it conveniently has a word counter for you, and the range of words determines how many minutes it is). Then it's posted to the site for public access. So, the most basic story of our journey is up there. I titled it "What Doesn't Kill You, Brings You Closer Together".

My Story

After submitting stories on ReadWave, you can tag keywords. As I was searching the "infertility" tag, I came across the story "To My Sisters Who Wait: A Letter About Infertility". It's got a beautiful message and is written by someone from the other side, someone who's been there and understands, and someone who is now a mom, but hasn't forgotten the journey that got her there. I suggest reading it; it speaks volumes to the TTC community especially. <3

To My Sisters Who Wait: A Letter About Infertility

Speaking of those lucky ones on the other side, someone close to us (and a loyal follower of this blog, I might add!!), is an infertility/IVF survivor. I'm not sure how public their journey is, so I won't mention names or clues to who they are, but this couple has been very supportive and helpful in this journey. They underwent this process a few years back, way before we started trying and way before we even knew what IVF was. I'm not even sure if we knew they were undergoing it. I give them an EXTREME amount of respect, because although I'm sure they had support from family and friends, I think it was harder then, and this was only a few years ago. I feel bad that we were so naive to the whole process and all of the emotions, but now we completely understand and we've formed a closer bond because of it. I can't imagine having to go through this journey without the outlets I've found in social media, this blog, and speaking out about it. I'm very thankful to this person's unconditional support. She sent me the following picture quote today... it's one of my favorites and I had recently forgotten how it went, then it showed up today. It fits us all very well. Thank you! <3 <3