Brianna Lynn Photography
Meet Kara
"1 in 8. I never thought I’d be a part of this statistic, but it’s a badge that I wear proudly.
Approximately 1 in 8 couples are affected by infertility in the United States. I started this journey scared and alone, but after 5 years I have weathered the storm and have come out with countless friendships, a rainbow baby and now a sibling for her and a stronger version of myself that I never knew existed.
I thought getting pregnant would have been easy, but I never experienced one “oops” or one “scare” in my life so we knew we needed to dig deeper and explore our options for fertility intervention.
What felt like an eternity was probably nothing compared to what other women have gone through, but after 4 rounds of IUIs and a cancelled cycle due to my ovaries being over simulated, we moved onto IVF and I prayed hard that this was our answer." (cont. below)
"After one egg retrieval, we had 7 untested embryos to work with and we were ecstatic that our first transferred worked, only to have the rug ripped out from under us when the we lost the baby at 6.5 weeks. Three months later, when my levels finally reached baseline and we got cleared for the next transfer, the day after Christmas. Our little embryo stuck and we welcomed a little girl, Lillian, in September 2018 into our lives and hearts forever.
Knowing that we wanted to try to have another close in age, we went back for number 2 in March of 2020. No one knew that within a matter of days we were about to enter a global pandemic where the world around us shut down — except for the fertility clinic. We went right on as scheduled and before we knew it, almost exactly a year later from when we started, we welcomed another little girl, Josephine, into our family in March 2021 to make it complete.
Even though I felt like I was walking my journey alone, I met some of the strongest, most resilient women during this time in my life. Just when you feel like giving up, reach out and there will always be someone to take your hand as you walk the same path together." - Kara
Kara and her girls were such a bright light from the moment they arrived at the photo session. Lillian was "model ready" and excited to smile, laugh, dance, and hold her baby sister the entire time. It was the beaming smile and the bouncing, red curls that got me! From the beginning of planning this photo shoot, Kara has been such an advocate for the event, often sharing the information with fellow Rainbow Baby Mama's to help spread the word so other Moms could share their story, as well.
As Kara mentioned in her post, each one of us Rainbow Baby Mama's or Mom going through infertility has felt alone at some point. It is an isolating feeling to fight so hard to have the baby you always knew you were meant to have and even more isolating to lose a baby. However, if we begin opening up and starting the conversation, I promise you that there is someone going through this same journey less than a stone's throw away.
Each Mom from this series has had a different journey. We are here to support you. We are here to answer questions. We are here to simply listen as you vent or express your concerns. We are here to let you know that you are not alone and that there is hope. This is an overwhelming journey, even for the bravest and the strongest women, but it is also the journey that turns us into such brave and strong Moms.
