A behind-the-scenes look at my own unfiltered shenanigans from the marketing trenches. A real-life, no BS view of what it's really like to market a small business and ideas to make it all feel a whole lot easier!

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I’m going to start with a little disclaimer—this email is different from my usual lighthearted antics and insights.

October is Pregnancy and Infant Loss Awareness Month, and I feel it’s important to pause and share something personal.

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So here we go...

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One of the hardest parts of being pregnant, at least for me, was the secrecy.

For some ridiculous reason, everyone says to wait until the first trimester to share the news - which, if you’ve ever been pregnant, feels like an eternity. I mean, how can 12 weeks actually move SO SLOWLY???

And of course, those first weeks are often the hardest: you’re exhausted, sick, uncomfortable, and mentally checked out. Yet you’re not supposed to say anything. You just keep going, quietly struggling, pretending like all is normal while you body is not only working to grow a human, but an entire new organ to sustain that human as well.

And unfortunately, that also means the silence extends to miscarriage. No one talks about it. I mean, I am a pretty open book and it is shocking how many people have no idea that I’ve had two.
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I come from a family of what I lovingly call “stupid fertile” women - it's like they just think about babies and BOOM! pregnant. I assumed it would be the same for me. It wasn’t.

We had to try pretty hard for both of our kids. That said, we were lucky. We didn’t need invasive or expensive treatments, but both times it took about a year to get pregnant.

With my first pregnancy, I was overjoyed (oh, and super freaked out) and then at six weeks, I miscarried while hiking (so that was amazing). Two months later, I was pregnant again, and we had Revel. Healthy, full-term, and a perfect little baby who was cute but really could have slept a whole lot more.

Which, of course, meant that we were not sleep deprived enough so we decided to add to the chaos and try for baby number two. Unsurprisingly, the same thing happened.

Another positive test. Another miscarriage - this time around ten weeks right as I was about to go out to a Halloween party. Two months later, I was pregnant again, and eventually, we welcomed Rhett.

Oh, and in case you were wondering just how anal retentive I am, I somehow managed to have my children exactly 3 years and 3 days apart with birthdays on 8/18/18 and 8/21/21. So yeah.

Today, I have two healthy, delightful kids I wouldn’t trade for the world. But that doesn’t erase the heartbreak of those two lost pregnancies. Yes, they were early. No, they weren’t fully formed babies. But they were possibilities - little lives I’ll never know. And even now, it still makes me sad.

I don’t share this for pity. My experience is mild compared to what many women endure, I know. I share it because the hardest part wasn’t the loss itself (although that definitely wasn't great either) - it was the silence. Pretending like nothing happened. Because not many people knew I was pregnant to begin with.

I genuinely hope things will be different for my daughter. I hope when her time comes, if she decided to even have kids, she feels free to shout her joy from the rooftops at the very first positive test. And if she ever loses a pregnancy, I hope she’ll have a support system that surrounds her right away because everyone was "in the know."

Because here’s the truth: you’re never “out of risk” for miscarriage. And this silly forced secrecy around the fist part of pregnancy only adds another layer of pain to an already devastating experience.

So I’m sharing this today for anyone who’s felt alone in this. You’re not. So many of us have walked this road in one way or another.
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And it’s time we talked about all of it openly 💛

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PO Box 322, McCall, ID 83638
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