This Thanksgiving, I'm Grateful for Science
This Thanksgiving, I’m grateful for science.
I know that’s not usually how these posts start. Typically, people lead with family, health, home. I’m grateful for those things, too. But, this year, I keep coming back to this: I’m grateful for IVF.
For the embryologists and laboratory staff that handled my embryos with care—the humans in the lab elsewhere, doing meticulous work that I’ll never fully understand. The ones who called with daily updates after each retrieval. Calls that changed my life.
For the protocol that worked after others didn’t. For my doctor providing the support and guidance to give it another try. For the needles that hurt but did what they needed to do. For the technology that made my family possible when my body couldn’t do it alone.
For the science that brought my daughter and son earthside.
The Ordinary Moments.
Seven years ago, I didn’t know if Thanksgiving would ever feel like this.
I was deep in treatment. Two egg retrieval cycles and two failed transfers in. Shots every night following my third transfer. Hope and heartbreak on repeat. Thanksgiving dinner meant dodging questions about when we’d have kids, watching pregnant cousins and in-laws, crying in the bathroom, wondering if it would ever be our turn. Trying so hard to make it a reality.
This year? My preschooler cuddled on the couch having a “PJ” day. My 1st grader drawing cards for our company coming for lunch. Both of them enjoying the Macy’s Parade playing in the background. I’m so tired in a completely different way. And I’m so grateful it still takes my breath away, these little moments.
I’m grateful for the ordinary moments I never thought I’d have:
Bedtime stories where she demands three books instead of two. Sticky kisses that leave syrup on my cheek. Tantrums over the wrong color bowl. Markers on the floor (okay, so not completely grateful for this one, but grateful to have a kiddo who can leave these love marks). “Mommy, look at this!” approximately eight hundred times a day.
The mundane, magical, everyday that I fought so hard to get.
The Both/And of It
Here’s what I’m learning about gratitude after infertility: it doesn’t erase the hard parts. It sits alongside them.
I’m grateful for my daugher and son AND I still think about the embryos that didn’t make it.
I’m thankful for what worked AND I still remember what didn’t.
I’m celebrating this chapter AND I’m still processing the one that came before.
Both things are true. Both things matter.
People expect you to be “over it” once you have your baby. Like the infertility experience just evaporates the moment you get a positive test. But it doesn’t work that way. At least not for me.
My heart still drops at pregnancy announcements. I still feel tender during baby showers. I still parent with one eye on what we went through to get here-more anxious, more grateful, more aware of how fragile everything is.
Grateful doesn’t mean happy all the time. It means I’m holding complexity. Joy and grief. Relief and residual trauma. The family I have and the alternate versions that almost were.
I get to be grateful AND still healing. Those aren’t mutually exclusive.
The People Who Stayed
I’m also grateful for the people who held me through it.
The friends who asked “how are you?” and actually waited for the real answer, not the “fine” we offer at the grocery store checkouts.
The family members who learned what NOT to say. Who stopped with “just relax” and “everything happens for a reason” and started with “this is hard” and “I’m here”.
The partner who held me through the hardest parts. Who gave shots when I couldn’t do it myself. Who cried with me after bad news and hoped with me through another cycle.
The community who gets it because they’ve lived it too. You. The people reading this who understand infertility doesn’t end when treatment does. Who know what it’s like to carry this story while moving forward. Who make me feel less alone in the both/and of it all.
Thank you for being here. For sharing your stories. For letting me share mine.
What Science Gave Me
When I think about what IVF gave me, the list is longer than just “a baby” (though that alone would be enough).
Science gave me:
Transfer day courage: walking into that room knowing this might work or might not, but choosing to hope anyway.
Two-week wait resilience: learning to hold uncertainty without letting it consume me (mostly).
A positive test: after so many negative, finally seeing two lines and not quite believing it. Especially when testing 6 DPT (IYKYK).
Ultrasound heartbeats: the first one, the fragile flutter that made everything real, terrifying, and incredible all at once.
Morning sickness I was grateful to have: every wave of nausea a reminder that something was growing that I couldn’t see.
Nine months of holding my breath: the longest, most anxious, most grateful months of my life.
A daughter and son who are mine: who came through the needles, waiting rooms, protocols, and prayers. Who almost weren’t. Who are.
Science gave me my family. I’ll never take that for granted.
To Those Still Waiting
I know Thanksgiving is complicated for those still in the wait.
Still trying. Still hoping. Still grieving. Still navigating the space between where you are and where you want to be.
If that’s you, I’m thinking of you this week.
I know family gatherings can be hard. The questions about kids. The pregnancy announcements. The watching everyone else’s children run around while you wonder it it will ever be your turn.
I know it feels like everyone’s life is moving forward while yours is stuck in place. I know you’re tired of being brave. I know you’re holding more than anyone can see.
I want you to know: your story isn’t over.
I can’t promise it will work out the way you hope- I wish I could. But I can promise that wherever you are in this journey, you’re not forgotten. You’re not alone. And you belong at the table, too. Even if your family doesn’t look the way you thought it would yet.
Your trying matters. Your hoping matters. Your enduring through impossible things matters.
The gratitude I feel for where I am now? It doesn’t erase where I was. It doesn’t minimize what you’re going through. Both experiences can be true at once.
I see you. I remember. I’m holding hope for you.
However You’re Holding This Holiday
Thanksgiving asks us to be grateful. And most of the time, that’s a beautiful thing.
But if you’re navigating this holiday with complicated feelings- gratitude mixed with grief, celebration alongside loss, hope tangled with exhaustion-that’s okay, too.
You don’t owe anyone simple gratitude.
You can be grateful for what you have AND sad about what you don’t. Thankful for how far you’ve come AND tired from the journey. Celebrating today AND still processing yesterday.
However you’re holding this day, with gratitude, with grief, with hope, with exhaustion, with all of it at once, you’re doing it right.
There’s no wrong way to survive a hard season.
What I’m Holding
This Thanksgiving, I’m holding:
Gratitude for the science that made my family possible
Joy for the ordinary, messy, beautiful moments I have now.
Tenderness for the alternate versions of my story that didn’t come to be.
Appreciation for the people who stayed through the hard parts.
Hope for everyone still in the thick of it.
And space for all of it to be true at once.
Because that’s what this journey taught me— you can hold more than one thing. You can be grateful and still healing. Joyful and still tender. Moving forward and still processing.
Both/and. Always both/and.
A Final Thought
If you’re spending Thanksgiving with family who don’t quite get it, who ask questions that sting, who expect you to be “over it” by now, I’m sorry. That’s hard.
If you’re spending it alone or with chosen family because blood family is too much-I get it. Sometimes distance is self-care.
If you’re spending it navigating the complexiitty of parenting after infertility, welcome to the club. It’s weird here. We’re grateful and triggered at the same time.
And if you’re spending it in the middle of treatment, in the thick of waiting, in the aftermath of loss- I’m thinking of you especially. Your story matters. Every part of it. Not just the ending you’re hoping for, but right now. Today. This moment,
However your Thanksgiving looks, you’re doing it right.
What are you holding this Thanksgiving? I’d love to hear from you in the comments. The gratitude, the grief, the hope, the complicated feelings. All of it’s welcome here.
Your story matters. Every part of it.
With gratitude to this community,
-A
