Our Journey: It Wasn't Always This Full House

We’re Nicole and Gabe, and before we say anything else, we want to welcome you to GrowingMyFamily. This community, this space, is truly our passion project, and it was born directly from our own long, winding, and often challenging journey through the world of infertility. We’re now parents to seven incredible kids, a lively, loving bunch who joined our family through a beautiful tapestry of ways: through marriage, through the experience of adoption (including an amazing sibling group of three!), through IUI, and through embryo donation.

It’s funny, Gabe originally envisioned a family of perhaps two children, while Nicole, well, my dream was always a bit closer to infinity! So, like any good partnership, we "compromised" with seven. Our kids now range in age from 18 all the way down to a precious infant, and our home is a symphony of joyful chaos, deep love, and constant learning.

Addressing the Elephant in the Room: Our Big, Beautiful, Sometimes Complicated Family

Now, we know what some of you might be thinking as you read this, especially if you’re in the thick of your own struggle to conceive or grow your family: "Seven kids? A family of nine? Easy for them to say! How can they really understand what I’m going through right now?"

And honestly? We get that. We truly, deeply understand that seeing a family of our size might feel a little… off-putting, perhaps even a bit triggering, when you're yearning with all your heart for even one child, or for that longed-for sibling. You might question whether we can genuinely connect with the raw pain, the uncertainty, the deep ache you might be experiencing.

We want to be completely upfront and honest about that, right from the start. We know that our current family size might seem like a distant, almost unimaginable dream for some, and we never, ever want our story to inadvertently minimize your pain or invalidate your unique experience. Your journey, your feelings, your longings – they are all so incredibly valid.

Our Journey: It Wasn't Always This Full House

The truth is, Friend, our path to building this family was anything but easy. It wasn't a simple, straightforward process of deciding we wanted children and then watching our family effortlessly grow. Our journey has spanned decades, and it has been filled with unexpected twists and turns, heartbreaking setbacks, and countless moments of profound disappointment.

We navigated the ups and downs, the hopes and the heartaches, of infertility throughout our entire relationship, for nearly twenty long years. Each child who joined our family did so after we faced the same struggles, the same anxieties, the same gut-wrenching decisions, and the same emotional rollercoasters that many of you are likely experiencing right now, or have experienced in the past. We took our journey one child, one hopeful cycle, one daunting decision at a time.

And even though we now have this wonderfully large family, we remember all too well the distinct pain and suffocating uncertainty that came with each attempt, each treatment cycle, each difficult choice.  Even our three amazing boys who joined us through adoption, a sibling group that brought immeasurable joy, came into our family only after years of navigating the incredibly complex, emotionally draining, and often frustrating adoption process – the mountains of paperwork, the intrusive home studies, the constant, gnawing fear that something, anything, would fall through at the last minute.

Honestly, those years were hard. So incredibly, achingly hard. Looking back now, with a little distance (we’re only a few months out of actively trying to grow our family, believe it or not!), I’m not sure we truly understood just how hard they were while we were in the thick of it. We were so intensely focused on surviving each day, each cycle, each appointment, each setback, that we didn't fully grasp the cumulative toll it was taking on our minds, our bodies, our spirits, and our marriage.

There were hundreds of nights filled with tears – quiet, sobbing tears into pillows, and sometimes, loud, angry, frustrated tears. There were countless hushed, anxious discussions in the dark, replaying what the doctor said, wondering what to do next. A constant undercurrent of worry and anxiety permeated every aspect of our lives, making it hard to fully enjoy moments of joy, always with that "what if" hanging over us. We questioned ourselves, our bodies, our relationship, and our fundamental ability to ever reach our dreams of completing the family that lived so vividly in our hearts.

Like many of you, we poured over medical information, hours spent online, desperately searching for answers, for hope, for some magic key. We weighed the pros and cons of countless treatment options, each with its own set of emotional, physical, and financial risks and uncertainties. And we grappled with the overwhelming financial burden of it all, a stressor that often goes unspoken but weighs so heavily.

And even after achieving "success," after the profound joy of welcoming each of our children into our lives, the trauma of infertility didn't just magically disappear like some bad dream. That’s a myth. We carry it with us still today. It’s a part of our story, a part of who we are. We are hoping, with all our hearts, that as time passes, the sharp edges of this pain will dull, but for now, we carry it. For us, and especially for me, Nicole, infertility has been more than just a challenge or a setback; it has truly been traumatizing, leaving lasting scars that continue to shape our perspectives, our empathy, and our experiences. It's something that we carry with us, a part of our story that we can't and wouldn't want to erase, because it’s led us to where we are, but it’s also something we acknowledge has had a profound and lasting impact on our lives.

Gaining Family Along the Way: More Than Just Biology, More Than Just Us

But here’s something truly beautiful and unexpected that happened along our winding road: we gained family. And not just in the traditional sense of welcoming children, but in ways that expanded our hearts and our understanding of what "family" truly means.

Our incredible doctor, who walked with us through so much, became such a pillar of support, such a beacon of hope, that one of our sons now proudly carries his name as a middle name! Everyone at our fertility clinic – the compassionate ultrasound techs who shared in our silent prayers, the meticulous lab techs who cared for our precious embryos, the kind nurses who offered a comforting hand or an encouraging word – they all became like family to us. They shared in our highest hopes and our deepest heartaches. When you spend that much time with people, entrusting them with your most vulnerable dreams, they become an indelible part of your story, your support system.

And of course, we built our family with our amazing older sons who joined us through the path of adoption, and our two wonderful younger sons who came to us through embryo donation. These paths expanded our hearts in ways we couldn't have imagined and deepened our understanding of the many beautiful, diverse ways families are formed. Our family loves and wholeheartedly embraces openness with our sons' biological families, and as a result, our family tree has blossomed into more of an orchard, with branches reaching out, connecting, and growing in unexpected and truly beautiful ways.

Our Winding Road: The Realities We Know You Understand

Our path has taken us down roads we never, ever imagined when we first dreamed of having a family. And it certainly hasn't been a smooth, easy ride. We’ve had the gut-wrenching tears, the sleepless nights filled with financial worries, the disagreements and, yes, the fights that come when you’re under immense stress and emotional strain. We've navigated the well-meaning but sometimes painful comments from family and friends. We've struggled with the relentless balancing act of medical appointments, work responsibilities, and trying to maintain some semblance of a normal life.

We've stopped and started our family-building journey more than once, sometimes needing to pause to regroup emotionally or financially. There have been years – almost a full decade at one stretch! – of actively trying to grow our family without success, month after month of hope followed by disappointment. We have felt and navigated infertility differently as individuals, Gabe and I, but we have always, ultimately, faced it together. It has not always been easy, and we are so incredibly thankful, so profoundly grateful, to be writing a new chapter of life after active infertility in our own lives. It’s been a long, nearly 20-year journey.

Looking back over these last two decades, we see now, with a clarity that only time and experience can bring, that every tear has been worth it. Every injection, every procedure, every loss, every setback. While infertility forced us down paths we didn't choose, we cannot imagine our lives, our family, without any single one of our children, almost all of whom exist in our family because of the challenges of infertility. We know the sting of grief. We know the ache of sadness. We know the sharp pang of envy. We know the constant hum of anxiety, the heavy weight of worry, and the crushing burden of stress.

We truly hope you see our family not as a testament to an easy or charmed journey, but rather as a symbol of resilience, of tenacious hope, and of an unwavering belief that family can be built in countless beautiful, miraculous, and sometimes unexpected ways.

Why We Created GrowingMyFamily – For You

This is why GrowingMyFamily exists. We created it for you, for every single person walking this path, no matter what stage you’re in or what your specific circumstances may be. It’s everything we wish we had consistently for ourselves during those long, often lonely, years of uncertainty and struggle.

We wanted to create a place where you can find honest information, not just medical jargon, but real talk about the emotional side of things. A place where you can find unwavering, non-judgmental support. And most importantly, a place where you can find a community that truly, deeply understands what you’re going through, because we’ve been there too.

So, welcome to our family, Friend. We're so incredibly glad you're here. You belong.