Reflecting on the past year and what has led us to this point in our lives.

The number one question we get asked… “How is the house renovation going?” Which is totally understandable because that was our focus ever since we bought our forever home. That is why I wanted to answer this first off. The renovation of our home has been put on hold. I have a tendency to be of the belief that discussing personal finances should be a private matter and that money talk is taboo. But I also want to be completely transparent and allow myself to be vulnerable in this space too. So ever since we began our fertility treatment and learned that we were going to have to begin IVF, all our funds and efforts have been put towards that. It is financial that we cannot do both, our fertility treatment and home renovation, at the same time. Our priorities changed when we found out that we were not going to be able to get pregnant naturally. It was truly an entire shift in the trajectory of our lives. We immediately knew that we had to make starting our family our main focus and everything else could come later. We originally planned to renovate the house while trying to get pregnant and figured all would fall into place. However, now with the tremendous expense of needing fertility treatment, all our decisions needed to change accordingly. Unfortunately, our insurance does not have coverage for anything fertility related. All the treatment we have received thus far has been completely out of pocket.

It’s funny how one thing in life can prompt the next…and how one dream can lead to another or even a completely new dream. One thing I have learned is how important it is to be fluid in life, dreams can change, priorities shift and not to hold on to one dream so tightly that it prohibits you from evolving and leading you to where you are truly meant to be. The need that our fertility treatment presented prompted us to look for the next step in our careers. 

That is why this past year will be known as ‘the year of the great job search’. I actively began pursuing job searching aggressively over the course of the last year. With the current state of the job market being what it is, job searching is a full-time job in and of itself and needs to be if you are going to get results of any significance. At least this is what it means to us. If anyone has put serious effort into a job search in a market like the one we are faced with today (I’m looking at you fellow college graduates who entered the work force during the recession), then you know how incredibly intense and demanding it is. To say it is an undertaking is an understatement. And to endure this type of climate in the job market not once but now twice in a lifetime should give the millennial generation some serious overdue recognition and credit for resilience. 

Dustin and I have opened new avenues of interest and made many meaningful connections for career advancement this past year. If it was not for the need that our fertility treatment presented, we might not have explored these avenues. We are looking forward to where they may lead and what’s to come!