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On some level, I believed that I could be a perfect mother. She was just beyond my fingertips. If only I strained and stretched a teeny bit more, like the toy truck under the table at the diner, just out of reach, but plainly visible between the spoons and bites of pancake that your son threw on the floor.

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I never knew how hard some couples try, only to become disappointed month after month, year after year. Now I do.

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God gave me you—you were my December gift. 

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I blamed my body every day for what had happened. To be honest, even two years later, I still do some days.

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I love your babies and I love being their “bonus mom.” But I am exactly that — a bonus.

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I’m Sarena, an anxious mom with an overactive imagination who worries about anything and everything. 

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There really are two sides to every photo. There’s the beautiful backgrounds and the cute clothes and the sparkling smiles, and then there’s the reality (for most).

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I wanted you to see me when you looked at me, instead of just a reflection of yourself. A tangible representation of what you created. A living, breathing, flawed human woman.

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You cannot even begin to comprehend why, of all people, you suffer from infertility.

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We need to build each other up, not tear each other down.