As I sit here waiting for my challah dough to rise, I think of all of the experiences that I've been through since beginning fertility treatment. My husband and I would LOVE to have a child (or 2!). But there is so much richness and depth that I have uncovered going through my infertility journey.

For starters, I have always had a more serious, black-and-white outlook on life. I used to view having children as an obligation or an inevitable, at best. Now when I think about having children, tears come to my eyes at the happiness that I would feel to be so fortunate. I am thankful to G-d for allowing me the chance to resolve and form closer relationships than I ever would have attempted before infertility. The measures that I took to work on myself, to change negative patterns and ways of thinking, and the overall experience of morphing into a better version of myself...i'm not sure that I would trade those. For the first time in my life, I am able to find calm and to genuinely love myself. I look at everyday occurrences and feel sorry that I was unable to appreciate the miracles being performed around me before this.

Yes, there has been a lot of heartache and pain, both mentally and physiologically. And then, there was the social ramifications to infertility that created tremendous stress for me.