Why I Started Writing:

When you go on maternity leave twice in six months, people begin to ask questions. And when you are on TV daily, and hundreds of thousands of people think of you like family, there is no possible way to keep your story a secret. I was a writer by trade, a journalist who wrote about others’ tragedies and triumphs, but I had never written publicly about my own. When I started blogging at the request of my employer as a way to stay connected to my viewers on my maternity leaves, I found a huge community of women who, like me, were struggling with infertility and loss. Although I was sharing my personal story, my goal was to give hope to the one in four couples that will suffer a miscarriage and the six out of ten people who will have an experience with adoption. The more I shared about my path to motherhood, the more I found there was a social stigma associated with miscarriage, adoption, infertility, and all the ugly emotions that can come with these events. I couldn’t accept women weren’t seeing the love of family, friends, and our Lord during this time in their lives. Being honest about my pain freed me from some of the past that haunted me, just as much as my honesty helped so many women who watched me--and continue to watch me--every day on TV.

Authors Who Have Influenced Me:

As a young adult, I read Elizabeth Glasser’s memoir, An Absence of Angels, about twenty-five times. Her life and death had such an impact on people. I truly believe that was the beginning of my calling to share what would become my story. I devour the words of pastors such as  Matt Bays and J.R Mahon. If I’m not seeking out inspiration and hope in nonfiction, I am getting lost in juicy fiction from authors like Jennifer Weiner and Beatriz Williams.

Books I Have Written:

Stand by; I’m just getting started!

What I'm Working On Now:

I’m eagerly awaiting the publication of my memoir: 5 Months Apart: A Story of Infertility, Faith, and Grace. My journey to becoming a mother wasn’t an easy one, and it certainly wasn’t glamorous. Even as a local television news anchor, our family wasn’t featured in the national news as a result of our miracle story. The miracle was simply God’s plan. As I struggled with depression on live television for three years, I found that most women (and especially those from a faith-based background) were not talking about their losses or their own experiences with infertility. Over the course of nearly four years, my husband and I had to face the difficult issues of sex, marriage, infidelity, adoption, divorce, and infertility—issues the church is still wary of taking on even today. Even in the Christian community, taboo words like “miscarriage,” “abortion,” and “adoption” are all too often swept under the rug. Pretending a problem doesn’t exist doesn’t make that problem disappear.

 

Five Months Apart is intended to help women come out of this society-imposed seclusion, to cry and scream and stomp their feet, to engage in productive and progressive discussion, and, through it all, believe in the ultimate happy ending: a successful pregnancy and adoption. Throughout, the underlying messages are faith, honesty, and enduring grace. Our story isn’t a story just about loss or pain. Our story is about how we still created the family we’d worked so hard to build despite the obstacles--how we found our way back to our faith and each other. Most importantly, our story is proof God’s plan is undeniably better than our own.