Meet my nephew Weston. I love this little man. He has the same red hair and brown eyes and, unfortunately for his parents, acts a lot like I did at his age. He often gets mistaken for my kid when we are together in public.

Right before my brother and sister-in-law announced they were pregnant, we started the process for our first round of AI. I was taking hormones to prepare on the heels of a couple of painful procedures. We just knew this procedure was going to work. We found out that we were going to be an aunt and uncle in November, and our AI was in December.

I was so excited that we might have cousins the same age. My brother and I had one first cousin, but he was 10-15 years older than us. This was going to be epic! Unfortunately, that was not going to be the case for us. The AI did not take on the first round, nor did it take for the next few rounds.  One took and ended in miscarriage.

Sometime in that process, Weston graced our world. I was thrilled, and a lot sad. I wanted to be holding my own baby as well. We were supposed to celebrate together.

I kept my hope alive as we continued on our process and considered the next step of our journey. I didn’t tell my brother and sister-in-law about this until this past Christmas. They never knew the timing of our AI. I didn’t want to steal their joy — I don’t want to steal anyone’s joy.

Its hard for me to admit this, but each announcement and baby/kid pictures that I see online steals a small part of my joy.   It can set me back hours, days or even months.  I have to be creative in finding my joy again, but I always do and it is often in those little familiar brown eyes of our ornery, spunky little Weston. #NIAW #startasking