Dorothy & Me.

Last night laying in bed unable to find sleep I started thinking about my favorite movie, The Wizard of Oz. Yes, I have loved this movie since the age of 4 and still find myself watching it when it comes on TV and even jamming out to the soundtrack in my car. I mean come on, I walked down the aisle at my wedding to 'Somewhere Over The Rainbow.' This movie is in me.

Well, after much thought and analyst on my late night brain. I found a lot of connection between Dorothy's journey home to my journey with fertility. Yes, I can take a movie for kids and use it find fertility meaning behind it. Just like I can take any family drama, event or business transaction and relate it to the Godfather. Some may call this odd, I simply call it talent.

Here's my thought process:

Dorothy goes on this journey she never wanted to be on in the first place. Thrown into this whole new world full of strange people and she is forced to second guess everything she has ever known. Hello?!?! Does that not sound like a girl we know..me! I didn't want to go down the infertility journey but there I was two years ago staring at my own yellow brick road. Meeting very strange doctors and nurses who keep feeding information about baby making that didn't match up to what I was taught in school.

So there's Dorothy needing guidance, someone she can trust. In comes Glinda. I relate Glinda to your best friend or your Mom.. a girlfriend that takes the journey with you. Never giving you more advice then you can handle but always had the right answers for you when you needed them. At least that's how I see my Mom. She tells you that the path your on is the right one all the while fighting the evil witch of infertility with you.

Yes in this story infertility is played by the Wicked Witch of the West.


So you go on the journey down the yellow brick road. The first person you meet is your normal, everyday run of the mill OB/GYN, or the Scarecrow. Most women go to the same OB for years. There is a bond there, you're comfortable with them. But as I experienced most OB's have no clue where to begin with infertility. They give you a line just like out of the movie "You could go this way, or you could go that way"

You continue down the yellow brick road of fertility in the direction the Scarecrow gave you. Where does that yellow road lead? A big tall steel building that lacks heart and human emotion. You get to meet your first infertility doctor or as I like to call mine the Tin Man. If you remember in the movie the Tin Man had no heart, lost it. Just like the doctors I met. They forget about the human condition - that longing for babies, their heart doesn't see you only their wallets. What does Dorothy have to give the Tin Man to even move, oil. What did I have to give the doctors to even sit with me, money.

The Tin Man leads you even deeper down the yellow brick road. And this is where you meet yourself. You've come so far, you are almost there and then you start to doubt. Do I have the courage to continue? Am I strong enough for this? The doubt eats at you, your isolated in a forest of emotion just like The Cowardly Lion.

But you push through. And with infertility there is ALWAYS a set back. There is always a way that the evil witch will hurt you. And just like the movie Glinda will show up and help you. (thanks Mom) She'll make it snow so that the poppies won't get you and somehow it picks you up enough to continue.

When you finally have made up your mind and you have the plan in hand you see the solution at the end of the yellow brick road. The Emerald City is in view!
You would be wise to note the color of the Emerald City, green. The color of money.

Dorothy finally gets into to see the Wizard. The Wizard puts her on another crazy journey. Or in my case, a flight to Europe. Where like Dorothy, I had to fight the good fight, get in there and get the job done. And just like Dorothy I slayed that evil witch of infertility. I got back on the plane and went back home.

On the journey Dorothy had to deal with her own misgivings about herself. Was she smart enough, have enough heart, brave enough to handle the path at hand. And just like Dorothy I had to learn the power to achieve my dreams was always inside of me. I took this yellow brick road unsure of myself and who I was as a person and in the end weather there was a baby at the end or not I learned to trust myself and trust the person I had become.

And when I read the positive pregnancy stick and my hubby placed his hand on my tummy in that moment we became a family. A family that truly defines the last motto of the movie, "There is no place like home."