A reintroduction.

Hello blog! It’s been a while. I am not quite sure where or when I abandoned you. I guess I could go back and re-read through my old posts and figure that out, but I won’t.

So you may be wondering what I’ve been up to and why I feel the need to reintroduce myself as the title of this blog suggests. Fair.

In the words of the great Taylor Swift, “The old Alexis can’t come to the phone right now. Why…? Oh, cause she’s dead.” Okay, that may be a bit dramatic, but it’s true in so many ways.

I am not the same girl who started writing this blog a couple of years go.

Let’s unpack that.

So what has remained the same? I am still practicing law. I still absolutely love what I do from the moment that I wake up to the moment that I go sleep. My husband and I are still married and we still love and like each other (no easy feat after close to 10 years of marriage). And, most importantly, I still love God with all of my heart, soul, and strength.

So, I know what you are thinking – what has changed? “Everything has changed” [I need you to read that back in the Ed Sheeran, TS masterpiece, Everything Has Changed].

In July of 2020 while at my brother’s wedding, Jeff and I decided that it was time to start a family. Very naively, we thought that we were in complete control of that decision; that we could plan out every second of what that looked like.

In my head, the formula was simple: find a new job, buy a house, wait a year, get pregnant, bring home a baby. What could go wrong? The plan was so well thought out.

Welp, it turns out that our chromosomal makeup would render our carefully thought out plan quite useless. Of course, we wouldn’t know that for another 2 years.

I plan to go into the details of my side of our fertility journey in the coming months, but suffice to say, Jeff and I fell into the 1 in 6 couples who will face infertility struggles. We became members of a club that no one ever wants to join. Again, I plan to unpack the impact of infertility in the coming months, but suffice to say I met a grief that I didn’t know existed. That grief has forever marked me. It’s made me softer in a million different ways, and has admittedly hardened parts of my heart that I am not sure can ever be softened again.

I am infertile.

In the midst of this profound grief, we turned our sorrow to God with open hands and asked for his guidance. In the stillness and silence of Holy God, he led us straight to our two “nevers:” foster care and IVF.

That’s right, your girl is licensed to parent. In October of 2022, Jeff and I received our license as Level II foster parents in the State of Florida. Again, I will be going into the licensing process and all that the process entailed [spoiler alert: it was utterly frustrating and unpleasant]. For about 1 year now, we have been fostering a beautiful child. Now, here’s the deal. I fully plan on sharing my experience as a foster parent. My foster child’s story is his own. Out of deep respect for him and his first family [and a bunch of legally binding documents], I will not share personal details of his life or story so don’t ask.

Suffice to say this: in the year that I have been a foster parent I have been exposed to brokenness like never before. I have borne witness to a world that had always somehow existed outside of my own life of admitted privilege. I have experienced anger, frustration, despair, and I have also experienced profound love, hope, and healing.

I am a foster parent.

Concurrent with our adventure in foster care, we entered the jungle of IVF. I don’t know if I can ever fully articulate the trauma, beauty, and pain associated with our IVF journey, but I will at least try to chronicle my experience (if for nothing else to have some sort of written record of this bad ass thing that I accomplished in my life). I am currently 25 weeks pregnant with our miracle baby boy.

I am an IVF warrior.

Interwoven in this very complex series of events, Jeff and I finally learned after 10 years what marriage is all about. We have grieved together. We have fought together (not against each other). We have stood side-by-side and faced incredibly hard things together. Our marriage was put through the fire and it did not burn.

I am a wife.

In all of these heavy and complex themes that unfolded in my life in a very short span of time I learned something: even in God’s silence, He was near. I have learned how to abide and be sustained by daily grace.

I am a child of God.

In writing all of this I have changed my mind. Perhaps the old Alexis isn’t dead after all (sorry, Taylor). Perhaps I am the same person forever marked by this experience.

So all that being said, welcome back.