By Rosemary Donahue, Allure
Mother's Day means very different things to different people. Some of us use it to celebrate our own motherhood, others use the day to celebrate the fact that birth control exists, and some of us take our moms to brunch and thank them for our very existence. Sara Walsh, a sports anchor who was recently laid off from ESPN, used the day to share an important Instagram about the sometimes-turbulent road to motherhood — a message many others can relate to.
[post_ads]In a post on Instagram, Walsh is posing between her infant twins in onesies with the words "good egg" on the front. The caption of the post explains that Walsh's mother bought the onesies for the twins because she'd thought they were funny. Walsh adds that the saying has a deeper meaning for her and her husband, though, because of the miscarriages Walsh experienced and the in vitro fertilization she underwent on her path to conceiving her twin babies.
“Finding a good egg didn’t come easy for me, and I suspect there are many people out there facing the same struggle," Walsh writes. She continues on to describe the troubles she and her husband Matt had while trying to conceive: Her first pregnancy ended in a miscarriage that she had on air while hosting SportsCenter — Matt texted her during commercial breaks to talk her through the tragedy. She then had two more failed pregnancies, all the while keeping her health situation a secret from her employer: "More than once, I'd have surgery one day and be on SportsCenter the next so as not to draw attention to my situation," she reveals.
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After this, they tried in vitro fertilization, and when Walsh began pregnant again she hid her growing stomach, told few people of her pregnancy, and declined to announce it publicly. She's now the mother of two young children. Although she was recently laid off by ESPN, she says that spending the past few Mother's Days hosting SportsCenter was "personally brutal, an hours-long reminder of everything that had gone wrong." She spent this Mother's Day exactly where she wanted to be, with her children.
[post_ads]In a post on Instagram, Walsh is posing between her infant twins in onesies with the words "good egg" on the front. The caption of the post explains that Walsh's mother bought the onesies for the twins because she'd thought they were funny. Walsh adds that the saying has a deeper meaning for her and her husband, though, because of the miscarriages Walsh experienced and the in vitro fertilization she underwent on her path to conceiving her twin babies.
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After this, they tried in vitro fertilization, and when Walsh began pregnant again she hid her growing stomach, told few people of her pregnancy, and declined to announce it publicly. She's now the mother of two young children. Although she was recently laid off by ESPN, she says that spending the past few Mother's Days hosting SportsCenter was "personally brutal, an hours-long reminder of everything that had gone wrong." She spent this Mother's Day exactly where she wanted to be, with her children.
The comments on the post were overwhelmingly positive, and many thanked her for sharing her story; some commenters shared their own experiences with miscarriages and in vitro fertilization. Given that it's still too rare for women to speak out about reproductive struggles, discussions like these are sorely needed.
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