My name is Mary and my fertility journey started five years ago. I was twenty-five years old at the time, and felt that getting pregnant should be simple, intuitive and natural. Twelve months of actively and unsuccessfully trying to conceive showed me how wrong I was to think so.

Baffled, we found ourselves at RSI/Shady Grove fertility clinic in January of 2010. They did a baseline medical work-up and the blood work astonishingly showed that I was already pregnant.

We were thrilled but our joy was brief. The next round of blood work showed that my HcG levels were nor rising, and I miscarried shortly thereafter.

We stayed on at Shady Grove for as long as we could but within months all our medical coverage for infertility ran out. Our insurance only allocated $3000 for infertility and that was barely enough to scratch the surface. The whole process was prohibitively expensive – made all the more so because we had “unexplained infertility.” (Which meant that they did not know what was wrong with me or what I would need to do to get pregnant.)

After a while, we simply could not handle the continued out-of-pocket expense of seeking infertility treatments. We left the clinic and kept trying on our own.

As chance would have it – I became pregnant again in January 2012. But once again, my happiness was short-lived. This miscarriage hit me even harder than the last. It was devastating.

But life goes on and you live it, knowing your heart is full and your arms are empty.

On January of 2013, knowing that 30 was right around the corner, I made a promise to myself that THIS was the year: I was going to get healthy, lose some weight, work out and start taking care of myself. I was determined. I started working out, eating better and slowly the extra weight started coming off and I felt healthier than I had in a long time. I became a myfitnesspal and fitbit addict. I logged everything and loved looking at all my progress. With the help of these two programs, I lost 75 lbs over the course of the last year.

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In the midst of all this, I also found Glow. And it felt good to gain some control over my reproductive health the way that I had over other aspects of my life. Glow was the perfect app to keep me accountable and outline a plan for me. I was very grateful for the reminders to get busy or to stock up on ovulation tests. And yes, they are cheesy – but I really enjoyed some of the tasks. You know what – it’s fun having a picnic in bed! In fact, we did a lot of the tips – and while I can’t quantify exactly how much they helped – you cannot argue with success. I am now 16 weeks pregnant – and feel it wouldn’t have gone this smoothly without Glow.

It has been a long and turbulent journey – but I can honestly say I am healthier and happier than I have been in a long time. All I need now is for Glow to hurry up and develop a <a href="https://play.google.com/store/apps/details?id=com.glow.android.nurture">pregnancy app</a>!