Kelsey Cichoski
Kelsey Cichoski
My husband and I decided we wanted to become foster parents in 2018. We went through the licensing process and found out I was pregnant with our first child at the end of that year.
We felt confident that we could still foster while welcoming a new baby into our home. In early 2019, we were foster parents to three brothers and all of us were looking forward to welcoming this baby boy. Unexpectedly, I went into pre-term labor and our little boy was born too early to survive.
We learned that my pregnancies would always be high risk, and the thought of having another baby felt scary. Towards the end of the year, the brothers we were fostering were reunified with their family.
I decided I could be ready to be pregnant again. Shortly after receiving a positive pregnancy test, I went to the doctor because of a lump I found. As if the fear of pregnancy after loss wasn't enough, I was diagnosed with cancer while pregnant.
I received chemotherapy during and after pregnancy, learning that I was in remission when our little girl was five months old. I've learned that hard things happen to all of us. And even though life is not easy, it can still be good.
And this is my story.
I'm Kelsey.
As my chemotherapy treatments progressed, I noticed I stopped hearing from many of my friends. It was lonely!
When I finally heard from them, I would hear common phrases such as, "I haven't known what to say", and "You're going through something way harder than me, you don't need to hear about my hard things too".
As you might imagine, this didn't feel fair. Just because we're going through hard things, doesn't mean we should be isolated from others and their experiences. Actually, our experiences allow us to help each other!
we can lift each other up
your experiences matter
my story continues.
It might be easy to compare your experiences to someone else's.
You might think, "My experience is hard, but it isn't as hard as theirs."
I'm here to tell you that it does not matter.
Hard is hard. Your experiences matter.