Footsteps for Fertility 5K

In June, my friend Kelsey added me to the Utah Infertility Support Group Facebook page. It's been an awesome group to be a part of, and through it I found out about the Footsteps for Fertility Foundation. They hold 5Ks four times a year, and at each one several couples win full or partial IVF cycles through a raffle (you get tickets by you and your family entering the run). I found out that the SLC 5K was going to be held at the end of August. I wanted something to work towards anyway, and so I thought that running in the race and having a slim chance for an IVF cycle would be great!

When I signed up for it in June, I started running 3 times a week using the Couch to 5K app. It was really helpful and would have me run intervals of walking/running and was supposed to gradually get you trained to run a 5K. I think it's a 9 week program. But after I found out I was pregnant, I stopped running, and then I couldn't run until after my miscarriage was done. So I couldn't start running again until a week and a half before the run.

Jordan had signed up to run it with me, and then he found out that his finance camping trip was the same day, so Krista was nice enough to run it with me. It was great to have her there! Neither of us are in super shape so we just stayed together and walked/ran.

Here we are before the race started.

I had a great time. It was so awesome to be around all these people who have the same struggle that I've been through. At the end of the race, they raffled off 2 full IVF cycles and 4 $5000 infertility grants. It was amazing to watch the winners, they all burst into tears and were just thrilled. They also had past winners of the races come up and pick the names of the raffle--and they all had their IVF twin babies with them. I was just so happy to see all these people have the chance to make these miracles happen. What a great thing!

They gave out gift bags to the "team leaders." It included a cute onesie, a pen, lots of pamphlets from different fertility clinics, and a book about infertility.

It also had this sperm pen, which I found really hilarious. 

Also some information on infertility (in case some of those reading my blog don't know, ours is female infertility--I have endometriosis, irregular cycles, and a short luteal phase). 

Also IVF information (yep, it's THAT expensive, and insurance very rarely covers any of it).

Anyway, it was really awesome. I enjoyed the run and hope to go to another one someday.

After the run was over, Krista and I had to book it back to Laurie's house, where she was holding a bridal shower for one of Jordan's cousins. We were very sweaty and gross, but everyone was nice enough to pretend they didn't care.

We took a picture of the boy cousins together. Logan really loves Oliver (on the right) and wants to hold him and love on him all the time. It's adorable but makes me kind of sad. He'll be a great big brother someday, but I really hope it's sooner rather than later.