If you don't know about my journey through IVF, you probably don't know that I started my treatment locally where I live in Chicago.

And after I went through IUIs and IVFs without success getting pregnant. I took some time off. I took a break and one of my very closest girlfriends was going to Colorado in seeking treatment at a clinic out there.  At that point, to be quite honest, I wasn't sure I was ready to start my IVF journey again.

I was really at a crossroads after going through the IUIs and the IVFs and all the emotional turmoil. I really was not sure I was ready to say yes to IVF again. It was Through my girlfriend to encourage me, like this place is different, the doctors, the vibe, the protocols, all that is so different than what you went through in Chicago, at least make a consult call, talk to someone at the clinic and go from there.  It was because of her that I decided to seek my treatment again in Colorado. So being in Colorado this past week, there was a lot for us to experience together because if you aren't familiar with the way things go when you seek treatment out of your local area, I would do the early parts of my priming and my stem cycles in Chicago, I would go through my monitoring appointments in the early parts of my treatment here in Chicago and then when it looked like I was responding and my follicle count was growing and my levels were increasing, then I would get on an airplane, fly out to Colorado. Stay in a hotel for the remainder of my stem cycle until it was time for a retrieval.

  Sometimes it was 7 or 8 days that we would be out there; paying for a hotel, a lot of the treatment was out of pocket because I just didn't have insurance coverage. My lifetime max was $10,500, so it was a huge financial investment for me to say yes to this clinic in Colorado.

And on top of that include the airfare, hotels and food while we were there, I had to take PTO because I wasn't eligible for time off for seeking treatments outside of my local area. So going back to Colorado was an interesting thing for us because we spent a lot of time in the Denver area and because we were there for multiple days, we would always try to find some adventure to get into, go for a scenic drive, go check out something new and we were just in Colorado Springs.

Which I remember one of my cycles. We drove down to Colorado Springs for the day, but to actually stay there and experience all the beauty that is there is just amazing.  So we had this beautiful view.

We chose to stay at this hotel that had a view of the garden of the gods.  The place we stayed was very health focused, there was a spa that had a health club and you could go for classes every day.

So I chose to work out every day and go to the classes and this morning we went to this stretching class together, and the woman who led the class started out the class was something that just hit me so hard. And I wanted to really talk about this topic on the podcast this week. She started out the class by asking, what if today is the best day of your life? I'll think about that. What if today is the best day of your life? I was sitting there thinking, what does that really mean? What if today is the best day of your life? What are we waiting for to happen for today to be the best day of our life?

 I really wanted to peel back those questions a little bit because it marinated with me throughout the whole class and throughout my travels back to Chicago tonight and I was thinking, what is it that we are waiting for in order for us to say today is the best day of our life, and maybe it doesn't even have to be the best day.

 What if today is a great day?  Let's start there, because I know for many of us, we thought the best day of our life was going to be the day that we became a mom, and that's not in our cards. That's not in our future. So at what point are we going to decide that we can have our best days again?

If you're like me for many, many months after I found out that I couldn't become a mom, I didn't know that I'd have a best day again. I didn't know that that was possible for women who wanted to be moms and they couldn't. And yes, I still get emotional about that, and I still feel such a closeness to that emotion, but I've also decided that I want to have great days again.

I want to have more best days of my life and best years of my life. And I don't want to give that up just because I couldn't become a mom. So I want you to think if it's possible for you to even consider that you're ready to have the best day of your life again? Can you reset your expectations of what your best day might look like?

If we can take out of our equation, the need for being a mother or the need for having children to create the best days of our lives, if we can just take that out, even just for this exercise  I'm offering you this week, can you reset your expectations of what a best day might look like for you, knowing that you're not going to be a mom, knowing that you're childless, not by choice, can you think of some things that would happen or some things that you would create for yourself that would offer you an opportunity to think that today is the best day. Maybe it doesn't have to supersede something that's happened in your in your past.  Maybe your wedding day is always going to be the best day of your life. And that's great. We're not telling you that in order to have another good day, it's got to supersede everything in your past.

But let's just think about all the great days that we want to have. What would be in that day? What might you be thinking or what might you be feeling? Or doing or believing about yourself in order to really sit into your best days being here,  being in this body that you're in right now, whether you're listening in your car while you're driving, or maybe you're listening to me and watching me on YouTube, think, like, why today on the calendar, whatever day it is on the calendar, why is it that you're allowing yourself to believe that there is no best day today? What is it that is coming up in your life, what are the things that maybe you're engaging in or not feeling fulfilled in, which is not a problem.

I mean, no judgment that you might not feel like today can be your best day, but let's think about why today can't be your best day. Is it something that's going on around you? Is it maybe something that you're thinking about yourself or about your life? Or about your opportunity that is ahead of you that is keeping you feeling that there is no best day ahead.

If maybe just for this next 10 minutes, imagine what you would be doing in order for today to be your best day. Maybe you don't even have to do anything differently, but the most. Beautiful opportunity. I can offer you is what can you be thinking about yourself in your story in order to believe that today is your best day?

Because for so long, we really lost hope that this was as good as it was going to get and your best days, you might believe. I know I did. I believe that they were behind me and I thought, yeah, I'm going to move forward. Yeah, I'm still going to have a job that pays me well and a husband that loves me and a family that is supportive, like all these things that I think are really important for us to embrace and, and to recognize, and I thought I'm a bad human I am if I don't appreciate that as being enough, but I realized like I was short changing myself and I don't want you to short change yourself any longer. I want you to know that your best days can be multiple. They don't have to be just one singular event that you need to look forward to the rest of your life.

And how can you start creating your best days today? If it's something that you think you want more of, I want to invite you to join me in Thrive After Infertility. Thrive After Infertility will help you create a roadmap for your best days. And I know it because I'm teaching my students all the tools that I used to create my journey of Best days, multiple of them, and I know I have every inch of my body knows that they're plentiful.

I don't think that they're scarce. I know that the way that I see my life and the way that I'm choosing to believe about myself being childless, not by choice. I know my best days are so plentiful and so exciting that I can't wait to see what's ahead. And if you're feeling like you're not sure how to get there.

All I can tell you is that the students that I've worked with and watching them grow and watching them create their own best days, their ideas of things that they didn't think were possible. Maybe they didn't even think they were able to achieve. So they didn't even want to take themselves to tap into that part of their life.

Let me tell you, I am watching these students of mine go on to do such amazing things. Without changing much beyond their perspective about who they are as a women without children and what's possible for them without children. So thrive after infertility is. Such a beautiful tool that I invite you to be part of.  I have a wait list right now. If you want to get on the wait list, please go to lanamanikowski.com/thrive. You should be able to put yourself on the wait list there. You can find me on Instagram or email me. And. I'll send you just some information about the program, but it's so important for me to let you know that this exists because for so long, I didn't know that today could be my best day and leaving Colorado for the first time with Jack, where it wasn't part of my fertility journey.

There was such this hope that I didn't have to become a mom to have more best days. I want you to know that your best days are waiting for you,  you might not see it right now. You might think that best days are reserved for people whose story didn't sound like your story sounded, or maybe people who didn't have to go through the, the trauma that you went through during your fertility journey.

And I'm going to tell you. That that's false and I know it because I see people grow stories and heartaches and desperations through their journey that They have been able to grow from and create beauty from. So I wish that for everyone that I know, and that's why I got my certification in life coaching.

And that's why I started  my coaching practice and reinstated this  zest for life because I know that my best days we're not behind me and I know your best days are still waiting for you. So I love you. I hope you have a beautiful week and remember it is never too late to discover your meaning.

I'll talk to you next week.