Hi fellow family enthusiast,

This one is a little different. I want to talk about something that doesn't come up enough in the spaces where baby clothes are sold and nursery décor is admired and everyone seems to be pregnant or newly postpartum.

I want to talk about the waiting

The hoping. The treatments. The endless appointments and the bloodwork and the two-week waits that feel like two years. The quiet grief of cycles that don't work. The complicated feelings of watching everyone around you seem to arrive at parenthood easily, while you're in the middle of one of the hardest journeys a person can take.

I want to talk about IVF. Because I'm in it too.

I'm not writing this from the outside

I started Fambly because I've always been someone who gravitates toward family life, the softness of it, the meaning of it. I pour that love into every piece we create. But what I don't always talk about is the other side of that. The longing that lives underneath it all. The reason this brand means so much more to me than just clothing.

My husband and I are on the IVF journey right now. And it is - as anyone who's been through it knows - one of the most quietly intense experiences you can go through as a couple.

What I've learned from being in it

It's lonely. Even with the most supportive partner, family, and friends, there's a particular kind of loneliness in IVF. The one where you feel like you can't talk about it too much, or you'll become that person, or you'll get the advice you didn't ask for.

Hope becomes both your best friend and the most frightening thing in the world. You need it to keep going. You're also terrified of it. You hold it carefully, like something fragile.

And the small things help more than you'd expect. The ritual that becomes oddly grounding. The message from a friend who just says thinking of you today. The gift left on your doorstep from someone who didn't need to say anything, just showed up.

You are seen here

Fambly was built as a place for families, and that means all kinds of families, at all kinds of stages. It means the family that already exists. And it means the family being fiercely, bravely, quietly fought for.

If you are in the middle of fertility treatment right now, you are not invisible here. This journal is for you too.

Something we're building for you

Because of my own journey, I've been working on something that I wish had existed when I started.

A small Fambly collection made specifically for the IVF experience. Things that bring a little lightness to something that can feel so heavy. A little humour for the moments that are almost too absurd not to laugh at.

Something beautiful to wear to yet another early morning appointment, so you walk in feeling like yourself and not just a patient. Something that makes you feel seen, and maybe even smile, on the days that really need it. It has just launched and I genuinely cannot wait to share it with you.

If you want to share your story

If you've been through IVF, or are in the middle of it right now, and you'd like to share something, even anonymously, my inbox is always open. Your story might be exactly what someone else needs to read at 2am when the waiting feels unbearable.

You are not alone in this. Not even close.

This week's Fambly favourite 🤍

Our Egg Season Sweatshirt from The Lab Collection. Because life without humor isn't fun, even on the hardest days. Sometimes the best thing you can wear to that early morning appointment is something that makes you smile.

With all the love I have,
Lisa 🤍