About Erin



My Start

I grew up in "Happy Valley"-- a truly unique place that is almost 100% LDS (commonly known as "Mormon") nestled in the Utah mountains. I was the oldest in my family of five children, along with my identical twin sister. Many of my posts revolve around the cultural context of my upbringing, my life as a twin, and my church, the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints.





My family, all grown up














My New Beginning

After graduating from BYU, I packed up my car and my dad drove me halfway across the country to drop me off in the Heartland. Prior to that, I remember meeting someone during high school from Iowa and thinking, "Does ANYONE live in Iowa?" 

Suddenly, I did. 

I thought I was moving to the middle of a cornfield. I have been pleasantly surprised by my life here, except for the crazy weather!

Iowa City Flood 2009
Sandbagging during the flood


Typical Iowa winter


































One of the first people I met in the Hawkeye State was my wonderful future husband. I was a first year dental student, he was a second year medical student. We dated a few years before tying the knot. 



My Life

After graduation from dental school, I decided I needed a little more stress in my life and started my residency in Oral Maxillofacial Surgery while my husband worked on his medical education and eventually started his residency in Otolaryngology. This meant I spent five years pulling lots of teeth, fixing broken faces, eating too much junk, and sleeping too little while occasionally saying hello to my husband while passing in the hallways of the hospital. Residency gave me a lot to talk about, particularly with my role as a woman balancing a career and home life/social expectations.

Now, I commute to my job as an OMS in rural Iowa, currently the only doctor doing Oral Surgery in the area. I love my job and while the pace has slowed down a bit from residency, I still have some crazy stories to tell on occasion. With my husband continuing in his residency, we still stay pretty busy!

It seems life has only gotten crazier after completing my residency as we attempt to start our little family through in vitro fertilization due to infertility associated with my PCOS. After a few years of trying on our own and with oral medications, we have also faced three failed attempts with IVF frozen embryos transfers. I have found being open about the process has been incredibly healing for me and I love hearing from others who deal with this as well, often through this blog. We are hoping to have our own little miracle one day!
















4 comments:

Lydia said...

Just came across your blog. Congrats on your positive and successful transfer! I am an Iowa city area infertility blogger (now mom) too and love the great people at UIHC for helping me make my daughter and son (both FETs, onein 2012 and another in 2014). I'll keep following your journey!! Mine is at www.peanutmom.com. :-)

Erin said...

Hi Lydia! Thanks for stopping by. I'll have to check out your blog too!

Alexandra said...

I, somehow, ended up on your blog a few hours ago and spent all that time reading it (best procrastination ever). You are such an inspiration you have no idea! I'm starting dental school in fall and i'm passionnate about omfs too! Female in the field are too hard to find so it's always nice to hear about different experiences! Plus, i also have PCOS (and let's be honest, i really hope to marry a cute surgeon in the future too hehe) so really, i feel i can bond to everything you wrote so much. So basically, i'm only writing to you to say thank you for sharing all that and also best of luck for the future/with thenbabies! I'll keep your blog in my fav and be sure to follow it!

Alexandra :)

Erin said...

Thanks Alexandria! I hope you are having success in school. Let me know how things go!