If You've Survived Even One of These, I Need You to Hear This

I've been sitting with whether to write this for a while.

Part of me wondered if it was too much. Too personal. Too unbelievable when everything is written down in one place.

But the version of me who needed to hear this years ago would have wanted someone to say it plainly.

So here it is.

If you've survived even one of these, keep reading.

• A blood clot in your lung
• Shingles and meningitis at the same time
• Ovarian cyst removals
• An ectopic pregnancy
• A blood clot in your aorta
• Kidney failure and the loss of circulation below your waist
• Fasciotomies on both sides of both legs
• Learning to walk with assistance
• Taking blood thinners for the rest of your life
• Living with a foot and calf you can barely feel, unless they're burning, freezing or filled with pins and needles
• A separation and reconciliation
• Losing every grandparent you had, including the one closest to you
• A stalker whose delusional obsession nearly pulled your family apart
• Watching your mother fight through six years of illness, two transplants and complication after complication
• Losing friendships you never imagined could end
• Being betrayed by some of the people you trusted most
• Trying to lead a business through a global pandemic
• Having a rumour destroy the reputation you spent your life building
• Watching your team leave because they were afraid of what might happen if they stayed
• Being unable to pay your mortgage
• Using your savings for groceries and exhausting your credit
• Selling your family home
• Losing hundreds of thousands of dollars on another home you were trying to save
• Packing your life into a U-Haul and moving your family to another country
• Being turned away at the border and watching your family pack it all up again

I've been through every one of them.

Not one or two. All of them.

And some days, I still don't know how I'm standing.

The part nobody tells you

Surviving one hard thing doesn't make the next one easier.

When the losses come back to back, it can actually become harder to talk about them. At some point, you start wondering whether people will believe you. Whether anyone can understand how one person could carry this much and still be here.

But I am still here.

I lost all of my grandparents. The last loss was the hardest because we were especially close.

Then there was the person whose obsession with our family, and one member of it, became so delusional and destructive that it nearly pulled us apart.

And then there was my mom.

She was sick for six years. In 2016, her health declined rapidly and she received her first transplant. Then came rejection and complications.

Afterward, we were given one good year, a year when she travelled and lived as fully as she could, even while using oxygen.

Then she declined again.

She received a second transplant, but complication followed complication. Eventually, she became too tired to keep fighting, and we lost her.

I would go through every second of those six years again if it meant having her back.

That kind of loss teaches you something no one can explain beforehand:

To grieve is to know love.

You don't get one without the other.

Learning to trust myself

After losing my mom came COVID and the impossible decisions so many business owners had to make. I had to lead while everything felt uncertain, trusting my instincts before I had fully learned how.

It took five years, and a medical crisis of my own, for me to finally trust myself.

Along the way, I lost friendships I thought would last forever. I experienced betrayals from some of the people closest to me.

Now, I can see that those experiences taught me to listen to myself. They made me stronger.

But in the moment?

It felt like my world was ending.

Eventually, it seemed as though things might finally be settling.

Then 2024 happened.

When everything I built began to shake

Following surgery, I experienced a devastating medical crisis. A blood clot in my aorta caused kidney failure and left me without circulation below my waist. I needed fasciotomies on both sides of both legs.

The damage was permanent.

Today, I take blood thinners for life. I need assistance to walk, and I have very little feeling in my left foot and calf. Sometimes they feel like they're on fire. Sometimes they're painfully cold. Sometimes all I feel is pins and needles.

During my recovery, I was taking more than 100 milligrams of hydromorphone each day just to function. Payments were delayed while I was seriously ill.

Then speculation began.

A rumour spread through my industry that I must have been taking money from the intended parents, the very families I had spent my life trying to help.

There was no evidence behind the accusation, but rumours rarely wait for evidence.

Prominent people in the industry warned my staff that they should leave or risk being implicated themselves.

So they left.

I don't blame them. They were scared.

But their departure left me trying to protect the business, rebuild my reputation and survive my recovery at the same time.

It has been a constant fight ever since.

What the rumours cost us

Potential clients walked away. Revenue disappeared.

We couldn't pay our mortgage. We used whatever savings we had for groceries and eventually exhausted our credit.

We sold our family home to try to save the renovation of my mother's house, which was supposed to become our new family home.

Then we learned that permits we believed had been approved had actually failed and that significant work needed to be redone.

The loss was approximately $600,000.

Without the credit to obtain another mortgage or the financing needed to finish the build, we were forced to sell that property too.

That meant another loss of more than $400,000.

Choosing to live, not simply survive

By then, we were living in a rental while waiting for the renovation to be completed. When the lease was coming to an end, we made a decision that may have looked reckless from the outside.

But it wasn't impulsive.

Moving had been a conversation between the four of us since I got out of the hospital. We had already opened the business in Florida in January 2025 because expanding into the United States was something we genuinely wanted.

Everything we had been through simply gave us the push, the little nudge, we needed to finally jump.

After my medical crisis, the four of us understood something differently: life is meant to be lived. We just had to figure out what living looked like for us.

And we did.

Together.

We packed what we could into a U-Haul and moved our family to Florida.

We weren't running away or making a rash decision. We were moving toward something we had already begun building.

We wanted an adventure. We wanted a fresh start. Most of all, we wanted to choose a life that felt bigger than everything we had survived.

The business is still operating in the United States. That part of the dream hasn't ended simply because I can't physically be there right now.

The plan didn't fail.

It has just become more complicated than we expected.

Home is the four of us

For complicated reasons, the border officials did not review the visa application. They also decided not to admit me back into the United States.

Dana and Cameron had to pack up the house in Florida and move everything back to Ontario without me.

At the time of writing this, I've been back in Ontario for sixteen days. And if I'm being honest, I can't wait to leave again.

This doesn't feel like home anymore.

Not because Ontario has nothing for us, but because I've learned that home isn't a house, a city, a province or even a country.

Home is the four of us together.

Wherever we are, whatever we're rebuilding and however many times the plan has to change, we will figure it out the way we always have.

Together.

For now, we'll stay through the school year. We'll continue building the business in the United States, work through the visa process and make our way back in the spring.

I think. 😉

Life has taught me not to promise dates anymore, only direction.

If this is you too

At some point, you have to decide whether everything that happened to you will write the rest of your story, or whether you'll keep writing it yourself.

If you've survived even one thing on this list, I need you to hear this:

You are not broken.

You are not behind.

You are not too much.

And you are not weak for finally needing to rest.

You are proof that a person can lose almost everything and still choose, every day, to keep going.

Sometimes strength looks like fighting.

Sometimes it looks like starting over.

Sometimes it looks like admitting you don't know what happens next, but choosing a direction anyway.

I know how lonely survival can feel. Even when you're surrounded by people who love you, it can feel as though no one truly understands what it takes to make it through each day.

But it shouldn't have to feel that way.

So let's connect. Let's build a community of warriors, people who have been knocked down, changed by what they've endured and somehow found the courage to keep going.

Your story doesn't have to be about surrogacy. It doesn't have to look anything like mine. Pain isn't a competition, and you don't need to earn your place here by surviving the worst thing imaginable.

If you're in the middle of your own hard chapter, I see you.

If you've made it through something you once believed would break you, I want to hear your story.

And if you're still simply trying to make it through today, you belong here too.

You are not nearly as alone as it feels.

Let's remind one another of that.

Robyn Price, Canadian Surrogacy Options Inc.

If your next chapter includes surrogacy, book a call with me directly.