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LASocial media isn’t real.
Even when someone else’s life looks amazing. Especially when someone else’s life looks amazing.
This moment happened while we were on our honeymoon in The Maldives in 2019. It truly was paradise. The location, the reason for the trip, the food, the outfits—it all looked so perfect on my Instagram feed.
But on this morning I had woken up to an email from the Mayo Clinic. An email telling us there was nothing they could do to help us. The freaking Mayo Clinic, which is supposed to be THE place for medical care in the US.
But they rejected us.
It all began months earlier when I began the process of getting my husband an official diagnosis for the incredibly rare form of primary lymphedema he had been dealing with all his life. We so badly wanted to start our family but we couldn’t begin IVF until we had that diagnosis.
Because there was no way we could risk passing his condition on to our child. But we couldn’t get the proper genetic testing made without an official diagnosis. And his condition was so rare that we couldn’t find a doctor anywhere who had even heard of it.
Even at the Mayo Clinic.
I cried as I read the email, my hope crushed. We had no idea what to do next. It felt impossible. Our future family felt completely out of reach.
After some time Marc sent me outside to sit in the sun and then brought me tea. That’s when I took this video. The beautiful vacation was still there.
But it didn’t tell the whole story.
Nothing on social media does.
Several months later we would finally find our doctor—one of just two in the country who specializes in primary lymphedema. And a few years later we would have our daughter.
But in that moment nothing seemed okay.
And yet I posted perfectly posed and edited photos.
What you see is rarely the whole story. Social media isn’t real. But the connections that form when you find others who acknowledge this are.
If you’re looking for that connection you’ve come to the right place ❤️
@laurabbehnke
