As soon as the Utah Infertility Awareness Event was over on April 24th, boxes filled with leftover debris made it into my basement and I headed for Mexico. Now that I am back and considering sorting through those boxes, I am evaluating the event. It is done. And, it was an incredible success! Huzzah!All the details came together just perfectly, providing a great day for all that were there. Attendees had so many questions that we went overtime and no one seemed to mind.

Here is just a quick run-down of some of the great things about the day...

1.  We had fabulous media coverage!

• The Salt Lake Tribune did an article...click here.
• KSL, a local news station, interviewed me and my voice "appeared" during rush hour...click here.
• I appeared on Friday night Fox 13 news and one of my committee members was interviewed on Saturday morning by Fox 13 news. I can't find anything on their website to prove it, of course. It is rumored, however, that my grandmother has a copy of my Friday night appearance...I shall hunt it down.

2.  We had 170 people register with more than 20 more that emailed me after registration was closed. Husbands and wives came together, mothers came with daughters, friends came with friends. We had people from Utah, Idaho, and Nevada.

3.  We had amazing food. Check out these delectable donuts we had...click here. Ooooh, they make my taste buds happy thinking about them.

4.  We created quite the energy. It was phenomenal to sit in a room full of men and women, to look around, and to realize that each person there cared about infertility. Each person wanted to learn, to grow, to share, and to heal (or help someone heal). It was truly magnificent.

5.  We impressed the doctors. The doctors were amazed by the turnout. Dr. William Keye (one of the presenters from the Utah Center for Reproductive Medicine) emailed me after and said:

"What an exciting day and a great symposium. I don't know how you and your committee put it together in such a short time, but it couldn't have been any better from my perspective.  I was really pleased to see how involved the audience was and how receptive each of the speakers was to their questions.  It was one of the best infertility seminars I have ever attended.  I feel honored to have had the chance to speak and to be part of the conference."

6.  Couples went away with greater hope. After the fact, I have heard from several men and women that they left the event with hope, with greater direction, and with many questions answered. Some couples have decided a new course of action or were validated in their current course of action. Success! That is exactly what we wanted.

What I learned:

1.  An event like this was definitely needed.

2.  There will be a 2nd Annual event in 2011.

3.  People want to talk about infertility.

4.  Rent out a bigger venue. We will fill the house...guaranteed!

Thank you to all of you who attended and thank you to my committee for being absolutely wonderful. How great it is to celebrate such a success! Pretty soon, we will have a video of the event and the PowerPoint Presentations available on the Utah Infertility Awareness website, so check back soon!