ROCKVILLE, Md. — Jamie Blicher had just been married and was leaving New York for a new start and to build a family in Maryland.
Life had other plans.
Instead of cruising through the conception process, like one in eight couples, Blicher and her husband weren't going to be able to start that family as quickly as they hoped. They were going to need help. It wasn't going to be easy.
Blicher was going to need to go through an invasive medical procedure known as in vitro fertilization, or IVF.
"They would extract eggs from my body, take the sperm and put them in a petri dish together and create an embryo. Then, implant it back into the person," Blicher said when we met at her Rockville, Maryland home.
After the embryo is implanted in a woman, multiple shots are necessary to stimulate development.
"I was getting stuck with needles a lot," Blicher said. She suspects there could have been hundreds of injections over the course of her IVF journey.
Just sitting and talking with Blicher in her kitchen, she's brimming with energy and enthusiasm. I'm trying to envision what it was like for her; dealing with the despair of not being able to conceive -- wondering if she or her husband dealt with feelings of guilt -- and how agonizing this process of repeated injections must have been.
With absolutely no background in art whatsoever, Blicher found an outlet. She funneled that pain and frustration -- the literal and emotional pain of the IVF journey into magnificent works of art.
"Glitter Enthusiast has been a business now for about six years. It started during my own IVF journey. I actually started painting using sterile IVF needles," Blicher said. "I put either fluid -- alcohol in the needle, maybe ink in the needle and control the needle and that's where I've literally taken back control of the item that's caused me so much physical and emotional pain, and I made something beautiful out of it and move forward through it."
With her friend and business partner Ashley Fisher, they're creating artistic expression that's sending waves through the IVF community and allowing the topic to be discussed more openly than before.
"I really communicate what it's like to go through IVF and normalize the conversation of infertility through my artwork and we're bringing art into the fertility world and fertility into the art world," Blicher said.
Blicher's journey brought her into contact with author and IVF advocate Samantha Busch -- an entrepreneur, social media influencer and spouse of 2-time NASCAR champion driver Kyle Busch.
"It's (Blicher's art) such a reminder to me of all the struggles we've gone through to get to where we are today to have our family and just such a nice remembrance of those babies that we lost and don't get to have and that you know it's still great that our family will always talk about that," Busch said.
Busch has been very open about her family struggle with conception, infertility and multiple miscarriages. She's written a book released in 2021, 'Fighting Infertility: Finding my Inner Warrior through Trying to Conceive, IVF and Miscarriage' that documents her story.
"This infertility community is strong. Let me tell you when we're having a hard day or facing a trial there are so many women on Instagram especially that are just ready to be there for you. And that's how Jamie and I connected was just through these infertility groups," Busch said. "I was just blown away by what she does."
Busch now has a 'Glitter Enthusiast' hanging prominently in her home.
"Jamie created this beautiful art piece for me. She said, 'what colors do you want?' So, in that area everything is black, white and gold, so she did custom colors and then she put my four embabies in there," Busch said. "Two of them were failed cycles and two were miscarriages."
The duality of Blicher's work offers her buyers both a wonderful piece of art and the opportunity to discuss the formerly taboo topic of infertility.
"Having a piece of art that tells your story in a very subtle way has been empowering to others," Blicher said.
The art that was once therapy for her, is now therapy for others. Blicher and her husband now have four-year-old twin boys, Ethan and Bennett.
"We call art a trophy of experience," Blicher said. "So when the person then has our art in their commission using their needles in their new baby's room. It's it's an amazing way that they can communicate how badly that their child was wanted and tell them the story of how they came to be."
More about 'Glitter Enthusiast' HERE.