TTC Cycle #3: September 23, 2009-October 28, 2009 (36 days)
This cycle I am now due June 30, 2010. Calculating a new date gives me hope. I'll have a summer baby, and it'll be great! Now I can have my summer break plus 12 weeks off the beginning of the school year :)
I read Fertility, Cycles & Nutrition (3rd edition) by Marilyn Shannon. I have a short luteal phase, so I start taking 100mg B6 to help with that since it's what she recommends.
I make a goal this month to have sex every other day during more fertile mucus. I write "MAKE TIME!!" :) on my chart. It didn't happen, but I'm still hopeful that I'm pregnant.
CD 5- We got to Lexington, KY for a UF vs UK football game. Loads of fun!
CD 11-12- Camping at Graveyard Fields off the Blue Ridge Parkway
CD 14- First time my thermometer battery died since I started charting 2 years ago! Replacement cost a few bucks at Radio Shack.
CD 34- Breasts hurt and nipples are tender. I'm thinking these are pregnancy signs and start to get very hopeful.
CD 37- Get my period :(
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Present Day:
I'm five weeks pregnant today (according to the ever popular 'count from your last period' that the medical community uses). I peaked according to my Clearblue Easy Fertility Monitor on CD 18 & 19 (it gives you 2 days of Peak fertility). According to the 'count from your last period', I'm due October 5, 2011. I'd personally add 4 or 5 days (knowing from when I peaked), but I'll just wait till the first ultrasound to confirm. Which is on February 25th at 8 weeks 2 days. They told me to expect the visit to last 2 1/2 hours!!! Ultrasound can't be more than 15 minutes, so I'm assuming the rest of the time will be spent talking and doing paperwork.
Yesterday I went in for some blood-work so my doc could check my progesterone levels. I'm currently taking 100mg Prometrium per day. Last cycle when I didn't ovulate, my progesterone level was 1.5. Today it is 56.6. Doc said that it's very encouraging, and he's happy with the numbers but keeping me on the Prometrium for now.
In other news, I had a hair appointment today because I hadn't gotten my hair cut in 11 months. I walk in the door, and the first thing my hairdresser says to me is, "Are you pregnant?"!!!
My draw drops.
Me: "Yes."
Keep in mind that I haven't seen this woman in 11 months, and I hadn't told her that we're TTC.
Hairdresser: "Have you had the baby?"
Me: "What? No..."
Hairdresser: "So you're pregnant now?"
Me: "Yes. I'm 5 weeks."
Hairdresser: "OH!"
It was a weird conversation.
Then at yoga tonight, my instructor asks the class before we begin if anyone has anything about their body that they'd like her to know about. A few people raise their hands and talk about neck and lower back issues. I raise my hand and tell her I'm pregnant. My friend who goes with me is shocked that I just announced it to a room full of strangers (but I don't really care about the strangers- just the people who actually know me). The teacher says it shouldn't really affect me now, but that I should be aware of what my body is telling me throughout the class. Later on in the pregnancy, I need to make sure my core temperature doesn't rise too high as well.
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Prayer Request: For a friend who is losing a foster baby this Friday after raising her from 3 days old until now at 6 months. My heart aches for her.
Before I start, I have to say that I feel a little guilty for just starting a sub-fertility blog and finding out days later that I'm pregnant. Don't get me wrong, I'm thrilled about this pregnancy, but I don't want to feel like an outsider in this group either. Sub-fertility is a huge part of who I am, and being pregnant now doesn't change that, I know. Just some issues I need to work through...
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TTC Cycle #2: August 18, 2009-September 22, 2009 (36 days)
When I get my first period after TTC, I was MAJORLY bummed to say the least. Spent a few days crying. After a while, I talked myself up, saying that it HAD to happen this cycle. What are the odds that it wouldn't?!
My old due date for the last cycle was April 21, 2010. My new due date is May 25, 2010. I decided to start calculating a new due date every cycle to give myself something to look forward to.
A friend at work was having surgery and would be out for a month. Then she announces that she had to cancel the surgery because at her pre-op appointment they found out that she is 4 weeks pregnant! I speak with her and tell her that we're TTC too! She gets really excited for me and hopes that I conceive soon so our babies will be close in age and we can hang out. She's due April 26, 2010. She told me that she got off the pill 9 months prior and wasn't really trying for a baby, but just seeing if it might happen. I'm so sure it won't take me THAT long.
I was wrong.
I started this blog to document my 18 1/2 months of sub-fertility. It's ironic because I'm pregnant now. Got a BFP yesterday on CD 33. It doesn't seem real. I've seen so many negatives over and over again, and now it's positive. I'm so happy and grateful, but I feel like I'm in a dream and I'll wake up and none of it really happened.I think I'm still going to document the rest of my sub-fertility experience. I don't ever want to forget the amount of pain and suffering I went through, and I don't want to take this pregnancy for granted. At least now I know that I'm capable of getting pregnant, even if the Lord decides to call my baby to Heaven. And I'm a mother. Wow. It's so surreal.We're only telling family and a few close friends. Not putting it on facebook until I'm out of the first trimester. But I had to post it here.Thank you, Jesus, for the gift of life in my womb.
I've decided to go through all 17 cycles (18 1/2 months) of TTC, and do a blog for each cycle. But first, some background information...
DH and I started dating on January 1, 2003 (we kissed at midnight!) and were married on July 14, 2006. I was 3 weeks away from my 21st birthday. DH was 23. We had both just graduated in the spring with our bachelor's degrees, were getting married, then moving from Tallahassee, FL to Asheville, NC right after the honeymoon. Lots of big changes for us. We contracepted before learning the sympto-thermal method via CCL in September 2007. Practicing NFP helped our marriage tremendously.
I dealt with a lot of jealousy from July 2006-July 2009 from hearing the news of other friends getting pregnant because we weren't TTC since we couldn't financially afford a baby at the time without moving in with my parents or in-laws. I longed for a baby. Had been dreaming of being a mother since I was little. Felt like we should have 'just done it' on some days, but DH is the sane one and would remind me of our plan.
TTC Cycle #1: July 15, 2009-August 17, 2009 (34 days)
The day after our 3 year wedding anniversary, I get my period, and we FINALLY can start TTC! One of the most exciting periods of my life. I was so naive. I had all these plans, and God was going to abide by these plans. We waited until July so I would have a late April baby. Then I would get 7 weeks of paid maternity leave (from sick days accumulated), followed by summer break, then go back to teaching in August and send the baby to home day care. The timing also coincided with our car being paid off in April, so we would use the money we were paying for a car payment to go to child care. I ideally wanted to be a SAHM, but with both of us being teachers and student loan bills, we can't afford to not have me work. I resigned myself to that miserable fact because it still meant that I was having a baby, my lifelong dream of being a mother. I told all my closest friends that we were trying for a baby. I was SO confident that it would happen on the first try. I mean, think of how many people get pregnant "on accident" the first time they have sex and how many unplanned pregnancies there are. I was going to get pregnant. Period.
My fertile time coincided with a beach trip with my parents and a few days with the in-laws. I thought it would be a great story if I conceived on the beach under the stars :) We had perfectly timed sex, and a baby was going to happen. There's no way that it wouldn't.
CD 19 is our last day in FL. We go out to a bar to spend one last night with our FL friends before we say good-bye. Some ask why I'm not drinking, and I tell them that we're trying to have a baby :) Most of them congratulate us and say that they can't wait to see a baby Wilson.
CD 23 was my 24th birthday. We invite a bunch of people over for a party, and I'm the only one not drinking. Everyone asks why. I tell them that we're trying for a baby, I'm probably pregnant, so it'd be safer if I don't drink past ovulation. None of my friends at the party are married or interested in starting families. I get a lot of weird looks, but I ignore them. I'm having a baby, so who cares about what they think!
CD 28 is my friend's 25th birthday. She and her DH are in town for a week, and for her birthday I drive the 4 of us around to 5 local breweries throughout the day. I'm the DD because I'm probably pregnant. We have loads of fun, and they give me a few sips and tastes of their beers to help me feel better about being the DD. But I'm okay with it because I'm pregnant.
CD 31 was a Friday. Some friends ended up staying over after a late night party the night before. I wanted to test that morning, but DH talked me out of it, saying that we shouldn't have other people around when I test. I didn't think it mattered- it was going to say positive anyway! But I waited another day.
CD 32 was a Saturday. I finally get to take a PT and find out that I'm pregnant! Take the PT...anxiously wait a few minutes...
It's negative.
I'm crushed. I was so SURE that it was going to happen the first time. I cry, and DH comforts me. Once I pull myself together, we head to the farmers' market. I see baby after baby, pregnant woman after pregnant woman. 4 babies and 3 pregnant women in all. 30 minutes later, I hold back the tears, and barely make it to the car before I start balling my eyes out. Why not me?! Why can't I be pregnant??? I sob the whole way home.
CD 35. I get my period and cry again. I was hoping for a false negative.
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I look back at that cycle now, and I see such a confident person for the first 31 days. But I was making all my own plans, and God had other plans for me. What's the saying- if you want to make God laugh, tell Him your plans? I think that's it. I didn't really pray about getting pregnant. I never asked God if that was His will for me. I just assumed that He wanted what I wanted. And He wants me to be happy, right? Having a baby would make me happy, therefore God wants me to have a baby. But He works in mysterious and wondrous ways, and His call for me was to not be a mother right now.
I'm finally venturing into the blogging world.
I'm still trying to decide how to go about doing this. We've been TTC since July 2009. It's been the hardest 18 months of my life so far. It's a cross I never thought I'd have to bear. But here I am, looking for the support and advice of other women going through similar trials.
My counselor says that it would be a good idea to blog my entire journey of sub-fertility to give as a gift to my future child when we do conceive or adopt. That way they can see how loved and wanted s/he was, even before s/he was born. So I'm giving it a try. I know it'll be painful to relive the ups and downs I've experienced so far, but I especially want to remember it for the day that I do get pregnant. I don't want to forget all that I've experienced through sub-fertility, and I think that blogging will be my permanent way of reminding myself.
St. Gianna, pray for us.
