Telling me to relax and be patient is like telling a 1 year old to focus. Being relaxed doesn't get you pregnant, an ideal biological scenario in
your pants combined with good timing with insemination does.
Even before I wanted kids or knew what infertility was, I always had this feeling that I wouldn't be able to have any. You can imagine my astonishment when I got my first + HPT after our first try ever. I told myself right then and there, "You can have kids! You really can!" I haven't really given it a single thought since then until last night. I was laying in bed thinking about how maybe I should start thinking it can't and won't ever happen for us and see if we get lucky again.
What if we don't ever get lucky?
What if it does take many more months, or years even?
Insert random thought: if millions of couples suffer from infertility, why the fuck is everyone pregnant but me?
I have a confession to make.
Last cycle, a few days before AF, I really truly, honestly KNEW I was pregnant. There wasn't a doubt in my mind. The cramps felt different, I felt different, I had sore boobs, I felt bloated, I was getting headaches; all the things I experienced the last time. I even went as far as to write Barry a note telling him I was pregnant and how I couldn't wait to prove it to him with a HPT. And how I was going to surprise him with it when he got home from work. I kept this note in my purse for like 3 days. And I couldn't wait to give it to him. I was so excited. The night before I was going to test, I started spotting. I thought to myself, "maybe it's just late implantation bleeding." I held onto hope because there was no way that my mind made up all of these "symptoms" I was feeling. I stopped spotting about an hour later and then no more until Friday morning, when I actually started my period. It was awful. When I got to work, I shut my door, sat down, took the note out of my purse, and gently tore it into little pieces all while crying, bawling my eyes out as quietly as possible. Straight ugly crying. It's always really hard to get through the first day, but because I had believed I was seriously pregnant this time, it made that much harder to cope. I never ever do that to myself. I know better. But last month got the best of me. I promised myself to never do it again. As much as I'd like to just forget about TTC and not think about it, I can't. There is only a 15% chance of getting pregnant every month, and if I can increase my chances by even a fraction of a percent just by knowing when to BD, then that's what I'm going to do. Especially given the fact that we didn't try for the last two cycles and it still didn't happen for us. And the cycle during which it did happen, just so happen to be one that we tried for. Boom.
And who knows, maybe I was pregnant, and just ended up miscarrying. That's all a miscarry really is, it's your brain telling your body to menstruate when it's not suppose to.
Many years ago, before the Early Response Pregnancy Tests, women miscarried all the time before they ever even knew they were pregnant because they usually waited a few days to a couple of weeks to test. Now, you can test up to 6 or 7 days before you even miss your period.
If technology has come so far, why do couples have to wait up to a year before seeing a
Reproductive Endocrinologist, (RE). Why put the stress on a otherwise healthy relationship when you could just let them know ahead of time what they can expect.
-Ok, you're S/A came back great. You have 300,000,000 spermies with perfect Morphology and Motility.You are good to go Mr. Mickler.
-And the results from your HSG test shows that you have a blocked tube so there's a 50/50 shot of you having an ectopic pregnancy Mrs. Mickler.
-"Gee, thank you Doctors for letting me know! Just go ahead and preform the LAP and unblock my tube so that we can and start trying to grow our family. "
Done.
But no. They make us wait until we run into problems. Problems that could potentially destroy our fertility in the process of of trying to have a baby.
I once only had a 15% chance of having an ectopic pregnancy.
Because I've now experienced one, I stand at a 30% chance of having another one the next time I get pregnant.
The third time I get pregnant there is a 60% chance of it being ectopic.
And after the third, I have a 90% chance of being infertile altogether.
Those numbers are terrifying.
But if you flip it around, and see that I have a 70% of having a safe, healthy, normal, intrauterine pregnancy next time, it looks a little more appealing- like the glass is half full.
"Whether I parent a child I actually give birth to, or a child that God leads me to, I will not be careless with my love. "
