It didn't take long after our June 2000 wedding for people to start asking "that" question - when are you going to have kids? We would smile and say, oh not for a while, we are enjoying ourselves right now! We want to travel, go out with friends, you know how it goes. My personal goal had been to have our first child by our 5th anniversary (Ha!) but at the very latest by the time I turned 30 (Ha Ha!). So, we determined that a good time to start TTC (trying to conceive) would be around my 28th B-Day which happened to be in July 2004. Knowing that it might take a little while, I figured this will give us over a year to get pregnant and I'll still have my baby by the time my 30th rolls around, right?
So, at my annual exam in May 2004, I told my OB/Gyn that we were getting ready to start. She gave me a little bit of info on charting my temperature to determine when or if I was ovulating and wrote me a prescription for a prenantal vitamin and off I went! Being the planner that I am, I immediately went to B&N and buy a book, Taking Charge of Your Fertility, which goes into even further detail on charting your cycles, and then I discovered the website, Fertility Friend which allows you to chart your cycles on line and they have these message boards with tons of other women who are also TTC. This will be great and easy because I'm taking action, I'm doing exactly what I should be doing to conceive quickly, I am taking charge of my fertility after all!! I do remember that before I started taking the BCP that my cycles were kind of long and maybe irregular, but I really didn't pay much attention back then, but even so, I'm charting so I'll know exactly when I ovulate so no problem!
So, on August 18, 2004, AF (Aunt Flo aka my period) arrived, just a few weeks past my 28th B-Day, and we were on our way! I started taking my temperature religiously every morning. I ovulated later than "normal" on day 29, hmmm, but our timing was perfect and I had gum surgery a couple weeks before, so that probably delayed it. So, we waited with such excitement and we talked about how great it would be to conceive on the first try. The time finally came to test. My boobs were sore, I was feeling extra fatigued, these are symptoms, I must be pregnant! I would soon learn that pregnancy and PMS symptoms are exactly the same. We were at my parent's house that weekend for a friend's wedding (you will begin to see a pattern here!) when I took my very first HPT (home pregnancy test)! Brad and I huddled in the bathroom that Saturday morning to watch it develop. BFN (big fat negative) of course. We were disappointed of course, but it was just the first try! So we moved on to cycle #2 with just as much optimism and excitement.
Cycle #2 turned out to be even longer, I didn't ovulate until day 45 making it a 59 day cycle, what a beating. Hmmm...Again BFN. Cycle #3 was a little bit shorter, but it was still long and again BFN. It's time to see a Dr about these wacky cycles. So I made an appt with my OB again armed with my charts. She agreed that it was definitely not normal, and so the testing began. Brad has his testing done which was pronounced "normal", whew! Then my bloodwork was done and everything looked A-OK, we didn't really know what was wrong. Then I was introduced to the ultrasound "probe", soon to become my best friend, but more on that later. Everything looked fine. So, we decide to try Clomid which will make me ovulate sooner. Somewhere during this final unmedicated cycle, the first (of MANY) pregnancy announcements came, and yes, pretty much without exception they are hard - well pregnancies of fellow infertiles always give me hope for myself. It was my younger sister and they weren't even "trying" yet, ouch. I was insanely jealous, my stress-level suddenly went through the roof and then the guilt came, causing the stress to increase, and you see how that probably went.
We're already in Feb 2005 at this point and AF finally arrived. Clomid was fine, no real side effects other than a couple hot flashes and I was thrilled because I ovulated on day 21! Earliest ever! At some point during this cycle, I was hanging out on the message boards and come across a post that said that certain types of blood pressure meds can make men infertile, basically everything looks normal but their sperm cannot penetrate the egg. I realized, holy crap, Brad is on that type of medication! So, he asked his Dr to change his prescription and I found out that fresh sperm can be made and become mature within about 70 days. I began to think that this must be the problem. Back to the first Clomid cycle. We were in Corpus Christi for Easter, staying with the in-laws, and my family was down from Houston as well. Good Friday was "testing day". I also wanted to see if I could drink wine that night because everyone was coming over and we were having a party! That morning, I took my Answer brand HPT and immediately, a beautiful second pink line came up! Brad and I started jumping up and down, we couldn't wipe the grins off our faces! We were overjoyed! Then, after about a min, Brad looked at the test again and said, Jenn, the line is getting lighter. We watched as the line slowly disappeared. What the??? So, we snuck out of the house to buy another HPT which I took later that afternoon and it was negative of course. Needless to say, lots of wine was consumed that night. It was also the first time I'd seen my sister with her little pregnant belly in maternity clothes. It was all too much and I had an emotional breakdown - in front of the whole family - how embarrassing.
So, we keep going. We took a break, then did another round of Clomid and I counted the days until that magic 70 day window passed and Brad's sperm were "effective" again. So, on our 8th cycle, on a break from Clomid, I ovulated on day 15!! Holy cow that's the earliest ever! Our timing was perfect and it was just about 75 days since Brad had changed his meds, and guess what happened?? You got it, I was pregnant!!!
I'm going to leave the pregnancy story for another day...I apologize for the wordiness but man it feels great to get all this out!!
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