{in}conceivable

My infertility is a subject I have wanted to blog about for a long time but I never had the courage to do it. I am going to talk frankly about my lady parts and my sex life and I might use words like ovulate and discharge, so if you're uncomfortable with that you may want to stop reading now, or just skip to the last paragraph.

Chris and I have always wanted kids, we've had baby names picked out since before we got engaged. I started birth control (bc) months before we got engaged because my periods were making me sick, the day I started I always had terrible cramps and became so dizzy I would be nauseous and unable to get out of bed because the room was spinning; it was completely debilitating. My doctor put me on Seasonique bc because unlike normal bc you only have four periods a year with it. I think this was my first mistake on the road to being a mother. Even though it claims that you can get pregnant a month after you stop taking it, I never should have taken something that stopped my body from doing what it was intended to do. This isn't to say I don't believe in birth control, I 100% do, just not one that stops your regular cycle. I was on the pill for 14 months, I stopped taking it six months before we officially started "trying" to get pregnant.

After getting off bc my period was always irregular, I had one every month, but I never had the basic 28 day cycle. My cycle varied from as little as 16 days to as long as 38 days. For those of you who have tracked ovulation before know this makes timing sex nearly impossible. I saw an OB who put me on clomid (which is a drug that hyper stimulates your ovaries to make you release multiple eggs, increasing the chances of pregnancy) but after two rounds we couldn't afford the pricey progesterone tests (blood tests to see if the drug is working) anymore so we had to stop. We were on student insurance at the time and it didn't cover any infertility treatments. I tried ovulation predictor kits but they never seemed to work (but if you are going to give these a try PLEASE don't buy the expensive ones at the drug store, buy them here). This basically left us on our own, out of luck. We kept hoping that eventually my body would restore balance to itself and we would magically get pregnant but that never happened.

After one year of trying (and beyond,) trying to get pregnant becomes emotionally and physically tiring. On the physical subject... sex is more or less ruined for you, just saying. It stops being about pleasure and is strictly for reproductive purposes, there is no spontaneity, no spice, it is all about timing and how many pillows I can use to prop my hips up! :)

Emotionally, it is one of the hardest things a woman can go through. You feel inadequate, broken. I think this is probably intensified for women in the LDS church because we are taught from childhood that we will be mothers, that it is our sacred duty to bring children into this world and rear them in righteousness. If I can't do the one thing I was brought to this earth to do, what good am I? Something is wrong with me. Luckily I have my mom and sisters and one especially wonderful friend who was going through the same thing (you know who you are) to support me and remind me that I'm not broken and I will be a mother, in time. I love them for that.

Unfortunately, part of what makes infertility such a horrible thing is not the pain you feel every month when a stupid, plastic, pee soaked stick breaks your heart month after month, it is people. People who seemingly have no common sense who ask you when are we EVER going to have children? Friends who knew we are trying that stole a baby name we love and literally said to our faces "sorry, we got pregnant first" and then proceed to shove every moment of their pregnancy down my throat and be a constant reminder that I am broken. Another that said how terrible their morning sickness is and how being pregnant is horrible and they wouldn't wish pregnancy on anyone. Not to mention all of the announcements and belly pictures of Facebook and countless people who tell you to "just relax and stop trying" (OH! Is that how you do it?! If only I had known sooner!) And as much as I hate to admit it, I have felt anger towards perfect strangers with ready to pop bellies. I have felt hatred, or something close it, toward girls announcing their second pregnancies. I don't like it, but it is what it is.

When we moved to Boise and I got my job I also got real health insurance and so we decided to give fertility treatments another shot. In August I started seeing a new OB, Dr. Parsons. Chris and I really like him, mostly because he looks slightly like Dr. McDreamy...

Kidding. Mostly because he prescribed my miracle drug: metformin. Metformin is a very common drug that is usually prescribed to diabetes patients, but is also given to women with polycystic ovarian syndrome (cysts on their ovaries). I don't have PCOS, but he prescribed it to me because it helps women ovulate in a similar way that clomid does without overstimulating your ovaries. This eliminates a lot of the risks clomid presents and it eliminates the need for those costly progesterone tests! Woohoo! It worked the first month, meaning I ovulated, not that I got pregnant. I could tell because I had all of the ovulation symptoms I had been reading about for months. I took an ovulation test and sure enough, I had ovulated! It was so exciting! I was skipping around our apartment waving my pee stick! Unfortunately we did not get pregnant that month, but it was a step in the right direction.

I started on the next prescription and also took a leftover refill of clomid I had lying around from the year before. This month I think we were only able to try a few times because I had a week long work trip to Canada right in the middle of my cycle. Two weeks before I was supposed to start my period I started feeling that onset of your period feeling in my belly which really made me angry because it was two weeks early, which isn't surprising, but irritating. It ended up going away and I didn't start my period after all.

Two weeks later at work 1 pm hit and I felt like I got hit by a brick wall, I could barely keep my eyes open. Chris's grandpa had just passed away and we were heading down to St. George the next day for his funeral and so I had the day off. I decided, what the heck, I will take a pregnancy test. After 16 months of negatives, we finally saw a positive pregnancy test. It was the most surreal feeling.

We told Chris' parents and his siblings the next day and my family soon after. We are so grateful for modern medicine and the opportunity it has provided us to be parents. Having struggled with infertility has forever changed me, when I want to complain about not feeling well or feel sorry for my ever growing waist line, I try to remember how for so long I longed for these things and that there are thousands of women (some who are reading this) who have been trying to have children for far longer than we did. If you are struggling with infertility know that you are in my thoughts and prayers.

I am just over 14 weeks along now, officially in my second trimester! We find out if baby is a boy or girl the week of Valentines Day. Our little one is due July 7, 7/7/11! Its a lucky day!