Ten Months

I had had a few friends who had tracked their basal body temperatures when they were trying to get pregnant and had really like doing so.  At first I thought that it sounded a little too clinical to do this but when I was ready to be pregnant I was ready pretty much right away and I thought tracking my temperatures couldn't hurt, at least it would show us when I was ovulating and I figured this would improve my chances of getting pregnant each month; I mean it isn’t as easy as it seems, your chances are only about 25% each month.  So I started tracking my temperatures right away.

I was also perhaps a little overly excited about the idea of having a baby and did something that may have been a little foolish.  I bought a crib and changing table.  Hear me out here.  I found them on craigslist; again, hear me out.  I found the pair VERY inexpensively and I wanted to clean them up, sand them down, and re-paint them.  To do this I needed to do it over the summer in the sun. I was expecting to get pregnant quickly and not have another summer to do it in.  Don't worry I checked out the safety issues and recalls and I plan to get a new mattress or a full encasement for the one it came with.  I worked on it all summer and had it done in August.  It has been sitting in our "empty" room with the door closed ever since.

I wasn't concerned after the first couple of months and not being pregnant.  I knew it could take a few.  After a couple of more months went by I started to think it was a little odd it hadn't happened for us, but still this was all "normal" right? But I have always been someone who believed in DOING something to succeed.  I mean if the first four months hadn't resulted in our being pregnant it was insane to think doing the same thing again would bring a different result.  I started to think we needed to try something else to make things happen.  So I bought an ovulation predictor kit.  If you're not familiar with these they are a lot like a pregnancy test and you get so many tests that look at your LH level to tell you when you are having an LH surge which would indicate ovulation is soon to follow.  I was "frugal" aka "cheap" and got some off brand that had seven tests in it.  I followed the directions and started the tests on day nine.  Day nine was the strongest result.  Now I was confused. Did that mean I was ovulating much earlier in the month than my basal temps had indicated?  Did I do the test wrong?  When nothing happened that month I bought another kit and tried again; same thing.  Hmm, maybe I was wrong all this time about when I was ovulating.  So Kris and I just starting making sure we were covering all of our bases.

I started to think we need more information and some guidance.  While all of the websites and books indicate there is nothing to worry about before a year and that you shouldn't see a doctor until you have been trying for a year I couldn't just do nothing - or the same something. So I made an appointment.  The doctor was very kind and sort of right but didn't really give me the help I was looking for.  She thought I should stop tracking, in other words stop thinking so much, and come back after a year of trying.  I knew I needed to get out of my head about it all, at this point I was starting to really toil about it, but how could I not?  And not tracking wouldn't really help because I would still know when I was supposed to be ovulating and what my cycle was.  But I tried to take her advice.

It was October now and Kris was leaving to go hunting.  I stopped tracking. This ended up not being such a great idea after all.  I still knew when I should have started my period that month and expected it start as it always did, right on time.  So of course when it didn't I got my hopes up.  I waited a couple more days and still nothing,  finally I decided to take a test, I was four days late and that had NEVER happened to me before.  The test was negative.  Okay, well you can always get a false negative, just not a false positive (except for evaporation lines, but that is another subject).  Again I thought it was my cheap test.  I bought another packet of tests, let me just say that I had been doing really well not testing every month and trying to just wait until I was late first.  So here I was, expecting a positive test, without a doubt.  Another had gone by without my period so it had to be the test; another negative.  I had to try to wait, just wait.  All I could think about was that if I had been tracking I would know for sure when my temp had spiked and if I ovulated late thus making my cycle later, or if my temp was still up and for how many days in a row it had been.  Dang that doctor, now I was just lost.  More time went by with nothing.  If I wasn't pregnant what was wrong with me?  I had planned to take another test after a few days figuring I must be one of those people I was reading about on the Internet who just didn't have very strong hormones right away and the test was just not picking up on.  I was reading about people who had had blood tests and seen doctors to be told they weren't pregnant and it turned out they were, that could be me.  The morning I had been planning to take another test, my period started.  A full seven days late.  This set off an emotional roller coaster for me.  I had been toyed with and it just wasn't fair.

My frustration was only made worse by the fact that everyone around me was pregnant and getting pregnant.  It wasn't their fault (well it was, but they weren't trying to hurt me) and I was happy for them but it started to hurt a little more with each new person.  In the time we were trying, 3 babies were born and 7 pregnancies were announced for people very close to me whom I saw regularly.  Not to mention the 6 friends who already had babies when we started trying.  Kids were everywhere for me.