Fertility Journey {Jan-Feb}

You know how people say that when you are ready to start a family you'll just "know"? Well I sort of never really believed that until it happened to me. Then once you decide you're ready, you want it to happen right away. That is wishful thinking, so I've learned.

When we decided that we were ready to start trying to get pregnant, I convinced myself that I would be fine if it didn't happen right away. Can't be too unrealistic now can we? I figured it might take 3-4 months and I was totally ok with that. Then the months kept passing, and passing, and nothing. So I started doing a little research. I tried every crazy idea in the book (or on the Internet for that matter). Predictor kits, herbs, teas, vitamins, weird foods, exercises; any suggestion I could find, I was willing to try. 

December 2012 rolled around and we had been officially trying for 10 months. I was ready to lose my mind. The doctors say not to suspect a problem until you've been trying for a full year, but I'm young and healthy and I had just about had enough. I couldn't wait any longer. I wanted answers. 

At this point, we weren't telling many people that we were trying. I didn't want people getting their hopes up or worrying about me. Finally, I reached my limit. I had to talk to someone about this. Someone who would understand. One of my cousins had recently gone through fertility treatments and I just needed someone to talk to who could relate to how I was feeling. I called her up one night in hysterics because I felt like I was on the verge of a mental breakdown and I didn't know what to do next. Talking to her made me feel so much better. Ultimately, she told me to screw what everyone else thinks and what I'm supposed to do, forget the timeline, and just go to a fertility doctor if that will make me feel better. That is some of the best advice I've received during this journey. I'm so glad that I decided to take her advice and run with it. 

In January 2013, Jared and I had our first visit to the fertility doctor. I was terrified at first, but hopeful by the time I left his office. It was a huge mix of emotions. I was discouraged that there was in fact a problem and that we probably were not going to be able to get pregnant on our own. At the same time, I was relieved to know that there was something wrong and that it was fixable. All this time I could not figure out what I was doing wrong. Why couldn't I get pregnant? I finally had an answer. No one ever wants to find out that they have something wrong with them, but at least I finally had an explanation and now we could move forward. 

Our doctor wanted us to start fertility treatments right away and I was eager to make some progress. Anything would be better than the past 10 months because at least I would feel like I was moving in the right direction. My doctor's goal was to start us out with the lowest dosage of medication and least invasive treatments, and then slowly progress from there. That way we could try out a treatment and if it didn't work, move on to the next one. This could end up being a long and tedious process, but I wanted to try all of my options before jumping into IVF. 

Late-January was the beginning of round one. We started with an oral fertility drug called Femara (similar to Clomid for those of you who know about fertility treatments) on a very low dose. First, I took one pill every day. My body didn't react at all. Then, we progressed to two pills every day. My body started to react to the medication, but not enough to really do anything.

Now we were getting into February and by this point, it was too late in the cycle to add any more medications or treatments. So we just had to try again naturally and hope for the best. It is amazing to me how people actually manage to get pregnant on their own. There are so many factors that have to all align perfectly and at the exact right time for it to actually work. It's all about the timing, and if your body doesn't want to cooperate with the proper timing (like mine), then it's next to impossible. This cycle seemed to go on forever and my body would not cooperate, which ultimately led to more wasted time and no success. Now, we were two months into fertility treatments and I didn't feel any better than where we were months ago.

I was once again distraught and discouraged and wanted nothing more than for the next month to roll around so that we could try something different.