Those of you who know us well may already know our journey to Trying To Conceive (TTC) fairly well as you've prayed for us and supported us. But for the rest of you, I'll share that story here.
In preparation for starting our family, I went off The Pill in February 2008. Of course, we didn't expect any magical results in the first few months, but by the time we got to June with no results, I started to do a little homework. I bought a basal body temperature thermometer and started taking my temperature each morning before I got out of bed. I started using an ovuluation predictor kit and charting my cycles. Those of you who are close to me know that I sometimes let my Type-A personality take over and, boy, did it ever in the ensuing months. I made lovely line graphs each month that recorded each day's temperature and ovulation test results. Our desk calender was covered with hieroglyphic symbols that each had their own meaning in terms of cycle days and peak fertility. Eric even learned how to read all the charts and graphs. But after four months of charting we discovered that I was still having highly irregular cycles with erratic temperatures and was
not ovulating at all.
We took our first trip to a fertility specialist in September. She drew blood every week for 4 weeks to test my hormone levels, but found nothing incredibly out of the ordinary. She diagnosed me with unexplained irregular, anovulatory cycles...no eggies...no babies. The recommended treatment was Clomid, a fertility drug that stimulates ovulation, but also increases your risk of multiples. Neither of us was incredibly comfortable with the idea of taking fertility drugs, so we decided to stick it out and keep trying naturally for a few more months. But I think the threat of fertility drugs must have scared my little eggies into action. I got my first positive ovulation test in October, no drugs involved! In October we also started taking a natural herbal supplement called FertilAid that works like a prenatal vitamin, but also naturally boosts fertility.
However, the joy of my first positive ovulation test wore off in November. Nothing about November was normal - my temperatures were all over the place, I felt strangely tired and stressed, AND I never got a positive ovulation test. 28 days stretched into 35 days and then into 40 days. This was nothing new (I'd had 40 day cycles before). I just wanted this weird cycle to get over with so we could start over in December. Well, Cycle Day 42 was December 2nd, the day of our Big Fat Positive prenancy test (see yesterday's post) and just like that-poof-our TTC journey came to an end.
So, what's the moral of this big long story and why did I share it all with you? Well, every woman is different and every woman needs to make decisions for herself that work for her. But Eric and I have made a decision based on our experiences to never go back to The Pill. From the age of 12 to the age of 21, I had the most normal cycles in the world...28 days, like clockwork. Three years on The Pill and my body went haywire. Of course, this is not true for everyone. I have plenty of friends who were on The Pill for years, off for one month, and preggers the next. But I also have plenty of friends who were having the same struggles that we were. My memory kept sending me back to that lecture at Grove City on Natural Family Planning. At the time, I thought the lecturer was crazy...no birth control...tracking your cycle every month, but now it makes sense to me. My body doesn't like to be tricked into something that's not true, because then it doesn't know when the trick is over. Your body might be different. But from here on out Eric and I are committed to keeping anything unnatural out of our bodies unless it's absolutely necessary.
Thanks to everyone who has prayed for us and supported us on this TTC journey. We're glad it's led to a happy ending!
