I wouldn’t say I battled to fall pregnant but I didn’t exactly think it was easy.
We went through the usual motions; I went off the pill in March and had a lot of fun “trying” over the next few months. In November, I had my routine annual check-up and my doctor gave me some blood work forms to be used if I wasn’t knocked up by March. The reason for this is because the WHO classifies you as infertile if you haven’t conceived in 12 months.
TWELVE MONTHS?! I thought that to be a bit overdramatic!
Nonetheless, I headed home with my forms and realized that this baby making business is just that, a business and a nasty one at that.
I downloaded a Blackberry application that allowed me to input my cycle data and gave me an indication of my peak ovulation days. These days were highlighted green and became our guide to baby-making. It soon became a standing joke within our group friends that if we left a event early, they all claimed excitedly that it was a “green day”.
In January, while at the GP for a strained ankle I found out that I was pregnant. Oh happy days! I immediately called my doctor and made an appointment for my very first scan, at 8 weeks.
Unfortunately, I never got to keep that appointment as I miscarried at 7 weeks.
There was no actual reason. It wasn’t anything I had done. Instead the baby had just stopped growing. I found out that more pregnancies end in miscarriage than I ever imagined, in fact some women don’t even know they are pregnant when they miscarry. It took me a week of tears, self-deprecation and chocolate, but I managed to pick myself back up.
And so the baby-making adventure continued.
It took two holidays, a resignation and a lot of beer but I was pregnant by the end of April and this time it stuck around.
It all worked out in the end but it did take over a year to finally get everything going. And during that challenge I always found it extremely unfair that some of my close friends managed to have accidental pregnancies. Don’t get me wrong as I love those kiddies but I hated that nature made it so difficult for me to fall pregnant when I was trying so damn hard and my lovely friends just looked at their partners and conceived.
I had an amazing pregnancy and birth in comparison to many people so maybe my troubles are in conception as opposed to having pregnancy quirks or nags. This fact is starting to ring true in the conception of number 2.
In March of this year we made the decision to get cracking as our little girl was well out of her baby phase and well into toddler-hood. Add on 9 months and she would be the perfect big sister.
This time round we started with the ovulation Blackberry app straight away and got to work. Each month, I religiously check dates, looked out for ovulation signs and went through the motions of making baby number two.
It is now October and still nothing. This past week I bought an ovulation kit to determine if my “green days” really are optimal conception days and I failed all 5 tests that were in the kit. It would appear that my “green days” are complete fakes and that the past eight months have been for naught.
I recently heard that the WHO considers you infertile if you aren’t pregnant after 6 months when you are trying for your second child. COME ON!
I think it may be about time to dust those blood work forms off.
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