So last December we thought we were big time. Scared but excited to start the journey into parenthood. It's amazing how naive we both were even at 27 and 29 years old. I have definitely decided that "the talk" that is given in middle school is nothing more than a scare tactic. Now don't get me wrong, I'm not saying that middle schoolers need to know the full truth, scaring them is totally fine if it prevents teen pregnancy, however when you're finally an adult ready for this next challenge, it's incredibly frustrating that it doesn't just happen like the teachers/school personnel swore it would. So we tried, and tried, and tried some more. When that wasn't working out, I decided it was time to take it to the next level and start keeping track of some things. As I started doing some reading into ways to improving our chances, I found several things that can increase the odds of conception each month. So I bought various products designed to help pinpoint ovulation and started taking my basal body temperature every morning. Matthew was NOT a fan of the thermometer beeping each morning, and on more than one occasion asked how much longer I was going to be using it. To which I replied "until we get pregnant."
Despite all our best efforts each month a new cycle would start or I'd blow through several pregnancy tests thinking that I was late for a reason! Each time I would allow myself to get my hopes up, they would come crashing down in the form of negative pregnancy tests and the start of a new cycle for me. Now comes the crazy part.
Sorry for all the personal details about my cycles than I'm sure you don't care to know, but it is kind of imperative to the rest of the story, so just hang with me...Up until April everything had been fairly regular. Usually after stopping birth control pills it can take a few months for a woman's body to go back to "normal." So far things hadn't been too bad, more regular than I ever remember before I started taking the pill many years earlier. April rolls around and I'm waiting for a new cycle to begin and nothing. I wait a little longer (mostly because I was already tired of negative pregnancy tests and didn't want to take one) keep waiting, and nothing. May rolls around and still nothing. Pregnancy test after pregnancy test keep coming back negative. Ugh! At one point I almost had myself convinced that I was that one-in-a-million woman who never gets a positive test but is pregnant (crazy I know.) June rolled around and still nothing. At this point I chalked it up to stress. There were many things going on in the month of June that very easily could've caused a kink in my cycle, so I tried to convince myself that was the reason behind it. There couldn't be anything wrong with me...
By the time July came around and I was still having negative pregnancy tests and no cycles I was starting to get nervous and worried. I finally made the decision to call my OB/GYN and see if they could give me some answers. The response I received was NOT what I had hoped to hear. They basically told me to monitor my cycles for the next 3 months and if they were still crazy to call again. Monitor my cycles? I wasn't having cycles! It wouldn't be hard to monitor something that never came! At this point I was convinced that there was a problem and needed confirmation for why my cycles were so screwy. I waited about 3 weeks and called back. This time I was much more firm about what I wanted and actually got my way! They had me come in for a blood test to ensure that I was not pregnant, and then used medication to induce my cycle. I also had an appointment scheduled with one of the doctors in the practice to figure out what was going on...
No where in "the talk" in middle school did they ever tell you that there is a possibility of having fertility problems later in life. I'm not even "old" in terms of reproductive age, but I guess it doesn't really matter. As I've come to find out, not everyone going through fertility treatments is 40 or over the way the media likes to portray.
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