Trying To Get Pregnant-- No Dice Just Yet

Ignore all the other crap I have attempted to blog about-- it makes me feel like a failure--great ideas, but no soul. A recent acquiantence I made told me I to blog about my life and the sweeping changes to my life as a result of my recent move to the Pacific Northwest. I'm taking her advice.

I moved here for two major reasons: my husband's job and to escape the seething reality of teaching in a highly political public school system. But the escape wasn't just to avoid the massive piles of papers to grade or the exhausting number of futile faculty meetings-- I had alterior motives for packing up and moving half-way across the country. I wanted to have a baby. I wanted my husband to want to have a baby. I wanted to swell up like a balloon for an actual reason rather than just my penchant for sweets. Where else could a girl get "knocked up" than in the outskirts of the civilization where there is nothing else to do but try and get pregnant?

So we moved with nothing in our pockets but enough gas money and credit to pay our first month's rent. The very stress of the move overwhelmed me-- were we making the right choice? I know people say "survive on love," but seriously "love" can't pay the bills, especially when you're ready to wring each other's necks. And now we are here-- living five minutes walk from the coastal waters of the Pacific in a small fishing/logging community and I'm not pregnant. I can't even stand to hear when other people announce "We are pregnant!" I think well good for you, now leave me alone. Celebrate with someone else. And then I feel guilt swoop in and tackle my heartstrings, "How could you not be happy for someone else? Stop wallowing you brat!" So I concede and feel elated for the couple, but in the caverns of my brain I keep telling myself, "Soon."



I always wanted to experience the joys and aches of motherhood. Growing up part of a large family, I felt motherhood and parenting was something I could easily acquire--I swear my mom concieved six kids just by thinking about sex. Yet I knew something was wrong when after years of a normal period, my "Aunt Flow" stopped visiting me on a regular basis. My mom and sisters assured me all young,athletic girls experience a fickle period as a result of constant physical activity. It was nothing to worry about; I secretly worried. During my high school years I experienced a sudden weight gain ballooning from a size 4 to a 14. I was the skinny sister and now I was the obese, depressed, not getting my period sister. But again, my family assured me there was nothing to worry about. Puberty does this to people. Something still felt awry.

During these teen years I engaged in unprotected sex with my then-boyfriend (now husband) and I thought for sure I'd end up pregnant as a teen. Without a period I also knew I'd have no warning if I had indeed become pregnant. At 18 I suddenly started bleeding...bleeding horribly. I contributed the massive discomfort and the heavy menstraution to simply just not having a period in two years. But then I noticed something in my blood. Beware reader-- this isn't pretty. Bits of a developing fetus sunk to the bottom of the toilet. My heart might as well flushed down the tubes with it. I flushed my baby. I didn't tell a soul-- I knew what happened. I wasn't going to tell anyone. Never. I vowed I wasn't having sex again; I didn't for two years.

Before I married my husband I confessed this experience to him. I felt he should know before he committed his life and love to a woman who would flush her first and only baby. I imagined some horrible response that would result in his leaving me. Instead, we sat and cried in each other's arms.

A few more miscarriages since and here we are in Washington starting the actual scientific process of getting pregnant. I find myself feeling pissed I didn't pay better attention in the Catholic natural family classes I endured before our marriage-- who knew science would agree with religious methods? A recent diagnosis of polycystic ovarian syndrome gave a name and reason for my earlier misgivings and anxiety regarding my absent period and my expanding waistline. I'm making appointments with ob/gyns and trying to convince my husband to make time to drive a few towns over to drop off his "swimmers" for testing.

My goal for this blog is to give creedence to the experience of dealing with infertility and to share an honest account accepting the path to pregnancy. I will compose a journal as I forge ahead, and I hope you share your thoughts and experiences as well. I hope to create a community of women who feel empowered in their quest to build a family rather than devasted by Mother Nature's mis-steps.