Wednesday, October 26, 2011

History

I have been married to The Bee for just over four years now.  We are high school sweethearts so we've really been together for 10 years (that looks crazy in writing but it has indeed been a decade!).  We waited to have sex until our honeymoon (gasp!) which most of our high school friends still don't know. We find it hilarious that a few of the guys practically obsess over it now and again - Did you or didn't you?! I'll go into the waiting 'til marriage stuff another time - please don't write me off as judgemental or a prude.

We have been using Natural Family Planning (NFP) all along. I use the Creighton Model where you record cervical mucus (cm) observations only (no physically checking your cervix or charting basal body temperature [bbt]). For the first 3 years of marriage, we were still getting our career lives in order and used NFP to avoid pregnancy. I was in my masters program for education our first year of marriage and then in my first 2 years teaching visual arts to elementary and middle schoolers. The Bee was looking for work that actually used his degrees in Math and Physics (he is a brainiac!). I can go more into NFP in later posts (why we chose that as our family planning method and such).

We decided to start trying to conceive (ttc) on our third anniversary. Because my cycles have always been pretty regular and I have been charting fertile signs since a year before we were married, we thought it would happen right away for us. No such luck. As of today, we have been ttc for 15 months. I saw my doctor in August and she told me to start charting my bbt and then to see the fertility specialist at the clinic after 3 months.  Last week, I called and made the appointment. I'll be meeting with her before Thanksgiving, which is sort of a relief but also feels like failure. So many people can reproduce with no trouble, no outside help, even by accident!  I am from a large family and never imagined being in this spot. Technically, I COULD be pregnant as I type this. I'll find out officially on Halloween. I don't think I am, though, and my bbt chart doesn't look promising. 

That is why I am starting this blog. I have become consumed by my inability to become pregnant, to be a mother. I cry too often. I feel angry and resentful too easily. I am still excited when others announce their pregnancies but it hurts a little, too. I hope that writing my thoughts provides some comfort and helps me on my path to becoming myself again (I've always been a crier, but the anger and resentfulness are new - and they feel AWFUL).

3 comments:

  1. We also waited until our honeymoon to have sex...and sometimes I feel like we belong in a museum or something. Ha! Isn't BBT tracking delightful? Do you do it by hand, or use Fertility Friend (or some other web page like it)? I'm a fan of FF. Or I guess you could say a "frenemy." Since they've never done me any good...can't love 'em TOO much!!

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  2. I totally feel the museum thing, too! Ha! BBT tracking is kind of stressful - it forces all of this to be the first thing I think of every morning. And it is discouraging to see my temp drop after ovulation (at least I appear to be ovulating, I guess!) I am trying to be so good about it that I wake up at 5:30 even on weekends just to take it at the same time (then usually try to get in a few more hours of rest!). I have been using Fertility Friend. I found it too difficult to chart on paper - my temps tend to be low (which I am thinking might be due to low progesterone, but I'll have to wait to find out) so the the chart from my doctor and one that I found online to print didn't even have space for my temps!

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