A Trying to Conceive & Pregnancy Journey

When I think about you it brings a tear to my eye. All the things I hope to share with you, and your father too. How I will cherish you and love you with all my heart and more. My little miracle. I hold my stomach and think of you, lying in there with your little heartbeating, growing each day, every one a step closer to us meeting in the outside world. That day will be one to remember forever, and each one that will follow it another. My angel. X

My scheduled ultrasound last Friday was like a mental "brick wall". I couldn't see anything beyond that moment. Even sat in the waiting room with Peter I told him that I couldn't think beyond that green door! I was indescribably nervous that something had gone wrong and that bad news lay the other side.

Even when I was lying back on the bed and the Gynaecologist had started the scan I was still thinking the worst, as some form of self-defense I guess. Even when he reminded me of the "baby house" that I had seen 3 weeks earlier, and then pointed to the baby, my heart still didn't relax.
"Is it ok?" I asked
"Perfect!" he said
Still the tension refused to let up.
"And the heart?" I questioned.....
"Here" he said pointing at the screen, "boom, boom, boom" he uttered...... with that he flicked a few switches and the room was filled with the sound of my little miracle's heartbeat! Even now it brings a smile to my face and a tear to my eye!

At that moment my body relaxed and I finally felt a connection to this little being that I had so desperately been craving over the last 3 weeks! Something...someone..was definitely growing..thriving..inside of me.

In all my years I shall never forget that moment!

Link to scan images

We had been trying to conceive for 11 months before I decided to start charting my temperature in the hope of understanding my body a little better. I had heard a lot of people talking about it on the internet forum I frequented but having looked at a couple of charts thought it all looked a little complicated! More over I had been so determined to be “laid back” about all of this trying to conceive malarky and charting would just come across too obsessive…….but who was I kidding! I was already obsessed! If anything I hoped that at this point charting would help to calm me down as, all going well, it would reassure me that my body was doing what it should be doing, i.e. ovulating.

I went out and bought a digital thermometer and signed up for free on the Fertility Friend website (www.fertilityfriend.com). It really was rather simple! The essence of “charting” is you have to take your temperature at more or less the same time every day, that is when you wake up first thing in the morning, after at least 3 hours of consistent sleep, and take it before you do anything, i.e. don’t get out of bed, don’t go to the bathroom, etc.

I was still too embarrassed to admit to my husband that I had started to track my fertility..…..I didn’t want it to become a passion killer (!).I used to put my mobile phone under my pillow with the alarm set so I would be a diligent charting student taking it at the same time each day. Once semi-conscious I took my temperature quickly, all the while maintaining a horizontal “I’m still asleep” position to ensure a) minimal movement and b) not to make it obvious to my still sleeping husband that I was up to anything! Once the reading was complete I shoved the thermometer under the pillow as soon as it started to beep, again so as not to rouse any suspicion with the father of my future child, and as soon as it had stopped took it into the bathroom to make a note of that day’s reading. All I had to do after that (phew) was input my temperature onto the website on the appropriate day and the program did the rest for me - informing me when I had ovulated, what my most fertile days had been, etc, etc. Perfect!

Or was it?

To be continued

20 months into our trying to conceive journey we had both been given the all clear medically and there appeared to be no clear reason as to why we had been unsuccessful at winning the baby lottery. I certainly didn't feel ready to turn to assisted conception just yet. My heart was impatient, but my head told me to wait at least until the two year mark before making such a big move forward in that particular direction. Conscious of the fact that 2 years was just around corner I knew that it was time to pull out all the stops and really go for it, all guns blazing. Acupuncture had been suggested to me some months back and I had shrugged it off as something I could try if we weren't successful.......well here I was, still trying, with time slipping away from me. I managed to find 2 clinics and selected the one with a female practicioner, thinking that a woman would be more sympathetic to my situation.

Looking back I made the right choice. Lori, my acupuncturist was a mother of 9 and had a calm and caring aura which instantly put me at ease. On my first visit she asked me so many questions about my day to day life; how I felt in general, how I slept, my energy levels, etc, etc. She explained to me how in today's world our "systems" can become clogged and sluggish causing energy blockages in our body, poor blood quality and flow and this in turn affected fertility function. My varying ovulation date was testament to this and this was the first thing she hoped to rectify.

I had already read in my research on the internet that one should allow 3 months minimum for the acupuncture to take effect and this fitted in with my schedule of the looming 2 year mark perfectly. I decided to place myself in Lori's capable hands and relinquish responsiblity for the next 3 months, and for the first time in 20 months I let go of this TTC "tumour" which had become all absorbing, all consuming.

I felt liberated!! Utterly free! It was incredible the difference after just that first appointment.

I worked with Lori and her colleague, a Chinese Herbalist, seeing Lori once a week for treatments and taking my herbs twice a day. Up until this point I had ovulated on average around cd19. On the first month of treatment I ovulated on cd15, the next cd14 and finally on cd13. I felt full of energy, I was sleeping better and I didn't get any cramping mid-way through my cycle as I had done in the past.

One could say that the treatment allowed me to relax and this was the reason it "worked" - that may be the case. But there can be no denying that it did regulate my cycles, bringing my ovulation into a "normal" parameter and I personally feel it worked a mini miracle for me!

At the end of 3 months I was pregnant! All the waiting was finally over. Our dream had finally been placed at our feet and I have Traditional Chinese Medicine to thank. In whatever way......it worked its magic!

Well my period was due on the 17th January 2006 and I had felt like she was on her way for at least 5 days. I thought that this was a little bit odd as since starting the acupuncture treatments I hadn’t had any premenstrual symptoms until I actually started to bleed or at most a few hours before. I was also extremely windy and seemed to have a lot of saliva in my mouth……not sure if those meant anything, but that is how I felt. I didn’t let myself read into it too deeply and actually put it down to the fact that I had been so bad at taking my Chinese Herbs that month, and made a mental note to start taking them properly when my period had finished!

Anyway I had cut down my temperature charting to just the few days around ovulation over the last few cycles. In fact this month I had only taken my temperature from the day after I thought I had ovulated as with so much drink being consumed over New Year I knew they wouldn’t be accurate. Anyway, I thought I had ovulated on cycle day 13 which was great and confirmed that the acupuncture was working. I stopped taking my temperature when I saw that it was staying high and I didn’t take it again until the day before my period was due.

That day it was quite a low temperature, what I would normally expect at this time in my cycle, so I prepared myself for my period and made a mental note just to take my temperature again the following day to see if it had dropped (it does this around 24 hours before your period arrives) so that I would know for sure that it was on its way and I could tell Lori, my acupuncturist, so that she could structure the treatment in the right way later that same day.

Anyway the 17th arrived and I woke up feeling different. I could feel my pulse pounding while I lay in bed but I tried not to get my hopes up as I had been here so many times before. I took my temperature…it had gone up 0.1 degrees, which although not a big rise, was not what I would have expected with my period being around the corner. I reminded myself that I could have ovulated a day later than I thought which would partly explain the lack of temperature drop, and that I had had this a few times before over the last 2 years. I berated myself once again for not taking my Chinese Herbs properly as this no doubt has made my body throw a wobbly and revert to its old ways!!

I had fleeting impulses to buy a pregnancy test that morning but I told myself not to be stupid, and thought that maybe Lori would be able to shed more light on the situation as she normally could feel in my pulses that my period was on its way, so possibly she would be able to feel the opposite as well.

I went along to my appointment and down played my “symptoms”. Lori was very non-committal and decided to give me a gentle treatment just incase I was pregnant. I left the appointment telling myself that I wasn’t pregnant, as if I was she would have been able tell and she would have told me to buy a test. The fact that she didn’t comment really implied to me that she thought my period was on its way and she wanted to let me down gently!

So I came home and kept myself busy until mid afternoon. I came on the internet and logged on to my internet forum (!) and decided to ask if my symptoms sounded plausible and if I should test. Of course everyone said I should! I told myself I would wait til the following day, see what my temperature did as maybe I ovulated later than I thought, and if it was still high then I would test. I set off to buy a test at the pharmacy down the road. I went into the pharmacy and bought a test, and then went next door to the supermarket and bought 3 cartons on Ribena and a pack of 3 tubes of Smarties so I would have something to comfort myself with if it was negative!!

I got home and got the test out and started reading it to see when it was accurate from. It said that it was accurate from the first day of your missed period, which was that day. I knew when I bought the test really that I would never be able to wait til the following day (!) so I decided there and then to do it as surely it would be accurate and I would know either way, no sense in holding out when I knew it would be negative anyway!

I had been here a few times before over the last 2 years, and although each time I had tested I had been sure it was going to be negative I was gutted every time when that dot faded away into nothing and there was no doubt that I was not pregnant.

I went into the bathroom and just as I was collecting some “wee wee” the phone rang. It was Peter telling me he would pick me up in about 10 minutes to meet some friends for drinks. I thought to myself the fact he called the split second I started to wee must be a good sign!!! Anyway, I returned to my sample and dipped the test in, for a little longer than specified just to be sure! I stood with the test walking around waiting for the dot to disappear, waiting, waiting, waiting…………..

It didn’t disappear!! This can’t be right! It must be wrong! Am I pregnant??!!

I couldn’t believe it! I felt like I was going to burst. I can’t even describe my emotions at that point!! Complete disbelief and shock! I sat down at the computer with the test in front of me and just kept staring!! Even now, a few weeks later I can’t adequately describe to you how I felt!!

I telephoned Peter and told him that I wanted him to come in the house when he came by to pick me up, but in the end I met him out front with the car. I couldn’t contain it. I had a grin as broad as they come, and I said “can you keep a secret?” “What are you doing in September?”. He looked all confused! I just said “I am pregnant”. The tears welled up in his eyes and I began to cry. “are you sure?" he said…………”yes, yes, I just did a test”!

It was the moment I had been dreaming of for nearly 2 years. It was really happening. Whatever the future held for this little miracle, at that moment in time I was pregnant and I was going to enjoy every second of it!

It is 2 years ago to the day since I took my last pill. We had had a rather non-committal conversation on Christmas Eve 2003, namely me saying that didn’t he think it was time we started thinking about children. A good friend of mine was 2 months away from having her first child and I just felt like that after having turned thirty only 2 weeks before it was time to start considering it seriously. I stressed to my husband that it more than likely would take up to one year before we got pregnant. Never did I really think that this would be the case, or even longer!

I had read up on the statistics and after being on the contraceptive pill for nearly 10 years I had heard all of the stories of people taking a long time to get pregnant, with the pill’s influence coming back to haunt them for months after they had finished their last packet.

I come from a fairly “fertile” family (my mother is one of 10, I am one of 5, and one of my sisters has 7 children) so although the probability was in my favour for a quick result, there was something niggling me in the back of my mind that maybe I would fall into the “sod’s law” bracket and not be so fortunate.

Over the course of the next 2 years that niggle became a nudge, and at times a punch in the stomach.

I told myself that it was important to remain laid back about the entire process. “Relax and it will happen” “Don’t think about it too much” were all ringing in my head!

Having been on the pill for so long I really couldn’t remember much about my menstrual cycles before hand. No one ever really sat me down when I was a teenager and told me what was normal or that I should keep a record of how long it was between my periods, etc. I found myself at a complete loss as to what to expect from a body that had been regulated by medication for nearly a decade.

I decided to turn to the internet to try and fathom out what was going on and how I could improve my chances of conceiving…..of course in a very laid back and non-obsessive fashion!! What I unearthed was mind blowing! The more I read, the more I wanted to know - it was all I could think about. It became like a full time job! Investigating and analysing every “sign” my body threw out at me.

I did my utmost not to get too deep in the TTC (Trying to Conceive) world by refraining from using OPKs or charting, but to be honest although I looked to the outside world (i.e. my husband) to be laid back, I spent almost every waking moment thinking about my cycle, wondering if we had timed the sex well and if my period would show up that month. I kept a note in my diary of any “symptoms” I might get like a headache or cramps, when we “did the deed”, all so I could review them at the end of the cycle and see if I could get any closer to cracking the conception puzzle!

From the outset I kept my husband on the outside of this new world I had entered. I was determined not to let myself become one of those woman who demanded sex when they thought they were ovulating. I used what powers of persuasion I had, but if the answer was no, I tried to leave it at that……..a fatalist approach!!

I managed to survive on this philosophy for 11 months. My cycles were okay, varying from 29 to 35 days, but then I had one cycle of 64 days and another of 46, and at that point I decided I needed to take back some control. I decided to start charting my temperature so I would know once and for all if indeed I was ovulating.

I guess charting was my way of putting off what I knew to be the inevitable, which was a trip to the Doctor. I was terrified of what I might be told and I wanted to put that off for as long as possible.

So I embarked on the next stage of my journey, that of charting! This opened yet another Pandora’s box! The system of charting appealed to my analytical mind and I actually found myself enjoying it! Of course I was still determined to keep all of this from my husband, so the first few months I found myself waking up to take my temperature with the digital thermometer in the dark, quickly putting it under the pillow as soon as it started beeping so he wouldn’t hear it, and then creeping into the bathroom to read the display as I couldn’t turn the light on in the bedroom as then I would wake him and he would naturally want to know what I was doing!! It was a cloak and dagger affair for a while! Me and my thermometer!

Over the course of the coming months I was able to see that I was actually ovulating and I can’t tell you how much better that made me feel! My ovulation date did vary cycle to cycle, but my body appeared to be working and that was such a relief! It gave me a sense of control, like I finally understood my body, a knowledge that had eluded me for one full year.

By my fifth month charting I knew that I could not put off that visit to the Doctor any longer. I had been off of the pill for 16 months now and no result. I couldn’t continue to bury my head in the sand. As terrified as I was of what I might be told, I knew I had to go. After all it might be something as simple as popping a pill to solve whatever problem there may be, and the longer I evaded going, the longer it would take for us to get the family we so desperately wanted. So I took a very deep breath and made an appointment with a local fertility clinic.

Those few appointments I had were possibly the most nerve wracking times I have worked through in my life to date. All manner of possible diagnoses were going through my head, my insides were screwed up in a tight ball and I felt like I was going to throw up. After my first appointment with the fertility nurse and Doctor I remember driving home and just bursting into tears. I felt like I had started a chain of events that I had little control over, and now I would find out why, more than one year later, I still wasn’t pregnant. The “not knowing” was a heavy weight to carry, but the “knowing” was an equally terrifying prospect.

I felt I had little support or understanding from my husband, but how could he know how deep my pain ran? I had excluded him from this entire journey up until this point, as much for my benefit as his. In a way I guess I had felt that the fewer people who knew how I was feeling the smaller the problem was. As long as I could contain it within myself I could control it and how it was making me feel. Here was my husband now having to play catch up to what I had gone through emotionally over the last 16 months, and it was a tall order to ask of anyone.

Instead of working at involving him during my fertility appointments I went to each and every appointment alone. I had a full monitored cycle which involved blood tests on cycle day 3 and again one week after ovulation, as well as regular internal scans to monitor the ovarian functions, follicle growth and confirm successful ovulation. Everything came back fine, with no alarm bells ringing. I did not have polycystic ovaries which I had almost convinced myself I did, and despite my ovulation date varying month to month there didn’t seem to be any glaring reason why I wasn’t getting pregnant.

My fertility nurse told me that the final test I really should have done would be a histerosalpingogram, where they inject a dye via your cervix into your uterus and fallopian tubes to check for any obstructions or blockages. This didn’t sound at all pleasant and after the emotional month I had had I decided to leave it until after the summer, convincing myself that I would hopefully be pregnant by then and I wouldn’t need to have it done!

These goals were really how I got myself through. The first year I kept reminding myself it took an average healthy couple up to one year to conceive. When the one year mark hit I was devastated, but I worked it out of my system and set myself a new goal. When that new goal passed as well I finally made the appointment to get myself checked by a fertility doctor and so another goal was set once again as soon as I had the all clear.

I truly believed that by the Autumn of 2005 I would be pregnant. That summer of 2005 was a very tough one for me. I found out that several friends who had fallen pregnant the first month of trying were now trying for their second, and the self-imposed pressure cranked up a notch. It just didn’t seem fair that I had to struggle at something that should come so effortlessly and naturally. I began to consider the very real possibility that the only way we were ever going to have a child was via assisted conception and I really didn’t know if we were strong enough to go through that.

And so Autumn arrived! My two friends were pregnant with their second children and my world had fallen from beneath me! I was never angry that they were pregnant, or resented the fact that they had what I didn’t, but learning that a close friend was pregnant brought it home so much harder to me exactly what I was facing. I did such a good job most of the time at putting a brave face on it, even to myself, and this was like someone punching me in the stomach with the raw facts of the situation I had found myself in, and it hurt.

I hit rock bottom at this point. I felt completely drained. I had done everything by the book and I still didn’t have anything to show for it.

It was our third wedding anniversary and we took a long weekend away. I was on my 2 week wait and I had some spotting, which I normally don’t get, at around 8 days after ovulation. After all this time I had learnt not to get my hopes up and I was shattered as I thought my period was coming early. I had had so many signs that this month could be it. We were staying in room no.15, my lucky number, at a hotel called Dar Les Cigognes, which I only found out when I was there meant “storks” in French and many other little lucky indicators. I know it may seem pathetic reading into things like this, but when you have been trying for so long you grab onto whatever hope you can find. Spotting at around this time in a cycle can also indicate implantation of a fertilized egg. My period didn’t arrive while we were on vacation and the hope that we had been successful and that all of these “signs” meant something began to creep into my mind.

You do such a good job of keeping optimism at bay when you are in for the long haul. It is not that I spent all of my time being pessimistic, but you try to strike that fine balance between optimism and a realistic approach. It is the only way to stay sane month after month. But somehow the body almost seems to like to play tricks, and just when you think you have yourself under control, your body does something different that month and you allow yourself to hope, and to a degree believe, that this month could be it.

Of course this month was not it. My period did arrive one week after the spotting and I was left a deflated shadow of my normal self. I was angry at myself for believing that this could be it, and devastated that once again another goal had come and gone, and I was still not pregnant.

I knew I had to take myself one step further, suck in the nerves, and book myself in for an HSG . It was the last box to tick and it had to be done.

Very nervously I went for the HSG at a local hospital, it was as unpleasant as I was anticipating, but I told myself that I should get used to lying on my back with my bits on show as there would be plenty of that during pregnancy! I was enormously relieved to be told that there was nothing wrong with my internal structures and I really felt like a final weight has been lifted from my shoulders. There was no medical reason why I should not be able to get pregnant, all that remained was for me to find the missing link in my conception puzzle.....

(Please refer to "Acupuncture - Miracle or Anecdote?" entry)