SPOILER ALERT: This is going to be kind of a downer post, just so you know! What can I say, just call me Debbie Downer! If you really want to know, then keep reading and please don't think too little of me after reading it, because I try really hard not to complain in my life, but I finally got the courage to actually post this.So I am now going to let you all in on a little secret, although I really don't have a lot of people reading my blog and I'm guessing that most of those who do read my blog really already know about this situation so I guess I'm not surprising anyone here. I'm trying to get pregnant. In fact, I've been trying to get pregnant for the last 16 months, obviously being unsucessful. I've tried basal temperature, ovulation predictor kits, etc., but not happening. The reason that I haven't really told anyone is because I just can't handle talking about it with people, especially if they have eight kids and get pregnant from their husband looking at them. Also, I know that people try and offer advice and they try to make it okay, they ask questions that frankly I don't want to talk to them about or they won't say anything, but just give me a look like, did it happen this month?
And of course they want to know what the doctor has said. Here's the thing: I am paying for my own health insurance right now which means that I will be paying for any fertility treatments that I have to go through p.s. they cost a lot and are can be very invasive. Also, fertility testing isn't exactly the easiest or most convenient testing around meaning that in a one month period, I will probably have to go to the doctor on a weekly sometimes biweekly basis, and have to align my visits with very specific days of my menstrual cycle i.e. the third day, the days before I ovulate, the days following ovulation, etc, which days the doctor thinks this is happening might not actually be the days they are happening. This presents a problem working full time, 45 minutes away from my doctor whose office closes at 4:30, and at a job that does not provide paid sick days, and frown upon you not coming to work saying that you are hurting your kids. Every time I have a day off at school, it happens to be a holiday, which primary care physicians here don't tend to have office hours on these days for some reason. Even if they did, I wouldn't be able to go to follow up appointments due to the whole job thing. It's a viscous cycle!
Besides the money and logistics of fertility testing that I have mentioned above, I have a really hard time admitting that things are wrong or that if things are wrong, I can't fix it myself. I think the thing that scares me the most about going to the doctor is that it won't be a quick fix like when you have bronchitis or broken arm; just take this and it will clear up, put the cast on and wait 6 weeks and it will be fine. Obviously that is not always the case with things, but that's the problem because it always has been for me. I will admit that I have lead a charmed life. I don't get sick. I can probably count on one hand the times that I have gone to the doctor because I was so sick in the last 12 years. I just don't really get sick and if I do than I am going to fix the problem, not somebody that spends 5 minutes with me and tells me to take cough syrup and I'll be fine! I could have done that without paying you dang it! I am pretty stubborn and bullheaded! I haven't had any major difficulties or struggles in life, things tend to go very well for me in whatever I try and do, as not humble as that sounds. It's been pretty easy, until now.
I don't want to sound super dramatic and woo is me here, but this has been the hardest thing that I have gone through. To sit and watch people be not pregnant, get pregnant, and have a baby all in the time that you have been trying to get pregnant. Or to have people ask you "When are you having kids?" or "Don't you want to have one too?" or "Don't wait too long!" without breaking down or wanting to smack them, is a little hard too. Or to let your friend know that you have been trying and to joke that she, who has only been married for a month, will probably get pregnant first only to have her call you a few months later and say that she is due in April. Or to check your Facebook and count how many people you know that are pregnant and end up with a double digit number.
And this on top of coming from a family of 13, knowing that my own mother obviously didn't have any fertility problems, and where one of your sister in laws get's pregnant every other month (that's right there's four of them pregnant right now, all due within a few months of each other), and being terrified to face my own family in a few weeks because I know that I am going to have to face all of these pregnant women, and all of the questions and looks from my family that don't know about this, of "Why don't you have a baby yet?" as well as from people that I grew up with asking the same questions.
And trying so hard not to feel angry when you see someone at church holding their baby or playing with their baby or talking about an eternal family. Or living in Atlanta, knowing how many people here have baby mama or baby daddy drama (if you really want me to explain this, just let me know and I can elaborate). Or listening to people on tv talk about abortion and a woman's right to choose to take the power of procreation so lightly and then say it's their right to sleep with anyone they want and not have a consequence of their action.
Like I said, a real downer post. :) Am I ready to admit it yet that I have a problem that I can't just try harder to fix? Am I going to have to finally put the charmed life away?
So anyway, the reason that I finally decided to post this. Please don't think that I do not have faith that something will happen for me to be able to have a baby, or that I haven't been praying about this or the ability to have strength to face this and to know what to do, etc. I probably should have posted about this first so that people don't think that I am just angry all of the time. I'm not and I have had amazing experiences that let me know that Heavenly Father knows what I am going through and that everything will be alright. I just needed to vent the last 16 months to help me get past it and move onto the next phase. Right, so anyway, from talking to a few people, I found out about this book Taking Charge of Your Fertility and they recommended it. I didn't really think about it, just assumed that I would get pregnant eventually, try harder, my motto. So I was at a thrift store looking for books for school and I found a copy of it for $3.00 so I got it. I read it and thought ,"Yes this is the answer to my prayers right here! I will try harder but also smarter! No doctor yet!" So I read most of the book, I am learning how to chart using Fertility Awareness Method, etc. Like I said before, I tired doing ovulation predictors, basal temperature, but I never noticed any sort of trend and especially with my temperatures, there was no pattern, they were all over the place. I just started my fist cycle of charting a few days ago and I'm noticing that my temperatures are still all over the place and not following a pattern like they are supposed to. I am trying really hard to not freak out and just to keep trying to get more information from my chart this month, because when I can learn a lot about my body from that information. But, it finally kind of hit me this morning that I might finally have to admit that there is a problem and I can't fix it myself. In writing this post, I have been crying a lot trying to just deal again and Richard just asks, "What's wrong? Is it what it always is?" meaning, are you crying about this again? And I know it kills him because he can't fix the problem either and he really doesn't know how to handle me crying besides, just hugging me and letting me cry and then letting me be by myself, which is actually exactly what he needs to do when I cry! Anyways, so there you have it. I will leave you with one last thought that I keep coming back to as I have been going through this, something that somebody said at church that has stuck with me: "I couldn't get upset because I had done everything in my power to solve the problem and now it was in the Lord's hands." So now I have to admit that I haven't done everything I could yet. I have to go to the doctor and do everything there that I can and humble myself and stop being so stubborn so that the Lord can bless me with experiences that will help me grow.
