Enter TTC

We entered our second year of marriage. Things had improved greatly with my new sense of responsibility, and there weren't very many arguments anymore. We decided we were ready to start a family! I had never been on birth control, and we had never prevented conception, so it was a little surprising to us that I had not gotten pregnant yet, especially since it WAS our honeymoon year *wink wink nudge nudge*. We made a doctor's appointment just to make sure that we were "ok". Routine blood work on me tested fine, and there was nothing obvious that was blocking our way. We were sent home with instructions and hints for baby-making. (Just when you think you know it all, right?)

I took TTC seriously. I was raised with an awareness of Natural Family Planning, but never bothered to understand it until now. I read up on it, and started keeping charts of my temperatures. It was a little exciting for me to learn how my body worked, and it was exciting for both us to think each time we BD'd that we may have just conceived our firstborn! The first month that AF arrived, I was a little disappointed, but not overly surprised. I hadn't quite gotten the hang of charting and temping yet, and probably was confused about when I actually ovulated. The next cycle was disappointing too. In fact, the next several cycles only brought the return of AF. I was starting to see a pattern with my charts – I was irregular. That in itself wasn't news to me; I'd always had some irregularity, ever since my very first an oh-so-exciting AF. But what I was noticing for the first time with my charts was that my ovulatory cycles were not clear. I was really only guessing on each cycle when I ovulated. Finally, I made another doctor’s appointment. I took my charts in to her, feeling a little proud that I had proof of what I was about to explain to her, and showed them to her. She looked them over, and said, "Well, Chelsea, it doesn't look like you are ovulating." !! I was not expecting that. What does that mean? I wondered. How can you get pg without ovulating? This revelation brought a whole new set of reproductive testing along with it. Deeper blood work, and an ultrasound to check out my ovaries. My GP suspected Polycystic Ovaries (PCOS), a common infertility issue among women. Several other problems that I had been complaining about helped to enlighten her to this suspician: rapid weight gain without a change in my diet (which had nothing to do with the Captain Morgan’s and Diet or the Pop Secret “Movie Theater Butter” popcorn my husband and I consumed nightly, of course), the irregular cycles that had plagued me my whole life, as well as some fairly undignified chin hair that once I discovered brought on a prompt display of tears.

The results came back normal, except for one piece of blood work showing that I had insulin resistant tendencies. Dr. assured me that the PCOS would show up later in life, and that I had every other symptom. Thus, I was diagnosed: The infertile woman.

Fellow TTC’ers, I do not need to explain to YOU the depths of despair my self-esteem plummeted to. What kind of woman was I? I owned a pair of ovaries, a perfectly good uterus, and was capable of love-making…did all that mean nothing? Was I going to be like Abraham’s Sarah, bitter and barren? I looked at Ty, this incredible man who was nearing the end of his 30s and had waited long enough for children and wondered, would he still love me if I could not give him children?