the two week wait

I find myself lying in bed at, mind you, 3am feeling my body work. It is two days before my period and I am in deep thought… This month we have done everything right, had sex during my “high ovulation”, taken the right herbs( I’ll tell you about these later), done acupuncture, cute back on coffee, stopped drinking wine, etc., about five days ago… so we should be pregnant, right???? That is what I want to be, more than anything, but I also don’t want to get my hopes up either. See here is the situation, I have been in this “two week wait”, feels like about a thousand times before… and every month it has been a let down. So I lay here feeling my ovaries and that area of my body… I can feel action going on down there… but I don’t know if my body is just getting ready to start my period or if it is setting up the 9 month house for our new little baby.

One of my best friends(whom had two beautiful boys) said it right… don’t worry too much because stress is the last thing you need when you are trying to get pregnant. I think I might have given that advice about a year ago, when it had only been four or five months since we had started trying. You tell me… how is that possible????? When all you feel is that you are a failure. Growing up you are taught to be careful of getting pregnant, to always use birth control and practice safe sex… little did I know it would be so difficult to get pregnant. I did practice safe sex and even waited until I was really in love to make love… I feel I did everything right… is this how I am rewarded??? Waking up in the middle of the night and wishing and praying that I had little hands that I could put inside me to make that fertilized egg attach to my uterine wall.

I’m sure there are a lot of woman out there that feel the same way. We are all in our thirties and have finally met the man of our dreams, waited a few years to make sure our marriage was solid enough, and then finally after discussing it, deciding it was time to start tryng… who would have thought it would be such a process. It also just doesn’t seem fair that all around you people are having “woop-es” and that people who don’t deserve to have a baby are having no trouble at all getting pregnant.

One of the situations that really got me was when one of my clients, who smokes like a chimney, and drinks like a fish told me she and her husband were going to start trying… about three months later I saw her and of course, she was pregnant. Not that I would wish her to go through what I am, I wouldn’t wish this on my worst enemy, but it just didn’t seem fair that I was doing everything right and she wasn’t.

That’s going to be it for now… good night all… I hope and pray that you will be pregnant soon.

sincerely, Hopeful

Just a little about me

Good morning world… and all those fellow ladies and or men who may be struggling to get pregnant with their first, second or… any child. I know sometimes you can feel alone and scared and frightened and worst of all like a failure. Stop… we can get through it together… I promise.

Here is my story. My husband and I have been trying to get pregnant for about a year and a half now. We knew, because of our situation (my husband survived a motorcycle accident, with a spinal cord injury that left him an incomplete paraplegic), that we would struggle a little. However, after a year of not worrying or getting stressed out I finally started feeling hopeless. I know that there are a lot of people out there who have been trying a lot longer than that and have gone through a lot more pain and torment and have had no one to talk to. If you are like me, it would seem that all of your friends and family are getting pregnant the moment they even think about having a baby… sadly, those are the people we start to resent and feel jealous of. I am writing because I know that there are days that I feel all alone… and I’m sure that you feel the same… I wanted to bring us all together to make a band of support. So that we can get through all the pain and fear and feelings of failure TOGETHER not ALONE. So I am here to open the door and build a bridge and tell all of the experience that I have had… so that maybe we could all help each other. What do you think????

Why do I feel like I can help? Well, I am a hairstylist and just recently… maybe I just started listening because I can now relate… I have heard so many stories of people going through exactly what I am going through… in their own little way, or big way, however you’d like to think about it. To me it is a very big conversation… and one that should be talked about. So here I am… open and raw.

As I said before my husband and I have been trying to make a baby for about a year and a half…. What does that mean? We have or I should say I have been using the clear blue ovulation kit every month to see when I am ovulating. I do recommend this kit. My girlfriend who took a year to get pregnant with her first baby, using the average ovulation sticks, only took three months with the clear blue kit… it is pricey but I know that it does work if you are clueless about your ovulation, which is the majority. The other great thing about it is, that it will show you three things on the ovulation machine screen… it will show you low ovulation, moderate ovulation and then of course high ovulation (our favorite area). This is great because it allows you to have sex as much as you can during that time. If you are looking for a great kit… use this one:) Anyways, it hasn’t gotten my husband and I to the place of pregnancy yet… but I know it will be a great tool when everything else comes into play:)

So I don’t know about you but my husbands and my last resort is IVF… do we really even understand what that is??? Since I have been on the pregnancy journey I have heard all of these abbreviations…. I’m sooooo sick of medical abbreviations… just be honest and tell us what IVF is, what IUI is and all the other things talked about when you are talking about making a baby!
IVF stands for in vitro fertilization… i.e. making a baby in a petri dish. IUI is artificial insemination… i.e. putting the sperm where it needs to be. Now that we have that out-of-the-way I will get back to it… Like I was saying my husband and I have not wanted to go that direction. Although, it goes against every grain in our bodies, we didn’t and don’t want to close the doors to that idea…Why?… Because that is the direction most individuals are going these days and we would just feel ignorant if we didn’t research the idea. With that in mind, we went to one Doctor on the central coast whom will remain nameless. This gentleman, needless to say, did not mesh well with us:( After a $300 dollar five-minute consult with him we found out exactly what we already knew… that we are a young and healthy couple with great genes and that we should have no problem making a baby…. duh!!!! But obviously we haven’t yet, so have a little compassion!!! My poor husband, who is a very private person, had to disclose some of our most intimate moments with a complete stranger, who had no compassion at all. I think at one point he said that we would be able to try IUI (insemination), and he didn’t think that we would have to go with IVF (petri dish), which would make his ex-wife unhappy because it wasn’t as much money…. LOL pardon my french but what the F*%$, I don’t give a S&*$# about your ex… all I want is to have a baby!!!!!   Okay, so I may sound a little harsh at the moment… but you know what I mean when you want someone to understand, you want them to understand and have compassion.  I did get all my blood work done and found that I was completely healthy… which I guess is great, but then why no babies????

So I’m sure you are wondering how my husband can perform if he can’t feel from his chest down… that is where the “incomplete” comes into play.  This means that he did not sever his spinal cord and a little bit of information still gets past the injury site.  Thank goodness his tally wacker, weener, what ever you may call it, still gets excited! However, the whole process a lot more difficult….. so the most we ever get him to ejaculate is once a month:(  This, in turn, can put a whole twist on the health and motility of the sperm.  Still have not produced one… why would we want to waste our one chance that month to have a baby…. on putting it in a cup??? Anyways we are not there yet….

I’ve got to go for now…. but look forward to the next excerpt we will go through my journey through herbal remedies and acupuncture.  And more stories of others going through what we are.

Sincerely, hopeful