Welcome to my blog! Please
call me M. I’ve been toying with the
idea of starting a blog like this for some time now. With a new year freshly upon us, this just
felt like the right time. We’ll see how
it goes!
Put simply, my current focus for this blog has been a focus
for my life for some time now as well – getting
pregnant with a healthy take-home baby (or babies!) If I continue to write, I hope that my blog
will eventually become more focused around pregnancy, and then raising a child
or children. For now, we are taking
“baby steps” toward our current goal and hoping for the best!
In my quest to conceive, I have done a lot of reading,
research, and perusing online forums, and I have learned many things relating
to fertility – some informative, some misinformed, and some quite humorous at
times! I have also seen that there are
countless others who have similar hopes and may be facing a great array of
challenges. My hope is that by sharing
some of this information, I may be helping others with their efforts to grow
their families as well.
If you are curious about our journey thus far, feel free to check out my profile for a summary. Or if you prefer, here's a short narrative version as well:
My husband “R” and I got married in June 2012 and went off birth control as of our wedding day. He was 44, I was 35 – both pretty healthy and trying to make healthy choices. We really wanted to conceive quickly and naturally, and other than being a little older that the “ideal”, we had no reason to think it wouldn’t happen within a reasonable amount of time. In the fall, we started “actively trying’, doing our best to optimize our fertility and timing – and I believe we actually did conceive that 1st active cycle, but it turned out to be a chemical pregnancy and not viable. Because of our ages, after about 6 months, we visited a reproductive endocrinologist in March 2013. All of the usual tests came back within normal range except for one – my husband apparently has low sperm morphology (3% normal). We were somewhat concerned, of course, but having read that many couples with even lower percentages can still go on to conceive naturally, we added some supplements and continued to try on our own through the summer. We also saw a nutritionist, made some further diet and lifestyle adjustments, and tried acupuncture as well, just to help things along as much as we could. I suspect we had another chemical pregnancy in April/May, but saw no changes otherwise. Because the natural approach was my preference, I wanted to give us a good solid year (or 12 cycles) of actively trying on our own, without medical intervention. When we hit that mark in October 2013, and knowing that we're not getting any younger, we started becoming more open to trying new things to increase our chances. We continue to try on our own, but I started taking fertility medications in order to release more eggs, providing more potential targets for the good sperm. That brings us to now, January 2014, in my 4th medicated cycle. About 1.5 years since we got married, over 1 year of actively trying (now including a full calendar year as well), and 2 chemical pregnancies later. I never would have predicted back then that we'd still be trying now, and I can’t pretend that the journey thus far has not been discouraging – but now it’s a new year with new possibilities, and I am trying to be positive and hopeful. I am also incredibly thankful for all of the blessings we already have in our lives.
Whether you are just starting to try (for your 1st,
2nd, or more), have many months or years trying under your belt, or
are finding yourself facing specific challenges, please know that you are not
alone. From what I have seen, there are
many others having similar experiences and a surprising number who are facing
challenges, most of which were unexpected. In my blog posts, I hope to
touch upon various fertility-related subjects that I think might be especially
helpful to at least some of you. I am
also open to suggestions for topics in the future.
Thanks for stopping by, and I hope you will visit again
soon. And for those who are trying like we are, *baby
dust* to all of us!
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