Yesterday was day 16 of my cycle and when I took the ovulation test in the morning I got a positive result, which was very surprising since the day before I got a very faint line and I thought I will be ovulating late this month. The good news was that we had just had sex earlier that morning. But I've read some posting that say that those ovulation predictors are not super accurate so getting a bright line may mean you just ovulated or you're about t ovulate or you may ovulate up to 48 hours later.
So in any case, I knew it was a good time to conceive so I decided to book a nice hotel to spent that night and have a romantic evening (with lots of action). I spent 2 hours searching through various web sites trying to get a reasonably priced hotel in the Washington DC area for that night but the cheapest I found was $260!!! There was no way we could afford to spend that for 1 night. What a bummer! I got frantic checking out any possible travel web site for last minute discounts and finally gave up and went home in a bad mood.
To make a long story short, I was in a bad mood all evening because I knew that night was a very fertile time for me and that put all the pressure of "it's now or never" but the result was that I could not get myself in a sexy mood the whole night and my husband had a problem with his allergy so he didn't feel very sexy either and finally we both just got so frustrated and I ended up falling asleep on the sofa with no action at all.
Damn it - this thing is not supposed to feel so much like work, all planning and thinking about it and stressing. But I know that if I miss the opportunity this month I'll have to wait for a whole other month and that's making me very frustrated. Knowing that you're only fertile for about 48 hours each month makes me wonder how some people conceive from a one-night stand or when the condom breaks once in 5 years. I'm starting to think there are all myths created by advocates of abstinence. I mean, come on, there are thousands of women every month doing everything they can to conceive with no success and then there's some couples who pretty much had one sexual encounter without a condom and, boom, got pregnant.
This morning I woke up a little restless and took another ovulation test and it came back positive as well (don't really know what it means to have positive results 2 days in a row) so I pretty much forced myself to get in the mood and have a quickie before we went to work. But I had no time to lift my legs or lie still afterwards because I had a meeting at work so I can only hope that it worked. God, sex is so much better and fun when you're not trying to conceive.
Everybody says that you have to stop obsessing about conceiving and just have fun and it will happen but after 9 months of trying it is just impossible. Now I know how people feel when they complain about not having a boyfriend/girlfriend and everyone tells them to just live life and not obsess and it will happen. You can't stop! It's not a switch you can turn off. Even when you tell everybody you've stopped, you still think about it.
Anyways, I'll try to keep positive and hope something happened this month. By the way, if you ever want to read a great book about trying for a baby, read "Inconceivable" by Ben Elton. I read it years ago when I wasn't even thinking about babies and I thought it was hilarious and heart-warming at the same time but now I'm planning to re-read it soon. I'm sure I'll see thing from a different perspective now.
Thursday, March 30, 2006
Tuesday, March 28, 2006
March - part 5
So today is day 14 of my cycle and I took my first ovulation test. I did a lot of online research before I bought the tests a couple of months ago, reading reviews and trying to find the best one, but eventually I ended up buying the CVS one - it's easy to use and not very expensive and comes with 7 test strips. It seemed to work fine the first month I used it so hopefully it works again this time although I've been a little concerned with some comments that by the time you get a positive result it may be too late. I guess you just never know whether these things work until you actually get pregnant :)
I took the test first thing in the morning and unfortunately nothing. My test line was actually so faint (it's supposed to be dark red when you're ovulating) that I'm a little concerned. On day 14 I should be fairly close to ovulating (normally, my cycle is 28-30 days) but it didn't seem so on the test. I wonder what's going on with my body. I'll continue with the tests though and see what happens.
Just in case, I'm trying to have as much sex as possible even if the results come negative, just to increase my chances. Last night I almost threw myself on my husband... He's been kind of tired recently and not in the mood very often so I feel like I have to be extra sexy to get things going but the thing is that we've been having so much sex since we started trying 8 months ago (compared to before) that it does not feel as exciting anymore. I never thought I'd say this but here it is... Every time we get close to ovulation time we both know that we should be getting busy so the sex feels more like work than like wild abandon. Well, maybe not really work, but it's sort of quick and predictable and we sort of go through the same motions every time and I never seem to be able to get as excited as non-ovulation time sex.
Being in a nice hotel always gets us in the mood very quickly (when we were in college we used to spent the night in a hotel at least once a month and hardly ever left the room during those stays so I think that's how this whole hotel thing started) so I was thinking maybe spending the night outside of home will make us forget it's ovulation time and just get us in a sexy mood. But the thing is, we can't afford to spend several nights in a hotel and how do you know which night is the best for conception? Maybe I'll wait to get a positive result on my ovulation test and the reserve a room for that night... I wish there was a way to know in advance...
On a different note, I've been meaning to get back to yoga for a few months now but every month I keep thinking, maybe I'll get pregnant this month and yoga will be just too much effort, so I keep putting it off but then, of course, I'm not pregnant. A year ago, I used to go to yoga twice a week pretty much every week and, once you get through the first month, it just makes you feel full of energy. There's a lovely yoga studio right next to my office that does lunch-time yoga, which is very convenient since I cannot be bothered to do any exercise before or after work. So I'm thinking maybe I should really start doing yoga again, it may clear my head and make me feel more positive. It's just so hard to get back on track after missing almost a year of classes. I kept saying that I'm not going back because of the possibility of being pregnant, but I never thought that getting pregnant will take so long so I really should just force myself to go back and stop with the excuses.
I took the test first thing in the morning and unfortunately nothing. My test line was actually so faint (it's supposed to be dark red when you're ovulating) that I'm a little concerned. On day 14 I should be fairly close to ovulating (normally, my cycle is 28-30 days) but it didn't seem so on the test. I wonder what's going on with my body. I'll continue with the tests though and see what happens.
Just in case, I'm trying to have as much sex as possible even if the results come negative, just to increase my chances. Last night I almost threw myself on my husband... He's been kind of tired recently and not in the mood very often so I feel like I have to be extra sexy to get things going but the thing is that we've been having so much sex since we started trying 8 months ago (compared to before) that it does not feel as exciting anymore. I never thought I'd say this but here it is... Every time we get close to ovulation time we both know that we should be getting busy so the sex feels more like work than like wild abandon. Well, maybe not really work, but it's sort of quick and predictable and we sort of go through the same motions every time and I never seem to be able to get as excited as non-ovulation time sex.
Being in a nice hotel always gets us in the mood very quickly (when we were in college we used to spent the night in a hotel at least once a month and hardly ever left the room during those stays so I think that's how this whole hotel thing started) so I was thinking maybe spending the night outside of home will make us forget it's ovulation time and just get us in a sexy mood. But the thing is, we can't afford to spend several nights in a hotel and how do you know which night is the best for conception? Maybe I'll wait to get a positive result on my ovulation test and the reserve a room for that night... I wish there was a way to know in advance...
On a different note, I've been meaning to get back to yoga for a few months now but every month I keep thinking, maybe I'll get pregnant this month and yoga will be just too much effort, so I keep putting it off but then, of course, I'm not pregnant. A year ago, I used to go to yoga twice a week pretty much every week and, once you get through the first month, it just makes you feel full of energy. There's a lovely yoga studio right next to my office that does lunch-time yoga, which is very convenient since I cannot be bothered to do any exercise before or after work. So I'm thinking maybe I should really start doing yoga again, it may clear my head and make me feel more positive. It's just so hard to get back on track after missing almost a year of classes. I kept saying that I'm not going back because of the possibility of being pregnant, but I never thought that getting pregnant will take so long so I really should just force myself to go back and stop with the excuses.
Monday, March 27, 2006
March - part 4
Apparently now Brooke Shields is also pregnant and due in a few weeks. Why are they torturing me? Everywhere I turn - celebrities are preggers. I can't help but think that this must be a new trend because I don't remember ever having that many famous women being pregnant or giving birth at the same time. It doesn't matter how old they are - they are all pregnant and looking great on top of that. Even Matt Damon's new wife whom he just married like two months ago is 7 month pregnant.
Well, the good news for me is that according to my calculations I should be ovulation this week (keeping my fingers crossed). After last month's confusion when I either ovulated super late or had another chemical pregnancy, I will be doing the ovulation test to make sure that I ovulate. Tomorrow is day 13 of my cycle so I'm starting with the tests then. I'm not sure how accurate those tests are because I read somewhere that by the time you get a positive result, you may have already ovulated and you really may only have a few hours to conceive. And of course if you're taking the test in the morning (like I am) I can't really attack my husband while he's getting ready for work. Well, I could, but considering how he's always in a hurry in the morning, I don't know if I'll get any results.
So, anyways, because I can't be 100% sure with the ovulation test, I decided to start with the "trying" part this weekend so we've kept busy for the past couple of days, just in case I ovulate early. But we weren't really careful about positions or lifting my legs afterwards because I did not really think I was ovulating, we were just having fun.
Honestly, I don't feel any ovulation symptoms right now, so I'm a little confused. I wish there was an easy way about this; it would make things so much easier. Sometimes, I'm pretty sure that I'm ovulation because I feel cramps (like PMS) on one side of my abdomen and I feel a little nauseous and have a sticky discharge. But sometimes I have no symptoms whatsoever. It's just very hard to play that game.
I was talking to one my co-workers the other day - his wife is pregnant and due in a couple of weeks - and he told me that they had been trying to get pregnant for over a year but his wife has had some "women" problems and one day she was at the lab getting an ultrasound and the doctor said: "I see an egg in your ovary right now so you better run home and get busy." So she called him at work and he rushed home and that month she got pregnant. I wish I could have an ultrasound every day and someone can tell me exactly when I'm ovulating.
I'm just hoping we can have as much sex as possible this month naturally (without pressure) and this way I'll increase my chances. I really don’t want to go to the doctor but if things don’t work out this month, I decided I'm going.
Well, the good news for me is that according to my calculations I should be ovulation this week (keeping my fingers crossed). After last month's confusion when I either ovulated super late or had another chemical pregnancy, I will be doing the ovulation test to make sure that I ovulate. Tomorrow is day 13 of my cycle so I'm starting with the tests then. I'm not sure how accurate those tests are because I read somewhere that by the time you get a positive result, you may have already ovulated and you really may only have a few hours to conceive. And of course if you're taking the test in the morning (like I am) I can't really attack my husband while he's getting ready for work. Well, I could, but considering how he's always in a hurry in the morning, I don't know if I'll get any results.
So, anyways, because I can't be 100% sure with the ovulation test, I decided to start with the "trying" part this weekend so we've kept busy for the past couple of days, just in case I ovulate early. But we weren't really careful about positions or lifting my legs afterwards because I did not really think I was ovulating, we were just having fun.
Honestly, I don't feel any ovulation symptoms right now, so I'm a little confused. I wish there was an easy way about this; it would make things so much easier. Sometimes, I'm pretty sure that I'm ovulation because I feel cramps (like PMS) on one side of my abdomen and I feel a little nauseous and have a sticky discharge. But sometimes I have no symptoms whatsoever. It's just very hard to play that game.
I was talking to one my co-workers the other day - his wife is pregnant and due in a couple of weeks - and he told me that they had been trying to get pregnant for over a year but his wife has had some "women" problems and one day she was at the lab getting an ultrasound and the doctor said: "I see an egg in your ovary right now so you better run home and get busy." So she called him at work and he rushed home and that month she got pregnant. I wish I could have an ultrasound every day and someone can tell me exactly when I'm ovulating.
I'm just hoping we can have as much sex as possible this month naturally (without pressure) and this way I'll increase my chances. I really don’t want to go to the doctor but if things don’t work out this month, I decided I'm going.
Friday, March 24, 2006
March - part 3
The other day I was reading In Touch magazine (I am now almost addicted to those gossipy magazines) and it appears that Britney Spears is pregnant again!!! She just had a baby less than 6 months ago and she's pregnant again! How can that be? Out of all people, the one whose husband is a deadbeat redneck who doesn't even care about her managed to get pregnant twice in one year... Life is so unfair...
It seems that all the celebrities are currently pregnant and you see them and their bellies everywhere. Angelina barely has a bump and probably weighs less than I do (and I'm not even pregnant) but is due in 3 months. I started calculation when she got pregnant and it seems like it happened only a couple of months after her and Brad met. How can you not be jealous? Now I finally know how Jen feels...
And Katie Holmes - she practically got pregnant the first time her and Tom slept together and he is over 40! And even Gwyneth is pregnant with baby #2 and looking better than ever. I almost get some sick pleasure from looking at their pictures in the magazines. It's a weird combination of wishing I was them and hating them for being so perfect.
But then I got online and found all these articles about celebrities who had problems conceiving and it made me feel a little better. Courtney Cox took a while to have her baby, same as Brooke Shields, and rumor has it that J. Lo. has been trying to get preggers for a while and Aston and Demi have been trying as well. It's good to know that it's not just me although there are still the people like Britney who get pregnant even while her husband in partying in some Vegas club with a French model. I just don’t get it. I thought Kevin didn’t think she was sexy anymore after the birth of the baby... I have to stop obsessing about this!
It's hard not to feel like failure but it's Friday and next week we can start trying again so I need to stay optimistic.
It seems that all the celebrities are currently pregnant and you see them and their bellies everywhere. Angelina barely has a bump and probably weighs less than I do (and I'm not even pregnant) but is due in 3 months. I started calculation when she got pregnant and it seems like it happened only a couple of months after her and Brad met. How can you not be jealous? Now I finally know how Jen feels...
And Katie Holmes - she practically got pregnant the first time her and Tom slept together and he is over 40! And even Gwyneth is pregnant with baby #2 and looking better than ever. I almost get some sick pleasure from looking at their pictures in the magazines. It's a weird combination of wishing I was them and hating them for being so perfect.
But then I got online and found all these articles about celebrities who had problems conceiving and it made me feel a little better. Courtney Cox took a while to have her baby, same as Brooke Shields, and rumor has it that J. Lo. has been trying to get preggers for a while and Aston and Demi have been trying as well. It's good to know that it's not just me although there are still the people like Britney who get pregnant even while her husband in partying in some Vegas club with a French model. I just don’t get it. I thought Kevin didn’t think she was sexy anymore after the birth of the baby... I have to stop obsessing about this!
It's hard not to feel like failure but it's Friday and next week we can start trying again so I need to stay optimistic.
March - part 2
Yesterday my friend had her twins! She was scheduled to have them next Thursday but she had gotten so big and she was having difficulty sleeping, moving and pretty much doing anything, so she asked the doctor to move the surgery a week earlier and he agreed. So she had a C-section yesterday and the babies were born - one boy and one girl, 7.3 and 6.3 lbs. I couldn't wait to see them so my husband and I went to the hospital last night and they had just brought the babies to her room and they were so cute. The boy has chubby little cheeks and the girl is slender and with lots of hair, they don’t really look alike that much. They are so tiny that when she handed me one of them and I almost panicked. She told me not to worry, that they won't break but their little heads were just so small... She was recovering pretty well from the surgery and said that everything went fine, wasn't scary at all. It was weird seeing her with the two babies when I saw her just a couple of days ago with a big tummy...what a miracle!
It made me feel even more how much I wanted to have a baby of my own!
It made me feel even more how much I wanted to have a baby of my own!
March - part 1
My husband and I flew to Berlin a few days before my conference started and had a great time exploring the city. I had never been there before and even though it was rather cold this time of the year, the city itself is beautiful, especially the new modern part around Potsdamer Platz.
I knew my period was due around the same time we arrived in Berlin and I didn't think I was pregnant so I was basically waiting for it to start. In the meantime, being away from home and without the pressures of trying to conceive, we felt like we were on a honeymoon again :) Great times!
I felt some minor cramps a few times but no period yet, but I had no symptoms at all so I didn’t think anything of it. After my conference started, I was so busy from early morning till late at night that I honestly completely forgot about my period. At the end of the week I thought it was kind of weird that it still hadn't come but I didn't have an easy access to a pregnancy test and I was still so busy that I just figured if I'm by any chance pregnant, then whether I do a test now or later doesn't really matter.
However, after my period was 9 days late I thought it was kind of weird especially since it's almost never late. So I started thinking that maybe, just maybe I am pregnant but it's just too early to have any symptoms. I really didn't know what to think but at the back of mind I was slightly hopeful.
I flew back from Berlin on Wednesday and I was determined to take a pregnancy test as soon as I get home because by then I was 10 days late. I had a really long flight ahead of me and I'm really scared of flying so I took my regular anti-anxiety pill and I took a sleeping pill during the flight when we hit some major turbulence and I started freaking out.
As soon as we landed, I felt a strong cramp, which did not go away and by the time I got out of customs I was cramping a lot (I usually have major cramps during my period anyway) so I went straight to the bathroom and, guess what, I was bleeding. Full on, just like a period.
My first thoughts were, oh well, I didn’t really think I was pregnant anyway so it's just my period. But the next day I noticed a couple of blood clots on my tampon and that got me a little worried. When I had my chemical pregnancy back in September, I had a lot of blood clots coming out of me and lots and lots of blood as well. So I freaked out that I might be having another chemical pregnancy. The blood was the usually period amount but the few blood clots and the fact that the bleeding came 10 days after my period was supposed to come got me worried. I was mad at myself for not doing a pregnancy test in Berlin because this way I would have known whether this was just a normal period or a chemical pregnancy. As it was, there was no way to know. Urgh!!!
So of course I was torturing myself going back in time to figure out whether I had any symptoms of late ovulation but could not remember anything. I had stopped testing with the Ovulation Kit because I just assumed my ovulation occurred while we were in Atlantic City but it's possible that it was just very delayed (although it has never been that late before). But if I did get pregnant, why didn't I have any symptoms at all? At least the first time, I had felt some symptoms before it turned out the embryo never implanted. This time it was nothing.
It was difficult for me but I decided not to torture myself thinking about this more and more because there was absolutely no way to find out. I kept checking the amount of bleeding and it appeared normal but the weird thing was that usually my period is completely over after 4-5 days max. This time the bleeding was over on the morning of day 5 but for 4 more days I had a brownish discharge - not a lot but just enough to get me thinking what if...
Anyways, I have made a decision that we will try again in April and if nothing happens I will make an appointment to see a doctor and see if maybe something is wrong. I will try to do everything right in April - I will start testing for ovulation early and not stop until I have a positive. We'll try to have as much sex as possible and I will make sure to take my vitamins and we’ll see what happens. Of course, every time I have great plans something happens and they don’t always work out but I've decided to give us one last chance before going to the doctor.
I’ll start testing for ovulation next Tuesday so keep your fingers crossed.
I knew my period was due around the same time we arrived in Berlin and I didn't think I was pregnant so I was basically waiting for it to start. In the meantime, being away from home and without the pressures of trying to conceive, we felt like we were on a honeymoon again :) Great times!
I felt some minor cramps a few times but no period yet, but I had no symptoms at all so I didn’t think anything of it. After my conference started, I was so busy from early morning till late at night that I honestly completely forgot about my period. At the end of the week I thought it was kind of weird that it still hadn't come but I didn't have an easy access to a pregnancy test and I was still so busy that I just figured if I'm by any chance pregnant, then whether I do a test now or later doesn't really matter.
However, after my period was 9 days late I thought it was kind of weird especially since it's almost never late. So I started thinking that maybe, just maybe I am pregnant but it's just too early to have any symptoms. I really didn't know what to think but at the back of mind I was slightly hopeful.
I flew back from Berlin on Wednesday and I was determined to take a pregnancy test as soon as I get home because by then I was 10 days late. I had a really long flight ahead of me and I'm really scared of flying so I took my regular anti-anxiety pill and I took a sleeping pill during the flight when we hit some major turbulence and I started freaking out.
As soon as we landed, I felt a strong cramp, which did not go away and by the time I got out of customs I was cramping a lot (I usually have major cramps during my period anyway) so I went straight to the bathroom and, guess what, I was bleeding. Full on, just like a period.
My first thoughts were, oh well, I didn’t really think I was pregnant anyway so it's just my period. But the next day I noticed a couple of blood clots on my tampon and that got me a little worried. When I had my chemical pregnancy back in September, I had a lot of blood clots coming out of me and lots and lots of blood as well. So I freaked out that I might be having another chemical pregnancy. The blood was the usually period amount but the few blood clots and the fact that the bleeding came 10 days after my period was supposed to come got me worried. I was mad at myself for not doing a pregnancy test in Berlin because this way I would have known whether this was just a normal period or a chemical pregnancy. As it was, there was no way to know. Urgh!!!
So of course I was torturing myself going back in time to figure out whether I had any symptoms of late ovulation but could not remember anything. I had stopped testing with the Ovulation Kit because I just assumed my ovulation occurred while we were in Atlantic City but it's possible that it was just very delayed (although it has never been that late before). But if I did get pregnant, why didn't I have any symptoms at all? At least the first time, I had felt some symptoms before it turned out the embryo never implanted. This time it was nothing.
It was difficult for me but I decided not to torture myself thinking about this more and more because there was absolutely no way to find out. I kept checking the amount of bleeding and it appeared normal but the weird thing was that usually my period is completely over after 4-5 days max. This time the bleeding was over on the morning of day 5 but for 4 more days I had a brownish discharge - not a lot but just enough to get me thinking what if...
Anyways, I have made a decision that we will try again in April and if nothing happens I will make an appointment to see a doctor and see if maybe something is wrong. I will try to do everything right in April - I will start testing for ovulation early and not stop until I have a positive. We'll try to have as much sex as possible and I will make sure to take my vitamins and we’ll see what happens. Of course, every time I have great plans something happens and they don’t always work out but I've decided to give us one last chance before going to the doctor.
I’ll start testing for ovulation next Tuesday so keep your fingers crossed.
February
After trying all these things in January with no success I was really getting worried. My husband tried to play it cool and make things light, but trying for over 6 months with no success I was starting to think that maybe something is wrong. I mean, come on, we're both healthy, young, never smoked, never took drugs, drink very little, I’m taking all kinds of vitamins, and we're having sex at the right time and nothing is happening. How can this be?
We prepared ourselves for another month of trying and, even though now things were a little easier because with the Ovulation Calculator we knew when the best time for sex was, there was no room left for spontaneity. I felt like everything was planned- we knew the time, we knew the positions, we knew the drill. It just wasn't lighthearted anymore. But, we wanted a baby and we loved each other, so we were ready to try again.
I did a quick calculation to figure out when my ovulation will be and it was supposed to be during the weekend so I decided to have some fun and go to Atlantic City for that weekend and try to make things more exciting and just about conceiving. I started testing a couple of days before the weekend and the results were negative. And then we went to Atlantic City and I forgot my test kit (yeah, I know, it's stupid) but I figured my period is always 28-30 days apart so even without the kit I was pretty convinced I must be ovulation that weekend.
Unfortunately, not all best laid plans always work, and it turned out that my husband got a sinus infection a few days before we went to Atlantic City (he has a lot of problems with allergies and his sinuses) and they put him on a strong medication, which he had to take before going to bed. And, as luck would have it, the medication acts like a tranquilizer, so my husband would fall asleep right away and even during the day he did not have much energy and was feeling tired, so having sex was almost impossible unless we really wanted to force it, which I did not want to do. I was very upset and a little mad at him even though I knew it wasn't his fault but I just blamed it on him, and we got into a huge argument, so the fun times at Atlantic City did not work out.
We got home upset and sad and when I did an ovulation test on Tuesday and it came back negative I was convinced that I had ovulated over the weekend and by Tuesday it was over. With the pressure gone, we had sex several times just for fun but I did not even bother lifting my legs because I knew I wasn't ovulation.
That weekend was the baby shower for my friend with the twins. She was really happy and glowing and all the other women at the shower were either pregnant or recently gave birth so all the talk was about babies and pregnancy and even though I was really happy for her, I just could not help but being sad inside.
On top of that, one of our acquaintances who was at the shower, a hip Brazilian party girl who was dating one of our guy friends who everyone thought was a party animal, announced that her and her boyfriend had broken up right before the holidays but they had had one last "farewell sex" and she just found out that she was pregnant and she had decided to keep the baby. Needless to say, this was more that depressing - here was this girl who partied all the time, drank a lot, never really thought about having kids, who has one-off sex with the guy she's breaking up with and, voila, now she's pregnant. How can I not get pregnant when everyone else around me is, even people who are 10 years older than me? Why is this happening to me?
As the time for my period approached, I felt absolutely no symptoms of pregnancy. I was scheduled to go on a business trip abroad during the time my period was due so I figured being busy will take my mind off it and by the time I come back it will be time to try again. Last, minute, I managed to get a ticket for my husband to come with me using my frequent flyer miles so we were both looking forward to some time away to just have fun and relax and forget about the baby problems.
We prepared ourselves for another month of trying and, even though now things were a little easier because with the Ovulation Calculator we knew when the best time for sex was, there was no room left for spontaneity. I felt like everything was planned- we knew the time, we knew the positions, we knew the drill. It just wasn't lighthearted anymore. But, we wanted a baby and we loved each other, so we were ready to try again.
I did a quick calculation to figure out when my ovulation will be and it was supposed to be during the weekend so I decided to have some fun and go to Atlantic City for that weekend and try to make things more exciting and just about conceiving. I started testing a couple of days before the weekend and the results were negative. And then we went to Atlantic City and I forgot my test kit (yeah, I know, it's stupid) but I figured my period is always 28-30 days apart so even without the kit I was pretty convinced I must be ovulation that weekend.
Unfortunately, not all best laid plans always work, and it turned out that my husband got a sinus infection a few days before we went to Atlantic City (he has a lot of problems with allergies and his sinuses) and they put him on a strong medication, which he had to take before going to bed. And, as luck would have it, the medication acts like a tranquilizer, so my husband would fall asleep right away and even during the day he did not have much energy and was feeling tired, so having sex was almost impossible unless we really wanted to force it, which I did not want to do. I was very upset and a little mad at him even though I knew it wasn't his fault but I just blamed it on him, and we got into a huge argument, so the fun times at Atlantic City did not work out.
We got home upset and sad and when I did an ovulation test on Tuesday and it came back negative I was convinced that I had ovulated over the weekend and by Tuesday it was over. With the pressure gone, we had sex several times just for fun but I did not even bother lifting my legs because I knew I wasn't ovulation.
That weekend was the baby shower for my friend with the twins. She was really happy and glowing and all the other women at the shower were either pregnant or recently gave birth so all the talk was about babies and pregnancy and even though I was really happy for her, I just could not help but being sad inside.
On top of that, one of our acquaintances who was at the shower, a hip Brazilian party girl who was dating one of our guy friends who everyone thought was a party animal, announced that her and her boyfriend had broken up right before the holidays but they had had one last "farewell sex" and she just found out that she was pregnant and she had decided to keep the baby. Needless to say, this was more that depressing - here was this girl who partied all the time, drank a lot, never really thought about having kids, who has one-off sex with the guy she's breaking up with and, voila, now she's pregnant. How can I not get pregnant when everyone else around me is, even people who are 10 years older than me? Why is this happening to me?
As the time for my period approached, I felt absolutely no symptoms of pregnancy. I was scheduled to go on a business trip abroad during the time my period was due so I figured being busy will take my mind off it and by the time I come back it will be time to try again. Last, minute, I managed to get a ticket for my husband to come with me using my frequent flyer miles so we were both looking forward to some time away to just have fun and relax and forget about the baby problems.
January
As soon as we got back from vacation my pregnant friend called me and told me they had their baby a few days earlier. We went to see them and I held the baby and he was so tiny and so sweet that I almost cried. I was so desperate to have one of my own...
My friend was very tired and scared and she said she had not slept since the baby was born because she kept waking up to check up on him and then to feed him and change him and she was so stressed and sleep deprived that she was jealous of us taking a vacation and having fun. Only if she knew how jealous of her I was (in a good way of course)!
I went to see my friend and little baby Alex every few days and in the course of our conversations my friend told me that she and her husband had been trying to get pregnant for 2 years. But when I asked her whether she was checking her ovulation, etc she said no, they had just been having unprotected sex hoping to get pregnant and she was almost losing hope when she got pregnant with Alex.
So somehow that gave me some hope and I was determined to do everything I could to increase my chances. I finally got an Ovulation Calculator after spending hours researching how they work and how reliable they are. I got the CVS kind but it got really good reviews on epinions.com in it looked fairly easy to use. I also read online that taking Vitamin B-6 is good for conception and for keeping the baby so I started taking that as well. I had stopped using the natural progesterone because I wasn’t really convinced it works, but who knows, maybe I'll start using it again soon.
I started using the Ovulation strips on day 12 of my cycle and for the first few days the test line was so thin that I thought I'm not doing it right. However, on day 15 both of the lines were the same color and I scrambled to get the manual and see exactly what it means. According to the instructions, it meant that I will ovulate within the next 24 hours and the egg only lived for 12-24 hours so the best time to conceive was in the next 2 days.
I told my husband we got busy for the next couple of days, although again it was not romantic at all and by that point, it was almost like we had to do it and that's why we were doing it. I'm not saying it wasn’t good sex but it just felt weird that we were having sex to get pregnant and it was difficult to enjoy it as much as before with all the pressure. And of course you have to be careful not to spill any of the sperm, lift your legs when you're done and all this other romantic stuff. My husband never really admitted that he was stressed as well but he had a couple of "performance" problems where I had to put some extra effort to get things going so I could tell that it was different for him as well.
Unfortunately, after all the efforts and the planning, my period came right on time on day 29.
My friend was very tired and scared and she said she had not slept since the baby was born because she kept waking up to check up on him and then to feed him and change him and she was so stressed and sleep deprived that she was jealous of us taking a vacation and having fun. Only if she knew how jealous of her I was (in a good way of course)!
I went to see my friend and little baby Alex every few days and in the course of our conversations my friend told me that she and her husband had been trying to get pregnant for 2 years. But when I asked her whether she was checking her ovulation, etc she said no, they had just been having unprotected sex hoping to get pregnant and she was almost losing hope when she got pregnant with Alex.
So somehow that gave me some hope and I was determined to do everything I could to increase my chances. I finally got an Ovulation Calculator after spending hours researching how they work and how reliable they are. I got the CVS kind but it got really good reviews on epinions.com in it looked fairly easy to use. I also read online that taking Vitamin B-6 is good for conception and for keeping the baby so I started taking that as well. I had stopped using the natural progesterone because I wasn’t really convinced it works, but who knows, maybe I'll start using it again soon.
I started using the Ovulation strips on day 12 of my cycle and for the first few days the test line was so thin that I thought I'm not doing it right. However, on day 15 both of the lines were the same color and I scrambled to get the manual and see exactly what it means. According to the instructions, it meant that I will ovulate within the next 24 hours and the egg only lived for 12-24 hours so the best time to conceive was in the next 2 days.
I told my husband we got busy for the next couple of days, although again it was not romantic at all and by that point, it was almost like we had to do it and that's why we were doing it. I'm not saying it wasn’t good sex but it just felt weird that we were having sex to get pregnant and it was difficult to enjoy it as much as before with all the pressure. And of course you have to be careful not to spill any of the sperm, lift your legs when you're done and all this other romantic stuff. My husband never really admitted that he was stressed as well but he had a couple of "performance" problems where I had to put some extra effort to get things going so I could tell that it was different for him as well.
Unfortunately, after all the efforts and the planning, my period came right on time on day 29.
December
One of my really got friends (not the one with the twins) was pregnant and due in early January so I decided to throw her a baby shower. Something to do and besides, I desperately wanted to feel part of the pregnancy process. She was already very pregnant and heavy and got tired easily and she was complaining that she could hardly wait for the baby to be born and all the time I just kept thinking I wish I was her. I constantly discussed every single detail of her pregnancy with her so between her and my other pregnant friend I already felt like I know more about pregnancy and babies than anyone else. Sort of like "always the bridesmaid, never the bride" but in regards to babies.
I kept reading pregnancy books all the time to the point where my husband became worried that I'm taking this too seriously. All the fun pregnancy books you can think of: "From Here to Maternity", "The Thin Blue Line", "Babyville" - I read them all. Before I finished one I was already on Amazon searching for another similar one until I pretty much read them all. I mean, I usually read a lot anyway, but this was too much even for me.
And, of course, all the celebrities was getting pregnant one of the other, so I saw pictures of Angelina Jolie, Katie Holmes, Gwen Stefani, Brooke Shields, all sporting a nice bump and cool pregnancy clothes. Urgh!
I was feeling down so we made a last minute decision to visit my parents for the holidays. They live in another country and I only see them a few times a year, so I thought it would be great to spend the holidays with them.
We were scheduled to fly out on the day before Christmas arriving at my parents the morning of Christmas day. So we left work early, loaded our suitcases in the car and left for the airport 4 hours before the flight - usually plenty of time. Well, not on this day. Everybody was driving somewhere or buying last minute gifts so the Capitol Beltway was jammed. After an hour we had hardly moved one exit. We tried to get off the Beltway and use some back roads but even they were packed so we ended up getting to the airport a little more than an hour before the flight. And, of course, the check-in lines were a mile long. United Airlines didn't really care about checking us in quickly so by the time we got to the front of the line our flight had already left. I was crying, my husband was yelling at the check-in person who told us there was no other flight they could put us on that night, it was just a nightmare. We spent 3 hours at the airport trying to work something out and finally they told us they can only put us on a flight the next day, which meant we would spent Christmas day in the air and would get to my parents the day after Christmas. By that point we were both really tired and didn't even care.
We got home around midnight and woke up on Christmas morning when we had amazing sex and I remember thinking, wouldn't it be great if I got pregnant on Christmas, it would be so amazing. I always believe that everything happened so a reason and I kept thinking maybe that's why we missed our flight; so that I would get pregnant (it was exactly around my ovulation time.)
We spent a week at my parents' and had a really good time, except for the fact that there was no chance for us to have sex because we did not have much privacy and we traveled around to see some relatives and it just wasn't possible to have sex. But I figured at least we had sex on Christmas, the timing was right, so if it was meant to be, then it will happen (I was trying to be Zen)
Well, it did not happen and I got my period shortly after we came back from vacation.
I kept reading pregnancy books all the time to the point where my husband became worried that I'm taking this too seriously. All the fun pregnancy books you can think of: "From Here to Maternity", "The Thin Blue Line", "Babyville" - I read them all. Before I finished one I was already on Amazon searching for another similar one until I pretty much read them all. I mean, I usually read a lot anyway, but this was too much even for me.
And, of course, all the celebrities was getting pregnant one of the other, so I saw pictures of Angelina Jolie, Katie Holmes, Gwen Stefani, Brooke Shields, all sporting a nice bump and cool pregnancy clothes. Urgh!
I was feeling down so we made a last minute decision to visit my parents for the holidays. They live in another country and I only see them a few times a year, so I thought it would be great to spend the holidays with them.
We were scheduled to fly out on the day before Christmas arriving at my parents the morning of Christmas day. So we left work early, loaded our suitcases in the car and left for the airport 4 hours before the flight - usually plenty of time. Well, not on this day. Everybody was driving somewhere or buying last minute gifts so the Capitol Beltway was jammed. After an hour we had hardly moved one exit. We tried to get off the Beltway and use some back roads but even they were packed so we ended up getting to the airport a little more than an hour before the flight. And, of course, the check-in lines were a mile long. United Airlines didn't really care about checking us in quickly so by the time we got to the front of the line our flight had already left. I was crying, my husband was yelling at the check-in person who told us there was no other flight they could put us on that night, it was just a nightmare. We spent 3 hours at the airport trying to work something out and finally they told us they can only put us on a flight the next day, which meant we would spent Christmas day in the air and would get to my parents the day after Christmas. By that point we were both really tired and didn't even care.
We got home around midnight and woke up on Christmas morning when we had amazing sex and I remember thinking, wouldn't it be great if I got pregnant on Christmas, it would be so amazing. I always believe that everything happened so a reason and I kept thinking maybe that's why we missed our flight; so that I would get pregnant (it was exactly around my ovulation time.)
We spent a week at my parents' and had a really good time, except for the fact that there was no chance for us to have sex because we did not have much privacy and we traveled around to see some relatives and it just wasn't possible to have sex. But I figured at least we had sex on Christmas, the timing was right, so if it was meant to be, then it will happen (I was trying to be Zen)
Well, it did not happen and I got my period shortly after we came back from vacation.
November
Trying for a baby was turning out to be more tiring than we thought. After the initial excitement of being able to have lots of unprotected sex, it was now becoming somewhat of a routine. We were both busy at work and it was the time of the year when I don’t feel like going out because it's so depressing and cold, so it was difficult to feel sexy.
For the past two months I was trying to predict my ovulation days by counting checking my discharge, etc and we would try to have as much sex as possible during those 3-4 days, but I could tell that for both of us it wasn't as exciting as in the beginning.
It wasn't making love anymore, it was just sex and there was the added pressure of trying to conceive. I read somewhere that you should lift your legs up after sex to facilitate conception so I started doing that for about 20-30 minutes - very romantic...
I also obsessively read info online about preventing chemical pregnancy and a lot of people recommended taking natural progesterone considering one of the main causes of chemical pregnancy is lack of natural progesterone produced by the body. Some people swore by the natural progesterone saying that it definitely helped them keep their babies and it did not have any side effects as it was produced naturally.
I got a whole bottle of it (it looks and feels like lotion) from a health food store and started using it in October and November but unfortunately I got my period right on time both months. What a disappointment - I felt like a failure! On top of that my friend who got pregnant through in-vitro fertilization already had a big belly and she recently found out she was carrying twins.
I was very happy for her and obsessively discussed pregnancy issues with pretty much reliving every moment of her pregnancy with her. I also started reading books about pregnancy and maternity. Not the scientific kind, but the fun fiction kind, but still, I just wanted to be pregnant so badly! By the way, if you even want to read a fun pregnancy book, I highly recommend "Diary of a mad mother-to-Be" - very funny and true as well.
I also became very aware of any little change in my body, checking my breasts, my discharge and my temperature obsessively hoping to feel something that would indicate I was pregnant. Every little twinge in my breasts or every time I had to pee more than once in a couple of hours, and here I was speculating that it could be a sign.
I counted the days after my ovulation and when it got close to the implantation stage, I would start checking myself for every possible symptom to maybe tell me I was pregnant. I also constantly searched online for new and undiscovered symptoms of early pregnancy - indigestion, excessive saliva, headaches, cramps, you name it, I've checked myself for it. Unfortunately - nothing for two months.
For the past two months I was trying to predict my ovulation days by counting checking my discharge, etc and we would try to have as much sex as possible during those 3-4 days, but I could tell that for both of us it wasn't as exciting as in the beginning.
It wasn't making love anymore, it was just sex and there was the added pressure of trying to conceive. I read somewhere that you should lift your legs up after sex to facilitate conception so I started doing that for about 20-30 minutes - very romantic...
I also obsessively read info online about preventing chemical pregnancy and a lot of people recommended taking natural progesterone considering one of the main causes of chemical pregnancy is lack of natural progesterone produced by the body. Some people swore by the natural progesterone saying that it definitely helped them keep their babies and it did not have any side effects as it was produced naturally.
I got a whole bottle of it (it looks and feels like lotion) from a health food store and started using it in October and November but unfortunately I got my period right on time both months. What a disappointment - I felt like a failure! On top of that my friend who got pregnant through in-vitro fertilization already had a big belly and she recently found out she was carrying twins.
I was very happy for her and obsessively discussed pregnancy issues with pretty much reliving every moment of her pregnancy with her. I also started reading books about pregnancy and maternity. Not the scientific kind, but the fun fiction kind, but still, I just wanted to be pregnant so badly! By the way, if you even want to read a fun pregnancy book, I highly recommend "Diary of a mad mother-to-Be" - very funny and true as well.
I also became very aware of any little change in my body, checking my breasts, my discharge and my temperature obsessively hoping to feel something that would indicate I was pregnant. Every little twinge in my breasts or every time I had to pee more than once in a couple of hours, and here I was speculating that it could be a sign.
I counted the days after my ovulation and when it got close to the implantation stage, I would start checking myself for every possible symptom to maybe tell me I was pregnant. I also constantly searched online for new and undiscovered symptoms of early pregnancy - indigestion, excessive saliva, headaches, cramps, you name it, I've checked myself for it. Unfortunately - nothing for two months.
September
After the chemical pregnancy I was really depressed and scared for a while but I could not wait to start trying again. Even though the doctor told me to wait one full cycle before starting, I read many postings online where people started trying right away and got pregnant with no problems, so I decided I to start trying right away. I didn't know when I'd ovulate because according to the doctor it could take up to 6 weeks for my body to get back to normal, so as soon as my cramps subsided we got back to having sex regularly and pretty much every other day. I figured this way we're covered regardless of when I ovulate. About 3 weeks after my chemical pregnancy, I went on a short business trip to Florida and on the way back all of a sudden I felt super tired and slept through the whole flight without taking a sleeping pill. Then, for the next few days I felt really tired, I would fall asleep around 10 every night (I usually don't go to bed before midnight), so I was secretly praying that this was the first sign of pregnancy. I couple of days later I felt the tingling in my breasts, which grew stronger every day, so I was almost convinced that I was pregnant. I even started talking to my belly (crazy, I know...) I decided to wait until 5 weeks after my miscarriage to do a pregnancy test and became acutely aware of every little thing my body was feeling trying to interpret it as a symptom of pregnancy. Well, I was wrong! Exactly 5 weeks after "the incident" I got my period. Turns out the tender breasts were just PMS and the tiredness was probably work-related. I didn't really know what to think anymore.
Thursday, March 23, 2006
August
After one unsuccessful attempt, I was determined to do everything I can to get pregnant this month (told you, I'm a hard-headed Type A...) I spent hours online reading hundreds of forums, postings and information on what to do to get pregnant. I started taking pre-natal vitamins and decided to calculate the approximate time of my ovulation to increase the chances of pregnancy. I even read what sexual positions are best for this (luckily, I like those positions anyway, so it wasn't difficult)
When ovulation time came, I told my husband we need to have sex as much as we can on these few days and, of course, he was happy to oblige. We had lots of sex in the right positions, I took my vitamins and I felt that this time it should definitely work.
A week after ovulation I started checking for implantation bleeding again but did not see anything for a few days. As a matter of fact, I felt no symptoms at all and was getting worried. However, I did not get my period on time.
A few days after my period was due I started feeling a weird tingling in my breasts and then the next day I felt the same tingling in my abdomen. I thought it's my period but the tingling did not go away and only became stronger. Four days after my missed period my breasts were definitely hurting and I still had the tingling in my tummy but nothing else. I decided to do a pregnancy test, which came back negative - bummer!
Still no period a week after it was due. I found myself having to pee 5-6 times a day and I knew this was one of the symptoms of pregnancy so I got my hopes up. However, I've heard from other pregnant women that you get very very tired in the beginning of the pregnancy and you are also hungry all the time and I did not have any of those symptoms, which I thought was strange.
10 days after my period was due I woke up on a Saturday morning and did another pregnancy test and it came positive. Yuppie!!! I woke my husband and we were both very excited. I did another test later in the day and it was positive as well. I still thought it's a little weird that I did not have any symptoms except for the tender breasts and the peeing, but I was hoping that maybe I'll be one of those lucky women who have no negative symptoms at all.
I was so excited that I called my parents right away and we also told my in-laws and they were all very happy for us especially since they have been asking us about kids ever since we got married and we've been telling them that we just want to have fun and travel and see the world.
That night we had some friends for dinner, a couple which had been married for about the same time as us. We had talked about children with them in the past and they always told us that they were too busy with their careers and never really wanted to discuss the issue so I always assumed they did not want any kids. So imagine my surprise when they announced that they were 6-weeks pregnant.
Apparently, they had been trying to conceive for over a year but did not want anyone to know, that's why they avoided the issue. Finally, they had gone through with artificial insemination and they had implanted 3 embryos in her and they had just found out that she was pregnant so at least one of the embryos was good. She said it could be 2 or 3 kids, they didn't know yet. I asked her what she would do if all 3 embryos survived and she said she didn't want to think about it yet, but if it's 2 babies she would be ecstatic.
Everyone was so happy that I just couldn't resist telling them about me being pregnant and we were so excited that we would go through the pregnancy together, it was just awesome! She told me that she's already feeling tired and a little nauseous and she craves food in the middle of the night and I told her that I really had no major symptoms so she thought I was so lucky.
I woke up the next day thinking about how weird it is that I am not tired or hungry and I don't really feel pregnant, so I called my mom and she said she really did not have any symptoms until she was 4 months along so she told me not to worry. But I was restless and decided to go and have a blood test (which is a big deal because I'm very scared of needles but I just had to do it).
So on Sunday we went to Planned Parenthood and I had a blood test but I did not realize that I won't have the results right away. I had to wait until Monday afternoon, urgh! My hubby and I were still very excited and we had very passionate sex that night so when I woke up the next day and I had a drop of blood on my underwear I did not think anything of it.
Around mid-day I went to the bathroom and when I wiped I saw a very thin trace of brown blood on the paper, so I got a little concerned but I kept checking for the next few hours and the traces were almost invisible so I tried not to think about it.
I called Planned Parenthood in the afternoon to get my results and, imagine my surprise, when they told me that the results were inconclusive. This meant that my HCG levels (the pregnancy hormone) were elevated but not enough to conclude 100% that I was pregnant. The woman that I spoke with said that it could be because it was so early in the pregnancy and she wants to re-test me the next day to be 100% sure. I thought that was pretty strange because I had always thought that the blood tests were 100% accurate but I figured that maybe my ovulation did not occur when I thought it did so I might have gotten pregnant later that I thought which meant I was only 4 weeks pregnant and not 5. I checked online again (I had started google-ing every singe pregnancy symptom and issues and was almost addicted by then) and most people said that if there is brown blood it's nothing to worry about because it means it's old blood and it's normal to have it in early pregnancy. Most of the sources said that unless the blood is bright red and lots of it then it's nothing to worry about. My breasts were still very sore and I was still peeing every hour or so so I tried not to worry.
The next day on my ride to work I felt a little nauseous and queasy and I thought: "Great! Finally I'm getting the symptoms." I still had the brownish spotting and it had gotten a little heavier by noon so I decided to call the hospital. I explained to the nurse about my spotting and she said not to worry about it if it's brown, that it's completely normal but I wasn't convinced and kept pressing her for more explanation. To my disappointment, she wasn't very nice and she told me that even if it's something there is nothing they can do about it because it's so early in the pregnancy but her advice was to just wait and see what happens.
I felt very nervous the whole day and kept rushing to the bathroom to check up on the spotting and finally in the afternoon I noticed some bright red blood coming out. I freaked out!!! Somehow, in the back of my mind, I knew something is wrong and I just wanted to scream!!! I rushed to the hospital emergency room and called my husband to meet me there. He tried to get me to calm down but I was hysterical. I just knew things were not OK.
When I got to Georgetown University hospital, they got me in the emergency room right away and stated drawing blood, asking me questions, it was all a blur to me. I was lying on the hospital bed when I felt blood just seeping through in between my legs and deep inside I knew it was all over. After being poked and probed and examined for over 3 hours at the hospital (I don't remember much, honestly, it's almost like it did not happen to me) the doctor told me that my HCG level were elevated but not enough for a viable pregnancy and they did not see an embryo on the ultrasound so it was very likely that I had had a miscarriage. He wanted me to come back in 3 days to get tested again and see how my levels were. By that time I was just numb. My husband took me home and I remember I was lying on the couch not feeling anything, I just did not want to believe this was happening to me.
My friend called me (the one who was pregnant, I hadn't told any of my other friends yet) and tried to cheer me up but I just felt strangely empty. I called my mom and started crying as soon as I heard her voice. She is the only one who truly understood how I felt. A few years after I was born, my mom had a miscarriage at 7 months - she said the baby was alive when they removed it from her but it died a few minutes later - so she's been through a similar situation. I just cried and cried over the phone and felt at least a little better afterwards. No matter how old you are you still feel the need to cuddle next to your mom and hear her say that everything will be OK.
I went to the hospital a few days later and my HCG levels had dropped down, which just confirmed the fact that I was not pregnant any more. The doctor said I had had a chemical pregnancy - basically, the egg and the sperm meet and form an embryo but it is not able to attach to the uterus for various reasons so the body just expels it. The doctor said that it's better this way because it means it's not a viable baby and that there is no reason to worry because it means that I can get pregnant and he said most women have chemical pregnancy at least once in their life but they may not even know it because they just think they got their period late that month. According to him, it didn't mean something was wrong with me. He recommended that I wait one cycle before starting to try again. I had gone on the Internet (my best friend now) and found out that in many cases chemical pregnancies happen because on progesterone insufficiency so your body just does not produce enough progesterone to sustain the embryo. So I asked him about taking hormones and he said there are many side effects related to those so he thinks it's still early and we should just continue trying.
When ovulation time came, I told my husband we need to have sex as much as we can on these few days and, of course, he was happy to oblige. We had lots of sex in the right positions, I took my vitamins and I felt that this time it should definitely work.
A week after ovulation I started checking for implantation bleeding again but did not see anything for a few days. As a matter of fact, I felt no symptoms at all and was getting worried. However, I did not get my period on time.
A few days after my period was due I started feeling a weird tingling in my breasts and then the next day I felt the same tingling in my abdomen. I thought it's my period but the tingling did not go away and only became stronger. Four days after my missed period my breasts were definitely hurting and I still had the tingling in my tummy but nothing else. I decided to do a pregnancy test, which came back negative - bummer!
Still no period a week after it was due. I found myself having to pee 5-6 times a day and I knew this was one of the symptoms of pregnancy so I got my hopes up. However, I've heard from other pregnant women that you get very very tired in the beginning of the pregnancy and you are also hungry all the time and I did not have any of those symptoms, which I thought was strange.
10 days after my period was due I woke up on a Saturday morning and did another pregnancy test and it came positive. Yuppie!!! I woke my husband and we were both very excited. I did another test later in the day and it was positive as well. I still thought it's a little weird that I did not have any symptoms except for the tender breasts and the peeing, but I was hoping that maybe I'll be one of those lucky women who have no negative symptoms at all.
I was so excited that I called my parents right away and we also told my in-laws and they were all very happy for us especially since they have been asking us about kids ever since we got married and we've been telling them that we just want to have fun and travel and see the world.
That night we had some friends for dinner, a couple which had been married for about the same time as us. We had talked about children with them in the past and they always told us that they were too busy with their careers and never really wanted to discuss the issue so I always assumed they did not want any kids. So imagine my surprise when they announced that they were 6-weeks pregnant.
Apparently, they had been trying to conceive for over a year but did not want anyone to know, that's why they avoided the issue. Finally, they had gone through with artificial insemination and they had implanted 3 embryos in her and they had just found out that she was pregnant so at least one of the embryos was good. She said it could be 2 or 3 kids, they didn't know yet. I asked her what she would do if all 3 embryos survived and she said she didn't want to think about it yet, but if it's 2 babies she would be ecstatic.
Everyone was so happy that I just couldn't resist telling them about me being pregnant and we were so excited that we would go through the pregnancy together, it was just awesome! She told me that she's already feeling tired and a little nauseous and she craves food in the middle of the night and I told her that I really had no major symptoms so she thought I was so lucky.
I woke up the next day thinking about how weird it is that I am not tired or hungry and I don't really feel pregnant, so I called my mom and she said she really did not have any symptoms until she was 4 months along so she told me not to worry. But I was restless and decided to go and have a blood test (which is a big deal because I'm very scared of needles but I just had to do it).
So on Sunday we went to Planned Parenthood and I had a blood test but I did not realize that I won't have the results right away. I had to wait until Monday afternoon, urgh! My hubby and I were still very excited and we had very passionate sex that night so when I woke up the next day and I had a drop of blood on my underwear I did not think anything of it.
Around mid-day I went to the bathroom and when I wiped I saw a very thin trace of brown blood on the paper, so I got a little concerned but I kept checking for the next few hours and the traces were almost invisible so I tried not to think about it.
I called Planned Parenthood in the afternoon to get my results and, imagine my surprise, when they told me that the results were inconclusive. This meant that my HCG levels (the pregnancy hormone) were elevated but not enough to conclude 100% that I was pregnant. The woman that I spoke with said that it could be because it was so early in the pregnancy and she wants to re-test me the next day to be 100% sure. I thought that was pretty strange because I had always thought that the blood tests were 100% accurate but I figured that maybe my ovulation did not occur when I thought it did so I might have gotten pregnant later that I thought which meant I was only 4 weeks pregnant and not 5. I checked online again (I had started google-ing every singe pregnancy symptom and issues and was almost addicted by then) and most people said that if there is brown blood it's nothing to worry about because it means it's old blood and it's normal to have it in early pregnancy. Most of the sources said that unless the blood is bright red and lots of it then it's nothing to worry about. My breasts were still very sore and I was still peeing every hour or so so I tried not to worry.
The next day on my ride to work I felt a little nauseous and queasy and I thought: "Great! Finally I'm getting the symptoms." I still had the brownish spotting and it had gotten a little heavier by noon so I decided to call the hospital. I explained to the nurse about my spotting and she said not to worry about it if it's brown, that it's completely normal but I wasn't convinced and kept pressing her for more explanation. To my disappointment, she wasn't very nice and she told me that even if it's something there is nothing they can do about it because it's so early in the pregnancy but her advice was to just wait and see what happens.
I felt very nervous the whole day and kept rushing to the bathroom to check up on the spotting and finally in the afternoon I noticed some bright red blood coming out. I freaked out!!! Somehow, in the back of my mind, I knew something is wrong and I just wanted to scream!!! I rushed to the hospital emergency room and called my husband to meet me there. He tried to get me to calm down but I was hysterical. I just knew things were not OK.
When I got to Georgetown University hospital, they got me in the emergency room right away and stated drawing blood, asking me questions, it was all a blur to me. I was lying on the hospital bed when I felt blood just seeping through in between my legs and deep inside I knew it was all over. After being poked and probed and examined for over 3 hours at the hospital (I don't remember much, honestly, it's almost like it did not happen to me) the doctor told me that my HCG level were elevated but not enough for a viable pregnancy and they did not see an embryo on the ultrasound so it was very likely that I had had a miscarriage. He wanted me to come back in 3 days to get tested again and see how my levels were. By that time I was just numb. My husband took me home and I remember I was lying on the couch not feeling anything, I just did not want to believe this was happening to me.
My friend called me (the one who was pregnant, I hadn't told any of my other friends yet) and tried to cheer me up but I just felt strangely empty. I called my mom and started crying as soon as I heard her voice. She is the only one who truly understood how I felt. A few years after I was born, my mom had a miscarriage at 7 months - she said the baby was alive when they removed it from her but it died a few minutes later - so she's been through a similar situation. I just cried and cried over the phone and felt at least a little better afterwards. No matter how old you are you still feel the need to cuddle next to your mom and hear her say that everything will be OK.
I went to the hospital a few days later and my HCG levels had dropped down, which just confirmed the fact that I was not pregnant any more. The doctor said I had had a chemical pregnancy - basically, the egg and the sperm meet and form an embryo but it is not able to attach to the uterus for various reasons so the body just expels it. The doctor said that it's better this way because it means it's not a viable baby and that there is no reason to worry because it means that I can get pregnant and he said most women have chemical pregnancy at least once in their life but they may not even know it because they just think they got their period late that month. According to him, it didn't mean something was wrong with me. He recommended that I wait one cycle before starting to try again. I had gone on the Internet (my best friend now) and found out that in many cases chemical pregnancies happen because on progesterone insufficiency so your body just does not produce enough progesterone to sustain the embryo. So I asked him about taking hormones and he said there are many side effects related to those so he thinks it's still early and we should just continue trying.
July
We started trying to get pregnant in July'05 after we came back from a long vacation. I am very scared of flying and I take lots of anxiety pills every time I fly so that's why I wanted to come back from vacation before we started, just in case I got pregnant while there and then could not take my pills.
Everything was just so exciting for us! For the first time in our 10 year relationship (we got together when I was only 18) we could have sex without any protection so we tool advantage of this and had lots and lots of sex. I had not taken birth control pills for at least 3 years before that, I was young and healthy and I was convinced that I can get pregnant right away.
I got on the Internet and searched for clues of very early pregnancy. A week before my period was due I became very aware of my body checking myslef for sore breasts, nausea, cramps, etc. but did not really feel anything out of the ordinary.
Then I found out about implantation bleeding and began checking my underwear daily just to see whether I had any spotting. I even started wearing only bright clored underwear (no black) so I could check for blood.
As it got closer to the date my period was due I grew anxious with every day as I had no symptoms at all. One night, while watching TV I felt some moisture and ran to the bathroom and found a drop of blood on my underwear, which I thought was implantation bleeding so I jumped with joy.
I went to sleep happy only to wake up a few hours later and realize that I'd just gotten my period. I was so disappointed. I could not believe that after so much sex I was not pregnant. Little did I know...
Everything was just so exciting for us! For the first time in our 10 year relationship (we got together when I was only 18) we could have sex without any protection so we tool advantage of this and had lots and lots of sex. I had not taken birth control pills for at least 3 years before that, I was young and healthy and I was convinced that I can get pregnant right away.
I got on the Internet and searched for clues of very early pregnancy. A week before my period was due I became very aware of my body checking myslef for sore breasts, nausea, cramps, etc. but did not really feel anything out of the ordinary.
Then I found out about implantation bleeding and began checking my underwear daily just to see whether I had any spotting. I even started wearing only bright clored underwear (no black) so I could check for blood.
As it got closer to the date my period was due I grew anxious with every day as I had no symptoms at all. One night, while watching TV I felt some moisture and ran to the bathroom and found a drop of blood on my underwear, which I thought was implantation bleeding so I jumped with joy.
I went to sleep happy only to wake up a few hours later and realize that I'd just gotten my period. I was so disappointed. I could not believe that after so much sex I was not pregnant. Little did I know...
How it all started...
My husband and I met 10 years ago when I was a freshman and he was a senior in college and have been together ever since. We have lived together for 7 years and got married in 2003. We both love to travel and we used to spend all of our money on trips and having fun and even thought we both wanted to have kids at some point we never really gave it much thought until a year ago when a couple of our friends had the first baby in our group of friends and I we started helping them out by baby-sitting a few times a month. The little baby girl was so cute and sweet and innocent and we both loved playing with her so one day we just looked at each other and we knew we were ready.
I'm 28 and he's 34, we both don't smoke or drink and we lead healthy lifestyles, so figured we can get pregnant very easy. My work ionvolves a lot of travel and I had planned everything so that I will finish all of my travels before the summer, then get pregnant in the summer, have the baby in the spring and be ready to travel again in the summer of 2006.
Well, after so many of years of trying not to get pregnant and worrying about every day that my period was late, it turned out it's not that easy to get pregnant. Who would have thought that getting pregnant would be the hardest thing we've ever done! Both of us being Type A personalities, big on planning and on getting things done quickly, this whole process has been nerve-wrecking and full of anxiety.
I'm 28 and he's 34, we both don't smoke or drink and we lead healthy lifestyles, so figured we can get pregnant very easy. My work ionvolves a lot of travel and I had planned everything so that I will finish all of my travels before the summer, then get pregnant in the summer, have the baby in the spring and be ready to travel again in the summer of 2006.
Well, after so many of years of trying not to get pregnant and worrying about every day that my period was late, it turned out it's not that easy to get pregnant. Who would have thought that getting pregnant would be the hardest thing we've ever done! Both of us being Type A personalities, big on planning and on getting things done quickly, this whole process has been nerve-wrecking and full of anxiety.
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