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.

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...

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.