Trying to concieve

I've been wrestling with making my journey public for some time now...  Why there is so much stigma surrounding infertility I don't know and my suffering (for want of a better word) in silence is only adding fuel to this fire.  So I'm speaking about it now, after all 1 in 6 couples will experience difficulty trying to conceive. I've been making journal entries for some time for my own benefit, so I'm going to start sharing some of these entries so you can laugh, cry, commiserate and identify with me whilst I'm on this journey.  So here goes...

2^nd July 2012

Who’d have thought – after years of being on contraception, finally being ready to have a baby and it doesn’t happen.  All my partners’ tests are ok so it’s me.  Unexplained infertility they call it while they carry out more tests, investigations and operations to see what form of treatment I might need.  Have I mentioned how everyone around me is pregnant?  Since I’ve come off the pill (18 months ago) there’s been 3 people at work and 6 friends and relatives including my little sister who is pregnant with her 2^nd and my closest friend who started trying when I finally confided in her the difficulties I was having.  Go figure she gets pregnant the month she stops taking contraception and when she and her partner were arguing – so the sexy time was limited.  Not to mention all the celebrities and people on my commute to work.  I see pregnant women like the little kid in the Sixth Sense saw dead people - all the freakin time.  Is it not enough that you’re pregnant but now you want my seat on the tube as well?

9^th July 2012

It’s official. I now need to try IUI or the more invasive IVF if I’m to have a baby as I definitely need help in order to get pregnant.  I guess I’m over the initial shock and disappointment, because I’m no longer bawling my eyes out every 5 minutes.  Instead I am left feeling like a total failure – why doesn’t my body work?  Seriously, why me?  I’ve never smoked, or taken drugs.  My partner doesn’t even drink much less the other 2.  We are healthy and crazy in love.  Yet obese people, drug takers, alcoholics and smokers get pregnant without even trying.  Accidents.  Mistakes. And here’s me, planning sex like a military operation every month so it’s timed exactly when I ovulate give or take a couple of hours – peeing on sticks and checking vaginal mucus like a gynaecologist and still nothing.  My period arrives and a try to convince myself it could be implantation bleed as its quite light.  And then when it gets heavier throughout the day I convince myself further that a lot of people still had a period even though they were pregnant.  The 4^th BFN kind of confirms that I’m not nor was I ever pregnant – no matter how much I felt my boobs tingling when I put on my over the shoulder boulder holder.  They say karma is a bitch; I must have been a real piece of work in a previous life to deserve this.  I don’t even think I believe in past lives and reincarnation.  Anyhoo – I am officially on the NHS waiting list for IVF which takes 4/5 months in my area.  Luckily where I live, I’m able to have the full 3 cycles recommended by the NICE guidelines.