Friday, November 7, 2014

Best laid plans (my infertility story, part one)

When I was a kid I imagined that I would get married at age 28, have 2 kids and live in a white house with a front porch. I got married 3 weeks into age 29, so not too off the mark there. 

Then the idea was to start having kids a few years later. We bought the condo and I was worried that it wasn't big enough for a baby (because babies take up soooo much space). And so I said we should wait a little longer and Jeff agreed that was wise. He had a rough time with turning 40 and worried that a baby needed a dad who was at a certain point in his career which was not the point he believed he was at. Babies are so demanding! With all their wanting two-bedroom apartments and dads with perfect jobs. 

Needless to say, it wound up being 7 years after we were married before we convinced each other that maybe a baby could forgive us those things. 

I had some friends who pretty much got pregnant as soon as they decided to and others for whom it had not been so easy. Some had given up entirely and others were past the age of possibility and told me they were okay with where their lives had lead them. 

That won't be us, though, I told myself. I actually spent a lot of time deciding when would be the best month for a kid to be born. I think I had just read The Tipping Point and I was determined to have a kid in the spring. Every month that went by I would count the weeks off so that I would know when our future spawn would be born. We would not be having our baby around Christmas or New Years, that was for sure. And with the way the schools are so strict about cutoff dates now, really a fall birthday is not great. So spring it was. 

And yet, two years before we had decided to try in earnest, I had gone off the pill, and my cycles were still all over the place. The pill is so damn easy so I had been on it a long time. Way too long. Off and on for -- egad -- 15 years. It had been so long that I didn't remember what my cycles had been like before. Were they regular when I was a teenager? I guess? I have zero recollection of any periods from my teenage years except my first one and the first time I tried to use a tampon. 

But no worries, I told myself. All I had to do was go to Duane Reade and buy a basal temperature thermometer. A woman's temperature goes up at a certain point in her cycle, which is a given. The 14 days to ovulation is not a given, but the temperature going up just after ovulation is. I took my temperature every morning without fail for months. There was no pattern whatsoever. I was also getting pretty intense hot flashes during that time. I remember one in particular when I had to step outside on a winter evening to cool off. And I went 100 days without a period. Despite all my planning since childhood it was time to see a specialist.

Ladies, if you wouldn't mind, please take this short survey on infertility. And then there is one more question here, too. Please feel free to take the survey no matter your age or whether or not you have experienced infertility or have kids or even want kids. Thanks!

Part two of my infertility story. 

1 comment:

mim said...

Best laid plans. Thanks for sharing so openly, Craige.