When you’re trying to conceive, it seems like every single person on the planet starts telling you to “just relax.”
I always wanted to have a family, though I never had a specific time-frame or plan in mind. My husband and I met when I was 26 and he was 33.
We developed a fairly serious relationship in a short period of time and discussed things like having kids, but I had gone back to school after a long lapse and after a few years of dating, started graduate school. Kids didn’t really begin to seriously enter the picture until my doctor once casually mentioned that it was recommended that I begin prenatal vitamins about a year before trying to conceive. Suddenly, the question of just when we really wanted to have kids became more concrete. My partner and I talked about it for a long time and realized that, with me at the beginning of a 5-year (minimum) graduate program and getting closer to 30, there wasn’t going to be any “perfect” time. And so it was decided that we would start trying the following year.
We did just that… and tried… and tried. All indications were that I was ovulating normally, he checked out with a great sperm analysis, but we just couldn’t get pregnant. Then, after about five months of trying, I got it: a positive pregnancy test.
And on my husband’s birthday! We were thrilled and relieved and told the whole world. And then, three days later, I began bleeding. We learned that I had a chemical pregnancy, that it was common and didn’t mean anything was wrong. On the contrary, the doctors said it was a good indication that everything was working right, but it didn’t feel that way. So we were back at square one and kept trying. I took vitamins to lengthen my luteal phase and strengthen my uterine lining. I watched what I ate and cut down on caffeine and alcohol. We used sperm-friendly lubricant. But I didn’t get pregnant again… Not until one year (almost exactly) after we’d started trying.
When you’re trying to conceive, it seems like every single person on the planet starts telling you to “just relax.” And you want to kick those people. You want to yell at them or trade places with them – anything to make them realize just how impossible that really seems when month after month, day after day, you go through the same routines and the same emotions and the same disappointments. But I knew that trying to conceive was beginning to take an emotional toll on me.