September 2010: The Reason

TK and I were getting pretty frustrated at this point. I hadn't thought of it, but TK offered to get tested. I didn't argue, but I just figured if his counts are low, we just have sex every other day instead of every day. My trust book didn't have more than 2 pages on men being the reason for infertility, so I had nothing to worry about, right? Wrong.

TK's semen analysis came back abnormal. Low counts, VERY low motility. A quick webmd lookup told me this was bad, very bad. The phrase "low chance of getting pregnant naturally" was floated. But, we hadn't gotten a chance to talk to Dr. General yet.

I had a dinner that night that I should have cancelled. I was obviously upset and preoccupied. But a friend was in town and I wanted to see her. This was the same time when pregnancies really started to bother me. It was announced at dinner that a friend of ours was pregnant. She got married more than 6 months after me. I was being lapped. I had to leave.

TK was upset when I got home, and we cried together.

The next morning, we spoke to Dr. General and she went through the results and said they were fine, we could still get pregnant, we're young and healthy and no, there's nothing TK could take to improve his numbers. Dr. General sucks.

I emailed the results to my OB-GYN who said TK should see a urologist. Again, in my ignorance, I had no idea why. As I would soon find out, there can be hormornal and/or structural reasons for low sperm counts. He made an appointment.

I also did my search on google and read about every supplement that might help and took my credit card over to GNC.

August 2010: The Fertility Monitor and Thermometer

You have no idea how annoying those pink lines got. Then I heard there was a monitor that actually tells you when you're ovulating - no pink line! Yay! I also finally gave in and bought a basal thermometer so I can track my temperatures. They rise after you ovulate, so it serves as a "check" for the monitor.

June 2010: The OPKs

Forget this guessing stuff. There were sticks out there that could tell you the day or 2 around when you ovulate and dammit - I was going to use them!

I started using them on cycle day 9. The trick of these is that there's a test line that's always dark pink and a line next to it - you're ovulating if that line is darker than the test line. I had no idea how hard that would be!

So, cycle day 10, 11, 12... you get the picture. Then on cycle day 17 (not exactly day 14 like I thought), it looked darker. We had sex the next 6 days straight. Seriously. TK didn't complain!

May 2010: The Tracking

Having sex was fun and all, but I wanted to know that we were having sex when we could conceive! At that time, I thought everyone ovulated around the middle of their cycles, so we just had lots of sex around that time (in addition to other times - just for good measure, of course!)

March 2010: The Tests

I never had chicken pox that I remember. Chicken pox and pregnancy are bad. So, I had to get a blood test to see if I had the titers. If I didn’t, they would have to inject me with it and I'd have to delay by baby making plans for a few weeks. When I got there, my doctor (love her) had asked the nurses to also take some blood to see if I’m ovulating. I had no idea they could do that. That was beyond my education at that point. I would later learn everything about blood tests when I picked up “Infertility for Dummies”. Seriously. I didn’t even know what hormone she tested. All I knew what that it was in the range that told me I was ovulating.

(I later found out it was progesterone – it’s only produced after you ovulate, so really any level is good.)

February 2010: The Beginning

We didn’t have to default to our start in January back-up plan, because I got a job in January. I started work in February in more ways than one. I started a 8am-6pm job, but I also began my baby-making job.

I figured I was fine with ovulation since I had been off the pill for well over a year and my periods were regular, but I wanted to get my insides checked out. Enter the torturous “HSG” (hysteralpingogram). Yeah, you’d abbreviate, too. My friend had this done – on Valium – and she was in tears. But, this friend does have a flair for the dramatic and has a VERY low pain threshold. Me? High pain threshold, have multiple tattoos – I’m pretty tough.

The procedure was the most painful thing ever. First they insert a catheter that isn’t supposed to hurt – it’s just a tube. Then why did it feel like they had to clip it onto my cervix or something? Afterwards, a dye is injected into your uterus. It’s supposed to feel like “pressure”. Pressure my ass! This was PAIN! I later heard from a doctor that it is the most painful procedure they do without anesthesia.

Anyway the most important news was that I got the go ahead to start trying – my uterus and tubes were clear – YAY!

And so it began. I’m not going to lie – sex with the purpose of creating a child was fun! (At first.) It brings “love-making” to whole new level. I’ll stop there since I don’t know who will eventually read this.