Fac.ebook...and the Pregnancy Announcement

Don't get me wrong, I am generally happy for people who are expecting children. It is an amazing place to be in one's life, full of life and gifts to come.

But my fac.ebook is one big fat pregnancy announcement right now, and when there isn;t a pregnancy being announced, there's a delivery being announced. Most days I am fine, genuinely happy and congratulating them. Today I am feeling especially barren. it is not one of those days.

I just want for me and fellow infertiles to have the same chance at getting pregnant mere days after getting married...or days and weeks before that in some cases. How is it so easy for these FP (fertile peoples as coined by Eve...my current cycle buddy). They don;t even know HOW to get pregnant...it just happens. They don't know about cycle days, luteal phases, hormones and their purpose. They don'tknow about OPK's, HPT's, DPO's. Yet they get pregnant without even really TTC.

If I stop POAS...and charting, and going to an RE...will I get knocked up so easily???

The answer....NO. How do I know this...because I was this. From early January 08 until April of 08 this was me! I did not chart, POAS, know when I was ovulating, I knew how a cycle worked (being the OB nurse I am) but I seriously thought if we just had sex every couple of days for a few months (if it took that long) we would indeed be pregnant. I had regular cycles, we had no reason to believe anything was wrong with T's bits...so we did it, like fertile people.

Even once I bought the fertility monitor in April I still had no idea we would try so long. I figured we would just chart and POAS and find out when the ideal time to time intercourse would be, so we weren't so exhausted. This did not help either. I started to worry In August that we might have issues, though we might as well do some preliminary bloodwork and a SA for T. Everything looked good accept for a slightly elevated TSH. So we were referred to an RE...first sign I may be...gasp...infertile.

We saw the RE in October...did more tests, all looks good. December (1 year TTC) we have a post coital test..accept the way the RE does it is not so post coital, there was no coitus involved at all it all occurred on a slide with T's sample and a sample of my CM. and low and behold my CM is hostile! 2 almost failed IUI's later and a miscarriage and chemical and here we are at IUI 3.

It turns out if the mucous wasn't an issue I would probably be one of these 'whoops I am pregnant, guess we should get married' people, or FP's for short. But I am not. And now we are looking at a diagnosis of RPL on top of it.

I feel bittersweet about our journey. It has taught me so much, to be patient, live in the moment, have few expectations, and most of all to be grateful for what I do have. But it has been painful, both emotionally and physically, and f.acebook pregnancy announcements are relentless. But with fa.cebook I have been able to help others as someone to reach out to, and to educate them (ever so slightly) on infertility and its pain.

Please F.acebook...let me be the next to announce my pregnancy...and please universe let that pregnancy last a good 9 months!