the road to baby making

My husband and I knew we wanted to try for a baby soon after getting married.  Before we were married, we began preparing as much as we could. Like so many women, I was on the pill. For years. I needed to let my body do what my body was made to do. After getting off the pill, thankfully my body picked up where it left off and, for the most part, I had regular cycles. We also began Natural Family Planning (NFP) because we didn’t want a baby until we were ready to officially start trying.

If you’re unfamiliar with NFP it’s fantastic and I highly recommend it. Basically you learn when you are fertile (when you ovulate/if you ovulate) and when you are not based on basal body temperature (BBT) and mucus. So every morning at 5:45am (holy early!) I would wake up and take my temperature. That along with mucus would tell me if husband and I could do what nature intended or hold off. We took a class on it one weeknight and it worked out great for us! Like I said, I highly recommend it. You really get to learn so much about your body and how it works without all those fake hormones. (Note: if you’re thinking of NFP I would recommend finding a class in your area and being taught by a certified instructor. There are more details that go into it and charting, etc.)

I also began taking my pre-natal vitamins and reading books on how to best prepare my body and my husband’s for making a baby – foods to avoid, foods that are said to be helpful with conceiving etc. I had stopped drinking caffeine a long, long time ago, I nixed artificial sweeteners from my life months ago and started using homemade cleaners so there would be no toxic chemicals in the house or in the air - so there weren't any changes that I needed to make in those regards. It might be extreme but I wanted my body to be as healthy as it could be before growing a life.  I also made sure to continue working out as much as I could. I actually started training for a marathon not knowing if or when we would actually conceive and in the event it took longer than expected, I had plans on running a half-marathon in August and then a full marathon in October.

I was actually pregnant in this photo!

We had originally wanted to wait until May to start trying. I had a feeling that either we would conceive right away or it would be a loooong process. Statistically, young, healthy couples with no fertility issues conceive within the first 3 months. As it was getting closer and closer to May my husband and I kind of said, “what exactly are we waiting for? What difference is a month going to make?” so we continued to chart but didn’t restrict ourselves otherwise IF you know what I mean. A nifty feature of charting is that your chart can actually tell you if you’re pregnant before a pregnancy test confirms it! Our chart was leaning towards pregnant but I wanted the confirmation. As it was getting closer and closer to getting my period, every time I went to the bathroom I was afraid I was going to see my period. The day I was supposed to get my period I was having cramps. I was convinced every single time I went to the bathroom I was going to see blood. But every time I left the bathroom with a small smirk on my face. There are early pregnancy detection tests but I wanted to wait until I missed my period. Days went by and nothing – no period. I wanted to test on the weekend so I wouldn’t have to go into work with either good news or bad news. Fortunately, my husband was asked to work a Friday instead of Saturday so we were able to test on Saturday instead of having to wait until Monday (day off for Memorial Day).

At this point when we were testing I was already over a week late. Either the test was going to be positive or I knew I was having some other female issue and was going to need to call my doctor.  We woke up early. Followed the instructions.  Waited. And saw the most glorious positive sign. We are going to have a baby!!!

The next day I took a test again (I did have a 3 pack after all) and before I was even done peeing, the positive sign popped up. Lots of hcg in my system. We know we are very lucky and very fortunate that our road to baby making wasn’t too long and didn’t have many bumps. We did have some concerns about my luteal phase, but I didn’t need to get into that here. Again, something you would learn about in a NFP class. At the time we tested positive, I was 5 weeks pregnant. And that is where I will continue next time…