The Waiting Game

Cycle number: 8

Cycle day: 34

Meds: still the Met

Outlook: serene

Today I booked an appointment at the fertility clinic. I will go there next Friday for a scan to check my lining. If all is well, I will take Pro.vera to induce a bleed, and will then start on my second round of Clo.mid. I'm excited to be moving forward again. I tried Clo.mid for the first time in October, but didn't ovulate. Bubble and I have since been on a ttc break as our wedding is in September and we didn't want to risk a baby due around that time. It's been a strange time...no active thinking about baby-making but no prevention either apparently I have my own in-built contraceptive... It's just been a time of waiting and waiting.

So I am uber excited to be doing something about it again. My dose will be upped to 100mg and hopefully I will ovulate this time. Just to ovulate would be a massive achievement, to know that it is possible. People who "just" get pregnant simply don't know how lucky they are not to have to think about this kind of stuff. As I have written about before, my sister is currently pregnant. She wasn't actively trying and it was her first month off birth control. She didn't even realise she was pregnant until she was nearly 10 weeks gone. She's never read anything about trying to conceive, or pregnancy, never made any changes to her lifestyle to improve her chances, never even talked about having children to my knowledge. And yet here she is, over halfway towards having her own child.

It is tiring having to actively try. Even if you don't go completely overboard and become quite obsessed - which understandably happens to a lot of women trying for a child - there is so much involved in the whole process for those to whom it doesn't just happen after the initial "honeymoon" couple of months when you are blissfully unaware:

• The Science - how the hell does this conception thing work anyway? Bizarrely, one of the most natural and personal endeavours in the world is still a mystery since they forgot to include it in any school curriculum. Terminology, maths, biology, charting (I'll come back to that), you pretty much become a certified fertility nurse after the first six months
• The Reading - anything, everything, online, in books, in magazines. Definitely online. Stories of conception and birth and what worked and what didn't, sifting through medical journals and horror stories and old wives tales, self diagnosis, message boards, forums, blogs.....especially blogs ;) Trying to absorb and make sense of this large quantity of text can be extremely challenging
• The Self Obsessing - Symptom checking, fretting over this pain and that... is something wrong with me? If so, what is it? If I felt a twinge on CD7 does this mean that I have PCOS? Am I pregnant? If I felt sick at this point last cycle and I don't now, does that mean something? O_O The constant self analysis can be incredibly draining and psychosomia-inducing
• The Charting - a fresh hell for anyone who is already starting to panic about ttc. Temperatures, taken to the very same minute each morning otherwise they could be misleading, but is the thermometer accurate? Are my multivitamins interferring? Did that curry last night cause it to be higher than usual? For me, the anticipation of my morning temperature-taking would always cause me to wake before I should, which then made my temps inaccurate, and the whole thing just made me tired before I could even start the day
• The Deed - what was once an expression of love between you and your partner suddently becomes a regimen even the army would be proud of. To do it every night or every other night? Or the SMEP system? Or twice a day if we can manage it? And should it be in this position or that, using Pre-seed or egg whites or some kind of headstand at the end? This is even more frustrating if you don't ovulate at the same time each month (or hardly ever at all) and you just have to keep going for weeks or months with no end in sight just in case you miss that egg.....!!
• The Waiting - waiting to ovulate, waiting the Two Week Wait, waiting through symptoms and negative HPTs, waiting to start fertility treatment, waiting for appointments, scans, procedures.....and ultimately waiting for that little magic to spark inside and create a life

I almost can't imagine conception from the perspective of a fertile, just being able to decide one day "I think I want a baby" and within a few months knowing it is there; finding out you are already several weeks pregnant without even knowing; getting excited at the prospect of getting pregnant and then having all your dreams fulfilled instantly. The rest of us work so hard to get and stay pregnant, and when it finally does happen, it must be the greatest achievement of our lives.


Don't get me wrong, I'm sure fertiles love getting and being and staying pregnant, and love their babies and the whole shebang. But the test you turn up for on the day without revising never means as much to you as the one you spent months studying for; instant gratification is never as satisfying as something you have worked hard for and has consumed your life; and in the same way I feel almost lucky to be in my position. When I do eventually have a baby, it truly will be a miracle for us; I will never take a single day of its life for granted or all the moments leading to it. I will have worked really hard for it and I will spend each day being thankful for my reward.


I just have to wait a little bit longer......