So for 2.5 years, I used an app called Glow to track my cycle and predict my fertile window for ovulation. Maybe I didn't use it to it's full potential; however, the app was consistently able to align with the painful ovulations and cysts my ovaries put me through, and also would accurately predict 'Aunt Flo's' arrival. I teamed the app up with Ovulation Predictor Kits for at least 6 months, still no luck. And in early December, after debating spending money on IUI, a chance meeting with a Creighton Model Nurse Practitioner pushed me to challenge the the factory line of main stream fertility clinics and go a little old school. We scheduled an introductory session that my husband and I attended, at which we gained better understanding of how this was going to go down and I purchased supplies to move forward and scheduled my first follow-up appointment. Now, technically they suggest you abstain from trying or sex in general for 30 days to allow yourself time to adjust to the system and to learn your bio-markers without interference... but anyone who knows me knows I'm impatient and I want an oompa loompa now. I choose not to wait but instead to practice certain techniques to allow me to read bio-markers without any 'contamination'. We confirmed it at my first follow-up and again at my second follow-up that I was doing this right and getting good, clear, trackable information. My Glow app said 12/24-12/30 were my fertile window. My chart revealed my window didn't start until the 27th and lasted until the peak day on the 29th(tack on three days for egg & sperm survival while floating around and whatnot). I continued charting and doing follow-ups with my practitioner, trying to figure out how long my cycle truly was.
Then one day, my husband asked "Aren't you due for your period like any day now?" I realized I hadn't looked at the Glow app in a few weeks (since it had partially given my incorrect data in regards to my fertile window), I had been relying solely on reading and charting my bio-markers in accordance with the Creighton Model. So I logged into the app and low and behold, it told me I was 4 days late for my period. I had a follow-up with my practitioner scheduled for the very next day, so I tried really hard not to think too much about it. Aunt Flo can be off a few days and then storm in with a vengeance and I wasn't about to psych myself up for anything.
So I show up for my appointment, and my practitioner asks how I'm doing and if I'm having any issues or concerns with my chart. So I tell her I am now 5 days late on my period and what should I do. It's as unbelievable to me as it is to my husband, but my practitioner doesn't skip a beat. She looks at the chart, counts the days, reviews my Glow app for the past few months, and sends me on my way to get a progesterone supplement and a pregnancy test.
Well, I have work that I had to get to. Not that I wanted to be distracted from this whirlwind of activity and possibility. I ask my husband if he would kindly look for a pregnancy test at home and if he found nothing- he found an expired one- would he please stop by the store and get one. He begrudgingly did, as I don't think it's ever not awkward to purchase such an item. And then all night at work I marveled, could this be real? Could this be IT? After work I had a volleyball game to attend, and I spent more time thinking about what could be going on inside my body than I did about setting the ball. When I got home, even though I was instructed to wait until morning to take the test, I could not wait. The box came with two tests, so I chugged some water and managed to take one before I went to bed. It came up with a clear plus sign. I cried. Happy tears, tears of disbelief, and some tears of anguish. Could it be that the wait, the trials and tribulations were all over?? My husband didn't want to believe it until we followed directions and took the test in the morning like we'd been instructed. So I tried really hard to fall asleep.
I woke up early the next morning and dragged my husband up with me. I skipped to the bathroom as he loaded up his computer in his home office. On a benign Tuesday, I could have slept in for 3 more hours if I wanted to. I truly could not hold back my excitement. The second test would have a very clear outcome- it had the words "pregnant" or "not pregnant" that would appear. I left the test sit a few minutes, grabbed my husband and made him go look first. Without much emotion he said "Ok, it says exactly what the other one said"... and I peeked around him to see the very clear PREGNANT in the window.
PREGNANT. ME. US.
I cried again. Of course. I was so happy. I cried away two years worth of pain, if that is possible.
My husband asked if I was happy. Happy does not even begin to describe it. I'm in AWE. I feel blessed. I feel anxious and scared and elated and wonder. Happy? Yes, in short, I am happy. But in the long game, I am a jumble of everything.
And when I told my practitioner, she had me do 2 things- start a pre-natal vitamin and schedule with an OBGYN to confirm, which included the blood test. The OBGYN instructed me to stay on the Progesterone for 12 weeks, and gave me to good news that the blood test confirmed the pregnancy. I could come back at 8 weeks and get my first ultrasound. He also mentioned the usual, that the first 12 weeks you are higher risk for miscarriage. The progesterone would help me get there, but if there was something terribly wrong with the fetus or with my body, it would abort in the first trimester. After that is was not unheard of but much less common. He told me that they always recommend that couples hold off on telling people until the 12 week mark.
That put a little damper on my excitement. I wanted to tell the world!! I wanted to lovingly touch my belly and bring attention to it with a protective hand. How could I, the diarrhea loud mouth who speaks before she thinks, possibly keep this a secret for almost 3 months?? How could I, the heavy drinking 'good time Charlie' possibly fool people into not asking the question?? How could I, the 'saddle up cowgirl' with the bucker extraordinaire continue my working relationship with a 1700 lb beast with a bad work ethic and strong hind quarters?
I did it, for the most part. I told some key people. My employers, since I do hard labor at one job and then have to assist with x-rays at the other. The guy I leased the horse from, since I would no longer be riding and needed t save my money for upcoming endeavors. My best friend, when she came to visit from way out of town and greeted me with "I'm so glad you are here, I waited to crack open a cold one until you got here!". My sister in Chicago when I needed to get it off my chest to someone close to me who would react how I needed them to, and yet not tell everybody. To my other best friend who was also pregnant (after 2 or 3 miscarriages), a month or so after she called me crying saying she was pregnant and she didn't want to upset me with her news.
Here I am today, using Glow's sister app -Nurture- to track my PREGNANCY. 13 weeks and 5 days along. My baby is the size of a small peach, and I already have a little bump showing. We waited until halfway through the 12th week to make a worldwide Facebook announcement, after we had called all pertinent people in our lives to tell them in person.
I just picked my midwife to continue my pregnancy journey with, and have started reading "What to expect when you're expecting". I'm out of the first trimester and not so nauseous all the time. I'm attempting to drink a gallon of water a day and eat almost entirely organic (I don't know which one is harder...).
My mother tells me 2.5 years of waiting for our first child is 'nothing'. This, coming from the woman who also told me she got extremely jealous when her married brother told her he was having his first kid, even though she had broken off her engagement a few months before. My mother tells me I'm impatient and probably wasn't ready to have kids up until the moment I told her I was pregnant... My mother told me I live a very 'non-kid-friendly' lifestyle and why would I want to give all that up? My mother continues to point out to me how 'not ready for this' I am. But you know what I told my mother? "I will try my damndest because this baby is FINALLY coming, and there's no stopping it. There's no right or wrong way for me to do this, I will do everything in my power to do things to the best of my ability because I have that mothering instinct. I want to do this right. I do not want to be like my birth mother, and I will do everything in my power to NEVER be like here, as I have shown time and time again. I may not do things your way, Mom, but I sure will give it my all and things things in a way that's in the best interest of my child."
I don't have to hope I'll come through on all of that, because I know there's no options. There's being a good parent, leading with your heart and soul and mind, and then there's just... not. Between my husband and I, I think we've got this.
Then one day, my husband asked "Aren't you due for your period like any day now?" I realized I hadn't looked at the Glow app in a few weeks (since it had partially given my incorrect data in regards to my fertile window), I had been relying solely on reading and charting my bio-markers in accordance with the Creighton Model. So I logged into the app and low and behold, it told me I was 4 days late for my period. I had a follow-up with my practitioner scheduled for the very next day, so I tried really hard not to think too much about it. Aunt Flo can be off a few days and then storm in with a vengeance and I wasn't about to psych myself up for anything.
So I show up for my appointment, and my practitioner asks how I'm doing and if I'm having any issues or concerns with my chart. So I tell her I am now 5 days late on my period and what should I do. It's as unbelievable to me as it is to my husband, but my practitioner doesn't skip a beat. She looks at the chart, counts the days, reviews my Glow app for the past few months, and sends me on my way to get a progesterone supplement and a pregnancy test.
Well, I have work that I had to get to. Not that I wanted to be distracted from this whirlwind of activity and possibility. I ask my husband if he would kindly look for a pregnancy test at home and if he found nothing- he found an expired one- would he please stop by the store and get one. He begrudgingly did, as I don't think it's ever not awkward to purchase such an item. And then all night at work I marveled, could this be real? Could this be IT? After work I had a volleyball game to attend, and I spent more time thinking about what could be going on inside my body than I did about setting the ball. When I got home, even though I was instructed to wait until morning to take the test, I could not wait. The box came with two tests, so I chugged some water and managed to take one before I went to bed. It came up with a clear plus sign. I cried. Happy tears, tears of disbelief, and some tears of anguish. Could it be that the wait, the trials and tribulations were all over?? My husband didn't want to believe it until we followed directions and took the test in the morning like we'd been instructed. So I tried really hard to fall asleep.
I woke up early the next morning and dragged my husband up with me. I skipped to the bathroom as he loaded up his computer in his home office. On a benign Tuesday, I could have slept in for 3 more hours if I wanted to. I truly could not hold back my excitement. The second test would have a very clear outcome- it had the words "pregnant" or "not pregnant" that would appear. I left the test sit a few minutes, grabbed my husband and made him go look first. Without much emotion he said "Ok, it says exactly what the other one said"... and I peeked around him to see the very clear PREGNANT in the window.
PREGNANT. ME. US.
I cried again. Of course. I was so happy. I cried away two years worth of pain, if that is possible.
My husband asked if I was happy. Happy does not even begin to describe it. I'm in AWE. I feel blessed. I feel anxious and scared and elated and wonder. Happy? Yes, in short, I am happy. But in the long game, I am a jumble of everything.
And when I told my practitioner, she had me do 2 things- start a pre-natal vitamin and schedule with an OBGYN to confirm, which included the blood test. The OBGYN instructed me to stay on the Progesterone for 12 weeks, and gave me to good news that the blood test confirmed the pregnancy. I could come back at 8 weeks and get my first ultrasound. He also mentioned the usual, that the first 12 weeks you are higher risk for miscarriage. The progesterone would help me get there, but if there was something terribly wrong with the fetus or with my body, it would abort in the first trimester. After that is was not unheard of but much less common. He told me that they always recommend that couples hold off on telling people until the 12 week mark.
That put a little damper on my excitement. I wanted to tell the world!! I wanted to lovingly touch my belly and bring attention to it with a protective hand. How could I, the diarrhea loud mouth who speaks before she thinks, possibly keep this a secret for almost 3 months?? How could I, the heavy drinking 'good time Charlie' possibly fool people into not asking the question?? How could I, the 'saddle up cowgirl' with the bucker extraordinaire continue my working relationship with a 1700 lb beast with a bad work ethic and strong hind quarters?
I did it, for the most part. I told some key people. My employers, since I do hard labor at one job and then have to assist with x-rays at the other. The guy I leased the horse from, since I would no longer be riding and needed t save my money for upcoming endeavors. My best friend, when she came to visit from way out of town and greeted me with "I'm so glad you are here, I waited to crack open a cold one until you got here!". My sister in Chicago when I needed to get it off my chest to someone close to me who would react how I needed them to, and yet not tell everybody. To my other best friend who was also pregnant (after 2 or 3 miscarriages), a month or so after she called me crying saying she was pregnant and she didn't want to upset me with her news.
Here I am today, using Glow's sister app -Nurture- to track my PREGNANCY. 13 weeks and 5 days along. My baby is the size of a small peach, and I already have a little bump showing. We waited until halfway through the 12th week to make a worldwide Facebook announcement, after we had called all pertinent people in our lives to tell them in person.
I just picked my midwife to continue my pregnancy journey with, and have started reading "What to expect when you're expecting". I'm out of the first trimester and not so nauseous all the time. I'm attempting to drink a gallon of water a day and eat almost entirely organic (I don't know which one is harder...).
My mother tells me 2.5 years of waiting for our first child is 'nothing'. This, coming from the woman who also told me she got extremely jealous when her married brother told her he was having his first kid, even though she had broken off her engagement a few months before. My mother tells me I'm impatient and probably wasn't ready to have kids up until the moment I told her I was pregnant... My mother told me I live a very 'non-kid-friendly' lifestyle and why would I want to give all that up? My mother continues to point out to me how 'not ready for this' I am. But you know what I told my mother? "I will try my damndest because this baby is FINALLY coming, and there's no stopping it. There's no right or wrong way for me to do this, I will do everything in my power to do things to the best of my ability because I have that mothering instinct. I want to do this right. I do not want to be like my birth mother, and I will do everything in my power to NEVER be like here, as I have shown time and time again. I may not do things your way, Mom, but I sure will give it my all and things things in a way that's in the best interest of my child."
I don't have to hope I'll come through on all of that, because I know there's no options. There's being a good parent, leading with your heart and soul and mind, and then there's just... not. Between my husband and I, I think we've got this.
Your story is inspiring! I AM SO EXTREMELY HAPPY FOR YOU!!!! I'm sharing this with friends who have stopped doing things conventionally. Please continue updating your blog (in your own time). Remember to oil pull with organic virgin coconut oil for 20 minutes (do NOT gargle this) and then rinse with pink Himalayan salt afterwards for 2-5 minutes and scrape your tongue with a copper tongue scraper every morning before you eat! I know it sounds random! And I KNOW for sure that you'll be a great mother, my mommy didn't have such a great mother either (her stories are crazy) and honestly she is one of the best moms on earth! I feel an overwhelming love from/for my mom. Something like this video below:
ReplyDeletehttps://youtu.be/S9ibNh16xfs