TTC - Month 3 (September, 2010)

Although Alain maintains that we're not too serious yet, I am.  I'm there.  I'm seriously ready to be pregnant.

My cycles are more normal and we can better schedule things now.  This month I'm taking cough syrup (expectorant) to help improve cervical mucous.  One other thing that has been weighing heavily on me is lubricant.

Did you know that all widely available lubricants slow down sperm?  They make getting pregnant a whole lot harder.  I know there are millions of babies conceived while the parents were using lubricant, but, I worry that we won't be one of those families.  I don't want it to be any harder than it already is!

We looked into safe options, Pre-Seed seems to be the only option out there.  It's not widely availabe and Alain bulked at the high price tag when we found it at a store in the US.  I broke down and ordered some online today.  I just can't carry on knowing our regular lubricant is inhibiting the sperm!  I doubt the Pre-Seed will arrive in time for this months efforts, so I'm thinking about using egg whites... Yes, you heard me, egg whites.  People do this apparently, with some success too (do read up on this before you try it at home, there are some risks involved). UPDATE: We ended up skipping the egg whites, I just couldn't get Alain on board... Surprise, surprise.

I also ordered FertileCM, which is also supposed to help with cervical mucous.  Who knew cervical mucous would be so important in trying to conceive.  It is, apparently, one of the most important things. 

I'm drinking copious amounts of water these days.  All in hopes of getting the perfect consistency cervical mucous.

TTC - Month 2 (August, 2010)

Alain and I continued to try for a baby. I estimated my cycle based on July's cycle length and we started trying again around day 10. We tried for 10 days straight! It started to feel weird and a bit forced around day 5. Honestly, we never do it that often!

I worried that this was all just guess work. I really had no idea when I was going to ovulate. I didn't want to not try, because we might miss the window, but could we really keep this up? Could we do this over and over again (month after month) if it didn't work this month?

A little doubt settled in. Maybe I should start taking my basal body temperature.

I continued to read "What to Expect Before You're Expecting" and considered all the little tips they offer. We were doing some things, but not doing others. We were still telling ourselves that although we were trying, we weren't too serious about it yet.

Towards the end of our marathon I had a few days with a very sore cervix. I promptly looked up the symptom and found out that it commonly occurred around Ovulation. That was a good sign! We BD'd every day during those days.

It was a hard few weeks after the Ovulation window closed.  We were gearing up for our trip to Florida, and I started spotting about 6 days after I thought I had ovulated.  That could be implantation spotting, it was right in the window.  It stopped before we headed on our trip and I rejoiced because I knew we'd hit the beach at least once.

I got my period in the middle of the concert we had gone to Florida to attend.  We didn't have any of my normal comfort items (like my bed, my heating pad) but Alain worked with what we had and made me a heating pad with hot water and a ziplock.  Bless him.

That was it for August.  My cycle seems to have regulated at least, around 35 days.

TTC - Month 1 (July, 2010)

While Alain was away at the beginning of the month I took the opportunity to make some doctor and dentist appointments. I got everything checked out to make sure that I was ready for making a baby. I was! My health had been good and the pre-natal vitamins I'd been taking helped to make sure that I had everything I needed should I get pregnant.

Alain returned home on July 19. We talked about having a baby almost right away and Alain agreed that April was not too soon to have a baby (ie. 9 months from that point). I really didn't want to be pregnant all summer (at least not during the hottest parts of the summer), so sooner, rather than later was my preference.

We got started right away, casually though. I decided not to take my basal body temperature (BBT). I had done it before and although it would help determine whether I had ovulated during the month, it wouldn't tell us until after the fact and wouldn't really help our initial TTC efforts. I had done the temping before and just wasn't interested in it. We just started just playing to see what would happen.

Right when Alain got home I had felt like I was ovulating. I had a bit of a pain in one of my sides on Saturday the 20th. We tried that night and again over the next few days.

Of course, in the weeks following I felt like I had every symptom of early pregnancy. I was really tired a few nights, yawning at 7:30 and in bed by 9:30. I was peeing a lot. I took a few pregnancy tests (from the dollar store!) over the next few weeks but eventually got my period. My cycle was about 34 days that month (very short for me) and according to an online fertilitiy calculator I had ovulated before Alain returned home.

Almost TTCing (June, 2010)

Just before Alain and I started TTCing we spent a week away together. If you remember, Alain was away for work, and I went with him for a week. I got to relax and knit. We had such a great time together and totally reconnected.

Halfway through the week I knew I was ready to start trying for a baby, and we talked about it a little bit. I'd been off the pill for nearly a year and throughout that time we always used a different form of contraception. I always maintained that although an accidental pregnancy wouldn't be the worst thing to happen, I felt that it was important for us to make the choice to bring a baby into the world.

On our trip though, it became clear that it was getting harder and harder for us to continue to use contraception. There just didn't seem like there was any reason to do so anymore.

I went home, leaving Alain to continue working for another 2 weeks. Obviously, there wasn't much opportunity for us to start TTCing yet, but I was dying to get started!

TTC Monthly Journal

Blog Post from August 16, 2010:

I'm going to post these after the fact. Although I want to be able to share my experiences, I'm sure most of you will agree that this time is a scary and personal time. I wasn't sure how long things would take and wanted to protect myself in case infertility turned out to be an issue.

At the same time, this is a blog about getting ready for a baby and going through the whole process of getting there. I wanted to stay to true to that.

I'll be posting these TTC posts as a series. You can know what I have gone through without actually waiting the whole month to find out. That's kind of exciting right?