My First Test

So I decided to start testing today because it's been so long since I've had a cycle off of BC that I have no idea how long it will be or when I will have the Big O. I'm only on CD10 so I'm not expecting it for another 4 days or so but I wanted to make sure I didn't miss it. Obviously the pic shows it isn't here yet so we still have more BD time!

This is my first time ever peeing on a stick and I was surprised how much coordination it takes. I didn’t realize that I needed to make sure I covered the window so it didn’t splash and ended up with a watery window, but I was still able to read the results.

I think that my charting is also going really well. I’m showing steady low temps which are to be expected at this time and I’m also getting pretty clear CM and cervix signals. (I know… TMI) It’s really enlightening to be this in touch with my body and to understand what’s going on. Here’s my updated chart:

Charting

After reading several posts from people online talking about charting, I decided to see what it was all about. The basic idea is that by tracking your natural fertility signs, you can time intercourse appropriately to give you the best chances at pregnancy. The most popular site that I read about was fertilityfriend.com. It's a pretty cool site. You enter in your information, like basal body temperature, cervical mucous consistency, etc. and it will track your cycle and tell you when you are likely fertile, when you should expect either a positive test or your period and all sortd of other cool things. You can also track your mood, energy, possible pregnancy symptoms, when you have sex, and all sorts of other things.

Here is my chart so far:

There's not much to it yet because I'm only 7 days into my cycle, but I expect it to look much like the one below when I'm done with the cycle.

This website also has a fertility course that they will email to you, one lesson a day, that teaches you how to look for your own fertility signs, how to chart them using their website and how to get the right timing knowing your fertility signs. This may seem a little overly obsessive, but the biggest problem that most couples trying to conceive have is not having sex on the right days. There's realistically only about a 12-36 hour window of opportunity and if you're not looking for it, it's easy to miss.

My new favorite quote is, "A goal without a plan is just a wish." I've decided that having a baby is a goal, not a wish, and this is my plan to make it happen. :)

To Tell or Not to Tell

I have been thinking a lot about what to tell my family and friends and coworkers and when. I haven’t wanted to tell anyone that we are TTC because I don’t want to feel any outside pressure to get pregnant which of course would cause more anxiety and stress and ultimately affect our ability to conceive. I’ve also been telling everyone for a long time that we weren’t ready yet and we wanted to spend some more time as just a married couple before having kids, etc. My coworkers have been teasing me for the past month saying that I’ve got a little one coming and nicknaming him Stevie (I had a baby present on my desk for one of Jon’s employees whose wife just had a baby about a week ago).

Obviously I don’t want to say anything to anyone at work until I am far enough along that the big risks of miscarriage are gone because that’s not something that I want to share with people who I only talk to at work. I think that I feel similarly about telling most of my friends and extended family members. I think that it would be fun to be happy and excited on my own (and Jon of course) for a little while before letting everyone know. I have a feeling that I am going to be too excited and anxious that I will want to tell someone though. Heck, I already am that excited and I haven’t even had a chance to “try” yet. But somehow I feel the need to tell a handful of people just so I can talk about it. (this is probably why I have to write in this thing like 3 times a day!)

I think that it would be so cool to conceive this month. Then I would find out just before we go down to Blanding to visit Jon’s family for Thanksgiving and we would be able to have the first ultrasound a week or so before Christmas. I read a story about how a woman told her family that she was pregnant by getting several copies of her ultrasound picture and framed them with the due date written on it, then wrapped them and gave them out a Christmas presents. I think that would be sooo cute and a much less stressful way to tell my family (and all at once so they don’t have their feelings hurt by not knowing before someone else). Brooke of course will be the first person to know though because I just can’t keep anything from ya! J (But you will of course be sworn to secrecy!)

Anywho, I know that I am getting way ahead of myself and I’m going to be disappointed if things don’t work out that way, but I’m sure that I’ll have a new idea and a new plan if the stars don’t align this month. I’m hoping that positive thinking and a little bit of thoughtful planning will make things work out the way I want them to.

On a side note… I took an astrological quiz that looks at the sign of the mother-to-be and father-to-be and tells you what months would be best to conceive for a blissful baby. It said that for Jon and I, we would be best with either a Scorpio or Leo baby which would mean that we would want to conceive between Jan 25^th and Feb 15^th for a Scorpio or October 25^th and November 15^th for a Leo. Coincidence that a Leo would result from a + on our first cycle? I’d like to think fate. But that might also mean we have to wait until the new year. Either way I’ll be quite happy!

Gearing Up

Apparently I have been getting ready for this for much longer than I had thought. I have been reading about women TTC (trying to conceive) and found that being overweight significantly decreases your chances of getting pregnant. The interesting thing about it, though, is that as soon as an overweight woman starts to lose weight, she usually conceives right away. Apparently you double your chances of conceiving when you are on a downward weight trend. This was obviously awesome news for me. It’s also really helped to motivate me to keep eating extra healthy and to go to the gym. It’s now been three weeks since I ate any fast food! I’m sure I’ll turn into even more of a health food fanatic once I get prego. Most of the books that I’ve read advocate an organic diet but I’m pretty sure that’s not going to happen. I can make sure that I eat enough fruits and veggies and whole grains though. Plus my daily multivitamin is making me feel extra healthy and surprisingly awake despite getting off of ambien. I have a feeling that all this healthy stuff will help me out in the long run or at least that’s what I’m going to keep telling myself to keep it up!

Testing

I have been reading a lot about how knowing your actual day of ovulation is the key to getting pregnant. There are a lot of ways to do this - fertility charting, checking your mucosal secretions, basal body temperature monitoring and other ovulation predictors. I decided to try out the ovulation test kits that are used like the pregnancy testers. You just pee on the stick and wait for the lines to appear and tell you that your leutanizing hormones are within the range that it detects. I found a really good deal at early-pregnancy-tests.com and bought a set of 15 ovulation predictor tests and 5 pregnancy tests. It was only $35 which is waaaay less than the ones that they sell in the store. Plus the pregnancy tests detect down to 20 mIU/mL which is 30 less than the early response ones that you see in stores which means that you can detect a positive result up to a week or more before you even get to your period. Seriously cool for those who are totally impatient like me. So I'm thinking that they should be here by the end of the week which is probably about the time that I will stop bleeding and I can start checking. They say knowing is half the battle, right?

I know I sound a little like a crazy person lately but I think it's just excitement. I dunno why, but I really have this huge drive to get pregnant on my first cycle. Some women have a hightened fertility for a month after stopping birth control pills but most take a few months to regulate again. I guess I'm just hoping to be in the minority and get it all over and done with on the first try. Unlikely, I know, but you can't blame a girl for trying.

The Crazy Stuff I've Learned

I have been a little obsessive with my research lately. I have a bit of a problem with that. Anytime I decide to do anything, for example when we bought our car, I go a little overboard on reading all the research that there possibly is on the topic so that I can be as prepared as I possibly can. I know that there is no way that I can be prepared for everything, but I think learning from other people is much easier than having to go through the trial and error myself, right? Here are a few things that I learned while perusing baby websites last night:

A guy’s sperm is negatively affected by heat. Sitting in hot tubs can decrease a man’s sperm count significantly for up to three days! His sperm counts are highest in cold months and lowest in warm months. It is also higher when the core body temperature is colder like first thing in the morning.

Heat can also be a bad thing for women shortly after conception. Hot tubs have been linked to an increase in miscarriage in the first trimester. Temperatures over 102°F should be avoided throughout pregnancy but a woman in her first trimester should avoid raising her core body temperature at all. Hot tubs kept at a low 98° are okay, but most are much warmer.

Sperm can live inside the uterus for up to 72 hours. An egg, conversely, can only live for 12-24 hours which is what makes conception so tricky. Having sex several days before ovulation, as well as during, increases the likelihood that there will be sperm available to contact the egg.

The earliest that most OB/GYN’s will see a woman who has been confirmed pregnant is at about 8 weeks. That’s because that is the earliest time that a vaginal ultrasound can be performed. Before that point, the doctor isn’t likely to see anything. Surprisingly, at only 8 weeks you can often hear the first signs of a heartbeat! I’m sure that it will be incredibly stressful to have to wait that long to see the Dr. after finding out that you are definitely pregnant though.

I am sure that I will be addicted to this researching for quite some time so there will likely be another post with more crazy things I have learned.

End of my Weight Loss?

One of the things that I am a little anxious about (although selfishly so) is the reality that I will have to stop my weight loss regimen when I get pregnant. I have been doing so well with my program over the past 14 months and I don’t really want to fall out of my routine. I know that it’s not anything drastic – I’m just eating good foods and spending a 3-4 hours in the gym every week – and I can still mostly do that while pregnant with the exception that I will only be able to do medium impact workouts. It still worries me though because I’ve accomplished so much and I don’t really want it all to be for nothing. So far I have lost just over 30 lbs and am the smallest I’ve been in almost 2 years. My goal is to lose another 10-13 lbs by the end of the year but I’m not so sure that’s going to happen.

Here’s my progress graph so far:

In Search of a Dr

I have been seeing the same OB/GYN for about two years now. Her name is May Chambers and she is AWESOME! The only problem is that she decided to take a leave of absence from her practice starting in August. I got the news at my last annual and was totally devastated. She is by far the best OB/GYN that I have ever gone to. She is super smart and way nice and was always able to fit me in the same day if I had an issue. She is likely not going to be back in the office until next Spring which means that I'm going to have to find someone else to see in the event that my efforts are fruitful. There are several other doctors at the clinic Dr. Chambers was at that would be able to see me which would be good because then they have my last two years of gynecological history and can act accordingly. The only problem is that I would be shooting blind because I have no idea how good they are or if they are as nice/accomodating etc.

My other option is that I could just see my general practioner. His office is right across the street from my work and I could pop over there for whatever I need without taking much time off of work. The bad part about this is that while he is a pretty good doctor, I have no idea how much he knows about obstetrics and gynecology. Also, I tend to be more uncomfortable around guy doctors for some reason. Maybe it's because I know that they don't really understand what we're going through because they've never been through it themselves.

I know that I don't really have to look for someone until after I'm reasonably sure that I'm pregnant, but I'm still worried about it now. Do I take a stab at somebody new and hope it works out okay or do I stick with what I've got and hope he knows what he's doing? Or do I just ignore it until I have to make a decision?

Blah... parenting is hard and I don't even have a fertilized egg yet.

Stopping Seasonique

So my origianl plan was to finish out the rest of my pack of birth control pills which would take me to the end of the month. Since I have been taking the 3 month pack of pills, sometimes my body decides that it doesn't want to wait that long to have a period and I start getting the cramping and general bad feelings early. Well, as luck would have it that happened this month. I usually just skip right to the sugar pills at that point and then go back to my regular schedule after that week but since I was planning to get off the pills altogether I just quit taking them. It's exciting and scary all at the same time. I feel a little unprepared because I thought that I had another two weeks left before I had to think about it.

I think that the reason that I am the most anxious is that I have been trying to get myself off of all other medications before we start "trying." I have been on Ambien for almost a year straight now and coming off of it seriously feels like I'm detoxing from drugs or something. I've been stepping myself down slowly - going from full pills to 3/4 pills to half pills and now I'm on 1/4 pills. I have a bit of a phobia of giving my kid birth defects because I've taken something that I shouldn't. I know that I will be off of it completely by the end of the week but it still makes me anxious.

On that same note, I've started taking a multivitamin every morning. I have been reading a lot about the role that Folic Acid plays in early fetal development and the research shows that the first week of pregnancy is the absolute most important time for development needing Folic Acid and usually you don't even know that you're pregnant for several weeks so I want to make sure that I have it in my system at all times just in case. The pills are seriously huge and tend to make me a little nauseous if I don't eat enough food with it, but I figure it's best not to ignore hundreds of doctor's advice - including my own.

Phew, that was a long first post but I guess I have a lot to get out. I have a feeling I'll have several more by the end of the week. :)