Here we go.....

So. I have told so many people about my fertility frustrations, and I now have so many people routing for us to get pregnant - I decided that I should blog about it! I already blog about my knitting obsession, figured this would be a good outlet for my 'baby making' obsession.

First - let me explain the title of the blog. I've always just assumed that I would have NO problem making babies. My mom had 2 children, my father had 6 (!). And, as one college boyfriend described me, I have child bearing hips. Most would take offense - but seriously - I come from what some describe as 'peasant stock'! And when people asked me what I wanted to do when I 'grew up' - the answer I would give would be 'business women', but in my head, I would always think 'Mom'.

Let me get everyone caught up on where Aaron and I have been so far in our baby making journey. As with everyone else, I just assumed that when we went off birth control, we'd get pregnant right away. Aaron and I got married in 2004, and wanted to wait a year until we started trying. At that point, I was 29 and Aaron was 31. Plenty of time for babies! It took some convincing, but we went off the pill (after being on it since I was 16) in April 2005. As the first few months passed I figured that the pill was just getting out of my system. After the first 6 months, I then was blaming my weight (I am about 50 pounds overweight). I went to my doctor after trying for a full year on our own, and it was determined that all of my hormone levels were fine, Aaron was fine, and that our infertility was unexplained.

I was both relieved and annoyed. I ovulate. Aaron has more than enough swimmers. Shouldn't this all just work!?! But, with the doctors advice, we moved onto Clomid with IUIs. We did 3 cycles like that in June, July and August of 2006 - all without getting pregnant. In September, we had decided to pull out the big guns and move onto injectables. I just needed to wait for my next period.

Which didn't come. I was PREGNANT! For 10 days, I was blissfully excited. We went in for the 6 week u/s, and discovered that it was ectopic. What a crushing blow. They gave me methotrexate, which is a drug that helps dissolve the pregnancy (and hopefully avoids have the ectopic rupture a tube), and thankfully, for me, it worked. But, it meant much emotional stress and 3 months off of TTC. At a followup visit with Dr. N, he said that we should move straight to IVF. Insurance wouldn't cover IUIs for me after the ectopic, and we now had a 15% chance for an ectopic with any future natural pregnancy.

It took some time for both Aaron and I to come to terms with moving to IVF. We really didn't think we would need to come this far - and it still amazes me that I am having this much trouble getting pregnant. But - at this point, after two years of monthly disappointments.... I'm willing to go through it. We met with the RE today, and we are working towards a July ER and transfer date. We pushed it off for a few reasons - we still need to get insurance approved (and we have been told that takes about a month), I need to get some bloodwork processed, and the doctor would like me to lose some more weight (I've already lost 20 pounds since last year this time).

I think this blog will be a great outlet for me to vent about both losing weight and going through my fertility process!