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It started with the birth of H in November of 1999. I’m so amazed how easy it seemed to be at the time. You get pregnant, you have a baby, that’s just how it worked. I’m pretty sure I took it for granted. I know I did. Despite his difficult delivery, having H was really rather easy. We just decided to get pregnant and it happened, just like the fairy tales. How lucky we were then!

Then, in July 2000, I got my first postpartum period. We started to think about TTC again. My periods were by no means regular at that point, but we started to kick the idea around. Maybe in a few months, when things evened out again, we’d start in earnest.

In January 2001, my cycle seemed to be getting more regular so I went to see my family doctor and told her I’d like to try to get pregnant again. She gave me the all clear and a prescription for prenatal vitamins. Then she told me she’d see me again in a few months when I was pregnant. Simple as that. Or rather, it should have been.

I’ve always been impatient. Around March of 2001 I started to chart using what was called “LifeCycle” software at the time. Nowadays it’s known as Ovusoft. I started to keep track of when my period would start and even taking my temperature each morning to see if I could chart ovulation. A month later, I joined a group of women on the Ovusoft forums known as the “BabyBelles”, so I could have people to commiserate with over the TTC journey.

Nearly a year passed. A year! I hadn’t had so much as a faintly positive pregnancy test in that time so I went to see the doctor who had helped deliver H (different from my family doctor). She referred me to Dr. Foulk, the primary infertility specialist here in town. I called to make an appointment in January of 2002. I got an appointment for March of 2002. When we got there, imagine my surprise at finding out I wasn’t ovulating at all! I’d been charting all those months and thinking I was ovulating but I wasn’t. I fluctuated between being astounded at this news and disbelieving it. We were in a pretty transitional time, moving out of our appartment and into a rental house. Plus, I was just plain scared. Dr. Foulk wanted me to call when my next cycle started so he could run the necessary blood tests and get me started on Clomid. Yikes!

So I did what I hated to do, I wasted time. But I really thought that *maybe* I could ovulate on my own. But I didn’t, of course. It was nearly a year before a dear friend called Dr. Foulk for me in January of 2003 to see if I could come in when I started my next cycle. Because I was a big fat chicken. My next cycle started a few days later and I got the ball rolling. Blood tests were taken, and an HSG was scheduled. I had my Clomid prescription ready and waiting. I found out a few days later that I had “hypothyroidism”, meaning my thyroid was underactive and that was supressing ovulation. This happened sometime after H was born, in the natural fluctuation of maternal hormones. All this time, something I could have fixed. I’m so mad I didn’t have it checked sooner. So I was put on medication to control that and went ahead with the Clomid treatments.

It took us five cycles (with one cycle off for a break). I think it took so long partly because all that time we were trying to get my thyroid under control. Finally, on the last Sunday in July of 2003, I got a positive pregnancy test. It worked! It was a pretty nervous pregnancy, I didn’t breathe easily until the second trimester. I think that’s because I lost my innocence as far as having babies is concerned. In the years since I’d last been pregnant, I’d become a lot more educated about pregnancy and what can go wrong. So I was always worried that something would happen becuase I knew it could, at any time, for any reason.

As the pregnancy neared the end, I was filled with this overwhelming feeling of not being ready. Which is silly, in retrospect. It’d taken us four years to get to this point, how could I not be ready? Then, a week before my scheduled c-section, in March of 2004, I went into labor. The baby had died in utero. There was nothing we could have done to prevent it, besides being psychic and having the c-section a few days earlier. It was one of those “lightning strikes” moments. It just happened to strike us. What made it smart even more, was all the years we’d waited and tried and all the clomid and money we’d spent…for nothing. It felt like a waste and I *hate* that feeling. I wanted my baby, darnit.

We wanted to get pregnant again as soon as possible. But for some reason I held onto this tiny hope that maybe having another baby would have kicked my hormones back into gear. Plus, my thyroid was under control now, maybe I would ovulate on my own. For whatever reason, I wasted more time. Until January of 2005. We made another appointment with Dr. Foulk and finally got started again on the Clomid in February 2005. Nearly a year after we lost the baby. Why so long??

It only took three cycles this time. In May of 2005 I got my positive pregnancy test. This time, I was even more nervous. I spent nearly every day worrying about what could go wrong. I tried very very hard to be positive. But I’d lost even more innocence this time around. How do you get that back? You just don’t. Getting going with a doctor was difficult, but I finally got in to see a doctor who could take care of my high-risk self and whom I really liked. Then, at 15 weeks in August of 2005, I miscarried. Or maybe it was before that since the baby was only 11 weeks, but that was when the d&e was done, so that’s the date I go off of.

Why? As far as we know at this point, its just another “lightning strikes” thing. Just one of those things, nothing out of the normal. Happens more often than you’d like to think. But how often does it happen to an infertile mother of a stillborn baby?

We’re going to try again. I feel a little crazy for even considering it, but I know I have to try or I will regret it later on. And this time I have an appointment with Dr. Foulk in three weeks. We’re not wasting any time this time around because we’ve wasted enough time as it is.

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