Mistakes I’ve Made While Trying

Look, in the beginning, trying to get pregnant was an absolute blast. Just hop into bed whenever we wanted and hope for the best. That lasted….oh I would say…4 months before I started getting panicky. And yeah I understand that some of you may be reading this and rolling your eyes at me, but its my truth….and my anxiety. Here are some mistakes that I made throughout this journey that I HOPE to never make again.

            After four months of trying, I started using OPKs and taking my temperature. For anyone who doesn’t know what an OPK is, it is a device that you pee on to see if you are ovulating. Pretty simple. You get that smiley face – get to bed.  I would pee on a stick everyday, sometimes twice a day, to try and get that smiley face. I would wait and wait then BAM. There it was. That stupid smiley face laughing at me saying its time. I would then go run and tell my husband to get into bed. – sexy right? Nothings says foreplay like “hey babe, I am ovulating”. I won’t even lie – that was the worst thing I could have started. On one hand, I always got a smiley face which I guess is good, but damn it the whole process like a chore and it was absolutely miserable. The romance and fun completely sucked out of the process and you are left with a check in the box kind of thing.

             Taking your temperature is an even worse obsessive way to see if you’re ovulating. You have to take your temperature at the SAME TIME EVERY MORNING until you see a spike in your temperature – because apparently that means you ovulated (stupid progesterone). If you drank a glass of wine, your temperatures were affected. If you slept in your underwear, your temperatures were affected. If you got up to pee in the middle of the night – your temperatures were affected. It was so brutal and obsessive. My husband and I ended up stop using the tests and temps because it actually started affecting our relationship. It took the fun out of everything. We wanted the fun back.

           So let me start by saying that these message boards can be GREAT for some women, but for me, it was just another way for me to channel my obsessive tendencies. Two Week Wait refers to the two weeks after you ovulate and before your period where you analyze every symptom you have and wonder if you are pregnant.

I trolled on one of these boards and was IMMEDIATLEY hooked. All these women sharing all their “symptoms” before they got a BFP! (Big Fat Positive – learned that there as well.) So if I had a minor cramp for 2 seconds – immediate check to see if a woman EVER had a cramp before! Slight headache? This woman says I must be pregnant because she had one too! Spotting? ITS IMPLANTATION! YOURE PREGNANT! No symptoms that month? THATS OK THIS WOMAN OVER HERE DIDNT HAVE ANY EITHER AND SHE HAD TWINS!

As you can see – it was a constant reassurance thing for me and it never ended up in my favor. Just because one woman felt something 6 years ago for three seconds and ended up pregnant, doesn’t mean you will too. It was eye opening. I do not think I will ever be back to one of those websites, because it got to the point where I would spend hours (no joke) on these websites. I got over it. That’s literally what happened. I just got over it. Like why let a website dictate my mood? BEATS ME!

                  Obviously when you start trying for a baby, you want to start telling everyone you know because you think itll happen quick. Well, almost two years later, and no baby – well you do the math. People start to ask more questions like “What is going on?” “Are you okay?” “Did you miscarry?” (yes – that was a question I got). I know that people mean the best most of the time, but it is exhausting sometimes telling the same story over and over.  Next time, I am keeping my mouth shut!

These three things did not help in my journey – they only made it worse. For you – it could have made all the difference in making everything better. Everyone’s journey is different, especially emotionally. When I try again in the future (you know hopefully after I have a kid), I will not be doing any of these things for my own sanity.