28 days in pergatory

"Not take over your life?
Oh, you silly girl!"

When I started down this road of infertility I told myself I would not let it overtake my life. Ha! ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha! Oh, what a fool I was. My life is now measured in 28 day cycles, starting with the first day of my period. 







Cycle without fertility treatment

Daily: Take temperature every morning to track ovulation. Take a regiment of vitamins to get my body ready for a baby.

Once a Week: Acupuncture treatment

Every other day: spend an hour boiling raw herbs for Chinese tea (okay- not everyone does this but I live in LA)


Day 1: First day of my period (this is a sad and frustrating day when you are trying to get pregnant. You want that biyatch to take a nine month holiday!)

Day 9-14: Test ovulation by peeing on a stick 1-2 times a day. Have sex every other day (me likey this part).

Day 13 or 14: Ovulation day. Send dirty sext messages to husband. Maybe throw in a boob shot for good measure. Have sex.

Day 15-28: The waiting game. These two weeks suck! You tell yourself to forget about it but all you do is analyze every little change in your body and Google it to see if it means you're pregnant: wake up one morning craving fried pickles- pregnant! boobs are tender- pregnant! lower back pain- pregnant! crying over hallmark commercial- pregnant! As I near the last days of my cycle, I begin checking the toilet paper every time I wipe for the dreaded red streak- the telltale sign that my period has arrived. Oh, not to mention the pregnancy tests that I begin taking on day 24. I try to resist but I can't! If it were up to me (and they didn't cost $20 a pack- oh, how they rape the wallets of desperate women) I'd take 2 tests a day.

Cycle with fertility treatment (IUI/Clomid/HCG)

Daily: Take temperature every morning to track ovulation. Take a regiment of vitamins to get my body ready for baby.

Once a Week: Acupuncture treatment

Every other day: spend an hour boiling raw herbs for chinese tea (okay- not everyone does this but I live in LA)

Day 1: First day of my period (waaaaah!). Call doctor’s office to make appointment for the following day.



Not exactly what I had in mind when
I said foreplay (vag ultrasound)

Day 2: Go to doctor’s office to have blood drawn (and be stalked by annoying pictures of happy families) to test my baby-making hormones (FSH and estradiol levels). Than I have a vaginal ultrasound.

Day 3-7: Take two clomid pills per day and ready myself for hot flashes and crying spells (and lots of back rubbing by husband).

Day 10: Second vaginal ultrasound to check ovulation and then I bend over for an injection of HCG to stimulate ovulation.

Day 11 or 12: Husband gives his 'donation' at the fertility clinic, which I pick up an hour later and drive to my ObGyn's office where he inserts the spermies directly into my uterus through a thin catheter. Then I rest on the table for twenty minutes giving those spermies a pep talk until I grow bored and then flip through Us Weekly. (Some days I'm fine after the IUI and some days the cramping is so bad I have to rest or lay down for the rest of the day- but it's a good excuse to catch up on Dancing with the Stars or Mad Men!).

Day 13-28: The waiting game. Hate. This. Part. You spend your whole life praying your period arrives each month and then one day, you're doing eveything in your power so it doesn't. It kind of messes with your head.