A Link in the Chain - Why having children is important to me

So, hopefully you read my introduction and you know a little about me. One of the important things to know is that I've always wanted a large family. I grew up on stories of my grandmother having dozens of cousins within a 5 block radius to play with as she grew up. Her cousins were like siblings to her and as they grew up, while they moved away, they stayed close.

Even at a young age I realized how amazing it is that from two people can come so many more. I wanted to be a link in that chain and create a chain of my own like my parents, grandparents and great-grandparents before me.

I knew when I got married that we would wait at least a year before we started having kids. We had some career goals, traveling and just "us" time that we wanted to do before babies came along to change EVERYTHING, FOREVER.  But finally in the spring of 2011 we decided we were ready to start trying.

In March of 2011 I went off The Pill and we, well you know, tried, and tried again and tried some more. While I knew that it takes most couples at least a few months to get pregnant I really had visions of it happening the very first month. In my head I was estimating when I would find out I was pregnant, when I would get to the 2nd trimester so I could tell people, when I would be due and all the other exciting dates. Of course, that didn't happen. But, I also didn't get my period 28 days later (or 30 or 35...). I figured it was just my body adjusting after having been on The Pill for such a long time (13 years!).

Long, irregular cycles became the norm for me. And after a few of those cycles I made an appointment with my Dr.  Now, I know when you're under 35 they typically don't classify you in the "infertility category" until you've been trying for at least 1 year. Fortunately, my Dr. recognized that I was having some sort of problem and was happy to see me and start treating me for infertility.

At my first appointment with Dr. Redmond (my main OB/GYN) she gave me a standard female workup (feet in the stirups and everything) plus ordered a huge panel of blood work. Everything came back normal, fortunately. And while I'm very glad that all the blood work was normal it didn't tell me why I was having irregular cycles and why I wasn't pregnant.

Dr. Redmond said she would likely prescribe me Clomid but first I would need to have a hysterosalpingogram (more commonly known as an HSG) and my husband would need to have a semen analysis.

More on these exciting test next time...

Peach :)

An Introduction...

Hello and Welcome to my blog! I was born, raised and still live in the metro Atlanta area. I'm in my early 30's and have been married to my sweet, wonderful husband for almost 4 years. I'm a substitute teacher looking for a full time teaching job. In my free time I enjoy being lazy, playing with my dogs, going to fine arts events in the city, traveling and spending time with good friends.

As a child I heard lots of stories from my parents and grandparents about their childhoods and families and always dreamed about getting married and having my own large family. After a lot of searching for  my prince charming, I finally found him! We enjoyed our first years of marriage; getting to sleep in, travel and do lots of "grown up" things that we know will be gone with the wind once kids appear.

In April of 2011 we started trying to have a baby. More than a year later we are still trying. The last 15 + months have been exciting, stressful, emotional and most of all isolating. Now, I know that this last part is my choice. If I wanted to I could post every last detail of my infertility on facebook or let my parents share with all of their friends what is going on, but I choose not to. In our society it's not socially acceptable to answer someone's question of "what's going on?" with, "Well, I just had a miscarriage after a year of trying to have a baby". I know our close friends would be more than happy to support me and my husband in this journey, but I am just not comfortable sharing all the details of our infertility.

So, why do I want to publish a blog that the world will see? I want to be a part of a community of women (or couples) that can understand what we are going through. I also feel that writing down my journey with infertility will not only be therapeutic but perhaps help someone else going through the same or similar journey.

During the next couple weeks I'll update the blog with experiences we've had in the last year + and then update with where we are in our process.

Thanks for reading and traveling with me on my journey!

Peach :)