The Details are Spotty...

Fuck. I'm spotting again.

I started having spotting issues back in June when I was training for my century (100 mile) ride. If I rode more than 10-20 miles, I'd come home to a little cramping and spotting. It'd go away in a few days. When I got to mile 62 on my century ride, I stopped for lunch and a bathroom break. There was a lot of spotting, and clots. Then I bled for the next 60+ days. I could've bought stock in Kotex.

I did a round of Provera to "reset" things and had a hellish period, followed by no blood - and then sex. I got to have sex that wasn't on a dark towel!! Then, I spotted again. I panicked, then thought it might be pre-ovulation spotting. It stopped. I rode my bike about 15 miles the other day and came home to spotting again. It hasn't stopped, and even gets worse when I exercise. Why me?

I'm an active person so this breaks my heart. I don't want to stop exercising but I also don't want to bleed anymore. When exercise = blood, it makes me want to curl up in comfy pants and do nothing. It's not really logical, but part of me thinks inactivity = no blood. That has yet to be true. RE visit is in a week. Still remaining positive, but I swear to god that I can't win, sometimes.

I Less Than Three You, Ovulation.

This one will be short because it's the weekend and we're making pizza together, but I had to put this down somewhere. As I was cutting pepperoni, I asked my husband if I was doing the right thing by seeing a Reproductive Endocrinologist. He said he didn't know, and I clarified that I wanted his personal opinion.

"Well if you don't ovulate pretty soon, I guess it'd be a good idea" is what he told me. Then, he asked how many times I've ovulated in the past 12 months. I had to think about it for a moment, but then I remembered.

...Twice.

Yeah, it hit me pretty hard when I said it out loud. It's definitely time to see the RE.

Owner of a Lonely Ute

My life seems to move at different speeds simultaneously.

There's the day-to-day stuff, which proceeds at a normal pace. Time goes by as it should. Then, there's GPT - or "getting pregnant time". GPT feels like the last five minutes of a class feels; five minutes feels like an eternity. The "two week wait" can really suck. Waiting to ovulate can suck even more, especially when your body can't seem to get that part right. You don't even get to do that whole two week waiting thing.

GPT is nerve-wracking.

It's October, and now it's officially been one year since I started trying for a baby. In spite of the time the money I've spent on ovulation tests, pregnancy tests, blood work, and ultrasounds - even with the tears I have shed over every negative pregnancy test - I can look back on the past year and say that overall, it's been pretty good.

There are dark days, of course. Infertility isn't really good dinner table discussion material, and because of that - infertility can be very lonely. I don't want to discuss it with my family, and even before my cycles started to go horribly awry, I never saw a point in telling any of them that we were trying. Making a baby is very personal, and very intimate. I will love nothing more than to delight in a pregnancy with my family, but I doubt I could bear the questions of when I was going to get pregnant. I don't care to hear about anyone's "tried and true" tricks to getting pregnant, either.

It's also kind of gross to me, to clue in my nearest and dears that raised and loved me as a baby myself, that I'm having lots of sex, that my charming husband is ejaculating inside me in hopes of creating a baby. They all know how babies are made, I don't want to remind them.

I have the closest relationship with my husband ever. He is my rock, and my support on the dark days - but all the love in the world can't make a man able to empathize with anovulation, with hormonal mood swings. I bet he would if he could, but he can't, and that's OK.

The internet is GREAT for support, however. There are so many people that have touched my life that I have never even met, that are going through similar struggles. I am so grateful for their friendship and time that they've devoted to listening to my fears, to comforting me, and giving me support. I hope if there's someone out there who feels so very alone, that they will see this and know that they're not alone. There are a LOT of people out there to connect with.

Earlier this week, someone (on a message board) told me they couldn't understand why people blog about their lives. I can only imagine that she never had something she couldn't tell anyone else, a secret she couldn't keep, or a day that was so dark that she just wanted to give up.

If that's true, I hope she considers herself very lucky.

Obviously, blogging isn't for everyone - and neither is baring your soul to an internet message board. It takes a strong person to be able to share their struggle with people that are under no familial obligation to pray for them, love them, or care for them.

Even if you can't understand why someone would write about their troubles in this way, please try and understand that infertility can be a long and lonely thing to deal with. What seems strange and alien to you - makes the GPT go faster, for me.