Pilot Episode

There's a statistic that says 85 percent of couples get pregnant within 12 months/cycles. Four doses of Provera and 5 anovulatory cycles (out of 7), and one year later I can safely say...

I am the 15%.


I think most people have a rose-tinted view of trying to get pregnant - and why shouldn't you? You get to have sex. UNPROTECTED sex. You're creating a new life, and adding to your family. The sex is better. The bond between you and your partner is deepened by the profound and overwhelming love you feel for one another. Every day is magical - and at the end of your perfect 28 day cycle, you see two blaringly pink lines staring you in the face, signifying what you've known in your heart for at least a week now - you're pregnant.

Of course, not everyone gets pregnant on the first try. As you sit at work picking out cloth diaper covers and onesies on Etsy you feel a familiar feeling.

You know the one.

In a panic, you grab the pad from your purse that you didn't want to have to wear for the next nine months and run to the washroom - only to confirm that "she" has arrived.





Hello, shark week. Damn you.


That was the take on my own first cycle, anyway. After coming off birth control, I thought it'd be easy. I thought I'd get pregnant right away. My extremely sensitive boobs and craving for bologna sandwiches HAD TO mean something, right?

When I wasn't pregnant that first time, I was DEVASTATED. I silently cursed those who got pregnant so easily, so effortlessly. I assumed the worst - that something was wrong, that something wasn't normal.

It wasn't all shit, though. After I stopped taking the pill, my emotions were on hyperdrive - and I loved it. There's a line in King of the Hill after Connie starts her period where her mother tells her, "You see Titanic on the right day, it blow you away.". I watched the new Muppet movie and was sobbing through most of it. My husband awkwardly rubbed my shoulders and hugged me as I cried because I figured out that Andrew Bird was the one whistling in the film.

Sex is WAY better off of the pill - I honestly had a moment where (during sex) I thought to myself... "So THIS is what being aroused  feels like!". It was an awakening.

After the first cycle or two, things didn't go so well. I stopped ovulating. Cycles were lasting anywhere from 65 to 77 days. I started having to take Provera to "reset" my cycles. Most recently? I bled and spotted for over 60 days (had to wear a pad the whole time) and am now currently in the midst of the worst period I can ever remember having. For a few days, I'd soak  an overnight pad in two hours or less. I didn't even want to sleep in my own bed because I thought I'd bleed through the pad, my undies, my pants and onto our 800 thread count sheets (that were a wedding present). I shied away from Zumba, and other things that I love because I hated that feeling of bleeding heavily.
Of course, the flow HAS to decrease the day after I spent 8 dollars on an embarrassingly large package of overnight pads. Now that the bleeding is subsiding, I feel like I can finally start acting like a quasi-normal person. I plan on going for a run, and exercising a little. We'll see how that goes. I started taking iron because I've just been so damn tired.

Maybe my rose-tinted glasses are gone, but I'm more aware of my body than I've ever been, and my husband is incredibly supportive. I am somehow more optimistic than I was at the beginning, but that's hard to explain why. It does make the failed cycles hurt a little more, but I can deal with that easier now.

Rather than plague any specific person(s) with my own personal take on infertility - I will take you on as my willing audience, rather than a captive one. I will try and promise to keep my negativity to a minimum, even on bad days (I also make this promise to myself on a day-to-day basis).