Okay, so if you've been following my wedding posts, this next blog is a complete curve ball.
This isn't just a wedding blog - it's a blog about my life. Our life. This blog just kickstarted what I wanted to talk about, and how we eventually ended up here. As well as sharing my hints and tips to plan the budget wedding of your dreams, I'm also going to share the journey of how we tried/are trying to become parents. This is the first of many posts of our struggle with infertility...
It was April 2016 when J and I were mere days away from completing on the purchase of our new house, and we had decided long before that we didn’t want to start trying for a baby until we had bought our own home. What difference would a few days make?! We were so naïve in the beginning – I had no idea about ovulation, EWCM (more on fertility abbreviations later – it's a bloody minefield!!), Basal Body Temperate (BBT) or even what days we should be having sex on!
Fast forward a few months, and I was a full-blown fertility OCD fanatic! I had a whole range of home ovulation kits – from expensive digital Clearblue tests, to cheapy sticks from eBay! I had downloaded the Ovia app to track when my period came and went and signs of symptoms, and invested in a digital thermometer which could take my BBT within 2 decimal places. This is highly important if you choose to do this, because your temperature can fluctuate by less than one degree and can make all the difference between flagging your fertile and non-fertile days. You also have to take your temperature the second you wake up, so literally you can’t move around and get dressed, you don’t even sit up in bed. I had mine resting on top of my phone, so when my alarm went off each morning, I could switch it off and grab the thermometer! You also get a dodgy reading if you wake up a lot in the night, or your sleep schedule gets messed up due to having a late night or lie-in! I was a woman obsessed.
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| The inside covers of "Dare to Dream" by Izzy Judd were a beautiful montage of affirmations! |
In amongst all of this, my close friends and family were aware that we’d started trying for a baby, and with every milestone that passed would do the whole “wink-nudge” move... “Oh I think you’ll be pregnant at my wedding; I’m convinced you’re going to be a pregnant bridesmaid!” or “if you get pregnant now, you’ll have a baby in time for Christmas!” Be warned, this will be come obsessive and, with every milestone that has passed in the last three years, more and more painful.
You start to notice EVERYTHING. Every cramp, every twinge, every spot. And meanwhile around you, EVERYONE is getting pregnant!! I’m sure it’s the universe’s cruel way of just doing this to everyone who decides to start trying?! I became conscious of what I was eating and drinking, and J massively cut down his alcohol and caffeine intake. Not that he was binging on Buds every night – but we cut down on nights out and social drinking altogether. He loves a cuppa, too, so for him that was quite a step to cut back to one cup a day – as opposed to say 6!
However, throughout all of this, I will say that as much as we’ve been trying to conceive a baby – we will only do it out of love. Not because my app is pinging and saying we need to get a riddle on, but because we actually want to and not because we have to! Don’t get me wrong, I’m sure you’re thinking “well how the hell do you expect to get yourself knocked up if you’re not having sex?!” But equally if I feel like shit one day and J’s too tired the next, we’re not going to force it. That’s not love! And ps... for any of you cynics out there, we do enjoy a very healthy sex life (sorry if you’re reading this, Mum!!)
I did A LOT of research regarding fertility, diet and mindfulness, too. I actually signed up to my local library, which saved a lot when it came to reading material! The Baby Making Bible by Emma Cannon, and Guide to Getting Pregnant by Zita West were great tools for looking at my body, what should be “normal” and what to look for if there was a deeper issue at play. Izzy Judd’s book Dare to Dream was an absolute god send – a real account of everything she and her husband Harry went through before, during and after their struggle to conceive. It just shows that celebrities are human, too! Trying by Emily Philips was also good as a non-fiction novel about what to expect when you’re not expecting, but involves some twists that you don’t see coming – so don’t expect a stereotypical ending!
Apps, of course, are forever evolving and can be useful tools for you when TTC (Trying to Conceive). I’ve already mentioned Ovia, which can track so many different aspects of your body and mood, but Headspace is also a great use for those days when you just want to SCREAM in frustration! One of the most common remedies that busy-bodies like to recommend is “just relax and it’ll happen!” Well, as condescending and frustrating as that sounds – they're not entirely wrong. If you’re constantly wired at work and struggle to switch off before bed, and you don’t fall pregnant easily, then it’s time you re-evaluated what’s going on up there.
I ended up changing my period tracker to Natural Cycles at one point, as they claim to be 93% effective in tracking your fertile days. Some women actually use it as a form of contraceptive (seriously?! Come on girls!!) and then because they were having sex on their “non-fertile” days and ended up pregnant they blamed it on their app?! Unbelievable!! However, you do have to pay a monthly subscription to this one, so this is another factor to consider.
However, through all the research, mindfulness, clean eating and of course – sex! Something just didn’t seem right with us. I just couldn’t seem to control my stress levels, and emotions were really starting to run high. It was time that we admitted that something had to be done.
KEB x
