Miracles do happen

It has now been several months since i last wrote on this blog and with good reason. In my last entry i wrote "Strange how even with all experience to the contrary, I can still allow myself to hope that I might be pregnant for as long as the incontrovertible evidence has not yet arrived."

This was somewhat prophetic as it turned out as on that occasion I actually did turn out to be pregnant! Hurrah, hurrah, hurrah! I haven't written since because I wanted to get to the point in the pregnancy where it is surer to succeed. I was convinced that early excitement would only lead to disappointment. (Crazy, I know).

As this has been a blog about infertility (albeit an unread one), I now want to leave a message for my non-existent readers, just in case someone one day stumbles across it. When we were trying, at the darkest times, I would spend literally hours trawling the net for some piece of miracle advice; something that would either unlock the secret to getting pregnant, or at the very least help me to relax about it and accept the future whatever it may bring.

One day I found a web page that really spoke to me. A lady was describing her quest to get pregnant and the increasingly desperate measures she and her husband were resorting to. She spoke of the feelings of anger, depression, frustration, inadequacy etc that anyone in that situation will understand only too well. It was a long and well written piece that really drew me in, and I believed that by the end of it, I would have received the miracle answer I was looking for.

Unfortunately, when I got to the end, all I found was a plug for her book. Send "$15.99 plus postage and package and you'll find out the big secret to getting pregnant." I felt so let down, so scammed. I would've gladly paid $1000 or more if I believed that the book really would give me the answers, but I didn't believe it. And the reason I didn't believe it is that no woman who has experienced infertility would ever want to profit from other women going through the same thing.

So here - for what they are worth - are my totally free tips, based on my experience, in case, just in case, they can ever be of any help to anyone else. I must point out that in my case the infertility was 'unexplained'. I had only mildly polycystic ovaries, I was ovulating each month, I had no endometriosis, my tubes weren't tied etc. If you have any of these problems, I guess the solution is going to be more medical. But if, like me, you just can't get pregnant, then maybe you might find some help here.
Seek out older women who have not had children. You'll see that their lives have not been destroyed by this fact, and that on the contrary they have lots of really cool things going on that mothers don't or can't because they have other responsibilities. I was lucky to find several strong, beautiful women around me who had come out the other side of the fertility struggle, had accepted and moved on. They had great houses and cars and went on really fab holidays each year! Think what your life could be like without kids. I started to imagine my life without and it didn't seem too bad after all. I started to think - why am I so desperate to change my life? What’s wrong with it the way it is? I have a great husband and friends, a great social life, and I can afford to spend money on myself. I went out and got my hair done, and started thinking about the two-seater sports car I was going to buy!

Prepare your body. If you're thinking that you don't need to give up bad habits and take up good habits in order to get pregnant (like every pamphlet will advise) then you're probably wrong. You can look at the youngsters who get pregnant in seconds after a boozy night out and think if they can do it why not me? You can think of the overweight girl of your acquaintance who got pregnant second month of trying, and think if she can do it why not me? But you won't get those answers. It just isn't you. For most of the year before I got pregnant I gave up drinking almost entirely, and smoking very definitely entirely, and I started jogging two or three times a week to lose weight. I went for long walks in the countryside every Sunday and even climbed Snowdon. I lost a stone and a half and got distinctly fitter. Did it help? Who knows for certain, but it didn't do any harm, and I feel much better in myself for it.

Conversely, don't put pressure on yourself. I was doing all the above, and I think it was great for preparing my body, but I was being quite hard on myself. Eventually, after the last session with the fertility specialist where she told me that my remaining option was IVF (but not until I was 35 on the NHS) I cracked a bit and took up smoking and drinking again for a little while. I got pregnant during this time. Now I’m not advocating bad habits as a way of getting pregnant (it didn’t work for me at all during the first year of trying) but I think the point was that I had decided to be my old self. I was sick of fertility being my primary preoccupation. I wanted to be able to say ‘great’ in response to the question ‘how are you?’ and mean it. I wanted to enjoy myself properly again without that kind of stiffness that had somehow crept in over the past years. I really, really wanted to be happy for my best friend and be there for her when her baby arrived. I guess it was a mental shift, and maybe it’s not that easy for everyone, but I think I had reached the right time for me to be able to do it.

Don’t dismiss the idea of anti-depressants. Again, I’m not advocating this for everyone, but I believe these really helped me. I’m not sure if I could have affected that mental change I mention above without them. I only had a mild dosage but I swear it just rubbed the corners off, and helped give me the strength to move on a bit. See other entries for details of this! At any rate, don’t be afraid to ask your GP for help, be it drugs or counseling. And if your GP is not sympathetic, change your GP!

Change your circumstances if you have to. I was surrounded at work by women getting pregnant, and having to live through their pregnancies with them day by day. Because I work in marketing in publishing my work environment was almost entirely comprised of women of child bearing age, and this meant that I was constantly reminded of my baby quest and unable to put it out of my mind even (especially) when I was at work. My specialist asked if I could change job, which I thought was extreme, but eventually when two colleagues announced they were pregnant on the same day, I decided to apply for a job elsewhere. (I thought a tech company would have a higher incidence of men and therefore I would have fewer pregnancies to deal with). I got the job and handed in my notice. I got pregnant in my notice period. Was it because I was busy thinking of something else, or was it because I was relieved to be getting out of fertility central? It might have had nothing to do with it at all of course, but I still think that if you’re in a situation that’s adding to the pressure on you to have a baby, then get out of that situation if you can!

My final tip. This doesn’t have to do with relaxing, it’s a bit more practical than that. Do not use KY Jelly or any other lubricant while you’re trying to conceive! It doesn’t say so on the packet but it’s pretty toxic to sperm. In fact it almost says the opposite as it says ‘not a spermicide’ on the packaging. I guess this is to cover their backs in case someone does get pregnant while using it. But that’s not likely. It slows the sperm right down and traps them before they get anywhere near the egg. I got pregnant 2 months after stopping using it.

Which of the things above was responsible for me getting pregnant? Perhaps a combination of them all, perhaps none. I hope with all my heart though that you read something here that will help you, and I wish you all the best luck in the world for getting pregnant.