I actually wrote this on a board where I have a few friends. I had NO idea at the time (obviously) that I was already pregnant…
So, before we got married we knew we didn’t want kids. Just plain didn’t want them. After we got married, we knew we didn’t want kids. Just plain didn’t want them. And we were both okay with that.
Fast forward to Tom being deployed and my grandfather dying two weeks later (so obviously he couldn’t be there). And my cousins (mainly Lisa and Lori) I were talking about how our parents (and their cousins) had really grown apart and we didn’t want that to happen to us and that turned into a discussion on having kids (some of my cousins have kids already) and I wouldn’t mind having a big family (I grew up with huge extended family)… and long story short, I decided I wanted kids. And after talking with Tom, and with him being deployed, yada yada yada, he decided he wanted kids. So we changed our mind and decided to have kids.
We decided to start trying in October 2005 (on our “honeymoon”) and just let nature take its course. I had no idea how long it would take, as I’d been on the pill for almost 10 years, then on Depo for probably four, then back on the pill for a year. My [step]sister got pregnant the month after stopping the pill. A friend got pregnant within a year after going off Depo (supposedly it can take up to two). Other people I talked to said it took anywhere from a month to a year.
The second month, I honestly thought I was pregnant. I [thought I] was late (my cycle has always been very irregular), my breasts were very tender, and I just felt different. Except I wasn’t pregnant. Okay, no biggie, it’s only been two months. Then for the hell of it I tried the ovulation detectors… and I never once ovulated. WTF? Four months, five months, six months, seven months pass. We’re not desperate, but just frustrated. How can it be so hard to get pregnant? We had sex (almost) every day for a month…surely that would work. No. We had sex exactly when we were supposed to (like a two week period, since my cycles are screwy). No dice.
Eight months, nine months pass. Two neighbors had babies, two more got pregnant, and I find out an old friend (who up until now has said they were not having kids)…is pregnant—having gotten pregnant the first night they decided to try. Cue the sappy and/or depressing music. This is the first time I was actually depressed about it (not for long, but still depressed—and Angi, if and when you ever read this, do NOT feel bad! It was VERY short-lived!).
Ten months pass. A neighbor (who just had a baby in February) is now pregnant again after a month of trying. Even though my doc said not to worry until a year has passed, we decide to have hubby tested, just because it’s much easier to test him than me. And his swimmers are fine. So it’s either me and my dusty eggs…or it’s just taking longer than normal.
We are just now starting our eleventh month. Of course, during all this, we’ve known hubby will be deployed. First for a year, then six months, now a year or nine months. We’ve already gone through the rollercoaster of deciding to have a baby, not getting pregnant as quickly as we thought we would, then the thought of him being gone a year and me not wanting to do it all alone (so we stopped trying for a few weeks), to him getting switched back to six months and us going full-steam ahead with the baby-making, but now he’s back to being deployed for a year (or 9-10 months) and part of me says to stop trying because of course, NOW would be the time I got pregnant, when he was going to be gone the entire time. But, if things keep happening (or, rather, NOT happening) like they have been, why worry?
I’m not making myself crazy (even if it seems that way)… I am just getting frustrated. I know life is never easy, but I didn’t think it would be this hard. I mean, as my girlfriend said, you spend your entire early adulthood trying NOT to get pregant and being told you can get pregnant at any time, but when it comes down to it, there are like three days you can get pregnant and it’s harder than you think.