Fertility and Birth Control...Um...I'm Irish...

OK, so last month Mama Christa and Mother Hen posted their harrowing stories of trying to conceive their first children. They've been harassing me ever since to add my story to the series. The thing is...

There is no story.

Seriously, the most challenging thing about trying to get pregnant for my husband and I was to get him to agree that it was TIME to try to get pregnant! We were married for 4 years before that decision was finally made and we decided it was time to start a family. Personally, I had been clamoring to have a baby since we got married in the first place...I just wanted to be a mom. Good thing my husband is a little more pragmatic. 4 years of planning allowed me to stay at home with our son like I always wanted. Now I have the best job in the world.

So technically it took a couple months, but really it was a logistical problem. B was out of town during a couple cycles, we were sick during a cycle, and then...it happened. We did the horizontal tango 2 times during a cycle (yea, it was one of those months) but it was over that particular time...and BAM! We were pregnant. Just like that. The same thing happened with this second pregnancy...we started getting the URGE for another baby when Aiden was 1. We started trying and 2 cycles later...BAM! Pregnant again...and I knew it a week before my missed period. Both times I engaged in antics to improve our chances because I was convinced we would struggle to get pregnant. So I would lay for half an hour or so with my hips propped up on a pillow afterwards, sometimes even doing headstands...I'm a little rediculous. I didn't want it to take forever, and being pretty much the only person in my family who has ever TRIED to get pregnant, I figured the universe would strike me down and make it nearly impossible. Not the case eh?

So, apparently my ovaries are like clockwork, my husband's little men are abundant and strong swimmers, and we're made for baby making. In fact, I could have had irish twins...my fertility returned almost immediately after Aiden was born despite co-sleeping and exclusive breastfeeding. Just so you know, breastfeeding is not reliable birth control for many women! I was ovulating again before Aiden was even 2 months old. I envy women who do not menstruate for months and even years while nursing...You can talk to Mother Hen about that...makes me want to beat her.

So apparently my fertility problem is PREVENTING pregancy. We've always been very careful about birth control so we don't have unexpected surprises. For a few short periods I used hormonal birth control, but it made me fat, um...dry, and KILLED my sex drive so we've been using condoms ever since. In addition we use some family planning. Because my cycles are EXTREMELY regular and you could set your watch by my ovulation, it actually makes it very easy to NOT get pregnant for us. My husband is overly cautious though, and i think he doesn't trust me to just NOT get pregnant...cuz he doesn't pay attention and would just never know. LOL! I also decided against hormonal birth control because of the risks associated with affecting milk supply in nursing mothers. This just wasn't and isn't a risk I was/am willing to take. At my six week postpartum visit my midwife recommended a product I had NEVER seen before. It was a contraceptive film that is to be folded up and inserted into the vagina. Once there it dissolves and is a spermacide, she said it was as effective as condoms when used properly. I was delighted because, really, who LIKES using condoms ok? I actually liked the product...the problem, and I tell all of you this so that you know to try it over a weekend in case this happens to you or your partners, was that B had a very EXTREME reaction to the spermicide the first time we used it that lasted TWO full days and kept him home from work because he was in such excruciated pain. According to the packaging, the burning he experienced (in his urethra) happens to less than 2% of men. But just the same...try this stuff on a Friday night in case your partner or you have a similar reaction and are out of commission for a couple days.

Look at that, kids...a little of everything...Breastfeeding, fertility, and birth control!

Getting Pregnant

Rooster and I were married in September 2006 and started trying for a baby shortly there afterwards - or more accurately we stopped trying NOT to have a baby. I felt that actually trying to get pregnant would be stressful, so we just did what we always had done.... just with lack of any birth control methods. Come January when nothing had happened and I was starting to be mildly concerned that this may not be an easy task.

Time for my extra long back track story...

Reason for my concern so soon was that in 2003 I had emergency surgery when a doctor discovered that I had a cantaloupe sized fibroid tumor hanging off the side of my uterus. I had been sick off and on for over a year, and this beast had gone undetected by a handful of doctors. My illness was pretty consistent with vomiting to the point of bile after my monthly cycle was complete. Pleasant, eh? I went into a regular doctor clinic atleast three times and each time they down played my cry for help and told me I just had really bad gas that was blocking my intestines. Honestly I think anytime I had gone in the office used me as a guinea pig for new doctors to practice vaginal exams.

I saw an experienced doctor finally and after just laying one hand on my abdomen he ordered a level two ultrasound which confirmed his suspicion of a fibroid. I was immediately sent to a local hospital and was prepped for surgery. They informed me that if it was cancerous I would be cut from about mid-chest down to my private area, and that if it was benign it would just be from belly button down.

A few hours later I woke up in post-op and remember taking my hand and trying to figure out where the cut was on my abdomen. Belly button down. BIG sigh of relief. No cancer. Once I was more alert the surgeon came in to tell me how the surgery went. This is when I learned just how massive the fibroid was in size, and that it had essentially strangled my right falopean tube. When fibroids are located outside the uterus they grow on a stalk. The stalk and my falopean tube had wrapped around each other nine times - cutting off the blood supply and killing the whole thing. He explained that while they were in there they checked around and found no other fibroids, and that the left side looked great. I was worried about fertility later in life, but he assured me that in most cases women with one ovary/tube combo are just as able to get pregnant as anyone else. This information was confirmed months later at my OB/GYN clinic. The OB explained that sometimes the remaining ovary/tube would "pick up the slack" and ovulate every month, otherwise I would just be fertile every other month therefore still fully capable of conceiving a child.

Back to 2006/2007... come January I was worried that we hadn't become pregnant yet. We starting doing the typical "trying" things like having me lay around with my legs up in the air ala Big Lebowski for a long time after doing the deed. We went off and on of "really really trying" to just "relax and it will happen" attitudes. By October 2007 I was starting to stress out that no pregnancy had occurred. That's when we happened to be shopping at a Half Price Bookstore and a book caught my attention; Getting Pregnant: What You Need To Know Right Now - Niels Lauersen and Colette Bouchez. The part of the book that most caught my attention was the fertility/infertility diet information. The book has a list of foods which hurt fertility... and it was the majority of my vegetarian diet. Oops! I changed my diet by eliminating everything that contained estrogen. This included stuff like peanut butter, peas, spinach, soy, etc.

Another thing that caught my attention from the book was different vitamins for both of us to take, and the cough syrup Robitussin. Robitussin reportedly thins the mucus in your entire body, including what is floating around in your uterus. By thinning it out you allow the sperm to get to their destination faster and easier. December 2007 after my monthly cycle we both took 500 mg of vitamin C every day, and I took a shot of Robitussin every night until the bottle was gone. Laugh all you want... it worked! January 4th first positive pregnancy test!! (after 2 negative ones earlier that week - I knew something was up because I was NEVER late before).

For baby number two in 2010 I had the bottle of Robitussin ready... but we didn't need it, ended up pregnant on the first try.