I would say that everyone in my family is extremely fertile. My mom is 1 of 9 children, and they all (except for one) have 2-4 children each.  Most of these children (my little sister included) were “surprises” to their parents.  Once I became sexually active, I told myself it would be incredibly important to use contraception seeing as my family is so fertile and I was blessed with what you may call “child bearing hips.”  This was one reason I was so surprised it took my husband and I 6 months of active trying to become pregnant.  I even made him do a semen analysis, which we didn’t get the results to until after we found out we were pregnant for the first time.  However, even 3 months after the miscarriage, I didn’t feel like my body was the same again.  I told myself that my body still thought I was pregnant and that is why I was having such a hard time.  I followed up with my original OB/gynecologist (GYN) and he had me do an US to ensure I didn’t have any extra tissue in my uterus.  To his (and my) surprise, everything was normal.  He said “I bet you’ll get pregnant again here in the next couple of months.”

So we waited…

We were active in our trying, and month after month were disappointed when that angry red monster would show up.  I never wanted to buy pregnancy tests because I felt it might jinx things. My family is incredibly superstitious, so we didn’t even tell people were were trying because it might jinx it. During this time I was following up with my GYN with lab work to make sure there wasn’t something we were missing.  Another 4 months had come and gone with no luck.  We were now 7 months post miscarriage.  My GYN said there were more tests, but recommended going to a fertility specialist because they had additional equipment and procedures they could perform.  This caught me off guard.  ME?  A fertility specialist?  I thought that was for older women, or men with problems, or women with severe issues.  I’ve just been trying to get pregnant for a year without any success.  That can be normal, right?  I’m sure I’m super fertile!  I took the two recommendations for fertility clinics and went home thinking of how I would bring this topic up to my husband.  Remember him?  He’s the guy I forced to get a semen analysis because surely he was the problem.

That evening, I told my husband that the GYN recommended two clinics for diagnostic testing, just to see what was wrong.  He was excited, and I was relieved.  He saw it as a step moving forward; a step to take to be closer to getting pregnant again. Now there was something we could do!  My husband and I (along with being planners) are thorough researchers.  After researching, we discovered one clinic was closer than the other, but all the reviews for the other one seemed better.  We went with the more scientific method- I called both clinics and would see which one would call me back first.  That is how we found our fertility specialist. In hindsight, it’s hilarious, because I take more time in reading yelp reviews for a restaurant than I did “researching” for a fertility clinic.  I guess that’s what makes the journey more fun, though.  Oh and what a journey it will be…