Nine months.
Nine months of trying and failing.
Nine months of waking up, taking my temperature and recording it, peeing on a stick, and lining them up to determine a pattern.
Nine months of trial and error with anything I read that could possibly be causing us to fail: switching to glass products instead of plastic, giving up caffeine, alcohol, dairy and gluten, eliminating Claritin, switching to only organic foods and grass fed meat, starting acupuncture and Chinese herbs.
Nine months of observing others Facebook pregnancy announcements and gender reveals (most of which started trying after us-I am happy for them, but it is a constant reminder of our loss and unanswered prayers.)

What is wrong?  Why can’t my body do the one thing, the most feminine basic task that all women were created to do?  I waited for a sign that never came.

While I do know that it can take healthy couples up to one year to conceive, I know in my gut that something is wrong with me.  I have now had 2 early miscarriages (one from a previous life that I won’t mention again), and a gut feeling that something was not right.  I felt it for months and yet I blindly followed my Gyno’s advice to keep trying because “we are young”, “it’s totally normal”, “keep trying”.  It was around this time that I could no longer continue riding the bus of my life that someone else was driving.  I had to advocate and listen to my instincts.  The morning of my appointment I had a positive home pregnancy test.  I was hesitant because I needed it to be confirmed by a doctor before I got excited.  The nurse had me give a urine sample and reported to me that it was negative.
My gyno entered the room, hugged me, offered up a “congrats” and told me not to worry because the urine tests are not always accurate and I should go get a blood test.  Tears rolled down my cheeks because I knew that this could not be real.  In the event that I was right, I wanted to solidify our “plan B”.  I told her that a visit with her every 3 months was not working for me and I needed to move forward with testing. She obliged, although I know that she felt it wasn’t needed yet.

The HcG blood test (beta) came back negative.  So…this was either a false positive pregnancy test, or a biochemical pregnancy (early miscarriage).  Either way, it feels like another loss, and messes with your emotions.  My cycle started 2 days later and I had to get blood work done on days 3 and 21 of that cycle, as well as an HSG test.  The timing of all of this was a struggle for me because it coincided with both mothers day and the date that I would have delivered our honeymoon baby.  I can’t help but think about what could have been.
“I don’t know what this is or what it isn’t
But it feels like we’ve got unfinished business
Cause we left blood on the tracks
Sweat on the saddle
Fire in the hills
A bullet in the barrel
Words never said in a story that didn’t end
Looks like you’re on the mend and I’m on the bottle
We folded our hands with money on the table
Tried moving on but I keep coming back again
To what could’ve been…”

What Could’ve Been by Gone West

Pregnant!!
We are so excited to learn that we fell pregnant on our honeymoon!  Three different home pregnancy tests confirmed our excitement and each line was getting darker and darker by the day!  Jeff even went out and bought some cute onesies to surprise me with.
I throw myself into the Pinterest world and begin to plan the most special ways to tell our families.  The 12 week marker was right around Thanksgiving and there are so many cute ideas to choose from!  (Bun in the Oven, Little Turkey, etc).  Our due date would be the first week of May and as a teacher, that is such a dream for maternity leave!

On September 8th, I head to graduate class at RIC to sit for 3 hours, (some of which I have to admit I spent looking up baby names).  As I am walking out of the building with a classmate, she starts telling me about her newborn daughter and how difficult it is to go to school right after giving birth.  I was thinking about how grateful I am that I will be done with Grad school by the time we have our baby.  It was at that exact moment that my world stopped.  I could feel bleeding and cramping and I climbed in the car to call my husband crying.  The ride home felt like an eternity but Jeff stayed on the line, trying to comfort me.  After pulling in our driveway, I ran through the door, grabbed a home pregnant test (HPT), saw the blood, and my fears were confirmed.  Negative.  Jeff took me for a drive to look at the water (our most favorite place) and tears rolled down my cheeks as this song played on the radio:

“…blue looks good on the sky
Looks good on that neon buzzin’ on the wall
But darling, it don’t match your eyes”

Blue Ain’t Your Color by Keith Urban

Our wedding day.  The most exciting time in our lives.  I loved every minute of wedding planning and every event leading up to this amazing day.  I could not be more grateful for the friends, family, love, and laughter that surrounded us during this time.  Our wedding day was everything that I had ever dreamed of and so much more.

A week later we headed off to Hawaii for our 17 night honeymoon!  We were so optimistic about starting a family and I was confident that we would fall pregnant right away.

“Cause all of me
Loves all of you
Love your curves and all your edges
All your perfect imperfections
Give your all to me
I’ll give my all to you”

All of Me Loves All of You by John Legend

Knowing that we wanted to start a family right away, I went off the pill 4 months before the wedding, started taking prenatal vitamins, and began tracking my cycles.  I wanted to be proactive to avoid wasting any time.  I started using OPK kits in order to determine my ovulation date each month.  Twenty eight day cycles, day 18 ovulation.  This occurred like clockwork each month and I felt optimistic that it would happen for us within a few months of trying.  How could it not!?

While roaming the aisles of the Kate Spade outlet looking for bridesmaid gifts, I came across the cutest polka-dot diaper bag.  I convinced Jeff to buy it for me and stash it away in a closet until the day I could use it.  I was so excited to get married and begin the next chapter of our life together.  Looking back, I am angry at that naive woman I used to be, and roll my eyes at every woman who shares that same blissful ignorance now.

“Staring at the blank page before you
Open up the dirty window (window, window, window)
Reaching for something in the distance
So close you can almost taste it (taste it, taste it, taste it)”

Unwritten by By Natasha Bedingfield