Little did we know it was much harder than this. Aaron decided he couldn't keep it a secret anymore as he was becoming too stressed. When we were asked the dreaded question "when are you guys having children" we decided not to lie anymore - only to very close friends and then our parents. By this time we had been TTC for approx 8 months.
You might question why we discuss our TTC journey and the need to talk about our sex life and struggles (online and in person). Dont get me wrong I was raised in a very conservative home where sex was not discussed in open. We both made this decision when we discovered it was not going to be a short road, it was going to take time, support and understanding from our close friends and family. I talk online about our journey to hopefully help myself put it down in writing, understand it better and deal with these issues. Still to this day not many people in person know we are TTC, I think this might change heading into the AC world.
Being a sensative/private subject you would think people don't want to talk about it but this is not true. After a while we thought we must have been doing it wrong - well this is what we were told by many. See all our friends/family have children of their own so everyone had tips and advice to give - some was useful, some ... lets just say not so useful. But by then we were becoming impatient so we decided to try everything. After we tried the recommended tips I went looking online to see if there was anything else that could potentially help.
So the changes start tame - diet and excercise. cut out some bad food and up both our excerise. We both play sports (softball and cricket) so we joined a gym also and by this stage we were either playing sport or at the gym daily. Once the small diet changes where not working I decided to cut out everything bad. At this stage I was following the silly little tips people were 'insisting' on - sex positions, timing and how often. Here is where I started charting (taking my temps - see fertility friend link) and using OPKs to make sure I was ovulating, which I was thank god! (one less thing to worry about)
Since this was not working I started to look into the crazier 'myths'. Fertility friendly sex positions and the most optimum timing, good luck charms, all the vitamins that the shops sell, reading positive fertility books, fertility stones, holding religious fertility prays on me at all time (by the way I am not religious), positive visualisation, wishing on the full moon.... the list keeps going and some I am very ashamed to mention.
As crazy as the myths sound trying them helps, as every time the months pass the hope and dreams of holding our own baby get stronger. When we found out the we had male factor issues (MFI) I stopped everything. I gave up for a while until Aaron and I got over the shock and that we were ready to try again.
When we were told we needed to see a fertility specialist (June 2010) I decided we needed to de-stress our lives. We needed to relax and take it easy - hey the biggest piece of 'advice' EVERYONE gives you is 'give up, stop trying and I promise you it will happen'. So we tried this approach - we started new hobbies, new sports and tried things we never would have before.
I remember I came home from work one day in June and asked Aaron "do you want to do something really different together? Lets get a motorbike!" Before this I hated bikes but for a while I decided I needed a huge change, something to take our minds off TTC and something that would give that rush of adrenaline. We went out and purchased our little blue ninja and had many lessons. This was the best idea ever, we enjoyed this new hobby and by christmas time 2010 we both had our license!
Saying that I have given up all these crazy myths months later would be a lie .... as I am sitting here with a pomegrante charm on (this is known as a fertility symbol) hoping that somehow this little charm will bring us the luck we need to see that sacred second line on a home prenancy test (HPT).
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