Pregnant!

Benjamin and I recently got some great news... we're pregnant! Well, I (Crystal) am pregnant and Benjamin is very supportive. This is something that we've wanted for a while. But if it comes as a surprise to some, don't feel bad. We didn't share the news that we were trying with most near and dear to us because it's something we felt was very personal. Plus we knew that the process can sometimes take a long time, as it ended up in our case, and we didn't want the added pressure of having to keep everyone posted of our progress (or lack thereof.)

We officially started trying to conceive in November of 2006. We were very precise in our methods... we practiced FAM (Fertility Awareness Method) as well as the practices listed in the book Taking Charge of Your Fertility. I highly recommend that book to anyone trying to conceive! Anyway, I began charting and temping to learn my cycle and when I ovulate as well as testing to see when ovulation was occuring. After a while, I grew tired of the constant temping -- it can be a pain at times. So at that point, I bought a Clear Blue Easy Fertility Monitor. If I've visited you any time since March of 2007, I can guarantee I was sneaking in your bathroom early every morning to pee on a stick that I plugged into my nifty fertility monitor. The monitor told me when I was most fertile and Benjamin and I planned according. When we still had no success on our own, we began to worry. Without delving too far into our personal health, we didn't have anything obviously wrong but we knew of a couple of potential challenges.

In July of 2007, we decided it was time to seek medical treatment. We had little time left in the US before the move to Guam and infertility treatment was not available in Guam... only in San Diego. So we decided to pursue treatment while we could. Extensive physical workups showed again that we had no obvious problems. Our fertility doctor decided the best and most aggressive approach for us at this time was to combine superovulation therapy with IUI.

Even though I was ovulating regularly, I was put on 100mg/day of Clomid. Benjamin then had to give me an injection of Follicle Stimulating Hormones. Fun times, let me tell you. After a medicated cycle, with our hopes way up, we had a pre-ovulation sonogram to see if the treatment had worked. Well, it had worked a little too well according to our doctor. At that time, I had 5 mature follicles (eggs) and my doctor was worried that if we proceeded with IUI, the chances of us conceiving multiples was extremely high. So he cancelled our IUI cycle which was a huge blow to us. He did say that we were free to try on our own if we were so inclined, so long as we realized the chance of multiples existed.

After a lot of thought, we decided to take our chances. There was a possibility that if we didn't try on our own, the next cycle would automatically be out for us since it could take my body a while to process out the remnants of five eggs. We knew that then we'd only have one month and one shot of treatment with the fertility clinic and that would likely eliminate our plans to go and visit Texas before our move. So as I said, we decided to go for it!

At 7 days post ovulation, I was positive that I wasn't pregnant. I had bought these super early detection pregnancy tests (or so they claimed!) that said they could accurately predict pregnancy 6-7 days after ovulation. So when I tested at day 7 and got a negative, I thought this cycle was surely a bust for us.

On a whim, on day 12, I decided to test again. I'll go more into this whole story in the next entry. But the summarized version is that I got a positive result! After getting a urine and blood test at my doctor's office to confirm the results, it's official -- we're pregnant! It's still very, very early on... as of today, I'm 4 weeks, 2 days pregnant. Our official due date is June 1st, 2008. Since it's so early on and we know that not all pregnancies have happy endings, we're only telling a select small group of friends and family. We do not mean to hurt the feelings of those we haven't told and I hope that if you're reading this entry, you believe that. We're just so cautious about this news that we don't want to go shouting it from the rooftops just yet. Once we get to a "safer" point in the pregnancy, we'll shout from the rooftops. :)

I hope you all understand our reasoning for keeping this quiet. One of the reasons we wanted to start this blog was so that our experience could be chronicled so that when you do hear our good news, you can read back on everything you missed and hopefully feel included!