Thank you for all the positivity and excitement and sweet words for our baby girl on the way. We’re thrilled and pumped up, when I’m awake that is. Growing humans sure takes the mojo right out of you. But hey, that’s ok.
So, I wanted to share a bit of my lessons learned up until now, and happy to share my mistakes and trip-ups, so maybe you can save yourself some stress and time no matter what you’re going through in your life. Click here to learn how
We had been trying to make a baby, first pretty casually and then a bit more “trying” for a while. 3 years ago I “decided” it was time. I went off the pill, had Mike meet me in Paris for the weekend while I was on the way home from a Moscow event, and decided we would get pregnant. Ready to move into the family phase of our lives. Easy right? Ha!
Turned out, my bright idea shockingly worked. It was our first time “trying” and I proclaimed immediately I was pregnant. I acted as if I knew for sure, and a few weeks later, took a test and it turned out I was right! And then something horrible happened. One evening I started to feel crazy tired. I sat on the couch and fell asleep sitting up. I knew something wasn’t right and felt the bleeding. I went to the bathroom and there was full-on blood, not spotting, but blood.
The googling began. I dove deep into Facebook groups, forum, blogs, and anything I could find on bleeding in the first trimester. Nothing looked that promising. Whatever I found that gave me a little hope, I knew was grasping. My answers weren’t going to be solved by google this time. I made an appointment with my doctor and she confirmed the miscarriage. I had a huge migraine a few days after but kept up my life as usual. I held a friend’s brand-new baby one day while I was still bleeding a ton. It was hard. I felt alone and didn’t share. I didn’t want the spotlight on me with this bad news when there was so much else to do, from celebrating friends’ babies, work and preparing for upcoming travel. I just wanted my body to feel better so we could get on with it, try again, and make it happen.
So, we kind of stopped trying and then fought, and then fought a lot, and then stopped talking about it, and then never really dealt with it. Our relationship got so bad we separated and I thought it was over. We only argued about external circumstances and didn’t get to any root.
After almost a year, we mended slowly, then suddenly got back our original spark. We started having fun together, like when we first met and had more free time. We started having even more fun and it became present in everything and the priority for our relationship. We didn’t have to work on it because it was easy again. Of course, like any couple, annoyances are there from time to time, but now they are funny and fleeting, because the freedom and joy is back and strong.
So, we started trying again. Casually at first, and then a little more targeted. And then after months of going about my usual round-the-clock non-stop schedule, it dawned on me that this casual attitude wasn’t going to work. The change needed to happen now.
So I did something radical. A friend told me about how she finally got pregnant
It scared the crap out of me to dive into this new concept, but it felt so necessary to achieve what I really wanted. Even more holistically, this new way of getting pregnant, would become the secret that helped me become pregnant.
So, I slashed my schedule. I mean I really slashed it. I started ditching my phone at the office every night. I started doing less. I started paying attention to how I felt. I started reducing activities in my life that didn’t bring me joy. I disappointed people and left some totally pissed off. I had to change and it was up to me, only me, to pull the trigger.
So many people asked me over the years, about when we were going to have kids. I know I’m not alone in feeling icky and somewhat attacked by these most personal questions, from people who don’t know you so well, along with the offer of baby advice flowing more freely than coffee in the local neighborhood shops. These questions were at first annoying, then hurtful, then I finally took my power back. When someone who I don’t know very well would ask me about my fertility, I would ask something equally invasive that was none of my business. How’s the relationship with your mother? Finances back in order? It usually worked. But it wasn’t just dodging questions that got my power back. I didn’t need to hide anymore. I was on my own right track.
So we started trying again with the system. After a few smiley face months I was a few days late, but not interested in taking a test and getting bummed out, so we waited. Every month I would think I had some “symptoms,” which is pretty funny since most of the symptoms of pregnancy are also symptoms of pms, each happening in that same time window. So I stopped trying to convince myself that I was peeing a lot, had sore boobs and shortness of breath, and just got on with my life as usual. Finally I took the test, and instantly it turned to pregnant. I still think that means I was “really pregnant” and not just a little! We jumped up and down and scrambled to find a doctor that was taking new patients. Not an easy thing to find in NYC, by the way. After dozens of calls we finally had an appointment.
So that’s my story and lessons learned.
You can become pregnant even if you had a miscarriage before.
If you are perhaps in the not so fun stage of trying to conceive, you can use this plan here that I used to finally get pregnant.