How I Got Pregnant

Besides the obvious - I'm not about to teach you about the birds and the bees here people!

Thinking that, if I wasn't suffering from MB, this post would have probably come first - before "How I told Him" and "A Year". Just makes more sense that way obviously but I'm not that smart these days. The only redeeming factor is that I realize how screwed up my order is. :p

When I wrote both the posts above, I heard from a few other Moms/Moms-to-be who were in similar situations - just off the pill, no idea what their cycles were like, no idea when to test and NO IDEA that they were pregnant! As "they" recommend, when I went off the pill, I waited a full cycle before trying to get pregnant... it took 56 days. All I could think was, at this rate, I'm going to have 6-7 chances this year to get pregnant and it's never going to happen! I remember talking to my sis-in-law who used an online ovulation calculator that tells you your most fertile days based on the length of your cycle. This would have rocked if I had a "typical" 28 day cycle but not the case. Regardless, I used Baby Centre's Ovulation Calculator.

So, being the genius I WAS (was being the key word), knowing that my previous cycle was 56 days, I calculated the days I should ovulate if I had a 28 day cycle (the shortest cycle I could imagine having) and my fertile days if my cycle was 45 days (the longest cycle the calculator would allow me to input). I took the first fertile day of my 28 day result and the last fertile day of my 45 day result plus one week (in case I had another 56 day cycle) and "forced" my hubby to have "the sexy time" with me everyday for what turned out to be almost 4 weeks. ha ha ha. I say "forced" because, at first, my hubby thought this was the BEST deal he'd ever been offered. However, after about day 14ish we had both had it and baby making became all-business! :p To quote my fabulous mother "get it up, get it in, get it out, don't mess my hair dear". I always joke that people say babies are conceived with love but our special baby Jane was conceived with "all-business baby". I realize most "experts" say that you only need to have sex every other day but my thought was: why not give it a devoted effort, at least for the first few tries. And it worked!

Despite what we're lead to believe when we're 15, making babies just isn't that easy... for most of us, some of us just need to add wine (you know who you are and I love you). As sad as it is, I knew nothing about cycles and fertile days until I started considering having a baby. It's almost like as soon as you make the decision to have a baby you want to be pregnant immediately and you start to become slightly obsessed with all the baby-making nonsense... when to do it, how to do it, what to do after. I swear I pulled a Phoebe Buffay (see Friends, season 4) and sat upside down one night afterward thinking it would help my little friends get where they needed to be faster. Personally, I'm a big believe of "when it's meant to be, it will be" and that if your stressed, nervous, unhappy, etc. it ain't gonna happen. I almost feel like it's a catch-22 for those fabulous ladies out there who are trying to get pregnant and not having any luck... the longer it takes, the more stressed and upset they get about it and that can't help things! Obviously, sometimes it's just biology as well.

I've told this story to many friends who were trying to get pregnant - especially the "all-business" part. If your expecting romance every time you're either (1) not going to get it or (2) you're not going to "get it".

As always, I am not assuming that everyone got pregnant this way or needs to get pregnant this way... just wanted to share my experience, hoping you'll share yours!

Jen :)

PS - Here's the last pre-pregnancy picture taken of my hubby and I, July 2008.