The quest for baby Crate continues

As you all hopefully remember we decided back in November that we would look at what it would take for me to get pregnant instead of Jennie. I don't ovulate regularly, so we knew the journey would be a bit more complicated, but after a lot of blood work and a few trips to the reproductive endocrinologist it looked like it wouldn't be too difficult.

It turns out it's harder to make me ovulate than we'd originally anticipated, not impossible though, which is important! I had to try three rounds of medications, upping the dosage each time before my follicles finally grew to the appropriate size, meaning I would ovulate. Each time I had to take the medication for 5 days and then go in for an ultrasound for them to look at my follicles. I do have to say that as a person who only ovulates 1-2 times a year, having to deal with the additional hormones from the medication is not fun! Because my follicles were not growing in size I was starting to lose hope, but then the third round it worked! So at the beginning of January we did our first insemination with me. Jennie was out of town on the insemination day which kind of sucked, but it was still really exciting to think that I might be getting pregnant this month. Unfortunately it didn't work--but it was only the first try!

I have to say the 14 day waiting period between when you inseminate and when you find out if you're pregnant or not is pretty treacherous.  The entire time you are over analyzing every stomach grumble, uterine cramp and temperature change. I swore for those 14 days I was having to go pee way more often than I usually do and so I thought that was a sign that I might be pregnant. It's really easy to get your hopes up over those 14 days, but also I would constantly try to tell myself that the chances of it working the first try were pretty low. 

Day 14 was a bit rough as I learned I wasn't pregnant--I was expecting it, but I also really wanted to be pregnant. There was also a sense of grief as we've been trying for so long. I continue to remind myself that this was only the first try and that for most people it takes up to 6 tries before they're pregnant. I'll continue to take the meds and we'll continue trying until one day it does work.  And if that doesn't work we'll continue to explore other options for creating our forever family.

Fortunately for us we have an amazing 6 month old at home who we get to love on and cherish for the time being, which helps with managing the grief of not being pregnant.

Thank you all for your continued support and encouragement, especially our amazing donor and his family. I know the road to parenthood has been messy for a lot of you and your stories continue to provide us hope.