My own stats...

I'm going to try to keep it short today due to my adoption connection post being so long. :)

As I mentioned before my husband and I are at the very beginning of our true journey to parenthood. We're not new to TTC, we're new to real planning and intervention. We're on our 21st cycle, we've had two good "scares" but never a BFP. I do have PCOS, and my husband has possible problems due to testical torsion. I typically have a 25 day cycle and it's currently CD9 and I'm a little embarrassed to admit that this is my first cycle keeping track of BBT.

My temperature so far has been pretty encouraging! I had a very defined dip, seemingly an ovulation dip. The only problem is it was on cycle day 4! I was right in the middle of my usual 7 day period. My husband and I typically don't BD during my period, but if this dip occurs around the earliest cycle days again for the next couple of cycles we'll have to make an exception. I went first to my good friend google, and google confirmed my fears. If I'm ovulating while on my period it will make it even harder to conceive. That uterine lining is there for a reason! 

My worst confession of all: I haven't even been to the gynecologist ( I will sometimes refer to gynecologists as gyno-saurs, just for laughs) in over two years. I know! It's awful! It's on my to-do list. My mom is having some pretty serious health issues with her reproductive parts, and is facing a complete hysterectomy so my family is pressuring me to go again. I know there's no excuse for ignoring my health but I had a stroke of bad luck. I had just started seeing this new gynecologist and his clinic is one of the best in the area. They don't over see pregnancy care or births, so it makes it so much easier and faster to get appointments. Long story short due to a misunderstanding with my family I was unable to pay for my three visits and my account with him went out to collections. I'm going to pay it very shortly, but I know already I have to find another doctor. I have two coworkers that struggled with infertility and they have both strongly suggested the same doctor. I intend to call him within the week to make an appointment.

There you have it. I will continue to post my stats with any interesting changes. I will do my best to keep writing real posts instead of unreadable stats riddled with ttc abbreviations and lingo. 

Best Wishes

The Adoption Connection

"Have you considered adoption?" is not something that a TTC woman likes to hear. My husband and I have of course given it due thought but for completely different reasons.

When I was about six years old, I caught my poor dear Dad trying to be the tooth fairy. His big gruff hand woke me up from under my pillow. He told me to go back to sleep and we'd talk about it tomorrow. My parents sat me down and ripped the band-aid off. They said that they were the tooth fairy, the easter bunny, Santa Claus and that my Dad was adopted. That's right. All at once my parents dropped the information on me. I immediately forgot all about the fictional holiday characters, and questioned my parents to death about my Dad. Why was he adopted? Where did he come from? Why did his mom leave him? Grandma isn't my real Grandma? They did their best to answer my questions with all the information they had. It was never a secret to my Dad or any of his family and once I knew the truth I realized that it wasn't a big deal at all. My Dad has zero issues or insecurities about his adoption. He just says that his parents are the people who raised him, and that's all that matters.

Fast forward a couple of years. I was about 10 years old when my mother became obsessed with genealogy. She joined a local genealogical society and dove head first in to all resources and archives available. She was able to trace her family line back to the Revolutionary War. This is when I learned that my mother's grandfather had also been adopted. The strange part is he had the same birth name as my father, the same birth date.Weird, eh? 

My Mom was certain that she could dig up my Dad's biological mother. He was reluctant. I'm not sure how she did it but she did eventually find my Dad's biological mother. I believe she went by the name "Bunny." My Dad had no interest in meeting her but said he was curious about our medical history because of some various health problems. My dad drove 3 hours to where she lived and they had lunch together at a greasy spoon. She said she had  kids before him and had given them all up for adoption. My Dad was the last that she gave for adoption. She raised (I think) three children afterwards. She had been the singer in a bar band and my Dad's biological father would have been one of two brothers that were both deceased. When asked my Dad said he had a nice time and even got some photos of her but I always kind of knew he didn't want to be around her. When I became an adult I asked my Dad more about her and he said that she called him six months after they first met and asked him for money. He said he hadn't spoken to her since then and didn't know if she was still living. 

Last Connection: My dear husband, Jon. When we started dating I was living with my Dad's parents, and my husband and I were going through my Grandma's photo albums with her. In a box she found a little blue books that said "CM" on it. These were my father's initials for his birth name. The book was kind of a baby book/album that the care-givers at the orphanage kept for the new babies. She opened it up and started reading cute little snippets from it. "He likes to eat by 6 p.m. or he gets cranky." ..."We think his favorite color is blue." that sort of stuff. My poor husband was terribly confused. I told him that my Dad was adopted and his mouth fell open. He looked shocked. He blurted out "My Mom was adopted!" 

Yes, my husband and I both have one adopted parent. 

My mother-in-Law's story isn't as happy as my father's and it's not my story to tell so I'll be brief. She had much older parents, they each had children from previous marriages. I'm not sure if they weren't able to have children together or if they wanted the "Yours, Mine, and Ours." Her older siblings were almost grown and didn't have much love or acceptance for the new adopted baby. My MIL says everyone in her town knew who her parents were except for her. The rumor has it that her mom was a teenager and unmarried and her father was the town's Sheriff. This was the early 50's so my poor MIL was born to a controversy she hadn't heard of. No one told her until she was about 40 that she had attended school with her half siblings from both sides. Her adoption records were sealed and she wasn't able to confirm any of the things she'd been told. 

I apologize for the length of this entry but I wanted to share my family's bizarre Adoption Connections. I think I'll share a new story about dear Husband next time.

Best Wishes,

The Bad Advice

My friends and family mean well, they really do. They don't realize their words hurt me more often than they help. I'm sure every couple struggling with infertility have dealt with this from their loved ones as well.  To be honest, sometimes they are kind of funny later when I'm dwelling on them. They often bring laughter and tears. I want to discuss some of the most memorable moments.

I have two close friends that were both teen mothers. They both have beautiful daughters that I love dearly, and they both know that my husband and I are TTC. They've both guilty of blurting out bad advice or unwanted advice. I don't want this to come off like I"m angry with them, because I'm not but. If you haven't yet, this would be a good time to check my tab at the top labeled "TTC Etiquette"   They've both said they would "have the babies for me", and that I can borrow her daughters as often as I want to "play house", and that I better not plot to kill them so I can be her daughter's "new mom". They've both offered to "give" any unplanned pregnancy babies to us. Of course, I let them know when they've hit a particularly sensitive nerve.  They always apologizes, and try again to make me feel better. The only time I actually get angry is when I realize they don't understand their own conceptions, cycles, or fertility. Both of their pregnancies were completely unplanned.

Here are some more gems : "I want to have a garage sale, I wish you'd just hurry up and get pregnant so I can give you all my old baby stuff."  Sometimes after they let "I hope I'm not pregnant." slip they'll shoot me an apologetic look and say "Sorry!" Occasionally if I'm feeling under the weather, if I call in to work, the first thing my friends or coworkers will ask when I return is "So?! Are you pregnant or what?!"  and I always say "Or what."

My own mother still says things like "You know I'd carry them if I could."Though she and my friends know it's my eggs that are the problem, not my uterus. It's like they only half listen to what I tell them about the medical stuff. My mom is also the only one who's uttered the dreaded "Maybe if you'd just relax...go on vacation!"

My Mother-in-Law struggled with infertility, but she won't speak about it. It is for sure touchy, and I don't want her to feel like she has to tell me anything uncomfortable. She and my Father-in-Law were married for nine years before they had my husband. She said once that they started trying a year in to their marriage. My husband says he remembers being about 7 or 8 and his parents asked him what he thought about them adopting a brother or sister for him. He was all for it, but now no one speaks about it and he is an only child. The first time I had dinner at their house as the new girlfriend she said "I'm only 90% sure that he wasn't conceived in a car." I don't know what to think about that.

Anyway.... I feel better getting that off my chest. Next time I'll discuss all the crazy adoption connections in mine and my husband's family tree.

Who can you trust?

One of the big reasons I haven't "come out" as TTC to my family and friends is because we don't always make it a main priority. Sometimes we just ignore it and continue on with our lives. I don't want to tell my coworkers or my friends and then have to face their questions. I don't want to have to fill them in on my cycle or disclose to them what crazy procedures we've tried. I know they would mean well, and I know they would think they were being a support to me but for now I just don't want to deal with it.

I feel like I'm protecting them from disappointment by leaving them in the dark. I want to be the only one in tears when my period comes each month. I don't want to have to be accountable for getting their hopes up.


This is a big question we're facing. Who can you trust? Who do you share your burdens with?

What's in a name?

When searching out other infertility blogs I saw dozens of adorable names. I hate to name them for fear of misquoting but they made me really think about what I wanted to call this blog. The name "Waiting for Strangers" came to me while playing video games. I adore video games and I was playing one of my newer games "Sims 3" on my Wii. This is the first Sims brand game that I have owned that lets you have children. I started my first game file with a couple made to be replicas of my husband and myself.

I played this game for several hours before I got brave enough to investigate where the Sims babies came from. I made my character interact romantically with my husband's character. I clicked the necessary actions until the game gave me the option to "Woo-Hoo" (have sex with) my husband or "Try for Baby". I cursed aloud and let a couple of hate tears fall when I clicked "Try for Baby" and my Sim character almost immediately after coitus showed the symptoms of nausea and back-ache. This of course was followed by a baby-bump and a 20 point mood boost because my Sim enjoyed being pregnant. That bitch.

My husband rolled his eyes while I complained loudly about our digital fertile avatars. Two digital Sims days passed and I got a game notification saying that my Sim had been taken to the hospital to give birth. I soon found my character standing in the yard while the game tried to create what our Sim child would look like. I again complained and cursed loudly, I was anxious to see how our digital child appeared. My husband said "Where is it? What's taking so long?" and I said "I don't know, maybe it's already in the house and I'm out here waiting on a stranger!". That moment cute little boy appeared in the yard next to me with my husband's stick-straight hair and his deep chocolate colored eyes. I made my character walk up to him, he waved. I chose "Ask about Day" as a conversation prompt, the relationship bar popped up. It turned out, we weren't strangers at all, we knew exactly who the other was.

It sounds a bit sappy but that's really how it happened. When I decided to start blogging a couple of weeks ago the name "Waiting for Strangers" seemed to fit. We're strangers now, but when you get here, I'll know exactly who you are.

Best Wishes.

Waiting for Strangers: An Explanation

The first rule of blogging is honesty. I will admit that that honest when it comes to Trying to Conceive or TTC is hard. It's an uncomfortable thing to discuss. Those who are living it understand, but it's nearly impossible to explain to people who haven't lived with infertility. I will do my best to be honest, with limits to privacy, and of course: the limits of TMI.

Let's start with a brief bio, shall we? I'm in my early twenties, as is my husband, Jon. We were married in October of 2010 after a four year engagement. When I was nineteen years old I was diagnosed with Poly-cystic Ovarian Syndrome or PCOS. My husband had a testicular issue when he was about 13 and as far as we currently know he has only one functioning testicle. There goes the TMI already, that's not something that is usually discussed in good company. 

What I mean to say is that my husband and I knew before our wedding vows that we could have trouble having children. In fact, while on our honeymoon my husband gave me a nervous look when I through my birth control pills in to the trash, I replied "Relax dear, it's not like I'll get pregnant immediately." I of course was crossing my fingers behind my back, hoping for exactly that.

It's now early April of 2012, no birth control has been used in a year and half, the duration our entire marriage. It's hard to define "trying to conceive" or TTC because sometimes we weren't trying. We were just newlyweds, without any protection. We went through a brief period last year where we were faithfully really trying to conceive. I started taking pre-natal vitamins, we monitored my cycles,  the things fertile couples know nothing about. After about 6 cycles, my husband became discouraged and we went back to the way we were. Unprotected, unplanned, and unscheduled.

Currently we have not sought any infertility care, but that's the beauty of it. This is the beginning of our journey. We are very much considering our next steps. We have just a couple more things we plan to line up, just a few more bills that need paid, and then we dive in with noses plugged. 

Best Wishes.