We’ve been trying to get pregnant for a year… and I’m getting worried

My name is Jessica. My husband and I have been together for over 10 years. We’re both 35. About a year ago we finally started to feel ready to start our family. So we gave up birth control and looked forward to the process of baby-making. For the first 6 months we just enjoyed the process. My husband Mike was like a man with a mission. Our lovemaking was fun and spontaneous. We didn’t track when I was ovulating, but just had sex whenever the mood overtook us. Unfortunately we didn’t get pregnant. So after 6 months, I started to track my basal body temperature to pinpoint when I was ovulating so that we could be sure to have sex at the “right” time. That’s when sex started to feel less like fun and more like work. Mike and I both work fairly long hours, so when we’d get home from work I’d be saying “we need to have sex because I’m ovulating!” My husband complained the other day that he feels like he has to ‘flip a switch’ and perform on demand, and that it’s starting to stress him out. In a moment of frustration he asked me: “when have we had sex lately just because we wanted to”? He makes a good point. Honestly, it’s probably been a few months – maybe more – since that’s happened. But its hard to want to have sex without thinking about where I am in my cycle and whether there is any chance of getting pregnant – and if not, what’s the point? I know I shouldn’t think or feel that way, but its hard not to when I end up getting my period at the end of every month and feel like a failure.

Lately, I’ve been starting to get panicky that we aren’t getting pregnant. I know it can take a while, but I guess I didn’t expect that it would take this long for us. Everyone in my family seems to get pregnant easily. It’s been about a year now of actively trying, and I’m starting to think that maybe we should get some tests done to see if there’s anything wrong with either of us. I’d be devastated if I found out that I was infertile, but I guess then we’d know why we aren’t getting pregnant. We aren’t getting any younger and if we need to do fertility treatments, we’d better get started. Some of our friends have been through IVF. They were stressed out going through treatment and it cost a lot of money, but they now have healthy, beautiful babies.

All I know is that I want to become a mom in the worst way and I can’t imagine my life without kids. And Mike would be a fabulous dad. So as much as I’m not looking forward to getting any bad news or having to go through the grind of fertility treatments, better that than looking back in another 3 or 4 years when its too late, and having regrets. If we can’t have our own child, maybe we’ll consider adopting. But I don’t want to get too far ahead of myself though (I tend to do that….). So I’ve made an appointment with my doctor so we can begin getting tested. For now, I’m going to stay hopeful that our tests results will be fine. But if they show that there’s a problem with my fertility or Mike’s, at least we’ll know what we’re dealing with, and we can do something about it. And maybe we’ll even be able to get back to enjoying our sex life again!

Share your thoughts on Jessica’s story in the comments section below, or submit your own fertility story here.

Tags:, , ,

Leave a Reply

Your email address will not be published. Required fields are marked *

You may use these HTML tags and attributes: