A Year of TTC: What I’ve Learned

It has been a year this week since our first insemination. Don’t worry. This is isn’t going to be some bitter rant on how long this journey has taken us, although I’m certain I could write that post too. No, this is a list of what I have learned through a year of this journey.

1. I don’t aim well when I pee. I have peed for a full thirty seconds without managing to splash a drop of urine onto an OPK. I have tried while watching to get the stick in the stream, but all to no avail. I have learned that I’m a dipper.
2. In my TWW I have super-human senses. In fact, I’m convinced that if I’m not quiet about my powers, I may be forced to join some special ops sector of the military where they’ll put my super-senses to work on rooting out terrorists–or at leasts the terrorists wives’ pregnancy symptoms. Since I started TTC, I’ve had sensations I never imagined I could have and probably won’t even have once I’m pregnant beause they’re so utterly bizarre.
3. Visualizaton cannot make a late insemination work. I’ve seen sperm surrounding my egg on so many occasions. I’ve seen that one strong sperm make its way through. And yes, I’ve believed several times that I would be one of those rare women who got pregnant from an insemination that took place a day or two after ovulation. Still no luck.
4. No matter how poorly timed an insemiation may be, the TWW still brings mad hope. It doesn’t matter whether I’ve inseminated too early, too late, or with probably dead sperm, the hope is always there because if my body came into contact with sperm, there’s got to be a chance that I’m pregnant, especially if my boobs hurt so bad!
5. I will eat anything if someone tells me it will increase my fertility. If it’s soy, I’ll drink soy milk and eat tofu and trade in my Camembert for bad soy cheese. If it’s yams, I’ll turn orange from the things. Whole milk? Ice cream? I’m on it. Of course, I’ll gain fifty pounds, but so long as I’m ovulating healthily.
6. Urine held longer than three hours is more precious than gold. This applies to testing of all kinds: OPKs, HPTs, and more. And holding one’s urine for three hours while also trying to consume the requisite two liters of water per day is more than a little challenging.
7. The BBT comes before all else, a.k.a., life may not begin until 7am. I can’t count the number of mornings I’ve had to convince myself that I’m not thirsty at 6am when I am set to take my temp at 7am. Or how often I’ve waited to pee or withstood screeching cats, all for the sacred basal body temp. And if my temperature time is 6am or 5am, I must endure the same temptations.
8. No one really wants to know how lesbians make babies. No one in the real world anyway. I mean, they say they want to know, and they ask for the details, and then they don’t want to know. Not even a little. They get creeped out by words like needle-less syringe and insemination. I therefore make a point of sharing these details as much as possible. Then there are the straight folk who hear something about EWCM or some other fertility sign on the news, and they think they’ve got the secret–and that I couldn’t possibly know as a lesbian.
9. The internet will not tell me whether or not I’m pregnant. Short of typing the question, “Am I pregnant?” I believe I have searched the internet for any sign that I could be pregnant. I’ve googled everything from “sore boobs on 4dpo” to “cracked skin on my left pinky toe and positive pregnancy tests.” On one site, I will decide that I am, without a doubt, with child, while on another, I’ll decide that I couldn’t possibly be. Dr. Google never does give a straight answer.
10. All life’s secrets are best told to strangers. I don’t think I’ve ever shared as much as I have about my body and its intimate workings as I have on this blog with my invisible friends. And these invisible friends are the best most sympathetic listeners in the world.

I’m sure I’ve learned more than this. I mean, there are all the facts about fertility, the anatomy of the female reproductive system, the methods of effectively shipping fresh sperm, and so much more. On more than one occasion, I’ve found myself waist-deep in some study on the effects of test-yolk buffer on the human male gamete only to find myself scratching my head and hoping I’m remembering freshman biology well enough to understand what I’m reading. But that is what this process does to us. It makes us more informed. It makes us good researchers. And it makes us crazy women. And one day, if we’re really, really lucky, it makes us mothers.

What amazing lessons have you learned since you started TTC?