Katy Vs. Her Ovaries - Tick Tock

After the blood test in December resulted in the assumption that I did not ovulate, I spent a few days just kind of doing nothing. I considered not pursuing any sort of further information or treatment. I considered closing the baby door and throwing the key away until I was thirty (for some reason I expect thirty to bring a new understanding of this world). I spent a lot of my time making note of everything in my life that couldn't happen with a child. When I slept until ten on a Saturday, I celebrated the uninterrupted rest. When I hung out with friends past midnight, I celebrated the freedom. When I booked a vacation, I celebrated the extra money. When I came home from work to a quiet house, I celebrated the silence. Unfortunately, when my friend had her first child, I couldn't shake those little toes or the little noises he made. When I spent time with another friend's baby, I couldn't quit thinking about how much I liked holding her and smelling her and wanting to teach her things (namely for fear that the baby's mother will not provide adequate athletic wisdom). Nonetheless, over the few weeks that I focused on all of the things in my life made possible by not having a child I was also forced to focus on all of the thing in my life missing without one. 

I eventually realized that doing nothing was silly. I have watched my own mother face three separate cancer diagnoses without flinching. I could walk into a doctor's office and discuss my eggs...or lack thereof. 

After the next doctor's appointment, our plan of action involved taking a prescription drug called Clomid designed to increase a woman's likelihood of ovulation. The drug is taken on specific days during the cycle followed by a properly timed amorous few days in hopes of scheduling conception. The whole process is very funny when you stop and think about it. Certainly drugs and "properly timed intercourse" (their words, not mine) are not my idea of the best month of my life. However, in the big scheme of things if this was all that it took to get pregnant I realized it would seem barely a blip on the radar in the future. 

Along with Clomid, I was also scheduled for a day 13 ultrasound to actually look at my ovaries to determine whether or not I had follicles (medical term for eggs before they are technically eggs). I walked away from the appointment feeling good about the plan of action. I had a couple of weeks before I would actually be required to start taking the medicine. I honestly still wasn't sold on the idea.

Cody and I talked a little about not taking the Clomid at all. Again, we are both so very happy with our current existence. We revel in all of the time we get to spend together and how in love we are with just us. We do not spend our days trying to fill some sort of baby void. We do not feel like something is missing. I literally feel like every day with Cody as my husband is a little more rewarding than the one before. I think the satisfaction we both feel with our current situation makes us both a little worried that we don't want this child bad enough. The internet is full of people spending their life's fortune and years of their time and going to limitless ends to conceive a child they have wanted for so long. Cody and I are not those people. 

My decision to go ahead and start the Clomid came from a gnawing fear I have had since the beginning of this process that involves Cody and I turning into those people on the internet. The weird thing about infertility is all of the not knowing. There is often not a clear diagnosis. There is often not a finish line. There are just months that slip by faster and slower than you ever imagined. There are just days that get filled with all of these ways to make your body do the most fundamental of all processes. There are just months and days that can turn so quickly into years that never get filled with little toes and little noises of your own. I couldn't help but feel like every month I let slip by without conceiving a child is one less month that I get to play the baby lottery. It's as if my biological clock not only started ticking for the first time but also made its entrance with the volume indicative of someone much older than myself.