I’m sure I’ve expressed sentiments like this on some social media, if not blog, in the past – because this is nothing new. But it is an inescapable reality where every cycle between ovulation and menses I literally lose the will to function and just want to lay in bed and meditate on my stomach. I try to interpret every ache or cramp. I try to memorize if this feeling is similar to last cycle or if this is somehow new or different.
So many signals of menstruation are the same as pregnancy that its impossible to really know. Is that a cramp or digestion? Am I peeing more then normal or over hydrating? Over analyzing everything, ignoring any troubling signs (temp drops, cervix feels, pain, even spotting) and just trying to bend will to be what I want. Its exhausting.
I’m way less intense then I was a year ago, and usually less disappointed, but I can’t let it go. This cycle is hitting me harder then usual. This is the 3rd (and last) cycle with Clomid. This is the 3rd month after the Hysterosalpingogram which somehow shows a slight boost in fertility for 3 months after. This month the progesterone was abnormally high on day 21. It teetered my doc into premature excitement and a week later (since my period hadn’t started) she encouraged me to do a HGC test on day 28. This unfortunately fell on last Friday, so this weekend I was literally useless. Now its Monday; its 6 min before they open and who knows, the labs sometimes take over 24 hours to put in results so I might not know till tomorrow anyway and I am useless. My temp has stayed constant and above baseline, my cervix is med and hard – so less promising if you follow FAM secondary fertility signals. I’ve failed two at home pregnancy tests. I feel normal. I’ve had poor sleep and tons of dreams, but that means nothing, and I’m failing to plan the wedding, because all I can do it clear my mind and wait for some stimulus from my stomach.


I thought I was so clever when I thought up Schrödinger Uterus, but I was not the first person to feel this way. I’m actually very sure I’m not as the forums are filled with anxious overly analytical women just like me. But you can over educate yourself all you want regarding your reproductive system and that doesn’t make it work any better. And knowing the odds brings no comfort.
- Chances of conceiving each cycle you try are 25 to 30 percent if you’re under 35 (I’m 33)
- According to a 2003 study published in the journal Human Reproduction, when 346 women ages 20 to 44 timed their intercourse to help them conceive, they had a 38 percent chance of conceiving in one cycle, a 68 percent chance within three cycles, an 81 percent chance within six cycles and a 92 percent chance of getting pregnant within 12 cycles.
- Kirkham ( OB-GYN at Women’s College Hospital and St. Joseph’s Health Centre in Toronto) says 85 percent of women will get pregnant within one year of trying.
Woof. It really sucks to know you are in the failure category. But that being said, I haven’t given up that its possible – it just makes me really anxious right now. I wish my progesterone hadn’t come back so high. When I feel this way, I think about this scene in friends where Monica is upset about her infertility diagnosis:
I know its not a laughing matter, but whenever I’m upset I literally say the the good hostess line, because that’s perfectly how it feels. You are trying to be the best home in this 2 week purgatory where you hope that the egg was ovulated, that the sperm reached it at that small 10 hour window, that in the next 7-10 days it sucessfully traveled to the uterus and found a nice spot to nestle into and that genetically it is a viable and healthy little poppy seed sized bit of nothing.
Today is 16 days past ovulation, which is the day that my cycle has started for the past 5 cycles. So I’m just a touch paralyzed with the odds that my menses will of course start today. I made it to day 18 before starting once. But that’s somehow worse, because once your period is late – you really start letting hope creep in. If you guys can send me positive vibes – I really need them.
