so vulnerable part 1

so, a new blog about the most personal thing in my life. sex, fruitfulness, notfruitfulness and the process that follows that heart that cannot seem to figure out why we cannot have a baby like everyone else. of course we all enter this arena expecting that we will have children when we want, on our own time frame.

we thought it would be smart to wait a year after we got married before we tried to get pregnant. i was 33 at the time, and we easily fell into the category of people who were sure getting pregnant shouldn't be a problem.

so at the age of 34 we started "trying".

at the age of 35 we realized that we would not be in the category of people for whom this would be an easy process. long story short, we had blood tests done, i had a pap smear with scissors (its about as painful as it sounds - they had to snip a bit of my uterus off to have it tested in the event that i was not ovulating). i was ovulating just fine. shawns sperm count was a bit low, so we needed to see what was going on there. shawn had to have a surgery to remove a varicose vein (which is also about as painful as it sounds - poor man- and if you are a man and happen to be reading this, you could cross your legs in sympathy). so sperm count - up, ovulation - happening - still not pregnant and now 36ish.

we love our family doctor. a strong catholic man who is a firm believer in procreation. he finds most fertility treatments "abhorrent". which, to tell the truth, so do we. we do not want to make potential babies and leave them there indefinitely. we will use the embryos that are created - even if it means lots of kids. all of this to say that he was really dragging his heels on the whole sending us to the fertility clinic thing.

in august of 2008, we went and explained our desire for children and reminding him that i was 37 now. he caved in and we made our call the next day.

the funny thing was, i told the receptionist our whole story while she patiently listened while trying to interrupt me and tell me that she didn't need to know all of that.

i think i will stop here with this part of the story and take another entry to go through some of the other fascinating details.

so here i am, on this new blog preparing to pour out of my heart all of the details of this rather vulnerable journey. it is therapy for me, so if you are reading this you are a surprise to me.

today - january 24, 2010 - we are still right in the middle of the road, waiting for the beautiful sight of a little me and a little shawn roaming the planet.

until then, blog on.