OUR FERTILITY JOURNEY

Something I have never blogged about, or even spoke to people about for that matter is our fertility journey. You may have seen on my about me page that we were told it was unlikely we could ever have children just a few short months before we found out we were expecting.

To cut a long story short, as a teenager hubby had a Brain Tumor which needed treatment in the form of radiotherapy. A side effect of this meant that he would possibly have fertility issues in the future. The knowledge of that, along with my history of cysts on my ovaries prompted us to seek medical advice on our chances of having children in the future. After a few tests we were referred to the hospital for fertility investigation where hubby was told that most of his little swimmers were 'immobile' and with my history they basically told us that it would be highly unlikely that we would ever conceive naturally, if at all. At this point we hadn't been using contraception for about 3 years.

This was devastating news for us as we both really wanted to have children at some point but something we had kind of expected given the circumstance. They referred me to have some more tests done on the condition of my Fallopian tubes and reproductive organs to gain some further information as to whether we would be suitable for fertility treatment in the future. We were told that the waiting lists were long and not to hold out any hope.

A few weeks passed and we kind of accepted that we would probably not be able to have children. Our wedding was drawing very close and we were under alot of stress. I stopped keeping track of my periods because I felt it pointless and we didn't use contraception because we felt it wasn't going to be needed. Four weeks before our wedding I had flu like symptoms and felt very sick. I thought I was actually allergic to the neighbours chickens at the time but after a few days of feeling sick and not getting any better hubby made me go and buy a pregnancy test and lo and behold we were expecting! I went to the doctors the very same day where it was confirmed that I was 4 weeks pregnant, and that was the end of that.

We had Indie and after a very traumatic labour we decided we would probably only ever have one child. The fact that Indie ended up in intensive care really scared us, and that, along with the fact that it took us so long to conceive her made us think we would never have another baby.

Fast forward 17 months and our minds had begin to change. We had started talking about having more children (or at least trying to) for a few weeks and we were pretty certain that we were going to start trying soon. Little did I know I would fall ill with food poising the week after and be more ill than I had ever been. In a way, we saw this as a blessing in disguise. We were indecisive as to when would be right to start trying to this gave us the perfect 'kick up the bum' that we needed. The food poisoning fell on the week I should have started a new pack of my contraceptive pill (Microgynon). It meant that because I was being sick, my pill would be ineffective. We took this as the perfect opportunity to start trying.

A few weeks passed where we were trying but in between food poisoning, a teething toddler and alot of stress (we had some nasty travellers set up home on our local childrens playing field) we weren't holding out much hope. I use an app called 'Period Tracker' to track my periods because I'm very irregular so it gives me a good average date that I'm due on my period. It told me that I was 8 days late for my period so I apprehensively took a test, which revealed a very faint positive. I wrote about it in my 'Indie is going to be a big sister' post. We later did a digital test which revealed I was 4 weeks pregnant! One thing I will mention is that now I have did a bit of research it seems that you are very fertile when you first come off the contraceptive pill which might have played a part in us conceiving so soon, or it could be fate. I chose to believe the latter. The timing is just perfect.

I really can't believe that it took 3 years to fall pregnant with Indie, and just 3 weeks for this baby. I hear all the time where couples fall pregnant on their first try but I never thought that would be us! We really are over the moon and cannot wait to see what the future holds for us.

For all those trying to conceive, have hope!