Intro

This is my first post on a blog completely dedicated to my walk through infertility. It's taken a long time to get to this point. By the time infertility was taking over my entire thought life and my endless internet research lead me to many IF blogs, I kept figuring "this month" would be the cycle I'd get pregnant. I delayed starting a blog because I was sure at any moment I'd find myself pregant, with only a handful of entries in my blog. I'd be a fool, a fake, an impetuous girl who never really had a fertility problem except her impatience to get pregnant as fast as her friends did!

Ah, but here I am, about to start month 22 of trying to conceive. I'm real, I'm a tried-and-true IF kind of girl, and I'm facing reality. I've had the same reticence to actually take the plunge and become a VIP member on FertilityFriend. I know many people hate "charting" (although the Fertility Awareness Method is much more than just taking your BBT). I however, love it. Because it gives me a sense of understanding what my body is doing. I'm not the same ridiculous Optimist I was when I started out. I no longer even care about "symptoms" in the Two Week Wait. I used to post giddily about implantation dips in my chart, about sore breasts, nausea and fatigue. Every pregnancy test stared back at my with one Red Line. Mocking me. Now when I have symptoms, I just ignore them. I tell myself (& my husband) it's all the progesterone from the corpus luteum. And I almost believe it.

I still take 1-2 early pregnancy tests per cycle. Usually at 10 and 12 DPO. I've found I desperately want to know if I ever have a chemical pregnancy, and it prepares me much better for the upcoming start of a new cycle to know it's coming. It's not really a surprise. That way I'm not swearing and throwing things in the bathroom at that moment.

My situation is unique in that I'm an active duty military spouse. All who deal with infertility and treatments deal with Insurance issues! Being in the military means this: in order to get any infertility diagnosis/treatments (drugs, IUI's, IVF, tests, etc) I must go to a Military Treatment Facility (MTF) that actually offers that. There are about 6 in America. Since there are so few of them, and a large number of military wives with IF troubles, they're very busy. However, if you can get into one, it's virtually free. IVF costs you, but under 5K. Everything else is covered - tests, drugs, you name it! However, there's little specilization in your treatment. It's their way or the highway. You can ask for different protocols or tests or whatnot, but getting them is unlikely. If I do not choose to use a MTF, insurance covers nothing. Many ladies know how expensive out-of-pocked infertility treatments are.

I may back-post a few entries, mainly because I hate this being so short.