How to Get Pregnant Fast…Or Not

When I was in my early 30s, a friend let me in on the secret to getting pregnant fast. She said that there was a $130 ovulation predictor kit that worked like magic, and if I had sex approximately 3 to 4 times over a 48-hour period during peak ovulation, I would be amazed at “how easy it is to get pregnant!” She told me that even a couple of her friends had borrowed her kit, and voila! –  a baby popped out for both of them nine months later.

I ordered the kit online and was excited to plan my pregnancy.

In the coming weeks after ovulation, I tried to notice if I felt any different. I took two naps in one day – that’s good! I inhaled a bucket of popcorn. Fabulous!

Three weeks later, when I went to the bathroom, I noticed some spotting and wondered if it could be the implantation blood that I had heard about. Another good sign, maybe! A day later, I learned that it was  my period.

This was the beginning of my fertility journey. Many years and many fertility treatments later, I still don’t know the secret of how to get pregnant fast.

So many women trying to get pregnant have friends for whom the process of conceiving was simple.

One woman I know actually planned to have a February baby, so the baby could be an artistic Pisces. Her February 26^th baby girl is adorable, though I always thought a summer baby would be nice so we could throw a birthday party for the kid in the gorgeous waterfront park down the street.

How could something as natural as having sex and making a baby be such a struggle for so many of us?

Sometimes it feels unfair that other women don’t have to go through the agony of not getting or easily staying pregnant, and other times it’s simply confusing.

How could something as natural as having sex and making a baby be such a struggle for so many of us?

Years after going through fertility treatments, the question for women and men deemed “infertile” often becomes: “How can anyone get pregnant when there are so many instances in which the doctor is picking the best sperm, the best egg, engineering everything, and it still doesn’t work?!?”

I’ve asked myself this question often, and I’ve also tried to come to terms with the fact that this is my path, for whatever reason.

“This is your thing, Andrea,” another friend told me one day after I had yet another pregnancy setback a couple of years ago.

“Everybody has something (or things) that isn’t as easy as it seems to [be for] other people. This will all make sense one day…”

I’ve reflected on that sentence a lot; and it’s true that life isn’t all about rainbows and puppies. Relatively speaking, my struggle to get pregnant is so much easier to bear than the struggles so many women have around the world. Intellectually, I know that. And yes, #grateful.

Still, it doesn’t make sense to me that my husband and I can’t easily make or keep a baby in my belly. I write about love and relationships for a living and my husband really enjoys teaching kids in a tough but wonderful New York City public school. We don’t really drink or smoke or have exciting vices. We live a relatively clean lifestyle.  We even buy organic toothpaste (is that even a thing?). It seems like we would be good parental candidates.

Here’s how my doctor’s consultation went with a new fertility doctor (lucky #8!) recently:

Dr: What’s your ethnicity?

Me: Eastern European Jew.

Dr: I’m a Sephardic Jew.

Me: Cool!

Dr: Do you have problems with digestion or sleeping?

Me: Nope.

Dr: Are you on any regular meds (i.e. anti-anxiety)?

Me: Nope.
 Dr: How’s your energy?

Me: I generally feel pretty good…

Doctor puts pen down.

Dr: You sure you’re Jewish?!

Okay, so that was a silly Jewish joke (and it actually happened, verbatim); but the point is that it would seem my body would be able to handle this pregnancy thing given my boring lifestyle and generally good health. However, for reasons we are testing now, it’s just not happening.

I agree with my friend that this is my “thing;” but I’ve also realized that I don’t think it’ll ever add up and “make sense.”

I don’t know that these many years of setbacks and struggles and tears and pain and thousands (and thousands) of dollars and five years of time lost will neatly add up.

What I have embraced through these years since my first ovulation predictor kit is that we can’t plan for miraculous things. We can prepare ourselves and our bodies; but nature is the real predictor.

The other thing I’ve learned is that every woman I’ve met who has wanted to become a mother found a way to make this happen. It wasn’t always according to plan; but it usually worked out for each of them.

I’ve learned that I don’t need to know the who, where, when, or how of it. I just need to know the why and what of it. The ‘why’ is because having a family reflects my deepest values, and the ‘what’ is that I will have a child. He or she may just show up in a way I never imagined.