From the beginning

From the time we were married on December 12, 2009, we had a great desire to become parents. It is entrenched in us partly due to our Catholic faith. When you have a love that is so free, total, and faithful, you cannot separate the desire to bring forth a new live from that love. However, at the time of our marriage, we had discerned that we weren't called to parenthood just yet. Neither of us had finished our college education, and while we were certainly blessed and thankful to have jobs, we felt that we could more adequately provide for a family if we waited for a more stable situation.

Shortly after we were married, our first niece, Felicity Joy, was born. Experiencing the pure joy that she gave to us made us come to the decision to try to conceive our own miracle. Still unsure if it was the right time, we gave it to God for a month. We had been using Natural Family Planning (NFP) since the start of our marriage, so we didn't have to wait for my body to regulate itself after coming off of chemical contraceptives. We did not abstain during the fertile phase of the following cycle, but did not become pregant that month. We took that as an answer to our question. God said not yet.

In that next year, the opportunity presented itself for me to bump back down to a part-time position and finish a degree in Elementary and Special Education. Since the goal was for me to finish this undertaking so that I could earn a living for our family while Christopher went back to school, we discerned again that it was not the right time for a pregnancy.

As time passed and I got closer to graduation, the tug to become parents began pulling a little stronger. We still didn't have two full time incomes (actually Chris had picked up a second job to make ends meet after some extensive repairs on my car), and we had moved in with my parents to make things less financially stressful for the next few semesters. But I only had a few semesters left, and we thought if we timed it right, the baby could be born after graduation but before I began my first year of teaching. (A sort of built-in maternity leave.)

 At the time of our second anniversary, we decided that I would go to the doctor after the new year for a pre-conception consultation appointment so we knew what we might need to do to fully prepare my body for a baby. We were praying about the possibility of getting pregnant sometime in late summer that coming year. Since we had been using NFP, we were able to bring some concerns to my wonderful OB/GYN and we could address them before they became a problem with conception. We knew by looking at my basal temperatures and the length of the luteal phase of my cycle (the second half of the menstrual cycle after ovulation) that I may have a progesterone deficiency. Dr. Plessala did some blood tests and sure enough, my levels started where they should have been but never spiked appropriately and dropped off several days earlier than they should. As a result, he recommended that I begin using a compounded Progesterone cream during the luteal phase of my cycle, to help balance out my levels.

I began using the cream during my March cycle. He told us that using the cream would increase our fertility. Sure enough, it did! At that point we knew I was two semesters away from graduation and felt there was no real reason to be so stringent with our NFP rules. We became pregnant mid-March and discovered the pregnancy mid-April. April 16, to be precise.