Our trying to conceive journey

I actually feel a bit of a fraud saying our trying to conceive “journey” because it happened so quickly. I can’t stress enough that we know how lucky we are.

After we’d decided to crack on with getting pregnant, we decided to tell friends and family we’d begin trying next year so there was no pressure. And because I wanted to ask questions without arousing suspicion. Most of my friends have had babies (most more than one) so suddenly they were a fountain of information I’d never really paid attention to before. I guess selfishly I’d never asked detailed questions about how their “trying to conceive” journey (called TTC – got the lingo down). So between my friends, family and the Internet I had A LOT of information about the best ways in improving your chance to conceive.

I mean, I pretty much went from 0 to 100% in a short number of weeks. We were taking all the right supplements. I was using the app I’d previously used to track my period as my guide to ovulation. I had my copper coil removed (I can’t recommend this form of contraception enough by the way – no hormones, no remembering anything and no issues). And I even purchased 30 One Step ovulation tests (FYI very cheap on Amazon – they also come with cheap pregnancy tests too). We were good to go.

So I would say around September/October we officially began trying. Handily just after the Goodwood Marathon. I could take my foot off the pedal a bit in running. I would still run, but I now didn’t have any races or goals (*cough* until my friend Emma tempted me to run a marathon with her at the end of October!).

So when my period was expected and it didn’t come I got very excited very quickly. But a false pregnancy test quickly scuppered our hopes. Now my periods in general have been somewhat irregular in that I tend to have longer than usual cycles and when I have a stressful month or push my body too hard it can delay things. I’ve mentioned in previous posts that I lost my period for a time (I wrote about it HERE and HERE) and since then my body is quite sensitive. The past few years though everything has been more or less fine. I’m healthy, things were regular (long cycles and sometimes irregular depending on things happening but mostly fine).

So now I was worried. Had I broken myself again? Had running Goodwood and then the marathon in all that rain and cold stressed me out too much? Work had been very stressful too and the pandemic didn’t help. I was getting ill more often than I had before as well. I was angry at myself. Had I taken my eye off the ball and not looked after myself? My weight hadn’t changed but I did feel stressed. And everyone said stress is the WORST for trying to conceive.

Another week went by and I took another test… nope. Kyle was lovely and supportive and kept trying to chill me out. I ran the marathon with Emma and enjoyed having something else to think about. We decided the Friday after that we’d go out to a pub, get a bit tipsy, eat a giant burger and get an Uber home and just forget about it all for a weekend. Perfect! Then Lockdown 2.0 happened and so our pub visit instead became a plan of G&T’s and Budweiser’s at home.

In myself though I didn’t feel right. I felt like I was about to start my period. I kept saying to Kyle, it LITERALLY feels like it’s going to happen any day. I had lots of my usual symptoms (spots, boobs a bit bigger and uncomfortable, general moodiness). My running had taken a nose dive. Every run felt hard and I was tired. I swapped my morning workouts to lunchtime so I could sleep more. I just felt pretty rubbish. I started taken iron supplements as I was convinced it was that. I said to Kyle how I wish I could just feel normal again.

Friday morning I woke up ridiculously early and laid there. My heart was thumping. Usually my resting HR is around 49-53. Lying in bed doing nothing it was almost 70! I checked back in my Garmin app and could see my resting HR had been slowly creeping up that week. Weird. Anyway I went to the loo and decided the most responsible thing to do was to take a pregnancy test because while I was 99% it would be negative I didn’t want to drink that evening without being certain.

I took the test, put it on the side and carried on washing my hands and all that jazz. Before heading back to bed I glanced at the test, not thinking I’d see anything, and was shocked to see a little second line had appeared. WHAT.

I stared at it in complete and utter disbelief. I started Googling the brand of test and false positives. Nope. False positives don’t happen.

I went back into the bedroom and gently woke Kyle up. It was 6.30am (well over an hour before we had to wake up) so he was a bit confused and groggy. I asked him to take a look at something and tell me what he saw. Well, that quickly woke him up! The rest of that day was a blur of happiness, excitement, fear, disbelief and three more pregnancy tests – all of which came up positive.

We were just absolutely gobsmacked. How did this happen?! I mean obviously I know how but it just seemed crazy. What I think happened is that the stress I was feeling pushed back my ovulation and we just happened to catch it without realising (I only took one ovulation test the night before the pregnancy test just out of interest – the irony). It suddenly made so much sense why I felt so rubbish. When we took the test I was 4 weeks and 4 days pregnant. Side note: technically I ran a marathon when I was over 3 week’s pregnant – I know this is a cheat as it’s such early days but I will take it haha!

We decided to wait until the next day to tell our parents… we also wanted to take one more test first thing just to be certain. The next day happened and another positive pregnancy result. I went from thinking I was broken to suddenly being miraculously pregnant! I went from thinking I was going to cut out running and anything stressful to being PREGNANT.

The next day we went to my parents to surprise them with the news and then to Kyle’s mum’s straight after – neither families having any idea.

Needless to say both sets were over the moon (I mean my mum literally screamed and jumped about the room!).

And we Facetimed Kyles dad too.

We decided to tell all our family straight away because I knew that if something sad were to happen I wouldn’t mind them knowing and would want their support regardless. So Kyle’s and my parents, our siblings, my grandparents… they all knew and were super excited for us. We were terrified but surrounded by so much love that I know everything will be OK whatever happens.

So thats that! Its been so hard not telling close friends but we eventually cracked at about eight weeks. I’m now 12 weeks and just glad to be heading out of the dreaded first trimester (more about that and how my running has been in a later post).

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