"An Average Woman Takes a Year to Conceive a Baby"

"On average it takes a couple a year to get pregnant."

I swear OBGYN doctors love this phrase more than any other phrase out there.  To be fair I have no idea what kind of ladies are coming in to their offices freaking out over not having any luck after 3 months of trying to have a baby.

I showed up to my new GYN's office as a 27 year old and this is what I was told.  I totally understand it but a part of me wanted to ask the guy, "Are you on Facebook because my news feed suggests a different average than the one you speak of."  Before my doctor friends chime in I know they are trying to take the pressure and stress off the situation because a lot of the time there is nothing wrong with the couple but it takes a little while.   That is totally understandable.

My beef with the phrase was that I was in pain.  Every month I had varying degrees of pelvic pain that lead to infections and I didn't feel right.  It just so happened that at the same time we were trying to get pregnant.  So if you're in pain and trying to get pregnant at the same time do you have to wait a year before being treated for the pain??

So I spoke up and this is when I learned to fight for my health care.  Months went by before I went to the doctor and I kept thinking "I'll be pregnant soon and that will save me a trip to the doctor."  Another infection sent me in and got the ball rolling.

If you're under 35 and struggling with fertility issues or pain I'm convinced they aren't really sure what to do with you.  So my doctor started from the beginning and ran just about every test he could. I got to be great friends with the following things, ultrasounds (If you've ever had ultrasounds when a baby isn't involved they are just plain sad), MRI, CT scans, blood work, and I'm sure there are more I'm forgetting.  Every test disproved what he thought was wrong.  I went through 6 months of tests!

The final conclusion was that I had either endometriosis or ovarian cysts and I needed laparoscopic surgery to remove them.  We went ahead and scheduled it to get it over with.  At the time I was in a lot of pain with horrible pelvic cramping.  One day the pain was so terrible I could hardly get out of bed.  We even thought about going to the ER.  After a couple of hours it subsided.

A week before my surgery, on my 28th birthday, I took a pregnancy test because I was late.  To our surprise it was positive!!!!!!  It turned out the worse than normal pains were probably implantation cramps.  I got to stroll into my pre-op appointment and let my doctor know he wouldn't be needing to do surgery after all.  It was such a whirlwind and I remember it like it was yesterday.  God gave me the best birthday present ever with this news.  That was over 3 years ago now.

We got pregnant with Anna after 10 months of trying and tests.  She is our miracle and only God can explain how I even got pregnant with her.  Our second time around has not been the same story but rarely are the stories the same.  

16 months in, hormone medicine to try to reduce the cysts, countless ultrasounds, MRI's, and one laparoscopic surgery.  Those are our stats at the moment.  We will keep going until we see those two blue lines.