Category: about me

So You’ve Decided to Try to Get Pregnant… A Saga

Erica1 Comment

What does a woman go through when she decides she wants to try to have a baby?

I can only speak for myself, but in general, I would say she goes through a lot. Different women have all sorts of different journeys as they step into this process, but I thought I would chronicle my journey of trying for baby #2. It has helped me process my feelings, and perhaps will resonate with others on a similar journey. The following are journal entries of significant dates and events throughout this process – it was how I was feeling at the time, not right or wrong feelings, just feelings.
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7/15/19
Today is July 15, 2019. By the time I post this draft, if I ever do, it will be a much later date. This is in part because it’s a little too fresh for me to share publicly. I’m taking time to write today mostly to process my feelings on the matter – but as I think about the purpose of my blog, I really want to let people see inside my mind and be able to experience what I’m feeling. I know I’m not the only person who has ever felt this way, so maybe some of what I write will speak to you and be something you can empathize with. If not, maybe it will at least give you a bit of an idea of what a woman might go through when she decides she wants to try to get pregnant. My experience certainly does not fully encompass everyone’s experiences, but I think it’s worth sharing. Thanks for reading.

Today is July 15 – it was day 30 of my cycle, and I had been waiting to take the pregnancy test I bought a few days ago. I told Dean I was 90% sure I was pregnant – I could tell. I had been feeling slightly nauseous for the past week, and I had even had spotting the day before – which I attributed to implantation spotting. I had planned on taking the pregnancy test this morning, but when I took my basal body temperature upon waking up, there was a drastic drop from the sustained high temps. I had gone from a 97.8 temp to a 97.1 in twenty-four hours. If you’re a BBT charter, you know that’s a big shift. You would also know that a temperature drop can signal that your period is about to start. I told myself that maybe it was a fluke, but I decided not to take the pregnancy test since I knew what it probably meant. The bleeding started a few hours later.

The first time Dean and I ever tried to get pregnant (before Calvin), I experienced the same thing. I had totally convinced myself that I was pregnant, but that time I confidently took the pregnancy test, and was shocked when it resulted in a single line instead of the positive plus sign. I felt like I had experienced a loss, even though I had never truly been pregnant, I just fully expected to be.

It’s a weird thing to feel like you’ve lost something you’ve never really had. I know this feeling does not compare to the experience of having a miscarriage or loss of a child – I have a hard time even fathoming the level of pain and loss on that scale.

So here I am, not actually on day 30 of my cycle, but back to day 1 – starting over again. Attempting to get pregnant is a huge waiting game – you wait for the right window of fertility (which is a bit of guessing game) in your cycle, hope that your attempts go well, and then you have to wait a few more weeks before you can find out if you succeeded or failed. Because that’s kind of what it feels like if you don’t get pregnant: failure.

I read something the other day that said only 38% of women will get pregnant the first month they try, and this number refers to women actually trying to time intercourse correctly for the purpose of getting pregnant. This percentage increases to 68% over 3 cycles of trying – but that still means almost one third of women actively trying for a baby won’t get pregnant even after three months.

Those numbers are both discouraging and comforting to me – discouraging because I know my chances of getting pregnant right away are slim, but comforting knowing that the majority of women are experiencing the same thing. Why am I holding myself to an impossible standard and feeling bad for not getting pregnant on the first try? This is my perfectionism kicking into overdrive and rising up to an unhealthy level. I know that and recognize it for what it is, but yet is is still hard to let go of.

Hopefully I will have the courage to post this soon – it might not be until after pregnancy is achieved and has been announced – though some have called me “brave” for writing and sharing about such sensitive topics, I typically only share when the bad times have passed, not while in the midst of them.
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How Do You Thrive?

Erica2 Comments

I recently had a conversation with a friend about the differences between surviving, living, and thriving. My friend used the phrase “abundant life” instead of thriving, but we decided that they could mean close to the same thing. 

The last three years of my life, I would say I have been in “survival mode.” What do I mean by this? I mean making it to the end of the day, but not being sure if I can do it again tomorrow. I mean being tired all the time, wondering how many more minutes there are in the day before I can lie down. I mean getting the bare minimum done and not having time for things that might be fun or life-giving. Doing the urgent-only stuff, not getting to make time for stuff that is important. 

That sounds pretty bleak when I describe it like that. And okay, not every moment of the past three years has been like that, but there’s certainly been seasons like that, and when you’re in times like that, they seem to last forever. I may have walked the line between surviving and living, but I certainly don’t think I’ve made it to “thriving” very often in the past three years.

Three and a half years ago I had a baby, and obviously life has been different ever since. Two and a half years ago I started a new career, and a few months after that, I began online graduate school. I’ve been getting by, pushing myself farther than I thought I could go, being braver than I thought I could be, but it’s been very tiring. 

As I near the end of my graduate program, I’m beginning to see the light at the end of the tunnel. And I’m starting to wonder if I could move into a time of thriving. What would that look like?

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Change: The Only Constant

Erica1 Comment

Recently one of my textbook assignment readings was on the idea of change in the workplace, and how to manage people who were resistant to change. My textbook described a model of change using an analogy of a traffic light: 30% of people are ultra-resistant to change (red), about 50% of people are open to change but hesitant (yellow), and 20% of people are enthusiastic about change (green) (Porter-Reynolds, 2014, p. 13). (Thought I’d throw in a citation since I’m so used to doing it these days!)

I know myself well enough to know that no one would believe I fall in the “green light” category. I’d like to say I’m at least in the 50% “yellow light” category, but honestly I think I tend to fall into the “red light” category often. In a positive light (please enjoy the unintentional pun), “red” people are critical thinkers, looking for all potential pitfalls in new ideas before jumping on board. In a negative light, “red” people are stuck in their ways, never wanting to try anything new and always have discouraging things to say about new ideas.

While “green light” people probably seem to be the most preferable out of the three, the truth is we really need people of all three types. One type of person is not necessarily better than another, each person brings their own personality and experiences to the mix.

It does mean, however, that if I know I tend to be a “red light” person, that I am careful to not always discourage the “green lights” when they have new ideas. It means I must be sure to affirm others’ ideas even when I am critical of them.

(Side note: I think my husband might be a green light…)

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