echodrift

An education

(This is the second part of the beginning to my TTC Journey. I recommend reading the first part, “Opening Up”, before continuing.)

So what did I learn? A whole hell of a lot. My former education taught me that of course you can only get pregnant if you ovulate but that was about it. Nothing about how one might confirm ovulation, detect ovulation, nothing. Bare basics. Egg + sperm = baby. But I find that there really are just 4-5 days in a cycle (which is most certainly NOT 28 days every cycle) when a woman is fertile. For some people that might be obvious but it was brand new information to me. The best thing I ever did was read a copy of Taking Charge of Your Fertility. Seriously. Before I read it I had heard it mentioned so much in my “research” that I thought surely they’re blowing it out of proportion. One BOOK couldn’t be that life changing. I WAS WRONG. If you’re wanting to have kids some day, whether it’s soon or 10 years from now, read. that. book. It’s so much of what I was never taught but should have been.

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Opening up

One thing I realize more and more is that every single person has their very own, very unique set of experiences. It should be obvious but “individual” means just that. While a person may share certain aspects with other individuals or even groups of people, nothing is ever exactly the same. Lately I’ve been thinking about how some things are labeled “TMI” and so hardly anyone talks about them. And how maybe life would be easier if people DID talk about those things. Actually, several of the things I’m thinking about have to do with female fertility so it’s actually not that weird that people don’t like to hear about it because EWW PERIODS ARE GROSS. Yes, I went there and yes, I’m about to discuss a whole lot of “lady business”.

This is the first part of three that I’m going to post this week; I broke them up because what I originally wrote was over 2,000 words. They weren’t exactly easy to write but there’s a reason they’re tagged “writing as therapy.” What I write, I write for me and for once, I haven’t had a hard time being honest and saying what I mean. I haven’t altered what I was going to say because of how someone else might take it. Yes, I’m making myself vulnerable by writing this but the pros outweigh the cons.

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Pink flowers in April

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