Hey, guess what!  We made an embryo the size of a poppy seed!

We just just found out and we are so excited to spread the news, even though it’s early and the risk of miscarriage is still high. We want to be talking about our pregnancy from the beginning for a few reasons. There have been a few widely publicized announcements recently, and we think it’s important to contribute to the conversation about breadth of experiences when it comes to pregnancy (even in a pretty heterogeneous group!).  More personally, we want share our experience because you’ve been super supportive so far and I’m thinking you can be super supportive no matter what happens.  

At the moment, we’re just happy that all our baby-making hardware works.  We’ve been trying to concieve for a little more than 10 months.  That’s about normal – 85% of fertile couples conceive within a year.  I was going to the doctor with some regularity to try to figure out what was happening with my long cycles (I had only six cycles during that time). We had started to talk about when and what the next steps might be, and the plan was to wait until November before doing a bunch more tests to try to get to the bottom of my hormonal stuff.  Over the past few months, we dipped our toes into various things in an attempt to improve our chances.  Most of it we only tried for a cycle or two, but here’s a list: progesterone (to jumpstart the long cycles), acupuncture (only once), ovulation tests (various types), musinex (to loosen cervical mucus), pre-seed lube, daily sex.  A friend gave me fertility honey and a lucky penny.  Another friend told me to make sure I had an orgasm (ok!).  Who knows if any of it helped.  Ultimately, sperm met egg to become a little zygote that made it’s way down to my uterus and implanted there.  It’s pretty amazing!

So here’s what’s next:  Obviously, lots will be changing over the next months.  In the menu, there is a drop-down under Family Updates where I will be posting brief updates along the lines of “Molly is X weeks pregnant, the future-baby is the size of a [blank]”.  I’m not sure how often we’ll post longer blog updates, but it’ll be at least every three months.  And as usual you are welcome to reach out however you feel comfortable with questions, stories, comments, and anything else!