Kelsey DiPrima-Hall: My Fertility Journey Thus Far…

Written by: Kelsey DiPrima-Hall

I feel like no one tells you how difficult it is to actually get pregnant.

I mean, we go our entire lives trying to not get pregnant, getting scared every time we have sex — especially my 16 year old self thinking every sexual encounter would lead to pregnancy…but little did we know how low the odds are of actually conceiving.

It’s a 48 hour window within a month, with variables. Hormones imbalanced? Stressed out? Not sleeping well? Irregular period? Might as well make that window even smaller.

My husband Austin and I got married on July 10, 2021.

I was told to not take out my IUD (that I had for 7 years) until after my wedding because “the bounce back is so quick, you can get pregnant within a month of taking it out.”

But no one warns you how difficult it could be to regulate your period after being on some sort of birth control for 10+ years.

6 periods later and we still aren’t regular. And with that, trying to get pregnant is even more difficult. I know I’m not alone here, and I know I haven’t been ‘trying’ for long but this is where we currently stand.

Austin and I have so much faith that a pregnancy will come when it’s supposed to come. I have always been a believer in “everything happens for a reason” and have faith in the timing of our lives.

However, we are also anxious! They say not to stress about it or it makes conceiving even more difficult. 

But when you want something so bad, how do you not think about it? Thinking about it constantly just makes us more stressed.

How do you go from being excited for 30 years of your life every time that your period comes to now being sad every time your period comes? It’s an odd balance and weird change to wrap my head around.

“How can I make this easier on myself? What can I do to be healthier and the best version of myself to make this happen? How can I speed along this process of regulating my hormones?” I asked myself all these questions and then found myself laying in a chair covered in needles. Acupuncture has been our most recent attempt to help regulate my period.

I had never tried acupuncture until now, and let me just tell you I love it. I go to a woman who focuses on women’s health and pregnancy. She’s been nothing short of amazing and helped regulate my period so quickly. She’s been a wealth of knowledge and a seemingly calm outlet in this otherwise chaotic journey.

It helps me with stress, regulating my hormones, helps my body be ready to carry a baby and once I am pregnant, she helps the pregnancy stick and helps alleviate any uncomfortableness during pregnancy. My best friend recommended her to me after going through her pregnancy with extreme nausea, and it’s the only thing that helped her.

As of now, I came into 2022 just wanting to relax and let go of any stress I was putting on myself. I was checking my body temperature everyday (which is a great way to track ovulation) along with using ovulation strips but I think both those things were adding to my stress.

It was causing me to start my day already stressed and thinking about pregnancy. To top it off, it made sex feel like a task/chore that just needed to get done vs. an act I typically enjoy and was excited about with my husband.

In place, Austin and I just try to have sex at least every other day (during a large 15-18 day window since my ovulation isn’t  quite regular yet) which he doesn’t seem to be complaining about (lol).

If I could change one thing about our journey to conceiving, I would have gone off birth control years ago. 

I wish I allowed my body more time to balance and regulate. 

I wish I gave myself more time to understand my body and its ovulation cycles. 

I feel like knowing this is so powerful!!! I feel like this is what we should have been taught in school during Sex Ed. As females, we should have been taught how to read our bodies (temperatures, cervical mucus, what our discharge is telling us) but no one talks about it! 

I was 30 years old when I learned that you can track your ovulation period using these things. You can track whether or not your hormones are balanced just by taking your basal temperature? I was mind blown. Why hadn’t I learned this previously?

I feel like so many less accidental pregnancies would happen with this knowledge and when our time came that we wanted to conceive, we’d have such a better understanding of how and when we could make that happen with more grace.

But, I know Austin and my time as parents and to grow our family is going to come soon. 

When it’s meant to be, it will be.

And I am so excited for that day. 

But until then, if you’re also trying to conceive and it hasn’t happened for you yet, I hope you know that you aren’t alone and our day is to come.