My husband and I had been married for a few months now and we decided we wanted to have a baby, but we were set on letting nature take its course so we were trying in a non trying way if that makes sense.
The Incident
Then, one day, I woke up complaining of this really sharp pain in my stomach. As weird as it sounds, I didn’t think much of it because my stomach was also bloated so I really thought it was just gas. my husband drove me to the pharmacy and I got an over the counter gas relieving medicine. I took the medicine when I got home and continued about my day. Anyway, long story short my husband realized how bad I was struggling and he immediately said we should go to urgent care- so we did. While there, they did an ultra sound. We were told an ovary burst. It wake-up call. I’ll never forget the tech had said to me, “we don’t worry about our health until we don’t have it.” This led to a fear that gripped me tightly – the fear of infertility. It is interesting how there are always negative thoughts that flood our minds. I mean, why? As women, there are so many fears that we claim to address in today’s world, but once you put it into practice, the reality is that there is negative stigma and shame associated with some of these fears. So, even if we are ‘open’ to talking about these fears, we are more likely to open up to strangers than to our tight-knit family circle.
To address this fear, I decided to take matters into my own hands and be proactive about my fertility. I began researching various methods to track my ovulation. I was already tracking my cycle on my phone and I felt like I wanted something a bit more concrete.
Enter ovulation strips
Ovulation strips, or ovulation predictor kits, are small, simple tools that can help you identify the most fertile days in your menstrual cycle.
Every morning, I would anxiously dip a strip into a cup of my urine, waiting for the time as directed to pass so that I could take a picture and upload it to the app .It was complicated at first because I had to remember to actually do it, but once I had a routine down, it was easy as pie. You can get the ovulation strips I used here they also come with pregnancy tests.
I was fully committed to using the ovulation strips religiously and trying to make the process as stress-free as possible. And then, one day, it happened. The peak had been recorded – this was our chance!
The wait…
Then the questions start sinking in. What if it doesn’t happen? What if we do everything like we are supposed to and it doesn’t work out?!?
I waited until 10 DPO to start testing for pregnancy. I thought it would be a long shot but I figured, let’s see what happens. So I peed in a cup and I dipped the test strip for five seconds. Took it out and set it to rest on the plastic it came in. I couldn’t handle sitting their and watching it so I set it aside and went to make my bed. The timer goes off just as I finished making the bed and I go back into the bathroom to take a peak. I see something! It is there. A second line is there! It is super faint but I see it. This isn’t “line eyes” as so many called it on the community I follow. It was a real second line. Not knowing what to do I went to the pharmacy to buy one of those expensive spell-it-out kind of tests. I raced back home and did the whole process again. Open, pee, set aside, wait. This time there are small dots on the bottom as if to signal “loading.” So what did I do, well naturally I stood there and stared at the test until…PREGNANT.
I was so incredibly happy. In this moment I felt so blessed. Tears of joy flowed down my face as my hands and my heart shook.
As I write this, my little one is sleeping peacefully in the next room, a living testament to the power of hope, love, and the magic of ovulation strips. My journey to motherhood was anything but smooth, filled with moments of doubt, fear, and anxiety; but it was worth every moment of doubt and every dip of those little strips into a cup. I’m eternally grateful for the journey that brought me here.
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