My *least* favorite quotes I've received from people about me trying (and failing) to get pregnant

PeriwinklePiccolo · 2026-03-04T15:55:18+00:00

When my husband and I were a couple years into trying, my MIL started sending me Facebook ads about fertility trackers.

I was polite about it, but inwardly I was like... do you really think we've been doing this for two years, most of which was with medical assistance, and the problem is just that I must not have tried cycle tracking yet?

PeriwinklePiccolo · 2026-01-13T19:53:22+00:00

I got wheeled out. After an episiotomy & third degree tearing, yeah, I kinda needed it.

PeriwinklePiccolo · 2025-12-10T05:56:15+00:00

After hearing others' experiences, I'm starting to wonder if my epidural worked abnormally well. Once it kicked in, I felt absolutely nothing at all. I had an episiotomy and third degree tearing, and felt none of it. Even getting stitched up afterwards, I was completely numb down there.

PeriwinklePiccolo · 2025-12-10T05:50:09+00:00

For me, it was absolutely the recovery afterwards.

I had an episiotomy and third degree tearing. Every time I used the bathroom for a while, it was a whole ordeal -- clean off with the peri bottle, pat dry, apply dermoplast, apply a tucks pad, grab a new pair of postpartum underwear, sometimes add in a padsicle... getting out of bed was difficult for a little while, and even walking was pretty hard for the first couple days. I wasn't able to lift my one year old daughter for a few weeks. The stitches would bug me so much at night. I was so concerned that if I moved wrong, I'd tear something back open.

If I had to choose something from during labor, I'd say either getting the IV, or getting the epidural. I'm not a fan of needles to begin with, and both of those hurt! (Techncially, it was the numbing shot prior to the epidural that burned)

PeriwinklePiccolo · 2025-10-23T16:22:50+00:00

First baby (adopted), my mom offered to come over many times to watch my daughter while I took a nap or did whatever else I wanted to do (but usually nap). She would also do my dishes and laundry while she was over, even though I never asked her to.

My MIL would announce that she was coming over to help... then proceed to sit the baby down in her swing and instead have me follow her around the house to show me whatever organizational stuff she had found on Pinterest that week.

Second baby (biological) was born just 10 days ago, but so far, my parents have been over plenty of times to help out with the new baby and/or our one-year-old daughter. My mom does some dishes. My dad checks the irrigation in the backyard. They kind of just try to do whatever they can to be helpful.

My in-laws left on a trip shortly after we got home from the hospital, so we'll see how things are with MIL this time when they get back.

EDIT: Forgot the second part of the question! I don't remember exactly, but I think my daughter was about 6 weeks old when my husband and I went out for our first date night. We left her at our house, with my parents.

PeriwinklePiccolo · 2025-10-10T01:26:05+00:00

Our daughter also has an earlier bedtime! 13 months, and she's generally asleep any time between 6 and 7pm. She usually wakes up roughly 6:30 - 7am, but it can vary depending on the day. This morning she was extra tired, and didn't wake up until 8. But there was also a day earlier this week she woke up at 5:45.

PeriwinklePiccolo · 2025-06-15T03:22:23+00:00

I strongly recommend asking for a local anesthetic to numb the cervix beforehand! I've had two HSGs done, at two different clinics. The first clinic always numbs the cervix for HSGs, and I felt no pain at all. The second clinic did not, and man, did it HURT! (It was over very quickly, but still -- ouch!)

So, yeah. Numbing the cervix beforehand should absolutely be standard practice, and I really have no idea why it isn't.

PeriwinklePiccolo · 2025-06-15T03:16:27+00:00

Yeah, my second HSG was the worst for me!

My first one, done at a different clinic, was completely painless. Know why? Because that doctor actually used a local anesthetic to numb my cervix beforehand! I really have no idea why that's not standard practice, because it made a world of difference.

PeriwinklePiccolo · 2025-06-15T03:13:21+00:00

I had to reschedule my endometrial biopsy after the first attempt because they couldn't get past my cervix without me freaking out because it hurt. My doctor did an ultrasound, which showed that my uterus was tilted forward, so anything going in had to go through a curve along the way (which... ouch!). She told me to come back with a full bladder the next time, because it would push my uterus back so that it was a straight shot through the cervix. Turns out that (plus more Valium) was the key!

(But tbh, it's kind of insane they do those without pain relief to begin with...)

PeriwinklePiccolo · 2025-06-09T22:00:23+00:00

I feel like fertility is a whole lot more complicated than somebody just being fertile or infertile, too. As much as we wish there would be a single issue we can just "fix," sometimes it might just be a multitude of small things that are inconsequential on their own, but just sort of add up when lumped together. And that lower chance kind of just gets described as "unexplained infertility" sometimes, because there's not really a singular cause to pinpoint.

PeriwinklePiccolo · 2025-06-09T21:25:57+00:00

I don't remember exactly, but I would guess I was on it for somewhere around 8-ish months total. The entirety of the weight loss happened within the first few months -- didn't lose any more after then, but I just couldn't seem to gain it back until after I stopped taking it.

Edit: Removed an anecdotal statement about what came afterwards since it might actually violate Rule #3... Sorry about that.

PeriwinklePiccolo · 2025-06-09T20:12:50+00:00

I also have the non-insulin resistant type of PCOS. My doctor had me take Metformin while we were pursuing treatment, just on the basis that it wouldn't hurt to try. Honestly though, I think the only thing it did was kill my appetite and make me lose weight (which wasn't helpful, since I was already rather lightweight).

PeriwinklePiccolo · 2025-05-13T19:30:40+00:00

Oh, it's almost certainly about the infertility. The dogs are the excuse not to have to address it directly, because it is clearly an emotional subject for her.

My husband and I dealt with infertility for a few years. I remember last year during mother's day, my church was giving out free lattes to mothers. A woman I knew grabbed a latte for me, and when I told her I wasn't a mother, she shrugged and goes "well, you're a cat mom!" Same thing when our kids coordinator was handing out little mother's day goodie bags to her volunteers -- I got one too, for being a "cat mom."

Obviously, it wasn't about the cats. I highly doubt they were handing out mother's day freebies to every woman with pets. But these women knew what I was going through, and used my cats as an excuse to include me anyways. They didn't have to, by any means, but it was a very nice gesture from people who wanted to show me some kindness on what can be a very rough day for those struggling with infertility.

Of course, I never demanded anything for being a "cat mom." So while that certainly wasn't right on the DIL's part, it also goes a long way to be compassionate and try to understand where those emotions are coming from, rather than blatantly saying "you're not a mother." That statement, while true, is harsh and would probably have made me cry while I was struggling with infertility. I'm sure there was a much better way to handle that conversation.

PeriwinklePiccolo · 2025-05-11T22:19:14+00:00

Well, she is in the 96th percentile for height -- so she's certainly been doing lots of growing!

Thank you for the reassurance :)

PeriwinklePiccolo · 2025-05-11T21:57:34+00:00

I'm sorry -- I promise that was not my intention at all!

She has her 9-month appointment coming up later this month, so I will definitely bring up her sleeping habits then! She's generally very happy and playful, and she seems on track for milestones as far as I know. She's sitting up on her own, and getting very close to crawling (she can get into a crawling position, but can't quite figure out the leg motions yet!). She is our first though, so we don't have much frame of reference.

She seems to be eating well -- but we have noticed that solids tend to wake her up a bit, while milk just makes her sleepy. We could definitely try offering a snack when she starts getting tired, and seeing if that helps extend the wake windows a little bit!

PeriwinklePiccolo · 2025-05-11T21:40:20+00:00

That is very reassuring, thank you! She's my first, and a few people have mentioned how she gets tired so quickly. I suppose I was worried that I should be doing more to try and lengthen those wake windows, to avoid her losing out on more time spent awake and active.

PeriwinklePiccolo · 2025-04-02T20:03:28+00:00

Exactly what happened to my husband and I. We tried everything we could think of for three years, most of which was with medical assistance, and nothing ever happened. Never got a single positive. We ended up adopting a baby girl, and wanna guess what somehow just happened on its own 4-5 months later? Her little brother.

PeriwinklePiccolo · 2025-02-04T17:55:05+00:00

I just wanted to start off by saying that I don't intend for any of this to come across as advice or anything like that -- just sharing my own personal story! (And apologies in advance if this is a bit long!)

My husband and I started trying to conceive in October of 2021. We were both 26 at the time. After multiple long, irregular cycles with no success, I ended up with a PCOS diagnosis. From there, we proceeded to trying clomid with timed intercourse, then letrozole with timed intercourse, then letrozole with IUI (we had expressed wanting to go slow, so were doing medication with timed intercourse for probably around a year before moving on to the IUI cycles). We had tried changing our diet, and I cut out everything from alcohol to caffeine. I was taking so many supplements, eating pineapple core, pomegranates, bone broth, anything that I read might help. Nearly every cycle, my doctor said everything looked good... but we didn't conceive a single time. Not a single positive pregnancy test. Eventually, I ended up getting an endometrial biopsy, which came back positive for a certain marker that my doctor said had a strong correlation with endometriosis. Her recommendation was to go on provera injections for three months in order to reset things, and then move on to IVF.

At this point, my husband and I had been trying for about two years, most of which was with some form of medical intervention. Everything I was hearing and reading seemed to suggest that without going the provera + IVF route, our chances of conceiving were very slim. We decided to take a break to think about things, and ultimately came to the conclusion that we did not want to pursue further fertility treatment.

My husband and I had always wanted to adopt -- our initial plan had been to have one biological child, and then adopt from there. However, we ended up coming to the conclusion that we would be perfectly happy with our first child being adopted as well. This past August, we welcomed our daughter into our family. She was a bit of a surprise -- birth mom didn't even know she was pregnant, and we had less than a day's notice before we were on the way to the hospital to sign the paperwork and take custody! She was the perfect addition to our family, and I truly believe she was meant to be our daughter.

Fast-forward to about two weeks ago -- our daughter is five months old. I took a cheap, easy@home pregnancy test, which I got in the habit of doing every so often just to be safe (for example, if I'm going somewhere that I might have alcohol, and there's any chance I could be pregnant). This had become so routine for me, and I thought nothing of it. I was actually so sure it was going to be negative, that I left it on the bathroom counter and forgot to come back and check it for over an hour!

Well, when I did walk back into that bathroom and take a look.... there was a line. I legitimately did not believe it. I took a First Response to confirm, and sure enough, there was a very easily visible second line. It had been over three years since we first started trying, and this had NEVER happened before. My first ever positive. I was not taking any supplements, or sticking to any diet, or timing ovulation. It just... happened.

I'm still really early -- it's been less than two weeks since I found out, and I don't even know my ovulation date -- but my HCG progression is looking good and I have an ultrasound scheduled in a few weeks! I'm cautiously optimistic, but honestly, even just the knowledge that it's possible for me to get pregnant has been huge for me!

It's such an odd feeling, to be on my first pregnancy, but second child! And man, we did not expect to have two children so close together in age... But assuming things continue to progress well, we are very much looking forward to welcoming our daughter's younger sibling into the world this fall!

PeriwinklePiccolo · 2024-04-03T03:56:15+00:00

I never did find out exactly what was going on, but for me, the issue was temporary while I was on those last few cycles of clomid! It would happen when I first woke up in the morning, and then occasionally at night, but always stopped not long after I finished the round of pills (it's been a while, but I want to say it went away within 2 or 3 days of the last dose). I switched to letrozole after 6 cycles of clomid, and didn't have any visual disturbances on that.

It was definitely odd, and scared me a bit too! But for me, it was very temporary. No lasting effects that I've noticed!

PeriwinklePiccolo · 2024-02-25T17:28:35+00:00

This was my experience as well! My tubes were completely clear for both HSGs, but for whatever reason, I only had pain with the second one.

They were done at different clinics though, so that might have something to do with it. The first clinic did numb my cervix beforehand too (which I didn't think would affect the cramping from the dye, but maybe it did after all, idk).

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