All is Good...No Real Pressure...

Well...it is 1:00 am on April 30th, and DH is sleeping peacefully beside me with our big doberman boy lying at the foot of our bed (taking all of the room, needless to say). AF did arrive this month on April 17th which meant I had a 31 day cycle. I have started temping...and am having a ball doing it. I guess because we have just started to really try to have a little baby....I don't yet feel the pressure or agony of not being able to do so. (Check back in 6 months....I bet I will have a totally different attitude.) But right now, I feel very blessed, and am enjoying trying. I have a wonderful DH. Even though his children are adults and on their own...he is excited about starting over with a new baby. He is very involved in the whole process...and I realize how lucky I am to have his support. I have been using OPK's daily since cycle day 11 with negative results. I am not sure if they are working or not. I have read that they can be unreliable...but we will see. If I do really have a 31 day cycle...i think I should O on day 16 or 17 (which would be May 2nd or 3rd). Okay....maybe I am already starting to obsess...but I am keeping a good attitude so far...hang on for the ride!

The Start of the Journey to a Family

Hi everyone! My name is Cynthia and I just turned 36 in March. I live in a beautiful home in Ohio with my wonderful DH, Paul, who will turn 48 in August. We have been married for almost 5 years and have known each other for almost 8. My mom has lived with us since we have been married. I am an attorney with a large law firm and my husband is a computer technician for the Ohio State University. We are also the founding members of a non-profit corporation called PetPromise. Our organization rescues abandoned, abused and homeless pets in Ohio. After taking care of their physical and medical needs, we find these animals loving adoptive homes. I am the President and Paul is the Treasurer and together we are currently doing about 80% of all of he work done by the organization. We also foster a lot of the animals that come into the group and have a 5 cats and two dogs of our own. Needless to say, our lives are pretty busy...and during the years that we have been married there has just never been time to really try to have a baby...which in our case...we knew would require some effort. The reason I say this is because Paul had been married previously, had two children, had a vasectomy...had a third child and then had a second "really good" vasectomy. Before we were married he had a reversal which did not work and then a second one performed by none other than Dr. Sherman Silber (a well-known fertility expert). Three months after the second surgery, Paul had a sperm count of 0...so we thought that the surgery was unsuccessful like the first. We were so disappointed that he didn't go back in for another SA for over a year.  When he finally had a second test, performed approximately 1 1/2 years after the surgery, it showed a sperm count of 3.5 million sperm (which is very very low) and a motility of 70% (which is good). Dr. Silber told us we should opt for In Vitro...as we probably would not get pregnant with those counts...but to go ahead and try for 6 months. So here we are! Two strikes against us...me being over 30 (and never having had a baby) and Paul with almost no sperm. Good luck, right?! It is April 16th and  I am not even sure what my cycle is. I have never taken the time to track it closely. I just always know about when it is supposed to come...and it always does. I know that the first day of my LMP was March 17, and I figured that I was due for my AF on April 14. So, being the totally impulsive and obsessive person that I am, I took a HPT on April 15th and it was negative.  I knew that it would be a miracle if we did happen to conceive...but I was just hoping. (and hoping really hard).