Trying to get pregnant is perhaps one of the strangest things I have experienced in my 32 years on this planet.The first time, we threw caution to the wind for a couple of years, and then had a year of 'proper trying' before we were blessed with our gorgeous Monkey.
To say that year in particular drove me, and therefore the HTC, nuts would be an understatement. I was obsessed, a complete mess and convince it would never happen. I know there are millions of people who have it so much worse than we did, and I am still very grateful that we were able to have kids naturally at all, but still, I found it really really hard.
In fact the month I did fall pregnant, I was absolutely convinced we hadn't timed anything right, that I was not going to be pregnant at all, either that month or any month. So much so that even though we had been trying to have a child for ages, it took a good couple of weeks for the shock and total numbness of seeing those two lines to wear off.
Trying for a baby is a unique experience because most things in life we have some control over, can work towards and see when we are starting to get somewhere. Pregnancy is an absolute - you either are or you aren't. And most of the time there is almost nothing you can to to improve that.
It seems strange that such a life altering thing enters your life with almost no warning, and often no rhyme or reason. But maybe that's why it is so special, because it is one of the last things in our micro managed lives that either happen or it won't. It's a game of the highest stakes, that requires almost no skill and absolute luck. But as I sit here with the Monkey on my lap, trying to keep her corn-encrusted fingers from the keyboard, I am reminded in the most eloquent way why we line up again. Because the prize, while almost totally random, is the most amazing thing ever.
