By: Jennifer from Boston, Mass.

My husband, Mike, thinks that I’m nuts with my dream of having four children. He does not quite understand it because I am not domestic – I hate cooking and avoid cleaning. But I was one of four children and every day I am grateful for my three siblings. They are the greatest gifts my parents gave me. They are constants in my life – from childhood playmates to adult friends. We are a tight-knit Irish Catholic family, and I have shared life’s greatest joys and darknesses with my siblings. We are not saints in each other’s lives, as we fight and irritate each other like all siblings, but I believe our closeness comes from knowing each other at our deepest cores of humanity – our weaknesses, our strengths, and our pet peeves, That is the kind of intimate relationship that I want my son to share with a brother or a sister, or both. I once read that siblings are amongst the most important and defining people in our lives because they are with us from birth and see us through marriages, friendships, and partners, and outlive our parents. I couldn’t agree more with this idea.

I know that many families are completely happy and satisfied to have one child. Mike likes to remind me of the benefits of smaller families – more time with the child, more resources available to give the child opportunities, etc. But having an only child was never my dream. I couldn’t accept that my body could produce a beautiful little boy and now only a few years later a second conception had become completely implausible …

So now I would like to go back to the beginning of my voyage through infertility, providing the gamut of details and emotions – essentially the soups to nuts of my safari to the long sought after dream of birthing a second child. The expedition (yes – that is what I think is the appropriate title to depict the trek over the last two years – a climb up Mt. Everest) can only be told one word, one feeling at a time to honor every stage of the process and give credence to all women who are finding themselves bewildered and lost at every step in this crossing to parenthood and asking themselves the heartbreaking questions, “Why is this happening to me? Why can’t I get pregnant? Why is everyone else getting pregnant? What am I doing wrong? When is it going to happen for me? Is it time to see a doctor?”

Mike did not take me seriously when, after a few months of trying to conceive, I revealed my fear that there might be a problem. He gently laughed at my growing concern that having a baby this time wasn’t going to be easy. He chalked up my early alarm to my obsession with babies and neuroticism about the fertility charts, thermometers, and ovulation kits that had taken over the majority of the space on my night table. I had been off the birth control pill for 10 months in preparation to give my body the time to overcome any potentially negative long-term side effects. I had read all the books and vigilantly followed the instructions, upholding the importance of nutrition, health, and exercise in the pre-baby making stages. I was on the pre-natal vitamin, charting the signs of ovulation, and timing baby making accordingly. Yet, still no success.

I am not the most patient person and, despite my type A personality, I sometimes lack attention to detail. Hence, after a few more months of disappointment, my husband found fault with the evidence supporting my claim of a budding problem. He blamed the old battery on my thermometer for incorrect basal body temperature readings. As a research scientist working in biotech, he pointed to the overly sensitive ovulation predictor kits, and my frequent peeing throughout the day and overly active bladder during the middle of the nights as the problems for inaccurate readings. (It was not until several months later, when we were sitting in front of our reproductive endocrinologist, that he explained to us that ovulation charting and predictor kits are not always as precise as expected). I thought to myself about all the agony and due diligence I had given to taking my temperature prior to getting out of bed, and checking my cervical mucus daily.

It was more than my jealousy of girlfriends who had “one hit wonders” by getting pregnant the first month of trying; I had this gut feeling that something wasn’t working. I had this rising suspicion that overpowered my husband’s rationale and scientific arguments for patience and time as the solution, instead of an actual problem with our fertility. So, I made an appointment with my obstetrician to discuss my options and to investigate reasons.

I remember being completely excited as I left that appointment, thinking that I would get pregnant that month. The prescription for Clomid that our doctor had given me was going to be my magic pill, and it might even give me twins (wishful thinking). I couldn't wait to pick it up at the pharmacy and start swallowing the “pixy dust” to stimulate my ovaries. Little did I know, this was not a one-stop fix for my fertility problems …

Click here for Part Four

The Beginning of a Journey: Jen's Story - Part Three