(REPOST) fertility update: the new plan

I've been known to say:

I feel less stress when I'm in control.

Although, before this year I wouldn't have said I was a control freak! Denial, I'm sure.

If you're new around here, I'll first let you know that my husband and I started trying to get pregnant in January. In fact, we even threw a party in celebration of my last glass of wine before really trying. 

But getting pregnant proved to be a little more difficult than we had originally hoped, and I found myself looking to the blog to write about how it was going. Thankfully, I received nothing but positive messages, countless emails, and a ton of support from my best friends. 

I channeled all of my frustrations into finding more ways to increase our chances of getting pregnant. I even started taking my temperature in the morning and charting it, in hopes of gaining some insight into this mystical thing we call "ovulation." 

I read the books, I subscribed to the appropriate forums on TheBump.com, I stated taking an iron supplement, started counting the number of days in my cycle...and after all that, I still craved more ways to be in control. 

I was days away from getting one of those expensive Clear Blue Fertility Monitor things...but luckily I met with my family doctor before I did. 

And when I expected him to put me on a whole new set of vitamins or send me off to a fertility specialist, he surprised me by doing just the opposite. 

He told me to stop.

Stop looking at the calendar, stop taking my temperature, stop TRYING to get pregnant every month. I felt like saying: 

ARE YOU CRAZY?!

I'll NEVER get pregnant that way!

But instead, I just nodded my head and told him I would give it a try. So I've surrendered control. Cold turkey.

I'm not writing this to say that letting go of everything I thought I knew will prove to be the be-all-and-end-all solution to the problem -- heck, I'm not even saying that Beans and I won't start seeing a fertility specialist if we're still not pregnant in the near future -- because this is just my update. A record, if you will, for myself to remember this step in the journey.

But if you see me while I'm out for lunch with a girlfriend or two, and you notice that I'm drinking a glass of white wine...it's all good. 

Because the new plan is just to live.