Question #1

1.How did you and your partner decide when you were ready to start trying to conceive?

Shannon: The day was April 27, 2008. Hubs younger brother was still living with us at the duplex. Hubs and I had been arguing a lot (mainly about BIL) and finally had a sit down. Throw the process we agreed that BIL would move back to his dad's at the end of the school year. In trying to get our future goals on track with each other we both decided that we wanted to start a family....

Mrs Red: Firstly, we had been bf/gf since april 2002. So in February 2006 when we got engaged, we were out of town when it happened so when we were on our way home. We were talking about wedding dates, I was looking at the calendar for 2007 and was all 'well our anniversary falls on this day and...." he cuts me off and says "wow isn't that soon?" so I was like ".... Ok so the next year?" and he goes I don't want to wait til next year! I was like waaaaaat? He wanted to get married before the end of the year because he said he wanted to start a family with me already! :-D so we decided before we were married to start ttc as soon as we left for our honeymoon lol. And yes, we waited... Unfortunately we didn't know it was going to take this long....
-Steph

Ashley:
Well while my husband and I were dating we knew we both wanted kids soon. We got engaged in January 2010 and married in April 2010. Two months before we got married we had a serious talk about when we really wanted to start trying. I just couldn't believe how real it felt, because I have been looking forward to this moment for my whole life...I was a little nervous and told him I thought we could wait until we were married about 6 months but my husband convinced me that we were both ready and a little nervous and that wouldn't go away in six months. He said we should just finished with the pack of birth control pills the month before our wedding and start right away. I agreed and thought it may take us a few months to get pregnant anyhow. So we both agreed we would see how things go the first 6 months and then start trying hard core. So I finished my pack of pills 2 weeks before our wedding....and I was excited I would be ovulating on our wedding weekend or during our honeymoon. However, one month after we were married I suspected I had PCOS. I am a sonographer for work and deal with the menstrual cycle and disorders of it every day, apparently I couldn't separate work and my personal life. I "self-diagnosed" myself and saw a doctor for it two months after we were married which confirmed the diagnosis. I ovulated the next month, but didn't ovulate for 13 months following that! I wasn't responding to any meds our whole first year of infertility. I certainly don't regret starting to try right away....I'm really glad we started when we did, because almost 2 years later we still aren't pregnant.

Leah
Chris and I first met when I was 23 and he was 29. We decided we wanted to try for a family, so I went off of birth control in September 2006 and had my first cycle off of birth control in October 2006. We started trying and trying, even though my periods were getting farther and farther apart and we got married in February 2007. We went to an RE, I was diagnosed with PCOS and did cycles with Clomid. I got pregnant once, but lost it at 5 weeks. That was the hardest thing, I think. Then, other medical issues came up and life just kind of put us in a tailspin. I guess, now, it makes it 5 years of trying? We are going back to the RE this summer.