The last few days of my 3rd decade of life.

I have been thinking alot lately, as I am about to turn 30, about how I spent my 20s. I went to college, became a nurse, married a pretty damn good guy, went to grad school and became a nurse practitioner, stopped taking birth controls and began the road to getting pregnant. Well it's a whole year later since the latter has occured. And I'm still not pregnant.

As I look back, I have had a hell of a third decade. I partied my ass off with my best girlfriends in college. I learned as many vaulable life lessons with them as I did in my classes, maybe even more. I really grew into my own shoes when I became a nurse. I had to grow a lot of balls to make it as a new nurse in a level 1 trauma emergency department. I learned to not be scared to speak up and be heard. That carried on and grew into a healthy ego and self assertiveness (I had to be to be in the same room as Pete!) as Pete's and my relationship grew stronger and deeper. We got married and have been pretty blissful since. One of my besties and I embarked upon grad school together. We got through it while working, planning a wedding, and being newly weds. We had a big celebration on the day of our graduation, which just happened to also be my 29th birthday. A few weeks later I ditched the pill and started this insane process.

So now it's been a year. The entire last year of my third decade has been consumed with trying to get pregnant. The first few months weren't that discouraging as I knew it might take us a while. I still secretly hoped it would happen much sooner than later. The middle months were more frustrating. I learned my body and my cycles, and used tests and thermometers to time things accordingly. The first part of the last few months is when I realized that something might be wrong. I know they say can take perfectly healthy couples a year to conceive, but for us, I knew better. And sure, enough, I was right. As I look back, I wish I could have been nicer to myself. I wish I could have figured out how not to stress so much about this. Everytime I got my period, I would cry and sob and feel like I was losing something. Once I knew not to be so optimistic, it became easier.

I have been happy for so many friends as they announce their pregnancies. I have been ecstatic as they announce the births of their babies. I then have also secretly cried into Pete's arms. Not our of jealousy, but more feeling left behind. As if I don't deserve to have the same happiness that they do.

As I wrap up these last few days in my 20s, I am moving on to some pretty exciting things. We will begin fertility treatments in the coming days and weeks. I will hopefully no longer have to wait through another forever long follicular phase. Hopefully, the first year of my 4th decade will be much more productive in the baby making department than this last year in my 3rd :)