What's it like to have a "natural" pregnancy?

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:OP whats the point of asking this question on this board? Are you trying to rub salt into our wounds?

I think I know why OP is asking sometimes I get sad that u was never able to really relax and get overjoyed - always worrying about the other show to drop. I am also sad I was never able to give my husband that "guess what? We're pregnant!" Surprise.

Believe me I am SO grateful to finally have a baby but I do sometimes wonder [/quote

I thought the same. I had that excited, surprised moment of getting a positive once, after we'd been trying for 1.5 years on our own. I was so shocked and thrilled I was crying and couldn't stop shaking. Unfortunately, the excitement only lasted about 2 days before the problems started (ultimately we learned it was an ectopic pregnancy). From there we ended up doing IVF, and had two more losses before having our son, and another ectoptic pregnancy after that. I, too, always wondered what it would be like to have a normal conception, typical pregnancy, uncomplicated delivery. It was hard for my friends who had those things to understand my anxiety during my successful pregnancy - and hard for me to understand how they seemed so calm and confident by comparison. They had maybe 3 ultrasounds during their pregnancies. I probably had 25 in the one that led to my son.

[Anonymous]

I think having a m/c or loss in your past is when the doctors do a lot more testing. At least that was my impression based on our time at one of the local clinics. Maybe other fertility docs/clinics do more tracking and such than mine did...

[Anonymous]

Initially I was charting to prevent so switching that mindset was pretty easy to do. We got pregnant the month before we were officially going to start trying and I was super excited to see a temp spike on my chart. Took a hpt and it was +. Thought I was in the clear and ended up miscarrying two weeks later. Same thing happened again and again. Like a recurring nightmare. People said you should be happy you can at least get pregnant, but obviously something was wrong because I couldn't stay pregnant no matter what I did (or didn't) do. This was in my 20s. So for me it really isn't associated with any positive or magical feelings.

[Anonymous]

First pg, natural. Took HPT -and then waited a few weeks to even call doctor. Got first ultrasound at 11w, discovered missed miscarriage.

Second pg, IVF...betas at 15, 17 dp5dt, 5 weeks, 6 weeks, viability u/s at 7w, graduated to OB and u/s at 9w, 12w. Nervous whole time.

Third pg, spontaneous, didn't see mw's until 8w. Was nervous entire time just as with prior, maybe moreso as I waited for the other shoe to drop. Got all the screenings, but no cvs, amnio.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:Initially I was charting to prevent so switching that mindset was pretty easy to do. We got pregnant the month before we were officially going to start trying and I was super excited to see a temp spike on my chart. Took a hpt and it was +. Thought I was in the clear and ended up miscarrying two weeks later. Same thing happened again and again. Like a recurring nightmare. People said you should be happy you can at least get pregnant, but obviously something was wrong because I couldn't stay pregnant no matter what I did (or didn't) do. This was in my 20s. So for me it really isn't associated with any positive or magical feelings.

Did you do any sort of testing between the mc's or find out what was wrong? After my second mc my doctor told me not to get pregnant again until we found out what was happening (it was low progesterone and a clotting issue).

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:For those of you who have had one, I'm curious - what's it like to have a "normal," "natural" pregnancy? Like, one where you find out you're pregnant b/c you miss a period? Obviously you don't do all the injections, ER, etc. But do you still do beta tests? Ultrasounds at 6 weeks (or whatever it is)? If you've been pregnant both "naturally" and via IVF, did you worry equally once you got past BFP stage? I'm really just curious.

I did 9 IVF cycles with an ectopic and 2 miscarriages as a result of those cycles. I was considering other options when I discovered I was pregnant naturally at 43. I only discovered it when I POS to get my period started to do a saline sonogram to see I could/should do DE (thought fibroids had grown back).

Since I was still technically under the care of my RE when I got pregnant naturally, I did all of the typical monitoring I did with my other pregnancies. The one key difference on my natural pregnancy was that my first beta was exponentially higher than any other pregnancy (2300 on 18dpo vs. under 300 at the same time for the others) and doubled solidly. The RE u/s were all picture perfect and the h/b was high. I think the solid start set me up to feel much more confident and more relaxed about my natural pregnancy. I am not sure how I would have felt not doing the monitoring with my last pregnancy. Since I knew the deal, I might have worried that things weren't going right and I would have no way of knowing. Whatever the case, I delivered a perfectly healthy boy 2.5 years ago.

[Anonymous]

I saw this via Recent Topics so I'll reply. Let me caveat that I never faced IF issues so I probably don't know the same level of worry and definitely not the same feelings of sadness that many of you do. That being said, it was still scary and wasn't exactly worry-free. My pregnancy was relatively easy but I was in my late 30s and did worry a lot about miscarrying and/or having a child with some sort of developmental or physical challenge. I was very nervous leading up to the nuchal test and the 20wk u/s, and always had my heart stop in those few moments before the doctor could find the heartbeat with the doppler.

My cousin went through many rounds of IUI and in comparing notes we noticed that one difference was she knew her due date because she knew exactly when she conceived whereas DH and I could play the more light-hearted "hmm, wonder when exactly it happened" conversational game. DH and I also occasional had "oh shit, are we really ready for this" conversations as we got closer to delivery. A friend who was pregnant via IVF at the same time told me she and her DH definitely didn't talk like that, it had been so hard to get pregnant that they knew whole-heartedly that they were ready for and wanted parenthood.

I guess what I'm saying is that having a "natural" pregnancy (as you put it) doesn't mean it's all rainbows and sunshine, but I think there are some natural differences. At the end of the day, all that we all want is a healthy baby, and there's no guarantee regardless of how you end up conceiving.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:OP whats the point of asking this question on this board? Are you trying to rub salt into our wounds?

I think I know why OP is asking sometimes I get sad that u was never able to really relax and get overjoyed - always worrying about the other show to drop. I am also sad I was never able to give my husband that "guess what? We're pregnant!" Surprise.

Believe me I am SO grateful to finally have a baby but I do sometimes wonder

Yeah, but if you're curious what having a pregnancy without having gone through infertility treatments is like, then why post on the Infertility forum? Why not post in Expectant Moms?

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Initially I was charting to prevent so switching that mindset was pretty easy to do. We got pregnant the month before we were officially going to start trying and I was super excited to see a temp spike on my chart. Took a hpt and it was +. Thought I was in the clear and ended up miscarrying two weeks later. Same thing happened again and again. Like a recurring nightmare. People said you should be happy you can at least get pregnant, but obviously something was wrong because I couldn't stay pregnant no matter what I did (or didn't) do. This was in my 20s. So for me it really isn't associated with any positive or magical feelings.

Did you do any sort of testing between the mc's or find out what was wrong? After my second mc my doctor told me not to get pregnant again until we found out what was happening (it was low progesterone and a clotting issue).

We did lots of testing after my third miscarriage and started betas with my OB around then. After my 4th miscarriage I started seeing a RE and other specialists who did lots of different testing. Once all my issues were treated we were eventually successful, but it took a long time to get to that point and it didn't matter that I could get pregnant on my own. We didn't have any reason to think it was anything hormone related since my progesterone was always good.