How to Have a Perfect Pregnancy in 4 Easy Steps

Step 1: Get your house in order.  Make space for that bouncer, crib, and stroller. Do the heavy lifting while it’s easy.

Step 2: Track ovulation. Great kits to track ovulation can be found on amazon making it fairly cheap, or there’s always all-a-dollar (my personal choice). Track, time, have fun, repeat.

Step 3: Find out you’re pregnant!!!! …After one year, find out you are finally pregnant. Stare in disbelief at your pregnancy test that finally shows a +. Question whether the test actually worked and get a blood draw to be sure.

Plan a creative way to tell your husband. Imagine the video going viral if you did it right. Tell him you want to record yourselves singing “Ice, ice baby” and holding up the + pregnancy test during the chorus.

Stop recording. Hold each other. Cry. Let time stand still as you let tears of happiness and triumph stream down your face. Celebrate.

Download a “tinder” app with baby names to see if you and your husband will match.

Schedule your eight week ultrasound. Have a freak out moment thinking about  growing a little human inside you. Stress a little about gaining weight and wondering if your shoes will still fit. Feel the excitement and the weight of the world on your shoulders.

Wake up in the middle of the night to go to the bathroom. Wonder as you stumble how many times you’ll be getting up to pee. Nearly drift off while sitting. See blood in the toilet. Feel a pit in your stomach. Decide whether to wake up your husband or not. Google: ‘Blood in your first 4 weeks of pregnancy’….. no comfort there. Lay on the bed and try to be still. Feel yourself start to cry. Time to wake your husband. Wait for 8am to finally roll around. Call the doctor. Doctor was not very helpful. Feel helpless and turn on Gilmore Girls to try and stop yourself from googling more. Feel a twinge of pain and question if that means something bad. Tell yourself over and over.  Pain increases. Pain is unbearable. Rush to the ER.

While in the car question, “God, are you here? Please bless my dear baby.” Throw up because of the pain.

Find out you are miscarrying.

Feel a numb feeling come over you.

Get an ultrasound. Receive news about your ectopic pregnancy. Get wheeled into surgery and discover that one tube has an ectopic pregnancy and the other is non-functional. Feel the most bitter pain you have ever felt in your life. Feel all those dreams of being a mother drift away. Eat all the chocolate you can muster. Cry in the shower. Eat chocolate while crying in the shower.

Doctor tells you that IVF is your only chance at getting pregnant. Know that a discussion about money is on its way. Learn that you could live 10 months in Costa Rica for the same price as IVF.

Weigh your options………. choose IVF.

Meet with IVF doctor. Begin egg retrieval. Give yourself multiple injections each day. Retrieve eggs. 14 eggs!!! Return home and wait impatiently for the phone call letting you know if the eggs were fertilized. Find out that in the end, only four embryo were viable and able to be frozen. Immediately start wondering if all four of those will become your children. Begin process for embryo transfer. The pain from the injections makes it hard to sit without being uncomfortable. Hard spots begin to form in your hips as you desperately search for new places to place the shots without too much pain.

Go in for first double embryo transfer. Wait two weeks before taking a pregnancy test at the doctor’s office. Again, wait impatiently for the phone call that could change your life forever. You imagine your life getting the news of being pregnant. The doctor previously told you you had a 60% chance. You’re young. Transferring two embryo means it’s a given you will be pregnant, right? Sit at work waiting.

The phone rings. Your stomach turns over a hundred times as the nurse starts to speak. She gives you the news you never want to hear.

“The test was…. negative. I am so sorry. Call us when you want to move forward with the next steps.”

Tears immediately form in your eyes and you rush out of work without saying a word. Sobbing, you call your husband to deliver the heartbreaking news. Without saying a word, he already knows what has happened. You cry together. You cry separately. Your dreams of having a family seem so far away. You begin to think, “Maybe I am not meant to be a mother. Maybe this dream will never become a reality.”

Eat all the chocolate you can muster. Cry in the shower. Eat chocolate while crying in the shower. Tell all your friends and family who have supported you through this the bad news. You begin to feel numb and a little depressed.

Continue procedures to figure out what went wrong. More injections, but this time, with no intentions of getting pregnant, just tests. Find out you are in the small percentage of women who need a different protocol of medications. You can’t help but be upset that two precious embryo were not given a fair chance. Two precious embryo you will only be able to meet in heaven one day. Those two kids will never be yours here on earth. Those two embryo you mourn. Find the courage to go through the process all over again.

Begin process for embryo transfer. The pain from the injections makes it hard to sit without being uncomfortable. Hard spots begin to form in your hips as you desperately search for new places to place the shots without too much pain. Go in for second double embryo transfer. This time you find the courage to take a pregnancy test at home even though the doctor’s office prefers you come in. This time, you want to see the bad news for yourself without having a stranger tell you.

Take the test.

Kneel in prayer to accept God’s will no matter what the pregnancy test shows.

Stand up. Look over at the counter.

See the line form. See the + line form.

Tears well up in your eyes and there aren’t words. You go silent. Your husband in the other room assumes the worst has happened. Your husband comes out of the bedroom. Your eyes meet. And in that moment, the world disappears… it’s just you and him. No words can be formed so you hold up the pregnancy test and you hold each other and cry. But for the first time during this journey, these are happy tears. These are tears that are only understood by each other.

After 3 and a half long years of heartache, bad news, surgery, tests, 100+ injections, an emotional rollercoaster, you finally get to hold each other and cry tears of joy. You wonder if this is real. You wonder if this is too good to be true, but you shove those fears aside and embrace the good news wholeheartedly.

You have learned something… that each woman’s journey to motherhood looks different. You know for some it comes faster than expected. For others, it’s years of battling infertility, and for other mamas it’s foster care or adoption. You realize though your journey to motherhood is unique, the one thing that unites all mamas is their desire to hold a little piece of heaven in their arms. 

Step 4: Begin to research pros and cons of natural birth vs. epidural. Trust me… epidural is the way to go. 🙂

Cori Lazarte is a mother of a 4-month old, learning to live without sleep with her husband of 4 years. After battling infertility (an ectopic pregnancy, surgery, and failed IVF transfer)…their family finally got their rainbow baby! She and her cute little nugget can be found at @coriannlaz on Instagram!