The XYZs to Me

** Initially written 01/08/11**

Now that you are up to speed on all the fertility problems we are facing, I think it's probably appropriate to fill you in on some more details of who I actually AM.

I am the 2nd of 4 girls in my family, my older sister was from my mom's 1st marriage, and I was pretty unassuming growing up. I had great grades all through out school and was shy to a fault. I slowly came out of my shell, but only really comfortable with close friends and family. Except for a few of my pre-school years, I was and still am a tomboy. I loved being outdoors and knee deep in it. Dirt, bugs, birds, animals, plants- I loved it all. I still do. While I got A in all my classes in school, my favorite courses were math, science, and art (I am by no means an artist!) I loved all the equations and intricacies that made up the subjects.

So off I go to college. 1st semester in I decided to be a Biology major, but was still enthralled by chemistry, psychology, and physics. My coursework was general requirements and then packed full of science. Heck, even my electives were things like "Abnormal psychology", "Drugs and the Brain", and "Comparative Vertebrate Zoology". Science Nerd? Oh yes, I was. I teetered back and forth between focusing on genetics or conservational/behavioral biology. In the end, I just did them both, and minored in Chemisty and Psychology while I was at it. Starting my sophomore year, I also did undergraduate research in various labs. By my senior year, I knew I wanted to continue on in my science education and do more research.

Through out this whole time, I was seeing/dating/ with my now-husband-then-boyfriend. We meet online my freshman year, before internet dating was even cool. We were long distance until the end of my sophomore year, at which time he was experiencing a medical condition that kept him from working. That motivated him to move up to be with me, and that Fall we got our 1st apartment together. I'm not going to say "and things were great" because that is unrealistic and they weren't. It was hard going from being long distance to suddenly living together, seeing each other for a few days a month to 24/7. Relationships are hard, but you work on them if they are important to you, and ours was. He proposed on my 21st birthday, the end of my junior year.

My Senior year was then spent taking classes, doing undergrad research, working 30hrs, applying to grad schools and planning a wedding. Overachiever, yes I know. I didn't get into the research program that I really wanted, but happened to just fall into a different but similar one. In a 3month span, I graduated, got married, moved and started grad school.

Here's where things all start connecting to TTC. My grad program was Animal Science and my project was looking at fertility in dairy cows. I learned the ins and outs of the reproductive system of various animals (and people) and all about the play of hormones that make us all tick and tock. If it had to do with making babies, I knew it in about 5 different species. None of my learning was getting any use in my personal life yet as we were no where near ready to have kids. We barely had time for our pets, 2 cats at the time. That didn't stop the questions of "when will ya'll start having kids" and "thinking about starting a family yet?". We were the 1st on both sides to get married; we should be the 1st to have kids, right? At that time, we had no clue how wrong that would be.