My new tattoo, infertility insensitivity and horrid customer service

I have one tattoo that I got as my 30th birthday present to myself. I have wanted more but didn't really want to get any while I was trying to get pregnant, pregnant or breastfeeding which, of course, I have been doing one for a while and would hopefully be doing all of the above for the majority of my foreseeable future. So I had resigned myself to accepting that there would be no more tattoos for who knows how long.

After doing some research I decided that it would not really be any more risky to get one while ttc than not so I decided that I wanted to get a tattoo of a Kokpelmana, a fertility deity. I went to Your Design or Mine in Lexington where my cousin had gotten a couple of tattoos and told them Mr TCI and I have been struggling with infertility for 3 1/2 years and I told them I was hoping she would bring me some good luck and karma to help overcome our battle. This sparked a conversation among the couple who own the shop and their son (who did my tattoo) as well as the other artist and another woman (the other artist's girlfriend? Wife? Maybe she worked there too?). The conversation consisted of how much trouble kids were, how once I had kids I would change my mind and wonder why I ever wanted "the rascals", how glad they were they weren't having kids, how lucky the kid was that he was the only one among his friends to not have any kids, etc.


I was annoyed but let it slide. Later I decided to let them know how I felt, hopefully it would give them pause for thought. I know many people who haven't dealt with infertility don't really know how to respond and automatically want to lighten the mood. Unfortunately joking such as this is more hurtful than helpful, a heartfelt or even cursory "Sorry you are going through this" or "Good luck" is a much more appreciated response. I know that I let stuff like this mostly slide but that many women battling infertility are much more hurt than I and if I can help educate people on giving constructive responses when they hear of women struggling, it can help others to do so even if it doesn't bother me all that much beyond minor annoyance. So sparked the following exchange which sent me down the path from slightly annoyed customer to royally pissed off customer.


Michelle wrote:

Hey guys thanks for the great tattoo I got today from Scotty Jr, supervised by Scotty Sr. I did have one comment. You guys were very friendly and I am EXTREMELY happy with my tattoo but I wasn’t very pleased about the response to the meaning behind my tattoo, which is hopefully to give me some good karma in overcoming my battle with infertility. The comments regarding not wanting “the rascals” once I have children and such were quite hurtful since right now I am putting everything I have on the line to become a mother. In the future you guys might be a touch more sensitive to people struggling with something, a simple “Sorry you are going through this” or even “Hope it helps, good luck” would have been a lot nicer than joking about how much you guys are glad it's not you trying to have kids because you don’t want them or whatever. But seriously thanks for the tattoo, I am very happy with it.
Michelle

Your Design or Mine replied:

im sorry you took it that way we were just trying to make you smile and lighted the struggle you are having….maybe you should lighten up a bit and just let god lead the way …your friends in ink …pam and scotty----

Michelle replied:

Lighten up? Well I was only slightly stung and irked because I knew you guys didn’t mean to be hurtful and was just trying to give you a heads up in how you could be more sensitive in the future. But it is very poor customer service when someone gives you feedback and you further make light of their situation by belittling them.

Your Design or Mine replied:

well we are sorry we hurt you but maybe you are right ?? so perhaps you should find another shop and stop taking your problems out on others…

Company information:
Your Design or Mine
http://www.yourdesignormine.com/
http://www.facebook.com/#!/pages/Your-Design-Or-Mine/120493721307820
1993 Harrodsburg Road, Lexington, KY 40503
859-278-1631


The review I have left them on as many of the review sites as I have been able to find...

I had been recommended this shop and have a close relative get work here done years ago with great results so I went to them for my tattoo. They were very friendly but were a bit insensitive to the struggle I was going through that my tattoo was representative of so later that evening I sent them a polite email to let them know how happy I was with my tattoo but that their unintentional insensitivity had stung a bit. I got an email back telling me to “lighten up”. I emailed again saying I was just trying to give them a heads up on how they could be a little more sensitive to their customers and received back an email telling me to find another shop for future work and “quit taking my problems out on others”. Nice customer service. If this is how they react to polite constructive criticism I would hate to see their response to a truly irate customer.

It gets even better! After sharing this story on The Crunchy Infertile's Facebook page, on some fertility forums and on my own Facebook wall, I have had several people tell me they have sent the company emails or left them reviews as well. One person has reported back their own horrific email response from them. She is contacting the BBB and has expressed interest in organizing a protest (she is also a local person). Here is the exchange between them...

Brittney:

I am really offended by an email responce to a fellow woman with infertility. Infertility is hurtful, just like any other heath problem. You try for a baby like there is no tomorrow. You take the pregnancy test every month and every month it is negative, then when it is positive? You suffer from miscarriage after miscarriage, after miscarriage. There is no way to lighten up when you are putting everything on the line for a child an you cannot have one.. or you cannot keep one alive. When a customer tells you that what was said HURT THEM you should apologize and take responsibility . I am so sorry you guys were blessed with children that you do not want. If you would like to give them up for adoption so that an infertile couple may give them a better life.. one where their new parents would teach them kindness and respect towards others feel free to contact me and we can get the ball rolling!

Your Design or Mine:

IF GOD WANTED YOU TO HAVE KIDS YOU WOULD ...SO DONT HATE ON SOME ONE THAT DOES..FUCK OFF


So now I have gone from wanting to share this story with other infertiles to wanting to make sure as many people as possible know what assholes these people are. To be clear, I don't really care about their opinion. If they want to be such assholes amongst themselves that is fine, everyone is entitled to their own opinions. I find it HIGHLY offensive that they would treat customers this way. So please help make sure everyone knows how little these people care about their customers and potential customers.

Here she is...

Playing catch up

So obviously I need to do some catching up since it's been a little over a month since that last post. The next day I decided I had had enough with the ob office and was no longer interested in trusting them with my care. This was beyond not being happy with the doctor herself, this was complete dissatisfaction with the entire office. I was very disappointed. They were affiliated with the hospital that, if we do not do a homebirth like we would like to or if we need to transfer in it would be my choice of hospitals, they have a couple of midwives on staff including two who are very active in the local community in educating women on having an EDUCATED pregnancy and birth whether natural or not. So I was quite disappointed that it hadn't worked out.

I have a few local friends who are also battling infertility. One had just began seeing a new reproductive endocrinologist (RE) who was very highly regarded and she was VERY happy with him so far so I asked her for his information. I called the office and got an appointment for in two weeks. Since I was now on cycle day 3 and am supposed to do Clomid days 3-7, Sean and I discussed whether to go ahead with the Clomid or wait for the appointment to see what the new dr wanted us to do. We decided to go ahead with the Clomid.

On cycle day 6 which was a Sunday, I began having some abdominal pains. They were severe and spreading and we decided about 8pm to go to the emergency room. The ER dr ordered a ct scan and determined the problem was an ovarian cyst. He gave me a prescription for Lortab and sent me home with instructions to see my doctor for followup care.

Now we needed to decide WHO to see for followup care. My pcp? The stupid ob office? The new re I hadn't even seen yet? We decided to first see *IF* I could get in to the new guy. Called the office Monday afternoon and they were able to move my appointment up to Tuesday!

We went in and after an exam and an ultrasound he determined that I did in fact have a small cyst but he was 99.99% certain that the cyst nor anything else gynecological was the source of my pain (which I was still in severe abdominal pain and was eating lortab like candy - NOT like me). Once that was clear we went on to discuss the whole fertility issue in general and came up with a game plan to do a semen analysis on Mr TCI to make sure we weren't dealing with multiple problems and go from there.

We never did definitely pinpoint the cause of the pain. We decided to give it a little time to see if it would go away on it's own, which it did. We did the semen analysis and the results were just fine, the problem is definitely not him. So we went back to see the dr again and decided to do one more round of Clomid, this time bumping the dosage up a bit and doing monitoring to see if it's actually working. We also discussed the potential pcos issue and even though he doesn't seem to *really* think it's a major factor in what's going on, he did also put me on Metformin.

So currently I am on cycle day 6 and have an appointment for the 9th to do the first ultrasound to see if I am trying to get ready to ovulate. I think it will be too early based on info from the last cycles, it appears I have been ovulating around day 18, but we shall see. *nervous*

The difference in doctors

This was posted July 27th and was my most recent post and therefore my last catch up post.

If you have read my previous posts you are aware of the difficulties I have had with my current ob office. Yesterday I was amazed at how different doctor offices can be. On Monday I called my pcp to get an appointment. I have been having some back issues and needed to go to a lab to pull some blood for my ob. I could go in to Lexington to their lab but if I can kill two birds with one stone why not? So I called on Monday and an appointment was set for Tuesday afternoon. Actually I was offered Monday afternoon but dh wanted to go and that was too short of notice for his work. But seriously? A doctor office that can fit you in same day or even the next day for a clear non emergency? What planet is this?

Before we left for the appointment I decided I need to call the ob and make an appointment now that I was sure I was not pregnant, to see if we can discuss the problems I have been having with the office and, if we decided to keep working with them, discuss a game plan. I called, went through the multilevel voice menu system, choose the number for making appointments and listened to the "Please hold, your call will be answered in the order it was received" spiel for nearly 15 minutes. Finally it changes, they have picked up, but are fumbling with the phone. For a good minute I hear rusting, background noise and people talking. He comes on the line and I say "I need to make an appointment with Dr ****." "Ok, please hold" and he transfers me to the nurse's station where I leave a message saying I need to make an appointment.

We head on in to town to see my pcp. We get checked in, called back, visit with the dr, talk about options and decide, since I'm not pregnant, now is a good time to go ahead and do tests that wouldn't be good to do while pregnant. We decide on mri's for my back and neck and x-rays on my foot. When should we schedule this for? Right down the hall for the x-ray and they will schedule the mri as well. Ok cool.

We go down and get checked in to radiology scheduling. They call me in to discuss the mri and schedule it. As she's on the phone with the mri receptionist, she looks at me and says "Do you want to do it right now?" Well sure, since we're already here, let's get it over with. So off we go to the radiology lab, they get me all set up and in that horrid little tube (my first mri, I am slightly claustrophobic, it was not fun). I get back in to my clothes, back to the waiting room with Mr TCI, wait a few minutes, they call me back to x-ray, we do the x-rays, I go to the bloodwork lab and get my blood drawn and we head up to the front desk to see if I am done for the day or if I need to see the dr again for anything before we leave. She tells us that the techs will go over my mri's and x-rays the next day and to expect a call from the dr then.

We head home. We are not even half way home when my phone rings, it is my doctor's nurse calling to tell me the results of the tests. We discuss the findings and what to do about them and she tells me to expect a call from the physical therapy place to set up physical therapy for my back.

Seriously? I was in to the office about 30 hours after calling to make an appointment, they handled all of this in about 3 hour's time and EVERY.SINGLE.PERSON was kind, respectful and happy. I got my results quickly and have a game plan we are happy with. Did I miss something? Did I wake up in an alternate universe or something?

Meanwhile the ob office has not yet called me back to schedule an appointment. Why that should surprise me since they haven't called me back since I left a message some 3 weeks ago saying I had some questions.

One more cycle down the drain

This was posted July 25th

Ok so AF hasn't shown yet but I am sure she will. Doesn't she always? I tried not to get my hopes up this time, I really did. Heck for most of my 2ww I didn't even know right off the top of my head what cycle day I was or when I was supposed to start testing. Then I looked. Then I thought I felt implantation. Then my boobs got sore. Then I had a night of heartburn/nausea (which, honestly could have, and obviously was, caused by dinner that night which had grains AND dairy, two things we have cut from our diet). 3 bfn's later, I spent last night in my usual pms hormone crazy horniness and today weeping and cramping. No doubt as to what tomorrow entails. I hate infertility.

Infertility support groups

This was also posted July 24th, no I haven't done anything about it yet.

Does anyone go to support groups? I have looked around and there are a couple of local groups but they are all faith based. As a Unitarian Universalist who has recently become interested in Pagan I am not really interested in a faith based support group. Am thinking of starting one up. I emailed Resolve for their info on peer led support groups, we'll see what comes of it. I know I get a lot from the closed infertility Facebook page I started, it's nice to be able to talk to others going through the same things and knowing not everyone and their brother can see what you are saying (interested in checking it out? Do a FB search for groups called Infertility, it's the closed group with an infertility ribbon as the profile pic. Request to join and shoot me a message letting me know to sent the request).

I don't want the group to exclude religion and a person's faith, just not be a group of only Christians or whatever. I was thinking having some fertility gods/icons, fertility candles, say some fertility prayers/poems, talk about our journeys, etc.

Vegas

This was postes July 24th and was a bit of a catch up post.

So I called the clinic on that Thursday, July 1st. Got the typical recording "Leave a message and a nurse or tech will return your call within 24 hours". Left a message saying I had some questions regarding this DHEA level issue. THEY STILL TO THIS DAY HAVE NOT CALLED ME BACK.

We were more than halfway through the second round of Clomid at that point and were scheduled to leave for a week in Vegas on July 8th, so I decided to put it out of my mind and not think about it until we got back from Vegas. Based on the previous cycle and my knowledge of what Clomid is supposed to do, we knew that this would put me ovulating while in Vegas, right around my birthday which was Wednesday the 13th.

So we went to Vegas and had a BLAST! We actually went for Mr TCI's work, a Cisco Live conference. He got me a guest pass so while I was not otherwise occupied poolside, gambling, hanging out with my dad (who just happened to also be in Vegas playing poker) or knitting in public somewhere, I could check out the vendors and I got to go to a couple of the keynote speakers (the closing one was William Shatner, who I am a HUGE fan of!) and on my birthday was the big Cisco Live customer appreciation event party, a huge party revolving around a concert of OK Go and Train! OMG it was FUN!! I had a great week.

Thanks to a thermometer malfunction, traveling at hours I am normally sleeping and a complete change in time zones, my temps were all over the place for a bit so I can't rely on their information for while we were in Vegas, but I did get opk information suggesting ovulation on my birthday or on Thursday.

We got home from Vegas and I just haven't been interested in dealing with the doctor yet so I have not yet called. I am currently 11dpo and am having some mild possible pregnancy symptoms. I have already done two pregnancy tests (failure to wait is a common trait in us infertiles) and both have been negative but I know it's still early so I'm not giving up hope yet for this cycle :) As soon as I either get a bfp or do give up on this cycle, I will deal with the doctor's office and we will decide whether to give them a chance to fix the extremely bad impression and lack of trust I have in them at this moment or whether we will simply take our business elsewhere.

Meanwhile if this worked every item of clothing my child wears for the next 18 years is going to have "I'm what happened in Vegas" on it somewhere lol

Doctors and communication

This was posted on June 30th. I swear regularly in real life, I usually try to keep it out of my blogs, especially the *f* word, but it does slip in occasionally. More than occasionally when I am very mad, like I was when I wrote this post. Consider yourself forewarned.

On May 17th we went to see a new doctor for my annual and to discuss our fertility journey. I wasn't horribly pleased with the outcome of the visit even though I really liked the dr herself, I just didn't feel confident that we were making a whole lot of forward progress as far as checking to see what was going on. She gave us a prescription for Clomid and wanted me to have some bloodwork done. Beyond that my instructions were to use opk's to confirm ovulation and...well that was it. Beyond a vague gameplan of what we were overall doing (get an egg, have somewhere for it to go and something to fertilize it with) that was it. I came away hoping the round of Clomid did it's job and we got pregnant so I wouldn't have to try to figure out what to do next.

At the time of the appointment AF was already a few days late. I came back in for bloodwork on the 23rd and still no sign of AF. Finally she reared her ugly head on the 26th which was cycle day 46, longer than any cycle I had had in quite a while. I had not yet heard back the results of the bloodwork so I called the clinic and said I wanted to check on the results of my bloodwork, wanted the dr to know that my cycle had been 46 days long and if that information, along with anything in the bloodwork, indicated a different gameplan than starting Clomid on the 29th. The nurse (or receptionist or whoever called me back) pulled up my chart, said the dr had "signed off" off on my bloodwork and therefor, yes, go ahead and start the Clomid.

Well the Clomid did it's job. I had some pretty big hot flashes and, right on schedule, the opk's agreed with my temps regarding ovulation and I even had ovulation cramps! First of all this was my first positive opk EVER and also my clearest temperature shift. We were stoked! We did what was necessary and then waited the most agonizing two weeks (my first official 2ww ever since I've never had any signs of ovulation, therefore no specific time period of "this could be it"). My temps climbed and climbed for 12 days, then started dropping and AF showed up right on time. :(

Mr TCI  and I talked about what to do next and decided to go ahead with round two of the Clomid and see if maybe we should get an appointment for near the end of the cycle to either confirm pregnancy or discuss where to go from here. This was a few days ago. I started the Clomid on Monday.

Today is Wednesday. This morning I awoke at 8:30 to my phone ringing. It was the clinic, calling to inform me that the bloodwork I had done showed a sky high dhea level "which is common with pcos" (wtf?? I was under the impression that, other than symptoms, nothing was pointing at pcos?? When exactly did pcos come back into the picture??) and that the dr wanted me to come in for another bloodwork to recheck and, if it's still elevated, schedule a ct scan of my adrenal gland.

Now I am not the most with it person on the planet when you wake me up and all I could do was pretty much nod and grunt. It wasn't until well after I got off the phone that my brain woke up and had some questions.

#1 WHY THE FUCK DID IT TAKE A MONTH TO TELL ME MY BLOODWORK SHOWED A PROBLEM??? ***ESPECIALLY*** since said problem is something I mentioned in the original appointment had shown up on previous bloodwork but it hadn't gotten any attention AND I CALLED IN TO ASK ABOUT THE RESULTS OF MY BLOODWORK??? Why wasn't I told THEN that something was off and further testing needed to be done?

#2 Back to the pcos. The nurse on the phone implied I had pcos so this elevated dhea level was no surprise. I have never been diagnosed with pcos. In fact we specifically discussed at the appointment that while I have classic symptoms of pcos, no testing had shown any indications of it at all and that she would be specifically checking the bloodwork results for indications and I was sent home with the prescription for Clomid to take "unless the bloodwork showed signs of pcos in which case we would go in a different direction".

So after stewing on it today and talking to Mr TCI tonight, tomorrow I need to call the clinic and find out what the hell is actually going on. I was not happy about starting the Clomid to begin with, I am so NOT pleased at the possibility of having started it not only once but am half way through the second round, if something else is awry that makes the Clomid pointless at this time. I hate doctors. Why couldn't my body just do it's fucking job and get pregnant so I didn't have to deal with them.

Infertility Begins

This post was my first post about infertility, posted October 11th, 2010.

Mr TCI  and I decided in Spring 2008 that we would stop trying to prevent getting pregnant. We weren't going to full on try yet but just "not try not to". By August we were ready to move on to "trying". Two years later we are still trying. After one visit to a woman's clinic to rule out thyroid issues and pcos, both of which I was possibly showing symptoms of, I was given a clean bill of health and a bill once it was determined that my insurance doesn't even cover TALKING about fertility issues, let alone actually doing any fertility treatments. Since then we have just plugged along, living our lives and doing what we can on our own to boost fertility chances, hoping that it will happen.

We have talked about fertility treatments. We are naturally minded people who do not go the doctor, do not take drugs or medications unless it is absolutely necessary, we eat as organic and sustainable as we can. We abhor the thought of drugs and procedures and tests and...some say we just don't want to be parents badly enough. My mother actually had the nerve to say it that bluntly to me and then acted like she couldn't figure out why I started crying, hung up the phone on her and wouldn't talk to her for a few weeks. I finally had to break the ice and talk to her again, it wasn't worth losing my mom over but she has never so much as apologized to me. We don't talk about my infertility anymore and that upsets me greatly as my mom is one of my best friends and I thought I could talk to her about anything. (Current addendum, we are back to more solid ground about talking about things. She occasionally comes out with a comment here or there that stings a bit but she means well so I try not to let it bother me).

Anyways.

I struggle with the fertility treatment issue. It's not just the drug thing or the doctor thing. Our insurance covers nothing as I stated above, I had to pay for the freaking thyroid test because I mentioned messed up cycles as one possible symptom of thyroid problems. We are not rich. We aren't poor, but we aren't rich. We are working very hard to be debt free. We are in gazelle intensity mode. We don't have thousands of dollars to put towards medical treatments. Sure we could get a loan or put it on credit cards but that is what we are trying to get away from, debt. Not that a baby wouldn't be worth it. If the fertility treatments even worked. Did you know that 1 in 5 women with fertility problems never carry a child to term? Regardless of fertility treatments? That's appalling. Scary. So I could go against everything we believe, dig us so far into debt we may never climb out, pump myself full of drugs that will do who knows what to me only to end up 5-10-15 years down the road and still not have a baby. Part of me is willing to take the risks. Sell everything. Borrow what we can. Charge the rest. Anything.

I just want to be a mom.

The Love of My Life

First I will share a post I did on October 6th, 2008 regarding the story of Mr TCI and I and how we met.

 I thought I would share the story of how Mr TCI and I met. I am originally from Michigan, moved to Kentucky to work with horses in 1995. I traveled around a little, went to Florida for the winter while I was working for John Ward and spent a year in Texas training halter horses during my apprenticeship with Mike McMillian and I also went back to Michigan for two years where I was a caregiver with Home Instead Senior Care. I was living a pretty decent life in Michigan, loved my job, enjoyed spending time with my family, was making decent money. The one client I worked for was awesome. She was an elderly woman who had suffered a stroke and needed constant care. She lived with her daughter and son in law and I adored her and her family. They were the epitome of how I wanted to live, a happy, loving couple, a daughter who loved her mom beyond reason. Just being with them inspired me be a better person and get my life in order so I could have a full life of my own. Being with them also reminded me daily how much I missed my own mom, who was still in Kentucky, and made me realize that I needed to come home to be with her. I realized that my place was close to her not only because she's my mom, I loved her and missed her but if anything ever happened to her I needed to be close enough to be there for her. Through 2006 I felt more and more compelled to go home so finally the week of Christmas I picked up and came back to Kentucky.

While in Michigan I had been introduced to an online classified site called Craigslist. I bought, sold and gave away items on there as well many times. There is a personal's section but after browsing it a few times I decided there was never anything in there but porn spam and people looking for one night stands so I quit checking out the personal's section. I hadn't been to Craigslist for a few months but on January 5th I thought of it and decided to check out the Lexington Craigslist, see what was interesting on there (it is a local type site, different sites for thousands of cities). I had been on Craigslist for a few minutes when I thought of the personals section. I dismissed the idea, knowing it was likely the same environment. Over the next half an hour or so I kept feeling like I should look at the personals section. Finally I decided to quit fighting it, take a peek to satisfy my curiosity and be able to move on.

The first ad I saw was really sweet sounding, he sounded nice, sincere and listed as interests a lot of the same things I am interested in! I sent him a relatively long email introducing myself. he emailed me back a few minutes later saying he was at work but would email me again later and also gave me links to some pictures of his dogs and to his Myspace page. He sent me another, longer email a few minutes later and he sounded wonderful! We emailed back and forth all day long then when he got home from work we got on instant messenger and chatted for a while. I had to go to work, this was a Friday night and it was an all weekend job so I told him I would talk to him Monday morning when I got home from work. When I got home I made a beeline for the computer and he was there waiting. We visited until he needed to go to work, then more when he got to work. We "talked" all day and night (I worked nights doing in home senior care but we text messaged too) all week long and decided to have dinner on Friday night. I was supposed to be off Friday night but shortly before we were to meet for dinner work called and asked if I could go in later that night. Pushover that I am I said yes then I was terrified he would think I was making it up to cut dinner short.

We met for dinner at a little Mexican restaurant in Frankfort, he was waiting for me with a bouquet of flowers, it was TOO sweet! He was absolutely wonderful and we had a wonderful time. We were very surprised when we went to pay for dinner and our waiter told us someone had paid for our dinner! We still don't know who it was that paid for our dinner but if by chance that person reads this, THANK YOU! I went straight from there to work and we texted back and forth all weekend.

We went on several more dates and talked nearly constantly when we weren't together. 3 weeks later on January 29th we were officially engaged (we had been talking about it for a week though), I moved in about 2 months later and we got married November 3rd of 2007. I have never been happier in my life! This last year has been the best year of my life.

We both knew from the start that it was right. We are so much alike it's scary and we have yet to have our first fight. We discovered along the way that our paths actually crossed several times over the years. While I was working at Patchen Wilkes, he was working for Vinery and they were leasing pastures across the road from Patchen Wilkes. He was taking care of horses in those pastures as well as working in the breeding shed while I was taking mares back and forth to the breeding shed, it's possible we actually met in the breeding shed at Vinery. We also had been on a couple of the same email lists at the same time (rawfeeding & kynaturaldogs - his own list) and we had emailed back and forth a little about dogs. I used to run a pet sitting business and he still had one of my business cards. Last but not least he was renting a house on a farm I was nightwatching on. It really was meant to be.

Hi there

Hello all and welcome to my fertility and hopefully eventually my parenting blog. I have a couple of other blogs as well, one for my knitting and one general one that I have posted about a little bit of everything in my life. I wanted to start a blog specifically for my fertility/parenting journey so here I am. The first thing I am going to do after this intro post is enter a few posts from my general blog so you guys have a little background beyond just what I have to say.

So a little intro here. My name is Michelle, I live in central Kentucky with my husband of almost four years who I shall try to remember to refer to as Mr TCI :). We have a small piece of land that we hope to trade in for a bigger piece in the next few years. We have chickens (although we are down to a bare minimum thanks to recent fox attacks) for eggs, rabbits we raise for show and meat, a horse and 3 dogs as well as vegetable gardens. We have been trying for 3 1/2 years to add children to the mix as well.

Mr TCI and I are very naturally minded "crunchy" people and, since we don't do doctors and drugs and such, it has made our fertility challenges an interesting journey.

I am active on Facebook and have a page called The Crunchy Infertile, check it out!