The Chicken vs The Egg Pt.1

Which came first: The chicken or the egg?
The answer should be:  the Clearblue Fertility Monitor.



So, a few weeks back, I was shopping at a local department store that was closing out.  Lured by the gleaming banners which promised 70% off most items, I was drawn into the sliding glass doors like a bee to a honeycomb.

As I circled the store with my shopping cart, I found a few things here or there that I convinced myself I should buy.  I'm usually a great shopper in that I can say "no" to a lot of items that try to fling themselves into my cart.  *unless of course I'm at a clothing store, and then all bets are off - I tend to come home and unpack items that not only would I never wear, but ones that I'd never even re-gift

At the checkout, something caught my eye.  Behind the cashier, haphazardly laid on a shelf sideways between a pair of pantyhose and a display of electric toothbrush heads, was a small box.  As the cash register calculated my total and she asked the infamous "cash, credit or debit?", lo and behold I was looking at a "Fertility Monitor".  Now I'm not one to exaggerate (ok, maybe every now and again I might tend to do this a little), but I swear to you on my life that I heard a heavenly choir sing "ta-daaaaa" in 4 part harmony.

Honestly, I knew nothing about a Fertility Monitor.  However, being a woman who is attempting to conceive, it sounded promising. I asked the cashier how much it was.  It had been discounted 70% and was now less than one hundred dollars (so it was pretty expensive to begin with!).  In case you didn't realise this already, I'm a little on the OCD side of analytical.  I simply couldn't spend that amount of money on something without "googling" the heck out of it.

I returned home with my few items and went straight to the source of much of my knowledge: Google.  Turns out that this Fertility Monitor (which was still sitting on the shelf behind that cashier) seems to be The Answer for multitudes of women who are attempting to get preggers.

The trouble with trying to conceive is that it is a mathematical roll of the dice every month.  Am I even fertile?  Do I ovulate regularly if at all? Is there an underlying issue that would prevent conception?  Might I have PCOs without symptoms?  All of these thoughts (and many many more) started to swirl around inside my noggin lately.  After months of trying to conceive using everything from Ovulation Test Strips (no luck) to my Period Tracker App which tells me when I should be ovulating based on my cycle (my irregular cycle to boot)... no luck.  So, I began to wonder in great detail if I was ovulating or fertile as the weeks went on.  Hubby and I did our best to adhere to the projected schedule based on my calendar, but no dice.  Pretty soon I would have to go to the doctor in search of testing or perhaps a prescription like Clomid to assist in the process.

As I read on about the Fertility Monitor, I saw an tremendous amount of glowing feedback from women (and men) who believed that this monitor was the key to success.  The monitor itself works by peeing on a stick, and putting that stick into a computer which calculates the amount of the Luteinizing Hormone (LH) in your system.  This is important as a rise in LH signals the body preparing to release an egg.

Boy, this is long.  But important.  I will tell you that if you have made it this far and this is striking you as TMI or not of interest, then you might as well bail now.  Last chance....

Soooo... after a fortnight of googling and youtubing... I woke up and headed back to the store, praying that the box might still be on the shelf.  One thing about a closing out sale is that the stock is seldomly organized.  Basically everything is hit or miss, and the goods can end up scattered all over the store.  This time I lined up empty handed... I was 18th in the line just waiting to catch a glimpse of the shelf behind the cashier.

I got closer and closer to the cash, and finally could see the shelf where the box had been... and held my breath....