My Body, Your Pregnant Belly: Both Enemies
Choice Chat
It's a whispered yet utterly obvious fact that the women in my family are incredibly fertile. You can ask any of my aunts or sisters or cousins about the infallibility of several varieties of birth control devices and they'll laugh in your face.
At 35, I have had a regular period every 28 days since the summer I turned 13 (with the exception of a handful thrown off due to extreme stress or hanging out with hormone-dominant women). In all those years I have never once had unprotected sex, due to an alarmingly Catholic fear of unwed motherhood. Yet here I am today, allowing strange sperm to swim willy-nilly inside my innermost crevices, terrified that something might be wrong with me every unfertilized day that passes.
I have no reason to doubt my fertility. I have average cycles, wide hips, and no family history of problems. However, I don't exercise enough (enough = at all), sometimes choose less healthy foods over leafy greens (less healthy = McDonald's fries), and, well, let's face it...the eggs are old.
From the time I was a young girl playing Mommy there was never any doubt in my mind that I would someday be one. I am the eldest of four, so in exchange for a bed and three meals a day, I was the obvious answer to my parents' babysitting needs. My love of children led me to an elementary teaching degree-although my love of money and square footage led me away.
It's difficult to put into words how distressing it is when an absolute certainty just simply doesn't come to be. Women who are trying to conceive think about it every day, a million times, and can't escape it. There are dozens of sneaky ways babies can rear their bonneted heads in innocuous conversations. Commercials on television inundate us with the right things to feed them, strap them into, teach them. Walking through Target I push past little outfits that make me want to slap someone in frustration. My children's book collection from Teacher's College sits on its shelf, pristine and lonely, longing for a jelly-smeared hand to accidentally tear a page in excitement.
I wish it was as easy as coping with a bad golf game or quitting smoking. Practice doesn't help, time doesn't help, and there are no guaranteed patches or tasty spearmint Bun-in-the-Oven gums to chew.
Mentally, I've always been competitive. I am self-motivated to successfully complete every project. So how dare my body not step up? How did I be a failure at this very simple, instinctual task?
I understand now why pregnant women - those smug winners - take such pride in their big bellies. They know it's not really as easy as it looks, no matter what lies they tell you in health class about budding flowers and then, oops! There's a baby!
No, there are long uncomfortable minutes with your toes in the air (I seem to recall that some don't conceive this way, but I'm having trouble remembering the concept). There are even longer hours when you find yourself staring into space and imagining how you'll tell people when you finally pass the test. There are days and days of agonizing back-and-forth, tormenting yourself with the "Am I or Aren't I?" game.
I never knew what a dolt I was about female fertility until I tried to understand my own. So much math, gross mucus texture-testing, temperature charting, and things moving around inside you.
I'll be honest: I tried charting my temperature, and I just could not do it. Websites and forums and know-it-all friends make this seem like the easiest thing in the world - just take your temperature and you'll be able to tell when the magic is suppose to happen.
Right. Take my temperature at the exact same time every day, before getting out of bed, chart the number (I know there was a pen here yesterday). Then, based on the results, try to guess when the time is right, because by the time your temperature has risen or dropped .0002 degrees IT'S TOO DAMN LATE.
I had a lot of partially completed charts with bleary illegible notes that resembled something like 'nuus sliiy', which either meant my mucus was good and sticky, or that I should remember to pick up some sort of new Emo CD. I finally gave up on this "easy" morning assignment.
Next I tried ovulation test strips. These are great because I never get tired of peeing on things, especially my own hands.
The instructions are similar to that of an IRS form - and about as open to interpretation, too. One line is bad and two are good, unless one line isn't thinner than the other line, or lighter in color. You have to wait for the lines to appear, but if you wait five seconds too long then the test is invalidated. So much chemistry.
I actually like the sticks, but I'm very suspicious of them. I mean, who are THEY to tell ME something as profound as whether I am ready to conceive? Shouldn't that be something that comes out of something more regal? Like a trumpet with a banner unfurling from it: It's TIME Cathi! Get thee feet up in the air immediately. Or a French man in a beret who cups a fancy cigarette in the air and lights it: Eet eez time Cathee....get zee feet in zee air eemeediAHTlee.
After six months of trying, I put my known donor through one of the new male fertility tests. The one that checks to make sure there are swimmers, but doesn't tell you how fast they can paddle. He tried to hide the gurgling test tubes and Bunsen burners from me, but I saw how confusing it was. He eventually figured out which tab to insert in what slot and assured me that everything seemed to be fine, although he might have been pacifying me so that I would stop shaking him and screaming, 'Why aren't I experiencing the joy of motherhood NOW?!'
Besides the timing nightmares, and the nastiness of handling someone else's magic baby formula (I still sometimes gag when I unscrew the lid of the sample cup), you have to actually poke a foreign object, slippery and a bit pointy, into you. This is slightly more fun than a Pap smear, but is a tad less fun than a night of bodice-ripping passion with someone you love.
I think the phrase, 'single mother by choice' can be misleading. It's not that I am choosing to be alone and have a baby, I have chosen to have a baby despite the fact I am single. So for me, it's more like 'despite singlehood, a mother by choice.'
While there are women out there who do not want a man involved, that woman sure isn't me. I'd love nothing more than to meet a nice guy, quit my job, have a baseball team of youngsters, and put a home-cooked meal on the table every evening when my man got home. (Maybe not a whole team, and my man is sure as heck doing the dishes, but you get the picture.)
If I had my choice, I'd take the candles-and-jazz approach, but since I didn't get offered that option, I'm doing my best with what I have. And if that means cuddling up to a needleless syringe, and some confusion and discomfort, I've got to figure the end result (however long it takes and whatever sacrifices I make to get there) is worth it.
It's tough to decide what the next step is going to be. As a goal-oriented type-A, I want results, and if I don't have results, I want answers. But I know that I have to give this project time: the one thing I don't have.
There's the rub. You wait to start this process because of work, or trying to find Mr. Baby's Daddy, or for whatever reason, and then you find yourself quickly running out of time and options. How do you know when to visit a specialist, or try drugs? (The ones that help get you pregnant, not the ones that help you calm down because you're constantly stressed out about not getting pregnant.)
And that's another thing. Every single passing day does NOT make you more relaxed and happy. Every day means the expiration date on the eggs is looming closer. Every day brings another happy new mother or baby into your world of agonized jealousy.
I worry that I won't get pregnant. Then I worry that I will. Then I worry that I'm worrying too much and affecting my chances. And then I have a drink and feel guilty about the alcohol consumption. It's a vicious cycle.
People who haven't been single in this decade like to give advice like, 'Well, why don't you just meet someone.' Duh. Why hadn't I thought of that?
I know they're just well-meaning smug married idiots, groggy with soccer schedules and sleepover parties, bloated on pizza leftovers and hot pockets and Capri Sun. They've forgotten that bleak no-man's land of dating after college, where you never meet anyone except at stilted singles' events where married 57-year-old men sidle up to you with cheap white Zin and ask for advice on fixing their home PCs before stalking the younger, thinner thing behind you.
There is no advice anyone can give (and no matter what you went through, if you have a child, I secretly rage that you are the enemy. There's no solace but in understanding other struggling women's pain. I know they're out there, like me, counting the years of fertility in minutes and eyeballing China's orphanages.
Until you go through the hell that has been summed up poetically as TTC/TWW (Trying To Conceive/Two Week Wait), you have no idea what waiting really is. Or self-doubt. Your own menstruating body can become the cruelest enemy you face.
