Quit trying AKA relax, it’ll just happen and other nuggets o’ wisdom….

Some of the worst advice you can give to someone TTC.

“Just relax.”  For some of us it’s akin to telling a man diagnosed with cancer to stop his chemo treatments and just relax.  It’s almost irresponsible. Yes I too have heard the tales, of the lucky lady who stopped trying after several failed rounds of IVF and bam got pregnant, but she tried everything first and probably tried relaxing several times leading up to the IVF decision and failed to get pregnant by relaxing. The “Just relax” people who had no trouble getting pregnant do not seem to understand that it’s not like we just try for a month or two and then decide it’s not working and then go straight to IVF(well some people probably do). I won’t go into the steps between starting TTC and ultimately IVF but there are more than some might think. The aforementioned lucky lady was probably only “relaxing” long enough to try IVF(or anything) again.

Another good one: “Take a nice vacation(and Relax)” (It's a twofer!)Sure vacation babies exist, or so I’m told, but several sex filled, relaxing vacations or weekend trips have yet to knock me up. Sure I’m not planning them around my suspected time of ovulation but that would kind of defeat the purpose of a relaxing vacation to get your mind off of TTC.

Another one of my favorites is: “Give it to God and if he sees fit for you to have a child you will. I’ll pray for you” Fanfuckingtastic. When do I tell you that I don’t believe in your prayer any more than you believe in having an open mind to any other religion than your own? Maybe I’m just bitter about that one. If prayer worked I would have half a dozen kids by now. If you really want to be helpful a large check for uncovered by insurance fertility treatments would be nice thanks. OK, for reals. I actually really appreciate the prayers others give. Honestly, I can’t prove that they don’t work but neither can I prove that they do. I have prayed before, I just feel like a fraud doing so. I have called out earnestly to any deity that would listen, but none have so far. I can’t do it anymore; I don’t think the negative emotions that prayer creates for me are helpful for any reason, much less in the TTC arena.

That’s really the crux of it: Advice givers, your helpful advice, no matter how genuine, creates negative emotions. It’s stressful enough living everyday with an inability to conceive, my failures repeating in my mind day after day, without you telling me to relax. The best thing you can do for someone struggling to conceive is to clam up. Shut your damn mouth. Give me a hug, a shoulder to cry on, someone to vent to, give me a friend. If you must give me advice or tips please limit yourself to “Dr. SoandSo is giving free fertility treatments to women named Anna” or “I hear chocolate is great for TTC and Godiva is having a huge blowout sale.”

Clear(ish) skin

How did I get so lucky?! Instead of getting break outs when I’m getting my period, my skin never looks better.  Seriously, it’s translucent and spot free, I glow (for the most part). I love my skin before and during my period. But come O-time go time? Spot city. It truly amuses me because it’s supposed to be the other way around, no? Biologically speaking when I’m fertile aren’t I supposed to look my best? Everything else seems to fall in line: increased sex drive, dressing better etc. But my skin says f that.

To be fair I will never have perfect skin, I was blessed, genetically, with large pored skin and a propensity to have black heads. No matter what skin treatment I try I will always have large pores and the black heads don’t seem to respond to any treatment. No amount of salicylic acid or exfoliating makes them go away. Blessedly, black heads are the easiest skin malady to cover with make-up, should I feel like applying make-up. 

 

I’m to the point of not caring about the breaking out and I’m almost grateful for the additional indicator of ovulation.  So bring it on body, I don’t need no stinking opk’s when I have you.

Tick tock biological clock

I’m 25, in two weeks I will be 26(April 1^st!). Certainly not too old to start a family but why do I feel like the time is slipping away? I see people all over starting their families at 30, 35 or older and I never question their age, so why am I questioning my age and viability to be a mother at not even 26? Perhaps it’s not just my age I’m worried about: my husband is 31. Is he getting to old to have children? If I conceive today (not likely) I will be 31 on her first day of kindergarten and he will be 37. Or when hypothetical baby graduates I will be 44 and my husband will be fifty!  I suppose I’m just scared that I won’t have enough energy to be a good mother to any potential offspring or scared that I will be the “Are you Mama or Gramma?” lady if I don’t get on this conception thing soon. I’m already going quite gray so it won’t be much of a stretch for that question to come up. (Thank you Native American heritage!)

I could be worse off though. I’m lucky not to be constantly surrounded by pregnant women. None of my friends are even considering trying to conceive any time soon, or ever in some cases so I’m not surrounded by people who are having “Oopsies” or tried for just a month and got knocked up. Rationally, I know I shouldn’t be worried about my age, but I’m having a hard time  convincing the irrational worry to go away.

Hope

Trying to conceive is a lesson in hope. Without hope I would be lost. I hope I get pregnant. More than that, I hope that I ovulate. I hope that I have sex at the right time. I hope that I have fertile cervical mucus. I hope the cramps are implantation. I hope for a boy, I hope for a girl, I hope for twins. I hope I don’t have to make my monthly donation to Always. I hope that other people get pregnant, and sometimes I even hope that they don’t get pregnant. I hope that I don’t get the worst advice you can give to someone who has been trying for what seems like forever, ever again. (“Just relax, it’ll happen.” But that’s another topic altogether.) There have been times that I have actually hoped for a chemical pregnancy just to see those two little pink lines.  

Hope is not in short supply for me. Without hope I would have nothing to hold onto.  For me it is easy to smooth over my past failures in conceiving and regenerate more hope for the next cycle. Forever the optimist I suppose.

 Don’t get me wrong, there are times that I break down, swear up and down that I’m going out to buy condoms until I can get a prescription for birth control pills, that it’s just too hard on my heart to keep hoping every month.  And then there are the tequila tears (I don’t need tequila for the tequila tears, it just helps.) Tequila tears are the uncontrollable, inconsolable, gut wrenching, ugly sobs that leave a person drained. This is a very rare occasion for me, when I feel so utterly hopeless and alone. I honestly feel bad for my husband when I get these fits, while it’s cathartic for me, it just terrifies him.

I use the times when I swear I don’t want to TTC ever again to drink like a fish, have kinky non procreative sex with my husband, generally be a bad girl and have a good time. Then it’ll happen, I’ll see a newborn so tiny that I wonder how mommy is out with him or Husband will point out a chubby cheeked grinning toddler covered in something sticky and something clicks, I’m back. The hope is back.

But let’s be honest, the hope never left.