Nuestra Senora de La Leche y Buen Parto

Nuestra Senora de La Leche y Buen Parto (Our Lady of Milk and Good Birth)

January 19, 2013


Look how happy she is!

So I've been poking around at my cervix every day for about 6 weeks. It's a funny body part that one never sees or thinks much about until there's a good reason. I have never actually seen mine, **insert gasps of horror from fellow midwives here***, but I have been told it is a.) there and b.) "petite". That is good enough for me. What I have determined from my daily proddings is that it is not particularly hard to find, it is not as mushy as one might expect, and it does actually change during the month.  I mention all of this because it is at the top of my list of things I did not in any way care one bit about for the last 37 years and 3 months. Other things on that list include my ovarian function, my eggs, my periods (except to be annoyed by them), how much alcohol I consume, vitamins, and luteinizing hormone.

I don't know why I am so surprised at how all-consuming this process is. I have always understood this about women going through IVF as there are so many tests and factors and dates and deadlines, but I guess I didn't realize that no matter how it happens, once you decide to procreate the world shrinks down to an egg sized ball. (Which I have been led to believe is about the size of the period at the end of this sentence.) All of this insanity is exacerbated by the fact that I take 6 pills every day, I set my alarm for 7am every morning so I can wake up long enough to take my temperature, I schedule acupuncture once a week, I pee on a stick twice a day, and I WORK WITH PREGNANT LADIES ALL DAY. Although, oddly, I still very separate from those women.

I am very fortunate to have wonderful, patient, loving friends who kindly pretend to be interested in all this stuff, so I am able to delude  myself into thinking that obsessing like this is normal. I am sane enough, however, to keep about 80% of my perseveration to myself (yes friends, you are ONLY getting 20%). The thinking is constant and distracting, but somehow comforting. I feel like all I am doing is trying to fill up the space between now and when I can try to get knocked up. The thinking makes the time go by. I am not going to write about ALL the stuff I think about because, even here, I don't want to fully demonstrate the insanity. I worry that I am becoming boring. I worry that all my other interests will recede so far that I will no longer have any other hobbies or pursuits and my depth will diminish until I am simply a flat, potential fetus carrier. I worry that my friends will stop listening or inviting me to do things because I have become insufferable. I worry that I will be subsumed, consumed, devoured.


And then I will become a parent.

Crap.