Get Healthy. Get Pregnant. Get Pretty.

Some Things I Have Learned

1. Shit is cyclical. 10 months ago, we started this journey with hope and optimism. I didn’t expect to get pregnant the first month, but (despite previously discussed potential issues) I thought I would be pregnant in under 6 months. Definitely by Christmas. Somewhere in the October-ish time frame I started to get really pissed off. This was fucking ridiculous! God damn idiots on MTV can get pregnant just by looking at some dirtbag. But me? Fiscally stable, covered by health insurance, emotionally mature, happily married me? Nope. Barren barren barren. Somewhere around a few days ago, I had a complete moment of zen. I was 3 DPO, and I realized that at that very moment, I was either pregnant or not. And I could spend the next ten days flipping out about it, or I could get on with my life. In the vein of Shawshank Redemption’s famous “get busy living or get busy dying” line, I decided I could get busy obsessing or I could get busy living my life. It has been so freeing. I feel as good as that first day in April when we threw away the birth control and started trying. And that’s good because another lesson I’ve learned in this process is:

2. Life is not fair. I struggle to get pregnant while most of the cast of “16 and Pregnant” are expecting again. That makes total sense, right? Of course it does. I’ve come to learn that really, I need to let let stuff go. Life is not fair. It never was and it never will be. It doesn’t do any good to get angry and rage at the world. It only frustrates me. So I just drop it. 

3. Participating in The Bump will cause me to lose my mind. In the beginning, I read a lot over there. I participated in the TWW threads and it make me crazy. I’m never not aware of how many DPO I am, sadly. But I don’t need to be obsessing over it every blessed day. (See item #1) It’s not healthy.

4. It’s not a competition. When you’re in your 20s, it seems like all your friends are getting married and pregnant. It’s really hard not to be frustrated when others get pregnant while you continue to struggle. Just because one friend gets pregnant does not mean you never will. It just means she got pregnant and you’re still working on it. Life is not a race. There’s no prize for the first person who gets to the finish line.

5. Sometimes, girls are bitches. I pulled away from a group of friends because some people were mean to me, insisting that all I ever did was whine about not being pregnant. (So I got my own space to whine to nobody in particular.) God help the poor girl that goes on a message board to express frustration at not getting pregnant after less than a year. The others, smelling blood, will pounce on her until she feels as though her emotions aren’t justified. That is some Grade A bullshit. Trying to make a baby in the face of 1) idiot older relations prying into your private life 2) frustrating lack of success and 3) watching everyone around you, friend, foe, or Z-List TV simpleton, get pregnant is fucking frustrating. I don’t know when we all decided that we should only be the bestest, shiniest, happiest versions of ourselves (answer: sometime about when social networking got popular — read this great blog about “comparing your behind the scenes to their highlight reel.”) but we all stopped allowing ourselves and others to feel things and to be real about what a struggle this is. Not always getting what you want is one of life’s challenges; watching others around you effortlessly achieve what you’ve been working so hard towards month after month is mind numbing. It’s okay to let it out in a safe, healthy environment. This is mine. 

6. Though on that same note, your friends don’t need to hear every detail of your progress toward procreating. I have three fabulous women in my life that I know I can always call, text, skype, email, etc. when I am feeling happy/sad/bummed/hopeful/frustrated about this process. However, I try to dump my emotions on them sparingly. It’s hard to carry the weight of someone else’s problems. I try to be conscious of this, and save my emotional vomit for things that really matter. Temperature dip? Not really something to mention in an email. Today I sent an email to one of these women that said “I didn’t mention this to you yesterday because you don’t need to deal with my bullshit life problems on your birthday…” Prioritize your problems.  

7. Find a distraction. Mine has been makeup. It really should be fitness and losing weight. I was gifted a sewing machine for Christmas and working on new projects has been a lot of fun. Plus, I have that project I still can’t talk about but is moving toward being finalized to keep me busy and with a little more cash in my pocket so I can buy more eye shadow palates. 

8. And finally, accept that right now, you can only control so much in this process. I can communicate to my husband when the OPK smiles at me. I cannot help work travel, illness, or my body’s seeming resistance to pregnancy. It’s okay. Maybe we’ll need a little medical help. Maybe we’re not meant to be anything but pet parents. Maybe I’ll just be that fabulous auntie with great shoes. Who knows. As I lack a crystal ball and a DeLorean I can’t say for sure what the future holds. So until then I just need to relax and trust that there is a plan for us, and it will be revealed in due course.      

Wahoo!

My Zoya nail polishes shipped today! 

Also, I figured out how to insert gifs!!

{PS. I have failed terribly at kicking the sugar habit this week. I had a crazy craving for ginger ale and gave in to it. Now I’m eating Reese’s Pieces. So … yeah.}

Monday Goal

Yup, just one. 

1. Give up sugar for one week.

(okay, maybe two):

1a: And don’t lose my mind. 

And Then There Was One.

I am that one. 

Two friends told me they were pregnant this week. I am SO EXCITED AND SO HAPPY FOR THEM!! I am!! I know how much they want these babies and I honestly, swear-to-god, wish them the best. The happiest and healthiest nine months and the cutest, sweetest babies ever. I’m so excited for them. They’re going to be the BEST moms.

The fact that I cried and cried on Sunday because I felt left out/depressed/sad that I’m not pregnant too/all alone is a completely separate emotion from the joy I feel for these two. I want to set that out clearly right now.

Because now, more than ever, I feel like I’m all by myself on this journey. These were the two girls that I could commiserate with, and share my struggles with. Not that they won’t be willing to listen now, but it will be intrinsically different. I’m still peeing on OPKs and they’ll be going in for ultrasounds.

I feel conflicted even writing this, because I worry this will be taken as “I should have been pregnant first.” [FALSE] or “I deserve to be pregnant more.” [ALSO FALSE]. When I sit down to really examine my feelings, it mostly comes down to being thrilled for them and sad for me. And I think it’s okay to feel both of those things at once. I think that’s natural. 

But the larger issue here is that I feel more alone than ever. Trying to conceive for 10 months would wear anyone down emotionally. On top of that, I have the knowledge that my mother struggled to get pregnant and in her life only had one miscarriage and one child. I can’t help but feel that I was going to be fighting an uphill battle from the start. And each month that goes by I hear that voice in the back of my head whispering I bet you’ll have problems too…

I try very hard to just compartmentalize these feelings. Tuck them away and not think about them. The problem with this is that I find they can’t be contained forever, and they come tumbling out at inopportune moments. On Sunday, my husband asked why I seemed down. I thought I was doing a pretty good job of keeping up a game face, but apparently I wasn’t. I finally told him that two friends got positive pregnancy tests and I felt awful because although I was happy for them, I was sad for me and that just made me feel like an asshole.

Then the tears started. I try hard to keep these emotions from him. He doesn’t get it. Trust me, I’ve tried to get him to understand, but I think it’s just a guy thing. He doesn’t know what it’s like to deal with the cycle: 1) 7-9 day periods 2) peeing on OPKs 2-3 times a day for 7 days 3) humping it out even when you don’t really feel like it because it’s “the good time” 4) hoping and praying for the next 10 days that you don’t see any spotting and then 5) feeling like a complete failure when your period arrives.

The only thing that seems to have sunk in with him just a bit was me saying “imagine that you and a bunch of other people were up for a promotion, and you worked really, really hard for it. Then they all got promotions and you didn’t. How would you feel?” It’s not even remotely the same, but it’s the best analogy I could think of. 

He simply has no idea what the emotional toll of this process is. Then when I cry he becomes frustrated because he can’t fix it. Frankly, it’s not worth sharing every emotional detail with him.

So I internalize. And use this space to write out my feelings. And I go for custard and read about another woman who struggled to get pregnant (though to be fair Catherine the Great had a laundry list of other problems):

I should ovulate in a few days. Maybe it will be my turn soon.

[Note: Just hours after I wrote this post, I read this. And seriously? I could have written that. It says exactly what I’ve been trying to articulate in this entry. I cried while reading it, that’s how true it rang. It actually made me feel a lot better; it made me feel less alone.]

CD17: Waiting, Waiting, Waiting.

Just hanging out in my office’s enormous single stall bathroom. Seriously, you could put a family of four in there. Waiting on my OPKs to finish … processing? Developing? Whatever, I don’t know. 

I love how the light in the restroom really makes me appear … dead. Sure, I monkeyed around with this image in Camera+, but trust me, this fake 70s filter is a drastic improvement over the original. This is why I always check my makeup in my car mirror before I come to work: this restroom has the least-flattering light ever. I look like total shit. 

Tick, tock, tick, tock.

This is day 17. The OPKs aren’t getting much darker. I’m starting to worry this will be an anovulatory cycle. 

Blah. 

Weigh In Wednesday

Today’s weight: 208

Last week’s weight: 208

Weekly gain/loss: 0

Overall loss: -1.4

Not sure what I expected with the shitty week I had — didn’t get to the gym as much, didn’t eat well, didn’t even record the junk I was eating. I will never learn that it’s not going to just magically fall off. I need to work harder, that’s all there is to it.

Summer 2013: It’s On.

Vacation time has been approved. Flights will be booked. Sumo pudge will be lost.

200 days to go.

South Padre Island, here I come.

5 Weekly Goals: FAIL

I had goals last week. I failed at all of them. I’m repeating the same goals this week and goal 6 will be to NOT FAIL at all of them. 

Sunday Night Nails: Deborah Lippmann Mermaid’s Dream

I bought this nail polish using my SkinCareRx gift card that I won from That Is All. At $18, Deborah Lippmann’s polish is a wee bit out of my nail polish budget. I had some misgivings about it — reviews said it was gritty from the glitter, and I worried that it would take a million coats for full opacity. Glitters are tricky — sometimes they look so pretty in the bottle and so terrible on your nails. Additionally, I don’t know that I would have bought it without the gift card since it’s seafoam green with bigger blue glitter pieces. I’m more of a soft pink kind of girl. But I figured that even if I couldn’t wear it on my fingers, I could put it on my toes and it would be fun for summer.

I’m so glad I purchased it because I am in love. It’s gorgeous! I got a manicure yesterday (my cuticles were out of control and I’m scared to trim them myself) and the nail tech was raving about the color. Well, he raved after he stopped trying to sell me on a gel manicure. I like gel manicures, and I’ll probably get one before our next vacation, but yesterday I really REALLY wanted this polish on my fingers. So cool it, buddy. If I were painting my nails myself, I probably would have done 3 coats, but even at 2 you can see how pretty this color is. Well worth it, and even better since it was (practically) free.