Barren: A Misadventure

So as the few readers of this blog have noted, I stopped posting for a while.

Why? Well. It’s a looooong story, which I’ll get to in a second. But the short of it is that a lot of stuff has been going on that I wasn’t sure I wanted to blog about. Except this stuff was occupying so much of my mindspace that I didn’t really have anything to talk about if I didn’t talk about it. See what I mean?

You will in a second.

But I miss blogging. I miss the daily mind-dump and having people out there actually reading my musings and—my god!—responding to me.

So here goes nothing.

The long of it is this: as of this past Valentine’s Day, Rod and I started trying to conceive. Within the first few weeks of this trying—this trying basically amounting to sex without birth control (whee!)—I became obsessed. And the face of my obsession? The internet! That seductive world open all hours of the day and night, that labyrinth of articles and forums and purchasable items, that plethora of infertility blogs and parenting rings!

I researched my way from non-drug birth options within the 5 NYC boroughs to swanky crib bedding to tips on city-friendly strollers to solutions to the various dilemmas breastfeeding can pose for the new mama.

I’ve read most of the American Infertility website and each thread on ‘conception over 35’ on the babble.com site.

That first round I bought two ovulation kits and every morning minutes after I woke I crouched on the toilet waiting for the + sign to tell me today was the day that egg was most likely winding her way down my tubes. Except to my horror—and against scientific possibility—I failed to ovulate! The whole month! And still, curiously, my period arrived on time…

Rod learned to say nothing each time I chastised him for drinking an extra glass of wine or for spending a whole ten minutes in the NYSC steam room lest I start bawling. (Although I did catch the eye-rolling on more than a few occasions.)

All of a sudden it seemed everyone I knew was pregnant—two friends due in October, thank you very much; two just gave birth this past February; and my god, the scores of women flitting around Cobble Hill with their bellies jauntily jutting out! Newborns and toddles everywhere! What the fuck was going on, I asked myself.

All I need do is peruse my Firefox bookmark list to see how far it went that first month: an eclectic mix of literary links, NYC book events, yoga blogs and shopping sites morphed into an all-out baby fest. (If you need an organic cloth diaper delivery service in Brooklyn, let me know: I’ve got just the place.)

And then March came and went sans pregnancy. So did April. And now I’m caught in limbo waiting to see what May has to say for itself.

Lucky for me, though, my propensity for anxious obsession is equaled only by my short attention span. And a few weeks ago—well, right after Easter when I found out I was still barren—as suddenly as it started, I abruptly bored of my own neurotic musings.

The turning point came when I stumbled across an acupuncture-for-fertility site that claimed 75% of their clients conceived within 3 to 6 months of treatments. 3 to 6 months! But I hadn’t even been trying for a full three cycles yet! Had I perhaps jumped the gun? (Rod muttered: Gee, you think?)

Plus, well, Spring’s here. Cherry blossoms are in bloom and the lilacs are right around the corner and Rod and I are planning a trip to San Francisco at the end of May where we’ll visit with our best friend/poet/internet security guru Mark and my lovely sibling/poet Gabrielle. I’ve got too much to do to sit around here worrying about whether I waited too long to have kids (I’ll be 35 next January) or if Rod’s sperm motility is woefully low. (Keep in mind he’s still eating extra scallops and avoiding the steam-room and sauna, much to my unending pleasure.)

Besides, if I don’t get pregnant until June then the baby would be due right around our ten-year anniversary and wouldn’t that be something? Wouldn’t it?

But of course the best part is once we do get knocked up we’re pretty much set because I’ve actually already done the research.