There’s News But You’re Gonna Have To Read The Whole Blogpost To Get It

Long time no blog, huh? And boy have I missed it. I guess I just put out so much effort in the Fall with the NaNoWrMo and NaBloWriMo—in which I wrote a 200-page novel and posted daily between November 1 and December 1—that by the time December rolled around I was kaput.

And then the Christmas and Chanukah seasons arrived—yes! in a mixed marriage you get twice the number of holidays! twice the number of presents! twice the food!—and I hibernated and rested and lost any semblance of the rhythm I’d established.

But I wasn’t too hard on myself because I needed to rest. Truth was, I’d been brutal on myself all year. So angry that I couldn’t get pregnant the very first month I’d tried. And the more months that ticked by the angrier I got at my body. Why won’t you do what I want? I demanded it. What was wrong with me? Why wasn’t this happening for us?

So a rest was in order. And even more in order was the calm I felt as I languished at my parents’ Virginia farm: snoozing in front of the fireplace; going on long brisk walks; cooking with my husband and sister; reading novels into the night; drinking raspberry tea constantly.

Why raspberry tea? Because its supposed to help lengthen luteal phase—the time between ovulation and your period. I’d become convinced that my woefully short phase was the reason why I still hadn’t conceived after 11 months of trying.

You see, even though I was calm, I hadn’t given up on the idea of a child. We had started seeing a reproductive endocrinologist in late November who was going to be doing further tests on me after I got my period in January. (This was in addition to the acupuncturist I’d been seeing since the end of September.) So we had a plan, which made me feel better. But still: I ached so much for a child. And in the back of my mind there was still a part of me that felt like this all was some sort of cosmic payback for something I’d done wrong somewhere along the line.

What can I say? I live my life like I’m an opera star.

So: beginning of January. We celebrated the New Year, and then my 35th Birthday (at a wonderful West Village Sushi place) and we started to coast down the long stretch of January.

Meanwhile I waited for my period. Days passed. Then a week. And then one Saturday morning I saw spotting and was devastated. Even though I had been telling myself that it wouldn’t happen again this month and there was no reason to get my hopes up, there was a part of me that was frantically crossing her fingers and blowing on eyelashes and knocking on wood. (I’m not religious but strangely superstitious.)

And then a few more days passed but my period didn’t fully arrive. One evening when Rod made us a pre-dinner snack of cheese and sopressata; the soppressata tasted so foul I barely made it to the trashcan where I spit it out. And that, of course, was a tip off. The rest of the week I watched myself carefully. I did feel nauseated from time to time. My breasts did hurt a little.

We waited a full seven days after that first bit of spotting before I took the test and the entire five minutes while we waited for the results I berated myself for hoping so much. Better not to be attached to the outcome, I reminded myself.

Which was such bullshit because when I finally saw that Plus sign the excited dance I did around the living room shrieking “Yay Yay Yay! I knew it I knew it!” reeked of attachment.

But there you go: this Fall a Little MinervaJane or MinervaJohn will arrive hopefully unscathed and spectacularly healthy.

(Yay!)