meh

It's Day 15 and I've just reached my peak fertile hurry-up-and-bone day.

Yep. God only knows what all is happening up in my Lady Parts, but we certainly have a surge of luteinizing hormone, and that's something, at least. Our new insurance kicks in about a week and a half from now, and then I suppose I can go harass some more doctors about my defunct vagina.

Meanwhile, a number of irritating things are happening. Nothing major, just minor annoyances that add up to make me feel bitchy. I'm sorry this isn't one of those uplifting infertility blogs where the girl just keeps plugging away optimistically until her vagina is like, FINE BITCH, you can have a baby.

Nope. It's not. Because I let things get to me. Let's list them! All the things! Ok, here we go.

- Weight loss. Dudes. Losing weight is hard. I've been on this diet that's making me a little stabby. You eat a combination of lean protein and complex carbs SIX TIMES A DAY. Planning for meals on this diet is stressful. And I am not especially enjoying the food. Meh.

- One of my facebook friends who announced her pregnancy at the same time I was miscarrying this last pregnancy. Normally I find her funny and awesome, but now I am inexplicably irritated by her. Today she said she is going to Disneyland and will be 25 weeks pregnant at the time and asked what shoes she should wear. I don't think anyone is going to have anything particularly insightful to say to her about this. You'll be pregnant. Wear comfortable shoes, for godssakes.

- Pregnitude. Really, Pregnitude? Ya couldn't come up with a better name than Pregnitude? As if being infertile weren't already demeaning enough, companies come up with the most irritating names for their products. That said, I've just ordered a box of Pregnitude, since lately the internet has been singing its praises. Let's face it: I will try fucking anything at this point. 

- Exercise. Exerting myself is not my favorite. Yes, I am lazy.

- Cleaning the shower. Worst chore ever.

- Former infertiles who forget everything about what it was like to be infertile because now they have babies and everything's awesome. It's really not their faults, because I would be exactly the same way. Who wants to dwell on the past when now you have a baby? Let's just call this what it is: Jealousy.

- Do I plan a vacation or not plan a vacation? Is it presumptuous of me to assume I might be pregnant at the time of said vacation? Yes, maybe. Is it possible to take a vacation if I'm pregnant? Sure. Problems, though: I don't want to be sick on vacation, and I don't want to fly in the first trimester (advice from Making Babies), and -- oh yeah -- I don't want to miscarry on vacation. But I will hate myself if I don't go on vacation, so fuck it. We're going.

- Articles with headlines like: "Father's Age is Linked to Risk of Autism and Schizophrenia." There's no turning back time, folks! Time to throw the dice and see how they land.

I'm sure that is quite enough bitching and moaning for today. I hope to return shortly and report on the wonders of Pregnitude ...

Relax; la deuxième partie

Thank you Google Translate, first of all. I'm no Francophone -- I know bonjour, merci, and adieu. Oh, and baguette. Definitely baguette.

Speaking of which, if you're ever in France, never actually speak to the French unless they are speaking to you first, and if you are speaking to them, always say bonjour first. This is some kind of ingrained weird French thing where if you don't say bonjour they basically hate your fucking guts, regardless of whether or not you are a stinking American (said in French accent).

Related: Why are we all so fricking terrified of the French? We are terrified of rude people, is that it? And why are the French so off-putting? I mean, stereotypically, anyway. I've known perfectly nice French people, and I assume they are the exceptions.

I'm off topic, as usual. What I'm writing about today is this book I'm reading. It's called "Bringing Up Bebe; One American Mother Discovers the Wisdom of French Parenting." I realize it's utterly ridiculous for me to be reading this, since I have zero children and my womb is still empty. I should be reading more books about how to have sex and make babies, right? (Speaking of which: Kudos to the asshole anonymous commenter in my last post who asked if I'm "fucking enough." There aren't enough capital letters in the universe to express how I felt when I read that comment. But I'm going to give it a shot, anyway. DO YOU MEAN TO TELL ME I'M SUPPOSED TO BE HAVING SEX IN ORDER TO CONCEIVE A CHILD?! I THOUGHT IF MY HUSBAND AND I HELD HANDS AND RUBBED OUR EYEBALLS TOGETHER THAT WOULD DO THE TRICK. NO?? If my sarcasm does not make it clear, I will now be blunt: Fuck the fuck off, and do not come back.)

Well, I figure one way or another, I'm having a kid. Doesn't matter how. And I have been hearing and reading so much about this book, that I just had to read it. The author says French kids are well-behaved. They sit quietly at tables in restaurants and eat regular food; not deep fried "kid food," they are polite, and overall they are the masters of the universe. I wanted to know how and why. Because American kids are nuttybars. Everywhere I go people's kids are going batshit insane. There is no quiet meal. There is no peaceful play. Everything is crazypants.

And I'm learning a lot. Some of it I agree with and some of it is bull shit. But early on in the book, something the author said struck a chord with me. She wrote about how American women obsess over things. Everything, really. And pregnancy, especially. An American woman gets pregnant and she's got to read every damn thing ever written on the topic to make sure she doesn't do anything wrong and eats all the right stuff and does the right exercises and buys all the right things. Unsurprisingly, the French are much more laid back about pregnancy (and everything, really. It's difficult to imagine a French person getting overly-excited about anything).

And I realized I, myself, have been crazypants over this whole having a baby thing. Sure, it's been a long time since I initially started trying, and yes, there was a miscarriage, and holy shit yes it does make me anxious being 33 and not having any babies. Zero. I had to go and read every book and every web site and every blog ever written on the topic. I know way too much about every possible female reproductive issue that exists. I know way too much about cervical mucus. I charted temperatures and peed on sticks every day for months and, perhaps not least of all, I started this blog with two other women who were (and still are) in similar situations.

I've toned it down considerably, and it makes me feel so much saner. Things work out; they just do. Even if it doesn't seem to work out, it does. I haven't even been able to read any more books on fertility. I scaled my read-list of fertility blogs down to a select few women who I feel close to now. Ironically, they've almost all managed to get pregnant, although not all have stayed that way. I don't chart temperatures, and when it comes to the dreaded mucus, I simply take note and carry on. There is certainly no peeing on sticks, except for once a month when I do break down and take a pregnancy test. My period usually starts about ten minutes later.

My whole point, if there is one in this diatribe, is we all need to relax. I know. I've gone and said it. I'm not saying to put your head in the sand and act like pregnancy is just going to happen out of the blue. I'm just saying all this over-learning and obsessing isn't helping anything. At all. It turns us into basket cases. I want to relax for a few more months, and if nothing's happening, it's time for plan B. But I'm not going to obsess over plan B. I can't. Plan A made me nuts and there's no more room for more insanity in my brain than I've already shoved in there. So let's relax for a bit, eh? Oui? 

Drinking like a pregnant person

For starters, I have to share one story. Over the weekend someone asked me if my husband and I are planning on having children. I accept that people are going to ask me this even if they barely know me, as was the case this time. It's simply something humans do, inquiring after each other's procreational intentions. My blanket response is: "We're working on it," which is what I said this time. The person asked me how long we'd been working on it. I said, "A while." She said, "Oh, then you should stop trying! Then I'm sure it would happen. You know, because of all the stress that builds up in your body."

I think I said, "I know, right?" But I was thinking of an infertility blog I sometimes check in at that's titled, "Just Stop Trying And It Will Happen." The title is obviously hyperbolic and represents one of the infertility community's most detested pieces of advice. That, along with "Are you sure you're doing it right?"

Our favorite response to this one is: "You mean the penis is supposed to go in the vagina?!"

So anyway. That's not what this post is about today; that was just a little anecdote to whet your appetite.

What today's post is about is how I've stopped drinking caffeine and alcohol. In the circles I hang out, this has not gone unnoticed. I love me some wine. And coffee, for that matter.

So let's start with coffee. Here are some bullet-pointed nuggets from Making Babies:

- Caffeine can decrease the flow of blood to the uterus, which can interfere with implantation.
- Too much caffeine may increase the risk of clotting and miscarriage.
- Coffee is acidic and can make the body and the cervical mucus acidic, too. Several studies have concluded that coffee (with or without caffeine) diminishes fertility. A recent large Dutch study determined that four cups of coffee a day lowered a woman's chances of having a baby by more than 25 percent -- comparable to the damage done by smoking, being overweight, or having three or more alcoholic drinks a week.
- Some studies have linked coffee and low sperm count.

And alcohol:

- Some studies show even low levels of alcohol can cut fertility by as much as one-half.
- One large study concluded that women who had fewer than five drinks a week were twice as likely to get pregnant in a given six-month period compared to women who drank more.
- Another study demonstrated that men who drank alcohol regularly took twice as long to get their partners pregnant as men who didn't drink at all.
- Alcohol is toxic to sperm, and overuse can reduce sperm quality, increase abnormal sperm, and lower motility. Men who drink have been shown to have lower sperm counts and lower testosterone.
- In women alcohol can be  a risk factor for ovulatory infertility.
- Alcohol also interferes with the body's ability to absorb nutrients from food. That includes zinc, which is key for male fertility in particular.
- Alcohol interferes with the action of folic acid as well, which plays an important role in the maturation of an egg for ovulation.
- Alcohol acidifies the body, including the cervical mucus. If the mucus gets to acidic, sperm can't survive in it, and so can't reach the egg.

These are good things to remember, that I'm constantly "forgetting." It's so much easier to just take some extra supplements than it is to turn down a glass of wine at a party; believe me, I know. But the payoff just might be worth it. 

Taming The Tiger Known As Stress

I have no doubt that the fight-or-flight response is useful when facing life-or-death danger. Problem is my brain can’t tell the difference between deadline pressure and a wild-animal-is-about-to-eat-me-alive danger. My stress button is broken.

This became really clear last year when my anxiety train jumped its tracks. I started to worry, and I couldn’t stop. I often woke up in a panic and couldn’t sleep.

Once when talking with Erin about this, she asked what my anxiety felt like. I think I responded, “It feels like the hands of fear are grasping my heart and won’t let go.” I wasn’t exaggerating. It was terrible.

Thankfully, I’m mostly better now. Circumstances changed and so did my perspective. But I still feel crazy waves of stress hormones flood my body on an all-too regular basis. (I’m sure you do, too. We’re kind of a stressed-out nation.)

In addition to making me feel sick to my stomach, stress hormones --- namely adrenaline and cortisol --- also screw with fertility in a major way. Our bodies were designed to not get pregnant while under chronic stress. Our bodies don’t know that today’s chronic stress might mean too many emails in the inbox, not an actual lack of food, water and shelter.

Anyway, I’m trying to let my body know everything is OK. It can stand down, take a deep breath, relax. If police officers, fire fighters or medical personnel aren’t needed, it’s probably not an emergency.

My latest remedy for stress is beauty. I’m consciously surrounding myself with as much loveliness as possible.

By beauty, I mean simple things, like a clean kitchen, a well-fitted sweater, a cup of fresh berries, a piece of jewelry or a pretty scarf. I might even start painting my nails.

The idea is to embrace any tiny luxury that can relay to my panicky subconscious that the world isn’t coming apart at the seams. I mean if I was really about to be eaten alive by a tiger would I worry about the dishes in the sink, would I take a moment to apply lipstick or arrange a flower in a vase?

I think on some level all these little gestures signal times of peace and cue relaxation. My overly-stressed body and mind need to hear loud and clear that the future is bright and needs babies to fill it.

How to know you're really, really not pregnant

I'm only on my third month of tracking my basal body temperature, but it's been long enough to show me something is completely whack.

I think pictures will speak better than I can to illustrate what's going on here, so please take a look at these three cycles I tracked and tell me if they even look like they're from the same person. 

This first cycle, I started on Day 10. Which - I know - not ideal to give you the big picture, but it does still show a lot of wild temperature ranges. If I had to guess, I'd say I ovulated on Day 17, if I ovulated at all.

 This is the second month I tracked, and so far the most "normal" looking chart I have, even with all of the roller-coastering happening in the luteal phase. In this cycle, it looks like I ovulated on Day 14, but the temperature kept spiking and dropping, indicating a possible progesterone deficiency.

And here I am on Day 22 of this very special cycle. I ovulated (maybe) on Day 17, followed by a big temperature drop - probably not a good thing. This is probably considered a monophasic cycle, since the temperatures are all very similar; as you can see, they're all hovering around 98 degrees. There's a distinct possibility in this cycle that I did not ovulate at all.

Temperature charting makes trying to conceive rather frustrating. Because on one hand, I've got The Machine, which is basically shouting at me: YOU'RE FERTILE! HAVE SEX NOW! I SAW THE RIGHT HORMONES SO YOU REALLY ARE GONNA OVULATE, YUP!

And so I do. And then I see ovulation occurring on the chart, which is great. And then the next day the temperature drops and from there on out starts doing its customary boomeranging.

So again, I ain't pregnant. I say this with 98 percent certainty. I don't feel pregnant (although I know, I know, I'm only five days post-ovulation) and my chart is saying "not gonna happen this cycle, sweetheart."

Which is why I've decided that after this cycle, when the certainty of non-pregnancy has reared its ugly Red Head once again, I am stashing The Machine and the thermometer and the charts and all that other crap in a cupboard somewhere and I'm going to ignore it for one cycle. I'll continue supplements, but that's it.

Otherwise, my brain is going to break. Or my heart. Or both.

I've been advised a couple of things, by multiple people.

The first is to relax, which I know all of us who are trying to conceive hate to hear. Relax and it will happen! Look: I am so relaxed that in order for me to be more relaxed, I would need to take tranquilizers and sit in the back yard with a pitcher of margaritas. I work from home, doing stuff I love, I have the best husband in the world, etc. But I get the gist of what they're saying -- they're saying Stop being so hard on yourself. Stop worrying about this for five minutes and think about something else. So I'm gonna. For one cycle.

The second piece of advice I've received is: Go to the doctor. So, look. Eventually I will go to the doctor. But seeing as how I have a deep mistrust of doctors and I suspect that my cycles will start to even out once I lose more weight (7 pounds and counting!), I just don't want to yet. I still have this hope that this will all happen naturally and I won't have to deal with medication or needles or any of that. That may not be the case, but I need to spend the time to find out on my own. Additionally, my insurance is changing so right now's not a good time to be going to the doctor or getting pregnant, anyway.

So I'm really looking forward to my Cycle of Freedom. I'm not going to check for cervical mucus. I'm going to have sex when I want to, not when that infernal Machine tells me to. I'm not going to take my temperature and obsess over spikes and dips. Instead, I'm going to let Jillian Michaels beat the shit out of me during the 30-Day Shred. I'm going to resume my 5K training. I'm going to keep eating fruit and vegetables as though they were absolutely the most wonderful things I'd ever tasted pleasegodineedacheeseburger.

And at the end of that cycle, I'll pull out my stash of fertility helpers and start peeing on sticks again and taking my temperature every morning and checking my mucus and maybe, oh, maybe, my body will behave.