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Sunday, August 7, 2011

Enough is Enough

Trying to get pregnant, in my experience, sucks.  There is little pleasure in fornication when in the back of your mind you keep wondering whether or not a life is being created at this very moment.  And then there is the waiting.  The constant checking of the calendar and counting of days, trying to decide how soon you can take a pregnancy test.  The reading and rereading of early pregnancy symptom lists.  The moments of, “Oh!  Was that an ache I just felt in my breast?  Does that mean I’m pregnant?”  Or, “I’m so tired.  Am I pregnant?  Maybe it’s just because I’ve been at a theme park three out of the past five days?”  It’s the not knowing that is so excruciating for me. 
I am truly ridiculous.  Though I try to play it cool and act nonchalant about it, conveying an attitude of “Ah, it will happen when it happens” to the outside world, on the inside I am a wreck.  Every month I check the due date calculator on Babycenter.com to see when my potential baby would be born.  And I plan the exact perfect day to schedule my c-section, thinking about how the timing is pretty great because… I can generally come up with several reasons.  I match the baby that might, maybe be forming inside of me’s astrological sign to my own and to Emma’s to get an idea of how compatible we will be.  And, even though I know that I shouldn’t, I get excited.
Anyone will tell you that you should not get anxious and over analytical when trying to conceive.  “Don’t think about it,” they will coach you.  But to that advice, I say this, “Don’t think about an elephant wearing a pink tutu.”  What is it that you are now thinking about?  That’s what I thought.  Not thinking about something that you are trying to not think about is much easier said than done. 
The chemical pregnancy I experienced two months ago has only amplified my anxieties.  I am as eager as I am terrified to feel a tingle in my breast or a twinge in my abdomen.  Now I am not only wondering whether or not I could be pregnant but also whether or not the pregnancy will stick.  It’s all too much.  This blog is to say, enough is enough.
I often wonder why I feel such a rush to get pregnant.  My original life plan was to wait until Emma is two to even start trying to conceive again.  I don’t know why this sudden rush of baby fever has hit so hard.  Honestly, I know part of my anxiety is hoping to time it out to coincide with the end of the school year.  The next two or three months are really prime baby making time for me.  But I can’t keep living in this tumultuous “I-must-get-pregnant-NOW!” bubble. 
I am implementing a self imposed Babycenter.com ban.  I will not visit the site once.  No more due date calculators.  No more baby horoscopes.  No more message boards with tons of fertile, pregnant women rubbing their success in my face.  No more.  I also refuse to buy any more pregnancy tests until I am actually late getting my period.  No more keeping them under the bathroom sink “just in case” where they can taunt me every time I reach for my makeup.  I am done.  I will force myself to live in the moment.  Maybe I’ll get pregnant.  Maybe I won’t.  But either way, I will be fine.  In the meantime I’ll keep reminding myself about how uncomfortable pregnancy is, and how painful c-section recovery is, and how helpless little newborn babies are, how they wake up every two to three hours all night long to feed, how they expel their body weight in excrement so that the tiny newborn diapers don’t stand a chance and poop ends up in crevices you didn’t realize human beings even had.  There is a lot of unpleasantness that goes along with getting pregnant.  Am I really, intentionally trying to go through all that again?
Yeah, I am.  Because there is a lot of pleasantness as well.  But I’m not thinking about that anymore.  Elephant in a pink tutu, elephant in a pink tutu…….

1 comment:

Sakura said...

umm....thats a yellow tutu :) but I feel your pain :) as soon as you truly stop worrying about it, you will be vomiting and waddling just you wait!