I think MM may need his head examined

MM shared with me at dinner last night that he thinks it would be "really cool" for us to have twins. He's not particular--identical vs. fraternal, boys vs. girls vs. one-of-each--they all sound good to him.

He opined that "it can't be that much more work" than one baby. Ah yes. Spoken by someone who, until about 7 weeks ago, had never even held an infant under 6 months of age and has had EXTREMELY limited contact with babies. MM is an only child, born of two only children, and like most men, he never babysat.

He was disappointed when I didn't jump right in and say I think it'd be "really cool," too. I reminded him that it wouldn't be *his* body carrying, birthing, and nursing two infants at once.

Hmmm. . . .

Yeah, I'm a bad person

(not even gonna post today's weight)

I've been thinking about writing this post for a while, but I've held back because I believe some readers might consider me b1tchy and judgmental. Today, though, I finally decided f$&* it! What's the point of my having a blog if I can't write about the things that are on my mind?

I've mentioned before that I regularly visit the message boards on the site where I do my charting. (fertilityfriend.com, for those interested) I first visited the boards out of curiosity and in search of others who were on the same journey. I still find them interesting and enjoy the support. . . . but I'll admit that one of the big draws for me is what *I* perceive to be the craziness.

Example: a woman posted this morning that she got a positive pregnancy test. "We finally did it!" her post read (among other things). Cool. We should all be happy and excited for her, right?

Except that once I read her signature line. . . . the woman already has 8 children. (This is the part where I come across as b1tchy and judgmental.) I'm sorry, but it is a little hard for me to get excited about someone's NINTH pregnancy! Who even *has* nine kids these days? How can two people adequately parent nine children?

And her use of the word "finally"? Her next-oldest child is not even 2 years old! In my opinion, "finally" should be reserved for use by people who have struggled with trying to get pregnant with their first child for at least a year. I get that a month seems like forever when you're trying to get pregnant--believe me, I get that--but please.

I also thought--again, uncharitably--why does this woman even need to use this site? Clearly she has been able to conceive and carry a pregnancy EIGHT previous times!

There are actually quite a number of ladies posting on the message boards who have at least six children. Personally, the most anyone I know in real life has is 5. . . . and I thought that was a lot!

Another post from a few weeks ago was from a woman who was lamenting the fact that she and her husband were having to borrow $25,000 to go through a second round of in-vitro fertilization. The woman had three children under age 8: two were adopted, and one was her biological child conceived through prior use of IVF.

Those responding to her post were full of support and commiseration: "isn't it awful that insurance doesn't pay for this?" "so sorry for what you're going through," etc. But all I could think was "What the f$%^ are you doing?!"

It is one thing to spend money on IVF (or anything else) if you have the money to spare. Clearly that was not the case here, as the poster was having to finance the procedure. It is something else entirely to spend money on IVF when you already have three children for whose care and futures you are responsible. (As a footnote to this woman's original post, I will mention that I recently read that IVF #2 was unsuccessful, and she is getting ready for IVF #3.)

I get the desire to have a biological child. I do. I also get that people might want more than one biological child. But isn't there a point at which using expensive procedures to achieve this becomes a bit selfish? Where is it written that each of us has a right to have as many biological children as we want? We all certainly have the right to TRY, but shouldn't that be tempered by reason and common sense?

I recently read were someone wrote that paying for IVF is akin to buying a raffle ticket, with the grand prize being a successful pregnancy. Despite what many people think, IVF is NOT a guarantee of pregnancy. In fact, the odds of success with IVF can be quite low, depending upon the age of the parents and their specific infertility issues.

I just don't understand it. I have no children of my own (yet), and *I* wouldn't be willing to go $25K into debt for a CHANCE to have A child. . . . let alone a fourth child.

In addition to things like the two examples I've shared, the boards also have all the usual interpersonal drama that one might expect of any online community.

Is it any wonder why I find them entertaining?

I think I'm defective

There's been something on my mind that I've been hesitant to blog about. Today, for reasons that are unclear to me, I've decided f$^k it! What the hell is the point in my having a blog if I can't vent my feelings here? Geesh.

Back when I made the decision in mid-April , I wrote about the fact that I stopped taking birth control pills (http://lovesseabass.blogspot.com/2008/04/ready.html). I initially went off the pill to let my body return to normal and "gather data" (if you will) about my cycles before MM and I would actively try to get pregnant sometime this fall. As part of my data collection process, I began taking my temperature daily and charting on a well-known website for same (fertilityfriend.com). After a couple of cycles, I decided to add ovulation prediction kits to the mix, just to "get more information" about what my body is doing.

Somewhere between the initial decision to go off the pill in preparation for trying to get pregnant in the fall and today, this enterprise has morphed into MM actively trying to get me pregnant ASAP. I don't know if this is due to MM's desire for instant gratification; my inability to "let go" and not plan things; or the misguided belief we both had that pregnancy happens to people who don't use birth control almost immediately or some combination of these . . . . but my fertility has become a frequent topic of conversation between MM and me and between my closest friends and me, too.

Let me not make this sound as though it's primarily MM's doing. No, I have been wholly complicit in the evolution of the current state of affairs.

As I am now mid-way through my fifth cycle off birth control, I have already come to the realization that I am obviously not one of these women who becomes pregnant at the drop of a hat. At the risk of over-sharing. . . . MM and I have sex almost every day, at least 6 days a week.

I think most people would believe that two adults who have almost daily sex without any form of protection would soon find themselves in a family way. Well, I'm here to tell you: 'tain't so! I know for a fact that MM and I had sex during my "fertile window" the past four months (& this month, but it's too soon to know the outcome there), and I am not pregnant.

All my adult life, I have labored (ha! pun!) under the misconception (ha! another pun!) that unprotected sex would result almost immediately in a pregnancy. I have been extra-careful over many years to take my pill every day and on time, to use condoms, and to keep track of my periods. I have spent sleepless nights worrying on the rare occasions when I didn't use protection for some reason. I am beginning to wonder why I wasted the time, money, and effort on birth control. . . .

I've read the statistics on chances of achieving pregnancy naturally after age 35: according to the most recent study done, 60% of couples will succeed after one year of trying and 85% of couples will achieve pregnancy after two years of trying. We are certainly not outside the norm in having tried for four months and not achieved a pregnancy. I guess I was under the mistaken belief that I would be one of these women who somehow manages to remain super-fertile well into her mid-30's. My thoughts in that regard were not entirely without foundation: both my grandmothers had pregnancies after age 35; my mom and aunt both had unplanned pregnancies, attesting to the fertility of the women in our family.

At this point, I've moved beyond simply being annoyed at not getting near-instant gratification to being genuinely concerned at my lack of fecundity. I'm sure that my advanced age is a factor in this, but I can't help also wondering if something more is wrong, either with me or with MM. That possibility concerns me a great deal.

Neither of us is willing to go to the limits of medical science in order to become parents: we are both opposed to the idea of IVF (not to mention not wanting to spend $10K+ for the mere possibility of having a child); I am unwilling to do anything that involves shooting my body full of hormones (let's face it: I have enough trouble coping with daily life some days as it is!). MM is not particularly interested in the idea of adopting; the primary aim of becoming a parent for him is to have his own child who is genetically related to him. Because we both place significant limitations on the way in which we are willing to become parents, some of the options that might otherwise be available as a path to parenthood for a couple who cannot conceive naturally will not be open to us.

Meanwhile, all around us, people are getting pregnant and having babies. Just since I went off the pill--only a little over 4 months--three friends have announced their pregnancies and two have given birth. MM's surveillance officer partner's wife is pregnant with their second child. . . and the felons who MM supervises are regularly impregnating their partners. (MM was telling me last week that one of his probationers has been out of jail only 3 weeks and has already managed to knock up his girlfriend. They are both 19, and she has one child already with a different father.)

Although I've been overweight to some degree or another my entire adult life, I've always had a perception of myself as healthy. My "failure" to get pregnant quickly and easily has shaken that perception.

Also, I've never before had a goal that I can really do little to work toward. MM and I have done everything "right" for four months: well-timed intercourse; I've totally given up alcohol and nearly completely given up caffeine; I've been eating healthfully and exercising regularly; I take daily multivitamins and fish oil supplements. And still nothing.

ANYWAY. . . . I am not looking for advice on how to maximize our chances of conception--God knows, I have devoted hours to research of this subject over the past few months, so I doubt there's much anyone reading this can tell me that I don't already know. I am CERTAINLY not looking for anyone to tell me "relax, it'll happen." (In fact, I'd be apt to bitch-slap anyone who tells me this or its corollary: "it'll happen when you least expect it!" Please.)

Just wanted to get these feelings out there.

Odd dream

208.2

I have had a busy day at work, and something really crap-tastic happened this morning that I don't even want to get into.  I am hopeful that it will be resolved.  (I was actually sobbing in my car on the way to a deposition; crying for anything is VERY unusual for me!  My sister opined that perhaps it was PMS causing me to over-react.  I'm not sure, but I am rarely that emotional over ANYTHING.)

Before my day went off the skids, I woke up with the vivid memory of an odd dream.  In my dream, I was staying with friends in a large house.  It wasn't entirely clear who the friends were or where the house was located, but the house itself was sort-of a hybrid between the Rocky Point beach house we visited a couple of weeks ago and my sister's Outer Banks beach house. . . but I don't think I was at the beach in the dream.  Anyway, it was a large house with many bedrooms.

For reasons that are equally unclear, MM was sleeping in a different room from me.  In the dream, I was pregnant and within 3-4 weeks of delivering.  I woke up (in the dream), placed my hands on my abdomen, and realized I wasn't pregnant anymore.  At just about that same moment, a friend of mine from college (let's call him "D") appeared at my bedside holding a newborn wrapped in a blue receiving blanket.  (The friend who was holding the baby is not someone that I ever talk to and rarely even think of!  Our only contact since 1994 has been one email exchange via classmates.com over a year ago.)

"D" proudly presented my baby boy to me and explained that I had "delivered during the night."  He assured me that it was such an easy delivery that I didn't even wake up.  (HA!)  He said that he'd weighed and measured the baby and that he was perfectly normal.  Although D is not a doctor, in real life or in the dream (he's a computer engineer in real life), I accepted this very matter-of-factly and inquired no further.

Everyone around me was calling my baby "James."  Now James is a fine name, but it's not one I would ever choose for my son, for the simple reason that it was my stepfather's name.  My father, who raised me from age 9 on and had no love for my stepdad, would blow a gasket if I named a baby James!  (Aside: my sister briefly toyed with the idea of using our stepdad's surname as a name for her son--it's a lovely name that would've been wholly appropriate--but didn't use it for the same reason I've outlined here.  ;-) )

I couldn't tell my friends what the baby's name actually was, though, because MM and I had not yet decided between "Alexander" and "Colin" prior to the birth.  And MM didn't want to wake up to see the baby; he wanted to sleep and said he could see him later. (!)  So everyone kept calling him James, even when I said it wasn't his name.

The baby was obviously MM's.  He looked exactly like pictures I have seen of MM as a newborn: lots of blonde hair and blue-eyed.  Kinda your typical little Norwegian-American baby.

My ex-boyfriend R--who I have not been with since late 1996--was in the dream also.  Somehow I came to understand that R and I had a baby together who was only a few months older than the newborn, certainly less than six months old. . . . though that is physically impossible!  In addition to the fact that you can't give birth from two separate pregnancies twice in the same year, in real life, R is married and has had a vasectomy.  R's baby didn't live with me, and I don't know where s/he lived; s/he looked like R, though.  (R is Navajo, so he and MM look distinctly different.)

Then the scene changed, and I was with my newborn in an upscale 4-star restaurant in Chicago.  We were waiting to be seated and served, and we were alone.  I had no diaper bag or purse or anything else. . . . just the little "bundle" in my arms.  As we were waiting for the maitre'd to return, the baby started crying.  It was clear that he was hungry, and I had no bottle to give him.  I decided he needed to be nursed and that it wouldn't be a good idea to breast-feed in the waiting area of a 4-star restaurant, so we left and started walking the streets.  I have no clue where MM (or my friends) were at this point!

Dreams are weird.  I suppose a dream analyst could have a field day with this one!