Please welcome our newest columnist — we’re calling her The Wannabe Mom, because that’s exactly what she is. She’s been trying to conceive for more than a year and was recently diagnosed with unexplained infertility.
She and her husband live and work in Champaign, and they desperately want to drive a Toyota Sienna minivan someday. We’ll be following her journey, so buckle up and get ready to cry with her — and cheer her on, too.
By The Wannabe Mom
We had big plans for Easter Sunday. We were going to announce our pregnancy to our family and friends at our annual Easter gathering.
I planned to bring two bright-yellow plastic eggs with our sonogram pictures folded into each of them. I was going to give one to each of our moms. And, then I would watch with tears in my eyes as they cracked the eggs and squealed with delight at the thought of their first grand-baby being born only months from now. Instead, I brought mashed potatoes for our moms and everybody else.
And, a bottle of wine for myself.
I had the same big plans for Christmas. Sonogram pictures in their stockings. On Christmas morning, they each opened Snuggies. And, pretended to love them.
Halloween. My plan was to go wearing this ridiculous cardboard oven with a bun in it. I was going to force my hubby to wear a baker’s hat and apron. I couldn’t wait to see the look on our friends’ faces as we shouted those three big words, “WE ARE PREGNANT!” We went as Popeye and Olive-Oyl instead.
My Olive Oyl bun-wig made my head itch all night.
You catch my drift. None of these fabulous pregnancy-announcement-plans ever came to fruition. For months…every 25, 26, 27, 28 days…I start my period. I cry (sob). I spit and curse (like I’m possessed). And, then I re-energize and reboot (like a super-trooper) for the next cycle. It’s something I’m learning lots of women do, but just don’t talk much about.
Are you living your life in two-week increments? Are you crying all the way home from a friend’s baby shower? Or are you tearing up every time someone Tweets or Facebooks, “We’re expecting!”? I am, and it’s like taking a bullet every time.
Growing up in a strict Catholic household, I always thought if I had unprotected sex I’d be pregnant immediately (and struck by lightening, too). Turns out, I can have unprotected sex out every which way and…nada…zip…doesn’t work for me.
For 15 months, every other day or every day, in every position. With Pre-Seed or not. With Instead cups, and don’t even get me started on that mess. With orgasm or not. Praying — begging — to my Higher Power or hating Him
The charting, the temping, reading every fertility book and online message board. Peeing on hundreds of dollars of home pregnancy sticks. Can a girl get a home-pregnancy test tax credit?
And still — nothing.
So, we’re getting help. We’re seeing a reproductive endocrinologist. We’re doing test after test after test. And, now, I’m taking drug after drug after drug. Trying with all my might for two weeks and then holding my breath (and my Prometrium suppositories high and tight) for the next two weeks. Over and over and over again.
This Easter Sunday we went to the hospital bright and early for our Cycle Day 3 Sonogram. The good new: I don’t have any cysts and we have a good lead follicle. The bad news: no grandma-to-be wants to see a sonogram picture of just a follicle folded up into a yellow plastic Easter egg.
On our way home, I had one great Easter egg filled with white and yellow crème. As I ate that tasty chocolate egg, I swallowed my tears right along with it — and chased it down with 2.5 mg of Femara.
So, we wait. And, maybe — just maybe — I’ll have big plans for Mother’s Day.