December 31st, 2009
So, lately I have been in reproductive pit of despair (as the subject line indicates)
I am 30, I have PCOS, I have a temp job and crap insurance.
I feel like I am wasting (or have already wasted) my allotment of fertility over years and years of having shitty insurance that doesn't support fertility treatment, or mates that don't support my wish to reproduce.
Meanwhile, it seems that any reject that forgets to take her pill one time is knocked up.
This leads me to have reproductive jealousy.
Granted, I am not actively trying to conceive since this would put me & my husband into a pit of financial despair and that is a post for another time.
Some days, I long to worry about remembering to take a birth control pill, or "did that condom break??" or "Oh no! My period is late!!" (my period is almost always late). I could construct a small mansion out of the negative pregnancy tests I have taken over the years. Each one a glimmer of hope, dashed at the appearance of just one line.
Surprisingly, a very late period can usually be coaxed out of hiding by taking a pregnancy test. I find that after about 51 days out, a pregnancy test is a good way to get everything back on track.
I stopped reading about trying to conceive, and natural remedies and warning signs...blah blah blah.
All this reading leads to thinking. Thinking which leads to worrying: "Oh my God, did my ovary just explode?" "Oh my God, I am pregnant, but my hormone levels are too low and not triggering the chemical in the Walgreens brand pregnancy test!" (Yeah, I switched to store brand. Less costly.) This worrying would usually lead to doctor's visits, however, since I have shitty insurance (lets call it a "medical discount plan" because that's really what it is. It rewards you for seeing your GP and OB/GYN and punishes you for getting double ear infections, sinusitis and a throat infection on Labor Day, which warranted a trip to the ER...but, I digress...) I would stew in my worry, and this would - I'm assuming - cause my period to be late.
Ah, my period. If my cycle was a person, it would wear a helmet all the time and give strangers great big hugs. It would lick glass and burn itself on the stove, even after being told "No! Hot!" repeatedly.
When I worry, my cycle says "She thinks she's pregnant. So, let's pretend we're pregnant!" It's like a game.
It's only over when I take the test, and cycle says "Whoops! The jig is up! Open the flood gates!"
I know that being in this funk about my reproductive health is irrational.
I don't tell other people how I feel because I don't want them to think I am crazy and obsessed.
I worry how I will react when my friends start to have kids before I do.
I suppose I am lucky that half my friend circle has already had their kids.
I am more worried about people I don't care for getting pregnant, and that they will rub it in my face: "Look! I got pregnant! All I had to do was go off the pill, just for one cycle and bam! Instant fetus!"
I can't really imagine anyone doing this to me, well, because I obviously don't talk to those people and they don't know that I am secretly in competition with them to breed first.
There is a couple that are friends of mine, they got married a few months after me and I remember talking to her about her plans to procreate and she said that a month before she got married, she went to her OB/GYN to discuss "Preparations" for pregnancy. You know, the normal thing that women without reproductive retardation do.
This plan included a timeline for going off the pill, taking prenatal vitamins and waiting for the blessed event.
As she told me this, I was boiling on the inside.
She has no idea I probably will never get pregnant "the old fashioned way", so she had no reason to not talk about it. It's usual married person talk (so I am told.
All I could think about is "If she's pregnant by Christmas, I am just going to die."
Well, the good news is that it's 12/31/2009 - and I haven't gotten an invite to her baby shower yet.
Keeping my fingers crossed that her ovaries didn't make it back through customs after her honeymoon.
I am 30, I have PCOS, I have a temp job and crap insurance.
I feel like I am wasting (or have already wasted) my allotment of fertility over years and years of having shitty insurance that doesn't support fertility treatment, or mates that don't support my wish to reproduce.
Meanwhile, it seems that any reject that forgets to take her pill one time is knocked up.
This leads me to have reproductive jealousy.
Granted, I am not actively trying to conceive since this would put me & my husband into a pit of financial despair and that is a post for another time.
Some days, I long to worry about remembering to take a birth control pill, or "did that condom break??" or "Oh no! My period is late!!" (my period is almost always late). I could construct a small mansion out of the negative pregnancy tests I have taken over the years. Each one a glimmer of hope, dashed at the appearance of just one line.
Surprisingly, a very late period can usually be coaxed out of hiding by taking a pregnancy test. I find that after about 51 days out, a pregnancy test is a good way to get everything back on track.
I stopped reading about trying to conceive, and natural remedies and warning signs...blah blah blah.
All this reading leads to thinking. Thinking which leads to worrying: "Oh my God, did my ovary just explode?" "Oh my God, I am pregnant, but my hormone levels are too low and not triggering the chemical in the Walgreens brand pregnancy test!" (Yeah, I switched to store brand. Less costly.) This worrying would usually lead to doctor's visits, however, since I have shitty insurance (lets call it a "medical discount plan" because that's really what it is. It rewards you for seeing your GP and OB/GYN and punishes you for getting double ear infections, sinusitis and a throat infection on Labor Day, which warranted a trip to the ER...but, I digress...) I would stew in my worry, and this would - I'm assuming - cause my period to be late.
Ah, my period. If my cycle was a person, it would wear a helmet all the time and give strangers great big hugs. It would lick glass and burn itself on the stove, even after being told "No! Hot!" repeatedly.
When I worry, my cycle says "She thinks she's pregnant. So, let's pretend we're pregnant!" It's like a game.
It's only over when I take the test, and cycle says "Whoops! The jig is up! Open the flood gates!"
I know that being in this funk about my reproductive health is irrational.
I don't tell other people how I feel because I don't want them to think I am crazy and obsessed.
I worry how I will react when my friends start to have kids before I do.
I suppose I am lucky that half my friend circle has already had their kids.
I am more worried about people I don't care for getting pregnant, and that they will rub it in my face: "Look! I got pregnant! All I had to do was go off the pill, just for one cycle and bam! Instant fetus!"
I can't really imagine anyone doing this to me, well, because I obviously don't talk to those people and they don't know that I am secretly in competition with them to breed first.
There is a couple that are friends of mine, they got married a few months after me and I remember talking to her about her plans to procreate and she said that a month before she got married, she went to her OB/GYN to discuss "Preparations" for pregnancy. You know, the normal thing that women without reproductive retardation do.
This plan included a timeline for going off the pill, taking prenatal vitamins and waiting for the blessed event.
As she told me this, I was boiling on the inside.
She has no idea I probably will never get pregnant "the old fashioned way", so she had no reason to not talk about it. It's usual married person talk (so I am told.
All I could think about is "If she's pregnant by Christmas, I am just going to die."
Well, the good news is that it's 12/31/2009 - and I haven't gotten an invite to her baby shower yet.
Keeping my fingers crossed that her ovaries didn't make it back through customs after her honeymoon.
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