What Am I Doing with My Life?

I just spent an entire day indoors, working on my computer. A glorious late-summer day it was, too, in the 70s with warm sunshine and low humidity and brilliant blue skies. All day, as the time was passing, I was longing to be outside, and conscious that this day would never come again. And now it's gone.

The reason I was chained to my desk was that I stupidly said yes to a bunch of different freelance projects at different times, and they all arrived on top of one another and are due soon, so I'm pretty much working all weekend. Sometimes the freelance life really gets me down. It has allowed me to maintain a decent income after I cut my hours back to half-time at my regular job, and I get to spend a lot more time with my daughter this way, and we save money on childcare. But it often means that I don't get any time off. In the evenings when other people are relaxing in front of the TV with their feet up, that's when I have to go to work - even though I spent the day taking care of my daughter and cleaning the house and running errands and cooking, and I'd like to rest too. Sometimes I find myself really looking forward to the weekend just because the freelance work is piling up and it will be my chance to crank through some of it while my husband babysits.

I weigh this lifestyle against the alternative all the time. If I was a normal person, with a full-time job, I'd be enjoying a three-day weekend. I'd have gone out to spend the day with my husband and daughter - they rode the train, went to the playground, had lunch downtown. We'd have had fun together. Then we'd have come home and the two of us could chat, or read, or whatever while she napped. Then we could have a family dinner and go watch our Netflix after she was in bed. A great day.

Instead, I just worked on the computer for 12 hours more or less straight, with breaks to get a cup of tea or eat junk food. Once I went out on our deck and breathed in the sunlight and fresh air for a few minutes, leaning on the railing with my face raised, and tried to just absorb some of the day through my pores. Then I went back inside.

And for what? I don't earn very much freelancing, no more than I do at my jobby job. But once I've agreed to do an assignment, I have to follow through with it. And when I'm offered one, I'm always scared that if I turn it down, they'll never call me again. So I get myself into these fixes. Yesterday was like today, and tomorrow will be the same. All for a little bit of money, when I would rather have had the day.

Fongo Fever

I have discovered a new dish that I love. Last week, we took a quick vacation to Puerto Rico, and I ordered this every single night. It is

MOFONGO!

It's basically mashed, fried plantains stuffed with fried meat or vegetables. It's often served in a big wooden mug, like the kind of thing a pirate would sip grog from. It's kind of like baked potato, or yucca, or taro (all of which I love), but even better. Each night, I had a stomachache from eating too much mofongo, but it was totally worth it.

Yesterday I bought plantains and tried cooking them myself. My husband laughed at me as soon as he came in the door and saw me frying them: "Someone's got the fever for the fongo!... Haven't you learned your lesson?" But it would take more than a stomachache to deter me from eating this stuff.

As it happened, I bought the wrong kind - ripe ones; they turned out good, but they're sweet like baked banana. The starchy flavor and texture I liked was from green ones. So I'll pick up some more and continue my experiments in the kitchen soon. Wish me luck!

Happy Fifth!

Wow, I've been keeping this blog for five years now! I am amazed. I didn't think I'd stay interested in it that long. I figured either I would get sad that no one reads my posts, and give up, or I'd get nervous that too many people read my posts, and go silent. Well, I am a little sad that no one reads my posts (snif!). Except for my one loyal and awesome reader who knows who she is.

I wonder what the secret is for getting lots of readers. Maybe having a wild and interesting life? But some people just write about their kids and post pictures of the new lamp that they ordered from a catalog and get 1000 comments a day. Being terribly funny? That's beyond me, although I can be wry or funny in an unintentional, tripping over my own feet way. Emailing real-life contacts and asking them to read the blog? But then I wouldn't be able to write about them behind their backs.

Perhaps the secret is reading other people's blogs and posting comments on them. But I do that sometimes, and never get a return visit. Realistically, I will have to just keep deriving satisfaction from writing this blog and not from hopes of being "heard."

I read my first entry and had to laugh. I was being so coy. I don't have a sister! And my middle name is not even Phoenix, though it would be great if it was. Anyway, I look back on the person I was five years ago and I've definitely changed. As I read those early entries, I see how desperate I was to be liked. I was nervous that no one - my boyfriend, my coworkers, my friends - liked me enough and I was going around trying to be really sweet and appealing so that they would. I'm not so much like that any more. I feel stronger inside and more capable of shrugging things off.

There was also an element of hopelessness and fear in some of the early entries, because I wanted things (marriage, a house, kids) that seemed unattainable. And now I have them. I am just rolling around in those riches every day. Really, I am much happier for having them, just as I knew I would be, and the fact that I got the things I wanted so much makes me feel a bit more secure. Plus, motherhood has given me a self-esteem boost because I've learned how to do all these things I never had experience with before, and I'm endlessly capable and magic in my child's eyes. Even though I'm ranting and raving these days about being infertile, secretly it's not throwing me too badly. I feel confident that I'm going to overcome it and either manage to conceive or manage to be OK with a one-child family.

I wrote a lot more about what I was reading, back in the early days. I still find time to read nowadays, mostly on the train to work. I should write more about that. Right now I'm rereading Heart's Blood by Jane Yolen. I feel like she is really writing about a real place, the details are so well worked out. I can feel the hot shimmery desert sun, and see the fields of burnwort, and hear the dragons houghing and smell the heaps of fewmets the bondboys are shoveling. I wonder how much time she put into imagining all that stuff, before she even started writing the story.

I also used to write a lot about cleaning, and how guilty I felt for doing that instead of going out and being an interesting person. As though some invisible outside presence was going to judge me for not being well rounded enough. I don't worry about that any more. I still like cleaning, and I still spend way more time at home than I do expanding my horizons, but it's all right with me.

All in all, it's been a good five years.

Vicarious Happiness

My friend is pregnant! The one who has been going to the same fertility clinic as me. Back when I found out she was receiving fertility treatment too, I wrote that if only one of us could succeed, it should be her. And she's done it. She actually got pregnant just a couple of days after our heart-to-heart. When she told me today, I was so happy and excited I was jumping up and down. She's like a sister to me, and there's no one I know who's more deserving of the chance to be a mom. She's very worried that she'll miscarry and hasn't told anyone yet, besides her husband and mother. But I have this joyful, calm certainty that it will all be just fine.

I wish I was pregnant too. (Duh. That's like the duh statement of the year.) The day that I ovulated all on my own, back at the beginning of July, was the same day that I knew she was having her IUI, and I had this wild hope that we would both get pregnant on that same day and go through the whole experience side by side. I imagined raising our babies together and having them be like siblings, or at least cousins.

Now that she's succeeded, and I haven't, I feel like I'm watching her run away down a racetrack while I got left at the starting gate. I should be running down that track too. It feels wrong that I'm still stuck here and can't, due to various factors, even start my own treatment for two more months.

I was genuinely, thoroughly happy for her for about three hours, with not even a flicker of anything else - and the joy of her pregnancy was on my mind continuously during that time. But then around midafternoon I started to feel a sadness creeping up on me. I ought to just be simply happy for her. It's stupid to feel that twinge of sadness and envy. It'll be my turn eventually, I hope. But I want it now.

It's almost as though the universe was listening when I made my bargain that if only one of us could get pregnant, it should be her. Well? the universe is saying. You got your wish. And I feel greedy and selfish all over again because even though she did get pregnant, I want to be too.

Cutting Some Slack

Today I was thinking about that standard list of things that people say to women who are dealing with infertility, that are intended to be nice but are actually hurtful - you know, "maybe it's for the best," and so on. And the general gushing that people do who aren't infertile, basking in babylove, talking about how many children they will have, etc. It's hurtful because it's little nagging reminders of that thing that seemingly everyone around you can have, merely by deciding they want it, whereas for you it's out of reach and only obtainable (sometimes) if you spend a lot of money and time, and sometimes not even then. So fundamentally unfair.

But. Something it's important to remember is that the things people say are intended to be nice. People whose lives aren't consumed by infertility don't always realize what the emotional landscape looks like. I've been guilty of that myself.

Years ago, before I was even married, I was talking to a coworker who was trying to get pregnant and had so far been unsuccessful. "Maybe you're working too hard. You should just take some time off," I said. I was repeating something I'd often heard about infertility. Another friend who was with us said, "Have you considered adoption?" Our coworker said, "Maybe. And yeah, I've thought about it." Looking back on that conversation, I realize how stupid our comments were. Her infertility probably had nothing to do with working too hard. And yes, she had probably considered adoption. She didn't need us to suggest it. But the two of us, unthinking 20-year-olds that we were, thought we were providing support and suggesting helpful things she might not have thought of before.

Another time, a friend confided to me, soon after the birth of my daughter, that he and his wife had been trying to have kids as well, but she had had a miscarriage. I said, "Oh dear. I hope you'll have better luck next time." That comment haunts me - what a flip thing to say to someone who had been through the deep misery of a miscarriage. I'd probably be inconsolable if I actually got pregnant and then miscarried. And that I said it to him with my healthy newborn in my arms was probably the salt in the wound.

I want to cry out in protest whenever people say things that hurt me. Just today a friend sent me a video of her kids playing together (her daughter is exactly my daughter's age, and her young son was conceived right around when I wanted to get pregnant again and realized I couldn't). She commented, "They're going to be best friends for life!" That's what I want for my daughter too, and I can't have it. I felt so frustrated and upset as I watched the video. But true courage, I think, is cutting people some slack and just clamping down on that internal dialogue of pain - smiling and replying as though they said the right thing. Because they probably meant to.

Summer Is Over

It's only just turned August. But just now a cricket started piping under my study window. The sound conjures up so much nostalgia for me, it almost makes a lump come into my throat. Cool days, frost on the grass in the mornings, car doors slamming. Getting ready for school. Wearing a jacket with a hood in the morning, carrying it over my arm on the way home. Maple trees decked with sunset colors. Running from the bus stop to keep warm. I remember E.B. White's classic line in Charlotte's Web, the crickets singing, "Summer is over, summer is over, summer is over and gone." It makes me think of things quickening.

Happysingle

Today I was reading an article about happy singles - women who aren't searching for a mate, who are actually content in their lives, all by themselves. They distinguish themselves from the "quirkyalones" who are single but don't want to be. The quirkyalones keep posting personality profiles on matchmaking sites and recasting their personalities in hopes of attracting someone who will appreciate them. If I hadn't met my husband, I would be a quirkyalone. Occasionally, maybe most of the time, I'd stray into depressedandmiserablealone territory. I often think how lucky I am to have him and how my baseline mood is so much better than it used to be when I was single.

But. If I knew somehow that being married would never be an option for me, could I be happy?

I thought about this for a while and finally decided that yes, if the pressure of the search was taken away, I would be fine. I could create a nice life for myself, packed full of all the things I like to do: gardening, reading, visiting friends, travel, animals, camping, poetry. I'd take art classes and carry a sketchbook with me. I'd go on long tramps across the English countryside in knee-high boots for the mud, hopping over stiles. I'd probably get a PhD in ecology and have a career in academia, with no family longings to distract me or encourage me to settle for less. I wouldn't have to compromise on anything I wanted to do - no apologies that it rained during the camping trip I planned and really wasn't fun like I promised it would be. It would actually be fun, if I didn't have to take anyone else's feelings into account. I'd lie there Buddhalike listening to the rain and composing haikus, then warm up hot chocolate on my camp stove the next morning and go for a long hike across the dewy fields.

Thinking about this life in another dimension I almost wish it's the road I'd chosen. If only I could live my life again, and again, and do it in every way.

Bandwagon

I fell off the bandwagon. Quite a while ago, in fact; as it rounded a curve in the road, I just slid right off the tailgate and landed with a soft thump in the dust. Ever since, I've been sitting on the side of the road, eating the most delicious moist velvety chocolate cake with melt-in-your-mouth icing, while the strains of the band grow ever fainter in the distance. I can still glimpse the sunlight glinting off the saxophones and horn section when the wagon tops the occasional rise. I don't think they've even noticed I'm gone.

While I eat my cake, I've been mulling a few questions, including
- Should I try again, and see if I can be sugar-free for the month of August?
- Why is my willpower so damn weak, anyway? It shouldn't really be that hard to give up sweets. Millions, probably billions of people in the world live without sugar in their diets. But for me it seems to be this huge unconquerable mountain - I count the days, obsessing over what I'm not allowed to have and how much longer I have to do without it.
- That fact makes me feel like a terrible greedy slug. I ought to have my mind on higher things.
- For the first two weeks of July, I thought I might be pregnant, so it was easier to be pure. Then I found out in mid-July that I wasn't, and I was so disappointed, I binged on sugar just to try to stop crying.
- My husband isn't addicted to sugar. Giving up sugar for a month would be easy for him. He probably doesn't even realize that there are two Klondike bars in the right-hand side of the freezer, that have been there for a month, that are so prominent in my imagination it's like they're burning a laser hole through the freezer door and flashes of disco light are escaping into the kitchen from the party that they're having in there, and he walks right past the fridge like he doesn't even see it.
- My husband also doesn't particularly want a second child. Or increased family togetherness like I'm always trying to get us to have. Or better conversations. Or more emotional closeness. Or more travel to interesting places. Or more friends.
- What the hell does my husband want, anyway?
- Is this just how our lives and our marriage are going to be from now on? me always putting on a brave face and acting cheerful and trying to keep things lively, while he exudes inertia and spends the weekend in his computer chair if at all possible? Do other couples have to try this hard to find things to do together and to have fun together, or does it just happen naturally for them? I'm so grateful that we don't fight, that dinnertime is harmonious, that we are nice to each other. And underlying that, I'm so grateful to be married at all. But is that as good as it gets?
- Why doesn't he read my blog, anyway? He knows the URL. I was a little nervous about giving it to him, initially, because I thought that if he read it I'd censor my thoughts. Then I realized he never did, and was able to relax. Then I felt wistful, and wished he would, because if nothing else it's a good way to project, in a passive-aggressive way.
- If he had a blog, I'd check that thing every day, I'm that interested in getting a window into his thoughts. When we have nonconversations in which I come up with four or five things to say and he just doesn't answer at all, not even a grunt to show that he heard me, what is going on in his head? Is he lost in his own thoughts? Thinking about something completely different? Mulling over what I said? Not at all interested in what I said? How can you just not say anything when someone is talking to you?
- Being happy is something that you have to work at. I know that. And I never want to be one of those people who makes someone else responsible for their happiness, and who then gleefully blames them for failing. I've been on the receiving end of that and it's an awful thing to do to someone. So I do take responsibility for my own happiness. The day that I found out I wasn't pregnant, all I wanted to do was weep and lie around and be comforted, but I didn't even call a single friend, or ask anything of my husband. I came up with a plan that would get me up and out of the house all day with my child, to keep both of us occupied, and I pushed all the misery down inside. But. It would have been nice if he had noticed. Either the sadness or the way I dealt with it.

See, this is why freewriting can be so revealing. I started here thinking I wanted to write about my weakness for sugar, and I ended up talking about my relationship. I have probably written more than I should share. If he ever did read my blog, I know he'd be uncomfortable that I'm writing in this vein. But he doesn't, so he'll never know.

Living on the Edge

I just finished Mary O'Hara's wonderful trilogy about life on a Wyoming horse ranch. This is from the third one, The Green Grass of Wyoming:

He had a sudden strange feeling that things were all in one piece, not strung out in time. Life was like a patterned cloth being drawn over a knife-edge. The knife-edge was the NOW and what was happening now - but the patterns were there on the cloth, all the same, before and after it had run over the knife-edge.

Wow.

Aha

Finally got some answers! I had an ultrasound that confirmed that I have polycystic ovarian syndrome. It was pretty clearcut - 16 follicles on each ovary, when I think the typical number is one or two. But the diagnosis is weird:

1. It's a kind of chronic long-term syndrome that usually crops up in early adolescence, not something that you develop later. But I had regular periods for years before I got pregnant the first time, and I didn't have trouble conceiving then. Why would I have developed this syndrome after my first pregnancy?
2. Often a pregnancy resolves the condition. In my case, it apparently triggered it, which makes no sense at all.
3. Some of the hallmarks of PCOS are being overweight, being diabetic or borderline, and having excess body and facial hair, acne, and painful periods. But those don't apply in my case (hmm, maybe the acne a bit, but it's not too bad). I guess I am an atypical patient.

At least I have a diagnosis. It was so hard not knowing what was going on and having to fend off suggestions like
"maybe you secretly don't want a baby, and this is your body's way of telling you"
"just adopt"
"maybe you're not trying hard enough"
"maybe you're trying too hard"
"maybe you're not 'doing it' right"
"oh well, it was easy for me"

The last is probably the one that drives me craziest. Some people have full, interesting, busy lives - they're advancing in their careers, traveling, doing home renovations, and still manage to get pregnant in their spare time without really trying. In my case, I've gone to soooo many doctors' appointments - expensive and time-consuming. I've been trying to relax, eat better, change my exercise routine, etc. all in hopes of improving my fertility by reducing my stress. And I'm still nowhere near the point where they'll be able to start treatment, let alone the point where I might achieve a pregnancy. It bugs me that some people have it so easy and apparently don't understand how hard it can be for others.

The standard treatment for PCOS is birth control pills (and as soon as you discontinue the pills, the syndrome comes right back). Obviously I don't want to do that. I have to do some more stupid tests now before I can schedule a consultation with my doctor and renew my requests for Clomid, the ovulation medication I've been asking for for a year. I hope he'll prescribe it. I read that patients with PCOS have a much harder time getting pregnant and have a 50% miscarriage rate (compared to the normal 15-20% rate), which is a bit scary, but I don't think there's much I can do about that. I just hope that in that area, I'll also be an atypical PCOS patient.

Update:
I talked to my doctor today. He said that the average number of follicles in a healthy ovary is 10-12, and that he'd rather see too many than not enough. So that makes me feel a little... well, closer to normal. Here I was thinking I was some kind of monster freak with my 16 follicles on each side.

I also underwent an HSG today (hysterosalpingogram), in which dye is squirted up through the reproductive tract to outline the uterus and fallopian tubes to make sure there isn't a blockage. Everything looks fine in my case. I was amazed to see that on the left side, the fallopian tube does a loop-the-loop! The doctor said that was perfectly normal and that the ovaries and tubes actually move around a bit in the pelvis and often are in unusual configurations, not just out to the side like the crosspiece of a capital T. Still. A loop-the-loop! Those little eggs have a long way to go on their roller-coaster ride to the uterus.

Bluffing

Today I took my daughter grocery shopping and we got one of those carts with the little plastic car built onto the front of it. She always asks to get one of those, but I usually refuse because they're so heavy to steer. Today I relented and she was beside herself with happiness, giggling the whole time we were shopping.

Afterwards, I loaded the groceries into the (real) car and then returned the cart to the collection area. When I crouched down next to the little car and said, "It's time to go home now. Come on, hop out," she said, "No, I'm going to stay here."

I said, "Right here?"

She said, "Yes. I'm going to stay here all night!"

I said, "Want me to come get you tomorrow morning?"

She nodded solemnly.

"OK," I said. "I'll pick you up before breakfast, OK?"

"OK," she said.

"Have a nice night," I told her. Then I got up and walked (slowly) away, straining every second for her to call out to me. When she did, I stopped right away. She was scrambling out of the car, saying, "No, Mama, I change my mind! I want to go home with you."

"Really?" I said, feigning surprise. "Well, okay." I picked her up and gave her a kiss on the cheek. She was giggling with relief as I carried her back to our car.

As we drove away, I thought
1) how much I love her
2) how someday, probably sooner than I expect, she'll call one of my bluffs
3) how it was almost as though we were putting on a show of how perfect and cute we are together, for a stranger who might think, "What a great mom. What a great kid," when in reality I don't always know what I'm doing, and she has her difficult moods, and it's not always sunshine and roses between us,
4) but most of the time it is.

Gotcha!

Today I caught a rabbit. With my bare hands.

That's a lie, actually - I was wearing gloves. But still! I just reached down and grabbed it! It was like I tapped into some superhuman powers and moved so fast I was just a blur.

I was in my garden, staking vampires - I mean tomato plants. I lifted a leaf, and there was the cutest little coney hiding under it, with its ears slicked back along its back. Oh my gosh it was adorable. It was like the pictures of cute bunnies that artists do watercolors of for Easter cards, with huge eyes and plushy brown fur. Even as I was marveling at how cute it was, my inner farmer rose to the challenge and I cried, "What are you doing in here? Inside my garden? Git!"

I might note that the garden has no fewer than three types of fencing around it. There's a four-foot high metal fence (to keep out the groundhogs), a smaller-mesh plastic fence as an inside liner (to keep out the rabbits), and netting over the top (to keep the deer from jumping in). There are woods and fields and plenty of things in the vicinity for the local wildlife to eat, but they seem drawn to my garden all the same. Anyway, I have no idea how a rabbit got in.

I chased it into the squash plants. Then it slipped past me into the pole beans. Then I chased it into the Swiss chard. It ran back to its original hiding place and dove in there under the tomato leaf. Like I was going to forget about catching it if I couldn't see it. I lifted the leaf again, put my hand down, and just grabbed it.

It scrabbled in the air a few times with its hind feet, but I set it down inside a handy plant pot and put my hand over the top to keep it from jumping out. Then I carried it over to the woods behind our property and let it out. As it slid out, it seemed a little dazed. I thought, "poor thing, it's probably asphyxiating of fear." But after I'd taken two steps away, I turned to look back, just in case it was just lying there gasping. A blade of grass was swaying. The rabbit was gone. I had visions of it beating me back to the garden as I tromped back across the lawn.

Still don't know how it got in there. What do I need to do, dig a moat around my garden?!

P & P x 3

I read Pride and Prejudice again recently (as a prelude to reading Pride and Prejudice and Zombies; I felt like I had to refresh myself on the original in order to get the most out of the parody. Zombies actually turns out to be the exact same text as the original, with "and turning, she rapidly slew three zombies in succession" inserted here and there.)

The first time I read it was in high school. I loved it. I couldn't wait to get through my math homework each afternoon so that I could read the day's quota of P&P. It seemed to have such relevance to my own life; I was in love, and I didn't know how to approach him, and here was a book all about a girl my age, dealing with misunderstandings and hurt feelings and social intrigue and gossip and class consciousness. I wrote him a letter pouring out my feelings. A few days later, we got to the part in the book where Elizabeth receives "the electrifying letter" from Darcy. I felt like I was burning with embarrassment and excitement at the parallels in my own life. At the end of the book, of course, love triumphs. At the end of the school year, we graduated and I never saw him or heard from him again.

A few years later I read Pride and Prejudice again. I remembered it being so juicy and full of suspense. But the second time through it seemed just silly. I couldn't understand why the characters spent time chewing over gossip and conjecturing what things might possibly have meant instead of just talking to each other directly and straightening things out. Why didn't Jane get in touch with Bingley herself, instead of pining? Why didn't Elizabeth go out with Colonel Fitzwilliam, who seemed like the nicest guy of the bunch? I felt impatient for things to get resolved and kept flipping ahead to see how many more pages there were. The women's exaggerated ladylike frailty seemed fake (Elizabeth colouring up every time she heard anything interesting, having to retire to her room for half an hour to regain her composure, Jane being sick in bed for days after being out in the rain for just a few minutes). I was working a job, sharing an apartment with roommates, and paying my own way in the world. I didn't have patience with such silliness.

This third time through, however, I loved it again. Partly because of the rich and intricate use of language. It's wonderful to read it out loud; the sentences start out in one direction, then curve over their own backs and interweave into unexpected spaces like a vine weaving its way through the ironwork of a railing. Partly because Austen does such a good job of blackening Darcy's character that even though you know he's going to be redeemed, in the early stages it's hard to imagine how that will be done. Partly because it was relaxing reading about people who have no obligation to earn a living and so much time on their hands that they can just while away their lives with needlework, long walks in the countryside, and social visits. The girls didn't even have to fix meals or do any housework, all that was done by servants. Partly because now that I'm married and boring and all the heart-pounding astonishment of falling in love is behind me, probably forever, it was nice to read about people having crushes on each other and being thrilled with the slightest mark of regard, and wondering with fascinated passion whether the other person still liked them or not. I could relive my glory days a little.

P&P is the only one of Austen's books that I've ever read. I'm so uncultured, it's awful. I have to at least read Sense & Sensibility, and Northanger Abbey, my mother's favorite.

So Far...

One week in, and being pure has been easier than I expected. I've resisted the cookies in the kitchen at work, the ice cream in the freezer at home, my favorite sugary yogurts, the cereals in my cupboard, even things like ketchup and popcorn seasoning that have sugar in them. The cravings haven't been too bad. I am letting myself have fruit, so in place of my usual dessert I just eat a handful of raisins or something and then I'm fine. I'm also trying to eat more greens and whole grains, and fewer fried things. I have this idea that the more I do it, the easier and more natural it will be, and the less I'll even want the junk. I even watched Julie & Julia - all those dinners smothered in butter, all that rich chocolate cake - without particularly wanting to eat anything afterward. The part of the movie I liked was her cooking the food, not the idea of eating it.

I slipped up just once so far - at a Fourth of July dinner party. My friend had made panna cotta (kind of lime-flavored mousse made with mascarpone cheese and topped with wild blueberries). It was chilled, in goblets, and they looked so pretty all lined up on the counter, cream and violet. She had already set one out for me and I wasn't going to turn it down. It was heavenly.

One week down, three to go!

A Month of Purity

Today is my last day of eating junk food for a month. I decided that my approach to my infertility so far (i.e., wailing and gnashing of teeth, getting angry at my body for being "wrong," and comforting myself with potato chips and ice cream) was not actually that productive. If I'm going to give myself a fighting chance, I really should be eating well so I am as physically healthy as possible.

Plus, this enterprising chick gave up eating anything produced by Monsanto for a whole month, which is way harder. Any processed food, anything with corn or soy, most vegetables, and most meats come from Monsanto or its subsidiaries, which doesn't leave a whole lot of options. She had to subsist on seaweed and nuts for a couple days until she found some suppliers of guaranteed Nonsanto food. In the end, she had a really healthy month - and she ended up pregnant! Which she seems pretty calm about, but for me it would be trumpets and banners and wild, joyful/tearful celebration.

Giving up the sugar is going to be the hard part for me. I crave sugar so much that sometimes when I'm reading a book or working on my computer I literally can't concentrate, my desire to get up and get something sweet is so strong. I can feel that 90% of my attention is devoted to wanting a cookie, and only 10% is on the task at hand. But I know refined sugar is bad for me. It ages the skin, it causes acne, it messes up the metabolism, it's hard on the kidneys, it's bad for the teeth, it's linked to various cancers, it makes one fat. I even made myself a list of 30 reasons why I should stop eating sugar. And I tried to give it up for Lent this year, but only lasted about a day. My willpower is incredibly weak when it comes to sweets. Last year I actually did successfully give up sugar for Lent - but oh, how I longed for it; it consumed my thoughts during the last few days. I stayed up the night before Easter and dug into a pie with my bare hands at midnight, and in the days after Easter I binged on sweets. Going sugar-free for 40 days didn't reduce my desire for it one whit.

Still. In the larger scheme of things, this should be an easy sacrifice to make. And I want a baby ever so much more than I could ever want a candy bar. So even if denying my sweet tooth can only distantly and very indirectly affect my infertility, by improving my overall health, it's still worth doing.

So, July is going to be a pure month for me. No sugar, no junk. And no whining. I will just think positive thoughts about my ovaries producing beautiful glowing white eggs.

At the same time, I am jumping through the hoops to get referrals and preauthorizations for treatment at a fertility clinic. Just passing all their diagnostic screening criteria to demonstrate that I have a problem (as if not having a period in three years wasn't proof enough) will take months, so it will be ages before I can actually get the treatment I need. But I'll try to be patient.

Last week I confided in a friend that I am going to this clinic. And it turns out she's going to the same one. She and her husband have been trying to have a baby for a while now, and she's been working with this clinic for the past year. No luck yet. I wish I'd known so I could have given her some support. And I feel greedy, somehow, that I am trying for my second child and working myself up into knots of self-hatred and sorrow about it, when she doesn't even have one child yet. I thought about it and realized that if I somehow had the power to choose which of us would succeed in this endeavor, if it could be only one, I would choose her, just because that would be fair. I really would. So perhaps when I'm feeling particularly miserable about being infertile I can remember that and a buddhalike calm will come over me.

Somewhere Out There

Somewhere near my house, a fawn is having the worst night of its life.

I was walking home this evening when I came across a doe that had been struck by a car. It looked like she had walked just a couple of paces from the road and then collapsed right at the edge of the shrubbery in the park. Her forelegs were folded in and her head was tucked, the way our greyhound used to sleep. Her eye was liquid and dark and open. I stared at her for a long time, even though I was pretty sure she was dead, because I just couldn't believe it. I kept waiting for that eye to blink. I felt like somehow she couldn't be dead. One of her forelegs was scraped raw and bloody, but otherwise she didn't look injured. Usually when I see an animal by the side of the road, its eyes are just sockets, and it looks all mangled up and awful, but she looked like she was just lying down, waiting for me to leave.

I felt - not sad, but awestruck, I guess, at being in the presence of death. There before me was someone who had passed through that great and terrible experience that's waiting for all of us. I used to feel that way when I saw mothers with new babies - I'd think "She has been through childbirth," and I would wonder if it would ever happen to me. But death is infinitely more scary and you know it definitely will happen to you. It's too big for the mind to really process.

Then I noticed that her udder was swollen like a cow's. And I thought that she must have been returning to wherever her fawn was hidden, where it had lain all day, not moving, barely breathing, trying to be scentless and invisible. All day long it must have been getting hungrier and hungrier, waiting for its mother to return. Finally it was dusk and she was on her way. But she never made it back. And right at that moment, as I was staring at her, the fawn was somewhere hidden nearby, getting desperate with hunger, but perhaps still afraid to move. I wondered if it would eventually get up and wander somewhere, if it knew how to eat anything yet. I thought how I felt when I was nursing and away from my child, how as the hours passed I grew increasingly anxious to see her, how sweet and what a physical relief our reunions were - and how, if I were killed on my way back to her, my greatest sorrow would have been for her loneliness and fear, not for my own life unlived.

Humorectomy

A friend of mine has a theory that the act of getting married causes people to have a humorectomy. He noted how so many of his friends used to be interesting, spontaneous, funny, clever, etc. before they got married. Now they're just bland and never want to go out.

Another friend chimed in with, yes, not only is that true, but it happens, oddly enough, even to people who were living together and essentially married for years before they actually tied the knot. You'd think they wouldn't change, but they do.

Is it because they've "won," so they no longer have to act interesting and keep their beloved liking them?
Is it because they get caught up in nesting and don't care as much about the outside world?
Is it because they're following a standard behavioral mold set by those who have gone before (including, unconsciously, their parents)?

I'm definitely not as interesting as I used to be before I got married. I chalk it up to working too much (no time to read) and having a kid (no opportunity to go out). If I didn't have those things going on, I'd still be sneaking up forbidden spiral staircases in the cathedral at night, and rappelling down cliffs on weekends. I'd be going to Scrabble tournaments and entering strawberry shortcake contests and rehabilitating mourning dove chicks. I feel like the fun, slightly weird, loner-wild Erin is still in there, still inside me, just waiting until I have time in my life to be like that again. I hope she doesn't die. Hang in there, I want to tell her. I'm sorry I'm so dull right now, but I'll be you again as soon as I can!

Impasse

All this angst about not being able to get pregnant again, all these hours spent Googling "secondary infertility", all these doctor's appointments and blood tests, and in the end I'm no closer to knowing what's wrong... and it all may be moot anyway, because my husband doesn't want to have another kid.

All this time, he thought I was trying to get my period back just so I could be normal again. When I said, "no, I don't care about that, I just want to get pregnant again," he said he thought one child was enough. He pointed out how exhausting it is to care for her, how we're barely holding it together. It's true that our lives aren't peaceful and well-ordered like they were prekid. We no longer have the ability to go out in the evenings, do fun stuff together, meet friends for dinner, or plan trips. Because I can only get freelance work done after she's in bed, I'm scrambling to meet deadlines all the time, perpetually sleep-deprived, and frustrated that I'm never able to have time for myself. He pointed out that just putting her to bed is a hassle - she malingers so badly (and fights each step of the way). It takes forever and usually ends in her crying. Listening to him say this, a number of thoughts went through my head:

"Yes. He's right. We don't have fun any more. And it's putting a strain on our marriage. We used to look at each other with such affection - now we're too tired to feel anything but resentment, because we're convinced that being this exhausted means the other person must be slacking."

"Well, but he IS slacking. He's complaining about the hassle of her bedtime routine, but I put her to bed six nights out of seven. I do the morning routine, every day. I didn't even get to sleep in on Mother's Day, damn it - even though I was up late freelancing the night before, as usual, I had to get up early with her while he slept in until 10 am."

"Yes, but he's also working full-time at a demanding job and trying to launch his career in science. He works harder than I do, even if I work longer hours. He's just as tired at the end of the day as I am."

"Besides, if I want to convince him to have another kid, and the sticking point with him is how much trouble it is to care for her, maybe I need to take on more of that work. Maybe I should put her to bed every night, and not ask him to pitch in on the weekends."

"But how will I ever keep up with my freelancing if I never get a break from the childcare? There's a limited number of hours in the week and I'm already a zombie."

"Besides, is it so much of an imposition to ask him to spend some time with his daughter on the weekends? Shouldn't he want to do that?"

"If stress IS the reason I'm not getting my period, and if I try to do even more work, I'll never get it back."

"I still want another kid. Even though it seems totally illogical to want that."

"Maybe we don't deserve another one. Sometimes I run out of patience with her and I'm sick of her asking 'what?' ten million times and never listening to the answer, and I just feel like crying. If I can't do a good job with one, maybe we shouldn't have any more."

"But everyone else who wants two kids gets to have them, even if they're not perfect parents. All my friends are pregnant with or have already had their second. We're falling way behind the curve."

"At least once a day some well-meaning person asks me whether we're having another kid. I laugh it off with 'oh, maybe, we'll see, this one keeps me busy enough.' If only they knew how much it hurts me to be asked that question. Just today my mom was on the phone with a friend who asked her if she was getting any more grandchildren, and she had to laugh it off the same way. How can he be insensible to that kind of pressure?"

"If we get divorced, it will be much more difficult for me to find someone new if I've got two kids."

"Maybe having another baby would keep us together though."

"Does that ever work? Celebrities are always trying it, and it always seems to fall through."

"Divorce? What am I thinking? Surely things aren't that bad. That's like my worst-case scenario (after him or my daughter dying). I'll do whatever I can to avoid that."

"But what if staying with him means never getting to have another child - and what if I could get divorced and have another with someone else, someone who would pitch in more and be more affectionate?"

"I don't want someone else. I just want HIM to pitch in more and be affectionate like he used to be. Anyway, all our friends have these perfect marriages where they totally love each other. How could we stand the shame of being the first to fail?"

"Arggggh. This shouldn't be so hard. No one else has to fight tooth and nail to get their guy to propose, to get him to have the first kid, to get him to have the second kid. Why doesn't he just naturally want the things that I do?"

And so on. I didn't actually say any of those things out loud, and the discussion was never resolved. He asked me how bad I wanted another kid, and I said, "I really, really want another. If I never have another child, it will be something I'll always regret." Then I tried to convince him that it would be a good idea by suggesting that this time around we could try for a boy, and he got sidetracked into researching online whether you could time conception to increase the odds of a boy, and was reading scientific papers instead of listening to me. Displacement activity to avoid finishing the conversation. He was absorbed in his computer after that and I couldn't get his attention back on me. At some point he left and went to clip his nails, his other stock activity when he wants to avoid finishing a conversation. He will clip them nightly if necessary, and he will spend half an hour or more doing it. I waited for a while, then couldn't afford to wait any longer because I had a deadline, so I gave up and went to do some freelancing.

I wish things were different.

Freak of Nature

I went shopping for a new bra a few days ago, because none of mine fit any more. I used to buy B cup bras, the kind with stiff cups, just to look like I had a shape. They didn't actually touch my breasts, let alone support them - just curved stiffly around them. Then at some point I decided to embrace my natural flat-chestedness, and started buying A cups. But even my A cups don't fit any more. They just slide around on my flat chest and the straps are constantly falling down, like every five minutes. When I'm at home or on the weekends, I wear sports bras, which at least stay in place.

Anyway, I decided a racerback was what I needed, so off I went to the store. Alas, the bra companies of the world do not appear to make bras for people my shape. I need a racerback 36A, but A cups only come in size 32, which is much too small, and B cups are definitely too big. I would go braless if I could, but now that it's t-shirt weather I can't go around in public without one. I guess I'll keep wearing my old bras and pushing up the straps every few minutes.

I also was unable to find pants that fit when I was in a pants-buying flurry a few months ago. All the pants I tried on gapped in the back and looked egg-cuppy from the side. Size 2 is ridiculously tight, size 4 is tight in the crotch but gappy around the waist, and size 6 falls right down. I went to lots of different stores and tried lots of different brands, and they're all like that.

Between not being able to find clothes that fit the top or the bottom of me, and not having periods any more (my doctor is frankly confused and says she can't find a physical reason for it), I am starting to feel like a freak - no longer a "real woman." What is wrong with me?

My Kidlet

It's Mother's Day and I want to write about my daughter. So often these days I'm charmed at her perspective on the world, which is coming through now that she's got more language to express it - and surprised at how much she really does understand and remember.

Yesterday, she was eating a slice of cantaloupe. She bit it into the shape of a crocodile - with bumpy eyes and even a slit for the mouth. Then she made it lollop across the placemat toward me, saying "Watch out - aump, aump, aump!" (biting noises) I said, "Ooh, what is that, a snake?" She laughed, "Aaoh, nooo, Mama, issa cocodile!" And at once I saw that it was indeed shaped like a crocodile. She made it gnaw on my arm for a minute before she efficiently dispatched it.

She's potty trained now (although she still wears a diaper at night) - for a while I thought it was hopeless, until all of a sudden she got it. The key was just putting her in underpants, even though she didn't seem to be ready. Once she was wearing the underpants she learned very quickly what the point of the potty was. Anyway, she'll occasionally wake up in the night needing to pee and will call me. A few nights ago, at 3 am, I heard her calling to me, so I took her into the bathroom. She pulled off her diaper, which had Disney princesses on it, and chatted away quite gaily to me as she peed. My eyes were half closed but I did pick up enough to realize, after a while, that she was pointing to Ariel on the diaper and singing an approximation of "Under the Sea." She has seen the Little Mermaid (actually just the first half of it) only once, and it was several weeks ago. I said, "What are you singing?" She said, "Singing like c'ab. In the water! da, da, da, da-da, da-da-da-da-da..." I said, "Oh, you mean Sebastian, the crab? When he sings 'Under the Sea'?" She got a huge smile on her face and said, "Yes!" I couldn't believe she had actually retained that from the one time she had heard it, weeks ago.

Another time, when we were walking around on the deck outside, I was being cavalier and not wearing shoes, and I got a big splinter in my foot. She heard my indrawn breath and said, "Mama? Hurt cherself?" I said, "Yes, my foot," and sat down to examine the sole of the foot. The skin was broken and the splinter was lodged in it. She leaned over it and kissed the sole of my foot. "There - all better?" she asked. And it was.

I have so many hopes for her. I hope she'll grow up strong and healthy, and be surrounded by friends. I hope she'll be pretty, because life is easier for pretty people. I hope she'll find work that inspires her. I hope she'll be more ambitious and self-confident than I am - I feel so incapable of confrontation in its various forms, particularly managing and directing other people, that many career options are closed to me, and I don't want her to be limited like that. I hope she will love the outdoors and animals the way I do (although I worry that she might not - so far she is clearly more interested in tractors and trains than in living things). I hope the world that she grows up into will be resilient enough to survive the harms that human societies continue to inflict on it. I hope she will find a man who appreciates and loves her and whom she can love as well - and that they'll make me some lovely grandkids. Mostly, I just hope that I can keep her safe as she grows up - guard her from all the perils - so that she'll at least have the options to achieve her desires.