The Bipolar Mommy

Europe, Smiley Faces, Babies and More

It has been months since my last post, so I thought I would try to get into the swing of this blogging thing again. A lot has transpired since my last post. Mark and I finally took our dream trip to Europe in June. First, we went to Barcelona for a few days. From there, we hopped on a cruise ship and cruised around Europe. We went to Italy, Greece, France, Turkey, and Monaco. It was a whirlwind. We had talked about going to Europe since we met in 2002. It was wonderful, and truthfully, one of the big reasons I wanted to go was that we always said we would start our family “after Europe.”

Well, Europe came and went. I got off the birth control and got on the vitamins. I became consumed with all of the information on the internet about getting pregnant. I learned that there are truly only two or three days in a month that a woman can get pregnant. I guess in high school, they lied to us that we could get pregnant at the drop of that hat to keep us out of the backseats of cars. Yeah, right. Like that would stop us. Anyway, I also learned that even if you time everything perfectly, there is still, on average, a 20% chance of getting pregnant each month. Here is the question then? How does anyone get pregnant?

But still, I began optimistically. My sister popped out three kids instantly. My childhood BFF got pregnant three times without even trying. Surely my uterus was bulging with fertile fruit.

I decided to be strategic, and I bought one of the Ovulation predictor kits that tell you when you are about to ovulate. It pretty much works like a pregnancy test. You pee on a stick. If you are not about to ovulate, a blank circle appears. If you are about to ovulate within 24 to 36 hours, a smiley face appears. A freakin smiley face! So basically, your whole mood and outlook for the day depends on seeing the smiley face.

Waiting for the smiley face became an obsession. All of the “information” I found on the internet said that women usually ovulate around day 14. Day 14 came and went. So did day 15, and day 16, and day 17. Oh my God. Had my eggs dried up? Was I some sort of freak of nature? I was about to give up when on day 21, I saw the elusive smiley face. I was in disbelief. I immediately grabbed my husband and told him it was “on.” I told close friends (all 350 or so on facebook) that the smiley face had finally arrived. Somehow, I thought that I was really clever, and only a select few would get the reference. Well, I was wrong. Several people asked if I was pregnant or if I was trying to conceive (or as on the lovely message boards I’ve read about pregnancy on the internet, “TTC”). Now everyone knows, and there’s no turning back. But really, how could I be so stupid as to think posting on facebook would be a good idea?

Anyway, the smiley face came and went, and I eagerly marked my calendar and did all of those tracking pregnancy things women are supposed to do when trying to get pregnant. I now know way more about my cervical mucous (yes, I said cervical mucous) than any woman ever should. I read on the internet about early signs of pregnancy, and I had every single one of them! The internet can be a dangerous thing, especially for women who are “TTC.”

And there’s another thing that is baffling. “TTC.” It turns out, there is this whole lingo of acronyms that all of the women on the internet who have had babies or are trying seem to know instinctively. Reading some of these articles and message boards is sort of like trying to decode secret messages, like the ones you wrote your friends in middle school about the boy you liked. Here is what I have learned thus far of this “babynese” language. Of course TTC means “trying to conceive.” OPK means “ovulation predictor kit.” CM stands for “cervical mucous.” DPO stands for “days past ovulation.” There are dozens more, but you get the idea, right?

I also read all of the “advice” about how to better your chances of becoming pregnant. For example, after you have sex, you are supposed to prop your feet up so that the sperm don’t have to move against gravity. I also learned that you should have sex in the morning and that if you crossed your legs and hopped on one foot an hour after the deed, you would have a baby girl. Okay, the last one I made up, but it isn’t that far off from some of the other crap I read. Imagine, all of these grown, intelligent women who own companies and pay bills and run marathons are resorting to near voodoo to get pregnant. Unfortunately, I am now one of them.

Well, the first month passed, and my period came. I was devastated. I had worked so hard! I had done everything right. What if I was infertile? What if I have to spend thousands on in-vitro? What if this was never going to happen. I had to come back down to earth and remembered the “20%” statistic I had read about on one of the more reputable sites. How could I possibly compare my disappointment to all of the women who have tried for years to get pregnant, or those who cannot have children at all?

Another month of smiley faces and cervical mucous and countdowns has come and gone with the same end result. I must learn to be patient. But patience is hard when you have waited 31 years. What if I have waited too long? What is it about this whole babymaking thing that causes women to go completely insane?