A field guide to growing up without growing apart
So…it’s been a while since I posted, not that I’m the only one (ahem). But Mother’s Day just passed, and I thought it was time for another depressing update on my barren womb. Back in October I had just started fertility treatment and had been […]
It’s been over five months since I last posted here. If you asked me what I’ve been up to in that time I could tell you a lot of things. I took a Mediterranean cruise and got to show my favorite travel destination, Italy, to […]
I wish I had happier news to share. But the truth is I cried yesterday because wanting to get pregnant and not being able to is incredibly frustrating because you just can’t do much about it. I went off the pill in January and with every month that has passed, we’ve gotten more serious and intentional about “trying.” I can say we’ve been sincerely trying for about 3 months now, and no luck.
As far as I can tell, I’m doing all the right things. I’ve sworn off alcohol and cut back on caffeine. I’m taking a prenatal vitamin with folic acid every day. I take my temperature at 5:30 am each morning, and record this temperature and other symptoms in my fertility app daily. But so far our timing hasn’t been right.
I went to the doctor yesterday to inquire about what options I might have. Living in Saudi Arabia, I wanted to plan ahead and know if there would even BE fertility treatments should it come to that. The doctor told me what I had expected to hear, but it still wasn’t easy: they won’t refer you to the hospital (1 hr away) until you’ve been trying unsuccessfully for a year, and our insurance may or may not cover fertility medicine and treatments, possibly including the fact that any pregnancy conceived “through outside intervention” wouldn’t be covered either.
I know a lot of people do try for a long time, apparently 4-6 months is average. But part of me is wondering, if there IS a big problem, why wait for a year before doing something about it?
Even as I write this, it sounds petty. What about the women out there who have been trying for years? To them, my 3 months of impatience is nothing. But 3 months makes me scared that I might become one of those unlucky women. Aside from that, I’m also dreading some other unfortunate possibilities.
I know the most likely scenario is that my body is taking a little longer to readjust after the pill, and in another few months it’ll happen. But if I had known a year ago how I’d be feeling about all this right now, I probably would have started trying sooner. It turns out making babies is harder than it looks.
Last week I took a pregnancy test for the first time in my life. I’ll spare you the suspense—it was negative, as I suspected it would be. But in the past three months since I stopped taking the pill, my heart has become more and […]
With my 27th birthday (and therefore my “late 20s”) only a few months away, I’ve been thinking more and more about starting a family. Baby fever has started, I’d say, with so many cute littles popping up on my facebook newsfeed, and some of my […]
You know what I mean? Isn’t it just the most irksome thing when somebody has the nerve to do something that affects ME negatively? Obviously there’s sarcasm here, but this is also a real-life emotion I’m struggling with right now. I don’t want to be selfish, but clearly, I am, and I see this most when other people disappoint my expectations.
For instance, what about when you make plans with people only to have them bail? That is always a sucky feeling, whether it was a simple study date in the library back in college or an international vacation. Speaking of international vacations, I just took one recently to rendezvous with Sleeping Booty in Spain. For months and months, ever since SB started talking about taking her big trip, I had wanted to join her for part of that journey, and I promised to make it happen. When life circumstances changed and I wouldn’t be able to go during the dates I had originally wanted, I made sure to make it work during a different month. Sleeping Booty even changed her route a bit to accommodate me, when she wouldn’t have had to. We both made it a priority, and it worked out great.
Then there’s my sister-in-law and brother-in-law, who are, by all accounts, fantastic people. I love them dearly. I also hate that I can’t count on them to make long-term plans, or even short-term ones sometimes, because something inevitably gets in the way. Usually that something is their children…you know how it goes trying to be friends with people with young kids…usually pretty difficult when you don’t have kids yourself and want/are able to do completely different things with your time. So here’s the latest story of how my extended family has let me down when it comes to making my dream vacation plans come true.
Almost two years ago I floated the idea of a family cruise to Alaska. Fun, right? None of us had ever been there, and as a relatively new member of the family I loved the idea of a big family trip where we could all make memories. Family cruise, summer 2014! Everybody seemed on board at first (get it? On board?!) But at that point the family consisted of 8 adults and four children. Flash-forward to the actual summer of 2014, and two more kids have joined the group. Last summer my other brother-in-law and sister-in-law, expecting their third child, decided they wouldn’t be able to make it. But I wasn’t too bummed, because I had half expected them to bail anyway (they’d had qualms about the money from the start). Then, a few months later, the other couple bailed, but they had a good reason—they wanted to save money and vacation time to come visit us in the Middle East in February 2015. Fantastic. Totally understandable. I would much rather have them come to visit us than to come on a cruise where, to be honest, their kids probably wouldn’t enjoy themselves much anyway. But…
You can probably see where this is going. This morning they called to tell us that (surprise!) they were pregnant with baby #4, due February 2015, and wouldn’t be able to make the trip to see us.
With that news I immediately felt a mix of emotions. Of course I was excited for the prospect of a new niece or nephew, but my annoyance overshadowed that joy. I don’t even think I said congratulations, because I was all wrapped up in what it would mean for ME. It’s not really the fact that they can’t come in February (that wasn’t the best month for me, work-wise, anyway); it’s the fact that I have a strong suspicion baby #4 will be canceling the trip for good. They didn’t say that, of course, they said things like, “Maybe in April,” or “Maybe in 2016,” but I know how these things work. Another kid means another plane ticket to buy, another passport to apply for, another complicated visa to process. It also means that their lives are about to get even more hectic and complicated than they already are, and international travel usually doesn’t mesh well with that. We’re not going to live in this part of the world forever, and their window of opportunity may have just closed.
So I’m kind of ticked. I’m frustrated that, having semi-firm plans to come in February (they were already looking at plane tickets), they couldn’t manage to delay a fourth pregnancy another few months (Natural Family Planning Fail). But I’m also irritated that I’m feeling this way at all. My family is growing by one precious member, and I should be overjoyed for my sister-in-law and brother-in-law, not bitter about how their baby threw a wrench in my vacation plans. I mean, seriously, no one is required to plan their family, or their life, around me and my desires. I think I’ll be a better person when I can wrap my head around that fact and curb my innate selfishness. Any tips about how to do that?
Let me begin by saying that I am not pregnant. But what if I wanted to be? The idea of starting a family often niggles at the back of my mind, but is usually accompanied by feelings of anxiety. I used to think I could […]
Last week The Little Merskank posted a rant about balls. But she was talking about the Cinderella type of balls. I am talking about testicles. Nuts. Nards. Apple bags. I am talking about balls and birth control. Part of being in your twenties is considering […]
I love babies. They are cute, easy to cuddle, and even when they make a huge mess, you still can’t help but love them. They are a wonderful part of life. However, as a twenty something, I am not ready to jump on the baby bandwagon. Unfortunately as numerous facebook posts have recently shown me, a lot of my friends are happily aboard.
For the past two holiday seasons, my facebook newsfeed has been chock full of engagement announcements and wedding albums. And while the number of couples getting hitched was reaching astronomical levels, I felt I was handling it relatively well. I was about to be engaged myself, and I felt ready to be in the stage of life where my friends were getting married. And I believed that this stage would still last a few more years. But unbeknownst to me Facebook had horrors in store for me this holiday season. Instead of the usual barrage of engagement posts, I suddenly found myself in the midst of a barrage of babies with no way to escape!
I couldn’t believe it! Babies?? Already? Most of these people had only been married a year or two, at least half of them were around my age, and one couple had even been married less time than me (which is shocking because I’ve only been married for four months). I literally could not handle it. I still don’t think I can. I’m sorry world, but I am only 24 and it is NOT baby time yet! I still can’t figure my own life out, so I can’t even imagine having another tiny, helpless life to deal with. I don’t mean to sound cruel, because as I said I like babies, I just feel very strongly that it is not yet time for all of my newlywed friends to be having them. To give you an idea of the horrors I found on facebook, I will give you a list of some of the most scary baby posts I saw.
1. A post saying “Merry Christmas from the three of us” ( and then a picture of the couple standing by the Christmas tree while the girl holds her stomach).
2. A photo shopped picture showing the guy, then a plus sign, then the girl, then an equals three sign.
3. A picture of two pairs of feet standing on a beach, with a pair of baby shoes next to them.
4. (this is by far the most horrific one). A post that a mother to be put up as she was at the hospital in labor, saying “I’m at 4cm–6cm to go!” (thanks, that’s just the thought I want as I get ready to head to work this morning).
So thank you facebook for once again being the source of much emotional trauma. And be aware that when I eventually am in labor sometime in the future, there is no way in hell that I am posting about it.