I spent my entire adult life doing everything in my power to not have a baby. Condoms, the morning after pill, the trusty pull-out method, any and all means necessary to just not be pregnant. And turns out, it’s not all that easy to get pregnant in the first place. I mean, not when you’re actually trying to do it.
Isn’t life strange?
A few months ago I decided that maybe, just maybe I’d gotten to a place in my life where I felt somehow “ready,” to be a mom. I mean, not ready, ready because I don’t think that anyone ever feels totally ready unless they’re insane and just not thinking about what it means to be a parent. Because here’s the reality: It’s incredibly difficult. And if we’ve learned anything from movies like Star Wars, it’s that you can try really hard and still end up with an asshole like Darth Vader or Kylo Ren. And who wants to take responsibility for either of those shitheads? Nobody, that’s who.
It’s one of the few things in my life where I thought, “I need to actually be prepared for this,” hence waiting until my mid-thirties to make my vagina rain a baby. I’ve been in therapy for over a year working on my shit, have read a billion books on self-care, have done a lot of work on my marriage and trained my dog a little bit more (although you’d never be able to tell because he’s still a psycho). And, most importantly, a few weeks ago my therapist was like, “you will be a really good mom. Really. You don’t have anything to be afraid of,” after one of my long rants about my fears of being a parent. And since I trust her I came home from my appointment and was like, “IT IS TIME. Put a baby in me!” to my husband who was confused but also like, “Oh, cool,” because that’s how he reacts to all things. But, turns out, it’s not actually that easy to get pregnant and I’m learning that it’s miraculous that anyone accidentally gets pregnant at all.
My sister is a nurse and she instructed me to buy these weird ovulation pee sticks to find out when my little egg skydives into my uterus every month. They’re like pregnancy tests but they look for a specific hormone, LH (Luteinizing hormone). Been doing that every single day and it seems that the sticks and my ovulation app are at odds. Mainly because my app claims that I have a fertility period but according to the sticks I haven’t ovulated at all yet. So, that’s interesting. Is it possible to have used up all of my eggs already? Can wine dissolve eggs? Can they be incinerated by too many hot showers? I’m asking for a friend.
I find it interesting (and ironic) that after a decade of fighting off sperm like a foreign invasion I’m like, “wee, a baby!” but now my body is all “LOL this is fun,” and is apparently holding my eggs for ransom.
Cross your fingers. This is going to be interesting.
M. E. Evans 