I was always told that if you let a penis touch your leg, you’d get pregnant. This is the impression most 5th grade teachers and bad after school specials left me with. If you were in a two-mile radius of sperm, you’d get knocked up, have no money and the baby daddy would always seem to end up working at a gas station in these scenarios. That was the deal.
However, I’m about to start hormone injections to do our first IVF after trying to conceive on our own for quite some time. We’ve tried the old fashioned way, then I took Clomid to help produce more eggs, and then we tried 3 inseminations (or IUI’s as the cool kids call it)… but nothing worked. And so we’re clear: in almost all those attempts, his penis did more than just touch my leg.
When we first talked about getting pregnant, I immediately ran out and bought a journal. Being a writer, I thought I would have an incredibly fun time writing about our efforts. My dream was my daily updates would all culminate in an adorable book containing “trying to conceive” anecdotes and my imagined quick success in getting pregnant. Foolishly, I even thought to myself, “Wow. This is going to be a boring book. I’m going to get pregnant so quickly that I’ll have nothing to write about!” As the months passed, this statement haunted me. I was convinced I jinxed myself so I quickly grew to hate the journal. I stopped writing about our efforts all-together and didn’t think about writing another word on the subject… until today.
There are times when I’m on the verge of losing it. Yes, we haven’t even been trying for all that long. I realize this. There are many couples out there that have been trying for several years with no success. I seriously can’t even begin to imagine how they deal with it since in the time we’ve been trying; I have never felt more like a failure. I’ve grown embarrassed that I can’t seem to pull off what should be a downright simple task. I currently know six people who told me they were thinking about getting pregnant and got pregnant all within the span of us trying. Three of them even started trying months after we did, and they are all pregnant.
And this, is why I’m writing again. What was initially an idea for a cute little keepsake journal has become my form of survival. I write now to keep my sanity during this hormonally charged time.
So dear reader, I’m beginning again: both this blog and my next cycle of trying to get pregnant. Welcome to my own personal biological hell.
Just found your blog and am starting from the beginning. I've already read some of your recent posts. We're also battling infertility and many of my statements from years ago are haunting me as I wonder if I've jinxed myself. They include:
1) "I don't want to ever get pregnant"
2) "If we find out that we're infertile, I'll be glad because then I won't have to buy birth control" – this one is the worst!
3) "I guarantee you, I will never change my mind about wanting to get pregnant"
Great! Now I desperately want to get pregnant and I hate my infertility…I think jinxing is for real. I need a witch to undo my curse!