Dear Diary: March

A year ago this month, we finally mustered up the courage, put away our denial, and researched Reproductive Endocrinologists within 300 miles of where we live. The first steps toward finding out why we were not getting (me) pregnant after a year of baby making sex, 9 months of charting and perfectly timed intercourse. We woke up at 4 am on a Saturday to drive 4 hours to a fertility clinic where F would take a plastic cup into a small bathroom and deposit a sample, while a frail looking but no nonsense nurse stood outside the door, waiting. She didn't really stand outside the door waiting, but that is what F imagined was happening on the other side of the door. Our first visit to the fertility clinic was....

We had not yet scheduled a consultation, our dog was in the car, it was windy and raining, we were tired, no one knew we were there. As soon as F is finished we will turn around and drive back down the coast, like we were never even here. Another young couple came into the waiting room where I was sitting. F was taking forever. Next time we will get a motel room, stay the night.... They were quietly whisked away, past the closed door where F touched old magazines, then recoiled, felt a stronger urge in his bowels than down there.

F seemed to burst from the door into the waiting room, red faced, walking straight from the lab where he handed over his DNA, past me with barely a glance, strait to the car where he waited for me to catch up, hoping to never return.

But we did.

Thankfully, he was vindicated in a small, yet moot, way a week later when he got the results of the semen analysis in the mail. This sample is consistent with male fertility. We celebrated and I apologized for assuming it must be you/can't be me. F: 1, J: 0

And then, with renewed hope/denial we continued until June, consultation with RE and HSG and clomid. Break. The IUIs began in November that same year, and then a new year. And now March.

A year later, and we prepare for another consultation, a second opinion, even further away. Portland. I am so excited I won't even notice we are taking a break this month. Well, sort of.

I am not temping or charting or heating my abdomen or eating pineapple or using opks. On Saturday evening I went to a party, had three (3!) glasses of wine. I was on my third glass when an acquaintance mentioned being 16 weeks pregnant. Shrug. I came home to F and we had sex on the couch. Unplanned sex. I didn't think about conception or baby making or what day of my cycle it was. I felt normal. and tipsy.

My parents are coming to visit during my most fertile around the time of ovulation. They won't hear my basal body thermometer beeping, or worse, any rocking, thumping, squeaking or moaning, catch a glimpse of any tests in the trash, no evidence of ....

I'm sure we'll perform baby making sex, as something like bookends on either side of their visit but this month will be more a month of breathing deeply, more unplanned sex, more hiking and exercise. More normalcy. Then, we will walk into a new fertility clinic on March 23, not as newbies, awkward, shy, silent and shamed in the waiting room, yet far from seasoned veterans also, with some knowledge as to why we are there, and what comes next, with more to discuss than the initial meet and greet with patients who can't believe where they are, can't even say infertility to a stranger without crying.

what do you do? Oh, a teacher and an artist, what subject, what medium? teachers deserve a medal (how are you ever going to afford fertility treatment?), by the way, it seems at this point you have unexplained infertility. Any questions?