Conception Story

Because you all want to know EXACTLY how this baby was conceived, right?

Right.

So, it was decided, by us, on towards a year ago or so, that we would begin “trying” for our #2 soon. Three-ish years separation is a good one, we thought. It was then decided (by me, because, I’m the one that really matters since I’m the one who’s going to be, you know, PREGNANT) that I did not want to miss (or otherwise HATE) our summer vacations because I was 18 months and 9000lbs pregnant. I thus decided to put off the trying until October, which, if we conceived in the first second post-IUD removal would make our children precisely three years apart. As The Energizer Bunny was…shall we say “no problem” to conceive, I assumed #2 would not be either. Don’t get me wrong, I didn’t think they’d be precisely 3 years apart. In fact, it would have annoyed me if their birthdays were REALLY close together. But I expected them to be 3 years and 1 month apart…maybe 2…

So 5 ½ months go by with no success, due completely and totally to my body’s lack of any kind of schedule. Apparently my uterus has become just as lackadaisical about her work schedule as I am about mine…don’t worry, she gets the work done, just kinda, you know, whenever she wants to do it.

By this point, of course, I have mastered the time-honored ovulation discerning technique known as the “Cervical Mucus Method.”

Oh, I tried the easier ones, like the Basal Body Temperature, but it turns out I’m constantly living in a half-dead state based on my body temperature, which never rises above 96 degrees based on my home thermometer (despite the fact that the thing works appropriately in both the Unsupportive Louse and the Energizer Bunny…) But even ignoring my near-zombie-ness (which would explain a lot really) and blaming the stupid broken thermometer my temperature never fluctuated the entire 1.4 degrees it was expected to, to show ovulation had occurred or was about to occur or whatever. If I hadn’t managed to conceive previously, I would have at this point, completely freaked out. Instead, I threw the thermometer away. (Nice digital one too. Damn it.)

I want you all to know that I am completely, absolutely, utterly horrified by the mere THOUGHT of the Cervical Mucus Method. Probably not as much as you men reading this, but close enough. Nevertheless, lives were at stake. I rallied my courage and even managed not to puke. And quite confidently figured the grossness out in just two cycles.

So 5 ½ months after the “trying” begins, produces much grossness and no fertilized egg, I count very scientifically on my fingers and realize a baby conceived during whatever week my crazy ass uterus decides to ovulate this cycle would be due right around Christmas. And ugh, what a terrible time of year to be about to pop. Imagine the holiday parties you have to stand on your feet and look happy and talk with people you barely like that you couldn’t even drink at. Imagine the pain of getting gifts ready and wrapped and the house cleaned and the tree trimmed all while 9 months pregnant? Lord, imagine the in-laws being in town when you ACTUALLY deliver??

So we decided to take the month off. Now, remember we’d been trying with no success forever, so taking the month off just meant I didn’t force the Unsupportive Louse into un-consensual sex a few days of the month when it seemed most likely to be good timing. (This included the calendar method based on a 28 day cycle, and the calendar method based on my shortest and longest cycles in the last 5 months and the evil Cervical Mucus Method. Generally none of the 4 lined up which meant there was a whole lot of un-consensual sex going on.) Taking the month off did NOT mean abstinence (who the hell do you think I am?) nor did it mean actually using some sort of contraception, I mean, really, we are TRYING to get pregnant, that would just be dumb.

Only a day or two after my monthly bleeding session (sorry boys) I happened to notice (no, I wasn’t really checking, we weren’t trying, remember??) that my cervical mucus seemed to be telling me I was ovulating. As this is clearly impossible, being that a NORMAL uterus would wait 2 weeks before ovulating, I ignored said cervical mucus.

So of course we got pregnant.

Due date – December 20.

(Or Dec 27 if you use a normal cycle calendar, which the stupid nurse insisted on doing…because she knows more about my body than me.)

Love of my Life

Let me just say, it seems I'm frickin' terrible at keeping secrets. Other people's? Fine, whatever, it's probably not as excitng as they think it is anyway. But my own? EVERYBODY MUST KNOW NOW!!

So I am proud to say, you all, my fabulous blog followers/readers/stalkers will be the first to know this long-kept secret of mine. Besides the Pills, the Walking Guilt Trip, The Princess, the Energizer Bunny, obviously the Unsupportive Louse, and a few select friends who water-boarded me/twisted my arm/didn't even really ask but maybe hinted in the right direction and I gave in. But you are the first ones I don't HAVE to tell, and I'm telling anyway! Because you are so special to me. Even more special than my Facebook friends. Or maybe just because this blog doesn't quite work as well without said secret being revealed.

So here goes... I'm pregnant!! (All females, please read this to mean - I expect lots of oohs and aahs and is it a boy or girls? and what are you gonna name thems? and traded pregnancy stories and birth stories and baby stories for the next 6 months or so. All males, please read this to mean - I now have an absolute right to be the biggest, mood-swingiest, crankiest, tiredest, manipulativest, demandingest bitch you've ever met, and you're still required to think I'm beautiful and sexy and sweet and loving for at LEAST the next 9 or 10 months.)

Now, for the real story.

This first trimester has kicked me on my flipping ass. I'm exhausted, I'm drained, I'm cranky, I'm moody, I'm just plain tired.

Friday night after work the Unsupportive Louse offered to cook dinner, and let me relax and read and go to bed early - I was absolutely in heaven. What a wonderful man, husband, father, partner, love of my life. So caring, so understanding, so perfect. He even brought home ice cream. My life is perfect. Ideal. A fantasy, a fairy tale. I married Prince Charming. Not even Cinderella is happier than me.

Two hours after I head up to bed to read in blissful peace and ignorance of the rest of the household, imagining the romantic things we can do when he makes it up to bed and I'm actually well-rested... the ever-present Mooch barges in to the room. "Hey, I'm pretty sure the Unsupportive Louse is passed out down there. I didn't want to wake him up." So he woke me up instead. Of course.

I groan and pull myself out of bed and head down to see if he's perhaps exaggerating the situation. It is, after all, barely 9:00. (In other news, the Energizer Bunny's regular bedtime is now 10:00 as he wakes up before the college version of myself went to bed if he falls asleep any earlier than 10.)

Turning the corner from the stairway, I see the Energizer Bunny expertly turning off the TV and DVD player with the remote (we don't even have cable, there's no reasonable explanation for his knowledge in this capacity.) He then informs me he just watched a WHOOOOLE movie. The WHOOOOLE thing. He is very proud of this fact.

And....slouched off his bean bag chair in the middle of the floor is the Unsupportive Louse. Snoring, mouth hanging open, drooling. The Energizer Bunny runs over to him and tackles him with gusto, climbs on top of him and jumps off. Repeats. The Unsupportive Louse doesn't move.

Spread around him is our favorite board game, the one we don't let the Energizer Bunny play with, ever... it's hundreds of tiny pieces out of their individual bags, spread from the TV to the window to the couch, the cards out of their boxes, all shuffled together, along with the tiny circles game board pieces.

On the end table is his "mystery cup." The cup he's held on to since college like a talisman of days when he could do what he wanted when he wanted and never have to hear a word about it from anyway. It's the cup he uses to steal illicit drinks. It smells of vodka.

The vodka bottle on the kitchen counter was brand new that afternoon, as is apparent from the crumpled receipt on the counter - ice cream and vodka. It's half-empty. In less than two hours.

Love of my life my ass. Pain in my ass is more like it. Giving me a night off just so he can get drunk? Jackhole. Falling asleep so the Energizer Bunny can get into one of the few things that are still sacred in this house? Dumbass. Building up my dreams of a relaxing night before making me put both the Energizer Bunny AND him to bed?? Stupid chauvanistic bastard. (I'm pregnant, I can turn on Mother Teresa if she looks at me funny out from under her halo, what kind of man would think this was a good idea?)

I spent all night cursing the man and wondering why I had ever decided to have another baby when really I already have two and am practically a single mother (I mean, for real, he can't consider himself a PARENT after this, can he?)

Luckily for him, he realized what trouble he was in, let me sleep in (he swore he didn't have a hangover...) made me breakfast, cleaned the house and even bought me "contrition shoes."

So I forgave him.

Personally, I think he's lucky he still has his balls. After all, I probably won't be needing them any more. ;)

"Study Break"

Here's the truth, people - I went to a nerdy college. It's true, I did. I'd apologize for possibly offending all those who went to the same nerdy college as me, but the fact is, if you went to UCSD, you're most likely not denying it, you're solemnly nodding your head. If you ARE denying the nerd-dom that dwells within...you're a nerd in denial.

That being said if at any time in our school schedule, whether it be the first day of classes or the day before finals, if we had a scheduled "Study Break," even 5 minutes, we would have used it to...study. Yup, told you, nerd school.

In my current cute little midwestern college town, they have an ENTIRE WEEK before finals which is devoted to "studying." A week off of classes. A week to prepare for the grueling tests that are rumored to be open note, are definitely all multiple choice, and are scheduled for one THIRD the time ours were.

And what do the brilliant U of M college students do during this "Study Break?"

Drink, of course.

Other than football Saturdays there isn't any other time the streets are so littered with red dixie cups, crushed beer cans or empty liquor bottles.

Which I've grown used to. It IS the beginning of Spring after all, since they also end their term well over a month before we did... and while we nerdy little San Diegans could lay out all year round, these poor kids are trapped inside their well-heated dorms all winter long with no reprieve - it's time to get OUT, time to PARTY.

So fine, I maneuver my bike around the glass shards and puke piles and cowboy golf racks and bean bag toss boards with no longer even a second glance. But this...this made me pause:

I cannot begin to imagine a study break drinking game that involves a beer bottle graveyard, metal spikes and a broken vacuum cleaner.

Seriously, we weren't THAT nerdy that I can't even IMAGINE a cool drinking game out of this...were we?

Stress Counselor?

My place of employment is giving it's employees an incentive hundred bucks if we participate in a health/preventative program. If you at all understand me, you know that for a hundred bucks I'm willing to do pretty much anything. So, of course, I signed up.

To start, you take a questionnaire, enter in all sorts of information you're probably lying about because you have no idea (BMI? cholesterol levels? triglycerides?) and all sorts of personal questions that you have to answer using only the A, B, C or D options they give you (which they've cleverly devised to not *actually* fit any real life situation so that no single person can truly answer the question by choosing either A, B, C or D.)

Once you've taken the fabulous questionnaire, you are given your "risk factors." What, from the very in depth questionnaire, they have determined to be your future cause of illness/death/disablement.

From these risk factors, you choose programs to participate in in order to achieve your final goal of... ONE HUNDRED DOLLARS! or, I suppose they want me to think the ultimate goal is not dying of whatever disease, but really, I'm going to die eventually. And yeah, they're probably going to have to pay the insurance when I go. I just want my hundred bucks.

My number one risk factor? Killing the Energizer Bunny. I think what I read between the lines was "having stupid parents is a risk factor for children." So educating me, as a parent, means big points on my hundred buck scale. And as I am actually concerned about the Energizer Bunny, I chose this program. It was 6 weeks, on-line, a bunch of articles, a quiz or two that you could change your answers to after they gave you the right ones, no big deal.

Next risk factor: stress. Apparently I am stressed out. I momentarily thought to adamantly deny this while throwing a fit regarding said retarded questionnaire, then realized this might simply increase my stress level to the point that they were right. And THAT would be terrible. Almost as terrible as the Unsupportive Louse being right.

So I choose to enroll in the stress counseling instead. Three 15 minute phone calls is all it is. No biggie, I can manage.

My first phone call with my brand-spanking new stress counselor, Annie, goes something like this:

"What's one major thing that's been stressing you out recently?"

"Well, my husband was writing his thesis and was gone 16 hours a day and stressed out himself, so that was huge."

"Oh! What degree was he working toward?"

"A PhD in Immunology."

"You said you're in science too, didn't you?"

"Yep."

"But you don't have an advanced degree?"

"Nope."

"Have you ever thought about getting one?"

"I've thought about it occasionally."

"I'm sure you know it can change the way you're regarded in the field, increase your respect, as well as your pay."

"Yep."

"If it's something you're considering, you should go for it, you're still young!" A slight pause. "You know, I just read an article that found that graduate students have less sex than geriatrics."


Wait a second... have I been having less sex than OLD PEOPLE for the last SIX years?

Wait a MINUTE... isn't this supposed to be stress counseling??