Monica: “I can’t believe this. My uterus is an inhospitable environment? I’ve always tried so hard to be a good hostess!”
–Friends
Somewhere in year two of trying to get pregnant, we started considering that maybe this thing wasn’t going to bang out without some help. We weren’t sure where the help should come from and struggled with the Ghostbustery question, “Who you gonna call?”
I kept starting to move forward, then having second thoughts and thinking we just needed to have sex more or have sex less or change up the timing or try leeches or shock treatments. Nobody knew about essential oils back then or I would’ve been allllll up in that. We would’ve had oils in all the orifices.
People choose different ways of pursuing help, and we tried them all.
#1: The wait and see approach
Just keep tracking your ovulation. Just keep having sex at the appropriate times. Lather, rinse, repeat.
#2: The extreme prayer approach
When things aren’t taking their natural course, some of us decide to go above our pay grade, into the heavens. This can take many different forms, from lighting candles in church or [insert religious venue] to healing services where people lay their hands on your uterus and speak in tongues or smear oil on your forehead and speak a blessing over your womb.
Or maybe your extreme prayer isn’t something you’d consider prayer. Maybe you start making deals with the universe, promise to call your mother every Sunday or stop stealing cable from your neighbor or vow to plant a tree, offset your carbon footprint, and do a better job of recycling. You might take meditation classes, learn how to align something like a chakra or an aura or light incense and write poetry in a meadow while wearing paper pants and a crown of flowers.
Whatever. You try to get pregnant through pleading, deal-making, or being a better person. This is slightly noble, but not necessarily effective, and if your prayers are not answered according to your timetable, it can leave you with a faith crisis, or just super pissy.
#3: The medical approach
When approaches #1 and #2 don’t work, many people head for #3: Get Thee to a Doctor. With the medical approach, you’re going to encounter a couple of steps. First, let’s diagnose the problem, and second, let’s see if we can fix it. For many couples, either or both of these parts can take a while and involve exposing your goodies to many, many people. READ MORE at Coffee+Crumbs
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excerpted from Infreakinfertility: How to Survive When Getting Pregnant Gets Hard
