Monkey on the Edge

I felt compelled to post something today because, well, it’s my birthday. Yep. Another year older and another year not pregnant. Not for lack of trying, mind you. I diligently peed on a stick every morning for a week until I got the happy face and then proudly proclaimed to my husband, “We got a smiley face! Wake me when you get home!” Did I not mention that’s been one of our challenges? I work a 9 – 5 office job and he runs a bar. Most days we’re like two ships passing in the night which makes for some interesting attempts at being sexy and spontaneous. Try telling your body that not only is it going to have to work double time to try and get pregnant now that it’s over 40, but oh yeah, you’re not gonna get much sleep because we have to work around your husband’s schedule. I think that’s the hardest part of trying to get pregnant – losing all sense of spontaneity. Everything is timed out in order to get the desired result. Gone are the days of simply having sex for fun. Don’t get me wrong, sex is still and always will be fun, but I’ll be honest – sometimes it’s a real drag to feel like you have to have sex. And I know I’m not alone in this feeling. Ask my husband and I know he’d agree. It’s probably even more difficult for him because he’s got to “perform successfully” in order for the plan to work. I basically just have to show up to the party!

So, we did what we’ve been doing for the past year. We both put on a happy face and claimed to be excited for the next four days of planned sex. 

Actually this last attempt WAS fun because we were on vacation. Hotel sex really is some of the best sex! Something about being away from your normal, boring surroundings and being in a strange bed. And this time we really thought we nailed it. We both joked about our baby wanting to be an Austin baby (we were visiting Austin) and how much fun it would be to know we had conceived this particular week. I was studying astrological charts to determine what sign our baby would be (Capricorn) and I was starting to daydream about baby names and what it would feel like to be pregnant. I wasn’t as bothered by the endless array of commercials, TV shows, movies, magazine articles, Yahoo! stories that focused on pregnant women. Pregnant women all in their 20’s or 30’s. Do you know how difficult it is to try and remain positive with all the Negative Nancy’s out there proclaiming how slim your chances are of conceiving after 40? Yeah, I get it – I started late in life, give me a break! But anyway, I was feeling really positive this time…until I got my period two days ago. And it was early! It felt like the Universe was trying to tell me, “Nope. Not this time, and here’s your period early to make sure you have absolutely no hope at all.” Ugh.

So where do we go from here? Back to the fertility doc! And that my friends, is a whole other story… 

I think the most difficult part of getting started is…getting started! Will I say the right things? Will I be witty enough? Will anybody really care? So I’ve decided to simply jump into the deep end and begin to write. I mean seriously, what’s the worst that can happen?

Someone might actually read this blog.

Which begs the question:  Why blog? At first I really wanted to share my journey of trying to get pregnant after 40, thinking I would start a blog 3 months into my pregnancy because that’s the safe window to announce, “I’m pregnant!” to the world. But as the days turned to weeks turned to months turned to a year already on this journey of no pregnancy, I suddenly realized I could be waiting a long time to share my “success” story.  And what if there is no “success”? And what if there is “success” but it just takes a minute? And what if there might be some other women out there over (ahem) 40 who are also on this journey? Do you know how lonely this journey can be? I do! I mean of course my husband has been with me every step of the way. And my two dogs. And my cat. And although close friends are always willing to listen to my crazy, let’s face it. At the end of the day unless you’re personally involved or are living a similar story, this topic is bor-ing! So I’m writing this blog for all those women out there who are also lonely in their journey. And I promise to be honest. I may omit a few things here and there (nobody needs to know about that!) but for the most part, I’m really going to try to share the good, the bad, AND the ugly. Why not?

Nobody’s reading this blog anyway! 😉