12 Months, No Baby
History, Part II -
Fast Forward One Year
A lot has happen in 12 months; I’ve finished a long over due degree. The occasional freelance gig comes my way, but still have to wait on the odd table to pay the bills. P.Pie’s job continues to love her. P.Pie’s sister - The VP*, husband - Picasso*, and their son - Gunslinger*, have move to the Mile High city, found great jobs, bought a house, and have settled in nicely. Gunslinger, a shoot from the hip kinda kid, spends a lot of time at Auntie and Uncle’s house.
Suddenly, we realize we’re actually not getting younger (though still working on the youth serum). If we want to have children, perhaps we need to get serious about it.
At the beginning of the “Try, but only for fun” period, we told a few people: mothers, close friends, and trusted co-workers. And for the first few sets of 30 days, they would look – or in some cases call – anxiously to P.Pie for any good sign.
After 120 days, things went back to the status quo. Except for the mothers.
The mothers, even though they each lived 1800 miles away (in different directions), had their body clocks in perfect sync with P.Pie’s. Officially, P.Pie’s cycle is 28 days. On the 29th day, the phone would ring.
First it would be her mom.
“Soooo, what’s going on at your house?” After 20 minutes of beating around the bush, they would say their goodbyes. Two and a half minutes later, my mom would call and have the same vague conversation.
I stopped answering the phone. For me, the problem was solved. Not so much so for P.Pie.
Apparently everyone has a ‘friend’ who got pregnant using some obscure method. And not that I'm saying it wasn't true, but... Anyway, they all came out of the woodwork to tell us.
Well, P.Pie really.
“We have these friends,” the story would always begin. “All the doctors told them the same thing, they were infertile and would never have kids.”
Here my skepticism radar begins to go off. Couples that I have known who are truly infertile never add “never have kids.” That’s what infertile means; they don’t need the reminder, thank you very much.
Then the stories go on to espouse the wonders of ground up cat whisker milkshakes, or standing bare footed in fresh cow pies or having sex on rearranged living room furniture (which, for those in the know, is the proper feng shui position). The first couple that told me one of those stories was thanked with a big belly laugh and directions on how to find the truth about urban myths. Word got around that P.Pie’s husband was a ‘pessimist’.
I prefer the term realist, thanks.
Personally, I was beginning to think that only drunk 16 year-olds in the backs of cars got pregnant.
Another funny thing happens when you’re trying, unsuccessfully; everyone else is successful, even television shows. Sitcom, reality, drama… access cable programming… whatever, it didn’t matter; they all had a character or actor who was pregnant. Even the local news had a co-anchor who got pregnant. The TV was mocking me.
Getting pregnant is a lot like a friend getting a new car; until that friend got that make and model, you’d never noticed them on the road. The day your buddy shows you the car, you see them everywhere. Pregnant women are like that. Of course that’s not to say that women are chattel, like a car. I’m not saying that, so don’t post comments or write me emails that I’m a chauvinist. The point is that they were always there, you just don’t notice them.
__________________
I want to stop for a moment and have a bit of a side bar about my father –
Around the one year mark, my father, who we’ll call The Duke*, asked, off handedly, what was going on with getting pregnant (he knew we were trying, but thought better of asking every 29 days). I then went through the whole rigamarole about trying and how I was a little worried about our lack of results. My father paused for a moment to reflect, and then asked if we were having sex.
Well, duh.
Pause for more reflection. “Well,” he drawled in his slight southern tinge. “At least y’all ‘re having fun tryin’.”
Yes, my father can see the silver lining in the half full glass.
Sorry. Back the point.
Since we didn’t own a cat and were unwilling to stand in cow patties (we did try the feng shui thing… fun, but unsuccessful), we checked into traditional methods; books, basal thermometers and marking the calendar.
A note on traditional methods – they take the fun out of sex. Well, not all the fun. But it definitely takes the spontaneity out of it. No longer could we have sex just because we wanted to; we had to watch ourselves as to when we had sex… if it was within six days of the ‘optimum’ getting pregnant time, no dice. Did you know sperm is at its most… potent… within seven days of the last, er, release? Neither did I, until I read it in a book.
So our sex lives began to revolve around the calendar. But, sex is kind of like pizza, even when it’s cold, or even when it’s bad, it’s still pretty good.
12 months of trying unsuccessfully, but now we’ve got a plan.
In the words of Navin R. Johnson, “Things are going to start happening to me, today.”
*not their real names
Fast Forward One Year
A lot has happen in 12 months; I’ve finished a long over due degree. The occasional freelance gig comes my way, but still have to wait on the odd table to pay the bills. P.Pie’s job continues to love her. P.Pie’s sister - The VP*, husband - Picasso*, and their son - Gunslinger*, have move to the Mile High city, found great jobs, bought a house, and have settled in nicely. Gunslinger, a shoot from the hip kinda kid, spends a lot of time at Auntie and Uncle’s house.
Suddenly, we realize we’re actually not getting younger (though still working on the youth serum). If we want to have children, perhaps we need to get serious about it.
At the beginning of the “Try, but only for fun” period, we told a few people: mothers, close friends, and trusted co-workers. And for the first few sets of 30 days, they would look – or in some cases call – anxiously to P.Pie for any good sign.
After 120 days, things went back to the status quo. Except for the mothers.
The mothers, even though they each lived 1800 miles away (in different directions), had their body clocks in perfect sync with P.Pie’s. Officially, P.Pie’s cycle is 28 days. On the 29th day, the phone would ring.
First it would be her mom.
“Soooo, what’s going on at your house?” After 20 minutes of beating around the bush, they would say their goodbyes. Two and a half minutes later, my mom would call and have the same vague conversation.
I stopped answering the phone. For me, the problem was solved. Not so much so for P.Pie.
Apparently everyone has a ‘friend’ who got pregnant using some obscure method. And not that I'm saying it wasn't true, but... Anyway, they all came out of the woodwork to tell us.
Well, P.Pie really.
“We have these friends,” the story would always begin. “All the doctors told them the same thing, they were infertile and would never have kids.”
Here my skepticism radar begins to go off. Couples that I have known who are truly infertile never add “never have kids.” That’s what infertile means; they don’t need the reminder, thank you very much.
Then the stories go on to espouse the wonders of ground up cat whisker milkshakes, or standing bare footed in fresh cow pies or having sex on rearranged living room furniture (which, for those in the know, is the proper feng shui position). The first couple that told me one of those stories was thanked with a big belly laugh and directions on how to find the truth about urban myths. Word got around that P.Pie’s husband was a ‘pessimist’.
I prefer the term realist, thanks.
Personally, I was beginning to think that only drunk 16 year-olds in the backs of cars got pregnant.
Another funny thing happens when you’re trying, unsuccessfully; everyone else is successful, even television shows. Sitcom, reality, drama… access cable programming… whatever, it didn’t matter; they all had a character or actor who was pregnant. Even the local news had a co-anchor who got pregnant. The TV was mocking me.
Getting pregnant is a lot like a friend getting a new car; until that friend got that make and model, you’d never noticed them on the road. The day your buddy shows you the car, you see them everywhere. Pregnant women are like that. Of course that’s not to say that women are chattel, like a car. I’m not saying that, so don’t post comments or write me emails that I’m a chauvinist. The point is that they were always there, you just don’t notice them.
__________________
I want to stop for a moment and have a bit of a side bar about my father –
Around the one year mark, my father, who we’ll call The Duke*, asked, off handedly, what was going on with getting pregnant (he knew we were trying, but thought better of asking every 29 days). I then went through the whole rigamarole about trying and how I was a little worried about our lack of results. My father paused for a moment to reflect, and then asked if we were having sex.
Well, duh.
Pause for more reflection. “Well,” he drawled in his slight southern tinge. “At least y’all ‘re having fun tryin’.”
Yes, my father can see the silver lining in the half full glass.
__________________
Sorry. Back the point.
Since we didn’t own a cat and were unwilling to stand in cow patties (we did try the feng shui thing… fun, but unsuccessful), we checked into traditional methods; books, basal thermometers and marking the calendar.
A note on traditional methods – they take the fun out of sex. Well, not all the fun. But it definitely takes the spontaneity out of it. No longer could we have sex just because we wanted to; we had to watch ourselves as to when we had sex… if it was within six days of the ‘optimum’ getting pregnant time, no dice. Did you know sperm is at its most… potent… within seven days of the last, er, release? Neither did I, until I read it in a book.
So our sex lives began to revolve around the calendar. But, sex is kind of like pizza, even when it’s cold, or even when it’s bad, it’s still pretty good.
12 months of trying unsuccessfully, but now we’ve got a plan.
In the words of Navin R. Johnson, “Things are going to start happening to me, today.”
*not their real names
posted by Rob Barron at 8:53 PM
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