Cycle Day 1

My period came today. At 9 am. Which is 7 hours after I took the pregnancy test that came back so clearly negative.

Neither Wifebian nor I could sleep last night. I woke up from a dream, heard her rustling and said something like, “Are you awake, too?” We finally sighed the collective “fuck-it”, tested negative and went back to bed. Until 6:30.

The dream that woke me was of me peeing on a pregnancy test. Except, the pregnancy test looked like a maxi pad. And when I peed, I peed my period. And I moved the little pad around between my fingers, trying to see the lines through the blood.

I havent had such prescient dreaming since my father relapsed in drug and alcohol addiction. (“Into drug and alcohol addiction” — you can tell I havent sloughed off my social worker hat for the day, yet.)

My dad and my baby. That, I can dream about.

I am still feeling some of that strange indigestion and very hungriness. I wonder if some valiant spermatozoa didnt ricochet off of some beefy egg and send some H sparks and C sparks and G sparks into my blood stream. And through to my brain.

I was on the phone today, with some triage nurse, asking if it wasnt too late to talk about Clomid and triggers shots and sonograms. They said they would call me back. But I missed the call because I was in a meeting.

I teared up listing to the message, “This is so and so calling from such and such. When you return the call, please ask for triage.”

This is not who I wanted to be.

I was going to be so fertile!

But that’s OK. It’s like in high school when I thought that you could listen to the Cure or Morrissey, but you had to pick one or the other. Or in college when I thought California was filled with crunchy nutballs and I was just so East Coast.

Sometimes my thinking is very black and white and I cling to arbitrary distinctions based on uninformed opinions.

I didnt want to be this person who has to talk to doctors because I am very healthy. I didnt want to be this person who took fertility drugs because look at these hips. I didnt want to be this person who wants children because I am not that kind of woman.

But this cycle, with the weird symptoms, the ones that led me to believe I was pregnant, brought me so close to my caring. I am now old enough to know that when I start to care about something, I should take a minute. Be vulnerable. And enjoy it.

So I did.

And now, I think I may have crossed some sort of line. Into caring. This is something I care about.

Surely, you saw this coming from a mile away.

What with my history.

My favorite part about drinking during the day is two beers in, when the leaves on the trees get so green they shimmer.

Lesbian Magic

Among the reasons why I got pregnant this month, if I did, include ritual and happenstance. Me and a friend did a pregnancy ritual. Each of us, in our cities, at the same time, lit candles and thought baby thoughts while texting. My baby altar consisted of a seashell, a gum wrapper, and a beer bottle on a red step stool. Wifebian’s fireworks boxer briefs were draped over the stool.

There were also two chocolate wrappers on the stool. The day after we inseminated, we were eating some chocolates, the kind with various and sundry messages printed on the inside of the wrapper. We each selected a chocolate and said that we would put the wrapper with the saying most favorable for baby-making on the altar. Turns out we both drew out a chocolate wrapped in the same saying: “Try something new.”

And finally, one of the sperm vials was marked with Wifebian’s birth month and day. (Also, placed on the altar.)

I mean, come on!

From the longings of motherhood to the bean counting of bodily functions through the esoterics of trinkets  we go.

In another feat of ambivalent flexibility, the next post will be titled “All the Reasons It Will Be Totally Awesome If I’m Not Pregnant”.

The Vagaries of Mind and Body

*Now* we can list symptoms and debate the merits of my pregnancy case. Indeed, it’s the weirdness I’ve been feeling that emboldened me to bang out out that previous heartfelt post in the first place, not some hope that I was with child.

For the past 7 days I have had indigestion after 80% of my meals, felt queezy 5% of the time in general, experienced a growling stomach 5 times, had ever so slight metallic taste in my mouth yesterday after downing a bottle of water on an empty stomach, had a runny nose twice and the craziest HD dream of my whole life. I never had indigestion, which has been this strange combo of burping, queasiness and a thick lump in my throat. My stomach never growls because I am always dumping food into it.

Now, for all the reasons these are not pregnancy symptoms because if there is one thing thats more fun than building a case, it’s tearing it down. 1.) I eat crap, in a crappy way every single day and have gained weight over the past 6 months, about 10 pounds. Pizza and chocolate Frosties figure heavily into my diet. So, of course I’ve developed indigestion. And allergy season is bananas everywhere, so of course my nose is runny. And the metallic taste is psychosomatic because the Privilege Lady said that was her symptom and the growling stomach is just dumb. This is the sour apple in my head speaking.

So, from the loftiest heights of maternal longing to the cold bean-counting of bodily functions we have descended. Wifebian and I are making crude jokes about abortion and vomit and otherwise trying to have fun. This is a very new two weeks of waiting for me; I havent actually ever thought I was pregnant during the other ones.

Wifebian says we shouldnt test again until Saturday, but I think Wednesday is reasonable, that will be 14 dpo. But then, this morning, when I taunted her with the test, she said, “We can always buy more.”

(CD 30, 11 DPO.)