Two-and-a-half weeks post-BFP, I am still in what some would probably liken to a state of shock.
There are moments when I’m giddy and excited and looking forward to all thethings that might finally one day be, but there are lots more of those other moments. Those moments where I’m lost because I find the use of the word ”baby” freaky and weird; I prefer “kid.” Those moments where I’m grossed out by my own body because another human being growing in it is not normal. Those moments where I don’t know how the hell this happened, andI’m terrified of all the things that really may finally one day be. Because while I spent three long years wanting this result, I’d never actually made the connection to what it would be like. It’s messing with my head.
Why, you ask? How could this wonderful amazing news mess with my head when it’s all I’ve wanted for three long years? Because it happened almost by ACCIDENT! Because our doctors told us we would probably never get pregnant on our own! Because we had “sperm meet egg” issues, people! And now, somehow, I am the stuff urban legends are made of! And I am not a fanof urban legends.
While I know that we had sex on purpose and on schedule, so the word ”accident” probably shouldn’t really be used, I also know that we have had sex on purpose and on schedule somewhere between twenty-four and fifty times in the last three years, and it never worked before. It didn’t even work when robots in fancy white coats brewed up a bunch of my eggs, put them in dishes, and hand-mixed them with his specially chosen sperm! Yet somehow, I just throw a well-timed opportunity at the husband, and that’s it? That’s all? Really?
Apparently, yes.
And that’s where it all gets weird. Because if I were a normal woman who had had normal sex (I should clarify: I mean normal in the sense of sex without counting days on a calendar – that whimsical kind of sex that’s so foreign to infertiles) and not noticed her period was late for five days (which I didn’t), I would have probably come up with some cheesy over-the-top way of telling the husband I was pregnant. If I were a normal woman who had had normal - I mean whimsical – sex, I would probably have cried and rubbed my tummy, and thought the word “baby” would be the most beautiful word ever.
I, as a veteran infertile who had given up all hope and was now training for her first half marathon, instead went storming into the bedroom, turned on the lights without warning the sleeping husband, and yelled, “Wake the f* up. I think I’m pregnant. And I just lost 10lbs! F*!”
Not the kind of reaction you would expect from a veteran either. Which brings me to my point: while I am more appreciative of this surprise than I could ever express, I’m also very bothered by it. If this really is a “relax” baby, then it makes the last three years a waste of time and money, an expulsion of emotional energy like I’ve never put into anything else into a great big joke.
I can’t allow myself to believe that. I need to believe that this isn’t a “relax” baby, that it did not happen because we gave up, and it did not happen because we didn’t need help. It happened because after all this time, the stats were finally on our side: throw enough sperm at enough eggs it doesn’t like, and eventually they will meet. It happened because the cycle after a stimulated cycle has higher odds than a regular cycle – and we counted days on calendars to take advantage of those odds. It happened because my body had finally had enough drugs teach it what to do, that it was able to repeat it on its own.
Any other answer is just not acceptable.