maybe baby

If you're like me (i.e. you have a lot of time on your hands while you sit around waiting for the gods to smile down on you regarding certain applications), then you might find the following blog interesting: www.alittlepregnant.com This is written by a woman who's undergone massive IVF treatments to counter her infertility. (not to give the ending away--but her last entry was about telling her son about her father's death) It is funny and heartfelt and absolutely fascinating. I've learned more about infertility treatments and the Workings of the Inner Female than I ever cared to know.

Now, I know that I want kids. Someday. That's what we all say, isn't it, girls? Except that with people I know getting married, people I know having babies, I suddenly realised that Someday could be Today. Well--nine months from now. (I should note for the benefit of any parents reading, this topic is purely hypothetical.) But I'm also not kidding myself about little bundles of joy falling out of the sky--babies are a life changing event, and I wouldn't have one without another parent around. So say Mr. Father-of-My-Hypothetical-Children is the next person who walks through the door. It's going to take a year or four before we decide to have the kids, and now I'm thirty. All the rationalising you can do about putting off grad school ("meh, I've got time") doesn't apply. This is purely evolutionary after all. I have a window of time.

And now I'm discovering just how unfun and agonizing not getting pg can be. And I'm not even trying! (I sincerely apologise to anyone who's ever tried and failed. I am co-opting your experienced opinion and probably being incredibly selfish.) But as a woman who never really considered the fact of babies, and who thought that getting knocked up would be a fairly easy thing to do (in the future) now I'm already concerned. What if my hedonistic lifestyle and addiction to Midol is slowly eating away at my fertility? What if the pain on my right side isn't horrible cramps, it's actually endometreosis? God--how do you even SPELL that?!

I know that I'm just being paranoid--and that, let's face it, of all the current issues in my life right now, this is probably the least pressing. But it worries me. I try to be a well woman, and this includes the bits that can make other humans. How do I know if they're okay and in working order? I don't. I just have to trust I'm not severely screwing myself up unknowingly and that--when the time comes--if the time comes--everything will work out fine.

I'll let you know in a year or four.