You know you are trying to conceive when...

Think trying to get knocked up is easy and filled with flowers, butterflies and fluffy stuff?  For a minority of women, this is true...for the rest of us, a sense of humor is a prerequisite.  Here is a short list of the "joys" of trying to conceive. Sure, there is all that fluffy stuff too but there are enough blogs that focus on that and, as you know, fluffy stuff just isn't our style.  

You know you are trying to conceive when.....

1. You are measuring and quantifying everyhing you can in your life.  Basal Body Temperature, cervical mucus, lh predictor kit results, exercise, food, caffeine intake, etc.  Thank goodness for apps but good luck not losing your sanity...even just a little bit.

 

2. Your regular cycle gets wacky....just to keep you on your toes.

3. Those damned pregnancy tests all measure different levels of HGC and claim to be able to confirm pregnancy on different days of your cycle....resulting in fighting the urge (and often losing) any day after ovulation.  (Never knew that HPTs could be such a great business.)

4. TTC (Trying To Conceive) blogs become your greatest hope and worst enemy.

5. As ridiculous as all those TTC blog abreviations are, you start using them.  AF = Aunt Flow?  Seriously ladies, we are not in middle school...I hope!

6. You're partner has never been more interested in and open to talking about your cycle...and you realize just how much they didn't pay attention during high school sex ed.

7. Two weeks of each month feels like an eternity.

8. Sex, while still enjoyable, also feels like Olympics.  You may be exhausted, sick, battered or bruised but you still go for the gold!

9. Any PMS symptom now becomes a possible pregnancy symptom...damn you TTC blogs, websites and books!

10. Foreplay becomes "I think I'm going to ovulate soon" and it works, every time.

11. The idea of nausea, weight gain and breast tenderness has never sounded so good. 

That is my list!   Got any to add to?  We'd love to hear from you!

Not everything is Disney’s fault

So, this is the thing.  Every time I am introduced to someone it goes something like this:

Me: Hi! Nice to meet you.

Anyone: Nice to meet you too. Are you married?

(Seriously!!!!! Like your marital status is the most important thing about you. Not only that, whenever I see someone that I haven’t seen in a long time, the conversation goes “Are you married yet?” or “Did you finally get married?” (I’m almost 40, you see).

Part II.

Me: No, I’m still single.

Anyone: (sigh) Oh well! (followed by the universal look of pity/sadness/compassion…fill in the blank).

And the cherry on top…                                                     

Anyone: Don’t worry, you will find someone soon.

At this point I’m looking dangerously like the Vesuvius about to bury Pompeii and I am fighting hard to control a homicidal impulse. So I just change the topic and think to myself that it is not strange that I have lost most of my desire to socialize these days.   

You may have heard (repeatedly) that we are to blame Disney and his promotion of “princess waiting for prince charming” stereotype for false hopes and shattered dreams regarding romantic relationships, or in other words, for shaping our vision of life in an unrealistic way making us think we could get a prince when what we are most likely to get is, well, the frog.  Don’t get me wrong, frogs can be lovely, but they’re no princes.

I manage to see the point in these accusations, but what I would really like to know is who is to blame for the “other illusion”, namely that a woman’s only chance to fulfillment and bliss is to be married and have kids. (Enter the sad and pitiful look if you are not among the “blessedly” married-with-kids ones.)

I would love to have a kid, but as for marriage…Let’s just say it is not part of my fantasy. It never was. I honestly (cross my heart) never dreamed of a church, bells and flowers, nor a white dress or a husband. I never had a dream where I was Mrs. Prince Charming or Mrs. Frog. I’m simply not the marrying kind and that’s fine with me.

The problem is, it seems I’m the only one who’s fine with it because strangers and acquaintances definitely sense something’s just not right with this picture…Especially other women!  Most of the time I think they are so fixated about my couplessness because they are envious, plain and simple. They must think: “Well, if I have to put up with all this, why do you get a free pass?”.  Even if they’re not thinking it, they certainly look like they are.

But deep down I know there’s more. There is this socially accepted “truth” that women achieve happiness through childbirth and marriage. It is a woman’s role, a woman’s task, a woman’s gift, her woman’s destiny, hell…. It is a woman’s “nature”!!!!  Blame it on nature!?! Genius! So, of course they’re sad and compassionate, your nature is out of tune, meaning that you are likely damaged.

The very well known explanation for this social setting is the distribution of work: males have the productive role, females the reproductive one. Fine, we know that. But hello!!!!! It’s not like humankind is an endangered species anymore, we could actually benefit from a pause in reproduction.

However, when I have these conversations with other women (or they have them with me) I can’t help but to think on a different version of that explanation: one fine day, there was a guy who –presented with the puzzle of coexistence between woman and man- came up with a brilliant solution! “Let’s set separate roles for males and females: we produce, they reproduce”, said the founder of human society. It could not have worked without a brilliant marketing strategy too: the miracle of life creation is a gift of (for?) females, a wonder of nature and whoever has that gift and does not use it has to be crazy right? To other women, who actually know the real cost of using their gift and decide not to, you’re a bitch.

To all those women who pretend to pity you because you’re single: envy is a capital sin, you’re all going to hell.

And to the “founder” of this brilliant idea and all your followers….I am coming for you!!!!!! 

"My Morning Fail as an Understanding Wife" or "Attack of Kryptonite Dog Poo"

Last Wednesday I was having an amazing morning.  Got great sleep, woke up in agood mood, went to the gym, made it to work early.  It was quite amazing.  And then....the hubby calls. One of the dogs had an accident (not the easy to clean up kind) in the guest bedroom on the carpeted floor.  He was hysterical, hollaring and the whole 9 yards. I was empathetic for about 5 minutes as he was freaking out, lamenting how the house smelled like poo and how he "couldn't" clean it up without dying, etc.  I came up with the ingenious solution that he should ask and offer to pay his dad's housekeeper to clean it up.  (His parents live next door)  Then came the 20 questions of how it should be cleaned, with what products, how she should get it off the carpet, etc.  I told him where everything was for her to use.  Then, out of the blue,  starts telling me how I need to leave him notes to feed the dogs because he can't read my mind when I leave at 6am, that the dogs should be left outside when I leave, etc, etc.  Slightly annoyed with these new "instructions" but in adament refusal that he should ruin my great mood, I ask him if there was anything else.  He starts the hollaring all over again about how the dog pooped on the floor, how the house smells awful, etc....so....I happily hung up. 

(If you are married you know this is not the way to help your spouse regain his senses)

He called back furious that I hung up on him and ended the call.  I oddly maintained my great mood.

3 minutes later I get a call saying that he can't find the carpet cleaner, the housekeeper still isn't at his parents house and is Dad already left and he was going to leave everything for me when I get home....in 9 hours.  Lovely.  I finally talked him into leaving the front door open today so I can call his Dad's housekeeper and pay her to come clean up the mess.  

What came out of this....I believe we (women) should organize our partners into an efficient network of "crisis control prevention teams" based on a systematic analysis of our partners strengths and "kryptonites" and activate the team to come "save the day" when a kryptonitic "crisis" hits (poo of any kind, rodent capture and disposal, ect.)... because, as much as we love them, in general, individual men are largely useless in the face of household crises...but a team might just be able to handle it.  (We could even make them were sexy uniforms ;-)

(To the hubby's credit he did soon regain his senses and organized the clean up the toxic poo ;-)

Happy 4th!

Yeah... Happy 4th... Despite how crappy your 4th of July was, I bet it was better than mine!

It all started the night before. I simply did not sleep. The husband is sick, and only God knows how much a pain in the ass he is when he is sick.Wait! only God and all the other wives of the universe know how much a pain in the ass sick husbands are! He kept waking up, coughing and claiming he was about to die (of a mild cold!) I gently offered a hot herbal tea with ginger and honey, he accepted it with his sad puppy face. So went to the kitchen in the middle of the night (it is winter here, so make it in the middle of a cold night!) and came back to bed to find out that he was back to sleep (not dead for sure, just back to sleep)... With every new cough episode we both woke up, the 3-month old baby who typically sleeps through the night woke up as well, and to top it, the 3-year old woke up at 4 screaming because he had wetted his bed... Awesome right? The fact that I had to shower him and soak the clothes and clean the mattres that EARLY are nothing compared to the fact that he never got back to sleep. Nope. He just stayed there asking why he could not get up and why it took so long for the morning to come. The agonizing husband was clever enough to get up, take a shower and head to the office at 5. He knew the office would be a much more comfortable place than our bed with 2 very awake kids on it!

After the hard night and considering I had a meeting on the afternoon I decided to get myself a treat and have my hair washed at the salon (if you saw my hair you would know why this is faster and cheaper than doing it myself!). So, OK. I did not sleep but I got some "me" time. Not bad...  My hair was half blow dried when the cell rang. It was from  home. The 3-year old had stuffed a good amount of play doh into his ear. Nice, ah? So I thanked  and paid the lady who ran after me with a brush across the salon and ran home. I called the doctor (I am fundamentalist of the "What to Expect" series DO´s and DON´Ts so I did not try to remove the dough myself). It took long enough for the doctor to come that the dought found its way out on its own... The doctor just came  to confirm no serius damaged had been caused.So, OK. That was solved.

After the incident I realized that I really needed to rush if I wanted to get on time to a radio interview. So I ate lunch on the go and left. When I was 5 blocks away from the radio, one tire exploded. Are you fucking  kidding me? A tire explostion in the middle of the city? Now? It was not a huge explosion and I was almost parked when it happened and I was half a block away from a repair center, but seriously... I did not need the extra pressure!

The interview went well, the tire got repaired and I came home exhausted to find out that the new puppy (the one I so hard refused to have because I really cannot cope with three kids under age 4 AND a puppy) ate a plastic bag... The puppy actually "stole" candy from one of the kids and ate it all, including the bag... One vet said we needed to take her immediatly to the clinic so she could be monitored.  Another option included a special diet and monitor her at home. Guess what I did? I just needed the dog to shit the plastic with fireworks sounds to have my 4th of July celebration completed!