Saturday, December 26, 2009

What I'm Working With

Reasons I obsess about this:

I have PCOS (Polycystic Ovary Syndrome), ie, I have cysts on my left ova that could erupt but for the most part give me the lovely gifts of extra body/facial hair, too many androgens running around, too much fat, irregular periods, and a tendency to be depressed if I'm not on hormone therapy, ie birth control. But since the major selling point of said drugs is to keep women from getting pregnant, I had to stop using them. And suddenly all the work I did to feel like a normal person went out the window. Laser hair removal was expensive, and yet I'm back to regular waxing and plucking like I never even did the treatments. And nothing gets you in the mood like plucking chin hairs before bed. Luckily I don't have the other usual drawback of PCOS: diabetes. Because I hate aspartame/splenda/artificial sweeteners more than any other food except cucumbers. The jury is out on whether I have the infertility issues a lot of women with PCOS deal with.

My mom starting asking about grandkids at my wedding. No pressure or anything. Husband and I agreed to wait until our second anniversary to decide when we wanted kids, which somehow got convoluted in my imaginings to trying then. Meanwhile I'm gearing up to get into better health, and he's like, Wow, I have no idea what's wrong with you. We've been trying since October, and now every other conversation with my mom includes a query about whether I'm prego or not. Sorry Mom, I'm not yet at the point of taking a test on a weekly basis just to ease your mind.

I haven't had a regular cycle since July (see item 1 above). Blood tests can't find anything wrong with me, so I'm planning on a roller coaster ride of induced period next week. Let's see if I strangle anyone through the elevated progesterone. Honestly though, I'd rather go through this and have to deal with the disappointment of a period each month, with the knowledge that my body works and doesn't hate me, as opposed to the current preoccupation with maybe I'm pregnant because I still haven't gotten my period. My overactive daydreams are already turning minor stomach aches into morning sickness, so a little concrete reality would be a good thing.

A lot of my friends are pregnant right now. Is this a stupid reason to want to be pregnant? Definitely. Does it make the anxiety about not being there yet a little worse? Absolutely.

Getting Started

I've started this blog mostly to maintain my sanity, and my husband's, as we try to get pregnant. I wasn't able to enjoy Christmas Day like I usually do because I was disappointed about not being pregnant. For some reason, I had it set in my mind that it was going to happen by then, and my imagination took off with all kinds of scenarios about how great it would be, how excited our families would be, etc. etc.
But as nice as it would be to give that news to our parents on Christmas, plenty of cognitive behavioral therapy tells me to NOT go in that direction. So my plan is to voice the obsessions here and let it go. And along the way there will probably be other distractions because I go off topic. A LOT.