MUSIC OF THE NIGHT

Two weeks ago, Philip and I headed up to my hometown for a Larson-family visit, an emotional three days during which we spent a great deal of time with parents, sisters, aunts, uncles, cousins, friends and so on. We hadn’t been to Rockford since Thanksgiving, so my relatives were eager to bend my ear with their latest news.

Amid the family whirlwind, there was hardly time for Philip and I to talk, let alone have sex. He patiently allowed me to split my attention 15 different ways, but by the last night of our stay, I suspect he was feeling a little neglected. As we were preparing to leave for a community-theater presentation of Phantom of the Opera, in which my sister Sarah was starring as Meg Giry, Philip and I got into an argument about what he should wear, or rather, my lack of interest in what he should wear.

The tension between us was high as the show began. I don’t know if I started during the first song or if I was able to hold out until song two, but I started weeping. Like, really getting hysterical. Phantom is a sad, haunting story with heart-wrenching music to begin with, and seeing my talented sister onstage was quite moving. On top of that, I was bearing the weight of my family’s recently shared burdens — health problems, addictions, loneliness, money stress. And I think I was crying for the general state of my relationship with Philip lately — our bickering, our lack of tenderness and enjoyment of one another. I sobbed straight through until the chandelier crashed at the end of Act I. Philip fed me tissues, and by the curtain call, our tiff before the show was forgiven.

The weekend following our intense Illinois visit, we had blissfully nothing to do. After sleeping in on Saturday, we got a call from Danny and Jodie, the couple who mentored us when we were engaged and who performed our wedding ceremony. In their decades of marriage, they had been through it all — cancer, loss (and recovery) of faith, business scandals, and the ups and downs of raising three kids, the youngest of whom was an underdeveloped toddler from El Salvador whom Jodie adopted 20-some years ago without first consulting Dan! We hadn’t seen them in months, and they were inviting us to lunch.

We caught up over burrito bowls and guacamole, and being around them seemed to unearth some long-latent loving feeling between Philip and me. It was like we were transported emotionally to the time prior to our wedding, long before mortgages, jet-setting jobs and fertility charts. And Dan and Jodie were truly delighting in us — not in me or Philip individually, but in us as a couple: our stories, our style of relating, how we teased one another. They saw something we’ve been calling into question lately — that we are good together — and Philip and I responded to each other likewise.

It was also beneficial to hear their latest tales — how they went to Hawaii on a luxury vacation and didn’t get along the entire time. As they laughed about it later, it was clear to me that Philip and I have a long time to wax and wane. I was encouraged to see that other couples, even ones who have been married for decades, still have unexpected meltdowns (even in paradise) and then deal and heal.

The lunch opened the door for a truly lovely weekend for Philip and me. We both sacrificed some priorities in order to spend time together, running errands, dining out and going to the movies. Instead of feeling edgy and irritated, we were relaxed and affectionate, and that opened the door for some fun, stress-free, passionate sex that had nothing to do with anything but enjoying each other.

I’m still charting and trying to understand my fertility signs, but I have officially sworn off pushing sex when we’re just not there emotionally. And I’ve sworn off all the little recommendations I’ve read (e.g., don’t use lubricant; don’t have oral sex; missionary position is best; lay there for 30 minutes afterward …), as while they’re well-intentioned for couples trying to conceive, they were only making sex more weird and awkward (and didn’t seem to help last month anyway).

Overall, I’m feeling tons more peace and am very thankful for caring mentors and plans-free weekends at home.

AT LEAST WE KNOW

This past weekend, we got our answer, and it wasn’t what we wanted. I had a good cry in Philip’s arms (he was so very tender and comforting), felt better, then had another breakdown later in the day.

Later, reflecting on how upset I got, I came to two conclusions. 1. I must actually really want a baby, or else I wouldn’t have had such a guttural reaction of disappointment when that wasn’t the outcome. 2. I cannot continue to get this upset every month or I will give my self an aneurism.

It is a relief to have an answer and know how to feel. For about 10 days I thought I could ovulate at any moment, and then for 14 I had to wonder if we had succeeded — the longest two weeks of my life, it felt. I vacillated manically between wild hope/excitement and preparing myself for the worst. Not knowing is crazy-making, so now I feel like a normal person again. I am not pregnant; that makes me sad; okay, back to everyday life; time to try again.

I’ve also been trying to delight in the simple pleasures in which I’m allowed to indulge as a non-pregnant woman: wine, caffeine, soft cheese. This weekend at my parents’ house, I can soak in their hot tub, and I can jog around the neighborhood without fretting that I’m going to overdo it and overheat myself. Of course, I had to mourn the loss of my fantasy of announcing to my loved ones this weekend that the family was about to expand, but at least when we visit New Glarus Brewing Co. tomorrow, I can freely sample all their fruit beers.

EVERYBODY LOVES BABIES

Over the weekend I finally watched the film Babies, directed by Thomas Balmes. My friend Amy M., who knows way more about babies than I do and is actually having one in a few days (at home!), sent me the trailer a year ago with great excitement, and I finally found the time to watch the documentary — instantly no less — on Netflix. (I also watched Hot Tub Time Machine, but that is neither here nor there.)

Babies follows the birth and roughly first-year development of four little ones in vastly differing cultures: San Francisco, Mongolia, Tokyo and Namibia. There’s no dialogue, but the way the footage is edited together is artful and compelling.

Some of my favorite scenes included:

- The scene in which the Mongolian baby is sitting on the bed petting the cat (and by “petting” I mean grabbing and violently stroking), and the cat doesn’t flee; it just takes it. The cat might even be enjoying it. I can only hope our two kitties are as accepting of a grab-happy baby one day.

- The scene in which the San Francisco baby is with her parents at some kind of hippie baby class. The adults are chanting, “The earth is our mother,” and the baby stands up and makes a waddling beeline for the door, like, “Get me out of here!”

- The suggestive scene in which the Japanese baby is trying to fit a wooden toy stick into a hole in a round disc. She grows so frustrated at her inability to line up the stick and the hole that she flings her body onto the floor and cries.

Overall, the scenes of the Western family, with their mountain of gear, passive parenting style and baby-yoga classes, left me cold. And I was extremely encouraged by the scenes of the Mongolian and African babies — crawling in the dirt amid the livestock, being washed by spit and breast milk, and being entertained by millstones and tin cans. Not that I intend to do any of that stuff with our future children, but I found it reassuring that people raise kids just fine in humble circumstances; they can figure out how to care for an infant even without running water, diapers and high chairs. It made me feel like, if these women can successfully wrangle their newborns in these rustic environments, I’ll do just fine with a bit of help from modern invention.

IT MIGHT BE INSTAMATIC FLU

So after our glorious weekend in Colorado, it should come as no surprise that the following week was a mess. I came down with a cold but attempted to go to work anyway; my boss took one look at me and said, “Don’t take this the wrong way, but you look awful. Go home; I don’t want you getting the rest of us sick.”

Despite my restful day at home however, I couldn’t quite kick the bug all week. This experience solidified for both Philip and me that we HATE it when I’m sick. Why? For starters, Philip already tends to do more than his fair share around the house. He is a high-energy, task-driven person with a low tolerance for filth and disorder, who also gives (and receives) love primarily through acts of service. So when I fall ill, the burden of household chores shifts even more unfavorably to him, while he is all the while not feeling loved by me because I’m unable to serve him in even small ways.

Secondly, while Philip is amazing at showing love through acts of service, he isn’t the strongest at showing love how I want to receive it — through cuddling and hair stroking and gentle reassurances like, “It’s okay, honey; you’ll feel better soon.”

Lastly, I am very bad at being sick. I tend to push myself to live as if I weren’t sick, overdo it and only prolong my illness. This is partially due to the fact that I want to serve Philip to show him he is loved and partially due to my impatience and bad judgment. My irresponsibility drives Philip bananas and makes him even less likely to be all touchy-feely … It’s a vicious cycle.

So we bickered all through my illness, and oh by the way, I was pretty sure I was going to ovulate last week, so I was forcing him to have relations with me despite jetlag; despite my stuffed-up nose, weak body and general pitifulness; and despite our grumbly demeanors toward one another.

All my life I feel like the message I’ve been told is that getting pregnant is practically a given when you have unprotected sex, and one must do everything necessary to prevent pregnancy, up to and including things like ingesting dubious artificial hormones every day of your life, wrapping body parts in plastic and abstaining from intercourse altogether. But between life and stress and travel and sickness and fights and pressure and commitments and exhaustion, it’s a wonder the human race continues to propagate. Philip and I find ourselves with dilemmas like, Is it more important for Philip to go lead a small group full of people praying for our fertility, or to ditch study and leave our friends in the lurch in order to have sex with his ailing wife who thinks she may be ovulating?

So moral of the story is, last week was pretty much a disaster, and after two times of forcing my husband to copulate against his will, I let go of my conception hysteria. I’m sick. We’re fighting nonstop. We can’t be further from “in the mood.” I can’t make heads or tails of my fertility signs anyway, so I will lay this down.

Finally, over the weekend, we had what I consider to be a breakthrough conversation about this whole weird, overwhelming, tricky endeavor of trying to conceive. We’re just starting, and already I’m feeling obsessive and anxious and he’s feeling pressured and used. We talked about our fears. We talked about our childhoods. We talked about why people choose to have kids, good motives and bad. We talked about other huge life transitions through which we struggled. We talked about biological clocks. Etc.

The talk was very open and revealing, and when it was over, while I didn’t feel like we had really solved anything or come up with a concrete list of action items, I did feel massively relieved that I understood my husband better and that we could attribute a large chunk of this squabbling about dumb stuff like egg sandwiches to this underlying stress of attempting to conceive.