ANNA MARIA ISLAND

Though our getaway to Anna Maria Island wasn't fruitful in the baby-making sense, Philip and I had a wonderful weekend connecting. It pretty much requires us leaving town in order to carve out time for recreation and relaxation. Here are some photos from our excursion.

Abbi doesn't want us to go ... Or maybe she wants to come with. Sorry, Sweetie, Mom and Dad don't need any distractions, even really cute, furry ones.

The first full day, it was pretty chilly, so we rented bikes and cycled around Robinson Nature Preserve, which was gorgeous -- we saw loads of tropical birds, a snake, mangroves, and lots of fish in the estuaries.

Here's me at our lunch spot on the waterfront.

The preserve also has a really cool lookout tower that affords a bird's-eye view of the bay. This is a photo taken from the top.

One of our favorite things about the Gulf is the beautiful sunset, so we made sure to watch every night. Our rental house was only 100 steps from the beach, which made it easy. We walked this little path to access the beach.

The second day was warmer, so we relaxed on the sand with a couple of books to read. We really had the best time. With all of our responsibilities far away in Orlando, we were free to focus on each other, which made our baby-making attempts frequent, natural and intimate. I wish we could go away every month during ovulation!

I have to admit, my hopes were pretty high that this break from the norm was all we needed. Not so. As we enter month eight of trying, it's hard to remain hopeful; clearly I'm no Fertile Myrtle. But it's still a blessing to be able to enjoy little trips like this and to spend time in the wonder of creation.

PARENTHOOD

In a successful attempt to cheer me recently, my friend Melissa rapped about all the "bummers" of parenthood. I enjoyed her tongue-in-cheek comments so much, I asked her if I could share them with my readers. She gave me the green light, so here it is, for your reading pleasure!
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Preface
I absolutely love [my daughter] Claire, and I really would throw myself in front of a bus for her. It's like my friends Rebecca and Joel put on their first child's birth announcement: "We thought we knew love, and then came Stella." I've never forgotten that because it became so real to me when I had Claire. It's this crazy protective love that you didn't even know exists. And yes, children are totally a huge blessing ... but if I may ... and totally for your benefit I hope ...

 

Physical Health and Hygiene

I frequently go two months without shaving my legs or bikini line. Please note that I had a C-section and I was freshly shorn way north of my original bikini line for that surgery, so my current bikini line ... well ... it's a bit higher than it used to be.

 

Showers are for function, not fun (or fornication for that matter). There's simply not enough time.

 

Fixing my hair means I blow-dried it, brushed it and didn't pull it back in a ponytail, as opposed to letting it air-dry with half of it sitting on top of my head and then putting it in a ponytail later.

 

I don't exercise. Actually, I started running again in August in an attempt to lose 20 pounds (I never lost all the weight after having Claire). After a month of getting up at 6 a.m. to run and shower before Claire woke up, I lost a half-pound and people said, "Are you losing weight?" It must've been a really big half-pound.

 

My boobs are, as Holly puts it, deflated balloons. Totally saggy and squishy and never to be perky again. (They are one cup size bigger, but big whoop, ya know? That just means I had to go out and buy all new bras.)

 

I have little red bumps on the back of my arms that I have heard occur during pregnancy. They never go away.

 

Due to that relaxin hormone, my joints swelled/expanded, and my fingers are permanently bigger. I haven't worn my wedding ring since February 2010.

 

Sleep, as you know it, is gone.

 

Environment

I clean my house every 9-10 weeks. That's right. The clean neat freak from college has a filthy, pube-infested bathroom. It is rotten nasty and I've accepted it. You think you won't accept that that's the way it's going to be, but eventually, you do.

 

If you have any home-improvement projects in the works, get to workin', because it's near impossible to do so when you have kids.

 

Social/Relational

Jerry and I have not been on a date in three months. It seems like it would be so easy, but here's why it's not. There is a shortage of good babysitters; even girls from our church are not always as good as we hope they will be. Even if you have a good babysitter, it's nerve-wracking to leave your child with her because what if the baby starts wailing uncontrollably and the sitter can't get her calmed down, or what if the baby doesn't take a bottle for the sitter or go to sleep for the sitter ... ? Plus, you're just too tired.

 

We don't see our friends often. We just don't. No time. Plus, if they don't have kids, you have to get a babysitter to hang out with them if you're going out to dinner or doing an adults-only type thing.

 

I have time to check my e-mail only once or twice a week. Example: This e-mail right here that I'm typing is like eight days late.

 

I cancelled my Facebook account because I never had time to check it.

 

God

Stopped reading my Bible altogether and rarely pray. Now, however, I'm in Bible Study Fellowship, and I read a little bit almost every day. I go to the meetings on Monday evenings, and Jerry stays home with Claire. I'm learning a lot.

 

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Post Script

I wrote Melissa back to say, "I already don't do the following on a regular basis: shower, shave, exercise, do my hair, clean, go out, improve my house, respond to emails in a timely fashion, read my Bible ... So I'm really screwed when we finally do have kids!"

 

Her reply: "No Erika -- the fact that you don't do all those things is only going to make the transition easier. Trust me. It'll be like, 'Oh well, I didn't X, Y, Z before Petunia was born anyway.'"

 

INSANE IN THE MEMBRANE

Albert Einstein said, "Insanity is doing the same thing over and over again and expecting different results." Every month, as I faithfully chart my cycle each day and pee on ovulation-predictor sticks, perfectly timing our conception efforts, I think of this quote. We keep doing the same exact thing, month after month, expecting that magically, this time, it will work.

Not surprisingly, once again, it did not work. You would think my high levels of hope followed by disappointment would begin to drop after six months of this pattern. With Einstein's quote in mind, my logical brain is fully expecting a period, not a pregnancy. Yet hope creeps into my heart, despite my best efforts to squash it. Doctors and Web articles don't help; they just say to keep trying, like Einstein didn't know what he was talking about. Try for a year. Sometimes it just takes a while. Up to 85 percent of couples trying to conceive will succeed within 12 months.

I like things to make sense though. (So weird, I know.) It doesn't make sense that if we keep just repeating these exact same steps, one of these times, it'll stick. There has to be something happening. Or not happening. What is it? How can I fix it?

Some people say, have sex more. Seems logical. Other people say, have sex less; you don't want to lower sperm counts. Thus, in the words of Liz Lemon, blerg.

Some people tell me, just relax. As soon as you stop thinking about it, it'll happen. Well, that's sort of true. I'm sure it would help my chances if I could just chill out. Stress can delay ovulation; it can make me feel like doing anything but have sex; and who knows what other physiological effects it may have. But at the same time, we've gotta time it right, and I won't know if we're timing it right unless I'm keeping track. And I simply don't know how to keep track without growing mildly obsessive.

So here's my plan for November. I'm getting out of Dodge. I'm taking Philip with me. For three nights, we're leaving behind work, responsibilities, fertility charts and OPKs. We're staying in a rental villa on an island in Florida, one that has a nice bed. We've timed the trip around my best guess at when I'll ovulate, but we're just going to be intimate when the mood strikes -- no happy faces, no thermometers, no carefully noting the consistency of my cervical fluid.

I just had to change it up this month; I was starting to feel insane.

THE DOCTOR IS IN

I have been trying to follow my sister-in-law's advice from my last post, which I summarize as: Do everything. Keep trying. Keep traveling. Keep having fun. Keep trusting God. And go to the doctor.

I was due for my annual check-up at the OBGYN, but I had been debating about whether or not to inquire about fertility testing when I went in for my appointment. It seemed a bit like jumping the gun, or to be really Bible-y about it, pulling an Abraham and taking matters into my own hands (minus the sleeping-with-the-help thing). To wit, we've only* been trying in earnestness for five months.

On the other hand, we've been off of any form of birth control for 13 months, and during the first half of that time period, we used the "fertility awareness method" as contraception with progressively less vigilance each month.

I took Sara's nudge as my green light. After all, she's a sonographer, so she deals with this kind of thing all the time. So I called the OB and scheduled an annual exam, plus a fertility consultation.

Let's just be honest: Going to the OB for a pap smear is the absolute pits. I'd almost rather have a tooth drilled. You're given a piece of paper to wear while the doctor cranks open your hoo-ha with a cold metal tool. Now I was adding to that experience a conversation about the dreaded i word -- infertility. (I just shuddered. It's worse than uttering "Voldemort.")

The anticipation of the appointment was actually much worse than the appointment itself. My doctor is very professional, and her office is very clean and inviting. The fertility consultation took all of three minutes. She was skeptical about starting testing ("We usually tell couples to try for a year"), but agreed to it when I meekly said I was ready to start getting some answers. I also pulled the "I'm over 30" card, which I think tipped the balance.

The first step was coming in for a pelvic ultrasound, which they perform there in the office. She would meet with me right afterward to discuss the scans. I scheduled the appointment for a week later.

Again, I anticipated the appointment with dread. The sonogram was vaginal, and what would that be like? And how would I react if there was something wrong? Lauren asked me what I hoped the results would be. "Well ..." I thought for a minute. "I hope there's something super minor wrong that can be easily fixed with some meds."

The morning of the appointment, I spent extra time getting ready. Full makeup, full hair, nice outfit. I looked very put-together, to cover up the fact that inside I was a big gross twisted knot. A pregnant girl (yes, "girl," not woman) sat across from me in the waiting room. She was holding a teddy bear the doctor's office had given her, and she was filling out forms with cute pink sketches of babies all over them. Do not fall apart, I ordered myself, blinking back tears and swallowing a lump of irrational rage.

First came a urine sample, then the ultrasound, which was way easier than the pap. We took a look at my insides, which actually makes for pretty riveting TV. There was my uterus, looking like a half-inflated whoopie cushion. There was one ovary. There was the other. I allowed myself one self-pitiful moment of wishing we were looking at a fetus. "Good luck!" chirped the sonographer as she exited the room after finishing.

Back out to the waiting room to wait for my OB. Pregnant Girl was gone. Good. Then back to a treatment room. I read half of a month-old issue of People while I waited, heart pounding.

Finally Dr. Danna entered. "Well," she announced, "everything was normal with your pap. And the ultrasound looks good too -- normal-sized uterus, normal-sized ovaries; the uterine walls are the right thickness." She also said something about a cyst that was consistent with ovulation, meaning I had ovulated -- something I already knew, but it was still gratifying to hear.

She encouraged me to have Philip tested, and she gave me the name of a reproductive specialist to call. She said something twice about "establishing myself" with them, which I didn't love; I don't want to become a fixture with those people. But whatever. Next step would be to have the specialist draw blood to check my hormones.

I left MASSIVELY relieved. I was wrong about what I told Lauren -- it was way better to hear that everything is fine. Once again, the appointment itself had been way less of a deal than worrying about it.

Now I've decided to give the testing route a rest for a couple of weeks. We'll know soon enough if we were successful this month, and I'm trying to keep my emotions in check. Two doctor's appointments in one month is enough for my fragile psyche. It's still possible that nothing whatsoever is wrong with me or Philip, and I'm not ready to fully concede to the i word just yet.

*When people say to me that it's "only" been five months, I have to restrain myself from ripping their heads off, as each month feels like an eternity when you're unsuccessfully trying to get pregnant.