All Akimbo and the Oh-So-Frustrating Waiting Game

When I remember how panicked I was that we might be successful on our first try at getting pregnant with a second child – like we were with our son, and with the baby we miscarried a couple of months before that – I have to laugh at myself. Oh, it’s sooooo funny. Hahahahaha!

OK, not really. It’s frustrating. It’s beyond frustrating.

Mojo wasn’t even two yet when we started trying, and I was afraid having a younger sibling so soon would rob him of his sweet innocent childhood. And I was afraid that having two kids that young would rob me of my sanity.

I called a friend, wailing, “I might be pregnant!” And she said, “What?! Did you take a test?” It was only a philosophical “might be,” I explained. It was way too early for symptoms and I was weeks from even thinking about testing, but I was already just beside myself.

Needlessly beside myself.

Mojo turned 3 a few months ago, and I’m still not knocked up.

In fact, it doesn’t even look like I’ll ovulate this month, and, as most of you know, you can’t get pregnant unless you ovulate.

I didn’t ovulate last cycle, which I get because I had a laparoscopy on cycle day 9 and my doctor sheered off the outside of my ovaries after she saw they had been ravaged by the evil villain endometriosis. (That’s really not an accurate technical description of what she did, but you get the point.) Last month’s egg was no doubt a casualty in all that.

(As another aside, I wish my body had let me know ahead of time that there would be no egg available in that cycle. My doctor emphasized that we do have a limited window for conception before the endometriosis returns and that we should try to get pregnant during the same cycle as the laparoscopy if at all possible. In case you were wondering, baby-making attempts six days after surgery are NOT FUN, but I had unmistakably positive OPKs and all the fertility signs were there so we went for it. We went for it a painful few times … all for naught.)

This cycle … well, I’ve never ovulated later than cycle day 18, and now I’m ¾ of the way through cycle day 19 with no sign of ovulation.

<Sigh> I’m off to spend a few more minutes staring at my umpteenth negative OPK.

A sense of humor is oh-so-important to me and my well-being, so when I get done with all the wondering I’m going to try to find something to laugh about. And I’ll manage. But if I’m pressed, I have to admit that, yes, sometimes it’s hard.