The Bad Days

They come out of nowhere, I tell you. One minute I am optimistic and even looking forward to the "two week wait." Those happy moments where I allow myself to imagine that this will be the month those pregnancy tests turn positive. And then the day that I am supposed to ovulate arrives, and I wake up all excited to pee on my little stick. I sit there in my pajamas, happily awaiting my smiley face to appear because I usually ovulate on Day 15 like clockwork. But as soon as I am convinced that I usually do something at a certain time, I get a curve ball thrown in my face. No smiley face today, maam. Barely even a line.

And so starts the spiral. What's wrong now? Is this the other shoe dropping? Do I have a blockage in my tubes? Cysts on my ovaries? Did I just ovulate too early and miss the window? Did we not try at the right times this month? Has my entire uterus just up and left? Do I even HAVE ovaries anymore?

I try to practice all the techniques I've learned from the countless books I've read - question my thoughts (is it really true my ovaries have left? probably not), take a deep breath, be present, generally just not freak the f*ck out. I can do those things when I am having a normal day but of course that's not when you need to manage your emotions the most. I "manage" so well that by the time I get out of the shower and my unknowing husband greets me with a simple "good morning" I burst into tears.

It still shocks me what a roller coaster this is. I often think about when we started trying to have a baby, how innocently excited I was about the whole process. I was down right giddy with excitement the very first time we tried because - what if? Days like this I feel like patting that former version of me on the head and saying, "Go get yourself a glass of wine, Pollyanna. It's going to be a long ride."