Fertile in a Dry Landscape

(Read this as if it was yesterday. Took me two days to complete because of a busy schedule.)

I felt fertile last night. Funny, because I was drained from back to back births (as a doula) spanning three days. After waking up from a long midday nap, and hanging around the house a bit, Michelle and I decided to go to the Sunnyland Stomp; a fun little way to get to know our neighbors and see local artwork in people's backyards. We biked around and enjoyed the sights until 9pm and then biked back home for my ID so we could bike to Kulshan Brewery for a tasty local beer. Before we biked out of our driveway, we kissed and I said, "I feel so fertile right now. If I had the sperm, I think I'd get pregnant tonight!"

And it just so happens that I got a positive LH surge this morning. The first LH test this month since I had been so busy with client's births and away from home. I'm not surprised. I know my body and felt that sensation so strongly...but there's just one problem in this baby-making journey. I need the sperm to be here to make it happen. And it's not. It is "en route", though not technically because it's Sunday and everything is closed. The sperm bank and FedEx. There are no after hours lines to call and get the sperm if you're ovulating and need it NOW. Grrr...who knew sperm was so hard to procure? Maybe it's just specific sperm. I'm sure I could've found one random guy to impregnate me in this 48 hours, but I'm not interested in that, and I'm pretty sure that's not the intention of Brooks and Lisa. So it must have happened for a reason. Ah, yes...the infinite surrender to the "bigger picture". It's incredibly hard sometimes. I can't control my ovulation and it just came a few days earlier than expected, on a Sunday. The sperm won't be here until midday on Tuesday and by that time it'll be too late. They will just have to send it back. Sorry baby batter! You're not needed until next month.

We breathe and we wait. We live our lives, and we prepare for yet another month of hoping everything will align and this little spirit will say, "Yes, now I am ready to come in. Glad you've proven you have so much patience and love for me. Goodness, this group is consistent!" Yes, we are little one.

Lady In Waiting

I am obviously not pregnant. Bleeding, like I woke up to this morning, is not a sign of pregnancy. It's a sign that I'll be taking it very easy today. It immediately made me think of part of a spoken word poem of Ani Difranco's called "My I.Q." :

...when I was 13 years old  

I woke up one morning  

thighs covered in blood  

like a war  

like a warning  

that I live in a breakable takeable body  

an ever increasingly valuable body 

that a woman had come 

in the night to replace me  

deface me...

 

Fortunately I am kid free today, so I was able to get acupuncture and a much needed adjustment at the chiropractor. My C1 was out. No wonder I had been feeling off-balance. Now I sip on Lady In Waiting from Wonderland Tea , my favorite local tea shop. It's got tasty and healing herbs for mama's-to-be, pregnant women, and breastfeeding mothers. And the title of it is perfect for what I'm doing...waiting. Now is not the time for me to be pregnant apparently, so I will wait until it is the right time.

It's interesting to note all of the emotions and thoughts that come and go surrounding this "getting pregnant for someone else" thing. I found myself this morning wondering if I'm allowed to be sad that last months round of IUI's didn't work. And of course the answer is yes, it's allowed. I'm a person with feelings too, even if the end result won't be a baby for me to raise. As I went deeper into those thoughts though I thought, maybe I should become more detached about the whole process and not really care either way. But I can't do that. I'm not built to suppress my reality or anyone else's. And how would that be good for the baby to inhabit a birth mother who is denying her experience or the existence of the child? No, these thoughts don't go further, because these are all things I am not at the core of my being. I believe that all things happen for a purpose and that I am on this surrogacy journey for my friends because I love them and want to create a family with and for them. I can provide them with a baby. I trust this will happen, not in our timing, but eventually. Maybe even this month or next?