Fragile

Three couples of our acquaintance are expecting right now.

They're all at the 4-5 months mark. Two of them openly admit that it was an accident. The third is a first child, and the couple is substantially younger than my husband (who is younger than me.) Normally I wouldn't enumerate that among things that bother me, but it transpires that everyone else knew about the pregnancies(including my husband) but were afraid to tell me.

God, I hate that. I would much rather know ahead of time so I can steel myself for the belly band and the aversion of alcohol and raw fish. It's really better than if I hop out of the car and am confronted with suddenly-six-months-pregnant lady.

One of the accidental pregnant couples has a ten year old and a five year old, and got pregnant while on the pill. The other couple has a two year old who was supposed to be an only child, but they evidently had a latex malfunction.

Sometimes, it's just really hard to have a sense of humor.

I had this conversation with my mom today:

"So how is this different than the Clomid?"

"Clomid is 8%. With the IUI, it's around 12%."

"Those aren't such good odds. How is this new medicine better?"

"The percentages increase to around 20-25%."

"That doesn't sound so hot."

"Those are pretty much the odds for people with regular fertility, actually." (Defensive tone? Yeah, that's me.)

"And they still don't know what the problem is?"

"No Mom. Except for the luteal phase thing. They can't figure it out. His counts are great, and my body is doing everything it's supposed to do, as far as we can tell."

"Why don't you just move on to the thing with the petri dish?"

"IVF is really expensive, and insurance doesn't cover any of it. We don't want to go there until we have to."

"So how long are you going to do this new thing? How expensive is IVF? Can they do more tests? Do you want me to go with you to your appointment tomorrow?"

It went like that....on, and on, and on. I know it's because she cares. But for some reason, all the informed decisions we made regarding treatment now seem completely ridiculous, and I am wallowing in massive swamps of self-doubt.