Making Progress, Sort Of

Taking a break from my "magical thinking" is hard. Really hard. It's like trying to reprogram the way I think about everything. But, I am doing pretty well. I didn't get all excited about Chinese New Year--last year I was all about the Year of the Rabbit. I was all about how it's supposed to be a super fertile year, and how that was a good omen. It didn't quite pan out for me. This year is the Year of the Dragon--another powerful year, as it's the year I was born. It's the reason I have a giant dragon tattoo on my lower back that extends from my outer right hip to my spine (well, that and it covers up the ridiculous monkey tattoo I had in honor of my ex-husband when he was not an ex). I could have gone crazypants preparing for this New Year and making sure all my juju was in order. But I didn't. I did what made sense, and then I stopped the second it became more of an obligation than what I wanted to do. (For me that meant clean laundry put away, clean sheets, clean entryway, vacuumed rugs.) The second I started thinking "If I don't have fruit on the table I won't get pregnant this year!" I quit cleaning.

I have been doing things to prepare my body but not going overboard. I have been taking my prenatals and fish oil and calcium/vitamin D and baby aspirin and CoQ10. For some bizarre reason there is no L-Arginine anywhere to be found in any of my grocery stores that I normally buy it. Ordinarily I might make it my mission to find L-Arginine. I might do research on why it's out of stock and why it's been that way for so long. I might take it as a sign that things aren't meshing well for this upcoming cycle. But instead I just check for it each week, and when it's not there I shrug and move on. I am not going to obsess about it. Well, not much anyway. I can do what I can do and that's it.

I have been going for relaxation massages, which has been fantastic. I can escape, I can get away from the fertility mindset, and I can truly help reduce stress in my body. I am not thinking about my lining when my neck and shoulders are being kneaded into blissful putty. I am not thinking about my ovaries or my egg quality. I am just thinking about how relaxing it is to have all the tension dissolve from my trigger points.


But my spring decorating is causing me to crack up just a little bit again. I am trying not to be all juju-y in my house, I am trying not to be optimistic that because my new IVF cycle is scheduled for spring that somehow that gives us a better chance. If it works for the bunnies and the birds, why can't it work for me? (Because it hasn't previously...because whether or not I have a positive test has zero to do with the season, says the logical me.) But, I have done a little decorating on my mantel. I have pretty little hyacinths in eggs. And I have birds (yes...birds...they are obviously not real so I am trying to like them) looking over a nest. Because I had these little robin eggs last year, I got the birds and the nest and was going to put eggs in the nest. But then I couldn't find them. Then I had a pair of lovebirds over an empty nest on my mantel. And while I am trying not to say that putting eggs all over my house is some kind of fertility good luck thing, I am so subconsciously (or totally consciously) thinking about those eggs as a positive feng shui type thing. I know that I'm not more likely to get pregnant because there are eggs on my mantel. I'm not totally crazy. But the crazy lurks and waits for an opportunity to strike and so I'm trying to tamp it down just a little bit. Trying to discourage this egg-induced-insanity.


So anyway, here I am with my lovebirds and empty nest. And I couldn't tamp the crazy down. We had to find those eggs! I can't have lovebirds with a empty, infertile nest on my mantel! What message does that send? It's slightly ironic and funny, but horrible at the same time. I can't have it stay that way. If I was really crazy I could leave the nest empty until we start stimming, and then add eggs as I know how many follicles I have. But I am NOT that crazy (although I just admitted that's in my mind as a thought...). Even just looking at this picture gives me anxiety.





Luckily for my sanity, and Bryce's perception of my sanity, he found the eggs this morning. And now my little lovebirds have little potential birds to look after. Which is great in a metaphorical sense and horrifying in a bird sense (do I really want more birds in my house?). But now my mantel is just right--springy, eggy, and positive. No empty nests. Now I can relax and just look at it as decoration again, not some horrible omen. Now I can go back to thinking like a normal person. For now.

Ahhhhh, eggs in the nest for the little lovebirds.