A member of the Club

Today while talking to my sister I discovered part of what’s been bothering me since the “you’re not ovulating” revelation is the fact that I have now officially joined a club I never wanted to be a member of.  The Fertility Issues Club.  Wasn’t it Groucho Marx who said “I wouldn’t want to be a member of a club that would have someone like me as a member”?

I’m not going to say “Infertility Club” because that just sounds negative and is not necessarily  true (yet).  But after five months of thinking everything was A-Ok (indeed, a whole lifetime of thinking all my lady parts were functioning normally) it’s a shock to find out something is wrong, and profoundly wrong.  I mean, I’m incapable of the most basic female function, which is ovulating.  As much as I hate to have my entire being reduced to hormonal activity, that’s kind of where I’m at right now.  None of this would matter if I weren’t trying to get pregnant; I wouldn’t even know it was happening (or not happening).  But here we are.

So I became a first time dog owner about three years ago when I adopted my rescue Chihuahua, Sally.  Of course I never actually call her Sally – except when she’s naughty.  Her real names are Stinky, Stinkernutter, Puppernutter, Stinkengruven, Puppenmoven, and Stink Muffin.  The depth of love I feel for this jacked-up little mutt of a dog is unfathomable.  I never liked dogs – I was always kind of scared of them – but decided on a friend’s recommendation that I should get one.  And now I think dogs (especially mine, but everyone else’s, too) are pretty much the best thing ever.  I’m interested in other people’s dogs, I want to see pictures of them, hear about their antics.  I am a member of the Dog Club.  Now I get it.

I have a childless friend who constantly bitches about all the moms we know and their kids.  I tell her, “It’s because you’re not a member of the club.  If you were a member of the Kid Club, you’d be into all that stuff.”  Just like I’m a member of the Homeowner Club (you never thought finance rates could be so fascinating), the Swing Dance Club (whether to come in on 1 or 3 could spark a debate that would rage for hours), the Film Geek Club (1,001 reasons why the 70s was the best decade for movies).  And now, alas, the Fertility Issues Club.

It feels better to just embrace it.  Ok, I’m having issues.  I don’t know how bad the issues are right now; my hope is what I’m experiencing will be a (somewhat) easy fix.  At least I don’t have a combination of my stuff AND male factor infertility (that must be tons ‘o fun in a marriage).  It seems like everyone I’ve read about on the older single mom track has had something – has needed some medical assistance to make their beans stick.  So perhaps I was being overly optimistic thinking I could just try a couple of unmedicated IUIs and it would all work out.  Maybe this is the norm and I’m adjusting to it after having had unrealistic expectations. 

Read a couple of VERY comforting posts on the WTE “Trying to Conceive” boards yesterday that made me feel better.  A couple of ladies were talking about having my exact issues – low progesterone, possible anovulation, thinking about Clomid.  And one lady answered that these issues are very common and a very easy fix.  Another said she had these issues, was put on Clomid for one cycle and got pregnant.  This all made me feel like the cloud was lifting a little.  And suddenly I understood why these ladies congratulate each other on their BFPs (Big Fat Positive, as in pregnancy test).  Now that we all know the hell this fertility stuff is, it really is possible to be happy for the women who beat it.  It gives us hope for our own situations, and it’s nice to see The Club shrink a little, member by member, as the Fertility Issues Club ladies go and join the Kid Club.