It’s amazing how quickly weird shit can start to feel normal.
I mean, trying to get pregnant is weird. Doing it without your partner, and with a syringe is weirder. It’s like Amy Poehler says:
“… You have to put sperm in your vagina, and elevate your legs like you are an upside-down coffee table. It’s all ridiculous and incredibly sci-fi.”
Thinking about it too much is enough to put anyone off.
But our second go felt surprisingly… normal.
I put that down partly to SJ’s immense supportiveness (even from a distance), G’s gregarious unrufflability (yes, that’s a word), and my ability to take pretty much anything on board and assimilate it into my own version of normality (this is not always a good thing, but it’s how I roll).
Unlike last time, we decided to hold off on booking anything until the last minute. Once I’d had a couple of days of almost-positive OPK tests I hopped on a plane and headed north.
Like last time, we did three insems over three days. I think the timing was pretty spot on, as I got a properly positive OPK while I was there.
I used the time that I wasn’t being an upside-down coffee table working on my current freelance job, pottering with a little papercraft, and even skyping in on an RPG session with my friends.
While the process has become surprisingly normal, what I haven’t gotten used to is being away from Arty and SJ.
Being alone in a hotel room, with all that quiet, is more than a little disorienting when I’m so used to being the full time guardian of a noisy, chatty, bouncy, energetic preschooler.
I spend a lot of my everyday life longing for silence (like right now, as I’m writing, and simultaneously being expected to respond at appropriate intervals to a running commentary on an episode of Pocoyo), but three straight days of it is a shock to the system.
I won’t say it doesn’t have it’s perks - sleeping in and reading before starting the day is a pretty big treat, and I definitely didn’t take it for granted – it’s just that the silence is the part that still feels weird. Which says a lot, given what else I’m doing up there.
Last cycle I managed to convince myself that I was definitely pregnant, and this time it’s the exact opposite.
Where last time I couldn’t stop thinking about it, this time I’m managing to forget for hours at a time that we’re actually in the midst of a two week wait.
I’m actually thinking more about next cycle than I am about this one. Yesterday I emailed G and asked him how he felt about coming down here for insems instead of me going up there. He was keen on the idea, which is awesome because it means that SJ will get to be part of the process like she was with Arty. Being a musician and an extrovert, G has friends all over the place, so he’ll get a chance to catch up with people while he’s here.
Hopefully we won’t need a third cycle, but if we do, it’ll be a bit different.
I’ll keep you posted.