ok, it's time to get serious

On Thursday, cl.om.id will begin. Not long after that, my first IUI.

That last doctor's appointment, which resulted in that great martini buzz, really did a number on me. Like most wallops up-side-the-head, it landed me flat on the ground and smack up against my reality. Which is this: I'm 38. I've had a big loss. My hormonal system has always been a little wacky. I'm on the clock. The time for waiting around and hoping is past.

The cl.om.id makes me feel just a wee bit like a hypocrite. The crunchy hippie in me chafes against the idea of medications and needles and catheters... believes in organic food and acupuncture and letting nature take it course....

Fuck it. It's been almost two years since I got pregnant. Almost two years of waiting to bring a baby home. We are sick of waiting. I'm going to need a little extra help to get pregnant, and the medical industry's got help to give.

Here's the weird thing. We've been trying religiously for nine months--but this cycle, the one with the meds and the date with doctors, is the one that's got me thinking, "Uh oh, time to buckle down." Because I might really get pregnant this time. Which means I didn't really believe I could get pregnant before? Huh.

By buckle down, I mean get my self-care in order. I need to drink more water, take my vitamins more regularly, eat enough fat and protein and greens, get on track with yoga and acupuncture, walk every day, get more sleep.

You'd think this stuff would have been top of the priority list while I was trying to conceive. But it wasn't. Surviving was at the top of the list. Because trying after loss can be so... demoralizing. Fighting to stay cheerful through unsuccessful cycles... just so depressing. And it would have been even more depressing if I worked so hard to be extra super healthy and organized and then failed anyway.

This is a terrible personality quirk of mine: I absolutely resist going the extra mile unless you can guarantee me a payoff. If I'm going to pile on the stress and the exertion, there's got to me something in it for me - pleasure, knowledge of good outcome, a sense of moral superiority, something... I can't force myself to drink two more glasses of cold water on a cold day just because that might make the nth degree of difference in my cervical fluid. That's like refusing to order pizza at the end of a long week because I'm underpaid at my job - I don't think the $12 is going to make or break my financial future. That's what I tell myself anyway. I don't know, maybe I really am just lazy. Or hungry for pizza.

But now, I'm drinking the damn water. I had greens with my lunch. Organic chicken is in the slow cooker.

I think I just needed to know we were getting some help. We can't do it alone. I don't want to do it alone any more. And even though ART is a freaky and stressful world, at least it is some kind of help. I feel like I could actually get pregnant. In which case, I'll want the greens and the fats and the water and the vitamins in my system ASAP. So I'll work on that.

This was a very long way of saying I feel hopeful. And that it's time for me to get serious. Because maybe, just maybe, there will be a new baby on the way.