If you take prenatal vitamins they will come....

Babies are pissing me off again. It started off Friday night—and when I say night I am saying Saturday a.m. I was trying to go to sleep when I got overtaken by a slide show of memories recounting all the time, energy, and expense we spent trying to have a baby.

I thought back to the beginning, when we got really serous about trying to have a baby. I remember with absolute clarity the first time I got online to search for suggestions on upping our odds at the Trying to Conceive website. I searched for success stories and what they did, other than the obvious, to get pregnant. I followed all of their advice to the letter. I bought Mucinex cough medicine in an attempt to thin out my cervical fluid and He-weasel’s, um, fluid. I bought the fanciest and most expensive basal thermometer I could find. I stayed in bed for 30 minutes after sex and kept my legs elevated on the wall. I ordered prenatal vitamins and switched us to all organic dairy, produce and meats---and then I went to the Pottery Barn website and I started planning the babies room. I picked names and calculated birthdays. And, then I waited for the line on the Clear Blue Easy to appear---and when it didn’t I then started reading the over 35 Trying to Conceive message boards and realized that it was time to get my eggs, ovaries, and uterus over to a reproductive endocrinologist office.

I made an appointment with the most famous reproductive endocrinologist in all of L.A. He is “the” doctor behind countless Hollywood pregnancies. He is the man I like to call Dr. Mumbles. He got his name, as you might have guessed, because he mumbles. But that is not his only liability in the bedside manner department, Truth be told, I think Mumbles may have a bit of a social anxiety issue. He may have a great talent when it comes to putting egg and sperm together—he is, however, sorely lacking in people skills. Happily there was always a nurse around who could translate what Mumbles said. Mumbles would say, "wha-wa-blah-blah.” The nurse would then explain, “You have four follicles that should be ready for insemination on Friday.”

I remember everything about that first appointment. I wore a circle printed circle skirt and a black shell with red patent mules. I had filled out my mountain of paperwork days in advance. He-weasel was supposed to meet me at the house at 2:00 so we could be to his beach side office by 3:00. He-weasel was late and I was pissed. I remember every detail of the drive there. I remember where we parked and where we sat in the waiting room and how He-weasel bounced his leg in nervous anticipation of our meeting with Mumbles.
Thanks to He-weasel breaking the speed limit, we got to Mumbles office on time. He brought us into his office that was filled with pictures of babies he was responsible for creating and pictures and statues of airplanes.

Mumbles did an exam of my pelvis inspecting for deficits and abnormalities that would explain my barren state. After I got dressed, he mumbled an invitation for us to come into his office. We quietly sat and waited for him to tell us whether or not we could have a baby. He looked at our blood work and He-weasel’s sperm count results. We watched him hoping for some sign of life in our lab results. Mumbles suggested I undergo a series of painful and expensive tests and then we should have 6 IUI’s and once those fail to then go onto the savings draining IVF’s. He also suggested we take an herbal supplement called Fertility Blend that had showed great success in upping the outcome of fertility procedures. We left his office with hope, brochures and a fee schedule that explained how much our dreams would cost—and several bottles of Fertility Blend.

We did everything that Mumbles suggested and more. I had tests. We did IUI’s. We injected my bootycus with needles. I filled my system with drugs that made me hormonal, hypertensive, bloated, fat, tired and egg filled. I had countless vaginal ultra sounds and blood tests. We rearranged our lives so we could be at the doctors almost every morning at 7 a.m. and then would call at 2 p.m. to find out if I was ovulating, or if I was developing follicles and whether we were ready to move forward to the next level of hell, and if we had already inseminated—if I was pregnant or not. And, every month the answer was no.

We did Feng Shui, Acupuncture, Yoga, and Chi Gong. We took flower essences, vitamins, and herbs. We saw healers, energy workers and Maori Tribal chieftains that supposedly had the power to heal even the most profoundly infertile couples. We were assured by healers, psychics, astrologers, and all who loved us that there was a baby in our future. We were on prayer chains of over 100 churches. People said rosaries and masses for us. We built a baby shrine in our home---friends and family gave us symbols of fertility that would assure us our baby. I meditated, got massaged and got into therapy to manage my stress. I ate more yams than one human should. And, He-weasel ingested more pumpkin seeds than you could find in an entire pumpkin patch. But, no baby ever came.

If an IVF was scheduled on Christmas Eve, or Easter, Father’s day or Mother’s day we were always sure that this was the time; this round was special. But, it never was. No baby ever came.

Just the other day, He-weasel was lamenting that all of our effort towards citizenship might be for naught. I assured him that he was wrong—that all of our investment had to be leading towards something. Now, that I look at all of the investment of time, money and energy we spent on having a baby, I see that I may be wrong. It is possible to invest everything and come out of it with nothing. Sure, I know how much pain I can endure and how strong I am. I know that I tried as hard as I could and did everything in my power to have a baby (including a failed adoption). And, I am glad we tried as hard as we did.

It has been months since we decided we would try no more and that we would live life as CNBC (childless not by choice). There is a part of me that misses the trying and all the hope that trying inferred. But, from the beginning I said I would know when I could try no more—and that time has long since past.

With all that we have endured this year—and with France on the horizon—I thought I was over all this. I thought I was better. Saturday, at the Greek festival, I saw little Greek babies who looked like He-weasel and, as I ate my soulvaki, I sobbed. I cried when I saw young Greek girls with raven curls like He-weasels. I cried when I saw young Greek boys with mischievous smiles and eyes with endless depths, like my Weasel’s. Today, I need no He-weasel look alike to make me cry. Today the tears come effortlessly.

I am still grappling with the fact that we failed. We failed to do something that requires no education, intelligence, wit or wisdom. We failed to be fruitful and multiply. I can tell you that this failure hurts like no other. I know we will go onto accomplish many things---but in this we have failed and I am starting to see that this is a pain and a suffering that will remain with us always. There is a hole in our hearts where baby-weasel should be. There is no Baby-weasel.