This TTC business is very much like being on a never ending hamster wheel. Once again I'm in the two week wait phase. It won't be long before the agonizing over whether to POAS or just wait for AF to arrive. Were those cramps you felt? And then without delay as soon as you've POASed and got your glorious BFN, the unwelcome visitor dutifully arrives and it begins all again... the tears, the resignation and then the realization that ovulation is but a few days away and the TTC fun can begin all over again. Around and around and around....
Can I get off this please?
Not that there's much hope for the end of the wait, but as so many people seem to get pregnant without even trying, you live in hope that you might be one of those lucky bitches, err... I mean fertiles. The problem is that running on this hamster wheel month after month and then the months turning into years is exhausting AND brain-destroying.
No sane rational thinking person would put themselves through this time and time again. So why do I and why do millions of other couples? Because wanting a baby takes over all your mental faculties. Grown men and women spend all their savings, take out loans, ping-pong back and forth from clinics and doctors, and become far too familiar with plastic cups, stirrups, the dildo-cam, injection needles, suppositories and pessaries in the desperate hope to conceive a child. I guess that's just the way we're programed. There's no getting round it. But I do believe this TWW is worse for women. I know it's bad for the fellas too, I know they feel hurt and I know they have particular issues they have to deal with. But women are the ones living the TWW, women are the ones acutely aware of how many days have passed, who decide when to POAS, who feel the cramps, who constantly wonder if every twinge in their belly is a baby implanting in their womb. Of course hubbie is supportive, of course hubbie cares a lot but. He is also able to switch off. He can get on with his life and work without being on the wheel for every stage of the TTC cycle.
And so you run on that hamster wheel sometimes accompanied by your partner and sometimes on your own. But. You're running it. And. There's no getting off for you. Until you either get to jump off with joy or collapse in exhaustion. Let's be honest, it happens. So here I am, hoping, praying that we all get to jump off with joy. Soon.
