Oh yeah. Right. We need sperm to make this happen.

I met my husband at a strip bar.

Not just a strip bar, but the biggest cowboy strip bar in a little college town in the Western U.S.

To clarify, neither of us was working the joint.

I was a 1st year. In business school speak, 1st year = freshman. And he was a 2nd year. Read: senior.

The school is known around the West for its finance and sports programs. So the MBA program was full of dudes. Serious snake ranch city.

So, of course it makes sense that a few of us 1st year gals decided to prop up one of our own who was feeling blue by surprising her with… (a) A nice dinner? No. (b) Night out dancing with baby lamb frat boys? No?

Why, I know, let’s cheer her up by taking her to a gentlemen’s club!

I still have no idea how we came up with this scheme but I think it hatched in utter delirium while we were writing an accounting case study at 3 A.M. Not to mention that ladies get in free to said gentleman’s club and we were all broke grad students.

Word spread around the b-school that the first year girls were headed to the biggest cowboy strip bar in town. So a bunch of second year guys – the seniors who btw had Fridays off and had spent the entire day drinking – decided to show up and… well, poach the first years.

We roll into the cowboy strip bar tryin’ to be all cool. Like we hang out in these places every day, which is freaking hard to do because public nudity is completely legal in this state. No lie. You can walk down the street buck naked and as long as you’re not doing anything gross, it’s perfectly legit. So you can only imagine what kinds of liberties are being taken in a strip club. NAS-tay!

Anyway, there were a dozen second years at the rail being, uh, entertained. Cowboy among them.

Now, it should have given me pause that he had his baseball cap on backwards. A five dollar bill turned vertically and tucked into its back strap. I should have thought, pig. But, no, I thought:

I’m going to marry that man

And five years, three cities, four moves, three jobs (him), two jobs (me) and three months later I did.

These days I often wonder if he looks at me and thinks, “lady, this is SO not what I signed up for.” I feel bad for him. I’m such a mess these days. I often feel hopeless. I am definitely not as much fun. He surely wants the old me back. Not this crazy lady who cries at the drop of a hat. Heck, I want the old me back, too.

This year’s ups and downs in the conception arena have been rough on us, the Cowboy and me. I sometimes wonder if I’m driving the bus on the baby thing and have left him sulking in the passenger seat, staring out the window at the wide open range.

It feels this way because I’m actually living it: the ovulating, the two week wait, the real & imagined pregnancy symptoms, the miscarriages (holy living hell if you ask me) and the recovery. And he’s observing it. Living with it through me, yes, but not physically living through any of it.

And then he’ll say it. A simple remark that makes me realize that he's got at least one of his hands on the steering wheel, too. (Come to think of it, do you know any guy who uses 2 hands on the steering wheel?

One simple, reaffirming sentence from Cowboy and I know in my heart that everything will be OK in one way or another some day. In that instant, I know it as solidly as I knew I was going to marry him when I saw him at that strip bar. You see, he has faith where I have none. And he helps me catch a glimpse of that faith, which I can cling to when it feels like there is not much left.

Because, you see, I have him. And when you think about it, that’s one helluvalot I have left.

* Important Note: please don’t let Cowboy’s nickname and the cowboy strip bar where we met lead you to believe we are rednecks. Yes, Cowboy is originally from the Lone Star State (as am I) but right now he’s out golfing in shorts I bought him that have little golden retrievers embroidered all over them.

Blue Crush

Throughout the IF process, we all encounter medical professionals who – just by the slightest action – can make or break our day. It’s not fair, really. We often have high expectations of them because we are looking for something, someone, ANYTHING to help us make sense of what’s going wrong with a process that in theory should be pretty straightforward.

Not to mention how freakin’ expensive this is. After all, if you’re getting better service from the bra saleswoman at Nordstrom than you are from someone at your OBGYN or RE clinic, then there is a problem.

ANYWAY…

This is not a rant. It’s a shout out to Mary Beth, who probably doesn’t read IF blogs, but who deserves a shout out anyway.

Mary Beth is the receptionist at my OB’s office. She is a terribly busy woman. About half the time I call there, I get a busy signal. Seriously people. A busy signal. How 1985.

So Mary Beth has a lot of ladies’ names to remember. And I am amazed that she remembers mine.

Mary Beth has been there, the first to congratulate me with each of my “I’m pregnant” calls. She’s also mercifully & quickly whisked me from the waiting room full of pregnant women during each of my subsequent m/c’s. I wish I knew Mary Beth under happier circumstances. She’s seen me in near tears more than she’s seen me smile.

As I was leaving the OB office the other day, Mary Beth told me her last day was at the end of the week. She’s moving to Oahu to be a massage therapist. How cool is that?

She looked at me with her bright blue eyes and said, “I won’t be here to congratulate you but I know that your time will come to celebrate.” She reached across the desk and grabbed my hand as I held back the tears, “I know you will have reason to celebrate and I wish you all the best.”

Wowsers. Ok, first, she was amazingly busy. There were probably like 50 pregnant women in Portland getting busy signals. Second, she didn’t have to say anything to little old me. Third, it was just incredibly nice and thoughtful and touching. She gave me hope and made my day.

So Mary Beth, you freaking rock. I just know you are going to have one kick ass life chillin’ in Oahu. I wish someday I could tell you about my celebration, however it may come. In the meantime, I will miss you.

Shaka.

Well, that was the plan, wasn't it?

Hello everyone. I am a late-thirty something who lives in the Pacific Northwest. We have been married for 2 years and started getting it on sans birth control last summer.

The first four months that we were officially off birth control, we missed the good times due to one of us being out of town for work. Our fifth cycle – the one where the mister and I were miraculously in the same zip code when the OPK turned the-exact-same-color-as-the-control-line-blue – we managed to get knocked up.

Holy frickin damn! Look at how awesome we are, I thought. Yeah, we nailed that b*tch. I gave away my copy of TCOYF and How to Get Pregnant Naturally (snicker). I now want to do something really mean to the smarmy UVA doctor who wrote that one and got me addicted to OPKs. Anyway, I digress.

WE were the champions of conception. WE didn’t have to worry about any of this IF shite. Ha! It didn’t even matter that I am in my late 30’s and the mister (aka Cowboy, seriously that’s my nickname for him) is early 40’s. WE were the cat’s ass.

Au contraire, mon frair.

Apparently while we were great about getting pg, we weren’t so great at staying pg. We m/c’ed a few weeks later. 3 days after my first pregnant lady appointment. How embarrassing is that? Yep, we went from hero to zero. More stories about Junior #1 in another post.

That was 6 months ago. And like I said: hero to zero.

Actually hero to below zero. We’re talking negative integers here, people. Because 14 days ago I just received my second BFP. Yay! And 7 days ago I miscarried. Again. Boo!

If I sound like I am trying to be funny, it’s really just a slightly maniacal side of myself that I’m starting to get to know.

Losing Junior #2 (it sucks being the middle child doesn’t it) also means we are in another recovery period. During which time we’ll have our first meeting with an RE because apparently now I’m in the SUPER FUN recurrent fetal loss club. Do you at least get a letterman-style sweatshirt with RFL on it?

OK, OK. I can hear those of who have been on this crazy IF and sub-IF roller coaster for waaay tooooo long sayin’ “Sister, you don’t even know… eight months? A freakin’ jog around the block compared to what I’ve been through.” And I hear you. I really do. And I so get it.

But women like The Oneliner, Pregnancy Envy, Sticky Bun and My Dear Watson have become my daily staples. And I just started feeling creepy lurking on the IF blog sidelines. Some IF voyeur if you will. Since I love the written word, I thought maybe, just maybe I might have something to contribute here. To give myself an outlet and to make others, perhaps future others, not feel so alone and, um, misunderstood by husbands, lovers, parents, siblings, friends and co-workers who don’t get how having a baby could become such an obsession (cue the movie trailer music).

Because having a baby. Well, that was the plan. Wasn’t it?