The Second Line

Watch the clock. Check your calendar. Take a deep sigh. Keep yourself busy: text some friends, walk the dog, watch a show, read a book, play a game. Watch the clock again. Check your fertility app. Check it again. Confirm the days by counting on your fingers. Remind yourself not to Google anything. Google it anyway. Take another deep sigh. Repeat.  Welcome to what is colloquially known as the "two week wait," that miserable, hopeful two weeks between ovulation and when you can pee on a stick (or when your period will be arriving, if you're more of a "pee cup half empty" kind of gal). When you want to be pregnant, you both live for and loathe these two weeks. It's the lead up to what could be the moment you've been breathlessly waiting for, but it's also 14-ish creeping days wherein all productive brain space is monopolized by thoughts of what your body might be doing right at that moment  and then metathought reminders to not to drive yourself crazy...

I've been thinking lately about how the path toward getting pregnant for us seems a lot like driving in dense fog toward a destination we've never visited. We know where we want to end up, but we have no idea what we're about to encounter along the way or how long we'll drive before we get there.  We're seven and a half months (or eight cycles) into this thing and about $300 out of pocket, which feels like forever and a lot to me, but is a drop in the bucket compared to some folks' fertility investment (in money, time, and  emotional energy). When I sat in waiting room at my OB/GYN's office this week, in some cruel twist of fate, I watched not one, not two, not even three, but FOUR women in various stages of pregnancy stop by the front desk to cheerily schedule or check-in for their ultrasound appointments. The one other woman in the waiting room with me that didn't appear to be pregnant, and whom I silently adopted to be my seething partner-in-misery, w...