That Female Mess

Today is the first day of another period since “the mishap”. It has been six months and
each time I start, it’s a pill that gets harder and harder to swallow. I think
a little background information is needed for you to get the full effect of My
Unbearable, Agonizing, I-Hate-Being-A-Woman-During-This-Time-Of-The-Month
Cycle. Periods for me have always been a pain in the…sides. I mentioned before
that my periods were like clockwork. 28 days, religiously, same start time,
middle of the day. I remember at 15 the first day of my periods were so painful
that during my lunch, I would crawl into a ball in the floor of an empty
classroom with my two BFF’s (that happened to be guys, Brandon & Chad, for
those who know them) and listen to them rant back and forth because it was the
only way to keep my mind off of the pain. If somebody walked in and saw me,
Brandon would say, “leave her alone, she got that female mess”. A true BFF, if
there ever was one. It always took about an hour for three Tylenols to kick in,
so I would squirm around in my desk during Algebra and focus on not falling out
in the floor, withering in pain. Hmm, maybe this is why I have such a hard time
with math…I’ve associated it with pain and repressed the memory of ever
learning it.

The only solution the doctor could give me then was to start the pill. It was a
God-send. No pain, no acne, and I could plan for it each month, same time, 28
days. That is until I went off the pill last August. Since then, I’ve had sharp
pains in my back; cramps like my insides were being crushed for recycled metal,
sixteen year old boy acne, and “the shakes”. I went to Dr. Godspenetic after
the first month of this nonsense and he basically told me, “You are a woman. It’s
your period. Take a Tylenol.” He knew my baby plan and said that until I got
pregnant or went back on the pill, the pain is just something I would have to
deal with. And so, I’ve been dealing with it.

The first two months after the mishap were really emotional for me. After going back to
the Doc for a thorough exam, he assured me that nothing is wrong with me and
that I am perfectly healthy and able to make babies. Mike and I were like, “Challenge.
Accepted.” Apparently our problem was that we could get it in the air, we just
couldn’t land it. Since I knew nothing about pregnancy, ideal conception times,
etc., I started reading. Everything. I Googled, downloaded books, apps, read
about dangerous foods and drinks that lower sperm counts (GOODBYE, MOUNTAIN DEW!),
and read about studies until I became a fricking expert on the magic of making
babies. I know about ovulation calendars, basal thermometers, positions, and
times of the day. I have an app on my phone that I can enter my “flow days” and
it will notify me with little daisies on the days I ovulate. The more petals
the daisy has, the better the chances are at conception. I’d look at my phone
and yell at Mike downstairs, “HEY! Tomorrow I’m at full flower” and he knew I
was a “sure thing” for the next day. I was obsessed!

Being this anal with such high expectations only caused greater let-downs each month
when my period started. I keep mentioning how regular my period was because it
represents something on a much bigger scale. Basically, you can’t plan
anything! It will happen the way it wants to. Ever since November, my period
has NOT been regular. It. Is. Driving. Me. Crazy. I used to be every 28 days.
Now it’s 31 days this month, 26 the next. I never know if I’m late, I never
know how to plan, and it has caused havoc. In February, I thought I was four
days late. I had no acne, no headaches, and I was convinced, CONVINCED, that I
was pregnant. Mike was more realistic that I was and told me that I was just
late and not to count on it. On the fifth day, I woke up and I had started. I
was so angry! The same day I went shopping with my mom, aunt, and cousin and
they were talking about somebody they knew that had just found out they were
pregnant. The girl wasn’t married, had no job, and was younger than me. I burst
into tears. I mean like, uncontrollable, sobbing. I was angry and hated that
girl for having something that I wanted and just couldn’t seem to get. The next
few days that girl stayed on my mind. I thought about every girl/woman I knew
of that had a baby without a husband, or had no insurance, or had six kids she
couldn’t afford. Then the guilt started. I felt so guilty for being angry at
God for allowing people who I thought were less fortunate than me have
something that I thought I was better off having than they were. This was certainly
a wakeup call for me and my self-wallowing.

Who am I to judge people who get pregnant in less than ideal situations? Those
pregnancies and children were probably the greatest things that ever happened
to some of those women. I never judged girls like that before and I surely
shouldn’t have judged them then. I got over myself and apologized to God for
being so outrageous. I think he forgave me, as we have carried on the banter
since my period in February. I told him in my prayers to forgive me, that *somebody*
almighty created women and their bodies which resulted in brief, crazy ass acts
of insanity each month and he returns the joke each month with, “oh let’s go 30
days this time, and throw in a 28er next time just for kicks”.

Well, today starts a brand new cycle for my household. I am much less intense about
getting pregnant and am *trying* to not stress about “that female mess” that I
woke up with this morning. Besides, I have a good 14 days until “full-flower” ;)

(PS-I apologize that my blog looks so "choppy". I write it in Word and copy & paste into the blogger word processor. Haven't yet mastered the formatting...)

Welcome to Adulthood

I’m not exactly sure of the day or even if there was a particular moment in time when I realized, holy smoking balls, I’m an adult. The topic of ‘adultness’ has been weighing on my mind since the fall of this year and I feel compelled to share my thoughts. As a belated apology for my first sentence, forgive me for my foul mouth and sometimes offensive tone. Recognizing you have reached adulthood comes with few exciting realizations, so I try to get my kicks out of being able to say what I please; hence the new blog.

Since I am a teacher, my internal calendar begins in September rather than January. Please note this now because when I speak (and write) I will reference “the beginning of the year” and do
not mean January. Let’s see if you have been paying attention…

At the beginning of the year, I was very excited and hopeful. I made it through my first year of teaching and didn’t end up in jail for assault and would be starting my second year in 5th grade. Things were running very smoothly, as Mike and I had bought our first house just a few months before. Having to pay a mortgage is very liberating, but also scares the snot out of me. This was the first sign of my pending introduction to adulthood.

The second sign follows: since my husband is no spring chicken, we decided in August that I would get off my birth control pill. We had been married two years at the time and felt like it was a good time to “see what happens”. Dr. Godspodnetic, my ob-gyn, told me in June that I could stop taking the pills but that it would take months, even a year before I would probably get pregnant. With this in mind, we (I mean more Mike than me) decided we would just go with the flow and see what happens. I (not we) secretly mapped out conception theories and strategically planned to. the. day. of when we could have sex and what the due date for our baby would be. I had a
specific time period between the last few weeks in September and first week in October to “make it happen” because I wanted my kid to be born at the end of June when I could be home. In the back of my mind, I knew that I was reaching for the stars because the professional told me it would take months. Stay with me…I stopped the pill August 1st. We had sex October 4th.
I conceived. The last week in October, 3 pregnancy tests and one trip to the doctor confirmed that yes, Mike’s sperm and my ovaries were freaking awesome. I was pregnant.

I’m one of the weird people who is very in tuned with their body. I knew the day after my period was supposed to start that I was pregnant. Since I was 15, I have been like clockwork, almost to the exact hour. I waited two days before I took the pregnancy tests even though I knew very strongly what the result would already be. Even though we were scared out of our panties with the news, we could not have been any happier. Let me be very clear, I can write a book about the characteristics of 8-10 year olds. I couldn’t write one sentence about babies. Apparently, the protocol for telling baby news is after you are 3 months along. I waited 3 days because I’m also one of the weird people who can NOT keep a secret. After my family doctor’s office confirmed the
pregnancy, we blabbed. We were on cloud eight hundred and nine. I think my parents and grandparents were more excited about hearing they were going to be grandparents (and great-grandparents) than they would be about winning the Mega Millions. I hounded my ob-gyn’s office and they squeezed me in to do an ultrasound. We were deaf, blind, and dumb to anything outside of the happy bubble we had created.

Lastly, the third sign that I was entering adulthood…

Mike and I go in to meet with Dr. Godspodnetic before he conducts the ultrasound. I have a list of twenty three questions, ranging from ‘what kind of diet should I be on’ to ‘is it safe to use my acne medicine’. Let’s just say, the meeting wasn’t brief. I explained to him that a few days before I had cramping and brown spotting. He assured me that it was very common. We go into the ultrasound room and the nurse asks me to pee in a cup. I was so dang excited, I peed. But forgot the cup on the back of the toilet. Since everything had been sunshine and rainbows, we laughed it
off and she assured me I could try again later. I get awkwardly on the table and we wait. Let’s be honest ladies, there is nothing more awkward than not being able to figure out the robe they make you wear so your kukah is hanging out for all God’s children to see. I mean really, where the hell is it supposed to tie and close? The side? The back? Geez. Put an instructional poster up in the bathroom, medical people. Anyway, Dr. Godspodnetic comes in and begins the ultrasound. Mike and I have already studied the “What Your Baby Looks Like At…” poster like our lives depended on it so we knew what we were looking for on the overhead screen. As soon as the stick went in and my glorious uterus pops up on the screen for the world to see, we knew. There was nothing but static and grayness. Dr. Godspodnetic says “I’m sorry” and our bubble burst in that same room that I thought 3 minutes before couldn’t get any more awkward. I was wrong.

Of course we listened to him drone on and on about it being a fluke and that I probably started miscarrying a few days before and was still in the process. He wanted me to pee in a cup again to see what it said so I go in the bathroom and try. Not a drop. I’m sitting on the toilet, sobbing like my perfect ice cream cone had fallen into the dirt and couldn’t freaking pee. I got another STERILE cup and drank like 10 cups of water. Still nothing. At this point, I was hysterical. I was crying and laughing like a crazy person because even in that one horrific moment, all I could do was laugh at myself for not being able to squeeze a drop out. The past few weeks, I had been going like 10 times a day. I bet I stayed in that bathroom 30 minutes until finally I got a little. It was tested and came back a “weak positive” which meant I was still “emptying”. We left, I barely made it through a 5 second phone call to my mama, and we came home to bed.

I thought having a mortgage and a “real” job and car payments made me an adult. I thought that taking the steps to plan a family and have them turn out so successfully, so quickly, made me a
responsible adult. I can promise you that the greatest sign I’ve had that let me know I’ve entered adulthood is going through something like what Mike and I went through the few weeks following that appointment, what we are still going through now, months later. If I thought I was an adult before that, God slapped me in the forehead with that situation and it has changed me drastically, into an adult.

I swear this isn’t a depressing blog and I’m not going to go on and on about me miscarrying each time I write. I know there are thousands and thousands of women who have had this happen and
were probably much further along than I was. But it still happened to us and I feel like it is a situation that has inspired me enough to share our little adventures that have happened since November. Stick with me. It gets lighter. Welcome to my new world of adulthood.