Bundle of Nerves

People love to say dumb shit to you when you’re pregnant.

Some of it is insensitive/invasive: “Was it planned?” “Hello, I just met you. Thank you for asking me about my sex life.”

Some of it assumes you’re a fucking idiot: “Hahah, I wish people had told me to see all the movies and have all your dinners out now because you sure won’t have time when baby arrives hahahahahahaAAA!!” “Oh really? Because I thought I could just leave him in the dog crate while I went out for a quick taco.”*

*It should be noted that you hear this one all the time, from otherwise really smart people, who are constantly telling you that no one told them this. I don’t know how this is possible, as first of all everyone says it to me and second of all isn’t it just totally common knowledge? Is it that you just don’t realize HOW TIRED  and HOW TIED DOWN you will be until you’re there? Or is it just that I’m especially prepared for it to be terrible, because I’m pretty sure that’s what it is?

And some of it is just fucking nuts and wrong: “Now that you’re in your second trimester, if you lie on your back, the baby will get no circulation and terrible things will happen.”

This latter piece of information has been propagated all over the place, from what should be reliable pregnancy websites to what should be reliable pregnancy books to everyone everywhere ever. Most recently I heard it from my trainer at my gym - who has worked with several pregnant women before me.

Luckily at this point, I’m pretty sure most of this stuff is bullshit — widely spread bullshit by pseudo-reliable sources (see above mention of pregnancy books and websites) — so I just call my doctor to get the lowdown. I am very certain about this because, as I will discuss in a future post, I got some very incorrect and potentially damaging information from some medical professionals that directly contradicted the information I got from my OB. And if people with an MD don’t know shit about pregnancy, then people writing a web article for babycenter for $200 certainly have no clue.

Also luckily I’ve managed to keep these ‘bullshit alert’ calls to said dr to about one/month, which I think is respectable. But unfortunately I don’t know any other way valid to source the information.

“Hello, Dr. U? I’m 15 weeks. Am I allowed to lie on my back?”

“How do you feel when you lie on your back?”

“Fine.”

“Then you’re both fine. You’ll know when you’re not fine.”

“Thank you.”

I guess at some point the baby starts to feel heavy and you feel like someone is lying on your chest or you feel like your circulation is being impeded. In that case, yes it makes sense not to lie on your back - BECAUSE IT FEELS BAD TO LIE ON YOUR BACK. But right now, it feels fine, so WTF?!

Long story short, people love to tell you that everything you do is going to cause you/your baby to die or at best grow a spare head out of his asshole. I don’t blame them - they think they got this from reliable sources (once again, see pregnancy books, news sources, websites), but it turns out, not so much.

Most recent and flamboyant culprit of misinfo: R my sweet and slightly hilarious Brazilian masseuse from last week. Here were the best exchanges:

R: Have you had any massages before?

Me: In my life or in this pregnancy? Because, well, both.

R: (worried frowny face) You’re not supposed to get massage first trimester.

Me: Well, I did.

*******

R: Was he planned or accident?

Me: (in brain): Hello, we just met, let us discuss my birth control practices.

(in reality): Oh, um, planned, I guess.

R: That’s good. He knows he is welcome.

Me: (in brain): If he’s so in tune to things already, then I should probably stop saying ‘stupid baby’ every time I’m crazy hungry and blaming him for my uncontrollable eating.

*******

R: (poking at my back/hip) I cannot massage you right here. The baby is here.

Me: (in brain): The baby is in my kidney? I should probably call my doctor.

(in reality:) Okay, whatever you think is best.

***

It must be stated that R was very nice and gave me a very good massage. She also was obviously queen of the ridiculous pregnancy related statements.

So it turns out if you’re over 35, you are basically considered ancient as far as pregnancy goes. I think it might even be actually called a ‘geriatric pregnancy.’ Which, first of all is charming, but second of all has some special ramifications.

What those ramifications are are basically: extra tests. I think everyone knows this. Thanks to news reporters looking to get ratings through scaring people, most of us are aware that after 35 things get a little funky pregnancy-wise (save for my husband apparently, who only discovered on the eve of his 36th bday and thus went into a cold sweated baby panic, but I digress).

Or at least they make you think it’s funky. Increased risk of pregnancy complications, increased risk of fertility troubles, increased risk of Down’s Syndrome. Horrors and more horrors. And they handle this through lots of tests.

Namely, either an amnio (ie amniocentesis) or CVS (ie chorionic villus sampling), to test for at least the increased risk of Down’s and some other stuff. Here is what they don’t tell you, until you are actually at the doctor’s:

First, that increased risk, according to my doctor, of Down’s etc. is only 1% if you’re 35. “But if you’re 40, then it goes way up, right?” I asked. “Yes, to 3%,” she responded. So, yes the risk is increased as you age, but it’s not like 75% of your children will have extra hands if you wait too long. But they’re still being on the safe side and checking.

Two, you hear that amnio and CVS carry an increased risk of miscarriage. Again yes, but according to my doctor, neither test is riskier than the other and the increased risk is only either .5% or 1% (I can’t remember which). So basically, if this was your last shot at an IVF pregnancy, ok I can see how any increase would freak you out, but seriously, that risk is LOW.

Three, as I just said, the tests carry the same amount of risk as each other. BUT, you can do CVS earlier (10-14 weeks) and unlike the amnio, which as we all know is the dreaded evil needle through the belly, CVS goes in like a pap smear (most of the time; in exceptions they do the belly needle for that one, too).

You put all that together, and I have zero idea why if given the choice anyone would elect an amnio. I guess CVSes are more specialized procedures so in less urban areas there might not be the CVS option, but should you get the option, I think we all know what side of things I come down on.

So, I had the CVS, and it sounded like it wasn’t going to be a big deal. Then I find out I have to leave like four hours available that day and be on bed rest afterwards and all this stuff and I’m like, seriously what the @#$ are they going to do? And they’re treating it like a big deal and I’m not allowed to drive myself home and I’m like, Are you going to be sedating me? What is happening?

Anyhow, long story short, here is what you should know: It is 100% much ado about NOTHING. It is super easy. it is super fast. It is not painful. All all. Because of course not. The only part that gets jabbed with a needle is the placenta—not your stomach or your vag or your muscles or anything scary. Does your placenta have nerves that you are aware of? No it does not. So who cares?

Have you ever had a pap smear where you got every so minorly crampy? Yes? Good, then you know what a CVS is like.

Honestly, it’s more humiliating than anything. They put you on the table, but instead of just scooting to the end, you have to put your knees in the stirrups. Then they tip the back of the table down, so your head is kinda angling toward the floor a little. Then they tip the hip part of the table up, so make that angle even more dramatic. And then they drop the hip part of the table out entirely so you’re just dangling by your knees with your ass and hoo-ha in the air for the doctor, medical student, and any passing janitor to enjoy.

But it’s kinda not that bad, because you can actually watch the whole thing on the ultrasound that’s being broadcast on the screen on the wall, which is much more high tech than your usual pap smear. I guess they need to thread the needle or whatever all the way around to the top of your uterus to get the sample they need, hence the ultrasound. Whatever.

It was over very quickly. Then I got to sit there naked from the waist down trying to cover myself with the ultrasound gel soaked paper skirt while my husband and the doctor chatted about their favorite baseball stadiums. I was like, ‘Really? Okay, maybe we can discuss this later?”

Anyhow, that’s the report. The worst part is the 23 people peering into your crotch at once. There is no pain. Even the 24 hrs bed rest and several days no exercise/sex/straining yourself is probably bullshit (when pressed, the genetic counselor said to me, “Yes, well, I dare you to change the environment in your uterus. You can’t do it. Still, you should take it easy.”), but whatevs.

Bottom line: I am here to tell you that if you’re an old woman, have the CVS. Amnios are for suckers.

Oh, also, the amnio does test for neural tube defects and the CVS does not, but you get a blood test that covers that anyway later one, so who cares?

Also also, they’re coming out with a new blood test that will ultimately test for all the same stuff the amnio and CVS does, so in a few years this is all going to be obsolete anyhow. It is on the market already, but it only tests for like one type of Down’s (versus all the other things), and it hasn’t been approved by the FDA. But it’s coming. Huzzah.

Also also also, when you have a CVS because they do the whole genetic karyotype, you find out the gender before the fetal ultrasound. It’s a boy.

So, I clearly need to stop claiming what is going to happen in “our next post” because I am not interested in sticking to that either in title or spirit. I clearly thought I would segue from the ‘Holy shit I’m pregnant’ post to ‘Wow, I really thought I’d have gotten used to it by now, but nope’ post, but I don’t feel like writing that one. So, enough with the false promises.

Instead today I shall catalog/discuss/disgust you with my list of pregnancy symptoms from which I have suffered so far. At least first trimester ones because I’m just now second trimester and as much as I would like to, I cannot see into the future.

For the first few days I wouldn’t have known I was pregnant, except that the test said I was pregnant. I marched around entirely proud of myself that I was so good at it, feeling very virtuous, and thinking, ‘Well, if I keep going like this, then maybe I should consider being a surrogate to any gay friends who want kids.’ Then a week or so later symptoms set in and I realized I was an idiot. They were as follows:

1. Gas/bloating. Okay, I’ve heard people discuss pregnancy farting and somehow I thought this was all bullshit. It isn’t exactly bullshit. I think from the limited reading I did (I find all the pregnancy books both full of scare tactics and crap, so I’m mostly avoiding them and the internet for that stuff and assuming if nothing weird falls out of me then all is well), that it’s a result of some of the hormones. I can’t remember why - see previous sentence - but something to do with the hormones activates the bad gaseous side of your GI system and the next thing you know you are super bloated and it’s all you can do not to fart yourself across the room. To my credit, I never succumbed to the urge to do it in front of anyone, even husband, with the ‘I’m pregnant, you must forgive me’ excuse. But a couple of times it was close. And I will say, when I was lying around on my own, I was like, DEAR JESUS CHRIST HIDE THE ANIMALS. Luckily that went away after a couple of weeks.

2. Cramps. Apparently there is a common thing where you get period-like cramps because your uterus is expanding. I initially ignored it because I thought it was part of the aforementioned minor GI discomforts. I say minor because I am someone who frequently has GI issues so I’m used to just popping a pepto and ignoring them and going on with life.  The second I realized they were pregnancy symptoms though, I got PISSED and obsessed with them, especially since there’s the ‘What medicine can I take? Will everyone die if I take this? Do I have to call my doctor every time I want to take something new?’ crap factor - worsened by the fact that manufacturers cover their asses always saying ‘ASK YOUR DOCTOR’ and once again the internet is full of ‘AND THEN YOU ALL DIE’ information about everything. So. You basically have to call your doctor every five minutes and look like an asshole.

Theoretically you are only supposed to take Tylenol, which anyone who gets serious period cramps knows is about as useful as treating the pain by eating a Popsicle. So I called my Dr - AGAIN - and laughed at her when she suggested Tylenol and was like, ‘No seriously, how much Advil can I take,’ and she basically told me ‘just not too much,’ which is a really nonspecific amount, but good enough for me. I basically kept it to two advil/day, which I decided was enough to take the edge off for a least a couple of hours without causing baby to jump ship. Cramping went away after a couple of weeks.

3. Boob Attack. I am now officially a DD, which is ridiculous because I am not going to nurse, so this whole show my boobs are putting on is for naught. In their defense, I was pretty much on the borderline between D and DD before, but at this point I am hoping they will contain themselves for the rest of the pregnancy and resist the urge to undergo any future growth spurts because if they do, they are going to graduate me out of the normal bra stores and put me into the specialty tatas category. And I am not interested in that crap. #VictoriasSecret4Life!

4. ‘Morning’ (and afternoon and evening) Sickness. On the upside, I only had this from roughly weeks 5-7 and it was fairly mild/moderate and I never barfed. On the downside, it lasted every waking minute and the only thing for it was massive amounts of food. And not like, ‘crackers and ginger tea,’ but rather ‘giant philly cheesesteak sub’ and then two hours later I would need more. You will not be surprised to know that I put on a very fast 5 lbs during this period because of the insane eating that evil baby demanded I do.

I don’t know how people do it who have it worse/longer. I am so relieved that it was so quick/mild I don’t even know what to say. Maybe I should stop calling the baby an asshole for starters.

5. Fatigue. V mild and perhaps better qualified as apathy. I wasn’t tired so much as I just was like, ‘fuck it, I’ll sit on the sofa and watch TV,’ which is extremely unlike me. I’m usually the one running around doing 200 things at once, so a bout of lack of motivation is a clear anomaly and very frustrating to me. Luckily, this coincided with those two weeks of perma-grossness, and really was only a couple of days therein. I did get so annoyed about it that I went to the acupuncturist, and then woke up that night with a giant surge of energy. Was this all my energy returning after one shot of needles to the face? Maybe. I don’t know, but I’m just happy it’s gone.

6. Peeing. Oh God, the peeing. I knew peeing comes later when baby is big and pressing on bladder, but apparently it also comes in first trimester, again due to hormone things I think from baby book skims. My urethra or whatever just seemed hypersensitive, so I would do a lot of peeing when there wasn’t a lot of pee to be peed. I started combating this with cranberry juice, which probably just has a placebo affect in my brain, but who cares? That is often enough for me. And I totally would wake up to pee oceans in the middle of the night. Insane. Now it is gone and I have slept through the night the past few nights, like normal again. I think babycenter or someone said that was a common second trimester thing for that to go away. Nice.

7. Thirst. I know your blood volume doubles or something because of pregnancy, and apparently my body wanted to hydrate for that all at once. My husband even bought me a special metal drink canister so I didn’t use a plastic one filled with whatever horrible chemicals he thinks are terrible. Then after a couple of weeks, I reached some new stasis and it’s better. I still bring my security blanket squeeze bottle with me everywhere, but I rarely need it anymore. Or at least not as much. Obviously this could contribute to the aforementioned peeing.

8. Insomnia. There were a couple of nights where I woke up at like 3 AM and was up for an hour or so for no known reason. This is 100% unlike me and has almost never happened before. Was this from anxiety or was this from hormones? Who knows? I just put on my headlamp and read my kindle and went back to bed, so it wasn’t too terrible.

9. Sweating. I am prone to night sweats, specifically cold ones - so mostly in the winter and coincides with my period. Charming. So no shocker that now that I’m pregnant, I’ve been having my nighttime hormone bath party even though it’s been summer and hot. I finally figured out the hack a couple of weeks ago - I go to bed in almost nothing, with just a sheet on. Then around 3 or 4 when it cools off the most, I wake up to pee an ocean, then put on clothes to warm up. That seemed to stop the cold sweats/ get them under some semblance of control. Also, I figured out that if I put a barricade in the bed between my husband and me, I could regulate my temperature better, because he’s about 700 degrees warmer than the room when he sleeps. Poor sad snuggle-deprived husband, but it’s either that or I sleep in another bed. Luckily this issue seems to be abating a bit along with the second trimester time.

10. Heat. I am generally one of those people who are always cold. Get me pregnant and suddenly I’m a furnace. This is most notable in my car, where instead of having my a/c set to the usual 75 that I have had it at every day ever, I now have needed it blaring as cold as it goes. Again, this issue has waned in the past week or so. Not a big deal, and I’m not sweating balls elsewise, but I’d like to take this opportunity to apologize to everyone who has frozen their nads off in my car the past few months.

11. Cravings/the Ravening. After the nausea subsided, the ravenous death hunger really set in. This mostly took the form of me not being able to get enough food basically no matter what I did. My husband would bring me food in bed at 7 AM, but by 9AM I would be ready to murder someone/perish if I didn’t eat again. And then again at 11, lather, rinse, repeat. At some point I figured out that cheese was the best weapon to feed the beast - I think all the fat/protein was the best for tiding me over. It was also the best for making me gain more weight.

I attempted to combat this by going to the farmer’s market every weekend and loading up on more fruit and veg than I have ever eaten in my entire life. And eating them as snacks between cheese infusions, but although baby likes fruit with his cheese, it would tide me over for significantly less time.

It got kinda tiring/stressful to be like, ‘okay in two hours I am going to panic and need more food,’, but things could obviously have been way worse. And yet again, zzz, the fruit/cheese needs have really dropped in the past week.

 I guess I really am entering the magical second tri. Hopefully I can slow down the weight gain, because all the eating I had to do first to feed the nausea and then to feed the giant black hole of starvation has put a total of around 10 lbs on me, which is pretty ridiculous. I hope to hell that the fat stores of cheese will now be rerouted to nourishment for baby and instead of gaining weight I’ll just reallocate those lbs into proper baby things because otherwise I’m in for a long ride. In my defense, I did try to fight the good fight. But you try not eating a box of cheeze-its when you’re that hungry. I dare you.

12. Back pain. I’m going to deduce this is from the 10 lbs of cheese I gained and the giant tats. Still, quite early to have back pain and I’m already pissed about it and have started seeing a trainer at the gym because I will not go gentle into that good night. Speaking of which, I should go do some exercises now.

With the exception of the nausea/apathy of weeks ~5-7 and the cramps (mostly annoying because you can’t do as much for them as you’d like), none of these are very bad at all and are totally dealable. I haven’t been very pissed about them and haven’t been complaining about them much. In fact, I’m pretty sure my husband would be surprised to know about half of them, because they just don’t bug me enough to be worth mentioning. 

I will also say that thus far I haven’t felt very hormonal in that emotionally labile/crying at toilet paper commercials sort of way. I mostly have just felt like me, which I’m sure is great for everyone involved. There’ve been a couple of incidents where I might have taken something slightly harder than usual, but it’s been really isolated and NBD.

And now, I know enough to leave without making any promises as to what will be in the next blog. But I will say that I’m definitely going to go do some sit ups for my goddamn back.

In the couple of months after I’d gone off the pill I developed a habit, as much as you can call anything you’ve done once a month for like two months a habit, and that was taking a pregnancy test the day I was supposed to get my period. You’ve got to understand I’ve been on the pill my entire adult life, so I can barely remember a time when I didn’t know, to nearly the hour, when I would be expecting it. I found the whole, “Well, maybe it will be here Saturday, if you’re cycling normally and there’s no one burrowing into your womb” thing quite unsettling. So I came up with a plan around that.

I furtively snuck around a pharmacy like a squirrely teenager trying not to be recognized in her small town, bought myself one of the kinds of pregnancy tests the promised early results — in case, what? I could scroll back time? — and then promptly hid it in my office cabinet where not only no one would find it, but I would very well forget it lived.

Then on the morning of period day I would sneak it into the bathroom with me, pee on it, see the one line, and then be able to go about the rest of my day not darting into the bathroom every 12 seconds to see if my period had come yet. I would say I was 99% relieved to dodge the bullet for another month, and 1% “Well, I hope there’s nothing actually wrong with me fertility-wise because I am not interested in going down that pain-in-the-balls road, I just hope it takes a while so that by the time it happens maybe I’ll be more relieved my body is working than freaked about baby.”

And that plan worked pretty well, too, initially. After I didn’t get pregnant the first month, I stopped being in a perma-state of low panic and entered a much nicer state of total denial where I was like, “Look I can be off the pill and be fine! Huzzah!”

Which is clearly a lie because I didn’t tell a soul I was off the pill except for my husband and my therapist, and let’s just say I am not exactly the type to keep things to myself. The only other person I wound up telling was B, one of my oldest friends, who was out here visiting. My husband had mentioned something that he thought was coy but was not coy at all, along the lines of “when and if we have kids.” B picked up on it right away, and later was like, “Yeah, what about that?” So I told her I’d been off the pill for a couple of months and was enjoying living in denial land that anything would happen. She politely contained the urge to tell me I was a maniac, and two days later I peed on my period day stick and was greeted with one of these:

I blame B.

I stumbled out of the bathroom and shoved it in my husband’s face. I’m pretty sure I was so freaked out it was upside down, but he quickly got the gist, and gave me a fist bump of congratulations/good work, which is pretty hilariously typical of my husband’s family. You shit and they pat you on the back and give you a, “Job well done!” and “What nice form! Doesn’t even smell the least bit of asparagus!”

He asked me how I felt about it and I’m pretty sure I looked at him like my eyeballs were melting and told him I was going to go fold some laundry. I then promptly wandered around my house in a daze appropriate of someone who’d just been returned home after a particularly invasive alien abduction, periodically reminding him/calming myself by saying that this only means I have pregnancy hormone levels, but it could be a blighted ovum or an ectopic pregnancy or have paddle hands and spontaneously combust.

Until I had to go to my sewing class - a very challenging sewing class on fitting and pattern-making for the basic block for my torso (sewing terms hooray!) that I’d been desperate to take for months, and that now was apparently going to be useless for the better part of the year if not forever, depending on how things settle body-wise after the fact.

Please let me give an incredibly obvious piece of advice to all future pregnancy test takers out there: If you’re thinking of taking it immediately before anything for which you have to focus at all, maybe rethink that plan.

Suffice it to say I was like a brain damaged centipede in sewing class that day, and my teacher, who knows me very well, was probably seriously wondering how drunk I was because I could not follow a goddamn thing. That’s okay. Once I came in there after having used a neti pot and my nose was running and I was desperately sniffing and wiping every time I leaned over, so she probably also thinks I have a voracious coke habit. I will enjoy telling her the next time I see her why my IQ suddenly dropped 200 points that day. Also: I still haven’t finished that damn basic block.

In our next addition: “Getting Used to the Idea - Or Not at All, Actually.”

Also also, who is this ‘“our” I’m talking about? My production staff of the dog and cat?

So, this is a blog about how I’m 36, pregnant — on purpose — and to put it politely, am pretty convinced I may have ruined my entire life. Hahaha. Just kidding.

Kind of.

Although I am a both a writer and someone who leans far more toward confessing than repressing, this one I’m keeping anonymous so I can be completely brutally honest without having to worry that something I say could hurt the feelings of someone I love. After all, I’m a writer and  Jew - my bread and butter is evil little observations that keep me entertained, but should never be uttered to one’s face.

So for once for me, this is a blog that’s not going on my Facebook, not going on my email signature. The avatar is bland and nondescript. And I’m sure since I’ve not used Tumblr before I did something incredibly stupid like post my email address in all caps with a giant space arrow toward my house as my username, but in the meantime I’m going to pretend and hope that this is as anonymous as it can be, just words going out into the ether and hopefully there’s some people out there who might happen upon them. If that’s you, please feel free to post comments. Because in the absence of those friends and family I’m wishing not to offend, it’s going to get awfully lonely out here.

So, where to begin? Like I said, I’m 36 - albeit not for much longer - I’m a marginally employed writer trying very hard to build a career, I have maybe the sweetest husband anyone could ask for, a dog I love like my child, and a cat we like, but let’s face it, he doesn’t rank anywhere near the dog. And as of today, I’m 13 weeks and change with what we recently found out is going to be a boy. But that is getting ahead of myself.

The nutshell version of the important information about me as far as this blog goes is this: My life right now is, honestly truly lovely, but it was not always. My dad was and is by and large awesome, but my mother, to whom he is still stunningly married, has:

• bipolar disorder,
• narcissistic personality disorder, and
• munchausen-by-proxy.

So that was fun for me.

You may not be shocked therefore to discover that as an adult I have (clinically diagnosed) PTSD as a result, complete with panic attacks, phobias, nightly nightmares, flashbacks, and everything else you would expect from someone who fought in a trench in WWI. That said, I also have had the really tremendous fortune to have a therapist I have been working with for years, and who has - no hyperbole here - been the saving grace of my life. Hence the husband, career, house, pets, and general life.

There will be more on all of this later, but for now what you need to know is that at this point, most of the anxiety disorder stuff is quite under control and people who haven’t known me long are repeatedly flabbergasted when I haul out the skeletons. So, good on me, it gets better, etc.

The last big hill to climb was that of whether or not to have kids. After a childhood like mine, not only is this not something you take lightly, but it’s something you’re pretty sure sounds about as appetizing as an invitation to have your anus bleached with an industrial sized blowtorch (e.g., bad). But after years of good therapy, you realize - at least in your brain - that your own childhood was an anomaly, and that being on the other side of it doesn’t mean you’ll be plunged back into that abyss. But try telling that to your subconscious. Your subconscious is a stubborn asshole.

My husband — who, let’s be real, anyone who met for five seconds would know he wanted kids — and I always said given my trepidations that we’d put off the decision until we couldn’t put it off anymore. He also claimed he would be okay not having kids, but I never for a second believed him on that point. I mean, the guy all but darts at friend’s new babies so he can hold them for chrissakes. I knew what I was in for, but enjoyed the luxury of years of glorious, glorious denial.

It turned out that D-Day for him was his 36th birthday, at which point he started buying dye for his greying beard (oh silly husband) and went into a blind baby panic after hearing a story on NPR about how women’s fertility declines after 35. Apparently they don’t put this information (so ubiquitous for women) in the men’s magazines, which okay, I guess it would stick out between the article on why eating soy will grow your dick and the fanciest new lawn more models.

Then we spent New Year’s with a newly pregnant friend who could confirm from her OB visits that after 35 a woman’s pregnancy was considered “geriatric,” and suddenly the jokes about him planning to hide my birth control pills started flowing. I suppose I didn’t help matters by telling him at some point that having truly not enjoyed being an only child myself, if I was going to have kids, I would in theory want more than one. “We’re even more behind!” was the shrieked response.

So, I knuckled down, worked with the therapist a bunch on the subject, got myself as mentally ready as I could, but also realized that the only thing that was going to actually take away the irrational fears was having a kid. That the only true cure in this situation for my fears was facing them, so at some point I was just going to have to take a leap of faith that I wouldn’t hate the baby, that I wouldn’t freak out and want to run away, losing my beloved husband and becoming the horrible parent I so feared in the process. That it wouldn’t ruin my entire life.

So, I went off the pill for the first time since college and not so secretly hoped I had fertility issues. I mean, I’m 36, right? I’ve been on the pill for 17 years. Friends far younger than me had to do clomid, it took a year, all sorts of encouraging stories.

I do not have fertility issues.

In fact, I got pregnant in either two or three months, without doing any counting, timing, or anything more than “pulling the goalie,” as it so charmingly were. Take that, NPR. And take heart, all you geriatric 35+ year-olds out there less ambivalent than myself. And use condoms.

In the next blog: “Oh crap, I’m pregnant.”