Joy Kill

Having sex to make a baby when you're my age is no longer considered fun.  We were told by our doctor to try to do it several times over the course of a week or so.  I naively thought, "WOW.  Sex all the time!  AWESOME."  Alas, not so.

Sex some of the time = AWESOME

Spontaneous sex = AWESOME

Sex some of the time spontaneously = CRAZY AWESOME

Sex on cue for a week = Imagine being on the It's a Small World boat ride at Disneyworld.  The first time is fabulous, neat-o, fun, and entertaining.  The seventh time, however...you want to kill yourself and everyone on the boat with you (ie: your husband.)  

My poor sperm factory, er, I mean HUSBAND.  I love him so.  But sex when you're trying to conceive makes me murderous, and unbelievably sore.

On Schedule

Here's the schedule if you're trying to conceive.

1. You get your period and start counting.

2. On day 10 after the 1st day of your cycle, you start peeing on ovulation sticks (your hand) twice a day.

3. On day 12-14, you test positive, which means your LH is surging, which means your egg is getting ready to drop.

4. Knowing you will be ovulating within 12-48 hours, you start having sex like maniacs.

5. You are sore for the next three days after the blitzkrieg and watch television and eat cookies while waiting to pee on a pregnancy stick in a week or so.

6. On the first inkling of a sore boob, you take a pregnancy test and find out that you're either knocked up or clinically depressed.

7. Lather, rinse, repeat.

Sex and Fertility

I wanted to make the title far more clever, and a play on the seemingly unhealthy Sex and the City craze obsessing every female and gay man on the planet right now.  "Sex and the Ovulating City" or "Sex and the Fertile City" or "Fertile Mertle and the City."  They're all terrible, and I take full responsibility for them existing in cyber space.  Apologies to all of the two of you that read this blog.

Having just talked to one of my lovely girlfriends on the phone, I realized that we just had a conversation about fertility without even knowing it.  There is a explanation for this phenomenon.  This girl is very inquisitive by nature, and always manages to steer the conversation into meaningful, insightful talks about everything to do with life in general, and nothing specific in particular.  She is quite the master/mistress of social interaction, and I'm consistently in awe of her talents.

She asked about cervical mucus.  Gross, but somehow pertinent to the conversation.  Then, the topics naturally meld into one another, and eventually separate themselves into two categories:  sex and ovulation.

The ovulation talk was like leading a sex-ed class.  First, the cervical mucus shows up 12 or 14 days after the first day of your last period.  It will be clear and sticky, not unlike egg whites.  It is at this point you may want to abstain from sexual contact, if you are avoiding pregnancy.  However, if pregnancy is your goal, then get it on like bunnies and pray to the fertility Gods that one of those sperm finds your egg and knows what to do with it when it does. 

The sex talk went as follows:

GF:  Question for you.  So when do you do it?

ME:  You mean "it" like sex?  

GF:  Yes, do you know when you are supposed to do it?

ME:  When you see that your LH levels surge, you do it a lot.  You have to pee on your hand a lot to find out when.  Ovulation kits are horrible.

GF:  And then you do it every other day, right?

ME:  It depends on who you talk to.  Everyone has an opinion about it.  My husband's doc says every day.  

GF:  So did his doctor say anything else you needed to do?

ME:  Well, he said missionary is best.  And at night.

GF:  At night?  RE-ally.   Why at night?

ME:  Because after you do it, you fall asleep.  You're all still and your body is at rest.  I think that's what he means.

GF:  Oh, that makes sense.  

ME:  And he said to raise my pelvis for a while, when the sperm is liquifying.  And lemme tell you...it's HAWT.  Super sexy.  With my hips in the air, poochy stomach all flabby.  It's AWESOME.

GF:  (giggle)

ME:  Total turn on.  And then you can't pee.  You have to try not to pee for a while.  That is also VERY SUPER HAWT.  

GF:  (laugh)

ME:  Y'know, our relationship doesn't need to reach this new level of intimacy.  In fact, I like the old level.  This new level makes me uncomfortable.  

 

Aaaand scene.