And just like that

I gave away my copy of TCOYF, the authoritative guide to getting pregnant when your cycle is messed up. I gave it away because the woman sitting in my living room was tearing up because of something inadvertently insensitive which I'd said, because I know that she has much less money than I do and it's on her mind, because we're moving next month (did I mention that?), because it feels cruel to pay an infertile woman to babysit your beautiful, healthy 8 week old baby while you desperately write in the bedroom, and because of course I can buy another copy at any point.

But it's still with a good deal of remorse. Even though charting never, ever worked for me (I after all have no cycle except under rare and miraculous circumstances which include a. the stars aligning b. breastfeeding/being postpartum/weaning c. dramatic and rapid weight loss to the tune of more than 25 lbs) it's one more talisman of the early, hopeful days of our fertility travails and of the possibility of a miracle in the future.

And yes, my hormones are still obviously doing crazy things. But I am feeling much, much better than before. Before even reading your wonderful comments, I had scheduled an 11 pm call with my mentor last night to discuss the issues (and Katie, I do hope that you understand that I mean no offense at all by suggesting that I do not want to be a SAHM. For all that I am stressed and busy and tired, I did deliberately chose a career which gives me a flexible schedule and plenty of time during the day with my children. I considered the same career as my husband but realized quite early that it just wasn't something I could do as a mother). And the sad thing is that she agrees that I am in deep trouble due to a number of things (largely) beyond my control. She is hopeful that a huge push to finish a large chunk of work by September 1st may work, but is by no means certain.

And then JD walked in the door at the unheard of early hour of 11:30 pm and eavesdropped on the end of the conversation. And then we had a long, tense conversation about our careers and our future. And he also agrees that I am a rather precariously balanced on the tipping point between success and failure, but he is willing to support my attempts to make it. He even took a good deal of pressure off by suggesting that he'd support my studies full time for another year if that was necessary. Because he wants me to have a job that I enjoy, he wants me to have an interesting job, he really does want me to succeed even if it means consigning him to the role of hard-working exclusive breadwinner for a longer period of time. So that was all nice.

But when I told him that if it came to Project 3.0 vs. my career, I would chose the former without a moment's hesitation he sighed. We both want more kids, but it's hard to imagine how that's going to happen without making things endlessly more stressful unless we wait a while. And waiting makes it much more likely that we'll need a good deal more fertility help (which of course is why we have yet to come to any conclusion on the question of bcps. Of course, at a full 8 weeks postpartum I am still bleeding so that hasn't been a relevant question yet (our religion does not allow any such activities under those circumstances)).

It's just a big, red question mark lingering in the room. And I just gave away one of our talismans.

ps - a much more superficial post coming up soon about my love affair with strollers and the great dilemma of the double stroller in NYC for my fellow NYC reader who asked.