Hey Jealousy

A few nights ago, I had an infertility-related breakdown. I don't do this very often. Infertility is always in the back of my mind, and nearly everything reminds me of it. But the emotions surrounding it--I do a pretty good job of deliberately choosing to not feel them.

Our water heater went out over the weekend, so we had three days of showering at my parent's house or washing our hair in freezing cold water. Once it was finally repaired, I spent Monday night taking an incredibly long, incredibly hot bubble bath. Except, no sooner had I sunk into my lavender heaven and pulled up Facebook on my iPad, there was a pregnant belly staring at me from the very top of my news feed.

Jenna was a few years behind me in high school. We weren't friends, and the only reason I've kept up with her life is that I have coached all three of her younger sisters.

In high school, she was a weird girl, with only a handful of girl friends. I know the boys in her class weren't interested in her and mostly ignored her, and she graduated without going on a single date. From what I can tell, college went similarly.

After finishing college, she moved to Baltimore. About a year ago, she met a guy. He was older, but shared her weird quirks. After a few months of dating, they got engaged. They were married just before Christmas this past December. She's now announcing her pregnancy and that she's due in October. So she conceived in less than two months.

Rationally, I understand that there are not a finite number of pregnancies and babies allowed. Jenna's pregnancy hasn't made it so there is one less available baby. Her baby has absolutely no bearing on whether or not I will ever get pregnant. I know that. But it still makes my blood boil. She's pregnant with a man she's known barely a year, after trying for less than two months. I've been with Bobby for TEN FREAKING YEARS. We've been trying for over two. They live in a tiny studio apartment. They admit they are totally broke, as he only recently started working again after being laid off in the fall. We waited until we were financially stable to stop birth control. We waited until we had a house, with good space for a nursery and playroom.

Bobby and I are going away this weekend. It's spring break here (ha! It's a grand total of 25 degrees. Spring Break Woo-hoo!). Bobby promised that since our Valentine's Day was spent apart at some point we'd go somewhere and get a hotel room just for fun.

I've mentioned this to a few friends, and all of them have responded with some sort of, "Ooh, is this a baby-making weekend?!"

And do you want to know what my first thought was? Do you want to know how much infertility consumes me? My first thought was, "Um, no. I'm not ovulating this weekend."

Many of my friends have gone on "Babymoons" of sorts--vacations with the express intent to conceive. But some of them have gone on these vacations having no idea whether they're ovulating or not. They're still living in the blissful ignorance of "If I have a lot of sex, surely I'll get pregnant!"

What's even more infuriating is that sometimes it works. They just happen to hit their fertile window and like magic -- a baby appears nine months later. Which of course leads to them ignorantly recommending Babymoons to anyone who has issues conceiving.

So after seeing Jenna's obnoxious pregnancy announcement, I cried. If fact, I sobbed loudly and ugly. I questioned God, the universe, my body. I prayed to whoever would listen that if this wasn't going to happen for me, then at least take away the desire to have a baby. If I wasn't meant to be a mom, then don't let me want to be anymore.

I don't want infertility to make me bitter. But in some ways, I think it already has.