And the Universe Laughs in My Face

Well, it's about time the Universe got even with me for writing my last post, filled with naive optimism. I suppose this is what I get for thinking that I have any sort of control of my own fertility.

A year or so ago, a friend mentioned she and her husband were thinking about having a second child. "We'd like a summer baby, so we're waiting to start trying for a few more months." I almost laughed in her face, as we'd been trying for over a year already for an anytime-of-year baby with no luck. But I kept my mouth shut. She's due in the middle of June. People do things like that. Plan for "summer babies." It blows my mind.

As I mentioned in my last post, I had planned out which days we were going to have sex to maximize this fertility window. Basically our plan was to shove as much sperm in there as possible and hope one of them is suave enough to successfully chat up the egg when she shows up.

Except last night failed. We try to make timed intercourse sexier than the phrase "timed intercourse." But it's really not. Neither of us was in the mood all night. We were marathoning House of Cards, and kept putting it off. We'd try to flirt and keep it interesting, but it sounded more like Chandler flirting with Pheobe ("Are you ready to have all the sex?"). It was not attractive, or hot, or interesting. We made a good effort, but as Jane at Mine to Command would say, the rocket was on the launch pad, but wouldn't blast off.

I was too tired to keep going since we'd waited until we were ready for bed to start. I was annoyed at Bobby, annoyed at myself, and annoyed at the Universe. I went to bed upset, woke up still upset, and that's why this post is all over the place. My temperature hadn't spiked this morning, so it's probably okay. We'll just have to try again. Which is exactly how you want to describe your sex life.

I'm feeling much less optimistic about this cycle now. Not because we missed ovulation, because we probably haven't. We probably have a few more chances to get it done. I'm feeling disappointed because this is how this infertility struggle has gone for me. Just when I think I'm making progress and controlling my own destiny, something like this happens, and reminds me that I'm helpless. I'll never have a summer baby.

To make matters worse, yesterday I was approached by the administrator of the school where I coach about teaching Creative Writing classes there next year. I've been bugging Bobby a lot lately about how I need to finish my master's degree because I want to think about getting into teaching. This is the perfect opportunity! I'd teach two classes, they'd fit them around the lunch hour at my current job (which is flexible), and I'd get the best of all possible worlds. If I hate it, I won't waste my time finishing my degree.

But...here's where things start to get unfair again...if I get pregnant in the next few months, I'd be due in early 2015. They wouldn't want to hire a teacher for one semester. The only thing I have going for me is that I probably wouldn't have to sign the contract until the end of July. So even if I conceived in August, I would be able to get through almost the entire school year (and could plausibly deny knowing I was pregnant until the end of September or so). I'm sure when I'm finishing up teaching at the end of next school year, I'll laugh at this whole paragraph...that I was crazy to think I could possibly get pregnant and not be able to teach.

In fact, I'm sure the Universe is laughing at me right now.