AUTHOR: Sara TITLE: Don't Tell Your Parents! DATE: 3/12/2005 09:50:00 AM ----- BODY:

I have been contemplating my frustrations about TTC and wondering how much it really affects everything, as everyone implies. I am tempted to throw out the thermometer next month, buy a fertility monitor that gives me the answer in English and not in line-talk, and then just trying to monitor the CM signs that never coincide with my ovulation anyway. Yeah, I know, I would be just as frustrated then as I am now. I talk to my husband about my feelings pretty regularly, but I usually steer clear of discussing my sex and reproductive life with Mom and Dad. I have been feeling desperate for answers this month, though, so I did the unthinkable and called my Mom, babbling for an hour while blowing my nose, wiping my eyes, and laying upside-down on the couch. My father got an unexpected visit from me last night as I was on my way to have dinner with some friends. I laid in his hammock, next to the statue of Buddha, and tried explaining my heartache to him as he continued cooking his 60s-esque dinner. Here's how it went . . . I told my Mom (nervously) about how I can never monitor my fertility signs by my CM because they don't make sense. I just don't get EWCM. It is ellusive and nonexistent in my vagina. Her response: "Call you doctor! I am 56, still have regular periods, and have been able to tell when I ovulate since I was 13! I get EWCM (she didn't call it that, but I will refrain from telling how she described it) and I get ovulation pain in the same ovary every month, too." Yeah, this made me feel SOOOOO much better. My aging mother knows her f-ing cycle more than I do. When I tried telling my father about how we have been trying now for a while and nothing has happened and that I didn't think I even ovulated this month, he decided to tell me about a Discovery channel special he watched last week about seals and how the scientists have misunderstood their feeding habits for years. Apparently the scientists strapped a camera to this little seal's back and watched his video for 24 hours and it ends up seals are scavengers, which totally surprised these brilliant scientists. Imagine my new frustration. "Dad, where the hell are you going with this? Please?!" My Dad: "Sara, all I am saying is that the doctors don't know everything, just like those scientists didn't know everything. Just stop putting the negative energy out there and creating negative thoughts and it will happen." AAAAAAGGGGGGGGGGGHHHHHHHHH!!!!!

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