32 Days Later

A few good things happened in the past 32 days...a homeless dog is no longer, a blood test claimed that I ovulated for the first time in the past two years, and a good friend of mine is pregnant. Those are all good things that happened in the last 32 days, which is how long it took me to start my period and realize that me being pregnant is not one of the good things I have going on.

I really thought this might be the month. I took Clomid. I had a properly sized follicle. I got a trigger shot. My progesterone level was plenty high. I also fostered a dog (which I realize seems completely unrelated to me being pregnant) on the pretense of giving him away as soon as a home was found; then I got so attached in the approximately twelve hours that I had him that I had to give him back to avoid the anger of my less-dog-obsessed husband and my completely-not-dog-obsessed current dogs. Before I managed to convince my uncle to adopt the dog, I found myself in a sobbing heap on my laundry room floor as I tried to savor my last minutes with Jojo. After the fact, I told myself that my reaction to that sweet little Rat Terrier had to be excessive, right? No emotionally stable human would react to a stray dog that way, right? I told myself that maybe just maybe my craziness could be traced to some sort of hormonal surge in my body. After the Jojo tears, I also had a few days in which I swear my nipples felt weird. Another faint check in the "could I actually be pregnant?" column. I also went to a yearly check-up at which Dr. Bell gave me a pregnancy test to take home with me, like they do toothbrushes at the dentist. Maybe? Finally, I recently found out that a friend of mine is expecting a child. We could pregnant together, right? That would be cool. We could call each other and complain about the growing fetuses in our wombs. We could compare belly sizes and share weird pregnancy symptoms and celebrate in the little humans we are creating. People do that, right?

Wrong. I'm not living in a world in which emotions can be attributed to pregnancy. Or a world in which you commiserate with another woman about your pregnancy. I'm not in that world. Everyone I know around me is in that world, but I'm not.

I think I knew all along that I wasn't pregnant. I haven't been pregnant the past twenty-four months that I've thought I might be, so why would I be now? However, I keep asking myself how many times I won't be before I ever will?

The good news in all of this is that there is an obvious connection between my infertility and personal plight to save every homeless dog on this earth. Felina is proof and now so is Jojo. Maybe I can't have human babies, but I sure can fill that void with sweet fur children whose parents don't love them nearly enough.

Katy Vs. Her Ovaries - Mother's Day

Mother's Day is weird when your mom has cancer and you're infertile. A weird strain exists between the woman who birthed me and her daughter who can't produce viable eggs.

My mom was diagnosed with metastatic breast cancer (for the third time) on April 22, 2011. I didn't know it at the time, but after the dust of doctor visits, specialists, biopsies, and treatment plans settled, I was left with a sixty-something-year-old mother with a cautiously optimistic outlook on the future but a terminal cancer diagnosis nonetheless. My mom is a cancer patient and she will be for the rest of her life. It has taken me the better part of the past three years to understand what that really feels like on a daily basis.

My mom's diagnosis was the impetus for me trying to get pregnant around two years ago. I told myself that I could out run cancer. I could get ahead of the situation. I could get pregnant and give birth and allow my mom some years enjoying her grandchild before cancer took anything more from her and me. I wanted to have a child for her more so than me. Today, I recognize the flaw in that plan.

In my experience, the word "mother" exists alongside the word "cancer" - an unavoidable reality of a parent living with the disease. However, my mom has defined her role in my life as so much more than a survivor of cancer. There are a slew of monikers that my mom embodies, many of which she has earned through her unflinching acceptance and strength to fight back against cancer.

Mother's Day is a good day. I'm not focused on my struggle to become one. I'm not focused on my mom's health. I'm focused on my mom and my place in the world as her daughter. I'm focused on all of the good that swirls around both of us. I'm focused on the person I am today because I have had the privilege to be my mom's daughter for twenty-seven years. I'm focused on the ridiculously awesome parent I will be one day simply because of who my own mom is. I'm focused on right now because it does no one any good to try to figure out anything else.