Pretty sure I'm setting myself up for devastation here...

I try not to be a “signs” person – I’m in the business of rules and analysis; I’m supposed to know better. My husband is an engineer and thus practically a robot. Seriously. When his mother was diagnosed with a recurrence of breast cancer (it was found very early and resolved surgically, she is doing great, thank God), his response was, “Well, there’s really nothing to worry about until we have more information.” It may as well have been, “Beep boop beep beep boop.” Signs, not unexpectedly, cause him to roll his eyes. Well, unless they are Red Soxian in nature, in which case he wears his lucky ties to work on game days and is willing to sacrifice his formerly-lucky hat on a bonfire bbq grill at the torturous end of a miserable season. Girly signs hold no water for him, though.

I generally try to be all zen about the baby stuff; we are working with excellent doctors, doing all we can medically, and it will happen when it happens. Actually, I have the fine ladies of the internet to thank for that relatively healthy attitude. I’ve been reading ‘round these parts for close to a decade, following people down some very dark roads, but amazingly, not one of those ladies is without some form of the family she hoped for, despite the long journey, sometimes to hell and back. Knowing so many of these difficult personal histories is oddly comforting, and it helps in keeping perspective. It might be a long wait, and a more painful path than I would ever wish on my worst enemy, but in the end, there is (more often than not) joy. 

(You have no idea how often I pray that is not just naiveté talking.) 

But here is the dilemma of my discontent: I am seeing Siiiiiigns about the current cycle we’re working through, and it is causing my hopes to soar, despite my every attempt to keep them suppressed zen-like. Although I have a crap endocrine system, things are not entirely hopeless over here. There is no male factor to worry about and I have a ridiculous number of antral follicles, so at least we’re lucky enough to have material to work with. The tricky bit, though, is that because there are so many follicles (and I have no desire to be the next Octomom), ovulation induction is a delicate dance. There needs to be sufficient stimulation to produce one or two mature follicles, but no more than one or two, and of course, I am a slow responder. It takes many days (and dollars – SO MANY DOLLARS) of meds in order to get to that point. Last cycle, things went haywire and I ended up with two mature follicles and way too many not-quite-mature follicles, and the cycle was cancelled. It was really disappointing both because of all of the money wasted on meds and because it was costing us three weeks before we could start the next cycle. Where there were so many maturing follicles and a climbing E2 level, my doctor ordered a round of birth control to calm everything down and hopefully keep any cysts from forming. 

However, during those three weeks of feeling like nauseated garbage, I started contemplating the what-ifs of the next cycle. Knowing when I would end the pill, I guesstimated a Cycle Day 1, figured in the approximately 3 weeks of meds before triggering, and added 38 weeks, which brought me to mid-February. Turns out I was pretty close on my guesstimates, as my nurse is now predicting a trigger mid-week next week. And there we have The Sign: assuming this were to work out, the hypothetical baby (we affectionately call him/her “Science Baby”) would be due on or about February 12^th.

I don’t know if any of you have experienced this, but I have birthday clusters in my life. The two most serious relationships I have had have birthdays two days apart and two days from my sister’s. Two of my best college friends were born six days apart. My birthday is the day before my dad’s. And here’s the kicker: I have FIVE very close friends, including the two who are my sisters-from-other-mothers, all of whom were born between February 12^th-19^th, with two on February 12^th alone. I think astrology in general is utter crap (I am the least Leo-y Leo to ever walk the earth), but there has to be something to this, right? 

And just like that, my analytical brain goes directly to a constant loop of “IT WAS MEANT TO BEEEEE. THAT’S WHEN MY PEOPLE ARE BORN. THE CANCELLATION HAPPENED SO THINGS WOULD BE READY WHEN THE RIGHT LITTLE PERSON WAS READY. IT WAS MEANT TO BEEEEEEEEE.” I catch myself thinking about what I will be doing in a year, and looking around Science Baby’s room in the new house picturing where the crib and glider will go, looking out of the window I will look out while I rock her (Science Baby is a she in my delusions, of course). It is as un-zen-like as I have been in a long, long time, and I really need it to just STOP.

 
Otherwise? It is going to suck even more than usual when the negative shows up this time around.