(Okay, just a heads-up: This post contains some frank thoughts regarding my own fertility. Generally I restrict discussions of this nature to a private sphere of female friends and family, but I am, as ever, something of an exhibitionist; and this blog is a steam valve for siphoning off excess internal pressure; so...yup.)
So my iPhone has this really nifty little app for tracking menstrual and fertility cycles. (MD, formerly MP, has told me about this great book she and her husband are reading that she said will work for any woman to understand her body better, but while I'm being lazy this will do nicely.) I put in all the data from the last six months, and it not only predicts when the next cycle will hit, but also when I'm at my most, um, fertile.
So, wondering why I felt so restless, edgy, caged and, well, prowly, yesterday, I pulled up the app and checked...and oh, yes. That explains everything. Fertility peak.
Intellectually I'm completely fine with not presently having any cuddly babies or grass-stained children running barefoot across my floors. I have chosen and maintained some moral boundaries that have led to my not having children yet, and I have absolutely no doubt in my mind that my choices will one day vindicate me when the timing is right for a family, much as I might occasionally really, really want cuddly babies and grass-stained children running barefoot across my floors right now.
But, despite the zen attitude of my mind, my body has its own ideas. And every year that it doesn’t get to be an incubator for a little human being, it gets angrier. I think it thinks I’m a little slow on the uptake, so every year it intensifies its efforts to send me the message.
And so the result is that for a few days every month I’m basically climbing the walls and locking myself in the house for some kind of prayerful meditation (either that or I stand there yelling at my abdomen, It’s not my fault!) and fleeing the company of men to reinforce the famous self-discipline that has served as an absolutely brilliant touchstone separating the wheat from the chaff of my dating life, and, I maintain stubbornly, preserved me from much harm, however temporarily frustrating (make that, today, excruciating) the denial of certain biological drives.
Not that my body really gives a damn about my reasons. Right now I’m looking and breathing through a fiery hormone-glazed fog and fidgeting like it’s five minutes till Doomsday. But mind over matter. And fortunately my mind is quite strong, and my singleness renders the overwhelming temptation more general than specific. (Hooray for small favors.)
3 comments:
Having children might change things. In most cases it does not change the body rebellion. Sometimes it's infinitely worse after you have children because you're even more exhausted and tested. Hurray hormones.
The baby angst hasn't really hit me yet (though with each passing year, I do wonder if biological children will really happen for me --sigh), but I definitely have those OMG-I-NEED-TO-HAVE-SEX-RIGHT-NOW feelings about once per month, and I have to tell my body, "hey! shut up you! Patience is a virtue." :-/
Oh, yes, it's definitely the latter (OMG-I-NEED-TO-HAVE-SEX-RIGHT-NOW) as opposed to specific baby angst. My mind is mostly fine with not possessing babies, and it's not like I go insane with deprivation whenever I see a child (in fact, some times I'm terribly thankful when I see someone else's child that I have none to call my own); but I can only explain the intense carnality that I undergo a few days a month as my body screaming that it's fertile and demanding to know what the hell I'm doing keeping it waiting.
I thought it was bad when I was in my late teens/early twenties. I thought, Oh, my God, I'm going to burst into flame; it can't get worse than this.
But it can, and it did. Now I'm not just going to burst into flame; I'm ON FIRE.
I keep saying that patience is a virtue too. My body then tells me exactly what I can do with my virtue, and then I have to stop my ears and go watch something violent on TV, or hurl myself into writing or cooking or go for a really, REALLY long walk.
Gah.
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