So it has been a year since the first time I hoped and thought that I was pregnant. So I am still hoping and praying. I stopped thinking several months ago as I have come to the conclusion that when I get nausea it is just psychosomatic - my own little bit of wanting to be pregnant crazy.
The big news I guess is how on board Robert is with having a baby, although I am dreading his fussing somewhat - he will so be wrapping me up in cotton wool. The irony in this being he is the one who always says pregnancy is natural and not an illness.
In other posts I have explained our plans - with the clomid, then the shots then IVF. It is all terribly overwhelming really. I am working like a demon on the Wii Fit and (I know this sounds really stupid) Raving Rabbids TV Show also on the Wii - it has the best dance work outs and a great one for your waist and your arse - but you have to play that one to really understand. I am trying to watch what i eat, but lately that is not much thanks to my psychosomatic nausea.
We both continue to hate what the tabloids have done to pregnancy and childbirth (although I still buy them so I guess I am complicit in their behavior). I am not trying to sound like a crazy 1950s housewife but even when I was a teenager (in the 1980s) having a baby at 16 or 17 wasn't bragged about that much, and it was a scandal. I can still remember the first girl in my year who got pregnant it was so horrifying to us all. Yet today we have Jamie Lynn Spears and Bristol Palin all having babies, and their parents are all so very proud of them, and the tabloids are just waiting to offer them 100s of thousands of dollars for the first pictures. (On a slightly sarcastic note we think Miley will be next....). The rate of teen pregnancies has increased in the past year and I have to wonder if it isn't the constant bombardment of "bump watches" and young girls who are idolized by the tabloids for the ability to reproduce.
I thought that I was avoiding this on the TV - after all I am at work when Tyra and Oprah are on and I really don't watch E! any more and then last night's ER happened.
Let me back track.
After a week of nausea and knowing that we timed things just right we did and early pregnancy test (1 day early) which was negative and I was surprisingly calm about it especially as we do have the plan in place know.
So I settled down to watch the dramas of the ER unfold - and what does it start with? A miserable Angela Basset staring despondently at a white stick. Ah - way to rub it in NBC. A career woman who miscarried at 3 months who now can't get pregnant (oh and she is over 40). Fast forward to her sitting with the OB doc who is telling her all the horrible statistics - her FSH is too low for any fertility clinic to take her on blah blah blah blah blah...Robert turned it off. He was just furious as was I. If you look at the whole Angela Basset back story - successful career woman, loses a child to leukemia, then has a miscarriage then can't have another child. It was handled with all the grace and sensitivity of a sledge hammer to the head!
To me the message it sent was that older women who have established, professional careers cannot have children, should not have children - or quite simply they just waited too long and were selfish about getting that career so they don"t actually deserve a child.
Am I overreacting - oh without a doubt I am, but I actually do feel a little justified. These portrayals and stereotypes of successful women do nothing for women. Yes, they show that a woman can be a successful physician, but she has to sacrifice everything else for that. Oh and I still hate Angelina Jolie......
