#1 The Stress Cycle

1. It creates a stress feedback loop.

Trying to get pregnant is stressful unless you are one of those super lucky women who try for one month and it takes immediately. Congratulations! I'm extremely happy for them. That describes more than one of my friends, and they are or will be fantastic parents.

For the rest of us, things are a little more difficult. I've had the flu, a miscarriage, and an ovulatory cycles on either side of the miscarriage cycle because of acute stressors. My miscarriage disrupted the cycle before it by almost 5 days (24-day cycle instead of 29) and the cycle after by a week in the other direction (ovulated on day 24 instead of day 18, then only had one week of raised temps). So that stress definitely messed up my fertility this time around. So, it's been an emotional last three months.

On top of that, every time I tried to talk about it, I got dismissed with, "You're just stressed out." Yes! Yes, I am! This stuff is extremely stressful. Then I got, "You're making it worse. Stress makes you not get pregnant!" So, the stress itself became a new source of stress.

This was the worst feedback loop ever. Sure, we tried to just have fun and have sex and not schedule things and, "Hey, how you doin'?" and "Tonight good for you?" and be super casual about it. And for my husband, he's pretty casual about it. But it's not casual in my head. It's my body. It's my life that will change instantly and (hopefully) irrevocably. None of this was really real to my husband. He was supportive and wonderful and gave hugs and kisses, but it wasn't Real to him like it was to me. He didn't feel the stress. I felt completely alone. I still feel pretty alone, because it's either blame from one side or ~babydust~ from the other. It's hard to find an honest conversation, since everyone I know has their own crazy stuff going on that is far more immediate than "I'm trying to have a baby, and I haven't yet."

In the month since then, I have had the longest cycle in many years, also anovulatory, and I'm throwing in the towel temporarily. I can't take it anymore on top of the stress of my job. I can't handle having to double-check every action in case it might hurt my potential future baby. I can't handle the two weeks of thinking about nothing but whether or not I'm pregnant. I can't handle having this consume every part of my being, when I need every part of my being to focus on my students. So, I'm out for the next two months. Two months of not taking my temperature, not judging every decision based on how it will affect a developing baby, and not in the middle of a stress feedback loop of DOOM.


Then I found a mention in an article that "stress has a weak link with infertility". Then I looked a little deeper and found this:

http://www.asrm.org/Stress_and_Infertility_factsheet/

And this:

http://www.slate.com/articles/doubl...tween_them.html

And the feedback loop is gone. There is no link. Women are not bringing it on themselves. The stress itself can stop being a source of more stress, and a large chunk of it all just melted away. I'm still going back on the pill for two months just so I can focus on school, but for really reals, stressing about it does not make it worse. Stressing about it does not keep you from having a baby.

YOU CAN STOP WORRYING. Now go have some sex. Just for fun.

Other posts in this series:

1. The Stress Cycle
2. Victim Blaming
3. Woman = Uterus
4. Dismissing Emotions
5. The Myth Continues