ON LETTING IT HAPPEN

i am not infertile, i just need an assist. a stockton to my malone.

i sat on a bench covered in paper today and the familiarity of it washed over me. disorienting familiarity. all kinds of familiarity. the last time i sat on a paper-covered bench huck was six weeks old and i had just been given the "all access clearance." at the time this was the furthest thing from my mind. i had confidence shooting out my ears.

i sat on that paper-covered bench today and i tried to think of all the paper-covered benches i sat on while pregnant. those paper-covered benches carried much happier memories than all the benches i sat on while not pregnant and wondering why. and i sat on quite a lot of paper-covered benches while not pregnant, in many different offices. two ob/gyn benches, one really expensive fertility clinic bench, and even a naturopath's bench once. oh, paper-covered benches.

i wasn't wondering why, today, because this time i know why. my body doesn't produce enough hormones at the back end of my menstrual cycle to sustain a pregnancy. it's called a luteal phase deficiency, and it's when the space of time between ovulation and the end of your cycle is less than 12 days. my cycle likes to give me about ten days to work with. sometimes those last two days i'll feel real pregnant indeed, and then, i'm just not. it's not possible to be all the way pregnant with bottoming-out hormones. that's not to say i'll never get pregnant on my own, i mean hormones are confusing little things. but it is to say, well, it's not terribly likely.

i'm going to need an assist.

in my dreams i am effortless. stuff just happens. it's such a romantic idea, but that's not how i work. i want to be the very carefree sort but i'm not. i like to analyze things. a lot. until i've exhausted every possible angle, i'm not done worrying about it. i could talk about the same subject for six months if you'd let me. (i'd also present all sides of the argument so all you had to do was sit there and listen, occasionally nodding to say, "i know." that's all i ask!)

brandon is that carefree sort. see, that's why i married him, that strange redhead. he is the exact opposite of my temperament and is such a mystery to me. he believes in letting things happen. let it go how it goes. nothing irritates him more than when we're in the elevator on the way to church and i start strategically mapping out the following three hours. "you take off huck's coat and i'll find us a seat, and if you take him third hour i'll take him second..." these conversations cause brandon's let-it-happen soul to squirm until he is forced to give me 'the look.' and then i remember, gosh, this never turns off does it?

on my way home from the doctor's office today i texted brandon to give him the update. i held a prescription in my hand that i could fill at any time in the next twelve months and a sudden, terrifying urge to pray.

"i wish i worked right and we could just let this happen," i texted brandon while simultaneously considering when and under what circumstances and taking into account weaning and potential horoscopes and future school schedules.

"i guess our babies are just going to have to come to us on purpose."

"it's okay," he texted back. "it will all work out. don't worry."

see. and that's why i married him.