A NEW TYPE OF DISAPPOINTMENT

In a Year Already Full Of Them

It took 38 days to get my period this month. My last cycle was 29. This meant there were nine days where I thought, Maybe I will finally get some life-changing good news. Sure, I took two pregnancy tests and neither showed even the faintest indication of the needed hormones. And everyone I told assumed I was simply late due to stress and the irregularities that come after a decade on birth control. I also didn’t notice any of the tell-tale changes to a body that would signal an embryo had actually stuck. But I couldn’t stop my mind from hoping that I was pregnant.

When I woke up on Tuesday morning to my period, a part of me felt relief because along with the hope was the fear that my late period meant my body wasn’t working correctly or I had an unviable ectopic pregnancy that wouldn’t register on a test. I tried to lean away from the disappointment with a positive reframe that at least now I was out of limbo and we could try again this month. But an undercurrent of sadness and frustration remained.

I know that I am far from the first person who has gone from being ambivalent about parenthood to hyperfixated on conception. It’s normal that once you finally make the decision to do something, you want that thing to happen right away. But I’m realizing that there is more at play here than my classic, level-ten impatience. I don’t know what to do with all the energy and love that used to be reserved for my recently deceased mom, and a baby seems like the perfect new outlet.