Day 5: The Long Wait

UNFORCED ERROR UPDATE: Leah and I accidentally didn't buy enough medications on Tuesday to get us through the entire week. Last night when I was checking everything was in place so I could sleep in a little bit this morning, I noticed that we only had 75 units of one of Leah's meds when she was supposed to take 150. I gave her the half-dose this morning at the usual time, and then gave her the other half after we visited the pharmacy to get more. The second dose was less than three hours late, so I think we'll be okay. Usually, this would be something that would keep Leah up all night and searching the internet for the worst possible news, but she actually took it really well. We both had sound sleep last night.

SIDE EFFECT UPDATE: Leah says that she's occasionally feeling her overaies at work. Since I don't have ovaries, I have no idea what that really feels like. I never take a moment to feel my testicles working. She said that every once in a while she'll feel a little twinge on her ovary, and then she'll know that they're working hard. Or something.

We tried for six months before I thought that anything might be wrong. I say "I" because Leah always thinks that something is wrong with her. She's a hypochondriac by nature, especially when she's bored. Early in our relationship she suffered from a moderate Obsessive Compulsive Disorder. There were times we could work around it--like when I turned off the lights at bedtime so that we could go to sleep--and times when we couldn't--like when Leah would become so frustrated reading the same sentence over and over, trying to get negative thoughts out of her head, that she would cry.

This early period was difficult for both of us. The usual woman's cycle is some 28 days, give or take. The Pill enforces that. Leah went through four or five different drugs before deciding on a low-dose birth control that wouldn't give her headaches. Her pill pack always held 28 pills: dark blue, blue, light blue, and white. Leah went on The Pill when she was 18; she was on it for nearly 9 years.

Making a baby is supposed to be easy. Nothing could be more natural. We figured that nothing might take for the first couple months because she'd been on The Pill for so long that it might have to wash out of her over some time. But we still tried really hard. "Getting there is half the fun," I'd joke with those few people I'd let know we were trying.

We checked on the internet for the "symptoms" of pregnancy. The first was always a missed period, but we were never really willing to wait that long. We bought pregnancy tests, but they are expensive and we didn't want to jinx anything or know early that we weren't pregnant. If the test was supposed to be accurate after 10 days, then it would still be accurate after 15 days.

The other symptoms or pregnancy are swollen, sensitive breasts, a sudden darkening of the areolae, sleepiness, etc. Late in the cycle, Leah pressed the palm of her hand against the side of her breast and grimace, lightly lifting each up and down. When she'd undress before bed, I'd squint at her chest to see if anything was any darker.

The wait would be unbearable. Leah never kept a calendar of her cycle, and didn't start until much later. We'd wait and wait and eventually decide she was officially late and that we might be pregnant. There's be a silent wager between us over who would broach the subject first and possibly put the kibosh on the whole enterprise.

Eventually, we'd make all communication through knowing glances. I'd know that she'd gotten her period because she was sad or stopped squeezing her breasts or when I'd find the wrapper for a maxi pad in the bathroom trash. Every month was a minor disaster when Leah blamed herself for again failing to hold on to our child.

Much, much later we found that Leah's cycle isn't 28 days, but closer to 40.