TMI Time

Today, we will be talking about my cycle.

You could set your watch by my cycle, if you had a watch that could somehow be hooked up to the contents of my uterus and if you could convince me to give you my consent. What I’m saying is, thirty days, and Aunt Flo is in the hizzouse.

Except this month. Yesterday, I was in the weird predicament of having no period, yet having a (okay, three) negative pregnancy tests. This hasn’t ever happened to me before. It’s always been one or the other. But two days after beyond the normal cycle, and I figured out what hell would be for me: Not knowing.

This isn’t an unusual occurrence. (I know because I Googled “missed period” and “negative pregnancy test” and got to a 400+ post discussion board where women reported that the same thing happened to them.) And it turns out, it doesn’t really mean one thing or the other—you could be pregnant or you could be not pregnant. Either way.

“You know your body better than anyone else,” some of the women on the discussion board counselled. When I talked to my sister last night, we had a good laugh at that one. Sure, I know my body better than anyone else, but I also know my brain better than anyone else. This brain can easily convince itself that the body has had (variously): meningitis, breast cancer, pancreatitus, a brain tumor. Hey, why not an embryo?

So I just sort of let my imagination run, but on a short leash. If it were a girl, I was thinking maybe Calliope. For a boy, the baby Jesus. Wouldn’t that be horrible for Caleb? Yeah, this is my brother, the baby Jesus. He gets all the attention.

I couldn’t get too carried away, of course. I’ve read far too much about infertility to sink my heart into wanting it. In this body and with this brain, I can’t emotionally afford that kind of yearning. I’ll probably not speak of the maybe baby on the blog again. Aunt Flo finally came this morning, and I mostly felt relief at finally knowing. Thank you, baby Jesus.