Monday, September 04, 2006

Fertility Challenged

in·fer·tile (n-fûrtl)
adj.
Not fertile; unproductive or barren.
Biology..
Not capable of initiating, sustaining, or supporting reproduction.
Not fertilized and hence incapable of growing and developing: infertile duck eggs.
Not capable of sustaining crops or vegetation: infertile land.
Unproductive or producing little: a path of research that proved infertile.

I am not Infertile. Infertile sounds so hopeless and helpless.

I do not ever want to be hopeless or helpless.

And there is that whole "secondary infertility" label that, you know, pretty much rules out infertile.

I suppose, going by the strictest interpretation of "Not capable of initiating, sustaining, or supporting reproduction", yes, it does apply (at this moment). Obviously, I'm having some trouble with that initiating thing. The last time I was able to initiate successfully, I ran into the sustaining obstacle. So maybe there is a basis for the label. Notice I did qualify with "at this moment". I don't expect this will be a permanent state. No, I'm not expecting some massive medical breakthrough that will cure PCOS, or create olympic swimmers out of B's little guys... but I do believe that at some point, the Cosmic Gods of Reproduction (CGRs) will get their shit together and we'll have compatible parts for at least one more cycle. Preferably with a happier outcome than the last, in which the CGR's only had half their shit together..

CGRs, listen up, I want your shit together this time, not your sh. I know, I know, you laugh at women who are ballsy cheeky enough to give ultimatums, but I think I've worked out how this can be mutually beneficial. There is a month coming up in a few short weeks that you know would provide me with a potential due date that is less than desirable. So... make that one your shit-together cycle and it's a win-win proposition. I get a successful p-word, you get the last laugh, right?

Dear Lord, I've wandered off my train of thought again. This time, I've wandered totally off the tracks.

To get back to my point - the term "infertile".

I don't like it, so I am proposing an alternative. From now on, I think that "infertile" should be accompanied by "fertility-challenged". Even the acronym sounds better - "IF" seems so uncertain, "FC" .. well, ok that doesn't mean anything, but at least it's certain it doesn't mean anything.

There are times in my life when I feel very, very infertile... and times when I'm hopeful that this is just a matter of time (although not the relax and be patient kind of time, the wring every drop of hormone out of your body and keep trying kind of time). Those would be the FC times, rather than the IF times. At any rate, if "FC" starts popping up in the archives of the UG, at least you'll understand what I'm talking about.*



*if I create any more acronyms, I will need my own dictionary, won't I?

**you may notice this is my second post of the day... wow, I'm prolific... and productive (further proof that the 'unproductive' part of 'infertile' does not apply to me) ... actually, I'm clearing out some old drafts that never got to the publishing stage of blog-life. I'm not really that motivated.

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