You know you are infertile when...

You know how the story goes. First you decide to start trying, then when that doesn't work you start really trying ( still unmedicated and buying into the "it just takes time" bullshit) Then you make the appointment with the first RE. You begin with a little Clomid maybe some progesterone and the biggest waste of my time - ever - the IUI. All the while thinking it'll work, sooner or later. Then it hits you, this may not work. So you move on to RE #2 still with some hope that maybe it is just taking longer than EVERY OTHER COUPLE in the whole world.

I didn't label myself as infertile until the week that I recieved a prayer card - from my not very religious sister - and a fertility stone from a friend. These arrived in the mail within days of each other. On one hand it is nice to have people who are thinking of you and want to help, on the other hand I was like "what the fuck??" It occurred to me that it wasn't just taking a little longer than normal to get pregnant -that I indeed, was not normal. Now, don't get me wrong, I suspected this for quite some time...the crying every month( at anytime), the feeling of complete frustration and defeat every month while squinting to see something, anything on a cleary negative HPT and the willingness to try anything that I had read that possibly might increase our chances by even one hundreth of a percent - I had arrived at a point that if I read that standing in the corner, on my head, naked, whistling Dixie would have helped - I was game! But, when those things came in the mail it was official - I am infertile and evidently everyone knows it!

I accepted their tokens of "Good luck"with an open mind. I read the prayer card and the instructions that came with the fertility stone. The stone said to put it under my pillow at night - so of course that is exactly what I did. When I woke up in the morning it was gone! Thats right I managed to lose the fertility stone while I was sound aspleep. I insisted that my husband tear appart the bed and bedroom looking for my "fertility"...nothing. I thought the universe was trying to tell me something like "give it up already"...then 2 days later I found the stone in a mysterious pocket that I did not know existed in the PJs I was wearing. I no longer sleep with the fertility stone...