Betrayed by my own body....

I'm so mad at my body right now. By extension, of course, that means I'm mad at myself, but I like to pass the buck. So, body, you are on my list.

I've been pretty healthy all my life, at least physically. (Mental health is whole 'nother blog.) And I thought I still was, until Tony and I started trying to get pregnant. Nine months ago.

I stopped taking my birth control pills the second week of December, fully convinced that I would get pregnant the minute I missed one pill, let alone two weeks of them. (Isn't that the fear that all women have who are trying to prevent pregnancy? Miss one pill and BLAM! you're pregnant! I had enough stupid OH MY GOD MY PERIOD IS 10 MINUTES LATE, CRAP CRAP CRAP moments in my early marriages that I should have bought stock in the pregnancy test companies. Little did I know.)

My mother always joked that she missed one evening of some kind of one-shot birth control in the sixties and ended up with my oldest brother and then went off the pill and had my middle brother three days later. I was the only one she had to work for and I was born a whole 18 months after Levi. So, she tried for about ten minutes on that one. My cousins on her side, despite copping to issues, all average three children. My dad's family is Catholic, so I have about 8,000 first cousins on that side, and they have started the process over again, popping out kids like Pez dispensers. I coasted into the whole conception thing thinking I had it in the bag.

January was an interesting month. I spent the first two weeks nauseated, with tender breasts and emotional outbursts. I had my yearly exam with my OB-GYN in those two weeks and we all thought for sure I'd done it, going so far as to order a blood test when the urine test came back negative. I even skipped riding a mechanical bull in Phoenix because I was so sure I was pregnant. My period started the next morning. I was crushed, but figured we'd get it on the next go 'round.

February was a mess. We were both sick and I think we had sex all of two and half times that month. March, I came off my anti-depressants (didn't want to have a kid with deformities if I could help it). That was a HOT mess.

The following months weren't much different. We'd figure out when ovulation was *supposed* to occur, then studiously avoid having sex. Tony has always been hit-or-miss in this department, working long hours and feeling icky 90% of the time, so I'd have to remind him every so often that it had been three weeks since we'd tried and we should probably at least pretend we were interested in getting pregnant. Forget having sex every other day - we were lucky to have it every other week.

In June, we were both done working, so we figured it would happen, no problem. Not so much, although we did have to wait 42 whole days to find out, well in to July. This month was the piece de resistance, though, with my ovaries deciding to cripple me with cysts the size of golf balls over the weekend. (That's where I got the vicodin, not from a street dealer.) I ended up having to have the worst kind of ultrasound, the one where they jam what looks like a miniature baseball bat INTO your body and then whirl it around like Jr. warming up at home plate.

After a conversation with my doctor about my mood swings, hideous adult acne, cysts and wacky irregular cycles (which I think would be a great band name), we decided on blood work. So, Saturday morning, I'm headed back to the office for fasting blood work to see if I have thyroid issues, hormone issues, or whatever other issues there could be to make it freaking impossible for me to have children.

I know what part of the problem is, though, and it seriously pisses me off. Like, makes my head want to explode with anger and hurt and embarrassment and disappointment.

Last year, I got fat.

I ate a lot of fast food, which Morgan Spurlock has shown can have a somewhat negative effect on your body. I didn't work out. And I have Type II diabetes in my family, which means that I'm prone to insulin resistance even under the best circumstances. So, add some weight, and my body stops processing insulin. Then, take away the hormones in birth control and you have the perfect storm - whacked out insulin combined with irregular hormones making it impossible for me to lose weight, no matter how many times Tony Horton and I go toe-to-toe and I eat low-glycemic-index food at every meal.

The ironic thing is that the best thing for my fertility would be to lose weight, which is the one thing I can't seem to do. So, I'm hoping there is some magical solution in the bloodwork this weekend.

Barring that, I'm going to decide I don't want children after all, eat whatever I want and buy fabulous larger-sized clothing. Screw it.