Pre-pregnancy Prep: Don't Drink; Don't Smoke; What do you do?

Another small excerpt from the book today. When I was actively trying to get pregnant (and not like today which is just minus birth control), I used to watch what I'd drink and eat and some other common pre-pregnancy practices. Of course, I went from not drinking coffee to three years (or any other caffeinated drink) to now imbibing with wild abandon.

Today we prepare our hopeful houses for a baby months in advance, reading books like A Healthy Body, Healthy Pregnancy, and Taking Charge of Your Fertility. There’s a whole regimen that includes exercising to increase blood flow (it helps with your sex drive, too); taking prenatal vitamins; trying to drop one dress size (since we’ll happily be gaining it back within a few months); cutting back on or cutting out alcohol, caffeine, and sweets; and doing yoga to de-stress our minds and bodies. And heaven knows you should not, under any circumstances, clean out the litter box! Times have changed. Just a generation ago, moms-to-be were warned not to smoke or drink during pregnancy, but the list of foods to avoid and other preparation tips were pretty much nonexistent. Basically, it was just get off of birth control and go for it.

Whether or not you’re on fertility treatments, prenatal vitamins are one of the requirements for pregnancy prep. I’m no math genius, but I figured out that I’ve been taking one prenatal vitamin every day for more than 1,600 days straight. So, along with all of the costly fertility treatments, I’ve also had to get haircuts more often because the vitamins make my hair and nails grow even faster than normal. I have also become quite the connoisseur of prenatal vitamins, testing out several different types and brands. I know which ones make my stomach hurt, which ones give me a little energy boost, and which ones have the highest levels of folate and calcium. I liked the whole food vitamins the best—they are easy on the stomach, no burping or weird metallic/earthy aftertaste, and they’re made from real food, not synthetically built from chemical compounds (more than you ever wanted to know about prenatal vitamins, right?).

When I first started trying to get pregnant, I decided to do the “no alcohol, no caffeine” thing. If I was going to do this, I was going to do it right. I didn’t even drink that much alcohol or caffeine to begin with, but if I was going to commit my body to housing a baby for nine months, I was going all in. Taking it one step further, any time after my ovulation days, I wouldn’t eat Brie or goat cheese, or sushi; I also made sure my cold cut sandwiches were heated and watched how much tuna I ate. I cut back on my exercise and didn’t lift anything more than ten pounds.

Then a couple weeks later, inevitably, my period would start and so would a week of binging like there was no tomorrow. My husband would take me out for Mexican food to give me an excuse to drink a margarita, or I’d go out for sushi and drink Diet Cokes only to abstain again within ten days, just in case the sperm were to meet the egg.

One of my dearest friends had the vice of drinking a sixty-four ounce bucket of Diet Mountain Dew every morning. I remember the day she came to work without one, and I wondered good grief, did she inhale all of it on the twenty minute ride to work? No, she and her husband decided it was time to start trying for a baby bump, and her doctor wanted her to cut out the gallons of caffeine and sugar substitute she was consuming each week. It was like watching an alcoholic go through detox. She had horrid headaches until a week or so later her body finally adjusted to going without her morning crutch. And, I made sure to avoid her until noon while she was going through the transition to a caffeine-free life.

Any other prep activies that you did, only for it not to matter?

I think we've crossed the line to 'crazy animal people'

I knew it would happen. Just knew it.

We volunteer with a local Labrador rescue group; it's how we got our dog Ellie. They run an absolutely amazing organization and have saved more than 1,000 dogs over the last three years. Last week they had an emergency - three labs were at a high kill shelter and about to be put down. So, despite our mixed up and wacky life right now, we decided to take in one of the dogs to foster. Yes, that's right, I said, "foster," meaning to take care of temporarily until someone decides to adopt. hahahahahahaha....

Umm...yeah... we now have two dogs.

There's no way we could give up this special little girl. She's actually better behaved than Ellie and since progress with getting our son home is slow and scary, we have opened our hearts to yet another four-legged "child." That's a total of five for us - two yellow Labs and three cats.

You might recall that I just brought cat number three home from China back in July. Jack said that four cats was crossing the crazy cat people line. So, instead, we've crossed it with a dog that, at least weight-wise, would be the equivalent of four more cats.

So, despite our new status as "manic pet adopters" or whatever other moniker you'd like to give us. Our house is clean, and, for the moment, quiet. Actually, Hermione, the new dog, seems to be at least 4-5 years old, and she is incredibly calm.

Even my sweet and sensitive eight-year old nephew called our decision in to question, "Aunt Lu, how are you going to manage two big dogs and three cats and Nate?" Boy, I can't wait to find out.

Of course, at this rate, we'll have another couple pets within the year. I'm hoping the next one is a horse.

I wrote a blog about "Adding Cats Instead of Kids" a few months ago after we adopted our newest cat. One of my theories is that infertiles who want children have a lot of love to give, so they have furbabies to parent, spoil and adore, until the human version arrives.

I guess Jack and I are in "wanting a child" overdrive. I promise not to end up on Animal Hoarders, though.

The only time I'll ever be next to John Travolta and Kelly Preston

AOL's Parentdish.com has a piece on how infertiles can survive the holidays, and I was interviewed for it!

Why I am thankful for porn

Got your attention, did I? This Thanksgiving instead of the traditional gratefulness for my awesome husband, family, and friends, and many, many other blessings, I have decided to pay homage to nudie pictures.

Here's why (an excerpt from my soon-to-be-available book The Inadequate Conception):

As I have talked to women across the country who are going through fertility procedures, I have noticed a common theme that probably doesn’t happen under many other circumstances—the specialized and authorized use of pornography. In fact, many women are buying their husbands porn so they can create their half of the blessed embryo.

One of my girlfriends from college said that she and her husband had gone through several fertility procedures and were getting ready for her husband to go do “his thing” yet another time. “He turns to me and says, ‘do you mind if I buy some new magazines for their office? The ones they have are so old.’ I agreed…and with that treatment we got pregnant!”

A woman I met from church relayed a great story about her IVF experience. It seemed that her husband was pretty anxious about the whole “deposit” process. Men have to produce the magical fluid on the day their wives go into surgery to have their eggs removed, so that they can be immediately joined in the romantic locale of a petri dish. Apparently, her husband couldn’t produce that morning within the sterile and clinical confines of the hospital, so this lovely church-going woman mentioned as she was being wheeled back for surgery that she had a nice porn video for him at home. He rushed home, threw the video into the VCR, performed the vital deed and raced the precious liquid back to the hospital. It was worth it; she was able to get pregnant from one of the resulting embryos.

A well-prepared husband of a friend had planned out his sperm producing session in advance. Forget the magazines that the fertility clinic provided. He had downloaded some porn videos from the internet (with his wife’s permission) onto his small laptop and brought it with him instead of using the visual aids in the doctor’s office. If only our guys gave as much thought and organization to other things like planning for in-law visits or packing for vacation…

Yet another friend told me that when her husband went back to give his sample, they provided the donors with a DVD player to watch movies. But, their player was broken. Ever the Mr. Fix-It, he proceeded to tinker around with the player in order to make it work. Ten minutes later, he finally remembered why he was in there and grabbed a magazine.

During a friend’s so-called “turkey baster” or artificial insemination cycle, her sweet husband went back to produce his part of the equation. After the doctor performed the task of sending the sperm into her uterus, she laid there for two hours waiting for the sperm to make their way to her egg. As she lay there, her husband delivered some less-than-optimal information. Yes, there was porn in the “sample producing” room, and he got to see an issue of the latest porn magazine with Jenna Jameson, the so-called “Queen of Porn.” “Great,” said my friend, “he was thinking of her while producing one half of our potential spawn.”

National Please Don't Send Me a Christmas Card with Only Your Kids Month

I hate to be bitter and snarky, but sometimes it's hard, particularly with the start of the holiday season, and the focus on children - Santa, ToysRUs commercials and my one nemesis: Christmas cards with only kids photos on them.

So, this year, I am encouraging all infertility bloggers to participate in National Please Don't Send Me a Christmas Card with Only Your Kids Month. Let's save our friends their $0.44 stamp and have them refrain from addressing a card to us.

It drives me and Jack crazy to get cards that only have kids on them. What happened to the parents? After all, those are the people that we know. We want to see how they're doing, too.

Family photos with mom, dad, and kids are totally acceptable -- it's just the ones with only kids that drive us batty.

Bitter? Hell, yes. But, please respect our wishes this holiday season; it's just a reminder of what we want, but don't have.

And, if you want to add the NPDSMCCWOYKM badge to your blog for holiday season, shoot me an email at theinadequateconception@gmail.com and I will send you the file.