Control, and the lack thereof.

Every time I've met with the cheery fertility clinic doc, I've had a lot of questions for her. Like, a lot. (Some of them annotated.) Most of the time she answers me patiently and clearly and makes sure I understand all that I would like to. But at my last appointment with her, she stopped partway through her response and looked at me and asked, rather curtly, "You really like to be in control, don't you?"

Yes, Doctor. And do you know why? Because, for example, about ten minutes after you asked me this, I was sitting watching your nurse extract my blood into the third and final vial when all of a sudden I remarked that the name on its label was not my own but someone else's. That's why I like to be in control. Just for example.

And although what she said was in the form of a question, it wasn't really one. It is very clear that I do like to be in control, and it is also true that most of the time I obtain the result that I'm trying to direct.

When it comes to making a baby, though, we can set the stage – we can track symptoms and pee on sticks and calculate when best to dim the lights and change out of lounging gear into something a bit more visually pleasing and hope and hope and hope some more that all that was enough to make a second line appear two weeks afterwards. But without intervention, that's all we can do to facilitate the meeting of egg and sperm; the process cannot be controlled any more than that.

That I cannot control it any more than that is driving me crazy.

***

Today I am getting on a plane to fly to another continent for three weeks, and yesterday was not only the birthday that brings me within days rather than years of advanced maternal age but also the day that Gilles and I went to discuss the control cycle results with that same cheery doc. She told us that both our rounds of testing showed nothing to worry about and that we should just keep trying like we have been.

After all ... "it's only been five months."

The reason I wanted this testing done was based not necessarily on passage of time but rather on the risk of issues related to the newly diagnosed autoimmune component of the hypothyroidism I already knew I had. So it's not the first time I've heard "it's only been __ months," and of course I've thought it myself too.

But the implicit add-on to that phrase when spoken by people other than myself is always "... since the miscarriage," and others – doctors, this one and the other, as well as Gilles – discount much more than I do the time spent getting to the pregnancy that preceded it. In my mind, it's been __ months since the miscarriage in addition to the months before it, so isn't that quite long enough? Don't we get a little credit for that other time spent waiting?

And the response to that, which came through loud and clear yesterday, is: "No."

But I guess I kind of knew that anyway.

So keep trying we will. Eventually. And in the meantime, I will try my best to trust that nature has under control what I do not.