Hormonal Havoc

I am enjoying the luxury of being off work. It is marvelous to be able to stay in bed with my coffee, my book and my bifocals. I love the feel of my sheets against my skin, most especially when I look at the clock and see that it reads a late morning hour. I am sloth personified.

But persistent inactivity comes with a price. Getting on my loathsome scale would be like trying to bludgeon a cadaver. Overkill. I don't make it a habit to jump on it these days because the fact that my jeans now cause me serious internal discomfort is all the information that I need. Which brings me to a peculiar event that happened this weekend.

Several times over five or so days, I felt the weirdest flutterings in my abdomen. Convinced that my pants were tight enough to rearrange my internal organs, I changed into my sweats to give my bloated belly a break. And still, there was the fluttering. It was most pronounced when I was idle so, as you can imagine, it was nearly nonstop.

Somewhere around the third day, I had an awful epiphany. The last time that I experienced alien feelings in my abdomen, a baby popped out five months later.

PREGNANCY.

Sweet baby Jesus, NO!

Naw, couldn't be. I was just being paranoid. My husband has been snipped for twelve years and there was no way his boys could have knit together again? Right? RIGHT?! Over the holidays, we heard a story about a friend who had submitted to a vasectomy YEARS earlier and who, when asked if he and his new wife planned to have children, answered by saying that if such an event were to happen, there had better be a bloody star hanging over their house. I understood his sentiments exactly.

As I descended into a controlled hysteria, I took a mental inventory.

Bloating? Check.
Weight gain? Check. Check.
Ginormous, tender boobs? Um...check.
Water retention from hell? Check.
Nausea? Does hung over count? Check.

Oh my god! Alcohol has flowed freely over this holiday period. Not good.

So this weekend, with skeptical but indulgent husband in tow, I went to my local Wal-Mart pharmacy and plucked an early pregnancy test off the shelf.

"You're not pregnant", he said.

"I had better not be", I whispered through clenched teeth as I slipped into the ladies' bathroom.

After following the instructions, I sat on the potty waiting for the lines to appear in the window. For those three minutes, I had a serious conversation with God.

I will be forty two in February. The thought of being pregnant makes me want to run screaming in the other direction. Please understand that we would not view this as a miracle. And yes, we read about the seventy something woman having a child and thought that was an abomination. We also heard about Mrs. Duggar birthing baby #18. Are you bored or something? I mean, I could understand how lackluster it must be to be in the same job for thousands of years but do you think you might be just a tad indiscriminate when sprinkling your fertility dust? I know that I was not a model teenager but haven't I paid that debt? By the time we finish with Olivia, I'll have had THREE teenage daughters. THREE. Which is like waking up every morning and having your face plunged forcefully into a toilet. For goodness sakes, have mercy. Listen, please don't get me wrong. I am eternally grateful to have met my husband. My world revolves around our marriage and I am keenly aware of how fortunate I am to get to spend the rest of my life with him but honestly, we don't need any souvenirs of our love. Sure, it would have been great to have a child together a decade ago and sometimes, we find ourselves thinking about that but then a call from the police or a note home from a teacher launches us like a rocket back to reality. Right now, we are able to see the light illuminating an empty nest at the end of the tunnel and we like it that way. So, please try to understand that we already have enough anecdotal stories about our life to last forever. We did meet on eHarmony, after all. There's no need for us to be at a cocktail party with dark circles under our eyes and baby vomit on our shoulders telling people about the miracle of spontaneous vasectomy reversal. Amen."

As it turned out, the test read negative. I am not pregnant. Halle-fricken-lujah.

I am perimenopausal.

I already knew this. What I didn't know is that in addition all of the sterotypical symptoms: hot flashes, night sweats, etc., etc., I can add phantom baby kicks, amplified PMS and intense fatigue to the list of goodies that comes with being a woman in her forties. Yeah me.

But I am not pregnant (clouds parting, trumpets playing) so I guess that star better find another home.