Don't Worry

Tomorrow we're going to a fertility specialist who is going to let us know if our chances of progeny are good, not good, or impossible.

It's a visit that I've been putting off for about two years. We had just recently decided that maybe having kids may not be the most terrible mistake we'll ever make in our lives. And now, it looks like we may have to go through extensive scientific experiments to find out if we even have any chance to make the most terrible mistake of our lives.

This all started because a few weeks ago, I went to my gyno and she startlingly told me that I had not ovulated the month previously and that my estrogen levels are alarmingly low.

We had been putting off the kids thing for a few years because it's going to change our lives and every keeps saying, "Wait until you're ready."

No one ever says, "You want to go to Hawaii? Wait until you're ready."

They just say, "Go to Hawaii! It's terrific!"

Also, we had friends who told us after the birth of their son that it was the best thing that ever happened. And the way they kept saying it was like, "Best thing...best thing...best thing we ever did." Kind of like pod people. And then a few weeks later the husband was on the phone with Peter saying that his wife was threatening divorce.

Of course, this may have less to do with having kids than meeting, getting married and getting pregnant within a matter of weeks.

A few days ago, I started to second-guess myself and had a mild panic attack full of, "Maybe I shouldn't have waited so long! Maybe I should have gotten married and had kids ten years ago!"

Then I calmed down with the thought that if I can't have children, and this is the most terrible health problem I have in my lifetime, I would consider myself very lucky.

I have to say that I love my new gyno, not because she reminds me of Sandy Duncan with gray hair, but when she saw how alarmed I was when she told me that bad news about my estrogen levels, she said, "Don't worry. With all the technology we've got these days, if you want a baby, you'll have a baby."

This is much better than my old gyno, because when I asked her for a prescription for vitamins so that I could write off my vitamins in my flexible spending, her answer was, "You don't need that."

When I told her that I did need that, and that my flexible spending account stipulated that I needed that, she kept insisting that I didn't need it and refused to write me a prescription. So I didn't get to write off my vitamins. Suffice it to say, I don't think she would have been quite so supportive.