I’m sorry.  I’ve never been known to edit myself and I’m afraid I won’t begin now.  If you are my husband or mother in law – you might want to just not read what I am about to write.

I had laprascopic surgery on the 7th of December – they removed the endometriosis from my ovaries (Stage 1 so this was not the cause of my infertility) as well as a small polyp from my uterus…. Somehow when they stitched me back up they forever ruined a perfectly good belly button.  Ah well.

The drugs were good.  I told the doctor that I loved him.  I hope that is all I said.  I’ve always been afraid that I might say something downright dirty to my rather handsome doctor….

So, following the surgery I made a deal with my husband that we would try good old fashioned sex for awhile before moving to IVF.  We agreed to try until March.  The following months I peed on ovulations sticks and rearranged my husband’s travel and poker schedules so that he could be around to give me his DNA.  What neither one of us expected was that baby making sex is the worst sex in the world.  Let’s face it – once you get married it takes a hell of a lot of effort to muster up the energy for sex sometimes.  We’re old.  We have jobs.  We like wine.

The first month went well.  Having sex every other day for 6 days certainly wasn’t easy but we managed.  The second month things started to get  A LOT harder (or shall I say…um maybe I won’t).  Out came the porn.  I know I will make my husband angry if I talk about his porn collection but – he married me so I guess he is going to have to live with the fact that all my friends now know that he has a “sexy over 60” magazine in the drawer.  You won’t believe these women.  They are gray haired, pendulous, national geographic looking boobs with caked on make up that looks as if it was applied by a blind 4th grader.  He insists that he never bought this particular magazine and there is a strong chance that our prankster friend Matt put it in the pile…but it does make me wonder.  I digress.

So…sex under duress became a lot easier when I left him and his magazine for a private, tender moment and returned as if by magic at the appropriate time.  Still we were not getting pregnant.

Month three sticks out in my mind.  My husband had a poker game planned and came home only to do the business.  I had invited some friends over for a little cocktail party at our house – we had a window of opportunity – between 6:30 and 7pm when our guests were to arrive.  I spoke with our doorman and told him that should anyone come to the apartment earlier than 7 – they were instructed to wait in the lobby.  I didn’t want anything to interrupt us.  This particular attempt was not going well – he was in an irritated mood, the magazines were not doing the job – “THINK OF SOME HOT LESBIANS” I instructed him – that seemed to be working…and then IN WALKS OUR FRIEND TOM saying “yooohooo, anybody home?”.  My husband was furious at me – got up, got dressed and left the apartment in a huff.  And there you have it – next up IVF #1.