Cohorts

Today, I landed in the next age cohort illustrated in the countless infertility graphs found online and at our clinic. Age 38-40 tends to be a common cluster where the pregnancy success rate lowers, but not as drastically as when you hit age 40. Apparently I'm a 38 year old with fabulous eggs, and with the infusion of my husband's hand-picked-magical-sperm, they produce spectacular embryos. But, it's been 4 years now of trying to conceive a viable pregnancy and I've got a couple decent years left before it might be time to call it a day. On Friday I made sure to touch up my grey hair before this blessed event to reduce the sting of being moved into this cohort of even higher-anxiety-prone women. So as much as I was dreading my birthday, I also started to embrace it. No crying on your birthday!

A couple days ago I was chatting with a friend of mine who was approaching age 50. We talked about how much we thought we knew when we were in our early twenties and how we challenged things via our actions, conversational debates, and mannerisms. I reflected that I've mellowed a lot over the years, and it wasn't until my early thirties where I started noticing that I did not care much for, or chose purposely to not overly exert my opinion in discussing politics, family squabbles, unhealthy conflict, etc. My energy was best used elsewhere. My friend said,  "See, THAT comes with age". I agreed.

I think this patience and purposeful energy redirection (for lack of a better phrase) comes from aging in regards to "this issue is really nothing compared to some other shit going on", and also due to our infertility roller coaster which requires myself to give up having much control over my life direction, thereby learning to be patient and somewhat accepting throughout the journey. THAT will make me either a better parent one day, or a childless woman with other fruits to bear.

Picture of Moshi this morning: I was playing peek-a-boo with her with our bedcover (don't judge, this is my blog) and on the third one she made a giant leap from sitting position on the floor to the edge of our very high captain's bed, a place she is not allowed unless invited up only a few special times of the year. 

I guess she knew today was special and didn't need an invitation.