I stood in a dear friend’s living room in July. I asked “What’s been going on?”

I was hung up on a Fisherman, she was hung up on fertility. Different boats.

This is what followed:

“It’s possible that I have a luteal phase defect.”

“A what?”

“A luteal phase defect.”

“Like Lucille but with a t?”

“L-u-t-e-a-l.”

What is it?

This lady reads a lot and is very tapped in to her body.

I don’t need to get into the nitty gritty, but having a luteal phase deficiency makes it much harder to get pregnant. By my Friend’s definition, “a luteal deficiency is when the body doesn’t produce enough progesterone to grow the interim lining in the uterus to keep the fertilized egg safe, which results in early miscarriages.”

To get pregnant, your ovaries have to be thick with a lining. If your ovaries don’t have that lining it makes it harder for the egg to stick.

So.

I Love Lucy and I Love Teal but I have never heard of a Luteal Phase.

And that’s how it felt to hear yet another friend, from my college days, tell me that she is pregnant. YOU CAN RUN BUT YOU CAN’T HIDE NATALIE. EVERYONE IS HAVING BABIES AND THEY WILL BEFRIEND YOU AND THEN TELL YOU THEY ARE PREGNANT.

She didn’t have a luteal phase deficiency. Her luteal was in formation. She wondered if she did, but she doesn’t. She told me in August.

Of course I’ve thought about my one-day ovum, if they might want to host a party for an inchoate human creature, but I don’t think about it in my daily life.

To be so aware of my reproductive organs at any given moment, what phase they are in and how long they are gonna hover in that phase, what my temperature is and what the lining of my uterus might be doing? Well I might as well be piloting a float plane.

Of course, my friends should have every happiness, they should use up all ‘dat ovum, stick it to the infertility man, show him who’s boss, luteal phase defect be gone.

But to be on the other side of the onesie, I must say, I feel like the onesie who’s waddling about in a foreign land. With every new pregnant friend, I get pushed a little further adrift. Every time a peer tells me they are having a baby, it feels like another friend has gotten picked for the team of a sport I am not sure I even want to play. So you stand against the gym wall, waiting as your friends leave you one by one. You don’t want to be left on the sidelines because that means you didn’t get picked.. But you cheer, you cheer for all the friends as they slowly leave your side for a greater onesie.

If I didn’t think that kids were so rad, maybe I wouldn’t care. Maybe I’d embrace being single with all its fabulousness. But I grew up loving babies and wanting my own and imagining what it would be like to be a mom. But these days, hearing my friend tell me about her uterus was like trying to understand Mandarin (as it applies to my life, anyway).

Have I changed? Do I not want this? Or is it simply not my time. I am only 30. I am told I have time to figure this out. But actually, it’s not as much time as it seems like. At age 35, your pregnancy is considered geriatric. DO I WANT TO HOST A GERIATRIC PREGNANCY?!

And yes, I am obsessed with sleeping in when I want, being unfettered to travel around and meet new people, do new things.. But the sports team analogy is the best way to describe how it feels in that moment when another friend tells you their pregnant. Their body is undergoing a process that yours is also equipped for: but is that a sport you want to play?

Plus, uteruses look like turbot. It’s this mushy fish that comes out of the water, teeth gnashing, and it’s not even delicious to eat. Once you catch a turbot, you toss it back in. It’s more annoying than anything else.

IS MY UTERUS A TURBOT?!

A side by side comparison of a Uterus and a Turbot Fish. 

And how about the sideways fork stabbing a spoon?

Why do I want to figure this out? Other than the fact that I’m 30 (the clock ticketh) I’m not sure.

But before (err- after) you think of me as a heartless, unfertilized cynic, I want to say that what I remember most from this conversation is how much my friend wants a baby.

She wants it so badly that she cared to sit down and read books, conduct endless internet searches, and now endure a horrific first trimester of nausea and absolute misery because she wants to create a little waddley thing and be a mom to that little waddley thing.

And that, damnit, that is beautiful. If you so decide to spawn, employ your turbot uterus and play go-fish with the flesh lottery, I want you to do that. You should do that. Just don’t smoke, drink, or eat raw turbot while pregnant.

But, if you happen to have time in your daily ritual of soothsaying, would you please ask the fates what is going to happen to me, dear friend? Am I going to fall in love and have babies or is my uterus going to be a turbot?

Just something I was wondering, that’s all.