Cyst-ers Before Misters
If you ever wanted to know what my personal version of “living the dream” looks like — this weekend was it. And by “dream,” I mean a full-on fever-drenched nightmare that somehow involved ovary warfare, a summer cold from hell, and a vivid reminder that hormones are tiny, destructive demons with no moral compass.
First up, my cyst. Oh yes, we’re starting there. We think it popped? My doctor can’t exactly confirm without an ultrasound, but let’s just say the amount of blood and sheer… viscosity involved was enough for me to declare that someone was clawing their way out of my insides. (Alien reboot, but make it reproductive health.) And speaking of horror visuals — my poor doctor did not enjoy the picture I sent of what was coming out of me. When I asked if it could’ve been a miscarriage, her only response was, “Can’t confirm it’s a miscarriage unless you test positive.” Wow. Thanks, Brenda. Comforting as always. Truly a Hallmark moment. Honestly, I don’t even feel guilty now for sending you a visual.
But the pain? Unholy. Like I needed a surgeon, an epidural, and maybe an exorcist.
Meanwhile, my hormones have been feral. One minute I’m ready to mount Drew like a hormonal teenager, the next I’m staring at the wall like I’m auditioning for the role of “apathetic Victorian ghost.” No in-between. Just feral to hollow. It’s like being possessed by a bipolar succubus.
And THEN, the dreams. Oh boy. I dreamt about a guy I haven’t thought about in a decade — which means my subconscious decided to remind me, mid-ovary-death, of a relationship where I was the other woman. Cool. Thanks, brain. Why now? Probably because infertility changes sex. It changes you.
Here’s the thing: I hate using the word “pressure” when I talk about sex these days. It feels too… mild. I’d rather call it expectations. Hell, maybe even demands. Because it’s not that there’s pressure to have sex with my husband — I want to, I love him, I desire him — but it’s what comes after. The waiting. The wondering. The “did it take?” The “will it stick?” Those questions linger in the air like smoke.
It’s infuriating. I want to go back to when I didn’t give a damn about fertile windows or two-week waits. When sex wasn’t tied to calendars, test strips, and the looming question of whether I’d bleed again in two weeks. A big part of me — no, most of me — misses my IUD. My periods wreck me. My hormones take literal days to recover. My IUD brought so much freedom. Freedom from the ties of a monthly evacuation of an organ that is clearly hostile.
And I miss what sex used to be. It used to be playful. Free. Exciting. A cat-and-mouse game that one of us would start and we’d both definitely finish. And I’m not saying it never feels like that anymore — because there are still moments, rare as they may be, when we click. When something magnetic pulls us into each other and we stop thinking about expectations or outcomes. We’re just two people, deeply in love, doing something primal and beautiful.
God, I miss how frequent that used to be.
But here’s what keeps me grounded: Drew. I know he feels it too — the shift, the weight, the space that sometimes stretches between us. And most of the time, he’s the one who fills that space with something softer. A kiss on my temple when he walks into the room. An arm slipping around my waist in the kitchen, pulling me close as if to say, “I’m still here.” Leaning toward my side of the bed while I type away at my novel, just to share the same air. Little acts of intimacy that remind me I’m still wanted. Still chosen. Even in this chaos.
Oh, and as if that wasn’t enough to process, Drew and I are both sick as hell. Summer cold. Fever. Coughing. So much phlegm it feels like we could start a black market in bodily slime.
So yeah, that was my weekend: bleeding out, coughing endlessly, and daydreaming about sex.
Who says infertility blogs can’t be fun and lighthearted?
