Just Relax and Have Fun

The most loathed of all TTC advice.

Yes, the people who say it think that they are being sensitive and helpful and giving you good advice. Hear me now, people of the world: never, ever, ever tell someone who is TTC to "relax and have fun." Why? Well, you know on Scrubs, how he has the visions of doing things to people, violent aggressive things, while on the outside he's innocently having a conversation? If you tell someone who is TTC to "relax and have fun," chances are while they smile back at you they are envisioning kicking your shin. Or punching you in your well-meaning face.

The grain of truth behind the ill-advised advice is that stress can in fact delay ovulation. So on a certain level, it is important not to get too stressed. But the level of stress necessary to delay ovulation is like car-accident stress. Divorce stress. Sudden death of a family member stress. Not I-want-to-be-KU-so-bad stress. (It's true that there's something called hysterical pregnancy, where your periods stop and your belly actually starts to swell, but there's no baby there. But the problem for which this advice is being given is not that women who are TTC are imagining themselves into "being" pregnant. It's that they're not.)

Remember:

The spermies do not turn around and decide to go back home if you are stressed.

Your uterus will not say, "Girlfriend, you must be craaazyyy" and decide that it's just better for all involved if it does not let the egg implant.

The reason the advice is so infuriating, aside from the obvious lapse in logic behind it, is that it implies that the people on the receiving end are somehow preventing themselves from getting KU. This explains why, a few weeks ago, I burst into tears when my sister told me "if you would just relax, it would happen." You know what? I was relaxed. The first month. Relaxed and happy and excited. And the second month? Still relaxed. The third month? Not as relaxed, but still secure that surely it would happen soon. It was only the fourth and fifth months that got to me. So if relaxing had anything to do with it, I would be 20 weeks along and have found out the baby's gender last week.

Now, on the other hand, something that I've been thinking about lately:

It's still good advice.

Before all my other TTC girls close the screen in disgust, let me explain. It's not good advice to give, for all the aforementioned reasons. But it is still good advice.

If you and your husband are biologically in "good working condition" (i.e., you are ovulating, your LP is long enough to sustain implantation, your DH's soldiers are ready for battle, etc.), nothing you do is going to change whether or not it works. Stress can't make it not happen, but it can't make it happen, either. You can't stare at your chart 50 times a day and will your temperatures to stay high. Either it is going to work, or it isn't.

So instead of wasting so much of your life stressed out about the entire process, you might as well just relax. And have fun. Because baby-making is fun. Or, at least it is when you aren't worried about the million things that go along with TTC.

So there it is. My concession to the other side. Yes, you have valid advice. It is best to just relax and have fun.

But don't ever give that advice to anyone. You may get punched.

And yes, even though I can see the validity, it is, like so much in life, easier said than done. I'm not relaxed. Or having fun. But I'm working on it.