Friday, March 13, 2009

Magical Thinking

I've read a lot of posts in the IF blogosphere about faith, positivity, and magical thinking. They are certainly not totally interchangeable concepts, but there seems to be a common thread in a that all of us facing IF and its aftermath have to deal with a great many things unknown, and process these uncertainties in different ways.

Since today is Friday the 13th, a day usually associated with superstition, the possibility of negative events, and bad horror movies, I've been ruminating a bit about magical thinking. Specifically, I've been thinking about the significance of dates and numbers, and how I've been always been prone to seeing meaning around things happening on a particular day, at a particular time, etc. This tendency of mine has increased since we started trying to make a baby -- it seems like every cycle I've found a reason why this will (or won't) be The One. And every cycle when it doesn't work out, I'm crushed -- not that I wouldn't be anyway, but this just seems to add another layer.

And this cycle is no different -- we started BCP on Valentine's Day, and could find out that we're pregnant on Easter Sunday. How could I not obsess over that? Because wouldn't it be JUST SO PERFECT if we could tell our little bebe that he/she was "conceived" on Valentine's Day (I know, not technically true, but it makes a really good story, dammit!), and then every Easter we can remember how great it was to find out we were pregnant, blah blah blah? Aaargh! I know that every minute I spend thinking about it is another extra hour/day/month I'm going to feel shitty about a negative result.

And yet, I can't help myself. I really WANT to think positively about this cycle, too see connections, to sense significance. I yearn to be a "normal" trying-to-get-pregnant person -- I have no idea what that actually is, but in my convoluted little brain I imagine it being a little like the giddiness of falling in love. But the second I start to feel just a teeny bit hopeful I'm terrified, like an architect who designs a building without a 13th floor, that I'm jinxing myself.

And THEN, I wonder if by posting it all on my blog, I've somehow reversed the jinx.

Maybe the Lu.pron is giving me the crazy even more than I thought.

1 comment:

Carrie said...

I've been thinking about Fri the 13th, too! I am triggering tonight- good sign or bad sign or neither? Who the hell knows, but I totally sympathize with your superstition. I think it comes with the infertile territory! :)