What I Should Have Said

What I should have said is "Hmmm."

This is not what I said to the well meaning man behind me in the checkout line at Office Depot.

Man: How old is he? 18 months?

Me: No. 13 months.

Man: He's big.

Me: Yes.

Man: Is he your first?

Me: Yes.

Man: Well, welcome to the largest fraternity on earth.

Me: (nodding) Yeah.

Man: I have five.

Me: Oh?

Man: Turns out they're easy to make.

Me: (Warning!! This is where it gets ugly!) For some people.

Man: (Laughing.) They really ought to warn you just how easy it is! (As I type this, the fact that the man was wearing a Hawaiian shirt with several of the top buttons undone and his graying chest hair billowing out of it makes me feel less guilty. And he was wearing flip flops and had his sun glasses on croakies.)

Me: Well, it wasn't so easy for this one. In fact, it took 2 years, a team of doctors and nurses, one pretty invasive surgery, $30,000, getting shots in my ass every night for over three months, 3 times of IVF, one miscarriage, about a million ultrasounds, using a bed pan, crapping in a bucket, three months on bedrest at the hospital with my feet in the air, shots in my belly every morning and night for three months, and then 30 hours of pain while I tried to push something the size of a watermelon out a hole the size of a golf ball.

Man: (Taking a step back, a bit frightened.) Oh.

Me: Yeah. Oh.

I am blaming this episode on my hormones. I was 12 days late and convinced I was pregnant a la natural, despite what the three pregnancy tests told me. But I am, most assuredly, not pregnant and am physically having a doozy of a time of it. I had thought that I was doing well mentally. Apparently not.

And the dog puked in her crate this morning on the way to the vet for her last puppy checkup.