Oh, conception! You’ve finally decided to kick the pill to the curb and now, all that stands between you and an adorable, cooing infant is relaxed, plentiful sex, nine months of eating ice cream and voila: BABY! (That’s exactly how it works, right?) So when the “trying” isn’t “working,” what’s a girl to do?

Some lessons learned during nine months of the-trying-isn’t-working:

1. Just relax!

(This is obviously a joke. This is something your doctor, who is literally nine months pregnant, and probably conceived all of her seven children naturally after her husband just looked at her, tells you as you sit in her office, fingernails bitten down to the elbows. This is something your friend tells you, the one who “ohmygod, got pregnant after one month of trying, isntthatcrazy?!” This is something your mother tells you, but then asks you on the regular whether or not you are yet pregnant. But seriously, whataboutnow? But you cannot relax. Because you had a plan for this whole pregnancy thing. You had a plan for actually having this baby in time for a summer marathon/learning how to knit a cute and possibly ironic fall sweater/trekking across Bhutan. Because you were totally going to do those things. With a ten-month-old. On your back. But now, you cannot. Because now, your sole focus is planning the days on which you and your husband will both be home at exactly the same, very romantic, time.)

2. Which brings us to number two. Have a lot of transactional sex because you are using the cycle beads and the stupid cycle beads say YOU MUST HAVE SEX EVERY DAY FOR TWELVE DAYS STARTING NOW, we don’t care if you’re tired and just ate a lot of cookies fun!

3. You are not alone!

(You are totally alone. Every single woman you know between the ages of eighteen to forty is currently pregnant or has recently given birth to the most beautiful-precious-porcelain-doll-of-a-gorgeous-baby, none of whom look all weird and grandpa-alien-ish, and there is literally no one, not a single other person in the entire god forsaken universe who has ever tried as long as you have to have a baby—which is really not that long at all. Also: Facebook. Honestly. You swing wildly back and forth between liking every single picture of a child under the age of three—even the only semi-cute, goblin looking children of some former intern who you have literally exchanged not seven words with—and feeling like, hey girl, I do not need this constant stream of adorable baby mugs and fawning social-media-o-sphere taunting me with every teeny-tiny baby mitten and teeny-tiny fuzzy baby chicken Halloween costume ever sold or made. So alas, you are going to have to leave Facebook. Because that is a totally rational, not impulsive decision and the only available option. Obviously.*)

4. The mommy blogs. Dear lord in heaven, the mommy blogs.

(The mommy blogs, collectively speaking, are a deep, dark, discombobulating vortex into which you will fall. Hard. You will become irrationally obsessed with mommy blogs as a way to numb your pain get excited about motherhood! But it’s okay! Because even though you do not have a child, and are neither breastfeeding nor pregnant, it is totally imperative that you form deep, nuanced opinions on cloth diapers, “keeping baby safe from scary electrical outlet thingy,” and some mystery verb called “Ferberizing.” Oh, you are ready for that baby and now that you suddenly discovered these feminist, progressive mom-ladies and their profound missives on the interwebs, the amount of time you spend reading this stuff is bordering on crazy town.)

5. The TV is a bunch of lying liars.

(Getting pregnant is totally not at all like they say it is in Teen Mom. You will know because after months of “trying”, you will convince your husband to pretend that you are both totally irresponsible sixteen-year-olds and you are like, you know, hooking up at his parents house, and he like totally doesn’t want to wear a condom, because you know, it like doesn’t feel good, and plus he’s “too big,” and you think you took your birth control but umm, you don’t really know because whateverrrr, so let’s just bang, hmm? Spoiler alert: you will not get pregnant this way despite your strong work impersonating the only-semi-literate stars of MTV’s hit series which is made for people much younger than you and which you totally do not watch while working out. Anyway, you’re still not pregnant.)

So where does that leave us besides still, totally, without a baby? Well, humor and wit intact, we forge on! For those playing at home, we’re now eleven expensive decadent months into this infertility adventure, where our cast of characters now involves a reproductive endocrinologist and an inordinate number of early morning doctor’s appointments. But it could be worse, right? We could be on Teen Mom.

*You do not leave Facebook because, duh, how would you remember birthdays? Also, the cute babies!

Photo by Gabriel Harber Photography