My Body Talks a Lot and Says Little
My body talks all the time in little signs and twinges but says little of worth. I bend down and feel a strange cramping in my leg as my body speaks up and makes itself heard. So I ask it dozens of questions: “Is this what a blood clot feels like? Should I worry about this? Is it nothing? Did I sleep on my leg strangely last night?”
It gets my attention, and then it clams up and looks in the other direction.
When I was trying to conceive the twins, I spent a lot of time each month listening to my body. I dutifully noted all the fertility signs, even when my cycle was being controlled by the RE. I obsessed over every drop of blood, every ovarian twitch, every clench of the uterus.
What did any of it mean, all this chattering on inside my body, not allowing me a second to forget about what was going on? Josh would go to work and forget for hours at a time about my cycle. But my body never shut up. It was always talking to me while I was trying to do other things, reminding me that I was waiting for an answer and doling out hints that I could never interpret.
Was that cramp implantation or pre-period?
Sometimes I got an answer at the end of the cycle, but other times, my body simply went silent, never telling me what anything meant.
I don’t get the point of this: of talking so much and then coyly holding back what anything means. Aren’t we supposed to be on the same team?
How can we work together when you never tell me what you mean?
Image: Calsidyrose via Flickr
9 comments
I usually work on the assumption that if it is important it will be said again, with more urgency. No matter if it is my mother or my body doing the talking 😉
ha! I agree completely with what valery v just said, but couldn’t have put it so humorously!
I agree, too. It’s sort of the same principle as if you don’t answer the phone when it rings, if it’s REALLY important, they’ll call back. ?
Ooh, I like Valery’s advice! As generally I’m like you and tend to worry about what my body is communicating (uneffectively).
Haha, I tend to follow Valery V’s advice too, except that I can become TOO good at ignoring my body and then the problem can get incapacitating (so far, luckily, nothing that can’t be healed).
The exception was during pregnancy. I felt vulnerable to core all the time and responded by becoming a hypochondriac. I responded to every mutter of my body like it was a scream! In hindsight I can say “Wow, I was off my wits” but at the time the uncertainty and fear changes my perspective and even personality. I shudder a bit now to think of it.
Oh my, do I get this… I am forever feeling those twinges or pinches that make me wonder (your blood clot reference made me laugh because I had that very thought this morning). And the crazy thing is, even now that our family building is done, and has been done for a few years, I am still acutely aware of my body talking fertility. All those signs that I obsessed over month after month… all I wanted was a clear answer one way or the other. Now, all I want them to do is shut up.
YES. And it throws me curve balls all the time, too. I’m all like, WTF? I’m just trying to be FRIENDS here … (!!!)
I’m with you. Though I admit I wasn’t really when ttcing, or going through IVF, as my body never told me anything helpful. Unfortunately, Valery’s advice won’t work for me, because the family issues I worry about are ones that could be silent killers. So listening to my body is important. But it makes me paranoid!
It does seem like we should understand each other better. Yes. Why so coy, Body?