IRL

I did it.

I told someone IRL about our IF problems. I didn't intend to. I don't even really know the person I told. We are colleagues who are definitely friendly with each other and I enjoy her company, but we don't really know each other well enough to approach the level of friendship.

There we were, talking about the project we work on and I was giving her advice about graduate school and the big conference for our field that is coming up. And then she dropped the bombshell.


She charts.

The only people I've tried telling about charting IRL looked at me like I was crazy and were utterly confused about the whole thing. Who just drops that in casual conversation? She is making her trip to the conference as short as possible because she predicted her next two cycles and doesn't want to miss her fertile period. Now, I have that same concern and usually am bursting at the seams to say something when this topic comes up.

But there I was telling myself to not go down that road and trying to change the subject. And she kept talking about it and said they haven't gone too overboard with charting yet and just have been having lots of fun. So I decided to take the plunge.

It felt really good to get it out the open with someone. I finally felt like I wasn't lying to everyone. My family is always on our case about having kids. And academia is not exactly the most supportive field for having a baby. Even when people are not asking specifically about babies, I feel like I'm lying when I make plans for conferences or data collection trips several months in the future when I'm really thinking, "well, if I'm pregnant by then..."

Now it's out there. Well, I guess the fact that this colleague lives in another city and has a very small chance of bringing up this topic with the rest of our project made it possible for me to open up to her. But still. Someone else knows.