Baking Soda, Vinegar, Maybe Oil for Flavor?

Although I am fortunate to have two children now, after my daughter was born, I had a brief struggle with infertility. I didn't even realize that secondary infertility existed, and it didn't make me enjoy it any more. I knew that I was very lucky to have a child already, but I am an only child and it was important for me to raise siblings. Our family did not feel complete.

After a bout of tests of various degrees of humiliation, my doctor told me that I had a hostile cervical environment, which for some reason surprises no one that I share the news with. My doctor seemed confident that if I neutralized the hostile cervix, I would stop killing sperm and get pregnant. (Seriously, I should have bottled that stuff and sold it to teenagers. And yes, by "that stuff" I mean my "hostile cervix". Why? Inappropriate?) He told me to buy a baking soda douche and a vinegar douche and to use them -- in some sequence that escapes me now.

So I went to my local pharmacy and visited the douche section. Seriously, if there's anything that will make you pray for a quick death faster than strolling through the douche section, I don't know what it is. To make matters worse, I couldn't find either the baking soda or the vinegar douche. I dialed my doctor's office.

"Um," I told the receptionist, "I'm supposed to get the baking soda and the vinegar douche, but all I see is Misty Forest Dew and Sunshine Raindrops, do you think that I could substitute? What? No? Ok, yes, I do realize that they're not interchangeable, but I thought that if the doctor knew that that's all they had here..yes, I could go to a different drug store and try their douche selection."

Of course! Why not devote the rest of my life touring the various douche departments throughout the city? Perhaps I can make it a national tour if I really get momentum.

I still remember the drug store where I found the douche. It was, unfortunately, across the street from where I lived, so I would have to see these people every day. Maybe I should move.

"Hey, what's that for?" the cashier asked me. Now, I've never in my life had a cashier ask me what anything was for, even if I was buying an AskMeWhatI'mFor kit, so this wasn't good news.
"I don't know," I said. She looked teenagerish. Fucking kids.
"Hey, I'm a female, too," she told me. "Maybe it's something that I need."
"You don't need it if your doctor doesn't tell you that you need it," I hissed.

It took me months to try it, because the idea seemed so utterly ridiculous and because Husbandrinka kept saying things like "what's with the vaginal salad dressing?" But the month I did try it, I got pregnant. With my sweet baby boy. I can't wait to tell the story of his conception at his wedding one day.