Did a wish get me pregnant?

I've loved several people in my life, deeply, with passion and tenderness. I've been in love just once.

I'm still in love. It's an incredible thing to be so open and vulnerable, to love with so few reservations or fears, and to experience for myself the biochemical effects of being emotionally, mentally, and physically all-in with another person.

How could I get pregnant when my infertility was actively demonstrated year after year for two decades? I think it has something to do with the effects of being in love and the power of a wish. For me, anyway. M thinks my theory is a bit silly, but his areas of expertise are mathematics, software development, and computer science. Mine are genetics, biochemistry, and loving.

The more religious members of my family believe that the child is a blessing from G-d, like the son of Abraham and Sarah. I'm not one to believe in divine intervention in the affairs of man, but as a nod to their conviction, perhaps we should name the baby Isaac :)

My doctor says it probably has something to do with the 40# I dropped in 2011. And that could be. Weight loss affects everything from metabolism, to hormone levels, to psychological well-being. But I'm still heavier now than I was in the 1990s, and my partner during those years was quite virile and I swear that we had unprotected sex at least 3000 times in the 6 or 7 years we were together. So while my sudden fertility could be attributed to changes in weight causing changes in my endocrine system, I don't think that's the whole story.

There is a lot of research out there about the biological and biochemical basis of love, and the measurable changes in neurochemistry, hormones, and cellular structure that feeling "love" can produce.  I know that for the first time in my life I've felt content with settling down with a specific someone. Not just comfortable or it's cousin complacent, but truly content.

Of the two other men I've been involved with long-term, only one of them I could see myself growing old with, and we were very comfortable together. If we'd been more developed as people and in our communication, we'd probably still be together. But with M there aren't any ifs. We communicate incredibly well. We really get each other. We talk about unmet needs and expectations and ways to fulfill them, including reaching out to others as needed. When we're experiencing our quiet, connected moments the cats come sit nearby and purr, like they just want to be inside that sphere of happiness and well-being. D and I had something similar, but the depth of intimacy with M, and the feeling of harmony and peace, are beyond my prior experience. Being with M makes me feel bone-deep happy and giddy with love.

I'm also a believer in the power of wishing. People often say to be careful what you wish for because it might come true. Wishing or praying or meditating -- focusing the thoughts and the mind intently on something -- is incredibly powerful. From practicing hypnosis I know that the unconscious mind can do amazing things, from creating illness to healing it -- and everything inbetween. I've wished things away and wished things into being and even converted some doubters into believers over the years. And I can't help thinking that a wish made me pregnant.

Back in June or July 2011 M was in a bit of a funk. He seemed sad. I asked him what was up with him and he finally told me: He was doing well financially, he'd bought a home with extra rooms, and at his age (34) he couldn't help but feel like he should be starting a family soon. Choosing me meant being childless for as long as we are together and he didn't want to consider life without me, so he wasn't going to be a father -- and that made him (understandably) sad.

I felt sad, too. Very sad. His happiness is vital to my own, and I have offered numerous times over the years to help him find someone else to love and make babies with. I offered again, and again he said no, so I told him that for the first time in my life I could actually see myself raising a child. I wished aloud, with power and conviction, that I could have a baby with him. I offered to contact my younger cousin to be an egg donor so we could --  but if he wanted to do that, it would need to happen in the next year or so, because the older I get the harder pregnancy would be on my body.  He thought about it for a moment and said "Let's talk about it next year, once the work on the house is done and the start-up thing is settled and life is less stressful."

I made that wish and even contacted my cousin, who expressed an enthusiastic willingness to be an egg donor if I needed one. And then I tabled it for revisiting sometime in 2012. I didn't think about it again until I realized I was pregnant.

And thinking about it, however bizarre it seems, I can't help but think that of all the possible factors in my getting pregnant, the greatest of these was the power of a wish made out of love for M.