The Infertile 15

Aah college. A time of upheaval and uncertainty, when life is rapidly changing and every day is unexpected.

Eighteen-year-old undergrads cope with this happy yet unsettling process in a variety of ways, and I, like many, remedied my anxiety with a cornucopia of fatty, greasy, foods of convenience. Your hookup from last night won't return your call? Try a paint-can sized container of Cup O Noodles at 2 a.m. You want to calm an anxious stomach the night before final exams? Sooth those nerves with five Keystone Lights and a pint of Ben & Jerry's. Your mother is visiting after a night of complete debauchery? Eat a hearty breakfast of cold Domino's pizza and stale Doritos.

Somehow I was lucky enough to avoid the Freshman 15. Yet I was not prepared to face this foe again later in life disguised as another, more deadly coping mechanism: The Infertile 15.

Tell me you're with me: When you first start trying to conceive, you're so convinced that you're going to automatically become pregnant that you begin eating like a pregnant woman. Screw the fat-free frozen yogurt and hand me the ice cream! Give me a tall glass of chocolate milk in the morning - gotta feed that growing baby her vitamins! I deserve that Snickers - my body is under a lot of stress and burning extra calories already.

Before you know it, you look like you did the morning after doing two keg stands on spring break.

The Infertile 15 is especially awful because, in all honestly, you want to be fat - just not with a food baby. And you know that when you finally do get pregnant, you're just going to gain more weight on top of your infertile fluff.

It's true, I might be an extreme: After Dr. Obigeewyan told me that my lack of ovulation may stem from my obsessive working out, I went from going to the gym seven days a week - sometimes twice a day - to hauling my ass out of bed maybe once or twice a week to work out before work. I stopped counting calories and started counting cycle days.

Well you know what? I feel gross. And to top it all off, my Infertile 15 didn't make me ovulate this month. So I'm going to try to find a happy medium - hey, I'll accept an Infertile 7.5 if it results in a Fertile 30.