Heads up

Before you click on the “just for fun” link in the sidebar (it’s “go fug yourself” where they make fun of celebrity fashion), read this excellent article on the mass media obsession with celebrity bumps and what that feels like for many infertile women. I forget which blog I picked up this link from but whoever it was, thanks! The fug girls, bless their catty little hearts, are just as susceptible.

Short and (Bitter)sweet Version

I was born in 1973… 🙂
Married in 2000
’05 January went off BCP (From this point on you could just read this – I’m currently NTI!)
’06 January worst New Year’s Day ever, officially IF
– April: diagnosis UNEXPLAINED. Apart from short-ish luteal phase (10-12 days) and low-ish progesterone, everything normal.
– June: HSG – normal
– August: started graduate school in another state. Husband commuting every weekend. Project Progeny put on hold for the semester.
’07: starting again with new provider, so far so good, u/s scheduled for March 9, Clomid/IUI for April (dates to be determined).

Meanwhile, working towards a PhD and wondering what the hell I think I’m doing.

Rummaging around under the hood

Can I just say, so far I’m tentatively very impressed with my new ob/gyn providers. Organized, professional, helpful, and kind. Last year’s bunch, not so much. I called the new people today to schedule an ultrasound (evidently they want to take a good look at my ovaries), and while on the phone asked them to have my NP call me back, which she did within an hour. Since the best day for the u/s, according to my cycle, falls on a weekend, I had scheduled it for the Monday after, but she wanted me to change it to the Friday before that weekend, which actually was WONDERFUL because that Monday is my BIRTHDAY and really, who wants to be reminded of their infertility on their BIRTHDAY??? Geez … Anyway, the real reason I’d wanted her to call me was b/c T. wants to have another SA done. The first one was done about a year ago, and the results were good – perhaps not spectacular, but actually decent. HOWEVER – last year when I called my provider to find out the test results, I spent about 15 minutes on hold while they tried to find the results, which had evidently been misplaced somewhere.

Not a big deal, one might think, except that this was part of a consistent pattern of inconsistency and disorganization that plagued Every. Single. One. of my interactions with last year’s provider. I have to say that the NP I met with was really nice, spent over an hour with me, gave me sound and practical advice, was thoughtful, kind, and professional. But the front desk people were just plain incompetent. I had to do one blood test twice b/c nobody told me I was supposed to be fasting that day. When I had the HSG done, I wasn’t sure whether it was actually going to happen that day or not until I had the little hospital band on my wrist and was putting on the gown, just because the information and instructions they gave me were so confused and contradictory. They could never get straight what phone # to reach me at. And really bad about returning calls in a timely manner. I never felt like I mattered. I consistently got the message in one way or another that I was less important than women actually gestating. I was happy to shake the dust off my shoes when I left there.

Today, it turned out that Friday the 9th was booked up, but after a brief consultation with the NP, the receptionist came back and said “she’ll take care of you herself. We can fit you in at 11:10.” Now that’s what I’m talking about. That’s why my husband wants to do the SA again; he has no great love for little cups, but we just don’t have confidence in our previous provider. Or, as he put it, “I’d just like them to get in there again for a good rummage under the hood.” (He cracks me up – that’s why I married him!)

I have to confess I had a little cry while driving back from picking up his “prescription” and cup. I said to him, “I’ve just tried so hard my whole life to be a good person and to do the right thing. I don’t understand why we have to go through this.” Maybe it’s a little reminder from the Universe to let loose and live a little, “to dance out of the lines and stray from the light” as Dar says. I don’t know. But it’s cd3 and I’m going to have a glass of wine with stinky cheese while I look over the readings for tomorrow.

Vagina Monologues

Last night I went to see a student performance of the Vagina Monologues; this was the second time I’ve gone (last time was in 2004, I think – pre-IF). I laughed, I cried, I hurt. What a roller-coaster. The call for peace was particularly powerful for me as they explored the damage and violence done to women in wartime. There was just one thing, though – a liner note in the program from someone on the production team thanking her son for “putting my vagina on the map” – that was hard to read. Where does that leave my childless vagina, or that of someone who’s had a C-section, or a child by adoption or surrogacy? Nowhere? The moon? I know there was no slight intended, at it really was just meant to be about that particular person’s feelings about her child, her vagina, her motherhood, but for me it was a little jab, a little stab on a very sore spot. Not even on the map, people. Whatever.

97.5

So I started taking my bbt a few days ago in anticipation of cd28 and following; when it dropped to 97.5 on Friday morning I pretty much knew how things were going to go down today. Funny how in some ways the pattern has become so predictable. T and I hit the wine shop today and, happily, they were doing a tasting from two of my favorite vineyards. Then I popped over to the yarn shop while he browed a little more. I don’t feel upset, I don’t feel sad, just… even. Probably saving it all up for later.

Funny how all the qualitative signs in my body have nothing to say to the digits on the thermometer.

Must be PMS

I have been so emotional today and yesterday; I’ve been fretting (read: obsessing anxiously) over “stuff” going on in the life of a young friend (age 13 – man, IF is a b*tch, but 13? Now that’s just torture), getting all weepy over adoption blogs. It’s cold outside; time to curl up with a cup of tea and the readings for the week.

Too funny to pass up

Check out the de-motivators – v. dark sense of humor required!

My favorites:
Adversity (perfect for “people who quote Nietzsche!)
Ambition (perfect for narcissists!)
Beauty
Bitterness (idealists who have stopped deluding themselves!)
Well, heck, all of them!

..and while I’m at it…

I know, I know, I should be reading – or sleeping -but there’s just so much to say. This post is about that green-eyed monster, so naturally the P-word will be mentioned, just brace yourselves…

I found out this weekend that a pretty, young, single Sunday school teacher at our church is pg, and that this has pretty much upset the proverbial apple cart around there. Now, I haven’t actually been to church since last summer (actually I can’t even remember exactly when the last time was – July? Maybe?) but I do know the young lady in question; I think she was also going to seminary. Anyway, the shock and horror of the parents of her young charges actually strikes me as kind of funny, as well as just exasperating. This is the kind of thing that led me to feel pretty soon after I got married that should I ever get pg, I would never, ever be able to show my face in church b/c I would just be too ashamed of people knowing that I, a married woman, am having sex… with my husband…cause, see, he’s a MAN…and good Christian girls don’t let MEN touch them… Yeah, I’m all about the stork.

But whatever. Part of me just threw up my hands and thought, you know what, it is so freaking hard for so many of us, you just go girl! Get your preggers on and good on ya! Even better if you can upset the entire church in the process, serves them right!

So… I actually didn’t feel jealous of her… Weird.

However, on Friday night when I got together with my knitting friends for a girl’s night out (very tame – we were home by 7:30 p.m. since, of course, they all have – guess what? – waiting at home needing to be put to bed – and it’s not puppies!) one woman who, to give her credit, didn’t know that I’m IF/ttc said brightly, “Oh X’s news is exciting!” I knew instantly that X, who has been trying about as long as I have, after 2 kids and 1 miscarriage, is pg. Sure enough – 12 weeks along and “huge” already. In that instant, at precisely one and the same time, I felt both a surge of joy for X (because I know how much she wanted this) and a huge wave of tears for myself, once again left behind. But I’m nothing if not repressed and anal so held it in and after a bit talk turned to other things. I have to say that this group of women has been extremely wonderful and supportive, it was just the one who doesn’t come very often that I don’t know very well.

So yeah. It’s so unpredictable. I never know how I’m going to react to someone else’s news. Just never know.

Hotel California

So, on my other blog I tell (not very well) the story of how I spent 9 hours trying to get through Pennsylvania this past Thursday. You may have seen in the news how big sections of various highways in through the mountain area were shut down, motorists stuck for up to 20 hours, etc. etc. Fortunately I managed to get out, but there was a moment around 9:30 p.m., about 11 hours after I’d left for what is normally a 6.5-hour drive, when I just felt despair. It felt like Hotel California. It felt like IF. From the moment I hit backed-up traffic at about 1:15 p.m., I kept thinking “I just have to get around this [intersection, traffic jam, section of highway] and I’ll be on my way.” But I’d get past the immediate problem, and find a whole new set of problems – side roads rendered impassable by snow or accidents, fire marshalls pulling people off the Interstate, people oh-so-helpfully telling me “it’s shut down. No one gets on. No one gets off,” missed road signs so I ended up on 20 miles down the wrong road before Terry (navigating me over the phone via google earth) figured out where I’d gone wrong and getting me back on track again. Through it all, he was there with me, working through it together, navigating, calming and cheering me, even when I yelled at him (maybe the third time in our 7-year union) for thinking I said “left” when I said “west”…

I did get through, I did get home, eventually. And eventually I did feel that it had been worth the effort.

Dirty Little Secrets

Wow; that post was long. Good grief. Guess I’d been carrying those thoughts around for a long time, it felt good to let them out.

Meanwhile, here are some thoughts prompted by the SQ/SPJ’s question of the day: “What’s your dirty little secret?” related to IF.

My dirty little secret is that I knit baby clothes, and although I’ve given away at least twenty baby sweaters in the past few years (and sold another 7 or 8 at the farmer’s market) as well as unnumbered socks and hats, I quietly kept two of them (scroll down to June 12), tucked away at the bottom of my knitting basket. The other part of this dirty little secret is that I lurk on a baby-knitting blog regularly. In some ways I feel like it’s a window into a world where IF, pregnancy loss, and the carousel from hell of ART don’t exist. I know it’s a fantasy but maybe once a week I’ll go there and indulge in the fantasy of “easy” or “normal” mommy-baby world, dreaming that someday I’ll be part of that world.