I reread that title and not to sound the dreaded spoiler alert alarm but the answer is NOTHING.
I know NOTHING.
I caaaaaan, however, give a run down of what it was like for me. Which still means close to nothing because if I've learned anything it's that the yet-to-be-pregnant infertiles are far more qualified than I (like I've said before who gets out of the arctic waters and into a lifeboat first is completely illogical) and that the ever-so-boring adage of 'pregnancy is different for everyone' is unfortunately/fortunately true. I did mid-pregnancy attempt to record some observations here, but now I have the benefit of hindsight and something resembling sanity.
I'll still give the rundown for a few reasons. First, I was scarcely present during my pregnancy. Second, I need to be more present now and we have some catching up to do. Third, and most important, if/when you're pregnant maybe you'll run across one thing and go 'yesssss!!!!' because I myself found catharsis wildly helpful.
So again let's rewind many-moons so we can get to the present one. Forgive me for my utter lack of logical order, and for spreading this across a few entries.
(My pregnancy in a nutshell - note the excessive amounts of sweat and desperation).
1. If you have to do PIO shots for many weeks, don't panic your ass may eventually go dead. Mine did. The first week was a nightmare - Bub complained (HA) that you could actually hear the needle ripping through layers of skin, and it regularly felt like he was hitting my tail bone. We need to start making "IT GETS BETTER" videos for this.
2. Don't have a birth plan, or at least have a very loose one. Okay that sounded bossy. Forgive me. The argument for my case - the whole labor and delivery process is like riding a fucking bull. By all means, visualize the hell out of it if it eases some anxiety before mounting it. But if you try to choreograph every one of the 8 seconds from the point of your toes to the flow of the bulls hair, while that's adorably type A it will probably be utterly useless information mid-ride and only serve to create unneeded anxiety. Just mount the damn thing and hang on for dear life.
3. No matter how pregnant you are when it occurs to you maybe you should change your Doctor - if it occurs to you at all, change him.
4. You may go completely batty. I don't mean adorable romantic comedy about a pregnant woman batty, I mean someone should be chasing you with a giant butterfly net batty.
An Example: Stork is not the most emotional of beasts in her natural state. I maybe have 2 good cries a year. I have that man-quality of if you have a problem, solve it. 1 + 2 = 3, what goes up must come down, etc. etc.
At one point when I was very pregnant, I was retrieving something out of Bubba's car when I saw a single, solitary dry noodle in his passenger seat. It took five seconds for my brain, hopped up on hormones, to conclude that this CLEARLY meant he was having an affair with some noodle eating whore. Obviously some boney ass harlot had enchanted my husband, and insisted he buy her cheap Chinese take out before doing her high-on-lo-mein twerking routine on his crotch. I do not exaggerate when I say that this was the ONLY LOGICAL EXPLANATION MY BRAIN COULD CREATE.
So after approximately 75 heated texts to him, he simply responded 'I know you're not feeling well, but are we really getting divorced over a noodle?' to which I replied 'What's the bitches name?'
5. You will spend weeks looking paunchy but not quite pregnant. On some visceral level you will know that you're one of those obnoxious girls sticking out a post-pizza-belly and saying "OMG I'm so huge look at this". Conclude you will never look or feel pregnant. Then one day, you or someone will take a picture of you and as if it happened overnight - holy shit you look pregnant.
( Bedroom prior to demolition.)
6. Your baby will move when you're trying to sleep and sleep when you want her to move.
7. You will have a symptom. You will get used to said symptom. You will finally feel relaxed in that you know what a healthy pregnancy feels like. Said symptom will totally disappear causing panic. Symptom will be replaced by totally foreign symptom, causing even more panic. Wash, rinse, repeat until Doctor says "she's crowning".
8. Take a gawddam babymoon. This is more important than a birth plan. This will be the last time you will be able to have sex with traditional sound effects, no rush, and no one wondering if the 3 week old lump in a bassinet has any concept of what is happening. And on the subject of things that are more important than birth plans, get a membership to Amazon Fresh.
9. If during your pregnancy you have any passing flirtation with a summer or late spring month, check that your air conditioning is in working order long before. Check that shit. Check it now. On a 100 degree day I came home, found that it wasn't working, hurled myself on the ground in an epic temper tantrum and declared I would be spending the rest of my pregnancy at the Beverly Hilton. I had the emotional maturity of a two year old until some sainted swarthy Russian man agreed to come fix it within the hour. We are all lucky there were no casualties.
10. All the things you said you would never do or feel as a pregnant infertile, you will do them and you will feel them. Forgive yourself.
It has been... Jesus.... two months since my last confession. Let's just get into it, shall we?
I haven't been too active in infertile world because I've been frozen in terror, and I need to thaw. I need to unfreeze because I miss you people, but mostly for my own sanity.
I've often compared being a member of our community to being a passenger on the Titanic. We're all unlucky - every last one of us somehow ended up on the wrong fucking boat, and most of us wound up in the freezing water. There are unmistakable divides in our community - who's been in the water longer, who was in it for too short a period or too long ago to count, who's currently sitting fat and happy in a lifeboat.
The ideal code of conduct between these divides, as I understood them pre-pregnancy: If you're in the water, try your best not to focus on the order people should get saved based on suffering because that's never the order it will happen in. If you're in a lifeboat, for fucks sakes don't complain about the gd conditions of the lifeboat particularly to people who are still in the water.
I was in the water for 4 years. It was a tit bit nipply. I thought, if ever I get yanked onto a boat, because of the aforementioned ideals, it would be a non-obnoxious transition. I'll admit - a million times I've heard a finally-pregnant infertile express how terrified they were, and I've thought 'OMG just be fucking happy'. So I had a pretty good idea of how I was going to respond if I was ever lucky enough to be 'saved'. Pregnant = problem solved. Smooth transition to happiness.
I was - and this still annoys me - totally, fucking, spectacularly, wrong.
The moment my butt hit a dry seat - happiness. Happy disbelief. No denying that. There's a physical reaction to obtaining what you've been going after for years before you even have a chance to mentally process it.
Then, I think because of losing one of the embryos 5 weeks in and having enough time to remember - I dunno, who I was? - and that person was not someone I associated with good luck or a lack of cruel irony, it just morphed into panicked disbelief.
I thought... this can't be your boat. The last one you were on sank spectacularly, you were in the water forever - one of the gajillions of people floating helplessly in frozen, never moving, on-the-cusp-of-ice water. Do you really think you're going to be one of the lucky people successfully saved on this tiny ass boat after all that? Please, by all means, spend a few minutes thinking your safe - because that will give Gawd/the universe/Mother Nature all the more booming a laugh as they hurl you back into the water and you will pray fondly for the days where your skin was used to the cruelty of that temperature... it's going to be soooo much funnier now that you've warmed up a bit.
Another unforeseen reaction on my part was how I would view my place in our community. A million times before, when one of us has gotten knocked up and then disappeared completely, I thought 'well that's kind of a dick move... I guess we'll see you later? Thanks for playing?'. When my butt hit that dry seat, after I realized what happened I looked back in the water. Freezing cold fucking awful water, full of people who had kept me warm for years - and I couldn't do shit to save them. Still can't.
The water had become my HOME. My community. My place. The unbelievably cold and the unfuckingbelievably strong. To stop paddling seemed preposterous... presumptuous. Better women than me were still paddling. Out of habit, I was/am way more used to the idea of surviving than I was the idea of being a survivor.
For a combination of circumstances I don't really fully understand myself - previous experience, hormones, genetic disposition, who knows - I also went a wee bit coocoo for the first half of my pregnancy. I am, if left to my own devices, a very calm, cool, collected and above all mellow person. I find the goof in everything. About 6 weeks into pregnant I became so afraid of how far I was going to fall when it all went to shit, that my brain started entertaining itself by spending most days picturing every possible disaster. An example? I went hunting for blood so thoroughly I would accidentally make myself bleed. If so much as a fucking ant boarded my lifeboat, I would be completely convinced it would sink the whole damn thing.
I'd have a few days where I'd feel normal, and then a few days where it was just... panic. Maybe I would have been better prepared for that if I had hints of that in my personality to begin with but.. nope. It was like being taken over by someone else. I technically no longer had to paddle to stay alive, and that threw me into such a panic that I exhausted myself paddling. Exhausted.
Maybe around 20 weeks (I'm 25 now) I started to show a little bit (although I'm pudgy to begin with so one could argue I just look like I'm awkwardly carrying fat). Around the same time, I started to feel her move. I started to feel a slight thaw. Maybe I'm really pregnant - but like, the kind that may result in a baby.
A few weeks ago I was driving to get myself some peanut butter froyo with chocolate chips and strawberries (which is now my jammmmm) and listening to "the Loft" on Sirius. (If anyone knows what the fuck the theme of that radio station is supposed to be - don't tell me because at this point it's become a great big infuriating riddle I need to solve.. but do tell me someone knows?). Anyway, I was thinking about how I really needed to just... let go. Embrace the unknown. I didn't get this far being a chicken shit. I am no longer trying to get pregnant or struggling to get pregnant... time to accept that I just may be one of the lucky ones. I'm thinking this to myself, this song comes on I've never heard before, Heisenbaby starts to dance around apeshit, and I start to cry - another totally-out-of-character thing for me, but they were happy/relief tears.
So, I still have rough/weird days where relaxing feels like it will bring on punishment.. However, as pre-pregnancy I was no chicken shit, I'm now trying to embrace the happy ending. I bought a crib. I got her a few outfits. I started a registry.
And I'm forcing myself out of the weird and unbearable inbetween... because again, I miss you and I miss my sanity - and at least previously it would seem one was very tied in with the other.
So... I declare this a PAIL blog.
I'm going to get back to writing in here - which has and will continue to be mostly weird shenanigans and certainly not where you go to get an instructional on how to knit a sweater out of tuna casserole using only heavily used stockings.. but I will be writing my shenanigans as a pregnant woman. Which I will be talking about (but I'll go easy on the fruit comparisons).
I'm going to preface this whole new blog - wherever it goes - with the following disclaimer: I am grateful. So grateful. If I had to put hot needles in my eyes every day for the duration of my pregnancy to result in a healthy baby, I would do it with gratitude. Not just gratitude, but the same perfect understanding I had a year ago as to why any pregnant person should be grateful.... but in that scenario, on this blog, I will be saying 'dude I wish these needles in my eyes were more fun' in my own overly dramatic way... and when I do, please don't think I've forgotten where I come from or how to have gratitude (I think that ought to cover it for the disclaimer).
If you need to back away from me - don't spend a second feeling guilty about it. Just... before you go, know that if there was any way I could drag you by your hair into the boat I seem to have found myself in, I would. Because I want us all to be happy, sure, but mostly for selfish reasons - I want the familiar on my damn lifeboat, I want you with me because I'm afraid, and you know I'm not going to be able to socialize with too many of those Carpathia bitches who never sank in the first place.
Tomorrow: back to shenanigans. Shit they don't tell you about pregnancy but STORK WILL.
As it has been awhile, a brief synopsis of what has happened in case you need a refresher.
IVF #2 was in October. Day after retrieval, Bub and I have zero fertilize. (In the event that you're new, my favorite albeit possibly least helpful way of explaining our problem is here. And if anyone other than me gets why I titled that post 'Tybalt' I'm pretty sure we're soulmates). Two days after retrieval, MIRACLE surprise knock-me-over-with-a-feather two badass embryos. Since they were late-late bloomers, my lining wasn't ideal for them, so the plan became to freeze them and switch to FET in November if they made it to day 5 blastocysts which was highly unlikely. And THEN THEY MADE IT.
Everyone remember in Princess Bride, when Wesley is retelling being captured on a ship... and every freaking day his captor says 'Good night, Wesley, I'll most likely kill you in the morning'. That whole week was like THAT. 'Good night, Stork, sweet dreams - most likely they'll be dead in the morning.'
At any rate, on the 25th La Bamba and Heisenberg are being transferred. I can't be sure as like most infertiles I avoid children's movies like the plague, but judging by the movie posters I'm fairly certain my story has been optioned and set to be released the same week as my Transfer.
Oh hey, so you're wondering what you should be thankful about for Thanksgiving? Here goes: THAT YOU'RE NOT MY HUSBAND.
I realize it has been quiet over here in Storktown but that's only because of my very real, and very slow descent into hormonal madness.
Okay fine - so I normally dress like Helena Bonham Carter and what comes out of my mouth is usually a heavy dose of sarcasm, HOWEVER... I am really quite nice and positive and my experience with the ledge usually revolves around talking people away from it not approaching it my damn self. In short: I am a robot. Typically speaking, though I really truly understand the reasoning behind tears or being coocoo (because I have the same reasons)... When I see outwardly, hugely emotional people my first NANO second response before hugging is usually side eye because that whole feeling-things-fully doesn't come easy to me.
I have previously 'lucked out' in the hormone department - I don't seem to have had the 'usual' response to anything side effect wise, and so I've happily lived as the woman who could give you hope that you wouldn't either. With Clomid, all it did was make me euphoric when I took it, and then after a painful O would be a teensy bit more sensitive than usual. With all the IVF shots - no, not my favorite but really they just gave me a shit ton of energy and an ability to eat all the things.
In case you're keeping score, after LB & H get put back in on the 25th and I begin the PIO shots (which I anticipate not being fun, don't worry) I will have gotten the full tour, the full tilt boogie tour, of infertility drugs. Just all of them. All of them... All of them. Prior to this month, I would have been the prime candidate for you, before you start a new treatment, to calm you in full confidence with 'okay it's not fun, but it's not that bad'.
NOW I AM HERE TO SCARE THE BEJEEZUS OUT OF YOU.
Lupron, which I have been on for 3 weeks as of today, is devil juice. DEVIL JUICE.
Surely you've read or at least seen all the Harry Potter's - if not I don't even have time to address your psychological issues in one post as I can barely handle mine. At one point, Dumbledore and Harry go adventuring into a crazy ass cave, and Dumbledore has to continuously drink some seriously poison shit out of a bowl and he says to Harry beforehand, 'no matter what happens, no matter how crazy I get - you have to keep spoon feeding it to me'.
As further proof that you should absolutely re-read these books every few years because you learn something new everytime, this is potion is CLEARLY Lupron, Dumbledore is CLEARLY trying to get pregnant and Harry is CLEARLY the unwitting partner who's a little disenchanted he can't just jizz somewhere and call it a day.
Moral of the story, as I have always suspected based on his prescription glasses and scar that he claims is from a dog bite: my husband is Harry Potter and thanks to drugs I can now grow a beard like Dumbledore.
Day one and day two, I breezed through with a slight headache and the general high of doing something that felt pro-active.
Then my brain froze. Generally speaking in my life when I've been depressed it's been 'about' something. This was about nothing. My emotional dick went limp, all my happy thoughts went bye-bye, Tinkerbell died and I couldn't wait to see her fall to the ground so I could squish her because basically she's a glorified bug.
For two weeks, clean clothes seemed far less important and I started to resemble some sort of living blanket. Curious of all curiosities, Bub can in one second be my favorite person in the world who I want to weep over with love to seeming like an unwanted debt collector spritzed in onions and shit perfume. I reached my 30s without having any acne experience, and now I look like a 13 year old boy who has been sleeping facedown in pizza grease and chronically masturbating (yes, ladies and gentleman, the rumors are true - I am Sasha Fierce).
The transformation was slow and thorough. Optimistic and determined - bitch who's just biding time - multiple personalities -DEATH INCARNATE.
Thankfully, I got to start taking estrogen last week so I am... better.
My brain has started to produce it's usual insane curiosities (like - do doll people and bronies hate each other? Discuss) so I'm taking that as a sign of thaw. My shenanigans shall slowly return.
Initially my transfer was going to be around the 20-22, but as of this morning it is set for the 25th. On the downside, that's a few extra days of Lupron not to mention this month has gone by at a snails pace.
On the bigger upside, it'll put extra days between cigarettes and embryos (refer to Girl Interrupted picture) and it'll give me one extra weekend for me and Mr. T to greet my husband, like so, at the door everyday regarding shit that has to be done in this house pre-baby.
I whine to exorcise it a bit and because you are my troops. I am, however, above all things super grateful and super excited and would do this 10,000 more times if it would give me a shot.
My words are not going to be very writerly today, but I'm going to write it all out because I want it here for when someone is searching.
First of all, let me say I was running LOW on hope. I mean, as close to empty as I could possibly go and still be able to put clothes on in the morning and impersonate a functioning human being. I've been like that for about a year. Don't get me wrong - in the 4 years we've been trying to conceive, I got low on hope fairly early in the game. (Well, definitely not early it was probably a year after torture, but now it just seems that way by comparison). In the last year, I have reached this whooooole other level that I didn't know existed where you're just.. as close to being empty as you can be without being a pod person.
I was a centimeter - a centimeter - away from just thinking that nothing good will happen for me. I'm not religious in any way shape or form, I'm one of those liberal spiritual types though. I have always liked to think that there's some universal force, or good, or something, that even when it has to do bad shit to you doesn't enjoy it, and will eventually throw in some good. And that part of me just went dead.
I am a goofy funny person (funny people tend to be very dark) and I was still awake enough to realize I would seriously start to infect the people that love me if I didn't make an effort to stay goofy and positive, so I have. And don't get me wrong - moments of sheer optimism! But for the most part, it was something I was doing to impersonate an earlier version of myself so as not to alarm anybody, and because everyone should have hope in their life as long as they can possibly have it and I didn't want to beat anybody over the head with my discovery that hope was a myth.
And I've always been so grateful for other areas of my life - my husband is kickass, I have some fantastic friends and family, and a bunch of little things that all add up to me having it a lot sweeter than a lot of people. It's just this one area of my life where I felt like whatever universal force there was was chasing me around, whispering "If I just make this one thing go completely dark and punch you at every turn, I can make even the lightest things in your life go dim".
When they called Sunday to say ZERO had fertilized and that the remaining six eggs that were less mature had a less than 5% chance (mind you, this was IVF WITH the special chemical that was the only help of solving this) I felt that last little bit start to go dead. Funeral was to be held Monday. Begged and pleaded with the universe and asked you to do the same for me (and you did, you did!). Didn't think anything would come of it, and that's why Monday morning when they said two DID fertilize, I wept from happiness for the first time in my life.
Even less likely that they would keep growing, that they would make it to blast, I have basically been in a panic attack for the last five days trying to remain hopeful (and starting to tilt my head and squint at the power of good juju) while trying to prepare myself for when they told me none of them made it.
By this morning, I was a complete wreck. I conked myself out last night (yay drugs!) but my stomach was apparently creating it's own superpower adrenaline and nauseousness, and I was worried when they said 'zero' despite my best efforts I would crumble and throw things. Everything on me was shaking.
When they called me back, there's Nurse Angelface standing right behind the door patients go in (across the office from where she usually is) smiling. She says "I have good news for you". (She later told me she raaaaan down the hallway when she got the lab report).
I went into shock and kind of said "YOU DO!?!?!" and then she quickly shoved me into Dr. Kickass' office and handed him a paper. Bub and I are now plopped down in chairs.
Dr. Kickass fumbles with glasses a second, looks at paper, and says "Oh my God". Then nurse Angel says they are both blastocysts, and not only that but they're Grade A.
Ummmm.. WHAT?!?!?!
So glad I had already gone to the bathroom because I probably would have peed my pants.
I started crying, Bub started laughing, I declared my crying gross which thankfully stopped the crying.
Of the late-late-late (two days!) bloomers, one of them has pooped out, the other is still mysteriously chugging around. (Are you kidding me?)
I do not remember undressing, getting an ultrasound to check on my post-ER progress (apparently they just had to push hard on my stomach to get to my tricky hidden ovary for it's eggs - which I'm so glad they did! - so that's probably why I'm still sore). I do remember thanking the Doctor and giggling at Marc and unable to decide who to text first.
Afterwards we went into the little nurses' nook where Angelface works and ended up laughing and having lemoncake with them for a half hour. (Icing is now on my leggings). Nurse said honestly, a miracle - and they were so excited when the report came in they whooped and she went running.
I know I'm not pregnant (YET!) and this is just getting a couple of blasts.. But holy shit me, are you KIDDING ME? I get a CHANCE? WHO has heard of one cycle going from ZERO fertilizing to having two, perfect blasts?
My point is whatever little but very crucial part of me started to completely and utterly die this last weekend was slowly, tentatively reviving all week and now it's awake. And I'm smiling. And there's no part of me that thinks bad HAS to happen and that miracles DON'T. If you knew what kind of hardcore cynic I am you would know that that in itself is a miracle - you all had so much to do with that I'm going to be forever, and ever, and ever grateful. I can't believe I'm lucky enough to have so many people thinking happy thoughts and lighting candles and cheering me on. Some weird kind of magic happened that I wasn't expecting and I didn't think I deserved, and now I have a really good shot because of it.
The proper words to you fail me.
I have nothing but love right now.
And what a couple of unbelievable ASSKICKERS these two are! BOOM! Heisenberg and La Bamba kicking ass, taking names and making history!!!
Last night was a lovely distraction... It was a comfort to be around the gay husband Mr. T (who I have spoken to on the phone but haven't seen in person since the debacle because I'm a freaking maniac who can never remember if she's even showered). There were a gaggle of hilarious gays, guacamole and pizza, a viewing of Hocus Pocus and American Horror Story... Oh it's so good. Completely twisted. And Bub got a couple of drinks in him and had a good time (I'm sure he's beyond stressed and I'm such a mess I'm no help to anyone, so it was nice to see).
Additionally, Mr. T got me two pairs of socks for my hopeful FET, a colorful pair with individual toes and a pair that just cleverly says 'fuck' over and over again. Here's hoping I get the opportunity to make a splash.
So my plan for anticipating the morning-updates and retaining some level of sanity is to stay up as late as humanly possible, then pop an Ambien, and then stay unconscious as long as humanly possible in the morning (hooray for being a writer and making my own schedule!).
So this morning Dr. Kickass' call woke me up.
So the two that fertilized late are now 'multi-cellular'. Meaning they have so many cells that they're no longer counting them. He stressed repeatedly that they won't know if they divided up properly until tomorrow - but as of right now, as far as they can tell, they look how they're supposed to look for day 4.
The second two that fertilized late-late-late - are still dividing. Found out from nurse angelface this afternoon that one is 8 cell and the other is 5 (it's technically their day 3, so apart from the late blooming working against them, the 8 cell is still about right). There's not a whole lot of hope for them, but they are still dividing.
Fun fact: also found out that what they did for me isn't considered 'rescue icsi' it's considered 'delayed icsi' which is apparently a whole different and rarer beast (which doesn't have that great of success rates, hence the rarity).
So they are telling me to be hopeful, and as of this morning everything looks like it should be good, but man alive they are stressing the unlikelihood of this situation. Obviously given the circumstances ( and just them being smart) no one can say 'yeah! this is kickass!' but basically.. everyone will be surprised if this goes well (including me).
(Quite nicely, Dr. Kickass did say that this is going to keep him up tonight waiting, so he can't imagine how I would be feeling.. and nurse angelface assured me upon request she will be lighting candles and sacrificing the metaphorical chickens.)
Tomorrow morning I go in for an u/s at 8 AM because my stomach is still bothering me from Saturday (not in OHSS territory just in weird, feel like I pulled a muscle territory). That should be right around when they get the report from the lab so I will probably be in the office when it comes. I have mixed feelings about this because I have no idea how I'll react.
I'm losing a little bit of steam, here... Things are certainly less grim then they were earlier this week, and holy shit me over the last few days there's a lot to be thankful for.. but man, I'm reaching coocoo nervous territory.
I just keep reminding myself we've slaughtered the odds thus far. So far, that we've done. The likelihood of any fertilizing a day late are SO small, and it definitely looks like they've made it thus far. It's just requiring more effort to keep thinking YES these are fucking BADASS embryos that are punching statistics right in the face and they're going to continue to do so.
And this is just getting them to freeze. Please, please, please God, mother nature, universe, just let me have the damn shot.
So the two front runners - they have to decide to be blastocysts by tomorrow morning. I am beyond hoping for that, but at the very least they have to get to the pre-blastocyst phase so they're still showing signs of life and then maybe can be frozen Saturday. So the next 24 hours is the big finish, the big pre-freeze finale. I need them to be blastocysts.
These have to be my kids, have to be. I've been through enough, I've been on the wrong side of statistics for long enough - Universe, I will be taking my kids home with me now and retiring to being a bombass cheerleader for others, thankyouverymuch.
Please, pretty pretty please, keep hoping and praying and crossing fingers and lighting candles and sacrificing goats and petitioning to the powers that be on our behalf. We're so close to being able to let them freeze - they just have to surprise everybody one more time, and then they can rest before the big show next month.
I am SO humbled and thankful by all the support and happy dances... please keep them coming. One more day of working our collective magic and then I'll have a SHOT. Kick it into overdrive today/tonight, if you would. Hopefully I'm going to get on first thing in the morning and have a happy update for everybody. Let's DO THIS.
Sidenote: I think Heisenberg has won out for the second embryo's name. Again, I feel my embryo should be a badass with a say-something hat that doesn't take shit from anyone.
I've gotten amazing stories in my inbox so far... I mean, amazing. I'm gonna wait a few days to hopefully have more trickle in and then I'll put them up. If you have an amazing story, send it! (I'm thinking of making it a tab on here instead of a post, so that I can continually add to it when anyone comes across the request and wants to).
Thank you thank you thank you thank you for all the kindness and thoughts and well wishes... Please keep them coming, pretty pretty please. So far it's done amazing things. I'm just a bug eyed infertile in Los Angeles that you will probably never meet, but you have/will be helping me beyond anything I'll ever be able to communicate, and so help me I will pay you back with wild dances and encouragement of unfathomable proportions.
If I can get embryos/pregnant with these kinds of numbers and odds, then a real, honest miracle will have happened.
Pray/hope/wish/petition that tomorrow morning there's word of a miracle.
Or to rephrase: halfway through the longest. week. of. my. life.
PS - someone left a comment yesterday that said this is like watching Breaking Bad and that made me die laughing. (Which made me think Heisenberg is another option for an embryo name as he is clearly a badass and involved in chemistry. Plus clearly my embryos would be rocking some sort of say-something hat).
Okay so.
No official update from the lab - no lid lifting today. Yesterday I thought having no update today would make me feel more sane but we have gone in the other direction. This morning angel RN worded it in a way that gave me pause - that the day-late fertilizers are more likely to poop out.
Trying trying trying to stay positive - they weren't supposed to fertilize in the first place. And there are two of them. Trying to hold onto the gleeful feeling of Monday morning being shocked that anybody did anything. They are pissed off and feisty and demanding life. I need them pissed off and feisty and demanding life.
Plus - these are made of Bub and me. And Bub and me would NEVER do anything daunting on a weekend so it would make sense they would just hold off until Monday.. right?
So I may possibly get an update tomorrow, or it may be Friday... and more than likely Friday will be the freeze day although apparently it could also be Saturday. Asked about freezing more thoroughly today, and apparently they have some latest-freezing technique where if an embryo is viable, it will absolutely survive freezing and thaw. So there's that.
Anyways. I know I sound like a broken record but please keep the candle lighting, the prayers, the good juju and the chicken sacrificing going. It's fucking doing something. Miracle part 1 was completely against the odds, so miracle to completion is possible. I have stated before that we are all clearly witches but man.... Please keep it up with the international happy juju for them. You will be internet aunts and with a wee bit of hope restored in my life after all these years I can use all my badassery and pissed off feistiness and focus is it entirely on WILLING everyone's babies into existence through sheer will and mind scolding.
And speaking of witches - Mr. T and a gaggle of gays are having an American Horror Story: Coven viewing party tonight. So that will be nice and distracting. I will be the only ute present, Jessica Lange, Kathy Bates and Angela Bassett are clearly good for the soul, and so help me I will make them wave all their fairy godfather hands around and say prayers. As Mr. T put it, they can be my Goven.
So today as I'm taking a surprise hour long car ride because Bub left his insulin pen at home today (I mean.. the man's been shooting me up with needles for two weeks and dealing with side effects - least I could do is bring him his needle) I started thinking-thinking in car, and plotting things to google when I got home.
Mainly I wanted to come home, and for the millionth time in my TTC career, look up shot-in-hell-turned-pregnancy stories. They're all over the place, but there's not a whole lot in terms of a wide variety of stories in one spot.
So I'm thinking we could do a collective post on here about shot-in-hell turned happy stories, like most of us have needed at one point or another, for people to find all in one spot.
Stories about low betas, poor fertilization, concerning bleeding, weird placenta problems, 'you're definitely not getting pregnant', small number of follicles, expected miscarriage, etc., turned successful pregnancies.
So if you have had one yourself or know someone who has, email it to me (Stupid Stork 4 at gmail). However long you want it to be, just the crisis and how it turned happy part, and let me know how you want to be credited (name/link if you have one).
I just think it'd be cool to have a variety of stories like that from real infertiles (not fertiles talking about their sisters aunts cousins hairdressers) all in one spot. For the lady a few months from now googling for some hope when it's almost lost. I'm sure it'll be a virtual hug for someone at some point, and some good karma for us to boot.
And honestly, I can't fucking mention this enough.. Thank you for all the prayers and wishes and good vibes and juju - we're at the end of the fertility road here, and if I have to be this frightened I'm glad I have such awesome and understanding people with me. If anyone can make a miracle happen with good vibes and juju and prayers it's you people - you're like the Seal Team 6 of Magic.
Thank you thank you thank you and please oh pretty please keep them coming... These have to be my kids. Have to be. I'm out of shots, here. This is them, I've waited long enough. I'll be collecting my kids now, universe, and then retire to channeling my energy to others. Please please please please thank you thank you thank you thank you.
I am getting more and more proof that you people have ACTUAL MAGICAL POWERS.
So today was my Grandpa's 89th birthday. Got up, got in the Batmobile.
By accident ran into my husband at Starbucks. Also, Arsenio Hall was there (the beginning of a day which required me to repeatedly ask myself if I was dreaming). I like to think that Arsenio Hall manifesting in a random non-Hollywood Starbucks is a good sign. I think I read that in Aesops Fables.
Driving through LA to start the hour and a half to get to Gram & Gramps house (over the river and through the woods and all that) I drive past Beverly Hills where La Bamba and friend are. If anything maybe they'll stick around because right now they should be under the impression that we're really, really fancy.
Thinking happy thoughts, playing songs that will keep me optimistic (and I am! I'm optimistic!). Halfway there my phone starts ringing and I see it's Dr. Kickass so I put it on speaker.
It's the Angel RN (whom I love - she and I would totally be friends, I think, had we met elsewhere).
In case you're just tuning in - on Saturday I had my egg retrieval and they got 20 eggs. On Sunday morning, Dr. Kickass called to break it to us that out of the 11 eggs that were mature that day, 0 fertilized. ZERO. They had six more eggs that didn't mature until Sunday, and they were going to try to fertilize them although it was a 'less than 5% chance' that even one would fertilize.
I called my Mom and told Mr. T - who in turn got my family, friends, and people I don't know praying and lighting candles. I got on here and on twitter, and every person went into 'best freaking people ever' mode lighting candles, making facebook posts, blog posts, etc. I was not feeling hopeful but I was feeling very loved.
Then yesterday morning he called and said that two of the six had fertilized. TWO. TWO!!!!!!!
Cue choir of angels and weeping and overall meltdown of orgasmic glee.
Anyhoo, RN calls this morning...
She says that they checked on embryos. Both are still growing - one is 4 cell and one is 3 cell, which is right around where they need to be today. (Miracle I haven't googled this yet...)
She also said that when they lifted the lid off the crockpot this morning to check on those two, that there are two others they're 'going to keep their eye on' because they seem to be doing something. So not to get my hopes up, but I may have 'a couple more' on Friday.
I begin to, yet again, well up from happiness. And to tell her I know I'm being silly for being that happy about it but holy shit what an increase from 0! She also said they may call with an update tomorrow, but if not it'll be Friday (when they freeze).
I had no idea any of this was even POSSIBLE. When I think about the likelihood of any of this having gone my way I start to LEAK.
Sunday it felt like the END, and somehow, someway, Bubs sperm and my eggs decided to punch statistics right in the throat.
Please, pretty please, keep the prayers and candles and happy thoughts and goat sacrifices coming. I'm overwhelmed with gratitude that I'm getting them in the first place but holy crap if our collective magic can get them to Friday and beyond.
I can't believe I actually get hope. To be an anomaly within IVF... I mean, I have felt hope for mostly everyone but honestly I was starting to feel (and on Sunday, wholeheartedly feel) that hope was just not something worth having for me. I know the smart thing would be to not get my hopes up high, but holy shit me I GET SOME.. I mean, I'm going to be upset if things get wonky anyway, why not have optimism for as long as possible?
Sidenote: name ideas for embryos to accompany La Bamba:
*El Jefe
*Shenanigans
*Lil Asskicker
*The Space Cowboy
I love you people. Please keep tapdancing and sacrificing chickens and talking to the powers that be for us... I will GLADLY be that girl where when someone is feeling hopeless, they get pointed in my direction like "dude, look what happened over HERE. Crazy wonderful shit can happen even when it seems like all is lost".
Yesterday morning when the Doctor called and said "none", I immediately went dead inside. Just dead. Lights out in Storktown. Here we are at IVF, here we are at super snazzy challenging IVF, here we are still screwed. I know people have it worse, I do. There are some women who I marvel at on a DAILY basis all the shit they've gone through (you are probably reading this). But four years, ninety gajillion dollars, heartbreak and the exhausting attempt to keep my optimism later, and not an embryo (or really, a hope of future embryos) was too much. I went dead.
Every couple of hours I'd look at my phone, and there would be a new comment on my post from yesterday, a tweet, a picture of a candle lit for me (which slayed me), a text, a message on Facebook, and I would WEEP. I know weeping is normally considered bad, but it was the ONE release I had yesterday (better than Vicodin or a cigarette). I have never felt so embraced by the IF community and I've always felt pretty awesomely embraced. I am just so very, very, very thankful for you and for being allowed to be a weird little corner in this community. It's fucking awesome, humbling, comforting - a big comfy bosom at the ready.
I asked for prayers, happy thoughts, good vibes, candle lightings, a stern mental petition to science and nature, and I got them. The dead part of me didn't think it would do anything, but it made me feel better, and loved, and not alone.
Then some crazy shit happened, one after the other.
Last night I'm sitting on the couch with Bub trying to convince myself to sleep. I don't use my phone for music - at all, NEVER (I like my tiny Ipod). Also, a few weeks ago Bub finally convinced me to put one of those passcode thingamajigs on it to get into it in the first place. The phone is sitting several feet away from me and I haven't been on it in hours, and it starts playing music. At first I thought it was the TV with a really weird choice in song - then when we muted the TV, it was clearly coming from my phone. Took us a few minutes to figure out how to turn it off.
It was playing "I can tell that we are gonna be friends" by the White Stripes.
I don't have any songs on my phone - just ringtones. I DO, however, love that song. On my Ipod it's on my IVF playlist. Yeah, I have an IVF playlist. Just songs that make me happy, make me think of babymaking, make me optimistic. The White Stripes song is one of my favorites. Eons ago a spiritual/cooky family member of mine told me 'you're going to have twins one day'. The last couple of months when I tried to force my mind to be optimistic, I'd listen to that song and think "they're going to get embryos, they're going to stick in two". Again - rare attempts to be optimistic, here, and that song just makes me think of two friendly peas in a pod.
It was absurd - like, really? My technology has to go all haunted and wonky JUST to torture me? So once we figured out how to turn it off I went to bed. Done. D-O-N-E.
I barely slept, kept waking up crying or just angry. You know like when you had a bad break up in high school? You'd wake up in the middle of the night and for a hot second things would be fine, and then you'd remember life sucked and your stomach would drop through the floor. Like that. Mixed in with getting lovely messages, and saying out loud to the universe I KNOW my eggs are feistier than this. I was also beyond moved by the hope friends, family, IF people were showing me and was plotting exactly how I would kindly and non-dramatically say "thanks for trying, but..." in the morning.
8 AM Doctor calls - he asks me how I'm doing physically post egg retrieval (since they got twice as many this time, I'm super duper sore but that's the least of my problems). Two minutes in he says "Well, out of the six we talked about yesterday -" I literally brace myself wanting the zero to be over with - "two of them fertilized normally".
At this point I start screaming and crying. I say "SHUT UP! ARE YOU LYING?" at which point Bub hears me from the other room and comes sprinting in, and Luna the lovable moron begins circling and howling. (Thankfully my Doctor thinks I'm funny).
He's a Doctor so apparently he's not supposed to lie.
Yesterday, 11 out of my immediately mature eggs didn't fertilize. Not one. He told me the embryologist was going to try with the leftover 6 eggs that had matured since Saturday, but that the chances of even one fertilizing was less than 5%.
Fucking miracle. Miracle, miracle, miracle.
I have never - NEVER - cried from happiness before in my life. EVER. Seen it in the movies, didn't know it was an actual thing, and I WEPT. Wept.
Since they're a day behind, my uterine lining is going to be a little too fluffy for them right now. So they think the best chance is if they survive until Friday, they're going to freeze them, we'll get my lining all synced up with them and do a FET next month.
Stopped crying long enough to tell Bub what was going on who was enormously relieved. Immediately texted my Mom who had my entire family (all 90 million of them) lighting candles last night (she said miracle: part 1). Texted Mr. T who was rallying the troops last night and cried with me on the phone today (whose text response is priceless)
.
I am so happy.
I realize that that may seem ludicrous - I've seen women upset that they only got 8 embryos and I have 2. And my 2 are behind where they should be...
But holy shit! 2! 2 is SO MUCH better than 0! And those two had less than a 5% chance of existing in the first place! Yes they have to survive until Friday (please please please) and then to freeze/thaw, etc... but OMG, for the chance, just for the chance... And if we have to do this again (I'm hoping not) at least I can say "well, last time out of one batch there was a 33% fertilization rate" which is much more optimistic than 0. If I have to have a round 3, it'll be easier to go into it with some hope now.
I am so happy to have hurdles and hope. So happy.
... And this could be them. This could be them. This could be them, feisty and pissed off and demanding life. This could be those two I've dreamed about and was told I was going to have. This could be them. They could right now be deciding if they are going to have my bug eyes.. Last night they could have showed some of Bub's technical genius by somehow communicating via my phone (could they not send a text?). This could be them. This could be two little feisty ass kickers who insisted on getting here come hell or high water. They just have to stay feisty and strong - and I'm feisty and strong, so they have to have that in them, right?
I am overwhelmed with all the love I felt yesterday. Overwhelmed. Everyone was so unfuckingbelievably amazing. I'm so honored and humbled to have you in my life. (And though there's been countless awesome people, COUNTLESS who have gone above and beyond, a special shout out to my darling Fox who has been sending me silly videos and rallying troops on my behalf for two weeks. Honored to call her a friend).
Please keep thinking, praying, lighting candles, etc. I'm totally fucking humbled that so many people did this in the first place so it feels weird asking for even more (I want MORE free candy, damnit!) but my gawd, you all have some kind of magic.
And I would love - LOVE - to be that blog that people accidentally stumble across via google one day.. when they've been given terrible, awful 'it's never going to happen' news, and they want to find someone who's prospects were even bleaker and came out the other side. I will rock the SHIT out of being that girl - I have had enough with being the horror story that scares people. I was MADE to be the girl that can take someone by the shoulders and say 'oh no, honey, this is GOING to happen for you, I KNOW it will'.
If I do manage to come out the other side (please please this time would be great) I will be sensitive, and wonderful, and without complaint. I will write (as I do, anyway) mostly about unrelated shenanigans and light the whole fucking street on fire when you need someone to burn a candle. If I loved you times a million yesterday, I love you times a gajillion today.
I am just... okay this is rambly, but I am just so grateful for you. So grateful. And grateful for whatever the hell miracle happened in the last 24 hours that gave me at least a shot. A shot is a SHOT damnit.
I'll end this with my peas in a pod song... For you and for my two.
My darling embryos, please, please, please stick around and give me the chance to be your silly Mom who will inevitably be blasting that song into my uterus for the entire 40 weeks. (Sidenote - I have not named you in your embryo state yet, but I am thinking one of you will possibly and inexplicably be La Bamba. Just trying to think of another name that is also ass kicking).
Thank you for all the love - please keep praying and thinking happy thoughts and sacrificing goats and lighting candles and whatever else you got. I will be one happy, happy and appreciative Stork.
Stork and Bub are wildly compatible people, the only shocking difference is volume level. He is very introverted, and I am.... Not.
At last years IVF we discovered our eggs & sperm basically have the same dynamic.
I don't really ovulate, but with good drugs my eggs come out ginormous. Bub's sperm have no problem getting to the egg, but get overwhelmed and decide not to tell the egg it's there in the first place.
So to recap, my eggs come out all sassy, shimmying and jazzhanding their way through our Petrie Dish in a parade of glitter and feathers. Bub's supermodel sperm gets invited to the party, but upon arrival decides eggs are weird. Decides that eggs are too horrifying to even alert of his arrival, freezes, and then lays still and quiet so the egg won't even know he's there.
Still don't get it? Okay here's a reenactment of what happened, with the role of my eccentric egg being played by Dave Chappelle as Prince, and the role of sperm being played by cats.
You're welcome.
So here we are, 15 months later, and in 13 hours I'm gonna be sedated and have my eggs retrieved.
I'm super excited about that part, seeing as how it's the one day where the IVF drugs are going to be FUN.
Useless IVF (or any fertility treatment involving injections) tip: DO NOT READ THE HELPFUL INSERT FOR ANY INJECTABLE.
No seriously, don't even glance at it. If your eye so much as passes over it in a half ass manner, horrible words will pop out. Just horrible, horrible ne'er to be explained properly words about what the fuck is in that shit to begin with. Two second glance over and this is what it looks like:
Again, you're welcome. And screw you my handwriting is wonderful enjoy the free art. I'm explaining some very scientific shit left, right and center today.
I shit you not, Bub informed me that the trigger I shot up last night contained something called CHO - as in Chinese Hamster Ovary. You just let that sink in.
So tomorrow is the egg retrieval. They're going to add the secret spice to make Marc's cats talk to my Prince, hopefully, and then we will know how many fertilized on Sunday. Considering last time it was 1 out of 10, I'm very nervous about Sunday more so than anything.
We have to leave here at 5:30 in the morning tomorrow (weeee!) so the plan for tonight is to bulk up on Fajitas (that's protein, right?) and watch "The End".
By sheer convenient coincidence, this movie does contain one scene which is relevant to the House of Stork climate. I give you, Jonah Hill's interpretation of any given infertile woman once she starts progesterone suppositories, as I will be doing soon:
I am feeling lucky (I get to do IVF when I need it, after all). I am feeling unlucky (I need IVF, after all). I am feeling nervous, I am feeling excited, I am feeling the need for fajitas.
If I have ever made you laugh or think or pause or smirk or you have any warm and fuzzies towards me whatsoever, please think a happy thought for me during the next couple of days. Pretty pretty please.
I am currently sitting on my couch in booty shorts, my husbands knee socks and a t-shirt with a picture of Grumpy Dwarf that says "All Grumpy, All the Time". The Justin Timberlake prophecy is true, friends, I am single-handedly bringing sexy back.
Thought I would take a break from turning everyone in Los Angeles on to pop on here and talk about the world of online infertility as it seems to be sort of a shit storm recently. I'm apparently on some kindness kick - last time it was about being nice to yourself now let's talk about each other.
I've said it on here before, but my favorite book of all time is probably "Like Water For Chocolate". It's simple, it's an easy-read, it's folklore, it's a cookbook, it's fairy tale, it's romantic, it's funny, its heartbreaking, it's everything I want in a damn book. Whenever I read it I feel like Fred Savage in The Neverending Story. Gimme gimme this shit is crazy.
Anyhoo - at one point some farm chickens are fed some food that was made when someone was righteously angry. Lovely little community of chicken friends are handed a little bit of anger-laced-food, they ingest it, and then everything gets all Quentin-Tarantinoey/Lord of the Flies/Lux Aeterna real fast. They're pecking each others eyes out, munching down chicken feet, ripping out each others feathers and wearing them as fashionable victory beards - it is CRAY CRAY time in chicken town. They turn their energy on each other in such an epic way that they force themselves into a literal tornado of evil chickens, blow themselves away from their real purpose (which was to lead happy chicken lives, I assume) and out of the whole damn book. No more chickens.
My point is - at best, Twitter, Facebook, Blogs, forums, all the shit that we use in the infertile online community is amazing. At best it's a place to meet other women like ourselves, keep invested in each others stories (because gawd knows we're probably boring the less understanding people in our real lives to tears), we help each other, we keep informed... I can get on Twitter at any time and say something along the lines of "Dear Facebook, I don't give a shit about what anyone's baby had for lunch" and I will undoubtedly be embraced by the warm, ample, hormone-riddled cyber-bosom of many women who agree with me. Which, and I can't stress this enough, is awesome.
At worst, when we're hopped up on a little bit of anger we turn on each other like a goddamn psychotic chicken tornado hellbent on our own destruction which is a pretty big 'at worst'.
Let me state for the record here, I'm not saying any of this in response to anything specific. Much to my horror, there is no specific. If there was a specific, I would be animatedly retelling it to my doubtlessly eye-rolling husband and not looking up pictures of angry birds. Most unfortunately there are countless examples so I can't even narrow down a specific.
I've been in blogland for over a year, and occasionally the blow ups happen. I've been in forums off an on for years, occasionally the blow up happens. I've been on Twitter for 3 months, and though it is overall lovely (never will I again go a day without talking to another infertile) holy shit me it happens every other week. Most of the time when there's a whiff of negativity, I spend 2 seconds investigating, get lost, get distracted by a butterfly or shiny object.
Sometimes when I notice them, I think 'oh I get where they're both coming from, they're both living out a nightmare, afterall'. Sometimes for me, it's a clear case of 'wooaaaah girl, you are being CRIZAY'. I stick to making ludicrously unhelpful comments and the occasional fertile-bitch.
This is not to count myself out of it or claim innocence. If someone went way over the line I'm not going to delude myself in thinking I wouldn't go to bat. I'm a peaceful, mellow person who tries to stay out of things, because I'm naturally goofy - and I also know my tongue can be the equivalent of a nuclear bomb. No one should yank me out of the arsenal unless all is lost and we've resigned ourselves to death-by-chicken-tornado.
But yeah, I'm infertile. No matter how good I am at shoveling all my emotions into a ball in the pit of my stomach and throwing jokes on top of it, there's some part of me whether I feel it or not that is probably pissed everyday. I'm wrestling the crazy pissed stork into a nice little mental closet, but if someone jiggled the handle the right way out would come Storknado.
Some of us are way better about keeping in check than others, but all of us - given that we're all living out some version of a psychological cunt punt nightmare - are capable of being nasty if pushed in the right way.
We have all this great technology that we've been blessed with to bring us together in the first place. On an off day, however, that technology can be used as a rocket launcher and hurl everyone into a lady-on-lady bitch spiral of doom.
I know I've talked about this before and I will undoubtedly talk about it again, but just a few thoughts I had on how we can keep ourselves from turning on each other and destroying an otherwise peaceful infertile farm.
Be super duper nice to the lady that's in the middle of treatment. It's a shitty situation to begin with as you well know, and she's now orbiting in outerspace between two planets called "all your dreams come true" and "haha just kidding you're fucked". Being grounded is a card girlfriend desperately wants but wasn't dealt. That alone is going to make her more sensitive - plus she's hopped up on hormones. What. Are You. Doing.
If an infertile gets pregnant - yes every pregnancy is a sock in the gut, however, I think we should remind ourselves that at least it's one on the scoreboard for our team, and she's not taking a pregnancy away from us. (Yes, I know, close to impossible, but we can try). Yes she's achieved pregnancy, but she still doesn't belong at the fertile table so let's try not to hurl her away from ours so she's not forced against her will to sit at the not-belonging-anywhere table those people are freaks. You don't take an artsy-drama nerd and force them to sit with the band-nerds it's uncomfortable and frankly blasphemous. Let's try to keep in mind that this was always the goal here. We supported her, we wanted this for her, she's one of us.
If you are an infertile who gets pregnant - for gawds sake don't become a born again fertile. Yours are the only pregnancies we can handle hearing about, and the only ones we can muster up happiness for. Yes you're still a member of our club, and we're happy that it worked for you (because you deserve it). That being said - keep in mind your pregnancy does not magically transform us all into totally unscarred fertiles who are going to want to endlessly debate nursery color choices. I am trying to keep my happiness for you as upbeat as I can - please try to remember what it feels like. I would love to be happier for you and more involved than I am. It pisses you off that I'm not? Me too. There is absolutely no way under the sun that my inability to feel giddy about a pregnancy makes you feel worse or more guilty than it does me. If your very best friend was recently widowed, yes absolutely you should still expect her to support you in your wedding/marriage but prrrrobably not deduct points for lack of enthusiasm.
I've said this before, but we've all booked passage on the Titanic thinking it was going to be a lovely vacay and that shit sunk. If you're still in the water waiting for a lifeboat, trying to poke holes in the boats of people floating by is not really going to do anything (though I understand the impulse). And if you're in a lifeboat, for gawdssake try not to complain too much about how chilly it is to people still in the water (though I understand the impulse). To sum up - we should all keep in mind how fucking awful it is to make someone feel bad about their luck and/or something they can't control.
Unfollow. Do it. Life's too short. While I have to say overall our community has an extremely, extremely (shockingly!) high rate of lovely, there are people on this planet who were mean and/or batshit to begin with.
If at all possible (and I'm allowing room for everyone to be out of control every once in awhile, we're human) ask yourself before engaging in something - is this really going to be worth my time? If someone is a friend of yours that you really care about, then yeah - have the argument. Bleed out the toxins. If it's not... let it go. Let them go. Every time I write a post where I talk about my unshakable support of gay rights, I lose a follower. For a second, I feel bad. Then I remember that person has left me to go continue their life of being a miserable person. God speed.
Let's try not to categorize ourselves. Which is close to impossible, I know.
The fact is, if pregnancies and babies were handed out based on who had put in the most time and effort, more than likely all of our families would look different. Some of us with 0 kids would have 20 and some of us with 3 would have 1. Who gets to return home after this war isn't organized by battle scars.
Some girls are going to get pregnant their first round of Clomid, some are going to end up like me and be a problem within IVF. My easily knocked-up half-sister with 0.0 dollars and a life out of Maury Povich is 8 months pregnant, still smoking pot, and posting about it on Facebook. (I think we can all agree here that Mark Zuckerberg is a sadistic dominatrix who whips us all daily). The one thing we can probably all, infinitely and forever, agree upon is that pregnancies and babies don't happen based on readiness, motherliness or general awesomeness. If they were, we'd all have babies by now.
Apart from when someone asks, don't say anything along the lines of 'if I were you' to someone on the front lines. Are you shitting me?
If you say something not-so-pleasant to someone, and they call you out on it... Assess it, man up & own it, justify or apologize.
If someone seems to be going off the rails and having a day and a half, let's be kind and try to disarm - because we've all been there, and if at all possible we don't want them to be a henpecking catalyst.
If someone has gone way over the line, and it's not in a misunderstanding way but a malicious one, then by all means, let them know. But be clever and firm - if they can write you off as 'crazy' then they're even less likely to get your point.
Yes I realize this is over simplifying, and I realize I don't even do these all the time. But if we could just.... try to keep them in mind. That way when there's a tornado of chicken feathers or an animal attack, it's at the very least necessary. Then I'll take my earrings out, rip my weave off and verbally beat someone over the head with it.
(And speaking of psychotic animals, is it me or is the trailer for "You're Next" not so much a trailer for a horror movie as it is just a very vivid and realistic portrayal of what it's like to live with a cat?)
You people are my safe haven. Let's just be kind to each other how we can, when we can, shall we?
Senor Bub got a big promotion last week with a title so fancy that it cements my suspicions that he works in an ivory tower whilst stroking a hairless cat. I'm super proud of that freakishly smart cray-cray.
I am writing to you from my sweaty backyard. After a summer of disasters I am finally feeling like I'm getting less behind (only 20 more things to write! This week...). I was feeling like I was drowning in the swimming portion of a triathlon, and now I can sort of start to see the surface so I can bust through that shit and get to the really tedious running part. Busy (but good) day and now I am simultaneously trying to keep my psychotic dogs in line in a yard they have dug holes in the size of bunkers, and marveling at how the first few days I use a new mascara I always end up looking like lamb chop. Short of showing them the hose (which seems mean seeing as they hate the hose) I don't know how to keep these damn dogs from digging.
To sum up the last paragraph with the holes and the mascara and the dogs it's all very Silence-of-the-Lambs up in here.
(Sidenote - does anyone else think "IT PUTS THE LOTION IN THE BASKET" anytime they go through airport security and make themselves giggle? No? Just me? K.)
Speaking of lotion, Mr. T (gay husband) and I went to the mall this morning to spend an unseemly amount of money on their fall scents.
We both, equally, hate summer (are we in the right state, or what?). And if I didn't before, I certainly do now. My summer has consisted of me basically being the fat kid that gets dropped off at camp in June, and on his first day gets stung by bees, stricken with poison ivy, nearly drowns after falling off a canoe, impales his eyeball whilst trying to make Popsicle stick art and thus spends the rest of his summer praying someone will save him. (Hello Mudda Hello Fadduh and all that).
I'm ready for my house to wreak of pumpkins and apples. I'm ready for it to be socially acceptable to blast "Thriller" in my car as much as I already do. I'm ready to rip off the damn Bandaid and get to the part where I'm actually doing IVF #2, the super sci-fi edition.
Here's the thing, sugar lumps - just between us girls. I am a tough, tough lady. And even though I'm chubby and bug-eyed and I can't even handle keeping my dogs from pre-digging graves for the happy bunny families they kill, I'm good at making things funny. That's the one thing Gawd or the universe said 'okay we'll give you a little extra dose of that'.
Most of the time, I emotionally approach infertility as I would an exaggerated, horror-movie size version of having an inappropriate fire-ant-like crotch itch when you're out in public. An absolute terror of an inconvenience, but give me a couple of seconds of no one looking and damnit I have the determination to squash that shit. I am good at making it silly and manning the fuck up.
Yesterday, Mr. T came over to do a welfare check and I had spent the day writing, talking to women going through infertility and answering a couple of you-got-to-be-shitting-me 'why don't you have kids?' type questions with jokes (my standard answer being 'because I want freetime and money'). And I was, as always, feeling fine and goofy and numb. But five minutes after being here, Mr. T said "you're not fine, are you?"
And I'll be damned if hearing someone I care about ask me that question didn't make my eyes.. moisten. Not full on cry, mind you, because I'm a dead robot at this point, but the way the question was worded disarmed me for long enough for me to... feel. There were a few seconds there where I felt it before the goofy, overly-strong 'scratch that shit' side of myself inevitably took over.
Nope, I'm probably not fine. Actually - I don't know if I've been 'fine' in four years.
I may not let myself feel it (I may not even know how to and survive at this point) but that doesn't mean my brain isn't somewhere, secretly, absorbing every little bit of pain and wrestling those monsters into a dark closet so that I can continue to feel, on some level, Alive.
In a couple of months I'm going to figure out exactly where the line between determination and desperation is, and that makes me nervous.
I'm choosing to go at this determined. I will man the fuck up because I'm Stupid Fucking Stork and I was born ready for whatever shit is thrown at me. I have to remind myself that any time any person does any brave thing, they are afraid of doing it but they do it anyways. I'm telling myself you end up with what you put up with and no matter what, I am not putting up with being an unhappy person.
But I am afraid. I am afraid, I am afraid, I am afraid - and for one second because of the particular phrasing of a question out of a particular mouth, I felt it. All at once.
Today, much to my surprise, instead of feeling jarred I feel pretty damn good. It took me a minute to realize why, and then I had a mini-revelation. I feel good because as a result of that interaction, today I was kind to myself.
Which brings me to my point - we could all stand to be a lot fucking kinder to ourselves. It is, and I say this as someone who has numbed herself as best as any human being could and who is pretty good at genuinely cackling about all this, almost impossible not to end up with some level of self-hatred as a result of infertility.
My body is a failure. If only I were thinner/taller/sluttier in High School, this would have been easier for me. Maybe what they say is right - maybe some people can't have kids because they're undeserving. Maybe if I hadn't smoked cigarettes, pot, drank so much in college. I shouldn't make light of this, I shouldn't let myself get depressed, I shouldn't be so spiteful of women getting pregnant... It's my fault, it's my fault,it's my fucking fault.
Whether you're like me and your body has shut down any ability to let you feel that or you feel it every second of every day in a crippling way, on some level that's the shit that we're really dealing with. More than bum ovaries, more than uteri that grow their fluff incorrectly, more than our bodies spontaneously getting rid of things our hearts so desperately want.
My jokes are my own response to the asshole in the back of my mind that's consistently mean to me. So you know what? Yeah. As Carrie-Fucking-Barf-Bradshaw as it sounds, a few hours this morning of buying things I absolutely don't need and eating greasy Chinese food without making myself feel guilty about it felt good. As far as infertility-treatment is concerned, Dr. Stork is highly recommending grabbing your gay husband and having a shopping seizure (or some form of self-treat) of mammoth, epic, unfathomable proportions.
(If you're not watching Parks & Rec I can't imagine what you're doing with your life).
So to you, yes YOU, may I just for a moment here be your best friend and word things in a way that you may need to hear.
Dear You,
None of this is your fault.
If today you woke up and felt shitty about it - you are allowed to. Feel shitty for as long as you need to, soak in it until your fingers get all pruney.
If today you woke up and feel compelled to feel goofy about it, make jokes, or not deal with it at all - you are allowed to. Make fun of that shit - anything that involves flashing your beaver as much as we do is on some level hilarious.
You don't have to be fine and you don't have to be miserable. Whatever you are right now is exactly how you should be and you're going to rock the shit out of it until you're ready to feel something else.
If that woman that your friends with is having a baby shower, and you don't think you can go? Not only do you not have to, but you don't have to feel guilty about it. Like, at all. I am officially telling you that feeling guilty about not going to a party because you're too busy trying to dance in hell is not a problem that you have to deal with. One teeny tiny bit of her happiness (on an atomic level) being taken away because you're not there does not undo or negate the kind of pain (on an atomic bomb level) that you're going through.
You want to be mad at Gawd? Do it. If He/She is all-knowing and made all of us, I'm pretty sure no matter how angry you are They can handle it. No one is going to smite you for having dark thoughts just like no one seems to be rewarding you for the times you had peachy thoughts. If there's a Gawd to be angry at, They're the ones who gave you this hurdle to deal with knowing exactly how you'd deal with it.
Whatever He, She or It that doesn't understand how you feel - if they don't get it, they don't need to. It sucks that they can't - it sucks - but it's not your job to make them understand loss or heartache on the level that you're dealing with. It's like trying to explain astrophysics to an infant.
And that He, She or It that really, really doesn't understand how you feel? Fuck em'. They're idiots and they always have been. I've always thought so I just didn't want to say anything until now.
If you're feeling like you're somehow sexually inadequate? Please. You are a woman who has sex for funand doesn't get pregnant. You are a porn goddess in the eyes of 90% of the male population.
Get that fucking pedicure you've been putting off. You don't get to have kids yet? Guess what. You get Pedicures.
If you're on some crazy diet and cheated? Fuck me I bet that ice cream was delicious. Totally worth it.
No matter what the evil creatures in your mind are saying right now, You. Are meant. To be. A mother. I have not virtually-met anyone in infertileworld who is not maternal as fuck. You are a Mom, you just don't have a kid yet.
None of this is your fault.
None of this is your fault.
None of this (not one fucking iota of it) is your fault.
However you are dealing with it, you are rocking the shit out of it. Or my name isn't Stupid Fucking Stork.
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