Testing....Testing

Greetings, ladies o the interwebs!

Okay, here's the thing.  I have been in a bit of a skunky funk as of late, hence the radio silence.   I have decided to swim in it until my fingers get all pruney because I find that if you force yourself to ignore a wee bit o depression it tends to hang out a little longer and beg with increasing patheticness for your attention (it has a low self esteem, after all, that depression).  Sort of like if you're driving in snow and your car decides to skid - you're supposed to just take your hands off the steering wheel and let it slide because if you went with your intuition and fought it too hard you're much more likely to end up mangled.  So there we have it.  I'm sure it will get bored with me soon and move on to some other lady who will play hard to get.

I also did something tragically old lady to my right knee, so this week I've been additionally holed up in a knee brace.  No idea what I did, I have bad knees to begin with so I'm used to just having a few off days with them, but one of them has decided to go above and beyond as of late so I ended up in urgent care on Monday.  Nothing broken in the xrays, had to get an MRI last night.

It is official, apart from having my anonymous torso and/or fanny used as background in one of those local news stories on America's problem with obesity, waiting rooms are at the top of my ridiculous-nightmare list.

I had an appointment at 5:45, they called at 5 to let me know they were running a half hour behind, could I show up at 6 for a 6:15 appointment.  Fine.

I drive my gimp self there, pull into a huge medical center with a pay ticket.  It is abandoned - no one is there, google maps has betrayed me.  It looks like every dark parking lot in every lifetime movie involving rape, and I am literally quivering as I get out of the car to verify this is the wrong building.  Thank the heavens it doesn't make me pay to get out, so I pull into the next large medical building (google maps should just be a little off, after all).  Again, a paid parking lot and now I am mysteriously at a ghetto fabulous hospital diving off the side of the road to get away from ambulances.  I call the place where I have an appointment, they basically say 'oh no, silly, we are located in a tiny shack behind the CVS across the street where people go to fill their prescriptions for bloodlust and murder'.

I charm the lady manning this pay booth into letting me out, finally arrive at the right shack.

The place wreaks of cat litter boxes long abandoned and the cheapest dollar-store cleaning solutions.  I spend my evening trying not to itch.  The woman informs me that my appointment will start 30-40 minutes from now.

There is one woman in the waiting room aside from me, and she is either sleeping or dead.  This is never a good sign, and I spent my hour in the waiting room occasionally checking to see if she's breathing because I don't want to be that blurred out asshole on the news in the waiting room with some seriously ill person who has died without the medical personnel realizing it.

Meanwhile, the medical personnel is eating their dinner and discussing cats (could this be where the litter box smell is coming from?)  One sad woman spends 15 minutes going through the many pictures on her phone, and explaining the many subtle layers to the psychology of each of her kitties.  They are the loudest chewers on the planet - the only sound apart from meowing-in-my-head is chewing, like an angry army of vaginas marching through mud.

I am literally in the middle of the ghetto, waiting for some guy to take me behind a paisley curtain and ask me to disrobe.  I realize I may not be in a medical office at all but rather some dude's basement.

15 minutes before my appointment the chewing stops and cat lady decides to put on the tv, on a marathon of two and a half men.  It occurs to me maybe I'm not in some dude's basement but I'm in fact in hell.

They finally do my loud ass MRI, and the one poor bastard actually working there is the one poor bastard operating the one poor MRI machine.  Note:  You cannot call yourself an imaging center, you are more of an image center.

Today is the day I'm to get back up on my diet horse and get this TTC thing back on track, as my depression and I have gained approximately 4,000 lbs.  Suffice it to say this has not put me in the mood for it.

In better news, Bubba failed his super-duper fancy shmancy sperm test in Massachusetts. I am seriously delighted by this.

As a recap, we've been trying 3 years, had our first IVF in June with poor fertilization (and yes we had ICSI) - 1 out of 10 fertilized, ended in a chemical pregnancy.  Could've been a fluke, sure.

Dr. Kickass was dumbfounded and took it personally.  He had another Doctor test for DNA fragmentation, gratis, and we passed.  He happened to be aware of a study - a study - going on in Mass.  I repeat, not common knowledge or a common practice, a fucking study.  Basically, some men are missing a protein in their sperm that tells the egg that it's there and to start doing it's thing. Their sperm samples will look amazing (Bub's looks like he could impregnate a village), and you would be classified as 'unexplained' because everybody looks fancy.  Unless of course, you get all the way to IVF and have some fishy fertilization issues, and your Doc is aware of this study.

So Dr. Kickass pulled some strings, and got Bub into the study.  So Christmas day Bub flew up to Mass from where we were visiting in DC, made a cup his bitch on the morning of the 26th, drove back to MD in the snow. We were told it would be 3 weeks to get the results.

So yesterday Dr. K called, and said that they had the results - Bub is missing the protein.  So when we do IVF again (April?  May?  Girlfriend's gotta get her shit together) we will have fancy shmancy IVF where they not only do ICSI, but put the protein into the dishes themselves to get the party started.

I am tickled by this news... Reason being, at least there's an explanation for what's going on. And it is somewhat liberating way down the line here to know 'oh you were never going to get pregnant with Clomid, or IUI, or your first IVF.. you were always going to end up here.  And you're lucky because your Doctor knew to test for this thing that most people aren't even aware of".

So I'm stoked.  We'll have a summit on where the hell we go from here, but we have someplace to go, is my point.

Bub asked when he was in Mass how many people have this protein deficiency and they said, basically that they had no idea - it could be a lot a lot a lot.

So I am super excited and grateful... On the other hand, how many women who have gotten A++'s on all their tests and their husbands tests, have this problem and will never know or get tested for it? Because you would literally never know that this was going on unless you got to IVF and had poor fertilization, and then your Doctor could just be dumbfounded as opposed to suggesting testing for this.  I mean, this is at best a tiny chunk and at worst a huge chunk of the explanation for the 'unexplained infertility'.

So anyhoo - putting this out into the ether so if someone has 'poor fertilization' they can look this up and shoot me a message so we can chitter chatter.

Never been so happy to flunk a test.

Batfish

Happy Monday, my darlings!

Americans, I am hoping that your Thanksgivings were scrumdittilyumptious, or at the very least you were drunk enough to stand on a table and say "fuck all ya'll!" without fearing consequences.

Mine was lovely and child free.  It was at my Mom's house this year (we throw it sometimes, too) just my Mom, my sister, me, Bub, my Grandparents, and my lovely friend Kali.  So I ate my face off, and my biggest problem for a day was trying to transport both dogs in one car and there was too much celery in my otherwise favorite stuffing (celery is for rabbits! Rabbits I say!).  

Sidenote - I made Kali watch this new show on MTV called "Catfish".  SET YOUR FREAKING DVRS.  No no... check on demand and watch the first episode.

I am usually against MTV programming, however a couple of years ago there was this documentary that I loved called "Catfish".  A man stumbles into an online relationship with a woman, and falls in love with her.  Then he does research on who she is, and she's not exactly who she says she is.  So now they're doing a TV show spin-off, wherein each episode they take a person who's in an online relationship, and help them hunt down/finally meet the person that they're involved with.  As I met Bub partially online, let's just say I am very lucky that he was neither 100 years old or a 10 year old lesbian.  It is my new guilty pleasure.

And on the subject of new pleasures, though Towanda the Honda is still dead in my driveway, Saturday we  purchased a new car to share.

Folks, I have driven this car for only two days and have discovered that I am, indeed, Batman.  (Bub can be Robin or Batgirl - these are his choices).

In uterine news - it looks like Bub's super snazzy sperm test is going to work out.  It's an experimental test they only do in Massachusetts (reminder - for IVF we had poor fertilization with seemingly no explanation ::jazz hands::) and it's looking like he may be able to coordinate it while we're on the east coast visiting his family.

This is of course awesome news - annnnnnd reminds me that IVF will happen again in the near future either way, so I have to stop living like an aged rockstar.  Mainly knocking it off with my smoking and guzzling pepsi like the first person to make it to Diabetes wins. (In my defense, Batman is supposed to have a very husky voice, and if we were racing to diabetes I would win because my car go vroom vroom).

Satan's School for Girls

Me no likey the Mondays.

Today, in America, it is apparently Columbus day.  What a bullshit holiday.  Columbus discovered America much in the same way that me going to my local grocery store, demanding all their produce and profits in exchange for giving them all syphilis would be me discovering Ralphs.

Much more important today is my darling, wonderful Grandpa's birthday, who is about as old as Columbus. Bub and I will be traveling this weekend yet again to the often frightening O.C. to make steak and shovel it into his ancient body.  I love my Grandparents.  My Grandma calls my grandpa 'viejo' (which means old man) and they have been married for 68 (I think) years.  They are hilarious.

In fertility news, we had our appointment Friday... A brief summary of my woes, because it's hard to keep everyone's utes organized in our minds - IVF in June, mysteriously poor fertilization (1 out of 12 fertilized) chemical pregnancy.

So Dr. Kickass pulled some strings and got another Doc elsewhere to give Bub's sperm a fancy-shmancy test for free (for freeeee!) so that turned out fine.  Now onto the super duper fancy shmancy experimental test which they do in Massachusetts.  (I won't bore you with what all it means today - if you're interested, google calcium ionophore). At any rate, the test is so fancy shmancy that they can't even prepare a sample here and ship it out, so we're now trying to organize flying Bub out there.

(As I said before, I would've liked to have thought that Bub's sperm would've traveled by air or by tiny canoe, but alas, they need the whole Bub).

So IVF coordinator nurse lady told me to take a pregnancy test yesterday 'just in case' (obviously her stand-up comedy routine needs work) and if it was negative (if!  hilarious) to start some provera today because I haven't had my period since August.  ::le sigh::

Dr. Kickass did say that 50% of couples who have inexplicably poor fertilization one time, come back the next and they're fine.  So regardless of how fancy shmancy test goes, we're looking at January or February.

Which will give me sometime to get rid of some bad habits I have re-acquired as part of my ill-advised  'do anything short of heroin to deal with this with a smile' program I've been on since June.  (Which has involved gaining 7 lbs, getting back together with regular Pepsi, and shame of all shame, smoking the occasional cigarette... whatever, mine are full of vitamins and minerals).

Writing prompts:

If you could have any job in the whole wide world regardless of your qualifications, what would you choose and why?
Hmm.. I dunno... Working admissions at Satan's school for girls?

Me thinks I would do pretty much a combo of what I'm attempting to do now.. Writing screenplays (but you know, a reality wherin I make wild amounts of money and am constantly inspired).  Comedy of some kind.  And more acting.  I looooove acting, I do. I've been an all around thespian-nerd pretty much since birth.  This would of course require me to be about 90 lbs and much more comfortable in front of the camera, but there you have it.

If you could sleep with any celebrity who would it be?
Ladies, you know I have strong opinions about this.

River Phoenix is my forever love, the perfect specimen of man-beauty.

Bill Murray, because if he were to read from the dictionary he would do it in a way that would make me tinkle myself with glee.

And - because I can't believe I forgot to mention him before - Timothy Olyphant.  Now there's a face that could get a girl into trouble - he is definitely on my top 5 (even though I forgot him previously).  Pretty sure my husband hates him because I can go on about the Olyphant (particularly a-la crazy drug dealer from Go) which is ironic because he sort of looks like him.

And now, for Manly-Monday, a non-sperm Bubba Fact.

Someone somewhere in L.A. has finally made a deal with the devil because finally, finally we are on the cusp of some fall-esque weather.  So Bub & I are now at the point where we're still sleeping with just sheets at night, and approaching being cold - but unable to commit to pulling the official blanket out of the linen closet for fear that the moment we do the weather will go back to the hellfire it's been for the last several months.

So last night I brought one of our small throw blankets to bed.  In the middle of the night, I wake up with teeth chattering, no blanket nor furry dog to comfort me, and am convinced the furry man next to me is enjoying the blanket solo.  So I half-asleep reach over and start trying to find a bit of the blanket with my hand, in Bub's lap region.

As I'm trying to find it, Bub, in his sleep feels my hand searching around his lap and yells out a loud "NUH-UH!"

I am absolutely shocked that my laughing - which I could not control for a good 3 minutes - did not wake him up.

Apparently, still-sleeping subconscious Bubba thinks that I am some sort of horndog housewife who at 3 AM turns into an insatiable middle-of-the-night lap rapist.

Settle down dude.. Just wanted a blanket.

Plumbing.

Happy Thursday, my little internet geishas!

Despite accepting that there are idiots on this planet that believe body parts are conscious and sentient (ahhh yes... I remember that one time my kidney sat me down for a hot bit of cocoa, and asked me how I felt about her creating a stone, seeing as she was unsure how much I enjoyed all the caffeine I guzzled) I am still having one helluva period.

I have been in a hormone induced funk.  So I've been playing Mario bros.

Anyone else find that whole storyline strangely pornographic?  What are these plumbers doing involved with a princess?  Is she a bored housewife?  While the prince is away is she inventing plumbing problems to get a wee bit of attention?  How many people are aware that she is knee-deep in blue collar Italian workers, not to mention dungeon culture? I don't even want to think about how giant lizards come into play.

It's all very S&M.

Senor Bubba's sperm analysis is on Monday.  He had one, oh, I want to say a year ago. Twas fine.

I made him take pictures of the inside of the room.

In a very-fancy-I-assure-you clinic, the spooj room was just one sad couch that looked like it hadn't been replaced since the mid 1970s (who says you can't pull off a neon print?), a shotty tv and a stack-o-porn.

I don't know why I was expecting something super fancy and secret and a kinky-deserving-of-Mario... I'm fairly certain if you put a man in a hazmat suit, gave him a TV that only broadcast the Teletubbies and invited the local senior citizen center to watch him, he'd still figure out a way to get off.

Which begs the question... What would the lady version of that room look like?

Honestly, our plumbing tests are just no fun.  Tis a cruel world wherein infertility testing for a man involves an orgasm, and for us it involves multiple versions of  everyone's favorite game "how many things can we shove up there?  Could you shoplift a watermelon?"

I'm thinking candles, I'm thinking flowers, I'm thinking wine.

I'm thinking they'd have to hire some man to sit you down and compassionately nod whilst you tell him about your childhood, while he simultaneously greased his own abs.

Everything would be upholstered in Ryan Gosling.  Pictures of him, his flesh, his dirty tissues, whatever.

There would be speakers telling you repeatedly that you are stunning, that men prefer a little junk in the trunk, and that there is nothing sexier than a woman in sweatpants & a tank top with holes in it, eating her weight in chocolate and yelling about senators.

So you there - you there in the funk.  Yes, I'm talking to you.  Don't question me, damnit - either I read your blog or I have sensed you psychically in the ether.


Dear You,

Tis a shitty shitty thing that we are both members of the terrible club that knocks you down repeatedly before you can get knocked up.  (It's very chumbawamba of us).

You're just going to have to conjure up all the best bits of all the women that you used to be, because it's going to take all of them to stay afloat.

You are an amazing, kick ass woman - and you know I don't like people on the whole, so my vote counts twice.  I have never met/read a huge idiot who had a genuine problem with getting pregnant - but how many idiots do we know that got pregnant easily?

When it happens - and it will - you'll be putting one up on the scoreboard of awesome people in a time when we're losing dramatically to awful people.  Because you've been a Mother to that kid looooong before it was conceived, and love is never something you're going to have to work for.

When you're angry/frustrated/just done with your uterus, and you're thinking that you are disappointing everyone - yourself, your husband/boyfriend/girlfriend/plumber, your pain in the ass mother-in-law - and are thinking you may not end up with a child at all, know this:  should you never procreate, all those people (including myself) will have considered themselves lucky to have known a kick-ass, fascinating and vibrant warrior woman that makes up for those boring assholes down the street with 10 children.

Now send me your secrets, asshats.

Love,
Stork

Much like the Terminator

Hola, señoras!

Sadly, Bubella left this morning.

I adore that girl.

If I was a Kangaroo, I would carry her around in my pouch.  If I had a magic wand, I would shrink her to fit on a keychain and take her out whenever I wanted amusement. I love her so much I could rip off her head, use it as a stress ball and her ears a calming chew toy.

She has left an angsty teen shaped hole in my heart.

However, while I was in super fun tourist mode, I missed you so much I had what I imagine your face to look like burned into my flesh - which isn't pretty because I can only draw stick figures.  I hope you don't mind.

I shall catch you up before I return to meatier topics.


Things you missed:

1.  Since we last spoke, Bubella and I went to -

• Disneyland - in 100 degree heat and animatronic heaven, I got to simultaneously have fun and verify that yes indeed, kids do suck.
• San Diego - margaritas, seafood, shopping.  An overnight stop en route to Bubella's first Donkey show (justkiddingsettledown).
• Cinespia.  There's this crazy thing in Hollywood where every Saturday during the summer, they play a movie in Hollywood Forever Cemetery, projected on a mausoleum.  Giant clouds of pot smoke, everyone has a picnic, there's a DJ before..  We engaged in losing our terminator virginities - that's right, out of my group of 4, only one had seen it before.
• Oh, and on her last day, for those of you who will recognize what this is, I took her here - 

WHAT?!  YES.  Bow in the shadow of my awesomeness.


2.  Bubella broke up with her first love - her boyfriend of a year and a half.  (Let's all take a moment to conjure up what breaking up with our first love felt like... I'll wait here while you vomit).

The kid's a little shit.  Definitively.  Not in the 'oh he's just being a teenage boy' way, but also not in the 'oh dear G-d tell her parents or hire a hitman' way.  Whilst we were in San Diego, his shittiness reached a pinnacle and she basically very calmly & maturely said to him "hey can you not be a dickface?" and he said "no ma'am, I cannot".

Not my little sister, asswipe, you must have her confused with someone who doesn't have a sister-in-law who will put dirty tampons in your backpack. I would fly to where you are and chase you in a less dangerous version of Schwarzenegger style - armed with a foam pugil stick and a menacing Austrian accent.  YOU ARE MY LINDA HAMILTON.

She was upset, for sure, but she's a cool customer just like her brother, that Bubella.  For the last week I've been going back and forth between genuine advice and my personal forte, merciless mocking.  For example, he has a wonky eye which she hadn't noticed until I pointed it out ::pats self on back::.  Love is indeed blind, probably from being cross-eyed for so long.

3.  I read a book that I loved so much when I finished it, I went back and read it again.

Easy read (you'll kill it in a day or two), so good particularly if you were a little weird in high school (if you're a reader of my blog and not purely to hate-stalk me, you was a little weird in high school and beyond, honeychild).

Anyhoo - Stork's big book suggestion at this moment in time is "The Perks of Being a Wallflower".  They have turned it into a movie coming out later this year, and I'm trying not to be suspicious despite the fact that the preview doesn't look as comedically dark as the book is and that it stars Emma fucking Watson.  (Yes, I love Harry Potter.  Stay in Harry Potter, Emma.  But can the girl... act?)


4.  In uterine/spooj news, if my long-ago digital OPK had been correct, I am now 2 weeks late for my period and not pregnant.  So G-d only knows when/if I ovulated, or if any of the surprisingly fun, super-quiet "shhhh your sisters in the living room" sex was anything other than purely recreational.

Bubba is getting a (free!  FREE!  Yay for charming Doctors!) spooj test next week to see if the heads of his spermy friends are telling my eggs that they're there (my husband is an introvert - I don't know why it's surprising his sperm would be).  Then he's possibly flying to Boston in the next few months to get the super-fancy-schmancy sperm test that they apparently only do there.

I am presenting this as any good infertile wife would "look!  Everyone wants your sperm!  Everyone!  They can't get enough of it, you man-whore!"



I have much to do in the world of blog-reading, but I am back and ready to crawl right back into your uterus.

A Small Victory for Sperm

Happy Thursday, my little chihuahuas.

Yay! Spoojtastic news! A sliver of hope in the world of sperm.

In short, in case you missed it - IVF in June.  10 eggs.  Surprise surprise, only one fertilized.  For those of you further back on the crazy train of infertility - with the average sad infertile doing IVF, with 10 eggs they would expect 7 or 8 to fertilize.  And my eggs and Bub's sperm looked glorious, which usually means something extra special and sassy is going on with the sperm.  So we get to be a challenge within a challenge. ::jazz hands of glee::

Dr. Kickass was genuinely flustered about this.  Knows a guy who is in charge of a scientific study going on (not clinical, scientific - I imagine it requires a different set of glasses) that is finding that some men don't make a protein that tells the egg "hey, I'm here, let's get drunk and make some bad decisions".  And a lot of these men are type 1 diabetics.  If this is the problem, they've been putting the egg & sperm in a special little dish that has the protein in it and it ups the fertilization rate. So Dr. Kickass was string pulling to see if he could get Essence of Bubba into the study, and he'd know by this week.  (If you're interested in more detail, I wrote about it here).

So hoorah!  Lovely RN called and said that Bub's soldiers are joining the fleet on the East Coast.  They're just getting together the logistics, some stuff for us to sign, and then by Monday they will figure out when to make Bub's hand wooing appointment.

I have no idea how sperm make this sort of commute.  I know they're good swimmers, but I like to think they'll just fly themselves or be traveling by tiny canoe.

GIVE ME SECRETS.

Read the bottom of this post if you missed it - but I'm going to start something called "Secret Sunday".

It's where you email me (I'm nice, swear, I only bite upon request) a secret of yours, and I'm going to post them all in an entry on Sunday - including one of my own.  Let me know if you want to remain anonymous (it'll be between me & you, pinky swear.. I won't reveal who gave me what even under threat of torture).

I think we could all use a little venting, a little confessional, don't you?



What qualifies as a secret:

• Something silly or scandalous you did once.
• Some weird habit you do when no one's looking.  (Booger, anyone?)
• Something awful you thought but couldn't say out loud.
• Some dark fertility thought you quickly silence when it pops up.
• Something dirty that you've tried.
• Something people would never guess by looking at you.
• Your cousin told you he tried that Richard Gere/mouse thing, and told you not to tell anyone, so you didn't.  But now you can because you can be anonymouse (see what I did there?)

Infertility related or not, I don't care.  GIVE THEM TO ME.  I have a few, but I don't get a few more I'm going to save them up for next Sunday.  This Sunday I will just come on and type in sad face emoticons.

:(

Do you see how menacing that is?