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The Groups
Progesterone
Leaving in 10 minutes to go to the Baby Making Clinic for some blood work. It seems early to get this blood work when I am only 5dpo…but heck, anything to get answers early. A # above 15 is what we are pulling for. Even tho’ a high # doesn’t = pregnancy…a low # certainly = NO pregnancy.
Everybody clap your hands for tinkerbell. You believe!! You believe I am knocked up!
Hush Mommy
Admiral barked at chipmunks all fucking night. I am in no condition to post. But yet here I am, unwilling to break this routine. At one point my Mother joined me outside trying to quiet the Admiral. In between screams of, “Be Quiet!” & “Hush Puppy!” she turned to me & grinned. “Just think. When you have a baby this is how it will be every night.”
Ok. Um. Hush Mommy!
Seriously I wish there was some sort of book or movie that dealt with the long list of things one shouldn’t say or do to a woman that is trying to get pregnant. A very special episode. My Mother (& I should note that I do love the woman immensely) is guilty of some off the wall comments and behavior. In no specific order:
1) As I was prepping for my trip to Africa my Mother tells me that she is going to build a playground in our backyard while I am gone. It took weeks, but I finally convinced her that looking at a playground in my backyard would not be a fun thing while dealing with infertility.
2) At my 1st IUI she told the doctor (as he was loading up the catheter), “So you are going to be the ‘Daddy’!” I nearly vomited on the table.
3) Around the time of my 2nd IUI I started getting ‘Fit Pregnancy” in the mail. A gift subscription from you know who…
4) At least 30 comments a week involving a variation of the following thought, “When you have a baby…”
5) After an IUI at least 100 comments of, “OH!! You are acting SO pregnant!”
I could go on, but I think you catch my drift. & I know the woman is acting out of ridiculous love for me. She is positively beside herself to become a Grandparent. And she will be a great one. But now. Until it is a reality. I need her to hush!
Hcg & Inconceivable
I was ready to do it. It took me about 15 minutes to make sure I was mixing the powder and getting the proper dosage. I was rubbing an ice cube at the freckle were I was planing on aiming. Then something wonderful happened. My Mother came home.
My Mother who has MS & at one point in her illness had to give herself an injection twice a day. She tossed her briefcase and rushed over. Before I could even say hello she stabbed me. She then gave me a twenty minute back rub, fed me a bowl of chubby hubby (note the irony) and then sent me off to bed. My Mother rocks.
I did an opk this morning & was happy to see a very obvious positive. Yeah- the stuff works!
This morning, after temp-ing & opk-ing, I watched Inconceivable on tivo. I am torn between feeling excited that a bit of ‘my’ life is being shown in mainstream media and baffled about how unrealistic it is. The plot lines involving the patients were dull and yet over the top. The show should really be called surrogacy since 97% of the story’s plot involved surrogacy. The other 3% involved IVF.
A surogate mother goes into labor and the excited parents rush to the hospital just in time to see the delivery of an adorable black baby. The only glitch: the parents and surrogate are white. So *obviously* the Doctor screwed up and implanted the wrong embryos. And of course after the child is born nobody wants it. Alfre Woodard (the clinic’s shrink) tracks down the surrogate and she reveals that she had unprotected sex before the embryo transfer. Now they have to find the father. & of course even tho he looks to be in high school he wants his son. blah blah blah
The other story line involved a returning soldier who wants to honor his deceased wife’s final wish: to be a mother. Before his wife, also a soldier, went to war they had some of her eggs retrieved and frozen. Now that she is dead her sister has stepped forward volunteering herself as the surrogate. This was a very creepy and icky plot line.
The third plot line is about another surrogate/parent relationship. This time the parents to be are a *wacky* gay couple. I think this was the most upsetting story line as it was such a farce: a pregnant woman is stalked by one of the parents to make sure she is eating right. Since this was the only portrayal of a gay couple it turned my stomach by making them a joke. No lesbian couples were represented at all.
One of the main characters, Ming Na from E.R., plays a doctor who is also a single Mother. We learn through out the course of the show that she is an SMC and conceived via donor sperm. Her son, now 7, has questions about his father and is upset that kids at school call him Frankenstein. “Because everybody knows I was born in a test tube, Mom.” What? The show ends with this creepy montage of Ming Na showing her son her sperm donor’s profile. As the kid gets into bed he places the Polaroid of the donor on his bed side table and stares at him.
And don’t get me started on the lab worker who reveals that, “Maybe God doesn’t want everyone to have a baby. Maybe what we are doing here is wrong.”
& also don’t get me started on the scorned lab assistant that starts doing switcheroos on sperm donations.
So will I watch it again. Shamefully, yes. There is a sense of power in being able to watch something & know that that is not how it is. My Mom feels this way when she watches lawyer shows. the 2nd half of law & Order is always peppered by her remarks of, “No WAY would the judge ever do that!” or “That would never happen.” I get that this is hollywood and tv-land. It is a heightened reality. But I also feel like this is a chance to show many people the grit of infertility and I am hoping the show can rise to it.
One More Day
Yes. It is time to be graphic & clear: the above pictured device will be up my poonani tomorrow morning.
I am feeling ridiculously giddy about tomorrow. I think it will be a little early for the HCG (ovulation trigger) shot, but I am hoping that I will have a good number of good sized follicles waiting to release some high quality eggs. At least this cycle I can relax and feel quasi empowered by the control of getting a trigger shot. It feels like I am now doing everything possible to get the timing nailed down.
In family news: The GM & I are doing fine. We watched jeopardy & the new Martha Stewart Apprentice show. (I tivo’d Lost & haven’t watched it yet. Don’t tell me anything!) About 5 minutes before the end of the Martha show I looked over & GM was fast asleep in her chair. In the dim light of the den she looked so young and peaceful. I felt this rush of love for her and then immediately felt so guilty for putting her through that emotional whirlwind of the Austria trip.
Single
In less than a month one of my closest friends will be getting married. This is a woman that knew exactly what type of man would be her prince and she patiently waited for him to cross her path. When they met (introduced by yours truly) they were a couple from that very moment. It has been beautiful to watch a friend be enveloped in love and see her grow and change because of that.
It is also a reminder of what is missing in my life. While I am very confident and certain about becoming a single mother I should reveal that I do not embrace the notion. To be honest I’m a bit pissed off at the Universe for the turn of events that led me to this journey. I hang my head and announce: I AM A ROMANTIC!
There is nothing romantic about getting knocked up alone.
I keep wondering if I missed my prince somewhere along the ride. When I was just figuring out that I was a girlie-girl (around 8th grade) I was smack dab in the middle of an all girls prep school. Not exactly the best place to figure out how to interact with the opposite sex. After girl’s prep I went to a performing arts school. I had a crush on this one mysterious artist type but I had no skills. I honestly had no clue about how to flirt. Most if my friends had boyfriends. It came easy to them. I vowed that I would finally get a boyfriend in college.
& I did. Sort of. I fell head over heels for this long haired filmmaker that would take me to drum circles in Central Park. He was passionate and exciting. He also, unfortunately, was passionate & exciting to many other girls as well. After the drummer I dated a series of awful men: managers at restaurants I worked at, waiters at restaurants I worked at…I was, to put it mildly, looking for love in all the wrong places.
The one possible love of my life thus far was a man I met in New York. He was a waiter at this awful dive bar called Phoebe’s. After classes or rehearsals large groups of over the top actors would shuffle into Phoebes. We were so obnoxious pulling all the 4 top tables together and making one insanely long banquet table. This waiter always seemed to get stuck with us. When things seemed tough he would untie his apron from his waist and fasten it as a cape and shout, “Never fear! Super Waiter is here!” (ahhh…he had me at the Grover reference)
Super Waiter was also a playwright and computer geek. He had a perpetual bounce to his step and an easy smile. Things were effortless with him.
Then I left for a quick trip to L.A. to do a small acting job. While I was there I called up that old drummer of a filmmaker (he was a California native) and we met up. Drummer showed me an L.A. that was a fairy tale: wonderful weather, beautiful people, endless possibilities. A month later I said farewell to Super Waiter & moved to L.A. I dated Drummer on and off for over a year. By on & off I mean: I dated him. When I found out he was cheating I broke up. Then a month later we would date again. Lather, rinse & repeat.
I have many “oops I did it again” dating nightmares. if I had a shrink I am sure there would be something profound in that revelation. But I am alone in my own head & I can see that I have a bad case of, ‘Was he the ONE & I just didn’t give him a fair shot?” There’s no pill for bad choices.
So here I am: a single, slightly damaged, impossible romantic who’s number one weekend agendas usually involve deep conditioning treatments. There is a little girl in the back of my head shouting, “It wasn’t supposed to be like this!”
A Good Day
Yesterday afternoon I treated my Mother & GM to a “spa afternoon” in Birmingham. Before we left the sounds of an approaching storm rumbled outside. Mother & I looked at each other with our best, “oh shit” faces: GM loathes being in the car in the rain. Doesn’t matter that our ‘family’ car is a massive white Cadillac (the land yacht), GM would rather cancel appointments & not go places if it is raining. I started hunting around for the number to the spa - I knew we would have to cancel, but then out walks GM into the den wearing a snood and posh looking London Fog raincoat. (must remember to borrow that sometime…) It was the cutest thing. Three of us all looked at each other with these silly, giddy grins on our faces: woo hoo! A Spa Afternoon!
The drive through the rain wasn’t bad at all. GM loves to read license tags and wonder about why people from such states have ended up in Alabama. One time we saw a car with Hawaii tags & she couldn’t stop giggling. I asked what was funny & she said, “I wonder if the car swam over here.”
We got to the fancy spa place & were greeted with a huge sign announcing a new series of treatments: Chocolate Therapy. No joke. Facials, massages, manicures…you name it. We couldn’t get a straight answer about what the treatments were, but we did assertion that no chocolates were actually harmed or destroyed. Phew! But I am intrigued…
I got GM all settled away in the manicure room. Her technician was a beautiful woman from Israel. The 1st thing GM said to her was,”You are so pretty. I bet you have a lot of boyfriends.” Technian’s reply, “No. But I have had a lot of husbands.” GM retorts, “good. We will have something to talk about!” OH! I left them to it & then went to wait for my massage person to claim me.
Not long thereafter a short, waif like woman came into the relaxation room & collected me. I couldn’t help but size her up as we walked to the massage room. This girl was SMALL. How could she ever begin to tackle the ridiculous knots and twist in my neck and shoulders?
Before she started she asked if there was anything specific that I wanted tended to. I told her that I was on this medication that has given me some headaches and muscle soreness. I also said that I was trying to get pregnant. (you never know if these massage people have some sort of insider information on tricks they can do to your body to make you fertile. Really. You just never know.)
The massage began and with it I had a flash of guilt. This lady was goooooood. How could I have judged her on her size? She found all of these spots and worked them out. My back began to feel like one singular muscle instead of muscles that have been french-braided. Then she did this neck thing where she put this roll pillow under my neck and then pulled my neck forward and back. It felt like warm honey oozing down my neck. Ahhh…it was all over too soon.
I went to go check on GM. I knew Mom would be longer as I had booked her lots of time with a deep tissue person. Mom has multiple sclerosis and her muscles spasm all the time - she needed some TLC.
GM, meanwhile, was the belle of the manicure room. She had people bringing her coffee, massaging her feet, & hanging on her every word. Seriously, there were at least 6 people sitting around her in a semi circle. My GM was the most popular girl in school! But who could blame these people? When GM is having a good day she is a blast. & who doesn’t like a sassy 84 year old?
After our spa treatments we went down the road to the Cheesecake Factory. We were early enough to beat the heavy Friday night people and didn’t have to wait for a table at all. (GM had an omelet, Mom had some spicy beef dish & I had the luau salad - yum!!) THEN: dessert. The hard part was finding something you wanted, but that each other could sample. GM & I love coffee, but Mom does not — ergo no coffee cheesecakes. We settled on doing everything chocolate. GM got the godiva, Mom got the oreo mudslide, & I got something called a tuxedo. Bliss x 3.
The drive home was stunning: into the sunset but not blinded by it. As we drove the sky changed colors: blue, pink, purple. When we neared our exit GM sighed,” This was a really good day for me.”
And that is what it is all about.
Memory chip
Living with GM has shown me how important memories are. Daily there are little hints and pin drops of moments from GM’s life that are gone. Forever. It’s the seemingly non-important memories that always bother me the most. GM forgetting if she likes milk. Her response: Well, I’ve never had it. But I will try anything new. GM forgetting how to buckle a seat-belt. Her response: What is this thing? Has this always been here?
She often lives in a childlike daze with the sweetest expression on her face. She is discovering the world all over again every day. Sometimes, I will admit, I do try to reprogram GM. For instance last night, as I was getting her into bed, we had Bush’s speech from New Orleans on tv. GM says, “Oh tell that jerk to shut up! I don’t like him!” She then asks who he is and why does he “sound so dumb”? It was a great moment for me as I was then able to explain exactly who that jerk was. I know she won’t remember my political commentary last night. But it was nice to be able to talk about politics without her armor of Republican shielding her. See GM is a card carrying Republican. She has a framed picture of Ronald Reagan in her bedroom. She gets Christmas cards from the Bush’s. She thinks that she & Barbara are friends.
As much as it is sad that she has lost so many moments it is astounding the sort of things she has retained. Huge chunks of her childhood and adolescence. Her entire courtship with my Grandfather. The death of her Father. The death of her Son. But things get cloudy for her after 1988.
Lately, as I have been so hyper aware of how precious the gift of memory is, I have noticed that I can’t remember big moments from my own life. I have a general idea, but the specifics have evaporated.
& yet I know every single word to the Monchhichi theme song. A cartoon that was only on for one season. Go figure.
THIS IS A HAPPY FACE!
Hurrah. Woo Hoo! Victory Dance! My ovaries performed beautifully. (way to go, girls!) The technicican told me that everything was 90% clear. The 10% of stuff was described as, “just your basic hanging out little follicles.” Ok. I’m fine with them hanging out. As long as they don’t open a mini mall & create a political system we are cool. The tech griped a bit about my left ovary being high. Apparently this is very common in tall people. Great so being a giraffe means big ass feet & high ovaries. THAT’S how the weather is up here.
After the dildo cam exam (credit goes to Ova girl for coining it perfectly) I was sent to a smaller exam room to wait. In walked my favorite nurse with a tool box. She winked & tossed me a pair of surgical gloves. Interesting. This was not something I was expecting. She then opened the tool kit & revealed needles. Lots of ‘em. & those little bottles. I gulped.
Nurse: Ever wanted to play like you were on E.R.?
Me: Are you asking me if I ever wanted to fuck George Clooney?
Nurse: Besides that. (love her) I’m going to show you how to mix HCG & give yourself an injection.
We had about a 20 minute tutorial that ended with me finally figuring out where the old “lump in the boob” plastic breasts* go to die. They end up in being injected by nerds like me that want extra practice on giving a shot.
*To clarify - I am referring to this plastic boob that we had passed around my 9th grade biology class that we were instructed to “find the lumps”. I guess it was better than having us feel each other up.
After the tutorial my RE, Dr. W, popped his head in & said, “Just so you know I am insisting that you get pregnant this cycle.” Well good. Glad we are on the same page.
I got an RX for clomid - bumped up to 150mg. I start those bitch pills tonight.
Phew. Seriously, that is all I can say. Being on a break was hard emotionally for me, but it was a very good time off. I’m ready to play.
Against Doctor’s Orders
So I got busted by my doctor (RE). I called in to make my ultra sound appointment via the nurse & after some chit-chat she says, “Dr. W is looking over your chart right now and he would like to speak to you.”
I was glad - I had some questions about what just happened to my last cycle.
It began nice enough:
Him: How are you feeling?
Me: Fine. Except I am bummed that I have a zit on my chin.
Him: It could be worse.
Me: true dat
Him: So I see you are on cycle day one. This seems soon.
Me: I KNOW!! What the F??
Him: Is there anything that you did differently this cycle - besides NOT taking the clomid (fertility pills)?
pause
Me: Well, er, I have been taking some herbs.
Him: what?
Me: Herbs, sir.
Him: Who said you should be taking herbs? You are supposed to be taking a BREAK.
Me: Well I like to be proactive.
Him: We’ll talk when you come in on wednesday.
oooooooooooooooooh sh!t. I am so gonna get yelled at.
As far as what next the plan is:
1) Have an ultra sound wednesday to confirm that the cysts have been reabsorbed by my body
Assuming they have, go to step 2. If not it is another month off for me.
2) Take clomid (there was a brief discussion about whether or not Dr. W would have me try this *newish* drug called Femura, but he has decided not yet.)
3) Go crazy whacked out on step 2 drugs (they say crack is whack…dude you should try clomid. ugh)
4) In 10 days I can start over analyzing all of my bodily functions (bet you are looking forward to those entries, right??) I will also start using ovulation predictor kits (opk)
5) In 13 days I will go in for another ultra sound to see what shape my follicles are in.
6) On the evening of day 13 I will inject myself with the hormone HCG. This will cause me to ovulate in 36 hours.
7) On the morning of day 15 I will go in for an IUI 
On day 26 I will get a positive pregnancy test. (positive thinking here, kids)
So now that everyone knows the plan I can officially welcome you to 2 weeks of mania.
Early is bad in my book.
One of my (very few) good social qualities is that 9 times out of 10 I can be counted on for being on time. I will even be so bold as to say that I can be early. (my caveat is mostly direction…meaning I have no sense of it & often get lost) But I digress. GM & I are both snobbishly early when we can be. My Mother is notoriously late. As a family we have always joked about GM & I getting the ‘early’ gene & Mom got the ‘tardy’ one. Naturally I assumed my child would resemble my Mom in all things relating to time. (it skips a generation, right) But, perhaps as a very early tribute to her future Mother, my uterus has decided to be part of the early camp.
Oh yes kids…it’s time for “Let’s Make a Baby!” talk! I give you the option now to change the channel.
ok. You were warned.
So this morning I got my period. Not an emotional big deal as it has been in the past when I was hoping for a pregnancy. I had taken the month of September off. No extra ultra sounds up my hoo-ha, no fertility pills that make me crazy, no fiendish temperature taking at the butt crack of dawn, no calculating when I am fertile & no stressing over results of ovulation predictor kits. Phew! The goal was to become a zen master of peace and serenity.
But now I have my period. And see that isn’t right. According to the charts and the math (carry the one) I shouldn’t be on this creek for another three days. Three days early may not seem like such a big deal to some of you, but this puts me in a bit of a freak-out.
FERTILITY 101: Luteal Phase
A woman’s luteal phase is the time between when she is ovulating and when she gets her period. The ‘typical’ woman has a luteal phase of 14 days. This is the time when a fertilized egg will then implant. You want there to be plenty of time for that little pea to suction cup itself to your body. Anything less than 10 days is indicative of a luteal phase defect. Well this nonsense of being three days early has given me a failing score of:8
I’M A DEFECT!!!
When my doctor’s office opens I will call in & schedule an ultra sound for wednesday. I will try not to worry too much until then. (ha ha ha. yeah, right!)
But here is my unscientific reasoning why my body is falling apart:
1) I don’t have a college degree
2) I worked in an evil industry in Hollywood
3) I, um, did some drugs, um once or twice
4) My feet are too big
5) I voted for Ralph Nader
6) I secretly still wish I could be a smoker
7) I haven’t had quality Mexican food in 2 1/2 years I’m fatter than I should be
9) I used manic panic dye on my hair for three years
10) part of me thinks like a muppet
***Mom update*** For those of you asking, Mom LOOOOOOOOVES the O.C. The text massage I got last night was,”I can so see all of us here.”
So everybody take a moment & beam good interview thoughts her way.
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