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The possibly unpretty post about lapping.
So I have grappled about how to talk about this topic for a while. It is extremely important that I use this space as a place to process all of the emotions that surface in day to day life, but sometimes those emotions aren’t pretty. They aren’t bad, but they might touch on a nerve for other people.
Before I dive in, I need it to be said that I am writing this to get the feelings out there, to purge them in order to understand them and hopefully release them.
There is a specific feeling that I can not pin down when it comes to getting lapped. And by lapped I mean friends that I started the ttc journey with that are now trying to conceive their 2nd child. I am excited for my friends, but there is a hurt there.
Let me be straight- I have every hope in the world that people that want to conceive a child are able to do so in an easy and speedy fashion. It’s just that by realizing that others are going in for seconds I am even more aware of how hungry I am for firsts. I am realizing how effing L O N G I have been trying.
I feel so utterly left behind and lost in a world of self doubt. I feel like less of a woman. I feel like a small kid in a big kid’s playground.
And I know that those of you trying for your second child have all of the anxiety and fear and worries that I have, but, you see, I have been in a sustained state of those emotions. There has been no sweet victory.
I already have these ridiculous feelings of being left out of the baby boom club, and now I worry that there will be another club of 2nd baby boom.
And I hate trying to get all of this out in the open. I am painfully aware of how I am dancing around this subject here as I don’t want there to be any upsetedness. I think maybe all I am looking for is, I don’t know, acknowledgment? Validation? A ribbon? Promises that we will all get knocked up together this time? Assurances that we can be honest about our feelings? Pinkie swears that no one will flaunt their easy conceptions.
I may be opening a can of worms- but really, let’s talk about lapping. Is there a better word for it that can have a less painful connotation? (as in the person doing the lapping is somehow winning) Am I the only one sitting with these unpretty feelings?
Let’s Get Physical.
Headbands and spandex are optional.
Not sure if I have written (in detail) about how crazy turned around things are at Casa Calliope these days. It started almost a month ago: GM has reset her clock. There was once a time when GM would wake up around 11am and go to bed around 8pm. It was actually a very lovely and accomidating schedule. It gave me a nice block of time in the morning to do the things I wanted/needed to do (blog/work out) and it gave Mother some good evening time with GM.
Then, all of a sudden, and without an obvious indicator, GM reset. It started with her going to bed earlier. We used to have dinner and watch jeopardy in the evening. By the time the final jeopardy song was in full swing she was helping me clear dishes and giving good night hugs. Then jeopardy became a sort of trigger for her. The very sound of the opening theme song would have her slowly creaking up out of her chair and shuffling off to bed.
So, clever girl that I am, I would change the channel before jeopardy started. We began to watch a block of shows on HGtv (rolling eyes. seriously- some of the shows are horrible.) But eventually GM was on to my time scam and started wanting to go to bed earlier and earlier.
And yes. I did change the clocks in the house.
There is no debating or nudging when it comes time to bed time. I tried, in vain, to plead with GM to get her stay up. Just one more garden show! Just wait until Mother gets home! Let’s go look at the ducks! Nada. Actually the more I tried the more pissed off and cranky GM would get. And having the last vibe of the night be an angry one is just not acceptable.
So (this is HUGE for me) I just let her do whatever she wants. I mean really, the woman is nearly 86 years old. If she wants to go to bed at 5:55pm, so be it. The flip side to this early to bed is of course the early to rise aspect.
[a moment of scientific explanation: I consulted GM's doctor about this new behavior and was told that it is very common in Alzheimer's. There is even a term- sundowning. While many with this symptom become extremely agitated, GM seems to be coping with it by opting to go to bed. According to the doctor we are lucky.]
I get up around 7am (most of the time). But I like to hang out upstairs, watch sea inn inn, feed the kitty, empty the litter box…so I don’t make it downstairs until around 7:30 or 8. I used to be able to go to fitness center around then. And I would have been totally fine leaving GM alone between the hours of 8 and 10. But that was back when she was waking up at 11.
GM is now waking up around 8:30. Well actually I can hear her waking up around 8, but I guess she likes to hang in her room for a while before emerging. I must have inherrited that from her. Once GM is up I am on duty. We have a full morning routine and it helps her mood tremendously if we stick to task.
So in layman’s terms - I only have about 15-20 minutes to myself in the morning. Not enough time for a work out at all. These past few weeks I have asked Mother to delay going in to work so that I could meet up with my neighbor to work out. But then the morning routine gets crapped on and the rest of the day with GM is sort of off.
This weekend I realized that I could still get in a daily workout- I just needed to flip my time from am to pm. Yikes a pm work out.
This is where you & I need to talk. Have any of you guys maintained an evening work out schedule? Has it made you too wired to go to bed? When do you eat supper: before or after? How crowded do you think the fitness center would be at this time?
Where I’ve Been
Three things have kept me off line these past few days: Harry Potter, my delayed ovulation, and the arrival of a new video game.
I am not finished with HP7. I didn’t used to be, but for some reason I am morphing into a slow reader. That kills me.
As for the ovulation…ugh. Can I just say that I have not used an OPK or charted my basal temperature in over a year? Once I moved to injectable meds I quit charting and never looked back. There was this beautiful freedom in handing over my ovulation obsessions to a team of people testing my blood and ultrasounding my ovaries. Oh and the trigger shot…my dear, dear trigger shot.
I am so glad that my FHI is going to be next cycle so that I could do some hoo ha gazing and re-acclimate myself into the world of chart insanity. My body decided to remind me what it is capable of doing when put under stress to perform. I started peeing on those OPKs right on schedule. (cd 11) Expected positive test was cd12-cd14. However…my body played a little joke on me. Silly body! I wasn’t getting a positive at all. Nothing. I seriously began to think that either I had missed my ovulation (which freaked me out) or that I was not ovulating (again, freaked out).
Now I am not sure if there is such a thing as osmosis ovaries. All I will say is that yesterday I had brunch with someone who had just ovulated and when I got home and tested, lo and behold, my girls came through. cd17. Lovely.
But enough vagina talk. It’s too early.
As for the new video game. swoon. I am over the mood about. I won’t go into too much detail (um, because I honestly talked about this game forEVAH at brunch yesterday and I am a little embarrassed) but I will say that it is the Sims 2 Seasons Expansion pack. And I will say that as a type (lower case) A personality with control issues it is extremely, extremely satisfying. And I will say that in this game not only do you control the sims, but you get to control the weather. Love it.
Underpants loyalty
This morning, as I was sitting on the couch working on a crossword puzzle with GM, I felt an odd sensation around my belly button. Quite different than the familiar rumbles of female bits churning, and certainly nothing like a burrito post script, this was an almost cartoonish moment. It most definitely could have been accompanied by a soundtrack featuring, “BOING!”
My underpants had rolled.
The elastic simply rolled over, and quite possibly, died.
My first thought was, “holy fuck! I just got fatter!” A thought that was deeply, deeply troubling as I have been pretty fucking good lately. I pulled my workout pants out and took a peek down at the lifeless corpse of my underpants, drooping in a sad poof of fabric at the tip top of my hoo ha.
I called upon my vast years of crime show watching to determine a cause of death. A brief autopsy of the elastic waistband indicated that the death was natural and that no foul play was involved. She simply expired after a long, but dull, life. A life of once a week use since the fall of 2000. She is mourned by an entire drawer full of slowly dying underpants, but was preceded in death by her cousin, a cotton sports bra that died a cruel death by dryer.
And, no, I won’t be taking these dead underpants off until tonight, when I can give them a proper wake. I will clutch them at my hip and look back on a life well lived.
My dear purple satin drawers. You saw so little action in your long life. Special enough to never be used in menstrual combat, loose enough to never be cursed for cutting me in the middle of my ever-expanding gut. You were a true friend, making me feel sassy as I brushed my teeth in the morning. Purple panties, you will be missed.
And yet I wonder if I am the only one with a drawer full of geriatric underpants. Is it gross or unsanitary to hang on to these cotton friends? Is there a shelf life? I just don’t think I am ready for any new additions- it would seem frivolous and maybe insulting to my collection of old faithfuls.
How are your underpants doing today?
It’s oh so quiet…
Ah…summertime lull in the blogosphere. Honestly I get a little sad when the lights on bloglines are dim.
I know that quite a few of you are going through some stuff: there is sadness, and birthdays, and first insems, and important scans, and injectable meds, and road trip IVF’s and waiting to test and waiting to ovulate and waiting for the kids to go back to school. I am thinking of you all…even those of you choosing not to post about it.
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Things are quiet in my neck of the woods. I just finished reading book 6 and am about to begin book 7. I don’t know how you guys find the private time to read. Just rereading book 6 was tough. I didn’t want to read during the day when GM was awake because it felt like I was shutting off from her. I didn’t want to read once GM was in bed as then I would be shutting off from time with Mother. So that leaves sneaking in thirty minutes here and fifteen minutes there. The only relationship that is suffering is the one I have with Jon Stewart. Seriously- why couldn’t I have decided to reread book 6 last week when Jon was on vacation?
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Speaking of timing…I got my official notice from the sperm bank that my paperwork is officially going through their official system and that I would get an official call when I was officially able to purchase official sperm from them. It will officially be at least a week before I should call them to place an order. sheesh.
I am actually glad to have some time to plan for my F.H.I. (frivolous home insemination). And when I say “plan” what I really mean is not stress. I am all about zen and the art of home insemination. There is a massive part of me that wants this to work so that I can stick it to the (R.E.) man. I don’t need your stinking clinics! I don’t want your injectable meds and dildo cams. I’m taking charge and doing it myself. The 8 year old stubborn girl is really surfacing now.
(& of course I know full well that it won’t work and that I will ultimately need to have IVF…but it’s nice to pretend that I could be lucky)
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Does anyone watch Miss Marple on PBS? They just had 2 awesome episodes on Mystery and I can not recommend them enough.
Is anyone watching Top Chef on Bravo? I can’t figure out who I am rooting for.
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Is anyone watching the dramas on Lifetime? Side Order of Life and State of Mind? I’m a total sucker for female driven stories and am pleasantly surprised by both shows. I will confess that I had very low expectations for both so perhaps my enjoyment was easily had.
Side Order of Life was advertised as a show about a woman stressing out about her upcoming wedding. It is really a show about a woman dealing with her best friend being diagnosed with cancer. State of Mind was advertised as a silly show about how your shrink is crazier than you are. It is really a show about a woman who loses herself once she finds out her husband is cheating on her.
I will not say that these are awesome shows. I will simply say that if you find yourself gravitating towards the chick-lit section of your local public library then you will probably find something to amuse yourself within these shows. I really am glad that Lili Taylor has a job. But I wish it was on a network show with network writers. Side Order of Life just touched on some fertility issues and my stomach turned…but I am hoping they don’t go there again.
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Am I the only one thinks that nightclubs need to be held responsible for some of the out of control drinking going on with young celebs? Not saying that the girls aren’t responsible for their own crimes…but seriously, stop allowing and celebrating underage drinking. It freaks me out. Someone needs to read Postcards From the Edge and Little Girl Lost.
weekend of love
It has been a wonderful weekend. Seriously: perfect and wonderful. Seeing a smile on GM’s face for hour after hour was worth every hour I spent scrubbing the house. Ms. B and GM got to spend time visiting with each other- which was really just the two of then snoring in symphony on the couch. I think being with someone that is such a huge part of our lives helped GM remember who she is. She seemed more alert and confident. She laughed and made jokes. It is a shame that it was such a short visit, but I am hopeful that it will continue to resonate.
Here is my very tardy Photo Friday lucky charm. I am a massive lover of all things Grover. I have a small collection of the adorable furry monsters, but this is the only purse sized one. He rents out a space in the bottom of my bag and is always available for hand holding when I am in need.
Company time.
In an hour one my most favorite and cherished people on the planet will be landing in town for a weekend visit. Ms. B is coming to town! Preparing for company has been exhausting. Let’s just say that for this esteemed guest I had to go above and beyond just your basic “company ready” level of clean and up 10 notches to “the woman that taught me how to make my bed properly” will be sleeping in my house level.
I have literally been doing on my hands and knees cleaning for hours. I completely fucked up my favorite yoga pants with bleach cleanser to prove it. Every linen in the house has been laundered and pressed (thank you VH-1 for the reruns of the pop culture show, otherwise the pressing would have been so dull). The fridge has been gutted, scrubbed, and freshly stocked. The bathrooms shine and are insanely sanitized. You could, if you wanted to test me, eat a sandwich off of the toilet seat. I mean, I wouldn’t, because then you would have me coming at you with bleach…but I’m just saying.
I’m certain the bed corners in the guest room are all too tight or too loose or too crooked. The light level is low in the guest room so I am hoping Ms. B won’t notice. I have also placed a bribe of her favorite chocolates on her pillow. Hush candy.
So in addition to cleansing the house, I also cleansed GM. And people, it did NOT go well. I don’t know what I was thinking. It was like Icarus flying too close the sun. I was cocky and high on toxic cleaning supplies (don’t yell at me Prius owners!) and I just figured I could clean her all secret ninja style. As she stood at her bathroom counter taking her morning pills I secretly moistened a washcloth with warm water and strong (but safe for people) soap. Once she had swallowed her last pill I swooped in and began to wash her.
Oh fuck. It was not fun, nor was it pleasant, nor was it enjoyable, nor was it serene. It was actually the opposite of all of those things.
And lawd did she yell at me and curse me out and call me names and try to run me over with her walker. (which, had I not been reeling from the name calling, might have made me giggle) But the job got done. It had been over a month since GM had seen a tub much less a washcloth. This is just the reality of being nearly 86. Getting a tub nurse on schedule is harder than you might think. But I just couldn’t deal with the idea that GM would be dirty for Ms. B.
I so desperately want Ms. B to approve of me. I know she will be honest and blunt. All within kindness of love, of course, but if she thought, for a nano moment that I was not taking care of her friend she would tear into me.
GM is clean. Furious, but clean. I managed to convince Mother to take the entire day off as opposed to her planned half day. Mother would take her to the hair appointment. That way GM could cool off, reset, and I could have more time for the monster bleaching of the house.
When Mother & GM got back from the beauty parlor it was as if nothing had happened. So I am sadly relieved for that moment of forgetting.
Two more other things & then I need to wake GM up from her nap.
1) I did not make the deadline for getting my paperwork entered into the system of the sperm bank in time to get man in a can this cycle. I am 100% fine with that. No effing way do I want to be hassled or stressed, nor do I want to hassle or stress any staff member that is going to be handling something vital. I will be trying a home insem NEXT cycle.
2) Happy Birthday Bri! It’s been a hell of a year. I’m so glad that I know such a brilliant, fun, witty, snarky, bitter, fantastic woman like you. May this next year bring you happiness, joy and a love for mangoes.
My new Nemesis.
I don’t know his name. I don’t even know what his voice sounds like. But somehow he has managed to know EXACTLY when I will be at the fitness center. Even when I am there 20 minutes early…he is always, oddly, strangely, just arriving as well. Except he always manages to be those 5 steps ahead of me. And those 5 steps are everything when they are the very thing that stops you from being able to use the best (and most perfect for your large ass) elliptical machine in the entire fitness center.
There are only two elliptical machines. One is perfect and the other is, well, a bit claustrophobic. It has rods and handle bars in awkward places and when I step on the pedals I feel like my butt is brushing up against the sides. The readout is kind of old and faint and really…I never seem to burn as many calories on it. (probably because I am obsessing about the sides of my hips grazing the side bars with each swish of my legs)
I am also aware that the elliptical machine that I am not so fond of happens to be the favorite of a sweet older Mom who always vies for it when she drops her kids off at swim camp. So I tend to let the unfavored machine dangle, unoccupied, for a good 10 minutes just in case the older Mom has found time for a work out. I know first hand what it is like to stick your head into the fitness center, scan the room for your favorite machine and then feel like your day is ruined because someone else is on your machine.
And really, this new nemesis should know better. I used to get to the fitness center at 6:30am. I then became the elliptical nemesis for some other dude. We were constantly changing and varying our workout times so that we would be there when no one else was trying to use our machine.
So we did what any other crazy work out person would do: we made a deal. I would get to the fitness center at or around 7:10 and he, no matter where he was in his workout, would step off the machine and yield its magic thigh reducing powers to me.
Oh it was a glorious system. And the machine really did become ours. People knew: hands off!
And really this new nemesis is sort of my fault. You see last week I completely slacked on working out. I was premenstrual and tired and had zero inclination to close myself off in a room for an hour with other cranky sweaty people. Somehow, within my week of slack, some new guy joined the fitness center and my original nemesis changed his work out schedule. I wasn’t there to thwart plans or set records straight.
Now I no longer have the benefit of someone “saving my seat”. And no matter what time I have shown up (this is in the last 3 days, so I have yet to work on my arriving chart data) this new guy is showing up.
He’s a really good nemesis as well, as far as they go. He never wipes down the machine after he uses it. He has always exceeded the allotted thirty minutes. He not only pivots the mounted televisions towards him in a way that the people occupying surrounding machines can no longer see much, but he changes the effing channel to the flipping GOLF NETWORK. I mean come on! Who works out watching golf?
We had the television system all worked out. In the far right corner the older guys on the bikes and the deer hunters on the treadmills watch their “Fair and Balanced” morning show. In the middle the Moms watch Matt Lauer and in my turf we watch Sea Inn Inn.
The guy is ruining my morning.
Luckily Miss D will be here tomorrow afternoon and I will get to see what the fitness center is like in the afternoon. The rumor is that you can use the cardio machines for longer than 30 minutes between certain afternoon hours. Just thinking about having a whole hour of ass killing love with my elliptical makes me happy.
By the way- I totally believe that having a nemesis is a very healthy and fun thing to do. It gives you someone to blame for everything, someone to bitch about, someone to pump your fist in the air over. However, I do not think that a nemesis should be someone that you know or know well. That is just creepy. I also like the idea of making friends with your nemesis when the time is right. One should never have a nemesis for more than one year. Because, really, at that point he or she is no longer your nemesis but your sworn enemy. I’m not sure how I feel about having more than one nemesis…I’ll have to think about that.
Freaks
Lesson learned of the day: do NOT attempt to find a source of sperm on the internet that is not from a reputable sperm bank. I am actually embarrassed to tell you all of the things I did today on line all for some free man juice. Honestly it would make you blush. But just so you know I did turn down the sweet offer from a crazy, stunted man in the pacific northwest. His offer? If I would deflower him I could keep the sperm. um, no thanks.
I have a sort of silly reason for being a bit on the verge right now: I want to be able to say that I did and tried it all. So there. I’m a delusional Pollyanna. I know it, so no need to get smarmy about how doing anything other than IVF at this point is a complete waste of time and funds. I know. I effing know.
And to tell the truth I hesitate to even tell you this next bit. I desperately want you all to think I am a great clever girl, and there is a huge risk that once you find out something you will think I am quite, quite stupid.
So here goes: if I were to magically have some sperm cha cha with my egg/s and if they somehow managed to mingle in a way that got me knocked up my due date would be April 23rd.
ok. ok. ok. stop yelling at me. It is riDICulous to get so sentimental about frickin due dates. But it just so happens that this little estimated due date discovery is on the heels of months of fidgeting and spazzing. I mean you guys have seen it- I am all over the place with planning back burner options. I know in my gut that if I am ever going to get pregnant that IVF is going to be the route for me. Let’s be real- I’ve had 13 failed IUI’s. I need some medical intervention.
But people it is going to be ages until I can afford it. Ages. And I am tired of just twiddling the thumbs.
And so after a day of doing ridiculous searches for something that should not be searched for in a flippant way (fresh sperm) I have decided to go out on a limb and try this month with frozen.
Suddenly I feel like a fricken newbie. I’ve never done a home insem. I haven’t used an OPK in almost a year, forget about temperature charting. I am going to fly by the seat of my ovaries and just spend some mad cash on a chance. This has like 1 - 2 percent chance of working. I am nuts for doing it. But I just am.
I’m buying a lottery ticket here and I am fully aware of the odds, but silly me is allowing herself to be just a smidge hopeful. It won’t work. We all know it won’t.
Here is how I am really looking at it: in a year (or so) as I am nursing my blue eyed baby and working on the book about getting knocked up I will now be able to write a chapter on home insemination. Not saying aforementioned blue eyed baby would be a result of a home insem, but I’ll know that I went into IVF having tried almost everything. There is odd satisfaction in that.
Just a hypothetical…
If you were going to post an ad looking for a fresh sperm donor what would your ad say?
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