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The Groups
Protected: Protected: Wham Bam…
Protected: Protected: 1st day at Clinic
Protected: Protected: Nothing is getting checked off.
Protected: Protected: A Jumbled Mind
Protected: Protected: Last Scan Before the 101
Trick or Treatment
I got a call from the NEC and they have my schedule. Shazam! I didn’t have to wait a week! I didn’t have to call back! Yay!
For those of you playing along at home I will begin Lupron some time next week (the pharmacy just called to verify my shipping address. How exciting is that?) and then later in October I will begin my stims. I have decided to travel to NEC the day I start my stims as the monitoring is insanely less expensive. I also need to have some blood work done there and it is literally hundreds of dollars cheaper to get it done at the clinic.
This means that I will be in the Northeast for around 2 weeks. I can’t think of a more perfect time to be in that part of the country. I am already daydreaming of tights and boots.
Mother has informed me that she will be taking 2 weeks off of work to be home with GM. I am in awe over this. I was really stressed about getting a sitter and arranging good care for GM but I was kindly informed that it was not my problem to solve. I can’t even begin to tell you how relieved that makes me. Of course I can’t say that I won’t be fretting about GM and whether or not things are going well, but I need to let go on this.
It is hard to believe that around this time last year I was planning a trip up to the Northeast to meet so many of you for the first time. Remember the us from a year ago? So much has happened since then: 1 baby born, 5 babies conceived, and all the rest of us are pretty actively trying or at least figuring out what the fuck to do next. Pretty amazing.
I guess I should also tell you guys now that once things get specific with my IVF I will be going into password stealth mode. This is not to shut anyone out, but really to protect the other parties involved with my IVF. I am pretty open about the process, but I am not alone in this journey.
Even though I don’t know anything about the woman on the other end of this cycle I feel very protective of her right to anonymity. I would hate for her to google my lab results and find all of us in mid conversation about them! Once I start protecting posts I will e-mail the password to unlock them. If you have commented in the past you will get a password. If you are a lurker you better start talking! heh.
Schedule me please.
I am waiting for a call back from the NEC where hopefully we can discuss my IVF schedule. Currently I am on week two of birth control pills and so far I have not had any reaction to them. But I am anxious to know what happens next. I like a plan. Plans are pretty and fun and grounding and security blankets. Plans are yummy & I want one!
Please ring phone. R I N G!
Speaking of schedules I am also trying to figure out my fall television schedule. We have a cable box that can record two programs simultaneously, and it also allows us to watch some shows (only on CBS) on demand. I also have a 1st generation tivo that can record things in my room in a pinch. But there are nights where things will get messy. And there are shows that I am not sure I will really want to watch.
Here is my schedule so far:
Sunday: Extreme Makeover, Cold Case, Side Order of Life
Monday: Chuck, Dancing with the Stars (maybe), Heroes, The Bachelor (maybe) Journeyman
Tuesday: Bones, Biggest Loser, NCIS (on demand), Reaper, House, Law & Order SVU
Wednesday: Pushing Daisies, America’s Next Top Model, Private Practice (maybe), Bionic Woman, Gossip Girl (tivo at other time), Hotel Babylon (tivo at other time), Dirty Sexy Money, CSI: NY (on demand), Project Runway (tivo at other time)
Thursday: Ugly Betty, Survivor, Grey’s Anatomy, CSI (on demand), Without a Trace, ER, Law & Order: CI (tivo at later time)
Friday: Women’s Murder Club (maybe), Moonlight (maybe), Flash Gordon (maybe), Men in Trees
Are any of you guys watching these shows? are there any shows that you think I am missing.
I just realized that some of you might not even be tv watchers at all and that my obvious love of tv might shock you. I will be honest here: The tv is on almost all day in my house.
GM & I do our puzzles watching CNN. We eat our lunch watching Murder She Wrote. And I am able to watch a good number of these prime time shows with GM- we just watch them the next day and without commercials. She is able to get pretty engaged in some shows: All Law & Orders (unless there is a ton of violence or sexual content), NCIS, even America’s Next Top Model was interesting to her last season.
Ok seriously…ring phone!
ADDED:
Well they called back but it wasn’t much help. They don’t have any schedule for me yet and they want me to call them in a week. bugger!
The release.
This morning I fed ex’d an envelope to the NEC that contained all of the signed and notarized documents and a check that will cover all of the things that the recipient won’t (embryo storage, assisted hatching and ICSI). The receipt for the envelope sent is sitting on my desk and I have been gazing at the tracking number for a moment. That little series of letters and numbers is all that I am about right now.
I have said it before, but I think it is truly resonating with me right now: It’s going to happen. All of the fuss and anxiety of this week has been blasted through. All of the stress and doubt and fear is feeling more and more like dust. Like something that I can easily sweep up and discard.
In my head I keep thinking about the last lines of the original (& in my opinion, better) Willy Wonka and the Chocolate Factory.
“But, Charlie, don’t forget what happened to the man who suddenly got everything he always wanted.”
“What happened?”
“He lived happily ever after.”
And while it is entirely too soon to start thinking that I have gotten everything I wanted, I do believe that the NEC is making something very huge a possibility. I do believe that this is the beginning of the last chapter that will hopefully end with a happy ending.
Here I sit looking at this tracking number and I am so calm and steady. Love is all around, no need to waste it. I’m gonna make it after all.
The night where I want to quit.
Yesterday was a bit of an overwhelming day, a day where I felt pulled and yanked and doubtful and convinced that all that I was doing and about to do would be for naught. The procedures in the morning would have been fine if that was all, but then I got one of those insurance calls.
Somehow, I am guessing from all of my on-line research months ago, I am now on some master list of insurance agents. Every other week one of them will call and try to convince me that he can get me health insurance. And then I calmly tell him that I have been declined from all of the major groups and that I am a lost cause. They always agree and get off the phone with me as swiftly as they can.
Yesterday afternoon, however, I had a guy that was just dead set on getting me insured. And it got me a little hopeful. But then things turned. He simply stated that most insurance companies would work with me on the “preexisting conditions that are attached to me” (those being fertility issues, acne and the month I was on antidepressants) but that I would be pressed to find any place that would take me due to my “build”.
And just hearing that completely put me in a panic. Suddenly I could clearly see how my life was going to come to an end because I was not insurable.
Oh there was one company that might take me, but he would have to call and really finesse them, and of course I would have to pay a huge percent more based on my “build”. I found myself pleading with him to help me as if my life depended on it.
When I got off the phone I was in full on despair mode. I took Charlie for a quick walk up and down the street and came in with the day’s mail. In it was another packet from NEC.
I sat down, hopeful that this new packet would cheer me up or slap me out of it. Instead it did the opposite. It was full of contracts and things that needed to be notarized and detailed stipulations about all of the things that can go wrong and who is liable for what and suddenly it looks like I have to buy my own meds and then I will get reimbursed but I don’t think I have the money to get the meds and oh my fucking god what am I doing this is getting too complicated and how am I ever going to be able to leave GM for 2+ weeks and how will I get to the clinic every day from my friend’s house and what if I don’t make enough eggs and what if my eggs are all fucked up and I am fat and I can’t get insurance and the litter box smells rotten all of a sudden…
I was a mess. I was out of control. Seriously, one of my greatest comforts in life is having a plan and feeling like I am in control. And now I don’t feel that way. Instead I feel like things are too messy and too abstract and too up in the air. And I feel like I can’t count on jack shit.
When Mother got home we did some talking and she tried to get me out of my hyper-panic, I just want to quit everything, frenzy. (sadly something she has great experience with)
I am not quitting, hell I would be the biggest wank in the world if I quit now. But I do need to express these supreme feelings of OH MY FUCKING GOD IT IS JUST TOO MUCH. It makes me so jealous for the people that can afford insurance and afford IVF. It makes me jealous of people that can just take a morning off of work to have these procedures. I just don’t understand why all of this is ending up being so very complicated. I hate complicated.
It makes me wish I hadn’t misplaced my faith a few years ago. I don’t remember where I had it last so I can’t go back and retrace my steps. I just know that one day I realized that it was mostly gone. And it makes me feel like a hypocrite for wishing that I could have some Godly voice in my head whispering that it will all work out. I want to feel some peace about all of this, I want to feel some ease. It’s just not happening.
ADDED:
Here is your horoscope
for Wednesday, September 19:
Don’t despair, no matter how things seem at first glance. If you stick to your guns, you should find that everything evens out by the end. In fact, you might very well end up on top thanks to your perseverance.
Sitting in saline traffic
This morning I got up super early, worked out, took a shower and then braved the elements to get to my 8:15 appointment with the small local clinic. I used to deal with bits and pieces of traffic in my old life, but not really. In California I only lived two freeway exits away from my job and my apartment was conveniently located at a freeway on ramp (ah…vista del freeway, how I miss you). It took me, on a very traffic-y day, 10 minutes to get door to door. This morning it took me 45 minutes to go 9 miles.
Part of it has to do with tons of ongoing construction. Since before we moved to this town there has been construction on this road in an attempt to widen it to something insane like 4 lanes each way. So construction caused the road to be hell of a “all lanes must merge” sort of variety, but then there was the flood. Yesterday it rained all day. All day. As in a never ending downpour of wetness. The lake in the backyard is so full that the ducks are practically swimming right up our feeders. It is still raining today and it is predicted to be raining even more tomorrow.
Don’t get me wrong, I adore rain. Love it. But usually this love can only be fully expressed from an indoors environment. I do not love the rain when I need to drive in it. No one drives well in the rain. And if you think you do I am sorry to tell you that you are mistaken. Visibility is reduced, routes are flooded, and the inner asshole comes out as soon as you see some guy who doesn’t think he needs to a) have his lights on or b) use a directional when he decides he wants to be in your lane right NOW.
So this morning, as I inched along, listening to a version of a mixed cd I am working on, I started to get a bit nervous. What if my exam this morning revealed horrible things? What if it was discovered that my uterus had vanished? What if the speculum tears me like it did on my hsg? What if I cry?
Having shit loads of time in traffic is the WORST to be alone with your thoughts and melancholy music.
I arrived to my appointment on time and was surprised that the waiting room was completely empty. Everyone else was stuck in traffic so I was called back before I could even fish my reading glasses out of my purse.
I was brought back to a bathroom, told to pee in a cup and them come out to be weighed. Ah the humanity. (I had no idea I was going to be weighed again, but it ended up being a nice surprise as I have lost some weight.) I was brought into the same room where I had my cd2 scan last week and instructed to undress from the waist down, drape a scratchy green paper sheet over my knees and wait for the RE to see me.
Nothing like meeting a doctor and then introducing him to your vagina. First up was a cervix culture- no big whoop. Then it was the sonohsg. Is there anyone that is not uncomfortable with a speculum? Those things are the fucking devil. So I got cranked open and had a catheter feed up into my uterus. Then (hurrah) the speculum was removed and the dildocam was inserted. Next came the fun part- 6 million cc’s (or thereabouts) of saline was squirted up into me and the show began on the black and white monitor placed thoughtfully next to my head.
The RE took lots of still photos and mumbled to himself. I had to shout out that if he found any spare change or anything wonky that I would appreciate it if he would give a holler. We had a moment of panic when he discovered what he thought could be “multiple tiny polyps”. It was soon discovered (after injecting more saline) that it wasn’t polyps but lots of air bubbles from the fluid. I kind of liked the idea of tiny bubbles in my uterus. I had a nice image of some scrubbing bubbles from that bathroom cleaner commercial.
And then the exam was over and done with. The nurse shoved some towels under my butt and placed a sanitary pad on top of my trousers and said that I might experience some cramping and “gushing”.
Such a relief to have the confirmation that everything is as it should be. I don’t know why I have these moments of doubt and panic, but for some reason it is in my nature to automatically assume that every test I go under will reveal some sort of horrible medical nightmare.
I started my way home jamming to my cd and felt just fine. Cramps?! Ha! What kind of wuss gets cramps?!
Twenty minutes later, and only 3 blocks away from the clinic, I experienced the mother of all cramps. Holy fuck! I felt like my internal bits were violently revolting and trying to escape my body. I turned up the stereo hoping I could lull my body with a series of songs by the New Pornographers but my body gave me the middle finger and continued to rebel with cramps. Motherfucker!!!!!!
Five minutes later, still sitting in never ending traffic, and I felt my water break. Any minute now I would go into labor and delivery. I would give birth to all of my female organs and name each of them a different flower name. Tulip would be my uterus, Daisy my left ovary, Lilly my right. fuuuuuuuck!
On the list of fun things to do I can assure you that there is not a place for sitting in traffic with 6 million cc’s of saline gushing out of your vagina. I felt gross and nasty and did I mention wet? Luckily with the release of the white water rapids the cramping had mellowed out so I was more uncomfortable than hurting.
Finally I made it home and was able to clean myself and the car up. I can still feel fluid slowly trickling out. ugh.
Thankfully that is the last of my invasive exams and procedures for a few weeks. I will be hanging on birth control until I get a call from the NEC. Until then my vagina is like a freaking Mr. Coffee dripping away.
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