moving right along, cycle 5, day 2

This was going to be a post where I thanked all of you for your wisdom and insight and words of encouragement, admonitions to listen to myself and take a break and eat my vegetables. This was going to be a post about how after hitting an emotional wall on Friday, I crawled out of my infertility-cocoon[1]™ and spent the weekend with friends, unexpectedly and happily social, and that by Sunday night, I was rejuvenated. I was ready to face whatever was ahead. I was feeling replenished and relaxed and deep breath now, even optimistic. I was even mentally noting some non-specific symptoms – getting up to pee at least twice in the night, intermittent light headedness and, ohdeargod, holy adult-onset-acne batman! – that might be the earliest signs of Lord Voldemort, the Holocaust, the deficit that-which-shall-not-be-named.

That is all completely true; I am grateful to all of you for your spirit-boosting, I did have a great weekend and I did feel happy and refreshed. That’s what this post was going to be about. But the universe – knowing that such a post would be boring, trivial and full of absent minded reverie – intervened. 

Because, say it with me now friends and strangers: Oh no, my period!

Every cycle we[2] – you know, us, collectively, the infertility set <waves to the crowd> – prepare ourselves for this moment. We are glass half empty people, we construct barriers of self-protection on multiple fronts, we are pragmatic. We have read enough to know too much[3]. And so with each cycle we endeavor to keep our expectations low and we tell ourselves that this time, this time, we will take it in stride, we will move on to the next round, it will be okay. And then with each defeat, we are completely, almost irrevocably, destroyed. We become, at least momentarily, inconsolable. There is probably some crying, some grief eating, some not-wanting-to-get-out-of-bed-the-next-morning-ing. But then, at some point, for me it usually comes the next day, we pick ourselves up, somehow oblivious (almost) to the protracted defeat.

double the fun, cycle 3, day 12

On Saturday I had the pleasure of an early morning wanding and bloodletting at the far-away-weekend-fertility-bunker. Since we were en route to a wedding in New York, it was kind of like a road trip a real pain in the neck. It was only day 9 of my cycle but thankfully – despite an only modestly busy pelvis that had me all kinds of worried – there were four follicles to be found. But they weren’t mature and my estradiol was still only around 300. Ovulation would have to wait until another day.[1]

<Dramatic Pause.> And that day, is today. Yesterday I went in for a second round of early morning wand+blood.[2] And because I need more excitement in my life, I was subjected to perhaps the most painful transvaginal ultrasound ever experienced by anyone in the history of everdom that I have ever had[3]. The wand, suddenly a very blunt and inflexible instrument, was so far in it was basically digging into my neck. Apparently two follicles were “hiding” behind some other “organs “and the tech had to go “digging” for them up behind my eyeballs. At a certain point – when my ultra dramatic wincing became too much to bare – the tech finally stopped, muttering something about how she just can’t stand to cause me pain, etc., and put a note in my file about my hide and seek follicles.

By lunchtime, I heard back from the nurse: three “beautiful!” mature follicles and my estradiol levels were up past 700. I was given my marching orders – Ovidrel shot on Tuesday evening, then sex until Friday – and sent on my smug little way.

So what’s in store for tonight? Well, in one more showing of romance is not dead!, C will have the pleasure of grabbing my muffin top roll of belly fat and jamming it full of Chinese hamster ovary. And then we’ll have sex. Until Friday. Please, look away, I’m blushing.

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[1] Which is totally fine because it’s not like we, oh, I don’t know, packed a cooler full of ice and Chinese hamster ovary and drove all over New York with it in the unlikely event that I would have to use it while away from home. No. We did not do that. Because we are not crazy people.

[2] I thought I had come up with yet another kind of badass name for a terrible metal band. But no. This is already (kind of) a thing. (Also, “Motherboar” basically just sends my free wheeling brain here.)

[3] Here’s the truth: transvaginal ultrasounds – in spite of their alarmingly graphic name – usually aren’t that painful. And while I realize the legitimate-rape-pro-mandatory-transvaginal-ultrasound-right-wing-goon-squad would have a field day with my saying so, I am nothing if not candid with you, dear interwebs. But my point is this, I’ve chosen my fate – cold plastic probe on the regular – and other women should be free to choose theirs.

my own worst advocate, cycle 3?

Nearly a year into this whole (in)fertility adventure and fanatical passionate lawyer that I am, I’m apparently my own worst advocate when it comes to my own medical care.

I don’t get it. I’m the kind of law-talking-blog-lawyer who spends a not insignificant amount of time in court, fighting zealously on behalf of clients who aren’t exactly the most lovable on paper. But when it comes to asserting myself in the pursuit of the one thing I want the most, I gotta get it together.

Earlier this week, when I found out I was getting successfully less pregnant by the day, I let the nurse’s instructions run over me, not questioning a thing. At this point we need to make sure your HCG gets to zero, then you’ll meet with the doctor and make a plan for what’s next. Though I balked at how long I’d have to wait to see the doctor – 10 ever-loving days! – I did little else. But two rounds in, I know full well how the game is played – get your period, call the nurse, fill the Clomid prescription, order the GMO Chinese Hamster Ovary and have a sort of uncivilized dispute with insipid insurance trolls over covering it, give them your blood, perhaps several times, early morning wandings, carefully-timed-but-super-romantic sex and bam, chemical pregnancy pregnant!

So why, when I actually got my period, did I not call the nurse, demand Clomid and get on my merry way? Well, because she didn’t tell me I could. She told me to wait. And so I did. Dutifully (albeit somewhat fitfully). I waited (in pelvic agony). Until today. When I began to wonder what all this waiting was about. An absolutely riveting internal monologue followed:

Why are you waiting? Why do you apologize when you “bother” the nurse with a question that you, paying-out-your-ears-patient, is entitled to ask? Why don’t you stand up for yourself? Why have you eaten so many cookies today and don’t you know a scone is just an excuse to have cake before noon? You're a lousy feminist, etc. <End scene.>

Emboldened by my inner advocate, I asserted myself and, after apologizing to the nurse for god knows what, confidently inquired whether I might begin taking Clomid. After conferring with the doctor, she scheduled me for yet another blood draw to confirm that I’m totally, 100%, not even the littlest bit, pregnant. If I’m not – and I say this with all of the irony I can muster, please, please, please let me not be pregnant – then round three of Clomid begins tomorrow. It's going to be a wild Saturday night.

what passes for romance: cycle 2, day 13

6:45 am, Monday morning: 

Reprising his role as doctor-husband, and in most un-sexy fashion, C grabs hold of Sarah's belly fat[1]. (There is really no delicate way to say that.)

6:46 am, Monday morning:

Without even so much as a warning, C jams a giant syringe full of Chinese hamster ovary right into it[2]. Sarah, determined to cry dramatically and on cue (so that C will walk the dog take pity on her), realizes it doesn't actually hurt that much and can't quite muster the focus necessary for such theatrics.

6:47 am, Monday morning:

Wait, we're supposed to have sex now?

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[1] Third person is kind of weird fun, no?

[2] I swear I tried to learn how to do it myself, but this French manicure was just too hideously distracting.