Monday, February 18, 2013

gratitude interlude: the awards show edition


You guys are too kind. No, really, all of you (especially you there, LONE READER IN MONGOLIA). A little while back the wonderful JustMe at Bits and Pieces nominated me for this little jam called a Liebster Award. I still don’t totally understand the internet and I was shy and got distracted and I’m a jerk so I never did what I was supposed to do let it slip through the cracks. Then the lovely Sadie over at Invincible Spring sent some more love my way and I caved. I can no longer avoid your surely-misdirected-praise. 

So, here’s the deal: the idea of the Liebster Award is to attract more readership to small blogs that we think are super rad (that’s the technical language). It’s part chain letter, part paying it forward. You answer some questions, you pose some questions, you nominate some new blogs, and then you start counting page views from Firefox users in the Ukraine. You’re supposed to do eleven of each (11 questions, 11 nominees, 11 things about yourself), but because I’m a jerk a non-conformist and 11 is a bridge too far into double-digit-land, I may not have followed each of these rules exactly…

So. Here are my nominees:[1]
1. Schrodinger's Catbox
2. The Quest for the Golden Egg
3. Overworked Ovaries
4. Invincible Spring (I can return the favor, right?)
5. Bits and Pieces (ditto)
6. Lamenting the Lentil

 And here are some questions for these witty ladies (no pressure to play along here):
1. What’s one thing you wish you had known before starting this, ahem, adventure?
2. What’s your vice/guilty pleasure?
3. What’s the best book you’ve read in the last year?
4. Chocolate or peanut butter?
5. Complete this sentence: When I grow up I want to be _______.
6. What non fertility-trying-to-conceive website should the rest of us be wasting time on right now?
7. What was your favorite childhood television show?
8. You are down to your last $20 - what do you buy?
9. And finally, because I have a tendency to succumb to peer pressure, please share a recipe?
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Friday, February 15, 2013

infertility underachiever? cycle 3, day 1


What is there to say[1]? Not much apparently. The 10 days of birth control agony have come to an uneventful close and my early morning wake up calls, general bitchiness and intermittent nausea/monstrous hunger have subsided. I got my period as expected (I really feel like I should get a present or some sort of decadent cookie[2] for bleeding twice in 15 days but whatever). 

So. Here we are. Round three. Third time’s the time for a second miscarriage and complete emotional meltdown charm! Fertility hat trick. Fallopian triple threat – (singing, dancing and conceiving, ahem). Etc.

But if there isn’t much to say, why do I always have so much to say do I feel like an infertility underachiever? I’m not charting, I’m not taking my temperature, I’m not finding a cycle buddy (can we go for bike rides? I’m so confused), I’m not going to an acupuncturist/yoga-ist/spiritual-ist of any kind. I’m not even carefully evaluating my *cringe* cervical mucus. (And, honestly, if I’m not doing that, can I really be trusted with a child?).

That I haven’t spent this week elbows deep in interweb infertility obsession is probably a good sign for my next trial because umm, hello, full time employment you are really getting in the way of my blog habit healthy. But because I’m a glutton for punishment, I can’t help but question whether there isn’t more I should be doing.  I guess as I approach the one year mark <head spinning>, there’s a kind of creeping panic curiosity about what else is out there and what else might help me both get – and for the love of god – stay pregnant. It’s not that I necessarily have deep thoughts on the matter – and even if I did, there’s a mountain of inertia that might make any movement on these thoughts prohibitive. But, in the middle of a tense court hearing moments of daydream, some not-so-deep thoughts are bouncing around in my thick head: should I be eating differently? Should I be exercising differently? Should I be getting teeny tiny needles stuck in my ears? Should I chill-the-fuck[3]-out-already-and-not-venture-down-this-slippery-slope-of-crazy?

Ahem. Thoughts from the group?

[1] I thought about ending the post right here. But then I realized you’d have to go back to “working” or “caring for your children” or “watching The Bachelor” and because my intention is nothing if not to enable your procrastination, I proceed.

[2] Not like C reads this – he’s too overwhelmed by my superior humor – but if he did he might correct me. So let me set the record straight: he did get me a luxurious box of very fancy had-to-order-them-in-the-mail-from-new-york! sea salt caramels which are probably even “artisanal” and “made from the fresh milk of organically-raised-free-range-phD-educated-remarkably-happy-cows.” But that, my friends, was for Valentine’s Day.

[3] In the words of the inimitable Julie over at A Little Pregnant, here’s what I have to say about swearing: you try having your uterus filled with glow-in-the-dark dye and then we’ll discuss what kind of language seems appropriate. No, seriously, you should try it.
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Monday, February 11, 2013

round three of Clomid, I will seat you now


A few days ago I wrote about being my own worst advocate and made big promises about standing up for myself, feminism, changing the world through interpretive dance, etc.

Well, as long as I’m being candid with the interwebs: I failed. Literally 48 hours later I was given the opportunity to be a demanding bitch assertive, and I blinked. Sure, I fought the nurse a little bit; I offered my own personal “alternate treatment plan” that didn’t involve 10 horrid days of birth control prior to another cycle of Clomid. But at the first sign of resistance, I surrendered.

Last week I met with the reproductive endocrinologist and he basically called my bluff. Straight up, he told me that he figured he’d get a call back after he ordered that I take 10 days of the deceptively named "Apri". After the nurse made the call he "suddenly remembered" that I had a strong reaction to birth control[1] and anticipated an incensed Saturday phone call. But because I’m a total coward, he was left to enjoy his weekend undisturbed. You guys: by his own admission, he probably would have caved and let me skip the extra barrel of hormones if I had just effing stood up for myself.[2] *Palm to forehead, invective laden, self-deprecating tirade. *

Anyway, this most recent visit with the reproductive endocrinologist was our first since the early miscarriage and boy was I looking forward to rehashing those turbulent times. Naturally, I shed some unexpectedly heavy tears we had a lot of questions – which I had furtively typed out on my iphone during a particularly dull morning in court.

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Friday, February 8, 2013

food > fertility, second edition


Welcome to today’s better-late-than-never edition of "what I cooked while trying oh-my-god-actually-getting-pregnant" closely followed by "oops-wait-never mind." As I’ve mentioned here, here and here, my ever changing hormones insist, no, command, that I feed them – and often. So, while a fertility blog doesn’t exactly scream "recipe share," I’ve never been one for conformity. Plus, with snowpocalypse-2013 fast approaching, what better way to spend your snow day than eating brownies and watching the Bachelor cooking and catching up on household chores. Without further adieu, the second edition of food > fertility (recipes and irreverent commentary after the jump):

Butternut Squash and Caramelized Onion Galette



Kale Market Salad



Blood Orange Upside Down Cake


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Tuesday, February 5, 2013

living dangerously


I’m approaching one full year of trying to conceive. One full year in which, for the most part, I’ve lived like a nun. No drinking, no needle drugs[1], plenty of exercise, vegetarian diet, sex on schedule. Well, it’s time to get real. I’ve been at this almost a year and if I’m honest with myself, I know it might take yet another year[2] to make this happen.

So today I am making a decision. I’m sick of living like a prohibitionist (aside: I must not be the only one engaging in this illogical behavior?). Because I’ve been a vegetarian for 10 years and exercise is therapy-on-the-cheap, those things won’t change. And fine, if I’m being honest, exclusively-scheduled-sex ended long ago – cannot celebrate enough the benefits of spontaneity.

But about the drinking: I’ve never been a heavy drinker but, it turns out (deep insight here), a social beverage now and again is actually pretty great. Wine with dinner? Cocktail after a tough day? An eye-opener first thing in the morning? A beer with the game (who am I kidding, I don’t watch any sort of “game”)?

I have no idea why I’ve been so incomprehensibly paranoid about drinking – even on days when I literally could not be pregnant, I still refrain. (The arm-chair psychologist who lives in the back of my head suggests that it’s my way of “taking control” in a situation where I basically have none. Whatever.).

The point is, I’m willing to cop to my irrational behavior because C has gotten into making some excellent, winter-citrus-inspired cocktails and damnit, I’ve had enough of being a teetotaler. Not to mention that every drink politely declined in mixed company – combined with the ohmygod-Clomid-bloating-weight – becomes further proof to my in-the-dark friends that I must be pregnant. Which, while kind of entertaining, is really just sad – boy will they be disappointed in 9 months.

There’s also this, helpfully pointed out by a very insightful friend: because I am *cough* brave and, ahem, strong, I remained (relatively) emotionally stable during a week in which I both recovered from a chemical pregnancy AND confronted the end of 30 Rock.[3] So I’m drinking. Because I earned it.

Without further adieu, the drink that makes drinking again much more worthwhile (after the jump).
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Sunday, February 3, 2013

they must be joking, cycle 3, off to a slow start


When the nurse called with the news, even she laughed. The damage: I am still, effing, pregnant. My HCG is almost down to zero. But not quite. I clock in at a breathtakingly-so-close-to-being-un-pregnant 1.45 (down from a high of 69).

On one hand, I’m not surprised – my pelvis has felt oddly busy the last 48 hours. On the other hand, umm, really?

The nurse at my usual weekday-clinic had casually said I could start on Clomid prior to my appointment with the doctor on Tuesday. But Saturday-other-clinic-nurse was cheery and breezy as she informed me of what she thought I already knew – Clomid? Yeah, sure. But not before 10 days of re-regulation birth control, sucker!

Because I’m an assertive, strong-willed, stand-up-for-myself lady, I made a short, but impassioned, plea to skip the birth control, quickly rattling off a list of (made up and probably not medically sound) reasons why birth control was wildly unnecessary, even medically contraindicated (possibly throwing around medical jargon I heard C use). After politely hearing me out, she, ahem, declined to entertain my “alternative treatment plan.”
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Friday, February 1, 2013

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.

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