slow and, err, steady? cycle 4, day 14

Don’t despair – my tireless rants about working mothers are behind us, and now we can return to all-pelvis-all-the-time programming. So. Where were we?

Well, I’ve finished with my incessant sobbing for now and moved on to every other day wandings and blood draws, because we all know how funny those are. Here’s where we’re at:

Thursday, Day 10: wanding by the tech who seems uncomfortably excited about my ovaries and tells me as much with a very thick Boston accent, while I’m restrained in stirrups and her arm is halfway inside me. Buh-yuuu-ti-fuhl ovuhrees! Goohr-jus! A few follicles on the right, one on the left, none big enough to trigger ovulation.

Saturday, Day 12: welcome to your weekend, please proceed to the far-away-weekend-clinic-location whose waiting room does have better magazines. And, apparently, Jack Hanna on TV, which was compelling enough that as we left, C informed me that he is going to become a doctor for turtles. NOTED.

Meanwhile, behind door number 2: follicles growing ever so slowly, largest at 15 mm, still not big enough to trigger. Which is sad because if there’s one truth in this world it is that I long for my monthly injection of Chinese hamster ovary. Return on Monday. Third time’s the charm?

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.

dubious accolades: cycle 2, day 10

Another day, another early morning in stirrups while wearing half of a business suit. It’s a precarious existence I inhabit.

In any case. There I was. In half a lawyer-suit on top and birthday suit on bottom with a new nurse wanding me. This nurse has a lot of personality. A lot of distinctly Massachusetts South Shore personality. She is candid. And feisty. And apparently, full of compliments for me and my hardworking ovaries.

“Oh yeah! Super (pronounced soo-puh), look at this one <excitedly turns screen in my direction so I can see what look like pulsing amoebas bouncing around inside my pelvis>”

“Yeah, you did a wicked good job, right here (pronounced heee-uh), look at this!”

“Very, very good!” (All New England Rs)

I may have blushed. I may have been secretly flattered by her unceasing praise. I may have been so negative going in to this morning’s wanding that I had psychologically prepared myself for no follicles and a failed cycle. After all, absent the crippling ovary pain I experienced in my first cycle, I had (completely rationally) convinced myself that this cycle was unsuccessful. 

MTV cribs: cycle day 12

Today[1] was a good day. Today I found out that I have three mature follicles, I’m ovulating on my own and I should proceed to can I say have sex here? Is the nurse listening? make a baby! Wow. This is like, really happening. So obviously, because I am still a million steps removed from having said imaginary, as-yet-still-not-conceived-or-birthed baby, I decided it was high time to start deciding on the kind of crib I fancy for my little (totally imaginary) tyke. And because I also TOTALLY have 1500 dollars to spare, the interwebs did not deny me my self-indulgent ogling. Oh no. The interwebs took my broken, battered, infertile-until-now hand and said here. Here you are, vulnerable-one-who-wants-to-look-at-pretty-things-she-does-not-need-and-cannot-afford. Here is a disturbingly vast selection of jaw-droppingly expensive, Dutch modern, fairly traded, sustainably harvested, bamboo cribs that turn into a toddler bed and then into a window seat and then, when your child turns eighteen, a space ship, a college fund an, okay fine I don’t really know where I’m going with this but it’s probably something really cool, thing.  So yeah. I totally want NEED one of those.

And now - because otherwise the title of this post would be false advertising - here is Aaron Carter (who is basically an infant because that's what you are when you have a stuffed Pumbaa on your "safari bed"), wearing an amazing Tupac t-shirt and showing off his “shag carpet” walls. Please. Hold the applause.

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[1] And if you’re just tuning in, by today, I actually mean about a week ago. Breathlessly trying to catch up to real time. I feel like Marty McFly.