Lying Down All Over Town

Today we did the embryo transfer!

I took the day off work to be able to go with Baby to all her various appointments - acupuncture, transfer, acupuncture, home - and in order to do so I told my office that she was having 'surgery.' Now they are all worried about her, and probably think she has cancer, since I was so unspecific. On Saturday she actually had surgery (egg retrieval) and I was all worried about her, but didn't manage to talk to anyone about that, since it was Saturday. Between Sunday and this morning she has been quite sick - in pain, vomiting, the works. But now this evening she seems a lot better, thank goodness.

So here was our day:

6 a.m. vomiting (Baby)

8:30 We take the train to midtown and go to Baby's acupuncturist's office there. Baby goes to lie down. I wander around in search of breakfast, saltines, and a seasickness bracelet for Baby. It is ridiculously hot outside.

10:30 We take a cab to the Kips Bay Baby Factory, where everyone is surprised that we are early. The nurse clearly thinks Baby has already had some Valium at home because she is moving so slowly and acting spacey, but we convince her that no, it's just the puking and the lack of sleep. The nurse gives Baby some Valium.

10:45 We are seated in front of this sign. I had not previously realized that the doctors here think of themselves as ganstas.

yo yo YO!

10:50 Dr. Thursday comes to talk to us. He is disorientingly jovial. Also he has tiny feet, which I find myself staring at. However, all the news he gives us is great. 26 of Baby's eggs fertilized, and 20 of those are still growing. There is a good looking blastocyst to transfer and there will be some to freeze, somewhere between 4 and 10. We won't find out how many they actually froze until tomorrow afternoon.

11:00 Baby and Dr. Thursday go into a Laurel and Hardy routine about left and right cervices. Dr. Thursday says Dr. Baby Factory told him to go in through the right cervix, but Baby says he must have meant Dr. Thursday's right, i.e. Baby's left, etc., etc. After a while Dr. Thursday agrees to poke around and not jab anything too hard until he figures it out.

11:35 Dr. Thursday breezes by me in the waiting room and says I can go back to the recovery room. He waves his arm around saying 'it's to the left.' I try the door he came out of, which is locked. I sneak through a different door and stick my head past the gansta sign into a completely empty hallway and shout. Eventually a nurse wanders by and directs me through two totally other doors to where Baby is lying down. She seems calm and happy and has this picture printed out and lying on her chest.

our first blastocyst

12:30 IT IS SO HOT OUTSIDE, WHY IS IT SO HOT?

1:00 We sweatily arrive at another office near the Baby Factory where Baby's acupuncturist also works. Baby goes to lie down and have needles stuck in her again. I read a trashy vampire novel.

2:00 Back on the train to Brooklyn.

3:00 Baby lies down in our blessedly air-conditioned apartment. Because there is no food in the house, I prepare for the trek through the blazing heat to the Food Coop.

4:00 (presumably Baby is still lying down) I search for popsicle molds (no dice) and stuff to make miso soup, which Baby has requested.

6:00 I make miso soup.

7:00 Baby and I eat the soup. Nobody vomits. Score!

ET Phone Home

Okay, I know that post title makes no sense; I just felt like it.

The fact that I am aware that it's meaningless should indicate to you that I am off the percocet. After a fairly wretched Sunday and a somewhat rough Monday morning, my belly stopped aching and I didn't need it anymore. Acupuncture probably helped, too. I'm still somewhat bloated -- only up 2 lbs. from retrieval day but it's all in my suddenly barrel-shaped tummy -- and my back/hips/thighs hurt the way they have been ever since my ovaries got big, but nothing really excruciating. Walking sucks a bit because of the legs, but it's also 90+ degrees, humid, and smelly out, so staying in isn't such a problem. (Although I also think being sedentary is part of how my back got so bad....)

Saw Dr. BF today, who wanded and specul-ized both vaginae and declared me fit to fly without anesthesia. Yay! He thinks a tenaculum will be involved -- UNyay -- but it almost always is when my cervix needs crossing, so at least I'm pretty used to it. He didn't come right out and say it had been silly (lazy?) to suggest I needed to be knocked out, but he did say, again, that they really only use that for patients who can't stand a speculum at all. Here's an idea: maybe they could have left that decision to someone who's met me when conscious, not just gone by the word of Dr. Saturday. (And folks who can't stand a speculum and do IVF anyway? HATS OFF to you. You are at least eleventy-million times braver than I.)

It turns out Sugar can't be there anyway, because they just don't allow that. Poo. She'll come with me to the office, and I know the important part isn't whether she's physically with me for that particular 20 minutes but that she's with me in the ways that count throughout all this. I'm gonna stop before I make y'all yack on your keyboards, but the point is: my wife pretty much rocks.

So! We're on for a valium-inflected ET tomorrow. I asked how the ol' emby gang is doing, and while I didn't get numbers and letters (and frankly don't really want them at this stage in the game), Dr. BF says they're doing great, better than typical. Genuises, all, playing suzuki violin and writing plays, I'm sure. I really hope we'll have some to freeze, so that it doesn't feel like everything is hanging on this cycle.

Thanks for all your ET stories. I'll think of you in my valium haze, while trying to ignore the spikes in my cervix.

Updates and Such

Hey there, internet. It's been a rather rollercoaster-y day around these parts, so I'm not sure how peppy I can make this.

Let's start with good things:

• We now have two dozen fertilized eggs. Obviously 24 is too many to put back, but luckily vitrification and FET means we can have two, reasonable pregnancies of 12 each....
• The red gatorade isn't so bad if it's really cold.
• After no percocet overnight, I felt great this morning. Better than in a week, in fact.

...that's all I can come up with.

Less good things:

• Stopping the percocet was stupid, stupid, stupid. Midmorning, I was suddenly in so much abdominal pain that I freaked out. Luckily, I did the responsible thing and called the Baby Factory. The doc on call there said she wasn't a bit surprised, given my age, battery-hen-style egg production, and extensive endometriosis. She told me to get back on the percocet and stay the heck in bed. Although it took several hours for the percocet to get back to its former level of effectiveness (because it always works better if you don't let the pain get away from you), I am basically okay now. I am also still in pajamas, which now have gatorade stains. Classy.
• Way too sick to go to acupuncture, even if I hadn't been forbidden to leave the bed.
• The nurse who called with the fert report announced that I would be having anesthesia for my ET, per the doctor who did the ER (Dr. Saturday, not Dr. Baby Factory), who never introduced himself in the OR and put my IV in badly so it hurt like hell the whole time.

Dr. Baby Factory and I had already talked about ET procedures, as he knows my ornery cervices better than anybody, and he did mention that anesthesia was a possibility. He mentioned it in a "in case you think *you'd* like this" kind of a way, just as information. We decided that valium was enough. Now some guy I don't even know has just announced that my care is changing, because he feels like it. I feel out of control and angry.

I also feel really, really sad about the idea of not being conscious for the ET. So much of the IVF experience is so distant from what I want the conception of our child to be like. I am grateful that I have the opportunity to use IVF, grateful that it may save us from infertility. But the experience is not without loss, you know? I've read so many IVF blogs, and ET day seems for so many couples like the day it becomes personal again, as they watch the embryo on the screen, hold hands as it goes in. I want that.

Doctor On-Call wants me to come in tomorrow anyway, to get checked for OHSS and so on. Since Dr. Baby Factory is also Dr. Monday, I hope to talk to him about it. I just hope I can keep from crying. Because crying hurts my belly so much right now.

Oh, I forgot one other good thing: a big shout out to my wonderful acupuncturist, who wrote to check in on me and is just generally a blessing.

It's time

I've been in stirrups so many times in the past week that I've started wearing skirts to the clinic, just to save the trouble of taking my pants on and off. I take my shoes off anyway, because not doing so seems somehow inappropriate, even though there's no real need.

I went into the Baby Factory for blood work and ultrasound this morning, as I have for the past seven consecutive days. First stop: blood draw room. There are lots of nurses, most wonderful, and I hadn't had this one before. She said something sympathetic about how much time I've been spending there -- both arms are pretty bruised at this point -- and I said I didn't mind, that I appreciated being watched so closely, that it helps me worry less. And anyway, I like having more data.

Oh, she asked, do you work in medicine?

This question comes up a lot. I don't work in medicine, but I was raised by two doctors in an area where hospitals and labs are major employers. Medicine is my mother tongue.

So I told her no, that my parents were doctors, though. And then she said what easily fifty percent of people do after that revelation:

"Aren't they disappointed that you're not a doctor?"

Now I ask you, what kind of small talk is that? To tell you the truth, I'm not entirely convinced they're not disappointed, though they never say so. Heck, sometimes I'm disappointed in myself for not being a doctor -- I'm pretty sure I'd be good at it -- and I never wanted to be one. But is this really a conversation I need to have with a stranger first thing in the morning? Public Service Announcement: If you find yourself about to ask someone who is not a very close friend whether her parents are disappointed in her, JUST DON'T.

Onward to ultrasound.

At the Baby Factory, all IVF patients on a given day are seen by the same doctor, no matter who your regular doctor is. Each day of the week has a doctor assigned to it; Dr. Baby Factory, for instance, is Dr. Monday. Ultrasounds are done by one of a trio of lovely fellows -- all women, just to complicate the nomenclature -- or by the doc of the day. Today I met Dr. Thursday, a jovial, paternalistic jackass.

First of all, I appreciate it when folks introduce themselves before sticking anything up my privates. Call it a quirk of my Southern upbringing. Second, when I tell you, since I'm not counting on your having read the details of my chart, that I have a vaginal septum and that you should aim to the right with that dildocam, the preferred response is, "thank you for telling me." Not:

"Why didn't somebody take that out?"

Luckily, my pre-cycle anxiety dreams had prepared me for this moment (only with more knives), so instead of blubbering I managed,

"Because it belongs to me."

The examine continued in that vein. Dr. Thursday is the only one of the docs I've seen who didn't adjust the u/s screen so I could see it, and I bet he wouldn't have told me the follicle measurements I'd asked for if he hadn't had to call them out to the resident in the corner. He ended the session with a pat on my knee and a "Good job" that made me feel like livestock.

So now I know why they want you barefoot in the stirrups: a kick to the face is bound to hurt less that way.

ONWARD.

I am triggering tonight. Ten minutes to midnight, which my sweet, strictly diurnal Sugar is bound to hate. I'm nervous as heck about the shot and mostly about the retrieval and continue to appreciate your reassurances and general support.

Biggest follicle is about 19.5 mm. Dr. Thursday said about 10 on each side. So now I'm nervous about OHSS, too. E2 is 3364. Talked to Dr. Baby Factory, and he sounds a little nervous, too, but not nervous enough to have me trigger with Lupron. So I guess we just hope for the best and stock up on gatorade.

Retrieval is Saturday.

Which means a 5-day transfer would fall on...Dr. Thursday's shift. Awesome Sauce.

Some Good Advice

Internets! Hello from day 4 of stims.

Things are going pretty well. I went in for blood work today, and they say I'm showing a good response. My estrogen is at 545. So tonight, Gonal-F went down to 187.5, and tomorrow we're going in for more b/w and the first u/s look at what's up in the ol' egg cartons. I'm to bring the Ganirelix with me, in case it's already time to start antagonizing the follies.

In side-effects land, I've had a bit of a backache, especially on Cysty Lefty's side. Yesterday I had a tiny headache, which reached "blinding" this afternoon. Yuck, but Dr. Baby Factory said I can take the codeine I have for migraines if I need to, so it's down to "splitting" now. I sure hope my head doesn't just feel like this from here on out, but I feel I can't complain much, since I'm not teaching right now and I can, in fact, lie down and groan if needed.

I can also lie down and nap, which is a darn good thing. I can't believe how tired this stuff is making me. Sugar points out that I am, after all, growing a bunch of stuff, so maybe that's why. Or maybe it's just my native sloth. Lordy, though. I took a nap as soon as I got home from the Baby Factory and other Manhattan errands this morning. When I woke up, I felt like I could really go for a nap.

...which brings me to the advice portion. I was whining a bit to the splendiferous Fat Chick about all of this -- do you all read her blog? Do you already know how brilliant and marvelous she is? I certainly hope so. (If not, I am dead jealous, since you get the pleasure of finding her blog for the first time.)

Here she is on side effects. I think I should print this out and stick it to the bathroom mirror:

Oh Bionic, you are a sweet, sweet noob. Here's the thing: No matter what you are feeling, whether it be emotional or physical, if it is in the slightest way disconcerting, annoying, painful or otherwise negative - in your opinion or the opinions of those near and dear to you - it is always, always because of the drugs. If, on the other hand, you are feeling something positive, it is because you are such an emotionally and physically strong woman that you are able to do the impossible. Namely, you are able to function at a high level despite the added hormones.

Some examples, for clarification purposes:

Road Rage: Drugs
Laughing: You
Small Kitten Cuteness: You
Loud Neighbor Annoyances: Drugs
Inappropriately Unpleasant FB Update: Drugs

All clear?

I <3 Fat Chick. As does my Native Sloth:

Bullet-y Roundup

Hey gang. There's been way too little about hoo-has on this blog lately, no? Sorry about that. We're in a period of hoo-ha dormancy at the moment, ending soon. To whit:

• We've been on TTC break, but IVF commences in round about 2 weeks. (This protocol begins on CD2, and all signs point to my ovulating about now.) I'm excited and totally freaked out. I am trying not to take my lunacy out on Sugar, but dreaming of needles every night is getting old (and tiring).
• Speaking of needles, I have been going to acupuncture every week for some time now. I really like the practice, Brooklyn Acupuncture Project. It's clean and nice and cheap. The practitioners are friendly and no one's tried to talk me into changing my diet. (I have a history of disordered eating and know from experience that even small, reasonable changes lead me directly to the place of hypercontrol, which leads directly to the place of not eating. Which can't be a good move, health-wise.) I'm not sure how much it's helping with my chief complaint, anxiety (see dreams above). It does chill me out on the day of the appointment, and I suppose I am moderately less crazy than I was in April, so that's something. What I don't like about acupuncture is how it wears me out for the whole day. Do others of you have this?
  
• Have any of you done IVF at NYU? Know any bloggers who have? Since it looks like Nicole will have to wait a few months, I've lost my cycle buddy -- and I was selfishly hoping she'd go first and give me the lay of the land.
  
• I've ordered the meds. Still need to sort out whether Dr. Baby Factory will stick to his statement that he'll let me try the progesterone coochie bullets, since the shots freak me out.
• We need to order more sperm. This week, yo.
• We found a church hall to have our wedding party in! Now we just need to get some food and invite people....
  
• A veritable bevy of my aunts is in town. My mother, too. This has led me to blurting out things about my vaginae, cervices, and so on many times in the past few days. Since living in New York means living in public, said blurting has occurred in inappropriate places: the check-out line at the food coop, a busy sidewalk on 35th street.
• My mother and her sisters are all deaf to varying degrees, so said inappropriate blurting has also been very loud. And repeated. Continuing to do my bit to keep city life interesting.
  

I owe you a number of posts, internet. Posts about why I feel guilty moving on to IVF so soon, and about why it is a good idea anyway. Posts about why I'm not taking Dr. Baby Factory's advice and letting him remove my vaginal septum, even though doing so is on balance the more logical decision. Posts about how I've become someone who screams about my vagina in midtown. I'm certain to feel more frantic in the coming weeks, so stay tuned.

And I'll get a new Come and Eat post up soon. Meanwhile, try playing this game. (Tip o' the nib to Geek and Lawyer.)

Red Light, Green Light

I thought it might help to sort out what about IVF I am and am not scared of. Something's gotta help soon, because I'm sick of waking up at 4:30. (Good news: I found a sliding-scale acupuncture clinic! Gonna call next week, for reals. We'll deal with what about acupuncture I am and am not afraid of another day....)


What I am scared of:

- Big needles. Dr. Baby Factory prefers to use progesterone in oil, but he said he’s okay with coochie bullets. So I don’t need to worry about that one (except for the part of me that’s like “but shouldn’t I use THE VERY BEST THING? WHY DON’T I WANT A BABY???”)


What I am not scared of:

- Small needles. I’m a tiny bit weirded out by the thought of the follistim injections, but not in an unmanagable way. I used to watch my dad give himself allergy shots. I think this is one of those times that being a doctors' kid helps — I don’t have the feeling that medical care is something that doesn’t happen at home, and I’m basically into science experiments. And if it gets that bad, I have a friend with a medical degree who’s already offered to give me the shots. (And if that doesn’t work out, I can always have her 2.5 year old daughter do it. That kid gives me “medicine” with my bbt thermometer every time she’s over, which is often. She has a great bedside manner — comforting but very firm.)


- That follistim and friends will make my ovaries hurt unbearably, given that Cysty Lefty hurts an awful lot of the time as it is. Oh well. I suppose childbearing is a weird goal if I’m interested in avoiding discomfort, huh?

- Two-week follicular phase. That sounds like a big improvement over my usual twenty-odd days. I can do anything for two weeks, right?


- Egg retrieval. That’s normal, right? How could I not be scared of giant needles in my vagina, right? And how the hell are they going to get around my big-ass cysts? (According to my dream life, I am also afraid of crazy infections that enlarge the lining surrounding my heart. Awake, I am afraid that the Terrible Metaphor part of my mind is taking over. IVF leads to heartache? Real original, brain. MFA in Writing = money well spent.)

- IVs. Dr. Baby Factory said he’d want to do my ER with anesthesia — and he thought I’d object! Ha! I’m a big wimp and am all for being knocked out. So I’m telling myself that all I will have to do on ER day is show up and get an IV. Everything that comes afterward…well, I’ll be down for the count. (I hope. Last time I had twilight anesthesia — when I had my wisdom teeth out — I woke up in the middle. On the bright side, I was still too blissed out to be bothered. I remember lying there thinking, “Oh, that crunching sound must mean they’re having to break my tooth to get it out. La la la!”)


- Not having any eggs/embryos. Dr. Baby Factory doesn’t think the no-egg thing is likely (since I had a bunch of follicles on the last scan), but really, I suppose there’s only one way to find out.


- Twins.

- Single Embryo Transfer. Dr. BF thinks this is a great idea for me, given my age and all the rest (like my fear of twins). He thinks it lowers my odds only a little bit, and since my insurance is paying….
But then again, my insurance company wouldn’t be the ones climbing back into the stirrups, not to mention dealing with the emotional fallout not getting pregnant. Okay, it turns out I am a little afraid of this. But I am more afraid of twins in our New York apartment and our loosey-goosey financial situation.


- Believing this is a sure thing; losing my mind if it doesn’t work, even if only on the first try.

- Never having a child. Always being the-adult-kids-love, with none of my own to sometimes love and sometimes loathe me. Again, only one way to find out.

Seven Swans A-Swimming

Hey, y'all. How's it?

On the blog and in my life, I'm feeling a need for spring cleaning. Got a number of projects malingering* around the house and mind, needing to get finished before I can move on to new things. So here's one I've been letting slide for too long:

April, of CD 1 Again -- and doesn't that title say it all? Don't you wish you were still back in the innocent past, when "CD 1" was the first disc in your compact disk changer? -- gave Our Dear Blog this award some time ago. Thank you, April! You're grand.



Here are the rules:
*Thank the person who nominated you and link to their blog.
*Copy the award and paste it to your blog.
*Tell us 7 interesting facts about yourself.
*Nominate 7 bloggers that you love and link to their blog.

(I know the purpose of these things is to tell you a bunch of random** details about my non-TTC life, like that I know how to eat fire and did so in several parades in college or that I was one of those super-nerd kids who took the SAT in 7th grade for no particularly good reason (but they gave me a book of timelines of European history (that I never read) because I got a good-ish score) or that my fingers are double-jointed, but really? All I want to talk about right now is TTC stuff. So here follow seven facts about our current TTC plans. You'll have to decide for yourselves whether they're more interesting than knowing that my geneticist father and I both have simian creases on our left hands and that he used to show his medical students slides of my xeroxed hand prints (Remember xeroxing your hands? Wasn't that the greatest?) and that I wonder if I'll one day have a child with the same crease (Oops, that one was TTC-ish).)

Seven Possibly Interesting Facts

1. We met with Dr. Baby Factory yesterday, so he could re-wand my cysty ovaries.

2. They look the same as last summer, which is something of a relief, as they hurt a lot of the time and I was worried they were worse or turning to the Big C or something. But they don't look good, per se. Two bigguns on the left (around 3 cm each -- no wonder it hurts), some smaller ones on the right. I could have the cysts out with laproscopy, but while that would help with pain, it might well hurt fertility, since some ovarian tissue would have to go, too. I feel down on losing ovarian tissue right when I'm hoping to use it.

3. Plenty of follicles, though. And E2/FSH levels are fine (58/4.3 vs. 74/4.2 last year).

4. Dr. BF thinks we've tried enough IUIs. If we had a free source of sperm or if my insurance wasn't as great as it is (and it is! the one good money thing about my job!) or if the cysts were smaller...but yeah. He thinks three tries was enough.

5. It's IVF time. Probably in June.

6. I feel partly scared about that, partly excited, partly hopeful that all that's wrong with me is that my eggs can't get to the ute, because they're stuck under cysts or getting hung up in scarred tubes.

7. But mostly right this minute I feel a little ashamed to be moving on after only three tries, even if the doctor does think it's the thing to do, that my odds without it are getting quite small. I'm afraid people -- and that's mostly you, internet, since not that many IRL people know about all this -- will think I'm cowardly or lazy or somehow cheating. HOW I WOULD LOVE to get pregnant in my own bed, with my pervy cats curled up and purring beside me. HOW I WOULD LOVE to not get poked and prodded in new, exciting ways. HOW I WOULD LOVE to never learn to give myself injections, let alone ones that will make my ouchy ovary ouchier.

But more than any of that, how I would love to have a child.

Seven Certainly Beautiful Bloggers

1. Mrs. Basement, whose blog I only found today, but whom I already adore.

2. Hairy Farmer Family, who has two cervices, like me! And also two utes. And she's named them. Also? She's brilliant in every way.

3. love+love=marriage, who are a whole lot of fun and have cutie-cute pictures of wee Mr. Holland.

4. The magnificent Mrs. Spock! Who is all kinds of wonderful and to whom I owe a proper thanks-for-the-socks-and-love post -- the next piece of spring cleaning business.

5. One of His Moms, who likely doesn't know I exist, but whose blog is one of the first lesbo-mom ones I found. I devoured the archives over the course of a few days last spring -- and even if I never got to try my, erm, hand at home insems, I credit her with teaching me how.

6. Madame X at The Young and The Infertile, who is not so infertile these days but remains eloquent and intellectually dashing.

7. And peg o' me heart, Starhillgirl at Caved, for whom I would log my lunch faithfully forever.

*Ed: GOD, I hate that "malingering" doesn't mean "lingering, but in a bad way". I've gotten over "nonplussed" not meaning "feeling "eh" about it," but "malinger" is still hard. I want to use it so bad, but I can hear my mother's correction, so I won't. (I can also hear her sigh over the colloquial use of bad as an adverb.)

**I know Mama hates this usage, too, but it's taken hold nonetheless. Sorry.

If You Can't Say Anything Nice...

Anyway, that's why I haven't been posting.

Not much going on in baby-making land. Peeing on OPKs. Planning on an IUI this month, not feeling terribly optimistic about the whole thing. Wondering how long I should keep this up before admitting that it's not going to happen short of IVF (if at all). Dr. Baby Factory says 1-4 more cycles, given the severity of my endometriosis.

(Dammit, why doesn't spell check know "endometriosis"? Screw you, spell check.)

Speaking of endo, last week was a particularly unpleasant edition of GI/Endo Badness. At least I have visible wounds to show for it this time -- after the first day stuck in bed groaning, I took a bunch of the painkillers I use for migraines. (They don't make the GI pain go away, but they do make it seem like it's happening to somebody else. Sometimes they let me sleep a little, too.) Then I decided I could go to the bathroom -- a whopping 10 foot walk -- by myself, which was fine until I was on the toilet and the visual world was replaced by thickening clouds of very coarse static. I'd never noticed how LOUD the bathroom lights were. It would have been okay if I'd had the sense to get off the toilet and onto the floor, as I had that afternoon when the same thing had happened -- orthostatic hypotension is a common side effect of taking a handful of those little pills.

But lying on the bathroom floor sucks, I thought, if one can be said to "think" with so little blood in one's brain. I bet I can make it back to bed if I run.

I am a genius.

I'm not sure if I did run, as the next thing I was aware of following a period of blackness was a lot of furniture hitting my face. Then Sugar was standing over me in the living room, saying she would help me to bed but that I needed to decide first whether I wanted my pants on or off, because halfway wasn't working very well.

I am now the proud owner of a subtly glamorous black eye.

But you should see the bookcase.

You Know What's Awesome?

Valium. Valium is awesome.

If I were in the market for a new addiction, I'd strongly consider this one. Although bear in mind that I am still pretty loopy.

You know what's better than valium?

You all. Thanks for all the kind messages today. When I heard the word "tenaculum," I unfolded them and read them again. (And tried to name every part of England that I could. I'm pretty good with geography, but not when high, apparently. Kept getting caught in a Devon-Dover-"They'll be bluebirds over the white cliffs" loop.)

More later, when I am sobered up. Typing like this is way too hard.

P.S. The socks, for the curious and the SITM faithful, are from Little Miss Mismatched (which means there's a third one, too, in red and yellow). The nurse liked them, too.

Greetings, ICLWeegers

Hiya.

Thanks for dropping by, despite the fact that I obviously missed the stay-classy memo in re: how to answer that "what do you usually blog about" question, such that while you all said things like "faith" and "hope" I said "peeing."

Sugar is shaking her head right along with you.

Our story so far:

We're just your typical lesbian couple trying to start a family. Totally ordinary. Only I have two vaginas. Vaginae, if you're a big nerd like me. And also two cervices. See? Dull, almost.

After what feels a million ultrasounds, MRIs, specula, and nasty tenacula on my poor little cervices, the doctors, nurses, ultrasound techs, receptionists, and zebra fish embryologists I've dropped trou for since first googling "double vagina"* have come to the conclusion that I am a freak among freaks -- despite the Doublemint twins that are my naughty bits, my good old ute is singular and otherwise normal. Plus, I found out I have a bonus ureter...

...and also endometriosis. So even though we've only tried one IUI, Dr. Baby Factory thinks we should be thinking seriously about IVF if I don't have a bun in the ol' oven after the next 2-5 tries. We've had our differences with Dr. Baby Factory, but he does strike me as a smart cookie.

We took a break in November (to get married! for real!) and December (to see our nutty families! for far too long!), but we're back in the saddle this month, which means I'm bitching about pee sticks. OPK negative today, thanks for asking -- but it's only CD 1,000,000.


*make sure safe search is ON.

Updates of All Sorts

One of those dreadful bullet-blogs.

-- Exciting things afoot (asnatch?) over at Two Hot Mamas! Go give 'em some labor-love!

-- Couple new things up on the Etsy site:
1. the aforementioned custom pet stamp by Bionic
2. a wickedly sweet/sweetly wicked skull pendant drawn and enameled by Sugar




-- Tentatively good news on the job/insurance front. After some serious hustle on my part, enrollment in the my endangered class is one student shy of "off the radar" for cancellation. I'm hoping that means they're likely to run it even if I don't get another one by Thursday. I also have calls all over the place to see if I could get coverage by taking a Saturday kids' class offered by the same department. I'd rather not have to, since my horrible commute becomes excruciating when it meets the reduced weekend bus service, but I'd also rather not lose my insurance.

-- I've been peeing on sticks and so on, and we've decided we'll climb back on the TTC horse this month, now that insurance looks less scary. Frankly, due date for a child conceived this time of year is still bad for us financially -- fall is my higher-earning semester -- but I'm not willing to insem only during the limited "good timing" months. Especially because...

-- I've talked to Dr. Baby Factory about my endo questions. He says yes, the GI badness probably is endo, but that there's not much to be done about it, as that location has particularly bad surgical outcomes. (Basically, the scar tissue from surgery between vag and rectum is likely to be much worse than any original adhesion. Cervix glued to rectum, that kind of thing.) He also said, "I hope I haven't given you the impression that I think everything is fine with your chances of conception," and brought up again the idea that going to IVF after 3-6 IUI attempts might be more cost-effective in our case. Sigh.

Okay, I know this is the part you really want updated:

-- Pee Stick Follies Update....I chickened out. I already know what happens to silica gel when it's allowed to absorb liquid for a few hours. And if Sugar came home to find quivering chunks of pee-jello on the bathroom sink, you can bet I'd lose all rights to talk about how icky her neti pot is.

If it's any consolation, I did have a hell of a time getting the packet out of the pee-cup neatly. In fact, such a thing proved impossible. Don't tell Sugar.

Last Night

I dreamed last night I was in my garden, in back of a house I don't own. I was quite covered in dirt when I noticed a long curve of something coming up from my left hip. I pulled it up and, as I was surprised to discover, out of my groin, which hurt but also felt satisfying. "Ah," I thought, "an old vein. Must have gone bad. Forgot I'm supposed to be pulling those out." But when I shook the dirt off and looked again, it was a tough runner of grass, which had evidently grown into me and rooted.

All of which is to say that I woke up with cramps.

I don't mean to complain about that. For one thing, I wasn't thinking I might be pregnant this time, since I ovulated on the weekend of our wedding, which was beautiful timing for poetry but lousy for a trip to the Baby Factory, with all the scheduling and defrosting and spiking of my cervix that entails. For another, the cramps aren't that bad. In fact, the five periods since my horrible HSG have been the five least painful I can remember. I used to spend three days or so every month nearly incapacitated, popping Aleve until my stomach hurt, often swearing, sometimes writhing, rarely passing out. Now the pain almost goes away with Advil. My theory is that much of my pain was because my cervices -- despite having, in principle, twice the potential to admit blood -- were so circuitous and given to clenching that the blood couldn't get out, leaving my uterus Very.Angry. Now one entrance has been, to quote the note on my chart that I read over a nurse's shoulder, "perforated," and it's not so dramatic. (Unfortunately, even that side is still tough for the catheter to negotiate, which is why the new note in my chart says I'm to have Valium the next time we try to knock me up*.)

At the HSG, Dr. Baby Factory told me that my tubes were open, though the cysts on my ovaries still left him calling my endometriosis "significant." I could have surgery for it, if it was bothering me, or just try to get knocked up and hope for the best, if it wasn't so bad. I am, as previously noted, generally opposed to knives wielded at my person, so I politely declined. And then my cramps all but stopped!

Except. Now that I'm keeping better track of my cycles, I'm wondering if this insane GI awfulness I've been having occasionally for the past few years isn't secretly some kind of endo. It doesn't happen every month or usually during my period, but it has happened the past two months, both times a few days before my period started. Remember when I thought I might have super-early morning sickness but them decided it was the stomach flu? That. It happened again this month, on Thanksgiving (so I couldn't eat anything)**. Basically, what seems to happen is that my colon stops advancing (uh, TMI, sorry, but you are reading this because of my hoo-has, so only kind of sorry), I fill up with gas, and I lie on the floor writhing and screaming for 12-24 hours until things move along again. I went to the GI doc some time ago, pooped in lots of cups, and got told that probably I had injured myself getting food poisoning, that things were out of whack, that I should take pro-biotics and hope it got better, which it sort of seemed to, but only sort of. Now I'm wondering if the real issue could be that I have endometrial nodules on or near my bowel that get inflamed and mess everything up. I have a call in to Dr. Baby Factory to see what he thinks of this theory, but I know that the answer is likely to be that there's no way to tell without surgery.

Did I mention how I don't like the cutting? Oh, and how I'd like to get one with this TTC business already and stop having to hurry up and wait?

Did I also mention that the weather has turned cold? How about that this is my last night of 30, and that when my mother was my age, she was about 3 days from going into labor with me, after two endo surgeries and several more years of TTC?



*Which -- and believe me, baby-watchers, I am as impatient about this as you -- won't be until mid-January, at the earliest. Not only am I most likely to ovulate on the day we set off on our annual Middle-Western Odyssey, making timing a clinic visit stressful, but I would also, on balance, like to be drinking at New Years and also not weeping over getting my period while snowed-in at Sugar's parents'.

**but still had a nice time, because my super-awesome cousin was visiting. She was the most compassionate 18-year-old EVER about how sick I was, sadly because she was been so very much sicker with endo herself for the past couple years.

Best Planned Lays

This isn't going to be one of those well-made blog posts. This is one of those pissy lists. BUT: Before the ranting commences, Hello and Thanks for dropping by! to everyone, but especially to those of you directed here by the lesbian-lovin' Kymberli. It's a pleasure having you. If any of the rest of you don't read Kymberli's blog, you should certainly head over to read today's tale of accidental head-shaving.

1. LH surge: I can has one, pls? Still spending my days with legs crossed, still but the palest of lines on the OPK. Not yet out of bounds for my longest cycles, but getting close. Am secretly convinced I don't make LH.

2. Farewell, Mr. NMEBSI? It turns out he wasn't screened for a genetic disorder that I only just now got tested for. I won't know my results for at least another month or so. I had thought that no donors had been screened (so my own results would only be to help us decide about prenatal testing), but it turns out that some have. So we will choose a screened donor for September, at least, and maybe beyond (depending on my results).

(If you think I'm being over-cautious, please keep in mind that my father is a pediatric geneticist, who treats very small, very sick kids. This disorder is common, and although my parents raised me to be independent, he all but asked me to get tested.)

We were pretty upset about this, but we've since found some screened donors who also seem like good choices. Which means we have plenty of energy left to be upset that...

3. Dr. Baby Factory will not waive the $450 counseling session, nor will he allow us to see a counselor outside of the practice (who might take our insurance or just charge a little less than $9/minute). There are so many reasons this enrages me (and fills me with hopeless despair, but the anger is more interesting, I imagine) that it's hard to keep them all straight in my mind. I'll limit my rant to three. I'm realizing that they mostly come down not to the refusal to waive the counseling but to how it's been talked about.

a. There's equal ≠ fair aspect to the whole thing -- Dr. Baby Factory cannot or will not (as I find white men of privilege generally can't or won't) wrap his mind around the idea that treating all couples using donor-whatever in the same way may be equal but it isn't fair, in the sense that it is willfully blind to what brings each couple to this place. The best I can come up with is that this is like saying that it's fair that no employees get Jewish holidays off, when in fact that's equal but unfair. It bugs me that he won't acknowledge that our position is different from that of a straight couple using donor-stuff.

b. There's the giant fuck-you that is their counselors working with NO insurance. I don't think I'd be half as mad if they worked with some but not ours, though I'd still be pretty tweaked, since we chose this practice because it works with our insurance. But taking no insurance at all? So it's just an automatic "too bad you aren't normal" charge? Shitty, shitty, shitty.

c. There's the way Dr. Baby Factory distinguishes straight couples from us by referring to them as "married". GAH! I AM TRYING TO BE MARRIED, JERK-FACE. (How I wish we'd already eloped to CT, so I could tell him off properly for that one.)

As I see it, we have three options -- but please let me know if you think of any others, wise internet:

1. Suck it up, swallow pride, see if pooped-out pride sells on eBay, and pay for it.
Pros: Path of least resistance (except cost means less sperm means fewer tries before we have to store up money again).
Cons: Money, rage.

2. DIY at home, at least to start. (Assuming Dr. Baby Factory will still sign the home delivery release, as he said he would back at the HSG.) Reevaluate after a month or so.
Pros: No one involved who makes me want to spit nails.
Cons: Lower conception rate than IUI. Inefficient use of money, since we would be buying 2 vials/month and having to get them shipped every month (vs. getting 3 months' at once and storing at the clinic).

3. Change clinics.
Pros: I have another recommendation that my insurance will cover, with free sperm storage and no seekrit psych fees. Could work on details while trying DIY for a month.
Cons: Starting all over with intake, etc. More prodding of the vages. More theories. Sounds exhausting and like it will take forever.


Stay tuned, internet, to see down which path our heroines next gang agley.

I'm A Lesbian And I'm Okay

I should really put my insurance on speed dial. Not a day goes by, it seems, that I’m not talking to them.

This morning, I finally got resolution on the “will you pay for this genetic test” question I put to them in…June. That’s 2 months of their losing letters, requiring codes they hadn’t asked for in the first place, requiring still more codes, and so on. Every fax takes two days to process because they convert them to microfilm before reading them. This makes the bureaucratic aspects of my health care sound more like a James Bond movie, but also seems to negate the speediness of faxing.

Now I’m on hold to find with a different branch of the company. Rather than the Mozart the main line uses, the mental health section favors silence punctuated by a firm voice saying, “Please wait.” Repeatedly. I’m calling the mental health division because apparently, I’m cruising for a nervous breakdown by being gay. News to me, but hey, I’m no doctor.

The above is an oversimplification, but near enough to the truth. Sugar and I had been thinking we’d skip the Barry White and vanilla-scented candles portion of the TTC journey in favor of the favorable if florescent-lit odds of IUIs at the Kips Bay Baby Factory. Mr. NMEBSI* has more IUI than ICI vials available, and we have been starting to think that we should face the fact that we don’t have baby-making equipment in the house, rather than let sentiment stand in the way of a better chance of conception. In the aftermath of my HSG, I had been feeling reluctant to encourage any more catheter-on-cervix action, but now I’ve had two months of the least painful periods since high school. Some private investigation indicates that I’m bleeding almost exclusively out of the side that was — to quote my chart — “perforated” at the HSG, which makes me think that totally tubular experience left my cervix more open and that an IUI was therefore less likely to require overwhelming force. So today I called the clinic IUI nurse to find out the procedures. All fairly straight-forward, except, oh, had no one told me I’d have to meet with their psychologist first? Everyone using donor sperm does.

Let me be frank: I’d rather we didn’t have to use donor sperm. I’d rather bring home a bottle of cheap champagne, line a roasting pan for Ray’s lucky Beer Can Chicken, and end up with a kidlet who looks half like me and half like Sugar. I’d also like a magical flying pony who lives in the apartment and doesn’t poop. I suppose I can see recommending a sit-down with the counselor for het couples using donor sperm, who perhaps haven’t spent more than a decade considering the ramifications of having a child who isn’t genetically related to both of them, but come on. We’ve been over this, trust me.

I find this requirement annoying if not discriminatory, but I also remember my grandmother telling me not to cut off my nose to spite my face, so I called the office psychologist and made an appointment for next week. Sugar must have been able to tell over gChat how pissed I was, because she didn’t say boo about having to miss more work. At the end of the conversation, the receptionist says, “By the way, the fee for the consultation is $450 and we don’t work with any insurance companies.”

EXCUSE ME? $450 because you’re worried that I might not have thought about being gay? $450 so Sugar and I can put on our Happy, Well-Adjusted Couple Show for you? No matter what anyone who’s known us for more than an hour might think of our parenting ambitions; clearly what you think matters most.

Since I started writing this post, I talked to a very nice woman at my insurance company, who tells me that they’ll reimburse for 80% of the fee, less my deductible, which is $363. So it would only cost me $380.40 to be gay. Bargain prices! Everyone will want to be gay now!

I say “would” because this pisses me off way too much, even if we had $380.40 we couldn’t figure out how to use (answer: sperm). I have a call in to the doctor. If he won’t waive this, we’ll go elsewhere or just crank up the Barry White after all.


*I love this name, by the way. Mr. Nmebsi sounds like he would get his oil changed by Mr. J.L.B. Matekoni and perhaps respectfully consult Mma Ramotswe about his suspicion that his neighbor was pilfering from his garden.

Totally Tubular

What did that mean, exactly, anyway? I remember that the connotation was positive, so I can only assume it had nothing to do with yesterday's "totally tubular" HSG adventure.

An HSG, for the blessedly uninitiated, is an X-ray of your more internal lady-parts, in particular your uterus and (if you're lucky) your fallopian tubes. Only if you're really lucky, you won't have to do this at all because let me tell you, it pretty much sucks.

Listen, before I go into my story: If you're reading this because you have to have one and you're scared about it, do be aware that your experience will NOT be like mine. The part of my procedure that hurt was the part concerned with getting through my cervix, and that was because of the double-vag action. If you have the ordinary number of vaginas and cervices, then the speculum part might be ouchy and the dye might give you cramps, but that's it. And if your set-up is irregular, take heart: I survived. The anxiety was way worse than the pain. DO take a bunch of Advil beforehand, DO BYO maxi pad, and DO get someone to come with you, if you can.

Now back to our whiny story, already in progress:

It goes like this, in principle: You take a whopping amount of Advil and maybe some antibiotics and then report to Radiology, where you strip down and hop up on a table, all pap-smear style, except there are no stirrups. I have it on authority from several other victims patients that there are never stirrups. You didn't think the stirrups mattered, but you find yourself annoyed at holding your legs in place without them. Then the doctor gives you something to be annoyed about, and by "be annoyed" I mean "cry".

The next step is a yawning speculum, followed by a catheter through your cervix. Dye through the catheter into your ute and hopefully your tubes -- the idea is to see if the tubes are open -- quick X-ray shot of all that business, everybody out of the pool vag, and you're on your way, sorer but wiser, and leaking dye into the pad you brought with you or else one of those throw-pillow-sized hospital ones.

Aren't bones pretty? This is not me, by the way, but the internet says it is normal.

The speculum is not a picnic -- it has to be open more than for a pap -- and some people get some cramping from the dye. I didn't. Instead, I got endless horrible pinchingburning from the many attempts to get through cervix number one, followed by more stretchingaching from cranking open vag number two, followed by more digging around on that cervix. Holy crap, that sucked, not least because it was so damn demoralizing listening to the X-ray go off again and again and again and again, only to see no uterus onscreen, only the end of the speculum and a sad little pool of dye stuck outside.

Me, after watching nothing happen for the third time: I promise you I have a uterus.

Dr. BF: I know you do. I've seen it on ultrasound.

Me: I've seen it on the MRI.

Dr. BF: Yes, I know you have a uterus.

More burrowing around in my nether regions. More nothing happening on the X-ray.

Me: I further swear that I do get my period, every month, and that it comes out of my cervix.


Dr. BF: I like your logic.

My Cervices, after tries 1-5 (or 6? I lost count):
NOBODY HOME.
THERE IS. NOBODY. AT HOME.

Eventually, door number two yielded. Not without some burning pain, though, and I wish I hadn't glanced at the instrument tray later, because there was rather more of me on it than a girl would hope. And the news is good: though Dr. Baby Factory describes my endometriosis as "significant" and brings up IVF every time we talk, he says the tubes are open enough to give it a go on our own first.

Thank you, Nice Nurse, for patting my shoulder while Dr. Baby Factory cranked the speculum in my bigger vag up to 11 or so. I know you were right to stop me massaging my poor tum when he went for door number two, so I hope I didn't give you a very dirty look. Sorry I dissed your pad when it was all over, but seriously, by the time those things take two hands to carry, they are too big. Please tell the hospital to enter this century (or even the final decade of the last one).

When Hospital Pads Attack

Thank you Dr. Baby Factory for telling me when things would hurt, for apologizing repeatedly, for not sounding panicked or annoyed when nothing would get through cervix number one. It's a real pity the catheter would never go through. Thank both of you for not calling the extra clamps, pinchers, pipe-wrenches, and jaws-of-life required to get a catheter syringe into cervix number two by their names, instead saying things like, "Could you get me...one of the green things? Do we have one of those?" I bet this whole thing took much longer than you had scheduled, so thank you for sticking around to talk with me. If I'd known going into this that my procedure would be "what makes it interesting to keep doing these, even after 20 years," I would have run for the hills, but it was still nice of you to say something like that instead of acting like I was bad for having a difficult anatomy.


So sperm! We're gonna buy some! ...in August or September, finances permitting, because, frankly, I want to enjoy my week at the beach in July, not run around peeing on things and not getting to drink.

Right now, it's hard to think about putting anything in my hoo-has, though, because everything is still pretty ouchy. I'm on Cipro for the weekend, on account of all the digging around, and my poor old left ovary, the one that aches for days after dildo-cam-ings, is talking about moving out and getting its own place.

At The Baby Factory

Last week, Sugar Mama and I made our way over to the Kips Bay Baby Mill...and I'm a little in love. Our doctor is The Right Sort. He listens well, seems genuinely interested to know us, and Sugar Mama was particularly impressed by how naturally he treated her as my partner, not just as a more-or-less invisible friend. (In fact, the more I think about Dr. Baby Factory, the less I like the gyn who couldn't find my second hoo-ha.)

I was a little worried about the transvaginal ultrasound they do as a regular part of new patient intake, though it was inevitable that I would have one this month, since the gyn wanted one as follow-up on the ovarian cysts found on my MRI and I was glad enough not to have his hand on the dildocam, considering how uncomfortable I found his pelvic exam. Dr. Baby Factory was very gentle -- even the double-pap (the first pap of the rest of my life...) wasn't bad. Sugar Mama stayed with me the whole time, as did some new PhD who I took to be a med-student sort but turned out to have studied Zebra Fish embryology? (Why was he there? Oh well. It's getting so I don't care that much who sees my hoo-has.)

The bad news is that the cysts haven't moved -- or maybe that's good news, since I was a little convinced I had the Big C -- so I had another u/s this week. This one was with Dr. Demure, who managed the whole thing without even seeing my uncovered legs. He passed me the wand under the paper sheet and had me insert it, then daintily reached his hand underneath to maneuver it, eyes always on the u/s screen. It was a little reminiscent of the scene in Kandahar when the doctor can only advise female patients through a sheet, since he's not allowed to see their bodies.

The other bad news doesn't really count as a surprise: I, like every other woman in my family, have endometriosis. (Screw spell-check for not knowing that word, by the way.) I was hoping that if I just kept my complaints about my excruciating periods sub-medical, I avoid my fate, so chalk up another loss for magical thinking. Sigh. This will make conception harder, but I keep telling myself it's not impossible. My mother has endo badly enough that she had a laparotomy years before I was born, after which the doctor said her ovaries so badly messed up from intrusions that "we scraped together all the ovarian tissue we could find and pushed it into a roughly ovarian shape". And yet, here I sit.

So now it's an HSG to discover how messy my tubes are. I am terrified at the thought of this -- not only does the set-up sound bad (catheter through the cervix?? CLAMP if the cervix is shy????), but getting pumped full of X-rayable dye apparently hurts quite a bit if the tubes aren't open. Plus, Sugar Mama will be out of town for the only day the procedure can be done this month, and I'm scheduled to teach that night. Friend With Baby will probably come with me. Apologies in advance for any infertiles in the Bad Place who have to see the cute baby, but I've decided I'm looking out for number one this time, and Friend With Baby is the best choice for company.

Enh, sorry for the lack of funny pictures. I'm not feeling it.