My fatigue today is glacial. Maybe from walking so much with my college roommate yesterday, braving the hordes at the Michelangelo show and failing to triumph, so adjourning to David Hockney instead. Maybe it's the hormones sloshing around in my bloodstream. Maybe it's the cold, or the holidays. Maybe I'm just tired.
Today, in about an hour, I will arrive at the doctor's office for an artificial insemination, the consolation prize of this round of IVF. I didn't respond to the drugs. After several dark hours I re-checked Dr. Big Guns' profile on the fertility doctor site, and was heartened to remember that yes, I chose him for a reason, and yes, that reason was that he specializes in aging ovaries belonging to crones such as myself. I felt momentarily better.
The dog doesn't like it when L leaves before me. He's moping by the front door and hasn't asked to go out. But I should take him before I leave. Shouldn't I?
It's hard to let myself feel hope. It's wiser not to. But a certain amount of hope is necessary to power through the truly awful aspects of fertility treatment. So it glimmers there, under my fatigue, and I carry it around in my pocket as I get up from this desk and get underway with my day.
Monday, November 27, 2017
Monday, November 20, 2017
Going to Colombia
Dr. Big Guns seemed frustrated. I could tell it wasn't great when he was the one doing the ultrasound and not one of the attendings.
I have two follicles. One on each side. And a bunch of little follicles. Essentially, I am not responding to the stimulation hormones. It's a drag. It's exhausting.
The odds are good that I will be canceling this cycle and starting over with a different protocol in the new year.
So. Yeah.
At least I can go to Colombia now.
"They will treat you like a queen," the Colombian phlebotomist assured me as she drew what might be my last blood for awhile.
I have two follicles. One on each side. And a bunch of little follicles. Essentially, I am not responding to the stimulation hormones. It's a drag. It's exhausting.
The odds are good that I will be canceling this cycle and starting over with a different protocol in the new year.
So. Yeah.
At least I can go to Colombia now.
"They will treat you like a queen," the Colombian phlebotomist assured me as she drew what might be my last blood for awhile.
Friday, November 17, 2017
Pissed Off
These drugs, man. They are no joke.
My belly is now riddled with tiny pink pinpricks, and the pinker circles of small sterile bandages. As I roam the streets I suffer sloshes of emotion. I tear up outside a Christmas window display. I remember a slight from five years ago and become nearly blinded with rage. And then I want to sleep.
My belly is now riddled with tiny pink pinpricks, and the pinker circles of small sterile bandages. As I roam the streets I suffer sloshes of emotion. I tear up outside a Christmas window display. I remember a slight from five years ago and become nearly blinded with rage. And then I want to sleep.
Sunday, November 12, 2017
The Bone Collector
Dear Succotash,
When I first lived on my own in New York City, I lived in Washington Heights. I'm sure by the time you roll around Washington Heights will be all solid rock crystal condos, but in 2000, when I lived there, it was largely Dominican, and really quite poor. I also was rather poor, which is why I could afford my own apartment there. Other women my age bunked in together in respectable downtown apartments of five or six, or else their parents paid their freight, but I lived uptown, and I lived alone.
I'm something of a loner, imaginary baby. I wonder if you will be too.
Anyway. I made very little money, and I was trying to save as much of it as I could. So I oftentimes stayed at home and ordered in from Box Office Pizza.
Box Office Pizza was a pizza and VHS delivery service. Genius. You'd get the menu, and it would come with a list of movies. So I'd pore over it, and I'd call up, and I'd be like "Hey, can I get a pineapple and onion and also have you got the copy of Reality Bites?"
"Nope. That one's out."
"Okay. What about The Sixth Sense?"
"I think that one got stolen."
"All right. Ummm. Scream?"
"Nope. Sorry."
Then I would sigh heavily and say "Okay, I guess I'll take the Bone Collector again."
I don't know how many times I watched The Bone Collector. Certainly more than three. But this was before I had internet at home, and before I could afford cable TV. The pickings were slim.
Now, of course, my life looks very different. I am nearly twice the age now that I was then. My apartment is bigger, and nicer, and has real furniture in it and a couple of paintings and shit. And tonight, for the first time, I am undergoing a rite of passage common to many forty year old women who have achieved a certain amount of success in their career. I am learning how to give myself hormone injections ahead of IVF.
So imagine my delight to discover that HBO, to which I can now afford to subscribe, and which is now streaming on demand through the ether like magic, is showing The Bone Collector.
I settle back in my den in a respectable neighborhood of Midtown, two new tiny band-aids on my tummy, glass of wine in hand. Twenty years older, fifteen pounds heavier, wiser and with a better haircut. I point my Roku remote and I smile quietly to myself.
When I first lived on my own in New York City, I lived in Washington Heights. I'm sure by the time you roll around Washington Heights will be all solid rock crystal condos, but in 2000, when I lived there, it was largely Dominican, and really quite poor. I also was rather poor, which is why I could afford my own apartment there. Other women my age bunked in together in respectable downtown apartments of five or six, or else their parents paid their freight, but I lived uptown, and I lived alone.
I'm something of a loner, imaginary baby. I wonder if you will be too.
Anyway. I made very little money, and I was trying to save as much of it as I could. So I oftentimes stayed at home and ordered in from Box Office Pizza.
Box Office Pizza was a pizza and VHS delivery service. Genius. You'd get the menu, and it would come with a list of movies. So I'd pore over it, and I'd call up, and I'd be like "Hey, can I get a pineapple and onion and also have you got the copy of Reality Bites?"
"Nope. That one's out."
"Okay. What about The Sixth Sense?"
"I think that one got stolen."
"All right. Ummm. Scream?"
"Nope. Sorry."
Then I would sigh heavily and say "Okay, I guess I'll take the Bone Collector again."
I don't know how many times I watched The Bone Collector. Certainly more than three. But this was before I had internet at home, and before I could afford cable TV. The pickings were slim.
Now, of course, my life looks very different. I am nearly twice the age now that I was then. My apartment is bigger, and nicer, and has real furniture in it and a couple of paintings and shit. And tonight, for the first time, I am undergoing a rite of passage common to many forty year old women who have achieved a certain amount of success in their career. I am learning how to give myself hormone injections ahead of IVF.
So imagine my delight to discover that HBO, to which I can now afford to subscribe, and which is now streaming on demand through the ether like magic, is showing The Bone Collector.
I settle back in my den in a respectable neighborhood of Midtown, two new tiny band-aids on my tummy, glass of wine in hand. Twenty years older, fifteen pounds heavier, wiser and with a better haircut. I point my Roku remote and I smile quietly to myself.
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