WTF

Had my WTF call with Dr. Big Guns yesterday. He professes disappointment that this cycle didn't work. Would urge me to try again if I can handle it. I told him I'm taking the summer off to give my body and mind time to recover, and that I want to try again in September. Asked him about Lupron micro flare. He's willing to try it, and if we have to cancel due to non response, we can go back to the protocol that has resulted in eggs. Thinks the endometrial co-culture wasn't worth it. Is fine with my taking ubiquinol and DHEA, is "agnostic" on whether they're worthwhile or not, but doesn't think they hurt anything. Says there is some evidence for effectiveness for HGH, but he's not allowed to prescribe it in New York State, so I'll be hustling my first RE in Massachusetts to see if she'll prescribe it for me at the end of the summer. Basically, it seems that at this point he's just saying "Fuck it, why not?" to anything that I ask about or suggest.

He puts my odds of success at 15% for the next cycle. So. I'm getting pretty near the end.

Honestly, I can't believe I've made it this far. First I was never going to have kids. And then I was never going to get ART treatment. And then I was definitely never going to do IVF. And now I'm seriously planning to hustle out of state hormone supplements that New York State treats as a controlled substance. What the fuck has happened to me? Am I just stubborn? Do I just hate being told I can't do something? Why would I keep wasting my time like this? If I didn't have some money left on the insurance benefit I definitely would have already stopped.

Should I stop?

I don't know anymore. I just don't know.

Mind Games

A couple of days ago my denial went into overdrive, and I became convinced that this process would eventually work. I felt confident. I felt good. I bought the Kindle edition of a book that seems designed to take the money of desperate women such as myself, and I powered through it in almost one night, and ordered one of the supplements it suggests, and resolved to ask my doctor about the other one it suggests, and I felt good.

Then, the denial cracked. I realized that with each failed cycle my odds of success diminish. I suspect I'm down to about 5% now. And if something has a 5% chance of happening, that means that it is certainly not happening.

And that's when I got depressed.

I know it's only been a week since the last cycle officially failed, and a week isn't actually that much time. So I'm trying to cut myself some slack. I've found a new exercise class. I've gone once, and I felt really good afterward, so I'm going to keep going. I'm looking forward to things, like finishing this book draft and going away for the summer. But all of those things right now are reaching me through a fog of sadness. I'm not as productive as I should be. I don't have as much energy. Right now, I should be getting ready for an interview, primping and whatnot, and instead I'm writing a blog entry about how sad I am. I'd better hurry or I won't have time to get my eyebrows done for this interview, and then I'll look sallow and wooly-eyed and miserable, and it will be a wasted opportunity to build my brand, and also will be on the internet for fucking eternity.

I'm sad. I'm sad. I'm sad.

No baby.

There is no baby.

There will be no baby.

I will not cry before I start getting ready for this interview.

I will wait, and I will trust that one day, hopefully soon, I will feel happy again.

Sweet Jesus

But these post-failed-transfer cramps hurt. Like, I'm having trouble sitting up straight. I'm sort of half-hunched over like a crone.

Rain and chill outside, so the dog is trying to persuade me that dogs don't have to go outside to go to the bathroom. Going to the bathroom is all in your mind, and he has risen above it.

There is something essential and mammal-like about wanting to hunker down in soft things when it's cold and wet outside.

It is all I can imagine doing right now.

It's official

This cycle failed.

I'm too sad to write right now.

That's all.

No Dice

The cramps were getting too bad, so I finally caved and took a pee test this morning.

Negative. Of course.

I went back to bed.

I cried a little.

If I pointed out to myself that all this meant was that my life, as I know it, as I've worked so hard for it to be, is not going to change, then I felt all right. Nothing was being taken away from me. I have my home, and my job, and my husband, and my dog, and my friends, and all the things that I love to do, like art and music and sailing and all of those wonderful things.

It was only when I thought of you, Succotash, that I cried. Because there is no you. There is no Succotash. You are my imagination. A character I have made up. A void onto which I have projected vague, inchoate hopes and imaginary experiences, none of them tinted by reality - lost sleep, or your mental illness, or your first bout of pneumonia, or your drug addiction, or any of the simple horrors of being alive that lay in store for you, both imaginable to me and not. You are this loose, hazy ideal. Which, even if you had come to be, would not have existed. Because you would have been a person in your own right, with all the flaws and troubles that we all must bear.

It's a fantasy I'm mourning, which is stupid, because my reality - my REALITY, RIGHT NOW - is both terrific and unchanged. I have enough money - that's a real surprise. I have work that I enjoy. I have a husband who I love to distraction, even though it hasn't always been easy, and hasn't always been perfect, and he isn't who I would have imagined I ended up with, but look, there he is, and he knows me better than anyone. My life has assumed contours I only dreamed of in my teens and twenties. And it's happened that way through my own dogged labor. Good fortune too, yes, and I'm grateful for it. But I also busted ass.

So what I am sad for?

A friend asked me if I was doing this ART stuff because I really wanted a child, or if it was just a thing I was supposed to do, and I was annoyed that I wasn't achieving at it. I mean, she had a point. I didn't entirely know the answer. I've certainly been frustrated that I haven't been able to will or achieve my way out of this predicament. My brain has almost always done what I have asked it to do, and I never needed to rely on my body beyond the general requirements of staying functional and alive. Now that I am asking my body to do this unfamiliar thing, and no amount of willing or thinking is making a damned bit of difference, I can admit to being galled.

Behind me, the dog is curled up in a ball of fur in an inviting nest of throw pillows and the mohair blanket I've been carrying around all year. He looks safe and warm and snuggly, and my disappointment changes nothing about him, the pleasure I take from my friendship with this creature, my investment in his well-being, his sincere affection for me.

I am still loved. I am not alone. I do not have cancer. I haven't lost my job. Nothing is different.

Only my fantasy is gone.

I cannot fucking concentrate

I'm crampy, Succotash.

I've been intermittently crampy since the transfer, so it shouldn't be a big deal. Also progesterone can cause cramping. This is normal. This doesn't mean anything.

I'm telling myself.

But the truth is, this didn't happen last time. And so I'm jumping through mental hoops to keep myself from guessing, and I'm failing, because all I can think right now is oh my God what if it worked.

What if it worked?

That will freak me out.

But of course I know that the odds are that it didn't work, and all I'm doing by wondering if it did is setting myself up to be crushed. Again.

I'm considering doing at at home test before I go in for the blood work on Thursday. It will almost certainly be negative. But then I'll have ripped off the band-aid and I can let myself feel sad and I can spend the afternoon trying to let myself feel the feelings that will come, instead of waiting for the phone call with the news I already anticipate.

The challenge will be to not test tomorrow morning.

God but I wish I weren't cramping today. I have work to do, Succotash. I have a finite amount of energy and attention, and it need it for work today. I can't just sit here at my desk obsessing over my body. I can't!

But I am.

Crabby

I can't tell what it is. I might be fighting a cold. Though I haven't so far had the low grade fever I had the last time during progesterone shots.

But I'm crampy and grouchy and tired and stuffy-nosed and lacking in motivation. This morning I had to haul my ass out of bed early to go for a blood test, the results of which they don't share with me, and which - per the nurse drawing my blood - won't affect my progesterone dosing, and therefore won't affect the outcome even slightly. So why am I losing literal sleep and paying twenty bucks in cab fare to do this? I'm considering skipping the next one and sleeping in. My body wants sleep. And I want to give it sleep.

Today is one of those days where I am secretly hoping it won't work out. I'm tired, Succotash. I'm tired of doctor appointments. I'm really sick of having my blood drawn. I'm getting track marks, for Chrissake. I'm sick of medication schedules and supplements and not being able to exercise and I'm really sick of being ten pounds over what I think of as my set weight. I'm sick of acupuncture, although it was probably the most pleasant part of this whole process, but even so, at $135 a pop there are other things I would like to spend my money on. A personal trainer, for instance. A gym membership. An entirely new wardrobe. Anything.

I can't tell if the crampiness is digestive, or premenstrual, or progesterone-caused, or the earliest possible sign that this worked. I have no idea. I hate feeling so alienated from my body. I have no authority, I have no control. I can't even have sex for another week. Of course my husband is out of town til then, but even so - it's the principle of the thing. I resent it. I'm sick of being a walking test tube. I want to be free of all this, and go away for the summer, and go sailing and write and read books and actually remember what I have read.

Sorry Succotash, but I'm sick of this shit. I really, really am.

Flipping Out

Your would-be father told me he couldn't go to the punk show for which I got us tickets weeks ago, which will serendipitously take place the night that we find out if this process worked or not. He told me he was giving a paper that night, and I completely flipped out.

"I feel invisible," I said. "I'm alone, and I'm sad, and I'm scared."

The truth is, these hormones are wearing on me more than last time. Or I'm more aware of them wearing on me.

I read this morning that a prominent feminist writer is editing a mini online magazine on "unruly bodies" in the coming month. I write to her to say that I hope one of those unruly bodies belongs to an infertile woman. We are all, to some extent, accustomed to being judged on our outside bodies along various axes of power around which we have no control. But it's an entirely new and uncanny experience to have one's body judged on the inside, often using violating and high powered imaging equipment.

She wrote back almost immediately to say no. We are invisible, the sisterhood of the judged with internal cameras. The up early and the left behind and the tired.

I have forgiven myself for flipping out, but I'm now in a kind of emotional hangover, sapped of energy and craving cookies and to lie down. I have work to do, and part of my rage and frustration has to do with how fucking distracting infertility has been, how it has colonized by brain and sapped my energy and made me stupid and volatile and slow.

Right now I don't even have enough energy to be angry. All there is to do is lie down.

And now we wait

Well, four of you made it. I was fantasizing that everyone would be hale and hearty nine cell balls of awesome, given the way the me-slurry was sold, but it was not to be. Instead we have two sixes and two fours, and a careful review of the internet suggests that they can be graded at two As, a B, and a C.

The internet is so helpful and informative. I even found a page that rather agreeably suggested I not worry about eating pineapple and instead take this whole week off from work and loll around on the sofa.

Unfortunately I've been doing a lot of lolling recently. It's really time for me to get back to work.

During transfer I insisted on playing my music for everyone in the ER again. This time I went with "Song for a Future Generation," by the B-52s. The doc seemed sort of nonplussed, but the nurse was into it.

Now, all there is for me to do is wait. And eat well. And take vitamins. And not drink. And avoid sugar. And avoid hot baths. And not put the heating pad on my abdomen. And sleep as much as possible. But without taking sleeping pills. And avoid exercise. And avoid heavy lifting. And take my intramuscular progesterone shots at the exact same time every night.

That's all. Nothing else for me to do.

The Most Overdetermined Day

Well, Succotash, here we are. The senna tea kicked in around 7 this morning, which means that while I'm not as rested as one might wish, I'm also much less uncomfortable in the midsection. Thank God.

Last night we went to a fun and raucous seder at your would-be aunt's house in Brooklyn, which is something of a trope. Loading into the car with the big soup pot and all the haggadahs and driving an hour to Brooklyn. It's Passover, that's what we do. A plague of taxicabs harries the people of Israel.

I was tired from all the drugs, and so lay down in the den while your would-be father helped her get everything ready. There were plastic jumping frogs on the table for everyone to play with. I got a nice picture of everyone with wine glasses raised, but I would have liked to get one speckled with airborne plastic frogs.

And now it's today. With grumpily moving bowels and a small bowl of cottage cheese with strawberries. I've walked the dog and determined it's cooler out than I thought. Today's outfit will be jeans with new leather jacket, rather than dress with bare legs. A little too chilly for bare legs still. But it's okay.

Now I have to get in the shower and dress and go downtown for acupuncture appointment number one. Then I will have a couple of hours to kill before all however many of you are still hanging on today - up to five, Dr. Big Guns says, which is a staggering number, but then again, I'm old - will be transferred into the center of myself.

I have a playlist. I've added "Song for a Future Generation," by the B-52s. I hope this doc will let me play music like the last one did.

Then it will be straight back downtown for acupuncture number 2. And then, home. And tonight at 7, another shot.

Your would-be father is in town this time, so I'm deciding if he should come along for our appointment this afternoon. There's nothing much for him to do, but it seems too early to shut him out from an enterprise that will, at least initially, largely be conducted between you and me. We don't want him to be left out, Succotash. You're his bowl of carrots and corn and lima beans too.

Today is the third day of Passover. It's also Easter. And it's April Fool's Day. And it's my father's seventy-second birthday. A more overdetermined date for our transfer I could not have come up with. If I'd put this into a novel it would have been redlined as trite. But real life is like that sometimes. Sometimes you go hunting for Easter eggs on many levels, all at once, never sure what you're going to find.