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.