Nearing the End

Between my Percocet haze (yes, they gave me drugs this time, fucking finally) they call to tell me that of five eggs retrieved, four were mature, and two fertilized.

So. So much for that three months of DHEA and Ubiquinol for egg quality. Turns out, time will tell, and though my skin looks as tight and smooth as a 28 year old, my body belongs to a 41 year old woman. A 41 year old woman who is - as she always secretly suspected, if she is honest - never going to have children.

Transfer is scheduled, in theory, for Tuesday.

I'm not really sad, is the weird part. Maybe I'm in denial. Or maybe I've already put a lot of emotional energy into this, and my summer of freedom from thinking about this gave me a window into what my life will be when this is no longer something to which I feel I have to give my time.

I'm almost done. I'm almost ready to move on, into the rest of my life.

Detachment

I think I am somewhat alienated from this cycle. The first week went okay, I did my four shots a day, I did my work, L was away and I had the apartment to myself. I walked the dog. I felt calm.

I have four follicles going, which is not a great response. I admit to being disappointed, as all I'd read suggested that this protocol could result in surprise super follicles for ladies in my condition. But I am unusually nonresponsive, it would seem. I am stubborn. This, perhaps, should not come as a surprise.

Now as the fatigue sets in and my midsection has ballooned my mood has lowered accordingly. But with the lowering comes what I hope are the earliest stages of acceptance.

I catch myself thinking, oh, what if we did another cycle with the protocol that got us seven eggs instead of five? And then I ask myself, why? Why would I do that? Do I even want this anymore? I certainly don't want to be treated for this anymore. Do I want a kid?

Do I really?

As I reflected earlier, I have already not had one. I can't ignore how wonderful this summer was, not thinking about any of this. Doing what interests me. Using my body. And, if I'm honest, soon enough I will have a lot more work ahead caring for my parents. That will require travel and physical and emotional energy, and it will go on for a long time. And this time of self-absorption has kept me from building intimacies with my friends' children. That is a loss that I regret. The sooner I can push through this disappointment, the sooner I can get to know the small people in my world, who I can love, and support, and invest in, and not have to discipline or educate or raise.

The truth is, I'm tired. Part of that is where I am in this cycle - the meds make me tired, and uncomfortable, and I'm probably two days away from egg retrieval. But I told myself I wanted to make it to retrieval one more time, and it looks like I'm making it. And that means this is the last time I'm doing this.

I will have done everything in my power to make this happen.

I will be almost free to live my different kind of life and not look back.

Three Patches In

And I've already gained back two of the pounds I sailed off this summer. And I nearly started crying in the book marketing meeting when the marketing director said she really, really wanted me to start an email newsletter.

I didn't, thank God. But you know. Among other things, I really really really don't want to start a fucking email newsletter. Because what am I going to be thinking about, primarily, in the coming months? IVF, that's what.

It's easy, they said, you just have like a picture, and maybe a track you're listening to, and what you're reading.

I immediately picture a photo of used needles, the same track I've been listening to all summer, and an article about protocols for DOR.

Fucking bullshit nonsense waste of time.

My period is due in six days. So in theory, one week from today I go in for Day 2 monitoring, and I probably start my shots that night. Today the huge pack of meds arrived. No syringes, strangely, but fortunately it doesn't matter because I still have so many of them that it's crossed my mind to find some kind of heroin needle exchange to donate them to.

Anyway. I'll try to buck up. Soon, the bucking up must occur. I must get with the program, as my father always used to say to me when I was sulking about something that I was expected to do.

Get with the program, Cartooniste. Stop all this mucking around. Make your fucking newsletter, take your fucking shots, and shut up.

How Do I Feel About It

I'm in a piss poor mood. Is it the rain? The change of season? The pressing need to put boats away and ship the oars and put on socks and go back to work, and in this case, back to the work of trying to have a baby that I will never have?

I was feeling confident before, but now, even before I start the most preliminary of all possible steps, I feel not just hopeless, but annoyed that I am wasting so much of my own limited time. There is so much else I could be doing. I could get a job. Not my current job, but like a real one. I don't know. Or I could do better at my current job, crank out book after book after book instead of dilettanting around daydreaming and waiting for a good idea. Any good idea. Who said all ideas had to be good? Who even knows from good anymore?

In a way, I feel like the process is already over. Am I just going back and retracing my same steps, hoping for a different outcome? Do I even hope for a different outcome anymore? Having a kid is an awful lot of work, much of it very boring. I already haven't had a kid. It has already happened. I'm railing against a thing that lies in the past. What a pointless enterprise that is.

Why not let the past stay the past?

Why am I doing this?

Am I doing this?

What would it be like if I just..... didn't do it?

Mania

So you know that thing where you have sex with your husband and it's sort of chafey but okay, and then it's still sort of warm and irritated for two days afterwards and you start worrying that you have secretly been a carrier for chlamydia for twenty years and it's just now flaring up because of stress and your husband will leave you in a rage and your life will be over so in a fit of neurosis you go to the urgent care place to get checked out and when the warm and friendly nurse practitioner asks what else has been going on and you tell her you're about to head into your fourth round of IVF and it's awful and a complete living nightmare and she says oh I know my sister did it, it was terrible, and gives you Kleenex and assures you it's totally okay to bawl all over her in her office?

That's where I'm at today.

Getting ready

I have picked up the prescription for the estrogen patches to start priming, and this morning I took my first ovulation kit pee test. When I get the smiley face, I call the office, and they tell me when to start patching.

It's coming. It's coming very soon.

IVF attempt #4.

I felt confident about it at first. Today, I have my doubts. That this cannot be good for me, or my mind, or my body.

In my regular work cafe, and a cute slender pregnant woman has sat in my direct line of sight, which I shouldn't find depressing, as it has nothing whatsoever to do with me. There's construction outside the door of the cafe, and the noise is deafening. Perhaps literally, like I might need to be wearing ear protection, but I'm not. I'm listening to cafe chatter and the Talking Heads.

Once in a Lifetime.

That's all it takes.

Let's talk about HGH

Specifically, is there any point? Dr. Big Guns says he can't prescribe it off-label. Original RE says she will "definitely not" prescribe it. Some girl on the internet has offered to get me some where she lives in Mexico, and for those of you watching at home, that means I am at present contemplating black market off-label use of a controlled substance in order to improve my chances of conception with unproven rumor.

In other words, I have lost my fucking mind.

Is it worth it? Will it give me cancer? Does anyone even know?

I was all set to do it, but now I'm just like, fuck this noise. For real. I'm finally getting my body back under control. I'm finally getting my sexuality back. I don't even understand what the risks are. Why am I even considering this?

Why am I doing another round of IVF at all?

I should just call Dr. Big Guns, though a fifteen minute conversation with him will probably cost me three hundred fucking dollars. Fuck's sake.