Clutch

That's what my right ovary looked like on the screen this morning: a clutch of some exotic insect eggs, laid in an unwitting plant now swelling with its cargo. Maybe some nymphs will burst forth and make their unsteady way down the fallopian tube into...oh, god, I have to stop. I'm grossing myself out.

My ovaries are all cyst, all the time, at least for now. Dr. S was unruffled, saying, "Oh, that's just the way it's going to be with your ovaries, anytime we stimulate them." Really nothing to worry about, he suggested. "We're in mild hyperstimulation territory."

Well, okay. So can I have sex?

"Oh, sure, sure! But you might rupture a cyst."

Oh?

"You'd feel a sudden sharp pain. It might be kind of scary, but if that happens, you don't need to go to the emergency room, just lie down and take three Motrin, and it'll be gone in a few hours. You'll have a dull ache the next day, but that's it."

Oh.

So it's just as well that I'm slipping the USA-PATRIOTic bonds of my mother country and jetting off to eastern Europe, since I'd need to sit out the next month anyway. I have a scrip for birth control pills tucked safely into my purse, and instructions to start them if I get my period.

Unless my period is "funky," in which case I'd need to take a pregnancy test.

Which I'll be taking with some frequency anyway, starting Thursday, which is probably the soonest date I can expect that trigger to be out of my system.

I don't have a feeling one way or the other for how this is going. The utter absence of signs, though it's still early (8dpIUI), suggests to me that I will indeed be filling that Desogen scrip in a week. It seems to me that the wisest expenditure of psychic energy here would be to head off any nascent self-pity or investment in this particular cycle. You know, as opposed to crawling pregnancy message boards in search of "2WW Symptoms!!" "The Early Pregnancy Symptoms Post! Page 1,2,3,4,5...73.

But what do YOU think I'm going to do?

(I kid, but I loathe this feeling of self-generated desperation. It's just one more reason to be disappointed in myself.)

Comments

[jilbur]

If I can work myself into exactly the same lather after only 2 months ttc, with no untoward fertility history--I can only imagine the amazing feats of acrobatic hyperactivity that your imagination must be subjecting you to. Kind of the mental equivalent of current midatlantic cicada activity, I suppose. Meh.

For all intents and purposes, there are no early signs of pregnancy, since any and all of them are identical to signs of un-pregnancy. The Infoholic Witch really loves this one, eh? So perverse! xoxox

[Julie]

My dear, my dear, Jilbur's right — there are no symptoms to look for, especially if you're on progesterone, which will fool you into believing whatever you'd like to believe. (Poof! I am a giant redwood, my branches susurrating gently in the northern California breeze!)

My trigger shot was only 5,000 units, so it's out of my system by now, but I will hold off until Thursday if you will. We can do trick-rodeo real-time synchronized stick-peein'.

The entrepreneur in me considers a pay-per-view webcam.

[Mollie]

It's so cruel, the fact that PMS and early preg are indistinguishable. But then, you either get your period or you don't, you are either pregnant or you are not. Personally, I always wanted to be placed in a coma for the lag between trying and knowing. My conscious mind did me absolutely NO GOOD WHATSOEVER.

[evelin]

Oh, the lathering. You know, after 5 miscarriages I thought I'd _always_ know if I got pregnant. I knew when I wasn't pregnant ... IVF was a spectacular failure, but then I got pregnant for real -- it really happened after the doctors told me to stop trying and we started to look at adoption, I feel like a cliché -- and I didn't know til I was 7 weeks almost.

Anyway. Just wanted to say good luck.

[Carrie]

Mollie said it better than I could!

[Jo]

Yes, I think a webcam is certainly warranted.

Man, a coma would be just about perfect right now -- fourteen days of suspended animation (heh)to prevent any untoward symptom analysis.

In the meantime I will entertain myself by logging the symptoms of having one's giant ovaries resting on one's uterus and/or bladder. Whee!

[Julie]

Don't you wish you could carry them around outside your body, like maybe in a cleverly fashioned basket?

[Julie]

No?

What kind of freak are you?

[Jo]

Maybe a fashionable leather tote. I mean, baskets have all those unraveling ends, and potential for poking. Although that might be a relief.

At any rate, I think we must do Dueling Pee-Sticks.

[jen]

A "sudden sharp pain"? A "dull ache"? Ha ha. It is to laugh.

Oh, sorry, we were talking about you here. Anyway, just wanted to tell you I'm thinking about you. I think a mandatory two-week coma sounds like a fine plan.

[Moxie]

Jo, since I had every pregnancy symptom imaginable and yet am not pregnant, I think it's entirely reasonable for you to have no unpleasant symptoms whatsoever and be pregnant. You know, conservation of symptoms in the universe.

[Mamarama]

I agree with Moxie...and really, being pregnant without symptoms is tbe best of all worlds! I can't wait for you to know something (other than the EVERYHHING you already know) and there's that trip to Europe to keep your sprits up. Xo Lisa

[Karen]

Yesh, I had EVERY pregnancy symptom known to man (even threw up a couple cycles), and NE'ER did I see the double line. So I don't know whether symptoms count at this stage. But still, I troll those very unhelpful 2 ww pregnancy symptom boards and find such gems as "A hair grew out of my chin 2 dpo! That's never happened before! And then I POAS at 7 dpo and I was pregnant!" Ah, they all flay me.

[Hula Doula]

After our 4th miscarriage I found out that I had PCOS (polysistic ovarian syndrome) we were trying to get pregnant. I sought a fertility doctor and was given treatment first for the syndrome (took a month) and then for my ovaries that seemed to have gone on hiatus!
Then next month we got pregnant.
I can tell you that I didn't feel any different but every woman is different. I had zero morning sickness and no tenderness. I bought the store out of pregnancy sticks as well. On the 3rd one the double line showed. (third one's a charm!
I will just keep my fingers crossed for you.