Leery Polyp

As We Go Up, We Go Down

In the spirit of full disclosure, and in accordance with the Freedom of Information Act (FOIA), Leery Polyp Productions presents the following:

Lest anyone believe that I have immediately righted myself, Weeble-like, from the crushing disappointment of the past few days, know this: I pause in the stacks, at work, and weep quietly until capillaries pop in my face. I spent Thursday sitting in my office making fruitless attempts to stifle the waterworks, since all the walls in that building are glass, and various researches, apparently clueless as to the fact that the small, enclosed room with desks and computers and a CLOSED MOTHERFUCKING DOOR was MY PERSONAL OFFICE, kept WALKING IN, without so much as a gestured knock, to ask me things I couldn't answer. You would hope that red eyes, soggy mascara-besmirched sleeves, and a wounded look would be sufficient to tip off an otherwise-polite wandering Scot to the impropriety of his actions, but friend, you'd be wrong.

Then again, Friday was fine, I was happy enough, feathering my nest with adoption plans and fantasies. Thinking about Budapest, relishing the idea of a break, rejoicing in my ability to stuff myself back into my old jeans.

Saturday was good, until it occurred to me midafternoon that oh god I'm not pregnant and probably won't ever be, at which point I again burst into tears, to be comforted by my husband until it was time to get dressed. Today is my beloved scientist's birthday, and we had plans to go last night to a swanky restaurant a few towns away (which incidentally delivered most amazingly, what with the honey-lavender glazed organic chicken with truffle and sour cherry reduction, oh god, and the goat cheese spatzle and watercress, and oh Lordy the desserts). When we left the house I still felt murky, subdued; but by the time we got there I'd perked up, and between dinner and dessert we talked some more about adoption.

And the amazing thing is that we feel exactly the same way about it, my scientist and I: that the best part of anyone that gets passed down, the true heritage, is in the daily acts of living, the love and kindness and depth of caring. Everything beautiful about my father-in-law, who passed away a little more than two years ago, will be handed down to our children, no matter how they come to us. Of course that made me cry again, but this was happy crying, and so when the waiter appeared to take our dessert order at that precise moment, I didn't mind so much.

So. We are going to do our two more allotted IUIs, because we need to, in order to move on. But after the final IUI, at the point when Dr. Sweety will nudge us toward IVF, we're going to stop. Reassess. Formulate our polite demurrals, because you know how REs are, bless their lab-loving hearts -- they do like to press onward. And then, having spent the four months it takes us to do two IUIs researching agencies, we can move. The fuck. On. We will have that fantasy to sustain us, that of taking home a baby who looks nothing like us, who is perfect and beautiful and REAL, instead of those hollow visualizations of me with a big belly, me pushing out a baby at home into a midwife's hands.

Because I can't do this if there's no real end in sight.

Day 1

Well.

I got my period this morning.

It ain't no implantation spotting, I can tell you that much.

Actually I'm happy about it, since 1) it proves me right and 2) I'm out of limbo. Nothing like a little certitude to start your Memorial Day weekend off with a bang. (But that's another post. Heh.)

Must go fill birth control pill prescription.

Forbidden Fruit

For the record, got another perfectly snow-white negative Answer this morning. Not so much as an evaporation line. I checked it under several different light sources, with and without my glasses, and it's still negative. I'm feeling the usual pelvic stirrings that herald the mighty gush, so I made sure to wear a white thong to hasten things along.

Since last night have consumed the following controlled substances:

-1 medium-size cardamom-ginger ice cream
-1/2 beer
-1/2 glass white wine
-1 cup diner coffee
-1.7 buttermilk pancakes with syrup

And it feels so good.

My mood has improved tremendously, no doubt from the infusion of naughty-naughties, and also because the natural progression after devastating (or in my case, just very disappointing) news is: misery => happy thoughts of adoption. Really. We want to do two more IUIs, but will have to reassess priorities after that.

But the future is ever out of reach, and so I want to narrow my focus to the present for a bit. Last night I got the following email from my sister G (edited for time and formatted to fit your computer screen):

okay, so there's something i've seen about you that gives ME hope, since i can have it more openly than you, and forgive me for any offensive stuff since i'm treading on thin ice and other stoopid sayings about not shutting up when you should.

your body is functioning much better now. there was a time when you were overweight, moody, depressed, and hormonally fucked. even your features seemd to change...it was, to me, odd and representative of your body freaking out. over the last few years, you've lost every bit of weight that was unnatural to your body type, your mood has equalized (as much as a leery polyp mood can), your features have gone back to their normal shape (and i can't explain this one: you just seemed to look very different before). and your body shape has changed. something about you before looked uncomfortable to you, something about you looked off, like your unhappiness changed your features. you looked like your hormones had kind of changed you. and they had. but you are on the right track now, every bit of you that i know has improved. you are amazingly strong, and i don't toss that phrase around lightly. you look incredibly good, like you've not worn a day of this life on your body. you have resumed a normal cycle, and your general level of health is so good, it's fucking great. and the thing i keep thinking but won't say because it's zen crap to you is that hopelessness is the same devastating emotion as too much hope. you can't deny one is there if you feel the other. laa dee-freakin-da, i know. but i hope that in all this, if you catch yourself blaming your body or despising it or wondering why this is happening or just get pissed and impatient, you do not neglect the fact that your body has repaired itself so thoroughly from where it was before. even two years ago, especially three. give it time to rest comfortably where it is before you try to coax it elsewhere again. i don't know where the hell i'm going with this. i can just see that you are on a road to complete balance and well-being (not to get all rodney yee on yer ass).

i doubt this was any help to you, but it's what i'm thinking of you.
love
g

Everybody should have a sister like that, throwing down the crazy wisdom when it's needed most. And I'm not just saying that because she says I look good.

But she's right; I look very different from the way I looked three years ago. In photos I'm barely recognizable as the same person, and it's not just that I weighed forty pounds more -- the actual shape of my nose and eyes were different. Now I look like pictures of myself in high school, before the PCOS kicked in. I believe that the high testosterone and the high circulating insulin of PCOS give a subtle but distinctive appearance to a face, and now I can recognize it in others as well.

I've come far, and I've done a lot of work over the past four years. I need to remember that, and be as gentle and forgiving of myself as I would be to someone else. I don't know what's going to happen with any future IUI's, but I think I need to be very mindful in how we proceed, careful not to obliterate myself in the process. It doesn't seem farfetched, the idea of shattering my mental health along the way. Physically, I'm even more concerned that these potent hormones I'm shooting up are setting back my healing, leaving me a physiological Superfund site, undoing all that progress I've made. I would hate to have finally reached that delicate balance only to set things wildly a-swing, once again. I don't know; I need to think on that some more.

Hopelessness is the same thing as excessive hope. Both presume to know the future; each denies -- yet proves -- the existence of the other. Either way it's a tremendous energy suck.

I'm feeling pretty tired right now, emptied out, and not just because the Chock Full o' Nuts has worn off. These injectables cycles, they take it out of you; I need that month of respite before I can attempt another one. But I'm content. I'm happy, no longer preoccupied. I can let go, move on, just a little ways until it's time for the next round.

When I was maybe ten I took a corner too fast on my mother's outsize ten-speed, spun out in the gravel, dropped the bike on top of me and skidded along on my knee. I was afraid to get up, terrified of what gore I might see. The skin on my knee felt numb from the scrape, but I heaved the bike away, turned over, looked: the wound was shallow, the skin barely grazed. It wasn't even bleeding. I was fine -- a little unsteady, maybe, but unhurt. I was okay.

And I'm okay now.

Feh.

Nothing.

I used both the Answer and the Lingering Question brand, and they agreed: nuh-uh.

Granted, it's only eleven days after the IUI. But judging from my previous experiences, I should have some indication, if anybody happened to be staking a claim in my uterus.

What I have instead is the following:

-Deflating breasts that no longer hurt
-Skin that's no longer deep-fried
-A belly that can once again fit into my most unforgiving pants
-A uterus that's lying perfectly still

I'd say it's not looking so good.

Of course there are plenty of women who didn't get positives until 14, 15, 16 days after, who had zero symptoms and turned out to be pregnant anyway. Plenty of miraculous happy stories, I know. But they're not me; I am not them. We are irrelevant to each other.

In fact, I'm feeling irrelevant all around.

In a few days I'll come back and point out to myself the wide range of consolation prizes: unlimited drinking in Budapest, coffee and potent cigarettes in Prague, whatever mischief one can get into during a five-hour layover in Amsterdam. Right now, though, I'm going to roll around here in this nice muddy wallow, emerging periodically for cookies and magazines.

Facts. Plus!

You knew I couldn't do it.*

I knew it. All along.

So rather than cursing my utter lack of restraint, I made the wise move, the one that at least limits the damage. I took my sebaceous self on down to Dollar Street, and I cleaned them out of pregnancy tests.

It wasn't as wanton a display of unfettered hope as I would have liked; they only had five in stock, though that was enough to lift the eyebrows of the man behind the counter, who doubtless wondered how it all fit together, our giant barbecue brush and our little plastic hair traps for the bathtub. But if you think about it, it's really quite perfect. See, the first test, why, that's the test test! I used that one already, to see whether 1) enough HCG had left my system that I didn't throw a positive at 8 p.m. after a day of hydration (it had), and 2) whether evaporation lines are an issue with this brand. (They are not.)

See what a scientist I am? With my teeny dropper and my woefully shallow "cup" of urine? My hypothesis? My scientific method?

Yeah. I thought you'd like that.

The second test I'll take tomorrow morning. It'll be slightly more useful that test #1, but very well may show that I'm still hanging on to some of that sweet, sweet Ovidrel. Should that be the case, test #3 ought to show a fainter line, or perhaps none at all. That's when this gets really interesting: either tests #4 and #5 will show the reappearance of a line, or that mocking blank white space. Test #5 will be taken on Sunday, and by then, at 14 dpIUI, either I'll have my period, or I will have graduated to the expensive name-brand tests and a homemade straitjacket.

Which might not be so bad, really. At least it would provide adequate support for my poor mammaries.

*Julie, all apologies. Let this be construed as an invitation to bust out your own sticks.

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.)

Brood X

Close your eyes for a moment. Clear your mind of distractions, and imagine it: a quarter-mile away, someone is using a buzz saw to saw a car in half, a car that is alarmed, and whose alarm is now blaring.

That's what the cicadas sound like.

Solo, or in small manageable groups, they're quite fetching, really, with their black-and-red industrial color scheme, their weird car-grill faces, their very harmlessness. En masse, it's a writhing, rustling, squirming, living Hieronymus Bosch scene, with crawling nymphs blindly making their way across lawns, choking the sidewalks with their husks as well as their dead; newly emerged adults, ghostly white and sometimes frozen in eerie attitudes of torment, having died half-out of their exoskeletons; and of course, the kajillion unsuccessful adults who ooze patches of blackish goo all over the pavement.

I find this all so fucking cool, even when the trees at night are full of that crickling sound of billions of cicadas walking (and probably having sex). During the day, the trees are alive with them, blundering from branch to branch with that clackafwhappa sound they make when they fly.

(Naturally, I am thinking this would be an awesome time to get pregnant, you know, for the story and all.)

Thumb-Twiddling

The universe provides, my friends, and it has provided me substantial opportunities for distraction. Today, for example, I had lunch with the former ambassador to several Middle Eastern countries (from the seventies-like), and all I had to do was sit there and look pretty, in my pearls and faux-vintage dress, brown with white polka-dots (the purchase of which was another distraction). The rest of the afternoon consisted of a two-hour long hang session with my boss, who is really very cool and one of the few reasonable people at work. All very interesting for me, but not, I'm afraid, for you, gentle readers.

I would have liked to entertain you with tales from days of yore, back before my boobs hurt all the damn time, when a brown paper bag rubbed against my forehead wouldn't become transparent, but there is the issue of the lingering brain fog from the trigger shot. Or maybe I'm just exhausted. It's been a hell of a week, now that I think about it, with triggers and IUIs and ambassadors and what-all.

Really I should be prettifying my blog, fixing that weird thing with the categories (don't think I haven't noticed! I have!), maybe changing up the music list, but...

IT IS THE NINETIES

AND THERE IS TIME FOR...

KLAX

In the Land of Dreamy Dreams

Over the course of the past four nights, I have dreamed the following things:

-I am pregnant. With nine babies. I am sad, because I'll have to give them away like too many kittens.

-I am not pregnant. Dr. S does that cheesy-TV dialogue trick where he says: "Now, nurse, I'll need you to check her uterus for when she'll start her perio...uh, that is, to see if she's pregnant! Yes, that's it!" I am sad.

-I give birth to our dog Speck. I am disappointed, because I already had one of those.

-My sister Gretchen gives birth to our dog Speck. I am baffled.

Even as my conscious mind is screaming, "FIFTEEN PERCENT! ONLY FIFTEEN PERCENT SUCCESS RATE!", my subconscious seems to be working some things out. Plotting all the possibilities. I did dream of a positive pregnancy test the second time I was pregnant, so who knows; maybe we're getting another puppy.

Meanwhile, I think I'm doing a superb job of not getting my hopes up.

The Love Bloat

Exciting and new...

I may not actually be pregnant, but I sure do look that way. Seriously. The ovary pain sensation has died down considerably since yesterday, and this morning the workout pants that I am attempting to pass off as work pants fit so loosely that it was necessary to actually tighten the drawstring.

Oh, but then. Then this afternoon came, and all that lemon-spiked water (okay, there was maybe some sugar in it too) I've been sucking down began collecting in the fat pad that is my preferred injection site. From there it spread upward to the bottom of my rib cage, which left about four inches of my characteristically soft-yet-unbloated flesh before the Extreme Jugggz begin.

(Okay, they're maybe not so extreme, but for ME, people. For me they're very full, and very sore.)

I have to confess I'm enjoying it all, just a little bit, because it reminds me of my second pregnancy before the (cue cartoon bomb sound). So here I am with my maxed-out drawstring and my misty water-colored memories, praying that, if it goes away, it comes back -- while the absence of such signs should not be interpreted as a negative, the presence of them, late in a cycle, frequently suggests a positive. God, and it's only Tuesday. At least I get an RE fix on Monday for the standard P4-and-a-probe eye-opener.

I wouldn't mind giving up the skin issues, though. I'm as greasy as an iron skillet. Even my eyelids are oily. That's just messed up.