Leery Polyp

All Aboard the USS Leery Polyp

My mother, on her enormous raised wraparound porch, holds court on summer mornings, presiding over Folgers and cigarettes. The regular crowd of neighbors stops by for conversation and an azalea-framed view of the ramshackle street. This has been going on for years now, and the porch crew gets pretty familiar sometimes. This morning, for example, my mother made an announcement.

"Jo was inseminated this morning!" she proclaimed, in her airiest tone.

I'm sure they were thrilled to hear about it. I know I was delighted to know that they knew, these people whose sense of boundaries is sufficiently withered that, when my mother erected a locked gate to keep them from walking INTO THE HOUSE THROUGH THE BACK DOOR at will, they banged on the front door to let her know that "something was wrong with the new gate." Oh, yes.

My sister, bless her, suggested to my mother that perhaps this sort of thing might best be kept on the down-low. Mom waved it away. "Oh, we tell each other everything!" Awesome, Mom. Thankfully my sister calls me and does that very same thing.

I cannot let on that I know, however, since that would bring down a hail of passive-aggressive maternal misbehaviors on my sister, The Informer, so I had to settle for a semi-related not-worth-sharing crack, passed on to Mom as my sister and I talked on the phone. But dear Mither, she trumped me.

"What do Jo Leery Polyp and the USS Wisconsin have in common?" I hear shouted in the background.

Oh Jesus gay.

"They're both full of seamen!" came the jocular reply.

Haw haw haw haw snort cccchh snnk ah haw haw haw.

I offered, "They're both full of sailors!" but the moment was over, my timing was off, and it fell flat. Revenge was mine a few minutes later, however, when, in reference to a marinated asparagus dish she was preparing, my mother raved, "You should TASTE this! Oh my GOD!"

"That's what the doctor said this morning," I told her.

CheckMATE.

Too Shy, Shy -- Hush Hush, IUI

The Previous Night's Dreams: Riddled with bizarre conflations of various ex-boyfriends.

The Breakfast: Avocado and scrambled eggs.

The Site: A midwife's office, comfortingly papered in posters of pelves and baby heads and waterbirth.

The Specimen: "More than we could count!"

The IUI: Like a Pap smear performed by an adroit midwife. Painless and over before I realized it had begun.

The View from My Husband's Chair: Pure unadulterated cervix. A speculum-clear view.

The Best Part: Hearing Dr. S say, "Lift your butt!" when he propped up the ass-end of the table.

The Fifteen Minutes: I couldn't even read the Marie Claire I'd brought. I just lay there looking up at the butterfly mobile, nattering inanely to Sean, rubbing my belly.

The Aftermath: Mild cramps, that Jiffy-Pop ovary feeling.

The Ability to Concentrate on My Work: Shot to hell. So long, brain! See you in two weeks!

Leery Limericks

The follicles grew ever bigger;
Doctor Sweety said: Yep, time to trigger!
Jesus gay, Ovidrel!
OHSS? Oh, hell.
She commanded her husband to frig her.

Then that infertile girl name of Polyp,
Got all tarted up like a trollop;
To her it was stuck
-- and a mighty good fuck!
Takes just one, but she got a whole dollop.

Thanks for all the good wishes, folks. I can feel the love. It feels a little like gigantic follicles swelling with fluid. And joy.

Go Nads! Go Nads! Or, Trigger Cut

Oh hell yes.

We trigger tonight at eight. IUI Monday at 7:45. OHSS likely to follow, but who gives two shits? Sure, I might have to miss a lunch date with the former ambassador to various Middle Eastern countries (for real! New job has perks!) and a trip to Hungary, but I think every last one of you, gentle readers, understands just how easy it was to make that call. I'm like a chocoholic, but for babies.

That said: Saturday morning is the day to GO, if you want to be treated like Scarlett Johansson, mullet forgiven, nay, admired, Harry Winston jewels delivered into your waiting hands as you stand for the final fitting for your couture gown. I had an entire waiting room and thirty linear feet of Parenting all to myself. My favorite nurse, the one with the acrylic talons who remembers to pronounce my name correctly, actually took my blood while I was sitting in the exam room. None of that back and forth between the lab and the exam room for Queen Leery Polyp, no no. The bloodwork came to me.

Thus far, the day has been a raging success. What to do with the rest of a glorious summery Saturday?

1. Visit (improbably Pennsylvania Dutch) acupuncturist for Moxa-thon. Withstand 1.5-hour onslaught of needles and burning bits of what looks like florist's foam

2. Return Wonderbra, as Serono has thoughtfully provided self-rising poppin'-fresh bosom via pharmaceuticals

3. Thank universe

4. Consider religious conversion

5. Recall unfortunate incident of two years ago involving St. Girard and buttinski neighbor lady

6. Reaffirm atheistic tendencies by swearing "Jesus Gay!" whenever possible

7. Purchase discreet maternity pants from Old Navy to accomodate Red Dwarf Ovaries

8. Doctor's orders: get it on. Tonight.

To that last one I'd like to add that it is awfully easy for him to say, as nobody ever shot him full of follitropins until his testicles swelled to the size of Rio Star grapefruits and advised him to enjoy himself while an overweight cat lovingly kneaded said testicles. But whatever.

Big Money, No Whammies

Dr. S actually said "kick-start your ovaries" this morning, in reference to my "Euro-style" step-down protocol, and looked a little bewildered at my response, which was along the lines of "PffffffHA!" These things aren't worth explaining when your pants are across the room, balanced in a little wad on a stool inadequate for its purpose, so I just smiled pretty and let it slide.

So the Olympic-judge litany this morning was very interesting: "17 by 10. 10 by 9. 16 by 12. 9 by 8." And so on. We have a few enthusiastic follicles who may overtake their lesser brethren, in which case I earn myself a jab in the bottom and a catheter-load of the man-goods sometime early next week.

My dose has been halved again, to 37.5, which is the lowest marking on my syringe -- I may as well just tuck the vial in my drawers for an hour and call it good.

There are a few possibilities here.

1) Reduced dose causes "crash" in which all follicles stop growing and defenestrate themselves from the nearest high-rise, leaving their families destitute and bringing on a depression that is Great indeed;

2) Reduced dose isn't reduced enough, and all follicles continue to grow, rendering yet another cycle null and void;

3) Reduced dose allows the big monsters to take on a life of their own and the little ones to die off. We proceed to trigger and IUI.

I'm wishing for that trigger, not just for the chance at pregnancy, but because I think it would be such a relief for these follicles to pop like so much bubble wrap. Oh god yes.

Nee/dle Bud/dies For/ever

Julie shot up in my bathroom last night. It was the coolest thing ever.

I wanted to be needle buddies, with matching broken-heart "Be/st Fri/ends" necklaces from Claire's Boutique, but our schedules diverge by about two hours, and we wouldn't want to deprive my Sharks and Jets and her Jabba the Hutt of their timely infusions of grow-juice.

The internet, like pubescent sexuality, is a mysterious and wonderful thing, with surprises in every nook and cranny. And it puts a girl in heretofore unrecognized -- and therefore undocumented by Judith Martin -- social situations, which have the potential to be awkward. Such as picking someone up from the train station, someone you've never even seen, someone you know through her writing but what if she finds you tiresome? What if your filthy baggy pants horrify her and she runs screaming from your house but your dog chases her, yipping, and...oh god. What if she doesn't recognize you because you look like a fourteen-year-old who didn't shower after P.E.?

But, like my own Planned Parenthood-sanctioned deflowering, meeting Julie in the flesh was a beautiful experience, memorable in every way. The second I saw her, I recognized her -- not because I'd seen a teeny thumbnail photo, no no, but because she gave off this air of clean refreshing Julie-ness. Who the hell gets off a commuter train looking charming and fresh? Julie, that's who. I am particularly envious of her creamy skin, apparently unsullied by an hour on a malodorous naugahyde train.

This woman, in the midst of yet another IVF cycle, is sweet, engaging, willing to participate in dinner-table recollections of the time the cat got that terrible diarrhea -- and funny, oh Lord, so funny. But you know that already. Suffice to say that the internet version, incontinence-inducing as it is, doesn't come close to matching the glory of the Actual Julie, funny in ways both light and dark, warm and friendly, excruciatingly adorable, bringer of mind-blowing brownies. Really. They're like fudge, almost, but light and perfectly textured, and you just want to coat the inside of your mouth with them forever.

Julie, I am hoping for some good news from the doctors today. I am hoping so hard for it, I said a little please-Universe atheist prayer last night. I want this to work for you, or barring that I want you to get the answers you need to know how to proceed. I want for you a joy so big that it dwarfs the comfort and happiness you've brought to countless other women, me very much among them.

Kick-Start My Parts

Whoo yeah, kick-start my pa-harts.

This morning's family meeting revealed a veritable Juvy of itty bitty follicles, goofy little undifferentiated freshman all, but wait until they get switchblades and Elvis-grade hair grease. Ten by nine. Ten by eight. Seven by five. Eleven by nine. Ten by nine. Nine by seven. And it just kept going. There's got to be some potential in there somewhere, but I'm cutting my dose back from 150 IU to 75 in hopes of minimizing the Pony Boy crowd.

True to form, Dr. S, who was gamely re-papering the exam table himself when I walked in, evidenced no alarm at his findings, saying, "It's early and they're small, so this is fine." There were some mutterings about overstimulation being a possibility still, and maybe halving the dose again to 37.5, but we'll see about that on Friday.

When I mentioned the Gonal-F headaches, Dr. S expressed his suspicion that women who get Gonal-F migraines tend to get pregnancy migraines. I announced that I would gladly suffer migraines if that were the case, and he laughed. Which made me like him even more.

Time For Our Learn-a-bout Segment!

Did you know? Chocha (spelled ciocia, but pronounced the same) is Polish for Auntie!

Let's say it together:

"Damn, that receptionist was all up in my Auntie! What the fuck?"

That was very good! Let's try another!

"That Brazilian wax was awfully rough on Auntie -- she's all red and itchy now!"

I guess this would make the ultrasound wand my Uncle.

* * *

Auntie and Uncle have a date tomorrow morning, and I shall report back with the latest findings. I'm insanely busy, so I don't even have time to mentally feel out my feminine plumbing or obsess about follicles, though I will fess up to drifting off, in the middle of some particularly stultifying industrial policy documents, and imagining a future of spheres: little round baby heads, big round titties, soft round bellies.

Meanwhile, please forgive the recent paucity of entries (and comments on other blogs); Team Leery Polyp is booked solid through Friday, and I must be giving off an Asshat Forcefield, because the world in general has been pretty reasonable, and kind people who hand you a shopping basket when your hands are full and comment on the beautiful weather, well, they just aren't funny.

Not that I'm complaining! Oh my, no.

Where Is My Arvid Engen?

My injection technique has suffered, over the long three weeks I spent not shooting hardcore follitropins. My adorably jiggly belly now sports not one but two cobalt-blue needle kisses, one per shot, so far. Other things have improved over last time, though. That three-day headache I had last time was more of a seven-hour headache; what remains of it is significantly damped down. Not bad at all, really.

The snap-crackle-pop ovary feeling is starting up again. I don't know what to make of that. I mean, okay, so my ovaries are chockablock with little slacker eggs, eggs who managed to get up and eat breakfast but hit a serious roadblock with the showering and getting dressed, eggs who fake sick notes from their parents when a particularly good rerun of Beverly Hills: 90210 is on. So the Gonal-F roused them from their lazing like a Super Big Gulp of Mountain Dew at 6 a.m., and we got thirty half-assed eggs competing with maybe four solid A students, and when they're doing badly in class they start kicking up a ruckus with their spitballs and note-passing and OHSS. And they ruin it for the rest of the eggs, who want only to graduate from the ovary and grow up to be babies.

What I'm a little hazy on is how a different dose of medication is going to prevent this from happening again. They're still in detention, those eggs, waiting to fuck shit up -- if they never pop out, how do I ever get rid of them? Will they keep showing up to class solely for the pleasure of disrupting it, or below a certain critical dose do they just not wake up?

If we move on to IVF, there is at least the promise of The Principal, in the form of the egg-retrieval needle. I'd rather have a valedictorian emerge before it comes to that, of course. And a salutatorian, and whatever the hell you are if you're third. Sergeant at Arms, maybe.

If you caught that the post title was a reference to Head of the Class, well, that's the kind of thing I find impressive.

And furthermore: if you can tell me which musical they put on, those wacky kids, without resorting to Google or an episode guide, I will be forced to come up with some sort of prize.

There's No Escaping You

We just came very close to hosting both my mother-in-law and sister overnight on Saturday. Just to lend some perspective on the matter: we live in an apartment that is less than 500 square feet, and most of those feet are occupied by neat heaps of paper scraps decorated with adorable cartoon doodles of Cthulhu and our dog layered on top of scribbled mad scientist rantings. Also there are a lot of shoes.

Things would not have been pretty.

It is a cozy house, and parts of it are fairly presentable in a charming Ikea-meets-dumpster-dive way. Since we are staying another year, we plan to clean the place as though we were moving, just to oust the oversize formal winter coat with CD-sized shiny gold buttons, the graying fencing uniform, flotsam, jetsam. Even when the place has been scoured, though, things are tightly packed. I dream of a house in which I don't have to move furniture to open any given door, where the contents of cabinets don't have to be assembled like Lego kits. I store my works (syringes, sharps container, alcohol wipes) on top of an old art deco cabinet in my bedroom, because there's no other surface it can rest on where it will be safe from the dog and cat.

Anyway. While we have managed to sleep a total of ten people in this same apartment (two in our bed, one on our bedroom floor, two in the office, five in the front room), it was not an experience I'd care to replicate, particularly since we'd served those people roast pork, the noxious fumes resulting from which filled the room until it was like a carbon monoxide PSA. When there are more than three people here, there's no escape -- at least two of those people must always be in the same room, unless everyone is sleeping. Okay for the younguns, but not the sort of thing mothers, in-law or otherwise, go for.

***
A brief note on my period, or, more Leery Polyp Menstrual Help Tips:

It is advisable that you keep track of whether you are going with pads or tampons at any given time, else you suddenly realize that YOU ARE NOT WEARING A PAD, OH GOD and bolt from the animated conversation you were having with a visiting scientist, only to come to a screeching halt in front of the bathroom door when you realize you're safely plugged.

At the same time, though, if you remove a tampon, it is useful to replace it, lest you rise from your blogging session to discover that you have tie-dyed your dainties. God, what am I, fourteen? You'd think I'd have the hang of it by now.

Tomorrow is the real day three; let the wild rumpus start.