and days later

So the transfer was last Friday. A long series of Well, Waddya Know? type events meant I even got my own doctor, which with the rescheduling from Thursday to Friday, wasn't meant to happen.

It was done under ultrasound guidance, there was beautiful music playing softly in the background, the same music that had played on Tuesday, and I was still wearing my shoes and my underpants had been surreptitiously stuffed underneath my pillow.

Which amused me and the nurse in ways neither one of us could quite explain.

Actually, I have trouble explaining or narrating or writing down anything these days, and reading the last five or so months of these pages and just in case anyone has been reading the same and wondering when I'm going to buy the damn vowel, I DO think I'm depressed. That being said, I don't think I'm clinically depressed, I don't think I need medication, because I do think it's entirely normal to feel this way. I don't think one needs to medicate normal, you know? It's been a tough (which has got to be the understatement of this century) almost two years, so it's not "just" a pregnancy loss making me sad, it's months and months of surgey after surgery and things going wrong and more surgery and all the feeling like shit and THEN the pregnancy loss, followed shortly by another extremely invasive and debilitating surgery that left me feeling more like shit than I ever, EVER have.

But anyway.

The transfer.

When it was done, my doctor pointed out a tiny, bright white bubble on the screen. "That," he said, "is the air around your embryos.".

He might as well have handed me my two newborn babies because the wave of love I felt was exactly how I felt when I first met Daniel.

(Who is going to be three (THREE!) next Friday. Unfortunately, I've not got my shit together enough to plan and deliver a birthday party in time for that day, which is SUCH a shame as this is the first year Daniel has any idea of what a birthday is. Tell me, is it unreasonable to throw a "Three + One Month" birthday party? Or even a "Three + TWO month" one?)

(Also, new Flickr. Go look :) )

So now I'm wandering around with a newly pregnant looking belly, thanks to the exploding ovaries and all the support medication, and am conscious of spending at least some time with my hands over said because this might be the only time they're alive, you know?

If they are still alive, that is.

Which they entirely could be.

Last time held the Unbelievable Card. Like, how unbelievable was it that I'd get pregnant? Try THIS MUCH. So the fear of NOT getting pregnant was buffered by the lack of belief that I could.

And this time, there's no buffer zone.

three days old

I'm fine, but sometimes I'm not really okay

This cycle has been really hard. I'm coping well but the fact is, it's been hard.

I've been so sad the entire time.

I put it down to the drugs, but really? I think it's me.

and being sad doesn't change anything anyway. I've still got this to do, so I'm doing it. Without question and without thinking about The Sad.

Except now I can't stop the tears streaming down my face. It's probably the drugs, I tell myself. It's probably the druggy hormones crashing around me now that I'm no longer injecting two different doses of whatever the fuck each day, and it's probably my own hormones kicking in randomly after the roller coaster ride the last week or so has been.

But when I think about what could have been, of how I wouldn't even be doing this now if things had turned out different then, that's when I think this pain in my heart has nothing to do with any of that stuff at all.

OF COURSE

It's 7.15am or thereabouts, and I've been up since 6am wondering if the excruciating pain I'm in is a perception or, you know, EXCRUCIATING PAIN.

As an aside, blogger is ALREADY giving me the shits.

But anyway, my innards is the topic du jour and they are not happy.

So I did the smart thing and consulted Dr Google, cross referencing "egg retrieval" with "complications" and apparently there CAN be complications following an egg retrieval (who knew!). INFERTILITY can be a complication of the complications too, which (that?) include infection, bleeding, perforation etc etc bla bla bla.

I'd gunning for perforation because my bowel (So. Sexy!) is having a damn cow. It's like MASSIVE wind pain hurt, but MASSIVELY MASSIVE. I mean, my god, I can't even TOUCH my tummy without wincing, and it's like that all the way up to my ribs, which is as far away from my ovaries as one can get without leaving my peritoneum or whatever the fuck the Innards Containment Area is officially called.

I called the unit at a little before 7am, which is when they open (at 7am, not a little before hand and I know this because the answering machine message SAYS SO) and implored them to contact me asap because PAIN! CONCERN! and it's now 7.30 ( I write slow) and...nothing.

Which doesn't surprise me because no doubt they're sitting back thinking I'm being a drama queen, when in actual fact, I'm as tough as old boots and when I say I'm in pain, it's usually because I'm this close *squishes thumb and forefinger together* to agony.

Oh, phone!

Obviously I need to learn to trust people and things a leetle more.

They're concerned about my pain because at this point, I shouldn't be in any.

Great. I was hoping for a "perfectly normal!".

I'll still be going in to see my doctor at 9.30 this morning, but the embryo transfer (two of!) might not happen today because surely sticking those babies (!) up there while I feel like this isn't optimal physically OR emotionally?

Oh, dilemma!

mish/mash

This week has been in keeping with the Everything, All At Once theme of my life so, yay, you know?

Lessee, last Friday was the written exam for the aerobics course I never updated about. I was banking on the exam being later this month, seeings as how I said "can't do Friday night, babysitting issues", and seeings as how the course coordinator replied "no problem, we'll schedule a sitting for you later in the month", which is OBVIOUSLY why I thought my exam was later in the month. Duh. Turns out IT WASN'T (!) so I skim studied an hour here, twenty minutes there, while supervising Daniel and his playdoh collection, usually. Or sometimes it was trains and giant lego. Point being, I "studied" and "raised my child" all at once, both in air quotes because each is kind of mutally exclusive from the toehr.

So the exam sucked, even though I reckon I passed because a) we're talking TAFE here, so passing is kind of a no shitter, and b) I reckon I passed.

The week long intensive aerobics instruction was the BEST fun I've had in probably my entire life. I've got the next three years to gain practical skills (ie the ability to not just theoretically structure a class, but to real time choreograph and deliver one) which is the REAL challenge, but at least this one pressing OMGFest of writing sht down is over and done with FOREVER.

I ended up getting one of Daniel's day care people to mind him, and he had a wild time too. He was asleep by the time I got home (after driving around for an hour because I completed the exam an hour early [not because I'm supersmart, but because TAFE practically answers the questions for you anyway][not really, but they do give you HEAPS of time to finish exams] and I didn't want to rip my baby sitter off the extra ten bucks I'd promised her. I drove thought the city and looked at the pretty lights and dreamed of a time long long ago that I used to actually BE among the pretty lights and in bars and stuff and not that I'd change anything, but once in a while it'd be WAY cool to go to out dancing. Just once. I mean, it's been, like, FOUR years. Maybe five. SERIOUSLY), and she'd drawn him a picture for when he woke up in the morning and he's still dragging it around the house giving me the running commentary: this is Stephanie and Daniel and a tree and a swing and Stephanie and Daniel and a tree and a swing. Etc.

Then he asks me to take them off the paper so he can play with them.

It's the first time in his entire life he's been "baby sat". Oh, I've dropped him at Fake Grandparents while I work for an hour, but purpose booking a babysitter in my own home so I could merrily....do a freakin' exam.

Hmm.

Note to self: next time, book her with the words "get uproariously drunk before staggering home at 5am" in mind.

Then it was the weekend and I have no idea what we did. Not because we did nothing, but because I have memory issues. We probably went to the video shop and we probably rented a Thomas The Tank Engine dvd, and Daniel probably went behind the counter and handed it to whoever was working behind the counter, and he probably waved his hand in the air like a little magician and told them to "make it shiny!".

No kidding, dude practically OWNS the video shop. They let him run around and I, uh, let him run around too, and because he's such a COOL kid, he's not one of those kids you wish would shut the fuck up, and I'm not frowned upon as one of those mothers who lets their kid run riot while everyone else is too polite to tell ME to shut my kid the fuck up.

Remember how I had orthodontics in the past year? When they were taken off, a wire was bonded to the inside of my teeth to keep them in place and looking pretty.

The bonds broke on Monday so I've had to schedule some time with my Orthodontist on Thursday.

In the meantime, I've scheduled a LOT of sticking my tongue into the broken bits and driving myself CRAZY because it feels so WRONG. .

Then I found that stupid bolt in my mouth, so I've had to schedule some time with my surgeon for today, with plenty of time in between to thoroughly gross myself out by a) feeling the metal bits in my mouth with my tongue, and b) standing in front of the bathroom mirror with a torch and looking at the grossness of a bit of metal poking through my gum.

All of which may not seem like a big deal but this is the same week of the emotional and practical bla bla associated with an egg retrieval.

The physical bla blas associated with yesterday include feeling like shit, feeling like shit, and feeling like shit. Last time I was all jumping off the bed and declaring myself ready to run a marathon. This time I went home feeling fine. Like, FINE fine, no pain, less bloat than BEFORE the procedure, and this lasted until I caught the bus to Daniel's day care and picked him up as requested, at which point I think I ruptured a damn ovary because, ouch, then some bleeding, then some bloating, and since then, I have become UPPERCASEBLOATED and am in sharp, stabby pain.

So that's the proverbial pee in my cornflakes because otherwise, six eggs! Woohoo! etc.

But, I can barely stand up without wincing, and I really AM one of those idiots who barrel through pain, saying things like "it's just a flesh wound".

ie my (new, the other one can go suck it) physio POUNDED my bad backicular region on Monday, and even he said - with awe- "oh my, you have extremely high tolerance, don't you?".

So I'm a little worried about my state of discomfort today, because if I'm saying "ouch", it probably means I'm bleeding internally and have a ruptured bowel.

Moving on to the proposed embyo transfer which, yay and all, but HOW MUCH MORE CAN I FIT INTO A WEEK?

You all are probably counting on your fingers and saying, dude, that's like, three scheduled events you're freaking over, to which I answer, it's FIVE! Because conception rates are significantly maximised by acupuncture within twenty four hours prior to and twenty four hours after an embryo transfer, so because they said "Friday transfer" I went ahead and scheduled a Thursday and a Friday appointment with my acupuncturist.

And I'm raising a child ON MY OWN and as much as I love him, he really is the proverbial fly in the (app)ointment(s), because HE'S the full time commitment.

So as of this morning, the rest of this week looked fucking awful, but doable.

Then the embryologist called while Daniel and I were out and...

wait...this first:

Yes I was punching the sky over my six egg retrieval, but on the inside I was being all pragmatic and taking into consideration last time's less than eighteen percent strike rate (eleven eggs, five fertilised, two made it as Grade A eight cell three day embryos, the third squeaked in to eight cells seconds before it was given the last rights, and the fourth and fifth fizzled out sometime shortly after making it to six cells). Given that figure, I was thinking I'd be lucky to get one embryo to transfer.

Well.

Five (FIVE!!) eggs have fertilised. Out of six!! So far they're still at the single cell stage and we'll know more tomorrow bla bla BLA, but the embryologist thinks they're all doing well, to the point that it may be a case of eenie meenie miney moe come....

tomorrow!!

The transfer is now on for tomorrow morning at 9.30am, which totally SHITS all over my tightly scheduled week. So I metaphorically threw my hands in the air and pondered "acupuncture?!", and the embryologist said "oh", and then I came home and made a million (okay, THREE) phone calls before the embryologist called back to ask if I'd been able to reschedule my acupuncturist for today because if not, we'd hold off on the transfer until Friday.

I love my embryologist. And my doctor, I love him too, because both are saying "we love acupuncture" and also "we want you to be as comfortable with the 2 day transfer as we are".

Which I am.

random eww + honorable egg reference

Last night I felt something weird in my mouth. What the hail IS that, I asked myself, thinking the answer would be something obvious like "rogue sesame seed", and that the solution would lie in a length of waxed dental floss.

Further investigation however, revealed a frickin' BOLT hanging out of my gum, right up there above my teeth and in that seam between my gum and the insidey bit of my lip.

I about keeled over dead right there because GROSSOMIGODOMIGODOMIGOD, and then I forgot about The Gross in favor of rolling my eyes because, seriously, only me, right?

My surgeon's not called back yet, and I'm hoping that when he does it's going to be a case of "Easy peasey, amigo, we can screw that sucker out in five minutes, tops, right here in my rooms!".

Something tells me though, that it's going to be a leetle more involved than a Phillip's head screw driver wielded amid a bit of small talk.

Aaaaand,

six follicles located this morning, and six eggs retrieved.

*punches sky*

still waiting

Seeings as how today wasn't an egg retrieval day because the universe REALLY wanted to fuck with my sanity this time round, tomorrow is.

Starving begins at midnight tonight, after which I shall shower a) to save from having to get up five minutes earlier in the morning to do so, and b) because NO WAY am I going to cut into the pre midnight Stuffing Of Face going on (even as I type) (right now, cheese, because my HUGE steak and HUGE bowl full of brussel sprouts aren't ready yet) by practicing good personal hygiene.

Today I woke with a desire to cram unlimited amounts of anything vaguely edible down my throat. Nothing is appeasing the bottomless pit formerly known as my stomach though,so I'm hoping it can be explained away with the words "whacky mad hormones" because eating frozen bread IS NOT NORMAL.

Anyway.

Egg retrieval tomorrow. AT LAST.

Criminy.