Uppercase Woman

Dental Pain, out of the office

So my place of employment has had to change our health plan yet again to avoid the ridiculous increase that our current plan was going to charge this year (40% for christ’s sake). Today was open enrollment.

So I saunter over to the cafeteria, and fill out all my forms. My husband, a freelancer, has his own medical insurance, but he does share my dental insurance. So I guess seeing his name is what confused the woman taking the forms, when she glanced at it and said, “Are your dependant children adopted?”

Now, why they need to know that, I can’t imagine, but jesus fucking christ, I felt like I’d been kicked in the gut by an entire angry football team.

Somehow, I managed to squeak out, “I don’t have any children.” She cheerily said, “Oh, sorry!”

What I should have said was, “Listen you weasely little bitch, look carefully at the form before asking dumb ass questions, because I’m stuck half-way through my first IVF torture, and feeling rather hormonal, and could easily—really, really easily—rip your head right off your neck. So watch it, nasty lady!”

Yeah, that would have felt good.

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I was glad to hear from so many South Beach devotees. However, when I went to the website today and decided to get the “free diet profile” I got a bit alarmed. Now, I expect whenever I fill out one of those on-line forms to a) get spammed after, and b) get asked if I want to receive lots of free “email newsletters,” so I always use a rarely used email address.

What surprised me, however, was being presented the option of receiving either “Daily Sayings of the Lord Jesus Christ” or “Scripture Snippets (or something like that)” from the folks at South Beach.

First off, I’m not so sure that Jesus would be down with “Scripture Snippets” in the first place, and frankly, I’m not so down with Jesus. So what’s the deal? Is it like Wal-Mart, a big industry run by psycho right-wingers? Not that all Christians are right-wingers, my favorite author Anne Lamott being a great example, but I’m not comfortable buying into anything like that.

I tried to research it on Google and got nothing connecting either the author or the book to Christianity. So maybe it’s just the folks at the website. But I’m not comfortable with that, not at all.

So, the reason I’ve been thinking about the low-carb thing is because of the PCO, so maybe I should look at the PCOS diet instead. I guess I’ll be hitting the bookstore this weekend, and making a decision (course, if I got my hand on the SBD book for say, free, or used at a bookstore, I’d be happy to do it. I just don’t wanna give them my money).

Sigh. Dieting sucks. Maybe I won’t do it at all.

Hot off the Presses

Many of us already have expressed our dismay about the 20/20 adoption special. So I was especially pleased to see Jon Stewart of the Daily Show (on Comedy Central every night at 11) call attention to it last night. He dissed ABC as something “found on the bottom of your shoe” and said that Barbara Walter’s face was all pulled back and tight from the “g-forces caused by her rapid descent into HELL!”

It was fabulous. And, by the way, if you read the link above, Barbara Walters is receiving all those emails we’ve sent. She talks about 20/20’s “overzealous promotion” and hopes to clear up any “misunderstandings.” Lots of luck, honey.

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When I moved from the Midwest to a big East Coast city, I continued a long habit of watching the local evening news. It was awful. Apparently, every day in this city, a child dies in a fire, and they report it. Someone is shot or hit by a car, and they report it, complete with that street level shot of the lone shoe on the road.

It was depressing. I couldn’t stand it. I cut my viewing down to once a week, and watched the Simpsons at 11pm instead. My disillusionment went even further when I became friendly with a guy at the local dog park who was a producer for one of the local news shows, and he told me that famous “shoe shot” was totally faked, they carried a bunch of shoes in the van—children’s and adults—for hit-and-runs and gun shot victims.

Then a couple of years ago my husband and I went to see “Bowling for Columbine,” Michael Moore's movie about the America’s relationship with guns. It was fascinating. Apparently, Canada has just as many guns per capita as the US, but something like 1% of the murder rate.

One of the theories he discussed was the media, particularly the news, feeding into our fear. He showed ten minutes of news clips all saying things like “Household products can kill your children!” and “Is your basement safe?” to “Teach your child what to do during an abduction” and worse. No wonder we’re always shooting people! We’re fucking terrified!

So now, I live in world where I get my news from NPR and The New York Times, and of course, I have now replaced my local news at 11pm with the fab Daily Show with Jon Stewart. He’s actually oddly informative, seems to have politics close to mine (psycho liberal) and makes me laugh my ass off. The best way to end the day.

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So what does an infertility goddess do when there is nothing TO do (except pop the daily birth control pill)? Consider crash diets!

I have worked on my food addiction issues for over six years. I’ve had massive amounts of help. I’ve seen nutritionists, two of them, and gone to Weight Watchers. I’ve sought help in support groups.

And I’m still fat.

I got down to an all time low about four years ago, then went back up about 50lbs, lost 35 of that again, and thanks to six months of various fertility drugs, am back up again. While I don’t, technically, approve of dieting, I want to shake some of this crap off my hips before my frozen embryo transfer.

So I’m thinking about trying the new trendy thing, (no—not Atkins!) The South Beach diet. Since I have polycystic ovaries, trying a lower carb diet isn’t insane, and TSBD does allow nominal whole grain carbs back in after the initial two week “induction phase.” So it doesn’t sound totally insane to me, but I could be kidding myself.

All I know, is that “I lost 15 pounds in two weeks!” sounds really awesome. I know that most of that is fluid, but since I’m carrying around a crazy amount of fluid thanks to the drugs, that’s fine by me.

Soon I’ll be regaling all with my new birth control pill and carbohydrate withdrawal ramblings. I’m sure you are all looking forward to it!

Tears Under Everything

I had to steal this quote from Karen's comment section yesterday... it's by one of my fav authors, Anne Lamott, from her amazing book "Traveling Mercies." By the way, congrats Karen on the seven eggs!

"So I've been on the lookout for something wonderful to happen, because of this story I heard recently: Carolyn Myss, the medical intuitive who writes and lectures about why people don't heal, flew to Russia a few years ago to give some lectures. Everything that could go wrong did-flights were canceled or overbooked, connections missed, her reserved room at the hotel given to someone else. She kept trying to be a good sport, but finally, two mornings later, on the train to her conference on healing, she began to whine at the man sitting beside her about how infuriating her journey had been thus far.

It turned out that this man worked for the Dalai Lama. And he said-gently-that they believe when a lot of things start going wrong all at once, it is to protect something big and lovely that is trying to get itself born-and that this something needs for you to be distracted so that it can be born as perfectly as possible."

I've read her book twice, and have found it so unbelievably helpful and wonderful each time, even though she is a firm believer in Jesus, who I'm not terribly fond of. Somehow, her belief is gentle and even she's kinda shocked by it, so it's not pushy or offensive in any way.

Reading that quote brought tears to my eyes, as has almost everything today. I'm not sure what's going on, if it's just my period or starting on birth control pills or what, but I am a big weepy mess today. But not in a bad way, not really. I'm generally content, just feel like bawling.

Maybe some chocolate will help. Nothing soothes the menstral beast like chocolate.

Surrender

I’m kind of feeling quiet, you know, relaxed. It’s weird. But I think I know why. Warning: this next part is sad.

I went to a meeting Wednesday night, and the topic was grief. The speaker was talking about her son, who has been struggling with addiction to heroin, and how she’s had to let go of him over and over again and each time brings a new spate of grieving.

I was thinking about infertility, and how there are thousands of moments of sharp and intense grief throughout the process. But I realized the largest thing I’m grieving is the child I’d pictured in my head two years ago when my husband and I decided to start trying.

I could see her, (because I knew she was a girl). We started trying in spring, but we wouldn’t get pregnant until mid summer I figured, so she’d be a late winter baby. I’d be able to deliver her at the birthing center, and that would be wonderful. She would have her dad’s dark curly hair, and she’d be born with a mass of it. She would have blue eyes, since both her father and I do, and they would be light like her father’s but ridiculously huge and framed with dark lashes like mine.

She would be beautiful. I could hear her laughing in my heart. She is what I have been mourning, under everything, every negative home pregnancy test, every new revelation from the doctor, every new painful procedure. I have been weeping, silently, over this magical little girl.

So in my morning meditation yesterday, I let her appear fully in my mind, and I turned her over the current vision of a loving god I have in my head right now—a beautiful woman, serene as the Virgin Mary, clearly a mother to all. I let her take the little girl and walk away from me. Yes, to be even more maudlin, I pictured the little girl waving goodbye the way babies do, just opening and closing her hand. I wept, I sobbed, and I feel somewhat relieved now.

It’s not a real little girl, I’m mourning, of course, it’s expectation. I wrote the other day about nostalgia, how I was nostalgic for the early part of trying to conceive when I thought it was merely an issue of raising up my hips and timing. The nostalgia was connected to this phase of mourning—I’m sad that it wasn’t easy, that I’m no longer the confident and carefree woman who believed I needed birth control to not get pregnant. I’m mourning that loss of innocence, that loss of hope. I even mourn the woman who felt uncomfortable during her annual pelvic exam.

I guess there is some part of me that has refused to accept that this is my life. There is a part of me that really, really wants to believe that the doctors are wrong, we’re both just fine, we’ll get pregnant on our own. I needed to let go of that too.

This is my life. This is my body. It’s hard, but it’s not impossible.

Thanks go to Dawn for her beautiful writing about her adoption surrender. I wouldn’t have been able to let go of my little girl without it.

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On a more cheerful note, or perhaps it’s the reason for my melancholy, Monday is my 36th birthday. I’m having a fabulous dinner out with lots of friends at one of those Japanese places that cook the food in front of you where I can eat lots of sushi since I’m not pregnant. My husband is buying me the shoes of my choosing (not terribly exciting since I only wear Merrell’s), and my best friend got me tickets to the opera (which I love). I’m also planning to enjoy a movie or two, continuing from last weekend’s theme of vengeance. Last weekend it was Walking Tall (highly reminiscent of my favorite bad movie of all time, Roadhouse with Patrick Swaze) and The Punisher. This weekend it’s Kill Bill Vol. 2, and Man of Fire. Yeah!

Keep Hope Alive

“Every day, a little apocalypse” –David Byrne

Thanks, David. That’s it exactly.

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So this morning I had a follow up blood work/ultrasound appointment. Sadly, the tech was The Cunt, so I didn’t listen to anything she said, but she did manage to hurt me. While doing an abdominal ultrasound. How is that even possible? She shoved the damn thing so painfully hard into my stomach I couldn’t breathe. When I complained, she said in her bizarre and falsely sunny voice, “Sorry! But I have to get it!” The unwritten subtext I hear is all about my weight (I am a little sensitive about that right now, I know), especially after she asks me to “Lift up your tummy so I can get in there!” Cunt. Mean, nasty, painful bitch.

Ah. I feel better.

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Thanks so much, everyone, for the kind words yesterday. It’s amazing how much writing about this stuff can help. I am feeling a tad bit better today—obviously, since I didn’t kill The Cunt this morning. Yesterday I would have slapped the ultrasonic gizmo out of her hand and whacked her over the head with the monitor.

I’m also feeling a little better because I spoke with an IVF nurse yesterday and she woke up the Hope Addict. During my last conversation with my doctor following the egg retrieval (the one at 1:00am), he’d suggested doing a mock cycle next month to ‘iron out any rough edges before the actual frozen embryo transfer.’ I dismissed it out of hand, because at that point I couldn’t see taking drugs for no reason. After thinking about it, I wondered if I was too quick to dismiss it, so I called the nurse to ask about it. She told me that most people don’t bother, and that the doctor was probably just trying to help me feel like I was doing something. I asked if the drugs would help with the over stimulation, and she said no.

Then she went on to tell me that if my ovaries do calm down, and I have no cysts on my cycle day two ultrasound and my blood work is clear, it’s possible that they CAN do the frozen embryo transfer next cycle. I realize it’s highly unlikely, but honestly, I welcomed that old bitch Hope back with open arms, cause it’s better than how I felt yesterday. That’s for sure.

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Just because it’s so much fun, I thought I’d post some of my new favorite search terms that have landed folks at my site (one of the most fun things about blogging!).

1. Fat Ho. Oh yes, ladies and gentleman, this term brings you to my site. This makes me insanely happy.

2. Foreign Object Penetration (and foreign object penetration into uterus). Insert Beevis and Butthead chortles here: he he. He he. He he.

3. Why should birth control be allowed in schools? Just 'cause, alright?

4. Lysteria Control. Uh, ok.

5. Beached Whale. Ah—so appropriate, yet so odd.

Lastly, there are a lot of searches involving a variety of terms regarding “implantation spotting” “spotting and IVF” and “early pregnancy spotting” and “early pregnancy symptoms.”

When I see those, I have the strangest reaction: nostalgia. I feel nostalgic for the days when I conducted those internet searches. Back when I was so, so sure that this was the month! This time it would work!

I also feel such a pang of sadness for those women. In my experience, the vast majority of the time one wonders if this is implantation spotting, it’s not, it’s just one’s period, coming to slam one’s hopeful ass to the curb. I hope I’m wrong: I hope for every single searcher that they’re right, it IS implantation, and it’s twins, and they’ll have a great happy, healthy pregnancy, and the kids will become rock stars and make millions of dollars. I really, really do.

But if they end up here—bitter, bloated, frustrated—we’ll all be waiting to help.

Today Is Not A Good Day

I don’t know why, but it all has suddenly hit me: everything about this IVF cycle has slammed into my heart hard and I am floundering.

I feel betrayed by my body; that it couldn’t even do IVF right. It had to overreact to the drugs so I ended up hyper stimulated. It had to have a progesterone surge following my HCG shot so that a fresh embryo transfer was impossible. It had to gain a zillion pounds so that I can’t even bear to look at myself, and none of my clothes fit—and those clothes are already big as it is. I’m so angry with my body I literally wish that I could walk on out of it—just drop it by the side of the road and move on.

I feel betrayed by my doctor because the communication has been so unclear and each time I speak with someone at the office I get more bad news. I am disgusted with the nurses and their bad New Jersey accents and their dismissive way of giving me information and acting annoyed that I react to that information. I feel angry and betrayed that no one told me how horrendously painful the egg retrieval could be so that I woke up alone and scared and hurting so, so badly. I feel angry that they gave me nothing to help with the pain at the doctor’s office, and I had to endure an awful 45-minute car trip home until my husband could go to the pharmacy and fill a prescription.

I am overwhelmed by emptiness—and empty heart with nothing left to give, and an empty womb that aches. When I feel this way, every single thing causes me to react with anger—customers walking into my store and wanting help drain me so badly that I want to hurt them. My husband trying to talk to me about anything—anything at all from bills to IVF to what to do this weekend—fills me a hot burning anger that terrifies me. I feel like running headlong into a wall, or walking in front of a bus, or cutting off my hand, just to see what would happen. It’s not suicidal, exactly; it’s more like creating a different pain just to be distracted from this one.

When I get this way, it’s usually because I have rejected all the nurturing offered me and become alarming self-sufficient. This time, I think it’s actually because my life is just too much to bear right now. I feel weak—weak from the hormones and weak from the emotional blasts. Plus I feel weak compared to getupgrrl or Julie or Julia, or any of the other fabulous bloggers I've gotten to know, who have all been through so much more, and survived.

My old sponsor told me that I needed to turn to God when I feel this way—that the only thing that will fill my emptiness is a power greater than myself. But there is the biggest betrayal of all. God has totally abandoned me, as far as I can tell. God is all around me, in the bright eyes of my neighbor’s baby or my big beautiful dog, but God is keeping a suspicious distance from me. I’ve been kicked to the curb and am lying there bleeding.

Jesus, I sound crazy. Truth is, I’m probably more hormonal than anything else. I’m sure I’m having the mother of all PMS’s, courtesy of injectibles and 35 fucking follicles. I know I’ll get through this, since I always manage to get through everything.

It’s just really fucking hard.

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I’ve come to the realization that I can’t go to Washington, DC this weekend for March For Women’s Lives. As important as the issues are to me, and as much as I want to have my voice heard, I am too vulnerable, sad, and angry to be surrounded by beautiful women all fighting for the right to terminate their pregnancies when they need to. Right now, I need to feel safe and loved, and I don’t think I will feel much of that in that crowd. I cannot afford the anger right now. I really can’t.

So those of you going, please, yell extra loudly with me in mind. I’m there with you in spirit, even if I can’t bear to bring my flesh.

Babies On Ice

Ok, so this may horrify everyone, but once I got the idea in my head, I couldn’t get it out.

For the last few days, since my massive egg retrieval, my husband and I have been wandering around in a daze. At one point, he wandered over to me and squinted and said, “We could have 17 children!” To our friends we’ve been joking about our “babies on ice” and that naturally reminded me of the Vanilla Ice song…so I re-wrote the lyrics based on the frozen embryo perspective (for the original lyrics, click here).

Ice, Ice Babies

Yo, IVF, Let’s kick it!

Ice, Ice Babies (dum dum dum dum dee dee dum dum)
Ice, Ice Babies (dum dum dum dum dee dee dum dum)

All right, stop stimulates and listen
Babies on ice a new invention
Cryogenics holding them tightly
Cold air flowing daily and nightly
Will it ever stop? Yo- I think so
Turn off the lights and they’ll glow
To the extreme they rock the freezer like a vandal
Light up the lab and wax the techs like a candle.

Careful, thaw with a rush that booms
But don’t kill their brains like a poisonous mushroom
Transplant, when my lining is ready
Anything less then 8mm is a felony
Love it don’t leave it, implant right away
You best hit the bull’s eye so the we can play
If there’s a problem, progesterone will solve it
Hook into my uterus while my DJ revolves it

Ice, Ice Babies
Ice, Ice Babies
Ice, Ice Babies
Ice, Ice Babies

Yo man—don’t get out of there! Word to me, I’m your mother.

The Waiting Game

Well, yesterday I was still writhing in agony and clutching my belly all day, so I called one of the IVF nurses to see if this was normal. She said, oh yes, it is, cause you had so many, many eggs. It will take me at least a week or so to get back to normal, she said, and I’ll be even more normal after I get my period. Oh joy.

Then I said, yes, then next cycle I can do my frozen embryo transfer. She says, oh no, you have to wait two cycles. I’m like, what? She says, when you have OHSS, you have to wait two cycles. I say, no one told me I have OHSS. She said anytime you have over 30 eggs you have OHSS. I’m getting pretty angry, one could say, and I’m like, why is this the first time I’m hearing about this? She says, I don’t know.

So she transfers me to the front desk and I leave a message for the doctor to call me back. Which he does at 1:00 AM.

Now, I love that my doc is that dedicated, and thank god I’m off the Tylenol 3’s so that I was moderately coherent when he called. It turns out I have over stimulated ovaries, but NOT Ovarian Hyper Stimulation Syndrome (just like I have polycystic ovaries but not Polycystic Ovarian Syndrome). Apparently, if you can still breathe normally, you don’t have OHSS. Gonzo ovaries that are too big to fit on an ultrasound screen don’t count. Whatever.

The upshot is, I can do a frozen embryo transfer next cycle, if I really wanted to but it’s not advised. Meaning it probably wouldn’t work. Apparently, my ovaries will continue to have a party next month from the drugs from this cycle. So things won’t be quite right down there yet. But two cycles from now, they will.

Oy. I think the worst word ever invented in the English language is WAIT. I don’t want to wait. I’ve been waiting two years for this fucking bundle of joy. I’m tired of waiting. I want to exhale, damn it! I’m tired of holding in hope, postponing joy, being happy for every pregnant woman around me while I’m secretly drowning in agony WAITING.

I don’t want to fucking wait anymore!!!!

That being said, the good news is, perhaps I can get my fat ass back on Weight Watchers or something similar and try to shed a few of these IVF pounds. The combination of drugs, water retention, and the healing powers of chocolate have added a lot a poundage to these child-bearing hips, and I’d really like to get back to my “summer” weight. Taking six weeks off drugs, relaxing, maybe getting back to regular exercise (when I’m not carrying around ovaries the size of basketballs).

Wouldn’t it be deeply ironic if I got pregnant waiting? Oh wait—that’s the stupid Hope Addict talking. Meet me at my place at 10, I’m gonna kill that bitch.

35/27/17

Why didn't anyone tell me how much it was going to hurt?

By the time I got to the doctor's office yesterday for my egg retrieval, my ovaries were so large and putting so much pressure on my abdomen that I couldn't sit comfortably. When I went back for a pre-retrieval ultrasound, they were so large they wouldn't fit onto the screen. The Slavic tech (my doc hires the weirdest folks) said "I veel very sorry for the vone who had to measure all you vollicles." Yeah, but no one's feeling sorry for me for carrying them around!

They took me back to an area of the office I hadn't been to before, and it suddenly hit me (as I saw everyone walking around in those paper suits you usually only see in movies) SHIT! I'm getting surgery! They shoved me into a room, told me to take off all my clothes except my bra and my socks (sheesh) and put little blue booties on my feet and a puffy marshmallow hat to cover my hair, and a large paper dress to put on (kudos to them for actually having one large enough to cover my big old body).

There was much ado about rooms, so they sat me down in one with a blanket and told me to wait. I tried to pray, to ask for peace, but I was scared to death and found it hard to find any sort of spiritual presence in that place. It was blue and cold, and I felt very alone. Off in the distance, I heard a male voice say "We got 14!" and a woman exclaiming in delight.

Eventually, someone came in to put in an IV, but she was totally incompetent and just succeeded in hurting me repeatedly. She finally gave up in disgust and said the anesthesiologist would have to do it. My hand hurt for a long time after she left, and it distracted me for a bit.

Finally, they took me into the right room, and the anesthesiologist was there (she'd called me the night before and told me not to eat or drink anything after midnight--not even chewing gum! I was like, who eats chewing gum after midnight?). She got the IV in and soon enough the cool fluid crept into my veins. There was much fussing about positioning me, and they strapped my legs down, and laid me back and I was gone.

After wild dreams I can't remember, a voice told me to wake up. I remember sliding off the seat, strong arms guiding me, and they led me to a bed next door. I then heard someone say, "How many did we get? 35" and I said, "Did they say 35?" I drifted for a minute or two until I became aware of the stabbing pain in my abdomen.

I told the nurse and she came back with a script for Tylenol 3. Normally, as a recovering person, I would have turned it down, but the pain was so excruciating I didn't. A little while later, they told me to change, and that they'd call my husband back to get me. I got dressed and waited.

My husband was so stressed that my best friend came out to be with him while I was in surgery. Thank god she was there, because I couldn't comfort him in his worry. All I could do was try to swallow my own fear. Apparently, hunger got the best of them and they were just returning from eating when I got out. For a few minutes, I sat in the lobby, feeling very sorry for myself. They showed up before it could get too bad.

The drive home was awful. We live about 40 minutes from the clinic, and every bump in the road was agony. Once home, my husband filled the script and after taking a pill I managed to fall asleep for a few hours--after vomiting, or attempting to, several times.

By the late afternoon, I was able to get downstairs. I took the Tylenol 3 throughout the day, watched TV and drifted. By 11, I was able to go up to bed.

This morning, I woke up feeling much better. The pressure is less, although I still feel it, and the pain and cramping much better. I will hopefully be able to get the Tylenol 3 out of the house by tomorrow (but I'm reluctant to let it go yet today).

I feel ok, now, about not doing the embryo transfer later this week. Truthfully, I am not a welcoming home to an embryo right now. I am full of pain and uncomfortable. I'm also still on the verge of OHSS, and OHSS gets worse if you're pregnant. I will have a chance to heal, relax, and by my next cycle create a safe and loving home for my little embryos.

And I have a lot of them. 35 eggs were collected (holy fucking shit), 27 were good, and 17 fertilized. I'm hoping, some time soon, to feel like this was worth it. Because in all honesty, right now, I can't imagine doing it again. My hat is off to those women who've gone through multiple IVF attempts. You are all stronger than I am.

31

I’m back from my weekend booty shaking, although it was somewhat subdued to the fact that I feel like absolute crap thanks to the stupid fertility drugs and my giant ovaries. Plus, my hip decided to throw itself out again, so I was a lumpy, whiny little bitch wandering around the inner harbor of Baltimore very, very uncomfortable.

The good news is, however, in my bloated and painful wanderings, I visited the incomparably fabulous American Visionary Museum. This museum features works by the disenfranchised--the disabled, the old, the crazy. While some of the work was unimpressive, the stories about each artist blew me away. There were beautiful charcoal drawings by a young man with autism, embroideries chronicling the saga of a young Jewish woman during the holocaust, whole families built out of cardboard boxes, and much more. I was nearly in tears through the whole exhibit.

I did end up in tears in the gift shop. I was looking for a print by a particular artist, but instead came across a pair of Goody Goody Baby Shoes. I picked them up, because my friend’s baby wears them, and was shocked to discover that they had little pictures of trains on them. I immediately burst into tears, showed them to my best friend (who was with me, thank god) and ran out of the store.

My husband, you see, LOVES trains. In the last few years, he has rekindled his childhood love of trains and begun to photograph every train he sees. He’s an avid train watcher, and has amassed thousands of photos of freight engines from all over the city we live in, plus everywhere we travel (no model trains though—that would mean d-i-v-o-r-c-e). So those shoes were too much for my gonal-f, repronex, and cetrodide riddled brain.

I can’t wait for this to be over.

And it almost is. After my Saturday ultrasound, it was decided that I would wait to trigger until Sunday night at midnight, and then my egg retrieval would be Tuesday (tomorrow). I’m completely terrified, because so much is still left to go wrong, but I’m kind of excited to see what they harvest down there.

Cause I have—count ‘em—31 follicles.

That’s right. Thirty-fucking-one.

I’m shocked—and so is everyone else. My ovaries are behaving like they’re only 21 years old—bad ovaries! I realize that I am polycystic (without being PCOS—just have poly cystic ovaries, but no syndrome to blame my big flabby belly on), so we might not have that many good eggs, but still. Sheesh.

Oddly enough, I feel kinda guilty about this flush of follies. I know so many women that are classified as poor-responders (shitty fucking title if I’ve ever heard one), not to mention those that can’t ovulate at all, that I feel like I’ve somehow stolen all of their eggs, and that’s why I have so many.

I’m also terrified that I’m up for OHSS (ovarian hyper stimulation syndrome). I’m already really uncomfortable—my soccer ball looking ovaries are nearing soccer ball size, and taking up a lot of room in my abdomen. I know that can get worse, too, if you’re pregnant. Well, this is a worry for another day.

I’ll try to post tomorrow night and let ya’ll know how many we collected. Wish me luck!

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Just got off the phone with the IVF nurse. Apparently, my progesterone level is too high to do the embryo transfer this cycle. They’ll freeze the embryos and implant them next cycle.

Fuck, fuck, fuck.