Uppercase Woman

Survivor Jackass, Part Deux

We’re back from our mini-vacation and life is good. We really enjoy the Pennsylvania Mountains, small as they may be, and it was lovely to be in the woods again. We even managed to accomplish a trifecta of outdoor activities—mountain climbing, horseback riding, and canoeing. Of course, the mountain was only 1400 feet high; the horses were rented and on a trail (although a nice trail, to a waterfall) and never moved faster than a walk; and the river was so full that we canoed eight miles in two and a half hours, and we just coasted in for the last mile or so. So I guess it was a trifecta for lightweight outdoor people.

It amazes me to see how much this whole living through infertility treatments has cost me and my body. I’ve been in pretty good shape for a few years now, and I was shocked to see how much these activities took out of me. The hike we did up the mountain took us nearly an hour longer than usual, and I was really struggling, even on the downhill side.

I realized I haven’t been to the gym since February. I just couldn’t bring myself to go. I have hiked a bit, biked in to work a few times, and walked some, but it’s amazing how quickly my body has gone to hell. Add to that the weight gain from the injectibles (ok, and the using food for comfort), I’m a wreck. I also seem to have completely lost all of my coordination.

In continuing the theme of Survivor Jackass (a title, by the way, that came from my darling husband—I cannot claim ownership) here is a list of the injuries I received during our four nights out:

One inch burn from propane lantern
One blackened nail and swollen thumb from the 95 lb dog mistaking it for a part of his toy
One bruised knee from tripping on nothing in particular
One twisted ankle, also from nothing in particular
One bruised knuckle from an out-of-control bungee cord

This list is added to:

Tops of thighs/back of calves sore from hiking
Outside of knees and inner thighs sore from horseback riding for two hours
Arms and shoulders sore from canoeing

So, ultimately, although we had a lovely time, I’m glad to be home, or I'd chop off my leg next.

On the third and fourth nights out, our good friends and their eight- month-old baby joined us. It was really nice to spend the time with them, and their son totally adopted my husband as his new favorite person (which was too adorable, and heartbreaking, for words). It was great to see that you could camp with an infant (although canoeing didn’t exactly work out for them), and the baby was amazingly good.

When my friend called and asked if she could join us, she wanted to make sure I was willing to spend a weekend with a baby. She said to me, "I just want to be a good IVF friend." The fact that she asked was enough to make it ok, you know? Such consideration.

And so completely the opposite of most people. It seems that for some reason, I have been in a situation where I have been compelled to tell people that what they’ve just said to me is on the list of things you don’t say to infertile people. I know, I know, there’s really no point in telling them that, but they made me feel bad, and I wanted them to feel bad in return (because, you know, I’m like, thirteen or so).

Today I was at a gathering and someone I don’t know really well asked me how things are going. I gave her a brief update, and she said, "Well, think positive!"

Why did that piss me off? God knows. My response, through gritted teeth, was "Well, I can’t afford to think positive. It’s too painful when I’m disappointed." She paused not one second and said, "Well, it’s still good to hope!" I said, "Hope is a killer. I’m better off with low expectations."

She said, "Well, you can have low expectations and still be positive!" Finally, I just agreed with her, since we all know the only way to shut up someone giving assvice (thanks, Karen, for that great term!) is to agree with them and walk away.

But really, how do you have low expectations and remain positive? I have no idea. I’m sure my Hope Addict will wake up in a week or two, particularly after my frozen embryo transfer, but until then, I’m keeping her under lock and key. Way too much can still go wrong between now and then.

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So I’ve been on Estrace for about a week, and just increased my dose a couple days ago (with another increase on Wednesday). Dizziness and nausea are here, right on schedule. I have my next ultrasound on June 7. I guess at that point I will, hopefully, get clearance to begin the Progesterone in Oil shots (which I am dreading, yet secretly, like Julie, thinking I can handle just fine) and then the transfer should be around the 11th or 12th. If they thaw ok, if they develop, etc, etc, etc.

Too much still can go wrong. I’m terribly afraid. I really am.

Camping Rocks!

How I have missed camping! It’s been eight months since we were able to sleep outside, cook over the fire, and look at the stars at night instead of TV. We were at the beach, in Delaware (hey, trust me, it’s nice). The shore was glorious, sunny, bright and warm. The ocean was blue and perfect, the waves enchanting but not overwhelming. I loved cooking over the fire, hanging with friends, and biking the trails with my dog running along side me…

Right up until his retractable leash got tangled around the handlebars and we went down together. I have a beautiful scrape on my left knee, and somehow, a perfect impression in bruises of my bike gears on my inside right calf. The dog, fortunately, is unscathed.

And while chopping wood for our first meal, I managed to hack my finger (it’s still attached, just has a nice divot where some flesh used to be) with a hatchet.

Saturday at the beach? The retractable leash strikes again. While playing in the surf with my dog (I had a rock in my hand, and he really, really wanted that rock), I released his leash and it managed to snap back into my husband’s leg at warp speed, whacking him in the shin, and raising a three inch high hematoma (you know, a big, blood filled bulge) on the front of his leg. Fortunately, I’ve seen this before (my wacky life), and applied pressure before it got too big. For the rest of the day, he hobbled between the chilly water and the blanket putting pressure on his shin.

My husband often refers to our camping trips as “Survivor Jackass” thanks to our propensity for injury. Last year, at the Shenandoah National Park, he tripped over the cement barricade at the end of a parking space (what do you call those, anyway?) and whacked his head on the ground. I had already burned myself in the fire, and this is how we camp.

But we love it. We get better as the summer goes on—it’s just the first couple of trips out that we injure ourselves. After that, we’re fine. A good thing too—since Wednesday we’re going back out for another five days.

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I decided on Friday that I was going to get my period over the weekend, so I went ahead and scheduled an ultrasound and blood work for this morning. I don’t know if I’ve actually had a period: I’ve had over ten days of some sort of brown discharge, and over the weekend, I sometimes needed a tampon, but never more than three a day. Yesterday I actually spotted some blood (which I greeted with shrieks of glee) so I figured, hey—that’s cycle day one.

I’ve only spoken to the ultrasound tech, but even she seemed relieved to see that my ovaries were fairly normal again. With any luck, I’ll start on Estrace tonight and be ready to do the frozen embryo transfer in another couple of weeks.

I’m worried, of course, about all the things that can still go wrong, but I’m glad to be moving forward.

I did find myself, this morning, briefly, a little sad to have to switch from Camping Cecily to Infertile Cecily. I’m not feeling too well—crashing a bit from the steroids I got for my chest cold, plus I’ve developed a lovely case of thrush from the drugs (it’s kinda like having a yeast infection in your throat…fabulous), plus a wicked sunburn, so I don’t know if how I feel physically impacts on how I am mentally, but when the phlebotomist stuck the needle in my arm I felt a small shift, back to the world of ART. Even though I know I’ll be camping again this weekend, it will be overshadowed by the fact that we might do a transfer this cycle, and by the end of the month, I could be pregnant.

Camping is something I thought I’d give up two years ago, when we first started trying to conceive. That summer we started trying, we enjoyed every campout with that particular glee that it could be the last one (at least, the last one childless. Camping with kids is a whole other thing entirely). But now, heading into our third last summer of camping, with pregnancy as a much more real possibility, I find myself feeling sad about giving up my life to be at the beck and call of a small, demanding person.

One of the characteristics of an alcoholic (even a recovering one) is the amazing ability to believe, wholeheartedly, two diametrically opposed ideas at the same time. So I guess I shouldn’t be surprised to find myself feeling conflicted, now that it’s summer, and I have become a different person—an outdoorsy one—that I would feel some regret at the idea of giving up some of my independence, even while I work as hard as medical technology will allow to do just that.

But I am still a bit surprised to find myself feeling this way. I noticed, while I waited for the ultrasonic probing to begin, that I wouldn’t mind having to wait another cycle out before doing the transfer (even though I am secretly terrified of a summer storm knocking out the freezers that are storing our little fertilized eggs). It’s a weird feeling. Hopefully, it will pass.

Heavy Chested

Well, what started as a cold turned into a classic bronchial situation where the universe calls up a 300lb man and sent him over to stand on my chest, oh, right about on my lungs.

Being an asthmatic, this is not an uncommon occurrence for me, but still sucks ass in a major way. Up until February, it had actually been some years since I’d had a bad chest infection (it’s just AMAZING how quitting smoking 6.5 years ago helped!). And now it’s May, and again with the 300lb man on the boobs.

Last time, I just went ahead and sweated it out, and was sick for nearly two weeks. But this time, I conveniently had a doctor’s appointment scheduled (I was shocked to realize that it had been over a year since I’d been to my GP, and they weren’t willing to continue refilling my asthma prescriptions until they saw that I still existed), so I was able to get drugs.

The drugs I got are steroids. No, not that kind, silly, but Prednisone, a standard anti-inflammatory. I usually avoid taking them because they cause serious bloat, hunger and thirst cravings, and when used for over five days, some serious and wacky mood swings. I usually have a burst of euphoria after the first 24 hours, and then become itchy and cranky after 48 hours.

As I was leaving the doctor’s office, I told my husband (who was kind enough to drive me there—thank god he’s a freelancer) that I probably wouldn’t even notice the side effects of the steroids, cause frankly, they ain’t got SHIT on fertility drugs. And I’m only taking them for five days.

Since it’s still within the first 24 hours, I haven’t had the euphoria yet, but they did make me jittery enough to have trouble sleeping. Maybe tonight I’ll get a burst of good mood syndrome (gee, what’s that like?). At least it gave me enough energy to vacuum before I came to work this morning, so that I don’t have to return to a sticky (from humidity) and furry house (thanks to five shedding cats and a big dog and a lack of time to vacuum).

So far, I think the 300lb man is maybe down to 200lbs. I can take a deep breath without coughing, but it doesn’t feel good. Hopefully I’ll feel better tomorrow. The only visible evidence that I’ve taken anti-inflammatories is that the was-gonna-be-a-zit-but-then-became-a-large-and-creepy-boil-on-my-chin is much smaller. Whew.

I can’t stay sick too much longer, cause I’m going camping this weekend for the first time all year and OH MY GOD DO I NEED TO BE CAMPING AND COOKING OVER THE FIRE AND RELAXING OH MY GOD. Then I’m home for two days before going back out camping again for another five days. So, no sickness permitted.

Of course, the only bugger in the basket (is that even a phrase? where did that come from?) is that I have no idea if the steroids will fuck up the arrival of my period (and I'm scared to call the RE and ask). Still having some lovely spotting, been doing that for about a week, but no blood yet. I need it to start by tomorrow; I really do, so I can get my cycle day two bloodwork/dildocam session out of the way before the camping. Cause ain’t nothing coming between my camping and me. Nope. Really. To quote South Park, “Don’t care, don’t care, don’t care.” A-camping I must go. Even if it means waiting another cycle. I think.

I hab a cold

I have a cold. A disgusting, icky, gross, cold. My chest is tight, my nose is stuffed, my throat hurts and I’m generally miserable—because I have to fucking work. No rest for the weary, my friends.

Why am I telling you this? Cause I’m desperate for pity, apparently.

I’m particularly irked by this cold because I took my last birth control pill yesterday, and that means that moments after I get over this cold, I will begin to feel whatever new side effects are in store for me from the Estrace I need to take to prepare for my frozen embryo transfer.

To console myself, I ate two ice cream sandwiches—with a vending machine bag of Cheetoh’s. Yeah, that really helped. First sugar I’d had in two weeks.

Ah well.

My heart goes out to Julie, Getupgrrl and Tertia, who are all undergoing various procedures this week. I hope that the gods of fecundity decide to be kind to all of you this week.

RE Withdrawal

Is it possible? Could I be actually missing the blood draws and probing? Could it be?

Last night and today I have had some breakthrough spotting. Breaking through the birth control pills, I mean. After I continued to see pink each trip to the bathroom, I finally picked up the phone and made the call.

“Hello, may I speak with an IVF nurse please?” says I. “This is Nurse Friendly, what can I do for you?” She says. I explain. She says, “Oh, that’s normal, the pills we use are pretty light, so don’t worry. Since you only have a few days left, just come in on cycle day two for your blood and ultrasound.”

I hung up the phone, feeling, for all the world, like I’d just shot heroin.

For about a week now, I’ve been glancing at the spot where I have my frozen embryo transfer work sheet, my prescriptions for Estrace and some other stuff loyally clipped to it, and thought, gee, I should get that down and look it over. It’s coming up soon, you know.

But I haven’t. I guess I’ve been really terrified of beginning again. You know the drill—the constant worrying, the constant monitoring, and the bone-chilling fears of all the things that can still go wrong.

But when I hung up the phone today, I immediately realized that my cycle day two could come as soon as a week, and that I’d better take a look at that sheet and see what’s the dilly-o (yeah, that’s a cheap attempt at Snoop-Dog talk. My husband and I use it all the time, “What’s the dilly-o?” It’s one of those really annoying couple things we do).

So tonight I think I’ll review my sheet. During commercials for the season finale of ER, of course.

It’s funny; I haven’t seen that many folks in blogland discussing last week’s episode. I have been a faithful ER fan since the first episode, and every time I swear I’m gonna stop watching it, something really cool happens, like a helicopter falls on Romano. Plus Abby Lockhart is so cool and sexy, I can’t stand it. It’s ridiculously over the top, but I relish every single minute.

So anyway, I wasn’t surprised, particularly, that Carter and his wife lost the baby last week (she was six months pregnant, and the baby tied a knot in the cord). Carter is the new Dr. Green, so of course, nothing is gonna go his way. I didn’t even get that upset. I guess after getting to know women like Julia and Tertia, who’ve gone through similar horrors in real life, made the TV show seem like, well, a TV show. My husband, however, was terribly upset.

The only good thing about the show was that they showed her having to go into labor and deliver the baby. There was no magic vanishing of the fetus—it didn’t just resolve off screen. We got to see her struggle, and see the pain on Carter’s face as he listened to the babies being born in other rooms in the maternity ward. The only real moment of tension I felt was when Carter had a conversation with another father at the vending machine—I was screaming, “Tell him! Tell him your baby’s dead! He will listen to you, I promise!” but of course he didn’t. Men don’t share their pain.

So all in all, I thought they did a decent job of showing how hard it can be. I’m sure, having never been through that myself, that they left many crucial details out, and they only skimmed the surface of the pain. But at least they skimmed it.

The oddest thing afterwards is that all my friends were very worried and upset. For me, I mean. Several folks said, “Are you ok? I saw ER last night…” Funny, isn’t it, what the fertile (at least, until proven otherwise) think upsets us? Even my best friend, who sobbed through the whole thing, was surprised that I didn’t bawl while watching it.

I guess I save my pain for real people. For instance, Karen’s news this week had me weeping. I guess I’m, to quote Lisa Lisa and The Cult Jam, all cried out.

Anyway, I’ll be watching tonight’s season finale. And NOT BLINKING! As the ads recommend.

A Night at the Opera

It’s funny; I just haven’t felt much like writing. I’ve been coasting, not feeling too depressed or anything, just kind of going along, so I haven’t had much to say. My large rant from a couple of days ago seemed to clear the decks quite nicely.

The biggest news I have is that my best friend and I decided to get season tickets for the opera. Yep, that’s big news in my world.

We went to see the local production of “The Pearl Fishers” by Bizet (you know, the guy that wrote “Carmen”). We were completely wowed by it—the sets were beautiful, and hey! The men aren’t wearing any shirts! The hard bodied, sexy opera men with long flowing opera wigs weren’t wearing any shirts! Whoo hoo!

I couldn’t stop staring at the abdomens of the male leads—the way the muscles moved when they sang was amazing (really, that’s why I was looking. I swear). So anyway, this inspired us to get season tickets for next year.

So S, my best friend, and I, were instant messaging each other at work while perusing seating charts. Half way through the conversation, we both went, “Huh? Who are we?”

I met S a million years ago (ok, about 11) at a poetry reading in a smoky nightclub. I actually didn’t read that night, but she did, and it was great fiery feminist stuff, so when I saw her at another reading later manning the door, I introduced myself. We saw each other off and on, for about a year, at various readings. I can’t say we quite clicked back then, but there were lots of mitigating factors—you know, poetry factions, etc.

My darling hubbie-to-be and I were planning to move in to a big old house with extra rooms, so we asked S and her boyfriend to move in with us as well.

What ensued for the next nearly three years was craziness. We were poets, we were drunk and high, and goddamn it, we were COOL. There were things smashed in drunken rages, and lots of wild parties, and some damn fine poetry written.

Her boyfriend moved out eventually, just showing up now and again to drink with us or torture her. It was at this point that she and I finally became friends—but at the time, ah, shall we say, the main thing we had in common was, ah, illegal.

Not long after that she took herself to rehab, and my hubbie-to-be and I cleaned up our act too. It turned out that she was pregnant, and much later, after she gave birth to a beautiful little girl, we tentatively reconnected. She and her daughter were our ring bearer/flower girl combo at our wedding, and we’ve remained fast friends since then.

So while we were talking yesterday about season tickets to the opera, it was yet another moment that is so completely opposite of our old life, that we both had to stop for a moment and laugh. Cause, you know, we have jobs, and money, and can make plans. That’s quite a change from the “good” old days.

I’m blessed to have such a friendship. She has been with me through every step, including pretending to be my lesbian partner when I had to get an ultrasound while we were traveling together in Baltimore (you remember, I had to go there a few days before my egg retrieval). I couldn’t make it without her. Love ya, girl!

One of the things I realized was so nice about getting those tickets yesterday was it is the first batch of long term plans I’ve made without wondering, “Will I be pregnant?” or “Will I have a baby by then?” I just made the plans. The rest will work itself out—right?

I’m half way through my last week of birth control pills. Frozen embryo transfer, here I come. Why am I so anxious?

In-fucking-Fertile

So Sunday I stop into a place to get some water ice. I’m chatting with the owner of the joint, complimenting him on the best mango water ice I’ve ever had, and he says, “So? Are you a mother? Shall I wish you happy Mother’s Day?”

Sigh.

This was the perfect compliment to my Saturday night adventures. I went to see a friend of mine play a sold out show at a great little club in the burbs. I was sitting, minding my own business, when the only folks to show up with children crouch on a bench directly behind us. They had a toddler and a newborn.

Someday, I can really enjoy other people’s children. Other days, seeing them is like being stabbed in the eye with a fork. Saturday was a fork day.

To add to my misery, a couple sitting a few feet from us announced that they were pregnant, and couldn’t take the proffered beer. I gritted my teeth and smiled at them. Then I went to the bar to get a glass of water (the bar had kindly put out glasses and a pitcher) and the only other pregnant woman in the room was apparently compelled to rise at the same moment (obviously driven by the sign emblazoned on my forehead that says “in-fucking-fertile), and literally bumped me with her belly to get to the water first.

Naturally, I muscled her out of the way (ah, the agility of the not-pregnant) and then filled two glass of water so the pitcher was near empty for her.

Yeah, I’m a bitch.

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The reason I was at this club was because my dear friend Nancy Falkow was playing her last local gig before she moves to Ireland.

I first met Nancy back in 1993, during a brief period that I was in a band (very short lived—we sucked, plus we were called the Haystacks, so how could we possibly succeed?). We were sitting in a local park rehearsing (my god—the arrogance!), and Nancy came over to listen. She said very nice things, and then mentioned that she had an upcoming gig and invited us to attend.

Because I was at the time hosting a regular poetry/music showcase, I was always on the lookout for new musicians, so I went. The space was terrible, Nancy had equipment issues, but when she sang…

Nancy sings like most of us breathe—with joy and grace. Her voice soars over your heart, warming you like whiskey. Her songs are catchy, fun, and make you want to sing along. She was incredibly prolific, so even though I booked her week after week after week, she always showed up with new songs. Crowds love her, and I play her cd’s all the time, and people always say, “Oh my god, who is THAT?”

Seeing her play on Saturday night was wonderful and heartbreaking. While we don’t get to see each other often, this city is a better place because she is in it making music. I cried a bit at the end of each song Saturday, and I’m going to miss her terribly.

Dublin, I hope you know what you are stealing from us, and value it as much as we did. Nancy, I’m tearing up writing this. I will miss you.

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I’m down to my last week of birth control pills, and I’m finding that I’m actually quite anxious about the next steps. We’re planning to do a frozen embryo transfer this next cycle, and I’m actually waking up at night thinking about how much can still go wrong—you know, the embryo will die while being thawed, or they’ll fail to divide, etc, etc. This is all before they are transferred and then I have to wait and see if they implanted and I’m finally, finally pregnant, and then I get to worry about miscarriage.

As difficult as this down time has been, it seems almost preferable to my future uncertainty. Hope, as we all know, hurts.

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Last night, it was announced that the $263 Million-Dollar Powerball winner was from our area. As I often do, I found myself thinking about what I would do if I was the winner… and my first thought was, well, I’d hold off on the frozen embryo transfer and go traveling!

I was stricken—what does this mean, that I would think this? Does it mean I’m not really ready to be a parent? After claiming for two years that all I want in the world is a baby, is that true? Or do I just long for a change in my life?

Well, after more thought, I realized I probably wouldn’t hold off on the transfer. I would go ahead, and then I’d buy my dream house (I know just the one, too) and then after the baby was born I’d hire a nanny and travel my ass off. And I’d buy my baby a pony. Yep. That’s what I’d do.

OutRAGEd

My husband and I were recently discussing the last time we could remember feeling so exasperated and powerless over the behavior of our government. We both thought for a moment and said, “Reagan?” and then were shocked when we realized things were actually BETTER under that right-wing asshole than it is under this current one.

So we thought for a moment longer, and we both considered the first President Bush. I do remember, of course, the horrors of the first war in Iraq. I remember nearly getting fired from the animal clinic I worked for because I refused to wear a little yellow ribbon every day. I remember going to the last big March For Women’s Lives in Washington, DC in 1992 because the right to choose was being severely threatened, particularly with a little something called a “partial birth abortion” ban. Of course, that ban is a reality now. The right of women to choose, including making awful decisions like Julia had to make about her son Thomas, are now threatened at both a national and state level.

Now, even under the first idiot Bush, I don’t remember the rest of the world being so angry with us for invading Iraq. The Arab world wasn’t even that much in arms—because Iraq had DONE something—they invaded Kuwait.

Of course, 9/11 hadn’t happened. I remember 9/11, and I even wrote an awful poem called “Suddenly a Patriot” because I was so angry. Even though I wasn’t quite sure the entire country of Afghanistan was to blame for 9/11, I was happy we invaded because I had been reading for years about the horrendously awful things being done to women by the Taliban. In my opinion, that was enough of a reason to invade the country, without 9/11 (but we all know women don’t matter enough to actually invade a country over the violation of their rights).

So here I sit, hanging my head low on a global scale, embarrassed to be an American. Not just because we have a talking monkey (and a stupid one at that) for President, but because of people like Rush Limbaugh. When discussing the latest Iraqi scandal, the mistreatment of prisoners, he had the balls to say this:

This is no different than what happens at the Skull and Bones initiation and we’re going to ruin people’s lives over it, and we’re going to hamper our military effort, and then we’re going to really hammer ‘em because they had a good time. You know, these people are being fired at everyday - I’m talking about the people having a good time.

You ever hear of emotional release?

You ever hear of need to blow some steam off?

These people are the enemy!

(Quote courtesy of Air America’s website…sigh…if only I had Air America here!).

The fact that anyone can think this way—denying cultural differences, etc—really boggles my mind, but that’s not news. My opinions are just so fundamentally different from his that I cannot see how he comes to that viewpoint. It’s like he follows a little blue line of logic, and I have some birth defect that prohibits me from seeing blue, so I follow the green line of logic, and he can’t see that. I can’t hope to show him the errors of his ways--he can’t see anything other view.

It’s ironic that he calls these people the enemy. They must not have been a serious threat, since many of them have been released since the story of the photos broke, and now the prisoners are granting interviews to the press (see the Interactive Feature on the Iraqi Prisoners at the NY Times Website). I’m horrified by the treatment of the prisoners, and I’m equally horrified that the press ran the photos. Those prisoners have been humiliated enough.

I can rant, I can march, I can vent here, but the truth is the only ability I have to enact change is to VOTE. I plan to vote my heart this fall, the best I can with the options available.

But I tell you; I miss Bill Clinton and his blowjobs so much. Hell, I miss Jimmy Carter.

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A more local story inciting my outrage ran in a local paper here yesterday. A private animal shelter is apparently not only killing more animals than they adopt out, they’re mistreating the animals the last few days of their lives (for the full story, click here).

This well-endowed (literally, they have a $3 million dollar endowment) shelter takes in only 3,300 animals a year—and euthanasizes 75% of them—and that rate may be even higher, since an employee found that the published numbers weren’t adding up (and was subsequently fired). One of the reasons that the animals aren’t being adopted more is because their adoption policy is ridiculous. You aren’t allowed to request a specific animal, or your application is ripped up. You aren’t allowed to ever take the animals out of the cage and see how you interact with them (in fact, the dogs are never walked outside the shelter). If you want to adopt a dog, but don’t have a yard, your application is denied. Ah, hello—this is the city (the shelter is right downtown)—hardly anyone has a fucking yard, but loads of people have dogs! It’s called TAKING THEM FOR AWALK! If you are accidentally a week late in getting your other pet’s shots (even if the appointment is scheduled!), your application is denied. Whatever the reason, they would rather put the animals to sleep than send them home with someone who doesn’t meet their unusually high standards (of course, any idiot can buy a dog at a pet store, and many people leave that shelter and do just that).

They refuse to utilize volunteers. They resist fostering of animals (for instance, someone taking home a mother and her kittens until the kittens are old enough to be adopted). Apparently, their policy is Kill, Kill, Kill.

I was a veterinary technician in this city for eight years (a job I adored, and lost due to drugs and alcohol). I remember that even fifteen years ago the culture at this shelter was awful. Once, a client of ours had a vindictive roommate, who as a final hateful gesture before moving out turned her two cats in to this shelter. She quickly found out, appealed to them and was told that she couldn’t have her cats back. She came back with photos of the cats, photos of her house and all it’s cat stuff, and her landlord to tell the story of the evil roommate and they STILL wouldn’t give her back her cats, and in fact, accepted an adoption application on one of them. It wasn’t until half the staff of our vet clinic, including the veterinarian, called the shelter and called the President of the shelter’s board that they released her cats to her. Of course, they both came home with upper respitory infections (a common side effect of being in a shelter), which could have been avoided if they released the animals to her right away.

While I applaud them being careful, that is ridiculous.

Our local SPCA has adopted a gentle kill policy and is down to only euthanising 35% of the 33,000 animals they take in a year. Our local Animal Control office, that takes in over 89,000 animals a year, only puts down 65% of their animals (and many of these are too injured or too feral to be adoptable). So why is this shelter killing ¾ of the animals it takes in?

Again, it boggles the mind. With any luck, this article will shock people and action will be taken, and the awful executive director of the shelter will be fired.

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So why am I going on about all this stuff?

I feel powerless. I realize that my frustration over my inability to conceive has caused me to flare up at my powerlessness in other areas. I know the limits of what I can do, in any given situation, but I chafe against these restrictions because I am so amazingly overwhelmed by my empty womb.

In recovery, we spend a lot of time discussing powerlessness. I know that once I put a drink or drug in my body, a chemical reaction occurs, and I have lost the power of choice when it comes to having more. The only way to prevent that reaction is to not take the drink. It’s like an allergy to strawberries—you’re fine if you don’t eat any, but if you do, BAM! Your throat closes up and you break out in hives. If I take a drink, I break out in cocaine and worse, not to mention lying and stealing.

This idea of powerlessness extends out beyond just the drink. I understand that I cannot make my husband a more optimistic person, or my best friend not have road rage, hell, I can’t make my dog let go of his toy if he doesn’t want to.

I can’t control the weather, or how my boss feels, or the progression of my mother-in-law’s Alzheimer’s, so being upset at these things—upset at conditions—is pointless.

But I have yet to completely accept the fact that I’m powerless over our ability to get pregnant, so I’m finding myself reacting in frustration to things that in my recent past would have only made me sad. Instead, I flare into anger, and find myself so close to rage that I’m shaking, or waking up in the middle of the night fuming and unable to get back to sleep.

Alcoholics, they say, can’t afford “righteous anger, the dubious pleasure of normal men.” It poisons our soul and makes us sick. But I’m unable to let go of these things—my horror over the treatment of prisoners, be they animal or human—lately, at all. I know I’m making myself sick, but I can’t seem to stop. I haven’t had a good night’s sleep all week.

Top Five Stupid Things That Annoy Me (today)

#5: Traffic. More specifically, traffic issues that make my husband and me argue. My husband began driving about two years ago for the first time in his life, and now has become the primary driver in our household. I taught him how to drive, and I have yet to stop. So a typical morning as he drives me to work goes like this:

Him (as we approach a truck working in and blocking our lane): Goddamn it! Move, bitch (referring to the woman in the next lane, who is blocking our path)!

Me: (gasping) That was a little close!

Him: We had a window. It was fine.

Me: It was too close. It really scared me.

Him: Oh for God’s sake. It was fine.

Me: (deep sigh with a small moan)

Him: No more talking. That’s it.

Yeah, I’m a load of fun these days. When he pulls risky driving moves while I’m in the car (common around the crazy drivers in our city), I always object, to which he says, “But you always do that!” And how obnoxious am I? I respond with, “But I have 20 years of driving experience! I can get away with that!”

So there.

#4: Students At The College I Work For Trying To Scam Me. I’m selling the tickets to one of our major graduation related events, and students get one ticket each at a discounted price (except for seniors, who get one free ticket). In the last week, I’ve had about 645657989 students try to tell me that they get a) two free tickets each, b) get as many tickets as they want at the student price or c) tell me that they can buy tickets without showing me their ID. They usually sigh and complain and say, “But that’s what they did last year!” (which isn’t true). How stupid do they think I am?

#3: The Stupid Weather. Here on the East Coast, we had a ridiculously cold winter, then an unbelievably cold and rainy early spring, and every time it finally warms up, another fucking cold front comes through with three fucking days of rain and then it gets cold again. So even though it’s sunny today, it’s still cold, and last night it went down to 41 degrees, and yeah, I planted my fucking garden on Saturday so now probably all my plants will die. Last year it rained so much, it actually killed my Clematis, which was covered in buds and was gonna be beautiful. If it rains through all of May and June this year like it did last year, I’m gonna kill myself.

Memo to God: CAN’T YOU SEE I’M ON THE ONE-YARD LINE HERE! KNOCK IT THE FUCK OFF!!!

#2. Incredibly Stupid Things Doctors Tell ART Patients. Today I visited a fertility bulletin board, and found a posting that said: “IVF success low in summer months?” Curious, I clicked on it and found this post:

Hello:

I met with my RE last week. I may have to do IVF if the 3rd and last IUI I am currently doing fails. I normally took a break between IUIs, one month IUI, one-month break. I assumed then if in May my IUI failed then June will be the 'off month" and I will pick back up in July, but my RE said..no way...very few fertility clinics are open in summer and success rates drop by a bit over 10% so he recommends the fall months into winter/spring for IVF and not summer. He said mammals do not conceive in summer, it's a scientific fact.

Just sharing this info and wanted to know if anyone heard likewise.

Uh, what the fuck??? I mean, is he fucking serious??? That’s the biggest line of bullshit I’ve EVER heard, not to mention that he is beyond fucking wrong. In fact, cats and dogs (the mammals I have the most experience with, having been a vet tech for eight years) both have their fertile cycles directly dependant on the amount of daylight there is, which is why you’ll almost never find a puppy or kitten available for adoption in December or January (all those photos of puppies given at Christmas are taken during the summer, I swear) but find the shelters full of them in the summer. Since both dogs and cats have a 9-week gestation, they can sometimes have 2-3 litters between spring and fall, but they shut down for the winter.

Also, I was born in April, which means my mother got pregnant in the summer. I’ve met loads and loads of other Taurus’s, so that can’t possibly be true.

Has anyone heard of a fertility clinic that closes in the summer? Oh my god. Several people (including me) posted to her that he was wrong, but she thinks he’s just great and is going to stay with him. I told her to run like hell. What a crock. Jesus fucking christ.

#1: Peeing All Over Public Toilet Seats. I’m only going to say this once. You CAN NOT catch a goddamn thing from a toilet seat, not even if you lick it. So sit the fuck down and stop leaving a mess that ensures NO ONE will be able to sit on the fucking toilet. I’m sick of cleaning up after you, and yeah, I do that, because there is no way I’m gonna hover over the fucking toilet like a UFO about to abduct someone. I’m tired, I don’t want to splash on myself, I want to sit down. So knock it the fuck off, would you?

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On that happy note, I must say I am feeling better today. I appreciate the words of wisdom I got from everyone, and I’m taking it all to heart. I woke up this morning overwhelmed once again with the urge to “do” something about how I feel, but instead, I’ve accepted the fact that I’m probably a little depressed (ya think?) and am taking steps to take care of myself.

But I’m also remembering that these steps (like getting back into therapy, calling my sponsor, taking time for me) are about taking care of myself, and not about curing me. I just have to accept that I feel like shit and stand still long enough to feel it.

Ain’t no way out but through, baby. It sucks, but it’s true.

Mental Vomit, or, where my head is at

I’m a mess today, and if you don’t want the excruciating details as to why, come back tomorrow, when the sun is shining and I’m more cheerful. Do not read further.

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Over the years, I have used anything and everything to prevent myself from dealing with how I feel.When I was a little girl, I taught myself how to read at age five. I began devouring books, so much so, it got me into trouble in school (nothing pisses off the teacher more than handing back the 1st grade reader after two days and saying, “I finished this one, can I get the next one?”). We didn’t have a TV in our house when I was a kid (it died when I was four, in the middle of an Easter Bunny Claymation special—arg! The agony!), so I read books. I realize now they were my first drug (thanks to my friend Julie for helping me realize that). We were poor, kids made fun of my clothes, my glasses, the fact that I was the new kid, whatever it was. But if I disappeared into a fantasy world in a book, I could become the main character in the book, and ignore my life. I hid in books also to avoid a constant nagging fear I had, one that swelled and grew throughout my life, that something was really, really wrong with me and I was a major loser and failure and a disappointment to everyone around me.

As I got older, I started working. At nine I got my first job, answering phones in the business office of my apartment complex for 75 cents an hour. The job provided not only a distraction, it also gave me my own money to go buy junk food…up until I was thirteen, when I discovered booze. By my freshman year of high school (at 13—that first grade teacher bumped me up a grade to get rid of me), I was drinking every day. I was also eating all my babysitting money (that is, after I ransacked the cabinets of those I sat for, for junk food). Then I started getting fat, so I bought speed.

It’s no coincidence that the summer before high school I moved across the country, making me again the new kid and even more terrified that everyone would find out I was a fraud. Drinking erased that completely.

When I moved again at 18 to the east coast, I was still drinking everyday and over 200 lbs. It didn’t take me long to discover the bar scene here (where they almost never carded me—yeah!) and plunge in. I began sleeping around, become obsessed with these bar jerks I picked up. I began stealing from my jobs to support my habits.

Years went by, so did several weight gains and losses, and several boyfriends, and I suddenly ended up with the man that would become (and still is) my husband, and we were writers and poets, and were very, very cool, and suddenly there were drugs, all kinds of them, and I ended up in the hospital and dragging my butt (and my husbands) into recovery.

Early in recovery, I still used food to battle the feelings, which were particularly severe once the drugs and alcohol were gone. Two years after that (I know I’ve talked about this before, bear with me) I began dealing with my food issues. At first, I changed my eating to a really good daily food plan, and the feelings were really bad. So I switched from having a food plan to having a diet, and I began to obsess about the diet (the diet involved eating no sugar or white flour, and I could spend three days wondering if the sauce at that restaurant had sugar in it). Then, I got involved with a sobriety convention, took on a lot of extra work, and obsessed on that and began eating what I wanted.

When that was over, my husband and I began to try to conceive. Soon after that, I quit therapy, and began obsessing over charting and cervical mucous. After a year of that, I got bored, and tried another diet and began exercising. This was another successful distraction, for about eight months, right up until six months ago when I began seeing my current reproductive expert. The diet fell to the wayside, and with the help of near daily monitoring, new drugs to notice side effects from, etc, I found myself completely distracted from how I felt.

Occasionally, when there was bad news or a down time, my feelings would fight their way to the surface and struggle to be felt. Sometimes I would even honor them, but I usually began battling them as soon as I could. I would do something else (begin reading blogs) and then need to do more (begin writing one). I would begin to consider dieting again (hello, South Beach Diet!). Anything to distract myself.

And just like it was when I was using drugs, I need more. More blogs to read, a more severe diet, a more ambitious project. Whatever it was, I wanted distraction.

I realized all this (although parts of it I’ve known for years) with sudden surety while at a meeting on Sunday where lots of people were sharing deep, agonizing family-of-origin pain (ooh, I hate using that term). I arrived at the meeting angry, having just run into someone at a restaurant (he was working there) I hadn’t seen in a while. Naturally, when I asked what he’d been doing, he said, “Raising kids!” I wanted to hurl (thankfully, I hadn’t had breakfast yet). While everyone was sharing, I grew more and more angry and more and more depressed. For the rest of the day I felt uncomfortable.

Currently, my whole IVF world is on hold while I take the pill (so I can’t even obsess about possibly getting pregnant naturally this cycle) I realized that there is a huge list of things I’m not dealing with:

-My anger about having to do IVF
-My anger about my first IVF cycle not going perfectly
-My absolute terror at gaining yet another pound, but my complete unwillingness to not medicate myself with food
-My unwillingness to help my husband with his Alzheimer’s afflicted mother is even more evidence of my unfitness as a mother, and hence the reason God has kept me from getting pregnant
-The abortion I had at 19. Clearly, that was my only chance, and I blew it with my selfishness.
-I need to return to therapy, especially since I have become somewhat better at not managing the lives of those around me, and therefore talking only about them in therapy
-My deep and irretraceable fear that my husband will leave me, since of course, all men do leave me

This is just the obvious stuff. I have been running, running fast and hard from dealing with stuff, for my entire life. As I’ve gotten better, and more sober, I’ve become subtler with my distractions. I appear to be totally functional, continuing to grow as a person, continuing to improve my behavior and deal better with my character defects (a recovery thing). This weekend, I cleaned my house, I gardened, I even washed the dog’s bed. I exercised several times last week, and I made some improvements to the ways I’ve been eating.

So why do I feel like shit? Why am I so sad? Why am I so unbelievably angry?

About two weeks ago, my husband and I came home to our neighborhood after a meeting to find there was no parking anywhere on our block. I wanted to park the car in front of an abandoned garage, knowing it was illegal. My husband, sensibly, suggested looking further, and I. Just. Lost. My. Shit. I was shaking with rage. I dredged up everything I could think of to hurl at him, including, I believe, his low sperm count. I haven’t been that angry in years. It was awful, and even worse, I felt BETTER after that. I felt BETTER. I slept like a baby.

I’m not sure what all of this has to do with anything. All I know is that I am, and continue to be, a fucking mess. And you know what? I’m really, really fucking tired of it. It feels like I have been a mess for years, and it’s just a new issue each time that I’m a mess about.

I want serenity (NOW!). I want a baby. I want to lose 100 pounds overnight. I want a big raise without any more work. I want it to stop raining. I want a new episode of the Soprano’s on every night.

Sigh. All right, God, you asshole. I’m sitting here, in my shit, feeling it. Happy? Cause I suck. Ick.