Dreams and False Alarms

Guest Blogger--The Great Blog Cross Pollination

There are probably 400 million kajillion posts out in the blogosphere about how cool and awesome and amazing and wonderful it is to connect with someone on-line. What I find fascinating is what connects a person can be something so specific but what makes a is something far more special and rare.

I created my family with the help of donor gametes. In my particular case I needed donor sperm. And so when I began quietly walking along the long and windy hallways of the internets I sought out other bloggers that were donor gamete needers. Some needed eggs, some sperm, and some the whole shebang. What drew me in was the process other people went through. I enjoyed reading how other people or couples culled through donor profiles. I wanted to know everything about everyone else's methodology. Having a collective pool of other people's course of action gave me a sense of normalcy.

I have to be honest, my path was always obvious. I am single. I was not interested in using a known donor and I am not a lizard and able to make both sperm and egg. In order to make a baby in my body (or lab, as the case ended up being) I needed a sperm donor. And all of my real concerns centered around what he looked like and whether or not his handwriting looked like a serial killers. I had no one else to consider. And there was a bizarre sort of freedom in that.

One of the things that I adore about Sarah's blog (oh yes, I am totally going to use this cross-pollination to tell you how much I adore her) is that she is one of the most considerate and thoughtful people ever. And as she travels down her and her husband's path to parenthood she writes these breathtakingly honest posts that have me thinking about things that I should have thought about ages ago. "How is your mother? She had a bladder infection"  as just a taste, is especially amazing. "Am I Jonah or the Whale" This one too.

Just one of the things that I get to deal with all on my own:

resemblance. I totally picked a sperm donor that came from the same European ethnic pool party as me. I picked a donor that looked like he could be a distant cousin. And one of the reasons is because I wanted my child to look like he belonged to me. I did not want there to be any doubt that I am his and he is mine. And I never stopped to think what this process must be like for couples. It's fucking brutal.

But really, if you want to know how amazing Sarah is, I am going to tell you something that you don't know about her. She was one of the very first people that paid me money to design a header for their blog (thus helping me afford IVF/FET). It was ages and ages ago (or so it seems!) and I really was flying by the seat of my photoshopped pants, not really sure if anyone had any interest in such bloggy design stuffs. I was expecting people, if they asked at all, to just ask for basic stuff. You know, something along the lines of, "I like kitties and the color yellow".

And then Sarah met my inbox. And she had this incredibly stunning and elaborate specific visual in her mind. I'm not sure if I can even do it justice to explain it because it was just way over my head. Way.

But I wanted Sarah to like me and to like my work so I attempted version after version. And I sucked. But Sarah kept encouraging me, kept cheering me on. And she is one of THE reasons why I finally got better and more comfortable in my skills. She's just the sort of person that wants you to be the best version of you. But in the kindest way possible. There aren't many people like that.

Who wrote this post? Way obvious? Way over your head? Have a guess in the comments! Check out all of the http://missionimpossibleinfertile.wordpress.com/2009/11/10/pross-collinate/

It's the Trauma, Stupid!

I tried to come up with a better title, but that one just stuck.

On Tuesday I was struck by the realization that every time I imagine the 8 week ultrasound on Monday, I replay the 8 week ultrasound with Sparky.  I even manage to transpose the office suites (we'll be at a different office next Monday), but the outcome is always the same. No heartbeat. Husband and I weeping into each others arms. Sending out an email saying "no heartbeat." Updating the blog. Going in for the D&C. More weeping.

And of course, you and everyone else can tell me it's going to be fine, and that you have a good feeling about this, but me, I've got no good feelings to access.

The key to surviving being triggered by a traumatic situation is being able to remember that you are not in that place anymore, you are not helpless, you can do things differently (i.e. it's not snowing like it was the day you had your accident, you are in a Volvo etc, your an adult, you know Karate etc), but that is not true of pregnacy. When all of the known things have been ruled out, you just have to go through it, and that is not a very good recipe for managing the trauma aspect of it. Ok, you can do things differently, change protocols, meditate, but you can't avoid the reality of the pregnancy and the fact that whether or not the baby is ok in there is out of your control.   I am helpless to affect the outcome of the ultrasound on Monday. I can't worry it into a good outcome, I can't Zen it in to a good outcome, I have to accept that it is going to be what it is going to be. And yes it could be a good outcome, but it could also be a bad outcome, and the reality of that is pretty disempowering.

And I know, I know, that is what parenting is all about etc etc. But c'mon, ya gotta admit there is nothing like looking down the barrel of the same gun and thinking "I want to be in front of this gun, but damn it's scary."

So, 3 more days (I'm not counting Monday, that day is THE day, so just today and sat and sun) to distract and comfort myself. I've got Foyles War, Midsomer Murders and some more Rei Shimura mystery's to read. Oh,and I guess I could do some work if I really needed to.

Oy.

Are you ready? Yes I'm ready.

I'm sorry that I've turned into one of those bloggers who broods around with blog posts rattling around in her head, instead of setting them free to rattle around on the internet.  Brooding does seem to capture what I am doing with my thoughts, and my feelings, I mean brooding in the more "sitting on one's eggs" rather than in the sense of being sad and grumpy.

Have you been following Mo and Will's report on their 1 day work up in Colorado?  I've been peeking at it through my fingers. For a moment when Mo first described her work up I felt an upwelling of my own wish to have a one day at the temple of last chances and miracle babies.  I thought, only for a moment, maybe I too have a constricted blood flow that hasn't been seen. And then, I stopped. I just stopped myself from walking down that road, and reminded myself that more data would only make me feel crazier, and that I was done with being crazy.  For me, the data is in.  I don't get pregnant, maybe if we'd known about the translocation earlier we could have moved to donor sperm and we'd already be dandling our little baby on our knee. Or not. Maybe there is something that goes on with my eggs that is beyond age.  Whatever it is, it's not knowable at this time. The "why" of this situation is not going to be answered.

Not having an answer, oddly enough, has really helped me to feel that I'm ready to move on to DE. If it can't be known, it can't be known, and I will only lose more precious years of my life to answering, what has become, a not too important question.

Am I sad that I won't see my family and my husband's family expressed in our child? Of course, but it's sadness, a relatively easy burden to carry compared to the rage, terror, helplessness and sense of annihilation that I carried with me for most of the time I've been trying to conceive a child.

And you know what? I'm excited! Really excited, about this next step. It's not a guarantee, but it's a damn sight better than what I've been working with for many years now.

Although this baby will start out it's life in a lab, this child will be conceived out of our love and passion , and it's going to be wonderful.

So bring on the beta on Monday, and set me free from the endometrian, I'm ready.

In which I compare failing at IVF to The Chicken Ranch

Hi.

Sorry about just dropping out like that. I'm not sure of what to say, of how much I even want to know about what I'm feeling and thinking at this point. This could turn out to be a long post, or a short post...

I am crushed.  Yes, partially by the negative--even though I was ambivalent and scared of a positive, it would have also have been wonderful. I literally feel crushed.  I think that the weight of what I've been doing for the last three years, and in the case of IVF, for the last year and half, finally came down on me.  I think that my way of coping was to repress how hard it was (not completely, but enough), and to keep my eyes on the prize.  As negative and as anxious as I was, I really believed that IVF could help us, and my faith was renewed when we found out about the translocation--maybe I really did have the same chance as a lot of other nearly 39 year olds.  This last cycle seems to indicate that my eggs are kaput.  Whatever it is that they need to have produce a healthy embryo/baby is just not there. Maybe in 20 years they'll know what that is, but for right now, it's unknowable.  In some ways that is a relief--to have a knowable problem, and to not be able to solve it would be a different kind of hard.

Another way that this has all crashed down on me is financially.  At the beginning of the cycle I kept having the idea that infertility treatment is like the Chicken Ranch, a movie that those of you who took Women's Studies classes in the '90's can probably remember. The scene that has always stuck with me was the girl Mandy who at one point in the movie, after a particularly lucrative session, is talking about how great it is to be a prostitute, and then later when she's pissed off the madam or the owner is forced to the an 'around the world' for the cost of a lesser act.  She is crying, she is raging, she is humiliated, she is ultimately fired for her outburst.  I think that scene has stuck with me all these years because it so clearly illustrated how when you are doing something hard, with the idea that you will get something good at the end (money in her case, a baby in mine), the humiliation, the hardships, the endurance that it takes to just get through the damn thing is tied to the end result. When you don't get it, the reality of what you've just put yourself though comes crashing down on you like a ton of bricks. In the past there was always the next cycle, the next idea, the next last thing. And now it is over, and it is sad, a relief, a huge loss, and more than I can even articulate.

I am exhausted. I am heartbroken.  If the DE/DS cycle doesn't work, we will be broke and still without a child.  I realize that may sound like catastrophizing, but just because we came out on the wrong side of the odds this time, doesn't guarantee we won't again.  Someone has to make up that 40% who don't get a baby with DE--I really fucking hope that isn't us for once.

It is getting pretty hard to keep taking money out of the savings account and telling ourselves that it is going to get us anything--pretty soon there won't be anything to take out...ugh.

***********************

While I am grateful for what we do have (each other, our kitties, some version of healthy, a good job (husband) and a job that I love, I can't help but feel all that we don't have at the moment, and the dwindling resources we have to get a child. If we were to stop all this pregnancy stuff, and move to adoption, the cost would be about the same as a DE cycle, and the wait would be 2 to 3 years.  I know that county adoptions move faster, but not always as fast as people think.  It could still be 2 to 3 years.

I feel very isolated--not because people don't care, but because it feels so impossible to explain how profoundly and utterly lost I feel at the moment. And I don't want to hear that it isn't the cards I'm dealt, but how I play them. I want to hear "This hand sucks, and that's all there is to say."  It isn't that I don't want to feel hopeful at some point, but right now this is just fucking awful, and there isn't a silver lining.

I know that eventually I will feel better, but I think at this point I am really feeling the damage this has done to me. And I think that is reasonable. It has kicked my ass, and no amount of endurance has changed the fact that no matter how much we spent, or how hard I tried, or how good I was, or how stoic I was in the face of failure after failure, this didn't work, and it's not going to work, and it was harder than most people can ever imagine. I have been through some very very hard times in my life, but the difference was that I could do something to change them. I could leave my ex-husband, I could go to college, I could go to therapy, I could find a better man. I can't do anything about this. This is what it is. It is just over, broken, fucked, unfixable.  No child, no matter how they come to us, will change the facts of the last 3 years.  They may soften the blow, fill us with more joy than we can imagine, but this is immutable.

This is the end of an era. This is the end of IVF. This is the end of the idea that I can be helped. This is the end of feeling like every penny is worth spending if it gets us our child.

*********************

Compared to most people, I don't have a lot of pregnant friends and baby showers to contend with.  But a friend and his wife are having a baby in November, and their shower is in a month.  I looked at their registry and thought "You two are missing so many really important things, and have way too many of the 'hyped but useless' stuff on here."  I felt so...annoyed. Here I am, having collected and observed, and thought through all this stuff for YEARS, and I'm still on the fucking sidelines.  In the end I bought them two things that I know have been lifesavers for my friend with twins, and left it at that. They'll figure it out, and I don't have to do a thing.  But ya know, it just killed me to do it again, to buy a gift I'd like to have for myself, to have for my child. And here I am again on the sidelines.  In this case, it was pretty painful, probably because of where I am (duh), but also because I feel so invisible. With my friend who has twins I don't feel invisible, and that makes it so much easier to really get in and enjoy the babies. With most people though, I'm just invisible. Of course I don't have to be but, what do you say? "I'm so happy for you, but I just got a negative pregnancy test for a cycle that cost 12K and buying you a baby gift is pretty much going to rip a little more of my heart up." No, I don't say that. I buy the gift, Husband and I lean on each other for support, and leave as early as possible.

Argh, I'm rambling.

We went to a bbq on labor day, all of the people there have kids. We didn't know 2 of the couples at all. The host and another couple were more of known quantity.  Somehow the subject of 'snowflake babies' came up, and embryology, IVF and all sorts of other things were just being mangled. Husband and I both just sat there dumbstruck. I knew that If I said something it would come out somewhere between a strangled cry and bitchy, and I just couldn't do it. The host is a dear, and she has been nothing but a true friend through this whole awful ordeal, but it struck me just how hard it is to be in 'mixed company'--I have limited myself so much to people who are in the know, that I've forgotten how hard it is to be with regular people who don't have to know the intricacies of embryology, or cryopreservation or the difference between IVF and insemination. 

When the hell with this stuff just be a bad memory?  I'm exhausted.

Wedged between a rock and hard place

It has been sort of rough around here for a few days.  I am fully aware that it is an anniversary reaction, but that doesn't mean I'm any less impacted.

One year ago, our little Sparky was already gone, but we didn't know it. On July 3rd we went for our 8 week ultrasound, and his heart had stopped beating.  The silence was the loudest sound I've ever heard.

This morning I dreamed that a mother called her doctor and said "I think my baby is dead".  I thought, in the dream, "A mother knows when her baby is dead. I didn't know Sparky was dead." In dream logic, I managed to demote myself on the basis of something completely ridiculous. When I woke up my husband said "Are we going to light a candle for Sparky today?' and I lost it, and just cried and cried. I think I've been trying not to cry, or trying to find the right time to cry since Sunday. Silly huh--all this stored up sadness.

I really thought  we would have a baby by now. I know that now we know why, the translocation, but argh. It doesn't change that yet another year has passed with no progress on the real live baby front, and I'm getting just exhausted from pushing the boulder uphill. That isn't to say that we don't need this time to sort through the donor sperm stuff, but still.

This August will mark 3 years since we started TTC.

On Saturday it occurred to me that I've lost all the weight I gained since the miscarriage, but I'm still lugging around the weight I gained between when we started TTC and the miscarriage. It isn't a huge amount (5 to 8 pounds), but somehow it just feels like more than I can deal with to get it off, but alas, it needs to come off. I know that I don't need to be hard on myself, but it just feels like one more thing I can't get myself together to do.

I'm really behind in one aspect of my job, and it makes me feel really stressed to not do it, and really stressed to do it. Ugh.

Also, tomorrow is one month from when my Sweet Zoe died.  Maybe the dream was about her too--maybe I'm still beating myself up for not knowing she was dying, not checking on her more (during the whole 4 hours I slept that night...)

A very close friend is angry with me, but she won't return my calls or emails, so I can't even work it out with her. So I miss her, and I need her, but I can't get to her. 

I went for a day three blood draw (FSH and E2) yesterday--that was nerve-wracking too. I'm hoping that the DHEA is holding down the FSH, but if it isn't , we need to move on to IVF/DS but quick. Ugh. 

What is going well:

My husband is awesome

We are probably going to Hawaii for 10 days or two weeks at the end of July/beginning of August

Spogblogger has a sky high second Beta

Kami's frozen embryo made it transfer

We have 4 vials of frozen sperm

My remaining kitties are healthy and pesky

My friends twin babies are healthy and gaining weight, and I get to be "Auntie Sarah"

I ordered 2 sundresses from Kohl's that I'm excited about

Because of the Pilates work I've been doing, the chubb rubb between my thighs is diminished

I got my haircut yesterday

Dinner is in fridge

I'm going to the dentist tomorrow for my cleaning, and because of my excellent dental hygiene (Floss!) I will get positive feedback on my gums

I'm going to buy myself yet another beautiful variety of Peony

Excellent tomatoes from the produce market

Practically a day of grace entry there at the end!

Better late than never

Hi.

Sorry about that.

I'm not even sure I have a post in me at the moment.

Last Monday our sweet 10 year old kitty died. She had a heart condition, and had beaten the odds for survival, but it seems that finally her extremely enlarged heart could no longer keep up, and she probably died of a heart attack. Rather rare for cats, but all of our efforts to prolong her life worked, and she didn't die of a blood clot, which is a really awful way to go.

We are heartbroken.  We cried for hours, kissed her sweet furry cheeks, looked at every bit of her sweet little body (only 7lbs full grown), and in our own sweet time took her to the vet to be cremated.

It was an inauspicious day. It was very close to the date we found out I was pregnant with Sparky last year, and in light of the translocation issues, it sharpened that loss for both of us. 

There are so many things to say about how this has opened both of us to understanding more about using donor gametes, as well as how it intersects with the loss of Sparky, our only mutually genetic child, but because these are things that are between us, and in many ways originating in my husband and his losses, it isn't my place to write about his feelings and his experience, and to write about mine would betray his privacy.

We are in a moratorium about TTC. He asked for some time to just let this stuff marinate and percolate (we have tentatively agreed that the reality of my aging eggs means through August is fair), but there is a chance we might be ready to take some action in July--low tech, maybe even a home insemination. Even though it is unlikely to work, it would go so ways to restoring our sense of privacy, and agency. It is wonderful to have all this technology available, but it does seem to escalate the worry, and suppress the excitement. Or maybe that is just me. I could do that on a fixed horse race (i.e. the horse could fall and break it's leg!).

But, I must admit, I am feeling hopeful and excited. Not hopeful just that maybe my eggs will work with donor sperm, that is in there, but excited about the possibility that something will happen, my eggs, donor eggs--just something.  In many ways I am finally feeling what many people feel at the beginning of the process of TTC. I was so anxious and fatalistic I pretty much killed it for both of us. Oy. So, here I am, on the eve of our three year anniversary of TTC, finally feeling like I wish I could have in August 2006.  Better late than never?

Sparky and the Panda's

A wise British psychoanalyst once said "there is no baby without the mother". Since he was an analyst, we could imagine that he wasn't talking in a concrete sense, but that the baby exists because in some sense, the mother has created the baby in her mind.  It is starting to hit me that the babies I've had in my mind, those babies waiting for a body, aren't to be.

Sparky was real, he had a body for a precious few weeks.  The Pandas, what I started to call the last set of embryo's, had cell bodies for about 5 days, and then they were gone. But for me, these are my children. The only children who will ever share that precious mix of my husband and myself.  These children carried within their cells a mix of us that will never be expressed.  My blue eyes, his dimples, his congenital scrawniness, my impossible to fit feet, our big teeth and small jaws and on and on.  They also carried within them that indefinable, and indescribable hope of humanity--the hope that the love of our bodies, and the love of our minds will be expressed in flesh. These are the children that will never be, and yet they are so real to me I can see them running through the house, sleeping contentedly, making paper Mache models of the planets the night before the science fair.  I can see them growing up, and growing shy about their bodies, suffering the slings and arrows of first love, finding careers, finding love and becoming parents, and bringing home their own babies for us to love.  And yes, there will be children who will do this, and much much more. And we will love those children fiercely, aware of how close we came to not having any children to love at all, and yet, at this moment, it is my Sparky and the Panda's that I want.

When my husband and I were on the cusp of dating, I was trying to get him to kiss me and he said "I can't kiss you, because if I do, we'll have grandchildren, and I'm not ready for grandchildren yet."  In that moment a life flashed before my eyes, a life where we would make love, make children, and grow old together.  In some ways that vision hasn't changed, we do make love, we will make children, and we will grow old together, but this morning when I woke up, I just felt so so sad about the loss of...I suppose the loss of every piece of him going into our child.  Please don't reassure me that everything is going to be ok once I get 'the baby'.  I actually really know that. This stands alone; this loss is irreducible. 

So Sparky and Panda babies Mama loves you, and daddy loves you. And thank you for every precious second you were here with us.

And then there were 2

Dr Calm just called and said that we have two morulas. We're going to wait until tomorrow to see if they continue to develop and become blastocysts, and if so, we'll do the transfer. 

I know that a day 6 transfer is not the kiss of death, but now that we know that we are dealing with a translocation, I must say that I don't feel terribly reassured by this development.

Last May we did a day 6 transfer which resulted in Sparky, but he only lasted until 7 weeks gestation. Of course what I really want is a crystal ball--something to tell me if we are going to get our hearts broken again. 

On a brighter note, knowing that we are dealing with a translocation is a relief. For me it means that if these little embryos don't develop into a viable baby, we will have some sense of why. We can't know for sure, but the so much of what has been excruciating over the last 3 years has been all of the 'not knowing'.

Holy F*#king Curveballs Batman!

No, I'm not pregnant.

My husband has a balanced translocation.

Holy Shit.

Last night Dr Calm called at about 5:30, and got a hold of my husband to tell him that he has a balanced translocation, and we need to figure out our next steps in light of the next IVF.

Oy. I'm in shock. My husband was oddly relieved; relieved to know that there is a reason all of this has been so hard.  But, as of last night, he didn't feel extremely distressed.  He's never been as tied up in all of this genetic stuff as I have, nor does he have a deep sense of defectiveness like I do, so who knows, maybe this won't hit him as hard as it hits me.  He may feel differently as time goes on (I mean in the immediate sense).  Basically,if this was going to happen to one of us, he's probably the one who can handle it with less drama and pain. Oy.

The recommendation is to do one more mutually genetic IVF, but do PGD on our embryos to see if any are normal and to transfer those.  And if none are normal, to move on to IUI with donor sperm.

Ugh.  Honestly, this makes me feel sick.  Just sick. I am so disoriented.

I am wracked with so much sadness.  With all of the grieving I've done about my own loss of a genetic tie, you'd think I'd be relieved that 'whoo hoo! my genes are still in the mix!"  Surprisingly, I just want him--I don't want no stinkin' substitute. 

Have I ever told you how much I love this man? I love everything about him, from his wacky curly hair to his big brown eyes, to his slender body, to his meaty hands and feet. I love the way he smells, and thinks. I love how loving he is, what a good good person he is, how kind he is, how wickedly funny he is. I love his eyelashes. I love his nose.  I tell him that he is beautiful, which he tolerates, but he really is beautiful.

I feel like I took in all that his family is, the schizophrenic great uncle, the nutty and abusive great grandparents, the tendency for rocacia, being sweaty sleepers, and on and on and I said "all of this is distilled in you, and you are magnificent, and I want to know what will happen if we bring my brand of wacky together with yours." And now I have to adjust to the idea that that experiment is pretty unlikely to take place. PGD could pull off a miracle for us, but at this point, we only have one shot, and that means that the odds are low.  

Now, just because he has a translocation, doesn't mean I'm 25, and my eggs are guaranteed to do anything other than divide oddly, even with the help of someone else's sperm.  Ugh.

Ya know, I was feeling pretty fuckin' happy, and now I'm kinda fucked up again. Ugh.

We had some good laughs last night.  As many of you know, he's Jewish. He said "You can have the best of both worlds, me and a nice Jewish boy who went to Harvard and became a doctor and made his mother proud."  He also said, being a Jew, he feels like he's pulling from the team--we laughed that it was sort of a twist on the biblical practice of taking your brothers widow as a wife concept.  Ugh. High tech sperm widow. That's me. I pointed out that 'man in a can' can be gotten from anywhere, so we an search NY/Tri-state sperm banks and get the cream of the crop. Ew.

If the IVF doesn't work, we get donor sperm and do an IUI or two, and then move onto IVF again. Oh lord. I just don't want any of this. I feel numb.

(Oh, and sister in law, if you read my blog, please don't tell your mom. Your brother wants to do that himself. Please feel free to call).

--------------

Thank you so much to everyone who commented on my last post. I thought a lot about what all of you said.

My therapist and I were talking about my relationship to motherhood, and how for at least 20 years it has been another form of competition with my mother, to prove I could do it better than she did, and to re-mother myself through my own child. As you can imagine, this would have been ok in some ways, but a total train wreck in others. Ultimately what was missing from that vision is me as the mother to my own unique children, with a side benefit of healing some of my own wounds. My own wounds were front and center, and this was a huge part of how I organized myself psychically in relation to mothering.  The loss of that narcissistic connection, meaning it is easier to make a 'mini me' out of a genetic child than a non genetic child, freed me up to consider where could I stand, and where did I want to stand in relation to mothering. So that's a plus.

Can anyone come and fix my wonderful husband's chromosomes? 'Cause honestly, that is all I really want.

I, Veruca

Its been a while since my last post. At this point, I think I can manage a post a week.  Gone are the heady days when I had something that needed to be said daily--gone are the days when I could bare to think about infertility daily.

Monday would have been Sparky's due date.  As is my style, the two days leading up to it were awful (cranky on Sat, and a weepy mess on Sunday), but Monday, was ok. My husband had a business trip from Sunday through Wednesday, and strangly enough, it couldn't have come at a better time.  One of my friends reflected to me that sometimes it is better to go through these things alone, but it is so hard to know the right time to do it.  The stars aligned, and it was the right time.  I just simply did whatever I needed to do, and I didn't take a moment to think about anyone else. My husband is a wonderful compantion, and wouldn't have made any sort of demands on me, but for some reason, after the crying stopped, I was able to be focused, and it was very restful.  He's back now, and I'm ready for some company, but we could sure use a vacation.

I had my progesterone checked on day 21, and it was 8. Enough to signal that I'd ovulated, but not a high number. The last time I'd had it checked (2007), it was 13 without clomid and 21 with clomid, so hmmm. We're going to see the newest doctor in the practice today; Dr Calm is on vacation.  Psudonym to follow.  We're doing an antral follicle count, and I'm going to ask her about my lining, but this close to the end of my cycle, I'm not sure what that would tell us.  I think I'm suffering from data withdrawl.

Here is my (not so) secret wish: I'd like to do a monitored IUI with a trigger shot. Or timed intercourse with a trigger shot.  I guess I must secretly want the mindfuck of the trigger shot. Here is why I want this: I want to know if the DHEA is affecting my response in any measurable way.  Are my eggs getting large enough? Is my lining growing appropriately? Could I get pregnant with an IUI? I think I must also be suffering from Drama Withdrawl.  I'm also going to ask her about the drinking a quart of milk thing that BeeCee is doing. 

As I alluded to in my last post, my husband suggested that we may want to wait an extra month, just to give the DHEA more time to work. It seems that the internet agrees that 4 months is the minimum amount of time you need to take it to get the best results. And I do want the best results, but I also want something now. Feeling a bit like Veruca Salt.

I am not actully crazy at the moment, but sometimes I think the effort to keep the crazy under control is very hard. Like Veruca, "I want it now!", and in the craziest part of myself, I would steal a squirrel (novel), or a goose laying the golden eggs (movie).  But alas, my inner Veruca is chained up, only to come out at therapy, where I let the nice lady help me with all these bad scary feelings. 

It is not easy to be grumpy and cranky. I am not usually a grumpy, cranky person. It feels very disorienting to feel greedy, petty, angry and irritable. 

And yet, a small aprt of me would like unleaseh my inner Veruca:

Just substitute baby, and I think you get the picture:

Veruca:

I want the world
I want the whole world
I want to lock it all up in my pocket
It's my bar of chocolate
Give it to me
Now!

I want today
I want tomorrow
I want to wear 'em like braids in my hair
And I don't want to share 'em

I want a party with room fulls of laughter
Ten thousand tons of ice cream
And if I don't get the things I am after
I'm going to scream!

I want the works
I want the whole works
Presents and prizes and sweets and surprises
Of all shapes and sizes
And now
Don't care how
I want it now
Don't care how
I want it now

Now if that isn't a prayer for the deep down crazy in me, I don't know what is.