My Dear Watson

Wowsers.  I am sitting at my desk just crying because of the wonderful and supportive comments you all left.  Man.  You guys rock.  I wish I had good news to share, but alas, that faint line was either the result of my blindness without contacts or my over-active imagination.

We went to Carmel and had dinner Sunday night at a glorious restaurant, high on a hill overlooking the Pacific Ocean. I had a glass of wine and we toasted the fact that hopefully, this would be the last glass of wine I would have for a long time.

When I tested the next morning, there was no line, as much as I tried to see one.  And, the sensation in the boobage area was also gone. You know how when you accidentally attach jumper cables to your nipples (I hate it when that happens!) but there’s no power?  No?  Maybe that only happens to me.  Well, anyway, that’s what it was like. Much discomfort and then?  Nothing.

(Which reminds me of this very funny story about a woman I knew in college who decided not to wear a strapless bra and instead put band aids over her nipples before a formal but forgot, and when she woke up the next morning totally freaked out and ran around the house half naked screaming "what the hell happened to me last night?" but we were laughing so hard we couldn’t tell her SHE had put the damn things on her own boobs.)  Where was I?  Oh yeah…

I was SO depressed to see there was no line, and since my temperature had dropped that morning (yes, I am such a BBT dork I bring my thermometer when I travel), but I couldn’t bring myself to say it out loud and tell BeBop. So instead I chose to lose it completely and  scream at him for something having to do with our room service order.  He knew something was wrong (I am often that bitchy but I guess the volume of my screeching was slightly disproportionate to the issue at hand).  So he asked if my meltdown was because I had taken a test. And then?  I felt like a total. Fucking. Heel.  As if I could feel worse after realizing I was not pregnant, I managed to FEEL WORSE by being such an asshole.  We talked about it for a long time, with much sadness and moping.  Should we do another (#4) IUI?  Think about moving on to IVF?  Just not sure.

But, I must say during my pity party last night when we got home, I was so sad about not having anyone to talk to about this who would understand.  Most of my friends got preggers on their first or second try, and this time around we’re not really talking to anyone anyway, but still — I was wishing I had a circle of friends who knew firsthand what this journey was all about and voila!  I check this crazy blog thing and there are comments from a group of wonderful women I’ve never met but who really, really get how hard this can be. 

Now I might be able to hold off on those vodka shots until my lunch break!!

Well. B and I are off in a minute for a mini-break. I know! So v. v. Bridget Jones of me!! I won’t tell you today’s weight or how many cigarettes I’ve had though.

I haven’t even said anything to him yet, because it’s such a remote possibility, BUT I thought I saw a maybe-second line on the HPT this morning. Now I didn’t have my contacts in so I’m blind as a frickin’ bat, and I had to squint and turn it practically upside down and then squint some more and turn another light on, but I thought I saw it. I used one of those EPTs where a positive is a plus sign. Like ‘thumbs UP dude, you totally did it. You went and got yourself all knocked up!"

I like the double line one better — not as judgmental.

And, my boobs have been extremely sore, like an electric cattle prod being hooked up to my nipples and NOT in a good way. (And if you found this site by Googling ‘cattle prods and nipples’ for the love of GOD, you’re in the wrong place.)

Since I’m not testing again until tomorrow morning, that means I can have wine with dinner tonight, right? RIGHT.

Wish me luck, I’ll either come home v. v. happy or v. v. fucking sad.

Well.  Sit down for this one people — I have good news! 

Yes, I’ve been waiting forever to be able to report this amazing development. 

Duhn Duhn Duhn…

I was finally tagged by the lovely Nikole to answer the six questions!!

What?  Oh!  You thought I might have good news on the pregnancy front?!  Pshaw, silly bear.  That really would be earth-shattering.

Nikole was nice enough to say she hoped I ‘didn’t mind’ getting tagged. Does the chubby girl with the camel toe and the head gear MIND being asked to the prom?  HELLS NO. So thank you Nikole!

Here’s what pops into my mind:

1.  When I was little, three or four I think, I flushed my pacifier down the toilet by accident.  I called it a ‘bobby’ and I loved that thing more than life itself.  To this day, I can vividly remember the exact moment I leaned over the bowl to reach for the handle…as soon as I started that swirling water in motion – so it was far too late to take it back – my bobby fell out of my mouth and down the drain it went.  I’m tearing up just thinking about it.  Later that night when I was inconsolable, my mother yelled at me to "stick my damn thumb in my mouth."  And thus a long-term thumb-sucker was born (see above re:  head gear.)

2.  My maiden name is very common, one of the most prevalent last names around, so my mom named my sister and me very usual first names.  Watson was my middle name, but when I took BeBop’s name as my own, I was forced to drop it.  Which was sad, because it was my grandmother’s maiden name and she rocked. 

3.  A couple of years ago, my mom and I spent a week at a health ‘spa’ (very liberal use of the word spa here.)  You go there to cleanse your system, and the whole program revolved around raw foods, wheat grass juice, and colonics.  That’s right.  Colon cleansing as part of a vacation YOU PAY FOR.  You start off with a three-day juice fast, and then integrate raw and sprouted foods into your diet as the week goes on.  You have to cut and juice your own wheat grass three or four times a day.  To this day when I enter a Jamba Juice the smell of wheat grass makes me gag.  The funniest part (well, really, what’s NOT funny about a colonic?) was that at the end of the week they held a talent show.  Guests got up on stage and performed, one guy was a magician (in his non-colon-cleansing life) and he ate a light bulb.  WHICH, hello, was totally NOT on the diet.  The whole thing was like summer camp with enemas!  And although I did feel cleansed by the time I went home, apparently the raw food diet caused my entire digestive system to shut down and I didn’t poop for like a month.

4.  My younger sister and I are seven years apart, but when we’re sporting similar haircuts people often mistake us for twins.  I LOVE it when that happens, she hates it. 

5.  I was a Congressional Page in Congress when I was 15.

I know:   NERD ALERT NERD ALERT NERD ALERT

6.  BeBop has been a full-time student for the last five years (since getting laid off in the Great Dot Com Disaster of 2001) and I’ve been the sole breadwinner in my family. Not that that’s ever easy, but in Northern California it’s especially challenging to be a one-income family.  I’d love to be able to say I’ve handled that with grace and good humor, but alas it’s been very difficult.  Very often I have been a total, complete be-YOTCH about the whole thing.  To be painfully honest, I think that stress has contributed to our infertility issues.  He’s done now and finally working, so I’m hoping that helps things along in some way.

So, because I’m still the main breadwinner in the family, I better get my ass back to work.  Peace out homies.

At least she was in the dream I had last night.  I was in France, visiting with my BFF Charlotte, when we stumbled upon Carrie working at a restaurant.  Owned by Aidan!!  They already had one child, and she was pregnant, WITH TWINS.  God what have I been smoking lately?!?

She was cooking roasted chicken with root vegetables to serve at their restaurant, and although I would love to delve into the juicy Jungian details of what all that imagery might represent, I think I have to chalk it up to watching both Top Chef and a portion of Sex in the City yesterday.

So I am smack-dab in the middle of the two week wait, or the 2ww as it’s commonly referred to.  Although  I use some of the TTC/IF abbreviations, they really do bug the living fuck out of me.  (But now that I think of it, much of what I do annoys the crap out of myself.)

Anyway. 

Before I stumbled upon the fabulous blogs out there, I routinely logged on to ivillage to see what was happening on their boards.  Now, don’t get me wrong – I think there’s a lot of value in the discussions that happen over there, and yes, I did learn some stuff.  Since it’s all anecdotal, I took some of the medical advice with a grain of salt, but reading about other women’s experiences was helpful.

BUT.

The asinine initials for everything is lame and creepy! It’s like a secret club and if you don’t get the password you’re totally screwed.  I mean, who wants to read about someone BD’ing with their DH in the hopes of ttc a DD or DS!? 

I am all for the warning TMI, and I’m actually fine reading the specifics about someone’s EWCM, or hearing about their BBT based on the TCYF book. But come on,  baby-dancing?!?  BLECHHHHH!!

As if calling it THAT could make it any more appealing.   In our house it’s called "are you kidding me I just ate a huge burrito" but the acronym for that just doesn’t work.

So the dreaded two week wait is upon us and I am in limbo.   Again.  (Sigh, pout, waaaah…insert self pity here.) This is often the hardest part of the hamster wheel of infertility treatments…it starts out with getting your period, wanting to kill yourself, gearing up to start a new cycle, waiting for the clomid and the IUI and then waiting for another two weeks to see if it worked.

Sometimes I feel almost stupid for getting my hopes up. 

Like this time it’s going to work, AS IF!

And yet, I feel like this month I have to stay positive and hopeful.  I’m not sure what might be different this time around, but I have a strong sense that I need to be open and optimistic and deal with the consequences if I’m disappointed in a couple of weeks.  I’ve been saying a mantra of:  I am pregnant, I AM PREGNANT ever since the IUI.  Which means, of course, that if I get my period it will be a real motherfucker.

Related not at all to anything:  I noticed the other day that the woman who cleans our house had cleaned my hairbrush.  As in, pulled all of the hairs that  have fallen out of my head or been pulled out by my pathetic blow-drying attempts at BODY, out of the brush.  And this is no small feat.

I am one of those woman who does not clean her hairbrushes very often, if at all.  Nor do I wash my make-up brushes in warm soapy water each morning (who the frick has time for that?!?).

A few years ago when some friends took me to Vegas for my bachelorette party, one of my girlfriends asked to borrow my brush.

"Oh sure, it’s right there in the bathroom."

I heard cackles from the bathroom.

"Uh…Watson? Do you have, like, a health permit for this?" my friend asked with a look of total disgust on her face.

She paraded my science experiment around the hotel room, for all of my drunk girlfriends to see.  (Thankfully the drunkenness prevented anyone from remembering this Kodak moment.)

I had never really noticed before how gross it was to have months of hair strands, layer upon layer of dead hairs, on a brush!  But even after that embarrassing moment, I still haven’t gotten into a regular routine of cleaning the damn thing.

It’s a giant round brush and after a long while of neglect on my part, it almost takes on a life of its own.  It’s like a giant hair Popsicle!  Or a tiny shrunken head on the end of a stick! 

Hey!  I should name it and start praying to it as an idol.

Dear Fertility Follicle Goddess, please bless me with a baby and please make my new bangs grow slower so I don’t have to hack at them with nail scissors every week.

So anyway, you can imagine the sheer horror when I realized the cleaning lady had actually cleaned the damn thing.  I’m not even sure she wore gloves! 

I might have to give her a raise.

Tuesday was the Big Day, IUI #3.  I had the trigger shot on Monday and went in yesterday for the procedure…the whole thing still kind of gives me the creeps.  I guess it’s the whole getting-pregnant-without-having-sex thing that weirds me out.

As I was lying on the table, feet in the most uncomfortable stirrups known to man (they are these plastic shelf-like things that you put your knees into, so instead of having your feet propped up in the stirrups, these things force you to splay your legs out and make a totally awkward position even worse!  I HATE the shelfy-things!)  Anyway, I was trying my best to breathe and relax, when I heard the doctor take the speculum out of the drawer of torture devices and heard the distinct clang clang of the metal knobs being adjusted…it was not, as they say, music to my ears.

BeBop offered to drive me to the doctor’s office, and I kept saying "No, thanks — I’m fine.  You can go back to the office."  I felt like saying, "I don’t need YOUR help I can do this all by myself thankyouverymuch," which technically is not true, but that’s how I felt.  Anyway, he insisted on driving and waiting and I was actually quite thankful afterwards.

As we were walking into the office, I ran into one of my sister’s best friends.  She’s pregnant and was there for her glucose test.  If we’d arrived 10 seconds later than we did, she would have been inside the lab.  But with our luck, we fling open the door and there she is.

And there we were.  Me and BeBop, heading to the gynecologist’s office with a sterile cup of my husband’s sperm tucked into my bra. 

"Oh hi, HI…funny seeing you here!!!  God, we are running sooo late…okay, yep, well have FUN with the blood test yah bye bye,"  I stammered as we rushed by her.

I was so embarrassed to run in to someone I knew just moments before the IUI because this time around, we’re not telling anyone we’re doing fertility treatments.  Last time, I told ANYONE and everyone.  BeBop is still pissed at me for telling our mechanic, whose wife — to this day — pesters him for details when he goes in for an oil change.  I told all of my family, friends, coworkers and various randoms I met throughout my day.  I kid you not I practically rented a frigging billboard to announce it to all of greater Northern California.

Looking back, I was so sure we would have a baby, that it didn’t seem odd to share our plans.  When people would ask, shortly after we married, "do you have kids?" it seemed disingenuous to just say  "no" and leave it at that.  That was only the first part of our story, there was so much more — Hello! Let me yammer on about the most intimate details of our private life while you stare at me in abject horror. 

"No we don’t have kids YET but we’re trying and trying is so…trying!  But I know we’ll be pregnant soon.  I just tend to ovulate really late in my cycle and they suspect I might have PCOS but I don’t think I do because I do ovulate on my own, just a little late, and I don’t have excess hair on my face and blah blah blah blah blah…"

GOD WHY IS THIS WOMAN TELLING ME ALL THIS I JUST ASKED A SIMPLE QUESTION TO MAKE CONVERSATION?!?

I guess I so believed that it would happen, it just didn’t seem like a big deal to share.  But as time went on, every person in my life from the mechanic’s wife to people I barely knew through work would constantly ask, "how are you feeling?"  Which was just a nice way of saying:  are you pregnant yet?! GAWD what’s wrong with you two?!?  Are you sure you’re doing it right?!?!?

The pressure was just too much, it became so depressing to report bad news over and over and over again. Granted, I take all the blame for being such a fucking blabber-mouth, but still, it sucked big time.

So this time around, we agreed to tell no one.  (Thus this blog.)  It feels weird to not be telling anyone, including close friends or my sister.  Everyone is in the dark.  Which is why writing everything down seems like a good plan.  It provides me with some kind of outlet.

So seeing someone I know fairly well in the doctor’s office, right before we did the IUI, was so odd; I felt like I had a huge secret and I guess I did.  Under those circumstances, bumping into a friend while smuggling a cup of your husband’s jizz in your bra is just, well,  WEIRD.  But now that I think about it, maybe that kind of thing is always weird…

Get it?!?  Hunting for EGGS?!  har har har

Yes, we spent the better part of Easter Sunday sitting in the car, waiting for my Dr. to arrive and unlock the office so that I could get my next ultrasound. By the time he answered his page, it was too late to meet my family for brunch.  So, we were on our own for the day, which turned out to be really depressing.

We went by a local hotel to see if they had room, and while they checked for a table we waited at the bar.  The BAR, on Easter!  I should be out frolicking on a luscious green lawn, I kept thinking, basking in the glory of an Easter egg hunt with the marbled-dyed eggs I made like I saw on Martha or an impressive brunch of egg strata or some other  creative thing that I’m sure I’ll be able to pull off with grace one day…because having kids magically turns you into the perfect hostess, chef and craft-maker, right?!? 

Anyway, sitting at the bar was depressing enough, but to make matters even worse they were showing basketball and a Three Stooges movie on the TV (hate and hate more).  Next to us was a couple in their mid-40s, and the man had that well-worn, former rock star look going:  very long, shaggy hair, wearing sunglasses inside, loose blazer over a t-shirt.

Of course since I was already bummed out, sitting next to them just made me feel worse.  They were like US in the future, my nightmare come true!  If we don’t have kids soon I might as well buy BeBop a deconstructed linen blazer and call it a day.

I was so depressed that yet another holiday came and went and we STILL don’t have a baby.  It’s just so not the life I planned.    Last year I’m sure I thought, "by next Easter we’ll for sure have a baby."  I am so looking forward to celebrating holidays and starting our own family traditions, it’s just taking for-EVER.

And on that note, I’m off soon for the super fun trigger shot and then, hopefully, tomorrow will be the IUI.  Let’s hope the egg hunt today goes better than yesterday!

Before I started this blog, I thought about it for a long time.  Each time I considered creating a blog, I had a wealth of brilliant ideas!  A wealth, I tell you. Amusing, wry stories of this or that would string themselves together in a beautiful tapestry of creativity. 

That would make the best blog entry EVER I would say.

Can you see where this is going?

Now, once I’ve started this damn thing, I can never think of anything to say.

An update: Today is CD 11, which means tomorrow I go back to the Dr. for yet another ultrasound to check on the follies.  With my luck, he’ll think the IUI should happen on Easter Sunday, only he’s going to be out of town that day. Or, we’ll schedule the IUI for Monday, which means I’ll need to do the trigger shot myself.

In our first visit a few years ago to the carnival of fun known as Infertility Treatments we were expecting to do the trigger shot followed by an IUI.   My former Dr. informed us that we would be taught how to mix up and give the shot ourselves, at home.  The plan was for BeBop to learn how to properly administer the shot and in order to help this along, we were to bring an orange to the hospital.  BeBop would practice on this poor, unsuspecting citrus fruit so that he would know what he was doing when it came time to stick me.

Just so he took his whole training seriously, and kept in the forefront of his mind the fact that he was soon going to be plunging a long needle into the delicate flesh of my nether-regions, I took a Sharpie to the orange and in big black letters wrote:

MY WIFE’S ASS

Of course this cycle was canceled at the last minute, so instead of an IUI and the hope of getting pregnant we were left with a rotting orange bearing a rather unappealing reference to my ass on it.

A word about these ultrasounds.  When I started seeing a fertility doc, he suggested an ultrasound.  I had visions of Rachel from Friends in my head, reclining on a hospital bed as they rubbed gel on her belly, then moving a non-threatening mouse-like thing across her stomach.  Looked easy enough.

No one mentioned the words ‘internal’ or ‘transvaginal.’  Bastards.

When the doctor pulled out a wand-like thingy that looked entirely too BIG to go in THERE, and then proceeded to cover it with a condom…I almost peed myself. 

What the FRICK?!?

Doesn’t someone in here need to buy me dinner and a movie, for crissakes?   OR AT LEAST A GLASS OF CHEAP CHARDONNAY??

Of course by now I’m used to the whole deal, but each time I think of having another ultrasound, I wistfully think of my Friend Rachel, and wish for the nice, OUTSIDE kind.

So last night I started clomid again, and was the proud recipient of a horrendous migraine.  I did not have the migraine.  Rather, the migraine had ME.  It was so bad BeBop had to get up at 2 AM to make me a PB&J, which for some reason actually helped.

It made me think of the last time I had a truly awful migraine, several years ago.  BeBop and I had just had our first heated conversation (read:  fight) about trying to get pregnant.  We were just married a few months prior, and he was shocked – shocked I tell you – to hear my grand scheme to have a baby.  He was a full-time student at the time and I was the sole breadwinner in our family (and THAT whole subject is fodder for another loooong post one day).  He was facing at least another two years of school, and so he didn’t feel it was the right time to get pregnant.  (HA. If we only knew it would take a friggin’ eternity.)

Anyhoo, for some reason my clock was ticking so loudly other people could HEAR it.

Other people:  What is that ticking sound?  TICK TOCK TICK TOCK?

Me:  Cough, clear throat loudly…what ticking?  I don’t hear anything.  Look!  A panther!!

So we had a huge fight about how I was 35 and ready, that everything else would work itself out and how I absolutely, positively HAD to get pregnant NOW. I spoke in capital letters a lot back then. I was, to be truly honest, desperate to have a baby.  I could feel it in my bones, in my marrow even.  It was TIME.

This huge fight lasted most of the night, and I woke up with a terrible headache.  Throughout the day it worsened, and by early afternoon I had to leave work and take to my bed chamber.  (I’ve always wanted to say that!)  But I really did take to my bed chamber, closing the blinds and putting the pillow over my head to block out any light or noise.  I was beyond miserable.

A little while later, BeBop walked in with a huge bouquet of flowers.  I could hardly focus on what he was saying, my head hurt so badly, but he went on to explain that now HE was ready.  Everything would be okay.  We could get pregnant.

Wha?

Turns out, he was as distraught as  I was after our huge fight.  While walking across campus, he saw a card table set up in the quad with a sign saying:  psychic readings.  And for some reason he sat down at the table and plunked down his ten bucks for a reading.  The first thing the psychic asked was:  Do you have kids?

BeBop: Uhhh, no…

Psychic Reader Guy:  Well, you’re gonna, and pretty soon.  I feel a spirit near you, waiting to be born.

Needless to say, BeBop almost fell off the chair at that point. But for some reason, hearing these words made him feel better about having a baby.  So on his way home he bought me flowers to apologize for our fight and to announce that, yes, he too was ready.

Through my migraine haze I was thrilled to hear he was on board with my plan to get knocked up.  Well, thank God for cheap psychics, I thought.

Of course that was like a million years ago and we’re still not pregnant.  So, either the psychic was a total crackpot or this kid is really stubborn and taking her own damn time to be born.

Either way, my head still hurts like a mother.

So my temp dropped and so did my spirits.  The second IUI most definitely did not work.  I am going in for my super fun Day Three Clomid test tomorrow, which is always delightful.  It’s not bad enough that your period came because you’re so totally not pregnant, but just to increase the humiliation, you have to go to the dr. while having said period to be poked and prodded and checked for cysts. 

It’s always about this time that I try to be more hopeful.  At the beginning of a new cycle, as soon as you (sort of) get over the heartbreak of having failed to get pregnant, there is this feeling of starting over — of thinking, maybe this month will be different.

Maybe something good will happen.