three days old

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

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

I've been so sad the entire time.

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

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

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

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

OF COURSE

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

Oh, phone!

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

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

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

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

Oh, dilemma!

mish/mash

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

Hmm.

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

wait...this first:

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

Well.

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

tomorrow!!

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

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

Which I am.

random eww + honorable egg reference

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

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

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

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

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

Aaaaand,

six follicles located this morning, and six eggs retrieved.

*punches sky*

still waiting

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

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

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

Anyway.

Egg retrieval tomorrow. AT LAST.

Criminy.

inside story

There will be no retrieval today. Repeat, no retrieval, just another bloody ultrasound.

Fun times.

It WAS Dr Too Much Bowel on Wednesday's scan, and he DID bitch and moan about how much bowel (ie SHIT) was obscuring his view, and in regard to measuring as many follicles as previously? FAIL.

Fucksake.

I was all, dude, I know it's underparts hosting your viewing apparatus, but MOVE THAT SHIT ASIDE IT CAN'T BE TOO HARD.

!

As of Wednesday, there are two follicles on one side (my brain: NO IDEA WHICH DON'T ASK), one quasi supernova, and one regular sized one cruising along and so not being impressed with its partner's hugificence. Side B offered Too Much Bowel and one single follicle of unimpressive proportions too.

Today will hopefully be another doctor viewing mah bits, and what with all the injecting going on in my bellicular region, it should be a Monday retrieval. Large Follicle will be gone by then, but the remaining three should be ready to rock.

One would hope.

If not, all this week's emotional yada yada has SO not been worth it.

*waves roll on beaches*

Honestly, this getting up at dawn thing is getting (getting? How about IS?) to be such a drag. And really, none of it is for anything exciting, what with my dumbass ovaries being stuck in Wot? You Want Me To Do Wot? land.

Gonal-F bla bla, and nightly Orgalutran shots have been pushed (I wish I was lying but I. Shit. You. Not. PUSHED. Like, with a drinking straw. Organon, wtf?) into my cushy belly fat pad since Satruday night. Results to date are: two follicles on one ovary, and two on the other. On one side, don't ask me which because I know I know but despite my open eyes and my faux alert state, my brain is all "I'm sleeping here, and you want data retrieval?", two follicles aren't dragging their metaphorical asses, while on the other side, they are, and those ass draggers are the reason behind the ultrasound every fucking morning this week.

The unit want at least three follicles greater than (random number my brain is dismissively waving its hand at) millimeters before triggering and a subsequent retrieval, and I've got two that are dancing on the table and ready to roll, and one that still needs another beer. The last one is hiding behind bowel, which I think is code for "bowel full of shit" because, holy crap (or NOT) one of these drugs is preventing regular bodily functions ifyouknowwhatImeandndIthinkyoudo.

Unsavory sidebar: so I took one (1) biscodyl the other night and.....nothing. So I took TWO (2!) last night and, yes. Whoa. There's this one doctor, Dr Lumbrusco, who ALWAYS dramatically sighs and informs the room he can't see anything what with all the BOWEL in the way. If it's him this morning and if he goes into his Too Much Bowel, Woe, routine, I'm gonna hit him with Blue Steel and telling him to look harder, buddy, because one of us is full of shit and I know for a FACT it ain't me.

ANYWAY

The good news in re this whole Only Two Interesting Follicles situation (it's probably ALL good news but with the incessant 6am rising and the associated and ongoing sleep deprivation, you could call me and tell me I'd won the lottery and I'd be all "FUCKIT, now I've got to go to the frikkin' bank too, AARGH")(especially as per one of the nurses who isn't a walking buzzkill, who says less follicles may produce better percentages than large numbers of them)(please see last cycles strike rate of eleven eggs, a paltry five fertilising, and two excellent quality ones, and one that was so ho-hum that it only just squeaked in to being worth freezing) is that things are progressing nicely, albeit a squeak slower than lat time.

Sooooo, another (motherfucking) ultrasound this morning, then some random doctor who is hopefully not bowel boy, will decide what to do based on those findings. Hopefully (ohgodplease) it'll be the trigger shot tonight and an egg retrieval Friday morning. If not, I've got to wait until Saturday top trigger with the retrieval on Monday because OF COURSE my ovaries are all using the weekend to Piss. Me. OFF.

Because, anticipation aside, do you have any idea how challenging it is to organise childcare for some random date not that far in the future? Answer? VERY.

and how much of a DRAG am I lately? Answer? VERY. God, you'd think I was depressed or something.

Hey, check me. I'm LATE.

See ya.

le start

Bloods this morning at dawn ( no shit, I haven't slept past 6.30am AT ALL in, like, TEN days. Which would be okay if I went to bed before ridiculous o clock, which I do not), and my first jab with the Gonal-F shortly thereafter. Daniel was, as usual, fascinated with the whole process and thankfully this time didn't try and assist me by whamming his hand on the end of the jabby pen thing while I was mid jab. The blood draw was a hit for him too, not in the literal sense, thank god, but in that he was enlisted by Nurse Killjoy to put the vials of blood in the vials of blood holder, which he did, hence the inner "woohoo!" the whole blood drawing process held for him.

So... shooting up on Gonal-F every morning until Friday, then (at dawn!) an ultrasound before continuing with the Gonal-F and, if memory serves, starting in on the orgalunoideahwatitsactuallycalled too.

The last time it took eight days to go from here to a retrieval, so I'm hoping it all goes as smoothly this time (and lo, Nurse Killjoy's pearls of misery: "each time is different. This time there might not even be any antral follicles, or the ones that ARE may never develop..." *quasi meaningful quasi sympathetic eyecontact goes here*) .

I've put my order with the universe in more clearly this time though. Last time, I skimped, thinking asking to be pregnant would be enough. Oh ho ho, universe, good one. This time my ass is covered, and I've asked to get pregnant, and to have the pregnancy end with me taking home a healthy child who will grow to adulthood bla bla bla, and also? A new car, one with air, power windows, a really rad sound system, and maybe a cabriolet. Yeah!

time marching on

Five months ago today, I had my first egg retrieval, and my pregnancy (the pregnancy? It? They?) would have been five months old today.

I got my period today instead, so will be starting meds again in a few days, and having another egg retrieval sometime within the next two weeks.

I...don't know what else to say....

puffy

Daniel's eyes have been weird lately, where "weird"= A Little Puffy With A Tinge Or Dark Circle But Nothing Gross Or Particularly Unsightly.

So I took him to the doctor, one who on that day, was the ONLY doctor available.

His diagnosis was an ear infection, throat infection, conjunctivitis and cellulitis, the latter being a potentially blinding situation, so I had this internal motherly meltdown because Serious Shit, y'all, then the doctor said something to the tune of "let's wallop Daniel's infections and eyeball futz with some pills the size of my foot.".

And that kind of straightened me out because Dude makes a living out of prescribing. I mean, you NEVER leave his rooms withoot (withoot? Is a typo worth saving!) a script for antibiotics, and that's a bona fida absolute. Also, he is, in my opinion, a crappy diagnostician, but one purported by his desk clerk to be fabulous at spotting a Foreign Object if one existed.

Which one did not.

So I told Prescribing Doctor I wasn't sure about his advice because, hello, NEVER NOT PRESCRIBING, and apart from the one big bulgy eye, my kid was fine, and then I dramatically windmilled my arm around so my pointing finger was aimed at Daniel, who was proving my argument by tooling about the office, merrily playing with toys and generally being SO not unwell. That, I explained, plus the non existent temperature suggests to me that maybe we should hold off on the dramatic measures.

But what do I know, I'm not a doctor! (because I may be a smartass, but I also know how to play the room)

But PD agreed with me (my inner dialog: Like, what? So why go with the Diagnosis Of Doom as a first alternative if there was an option of "He's fine"?) and said IF he gets worse, THEN fill the script. Inner Dialog was still all muttering "well no SHIT, you idiot. That's what a SENSIBLE doctor would have told me to do in the FIRST place", but I thanked him and left and Daniel recovered like, THAT DAY.

I had my own appointment to see my doctor two days later to talk about the practical considerations of my busy life (Can't die! No one to look after Daniel if I do! Boo! Hoo! Need logical male insight, etc!) so took Daniel instead to follow up on his questionable ear infection and HE said, nothing wrong with his ears, his throat's clear, and he had no conjunctivitis OR cellulitis, bravo.

Which was SO not a surprise because Daniel wasn't being all infected-with-related-malaise in the first place.

Then a few days later, Sudden Onset Of Swollen Eye, redux, so I got in to see ANOTHER doctor, and he said "hayfever". Then I slapped myself on the forehead because I'd actually CONSIDERED this but, yes, Not A Doctor, what would I know?

So at this point, we were at the "My son has hayfever and his eye(s) swell a bit sometimes.", which was doable, you know?

Then one night, Daniel played with a kitten, and then we left, and then his right eye swelled up to monstrous proportions and not only did AROUND his eye swell, INSIDE it did too. No kidding, it was like some kind of spongy growth was taking over his eye socket. SO GROSS. So I whipped him off to the emergency room, pondered the 250 buck (!) service fee before deciding, "fuckit", then got a REALLY cool emergency doctor who consulted in the foyer OUTSIDE the emergency room, meaning we dodged all fees (!!) before we were sent on our way with a reliable diagnosis and a prescription for some over the counter meds.

Score!

The Not Scorey part of the evening was that Daniel was having an acute (so. not. cute) (oh har di har) allergic reaction to....

....cats.

Which was truly awesome because we have a cat.

Which is why his eye(s) had been going up and down like crazy.

BUT!

The good news is that Awesome Doctor doesn't believe Hollie is THE problem. "Keep the cat!", he cried when I furrowed my brown and asked the inevitable, so then I feigned relief because I kind of wasn't planning on ditching her anyway.

Granted, currently she's A problem, so comes with associated skull and crossbones and XXX, etc. Alternatively, there are anti histamines, but as we've all co-existed in peace until recently, it's more likely Hollie is adding to his "allergic load", rather than being the REASON for it.

The real culprit is more likely to be the grasses, pollens and usual allergy making shit floating around this season. I mean, about 99.9999% of the population has hayfever right now, Daniel is hardly Robinson Crusoe when it comes to puffy eyes and snuffly noses, you know?

And in the absence of a neat ending to this story...