people suck, chapter three billion and counting

So I was out looking at cars today, and as I was leaving a car yard that reeked of No Way Am I Buying A Used Vehicle From Here, I slipped on some gravel strewn over the concrete and did that embarrassing dance where your arms flail around and your legs spin under you like you're a Looney Tunes character until you finally do NOT defy the laws of gravity and fall over.

A car was stopping to turn not ten feet away from me and let me take a moment to inquire, what the fuck is wrong with people? I mean, if I saw someone do a merry dance before falling gracelessly onto their ass, I'd at the very LEAST call out through my already open window "are you okay?", but would in fact most likely stop and cross the road to a) help them up and then b) ask if they were okay.

Which is NOT what happened when I fell over in front of whatever human deficit was driving past at the time.

And on the other side, was the used car salesman showing an old bucket to three would-be car buyers. I still can't believe none of them saw me, but apparently not one of them did so NO ONE offered assistance or asked if I was okay, which seriously offends my sense of what's right, you know? Not that I was bleeding profusely from a dangling limb or anything, but still, NO ONE?

Then I realised that this was in my favor because did I don't really want any more legal hassles when I'm only just now wading through a fresh bunch of them thank you trolley guy. So I, bruise on my ass and bruised ego in hand, hobbled back to my car, all ingognito like. Then I hobbled back to used car guy because I figured I'd do him a fucking favor and tell him his veranda type thingy was slippery, he might want to sweep away the tripping hazard.

Dude was so rude to me. I was feeling the effects of the adrenalin by then, and was all shaky and forlorn, but after that verbal ass whooping, I was almost crying. Then he turned and walked away and after I gazed slack jawed and sobby eyed at him for a brief moment, turned to walk away too.

Then I thought, no, fuck you you giant fucker, and followed used car guy so I could ask for a chair, a glass of water, and five minutes because, y'all, I was shaking and trying not to cry like some big baby, and I didn't want to sit alone in my car and try to get a fucking grip, I wanted at least SOME of the compassion I show for others is that too much to ask oh I think not.

But Captain Fuckwit was already missing. The three other guys were still there and wondering if I was making a fuss over nothing or if I really DID go for a huge sixer, I asked them "did you see me fall?", hoping one of them would offer me some human kindness and say "Yes I did, are you okay?".

The captain blew out of his office SO FAST and began YELLING at me "they didn't see anything, I know what your game is yell yell YELL".

I was all "WHAT?", and he was all "INSURANCE!!", and, oh yeah, check that. I can see why he got that idea. How cool would it have been though, if I'd yelled, finger in the air, "now there's an idea!"?

But I had the decency to feel foolish instead because yes, maybe my actions could have been seen as being questionable, and THEN I felt so fucking angry because, "questionable"? He had NO right to yell at me. NONE, and not only because I fell in his yard and actually and really and truly did hurt myself.

HE FAILED TO CLEAN HIS SHIT UP (intentional capslock)

Therefore, my fall = his responsibility

And there he was trying to intimidate me when I a) did him (and the brittle old lady I visualised coming a cropper in the same patch of gravel) a fucking FAVOR and b) plainly, simply, and pathetically wanted someone to metaphorically pat me on the fucking head and say something NICE to me.

Which I would do if someone approached me and said "I'm feeling a little shaky". I would WANT to help.

So fuck you, used car guy.

have a cool Yule, y'all

ostrich

I've not called for my results, nor have I peed on a stick.

I figure that they'd have call me for repeat bloods if my last test was positive for any level of HCG, and they haven't called, ergo, I'm guessing it's safe to say I'm not pregnant.

(the world: NO SHIT)

Having it stated definitively though, or seeing that one single line on the test strip, it scares me. I'm fine now, no tears, nothing, I've actually been feeling pretty good, but I'm pretty fucking scared of losing my shit when this is all officially over.

I won't though, because this is me, for crying out loud. I'm that someone you know who bounces along regardless, so I don't know what I'm scared of because of course I'll be okay, and I know this even as I worry that I won't be.

*****

A note, about me, but maybe about anyone going through or who knows anyone going through IVF: a failed cycle isn't just a "failed cycle".

I saw the embryos. I saw life. I saw that speck of hope on the monitor. It wasn't just hope though, because I felt such love for them. Suddenly that day, and still to this day.

I don't want to love a memory. I wanted to love what would be.

I've had a failed pregnancy, and a failed IVF cycle feels pretty much the same.

today=probable suck

I had a blood test last night.

The results will be in sometime today, so this is my last few hours of cruising through the last week or so on the Delusional Cloud.

I mean, I COULD be pregnant.

Daniel walked up to me yesterday, patted me on the tummy and said "baby belly!", which, seriously, WHERE DID HE GET THAT FROM IT WASN'T FROM ME, I DON'T EVEN SAY 'BABY BELLY' WHEN IT IS A BABY BELLY INTENTIONAL CAPS LOCK.

So my son is obviously psychic and his observation is obviously a sign, OBVIOUSLY.

And it's that kind of random shit that's been been keeping me from going nuts (or maybe verifying that I'm already nuts) since last Friday, because when you're desperate, EVERYTHING is a sign. The most compelling being the four women I know directly and the one friend of a friend I heard about who all had their period when they were newly pregnant.

I called the unit yesterday to cancel this morning's blood test, citing my kind-of-but-not-quite-period as a reason to NOT get up at dawn and to NOT stress the entire time I was there as the only morning I work is also on a Tuesday and getting there on time after a morning appointment ALWAYS involves me freaking out a LOT before I do, and even THEY said a period isn't always a definite anti-sign.

So the unit want a blood test because they want a level, and I don't because I'm in my happy place right now, and I'd like to stay there for EVER, thank you very much.

Because the alternative is just too scary.

three

Daniel's birthday celebrations began on Thursday when I very not secretly let him ride a tricycle to the checkout at Target. Then he rode it out the store and through the mall and back to the car.

The next day when he woke up and hopped on it, I called out Happy Birthday! and then we headed out to one of those indoor play cafes because, my god, the rain. The plan had been to go to this really awesome one about twenty minutes up the freeway but as our invited friend's mother almost cacked her pants at the idea of All That Rain, we went to the good enough, slightly less awesome one located in the mall down the road. That's the mall that's SO huge that it's The Mall Of The UNIVERSE and, like, viewable from the MOON, and one I choose to NOT go to at ANY time of the year because it's SO fucking crowded ALL the time, and all the being elbowed and jostled and annoyed kind of freaks me out, in a Vengeful Rage kind of way. But, we went there VOLUNTARILY at lunchtime on Friday, a day which was within the two weeks to Christmas Day Shopping Frenzy aka HELL, because my friend was too pussy to drive on a wet road, and I'm too pussy to say "fuck that shit, we're going".

Point being, oh my heck, the CROWDS.

But we made it and no one died, not even in the parking lot (has anyone else noticed that men, when they see you're waiting for them to leave so you can bogart their parking space, will acknowledge your presence before speeding up the process, while women, specifically MOTHERS, almost ( actually??) slow the fuck down and after pointedly ignoring you but you know they've noticed you because the only place they DON'T look is At YOU, and when they ventually DO get in their car, will sit there and do shit all for AGES before actually leaving?), and the afternoon went off like a rocket.

Daniel had great fun, and we stayed for AGES and only had to pull The Other Kid off Daniel maybe five times, so TOK seems to be doing better with his control issues, though they were an hour late (which, aside: I don't know about y'all, but I can zen out for AGES doing nothing, but ask me to wait more than five minutes past an agreed meeting time, and my brain is toast) because he didn't want to get in the car, he was quite happy at home, thank you very much.

When the kids had exhausted their respective Plays Well With Others factors, we waved goodbye and headed into the fray to look for Father Christmas, who we found and placed under Daniel for probably the crappiest photo of my kid EVER.

delightful

You'd think Daniel had to have been SO over all this excitement by then, but he wasn't, so we wandered around the mall some more and found another small indoor playground, and then we went to the toy store and stood around looking at Thomas the Tank Engine.

Then we left and I was CERTAIN Daniel would want to go home, but he's a freak and asked to go to The Plaza instead, so we went to The Plaza and bought exciting things like MILK and BREAD and other sundry food purchases because that's all you can GET at the Plaza. By now it was 8pm (I KNOW) so I dragged him to McDonald's so I could drink my decaf, read my paper and pretend I didn't have a kid, and he could wander around with his regular sized take away container of warm milk and make people look at me with searing judgement in their eyes when he tells them "mmmmm, I LOVE mah coffee!".

reality/cheque

You know what? I'm okay.

I really am.

Maybe because I'm totally in denial and am all "Light period! I bet I'm still pregnant! Bunnies and kittens!", but also maybe because if the totally OBVIOUS happens and I'm, by some planet shifting, wtf?, NOT pregnant, I've already decided to do this all again, and I seem to do well, even in the face of disaster, when I have A Plan.

Which is: Pee on a stick sometime before Tuesday (which, for anyone who has NOT been expelling endometrium since Sunday, would be Official Pregnancy Blood Test Day). Sell my car. In that order.

I'm not digging a gigantic financial hole for myself (because hot damn I bet you were all worried about THAT)(har) because, thanks to Irresponsible Trolley Boy, I have a claim pending and WILL win a small settlement, so it would be sadly ironic to get (marginally) cashed up just in time for menopause.

"Why not dig myself a gigantic, transient, financial hole?", I asked myself, to which I answered, "Why not!".

And then I may have even danced a little jig.

random

• I don't know how I'm going to get through this.
  

• I know I will, but I don't know how.

• Losing the last pregnancy was and is the worst heartache I've ever known, and I coped by moving forward, by making plans and doing everything I needed to do before I did it all again.

• This feels just as bad, worse even, because this time, there's nothing to work toward.

• There's one frozen embryo, so I guess there is still a way forward, but honestly? The chance of it ever becoming a baby are a zillion times less than anything.

• and then I'll go through all this again but with NO way forward when it fails too.

• Which will be a safe place to be, albeit a very, very sad one.

• When I'm Yoda, I know that this is ALL a good thing, that NOT having another child is still better than not having tried.

• Sadness is easier to live with than regret.

• This Not Being Pregnant Now thing hasn't sunk in. I'm still negotiating with the facts versus my feelings: The bleeding isn't heavy so maybe it IS implantation bleeding. I mean, maybe it is. It could be, couldn't it?

• But I really can't see how, but maybe it is...

• Daniel told me yesterday that he was having a baby. He told me later on that he had a baby in his tummy. Its name is Hallie, and I have no idea where he picked this up because I haven't told him THAT kind of stuff.

• So it must be a sign.

• We met a boy last week. I'd taken Daniel to the playroom at the hospital and he banged at the door yelling "let me in, let me in!", and once he was in, this other kid looked up at me, and with a dismissive wave of his hand said "Mummy? You can leave now!". That boy's name was Luca, which isn't a common name, and is the name I'd choose if I was ever to have another son. His mother was five months pregnant too, which is what I'd have been now, had I not lost that pregnancy.

• So that had to have been a sign too.

• I'm scared of how I'll feel when I KNOW it's over. I feel like there have been so many losses in my lifetime, that I can't cope with any more, not now, not on top of everything else, and at the same time I know that it isn't a hard life, this life of mine, it's simply life.

• I'm angry too, because I SWEAR it was that idiot with his several thousand shopping trolleys rammed into my back that caused the last pregnancy failure.

• I wonder when I'm going to stop wondering "what if?".

• I'm trying not to cry because when I do, Daniel will find me then and ask me "what's the matter mum?", and I don't know what to tell him. He found me on the toilet once, trying not to sob, and he grabbed a wad of toilet tissue from the roll and dabbed at my face telling me I was "all better now". Which made me want to cry even more.

eight days

The spotting was gone by late this morning, and I was about to sit down to update briefly. I mean, SOME bleeding that STOPS has got to be GOOD sign. And maybe I AM the luckiest girl in the world because the first day I can accurately do an HPT is on Daniel's birthday, and THAT had to be a good sign too, right?

But then there was blood, so much blood.

It's not my period but it's not just a stain anymore, and it's SO unfair because I had just this very MINUTE allowed myself that maybe, just maybe, things were going to be okay.

and on the seventh day

there was spotting.

"Light pink discharge" is probably the more accurate description, and it started tonight.

I'm trying to believe it's implantation bleeding.

But.

Losing this pregnancy would be more than losing THIS pregnancy. It would be losing the hope for ever having another child, and with that hope would go the dream of giving Daniel someone else to call his family.

While I can't know if Daniel and this mythical child will ever be there for each other, my hope is that, even if they don't like each other much, they will be, that they'll always have each other.

Of course, the BIG dream is that they DO get along, and that when they grow up, are in each others' lives - and in each other' families' lives - because they like each other.

And realistically, this is my last chance for any of that to happen.

I've run out of (borrowed) money, and if I were to do this again, it would only be possible if I sold my car.

Which I may still do.

It sucks so much to have got pregnant last time because I KNOW the dream is possible.

It sucks because I have a very small statistical chance of achieving pregnancy, and I've already done it. Surely then, the probability this time around is now lower?

I mean, if I had a one in fifty chance of getting knocked up then, wouldn't that now mean another 49 cycles would need to fail before I can hit the two line jackpot again?

And this is how I'm passing the time.

and days later

So the transfer was last Friday. A long series of Well, Waddya Know? type events meant I even got my own doctor, which with the rescheduling from Thursday to Friday, wasn't meant to happen.

It was done under ultrasound guidance, there was beautiful music playing softly in the background, the same music that had played on Tuesday, and I was still wearing my shoes and my underpants had been surreptitiously stuffed underneath my pillow.

Which amused me and the nurse in ways neither one of us could quite explain.

Actually, I have trouble explaining or narrating or writing down anything these days, and reading the last five or so months of these pages and just in case anyone has been reading the same and wondering when I'm going to buy the damn vowel, I DO think I'm depressed. That being said, I don't think I'm clinically depressed, I don't think I need medication, because I do think it's entirely normal to feel this way. I don't think one needs to medicate normal, you know? It's been a tough (which has got to be the understatement of this century) almost two years, so it's not "just" a pregnancy loss making me sad, it's months and months of surgey after surgery and things going wrong and more surgery and all the feeling like shit and THEN the pregnancy loss, followed shortly by another extremely invasive and debilitating surgery that left me feeling more like shit than I ever, EVER have.

But anyway.

The transfer.

When it was done, my doctor pointed out a tiny, bright white bubble on the screen. "That," he said, "is the air around your embryos.".

He might as well have handed me my two newborn babies because the wave of love I felt was exactly how I felt when I first met Daniel.

(Who is going to be three (THREE!) next Friday. Unfortunately, I've not got my shit together enough to plan and deliver a birthday party in time for that day, which is SUCH a shame as this is the first year Daniel has any idea of what a birthday is. Tell me, is it unreasonable to throw a "Three + One Month" birthday party? Or even a "Three + TWO month" one?)

(Also, new Flickr. Go look :) )

So now I'm wandering around with a newly pregnant looking belly, thanks to the exploding ovaries and all the support medication, and am conscious of spending at least some time with my hands over said because this might be the only time they're alive, you know?

If they are still alive, that is.

Which they entirely could be.

Last time held the Unbelievable Card. Like, how unbelievable was it that I'd get pregnant? Try THIS MUCH. So the fear of NOT getting pregnant was buffered by the lack of belief that I could.

And this time, there's no buffer zone.