what I didn't do yesterday

Or today, for that matter.

Is ceremoniously dip a pregnancy test in my wee.

I bought the test on Friday in preparation for Sunday morning, and here it is Monday afternoon and the stupid thing is STILL on the desk here next to me.

I guess I like hoping I'm pregnant more than I like finding out I'm not.

BUT!

I haven't got my period, and considering I had a (and this has got to be the most erotic statement made on the internet this week) 10mm endometrium measured roughly three weeks ago, unless some inappropriately packaged superglue made its way into the embryo transferring thingummy jig, would I still be carrying that bunch of shit around in my uterus?

And as Angie noted, that second line was probably too hefty to be considered an evaporation line.

Life at present seems to be a series of angst ridden statements that are followed closely by a complex anti-angst argument beginning with the exclamation marked, uppercase version of the word "but".

My boobs aren't sore.

BUT! Contrary to the sore norkatude that was a feature of my pre Daniel PMS days, since I've had him, my rack is TOTALLY uninvolved, which must mean that my hooters being sore AT ALL - and they are! A bit, if I stab at them hard enough with my index finger - is a GOOD sign.

I don't feel pregnant.

BUT! Humungeously sore ta-tas aside, I didn't feel pregnant with Daniel either. I remember rocking up way before my next scheduled blood draw and sighing deeply and dramatically enough for a nurse to do a blood draw right then. Not because she believed me, to shut me up. In a nice way. And guess what? I was still pregnant.

The odds are against it.

BUT!

Two lines, and I've used that same brand and batch of pregnancy tests before and didn't notice an evaporation line AT ALL when I fished that fucker out of the bin to be sure.

Tomorrow (at DAWN, god help me) is the official HcG (or however it's written) Quantitative Test and as it's being done at a public hospital, I guess the unit will phone in the results shortly after this kid turns 18.

If there is a kid.

Oh, I neglected to address Mary's comment about Sunday's test versus Tuesday's. Tuesday's is the official blood test, and Sunday's was the optional home pregnancy test. That I could take anytime. Like now, considering my full bladder and the world's desire to know what the fuck.

I actually thought about it for real then, y'all, but I'm really and truly too chickenshit to know for sure because even if it does say I'm pregnant, then I've got the almighty dread of the quantitative amount that comes back tomorrow being too low for it to be viable.

Rest assured, if I happen to spontaneously pee all over the damn thing anytime between now and tomorrow afternoon, I'll let you know.

****

About Daniel's haircut: his kid, Roy, had asked me on Friday when Daniel was going to get short hair, "just like a real boy". It wasn't malicious, he was truly curious, but regardless, I figured it was time to attend to his long hair before it did become an issue. I mean, no child wants to feel different, and I didn't want the other children to wonder about his boy/girl status, so when we went for a walk on Saturday, I asked Daniel if he wanted his hair cut short, like the other boys, thinking I'd plan for next week at my own hairdresser's as I'm not working much then and bla bla BLA. Well. Daniel put "I wan da heyah cut I wan da heyah cut I wan da heyah cut" on repeat, and while I couldn't be sure it wasn't his No Nap status (seriously, check out the zombie on photo four of the series) giving him that single mindedness, because he WAS so insistent, and because I really DID clarify just what the fuck this whole haircut deal meant in re his Fabio-esque locks (seriously, they might be small, slurringly drunk maniacs, but they TOTALLY get a LOT more of what we tell/say to/ask of them than we realise), we went to the mall and walked straight into the barber shop. Because if we were going to get him a Real Man Hair Do, we were going to get it where Real Man go. Also, barber shop? $15.80. Hair salon? Considerably more.

Then I gritted my teeth, confirmed again that this is what he wanted, and you guys? He was SO EXCITED.

So that cute little chick in the photos, Natasha, who was about twelve and who, in truly poetic Well OF COURSE She Does style, has two year old brother herself, stuck him on the Little Kids Booster Seat, draped him and with his little feet poking out from underneath *bam* my little boy's long hair was chopped off in one fell swoop, and now his long blonde pony tail is over there is a ziplock bag.

That ponytail, but the way and in the interests of probably gross full disclosure, is the same hair that wafted around my amniotic fluid way back the day. The rest of it fell out when he was around three months old, but that bit at the back? His mullet? That is the same mullet he had before he was born.

Daniel had a GREAT time too, the little freak. He sat and watched and when his curls started falling in front of him, was all "waddat?!", which is his trademark question these days for EVERYTHING, along with the index finger accompanied "you hear dat?"

Then it was over, and Natasha waxed his hair which, while it looked great, eyoo, you know what I'm sayin'? Then we left and the first thing he told me was "I wan dah heyah up" which is what he says when he wants his hair in a ponytail. No shit, I really struggled to not ball my eyes out and only just kept my shit together when I explained that no, darling, you can't do that anymore. FOREVER, if The Man has anything to say about it.

He asked several times aafter his bath yesterday too, and I'm getting a lump in my chest just thinking about it.

For the most part though, he seems to be reveling in this new hair freedom. Or maybe his Mood Moderating Hormones reside in his keratin stores because dude has been acting all whackjob ever since.

a little off the top

Or, what we did yesterday.

finis

I'm an idiot

And this is why.

I got up this morning with no period and the words "morning urine" wafting through my brain, so I peed on a stick at 6.15am, managing to get the flow in the right direction only because I peed into a cup and then dipped the stick into it.

Which is a method I highly recommend.

I blame the "morning urine" part of the whole equation for the existance of this sorry tale because I ALWAYS pee twice, once at ridiculous o clock, and then an hour or two later when time actually begins.

So wanting to do it right, I chose Phase One of Operation Void Bladder.

Which is why when the urine passed uneventfully over the action side of the test strip, I said "fuck it" and went back to bed.

In my defense, I don't function AT ALL at that time of day, and may or may not be known for falling back to sleep again ON THE JOHN with my pants around my ankles and my head against the hand basin.

Anyway, this morning we got up just before eight and OF COURSE I checked the now TOTALLY not reliable test strip and lo, I found the fucking thing had two lines on it.

I'm not excited because I'm too busy refraining from banging my head against the wall.

And you lot, please, DO NOT get too excited either because the best way to get a FALSE positive is to leave your pregnancy test wallowing on the bathroom counter for more than ten minutes which, check. So while I went to extremes (ie I got up EARLY and endeavored to FUNCTION) for the best chance at an honest result, I proved only that I really AM that amount of useless in the morning.

That being said, I've optimistically peed on a stick in the past and hours later (code for "when I retrieved it from the trash") noticed a very, very faint line that require the right light, bionic vision and a whole lot of enthusiasm to notice.

This one is kind of not faint.

Check it:

No, wait.

First, pinky swear to remember THIS IS NOT A LEGITIMATE RESULT.

*waits*

Okay. Proceed.



Need a closer look at it?



I called the unit and THANK GOD, got a nurse that isn't a fuckhead.

me: bla bla no period
her: *ears audibly prick up*
meL: bla bla have no idea how (OF COURSE I KNOW HOW) but I ROOTED the only test strip I have in the house

(Obviously, not only am I stellar in the morning, I'm also a wicked good planner)

her: I'd be quietly optimistic at this point.
me: Oh....

My goodness.

So the fat lady hasn't yet sung to either audience. That "quietly optimistic" thing from The House Of You'll Never Get Pregnant has got to be...well, good.

Maybe.

I don't know!

The upshot is if I do a test on Sunday, and do not causally saunter away immediately afterwards, it's likely to be accurate.

Or I could wait until Tuesday to get a blood test.

So let's vote. Sunday pee test of Tuesday blood test?

zing

Given that it's around 9.30am right now, and given that we usually get up around 7.30, I've got about twenty two hours of this fried brain syndrome thing I've got sizzling in my head right now.

Which is either annoying or encouraging because the last time I went through the waiting, I was all, meh.

more waiting

So essentially, I've got to make it through until Friday without a) going crazy and b) getting my period.

If I get there without meeting either criteria, Nurse Killjoy says I can take a pregnancy test.

How cool would it be if Friday was the day after Wednesday?

And now for some negativity because, why not!

Nurse Killjoy is the delight that said (among other spectacularly negative comments) after I'd made the comment that "I know that statistically there's only a ten percent chance I'll get pregnant, it could happen because someone's got to fit into that ten percent to get that ten percent, so why can't it be me? Rambleramblenervousbullshitramble." You know, being all positive and hopeful and stuff. Because really? At this point, you've only got hope.

And unless you're WAY more...creative in your thinking than you are knowledgable of the fucking obvious, then you're aware the other part of the equation is, if not a concrete number, then is a least substantially larger.

The killjoy was quick (QUICK) and keen (VERY) to burst the bubble o' hope with The Facts (which, come the fuck on. A fertility clinic's trade, second only to their practical expertise, lies in hope) saying some shit about "well as long as you remember that there's a ninety percent chance you WON'T get pregnant.".

No kidding. Really? Because I was a little hazy on my MATHS.

God, what a buzzkill.

Also, those ten follicles that got measured...you know, it only two and a half weeks ago.

Me: Um, that's good, isn't it? It's not bad...is it? Ten?

Bubble popper: Mmmm, on paper it looks oookaaay, but really? Until we go in there....

Note to her: Hate.

Oh, okay. Dislike. But strongly.

BUT ANYWAY

tick tock.

waiting

The two week wait hasn't really bothered me, so apparently I'm a freak. I'm a bit freaked now though because having stopped progesterone supplements on Sunday, this is when the nail chewing begins in earnest.

My period is technically due today, so I'll either get it (whenthefuckever because while it's due today, I have NO idea what effect the progesterone has had on it) or I don't.

Point being, I'm kind of on tenterhooks here folks.

reader vote

Should I be hopeful this could work?:
a) yes, definitely.
b) no. NO.

It's not an obsession thing, honestly. HONESTLY. I've only googled twice and this time was because the weird brown whatever the fuck showed up again today. Not a lot, just a streak on the toilet paper, and this time, because I'm possibly an idiot, rather than googling what could be going so wrong that this stuff is showing up, I googled "implantation bleeding" instead.

And? Score.

So many pages describing what I'd seen in the same time frame I was seeing it.

And
this one? Sshe could be me if I honed my writing skills.

I'm nine days post transfer with three day old embryos (that's the 9pt3dt part of her entry. 9 Post Transfer, 3 Day Transfer. Or something. I might be doing [having?] IVF, but I'm so not hip with the lingo) too, and her description of the weirdness is more accurate than my literary dodging of an accurate description, and is absolutely what I could have written if I didn't totally cop out of the Guess What's Coming Out Of My Girl Parts component of my earlier entry.

ANYWAY

Check the dates.

That entry was written in May, 2006, and as per her sidebar, her daughter was fourteen months old last week.

as it happens

These words, from the other room: Happy birthday cake!

my head hurts

So I've been nursing this fucking headache for two days now, and my eyes are all wonky and OF COURSE I keep being hit with the associated waves of nausea. And my back hurts. I feel like I've been hit by a truck, not because I'm pregnant - which is not to say I'm not pregnant, mind, as no pee sticks have been peed on here folks, because as long as I keep my pee where it belongs ie not all over my hands as I try to direction the damn stuff onto some hinky Absorbent Tipped Thing, I can still dream.

ANYWAY

The point.

Is that I'm headachey and I can't focus and I'm nauseous and I might as well have been hit by a damn truck because when that trolley boy (man, whatever, dude was at least 45) lost control of his row of fifty billion trolleys and whacked the lot of them into the small of my back, it FELT like a damn truck had hit me. I honestly thought I'd been hit by a car because a) everyone is an idiot and I seem to have a big ol' target painted on my rear end, and b) I was in a car lot waiting for this DIPSHIT to reverse out of her damn carpark but because she had NO idea how large her car was (it wasn't, it was a freakin' suzuki swift) in reference to the ENTIRE parking lot (which is huge with a ton of room to three point turn the QEfuckingII), she took FOREVER and if it were not for her idiot self blocking my way, Daniel and I would have cruised my own trolley back to our car in less time than it took for me to get whacked so hard I saw stars.

I felt so shaky for like, TWO WHOLE DAYS, and now I'm not shaky but I'm in pain and feel exhausted and woe, all because of the nimrod factor in MyTown.

So I'm injured, is what I'm saying, and positive that the whole experience has shattered my chances this time round, especially since all the really awesome symptoms like the bloating and the boobs and not being able to poop AT ALL, god help me, suddenly waned. Who knew I could be so sad about taking a righteous dump? And then there was this ****warning*****major squick alert**** ohmyGODHURL type, uh, stuff in my underthings that was entirely unrelated to the dumpage, so I placed my hand to my brow and woefully and metaphorically saluted the imaginary flag waving forlornly at half mast.

Then like any thinking person would, I consulted with Dr Google for confirmation so I could move forward with the grieving process.

I found this page.

Note the title: When IVF Works.

Works, people. And after skimming through all the joyous information about it being NORMAL to lose the pregnancy symptoms as your body gets its shit together following the EXTREME demands you've recently placed on it (talk about a Duh moment, right there. Geesh), I found the bit where it says that all sorts of weird shit coming out of your vag is NORMAL too. So that piece of I don't know WHAT the EFF OhEmGEE wasn't necessarily a death knoll. In fact, it could be a good sign as it might mean my endometrium (is that how it's spelled? My spell check red underlining me) is being nestled into.

So on that note, I'll leave you with something to think about: with a little over a week until the official pregnancy test, and only a few days until a non-pregnant, woeful period would be due, this would be an excellent time to start taking bets.

quick like a bunny

I....don't know how things are going.

The waiting is bearable - or at least, it is while I'm still diligently shoving progesterone pessaries up my (admission time!) butt (which, while it's less socially acceptable than inserting them up your clacker, once you've got past the notion that you're some kind of weirdfuck, the facts are a) you don't get to swill around in the left overs for at least half a day, thanks to the handy dandy sphinctre action you've got going back there. Your twat, on the other hand, will leak that shit ALL DAY which, yes. Good times. Your butt? One fart later and it's all over, red rover, and b) your butt has superior absorption capabilities, as in, you can be fed via your back door. Not that I recommend shoving a Big Mac up there any time soon as an experiment though, you'd need to at least pulverise it before embarking on your research, though I'm pretty sure we're talking specialised nutritional supplements)(ANYWAY) , but with only three days of those things to go, I'm not guaranteeing anything, mood wise as I'm pretty sure the waiting is going to get tortuous because I'm already worrying about NOT being on supplementation. Not because I'm so fond of the, uh, "process" I've got going on here at present, but because it's the sudden drop in progesterone that gives you your period. Not if you're pregnant, they tell me BUT WHAT IF?? I'm not kidding, this has kept me ALL NIGHT, the idea that what if my baby(s) are in there, and what if the cessation of these kinky goings on gives me a period REGARDLESS?

If (when?) I get my period, I KNOW I'm going to be wondering "what if...?".

And that will be torture.

Other than that and right at this point? I'm going well. I'm enjoying this time more than I'm not because right now, there's hope.

Reasons why I could actually be pregnant: the last time I was on progesterone - which can make you feel pregnant REGARDLESS of what the hell is going on in there - nothing. Zilch. Nada. I felt nothing AT ALL. This time? I'm a hormone factory, and my boobs are not happy. Nor am I because jesus h, would you look at the SIZE of my belly? If I am pregnant right now, at this rate, I'm going to look ELEVEN MONTHS pregnant by the time I hit the six week mark.

Mostly though, I'm not really thin king about it much at all. On the one hand I've been all "I should be FOCUSING more, and MEDITATING and VISUALISING!", while the other hand is waving dismissively and saying "meh, what will be will be.". And thanks to me being one lazy mofo, it's that hand that wins, every time.

Then I think, surely NOT focusing SO MUCH on Doing The Right Thing Emotionally To Ensure Success is actually MORE likely to ensure success because my god, it's HARD to be the perfect incubatory vessel when all you want to do is chill out. It's not like I'm doing stuff that's going to REDUCE my chances, you know? I mean, I'm not (unlike when I was a week pregnant with Daniel) knocking back the stollies, getting wildly drunk, and having all night monkey sex with my ex boyfriend (which is an EXAMPLE, not a REALITY)(or not)(ahem), nor am I having saunas or sitting in a spa until my insides are toast.

But! I HAVE been thinking about the whole "ten percent chance" thing.

That number is derived from the combination of women ranging from those who, despite medical intervention, never achieved pregnancy, to those that got knocked up really fucking easily, so really, any one of us going into this thing could personally have a probability factor anywhere in the zero to one hundred percent range, so while the collective is an intimidating ten percent, my personal probability might be really high.

Or maybe I'm high.

in which there were baby photos

As of this moment, I guess I'm technically speaking, pregnant.

Two "excellent" quality, grade 4 embryos were transferred yesterday morning, and once again the care of the staff working behind the scenes almost brought me to tears.

It's funny because these people are primarily scientists, while the Front Of Store people are the customer service reps, so why in hell are the science heads so fucking warm and compassionate and connected, and the latter such a bunch of hos'?

Air question. Ignore.

I got to stand around in a hospital gown, wearing booties and hanging onto a brown paper bag that held my clothes (ie my underpants were in the BAG while I wandered here and there and made small talk NOT COOL)(well, rather cool, and breezy, and not in a good way) while waiting for the nurse, Jane, the same one from the egg retrieval to come back with the laboratory team.

I swear, if I was so inclined, I love that chick so much I'd start dating her with a view to marriage. But I'm not so I'll just love her from afar and appreciate the LIVING SHIT out of her stand out compassion and humor. All those other bitches can go get fucked. The end. Of that story, not this one.

SO ANYWAY

She came back solo and we ended up standing around for a while, me with no freakin' underwear on fuh gawds ache, and her just shooting the breeze with me vis a vis...I have no idea. My brain was on other things like, oh, I don't know, MY EMBRYOS. Of which there were two EXCELLENT quality ones, did I mention?

Shortly thereafter some twelve year old kid ducked in to drop an esky off before ducking quickly out again. "That was the embryologist" said Jane and I said "Oh my goodness, is that my embryos?". "Well, it's not a six pack of beer" she replied. HA. Which was a pity, because I needed one.

When she handed me the consent form and requested that I, Anna Bee, do want to transfer two (2) embryos, I....kind of balked. "Um, I know I TOTALLY overthought the numbers and percentages and whatnot to come up with the number two, but why exactly am I going with that?", and Jane told me to talk to the twelve year old, he knew this embryonic shit and would reiterate all the damn facts and give me his opinion. Then, as if by magic, the twelve year old returned and introduced himself and MY GOD, what a LOVELY prepubescent boy he was. So kind and sweet and again, so NOT like the clusterfuck masquerading as human beings out front of this store. Then the guy doing the embryo transfer rolled in too, and after introducing himself and shaking my hand (with his lovely soft ones), he asked Embryo Boy how the babies were doing.

FOR REALS.

The BABIES.

MINE.

They were all so freaking compassionate and nice and sympathetic to what was really about to happen here that I had to fight to not explode, what with all the free love on offer in this room.

Then the experts explained that transferring two embryos carries only a twenty percent chance of twins, and that a pregnancy at all weighs in at ten percent. Add two, divide by the year I was born (which is the same archaic year Transfer Guy was born. How much do I LOVE that he noted this as a good omen? THIS MUCH!!) equals *bam* only a two percent chance of twins. Additionally, added Embryo Boy, transferring the two increases conception rates. Additionally part deux, he continued, with embryos as excellent as mine that the ENTIRE hospital are calling them Bill and Ted (which may or may not be an observation involving some or a lot of artistic license), it would be a shame to risk one by freezing and either losing it then, or losing it or reducing its awesomeness on the thaw.

So yes. Two.

Specifically, these ones.


Their image flashed across the screen for literally two seconds ("embryos don't like ambient temperatures") and I was waiting with my camera, flat on my back, legs in the whatnots, and with Transfer Guy seated at the action end of things. Which involved a surgical drape exposing ONLY the action part of things. How GORGEOUS did I feel? NOT VERY.

I'm going to blame nerves but I even explained why I wasn't using a flash ("I can bring the image up with Photoshop but taking out a flash flare?" I AM SUCH A NERD), and then there they were, The Babies, and I AM such a nerd because I made comment that goodness me, they look JUST LIKE Daniel did at the same age.

Hilarity ensued, and then the embryos were sucked into a tube, delicated handed over from Embryo Boy to Transfer Guy, and the whole procedure was explained to me real time as it went live. "I'm just introducing the whatsit now, I'm making sure it's in position, it is, I'm transferring your embryos now" which if you know me AT ALL, you'll know that I love this kind of interaction. It involves me, and if it involves me, I want to be involved. Capiche?

Then the tubey thing was examined under the microscope to see if the embryos had, indeed, been transfered. They had, the drape was whisked away at the same time a more modest sheet was hurled over my girl bits, and before you know it I was standing upright and wondering if I should instead be hanging upside down to increase my chances.

Answer? No. Thank goodness.

Both EB and TG wished me their most sincere luck, and TG shook my hand TWICE before leaving. "There's no reason this won't work.", he said. "Good luck".

How much do you want to cry with happyjoy emotion right now??

Then within minutes it was all over. we were all out the room, and I was dressed again. When I threw my hospital gown in the laundry hamper, I saw the others' surgical gowns and the drapes and whatnot in there too, and it was all rather symbolic. Don't ask me why or how, it just was.

As was the Friday the Thirteenth transfer. How AWESOME is that?

Then I had a shot of progesterone in my ass, and a jar full of progesterone pessaries in my bag for the seven days after this bigassed shot wears off, and a date to come back on July the first to confirm my pregnancy.

Because this can happen. I AM pregnant right now, so I could be pregnant in a little over two weeks too.

My embryos are four days old today, and hopefully are still happily dividing because until they reach blastocyte status in a day or two, will be bouncing around in my uterus. It's only when they're six days old or thereabouts that they can implant.

Which is....scary, but reassuring. But more scary, I think.

I hope so much that they're still alive, then think that they grew so well in the laboratory that, seeings as how embryos do better inside the womb, they MUST still be there, fighting to become whoever it is their genetic code has already mapped them out to be.

:::::

In other baby news, Daniel and I are going to a birthday party in about an hour, and while I've been sitting here ignoring HIM in favor of YOU, Daniel's been drawing.

score

Yesterday's egg retrieval went very well, so fuck off Sunday's scan nurse, and you can shove your doom and gloom predictions up your negative ass.

When I came around from my multi thousand dollar float on a cloud (aka The Fentalnyl Haze) the excavating team practically high fived me because they'd retrieved eleven eggs.

ELEVEN.

From my wizened old ovaries and following a short stim cycle.

It's not a competition, but to give you some perspective here, the woman in the bed opposite me got one egg, while the girl in the bed diagonally over - who was considerably younger than me - got six.

The procedure itself, the one where they shove a needles through the walls of your girl parts and go all stabby on your ovaries, went a whole lot more easily than the multitude of blogs I've read on the subject had led me to believe. For one, you're asleep, and for two, the pain is crampy, bearable, and for me, at first not unlike a standard period pain, and later, much more like wind pain. I'm still a little bloaty today though, I think because something something ovaries leak fluid into your abdominal cavity something something.

I got no bleeding, which while not common, is a known consequence of all that needle action going on in your veejayjay, and while I had the urge to fart for, like, the entire DAY with no actual fart action going on, I also got to languish in bed for TWO WHOLE HOURS and DO NOTHING except partake of the stellar treatment one receives this side of the clinic doors.

The other side of the doors, the one where hope is dashed from your soul at every opportunity, is a MASSIVELY stark contrast to the attitude of the retrieval - and I suppose, the egg planter inner team, and it was wonderful to have people as hopeful as I am in a game where the odds are TOTALLY against me.

The night before the retrieval, my friend Enn asked me how I was feeling, and you know? I realised then that I was feeling sad.

Going through all this, and even the joy of conceiving a child, means the end of the dream I grew up with. The one where I have a child with a man who loves us both.

That dream is pretty much gone now anyway, but if I ever needed proff of its demise, this is it, so while this is all a good thing, it's still sad to mourn the loss of one's other hopes.

It also felt so safe having those eggs safely tucked in my own ovaries, so while I was looking forward to having them sucked into a needle and spat into a test tube, I was also sad about them going too. I mean, I MADE those things, they were MINE, and while I was handing them over to make a bigger and more complex MINE thing, ie A HUMAN BEING, I was still handing them over and....I'm working this out as I type....their fate was no longer in my control. Not that it was anyway, but feelings can be as dumb as a box of rocks sometimes.

But anyway, my, uh, reproductive material has been marinating in some prime beef type anonymous man juice since yesterday afternoon, and by the time the embryologist called today, five had fertilised "normally", which I think is a generic term that describes eggs that have done the rumpy pumpy with one only sperm, instead of either going over all whorey and done it with two, or had gone the other way and metaphorically closed their legs to all potential suitors.

It's pretty freaky to think about, that there are five of my potential children out there, five teeny tiny little halves of me. It's kind of freaky to think about. It's almost like thinking about the universe growing into I don't know what the fuck because the universe is infinite, how could it be GROWING?? And if it IS growing, what the eff is it growing INTO?

gold

So I'm a personal trainer, bla bla BLA, so what's my advice on setting up a training habit?

Aim low.

If you're not currently active and want to be more active, get your gym membership up and running - and commit to performing one set of one exercise. Or if walkings your thing, commit to walking a 100 meters a day. Or if you want to set up a pilates or yoga or a yogalates habit at home, commit one pose every other day.

Thing is, most people fail before they even start by setting their goals too high, and if you're not in the habit of creating opportunities for activity in your life, doing more than a LITTLE more than you're currently doing is generally aiming WAY high.

People will inevitably be all fired up about their new gym membership, or they're going to do a class a day, or weight train five days a week at home, or walk for an hour a day, every day, or fire up their new elliptical trainer, or ride their bike, or swim, or practise yoga every day after work, or WHATEVER.

POINT BEING is people tend to set themselves unreasonable short term goals, and it's those goals that get in the way of them achieving their long term goals, regardless of whether those goals are to run the Boston Marathon, or to maintain a regular workout schedule by toddling around the block three times a week.

It's easy to be plan on doing the more grandiose things, but actually and really committing to making activity a habit requires a reasonable plan, and it could also do with a good amount of willingness to be moderate in your actions.

Think of it this way: if you do LESS than you planned on doing, you feel like you've failed, right? Like, if you told yourself you were going to workout for an hour a day and "only" managed forty five minutes before collapsing in a heap, you've not met the goal you set yourself so even though you've worked hard for an entire FORTY FIVE MINUTES, it's still less than your goal. And, if you do workout for the whole hour, chances are you'll eitehr feel like shit the entire time, or will wake up feeling like shit the next day because you're unable to MOVE for the sore muscles, and in both cases what you're doing is NOT setting up a regular habit, it's laying the foundations of workouts = NOT FUN. You don't want that. YOU don't want your habit to start out a) not liking the workout you've chosen because it HURTS and it reminds you of how UNFIT you've become, and b) physically and emotionally perpetuating that idea because who can enjoy the next workout when they're limping around in pain from the one prior?

So it is, in my opinion and experience, better to plan on doing LESS than you believe is optimal, because when you do that you are a) constantly achieving each time you meet that lesser goal, b) totally WINNING if you happen to do more than that goal, which c) you're more likely to do if your goal is a lesser one, and are d) more likely to end your workout with thoughts of "man, I am SO FIT and SO STRONG I could have done MORE!" and "I really AM that amount of AWESOME!", and you're more likely to feel all "My GOD, I can't wait to work out AGAIN because, AWESOME = ME!!".

So setting up a regular habit is more about mind games than it is the execution of a game plan, and the point of a regular habit is NOT to do an entire SHITLOAD more than you did yesterday, it's to do a little more. Even if it's only a single step more.

All those little bits add up, so what you're doing is taking little nibbles at the big CHUNK of lifestyle change you're after.

And if you feel good about yourself, you're more likely to still be doing what makes you feel good six weeks from now, and if you're still doing it six weeks from now, you're statistically much more likely to still be doing in several months.

Don't be scared of increasing your challenge, but do be aware of not making that challenge a subsequent, unrealistic short term goal.

Which brings us to the paradox of working "hard". It's easier to do a hard work out and to and do too much, so it's actually harder to moderate yourself into doing "enough".

ker-really quick

because I we're leaving ion half an hour for my next scan, and Daniel is still asleep and I'm still in my pyjamas.

Last scan, Wednesday: People, I have, like, A MILLION follicles, and this is no lie. If by a million I mean TEN.

Which is fucking awesome considering this is one of those old lady last ditch effort short cycles (I may come back later and update this entry with informative links. Or I may not)

There are the aforementioned four (hee) on the left ovary, and the "around three" on the right turned out to be (quick, who's good at maths?!)

SIX.

All measuring really well except for one (ONE ONLY) which has seemingly gorged itself on both gonal-f and ora...whatver the heck that stuff is called. The box is in the car, no idea what the arrangement of letters is.

Anyway, that follicles was all 16x18mm and going "BOOYAH!", and my doctor (and it WAS MY doctor this time, YAY) was all "pipe down motherfucker, none of US are impressed".

That loud and proud follicle is in no way a threat to the others coming along nicely enough that I need another scan TODAY because it looks like a retrieval on Tuesday, which would have been Monday if not for the lameass Queen's Birthday public holiday.

Gotta go.

x

afreakin'choo

I have a cold, it's after ten, and this is my first opportunity ALL day to sit down and not do something requiring my brain matter, so it's going to be a quick "then I did this and that and this" update, okay?.

The alarm went off at six this morning, and Daniel to childcare so I could get to my 7.45 scan, then as soon as I left there, I had to cross town to run a class, then I left there to cross town again for another emergency dental appointment, and after that it was all running around doing at least some of the mountains of errandy type shit I've not been able to do this last week or so because all my damn time has been taken up visiting fucking dentists. Then I went home to take a deep breath and mainline a coffee before picking up The Dude, except before I even sat down, work called, and because I was totally high on the real deal pseudoephedrine, I agreed to taking the 5.20 circuit class. Which was a mistake because now I feel even more like that much shit, and my cold is all "yay, now I can take over this mothership", and my head is all "Man, how much does viral domination suck?", and my nose is all "THIS MUCH!!".

About the scan: I've been injecting Gonal-F once a day since Saturday, and my ovaries are now totally rocking on with four follicles on the left side, and at least three on the right. The ones on the right aren't as impressive as "three" sounds as one is measuring 14x11mm, and another is measuring at 14x12, when all the rest are still under 10mm.

Those flashy, overachievers will likely put out before the other five regular sized follicles are even at first base, which is okay, because that still leaves the popssibilty of up to five follicles, which is okay because it's one HELLUVA lot better than two.

The second salient point about all this ovarian activity is that most of the usable follicles are my left ovary, so even if this cycle goes to shit, it could still be converted to something useable, thanks to my good fallopian tube being on that side too.

Orgalutran injections started tonight, there'll be another tomorrow night, and then a scan on Friday to see how those follicles are responding. Hopefully well, as I'd LOVE to be able to trigger over the weekend for an egg retrieval on Monday, as that's the only day I don't have paid work, and the guilt factor involved in bailing work I don't get paid for isn't as bad as when I cancel on a paying job.

Today's other good news is probably not particularly factually good, it's just that the toothy news has been SO bad, it's laughable, so there's really no amount of worrying I CAN do because, seriously, HILARIOUS.

The tooth I'm going to lose? Is not alone, so I'm up for twice as much of the bullshit I wailed on about the other day. The specialist is less keen on taking either tooth out now, because there are two of them and hello, Gappy McHoagly. There's also another tooth with not a bad foundation, but it's 1mm less than optimal. Which the two asshole teeth may have been like not that long ago. Which means, unless someone works out what the fuck is going on, it's worrying. And as Perioguy has absolutely no idea why I'm losing bone around vital teeth, it IS worrying. He's going to call me in a week after he's discussing the mystery with his "colleagues at the University". Hopefully there'll be some bright spark there who has some idea abut, if not what's causing all this, then at least a possible treatment plans.

According to him, if this WAS gum disease, which he does NOT believe it is, this level of destruction would take YEARS to develop, whereas my problem has developed in a matter of months, if not weeks.

Scary, huh? Or it would be if my head could get around the magnitude of the problem. Which it can't. Yay?

chock full o' stuff

The upshot is that I'll lose my tooth. Oh, there's stuff that can be done in the meantime to buy time to save the five thousand bucks (!) for the titanium implant each one of four specialists recommends I need, not could do with for cosmetic reasons alone, so while I've come to grips with losign a damn tooth (actually, not so much with the coming to grips, but what I HAVE come to grips with is that I can either freak out or accept with grace, the final outcome won't change, so I'd rather move forward without the angstsy shit fucking me up)

You know what shits me most though? Among the other thousand things that shit me about this shitty situation? Is that there is no reason AT ALL anyone can find to explain why this is happening. It's just another one of those fucking things, you know? And my entire frickin' life has been a series of those, so just this one time I'd like to be able to point to a reason and say "Bummer, man, I should have brushed more or had that root canal or whateverthefuckever I should have done to prevent this.", but I can't because apart from the bone eating infection and its mysterious origin, there is nothing wrong with my teeth.

They sit prettily (now, thanks to the orthodontics) in perfectly healthy gums with three perfectly healthy roots holding it in, but one of those roots is sitting in diseased and disintegrating bone, so no matter how healthy the rest of that shit is, if there's no socket to support it all, it's adios, amigo.

One of the specialists, a guy who has met me only once, has rallied my own dentist to work out a patch up deal where they've offer their treatment for free (guys, that's like, a couple of thou worth right there). Their proposal is to root canal my not-technically-requiring-a-root-canal tooth before severing the actual root that sits in the shitty bone, and then doing a gum graft to cover up the hole that gets left behind. Leaving a formerly three rooted tooth with only two is like sitting on a chair with only two legs though, so that'll work for maybe a day, maybe a thousand, and then I'll be right back here again, so the only reason for all this proposed fricking around is that keeping that tooth for as long as possible will slow down or hopefully even halt any further bone loss, which then assists in maintaining stability of the surrounding teeth and offering a viable area for the titanium implant to be, uh, implanted and bla bla BLA.

Jesus H, it sounds complicated and that's because IT REALLY IS. Because of the infection and disintegrating whatsits - which showed itself, like, only two weeks ago - this isn't a simple matter of pulling that fucker out and getting on with it. There's all this fucking surgery that has required three specialists and my dentist to think up so that hopefully I don't end up losing more.

This is like living one of those nightmares where you spit out teeth each time you open your mouth.

Actually, it's not "like" living it, it is living it.

And none of this has any explanation.

I've done so well until now, and really? I'm doing well now too, according to all the dudes invested in my mouth right now (which sounds kind of porny)(and possibly like a viable option for saving that 5K)(for yes, I AM that good)(ahem)(ANYWAY), even though I feel like my concern is a little out there when relating to a single tooth. And they don't know that I'm coping well with this news at the same time I'm coping well with fertilty treatment, so....I must be doing REALLY well. Except I feel like I'm losing my mind.

And I began losing it before I even knew about the recommendation and its associated 5K price tag. Which is why I think I'm over reacting because my brain went into meltdown wehn all it was contemplating was a gap where my tooth now sits.

I'm also pretty pissed because the two months of work I'm into now was supposed to pay for this quarter's bills, and the loan I took out three months ago was supposed to pay for IVF, so I'd got my ducks in a row and had my finances planned and orderly and manageable.

Now though, I've effectively had to weigh up having a child versus saving my teeth, which isn't an argument really, or wouldn't have been if I hadn't just gone through all this surgery and treatment to save my face's appearance and function in the first place.

The child won, obviously, because I fgured I'd ratehr be in debt and pregnant than just in debt, and I began injecting with gonal-f yesterday. Except now I don't know if I'm cranky because I'm stressed or if I'm cranky because of the whacky making hormones circulating my system.

I feel so overwhelmed by this, all of it, and I think I know why I'm freaking out about some of it, at least.

Apart from the prospect of all this extra SHIT ahead of me, that is.

This past year, and the previous two years of knowing and planning, and kind of the rest of my previous LIFE, was meant to have a finish, one that all this was for and one that I kept my eye on when things were grim, tough, painful, lonely, overwhelming or swollen. Seeing that finish, focusing on the day my bands would come off, was like putting an end to ALL the complexities of my difficult life, because life has SO got together and life is SO good, not in comparison to how it has been, but despite it. This has been about so much more than getting my teeth and face straightened.

And that's how I've not been affected by the physical horrors of the past year.

When I imagined the end to all this surgery and banding and all the fucking ugly I;'ve been through, it wasn't meant to also be the start of another arduous journey innvolving my teeth, more uncertainty, and a whole new kid of ugly.

It wasn't meant to be complicated and marred, emotionally and aesthetically, by a dud tooth. Or a dud tooth socket. Or whatever.

And I'm going to stop The Whine now because denial is a better coping mechanism and all this documenting is making that not work so well.

So let's talk about shopping. Which is one of my MOST hated past times, and multiply that by a THOUSAND when applied to bra shopping, but I DID get me some new bras, and no one died in the process, and lord's heaven above, even though they're only t-shirt style and not type ho' push up boulder holders, I actually look like I have a sizeable rack.

Adding to my astonishment is the fact that I'm a freakin' B cup.

Not that I give a shit about that because I like mah boobs' size just fine thankee, it's just that I'm gobsmacked. I mean, I'm flat. FLAT, so who knew so much of my boobage was hiding in my armpit? Not me, that's for sure, but then one halfway decent bra later and wham, it's a boobfest. With underwire. UNDERWIRE, so if one of my more memorable apres baby boob orientated quotes is to be believed, Hell apparently has frozen over.

I'm so hard to fit too that despite being fitted by three (THREE) different fitters, two of them working in tandem and all of them doing this shit PROFESSIONALLY ALL DAY LONG, none could find anything more than "Meh, this'll do the job...". BUT! I found some great fitting bras off the rack (off the "rack" HAHAHA) at K-mart. No underwires cutting my boobs in half, no spillage or lots of vacant space up top, and none of those annoying ass straps riding here, there, and wherever the hell they want. I even had to go to two different stores on opposing ends of town because one store taunted me with a style that was PERFECT but in the wrong colour (white = grey in a week or two, thank you awesomely skanky MyTown water supply) I had to cross town for to find in my size. It wasn't in Store B either but ohmyheavens, at least three different styles there fitted me, and trust, that's like a billion percent more than even the professionals could find for me.

In short? Yay.

Daniel is doing really well too, so well that to look at him, you'd have no idea he was channeling pure BLAH less than a week ago. He's maybe sleeping a little more, but it might just be that he's been home more too. Which has been wonderful because I really DO like spending time with him.

So there it is, the story of my teeth, my meltdown, my ovaries, rationale, my finances, my boy and my boobs.

Things I've not mentioned include my lawyer, my hair, and how much I miss my dad, but it's not because I'm keeping secrets. I just....haven't got around to it, I guess.

Oh, and hey! You know what I've not update you all on AT ALL despite intending to AS IT HAPPENED? My mother. If you're interested, I will. I mean, it's not that interesting and involves mostly that I no longer consider myself her daughter because she's about as useful in our life as tit's are in a bull's. Which sounds suspiciously like an update. With bits missing.