the tao of when things get fucked up

Thanks, all you fabulous readers, for your comments, thoughts and good wishes. Every single one of you has helped me feel better these last few days. Truly, there are no words other than: “I’m so grateful for each one of you.Thank you.”

Things are feeling better. I had acupuncture on Tuesday and she worked on my emotional points, and I saw my counsellor on Wednesday, who reminded me that the medical system sucks, big time. Yes, those were her words. I love her. It was a good reality check – that they have shut down their compassion because they are in a difficult situation and a stressful system, so it is nothing personal when they are jerks, and I am not the only one who gets hurt by the system and its lack of humanity. It’s not that it shouldn’t be different, but it just isn’t. For some reason, it helped to hear this, mostly in terms of the other thing I took from our session, which is to be like water – gentle, persistent, and strong, not letting the obstacles prevent me from getting where I need to go. (Hence the title of this post.) She told me to expect resistance, expect obstacles – but don’t let them define me or my situation. I need to think more creatively – maybe we can do an insemination at home, maybe they will treat me if I just return to doing unmedicated cycles that don’t need monitoring but instead rely on OPKs, or maybe I can just be in process and take another break and maybe there are blessings in that I just don’t see yet.

The way I’m feeling today is that I’ll probably do the latter. We have been so busy with our moving preparations (more on that later) that I just don’t feel like I have it in me today to work out anything with my clinic. I’m just tired. I know that getting them to agree to doing inseminations at home – just vaginal insemination, nothing fancy – would be a stretch. To say that they don’t seem particularly flexible would be an understatement. However, it would just be the cost of the samples and it’s no skin off their noses. So I haven’t made up my mind yet.

We also have to choose a new donor, as we are out of the samples we bought back in April, and since they didn’t work, there’s no reason to stick with that guy. He had no reported pregnancies, so maybe he’s a dud. This time we’re going to go with someone who has reported pregnancies – I hope we can find someone we feel good about, though. The first donor seemed so perfect, to both of us, and it was nice to feel some kind of connection to the donor, even just through the profile. We are going with open ID, so there is a very real possibility that our child will meet this person some day, and I’d really prefer it if I don’t think the guy is sort of a bonehead from the beginning. I guess people can change a lot in 18 years, but when someone can’t think of a favourite book,  that just says “boring” to me.

Other than that, I’m up to my eyeballs in packing, and we’re running out of newspaper to pack with. We’re aiming to get our house listed by Wednesday, and I am feeling confident that the house will look great by then. Friends are coming to help, and a lot of stuff is already packed into the little shipping container sitting in our back yard. In the past week, I’ve learned more about mortgages than I ever thought I could understand – I am a financial idiot, and know nothing about that stuff. But it turns out I’m not so dumb – I just needed a chance to learn. I shopped around and found us a way better deal than our current bank is giving us, and I’m happy about that. Gotta factor in the next major sperm purchase into the whole budget plan, so saving hundreds of bucks on our monthly mortgage payment is awesome news.

There you have it friends. I’m trying to be like water. Maintaining a heart of peace, but fighting for what I need.

I’ll keep you posted.

the good and the bad

Well, we seem to have bought ourselves a house! We made an offer on Friday afternoon, the seller came back with a counter that met us right in the middle, and we accepted. The cheap part of me thinks we could have got her down a bit lower, but it would have been a lot of haggling over a few thousand dollars, and there was always the risk someone could have made an offer and beaten us to it. And we really, really, REALLY like the house. I promise I will post pictures once things get more sorted out – we’re still waiting on mortgage approval although the bank has already said that we’re basically approved for the amount we’ll need. So once the deal is done I promise I will share the loveliness with you all. We take possession on November 21, and hopefully we’ll be able to get our house in good enough shape to list early next week. We’ve already done a fair bit of packing and decluttering and as we get stuff cleared out we can tend to sprucing things up and doing a deep clean in here. There are a few people we know who are interested already, which would be awesome to save the realtor’s commission. So we’ll see. The market for houses has cooled off a lot here after a few years of insane growth, but there are not very many houses listed right now in this price range that are not in the ghetto, so that is a plus for us. Also, lots of people have just gotten priced out of the market altogether, and a house like ours is a good starter home that doesn’t require a huge mortgage. We will be hoping it sells quickly, with the thought that we can cover both mortgages for probably 2 months, and if it’s not sold before then, we’ll get a tenant. Actually if we did that we would probably make money because the rental market here is absurdly tight. But all the hassle that goes along with being a landlord – we’d rather avoid it. Anyway, like I said, we’ll see.

The other news is that I appear to be spotting. It just started, and assuming a 14 day luteal phase, I wasn’t expecting my period until Wednesday. Damn. I was getting myself pretty convinced there with the feeling ever so slightly nauseous, the exhaustion, the ridiculous hunger….it did all feel different from previous cycles. I guess not. I’m not sure quite how I feel about it all yet. Disappointed, of course. Everything was going so perfectly – I was starting to let myself fantasize about telling my parents and sisters on Christmas morning (I’m kidding, of course – I started fantasizing about this weeks ago). Manny and I were joking over the weekend that our lives are the BEST.LIVES.EVER.

Not yet, I guess.

light a candle for me?

I had my scan this morning, and to my surprise was ready to trigger already – it’s only CD11! My trusty left ovary came through again with a juicy 21.3 – woot! There was one on my right at 16, too, so I guess this Clomid stuff does work. I’m a bit tired of the headache and the hot flashes, although the latter haven’t been too bad, and I’m cold all the time anyway, so I sort of enjoy them. Overall, though, the Clomid really hasn’t been too bad. I’m feeling very fortunate about that, and also mildly bashful, as I had sort of built it up in my mind as a hellacious torture. Glad it wasn’t.

So my IUI is tomorrow at 3:30, and if you could think of me and think romantic thoughts for the 2 cells who will be meeting on their first date in the upper left corner of my ute, and hopefully uniting and taking over my ute for a good 40 weeks, that would be simply grand. While I was having acupuncture today (of which I’ve become a hopeless addict and simply can’t imagine life without twice-weekly needlings), I was visualizing my egg and a very handsome sperm meeting, merging and starting to divide, and then burrowing in to my velvety lining. Might as well be really specific, I figure. And those thoughts are much more enjoyable than the thoughts of total dread that keep trying to pop up. Mostly dread at the thought of actually being successful – weird, I know, but it struck me the other day that as much as I’ve had hope for positive results on our other attempts, I’ve never really allowed myself to think about how it will really feel when we get our BFP. And as thrilled and in love and joyful as I will no doubt be, I have a feeling that I’ll also probably mighty freaked out. One of my best friends said that when she got pregnant with her first, she freaked out and talked to her cat and laughed and cried for hours. So Lucky better practice his compassionate listening face, cause I have a feeling he’ll be needing it in 2 weeks.

I’m horrified to say that it’s only 8:50 and I am ready for bed. I guess my weekend of rock is still affecting me. Feist was amazing, by the way – if you dig her at all and have a chance to see her play live, GO! She’s great, her band is great, and the people doing the visual show for her were simply magical. I loved every minute, even though the venue was sort of lame and the crowd was a bit tepid. She can simply do no wrong in my eyes. You can check out some very cool photos of the recent live shows here if you’re interested. The visual show was led by Clea Minaker, who’s apparently a master puppetteer, but in this context was working with a light box projected onto the screen that formed the backdrop for the performance, and used paper cutouts, jewels and even finger paint to create the images. There were 2 or 3 other women working with her and at times it got really complex. It really was amazingly beautiful, and I’m so glad I went.

Alright, my darlings. I’m off to bed to dream sweet dreams of conception.

where to even begin?

Yeah, I know. I’m a bad, bad blogger. I linger around, commenting on the details of everyone else’s life, but with me, it’s only borscht and surface details once or twice a month. Pathetic. 

Well, it’s not for lack of interesting things going on. I’m not quite sure why I haven’t been posting lately – partly that things were going pretty well for a while and I was busy and distracted and therefore less in need of pouring my guts out, and partly that I had procrastinated for so long and felt so guilty and ashamed and at a loss as to where to jump back in again that it was just too daunting to start writing again. 

Lucky for you, internets, the craptacular-ness has returned. Nothing really serious, just feeling blue and vulnerable and scared and all that.  So let’s bullet, shall we?  There are lots of little things I need to catch you up on. 

• Got my period today and start Clomid tomorrow. Am freaked and excited. Am also dreading possible hormonal nightmare during our first joint family Thanksgiving – Manny’s parents, sister, and BIL and my grandparents, uncle, cousin and her boyfriend. Could be good, could be ugly – 2 old ladies with dementia! Yay! As long as I don’t have a hot flash or crying jag in the middle of it, it will be bearable. I think. 
• Got my period today after a week of hormonal weepiness. Feeling so raw and sad all the time sucks. Especially when I was expecting my period last weekend and kept having crazy pregnant fantasies.”Maybe just one sperm jumped the turnstiles and made it to my egg the one time in the past month we actually had sex! It’s possible, right? Right? RIGHT??????????????”
• Fuck, I hate my mind and her stupid tricks. 
• Read some blog by a donor conceived guy in Australia who used to be totally fine with being donor conceived until he had his own child and now he’s totally against it. Fucking great. Why do I read those things? I have this idea that I need to be compassionate and open my heart to all possibilities and try to hold them all with love and tenderness, but all it really does it make me circle the bowl of doubt and freak out that I might be dooming my future child to a life of torment and anguish. Ugh.
• Support group has first meeting next Tuesday and is going AWESOMELY! I’ve talked to 3 women now and everyone is so happy I’ve made this happen. It’s so good to get that kind of validation from others who are in or have been through the trenches, hearing that they need it and are grateful for the work I’ve done so far. I still haven’t found anyone to facilitate the group, but I’m still trying. I think it’ll be ok either way, but will take a lot of pressure off me if I’m not the one doing it. Must remember to take care of self…
• Women’s circle is also coming together. I met with two women who have been involved in another circle for many years, and they are going to help me create a new one. I’m excited about this and am feeling way more at peace with the uncertainty of it all. It’s all very wide open, which is not something I really excel at, but I’m learning to trust the process. Slowly, though. 
• It’s really fall here – leaves are mostly off the trees, it’s getting colder and colder every day. We might even get snow over the weekend. I like fall but the fact that it precedes a long and miserably cold winter seriously puts a damper on my enjoyment of it. 
• We have tickets to see Neil Young in a couple weeks, and I might go see Feist the night after that, too. There is an absurd amount of good music coming these next few weeks – Bob Dylan is coming in November, I think, but we were planning to be away for that weekend. Too many choices…
• All I want to do right now is drink tea, cuddle my dog, and weep. But I’ll probably get up soon and start cleaning up my house and also hiding all the copies of “Creating Families” and IF books I have lying around. The last thing I need during Thanksgiving dinner is a slightly batty old lady asking me what’s up with that. 

I heart you all. Thank you for not abaondoning me completely. My blog stats are oddly busy considering my totaly flakiness in posting. Will seriously attempt more regular posting in near future. Truly. 

ETA: One more thing – it’s my wedding anniversary today. Four years ago today, Manny and I got married to each other for the second time. The first time was seven years ago last Sunday. Go us! Although I am super lame and can’t find any wedding photos in this computer…

fickle dee dee!

Oh, my sweet earnest little self! You’re so cute, how fickle you are!

I peed on a stick this morning, and it was negative. Because I’m spotting a little bit, and my temperature went down slightly. So this could be two things – it could be the start of my period, as it usually starts with spotting for a day before the deluge, and that would explain the temp dropping, although the drop was only slight and didn’t go below my coverline. I wasn’t expecting my period until Saturday, but I have been taking my supplements more regularly and sticking to my food restrictions, both of which contribute to me having a slightly shorter cycle. OR it could be implantation bleeding, a little on the late side but within the range of normal from the various things I’ve read. Today is 11dpo. And if that’s what it is, then it’s normal for the test to be negative cause the little bean sprouts only start producing hCG once they implant, right?

Oh, dudes! Whatever I thought about the 2ww being hard is out the window. The next day or so is going to bite! Here is where my neurosis will really kick in – I’m now kind of expecting that it’s most likely my period coming a bit early. But my hope is still around, and my mind will be doing all kinds of wondering today. I’m sure I’ll be running off to the toilet every 20 minutes to check on the state of the nation report in my panties.

Ack! I’m really ok either way, but the wondering is going to be rough today.

ramblings

This will be short, but since I was hoping to post more frequently now that NaComLeavMo is on, and have so far miserably failed, I’m going to figure out something to write anyway.

Started my new job on Monday. So far so awesome. It’s totally different from what I did before, which was incredibly high stress. This is basically doing paperwork in an office with one other person in it – the job description is clear, we have a great collective agreement so the hours of work are sweet, plus great benefits, and I’ve spent the last 2 days training and I’m catching on pretty well, so far. And the pay doesn’t even suck! So I am stoked about that, cause if I get knocked up, I’ll have a good level of pay to use for my maternity leave. For you Americans, I don’t even want to tell you how good we have it up here, but you get a percentage of your pay (I think it’s 55%)for a year. And certain employers will top it up – I think mine does, but I’m not sure if I’ll qualify as my job is a one-year contract at this point. We’ll see – I’m mostly just happy I’ll have enough weeks of work to qualify for an awesome part of Candian life.

I found a shopping paradise today – the top floor of a local business, filled with cute dresses and funky clothes of all sorts, all on major sale. I got a ridiculously beautiful frock for $10, and scored a really beautiful spring trench coat in a pearly oyster grey with a smocked detail in the back for half price. The place looked like my teenage room, which looks a lot like my current room – clothes everywhere and a complete mess. Fun!

On the 2ww front, I have practically convinced myself we’re headed for a BFP. If it’s not, I’m sure I’ll be pretty disappointed, but I’m managing to hold things pretty lightly so far. (Although it might not seem like it!) And I have yet to POAS, which I’m pretty proud of. I decided, and Manny also likes the idea, that for now, we get to enjoy the possibility. I’m crampy, which seems like not such a good sign, but I don’t think I usually get crampy before my period. One of the other reasons I’m not wanting to POAS is that I’m paying much closer attention to my body right now than I ever have before. This is my first month temping and stuff, and I’m using the “Taking Charge of Your Fertility” software to chart temps and notes on this cycle, so I’m putting in all the little things I’m noticing, like the sore boobs, and the hunger, and the tiredness.

So we’ll see when we do the blood draw, I guess. I need to call my clinic tomorrow and find out if I’m really supposed to go in on Saturday or if they’d prefer Friday. My clinic is housed in the hospital here, and it’s not really a clinic, although they do treatments. But it’s not a private fertility clinic, so while they do make themselves available for procedures on weekends, they’re not really set up for doing a whole lot. Plus I wouldn’t mind getting some info a wee bit early!

Not so short, I guess. The mighty Kate’s mojo must be rubbing off on me.

Oh, and NaComLeavMo rules! It’s crazy fun!

show and tell

Yahoo! Show and Tell! I forgot all about it last week, even though I really wanted to join in all the fun. Check out more fun rarities and B-sides by other fabulous bloggers here.

Given the recent spate of amazing garden photos (I’m looking jealously in your directions, Luna and Kate), I thought I’d post some of my own for S&T this week. If only so you’ll have the before photos when, in a few months, you can no longer see the dirt and I am no longer buying vegetables. Also because signs abound in the garden. And I’m a little bit into signs at the moment. Signs, omens, portents – I’m all over that shit.

These radishes were planted about a week ago, and look how well they’re doing! Some other seeds were planted about a week ago, but we’re not sure how they’re doing yet. Radishes also give me heartburn, which I hear is a common symptom during pregnancy. Coincidence?

Ok, I’ll shut up now.

I plant my radishes with carrots, because the radishes mark the rows and mature within a few weeks, and then I can pick them and give them away to the old people in my life who really love radishes (why is that?) and then the carrots have room to grow. Plus it’s fun to have some instant radish gratification.

These strawberries were given to me by our late, across-the-alley neighbour, Lou the Rototiller Man. Lou was a crusty old dude who had a soft spot for me and Manny, cause I talked gardens with him, and Manny bought a couple lawn mowers off him and admired his legendary junk collection. When Lou died a couple years ago, his landlord came and emptied out the house and shed, and for weeks, there were about 8 rototillers, 6 lawnmowers, 12 old cabinet-style TVs, and various other weird stuff Lou had picked up at garage sales. He had a huge garden on the empty lot next to his house, and a good half of it was taken up with strawberry plants. I hope Lou is in Heaven right now, free of the horrible throat cancer that killed him, watching the serious dump of rain we’re getting this weekend, and feeling happy, watching the plants that he nurtured blossom again. We miss you, Lou.

Here are some of my anemones.
I love these plants because, oddly, they have thrived in my sun- and wind-blasted garden, although I think they are meant to be shade-loving forest-floor plants. I got them from a good friend a couple years ago, and have already divided them once and put little clumps elsewhere in the yard. Soon, the delicate white blossoms will open up, and then they will release little bits of fluff and spread their seeds all around. Any plant that produces fluff is alright with me.

Finally, here is my lavender that managed to survive the winter in spite of the fact that I moved it in the middle of the summer last year and then proceeded to not mulch it in the fall. Lavender isn’t terribly hardy here, so when I saw new leaves at the bottom of the dead branches, I smiled for days. Right now, this lavender is my emblem of hope, growing and thriving in spite of some serious past neglect.

Thus concludes my first installment of Show and Tell. I’m glad I waited until today to post – I was going to do it last night, but all I could think of was pictures of my dog sleeping. Cute, but not much to tell about. Although the grade 2 authenticity factor would have been really, really high.

**Sorry about the stupid formatting of this post. Blogger is giving me grief and screwing everything up.**

sign, sign, everwhere a sign

Goddamnit, I’m weak. Weak of mind. I have still been enjoying the hopeful possibility of right now, but I’ve also been obsessing over every detail. I’m super tired every day? A sign. I have a weird patch of eczema-like scaly skin around my mouth? A sign. The fact that this is the month in which Mother’s Day, my parents’ and my in-laws’ wedding anniversaries, Manny’s birthday, and probably lots of other important sign-y events fall? A sign. Constant hunger and ability to eat literally twice as many Korean short ribs as Manny the other night? A sign. Occasional heartburn? A sign. The fact that I have yet to have any other symptoms? A sign. The fact that I just planted a WHOLE SCHWACK-LOAD OF SEEDS IN MY FERTILE, WELL-CARED-FOR, ORGANIC GARDEN? A serious mother-fucking sign.

Never mind reason, never mind the fact that every single one of these facts can easily be explained away, except my face-plague, which could be down to me having eaten eggs a few times last week, or my delicious home-made granola which I’ve been eating every single day since I made it last Sunday, but I don’t know why that would be the problem, unless I’ve suddenly developped an allergy to something I was never allergic to before. But if I did, that’s probably a sign.

Bloody hell, friends. I’m making myself mental. I got 5 free home pregnancy tests when I ordered my OPKs online, and they would all be pee-soaked by now if I thought it would do me any good.

All your wonderful wishes and advice on surviving the 2ww have been fantastic. Except didn’t someone say that it’s really the second week that is the worst? If that turns out to be true in my case, I am so utterly fucked.

My clinic will do a blood draw on day 35, which is next Saturday, provided I haven’t got my period by then. I didn’t ask if they do day 35 because that’s how long my cycles usually are, or if that’s just coincidentally the day they do them. Almost certainly the former. But my wait-addled mind is taking it as a sign anyway.

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and it begins

I can’t believe I’m finally here, after 5 years of waiting. Holy shit.

Thank you, everybody, for your amazing comments on my last post – I’ve been meaning to respond to each of you individually and just haven’t gotten there yet but I will over the next few days. So much good energy and good advice from all of you – I can’t thank you enough.

I haven’t been super meticulous about keeping this blog a secret from people in real life, and Manny and I have decided we want to keep everything just between us right now (well, between us and you darling internets), so I’m going to go password protected for a while – maybe forever, and I’ve been thinking of moving this blog over to wordpress or somewhere I can password protect only certain posts. But I’m not sure about that yet – I’ll keep you posted. So please email me at annarchyinjapan at yahoo dot com (it’s in my profile, too) for an invite.