Things I am proud of myself for...

1) I pulled the kenwood stereo out of my toyota (that I'm selling) and put the crap-ass bottom-budget cd player from Kristin's car in it. And when the installer-dude put the kenwood in Kristin's car (Mazda's are weird about their stereos -- it needed some tools I didn't have) it still WORKED. And then I re-wired the Mazda's stereo and stuck it in the tercel and IT WORKED, TOO!!

2) I deep-cleaned all our floor's surfaces for the third Saturday in a row. Now that Julia's crawling the filth on our floor is apparent and disgusting. I'm proud of myself because it's so easy on a lazy Saturday morning to just ignore the dust-bunnies clinging to Julia's knees and butt and lie on the couch reading a book. But NO! I GOT UP! and CLEANED!

3) At my doctor's appointment this morning I took a deep breath and looked her in the eye and told her that I think my ovaries are dead dead dead and that I wanted a mid-cycle scan to see what they're up to and possibly a trigger shot. And she agreed to schedule the scan. And they're going to try to bill it under irregular periods (cause mine are) and so maybe my insurance will pay for it. My wand-cherry will be popped a week from Wednesday and we're hoping that it will show at least one follicle ready to explode into a baby on Thursday.

4) I've agreed to let Kristin check the state of my cervix every day leading up to ovulation. We're going to start relying on more signs of ovulation than just the opks. I'm having faith that even though I have NEVER had any signs of ovulation before that this month there will begin to be some. Maybe my lack of faith has kept my body from ovulating.

5) I've finally worked through the lingering remnants of ambivalence about getting pregnant. I want to get pregnant with everything inside me now. No more doubts. No more fear. Even though I KNEW that I hadn't ovulated, when I took that pregnancy test and it was negative I was so devastated. I surprised myself. My disappointment was so tangible. So choking. Even the first month before we realized that I wasn't ovulating and I was convinced I was pregnant wasn't this disappointing. In fact, there was a part of me that was relieved that I wasn't pregnant. Not anymore. I took two more epts over the weekend just to see if I could have been wrong. I just felt wrong that I wasn't pregnant. Even though I KNOW that there was no way I could have been this month.

So, in celebration of what I'm proud of myself for, and in consolation for what I am not this month, I did the following things:

1) put together a luscious salad at our grocery store's new gourmet salad bar. And I didn't get blue cheese dressing, but rather a little balsamic vinaigrette and olive oil drizzled on the top.
2) Bought myself a nanaimo bar. I looooooooooooooooove nanaimo bars. So yummy. Google it.
3) Bought a totally unnecessary, completely trashy novel to read on the train.

Yay! Here's to keeping sane and happy on the crazy pills!

Guess Who Just Showed Up

Though it brings only a bitter pleasure to declare publicly that I was right.

Aaaaaaaaand... it continues

This morning Kristin made me pee on a stick. I didn't want to. It's too depressing to see the big fat nothing there. Especially after all the ovulation pee stick I've peed on that were disappointing in their blank white emptiness all during the week that I was supposed to ovulate.

So, yeah, it's CD27 today. Still no period, but some spotting a few days ago. Scant spotting. Kristin's convinced it was implantation spotting. But to implant you have to have an egg. She's not convinced that I didn't ovulate. After all, she reasons, even though when she stuck her hand up me my cervix was hard and dry as a mud puddle under an equatorial sun, it WAS open. So, she reasons, the sperm could have gotten in...

"And met what," I said, "the omlette I ate for breakfast? Or did they spontaneously fertilize themselves? Or perhaps one of my fallopian cells decided to rise to the occasion and pinch-hit for the ovaries?"

Still, she was adamant. So I held my pee all night and released it on the sure-to-disappoint stick. It was no surprise to me when the control line turned dark and strong -- next to a pristine whiteness where the test line should be. I left the stick on the bathroom shelf and went to finish getting dressed for work.

10 minutes or so later Kristin is excited in the bathroom. "I think you're pregnant! I knew it!" "I'm not pregnant." I replied and I continued staring blankly in my closet for something to jump out and scream, "I'm clean, I'm flattering, I'll make you look FABULOUS!" Nothing volunteered for the hazard duty of clothing me, so I ruthlessly dragged something out of the closet as Kristin came in the bedroom holding a stick soaked with my pee.

"Look!"
"Where?"
"There. See that very, very faint line?"
"There's nothing there."
"Yes, yes there is. Look closer."
"If I have to look that close then there's nothing there."
"You haven't even missed your period yet. It would be faint if it were to show anything at all. Look closer."
I looked closer. Suddenly I could see just the faintest of faint lines. I might have been imagining it. I probably was."
"That's probably just a mark from where the chemical is. The chemical that would have reacted if I were pregnant. But now is just wet and reflecting light differently than the plain paper around it. It's nothing. "
"Well, I think you're pregnant."
"Kristin. Remember how when we were trying for Julia that month we swore we saw the faintest possible line and we even called my mom to tell her you were pregnant and you WEREN'T and later we found out that you didn't even ovulate that month? Sound familiar?"

I'm not pregnant. I refuse to let myself be fooled by hope and chemical lines. I refuse. I'm telling you only to demonstrate the evilness of pee sticks. And just in case Kristin is right. That off off off OFF chance that I could be pregnant. That I misread my body enough that I missed knowing about my ovulation entirely. That I really could be pregnant. Y'all'll know first.

Mind Fuck

It doesn't matter if you KNOW that you didn't ovulate and thus there is no possible way you could be pregnant. If your body had sperm in it then some part of your brain is going to be convinced that you're pregnant.

I'm sitting here waiting for red. Faint, faint, faint spotting for the last 2 days. Today's CD25, and I could have started anytime the last 5 days. The fact that I haven't is a good sign that my body's getting better even if it's not quite on track yet.

So maybe I did ovulate even though I never got a clear positive on the opk. Or had any eggwhite cm... nah.

But here I sit. The last week or so I have felt nauseated looking at or thinking about certain foods. Any kind of meat, actually. The look and smell of meat -- cooking or raw -- makes me want to hurl. So, some small part of my brain starts screaming, "morning sickness! morning sickness! You're pregnant!" and then I get a little rush of excitement. And then I realize that I really don't like meat to start with so it wouldn't take much to induce nausea.

It's just all so tiresome.

Just to let you all know where I am. Waiting for AF. Battling that futile hope. Blah blah blah.

crying anyway

I'm pretty sure that I didn't ovulate this cycle. The 21 day progesterone test I'll be taking in a few days should tell us for sure. We inseminated, but never got a clear positive lh surge. I feel like I've been through the ringer on 100 mg of Clomid, I can only imagine what will happen on 150.

I'm going to talk to the doctor about a trigger shot. And maybe a day 11 ultrasound.

As requested: The Ritual (If you laugh I'll cry)

Well, it had been a long time since I did any ceremonial magic. Normally I just sit before my altar and set my intention. I use a focus object (stone or figurine or piece of paper or candle) to serve as a physical reminder of what my energy is busy accomplishing, but other than that there's no hoohaa. In the past I have been capable of making amazing situations manifest. But this last year I've felt a little, well, powerless. Though Julia arrived this year, and my relationship with Kristin and deepened and matured, personally this has been a huge year of loss for me. So many dreams have slipped through my fingers. So many paths that I thought I'd be walking have been barred. So my magic has slipped into disuse. My altar has gotten covered in dust. I'm not even sure WHERE my tarot cards are at the moment. In such a situation, I actually think that a good piece of ceremonial magic is a necessary thing. There's nothing like the rigor of creating a ceremony that involves other people to snap you back to attention... It's too easy when sitting in front of your altar to think you're creating magic when really you're thinking about how your knees are sore and your thighs are falling asleep and did you look fat in that dress last night and no one bothered to tell you? But when you're doing something that involves other people, even if you're casual and silly, you're still forced into a greater attention toward intent. At least, that's what I think.

Anyway. What I did. I cast a circle in our dining room. I decided on the dining room because I wanted Julia present, but I didn't want her crawling to the candles and lighting herself and the house on fire. So I wanted her in her high chair. At each of the cardinal points I placed a representative of the element: a polished chunk of marble for Earth in the North; a lit smudge stick in the East for Air; A red candle in the South for Fire; and a small shell full of salt water in the West for Water. Nyles smudged the circle and ourselves, and I sprinked salt water around the circle as well. Once we were smudged and the circle drawn in salt water, I called the quarters (aloud, normally I call them silently, but with other people present I wanted to vocalize my calling) one at a time (with the exception of the East, because Nyles wanted to call the East) lit a 5th candle for Spirit, and closed the circle. We all (except Julia) took a sip of some damiana liquor that we concecrated in the ceremony two years ago to call Julia. Two years ago, I spent a great deal of time and energy infusing the liquor with fertility and motility and passion. For the three of us, and particularly for Kristin and I, just looking at the bottle brings up images and feelings of potency and fertility. Pulling that little bottle out, dusting it off, and letting its contents touch our tongues is a powerful reminder of intent.

After imbibing, I used some of the liquor and some oils to anoint our fertility goddess statue. We touched her belly and breasts and asked her to bless us with a child.

Then it was time to create our focus. I had dropped the jade frog down Julia's onesie so it could absorb her energy while we did the ceremony. Now Nyles and Kristin took the pieces that they had chosen to represent themselves and I took a small box made out of a shell cut in half and hinged. The box is oval and round, it reminds me of a womb. Kristin and Nyles grounded themselves and begain raising energy to focus on their, um, foci, pouring their intentions and their contributions into the inanimate stones. I focued on the shell box, visualizing it as my womb, creating a welcoming and nurturing place for the spirit to reside. When enough energy had been gathered, Kristin and Nyles placed their pieces into my box (he he he) and I retrieved the jade frog from Julia (who was being very good during all this) and we sealed the "womb" up.

Now, having created a safe space for the spirit to reside, we invited the spirit to join us, to hang around us until we get the physical stuff right. We told the spirit how much we would love it, what kind of life we would try to give it, how happy we would be to have it in our family.

Then I thanked the quarters for coming, opened the circle, and took the bottle, the goddess, and the womb to the altar and set them in place with some more intention.

Then we had dinner.

When we did a ceremony like this two years ago, the arrival of Julia's spirit was noticable. Candles flickered in a breeze that wasn't there. We could feel a presence like a change in the atmospheric pressure. This time we didn't feel anything like that. But, it could be that the spirit is already with us and we've gotten used to the pressure of it. Kristin and I have felt very palpably that there is another child waiting for us to get the physical stuff together. I'm hoping that's the case, and that we didn't feel a new spirit join us because there is none looking to us for a family...

Sperm sperm sperm sperm...

(set to the tune of the Spam song from Monty Python)

Well, Kristin and Julia are not going to Houston this week. They fly standby and the flights are full. And Kristin's sister said she would rather have Kristin there to help once their mother is released. So, next week. Maybe. Her mother hasn't had any more strokes, so hopefully she can now get on the slow path to recovery. Thank god.

***

Last night Nyles, Julia, Kristin and I had a ritual to welcome the spirit of our next child into our lives. We did this before conceiving Julia and the ceremony was very powerful -- we all felt the spirit we call Julia join us. During the months of frustration Julia's presence was both a source of comfort and addition frustration. Comfort because we knew that eventually we would be successful. Frustration because we KNEW there was a spirit hanging around waiting for us to get everything lined up right.

This time the ritual was a bit more relaxed. That suits me fine because I consider myself a kitchen witch -- casual and low key. One interesting moment came from Julia. I had brought upstairs a little bag of stones, shells and tiny figurines for Julia, Nyles, and Kristin to pick representatives of themselves from. Kristin picked hers, Nyles picked his, and then I sat and looked into the bag. There was a little piece of jade carved into the shape of a frog. I thought of just choosing that piece to represent Julia, but then decided that I should let Julia pick. So I pulled it, and a bunch of other shells and stones out of the bag and placed them on my open palm. Kristin was convinced that Julia would grab a handful from me, but when I moved the collection on my hand into Julia's reach and asked her to pick which piece should represent her in the spell, she looked very thoughtful for a moment and then carefully picked up only the jade frog. I kid you not. Shocked Kristin and Nyles, but I knew she could do it.

Other than that, the ceremony and spell were rather uneventful. There was no sudden sense of another spirit with us. I don't know if it's because the ceremony was powerless, or if it's because there's already a little spirit hanging around. I know there is one, both Kristin and I have felt it. In that case the ceremony was merely, um, ceremonial. Well, we feel better for having done it. And, who knows, maybe it was powerful but our deep depression has numbed us.

So, tonight we inseminate the first time this cycle. It's also an insem time for some friends of ours.

Wouldn't it be funny if we both got pregnant tonight?

Waiting to inseminate: take two

I took my last dose of clomid Sunday. Whoo baby did the hormones hit me hard this time. And I thought I was doing so well, too! The first three days were a breeze. Then the weekend came. And they flattened me. And what sucked was this was the last big weekend working on our kitchen and I was so depressed. So sad. So incapable of dealing with anything. Here I should have been happy and exited that the kitchen was getting finished and I was postively glum. Here I should have been so grateful to my parents and I was barely civil. Not that I was mean, but I just couldn't make conversation or get excited about anything. I could tell they were feeling bad, and that just made me feel worse.

On the good side, though, I do seem to have recovered from the sideffects quicker than last month. It's probably helped that I finally stopped bleeding. Or it could be that it's Kristin's turn to need emotional support, and so I've pulled myself together.

See, Kristin's mom has had a series of strokes that started on Sunday. Kristin's mom lives in Houston. It looks like Kristin and Julia will be flying to Houston Wednesday afternoon. Kristin hopes to be back Friday, but could stay all the way through Monday. I can't go for two reasons. 1) I don't have enough leave at work. and 2) I'm on track to ovulate on Friday. Which means that I'll be doing this month's inseminations on my own.

I don't really want to talk too much about the situation with Kristin's mother. But I guess I just wanted to let you guys know what is going on, because it's really going to affect this cycle for me. This is not how I wanted our child to be concieved. But I also want this cycle to work because the clomid is really messing with me. And I'm very nervous about doing the inseminations by myself. I'm hoping I can keep myself in the present. I know that I sound selfish right now, and really, I am VERY supportive of Kristin going to Houston. I want her to go. I just wish I wasn't ovulating this week. I just wish her mother were ok. I hope she gets better, and that Kristin's trip isn't as completely emotionally draining for her that I think it will be, and that the inseminations work this cycle so if I'm an emotional wreck next month it'll be because I'm pregnant and hormonal, and not because I'm hopped up on artifical hormones because my body doesn't work right.

I'm infertile because I'm fat

Yes, that's right. You heard it here, folks.

I saw a different doctor today. Dr. How Awkward Can I Look While Telling You How Comfortable I Am With Your Family. Dr. How is the first male doctor that I have ever let stick his finger up my cootchie snortcher. Anyway, when I told him about all the bleeding (like he couldn't see it dripping down his table...) and explained that I was worried about fibroids (have I mentioned that my mother had a hysterectomy at 42 because of uncontrollable bleeding due to fibroids?) He told me that he's pretty sure that it's just my hormones out of wack. Yes, he admitted, it WAS strange to bleed so heavily on Provera. But that doesn't necessarily prove anything.

Then he went on to say that fat is a creator of estogen and that heavier people have a hard time ovulating. Then he said (and this is a direct quote) "Fat acts like a weak birth-control pill, feeding a steady stream of estrogen into your system to inhibit ovulation". Really? And here I thought that was just a mean sentiment implying that fat worked as birth contol by making sure no man would ever want to fuck you. Silly me. How true the saying was all this time...
Then he went on to cheer my up by informing me that it's actually harder to get overly skinny people to ovulate. Phew! Dodged that one there! Thank goodness for those extra donuts.

So. He upped my dose of Clomid to 100 milligrams a day and gave me a refill just in case it works this month I don't have to come back next month. So that's a good thing. We can always hope.

Oh, yeah, and he was very happy for us that we have a very potent known donor. Which was a relief, because the last time we talked to a male in the fertility business the whole known donor thing was an issue. Oh, yeah, and this guy hinted that if we would have had to use frozen through some other clinic that they would have helped us try to navigate the homophobic barriers. So that's all good, not that we need it, but good to know anyway.

So, apart from the fat comments, it was a good visit. I'm willing to see him again if I have to. Even though he's awkward with the whole gay thing. At least it's not a hostile awkward.

I start popping clomid tomorrow. Here, here I can say that my little meltdowns on the camping trip were totally related to TTC. Starting a heavy flow period while taking Provera is hell on one's composure.