What is wrong with my head?

Everybody knows that the dice are loaded
Everybody rolls with their fingers crossed
Everybody knows that the war is over
Everybody knows the good guys lost
Everybody knows the fight was fixed
The poor stay poor, the rich get rich
That's how it goes
Everybody knows

Everybody knows that the boat is leaking
Everybody knows that the captain lied
Everybody got this broken feeling
Like their father or their dog just died

(From "Everybody Knows" --Leonard Cohen)

I used to analyze, expose, expostulate, perseverate, even, on all matters political, especially feminist. I used to write for a feminist blog, a feminist magazine, and I even ghost-wrote a feminist political book. I belong to feminist list servs and read feminist blogs...

Yet, lately, when I read the glut of political perseverating that populates political blogs, the little voice in my head that used to say, "Yeah! You tell 'em! And what about--?" now shouts, screams, shrieks: "Shut-up shutup, SHADDUP!!!"

Even without a tv, even with very limited and controlled media exposure (limited primarily to podcasting Rachel Maddow and BBC Global News) I feel like I am overwhelmed by the constant chattering and nattering of pretentious pundits talking to hear themselves talk. I have no use for it.

But I should... I don't know what is behind my sudden aversion to political punditry. I don't feel any less passionate about politics, or any less opinionated, but I think the eight years under Bush just crushed any ideas I had of my voice ever making a difference. That was the first to go. I quit political writing cold-turkey, and I have to say while I loved the occasional deft turn of phrase, or the sudden Gestalt moment that comes when my research and writing would converge into a moment of crystal clarity mirrored by perfect prose (very occasionally), I don't miss it a bit. Not even a little.

Now I don't even want to HEAR it. I know Obama is making imperfect compromises. I know the economy is in the shitter and it's stuck on "flush". I know that the cronyism continues and the Bush is still seeking absurd expansions of executive power ad infinitum, and it pisses me off. I know that the world is filled with unwinnable wars and the the ice caps are melting and that polar bears are drowning and epidemics are expanding and antibiotics are failing. I know that the educational system in this country is collapsing, that we are all getting fatter, that no one gets enough sleep and we will all die of cancer. I know that while this goes on people are profiting from injustice and exploitation.

And then I am pissed off.

And then I get a headache.

And then the shit is still going on. The oil and munitions and banking companies still run the goddamn world, the rich are still getting richer and getting more tax breaks while the poor are getting poorer, getting no healthcare, getting no family planning services, and I still have a goddamn headache.

Is it just that I feel powerless to change anything? That all the nattering just creates a hell filled angry voices?

So last night gf and I made eggplant parmesan from an original Italian gramma's recipe photocopied from a book lovingly passed down to a friend of gf's. It was perfect, even though we switched manchego and aged gouda for the parmesan (it being too cold and us being too lazy to go out to the store when we discovered the missing ingredient.) I talked to one of my best friends for over an hour about sex and love and our lives, 3,000 miles apart, and went to bed relatively early, basking in something close to simplicity....

I highly recommend it.

B. Ready

We finally went to see Dr. B. last night: a break from renovating. I had 4 questions:

- Can gf's stockpile of unused sperm from her abandoned ttc attempts be washed for IUI and used at Dr. B.'s clinic (yes.)
- What should our plan be, given my arbitrary limit of eight attempts? (1-2 shots unmedicated, then ramp up as necessary.)
- Should I be charting? (Nah, blood tests and ultrasounds will be more accurate.)
- What next? (Get back on pre-nates, go back in April to check for residual scarring from the surgery.)

I have no problem with gf's unused sperm. I don't imagine I can conjure the perfect donor, so it doesn't bother me that I didn't choose this one. I kind of like it that he was her pick entirely-- that gives her total control over half the DNA in this equation. In a weird way, that makes sense to me.

I am fine going unmedicated for a couple of rounds, as I don't really want the added stress and expense of all those drugs (though I think I have a source for some unused injectibles) but I have thoroughly convinced myself that the first couple of attempts are warm-ups. I would be totally shocked if they were to work.

I am so relieved not to have to do the charting/pee stick thing, but why, if it's as simple as a blood test & an ultrasound, does everyone else seem to be harnessed to temp charting, OPKs, and Fertility Friend?

He also said we'd inseminate 12-24 h BEFORE ovulation... because sperm (even the frozen type, he assured me) would live at least that long. Really?

I forgot to ask about spinning for a girl (yes, I do want to.)*

Does that all seem kosher?

We also learned to our disappointment that he is a Republican! A Republican is going to be all up in my hoo-ha! That seems kind of wrong. But he did say he likes Obama, so that redeems him a little bit.

*Nutella brings up a very good point: The ethics of spinning... I have never been bothered by it, but I am open to other thoughts. In all honesty, boys are hard for me to deal with at any age, and that is what drives me to think about "spinning for a girl", though it only increases the odds to about 65-35.

Sunday Lay-in

From top to bottom:
Tink, Ozzie, Lucas, Sophie, Petey (Kaytu), Gretchen, Sven, Milo.

Seven

It was 7 degrees here in NYC, folks. Yesterday morning, as I was attempting to down a quick cup of caffeinated sludge (one part coffee grounds-one part boiling water, press) I saw my next door neighbor through my window, suited up and ready for her run. Kudos to her. I don't know if she's ocd about it or just impervious to pain, but the only way I can tolerate this weather is bundling up with four thermal shirts, a fleece vest, a hoodie, and my Eddie Bauer weather-be-damned jacket, two pairs of gloves, scarf, hat and both hoods up over my head-- all over three pairs of thermal underwear and my trekking pants. Yes I do stay warm, but there ain't no way I'm moving quicker than a fast shamble in this outfit.

Of COURSE I run into my ex (not Ex, who lives across the hall, but "my ex" who lives down the block from me) when I look like the Abominable Snowman who took a fashion course at FIT and now dresses in all black, and all exposed flesh an unflattering shade of pink. Ain't that always the way? She, of course, looked chipper and at ease, like it was any spring day, temps in the upper fifties.
A genuine park slope moment, we bantered about the relative merits of Trader Joes vs. Whole Foods vs. Fairway, talked renovation talk and discussed our dogs' feeling about the weather.

Today it's a comparably balmy 27, and after spending all day yesterday organizing the Pile of Crap in the apartment undergoing renovations into three separate piles-- Definitely Keep, Maybe, and Sidewalk Now-- I am going back today to do more of the same. The sheetrock dust has permeated my lungs. I could not shower it all out of my hair, and my eyes were caked with crud this morning when I woke up.



This renovation has GOT to end. Gf and I have both reached the point of being OVER it. The contractor called Friday to say that he was missing 5 overhead lights, to the tune of $100 a piece. I called the lighting store, they gave me a tracking number, I called UPS, yes-- the boxes were delivered and signed. So here's where it gets tetchy: The contractor is gf's sister's husband's sister's husband-- kinda like a brother in law once or twice removed. But gf's family is quite small, thanks to some horrendous genocides and oppressive regimes in the past, so what family there is sticks close together. He's at all the special occasions and is genuinely a lovely guy (if a bit of a Neanderthal, as gf's sister calls him) but I don't wanna buy 5 more lights for $100 a piece when they were clearly once there and now are not. I don't know what happened-- one of his guys lifted them? They were accidentally junked along with construction debris? -- the point is, we paid for them once and I don't want to have to pay for them again.

Of course, I also don't want to get us disinvited from Seder over some lights. You know what they say about mixing family and business... This is just one of the seemingly endless annoying details that we are dealing with on a daily basis.

Just when gf and I are reaching our limit with this renovation, the progress seems to have flagged substantially. Gf called yesterday from work while I was culling from the Pile (Broken end table- sidewalk; headshots of ex-roommate- trash; shrunken sweater- sidewalk...)

"Did they do anything?"
"I think they moved some buckets downstairs."
"Buckets?"
"Yeah, I don't remember seeing them there last week."
"What about the faucets?"
"Not in."
"The tile?"

"Nope."
"Doors?"
"No."
"Spackle?"
"Uh-uh."
"Lights?"
"Missing."
"Buckets?"
"Buckets."

I want to have our kitchen in and the couch that we bought and the fabulous retro modern chair and the bed put together (a storage bed!) I want to brush my teeth side-by-side with gf at our individual faucets over our trough sink without her elbowing me out of the way to spit on my hands and I try to rinse my toothbrush.

So as we live between two places, our lives have taken on an aspect of suspended animation. My apartment is filling up with boxes and crap rescued from her place to save it from the violence of renovation; I have a bed bought during a limited-offer sale, in boxes taking up half the living room. The daily maintenance of life becomes a bit harder when navigating so many obstacles in a small space. Laundry-- can't be bothered. Floors? They're just gonna get gross again. I'm usually a much bigger neat freak, but there's only so much I can be neat about right now. Gf uses the dining room table as office space, the shoes have overflowed their allotted space in the closet and colonized the floor adjacent to it. The books half-heartedly culled from the bookcase lie on the floor as it is too wet and cold to put them on the sidewalk...

Everything seems to hinge on finishing this reno: THEN I can sell my place, THEN we can refinance, THEN we can start saving money, THEN we can start having our lives back, THEN we start trying to have a baby...


I am over it, man. OVER it. Above: 1. Our someday-gonna-be 1/2 bath; 2. The Giant Pile in our someday-soon-we-hope living room; 3. Our in-this-g*dd^mn-lifetime-please bedroom.

Hope

I made the appointment for my post-surgical re-check. I decided it should be after the inauguration, in a new era of hope. Because although I did have a temper tantrum about the pastor-who-shall-not-be named, I do still harbor great hope for the Obama administration.
Gf and I were going to go down for the inauguration, then we werem't because of the pastor issue, then we were, then she couldn't get the day off so we weren't. Now it looks like we'll be spending the day in Brooklyn, celebrating local-style.
And two days later, I will offer up my hoo ha on the table again to re-commence the poking and prodding...

Setting Limits

So gf and I had a big Talk about my anxieties about being consumed by this process. I am afraid that this TTC thing could take over our whole lives if we let it; I have this deep fear that my body is not going to do this for me, and I have visions of round after round of IUIs giving way to round after round of IVF, and becoming this horribly depleting, terrifying and depressing all-consuming THING that the rest of my life barely fits around. I don't want to go there. I want to know that we are giving it a try, but I also want to know that we know when to say "enough".

Unlike many ttc'ers, I am not someone who grew up dreaming of pregnancy, I was not the girl pushing a stroller full of dollies down the supermarket aisle. When my friends started having babies and trying to hand them to me while they were still red-faced and raw from their passage, I would recoil-- not that I don't like babies, but I don't have baby-lust, and my fear of dropping or somehow maiming them far outweighed my desire to hold them.

Can I imagine life in a family unit of two (+animals)? Yes, pretty easily.

So I need limits on this undertaking. I need to know that this will not bring us to a breaking point emotionally, financially and physically. I want to give it the good ol' college try and if it doesn't work out, I want to move on and plan a life for two, or maybe adopt.

With that covered, we made the following plan:

- I will call Dr. B. and we will go over the current State of My Uterus.
- We will explain to him our outlook and that we want to start inseminating in July-ish.
- We will do whatever prep work necessary (blood tests, pre-nates.)
- We will make our limits known. I have alway had in my mind the number eight. Lucky or not, it is about the limit to what I think I can bear without risking my health- financially, physically and emotionally.
- With that set out, we will undertake a plan that is as aggressive as we are all comfortable with to try to acheive pregnancy within that time. C.lom!d, ok; trigger shots, meh. Maybe. All the other ovary-plumping, follicle-pushing options will be taken under consideration.
- If, after eight IUIs, we have nothing but a string of BFNs and a depleted bank account, at this point the plan is to take a trip and look at other options-- adoption, or a life of travel and adventure as a family of two. Of course, we can re-evaluate and maybe push harder if we both want to. But right now, eight is enough I think.

I wanted to write this down to have it to refer back to, in case I forget.

By the way, I know that some of you reading have already passed eight, and I don't want in any way to insinuate that I think you are going too far or that you should give up, move on. I think everyone has to do what is right for them, and I have absolutely nothing but the best hopes for everyone going through this process, whatever point they are at. I just want to set my own totally arbitrary limits to the real, but manageable (at least so it seems from here, but who knows?) effort of eight IUIs.

On Bad Health Reporting.

Yeah, yeah. So I gotta call Dr. B. I know. Gf tells me so. My date book tells me so. My ever-shrivelling ovaries would tell me so too if they had lips and vocal cords (ew.)

So but I also gotta do lots of stuff. I gotta pick up the lights we ordered a gajillion years ago. I gotta do that other thing that gf doesn't know about. I gotta order a bathroom sink. I gotta answer old emails. I gotta pick up the pre-nates and folic acid...

But wait!

According a new study being cited 'round the world...

" Offspring of mothers who use folate supplements during their first trimester appear to have a slightly higher incidence of wheeze and lower respiratory tract infections up to 18 months of age, according to findings of a study conducted in Norway."

This kinda sh*t makes me crazy. I'm as much of a health-hysteric as everyone else. But also a former fact-checker, a science writer and, um, a little OCD about research.
I always read the fine print so here it is.... (Don't throw out your supplements just yet):

"The relative risk of wheeze for children exposed to folic acid supplements in the first trimester was 1.06 (95% confidence interval: 1.03, 1.10), for lower respiratory tract infections the relative risk was 1.09 (95% confidence interval: 1.02, 1.15), and for hospitalizations for lower respiratory tract infections the relative risk was 1.24 (95% confidence interval: 1.09, 1.41)."

Ummm. Okay, I think most of you out there are smart enough to see what we're looking at without further explanation, but a little statistics refresher course for anyone on unfamiliar ground. That 1.06 relative risk? That is a hiccup-- a statistical hangnail. Nothin'. ESPECIALLY when you're looking at epidemiological studies of more than 30,000 subjects, which are by definition rife with statistical blips and freaky correlations that mean squat. Even the 1.24 RR-- note the confidence spread-- not much consistency in the data is there? You think there might be other factors going on there? Ya think maybe it was just a slow news day? There's no causation here, folks. There's not even a very convincing correlation. Go back to your crossword puzzles.

Delaying Dr. B.

I'm supposed to make an appointment with Dr. B this month, the RE who will be overseeing everything as long as things remain uncomplicated and don't take too long. As I have been warned about the automatic medicalization favored by this clinic, though, I am not sure where we will draw the line with them. I don't want to be railroaded into a whole drug-injection-IVF path if I don't have to be. On the other hand, I'll be nearly 37 by the time we start and I am sure there will be no shortage of pressure to pull out all the big guns at the first hint of trouble.

I was supposed to make the appointment in January, and back in November that sounded like years away, but I have not called to make the appointment. I have not been blogging. I have not even really been commenting on others' blogs. Instead, I have:

-purchased 360 square feet of tile,
-planned our kitchen layout, complete with item numbers corresponding to a miniature diagram of the detailed plan I drew on the back of a Scrabble scorecard,
-researched bathroom sinks and vanities, a far more time-consuming process than one might think,
-made approximately 35 gallons of homemade dog food,
-washed the dogs,
-researched a trip to Madagascar,
-paid bills,
-gotten in touch with old friends and renewed latent friendships,

and on and on and on...

I think part of it is that there is little good news in blogland and the fact that so many people in my position (and younger) are having such trouble with conceiving scares me. If there is one thing I hate, it is not being superlatively good at whatever I am doing. I have ego like that.

Last December I spent an evening at a friends house for dinner. We ate dinner, swilled wine, laughed a lot. The next time I saw her in May, she was four months pregnant. Her second shot. She and her gf did some random dial-a-sperm thing and boom, now she's got a baby. I want to be THAT girl.

But so many people I follow in blogland have had enormous troubles, whether with conceiving or with repeated m/cs. I feel for them, but I don't want to be them. I don't want to spend my next year spiralling down a hole of self-doubt and recrimination (if only I hadn't spent my freshman year drinking; if only I had started doing this five years ago; if only I were straight; if only I hadn't had that abortion... if only, if only...) I don't know if it's a function of the small subset of queer-ttc'ers-who-blog or if it's really a problem of frozen jizz and a once-a-month shot. Probably both.

Another part is that I feel so unsettled, with gf and I living in this apartment that will be on the market in a matter of months, with the apartment we are moving into being little more than a pile of construction debris at the moment,
with furniture in boxes piling up in all the rooms, with the crazy number of animals, with the mounting bills, thanks to my karma-wreck ex-roommate not even ponying up her utilities before ditching me with five months' unpaid rent... everything feels like it's being held together by duct tape and bailing twine. And not well.

It feels reckless, crazy.

Also, the thought of spending what I know will be ultimately countless hours in the g/d waiting room and in the stirrups and peeing on countless sticks and having endless disheartening conversations with everyone from friends to doctors...

And I want a plan. I want blueprints. I want a timeline. I want assurances. I want a guarantee.

I will call Dr. B. I will. I just am not quite ready to jump onto the zipline at this very moment.