Quotable Quotes: "Have You Ever Considered..."

Finally a helpful suggestion.

I'll look into it presently.

Fall from Grace

My grandmother was a woman of grace. She bore 11 children in a 2-bedroom home, cared for her husband through a decade of Alzheimer's, and lost her eyesight near the end of her life, and the only time I ever heard her complain was when I mixed the fruit salad with my hand instead of a spoon.



It actually wasn't until I was a teenager that I realized she'd had 11 children. Before that, I only knew my mom to have 9 siblings, but in poring through old pictures with my grandmother, I came across a photo of half a dozen pint-sized aunts and uncles sandwiching a toddler who I didn't recognize, and when I asked her about the mystery child, all she said was, "He was a boy." "What boy?" "A boy that was."

That was it. No yearning. No grief. Not an ounce of longing for the boy that was. Just a graceful nod to what is.

Now it would be romantic of me to imagine that my grandmother was inspired by some Buddhist philosophy of non-attachment on the path toward liberation from suffering, but closer to the truth would be to admit that she was - like most third-world women knocked-up at 15 by men twice their age - repressed. But I don't care. I still admire it. Her style was so elegantly dignified that nearly 20 years after her death, I remain haunted by the ease with which she could raise her chin, inhale a single breath, and turn her head toward whatever direction lay acceptance.

I am not this way. Unlike my grandmother, when I'm confronted by grief, I curl up into a ball of despair and wallow in my want. My donor egg IVF cycle fails, and I sob a small mountain of tissues until it peaks at an elevation that mirrors the depth of my sadness, and then I cry some more for shame that I could want anything so profoundly.

But that's the irony of the thing and the part I'm most ashamed of: I don't even really want a donor egg child; I'm only chasing this ghost because it's the next thing to hope for. So not only do I long, but I long for something that I want and don't want in equal measure. Desperation for a broken paddle in an ocean storm.

Was she stronger than me, my grandmother? Was she smarter? Wiser? Braver? Or was it instead that she gritted her teeth because she knew that her armor would crumble under the weight of a single tear? Whatever her secret, I yearn for that most of all because right now I'm lost in this canyon that divides what can't be with what might, and the vastness between the two is causing my trans-generational fall from grace to echo with an ever-fierce and violent crash.

In the meantime, I ask myself and I wonder, but nothing comes. There are no answers. No truths to be revealed. Just the occasional whoosh of my want as it flails about without composure. And the waiting. Always more waiting. Waiting for peace, waiting for my period, waiting for the bundle of something that could end up being joy.

Or perhaps just waiting for the crash. That might be good for me, too.

Beta Beta

The second beta was 11.32, which means that this pregnancy isn't viable, so I'm stopping meds today.

Good thing, too. I need a drink.

Alpha Beta

This morning's result was 17.47. This is super low by beta standards since most providers consider anything below 50 to be negative, but when I urged my nurse to lay it out for me doomsday style, she wouldn't do it. She insisted that she sees these things go either way equally often. Dr. Google seems to agree.

I'll know more after my second beta on Saturday.

Also, I published this post privately yesterday, and I'm only sharing it with you now because yesterday I wasn't prepared to expose my grief to you as I wrote it (ugly, ugly grief). But since then I've eaten something, cried with friends, was held by N, and saw my therapist; and although my grief is still real and true, my reflecting on it has made it ebb back into a nook somewhere. But I know it'll be back. I can feel its fucking tentacles undulating at my tear ducts.

PS: How do you spell "karma?"

Pee Antipathy

Wednesday, June 20 – 8dt5dt. I peed on another stick this morning, and the line was darker than yesterday's, so I went back to bed and cried. The line was darker, which means I'm probably really pregnant.

Bummer. I was sort of hoping the line would disappear.

What if one of my other embryos is better than the one they put in me? I have 6 totsicles on ice, and if this pregnancy fades away, I could have another shot at a better-looking, smarter child. But none of that matters at this point anyhow. I'm already pregnant with whatever this is that's growing inside me.

If it does keep growing, that is. I can never eat when I'm depressed, and if I don't eat something soon, this baby might just whither away from malnourishment. Or I could accidentally miss a couple estrogen pills. Or stop taking my shots. Or maybe the yolk sac will be empty. Or the thing could just fall away on its own. This embryo is about the size of a poppy seed right now, so I'd never notice it go. And how much would it really matter if it isn't actually mine?

OK, it's mine-ish, I guess. And everyone keeps telling me that at some point I will absolutely love this baby and I won't give the genetic thing a second thought. That we'll bond. I believed it before or else I wouldn't have moved forward with the transfer, but now here I am again: wondering if I will love this child as much as I should. I suppose I could eventually, but all I know right now is that no one would have to assure me of these things if it were my egg.

But it's not my egg, and these aren't my genes, and maybe that's a good thing. I'm not that great. People think I'm a good person because I work at non-profits and volunteer and do yoga, but the truth is I'm vain. And I judge people. I judged a woman yesterday for wearing an oversized Elmo t-shirt, and I'm judging this baby for not being genetically related to me. I'm judging myself for being a shitty person, and I'm judging you for thinking I'm a shitty person. And if you don't think I'm a shitty person, then I'm judging you even more.

Maybe it's always like this for donor egg recipients. Or maybe I'm more fucked-up than the rest. God knows I've talked about all this shit before, but I sort of thought that the bulk of my grief was behind me. Granted these spiraling thoughts of gloom are fewer and further between, but what the fuck, dude? I'm pregnant now - so far, at least - and this isn't exactly the time to consider whether or not configuring a genetically-engineered child was a good idea.

A pregnancy 5 years in the making, and I'm upset about it. Ain't I a piece of work?

However Faint

Tuesday, June 19 - 7dt5dt. In infertility culture, the pee-on-a-stick mantra generally goes something like, "A line is a line, however faint."

And so it would appear that I'm kinda, sorta, a little bit pregnant.

Testing, Testing

Monday, June 18, or 6 days past my 5-day embryo transfer (that's 6dp5dt, for you locals). This morning, I peed on an EPT Digital Early Pregnancy Test that I found left over from a couple years back, and the result was negative.

I'm not surprised; 6dp5dt is pretty darn early, and digital tests are notoriously insensitive, but I needed to pee on something today, so I thought the digital stick would be a good candidate. I'm saving the First Response Early Result Tests for when I'm more likely to have a positive (like tomorrow, mayhaps?). FRER tests are the most sensitive, but I think the real reason PVEDers swear by them is because we love to stress over things, and "ohmygod, is that a faint second line?" is the ultimate stress-out question in infertility culture. Granted, it's super easy when the digital screen just tells you "Pregnant" or "Not Pregnant," but can it really be trusted with evaluating that second line? I mean, what if you can only see the second line in a certain light? What then?? There's no lighting inside those sticks. No room for interpretation. Just "Not Pregnant." They don't even say "Sorry" or offer you a cookie. Nothing. Come to think of it, those digital tests are assholes. I'm glad I peed on it.