pronoia

Cycle #4

Cycle 3 crashed and burned on day 23. One of three things happened.

1. I ovulated around day 13 as usual, but the luteal phase was extremely short (i.e., 9 days) and thus, not so viable.
2. I ovulated 12-14 days before I started my period, which means we inseminated after I ovulated. I wasn't temping in an effort to not stress myself out again. Clearly backfired.
3. I didn't ovulate at all.

None of these is especially wonderful, but I'm gunning for #2 because, while it demonstrates my own haplessness, it doesn't suggest something that requires medical attention. The absolute last thing I need right now is evidence that my reproductive malformations are more substantial than I already know them to be. Of course, it's possible that it was a short cycle but I ovulated close to normal but early enough to make a fine luteal phase and we caught the ovulation, barely, but I just didn't get pregnant. Somehow that doesn't seem too likely.

And can I just say? Google University, while very informative, is not my friend. The other day I found out the current theories for why endometriosis causes infertility even when there's no obvious physical barrier: the lack of a particular protein/enzyme/small-but-necessary-thing that allows the zygote to attach itself to the uterine wall and/or an overabundance of scavenger cells in the peritoneal fluid that eat the sperm right up before they can do any good. Now I have information I can do absolutely nothing about and that only reinforces my fear that I'm screwed.

I would like to think I'd be less of a complete stress-monkey but for our overachieving friends. J&N are not only knocked up, they're a month further along than they thought they were. So, 12 weeks, some odd days today. We started at the same time.

We were initially excited that they were trying too--we could do it together! We'd have support! We never really thought through what it would feel like if one couple got knocked up and the other, well, didn't. I'm not saying it's not going to happen, but it is really hard, right now, for me to not compare myself to N and panic. Average is six months, I know, but they've just thrown the curve, and I'm not happy to be on the other end of it.

Also, and this is not the prettiest side of me, I can't help but resent how essentially easy it was for them. This is not true of all opposite-sex couples, but they could just have sex every other or every third day, not bother temping or peeing on sticks or charting, not have to align schedules and wash jars and project an inherently irregular thing into the future so people can plan vacations. I hate that it's so complicated and hard, even as I know how much harder and more complicated it would be without R, who is so wonderfully flexible and relaxed about the whole thing. We could be having to pay hundreds of dollars every month for a very small fraction of what we get in one swim team. We could have to try to pinpoint ovulation exactly because we have one or at most two opportunities. It could be much, much worse, but I'm angry it isn't easier, especially so early in the process.

It would be nice to be able to blame all of my crying jags (and there have been many) on J&N, but the truth is that I was told ten years ago to hurry up if I wanted children, and ten years of holding that fear at bay is crumbling next to irregular cycles and random physical events that only seem meaningful.

This month we're trying a new strategy--four insems, as usual, but every other day, beginning last night. We're hoping this covers the range of possible ovulation dates without making any of us--and particularly R--insane. And for the first time, I'm peeing on sticks to see if I get a positive OPK at any point. I'm trying not to think about what happens if I don't.

Ms. P keeps telling me I'm panicking prematurely, that we're only on cycle 4, that the average is six months to a year. I know that, and I also know my own history and my own body. The longer it takes, the longer the endo has to grow, the longer the ovarian cysts have to return, the more pain I'm likely to be in. I wish I didn't know everything I know about my body, but I do. I wish I didn't have someone else's history of trying to compare myself to, but I do. I wish my Managing Director weren't pregnant, but she is. I wish I didn't have endo, but I do. I wish I were pregnant, but I'm not.

You Know What's Rude?

Having a fire drill during lunch. When there aren't even students around.

A bunch of disgrutled faculty and administrators clutching half-eaten sandwiches on the side of a major road is just pathetic.

The Great Snickerdoodle Massacre of Aught Six

Yesterday morning I attempted to make snickerdoodles, my favorite cookie in the world these days. I had been assigned to bring cakes for my dedication ritual, and I thought I'd bring these wonderful, homemade delights.

First problem: I wanted to double the recipe so I could have some at home, but I only had two sticks of butter. So I have to make a single recipe.

Second problem: following the directions in the Joy of Cooking (aka The Bible), I greased the first cookie sheet. Ms. P told me I didn't need to do that, but it was too late for the first one.

Third problem: I used all the sugar in the dough and didn't have any to roll the cookies in. Luckily I found some by crawling into the back of the cupboard.

Fourth problem: because of the butter on the cookie sheet, the first batch came out looking like coasters. Very thin coasters.

Fifth problem: while putting in the second batch, four cookies rolled off the cookie sheet (damn sugar! damn non-stick surface!) and landed in the oven.

Sixth problem: by the time I grabbed the spatula, they had melted onto the oven floor.

Seventh problem: the remains of the falled cookies created black smoke when we left the oven on. No more cookie baking until I clean the damn thing.

Of course, this means that I now have a bowl of snickerdoodle cookie dough in my refrigerator just betting me to eat it with a spoon. Being the nice girl I am, I will comply.

PS--Did you know that Whole Foods does not carry sugar-free cookies? Wheat-free, dairy-free, gluten-free, yes, but not sugar-free. WTF?

Evening Cafe Details

Ms. P, R, and I are sitting in the new coffeeshop in our neighborhood. It was the final thing we needed for a perfect neighborhood, since we already have an organic market and a yoga studio. What more does a girl need?

I was silly enough to check work email, which resulting in me reading an annoying email from Smithers.

I should be writing my name paper for my traditional group. I'm trying to remember and recount two months worth of research, meditation, divination, and discussion. It's clear my journaling habits are very, very bad right now, because I've got nothing but my memory to go on.

We're in cycle 3, and I'm doing my best to ignore everything going on in my body--to stick my fingers in my ears going "la la la la." This is mostly working until I note that I'm doing it.

I'm having one of my quiet periods. I have a lot to say about random daily events, but I'm boring even myself with those. I don't want my life to be taken up with minutia about work. I don't have much to say about anything else.

Perhaps breaking the blogging dam will help.

Balancing People

The SIL has told us from her education in clinical psychology that 80% of what couples fight about they fight about their whole lives. If Ms. P and I have to fight about going out vs. staying in for the rest of our lives, well, I just might have to bang my head against a wall.

We've gone around and around about this. If I'm scheduled up after work and on weekends, I get twitchy and stressed and unable to have thoughts, much less a libido. If Ms. P is home every day and not seeing other people, she gets depressed and sad and miserable. I don't think there is a happy medium--what feels to her like not enough human contact still feels to me like my friends are crawling over my skin to bore into my brain.

This is complicated by the fact that I have made a pact with myself not to do housework if she's not around, because then I spend all my alone time doing housework and I get resentful. When we're scheduled up the wazoo and not home, not much housework gets done, and my twitchy stressy self gets, well, more twitchy and stressy. It's not pretty.

And that's where we are. We were home after work most of last week, but the end of the TWW pretty much erased any goodness that came of that. This week we're scheduled solid, although I freaked out and backed out of tonight's engagement. We have exactly two days this month when we have nothing scheduled for either of us, although I have the weekend pretty much free. I'm hoping that I can spend the evening picking up and doing laundry, and that it won't feel oppressive but will help with the mess-stress.

So, oh internets, help me please. Are you in this situation? How do you and your spouse/partner/imaginary friend/dog/fag hag/best friend deal with the introvert/extrovert staying in/going out dilemma? Do you have any good ideas for how to negotiate things so she feels like she's got people and I feel like I have quiet and we still have time together and we still clean the house?

Green Tara

I picked up China Galland's The Bond Between Women: The Journey to Fierce Compassion because I remembered that she had something in there about Green Tara, who is forming part of my spiritual name. I'm so glad I did.

I've been thinking for a while about fierce compassion and about judgment, specifically being judgmental. A dear friend of mine said to Ms. P not long ago that I have a streak of intolerance in me. This very much bothered me, because I don't like thinking of myself as intolerant. Then my High Priestess said, again, that she thinks the worst sin of all is being judgmental.

Women in this culture are taught not to have boundaries. We are taught not to listen to our instincts, lest our instincts create a disturbance in the social fabric. We are taught to lie to preserve the image and reputation of everyone except ourselves.

I was certainly taught these things. I remember saying once, when I was small, that I hated someone. My mother told me that we don't hate anyone; we like everyone. When I was 16, a sailor at our church asked me out, and my parents, never ones to raise a fuss, didn't object. And because I was raised not to make a fuss, I went, even though I was uncomfortable. When I was in college, I had a date planned with a classmate of mine. My ex, with whom I was friends, asked me over to hang out and watch movies. Even though I had a bad feeling about the date, I went, and my date threatened to rape me if I didn't put out. (I screamed bloody murder instead, and he left.)

Because I was taught for so long that I was supposed to like and care for everyone, I ended up taking care of everyone, even people who were toxic to me, even people who were simply projects. It took me a long time to develop the boundaries to say no, to decide that time by myself reading was worth more to me that attending an acquaintance's birthday party, that I'd rather bead and watch old movies than deal with one more person I was supposed to save. It took a long time to develop the boundaries to privilege my own needs and desires as at the very least equal to those of someone else. My boundaries are hard won. And because they are hard-won, they are firm. I may make exceptions to support someone I authentically do love and care about, but I have no time for people I'm "supposed" to mentor, take care of, save, or waste my time on.

And so I am called intolerant because I call bullshit. I am called judgmental because I don't choose to spend my time on people and activities other people think I should. And because I am a woman raised in this culture, it bothers me. Oh, how it bothers me. These names, they make me doubt myself, my boundaries, my choices. As they are culturally intended to; intolerant is only one concept removed from adjectives like shrill, bitch, pushy, frigid.

There is a difference between making judgments that are then labeled intolerant or judgmental and people actually being intolerant and judgmental. There is a difference between having boundaries and being mean. I'm still working it out, but the difference lies in compassion and a sense of connection. Being judgmental is always some version of "Can you believe she did X?" or "I would NEVER do Y." Being judgmental is about defining your difference from someone else through contrast, setting yourself up as good and virtuous because someone else isn't. Making judgments and having boundaries, on the other hand, are about being choosy and deciding where to spend my limited time and energy.

Although I've been thinking about this for a while, it was crystalized by the Galland book, which wants to figure out how we have both a radical compassion and fierce action at the same time; how we can avoid being judgmental of anyone while making judgments that ground progressive action; how we can live out of enlightened and spiritually productive insides while changing the world. What she finds is the fierce feminine, sometimes divine, sometimes human.

What she learns is this: act. Breathe. Meditate. Think creatively and nonviolently. Rely on the strength and companionship of women. Heal the breaches between woman caused by a culture that separates us and puts us in competition with one another. Believe that everyone, everywhere, truly wants to be happy and to reduce suffering. Have compassion for the people whose choices make that happiness elusive, even if those choices hurt you. Do not claim that having compassion means you cannot define or address wrongs. Trust life.

This is a spiral-learning, I'm quite sure. Today I have learned some pieces of it, and in a few years I will read the book again and there will be yet more to learn. But in the meantime, I will believe that everyone wants to be happy. I will trust in the fierce feminine. I will pray to Green Tara, who acts out of compassion for whosoever calls upon her.

Feelings Schmeelings

So much for feeling different. Yesterday I started bleeding, and despite my hope that it was just (extremely heavy) implantation bleeding, today my temperature is very low. So we start cycle #3.

Yesterday I was inconsolable. This morning I was still weepy, but probably as much from lack of distraction and sitting right in front of the damn midwifery office waiting for our diner to open while watching very pregnant women go in for appointments. That wasn't so smart on our part. After breakfast, Ms. P went to camp and I went to the library. Books on ancient Greece will distract me!

Last cycle I was sad when my period came and I cried a little, but I never felt like I was pregnant. I just hoped I was. This cycle I felt like I was, and feeling like that and having it not be true was really, really hard. I wish I could just have swim meets and then check out for two weeks and come back to test. Having to stay in my body and experience all of it kind of sucks. At least, it sucks when I'm not pregnant.

Oh well. Onward. At least now I can take decongestants and ibuprofen for the headache and backache I've had all frikkin week. And I can talk and think about something other than my uterus.

Distracted

I would like to pretend that I'm thinking lofty thoughts over here, but all of my spare time and most of my not-spare time is taken up thinking about whether or not I'm pregnant. I compare signs to those of N, who has had two positive pregnancy tests. I google early pregnancy signs. I catalogue everything going on in my body, and right now, it's a lot.

I've had a backache for three days now. I have a low-level, ongoing headache. I'm congested, but it's not a cold. I had a little tiny bit of spotting over the weekend. I was briefly nauseated last night, and I had a quite notable food aversion last Friday. I've had mild but ongoing cramping.

It's endless. I've been so distracted that when my best friend called, finally released from her mountain camp duties, I couldn't remember why work was driving me crazy last week, and last week I almost quit. That's how distracted I am.

I can list signs forever, but here's the truth: I just feel different. I feel weird. I feel different in my body.

Now if only the damn test would show up positive.