Ticking

I hate this time of the month. My breasts are sore, I feel bloated and gross, and I keep fantasizing that I'm pregnant, while at the same time, bitterly doubting it. I'm in the insufferable post-ovulation 2WW ("two week wait"). Worst of all, I've got another week to go.

No, worse than that: Chances are, I'll be going through it again in a month, and again in another month.

J~ finally saw the urologist, Dr. G~, who ordered a second semen analysis. Last time, there were viscosity and motility issues. This time, no viscosity issues at all, and motility was much improved. Instead, the problem was morphology. Only 9% of his sperm were properly formed. Some had bad midsections, some had tail issues. A whopping seventy-one percent had malformed or double heads. What kind of baby, if any, would those make?

Even so, Dr. G~ scrawled this on the results sheet we received in the mail: "Should be okay to go."

Okay to go? How could he come to that conclusion? Moreover, how could he not explain how he came to that conclusion? Admittedly, (though not until we were in his office and he'd already felt J~ up, and diagnosed him with a small varicocele, by the way) Dr. G~ doesn't specialize in this sort of thing.

We made an appointment with someone who does.

But the first available slot wasn't until the end of April, which means another cycle or two of this holding pattern, and continued uncertainty about whether or not we should be trying at all.

Last night, J~ gestured toward the clock on my studio wall. "I don't know how you stand that thing. The ticking would drive me crazy."

The clock is loud, he's right. But somehow, I barely notice it.

The same is not true of all my clocks.

My Grand Adventure

On Monday of last week I drove to Providence, RI and parked downtown. My first order of business was to tuck some cash and my cell phone in my coat pocket, grab my tote bag, and head for WRNI. The tote held three things: the essay I'd written for NPR two years ago, the latest Orion magazine (in case I was kept waiting), and my ice skates.

The essay was written shortly after my first wedding, planned pregnancy, and miscarriage, from the perspective I had at that time on life and the direction of mine thus far. If you'd told me then that I would soon experience another pregnancy, miscarriage, and an impromptu wedding, not to mention divorce, of course I wouldn't have believed you. Even if I did believe you, and you explained, in graphic detail, how painful it was all going to be, I would have had no clue. Maybe I've lived a sheltered life, but I had no idea emotional trauma could hurt like that.

I'm not talking about the miscarriages here, I'm talking about the break-up of my marriage to A~. If you haven't felt the sensation of such intimate betrayal, let me tell you, it's like having your guts ripped out in slow-motion. It hurts. It literally, physically hurts. I still break down sobbing every now and then. Life is, in so many ways, wonderful now, don't get me wrong. But I'm by no means "over it."

So perhaps you can appreciate how strange it felt to read aloud, for public consumption, that "to this date, my unplanned teen pregnancy remains the most painful episode of my life." I wrote that with such confidence, clueless that anything could ever happen to rival the shame and guilt and gory dead-baby nightmares. It was definitely a dark time. But, people, I'm telling you, I didn't know from pain.

The two men who recorded me were very friendly and appreciative. They were also determined to have me read with gravitas and emotion; urging me to re-recite certain lines again and again, slowing down here, adding more drama there. It didn't take long -- I was in and out in less than an hour (I never needed the magazine) -- but even so, I left that radio station lathered in nervous sweat.

As soon as I hit the sidewalk, my spirits soared. It was a sunny, gorgeous early spring day, and the ice rink across the street was all but deserted. I paid my three dollars and spent the next two hours pretending, as I had on the pond in the backyard of my childhood winters, that I had all the grace and skill of an Olympic ice dancer: frontwards, backwards, one-legged, even managing a few drunken-looking and techniqueless spins. For those two hours, it didn't matter that I am actually thirty-seven-years-old, fertility challenged, and wearing a sweat-soaked bra, nor did it matter that I was unaccompanied in my adventure (as we all are, always, to some extent), not to mention confused about my direction in life. I was having fun. And sometimes, that's all that matters.

A Modicum of Fame

Fame is probably too strong of a word. But the point is, if all goes as it has been going, my blog will receive its 50,000th hit sometime in the next two weeks, which, to me, is a big deal. I started this thing hoping for nothing more than an incentive to write on a regular basis. Actually, that's not true. I was dreaming of book deals and other paid writing gigs. To that end, I'm still dreaming. But I did get that incentive I was looking for, and I do average 600-700 hits each week. Because of this audience (in other words, YOU), every now and then, I get a solicitation from people who have something to sell.

The most recent of these was an offer to send a free copy of the book, The Essential Fertility Log: An Organizer and Record-Keeper to Help You Get Pregnant by Suzanne Schlosberg, in hopes that I would recommend or at least mention it on the blog.

Okay, so now I've mentioned it.

As for recommendations -- I may be a sucker for free stuff, but I'm not a total whore. Upon perusal of said freebie, I can only say that if you are totally single-mindedly obsessed or you have more energy and time than you know what to do with, maybe this would be useful to you. But as far as I'm concerned, this book is a wire-bound prescription for a panic attack. Even the cover makes me nervous, mocking me with pictures of cute baby feet, a pregnant belly, and a positive HPT.

But more power to you, Suzanne Schlosberg, because your books are actually written and published and out there in the world for jerks like me to disparage.

Speaking of putting it out there, I wrote an essay two years ago, which I submitted to NPR's This I Believe essay collection. It's about my teenage abortion in the light of a mid-thirties miscarriage (you can read it here). Two years later, I've received a request from a local NPR affiliate to include it in their program. I'm to read the essay myself, to be recorded Monday. I don't know when the show airs, but if there is a podcast, I'll link to it.

More baby-pursuit updates to come...

Speaking of Old...

I'm in Florida now, soon to attend the funeral of my beloved uncle B~, who milked life for all it was worth. I actually flew down on Thursday, the day before he died, and I'm glad I did. I got to kiss him good bye, which is a precious thing, though he probably wasn't aware of it. And there's been a lot to do, what with funeral arrangements and family coming in and his apartment to clean out. Going through all the files, the photo albums, and correspondence, the (I'm not kidding with this one) Rock Hard Abs videos, it is amazing to see that even when a 93-year existence comes to an end, it is still a life interrupted.

There isn't time for a proper post right now, but suffice it to say: life is short, even when it's long.

Too Young to be Old

As of yesterday, I am thirty-seven years old.

"Oh, you're so young!" That was a sixty-something aquaintance speaking. She has children my age.

It's all a matter of perspective, I guess, which is what I told her. I am young -- for senior citizen discounts. For Alzheimers. But I'm old for high school. Much too old for diapers. (Come to think of it, much too young for diapers as well.) To put it in strictly Floridian terms, since I have relatives in that sunny state and it's spring-break season: I'm young for Del Rey Beach and old for Fort Lauderdale.

The truth is, when that sixty-something person waved thirty-seven off as generally young, I was thinking, I'm not young for child-bearing. "Easy for you to say," I now imagine myself shooting back at her, "You're old."

But that seems mean, and I am not, by nature, mean. And even if I was, I'm too old for that kind of thing.

My birthday, by the way, was fun: a day trip with my family and my brother's family for good food and ice skating and some long-overdue time in the art store with my nephew, who recently turned nine. Now that's young.

Following Up

Looking back to the end of last week's entry, I see a grocery list of things I've been meaning to write about. So here goes:

My Appointments with the Therapist:

I've been twice to see this woman, and probably will not go back. Not that she wasn't knowledgeable and wise, not that she didn't have a perfect voice for late-night soft-rock radio (think: earthy, new-age Delilah), but because I could barely squeeze in a word edgewise between all the smooth-voiced wisdom and knowledge. And frankly, I had a hard time taking her seriously. The truth is, I really did get something out of seeing her, and she did have some very useful things to say, which is why I went back for a second dose. I may go again at some point, after exploring other venues for my psychological development, but it won't be anytime soon.

More on step-mothering, and How I Felt on Parent-Teacher Conference Night:

There is a trick to being a happy and effective step-parent, when what you really want is to be a full-fledged parent, starting from scratch. Well, actually, there are many tricks, many challenges, but the one at the top of the list for me is this: making room for the full spectrum of feelings that such a situation evokes. For instance, when J~ came home from parent-teacher conferences, his heart brimming with how much his son's teachers liked his son, it hit me. "You've been a parent for almost thirteen years," I said, struck by all the commitment, the work, the thoughtfulness that such a role requires. I felt glad for him, proud of him, for being such a solid father, and told him as much. And then I burst into tears. It took me a minute to figure out that my sadness was due to the possibility that I will never have a child of my own, let alone the affirming experience of having my child loved and respected in the world.

It never ceases to amaze me how effective a few tears can be for clearing the mind. The more I allow myself to express whatever feeling comes up about what I don't have, the more present I can be to enjoy what I do.

My night out with the girls.

I won't go too much into this one except to say: we didn't do much beyond talking and nursing drinks and eating garlic fries, but I had fun. I stayed up way too late - I'm still recovering. But it feels good to be finding a circle of friends in and around my new home.

Abortion and the Not-So-Simple Choice Between Surgical and Medical (meaning with pills) Procedures:

I won't go too far into this one either. It never felt like the right time to write about this subject, and it certainly doesn't feel right now either, but in case this is of use to a woman planning to have an abortion but agonizing over what method to choose, I want to get this down: It really is a matter of personal preference.

Also, let me be clear: a medical abortion and "the morning after pill" are different things. "The morning after pill" is really a high-dose birth control pill whichprevents a pregnancy from starting after unprotected sex. Medical abortion is basically an induced miscarriage.

In my brief time as an abortion counselor, I spoke to many women (other abortion counselors, that is) who were very clear about which method they would choose, and let me tell you, there is no consensus. Some are more comfortable with the surgery, which is quicker, not necessarily more painful, and involves having a doctor present. Some were more comfortable with aborting medically. In fact, one woman who'd actually experienced both methods, and found medical abortion to be more physically difficult, still insisted she would choose it over surgery if ever she had to choose again, for the privacy it affords, and because it is less invasive.

As far as safety goes, both are reputedly safe, though of course, nothing is foolproof. Actually, I don't know what the state of affairs is these days about medical abortion. A year ago, as I was moving away from that line of work, there was a scare after several deaths due to infections following medical abortions. This had happened once before in California, but this time it was happening elsewhere. It was unclear what was to blame for these deaths, though an obscure soil bacteria seemed to be involved. Here's some more information, if you're interested.

Mind Sweeping

I have become a devotee of David Allen, organization guru to the stars. Okay, not the stars, more like shiny sparkly high-power CEOs. I heard an interview with him on New Dimensions maybe two years ago, where he talked about what it's like to constantly feel like there's something important you should be doing but you're not sure what, or which of too many whats. He talked about focus, about how you either feel terrible about all the things you're not doing, or perfect about the one thing you are doing, and that in order to engage in the present, you must be clear and resolved about everything else. He says that a crisis is actually, in a way, less stressful than when there isn't a crisis, because, for instance, when you blow a tire on the highway, all the appointments and projects and decisions that need making go away. Suddenly, you can focus because there is clearly only one thing to focus on.

This was exactly what I needed to understand. At the time, I was still married to A~, between miscarriages, and torn between looking for full-time work (which I didn't want but felt guilty for not having, since A~ was working non-stop), writing (which I desperately DID want, but felt too depressed and too guilty to really apply my full attention), cleaning the kitchen (to please A~, since this was the one actual complaint about me that he could articulate), researching infertility (because supposedly this was the ultimate goal: to have a baby), and attending to my own mental and physical health. Strangely, this last one was also more for A~ than for myself. He seemed so put off by my unhappiness, and I was hyper-aware that he was not all that into me. No wonder I was miserable and unable to focus.

In his book, Getting Things Done: The Art of Stress-Free Productivity, Allen advocates what he calls "mind sweeping," or getting all the "open loops" or incompletions in your life out of your head and onto paper, a separate sheet for each thought, without any attempt to group things or prioritize until you've swept out every cobweb and corner. I tried it at the time, but got overwhelmed by the growing tower of paper. I ended up throwing out the whole stack.

I'm trying it again now. Though the tower is twice as high, it feels good this time.

I've been going through the pages one at a time, entering items in my calendar, filing others for future reference. Every reminder for a phone call, for instance, goes into a file I keep directly underneath my phone, so that when I sit down at my desk I can browse through and make the appropriate calls. Random errands go in the "errands" file, grouped with paperclips according to where I have to go. Now, when I leave the house, I peruse that file to see if I can complete any of those tasks along the way. There is another file for chores to do online, others for books I want to read, things I want to do someday/maybe, and another for topics I've been meaning to discuss with J~.

We cuddled up on the couch the other night with that file, and it was actually fun. We made small but important progress, some of which was mundane (like, When is your appointment with the urologist?) some not so simple (Would we rather see a Reproductive Endocrinologist?) and some light-hearted (Let's try on the ice skates I bought you! and What do we want to do next weekend, when B~ is away with his Mom?) All in all, it feels great to be getting all this underbrush cleared away.

In the file of possible upcoming blog topics: A report about my appointment with the therapist (I've been twice now). More on step-mothering, and how I felt on parent-teacher conference night. My night out with the girls. And, this may seem off topic for the direction the blog has taken, but I've been meaning to write about abortion again, and the not-so-simple choice between surgical and medical (meaning with a pill) procedures. Oh, yes, and sending out a thank you to all of you who've left supportive comments over the past weeks. I don't always make time to say so, but I do truly appreciate it. And so does J~.