For months I have had a small white piece of paper sitting snugly in my purse.
It has been there since we met our interesting new IVF doctor Dr Hynes to discuss the what-next details.
This is what it says:
Phone Hynes secretary (Barbara) about day 5 or 6. “See JH day 11 or 12 for scan/blood”
I particularly like his use of inverted commas to signify speech, as in my speech, when talking to Barbara on the phone.
I am seriously considering actually saying those words verbatim when Barbara takes my call.
And then I will hang up.
I guess given his previous efforts, I should be glad the small note is expletive-free. His speech is certainly not.
And I have decided that I will say something about that next time. If our boy is in the room, and he most likely will be, that sort of language is unacceptable.
Yes, that note has sat all-but undisturbed in my purse for months. I rarely have cause to trouble the note-holding compartments of my purse for I am someone not to be trusted with money in denominations greater than the rattling, gold or silver kind.
I have been reduced to shekels and may as well sport a Robin Hood-style pouch affixed to my belt (or indeed pop it on the end of a long stick I could jauntily carry on my shoulder) for the purpose of holding my jangling coinage, such is the rarity of my possession of any currency in note form.
Anyway.
I had cause to take that doctor’s note out over the weekend.
This is the month...the month I was waiting for my period to signal the date of day one. The cycle when we try again.
Well, it is day three right now and we are GO for launch Houston!
So I will call Wednesday and probably see the doctor just after Easter for an embryo transfer.
Holy shitting Easter eggs, Batman.
I am scared, but ready.
I think.
I feel an almost paralysing apprehension about this, but I know I have to get through it.
I try not to think about it too much, or indeed place too much weight on this first embryo transfer.
Of course, it would be wonderful if that one took, but I need to be mindful that it won’t. And I need to be prepared for that, because the disappointment this time, after everything that happened before, could cripple me.
Most days, I am not thinking about it, and just getting on with things.
But sometimes, it fills every fold of my brain.
I resolve to be ZEN about this. That’s Zero Encroachment of the Negative.
I figure if I write it down, I might just start believing it.
Eeek.
Monday, April 18, 2011
Tuesday, April 12, 2011
Five things I don’t understand
1. Street lights.
Why they go off when you walk under them. Often. And right at that exact moment as you walk into the light they emit.
And it doesn’t just happen once, to be so inconsequential that you don’t even notice it or give it another thought.
It happens in waves of moments, like eight times in a week.
It serves no purpose whatsoever other than to freak the shit out of you and have you dreaming for weeks that the cursed evil god of fate has sent you a clear message that you will meet a gruesome death because the light was evidently a symbol of your life force. A life force that is now snuffed out.
Also, why are some of them never turned off? We have two just up the road from our house and no matter what time of day or night we drive past, they are on.
Every time I remind myself that I must call the electricity company, remembering a scheme where you could get paid (some ridiculous amount, but it was free money from the government) if you dobbed in a faulty street light.
Unfortunately, three seconds later, I am that goldfish in a bowl and the reminder is gone. Oh look, a light. (Swim, swim, swim)
Oh look, a light. (Swim, swim, swim) Hey, where did that light come from? (Swim, swim, swim)
2. Bogan ute adornment
I was driving to work the other day and I sat behind an ordinary ute that was made disgustingly extraordinary with the addition of two embellishments.
One was a delightful sticker across the base of the rear window that proclaimed the vehicle in front of me to be a “uterus”; and the other was a novelty scrotum, moulded out of shiny stainless steel and dangling from the undercarriage.
They are apparently called Truck Nutz.
I have nothing to say about that.
Back to the ute: here was a very hermaphroditic vehicle lumbering along the bitumen before me – one with a uterus and a set of testicles.
No confusing the human variety of the driver I caught a glimpse of as I drove past: genuine, bona fide ranga bogan neanderthal and I would willingly stake my life on the fact that he himself has neither a uterus, or indeed a set of balls that big.
Keep on compensating, partner...
3. Who the shit was Jack Russell and why a dog was named after him?
Ok, so Google can help correct this horrendous gap in my knowledge, but really. Apparently the esteemed Mr Russell spotted a “little white terrier bitch” while a student at Oxford in early 19th century Britain. He “bought the bitch on the spot” – surely no funnier words have been written – and she became the “foundation bitch” – ok, they are the funniest – of a line of fox hunting terriers that would eventually come to be known as Jack Russells.
4. Why there is not a pepper grinder on God’s green earth that works/lasts
Basically you can interchange pepper grinder with just about any manufactured product in these consumerist, disposable days. They do not make things to last anymore and I for one am not going to take it any more!
We have gone through about 17,267 in my lifetime alone. They either fall apart, work for a week and then freeze up, refuse to deliver any pepper at all, or when they do, it is either so fine that it is an invisible pepper mist or it is so coarse that you may as well bounce a teaspoon of whole peppercorns on your dinner while throwing the blasted thing at the dog.
5. Why your clothes don’t fit anymore
Ok, so barring major weight gain, why do tops that sat below your ass five years ago now could be worn as crop tops barely covering your boobs?
I blame point four – they don’t make things like they used to. So all our clothes are being made of cheap cotton in cheap overseas factories that essentially shrink as they age.
Humans on the other hand, do a simultaneous expand with age. Depending on genetics, this expansion can happen either up or down.
And while I don’t think I have stacked on much more weight than my 20s, my torso has seriously lengthened.
I shudder to think what I will look like in my 50s. Maybe something like this...
We will resume normal IVF programming in a few weeks. Thank you for your patience.
Why they go off when you walk under them. Often. And right at that exact moment as you walk into the light they emit.
And it doesn’t just happen once, to be so inconsequential that you don’t even notice it or give it another thought.
It happens in waves of moments, like eight times in a week.
It serves no purpose whatsoever other than to freak the shit out of you and have you dreaming for weeks that the cursed evil god of fate has sent you a clear message that you will meet a gruesome death because the light was evidently a symbol of your life force. A life force that is now snuffed out.
Also, why are some of them never turned off? We have two just up the road from our house and no matter what time of day or night we drive past, they are on.
Every time I remind myself that I must call the electricity company, remembering a scheme where you could get paid (some ridiculous amount, but it was free money from the government) if you dobbed in a faulty street light.
Unfortunately, three seconds later, I am that goldfish in a bowl and the reminder is gone. Oh look, a light. (Swim, swim, swim)
Oh look, a light. (Swim, swim, swim) Hey, where did that light come from? (Swim, swim, swim)
2. Bogan ute adornment
I was driving to work the other day and I sat behind an ordinary ute that was made disgustingly extraordinary with the addition of two embellishments.
One was a delightful sticker across the base of the rear window that proclaimed the vehicle in front of me to be a “uterus”; and the other was a novelty scrotum, moulded out of shiny stainless steel and dangling from the undercarriage.
They are apparently called Truck Nutz.
I have nothing to say about that.
Back to the ute: here was a very hermaphroditic vehicle lumbering along the bitumen before me – one with a uterus and a set of testicles.
No confusing the human variety of the driver I caught a glimpse of as I drove past: genuine, bona fide ranga bogan neanderthal and I would willingly stake my life on the fact that he himself has neither a uterus, or indeed a set of balls that big.
Keep on compensating, partner...
3. Who the shit was Jack Russell and why a dog was named after him?
Ok, so Google can help correct this horrendous gap in my knowledge, but really. Apparently the esteemed Mr Russell spotted a “little white terrier bitch” while a student at Oxford in early 19th century Britain. He “bought the bitch on the spot” – surely no funnier words have been written – and she became the “foundation bitch” – ok, they are the funniest – of a line of fox hunting terriers that would eventually come to be known as Jack Russells.
4. Why there is not a pepper grinder on God’s green earth that works/lasts
Basically you can interchange pepper grinder with just about any manufactured product in these consumerist, disposable days. They do not make things to last anymore and I for one am not going to take it any more!
We have gone through about 17,267 in my lifetime alone. They either fall apart, work for a week and then freeze up, refuse to deliver any pepper at all, or when they do, it is either so fine that it is an invisible pepper mist or it is so coarse that you may as well bounce a teaspoon of whole peppercorns on your dinner while throwing the blasted thing at the dog.
5. Why your clothes don’t fit anymore
Ok, so barring major weight gain, why do tops that sat below your ass five years ago now could be worn as crop tops barely covering your boobs?
I blame point four – they don’t make things like they used to. So all our clothes are being made of cheap cotton in cheap overseas factories that essentially shrink as they age.
Humans on the other hand, do a simultaneous expand with age. Depending on genetics, this expansion can happen either up or down.
And while I don’t think I have stacked on much more weight than my 20s, my torso has seriously lengthened.
I shudder to think what I will look like in my 50s. Maybe something like this...
We will resume normal IVF programming in a few weeks. Thank you for your patience.
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