I'm currently looking into switching into Typepad.. because I am a big fat copycat. Please bear with me. Transition is never pretty.

Aw crap.

The IVF clinic closes down three times a year so they can take down all the equipment and boil it or whatever fuck they do to them to make sure they aren't dizzyingly contaminated. And when they do this, no one (and I mean NO ONE) starts IVF proceedings. At all.

So when do YOU think it is closed?

If you guessed anything other than "now" you'd be wrong. They are closed NOW and won't re-open until April 10.

So here's the ultimatum. If my period starts ANY DAY before April 10, I am canceled until the next month.

"But what if I start on the 9th?" NOPE.
"What if we delay it with birth control pills or progesterone?" NOPE.
"What if I cry on the phone and make you feel REALLY guilty?" NOPE.
"Ok, then, what if you bite my ass?" *pause* NOPE.

So even though my last stupid fucking period (for evermore known as SFP) started on March 4 and has been known to be clockwork 32 days (to spare you the math, that would pit my start date at approximately April 5), I have to beg this body to hold off until April 10.

It's not going to happen. You know why? Because my uterus HATES MY GUTS. That's why.

(And it sucks too because it is going to totally ruin my number geek streak. Dammit.)

I love culinary discoveries.

Today, the discovery was the new breed lower-carbohydrate potato by SunFresh. We saw, we bought, we made some KICKASS mashed potatoes.

Yum Yum Yum.

For Christmas, Brad got me a very generous gift card to a spa. Today is the day I cash in that gift card. I will have a manicure, pedicure, back massage, scalp massage and facial. Boy, do I need it.

I was hoping for a soul massage, but scalp massage will do I suppose.

I keep asking myself what happened to me. I have never thought of myself as high-maintenance, but damn. The last few years, I feel like my maintenance level has increased.

Why is that?

Is it just that my self-esteem took a major hit when I realized that I lack the ability to do what women are supposed to be able to do. Yeah, I knew that. But what else contributed?

I don't feel very pretty these days. The years of fertility drugs, false-start pregnancies, comfort binging and ensuing vegetative state make me feel "soft". Soft, as in squishy and FAR from the hardbody I'd prefer to be. I can't explain why, but I need adoration. Adoration that tells me that my self-induced image of myself is wrong. That I AM beautiful and desirable. Because I honestly don't feel it. I feel like a dopey dork.

The high school nerd comes back to haunt me sometimes. I didn't have many boyfriends and so I had to rely on myself for esteem. Unfortunately NOW, I can't rely on myself anymore because I just don't believe my own compliments. It's a bad frame of mind, but it isn't something I am going to punish myself for. It just IS.

I think this is a common situation for women, maybe men too. But the label of "maintenance" is unfair. Women have complex wiring. Beside the fact that we are a cacophony of hormones 24/7, we also have social expectations that we have to live up to. We are constantly comparing and being compared to idealized and unrealistic goals. I'm not just referring to physique expectations, but in so many aspects of life. Reproductive expectations, professional expectations, domestic expectations. We are expected to be champion mothers, ambitious professionals, and whirlwind housekeepers. That's a lot of shit to keep up with. I can't seem to become a mother, I do what is expected of me at work, and my house is a wreck.

I'm not crazy because I sit in the dark and cry over a million little things that add up. I'm not a whiner because I just want a hug. I'm not a bitch because I get angry at someone for making an insensitive and under-educated comment. And most importantly, I'm not a horrible person because I can't objectively listen to a new mother's stories. I am just doing these things as a means to cope. Because there's a lot in my head and I have to first be able to help ME before I can tackle society.

But hugs and love help out a lot.

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Update:

The spa ROCKED. They did a scalp treatment that originated in India. It was used to treat schizophrenics. Perfect!

Then I had a Chantico from Starbucks. Damn, whomever the individual who thought of drinkable chocolate--bravo!

Then we rode bikes to our new friendly neighborhood Target. Target. In my neighborhood. Oh the joy!

Then we had tapas. Duck, fish cakes, shrimp, Spanish cheese, plantains and bread with vinegar and oil. Oh so heavenly.

Then we came home, spread a blanket and pillows out in our yard and laid back to stare at the stars. Bliss.

But then... I came inside and read the messages from all of you. And that was the best. Thank you, every one of you. You are all awesome and beautiful. I don't just mean that "generally". I know who each one of you are and I completely mean that to each one of you. Thank you. So much.

Tonight was the big breakdown that has been building for a while. It was a culmination of anxieties, sorrow and frustration. We were supposed to go to a friend's birthday party but social anxiety, and the fact that one of the guests would be a woman whose accidental pregnancy is due any day now, broke the camel. I snapped about having to bundle up warm to walk to the party and so Brad canceled our outing. I put on my pajamas and crept up into the dark recesses of the attic office to cry.

I stared out the window at the hillbillies across the street. They are prolific that bunch. Teenage girl #1 just gave birth to her second child while teenage girl #2 is expecting twins. They make it seem so easy. But then I thought about it and realized that they don't make it seem easy, they make it seem normal. Normal, as in their female bodies do what a normal female body does when a normal male body has unprotected sex with it. It gets pregnant.

I close my eyes sometimes and imagine a little girl. She is around four years old and has an infectious giggle. Her little nose crinkles up. She has her father's dark copper hair and huge blue eyes, but she also looks like my father's baby pictures. Big round curls frame a perfectly round little face. It's who I imagine she would have been. It's who I've imagined ever since the day of the ultrasound. I have a male version too, but she sticks in my head, simply because she was a she.

But the normalcy my body lacks is what prevents her from coming back to me. I have lost the ability to have faith in my body. I no longer believe that it can do what it needs to do to bring her giggling little face back into the world. IVF is the unknown that will hopefully work, but it may not. It simply may not.

And that sucks and it pisses me off.

When I was younger the movie Poltergeist freaked me out. Hell, who am I kidding, it still gives me the creeps when the clown disappears from the chair. It spoke to the fears that I had at the time:

Ghosts.
Possessed dolls.
Haunted closets.
Intangible fears.

It was based on stuff I saw on a screen happening to someone else. The lasting effect was that there was no way I'd ever own a clown doll, I wouldn't have the room with the view of the big freaking tree, and no way in HELL that closet door would even be cracked open. NO way NO how.

Here I find myself on my leather sofa, an adult, freaking out about things. But now there are tangible fears. Experiences that I've already faced. Fears that I've seen others go through, but this time could actually happen to me. There may not be a haunted closet to be sucked into, but there are equally horrific plot twists.

Follistim works too hard, I hyperstimulate, cycle canceled.
Follistim may not be sufficient, I underproduce follicles.
They retrieve follicles, and few fertilize.
Many fertilize, but what few make it to day 3 arrest during biopsy.
We have a couple blasts at day 5 but none implant.
A blast implants, but betas do not double.
Betas double, but no heartbeat.
We see a heartbeat one time, then it disappears again like the last time.

...and so on.

I think I prefer the possessed clown in the haunted closet.