Emotional wreckage

Ah, there's nothing like a good meltdown to clear your head. Maybe the toddlers are on to something?

Apparently, I'm not taking this whole frostie thing with the zen detachment I thought I was. I was talking to a friend today, my knickers in a twist supposedly about all the *other* things I'm trying to balance right now (new job, new French lessons, pending holidays - I've got a list as long as my arm right now) and when I lost it and choked up and eventually started leaking around the eyes (isn't it absolutely mortifying to cry at work?), I really thought it was about my new French teacher. She's new, painfully new, I'm her first-student-ever kind of new.

Except, I was riding the bus home after work, and I couldn't stop crying. Not hysterical, hitching sobbing... I was just sitting there, looking at the river and the passing scenery, except I couldn't stop the steady stream of tears running down my face, and I realized that the point at which I actually started to cry, we weren't discussing my French lessons at all - we were discussing my pending mock-cycle ultrasound to check my lining. And everytime I would settle down and get myself under control again, I'd idly think about frostie or the ultrasound or the goddam OPKs, and I'd start crying again.

Hey, I only took one year of psychology, but I don't think you need to be Dr Freud to figure this one out. Besides, really, who cries about French class?

Okay, I admit it, I'm not zen. I'm officially freaked out about the frostie cycle.

I'm freaked out because I peed on three OPK sticks yesterday and none were obviously positive and then I peed on another one this morning and the line was practically non-existant so I called the clinic in a panic saying, "I must have surged yesterday, is it too late?"

I'm freaked out because I feel terrible that I haven't been actively doing everything I can to make this cycle a success. I could have been taking vitamins, or eating protein to boost my lining, or taking viagara (apparently that helps the lining thicken, too) or doing accupuncture or about 100 other things I've seen the girls on the IVF boards doing to improve their chances of success. We could pay for assisted hatching, or ask about embryo glue. But we're not. We're just doing this, letting nature take its course.

It suddenly doesn't seem natural, it seems apathetic. And that's no way to prepare yourself for a pregnancy, for a future life.

Crap, crying again. Fucking hormones - and not even artificially boosted hormones. 100 per cent me. Good gods, the mother guilt has crept beyond the mothering era, beyond the pregnancy, into the pre-conception period.

I'm freaked out because I want this baby with my whole heart, and my whole heart is terrified of having another child. How can I feel both ends of the spectrum with complete intensity? I'm completely invested and absolutely ambivalent. I want both outcomes, and neither.

I do feel better, having cleansed my emotional plumbing with a good cry. And I'm going to try really hard to go back to my zen "the universe will make the right choice for us" attitude.

In fact, forget the viagara, the vitamins, the accupuncture. It seems what I really need is a clown - the type with a red nose, floppy shoes and rainbow hair. According to this article, "after introducing clown therapy to patients having in-vitro fertilization, doctors at Assaf Harofeh Medical Center in Zerifin, Israel, said the conception rate rose from 20 to 35 percent. (...) The scientists, who submitted their research to the European Society of Human Reproduction and Embryology meeting, had set out to see if humor could reduce the stress and anxiety of the IVF treatment, particularly after the embryo had been transferred to the woman’s womb. A smile, a few jokes and magic tricks was enough to get them to laugh, and in some cases, conceive."

So, bloggy friends, have at it. What's your best joke today?