The one where I'm not pregnant

I peed on a stick yesterday morning. One line. Sigh.

I’m not terribly surprised. I knew I had ovulated fairly late in my cycle, if at all. (Funny, I spent all of our infertile years being mystified by my body, using a microscope to read its inscrutable signs. Now it sends me fertility signals in 72-point font, and yet I still can’t force it to succumb to my will. I am truly my own worst enemy.) I would have been expecting day one last Friday given an ordinary cycle, but I might have ovulated up to five days or a week late, so I really shouldn’t have been expecting my period any time before this weekend.

I got sucked in by hope, though. Damn optimism. There was nothing I could put my finger on, but I simply felt like I might be pregnant. Part of that might have been the absence of the injustices my body usually offers in the week before my period arrives either. I’ll save you the gory details, but we’re mostly talking about minor mood swings, bloat, and an inability to stop eating – especially eating junk food.

By Monday, pregnancy watch had officially commenced with the scrutinizing of the toilet paper. You know how it is, where you begin wondering if you are peeing all the time because you are pregnant, or because you just want the chance to check the toilet paper again to stave off doubt and denial. And there’s that brief suspended moment just before you examine the tissue where you are braced for the tell-tale smudge of blood, but holding out hope for a pristine smudge-free wipe.

While making dinner Tuesday, I had begun thinking about home pregnancy tests and when I might be able to test without feeling foolishly premature. I’d been idly thinking about a possible leftover (unused!) test from last summer, and when I rooted through the bathroom cupboard and found one, it seemed like a postcard from fate. It was a freebie; I could test and be sure of the answer and stop what had become a near-constant cacophony of “what-ifs” in my mind with one quick trip to the bathroom.

To test or not to test. This is the question of women the world over. So much hope, so much fear, so much possibility, so much dread, all imbued into one little chemical strip. There is widespread agreement in the infertility community that "pee sticks" are evil. Assuming you are trying to conceive, the positive test is the best possible outcome. However, the negative test doesn't allow much closure. We've all heard the stories of people who have negative hpts and go on to have lovely babies nine months later.

I've had a rocky relationship with the pee sticks myself. Three positives, one of which was Simon (I never got that far in to the two week wait with Tristan; I had a positive blood test when I started showing signs of OHSS nine days after the embryo transfer.) I can't even count how many negative ones. Dozens, probably.

So in the gloaming of an early morning, before anybody else in the house is awake, I pee on a stick. Every single time I've taken a pregnancy test, I am swept up by the swell of possiblity and the suspension of disbelief in that breathless moment where the urine surges up the little stick. I'm almost afraid to look, afraid to give up the hope of speculation to the harsh reality of fact. The moment seems endless, my optimism champing at the bit, my mind already formulating announcements and due dates and nursery colour schemes.

One line. With an exhalation of breath, I take an embarrassed moment to reign in my rampant optimism. Of course it wasn't positive. How silly of me to think so. I never really thought I was pregnant. I was just, you know, making sure.

Later that afternoon, I can't help myself. I pull the test back out of its nest of tissues in the bathroom garbage bin. I peer carefully at the used test, trying by sheer force of will to conjure a ghostly pink line in the hopelessly blank space beside ruby-red test line. I step to the window and turn the test back and forth, squinting at the test from various angles until I am nearly cross-eyed. Despite my best efforts, the test remains stubbornly negative. I move to toss it back into the waste bin, but stop and lay it carefully on the counter. I'll check one more time, later.

You never know. Hope springs eternal.

My 15 minutes in Chatelaine

Thanks to my colleague Rebecca, who was the first to realize that the Chatelaine article I mentioned is already posted online! No more skulking around the magazine racks at every grocery store and news stand in town, waiting for the paper copy to arrive. Er, not that I was doing that, of course.

Anyway, it's with great pleasure and excitement (and a certain lack of subtlety) that I happily point you toward the article in the online May edition of Chatelaine magazine, In vitro we trust - coming soon to a paper edition near you! In my humble opinion, even past the bits that feature me, it's a well balanced and informative article about the state of reproductive technologies in Canada. It's quite long, though - nine screens' worth - so grab a cup of your beverage of choice before you settle in if you want to read the whole thing.

There's nothing about our story that you haven't already read here, and here, and here, and here, and here, and here, and here (shameless, aren't I?) but it still tickles me to see it all laid out like that in somebody else's words. I was pleased to see that the article manages to shout out both boys and blog by name (sadly, without a direct link. Oh well.)

Even though we knew it was coming and discussed it in advance, I still cringed just a bit when I saw the bit outing Beloved's low sperm count. We've come a long way from the days immediately after our diagnosis, when we could barely discuss it between ourselves. By now, of course, he has become rather acclimatized to me discussing our most intimate moments with the widest possible audience - in blog, on national TV (not once, but twice!) and now in a national magazine as well. He took it in stride, and in fact insists I correct the record by clarifying that it's not so much that his sperm are not copious, but that (in his words, not mine) they are "stupid". The fertility doctors used the slightly more clinical term, "of impaired morphology", but you get the point.

All this to say, in my usual belaboured and roundabout way, that I'm terribly proud to be featured in the article. In case you hadn't gleaned that from my oh-so-understated neon billboard of a post about it.

A box of raisins

The forecast called for a mild day with drizzle, a nice change from the month-long deep freeze we had been enduring. I happily dug my long spring coat from the back of the closet where it had been languishing behind our heavy winter gear. I shrugged into it and ran out the door, late as usual for the bus that was just pulling up to the curb. It was only when I got off the bus downtown and was walking with my face turned up to the newly softened spring breeze that I shoved my hands into my pockets and encountered the cardboard box. I pulled out my hand and opened my fingers. A small green box of organic raisins. In a heartbeat, my upbeat mood turned melancholy.

Of course, I thought to myself. I haven’t worn this coat since last fall. Last fall, when I was pregnant, I never went anywhere without a stash of granola bars and raisins to stave off that sudden lurch of nausea brought on by an empty stomach. I would have been switching to my winter gear just about the time we lost the baby. The last time I wore this coat, I was pregnant.

It’s only been four months. Amazing to think that if I hadn’t lost the baby, I’d still be pregnant right now, not even all that close to my May 8 due date. I’d be huge and uncomfortable and obviously pregnant, able to feel even the smallest of the baby’s movements. I’d be having trouble finding a comfortable way to sit, let alone sleep, and would be deep into preparing the boys for the impending arrival of chaos. I’d be pulling out the old cartons of baby clothes again, picking through to find sentimental favourites and reminiscing about how my giant boys used to practically swim in the tiny sleepers. I’d be hating my maternity clothes and missing my old favourites that no longer came close to stretching across the vast expanse of my stomach. I’d have forgotten what my feet look like. I’d be uncomfortable and crabby and glowing, all at the same time.

But, that’s not how it turned out. Instead, on the weekend that would have been baby’s first weekend at home, by a coincidence of timing we’ll be enjoying the company of my extended family on the free camping weekend. It’s taken a very long time for me to be able to consider the month of May without a sharp constriction of my throat. May finally no longer means the birthday that won’t happen. It means the month with the fun getaway, the month before our big vacation, the month when the boys switch to their new (sshhhhh!) caregiver.

Even though the shock and pain and immediate grief of the miscarriage have faded to a gentle melancholy, it only takes a little box of stale raisins to bring it to the fore again. And every month, the red tide of disappointment spills forth, dashing once again my hopes for another chance to be pregnant.

My feelings on getting pregnant again are complex, not clear even to me. I would like to be pregnant, love the mechanics by which one gets pregnant, but am so very afraid to become embroiled in the emotional maelstrom that is Trying. And every month since January, when we officially started Trying again, I’ve been heartbroken to find myself not pregnant again, even as I wonder in the bright light of day whether I am ready or able to risk going through it all again.

How ironic it all is. When I was speaking to the writer for the upcoming Chatelaine article, she seemed intrigued by my statement that I still consider myself in the camp of the infertile, even having conceived three babies naturally and Tristan and his twin through IVF. (I was still pregnant at the time.) For someone who considered herself infertile, we had really only spent that one year trying to conceive – and then a bunch of other stuff happened.

Sure, it took us more than a year and more than $10,000 of medical intervention (including the IVF and two IUIs) to conceive Tristan, but both Simon and the baby lost in November were conceived without concerted effort on our part. We weren’t really even Trying with Simon – in fact, we were celebrating the sign-off of waivers on our new house. Oops! We didn’t Try before Frostie either, because we had high hopes for that to work out, and when it didn’t I became pregnant the very next month anyway.

And now, so ironically, for the first time since before Tristan was born, seven long years after we tumbled into the land of the infertile, here we are again. We are Trying and it’s Not Working.

It’s different, of course. Back in those dark, lonely, scary days when we were first struggling with infertility, I was wracked with fear that we would never have the family we so dearly wanted. Now, the cruel and abrupt arrival of the monthly red messenger is disappointing, but not crushing.

With each month, as we drift further and further away from the last pregnancy, the urgency to replace and restore my pregnant condition subsides. All things being equal, I think I’d like to have that third child some day, and so we’ll keep trying for a while. Keep trying, without Trying, maybe.

That’s a whole lot of emotional detritus to stuff into one little box of raisins.

Children of Men book club

A couple of weeks ago, I posted my 10-pages-in book review of PD James' Children of Men. At the time, I mentioned I'd read the book to be a part of today's Barren Bitches Book Club tour. The idea is that each person who participates in the book club submits a question to the group, and then everyone answers five of the questions on his or her own blog.

With the birthday festivities of the weekend, I didn't get the chance to devote much time to this, so I'm going to cop out and answer only three questions. It was hard to choose only three!

1. Some of the most memorable passages were those that described how dolls and even kittens came to take the place of babies for people after Omega. In all of these scenes, it is women who are pushing dolls in their strollers or taking kittens to be christened. Why do you think P.D. James chose to only portray women in these scenes? How does this fit with your own experiences of how men and women cope with infertility in similar or different ways?

One of the things I found striking about this book is the detachment of the protagonist, Theo, through the first half of the book. (Especially in contrast to the second half.) He seems detached not only from the global tragedy of the crisis of infertility, but from his own life. It's especially obvious when he talks of the accidental death of his daughter Natalie, beginning with the horribly abrupt way he introduces the subject: "Today is my daughter's birthday, would have been my daughter's birthday if I hadn't run her over and killed her."

Back to the point, I do think this detachment is reasonably representative of men coping with infertility. While there's no doubt infertility is equally painful and difficult for men and for women, I think men are much more stoic. I think that women internalize the infertility and make it a part of their identity, of who they are, to a much greater extent than do men. Maybe this has to do with the fact that women tend (sorry, painting with very broad strokes here) to identify themselves as a mother first, when men tend to identify themselves based on their accomplishments or employment. Finally, I think it has to do with the fact that infertility is such an emotional issue, and women are simply more open (again, generally speaking) to expressing their emotions than are men.

2. In describing the world's "universal bereavement" over it's lack of children, the narrator tells us, "Only on tape and records do we now hear the voices of children, only on film or on television programmes do we see the bright, moving images of the young. Some find them unbearable to watch but most feed on them as they might a drug." How is this like your life dealing with infertility? How do you cope when you are confronted with images or reminders that are painful to you?

I pulled that quote out in my book review, too, because it resonated with me. I'd say I've passed through both points on that spectrum, both needy for the companionship of the children of my friends and acquaintances, and unable to tolerate them. In the darkest times, I remember being unable to visit our friends in their child-filled house in a child-friendly neighbourhood simply because I was too full of fear that it would never happen for me. There were times when strangers holding babies and pushing strollers in the mall made me cry just by virtue of being there.

For me, though, the hardest part was not the children but the pregnant bellies. Actually having a child was a mythical thing that I may or may not have been able to achieve and that I yearned for in a vaguely abstract way, but I ached to be that woman with the beautiful round belly. It was especially hard because a very good friend was pregnant at the same time we lost our first baby and went through the unsuccessful IUIs and made the decision to finally pursue IVF.

Even now, two beautiful boys later, I still find myself on a bad day with an unsettled sense of resentment when I see strangers with new babies. I think of the baby we lost in November, the baby I expected to arrive in May, and I feel a tug of regret.

3. The Omegas are portrayed as cruel, self-obsesssed and cold. Do you suppose that's a function of the way they were raised (as the last generation of children) or something inherent in them? Do you think that infertility has an effect on parenting?

To answer the second question first, I used to think about the effect infertility had on me as a parent a lot more than I do now. I don't think it has affected things like discipline or how I treat the kids, but I do think it had, especially back in the earliest days, a huge impact on the guilt factor. On the very worst days, deep in the dark of night when my nipples were bleeding from a poor latch and Tristan wasn't gaining weight and I was exhausted and terrified and my life was suddenly inside out, I keenly remember being wracked with guilt about not being beautific with joy after finally having the baby I wanted so badly.

And to the first question, I do think the author intended to insinuate that the Omegas were a product of an indulgent upbringing. Theo observes,

Perhaps we have made our Omegas what they are by our own folly; a regime which combines perpetual surveillance with total indulgence is hardly conduicive to healthy development. If from infancy you treat children as gods they are liable in adulthood to act as devils.

I think this is an interesting reflection on how central to our lives our children have become, and how parenting in the 21st century seems to be largely about overscheduling children with activities to make sure they are challenged and engaged for the maximum number of hours possible each week. While I'm quite guilty of making the boys the centre of our family, rather than equal partners, I hope that as they get older we'll be able to restore a bit of equillibrium so that everything is not entirely about them. (Some day I'll get around to writing a whole post about this, instead of flying past it in one quick paragraph, as I've been thinking a lot about it.)

And now, a message from the Barren Bitches Book Club organizers: Intrigued by this book tour and want to read more about Children of Men? Hop along to more stops on the Barren Bitches Book Tour by visiting the master list at Stirrup Queens . Want to come along for the next tour? Sign up begins today for tour #3 ( The Time Traveler's Wife by Audrey Niffenegger) and all are welcome to join along. All you need is a book and blog.

Coincidentally, The Time Traveler's Wife was the book that was the genesis of my 10-pages-in book reviews, and one of my favourite books of 2005 - perhaps even of all time. Highly recommended reading, and if you're reading it, why not join the book club tour?

Ten-pages-in book review: Children of Men

This was supposed to be a 10-pages-in book review of PD James' Children of Men. But the book was really good and I accidentally read the whole thing on the train going to and from my conference in Kingston last week before I could write the review. Oops, sorry about that.

I was surprised at what a great book this is. I had heard vaguely of the movie, but my life lately hasn't permitted me a lot of time for cinematic indulgence, and the book and the movie only really tripped onto my radar screen when I read about the Barren Bitches Book Brigade Tour hosted by Stirrup Queens and Sperm Palace Jesters. (Do they know how to write a catchy title or what?)

A bit of a caveat before I begin. (You know it's going to be a long ramble when I'm making preamble-ish caveats in the third paragraph.) I'm not much of a sci-fi reader, and I'm especially not a huge consumer of dystopian fiction. I'm far too optimistic, some might even say simplistic, to submit myself to the fatalistic outlook of dystopia. So I'm not overly familiar or comfortable with the conventions of the genre, outside of what I learned from Margaret Atwood, but as soon as I read the premise of this book, I knew I had to read it and talk about it with you.

Ah yes, the book. It's set in the year 2021, and is told in the alternating first and third person perspective of Theo Fallon, an Oxford professor and historian. The future in which he lives is not so different from the world of 2007, nor the world of 1992 (when the book was written) insomuch as there are no flying cars, no outposts of civilization on the moon, not even any mention of computers that I can recall. But it is the world of a doomed society, because it has been more than 25 years since a baby has been born. In the year 1995, all of humanity has been struck, completely inexplicably, infertile.

The book opens on a note of futulity and fatalism, many years past the panicked shock of the initial realization of infertility. Theo notes in his diary, "We are outraged and demoralized less by the impending end of our species, less even by our inability to prevent it, then by our failure to discover the cause." Their spirits have been defeated not by the 'what', but by the unanswerable 'why?'

I found a lot of resonance with my own struggle with infertility in this book. The last generation of children, born in the year 1995, are known as Omega. As they become adults, society moves to erase the painful reminder that there will be no more children: "The children's playgrounds in our parks have been dismantled. [...] The toys have been burnt, except for the dolls, which have become for some half-demented women a substitute for children. The schools, long closed, have been boarded up or used as centres for adult education. The children's books have been systematically removed from our libraries. Only on tape and records do we hear the voices of children, only on film or television programs do we see the bright, moving images of the young. Some find them unbearable to watch but most feed on them as they would a drug."

I was haunted by this idea, by a world without children. I think I found the concept entirely more chilling than the idea of humanity's ultimate expiration. Theo describes in a few scenes how pets have become substitute children, as in one scene where a kitten is christened in an abandoned church. In another, he alludes to the acrimony of custodial agreements for pets: "As the registered part owner on the fecund-domestic-animal licence, I could, of course, have applied to the Animal Custody Court for joint custody or an access order, but I had no wish to submit myself to the humiliation." (I remember joking back in the dark days, in the tight way one jokes about something that might not be so funny after all, that if we didn't have a baby soon, one might soon find me at the mall pushing our lovely golden-shepherd mix Katie in a pram with a bonnet on her head.)

But the book isn't entirely about infertility; it's more of an exploration of what would happen to humanity deprived of a future and forced to live through a slow and considered extinction. Really, not the most cheerful book I ever read, but fascinating and compelling all the same.

Theo's cousin, Xan, is the Warden of England, a benevolent dictator who gives the people what he thinks they want: protection, comfort, and pleasure. When Theo, who had previously served on Xan's advisory council, is approached by a small group of revolutionaries who want to use Theo as a conduit to his powerful cousin, Theo is reluctant to get involved in anything that might disrupt his ordered life. When he does acquiesce in the end, it is for completely unaltruistic reasons.

The second half of the book becomes, rather unexpectedly after the thoughtful if plodding narrative of the first part of the book, a page-turning adventure that makes me glad I was too far committed to write a review before I reached the end of the story. It's a fascinating, insightful book that left me considering the issues it raises long after I turned the last page. I'd like to go see the movie now, although I've heard that it's only loosely based on the book, if only to have the excuse to re-immerse myself in the story again.

I'm not convinced I've adequately conveyed how much I enjoyed this book, how thought-provoking it was, and how I lingered over the last page, wondering what happened next. I'm typing this late at night, though, and rather than fuss over this and try to get the words just right, I'll just tell you that it's a really great book, one of the best I've read in a long time, and I'd love to talk about it with you.

I'll be revisiting this book next month as part of the Barren Bitches Book Brigade Tour, and you still have time to join in if you're interested. Read the book by the end of February and we can host our own conversation about the book on March 5.

How do you know?

How do you know your family is complete? How did you decide? Did you always know? Did you just stop? Were you forced to stop by circumstance, or forced to accept more than you expected?

What’s it like for families who don’t have the spectres of infertility and loss lurking in the shadows of their hearts? How different would all this be if we hadn’t struggled so hard to earn the two precious boys we have?

In one minute, I’m perfectly content to stop. Two beautiful boys is a lifetime of blessings. And then the pendulum swings, and with entirely the same amount of conviction, I know that we’ll have another child. Know it in my bones. It’s a truth, a certainty. That lasts about an hour, and then I don’t know again.

When I look at Tristan and Simon and how truly wonderful they are, I can’t help but think that having another child – boy or girl – would be more of the same, therefore wonderful. How can I say no to the idea of more of the most amazing thing that ever happened to me?

And then the fear kicks in. The fear of pain, the fear of loss, but mostly the fear of really fucking things up. It’s not the idea of the third child that scares me. It’s the risk. The what-ifs.

What if we decide to try, we commit to the idea of that third child, and then we can’t conceive? How long do we try? How do we decide to stop trying? Can I face month after month of not conceiving - again? Can Beloved?

And if we can get past the fear of trying (and let me tell you, even after Tristan and Simon, the struggle with infertility has left deep and painful scars on my heart. Mine, and Beloved’s too)… even if we get past the fear of trying, there are so very many things that can go wrong.

If we are lucky enough to conceive again, I'm now 37 years old and officially of advanced maternal age - and with a history of infertility and miscarriage. Can I deal with nine months of paranoia? What if I have another miscarriage? What if I don’t have another miscarriage, but something is wrong with the baby and we have to face a horrible decision? What if the baby is born, but that baby has needs beyond our ability to cope? Do I even have the right to risk my family’s collective future simply because I selfishly want that which was denied to me?

And these are beyond the more pedestrian worries of whether the boys will be content with another sibling, whether Simon be okay as a middle child, whether I’ll have enough time and energy for a whole other person in the family, how we’ll cope with the logistics of five in a world that favours families of four. All these things seem trivial now, but just six weeks ago seemed like epic problems.

I need closure, trite as that expression may be. I need to know that I can give away my maternity clothes, get rid of the crib, and pack up the baby gear for good. I need to be able to pick out a few favourite things that I’ll keep for sentimental sake, and get rid of the rest of it. I have boxes on boxes of baby and toddler clothes, toys, bottles and spoons and bowls, a baby tub and a cradle and a playpen. I have baby gates and booster seats, stacks of bibs and blankets and towels, and shoes in every size. I have three strollers and three car seats and a beautiful pine crib – and I just to know whether I’ll ever need them again.

That’s a lot of clutter in my house, but mostly it’s a lot of clutter in my heart. I need to know. I can’t just let the idea of my next child drift away like the sunlight fades out of a summer day, dragging on for months or years. I don’t want to feel this sad yearning uncertainty forever. I need to know.

Saying goodbye to frostie

I've always believed in a greater order to the universe, if not in an actual higher power. Not exactly fate, because I believe we do control our own destinies. But I strongly believe that everything happens for a reason.

That makes it only marginally easier to say goodbye to frostie. No need to pee on a stick this morning, because nature informed me in her own bloody way last night that the cycle didn't work, that toastie never did become stickie, and that I'm not pregnant.

I think the strangest, saddest part of the whole thing is saying goodbye to the idea of frostie. For five years, as long as we've had Tristan in my life, we've also had frostie. Frostie was like an empty chair at the table, a place-holder for the child that might someday be. It was our back-up plan, our big 'what-if". It was also the twin of Tristan. For five years, we paid a couple hundred dollars to keep it in frozen slumber, and it seems incredibly sad to me to go through all the effort of re-energizing it, only to have the cycle fail.

But everything happens for a reason, right?

You only had to read a post or two in the past couple of months to know I was occasionally ambivalent about the idea of having three kids. And yet, typically, now that I've been told I can't have something I want it more than ever. I'm such a Leo.

And heck, Simon taught us that we don't need a lab and a dozen specialists and a couple thousand dollars to make a baby. There's an easier, much more fun and FREE way to go about it, and you know how I feel about free. I love free.

So yes, today we are sad to say goodbye to frostie. To have a dream end this way is always sad, but we are so very blessed in so many ways. I never, ever want to be that person who reaches past what she has trying to grasp what she wants. Never.

So long, frostie. I'm sorry it didn't work out for us.

I have no idea what to call this post

I’ve spent a lot of this past week and a half pretty much obsessed with my breasts. They’ve always been the canary in the coal mine, my first indicator of pregnancy. As such, I must have groped myself several thousand times since frostie became toastie. There are entire freshman classes at large universities who have experienced less groping that I have groped my own breasts this week.

Despite the fact that they should have been bruised from all the groping, my breasts were sending some pretty strong ‘not pregnant’ unsignals up until Sunday afternoon.

Here’s a nickle’s worth of free advice for you. In the middle of the two week wait, during a fertility treatment cycle, do NOT randomly choose to wear a bra that you haven’t worn in three months. You will be driven to the brink of insanity trying to figure out if the change in the consistency of your breasts is due to the hormone fluctuations of early pregnancy, or a too-small cup size of an ill-fitting bra.

So I broke down Monday morning and peed on a stick. And despite my best efforts to conjure a second line out of the urine-soaked ether, it was quite obviously negative. I peered at it until I was cross-eyed, looking at it flat on, at an angle, and under four kinds of light – the only thing I lacked was a black light – before finally accepting the fact that the second line was simply not going to appear.

I threw it in the garbage, crawled back into bed (did I mention this was all at 4:30 in the morning?) then stumbled back to the bathroom and checked it yet again. Still negative. I laid it carefully on the bathroom counter, remembering tales of seemingly-negative tests left to ferment on the counter for hours that magically materialized as positive later in the day. But it didn’t.

But I was still feeling pretty hopeful, because Day 11 of a cycle is still on the early side. And when you’re an infernal optimist, you don’t give up that easily. Besides, my breasts remained convinced I was pregnant, and who can argue with a breast?

So I peed on a stick in the wee hours of this morning, too. No big finish here – it was negative, too. And while it’s only 24 hours later, this one has the weight of finality for me. This is the one that made a few tears of regret slide down my cheeks, because now I believe it. I think it’s done.

I’ll still pee on my remaining sticks, at least until tomorrow, but no matter how hard I try, I can’t will even the faintest hint of a positive out of those evil pee sticks, and it seems to have been enough to convince my breasts that they’re not pregnant, either.

Don’t console me now, because I’m still holding out until the blood test on Friday. Hey, you never know. But if you want to post a comment, wish me a happy birthday instead. Thirty seven years ago today, I started out on this crazy trip, despite my best efforts to the contrary. (I was late, and breech, and they had to come in and get me. Stubborn from the day I was born.) I love birthdays, and don't know why people don't like to celebrate them. Today of all days is my day, and that’s worth celebrating.

The emotional gamut that is the two-week wait

It's been a week since frostie became toastie - or, as Beloved has christened it, "Stickie". We're half way to resolution and I'm finding the wait much harder than I expected.

I know, I'm not exactly famous for my patience in the first place, but I kind of figured that I would have less emotional investment this time around. I mean, either outcome is wonderful - on one hand, we have a gorgeous family with just the four of us. On the other hand, we have a gorgeous family that is 25 per cent more - therefore 25 per cent more gorgeous - than before. I can't lose.

And yet, I have spent a lot of time fretting. And flying. And fretting. And flying. Lather, rinse, repeat.

I'm developing a theory on the two-week wait, because I've had a little bit too much time in my head to think about it. The two-week wait allows you to experience every single possible emotion on the spectrum, from elation to desolation, just to prepare you for any possible eventuality when you take that pregnancy test.

I started out pretty confident that Frostie>Toastie>Stickie had implanted, and I was pregnant. I had nothing to base it on but my own instincts, which have been pretty good about predicting actual pregnancies, but not so good at predicting gender. (I was gobsmacked to find out my babies were boys both times - I had been sure they were each a girl when I was pregnant.) I spent most of the weekend blissfully imagining how the next nine months might pass with me pregnant, and passed idle time considering how we'd arrange Tristan's room into a shared room for the boys, and checked out other people's mini-vans every time we drove somewhere.

I've slowly slid down the confidence scale to the point where I'm now fairly sure that it didn't work. Why? Because I've spent WAY too much time in my head, that's why. I don't feel any pregnancy symptoms yet, although the deeply repressed logical part of my brain keeps insisting that at a full week before my period is due, there simply aren't any symptoms to be felt.

Every couple of hours, I'll have a random surge of confidence, and the gyroscope in my brain will announce it worked and I am pregnant. The alignment of dust motes in Namibia will cause a ripple in the Force a few hours later, and my emotional barometer will plummet, convincing me that the cycle has failed and menstruation is imminent.

It's all becoming rather tiresome, to be honest.

At least it's not as bad as the two-week wait with the IVF that resulted in Tristan. I had a toxic reaction to the estradiol level in my blood from the follicle stimulating hormones, and developed Ovarian Hyperstimulation Syndrome, a potentially serious condition that causes fluid to gather in your ovaries. Pregnancy excerbates the condition, and when my OHSS symptoms started to abate about five days after we transferred two embryos, I was so sure that the cycle failed I cried for days - including a rather embarrassing breakdown at the clinic when they told me my OHSS had cleared up enough that I didn't need to come in for daily monitoring any more. In my hormone-addled brain, no OHSS = no pregnancy.

That was around six days after transfer, pretty close to where I am now. And then, three days after that at nine days post transfer, I started to feel sick and bloated, and when late in the day I started having trouble drawing a breath, I called the doctor on call to check in. He ordered me to the ER and to make a long story short, we found out that night that I was pregnant. (We found out two weeks later it was twins, and lost one of the twins two weeks after that. The whole story is here, if you haven't read it yet.)

And all that means pretty much nothing. I just have to wait. And wait. And wait. Did I mention I'm not so good with the waiting?

I'm thinking of buying some bulk home pregnancy tests from the Extraordinary Baby Shoppe - they're only four for five dollars, plus the freebie from my great OPK adventure. I could start testing on Monday, but I'm just not sure if I could handle a full week of negative HPTs. I saw enough negatives in our years of infertility, thank you.

But hey, was that a twinge in my left breast? Maybe it's a little tender? Or, maybe not. Maybe it's tender because I keep groping it, trying to see if it's tender.

Argh. I really hate waiting.

Baby pictures!

So I didn't get the artistic blog photo I wanted, but I can at least share this picture of the transfer. You're looking at an ultrasound of my interior plumbing - isn't it exciting? The big dark 'sea' at the top of the picture is my very, very full bladder, and the bottom half shows my uterus, with the cervix on the far right. You can see the catheter in the centre, and three or four bright white spots that are the fertility goo that surrounded the embryo in the catheter. (Ya, I know, what it really looks like a big grey smudge. But humour me... )

I had asked Beloved to scan the ultrasound picture for me the night of the transfer, but the editorial comments were an unexpected addition.

"Your mucous is lovely!"

It's not every day you get a compliment like, "Your mucous is lovely" but being the affirmation-junkie that I am, I'll take it!

That's what one of the two (two!) reproductive endocrinologists (RE) who helped turn frostie into a toastie yesterday told me. He also said I have an ideal uterus, and I'm filing that one away for a day when my self-image is feeling particularly low. "Yah, I may be pudgy and dull today, but at least I have an ideal uterus and lovely mucous."

So yes, everything went extremely well yesterday, and frostie is now officially a toastie, snug in my womb. He/she came out of the five-year deep-freeze extremely well. They look for an embryo to be six to eight cells, and this one was seven cells - bang on average. And they grade them in quality on a scale of one to five, five being the best quality - but, the nurse assured me, they almost never see a grade four or five quality- and frostie was a grade three plus. I am absurdly proud of this, as if I had anything to do with it. I'm as proud as when Tristan passed his first year of swimming lessons, which again, had basically nothing to do with me.

Jojo, I did ask about the placement of the embryo in the uterus (that, and about a hundred other questions - it was like Curious George goes to the Fertility Clinic) and one of the REs said that yes, there is in fact an ideal place, high up in the uterus. A few minutes later, the nurses, REs and lab technicians clustered around the ultrasound monitor gasped appreciatively, in much the same way you ooh and aah over a particularly vivid fireworks display, when the RE skillfully launched the embryo and a small amount of fertility goo into exactly the place the RE had just indicated on the monitor. One of the nurses later said that the fertility goo drifted placidly out of the catheter in the most ideal way, and again I was absurdly proud.

The whole procedure only took 15 or 20 minutes, and then I was free to empty my way, way, WAY overfull bladder. Oh yes, and the RE also complimented me on my bladder capacity. He said, "You must be great on a road trip." Why is it that I attract comedians wherever I go? (Cool aside - you know why they want you to have a full bladder? Because it presses on the normally curved uterus, making it straighten out and providing a much more direct path for the catheter. The RE said they have a statistically improved success rate with a full bladder during transfer. I am endlessly fascinated by this stuff.) I had already gone three times in the half hour leading up to the procedure to let off a bit of pressure, and by the time they had launched toastie out of the catheter and then sent the catheter back to the embryologist to verify that it was empty, I was just about cross-eyed with the need to relieve myself. And let me tell you, no amount of kegels will prepare you for the exercise of trying to empty your bursting-to-capacity bladder as quickly and efficiently as possible while simultaneously contracting your cervix snuggly and tightly closed around a microscopic embryo.

Like a good blogger, I had wanted to bring my camera into the clinic with me. I had visions of a particularly amusing photo taken from my perspective on the table, looking down past my stirruped legs to the accumulated medical personnel at the business end of my anatomy, but the nurse and Beloved disabused me of the idea.

The good news is - I have pictures! The bad news is, Blogger won't let me post them. I'll try to put them up later. Evil, wicked Blogger - how you vex me!

The rest of the day was entirely uneventful, in a mildly hedonistic sort of way. We went to the movie (just average, but I'd happily fork over $10 to watch Johnny Depp read from the telephone directory, so it was a pleasant afternoon) and by coincidence of timing, I had a previously scheduled appointment to get my hair cut yesterday, too. The only thing I lacked was a massage, or maybe a pedicure, to make it the perfect "all about me" day.

But of course, it isn't entirely all about me. For those of you wondering how Beloved is faring through all of this, I have to tell you I've been a little concerned about that myself. He has a few more reservations than me about the whole 'third child' thing, and he didn't seem nearly as invested in the whole idea of frostie as I was - but then, that seems par for the course in many male-female relationships in these types of circumstances. I think it takes a little longer for guys to be able to give themselves over to hope, and a little bit longer for them to internalize a pregnancy, or even a potential pregnancy, as a reality.

Any concerns I might have had about his reaction evaporated last night when he performed what I can only describe as an impromptu interpretive dance of the embryo gaining cells and implanting in the uterine wall. Oh, how I wished I had a camera nearby, because it was a thing of beauty!

It's all good. It's all very, very good! And now, I think I'll consider myself pregnant until I find out otherwise. (You should see the grin on my face!) My blood test is two weeks today, on August 4.

*glances at watch*
*taps watch face*
*glances away*
*looks at watch again*

It's gonna be a long two weeks!

3.. 2.. 1.. GO!

Oh look, it's yet another post in the ongoing saga of "oh for the love of god, will you either get pregnant or shut up about it already".

Well, we're almost there. And when I say"we" I mean "we" as in all of us, because I'm really enjoying having a couple hundred of you along for the ride. I like knowing that a lot of you have been there (and been there, and been there) but I also hope that this has been an informative little peek into the world of infertility for some of you.

And now, on with the show, because tomorrow's the big day! After an epic amount of waffling and no small amount of coaxing from my colleagues, I finally decided to take the whole day off. We have to show up at the clinic for 10:30, and I have to have a 'very full' bladder. The nurse suggested I drink a litre or more of water starting around 10:00. (Do you think a litre of Tim's coffee would be an acceptable subsitute?)

Around the time we show up at the clinic, we'll know whether frostie has survived the thaw, about an 80 per cent probability. The actual procedure will be at 11:30. (Are you squirming at thinking of sitting on a 'very full' bladder in a waiting room for an hour? Because I sure am.) I think they encourage me to have a little rest for another 20 minutes or so after the transfer - and who am I to say no to the rare opportunity for a daytime nap? - and then we should be out of there by 12:30 at the latest. We arranged for the caregiver to take the boys on Thursday instead of Wednesday this week, so Beloved will be there for the whole thing, and then we're going out to an afternoon matinee after that.

The only decision that remains is whether to see Pirates of the Carribean, Superman, or You, Me and Dupree. I'm leaning toward a little Johnny Depp action, if only I can claim later in life that he had some impact on my fertility and reproductive capability.

Don't you love it when a plan comes together despite a complete absence of planning on your part? Yet another sign from the universe that we're on the right track!

I wish I had something more coherent for you today. I don't even have a cute anecdote from the boys to apologize for this week's relentlessly self-obsessed drivel. Bear with me, we're almost done, and soon I will get my head out of my reproductive tract and turn my gaze back to the rest of the world. But, although it's a tight call, my reproductive tract is still marginally less scary than the rest of the world just now.

I'm floundering for a way to end this that doesn't seem like I'm fishing for a sea of "good luck!" comments (hey, lookit that - flounder, fishing, sea - and I didn't even do that on purpose!!) but other than my newly discovered marine theme, I got nothing.

Um, so - how's life with you these days? Oh wait, here's another idea - we could play "Infertility Questions". As in, if you have any questions about infertility treatments or the emotional rollercoaster or any of that stuff, me and my panel of experts will answer them for you. Or, you could tell me about your dog, or your goldfish, or just about anything to distract me from tomorrow.

(And if you think this is bad, you ain't seen nothing until you've seen the new low in neurotic obsession that is the 'two week wait'. Stay tuned, it's likely to get ugly.)

Frostie update

I've been promising an update for a couple of days, but I've been holding off for two reasons. One, I don't really have anything of substance to report, and two, I wanted to be able to capture some of my thoughts and impressions on being back in the world of the infertile again. Whatever thoughts might have been floating around won't float close enough for me to capture them in writing, so you'll have to make due with a bare-bones update.

The ultrasound on Thursday showed that my lining is around 6.5 mm, which I think is right about bang-on average. The nurse to whom I spoke certainly seemed satisfied with it, anyway. (I'd appreciate any comparisons from those of you who have been through FETs before and are as neurotically obsessive about remembering and noting these things as I am!)

As of yesterday morning, I'm paying daily visits to the clinic to have them draw a vial of blood, which they analyze for the surge in luteinizing hormone (LH) that will precede ovulation by about 48 hours. There's no way of knowing exactly when that will happen, but based on my fairly regular cycles, I expect the surge to occur Monday or Tuesday, with transfer two days after that.

Each morning, I get to the clinic between 7:30 and 8:00, and wait only 10 or 15 minutes for my turn with the phlebotomist. I have small, rolling veins, and getting a blood draw is always a pain in the arm. They've resorted to taking it from the back of my hand, which is slightly more uncomfortable but better than having them dig around the inside of my elbow with the needle, which is what they did the first two times. Youch! After four or five hours, the nurse calls me with an update, telling me (so far) simply that I have to show up to do it all over again the next day.

I'm still on the fence about how to go about the transfer itself. Actually, it's how to accomodate the transfer that I'm waffling about. The wisdom on the subject of the amount of bedrest required after the embryo transfer runs the gamut from "you can leave the clinic on a pogo stick after transfer and not pose any risk to the embryos or implantation" (a favourite saying of the head of my clinic) to a week of absolute bedrest, as advoated by a lot of American clinics.

When we went through the IVF that resulted in Tristan, I took nearly three weeks off work to encompass the last few days of stims, the unexpected coasting, the retrieval and transfer (three days apart) and a few days after. The actual day of the transfer, we left the clinic and went out for lunch on the patio of our favourite restaurant, then went to the video store where I rented three movies and spent the rest of the day lying on the couch. It seemed like enough. Oh, and I ate about three pounds of fresh pineapple, shredding the inside of my mouth in the process.

This time around, I am considering working the morning of the transfer, or going back to work afterward, depending on the time of day of the transfer. I have a hell of a lot of work to get through and two weeks of vacation starting on Friday, and I'd like to get some stuff off my desk. Quite frankly, it would probably be more restfull to sit in my quiet, air-conditioned cube and work at my computer for an afternoon than be at home with the whirling dervishes that are the sunshine of my life. I dunno... I keep waffling about this. I'll play it by ear, I guess.

I'm not even sure if Beloved will be able to accompany me to the clinic the day of the transfer. There's no official reason for him to be there - he made his, ahem, contribution to the process five years ago, when the embryos were created. The transfer doesn't involve any medication for me, so there's no reason I might need assistance after the transfer. That leaves only the more intangible fact that it would be nice to have him there, but we'd have to arrange for someone to mind the boys, no easy feat on a weekday. Only a few days remain, so I guess we'll play this one by ear, too.

If I seem a little detached about this whole process, it feels the same from here. If I really stop to think about what we're doing, my stomach fills with butterflies - but I try my best not to think about it too much. Whatever happens happens, right? If I don't invest too much up front, there is less to lose - and everything to gain.

Now I have to go do some laundry so I can wash my new skort and take a picture to post so Marla will quit pestering me about it, and I can settle once and for all the debate raging about how far above my knees the hem actually falls...

Ultrasound day

I've got nothing to say today, folks. I've got an ultrasound appointment at 7:30 this morning, followed by four hours of French class. (Ugh.) And yesterday, which is actually right now because I'm frantically typing this Wednesday night - see how I put myself out for you? - isn't going to work because I have two boys who have decided sleep is optional and a husband who is out teaching and there's just no muse to be found anywhere, let alone a few minutes to string some thoughts together. So it's not so much as I've got nothing to say as I've got no time to say it.

And it's a crying shame, because we've been having some great conversations this week!

So forgive me for not having something more interesting tposted today. If anything exciting comes out of the ultrasound, I'll post later, but I think all they will do is check to see if there is a decent-sized follicle that will give then an indication that I'm getting ready to ovulate, and then we'll start the daily blood tests to check for the LH surge that I used to OPKs to detect last month.

But if you're desperate for a diversion, have you seen "ask metafilter"? I've been flipping through it on and off for a couple of months now, and every time I open the page, I find something that sucks me in. Then again, I have the same problem when I open a dictionary. And sometimes the phone book.

It's late, my brain stopped working about an hour ago (hell, more like about four hours ago) and for some reason my fingers are still typing... it's really time to shut this down...

Day one!

Because I know my reproductive workings have you on the edge of your seat, I felt it necessary to broadcast to the entire interweb that it is, in fact, day one of my cycle. The cycle. The cycle that will lead, in approximately two weeks, to my wee Frostie finally coming out of its deep freeze, at which point I think I will begin to refer to it as my little Toastie instead.

Next stop, an ultrasound on July 13. Stay tuned!

Miscellany

You, my bloggy friends, have been wonderful thing week. Thank you for your jokes, all of which I will file away to later torture friends, colleagues and strangers on the street. Thank you for your support, and your kind words, and your suggestions on how to brush my kids' teeth. Y'all are rockstars in my book - for this week, at least!

But hey, it's Friday, and the Friday before I have ten whole days of vacation, nonetheless. So forgive me if we ramble just a bit, because I have the attention span of a firefly today.

For those of you keeping score on the frostie thing, I had my ultrasound yesterday and everything looks great. I have a blood test on Monday, and if the progesterone levels are within range, we're good to go next month. After this week's leaky ambivalence, I'm feeling excited and enthused again. I was gobsmacked by how nice the new Ottawa Fertility Centre is, especially compared to the facilities before. The ladies' room had granite counters and flowers - I can only imagine how nice the sperm-gathering room must be! The whole place has an air of cool calmness, just what you want when you are at your most vulnerable.

It's been such a busy week, and there have been tonnes of stuff I meant to talk to you about. For example, did you see that new show "America's Got Talent"? We were instantly hooked; it's perfect summer brain candy. It's like the Gong Show, which I've always loved, but with David Hasselhoff, for whom I have developed a latent affection after seeing this video. Go ahead, click on it - I dare you, and then I double dog dare you to not be humming that song all day (right, Andrea?) What with this, and that new Gameshow Marathon, it's all my favourite childhood TV shows all over again. Nothing reminds me of the endless summers of my childhood like The Match Game, the Price is Right and Card Sharks.

And speaking of childhood TV, did you hear that CBC is finally retiring the old Mr Dressup episodes? Even though I didn't realize they were still on any more (Ernie Coombs died in 2001, after all) it does make me feel a little sad, and a little old, that they won't be running those old episodes in perpetuity.

One more note on seminal children's programming - I don't think I ever told you that I finally got my Electric Company DVD set as a Mother's Day gift. It so rocks! Now I just have to get a couple of Muppet Show DVDs and The Littlest Hobo and I'll be set! Simon's current favourite movie is Beloved's copy of the old Batman and Robin movie from the 1960s, so with a little luck and a good stock of 1970s TV DVDs, we many never have to watch an episode of Dragon Tales or Arthur again.

And now, finally, my contribution to the joke-fest yesterday - to which you should feel free to continue to contribute, by the way. If you know me IRL, chances are you've heard this one; it's one of my favourites!

When Beethoven passed away, he was buried in a churchyard. A few days later, the town drunk was walking through the cemetery and heard some strange noise coming from the area where Beethoven was buried.

Terrified, the drunk ran and got the priest to come and listen to it. The priest bent close to the grave and heard some faint, unrecognizable music coming from the grave. Frightened, the priest ran and got the town magistrate.

When the magistrate arrived, he bent his ear to the grave, listened for a moment, and said, "Hmm, interesting, that seems to be Beethoven's Ninth Symphony being played - backwards."
He listened a while longer and then said, "There's the Eighth Symphony, and it's backwards, too. Most puzzling." So the magistrate kept listening. "There's the Seventh... the Sixth... the Fifth..."

Suddenly the realization of what was happening dawned on the magistrate; he stood up and announced to the crowd that had gathered in the cemetery, "My fellow citizens, there's nothing to worry about. That's just Beethoven decomposing."

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?

The Great OPK Adventure

I call the clinic, because I have one stick left in my box of five, and I'm guessing that since my life is never straightforward and uncomplicated, I'm going to have to buy another box of ovulation predictor kits. The nurse confirms that yes, I'll have to buy another kit if my surge isn't detected on the last stick.

So I'm feeling a lot of pressure as I pee on the last of the sticks, and lo and behold, there is a line - a really faint, turn it just so, let's try looking at it under the window type of line. I haul out the package insert with the directions on it yet again, and look from my used test to the sample diagrams and back, and while I am happy there is in fact a line, there is no denying the "this is not a positive" nature of this particular spent stick. I'm about to resign myself to forking out another $50 on a box of OPKs when Belvoed says, "But what about that box of tests that's been under the sink since we moved?"

I rifle through the cupboard, and sure enough, I do have four fifths of a box of OPKs from our IUIs, back in, um, 2001. I check the expiration date on the box - November 2002. (Insert Homer-Simpsonesque "it's still good!" here.) I actually call the toll free number, and to the credit of the person with the lovely Louisiana drawl who patiently answers my enquiry, she doesn't laugh out loud when I ask whether three and a half years past its expiration date is too late to get a decent reading from a test. Unsurprisingly, the answer is yes. Way too late.

I'm almost resigned to going back to Shoppers Drug Mart when I remember what you said about buying online. Hmm, I need a stick in the next 24 hours... what do you think the odds are of me ordering one, and receiving it, in time to pee on by 5 pm tomorrow. Yah. But then I remember what Anna said, about a place here in town with cheap OPKs, and I tell Beloved to take over making dinner while I do a little Googling. Because all of this has transpired in the 20 minutes since I've gotten home from work, when I should maybe be making dinner for my family.

I find the site for the Extraordinary Baby Shoppe online with relative ease, and I'm astonished to see they carry a five pack of OPKs for EIGHT DOLLARS! That's more than an 80 per cent discount off the drug store price. And they have an actual store, right here in town. I find the hours of operation, and they are open today and tomorrow from 1 to 5 pm (it's a mom-based business, and they work when they can around their kids' schedules. How cool is that?) so I look at the clock and it is - no joke - 5:01 pm. But I pick up the phone anyway, and call, hoping someone is still stacking diapers or counting cash tapes and waiting for the last customer to leave. Alas, there is no answer, so I leave a babbled message about needing an OPK and hoping to drop by the store tomorrow and could you please confirm if you have any in stock before I take the bus over there on my lunch break.

And I promptly forget about it, until about half an hour later during dinner, when the shop owner actually calls me back. She is on her way home right now, and the store won't be open tomorrow because it's her daughter's graduation from senior kindergarden and she can't find anybody to cover for her. I'm thinking, 'It figures.", but she keeps talking, and asks me where I live and when I tell her, she says if I don't mind the drive, I can come out to her place tonight and pick some up.

Let's pause for a moment and think about this interaction. I am brokering some sort of deal for discount ovulation predictor kits on the phone with a stranger I met through the Internet while my kids eat crackers and peanut butter for dinner and my husband watches me with growing alarm over what he hears from my end of the conversation. This doesn't happen to normal people, does it?

So I get her address, and pack the boys into the car after dinner, and we set off on a quest for cheap OPKs. It's a 42 km round trip through pastoral farmland from my suburb to hers and back again, and the whole way we flirt with black, vicious storm clouds that threaten a mother of a storm. In my head, I'm writing this post with poetic terms like pathetic fallacy, and snickering because the last thing Beloved said to me as we left the house was an accusation that I get myself into these things simply because they make good blog fodder, and he is probably right.

I arrive in her driveway at the exact moment she does, and I pull enough money to cover the kits and the tax out of my skirt pocket. We stand between our collective preschooler-filled Ford Foci station wagons (two cars and four preschoolers between us) and I feel like some sort of suburban addict, handing over my cash for five loose OPKs.

We race the storm home, and arrive ahead of a torrent of biblical proportions that spends itself in the fifteen minutes it takes to get the boys ready for bed. I am absurdly pleased with my newly acquired, cheap OPKs, and decide to celebrate my frugality (five tests for less than the price of one!) by splurging and taking a random test. With a surfeit of tests, I can afford to indulge myself. Oh, the excitement of my suburban life!

I tear open a package, remove the strip inside, and stand holding the alien thing for a panicked moment - there are no directions!! Please join me one more time in a rousing chorus of, "On Internet, how I love thee." A bit of googling later, and I figure it out. I test, and the surge line is stronger. Recklessly, I decide to test not only earlier in the day, but many times tomorow. I have four tests left - I could test at breakfast, lunch and dinner and still have one to spare. I am positively giddy with my own spendthriftedness. (Sorry, Kerry - just try not to think about what may or may not be in my cube today.)

And the most exciting part of the whole evening? While doing my illicit suburban driveway purchase of bulk OPKs, the amazing woman from the Extraordinary Baby Shoppe, where you should all go for any future baby-related purchases, reached into her car and said, "Here's a complimentary pregnancy test, too."

That thing is going to haunt me in about four weeks' time.

The one with too much information

I’m standing in the ‘family planning’ aisle of the drug store, ostensibly to buy my ovulation predictor kit, except I’m distracted by – did you know they make condoms with little disposable vibrating rings on them? God bless technology.

I shake myself from a bit of a daydream, the details of which I decline at this moment to share with the Interweb, and go back to scanning the shelves for my OPK. Nope, don’t need a vibrating condom (or do we?), don’t need a pregnancy test (yet), don’t need any gel or foam or sponges. Oh, here they are. HOLY CRAP! $55.99 for a box of five pieces of plastic that I’m going to urinate on and throw in the garbage? That’s $11 a piss!

I see that there is a generic brand, and for a minute my inherently cheap nature (Dutch-Scottish roots) battles with my diva complex (even when choosing things to urinate on, I deserve only the best). What if I buy the generic one but it’s not as good, and somehow I screw up the date of my ovulation? There is a $13 price difference, and since this is only a mock cycle and I still haven’t entirely overcome my ambivalence about this whole ‘getting pregnant and bearing a third child’ thing anyway, I suck it up and pick up the generic box.

I’m still muttering to myself about the price, none of which can be claimed or deducted or in any way reimbursed, when I get to the cash register. I make a comment to the cashier about it being friggin’ expensive, and too bad it’s not a 20x points day (I am a junkie for loyalty programs. Canadian Tire money, Air Miles, HBC points, Esso points… I love ‘em all.) The cashier brightly informs me that Saturday is a 20x points day, if I would like to hold off. I pause, considering various schemes that would allow me to pay for something on Saturday that I must start peeing on by Thursday, but can’t come up with anything. The cashier notes my expression, and says, “You could come back and get a refund and then re-buy it on Saturday.” I try to imagine a conversation that would convince a clerk to refund a half-used ovulation kit, and decide that the points, which would probably only be worth a grand total of $1.17 or so anyway, are probably not worth the stress.

Stress is what you feel when you try to figure out exactly when you are going to pee on the sticks, because the directions tell you that you must pee on the sticks at roughly the same time every day, preferably between 10 am and 8 pm, but not with first morning urine. (Their bold, not mine.) And yes, I did read the entire package insert. Twice. Because even though I’ve used these infernal things before, I’m just like that. I read the entire sheet of directions and cautions in the tampon box every couple of years, too.

So back to my scheduling dilemma. I have to start peeing on the stick on Thursday, and probably for the five days subsequent. That’s two work days, two weekend days, and another work day. There is no reliable routine anywhere that I can follow. I’m strongly drawn to peeing on the sticks in the morning, simply because I can then call the clinic early in the day when my LH surges. Except that means peeing on the stick at work.

The directions (yep, not only did I read them, but I’ve pretty much committed them to memory) say that I have to leave the peed-on stick horizontal, little windows facing up, for three to ten minutes before reading the results. So do I sit there in the public stall, test balanced on my knee, waiting for the results? Ten minutes is an awfully. long. time. to be sitting in a stall at work. They may send in a search party. Or should I wrap it in paper and carefully bring it back to my cube, leaving it on my desk until I am ready to read the results? Will my colleagues, who read this blog, ever come into my cube again? Would you borrow a pen from, or drop by for a consult with, or have coffee with a co-worker if you knew she had at any time brought urinated-on objects into her cubicle?

Fun though it is to speculate, my colleagues will be relieved to know this is all a moot point, because I have in fact forgotten to bring with me a test on which to pee. (Oh, how I cringe at the google traffic this post is going to attract.) So at home it is. By default, I now have to remember to find some time during the arsenic hours between 5 and 8 pm to remember to take the damn test for the next five days.

You think this dithering is painful? Wait until we get to the whole “Is this a line?” frenzy of indecision. I remember the first time I used an OPK, during our (ultimately unsuccessful) intrauterine inseminations. After dozens (that felt like hundreds) of negative pregnancy tests, at least seeing a little line appear felt like a victory. “Hooray, my pee too can make a line appear!” (Aha, maybe this is why guys pee in the snow?)

Excuse me, all this talk of bodily functions has triggered a need to make some water. I'd best pee now, while the peeing is good, because starting at noon I’m going to be holding it to make sure I have a good reservoir built up to pee on that stick by 5 pm. It’s going to be a long day…

Wheeeeeeee!

It’s day one. Here we go!

(breathe, breathe…)

It’s ‘day one’ of my pre-transfer mock cycle. Aren’t you excited? I’m positively giddy!

For those of you who haven’t been committing this stuff to memory, here’s the plan:

Next Thursday, June 15, I start using a pee-on-the-stick ovulation predictor kit. The OPK detects the surge of luteinizing hormone that occurs just before the ovaries release the follicle into the fallopian tube. When I get a positive indicator for the LH surge, I call the clinic back and go for an ultrasound, probably the next day. They measure my uterine lining, because you need a thick and juicy lining to make a cosy home for an itinerant embryo. Then, six to eight days later, I go back to the clinic for some blood work to check my estrogen and progesterone levels. That’s it for the mock cycle month.

Then I call again next month with my day one, and it’s the real deal. About ten days after my day one, I go in for another ultrasound and they look to see if a good sized follicle is maturing and ready to ovulate. If so, I go in to the clinic every day for a blood test to monitor for the LH surge - no messing with OPKs for the real deal, I guess.

I forgot to ask the exact details, but I think it’s about two days after the surge they start thawing our little frostie in the morning, and they transfer it to my uterus with the same sort of turkey-baster device that they used to place the sperm during the IUIs.

And that’s it, except for the torturous two-week wait between the transfer and the pregnancy test. Gulp.

You know that I’ve already analyzed the hell out of the timing on this, so let’s share the math. Day one of mock cycle = June 6, therefore day one of ‘for keeps’ cycle will likely be approximately July 4 (our wedding anniversary is July 3, which is also five years to the day after I found out I was pregnant for the first time, the pregnancy that ultimately miscarried.) So I’ll start going to the clinic for blood work approximately July 14, and the transfer will likely take place within a week, probably around July 20.

And here’s where it gets dicey: we have tickets to see Thomas the Frickin’ Tank Engine on July 22 in St Thomas, an eight-hour drive away. Oy vey. So do we ditch our tickets ($80 for the four of us) and go ahead with a July cycle? Do we roll the dice, keep the tickets and hope transfer happens before the morning of July 21, so we can hustle on down to Southern Ontario? Do we delay the cycle until August? Can I live with the what-ifs if we delay a month and it doesn’t work out?

Speak, Interweb. What should we do?