day one

I am all a-flutter, friends. Yesterday was CD 1, which means that in a couple weeks, I will have a minimum of 10 million motile thawed sperm swimming around my lady parts. Right now, though, I am sipping a cup of raspberry leaf tea to tone my ute and banish the cramps. And cuddling a very cozy little dog, who seems to have won the war about being allowed on the couch with us.

I spoke to my clinic today about the possibility of changing my treatment plan to do IUI instead of ICI (just to make our samples last longer as they're the more expensive washed samples and I ordered all 5 available units. Apparently our donor (who needs a nickname, but I haven't thought of one yet) has some more units in quarantine that should be out in June, but I'm hoping we don't need them.) God, my parenthetical asides are long and convoluted. Maybe I should start using footnotes, a la David Foster Wallace.

Anyway, the clinic says I need to talk to Dr. Rational about that, but he doesn't have any appointments for this cycle, so we're going to go with plan A (ICI) for this cycle, and then discuss. That is really fine with me - in the midst of my torturing myself over this very question last week, it occurred to me that this was a perfectly acceptable compromise - and I feel in some ways that I had already accepted this in my heart, so I guess the Universe is just telling me that this is the right way to go for now. It doesn't make me love my clinic to be told that Dr. Rational won't make time for me within the next two weeks, but I don't have to love them. They are really a means to an end for me, and as long as they sensitively and competently do what I need them to do, I could give a monkey's whether they are willing to accomodate my sudden mind-changes. Plus the fertility nurse told me this morning, "And if you get pregnant this cycle, you can just cancel that appointment." Which naturally made me feel good, hearing from someone else that it was a distinct possibility. (Statistically around 10-12%, but built up in my mind to be both a certainty and a treacherous journey frought with difficulty and highly unlikely to end in success of any kind.)

My garden has stalled a bit as last week was very cold for this time of year and quite a few days we had snow. But it's meant to warm up a lot this week, so I'll need to get out there and get things prepared. I have $20 in Canadian Tire money burning a hole in my pocket, and I think I'll spend it on a whole shitpile of seeds. (For those unfortunate ones unfamiliar with the wondrous Canadian Tire, they give you actual paper "money" when you buy something and then you get to spend it like cash the next time you come in. Way better than those dumb cards and their stupid points I can never be bothered to check the value of.)

I went to my best friend's baptism yesterday. It was amazing and beautiful and I'm so grateful I got to be there. I woke up at 6 to drive out there, got in a bit early, helped her get ready and stuff. We went to church and sat down in the front row, at which point she tells me that I'm supposed to go up with all of them to be part of the service and be a godparent to the 3 of her 4 kids who were getting baptized at the same time. Umm....yes, of course....but a heads up would have been nice! We had a huge laugh about it - she had been remarking earlier that she's not good at planning things ahead, saying should have checked littlest daughter's outfit as it was a bit grungy. I told her to take it easy on herself on that one, but remembering to check your kid's tights for pills and stains and asking your best friend to be a godparent to your kids are pretty different things! But I was really happy she asked me and so glad I got to be there to share in the experience. I cried a lot, of course, but I came prepared with one of my beautiful Japanese hankies. The hanky selection in Japan is great because people use them to mop sweat in the summer or as a portable hand towel - lots of public washrooms don't have hand towels provided. Just one of many ways in which living in Japan is like living in the 1950s.

I am so unorganized in my brain today, as I'm sure you can tell, having just survived a tangent about Japanese handkerchiefs. I'm still exhausted from yesterday and all the travelling I've been doing in the past few weeks. I'm planning on staying home as much as possible in the next while, and doing everything I can to prepare my body and my heart and my mind for this cycle. I was saying to my sister yesterday that I need to start thinking a little further ahead, that it's safe now to do that. I tend to just focus on things up to a certain point, and then when I get beyond that point, I feel lost and freaked out because I haven't prepared myself. And for the past 5 years, the point has changed somewhat in the details, but it's really been all about getting to start to try to get pregnant. And that point is pretty much here. So what next? When do we tell, who do we tell first, what happens if it doesn't work in the first few cycles, what happens if it does work, and eeek and eeek and eeek!

It feels good to be here, mostly at peace, pondering the possibilities.

And you?