working on it

I've moved!

2008-07-25T07:31:00.000-07:00

I'm now at www.annacyclopediaisworkingonit.wordpress.com - come on over and check it out. I moved to Wordpress because they offer the option of individual password protected posts. If you notice one of those, please feel free to email me at annarchyinjapan at yahoo dot com, and I'll send you the password.

fickle dee dee!

2008-05-29T06:37:00.000-07:00

Oh, my sweet earnest little self! You're so cute, how fickle you are!

I peed on a stick this morning, and it was negative. Because I'm spotting a little bit, and my temperature went down slightly. So this could be two things - it could be the start of my period, as it usually starts with spotting for a day before the deluge, and that would explain the temp dropping, although the drop was only slight and didn't go below my coverline. I wasn't expecting my period until Saturday, but I have been taking my supplements more regularly and sticking to my food restrictions, both of which contribute to me having a slightly shorter cycle. OR it could be implantation bleeding, a little on the late side but within the range of normal from the various things I've read. Today is 11dpo. And if that's what it is, then it's normal for the test to be negative cause the little bean sprouts only start producing hCG once they implant, right?

Oh, dudes! Whatever I thought about the 2ww being hard is out the window. The next day or so is going to bite! Here is where my neurosis will really kick in - I'm now kind of expecting that it's most likely my period coming a bit early. But my hope is still around, and my mind will be doing all kinds of wondering today. I'm sure I'll be running off to the toilet every 20 minutes to check on the state of the nation report in my panties.

Ack! I'm really ok either way, but the wondering is going to be rough today.

ramblings

2008-05-28T20:18:00.000-07:00

This will be short, but since I was hoping to post more frequently now that NaComLeavMo is on, and have so far miserably failed, I'm going to figure out something to write anyway.

Started my new job on Monday. So far so awesome. It's totally different from what I did before, which was incredibly high stress. This is basically doing paperwork in an office with one other person in it - the job description is clear, we have a great collective agreement so the hours of work are sweet, plus great benefits, and I've spent the last 2 days training and I'm catching on pretty well, so far. And the pay doesn't even suck! So I am stoked about that, cause if I get knocked up, I'll have a good level of pay to use for my maternity leave. For you Americans, I don't even want to tell you how good we have it up here, but you get a percentage of your pay (I think it's 55%)for a year. And certain employers will top it up - I think mine does, but I'm not sure if I'll qualify as my job is a one-year contract at this point. We'll see - I'm mostly just happy I'll have enough weeks of work to qualify for an awesome part of Candian life.

I found a shopping paradise today - the top floor of a local business, filled with cute dresses and funky clothes of all sorts, all on major sale. I got a ridiculously beautiful frock for $10, and scored a really beautiful spring trench coat in a pearly oyster grey with a smocked detail in the back for half price. The place looked like my teenage room, which looks a lot like my current room - clothes everywhere and a complete mess. Fun!

On the 2ww front, I have practically convinced myself we're headed for a BFP. If it's not, I'm sure I'll be pretty disappointed, but I'm managing to hold things pretty lightly so far. (Although it might not seem like it!) And I have yet to POAS, which I'm pretty proud of. I decided, and Manny also likes the idea, that for now, we get to enjoy the possibility. I'm crampy, which seems like not such a good sign, but I don't think I usually get crampy before my period. One of the other reasons I'm not wanting to POAS is that I'm paying much closer attention to my body right now than I ever have before. This is my first month temping and stuff, and I'm using the "Taking Charge of Your Fertility" software to chart temps and notes on this cycle, so I'm putting in all the little things I'm noticing, like the sore boobs, and the hunger, and the tiredness.

So we'll see when we do the blood draw, I guess. I need to call my clinic tomorrow and find out if I'm really supposed to go in on Saturday or if they'd prefer Friday. My clinic is housed in the hospital here, and it's not really a clinic, although they do treatments. But it's not a private fertility clinic, so while they do make themselves available for procedures on weekends, they're not really set up for doing a whole lot. Plus I wouldn't mind getting some info a wee bit early!

Not so short, I guess. The mighty Kate's mojo must be rubbing off on me.

Oh, and NaComLeavMo rules! It's crazy fun!

show and tell

2008-05-25T15:14:00.001-07:00

Yahoo! Show and Tell! I forgot all about it last week, even though I really wanted to join in all the fun. Check out more fun rarities and B-sides by other fabulous bloggers here.

Given the recent spate of amazing garden photos (I'm looking jealously in your directions, Luna and Kate), I thought I'd post some of my own for S&T this week. If only so you'll have the before photos when, in a few months, you can no longer see the dirt and I am no longer buying vegetables. Also because signs abound in the garden. And I'm a little bit into signs at the moment. Signs, omens, portents - I'm all over that shit.

These radishes were planted about a week ago, and look how well they're doing! Some other seeds were planted about a week ago, but we're not sure how they're doing yet. Radishes also give me heartburn, which I hear is a common symptom during pregnancy. Coincidence?

Ok, I'll shut up now.

I plant my radishes with carrots, because the radishes mark the rows and mature within a few weeks, and then I can pick them and give them away to the old people in my life who really love radishes (why is that?) and then the carrots have room to grow. Plus it's fun to have some instant radish gratification.

These strawberries were given to me by our late, across-the-alley neighbour, Lou the Rototiller Man. Lou was a crusty old dude who had a soft spot for me and Manny, cause I talked gardens with him, and Manny bought a couple lawn mowers off him and admired his legendary junk collection. When Lou died a couple years ago, his landlord came and emptied out the house and shed, and for weeks, there were about 8 rototillers, 6 lawnmowers, 12 old cabinet-style TVs, and various other weird stuff Lou had picked up at garage sales. He had a huge garden on the empty lot next to his house, and a good half of it was taken up with strawberry plants. I hope Lou is in Heaven right now, free of the horrible throat cancer that killed him, watching the serious dump of rain we're getting this weekend, and feeling happy, watching the plants that he nurtured blossom again. We miss you, Lou.

Here are some of my anemones.
I love these plants because, oddly, they have thrived in my sun- and wind-blasted garden, although I think they are meant to be shade-loving forest-floor plants. I got them from a good friend a couple years ago, and have already divided them once and put little clumps elsewhere in the yard. Soon, the delicate white blossoms will open up, and then they will release little bits of fluff and spread their seeds all around. Any plant that produces fluff is alright with me.

Finally, here is my lavender that managed to survive the winter in spite of the fact that I moved it in the middle of the summer last year and then proceeded to not mulch it in the fall. Lavender isn't terribly hardy here, so when I saw new leaves at the bottom of the dead branches, I smiled for days. Right now, this lavender is my emblem of hope, growing and thriving in spite of some serious past neglect.

Thus concludes my first installment of Show and Tell. I'm glad I waited until today to post - I was going to do it last night, but all I could think of was pictures of my dog sleeping. Cute, but not much to tell about. Although the grade 2 authenticity factor would have been really, really high.

**Sorry about the stupid formatting of this post. Blogger is giving me grief and screwing everything up.**

sign, sign, everwhere a sign

2008-05-24T12:24:00.000-07:00

Goddamnit, I'm weak. Weak of mind. I have still been enjoying the hopeful possibility of right now, but I've also been obsessing over every detail. I'm super tired every day? A sign. I have a weird patch of eczema-like scaly skin around my mouth? A sign. The fact that this is the month in which Mother's Day, my parents' and my in-laws' wedding anniversaries, Manny's birthday, and probably lots of other important sign-y events fall? A sign. Constant hunger and ability to eat literally twice as many Korean short ribs as Manny the other night? A sign. Occasional heartburn? A sign. The fact that I have yet to have any other symptoms? A sign. The fact that I just planted a WHOLE SCHWACK-LOAD OF SEEDS IN MY FERTILE, WELL-CARED-FOR, ORGANIC GARDEN? A serious mother-fucking sign.

Never mind reason, never mind the fact that every single one of these facts can easily be explained away, except my face-plague, which could be down to me having eaten eggs a few times last week, or my delicious home-made granola which I've been eating every single day since I made it last Sunday, but I don't know why that would be the problem, unless I've suddenly developped an allergy to something I was never allergic to before. But if I did, that's probably a sign.

Bloody hell, friends. I'm making myself mental. I got 5 free home pregnancy tests when I ordered my OPKs online, and they would all be pee-soaked by now if I thought it would do me any good.

All your wonderful wishes and advice on surviving the 2ww have been fantastic. Except didn't someone say that it's really the second week that is the worst? If that turns out to be true in my case, I am so utterly fucked.

My clinic will do a blood draw on day 35, which is next Saturday, provided I haven't got my period by then. I didn't ask if they do day 35 because that's how long my cycles usually are, or if that's just coincidentally the day they do them. Almost certainly the former. But my wait-addled mind is taking it as a sign anyway.

the skinny

2008-05-18T20:06:00.000-07:00

Ok, so after freaking Vee out a bit, I guess I should clarify what yesterday's post meant. I had my first insemination yesterday and my second today. I've been waiting so long just to get here, just to start treatment. And it feels awesome, being here. It feels strangely right, like this is how it was meant to be all along.

When I peed on an OPK yesterday and saw that I was surging, I just freaked right out. I expected it, but I wasn't prepared. It just suddenly became real and all my hope and excitement and joy just flooded me. And Manny, too. We joked in the car the whole way to the clinic and through the wait and through the ICI and afterwards. And again today.

It's fun right now, and I'm enjoying it. I have the occasional thought that I should rein myself in, but that'll come soon enough. Might as well enjoy the good stuff when it happens, right?

We'll see how I go with the wait. Right now I'm taking everything as a sign, and no doubt I will keep doing that for the next two weeks. If I don't get my period, my clinic will do a blood test on day 35. It is day 22 today.

I know that statistically speaking I shouldn't be this excited, but I just am. According to Dr. Rational, I had beautiful fertile cervical fluid yesterday, and the nurse complimented me on m open cervix today. These are just two of the dozens of signs I have observed that this is going to work, and are by far the most reasonable. I'm quite certain the signs are going to get more random as the days go on here.

Also, all my excitement is coming out here, as we are in total lockdown mode with folks in real life. My family and a few friends have a vague idea that we're starting to try, but I won't be telling them anything until there is a pregnancy to announce, and even that not until I'm at least 8 weeks, more likely 12. It will be kind of torture to wait that long, but that's what Manny and I have agreed on. For now. We'll see if I can keep my pie hole shut for that long.

One good thing is that next week Manny is off work and we'll be together the whole time, and the week following, I start my new job. Yay! Money! So I'll be occupied next week, and the week after I'll be busy learning how to do this job, so I'm sure that will help take my mind off the wait.

I wish I had fun, clever, creative things to say. But I'm just feeling too bubbly to have my thoughts settle for long enough to think anything through. Maybe this is down to all the sugar I've eaten today - my aunt brought over homemade lemon meringue pie (from scratch) that was amazing, and then I've just been eating some delicious chocolates. Mmm, sugar makes my brain all funny.

and it begins

2008-05-17T18:10:00.000-07:00

I can't believe I'm finally here, after 5 years of waiting. Holy shit.

Thank you, everybody, for your amazing comments on my last post - I've been meaning to respond to each of you individually and just haven't gotten there yet but I will over the next few days. So much good energy and good advice from all of you - I can't thank you enough.

I haven't been super meticulous about keeping this blog a secret from people in real life, and Manny and I have decided we want to keep everything just between us right now (well, between us and you darling internets), so I'm going to go password protected for a while - maybe forever, and I've been thinking of moving this blog over to wordpress or somewhere I can password protect only certain posts. But I'm not sure about that yet - I'll keep you posted. So please email me at annarchyinjapan at yahoo dot com (it's in my profile, too) for an invite.

these precious things

2008-05-12T13:18:00.000-07:00

I'm trying to gather my thoughts to do a proper post but it's not going very quickly. Mostly, I think I'm scared shitless about my looming LH surge and subsequent first attempt at DI. I've never really done the two week wait. I don't know if I can handle it. I don't know if I can handle the disappointment. I'm scared it won't work and scared it will work. It's so weird to be so freaked out. And then I alternate between fear and moments of total peace and feeling right with everything. Gaah!

I was reminded recently someone's post, possibly Kate's, although I can't find it right now, about a dream I had a while ago. It was a total grief dream, one of those ones where you wake up and your whole body is tense because of how hard you were crying in the dream.

I dreamed I was sitting in a sort of cafe with a bunch of women, except we were all sitting at our own tables. Some tables had 2 people at them, but mostly, everyone was spread out. And I knew that all these women were my fellow IF bloggers. We didn't talk about it - I just knew that. I was feeling shy and kind of vulnerable being with everyone in real life, even though I wasn't talking to anyone. And then a group of people came in, and proceeded to conduct an armed robbery. A guy held a gun on everyone in the room, and a woman and a few other guys went around to each person collecting whatever they had. And I sat there, frozen and terrified, waiting for them to come to me, praying that they wouldn't take my rings. I wear 3 rings - one was given to me by my parents when I graduated from high school, one is the plain silver band Manny gave me when he proposed, and one is my wedding band. (The one from my folks and my wedding band were made by the same goldsmith - she is amazing and the rings are even more precious to me because they are handmade and I know the person who made them.) So I was hoping they would just take my wallet and anything else except my rings, and as I sat there, I felt more and more desperate to hang onto my rings. Eventually, the woman came up to me and took my purse and maybe a few other things, but she didn't take my rings. And I started to relax, and then she noticed the rings and asked for them, too. It felt so painful. I handed them to her and as I did that, I looked her right in the eye. Without saying anything to her, my look communicated how much she was hurting me by taking these things from me. And without her saying anything to me, she communicated that she knew how much she was hurting me but also that she didn't care. Tough luck. Too bad. Those are just the cards you've been dealt, honey. And with that, I began to cry. To sob, to keen, to weep - for my own loss I had just suffered, and for the loss of everyone else in that room. But they were all quiet, and I was just crying for everyone. And that made me cry even harder, because I felt so alone in my sadness and grief, even though I knew they were all suffering, too.

Then I woke up. I felt pretty haunted all day after that - just really fragile and isolated. It was a terrible feeling, not only because it was a harrowing dream, but because I really don't feel like that's my experience here in the blogosphere. I've really felt so much a part of a community here and in many ways feel like finding you all has been a real turning point in my whole journey with IF. The main thing that I have felt alone about is my situation - there aren't any other bloggers that I've found yet who are dealing with failed vasectomy reversal, and most people out there dealing with male factor where sperm retrieval is a possibility tend to do that before going on to DI. Sometimes I wish our issues and choices were more common so that I could feel like part of the gang - or maybe I just sometimes wish I had made more common choices for the same reason. But really, I feel like my choices have been the right ones for me, and for Manny, and I'm at peace with where I am. Most of the time, anyway.

I don't think the dream was about this, though. I think it was just about how much we have to let go of in this journey. The things that are so precious to us and the things we are so attached to. But those things being precious to us doesn't mean they are within our control. Doesn't mean we'll get them. And I guess that's where I find peace in all of this - there are things that are precious to me, but I can't control whether I'll ever have them or not. I don't have to let go of my feelings toward having children - I will always want to birth my own babies, and raise them and love them - but I know it's not up to me. The dream was maybe just a reminder of how much I want this, and also a reminder of how it can be taken away.

me me me me meme

2008-05-08T09:28:00.000-07:00

Thanks, Kate, for tagging me. As I was reading her answers to this awesome meme, I was just wishing to get tagged and wanting to do it myself. So I was well and truly chuffed when I got to the bottom and found my name there. Woot!

4 things I did 10 years ago:

I finished my degree (BA Hons in Philosophy) and won the prize for the top Faculty of Arts graduate at the Fall Convocation. Yes, I am proud to be a brainiac.
I moved to Vancouver for 3 months and lived with my friend, Dave, in a great apartment in a great area which has now become very hip. Main Street's star was rising in 1998, but it was nothing like it is now. However, the Locus had just opened and Dave and I spent an absurd amount of time and money eating and drinking there. I spent a lot of time crushing on the hottest chef there, nicknamed Serpico for his awesomely sexy sideburns. Although Serpico and I played a lot of eye hockey, I never got to nail him the way I so desparately wanted. Alas.
I floundered around a lot in Vancouver. It was a fun time, but I was pretty lost in some ways. I worked in a bakery, which was an ass-sucky job, and tried to figure out what I wanted to do with my life. Mostly I hung out and slacked. In retrospect, it was actually quite good for me - I'd never spent that much time at loose ends before, and thinking of it now, it really helped me to see that I could survive not being a superstar at life. That working for minimum wage and not being on anyone's radar was not the end of the world. (However, I did move back home and in with my parents after 3 months of that.)
I saw Modest Mouse and Built to Spill on a double bill. That was sweet.

4 things I did 5 years ago:

I said goodbye to Japan and moved home. It was so hard to do - to leave behind so many amazing friends and colleagues and students and come back to my hometown after changing so much after being there for 3 years. The reverse culture shock was so difficult - way harder than the culture shock of moving there in the first place. I came back with no clue what I was going to do for work, no clear sense of what our life would be like, no idea whether I would still connect with the few friends who hadn't moved away, not knowing if I would even want to live here anymore. Really I had no idea who I was in relation to the place I had lived for the vast majority of my life. If I was lost when I lived in Vancouver, I was completely desolate when I moved back here in 2003.
On the way home from Japan, I did a road trip with two amazing friends up the coast from San Francisco to Vancouver. We camped and hiked in the redwood forests, in the sand dunes on the Oregon coast, at Mount Rainier. It was beautiful and a good way to transition from Japanese life to North American life. Unfortunately, I was quite sullen the whole trip because they were both going back to Japan and I wasn't and because the reality of all of that was starting to hit me. The other notable thing about that trip is that I had never really spent any time in the States before, and it was really interesting. I spent a week with my sister outside San Francisco, and then another week travelling up the coast. There are certain things that are very different between the US and Canada, but so many things that are the same. So I was kind of tuned into that, but also just flooded with the weirdness of being back in North America again. I distinctly remember going to Whole Foods with my sister and just feeling like I was in paradise - so many things I had missed while living abroad were just there in ridiculous abundance. Real bread, good cheese, particular fruits and vegetables.
I started working in the job that has forever soured me on jobs. (Maybe not forever, but I'm definitely still in recovery.) In 2003, though, it was fun and exciting. I worked for a cool, young, politician and got to travel and be involved in high-level policy discussions. Little did I know that my eventual rising through the ranks would inversely mirror my descent into workaholism and debilitating stress. Never mind - in 2003, I had a good job that was interesting and new and paid well enough for me to start building a pretty awesome clothes arsenal.
We bought our awesome house in 2003. A few weeks after we moved in, my husband threw me a huge surprise party for my 30th birthday. We were so freshly moved in at that time that Manny had tacked up blankets for curtains and we still had boxes of stuff piled up all over the place. My dad had flown in as a surprise a few days earlier, and he and I went out for supper. When we came back home with a bottle of wine to continue our visit, I opened the door and saw about 40 pairs of shoes. I was completely surprised and it was so beautiful to feel so loved.

4 things I did yesterday:

Took my grandad grocery shopping. My grandma is laid up right now with a sore leg and she has trouble getting around at the best of times, so grandad is tagged with the shopping duties. When I was growing up, my grandad was very uptight and I never felt close to him at all, and that brought a lot of anger sometimes. I realized recently that he was likely depressed for much of my life and that's probably why he seemed so shut down. In the last few years, since they've moved into an apartment, he has really blossomed and become much happier. I am so blessed to get to spend time with him now - I can see how alike we are, and really enjoy that connection that is starting to grow between us. We did some running around yesterday, and on the way home, we stopped at Dairy Queen so he could get some Dilly Bars for my grandma to cheer her up. He wanted to buy me a box, too. Even though I can't really eat them (ok, I ate one yesterday and felt kind of gross afterwards and now I have 11 sitting in my freezer and I don't know what to do with them other than pawn them off on kids who come to my house, which I should make happen soon, because I really do like Dilly Bars and they will call to me as long as they're in there), I accepted his offer because it was so sweet and generous and I could tell he had planned it all along, even before I picked him up. Just by the way he asked me if I liked them earlier in the trip, and then with his offer as we were standing there in front of the cooler. I never thought I'd say this, but I wouldn't trade the grandad I have now for the grandad I used to want. Not for the world.
Walked with my dog in the sunshine, and enjoyed his company. Also swelled with pride as he played with a little puppy and acted like the mature dog he is, instead of like the shithead he was being for a while when he was going through his macho, dominant phase and didn't know when to stop. When he was playing with the puppy yesterday, they'd chase and wrestle, but then he'd stop and lie down and give her a chance to initiate things and build up her confidence. I just couldn't have been prouder of him, seeing him be all grown up and generous like that.
Made a veggie pad thai-type thing for supper using brown rice vermicelli, which are super delicious and I just found by accident in the Asian food section of Superstore. Realized I need to keep fish sauce on hand for further experiments of the Southeast Asian cooking variety. But it worked out quite well despite the lack of fish sauce.
Intended to do the following, but never got to it: meditate, work on the garden, do housework, do laundry, have sex with Manny (I fell asleep! I feel so bad! Sorry Manny!).

4 shows I love to watch:

Law & Order - any flavour. I love them all.
What Not to Wear - my fashion experiements of yesteryear are mostly behind me, thanks to Clinton and Stacey. Why did I ever think that flood pants were just the coolest of the cool?
House - sexy. curmudgeon.
Trailer Park Boys - just started watching this one, but how can you not love a show that contains lines like "He's just a shit-leopard that won't change his spots"?

4 things I love to do:

Bird-watch
Garden
Dance
Be with my nephews

There you have it, friends. I'm going to tag Spicy Sister , First Comes Love, shinejil at Sluggish Butterfly, and PJ at Infertility on the Brain. As well as my usual tag of anyone who reads this - just leave me a comment and/or a link so I can read your responses. What fun!

what do you do after the best meal of your life?

2008-05-04T11:21:00.000-07:00

This is the question I must now confront. I feel a little bit at loose ends and not quite sure what to do with myself. I wish I could experience that pleasure forever, and at the same time feel a bit exhausted with deliciousness. Maybe I'll just eat toast for a few days to let my palate recover from the magnificence of that food.

Last night it was Manny's birthday and we went out to a new restaurant and had one of the best meals of my entire life. The restaurant is beer-centred, meaning they have a huge selection of beer from around the world, and they cook with beer in pretty much everything, and they have put a lot of thought into beer pairings, much as most good restaurants do with wine. To be honest, I didn't have super high expectations, even though this is the second venture of a very well-loved local restaurant that is supposed to have amazing food. I've never been there, though, so can't vouch for it. Although I'm pretty much non-drinking these days, I decided to make this my last hurrah and just enjoy it. And holy mackerel, did we enjoy it! So here's what we had:

Beer #1 - an organic amber ale from Olympia, Washington but I forget the name of the brewery. It was really nice and malty but had a big burst of hops to start off - delish.

Manny's beer - well, it was his birthday, so he had 4 different ones, including Samuel Smith's IPA, a nut brown ale from the BC interior somewhere, Pike Ale (another IPA, I think), and an Okanagan Springs Pale Ale. Suffice it to say that he had enough beer throughout the night that he actually voluntarily talked about his feelings by the end of the evening, and didn't seem to mind that I seized the opportunity to run with that and really get into some stuff.

Appetizer - mussels with Stella Artois, cream, tomatoes and leeks. These were incredible and the broth alone was almost enough to bring me to tears of pure joy. I could have just eaten about 3 orders of mussels and called it a day. Thankfully, I didn't, and went on to have...

Main - lamb shanks braised in a dark beer (again, I forget which one), and cooked so slowly that I just had to nudge it with my fork and the meat gently tumbled off the bone, on top of a bed of green lentils, topped with roasted tomatoes. This was truly sublime. I love lamb always, but this had to be one of the best lamb dishes I've ever had. The amazing part was how the flavours had combined to an incredibly rich complex taste, but I could still taste each distinct flavour - lamb, lentils, tomato, rosemary. I was pretty much in awe by this point. But wait! There's more!

Manny's main - he opted for the steak frites, which could have been boring if it wasn't so amazing. The mushrooms were braised in a blonde ale, which was then reduced to a beautiful rich sauce. The steak was perfectly cooked and surrounded with a generous portion of a sauce that wasn't described on the menu, but tasted to me like a heavenly combination of butter, leeks and a hint of blue cheese. It was dreamy. The fries were hand cut and amazingly light, and served with mayo and their homemade mango ketchup. But I mostly dipped the fries in the sauce of my main dish, because it was like the gravy that they serve in Heaven on Sundays when they have a giant roast beef dinner, and also the butter/leek sauce that came with Manny's steak.

Desert - this is where I started to lose my mind completely. I ordered the cheesecake that was made with porter and chocolate, but just a bit of chocolate - just enough to balance the tanginess of the cheese and the bite of the porter. It came with what was described on the menu as a coulis made with a cherry lambic, but tasted and looked like honey and the lambic reduced down to the clearest, palest pink nectar of the gods.

Beer # 2 - They recommended I order the Belgian lambic to go with desert, which was called Belle Vue Kriek and according to the menu is brewed with "wild yeast" and "undergoes a second fermentation with Morello cherry and elderberry juices." I don't know what all that means, but I know it produces one of the most delicious drinks I've ever had, an incredible beverage that combines the light fizziness of beer, the complex flavours of wine, and the sweet tanginess of sour cherries, which is one of my favorite flavours in the world. Eating a bite of cheesecake and taking a sip of beer brought the kind of joy that leaves me speechless and slightly vulnerable, all my ideas about what "delicious" really means suddenly in flux and up for debate. At this point, I was staring at the cheesecake in wonder, and Manny piped up, "You look at that thing like you look at the dog!" And he was so right. I look at my dog, and I am overcome with how much I love him, and I can't believe how much I love him. And I feel the same way about that cheesecake. It was fucking incredible.

So, friends, should you ever find yourself travelling across the Canadian prairie and desiring a meal to end all meals, please let me know and I will point you in the direction of this fine establishment. It was the most we had ever spent on a meal for the two of us, but I regret nothing. It was perfection.

Eat anything fantastic lately?

i'm back

2008-05-02T19:45:00.000-07:00

With deep thoughts. Oh yes. It was really only a matter of time. It is my nature - I can't help it, really. What can you possibly expect from someone who wrote angsty poetry from grade 5 onwards, went on to get a philosophy degree, and who now spends the vast majority of her time alone, pondering the nature of her existence? And who adopted the ridiculously long and certainly pompous nickname of "Annacyclopedia"? (Although in fairness to me, it was actually bestowed upon me by someone else, someone who is very dear to me and who has survived her own struggles of the baby making variety. If you're reading this, my darling, you know who you are. Mwah!)

I've been a bit of a basket case all week. I've been incredibly exhausted and the smallest burst of energy quickly fades. And, as you remember from my last post, I couldn't string a thought together to save my life, and I've been wandering around the house like an extra in Shaun of the Dead, the end of which I'm watching right now. It takes me an hour to make lunch for myself because I can't stay on task for more than 10 seconds and I keep getting distracted by every little thing that pops into my mind. I wipe the counter down and remember I should throw the cloth in the laundry, which turns into rounding up laundry and starting to sort it out, then I remember the dog is probably busting for a pee, so I take him out quickly, and then I need to get something out of the freezer for supper, which reminds me I should tidy up the back porch where our deep freeze is, and on and on and on.

I've been so frustrated with myself being in this state of mind. So little patience, and even though I know it's a sign that I need to just stop and pay attention to my process, I have responded by trying to push myself to be productive and get things done. Today, in my meditation group, one of the members mentioned how he was having trouble quieting his mind during the meditation because he was excited about something. And I suddenly remembered that I'm excited. I'm excited, and I need the time to really enjoy my excitement. I think that my trying to keep a lid on my excitement is why I'm having so much trouble focussing on anything these days - I've been waiting so long for this to happen and I'm scared of being disappointed, so I'm trying to stuff it down. And I just need to stop doing that. I know lots of people in the blogosphere seem to think that hope is a bitch, but I just don't work that way. I have been trying for years to let my feelings get felt, right when they happen. And if hope is fluttering around, then all I can do is let her be there, right along with excitement and joy and happiness and fear and anxiety and worry and everything else that comes up for me.

When I try to stuff feelings away, I stop functioning in some other part of my life. I've been through enough around this that I should realize this sooner, but I guess it's only been a week - a vast improvement over the 4 years it took me to quit my job. My body or my mind or my soul will start to misfire if I'm not paying attention. So as of today, I'm going to try to pay better attention to everything that is coming up for me in this, my first real cycle. And to try to enjoy the anticipation and the excitement, just as they are, regardless of the outcome. My counsellor reminded me the other day that I have no control over whether this is going to work. All the spiritual work, emotional work, physical work I'm doing - it will not determine whether a new life is going to come to me in this cycle, or in any other. It is so hard for me to accept that it's not me controlling the world through my actions, although it is absurdly obvious. But there it is. The reason I do the spiritual work is to take care of myself. As my teacher said today: We can't change the "what" in life, but we can change the "how." The only thing in my control is how I respond to what I'm going through - I can't change the fact that suffering will happen, that things I don't want will happen. So to take care of myself, of my tender little heart that so deeply wants a new life to sprout in me this cycle, I'm going to open myself up to the swirling mass of emotion and everything that comes with it. Right now, it's a mixture of excitement and fear. And that's just fine. There really is no need to change it or keep it under control. If I am disappointed, I will survive that. And if I get pregnant, I will survive that, too.

My mom said recently that she saw a sign that said "Either way, it's going to hurt." I like that so much better than the idea that everything is going to work out for the best, or it's all good, or everything's going to be ok. They are the same thing, in a way, but the truth is that there is suffering on every path, and it's much more helpful for me to remember that than to cling to the belief that everything will work out. It's so easy for me to get tricked into believing that there really is a "golden ticket" that will take away all the pain of this journey, that if I just do things right, if I just get pregnant within the first few cycles, if it all goes according to plan, well, I'll get to escape all the pain I've gone through. But that is bullshit of the highest order. There will always be something happening that I wish wasn't happening. That's how life is.

As I'm re-reading this, I realize that in some ways I've contradicted what I said earlier about embracing hope and excitement. But I'm going to leave it. This is the contradiction I've learned from Buddhism and my meditation practice that I love so deeply - when we open ourselves up to suffering, we open ourselves up to everything, including joy. And when we close ourselves down and try to avoid suffering, we end up closing down the good stuff, too. So I do my best to open my heart to my experience, and slowly, slowly, slowly...I'm changing. And I feel good. I feel strong.

And now for some facts.

Yesterday I invited some friends round for supper as they just came back from a trip to NYC and I figured (rightly) that they had no food in the house. So I made an amazing curry supper with 2 curries and rice and papadums and even pakora from scratch (yes, I am proud of myself). The pakora turned out so well and they were so ridiculously easy that I plan to make them all the time - I am so crazy about them that I could eat a whole mound of them in one sitting. Mmmm, with a spicy chutney and a sweet one, maybe a bit of yogurt..... I've decided that I want to start mastering certain kinds of cooking - I'm definitely on my way with Indian, and I'm working on Japanese. It's sort of weird because even though I lived in Japan for 3 years, I really didn't learn to cook much Japanese food. I guess because I was always craving food from home - we ate out a lot over there and it always seemed pointless to try cooking stuff when we could get it so much better in a restaurant. It really is fun to get super good at making particular meals or types of food. My regular cooking tends toward what my dad always calls "food that schmecks, " which is both the title of a Mennonite cookbook and another way of saying "comfort food." I make a damn fine meatloaf, and this winter I invented at least 3 chicken casseroles completely from scratch and they were totally delicious. The one with mushrooms, rosemary and a creamy sauce is Manny's favorite...I'm such a housewife! I am hoping at some point I will get organized enough to post some recipes here, because I really like getting recipes from other people's blogs (Oro over at Birch and Maple had a fantastic one a while back for this. I haven't made them yet but I am so going to.) For now, though, I will focus on posting more often than once a week. And I need to get back to Stirrup Queens to check out NaComLeavMo. I didn't quite grasp all the details during my first read, and I am often hestitant to make commitments because I tend to break them and because I'm quite hard on myself I feel REALLY bad about it and think I'm the worst person on the earth. If I think I can manage joining in without abusing myself (and I don't mean in the fun way), I certainly will, as I think it's quite a laudable thing and will no doubt be very fun. That Mel, always invigorating the community with her brilliance and good ideas. What a swell gal!

mmm, toast...

2008-04-30T08:20:00.000-07:00

I've been thinking about how my posts have changed a lot since I started posting. I've been doing way more "fact-y" updates and fewer "deep thoughts" posts. I'm not entirely sure why that is. Maybe because in the beginning I was so thrilled to find this community, and I was all full of pent-up deep thoughts, and then I let them all out and my brain got all quiet and boring inside.

It's still pretty quiet in there. I have some things starting to rumble around, but mostly it's a big fog that just wants to eat toast and watch Simply Ballroom. So I think that's what I'll do for right now. Maybe the rumblings will turn into deep thoughts, and maybe they won't and you'll be stuck with updates on my slow garden growth.

*Update of the dullest variety:
Yes, Io is right. It is actually Strictly Ballroom I plan to watch. Oh, the fog, the FOGGGGGGGG! It is particularly dense today.

day one

2008-04-28T07:58:00.000-07:00

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?

no, i haven't been abducted by aliens, or terrorists, or handsome medical students with sperm to spare...

2008-04-23T08:54:00.000-07:00

Well that was a crazy week! Went up to see my sister and my nephews and my mom who was in the province for a week. Drove back home Friday with my mom, hosted a little party for her on Saturday, Sunday drove out to my best friend's because her oldest son is really struggling in life right now and she was in serious crisis and needed help with her 3 younger kids and with life in general. Came home yesterday and am absolutely knackered. So I spent the morning watching Coronation Street and lounging around. Feeling much better but I never want to drive again. My sister and best friend both live over 2 hours away, in opposite directions. Unfortunately, I'll be heading out to my best friend's again on Sunday because she's getting baptized along with her kids. That's the kind of thing I'd feel really bad about missing, even though the thought of leaving my house just makes me exhausted.

So I'm sorry, dear internets, for neglecting you all and for not posting. Kate is right - it has been a bit quiet on some fronts lately. Good thing she has been providing us all with fabulous questions to ponder and tales of hospital stays and ugly pictures. Otherwise life would be dull indeed.

I'm having a bit of a mini-freak out about the impending start of really trying. Because I'm thinking about having a child, and how hard it is, and how my relationship with Manny needs some serious work. I struggle with a lot of resentment towards him for not responding to me the way I want him to, and for not really sharing what he's going through. And I feel like adding a baby into this is just going to make it worse. Like the dog - I'm the one that wanted the dog, and I'm the one that takes care of the dog 99% of the time. But he did want the dog, too, and he gets to enjoy the dog and play with him. It's just that I am the one doing all the walking and feeding and bathing and stuff. And I have a terrible feeling it's going to be the same with a baby - if I want him to do stuff with the baby, I'm going to have to ask and spell it all out for him really clearly. That's how everything is in our relationship. I know it's stupid to think he should be able to ever read my mind, and I really know that I need to work harder at asking for what I need. But sometimes I just get so tired. I just want him to see what needs to be done and to do it. And to see that I need help, without me having to ask.

I worry that the baby is going to be the same way, and I think deep down I am afraid that he doesn't really want the baby. Even though he's assured me that he does, even though he's really excited that the sperm is ordered (yes, we picked a donor - more on that in a bit), even though he has undergone painful ball surgery to try to get me knocked up the easy way. When we met, he didn't want any more kids. He'd had the snip and that's where he was at. And as we got more in love, and started thinking about a future together, he changed his mind. There is a part of me that has a real hard time accepting this - that I have a man who will pretty much do whatever will make me happy. I want a baby - he changes his plan for no more kids, he has surgery, he accepts using a donor because I don't feel IVF is right for me. I know that if I ask him for help - around the house, with the dog, with a baby - he'll try to do it. I guess I just feel sometimes that it is really difficult to have that responsibility. I could abuse it so easily, his willingness to do what I ask of him. And it also means I need to be really clear about my own desires, or else it's not fair to him.

I don't know, this all seems like rambling right now. I know this will get better - the intensity of these feelings come and go in me - and I also know that I am still learning how to take care of myself and be clear about what I need. It's not something I learned to do as a child, so I'm learning now. And that's ok, even though it's frustrating sometimes. Or all the time. I just wish things were easy, you know?

Ok - the donor. I'm not telling anyone any details about the donor for sure. It seems like it's really something that should be private between me and Manny and our future child(ren) and for the kid(s) to share with people if they decide to do that. I have to say it was incredibly fun choosing the donor, and way easier than I thought. Our pool was limited by a number of factors - there was really only 1 bank to choose from (there is one in Canada but they don't do open ID for some reason, and that was non-negotiable for me), so we went with Xytex, which has a Canadian subsidiary. That was important because my clinic is only licensed as a sperm distributor, not a sperm importer, so I couldn't just order from any US or international sperm bank, cause they are not interested in jumping through all the Health Canada hoops to change their licensing status. And then the Canadian distributor only has the Canadian compliant donors, which are tested to a different (I think higher) standard than the larger pool of donors available for use in the US. So once we put in our physical characteristics into the mix (and we were a bit flexible on this, but really, as I've mentioned before, curly hair would really not work for us) it was quite a manageable number.

The best part was that Manny and I agreed right away which donor we liked the best, and we liked him WAY more than anyone else. We made a shortlist, but we really were attached to this particular donor. Everything - from his interests, his physical characteristics (there was a kid photo and an adult photo), his essay, his reasons for donating - all of it really spoke to us.

As an aside, if you have $165 to burn for 6 months of entertainment, consider getting access to donor profiles. It is hilarious, although I suppose much more so if you're trying to consider these guys as your potential donor and bio dad of your children. The interests are sometimes so random - modern dance, anyone? And that was from a guy that looked a bit lumberjack-y and totally un-modern dance-y. Weird. And lots and lots of bowlers. I take it that bowling must be big in the South? (Xytex is headquartered in Georgia.) Then there's a spot on the profile for "celebrity look-alike." And one guy actually put "John Tesh." He was actually pretty handsome and seemed alright in other respects, too, and made it into the top 3, but I'm glad to report that I won't be trying to have John Tesh's baby next month.

Then the photos. There were 2 or 3 where the guys were shirtless, and at least one that looked like it had been taken by a professional gay porn producer trying to get a new boy into the business after supplying him with a full torso waxing and a few joints. You know, jeans, workboots, flannel shirt tied around the waist, reclining in a barn doorway with one arm draped over a bended knee, looking knowingly at the camera. What the hell? Only one of us needs to masturbate to make this baby, and it's not me.

Anyway, it was easy. One evening of looking at profiles, talking it over a bit, and that was it. I called the next day and talked to the most AMAZING woman at the Canadian distributor. She rocks so hard - we made jokes, she told me info, and generally totally ruled. Hopefully I won't have to talk to her again now that I've ordered 5 vials of sperm. Unfortunately, they only had washed samples from this donor right now, and although I'm planning to do ICI where you can use unwashed and save some money, this donor is totally worth it. I need to discuss with my doctor a bit more about this - they said they can do ICI with washed sperm, it's just more expensive cause the samples cost more and then you do 2 tries as opposed to just one with IUI. I need to ask them whether they'd be willing to do unmedicated IUI with me so I can make the samples last longer and have better chance of success. Anytime I've discussed it with them, they just seem to see ICI as unmedicated and IUI as medicated. I guess that's just the way they do things. But I don't see any reason to not try unmedicated IUI. I'll try to give my doctor a call in the next week or so to ask about that. Might as well.

So that's my updates for now. I'm still madly in love with my dog, whose name is going to stay Lucky. I actually sort of like the classic dog names as opposed to the trendier people names that so many dogs have now. Plus he's the only Lucky at the dog park. So he stands out for his cuteness and his name. He is madly in love with me, too, and cries everytime I leave him with someone else. I need to take him to school and work with him on that - he doesn't destroy anything in the house if he's alone, but I feel bad leaving him at all if he gets distressed. I tied him up outside a shop last week and he chewed through his leash in about 3 minutes! Fortunately a friend was there and caught him for me - he was just headed to the door of the shop to find me, but who knows if he would have stayed around. I had left him outside places before and he seemed fine, so maybe something just spooked him. Anyway, we just need to work on his confidence a bit and teach him how to listen a bit better. I know he can be the kind of dog that doesn't tug on his leash and who always comes when I call, it'll just take some work to get there. And although Lucky can't talk, I know he was very happy and relieved about the return of Charlie. We all were.

My tulips have pushed up a few inches in spite of it being cold here again, the cranesbill I put in last year is starting to come in, the rhubarb has little curled up leaves under the dead ones from last year, and my yarrow is already greening up. It's splendid. How does your garden grow, internets?

an update, finally.

2008-04-13T12:36:00.000-07:00

Oh, I've been such a slacker on the posting front. The rest of my life has become busy - dog maintenance (he's getting more dominant with other dogs, so I need to enroll us in dog school), house stuff, garden stuff (just got out there for the first time today and it felt great!), trying to do some work for money and think about finding a proper job (very unmotivated but if I do get pregnant soon I'd rather have the job thing sorted out sooner rather than later). And I've been a slacker on the commenting front, too - sorry, folks. Google Reader is a blessing and a curse. It makes it so easy to read, but then I need to be really intentional about the commenting or else it gets lost in the shuffle.

So here's the update on our Thursday appointment with the DI doctor. We had to be admitted to the hospital (where his office is) for some reason in order to see him, so we were there quite early. When the woman working in admitting asked us the reason for the appointment, I said "fertility issues" and for some reason, did jazz hands at the same time. It was totally weird and Manny and I had a good laugh at my randomness. What possessed me to do that I really have no idea. Manny suggested that I wanted to say "fertility" louder but didn't want to actually say it louder, so used the jazz hands for emphasis. But it was a good way of setting the stage for the appointment, cause jazz hands sort of became the theme of the day.

We got in to see the doctor (no clever nickname came to me really, but I think I'll call him Dr. Rational cause that's what he seemed to be) pretty much on time, and we had a little chat about our current situation - our jobs, why we were looking to have a baby now, etc. Dr. Rational then proceeded to explain DI in some detail - I found this kind of annoying, but Manny said afterwards that he appreciated the explanation. Not so much cause I think it was so new to him (although some of it probably was - he hasn't done as much reading and pondering of the options as I have) but just because Manny is quite rational himself and appreciates clarity and logic. At times I interjected with questions to let him know that I wasn't a complete idiot, and he did answer them fairly well and didn't seem too put out that I was bothering to ask things. The only time he seemed surprised by anything was I asked him for the actual numbers from my bloodwork. He did give them to me, but at one point made a face that seemed to say "why on earth do you think you want this information?" Thankfully, he didn't say anything of the sort, and just gave me the numbers. I haven't gotten around to Dr. Googling them yet, but I'm glad I have them so I can do that when I want to.

At some point in the discussion when I asked about how much sperm to order, Dr. R did jazz hands himself when talking about the possibility of future siblings down the road. He really was kind of a freak of nature - his manner is hard to describe. He wasn't the usual arrogant doctor-type, but he wasn't super compassionate either. I was really glad he didn't seem to judge us or our choices at all - that was what I was most afraid of, I think. He didn't seem to have strong opinions one way or the other and he totally accepted it when I told him I wanted to start with the least invasive plan first. My preference is for doctors to be very human and interested in having a human relationship with me - my GP is like that, and I absolutely adore him. But Dr. R was much cooler than that, just wanting to take things step by step and solve the problem. That appeals to me much less, but Manny really responds well to that (because he is that way, too.) In the end, I'm fine with him as long as he's not a jerk and as long as he knows what he's doing. And in a way, I'm glad that Manny seemed to like him - I think sometimes men need that voice of authority, whereas women are much more in touch with their inner authority that it is just redundant (or intrusive) when it comes from outside. There's no conflict with my inner authority yet, so all is well between me and Dr. R.

The upshot of this is (and sorry the story is so boring - I am so sleepy right now I can hardly string a sentence together) that he is willing to do unmedicated ICI cycles to start with, and we can see how it goes from there. So I've started peeing on sticks - OPKs, although I might have missed my ovulation this month but I don't think so. I've never really paid very much attention to the finer details of my cycle cause there never seemed to be much point. I have quite a bit of cervical mucus right now and from my brief research today it sounds like that is a precursor to ovulation and not something that happens afterward, so maybe the OPKs will show something in the next few days. It's a bitch, though, cause every time I pee on one, I just think, "There goes $7!" Ridiculously expensive and yet if they're going to help me get my baby, I guess I'd be willing to pay lots more for them. Although am I the only one who wishes they could be broken apart for recycling? What a waste of plastic!

So we need to find a donor, order some sperm and have it ready to go for my next cycle. I'm hoping I haven't missed my ovulation this month just so I'll have a better idea of when in my cycle it happens, so that next month I'll have some idea when we'll be able to do the inseminations. With ICI, they do 2 - one the day of the LH surge, and one the next day. Kind of weird to think that around this time next month I'll likely be heading into the two week wait. Feels like I've been waiting so long I can't quite get my head around it now that it's finally here.

garden musings plus a question

2008-04-07T19:31:00.000-07:00

Why is it that the big rambling posts come so easily to me, but the quick little updates are so much harder? Weird. I just feel like if I don't have something huge to say, it's just not worth saying. But then I feel bad about not posting.

It's getting way nicer outside here, and I'm starting to think about my garden. I'm not sure what I want to plant this year, but I think I'll probably skip the tomatoes, as fun as they are to grow. Since I can't eat them anymore, it's kind of torture to grow the most beautiful organic, heirloom-variety tomatoes and then give them all away. I'd like to try something new that I've never grown before - maybe brussels sprouts, or winter squash. I get so excited this time of year, thinking of all the good stuff I can plant, and getting my beds ready. I also put in a lot more perennials last year, so I want to see if they all survived the winter. I was not in the best mental space last fall, so didn't get around to mulching a lot of the new plants. Hopefully, I didn't kill them through my neglect.

Today, I finally got my U.T.E.R.U.S. donation email sent off, pictures and all. It feels great to be part of something so amazing. I totally agree with Mel that sometimes helping one person creates a bigger change in the world than initiatives that are aimed at everyone. It certainly helps me to feel like I am doing something meaningful. The idea that one woman may get her baby because of what our community can do - to me, this is so incredibly beautiful. It just takes my breath away.

I'm interested in this question, though - even in a more general sense. Is it better to help one person directly or to do things that help a larger group? In some ways, I feel like my leaning towards the former conflicts a bit with my political sense - I generally think that universal programs and initiatives are preferable to targeted ones, for a number of reasons. But on a personal level, emotionally, spiritually - the connection I get from that more direct contact - it's really powerful.

What are your thoughts?

love, (averted) death, and sex

2008-04-03T21:31:00.000-07:00

The sweet and charming Io has less than 3ed me. And I also got a drive-by from the fabulous and clever Kate. Awwwww! I feel almost as good as I do every morning when my sweet little doggy is waiting for me and wagging his tail outside my bedroom door despite Manny having gotten up ages ago and being downstairs with awake hands for petting and feeding and suchlike. So much love!

So now I get to share the love around, and I'm going to Less-than-three Spicy Sister, who writes the most beautiful posts that you can practically see the light radiating out of her enormous heart. (And I mean that in the figurative sense of big-heartedness, not the impending-death-from-heart-failure sense.) I also Less-than-three First Comes Love for her honest writing style and one of the tidiest blogs around. Seriously, how do you do it, First Comes Love? I've only been around for not even 2 months and I'm already needing to do a serious overhall to my sidbar to clean things up. But also you just seem like a nice girl to drink some tea with, and in my book, that makes you a good friend. Maybe we'd cry, maybe we'd laugh. But some serious tea would get drunk - pass the soymilk and the honey, would you?

I can't believe tomorrow is Friday. Life is busy with the sweetest darlingest cutiest little dog in town, but good, too. I went and saw my counsellor today and we discussed 2 topics. First, we talked about my neighbour, she of all the drama a while back. My counsellor confirmed my instincts that I just can't be friends with this neighbour right now. Things just got too dysfunctional between us. I'll be friendly if I see her out in the yard, but I just can't reach out to her the way I was before everything went to shit a few weeks ago. I feel sort of bad about it, because it feels like I'm dropping her because she is mentally unwell. But she was doing everything she could to manipulate me, and when I finally said "no," she basically became verbally abusive. And I guess I'm healthy enough now to be able to choose something other than putting myself in relationships like that. So in the end, my feelings of guilt over letting our friendship wither are trumped by my feelings of care for myself. It feels weird and good.

The other thing I talked about with my counsellor was how I can get hornier. Or maybe just horny would do. Why did I waste all my hormones when I was young and slutty? It's like I have premature hornarian failure. It's not like I'm not into sex if it's actually happening - I definitely am. But trying to get there - I mean, just trying to get to the point where I even think it will be more appealing than sleeping, or blogging, or doing a hard sudoku (note to the uninitiated: nowhere near as dirty as it sounds) - dudes, it is not easy these days. The whole IF stuff is definitely a part of all this, but I think there's more to it. I won't bore you with all my theories, but the important part is: I have a plan. Whether it will turn me back into the humptastic young thing I was 15 years ago, only time will tell. Time and the smile on my face.

the facts

2008-04-01T07:12:00.000-07:00

I talked to my doctor's office yesterday as I have the first appointment coming up with him in 9 days (woot! the waiting is almost over!) and wanted to know what to expect. To recap, this is the doctor in town who does DI. He's an OB/GYN but also does fertility stuff - there's an actual infertility nurse at his office. I talked to her yesterday, and she seemed great - knowledgeable and funny and relaxed. She said the protocols are tailored to each patient, so depending on the results of my bloodwork and what we come up with during the 45 minute consult (I have to say I'm impressed by this - a long appointment should be standard, but it's usually not in my experience), the Dr. will do anything from an unmedicated ICI to a fully medicated IUI. Which is good knowing that he's not limiting things to the more complex interventions. I expect he'll probably grill us a bit on our decision to not try to get sperm from Manny to do IVF/ICSI, but that's ok with me. I know we are kind of unusual in this respect, but I've spent long enough with my decision that I feel like I can explain it if I have to. When I asked her about success rates for ICI vs IUI, she said they don't like to compare because the candidates for each have different issues (i.e. the ICI people tend to be younger, ovulatory, etc. and therefore more likely overall to get pregnant). But she said the success rates for IUI are around 10% per cycle, which is a bit lower than the averages I've read about other places, but I really try not to put too much stock in averages. They don't necessarily reflect my situation, and I hate getting sucked in to feeling like I need to conform to what is expected. And I also hate low numbers - I may change my mind if this doesn't work within a few cycles, but I'd really prefer to have hope than thinking about how crappy my chances are on each cycle.

I'm starting to get excited. I'm expecting that we'll be able to start trying in May, cause by the time I see this guy next week, I'll probably already be ovulating or very close to it. We need to start reviewing donor profiles more seriously and come up with a short list of about 3 donors we would want, just in case our first choice doesn't have samples available. I'm thinking I might want to reserve a bunch of whichever donor we start trying with so that if I get pregnant fairly quickly I won't need to worry about there not being more for siblings down the road. It's all a bit of a gamble at this point, but since we're really only having to pay for the sperm and associated costs like shipping and storage, I don't mind shelling out a bit for some peace of mind of having the extra samples reserved just in case I get my golden ticket.

I have to confess that I'm already starting to calculate when I might have a baby, and how pregnant I'll be at Christmas. Those of you who've gone through this might be shaking their heads in dismay at this point, cringing for me and what is most likely to be at least some disappointment. I know that it might be ill-advised at this point, but I'm going to enjoy it since this is the first time I've ever really gotten to try. There was a brief period after Manny's reversal but before we started getting the bad SA results where I felt like we were trying, but it was really short - like about 2 or 3 months. The sex, however, was *awesome* - all that good, hopeful energy. Sigh. Long gone.

I'm also thinking about how much I want to tell people at this point, even the people closest to us. I'm sort of leaning towards telling basically nothing - my family knows I've got this appointment coming up, but maybe after that to just leave it and let them know when there's some (good) news. I'm not sure, but in some ways I feel like this will preserve the sanctity of this process for me and Manny. People who get pregnant in the usual way don't tell everyone they know when they had sex and how they timed it very precisely to coincide with the woman's ovulation. They get to try, just the two of them, letting their love and hope become a secret conspiracy of goodness. I want that, but I don't get to have it, so I sort of feel like keeping it private will kind of return the process to us, make it ours.

On the other hand, I'm going to want support and good wishes. I might want those from my family, and I am pretty much sure I'll want them from all you lot. I probably will post about it all here. But maybe not. If you find I'm just writing about my dog for a solid 2 weeks in mid-May, you'll know something's up.

who's a cutie puppy?

2008-03-30T20:35:00.000-07:00

Ok, I didn't think I'd turn into a crazy dog lady so fast, but it's definitely happening. He is so much fun! I got him a funky new collar today, as well as a Kong toy, which he made love to for about half an hour before falling asleep. I think it's good for him to have some toys to play with - I don't think he had very many before, and maybe that's why he's so needy and just wants to sit on my lap all the time. Cause he's bored! I wasn't sure he'd even be interested in toys, but he just mauled them. I got him a stuffed squeaky toy that he destroyed in about 5 minutes - I just got a cheap one cause I didn't know if he'd care. So I guess I'll go get him some better ones this week.

I'm making him a bed, too. Hopefully I'll get that done soon - the pattern I got is really easy, and I have all the material and stuff. I went to go buy one and was appalled at how expensive they are. Even the really ugly and junky looking ones were stupidly expensive. So I'm getting crafty and using up my stash of fabric. I'll post a picture once it's done cause I think it will look really good - much better than the towel he's currently sleeping on.

doing my best

2008-03-28T08:55:00.000-07:00

I've been thinking a lot about this post by the fabulous Kate. Where is my balance point? Where do I draw the line in this whole baby-making endeavour? Why, exactly, did I draw the line there? Can I move my balance point or is it just something that I know in my gut?

I've thought about this mostly around my decision not to pursue IVF, and as I get closer to actually doing DI and attempting to get pregnant in a way other than just having sex and hoping against hope that Manny's sperm have been miraculously restored, I've been having times where I've really questioned that decision. What if my kids are angry about being donor conceived, and ask me whether I tried IVF? What if I regret not trying it? Why am I seemingly the only one who doesn't try to exhaust every option of biological baby-making with my spouse before moving on to donor gametes?

I was having a freak out with my counsellor a few weeks ago about this very thing - what if I'm making the wrong decision by pursuing DI? In the midst of my rampage of semi-rhetorical questions, she wisely just stopped me and reminded me that I'm intuitive. That I don't need to doubt the wisdom of my decision just because it didn't come out of a hyper-rational decision-making matrix in which all outcomes were carefully weighted with both postives and negatives and seeing which one came out on top. But sometimes, even though I wouldn't know how to make a rational decision if my life depended on it, it is very hard to trust my intuition when it comes to decisions like this one which will impact my entire life and the life of my potential children. I feel like I should be thoughtful and logical so that I can make the right choice.

So to get back to the excellent questions Kate posed in her post, when it comes to where I would stop in my quest to have a child, I would probably approach it the same way, i.e. intuitively. I wonder sometimes how I'd feel about IVF if doing IUI with donor sperm doesn't work, and I'm really not sure what my answer would be. Right now I am unemployed and putting all my energy towards becoming a mother, because that is the one job I truly want right now. I'm working on healing myself and making my marriage and other relationships stronger, and I'm taking care of parts of myself that I've neglected for a long time. All so that I will be able to be as good a mother as I can.

I can't say for sure that my boundaries of what I feel are acceptable to me right now won't change, but the many reasons I have for choosing DI over IVF with my husband's sperm (if they exist in sufficient number and condition to be useful) will still give me serious pause. To me (and I stress that this is strictly my personal feeling about this and by no means is a judgement of any kind on the paths other people choose), I feel very uncomfortable risking a huge amount of money on a procedure that involves a lot of medical and pharmaceutical interventions of whose long term safety I am unconvinced when the success rate is at best about 50%. I think about what that money could mean for me and Manny and hopefully our future kids - pursuing further education, travel, the basic happiness of not being in a ton of debt. I think about how hard I have worked to heal my body without resorting to allopathic medicine, to learn to understand what my body needs and to respond with care and gentleness and I think about how I don't want to disrupt that by bombarding myself with hormones. I think about my mental health - how I've gone through enough anxiety and depression in the past few years, and how I'm not sure I could withstand much more if we pursued IVF and it didn't work.

Someone said in my meditation class today that she realized being generous and loving toward herself made it much easier for her to be generous and loving with others. This reminded me of this beautiful post from Spicy Sister - a true and gentle reflection on, among other things, how grief can wake us up to love. (See, Spicy Sister, I told you I'd carry your words around with me all day!) And I've so often found this to be my experience - that when I take care of myself, I make better decisions and I take better care of others around me.

So when I think about the possibility of living child-free, I think about all this stuff again. Would I be willing to put myself through all of that if I believed it was my last chance to have a biological child of my own? I don't really know, but I have experienced glimpses of what living child-free would mean to me. I would be heart-broken. I would be transformed by my grief. I would rage. But I also know that my life would not be without happiness. I would find a way to make peace with it, as hard as that would be. I know that my purpose in life is to be a mother, and I also know that I have many purposes in life. In the past year especially, I've been devoting a lot of energy to finding out who I am. I've learned that there is a lot in me that is worth celebrating and loving and cultivating. I'm not a mother yet, so if I never become one, there is still a beautiful, fertile garden inside me that requires care.

And I guess this is my balance point - that I will always try to include that care for myself in the decisions I make around the whole baby thing. That I will not leave myself out of the decision. That I'll try to treat myself as a whole person and continue to check in with myself to see whether my desire for a child is still strong enough to warrant saying yes to whatever choice about treatment or adoption I'm facing. That's the best I can imagine doing at this point.

Yay!

2008-03-27T21:26:00.001-07:00

I finally found the cable. I am notorious for putting things somewhere I think I will be sure to remember because they're sort of unusual, but of course I *never* remember where I've put them, because I've put them somewhere sort of unusual. Argh.

I'm a bit tired and so is Lucky, so I'll just post some pictures for now and do a real post tomorrow.

His eyes are far less glowy and evil looking in real life. Really.

please stay on the line - your call is important to us

2008-03-27T16:24:00.000-07:00

For everyone who is waiting with bated breath, and for everyone else, the reason I don't have new pictures of the artist-currently-known-as-Lucky-but-hopefully-sometime-soon-to-be-known-as-something-else is that I can't find the damn cable to dump photos off our digital camera onto the computer. Tonight I will try to tear apart the house and find it - it must be somewhere. The last ones were taken with our other computer which has a camera built in, but it's a Mac, and I'm too lazy to figure out how to convert the formats and email them to myself so I can post them. I would probably learn to use the Mac sooner if it wasn't Manny's pride and joy that never leaves his sight.

Soon, my pretties, soon.

In other news, today was very warm and spring-like, and I took Lucky out and about in the neighbourhood. Sitting on the corner at the funky coffee shop made me feel like I was really young and sexy until I realized that everyone was looking at the dog and not me. I don't mind, though - he really is that cute.

the jokes begin

2008-03-25T20:34:00.000-07:00

I told Manny I was getting Lucky today, and he said, "Anyone I know?"

Bahahahaha. Just one more reason my dog needs a new name.

Here he is in all his blond glory.

And here's another one. He's a little bit camera shy at the moment, and it's hard to get a good snap of him. I had to try and squeeze in before the computer took the picture. Isn't he just so cute?

I'm way more excited than I thought I would be - I'm still a bit freaked out cause I really have no idea how to have a dog. I mean, the basics are self-explanatory, but I hope I'll eventually be able to relax around him and not constantly be looking around for him.

Tomorrow my sister and her family go back home. It has been great having them here, but it will be good to get back to my quiet little life. Being the introvert that I am, it wears on me having people around all the time. And the baby thing - well, I'll post more about that when there is zero chance one of them will look over my shoulder and see what I'm writing.

wiener.dog.

2008-03-23T19:17:00.000-07:00

I love my family and they totally exhaust me. They push my buttons and I let them. I wish I was so tough that I wouldn't get bugged. Alas, I am not.

I don't really want to complain about my family. There were some difficult moments this weekend, but mostly it has been good. I'd rather complain about myself. What I find hard is feeling like I expect people to treat me with care and sensitivity even though my infertility is a secret from a lot of them. My sisters and my parents know about our situation, but my aunt, uncle, grandparents have no idea. So I've been pouting about the fact that everyone is fussing over the nephews, and by extension my sisters, while all I get are compliments about the ham.

And even for the members of my family who know about my frustrated baby-lust, I get into times when I expect them to be taking care of me all the time. Like I want to be the center of attention for everyone, and I want everyone to be able to read my mind, and I just pout when it's not happening.

I know I'm being such a wiener. A narcissistic wiener. Blah.

In other news, I'm getting a dog this week. Gaah! I've never had a dog before and I'm freaked out and excited. The dog is named Lucky and belongs to my brother-in-law's mom, who is quite sick and has decided she wants to give the dog away. I think he's a cocker spaniel-yellow lab cross - he's medium sized and so sweet and gentle. He's not a puppy but I hope I can train him a fair bit so he will learn not to jump up and stuff, although I don't remember him doing that very much when I've been around him before. I promise I'll post pictures as soon as I get him so you can all swoon over his sweetness. I don't think that he has as much powah as Charlie, but is a very very cute dog nonetheless.

I sort of want to give him a new name. Even if it's just a nickname. Any good ideas?

today is better

2008-03-20T16:42:00.000-07:00

Just a quick note to update everyone on my situation last night. My neighbour and I haven't spoken, but she did speak to her counsellor, whom I saw go over to my neighbour's house. And she seems to have reached out to a few other people she knows, cause people have been coming and going all day.

I am doing much better and want you all to know how much your support helped me through last night and today. As soon as I posted, I felt a sense of peace starting to come to me, and that's just grown today. As painful as it is to have broken the pattern of our relationship by setting some very clear boundaries, I think it is what she needed and I am certain it is what I needed. By turning it over to the universe, knowing I had done my best, and by asking for your support and getting in in such caring and insightful comments, I've managed to make it through a pretty miserable day stronger and saner. Thank you, thank you, thank you.

In other news, my sister, her partner, and their 4.5 month old son arrived this afternoon, and I'm all excited and geared up for the big family extravaganza happening this weekend. It's nice to have something to focus on that brings me joy. I love hosting family events, even though, like most families, mine has a number of definite quirks and can sometimes drive me a bit loopy. But being together, eating and visiting, is one of my favorite things to do.

Hope this weekend you are all enjoying life with people you love.

help, help, help

2008-03-19T22:33:00.000-07:00

The title comes from the amazingly fantastically great Anne Lamott, who somewhere said that she has 2 prayers: "help, help, help" and "thank you, thank you, thank you." I'm paraphrasing, and if I've got this wrong in any way, please forgive me as I've had a shit day.

My neighbour, who is also a friend of sorts (the kind who is so desperately in need most of the time that the friendship is a one-way deal), is suicidal. She's talked about it with me before, and I know more than I ever wanted to know about how crappy one person's life can be. But when she raised it again today, something in me felt it was more serious than it has been in the past. (Oh, how I regret not taking it more seriously in the past.)

I won't go into all the details of what she said or how my day was derailed dealing with this. I was never in imminent harm, and neither was she, unless you count feeling like God has put you on the earth to commit suicide.

Tonight, I spoke to my mom and dad, who are a prison chaplain and psychiatric nurse, respectively, to ask for advice. They're perfectly trained to advise me on this, which came in really handy today. Then I spoke to the suicide prevention hotline and developed a plan of action - I went and checked on her, gave her the means to reach out for help, and asked her to promise me that she wouldn't harm herself tonight. She sort of did and sort of didn't promise that. I told her I would check on her tomorrow, and that if she didn't call her counsellor tomorrow, that I would do that for her. She was angry with me. I repeated that I wasn't able to deal with this alone, and that we needed to get other people involved, people who were trained to help her.

So that's where we left it. I have a feeling that she's going to be really angry with me for taking action on this, and may likely decide not to talk to me. At this point, it would be a welcome relief, to be horribly blunt. I know I'm doing the right thing, but it still hurts like hell and I'm really worried about her. I'm also angry that she's dumping this on me and expecting me to keep it a secret, and sad that a lot of my energy is going towards this when both my sisters and their families are coming to town tomorrow, and I'm hosting Easter on Saturday and want to be enjoying a rare occasion when most of my family is together.

It's late, and I'm doing this post before I go to bed to ask you: help, help, help. If you pray, please pray for me and for Gail, my neighbour. If you just think good thoughts, or send energy, please do that, too, or instead. I'm praying this prayer myself as often as I can collect myself, but I'm feeling alone in the woods tonight.

busy girl

2008-03-19T06:37:00.000-07:00

So I was tagged by the post-drunk Io to do this meme. And a good thing, too, with Easter coming up. It's good to get organized, and I'm most of the way there, but was just thinking I need to make a list of little odds and sods.

Step 1. Reference back to the blog that sent you.
Step 2. Make a list of 5 things you have to get done this week, no matter how small.
Step 3. Get 2 other people off their asses to get their shit in order.

1. Decide on a glaze recipe for the giant ham I reserved at Fellinger's Red Meat Wagon (best and grossest butcher shop name ever!), our local meat shop.
2. Go buy some chocolate from our friends who just bought the Belgian chocolate place - do that during the day today so it is not a complete bug show waiting in line in a very tiny store.
3. Go and buy forbidden foods like milk to feed my sister K and her partner S. Not everyone is all soymilk all the time.
4. Try to relax and not go crazy taking care of everyone who's going to be at my house on Saturday for the big family supper. This is harder without alcohol but it can be done - Christmas 2007 is proof. I actually had fun.
5. Brace myself for the fact that although I take care of my grandparents and do stuff for them, like drive them around and take them grocery shopping and to the bank, my sister K is my grandmother's hands-down favorite, and I will essentially be chopped liver to Grandma while K's in town. Especially with the baby who is, according to Grandma, "fortunate to have been born healthy cause K's no spring chicken anymore." Yeah, she's 2 years younger than I am. My grandparents don't know what's going on with us fertility-wise at all - my grandma has early dementia, and it would just be confusing for her. Plus she used to be a nurse and would probably have a *ton* of assvice delivered in the slightly insensitive but still well-meaning way of those who are beginning to get a bit dotty in old age. It would be nice to be able to talk to her about this stuff, as she suffered a number of miscarriages between her last 2 kids, and I think always wanted more kids. But it would be difficult to share that with her cause she doesn't really do truth and intimacy very well, and in any case the time for her being there for me is over.

Ok, so number 5 was a bit long.

I'm gonna tag lovecomesfirst and Spicy Sister on this one. And anyone else who want to do it - I view memes kind of like a fondue party. Grab a fork and dive in, folks.

the grand prize winner...

2008-03-18T22:10:00.000-07:00

...is Tara. For submitting "Get It Together With His Fucking Sperm" as her guess for what GITWHFS stood for. She wins 10 precious Kate points, because nobody was interested in my old but still cool magazines last time I had a contest, so Kate points it is.

I was actually going for "get in touch with his feminine side," but Tara's submission not only made me laugh for about 5 straight minutes until tears came out of my eyes, but also uncovered my deepest wish. So she wins.

Honourable mention to everyone who guessed. Jendeis, your guesses were like haiku - mysterious and oddly profound. Io and lovecomesfirst also had extremely clever submissions.

Well done everyone. Now I need to think of 5 things I need to do this week - shouldn't be hard with Easter coming up, and my sister and her partner and their little baby E coming to stay for a week.

the other 50

2008-03-17T19:33:00.000-07:00

After eating a bowl of porridge (Manny's usual pre-hockey meal, and I was too lazy to cook for just myself), I am back.

51. I love going camping and sleeping in a tent.
52. Growing up, my parents cooked everything from scratch, so I know how to cook lots of things without a recipe and I don’t consider canned mushroom soup an ingredient.
53. I can make really excellent gravy. Comes in regular and gluten free!
54. I have a huge stash of fabric, yarn, and craft supplies.
55. I can pretty reliably tell what a fabric is made of just by touching it. Although some of the new polyesters are getting tricky.
56. I believe in having fewer belongings of higher quality. Although you wouldn’t know it by looking at my closet.
57. As I get older, I’m more attracted to men who are actually masculine. As opposed to my 11 year old self, who loved Nick Rhodes.
58. I’m trying to be more compassionate.
59. I’m trying to remember that compassion can include me, too.
60. I got married wearing a sweater my mother knit for me.
61. I have the thick ankles that run in my family.
62. I love my husband, but I wouldn’t say I’m married to my best friend. My best friend is code-named Moonbeam, and she is freakin’ amazing.
63. I hold my breath when I walk past the laundry soap/cleaning products aisle in the grocery store, because that stuff is toxic!
64. My goal for this summer is to grow a lot of our own food and to store it for next winter.
65. I used to play the violin when I was a kid.
66. I am easily frustrated by stupid drivers, and am always talking to them from inside my car.
67. I’ve always wanted to take singing lessons.
68. My hair is the kind of straight people pay money for. Predictably, I kind of swoon over naturally curly hair.
69. I loathe Tom Cruise and can’t wait for Katie’s escape and subsequent tell-all book.
70. I absolutely love the movie Volver. Love.
71. One of my deepest fears is being misunderstood. Or not-understood.
72. There were three years in my childhood when I got completely, suddenly, and inexplicably ostracized by my friends – grade 5, grade 7, and grade 10. Those years sucked.
73. Longevity runs in my family.
74. I don’t really shave in the winter. Unless there is a very compelling reason to do so. So far this winter, none has presented itself.
75. I can’t wear antiperspirant so I use Lush deodorant instead and it rocks. Antiperspirant gives me horrible cystic zits in my armpits that hurt so much I can’t put my arms down.
76. In my heart, I am very left wing. In reality, I am medium left wing. I’m trying to reconcile these things after working in politics too long and losing my own sense of what I personally believe in.
77. Holy shit, am I boggled and horrified with what Americans have to deal with in terms of health care and workers’ rights. I rarely comment on the blogs when people are having insurance/employment issues cause I’m scared all that’s going to come out of my mouth is “Move to Canada! Save yourself!”
78. I don’t believe in TMI. Bring it on, I say. (See #74 and #75…)
79. I am a feminist.
80. Deep down, I really would like to live off the grid, in a small community of like-minded people who were committed to sustainability and happiness.
81. I’m pretty much helpless before a well-brewed up of tea.
82. If you asked me right at this minute what my favorite band was, I would have to say: The Magnetic Fields.
83. I like government towns.
84. I am getting more carefree and less serious as I grow older. To give you an idea, when I was a kid, I used to sort of feel sorry for other kids who went to Disneyland on vacation. Not because I thought it wasn’t fun, but because I pitied them for thinking it was fun. I guess I was kind of an asshole as a kid.
85. Until I started meditation, I don’t think I had any sense of what emotions were. I just knew I could feel good and I could feel bad – there was pretty much no nuance.
86. I am a 1 on the enneagram.
87. I like old people.
88. Despite #78, I hate abbreviations. (But OMG, I was trying to talk to DH about IF and DI the other day and WTF? IMHO, he needs to GITWHFS*. LOL!) Arrrrgh….
89. Despite the above, I will still like you a lot and read your blog if you use lots of abbreviations. I will just judge you a tiny little bit.
90. If I had to kill and prepare my own meat, I’d probably wind up being vegetarian. I know it’s hypocritical, but that’s the way it is for me right now.
91. I’m sorry, but I find the show "Seinfeld" to be pretty irritating.
92. I got a crush on Obama.
93. The outside of my house is painted dark turquoise, dark orange, and bright green.
94. I have an honours degree in Philosophy.
95. I make most decisions in my marriage. Manny lives on a very even keel and is seemingly unphased by what colour we paint the house, what we’re going to have for supper, or how we’re going to get knocked up. Sometimes this is a blessing, and sometimes it is a huge burden.
96. I believe that everyone is as neurotic as I am and that they just hide it very well.
97. I am proud of my abilities as a writer.
98. I cry pretty much every time I go to church, because there’s always something that really touches my heart. This is probably a sign that I should go to church more often.
99. My initials backwards spell BRA, and when I was in grade 7, I asked my parents, in all seriousness, how they could do that to me. Ahh, I was such a wiener. In all likelihood, I still am.
100. I worry.

*I made this one up. 10 Kate points to whoever can guess what it stands for.

100 things divided by 2

2008-03-17T15:55:00.000-07:00

So I've been feeling a bit stuck lately about what to write, and have only been posting for a month. Maybe I caught it from Io? I don't know - it just seems like I am good at pouring my heart out about specific things, but when I go to write about the more mundane stuff, I just have nothing to say. That and my life is very quiet at the moment, so I don't have a lot of external stimuli to write about.

I have seen those lists of 100 things about me on a few people's blogs, and it seems like a good idea of lifting the veil a bit, as First Comes Love did in fine form in this post a while back. That last line still makes me laugh everytime I remember it...because it's true. Of me, I mean.

So.

I am pretty tall.
My husband is 16 years older than me, but nobody who meets him can believe he's as old as he is. I often feel that he is Dorian Gray and I am the portrait.
Gardening soothes my soul and brings me joy.
I grow food and flowers, but only perennials in the flower category. I love how the garden changes throughout the seasons.
I really like furniture, architecture, and design from the 1950's.
I can sew and knit, and take a lot of satisfaction out of things I have made by hand. My love for handmade things extends to things made by others as well
I never grew up going to church, but sometime in my teen years started to believe in God. I am still figuring all this out, but I do pray fairly often and have a pretty spiritual approach to a lot of things, like infertility.
I practice Buddhist meditation, but not often enough.
I am plagued with having lots of moles all over my body. For this reason, you will never see me in a backless dress.
I'm a good neighbour.
I will cling to British spellings of words like "neighbour" as long as I draw breath. We use both UK and US spellings here in Canada, but I am old-school when it comes to language.
The way some people are good at sports, or music, or being fun to be around - I am good at learning languages.
I am chronically disorganized around the house.
I am trying to remedy the above by following FLYLady. Yes, it is kind of cheesy and a bit cult-like. But it works.
I have 2 sisters whom I love dearly.
The 2 of them have spawned, between them, my 3 nephews. Who are, without a doubt, the most awesome children on earth.
They are so awesome, in fact, that if I never get my own kid, I just might be ok with that, as long as I get to see them all the time.
I am granola on the inside.
I love TV and celebrity magazines, but I'm trying to break my habits cause I think they are killing my soul.
I wish I wasn't so uptight.
I am sort of phobic about throwing up and even knowing or suspecting someone in my vicinity is throwing up will make me all nauseous and panicky. Or if I see it in a movie or something. Ugh.
However, I have an iron stomach and the last time I hurled was over 10 years ago.
I will welcome puking galore if I get pregnant this year.
I like dresses.
I used to smoke, but haven't smoked in over 10 years.
Lots of people think I am a vegetarian. But I am not.
I don't have a job right now. I got burned out from my last jobs, went on stress leave, and then got a severance package because my job got terminated because it was a political position and the provincial government (my employer) changed.
I'm not sure I ever want to have a job again.
I'm very close to my parents.
Both my grandmother and my mother in law have some form of dementia.
I fucking hate dementia.
I was a waitress for many years and am proud of what I learned about humanity doing that job.
I never met a vegetable I didn't like.
I love Coronation Street. If you don't know what it is, I feel so sorry for you. (It's a British soap and it is awesome beyond description.)
I get up pretty much every Sunday at 7:30 to watch 2.5 hours of Coronation Street.
I am allergic to cats and dogs. But I might be getting a dog next week. Atchoo!
I don't like parties where I don't know almost everyone.
I am an INFP.
I am not really that bothered about aging, despite entry #2.
I totally hope I get to have my baby at home. Assuming I'm fortunate enough to have a baby.
I spend a lot of time struggling my inferiority complex.
I know that's a waste of time.
My blog is called "Working On It" because that's my response to people who ask me when we're going to have kids.
My blog's template was chosen because it is called "Son of Moto," and my husband and I call each other "Moto" all the time. Like in this Motorola ad.
Given my experience with my husband, I'm pretty much completely anti-vasectomy. I mean, you just never know what's going to happen. You may really want easy access to your sperm at some point.
I'm not scared of insects, but I really hate slugs.
I have never been bitten by a dog or broken a bone.
When I was a kid, I used to wish I had braces or a retainer. Cause all the cool kids were doing it.
I wish I was Jewish, because Judaism has so many rituals. And I really like rituals.
I was a teenage existentialist.

My brain hurts now from trying to be non-narrative. The next 50 will have to wait, at least until after supper.

*UPDATED* - I just changed one letter in this post and but it's an important letter. #38 - I am definitely an INFP, not an ENFP as previously stated. Definitely, without a doubt, I am an "I" not an "E."

my gut is my co-pilot

2008-03-14T08:51:00.000-07:00

Today I'm off to get some bloodwork done. I have an appointment on April 10 with the only doctor in town who does DI, and he wants the bloodwork done over again, even though I just had it done a few months ago. Not really a hardship, but sometimes I think doctors just order things for kicks. Like he needs to see the forms with his name on top, just so he can feel good. Boring, predictable doctors.

It's dawning on me that April 10 is not that far away, and I'm going to push to start trying as soon as my cycles allow after I see this Dr. for the first time. I think their protocol for DI is automatic Clomid, which I'd like to avoid. I'm thinking at this point I'd like to try unmedicated cycles at least twice and then reconsider, if necessary, after that. There are a number of reasons why I'm hoping to avoid the drugs, but I think it comes down in some ways to feeling like I want to do things as naturally as possible. And by naturally, I mean with the fewest interventions. It's just what feels right to me.

I'm intuitive. It's how I make decisions. For all my abilities to be rational in some spheres of life, I just don't make life decisions in my head. I make them in my gut. Sometimes I get down on myself about this, and start to doubt whether I'm making the right choice, because a rational choice might be something different. I'm still questioning whether I should do the first couple of cycles unmedicated - I really want a baby. Soon. Now. So why am I reluctant to do everything that would maximize the possibility of having a baby sooner rather than later?

Right now it's because my intuition is telling me I don't need the drugs. I am scared of the side effects, and long term effects of any hormonal medications, and I do have some serious trust issues with doctors who think they know what's right for everybody, whether they've met or examined them or not. But really, deep down, I believe my body is fine, and that I can do this on my own. Well, sort of. If, by "on my own," I mean without drugs, but with my husband holding my hand while the Dr. threads a catheter through my cervix to deposit the sperm of a third man, unknown to any of us, into my uterus, then yes, I believe I can do this on my own.

I really hope I'm right. I get scared, reading all the stories of failed treatements, failed IUIs, miscarriages. I don't know what I'd do if I had to go through what so many women out there have gone through. Right now, I don't even feel strong enough to handle more than a few tries without some good news. But my gut is telling me right now to believe my intuition instead of my fear. So I guess that's what I'll do for now.

mean girl

2008-03-11T10:18:00.000-07:00

Thanks, everybody, for your so-very-kind comments on my last post. I feel all snuggly.

I've been thinking about the times I'm mean, and how it makes me feel like a total shit, even if nobody notices I am being mean.

I should preface this story by saying that all my friends are moms. Pretty much everybody I call a friend has children, and most of them are little kids and babies. I have a few acquaintances and old friends that are childless, but among my true friends that I see regularly, they all have little kids. So if I want to have friends, I need to be immersed in that world. For a long time that was totally fine with me - I'm comfortable around kids and I genuinely like them, and I grew up around lots of kids in an environment of breastfeeding/natural birth/attachment parenting, so I'm pretty knowledgeable and understanding about parenting stuff. A number of my friends have come to me with questions - I'm glad to help, I guess, but the irony is definitely getting a bit much,

But lately it's been getting harder to be around moms and kids - not always, but sometimes. I never know when my fragility is going to come to the surface. Last week a friend, T, asked me to come to a small gathering of women (all moms) who were nominating another friend, L, for a community award. I had seen my counsellor that day, and that always brings things to the surface, and by the time evening came, I was not really feeling like being around a bunch of moms. Just not up for sitting there, smiling blankly while they talked about how hard it is to be a mother. But I had committed to going, and I did want to do what I could to support L's nomination, cause she rocks super hard and totally deserves some glory for it.

So what do I do? I figured that if I was going to have to be around a bunch of people who all have what I want and don't have, I was going to flaunt what I have and they don't. So I made my hair look good, and put on makeup, and wore funky clothes that showed off my fairly thin self. And I went into it with the attitude of, "If I have to be jealous tonight, then so do you."

Naturally, a lot of the conversation went just as I thought it would. And I don't mean to suggest at all that what they were saying was in any way contrived or untrue. I know that moms need to share their experiences with people who understand, just like I need to talk to other infertiles. It's just really hard to hear right now.

But things started taking a turn for the "I-am-a-total-shit" when T, who was talking about how hard it is for her to accept her aging, post-2-kids body, said that her daughter often talks about me, saying that I'm pretty and I have makeup (I think it is the latter that excites her the most.) T said that it hurts that her daughter doesn't see her the same way. And of course I start to feel bad, realizing that my getting sort of dressed up had exactly the effect I wanted, only it wasn't the effect I really wanted. You know?

And later I found out that one of the other women there, someone I didn't know before, has been trying to get pregnant with her second child for 2 years, and is really struggling with it. And then I really felt like a shit, because even though she's one of them, she's also one of us. And without knowing it, because she's one of them, I wanted to make her feel bad.

I guess I need to learn how to balance my own need to protect my little old heart with some compassion for what other people are going through. It sucks to be primarily infertile. But it also sucks to be dealing with secondary infertility, or to be trying to be a single parent and entrepreneur and still have a life to call your own, or to be grieving the loss of your youthful body and all the things that go with that.

I really hate that IF has made me pretty myopic when it comes to other people's pain. In some ways, I feel like I have ignored my own suffering over our infertility for a long time and so now that I have a community of people who share and understand my experience, I am free to recognize that suffering and accept it, which has been so amazingly good for me. But I also need to remember that I'm not the only one in the world who hurts, and to make sure my armour doesn't wind up taking someone else's eye out.

Hobo signs

2008-03-06T19:36:00.000-08:00

So this is one of the handful of posts I've been mulling over this week. The problem is that when I don't just write things down while they are fresh, they start seeming less and less interesting, and my writing kind of suffers from the diminished excitement I'm feeling about the idea. What is the saying - closeness breeds contempt? But this idea is good enough I'm going to give it a try anyway - although I'm sure it has been said before. I think the incredibly thoughtful comments from an earlier post of mine this week illustrate quite well the point I'm trying to make.

I was talking to my mom about how much better my life has gotten since I started blogging and connecting with all you disembodied darlings out there. (I've told my family and some of my friends that I have a blog, but not given anyone the url or told them how to find me. I figure if they're that curious, then they can live with what they read here.) And my mom pointed out that what we have here in the blogosphere is a record of women's oral history. That what we do here among IF bloggers is something women have always done - support each other, share information, ideas, experiences. Only now we have a record of that. And that record itself can serve the community - I've spent hours over the past month reading people's stories, from their first posts to their most recent, often feeling a deep connection with one woman's experience of one day that happened 2 years ago. The story of that one day, that one incident, that one conversation - can change me. I feel less alone, I better understand my own experience, I'm challenged to re-think my beliefs or expectations about this journey, about people, about myself. My sense of compassion for and solidarity with everyone facing infertility grows. I grow.

To me, this is incredibly beautiful. That we are all creating something here, something that supports and sustains us when things are difficult, something that rejoices with us when things go well. And something that serves not only those of us who are in the community, with blogs and identities and friendships already established, but also those who might just be passing through, desperate for information and connection (as I was a few weeks ago), or just curious, or even here by accident.

It's so generous, this blog stuff. It's like hobo signs - without knowing who's following behind, we're leaving something we hope will help. And we're listening to the ones who were here before us. Dang, I love it.

vegan and wheat-free delight!

2008-03-05T08:17:00.000-08:00

I'm posting this for you, Io, since you asked about how I cope without eggs. Well, I have been taught the mysterious ways of the miracle egg replacer - ground flax seed. I get my flax seed whole and grind it myself in a coffee grinder dedicated to flax alone. I grind it quite fine, until it's basically a powder. You can usually buy it already ground in the health food store, but remember that once ground, flax oil tends to spoil fairly quickly, so store in the freezer once you open the package.

Here's a recipe for pancakes that uses neither wheat, nor dairy, nor eggs.

(Adapted from "Whole Foods for the Whole Family" - a La Leche League cookbook - yes, I was raised by a lactivist and quite a bit of the brainwashing stuck)

2 cups "milk" - soy, rice, almond, etc
6 Tbsp ground flax seed
12 Tbsp water
2 tsp baking powder
1/2 tsp salt
2 cups flour - any combination of: kamut, spelt, brown rice, rye, soy, oat, buckwheat (I usually do about half gluten flours and half gluten free) - you can also add rolled oats or other grain flakes, bran, wheat germ, cornmeal, or other flour or grain of your choice.
1/4 cup maple syrup, molasses, or brown sugar (can also use honey if you're not really vegan, as I am not)
1/4 cup oil or other fat

In a small bowl, mix the ground flax seed and water. Set aside and wait for it to get thick and gooey.

In a large bowl, mix together the flour, baking powder, and salt. In a separate bowl, mix the remaining wet ingredients, including the flax seed mixture, which should be a bit thick.

Add the wets to the drys, and mix just until large lumps disappear.

Cook as you would normal pancakes, over medium high heat in a greased skillet. Flip them when small bubbles appear, and remove when they stop steaming. Proceed to gorge yourself on these high fiber and protein-rich nuggets of goodness.

And just cause I am so crazy about cooking, here's another one. A little less granola this time.

Hal's Maple Chocolate Flax Brownies (from the fabulous Sarah Kramer's La Dolce Vegan)
1/4 cup sugar
1/4 cup ground flax seeds
1/2 cup maple syrup
1/4 cup oil
1/4 cup "milk"
1 tsp vanilla
1 1/2 cups flour - if you're me, you can use kamut or spelt, or whatever
1/4 cup cocoa powder
1/4 tsp salt
1/4 cup walnuts, chopped - of course, you can use other nuts (or not, if you don't love them)

1/2 cup vegan chocolate chips

Preheat oven to 350 degrees. Lightly oil an 8x8 inch pan and set aside. In a medium bowl, stir together the sugar, ground flax seeds, maple syrup, oil, "milk," and vanilla. Let stand for 10 minutes, while you mix together the remaining ingredients, except chocolate chips. Combine wets and drys, and stir until just mixed. Pour into baking pan, sprinkle chocolate chips on top, and bake for 20-25 minutes or until a toothpick or knife comes out clean. Let cool before cutting into squares.

Ahh, chocolate.

Obey me! (please?)

2008-03-03T20:50:00.000-08:00

I just want to do a quick post to suggest that, if you haven't already done so, you wonderful readers do the Letter to My Body thing that Mel is doing with BlogHer. It's so great! I've read all the letters that are up on BlogHer, and they pretty much all have a different perspective on this whole IF path. And I totally agree with Mel that we IFers should deafen the world with our voices on this one.

So hop to it, internets. Or not, I guess. Since I'm not there to tug on your sleeve every 10 seconds and whine at you to puh-leeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeaaaaaaaaase do it, you can pretty much do what you want without me causing you much inconvenience at all. But it really is fun, and profound, and powerful, and just oh so nice to talk to your body like the old friend she is. So really. You should. You know you want to. All the cool kids are doing it. (Well, they will be once you join in.) Plus I really want to read your letters. Really a lot.

something that's been bugging me

2008-03-02T19:14:00.000-08:00

I've been carrying around this post in my brain for a while now. Hopefully what comes out here matches up with the confusing and not so good thoughts that have been banging around in there. In a recent post, I was talking about how much trust I need to have in the whole donor sperm process, and some of the fears I have about what could go wrong. And I wrote this:

And don't they get that I am putting enormous trust in them, you know, to test the sperm properly, and send me the right samples so I don't wind up birthing a short or black or curly-haired baby?

A few people commented in a way that made me think about why I wrote what I wrote, specifically about race. And I'm feeling pretty uncomfortable about why "black" was the first place my head went. I've thought a lot about it - is it because I live somwhere that there aren't a lot of people of African descent? Is it because I am white, so my subconcious/ social conditioning/(?) says that black must be the opposite and the most different from me, looks-wise? Or is it just plain old racism, deeply internalized to the point where I, like most good liberal, open-minded people, just think it doesn't exist? And although I've thought about this a lot since that post, I still don't have any good answers. I'll probably be thinking about this for a long time to come.

My anxiety about having a child that looks like me and Manny is definitely there - although I plan to be open with my child and with most people we know about how we conceived, I don't want to be forced into it by having a child that looks so different from either one of us that I'll have to have the conversation with random strangers, or endure idiotic comments about the milkman. But if my nightmare of sperm vial mix-ups actually happened, I'd be no less spared that experience if I wound up with a donor who was Italian, Indian, Chinese, or Lebanese than if my donor turned out to be of African descent. So why was that my first thought? Again, I don't know. I do know that my fears about having a child that looks like me are not limited to race - curly hair would definitely be a tough one to explain, and so would brown eyes, and so would shortness (although obviously less of a concern in the short term...most babies I know are pretty darn short.) And I also know that by the time I birth my baby, my love for her or him will be even more cemented than it already is, regardless of anything else.

I guess I wanted to write this post in part to apologize to anybody who was offended by that post, and in part to work this through myself. There are so many issues in all of this DI stuff that I feel I'm just starting to get a grip on - like the fact that browsing donor profiles always feels a bit too eugenic for my liking, and sometimes in the back of my mind I wonder if I shouldn't be signing up to be a foster parent, too, or instead. This is one that was unexpected, and I really thank the commenters who, intentionally or not, challenged me to ask myself these questions. So sorry, and thanks, and I'd love to hear your thoughts on this one, too.

to my darling body

2008-02-28T18:32:00.000-08:00

I'm doing this post in response to Mel's call for submissions as part of BlogHer's Letter to My Body project. Reading about this project made me realize that although I often talk to my heart, I don't remember a time where I've talked to my body. So here goes.

Dear Body,

Over the last few years, I've been learning to listen to you. You've really had to yell to get my attention - numb patches all over you, double vision, sudden weight loss, anemia, serious fatigue. It took me a while, but eventually I did take action by seeing a naturopath, changing my diet dramatically, and giving you more of what you need. I hope you're really, really grateful, because it's been incredibly difficult. I've given up caffeine, alcohol, junk food, and most of the foods I associate with comfort. Without these crutches, I'm faced with the daunting task of growing up. Taking responsibility for my life and my feelings. Dealing with stuff instead of ducking it.

I'm grateful that you never stopped communicating , that you continue to speak to me. It's hard some days, but I'm glad I can finally hear you. You've got a lot of important things to say. Thanks for not giving up.

The biggest thing I'm trying not to duck right now is infertility. Technically: "primary infertility, male factor." And while this really has not much to do with you at the moment, you've definitely borne a lot of the pain my heart has been feeling over this. I know I don't treat you right when I'm in the depths of despair - for weeks now, you've been begging for more excercise, and all I'm giving you is one dance class a week. I know it's not enough, but it's just that my heart has been more in need of attention lately, and I've only got so much energy these days. You're like the older sister, watching the prodigal heart get all the attention. Maybe you're wondering when it's going to be your turn again, to get lavished with attention and care, go for a run, resume our yoga practice, have sex maybe, feel pleasure. Maybe you're feeling left out.

And the bad news is that I'm hoping to ask you a huge favour in a couple of months. I'm going to ask you to get pregnant easily and quickly. I'm going to ask you to accept the sperm of a donor who will be anonymous for hopefully only 18 years and 9 months instead of forever, and I'm going to ask you to ask an egg to embrace one of those sperm, and implant that little cluster of cells in my uterus, and feed and nurture those cells until they become a baby. I'm going to ask you to stay healthy while that baby's in my belly, to not make me puke unless it's absolutely necessary, to be strong. Then I'm going to ask you to have the strength to birth that baby, at home, with no drugs, and keep that baby safe until I can hold her in my arms and do that myself. I'll ask you to provide me with lots of milk for that baby, and lots of energy for me so I can get through the first few months until I sort of know what I'm doing.

And after that I'm not sure what I'll ask you, but you can be sure the requests are going to keep coming. At some point I hope to be asking you to do all that over again, at least one more time.

Please say yes to everything, body. I would so love that.

I'm learning how to be a better liar

2008-02-25T07:17:00.000-08:00

Here's what I've learned from doing this meme: Exaggerate the truths, but don't exaggerate the lies. I already knew I was a bad liar, and this just confirms it. I guess I should be happy about that.

Congratulations, everybody! Out of 4 guesses, 3 were completely right, and one was half right.

So well done, Katie, Mel, Dramalish, and sort of Io, to whom I'm giving extra credit cause she said it was hard and and made me feel better about the fact that, according to the results, it wasn't.

1. In my entire life, I have only eaten one tiny bite of a Pop-Tart. Ever.

True. I was raised pretty crunchy granola and there were very few processed foods in our house. I had a roommate who ate all that kind of stuff, and one day my sister and I decided to try a Pop-Tart, cause neither of us had ever eaten one. It was blueberry flavoured and completely foul.

2. I can speak 7 languages, including Ancient Greek.

False. I can speak 3 languages relatively well - English, French, and Japanese. My German was pretty good while I was studying it but I'd be hard pressed to have a conversation now. I did study Ancient Greek for a few years in university, and was pretty good at it, too, but when you're not reading ancient texts on a regular basis, it tends to fade pretty quickly.

3. I have had a conversation with Queen Elizabeth II.

True. I ADORE the Queen. I think she's absolutely swell. The conversation went like this:

Me: (looked at Queen, made eye contact, and curtsied.)

Queen: And what do you do?

Me: I work for the Minister of Education.

Queen: Oh, do you?

Me: Yup.

I almost died of embarassment when I realized I had said "Yup" to the Queen, but I bet she's used to it. I think she decided to speak to me because I curtsied so well, and because we were wearing the exact same colour of coat.

4. I have a tattoo of an endangered Canadian fern that covers most of my back .

False. This was a completely random fabrication which probably would have been believable if I didn't say it was so huge. I don't have a tattoo at all. I've never gotten one because almost anywhere I'd put one would get obliterated with stretch marks, which every woman in my family has, once I have a baby. I could have been enjoying a nice tattoo for years by now, if only I'd known.

5. If I could have any man in the world as my love slave, it would be Leonard Cohen.

True, oh so true. Yes, Io, I do have a bit of a thing for old guys. And for Leonard in particular. Swoon. And his girlfriends are always way younger than him, so I don't think he has any, um, issues.

6. When I was a kid, I was obsessed with nuclear war and the arms race, and I believed the world would end before I was 30.

True, unfortunately. Have I mentioned I'm a bit on the serious side? Every time I had to do a speech for school, I did it on nuclear war, or the bombing of Hiroshima and Nagasaki. It really helped me fit in, and smoothed out the tricky negotiation of adolescence, for sure.

Thanks for playing, everyone. I really will send you a magazine, if you email me your address. I've got some good back issues of Bitch, Bust, Utne Reader, Adbusters, and the like - the kind of magazines that don't really get dated, so I can never bring myself to just throw them in the recycling. If you don't want a magazine, I guess I just offer my undying admiration, which you've already got anyway. So you should really take a magazine.

Step right up...

2008-02-21T20:55:00.000-08:00

...and guess the lies. You know how this works - 6 statements, of which 4 are true and 2 are false. Pick the lies and I'll send the winner(s) a selection of my old funky magazines that I can't bear to just throw out. Or not, if you'd prefer.

In my entire life, I have only eaten one tiny bite of a Pop-Tart. Ever.
I can speak 7 languages, including Ancient Greek.
I have had a conversation with Queen Elizabeth II.
I have a tattoo of an endangered Canadian fern that covers most of my back .
If I could have any man in the world as my love slave, it would be Leonard Cohen.
When I was a kid, I was obsessed with nuclear war and the arms race, and I believed the world would end before I was 30.

I was officially tagged by Kate to do this meme, even though I had seen it on at least 6 blogs which all said to do it if you'd read the post, but I am a chicken and kind of socially inept, so I waited until my name actually got called. But don't be like me, new friends! If you haven't done this yet, I highly recommend you do it right away, cause it is super fun and you get to lie in the privacy of your own home, where nobody can see you laughing at the lies you just made up.

Let the guessing begin!

I'm, like, "DUDE!"

2008-02-21T18:42:00.000-08:00

I want to say first that I've been basically doing nothing but eating, sleeping, and reading blogs for the past week, although today I cleaned up my house and also went to see some of the women's national curling championships with Manny and my in-laws. (This may be of interest only to Io, but afterward I drove to Moose Jaw to take the wrinklies home. )

My point is this: I have been reading the blogs of a bunch of stunningly courageous women, and I am so humbled. You inspire awe, truly, and I'm so glad I found you all.

I have more good things to say to you all, too, but I'll try to dilute my mushiness over multiple posts instead of making you think I'm an incurable kiss ass, which I am.

Nothing to exciting to report today. Yesterday's post (which I won't link to, although I thought about it, cause that would be really obnoxious since it's right there, for gosh sakes!) was pretty cathartic, and I was feeling a lot lighter today. Nice change.

My main bitch at the moment is about the bureaucracy of all this DI stuff. Manny had contacted a lawyer, just so we could get someone to explain everything to us. Surprisingly, there is a lot of conflicting and incomplete information on the Internet. Who knew? So the lawyer asked us to provide her with the standard form that donors would use once they are accepted into a donor program. Well, I've talked to 3 sperm banks so far, and they all seem to consider such a form "proprietary information." WTF?!? It's just a waiver, right? And don't they get that I am putting enormous trust in them, you know, to test the sperm properly, and send me the right samples so I don't wind up birthing a short or black or curly-haired baby? (Not to say that a short or black or curly-haired baby wouldn't be totally cute, but Manny and I could both literally be in a print campaign for a Scandinavian dairy company, and I'd rather not have to explain to total strangers who the father "really" is. Although it just occurred to me that it would be super funny if I had a baby that obviously could not be related to both Manny and I, but I just insisted that he really was the bio dad, no matter what awkward questions get asked. Hmm.)

I talked to one sperm bank the other day, and the woman I spoke to basically gave me no information, despite my quizzing her for a good 15 minutes about what their privacy policy was, whether they'd had any breaches ever, what the results of government inspections had been, etc. She was just totally vague on every single question I asked her, and basically seemed like she thought I didn't have any right or reason to ask these things.

And I'm, like, "DUDE!" I have to trust that everything goes as I think it will, then I have to tell some corporation when I actually have a baby, so they keep my info and my kid's info somewhere for their own records, then I might have to tell the federal government, but I'm not sure, cause nobody from there will even call me back! Don't you see how I might need a little reassurance that you're not just a bunch of freaks with a website and access to sperm? (Which, if you think about it, is, horrifyingly, everybody. Except me and a few of my girls out there.)

A big part of my resistance to DI is all this kind of crap. When I first started considering it, I was leaning towards a known donor - a friend or someone we know - because I thought I'd feel more comfortable with that. As time went on and I talked to my counsellor about it, I realized it's probably not in the best interest of my marriage or my own sanity to use a known donor. I'm way too obsessive and prone to romantic fantasizing (especially when things aren't rockin' on the home front) to make it work, and my counsellor raised a lot of good points about the donor's family then wanting to have a relationship with the child (e.g. it would be their granchild/niece/ nephew and that could cause a whole world of trouble, not to mention does anyone really need another set of in-laws? Mine are great and all, but learning to be part of one extra family is enough for me.)

So I changed my mind, and moved on to an unknown donor, although I will still insist on an open ID donor so when my my kid turns 18 they can find out who the donor is. But the idea of having all kinds of different agencies keeping tabs on us somehow and having to know who we are and how we got our kid - I'm not so excited about that. I know there are all kinds of good reasons for them knowing about us, but it still creeps me out a bit. I really would like to go on and have a normal life once I get a kid or 2 or 3, and being in multiple databases as someone who was inseminated with the sperm of a total stranger doesn't really play that big of a part in the normal life I have in mind. Not to mention that the legislation governing assisted human reproduction in Canada is relatively new, and seems to still be in flux to some extent, although I'd have a much better idea if a certain someone in Ottawa could call a girl back.

I guess I just don't like not knowing things, and I'm trying to grasp at as much certainty as I can because I've had precious little so far. And some straight answers from people who are supposed to be working for the public good would definitely go a long way right about now.

Just once I'd like to write a short post, and I bet you all would like that, too. That will be my goal for next week, maybe. Gotta dash - an original episode of Law & Order awaits. I'm not quite sanctimonious enough, so I need Ben Stone to give me some lessons.

In which a miserable lunch comes to represent my struggle with infertility

2008-02-20T07:19:00.000-08:00

Thanks everyone for your good advice on whether or not to share my blog with my family and friends. Since the feedback I got was all pretty much unanimous, I've decided to not share it with anybody. I think the reason I had the urge to tell my family about it was that it's bringing me so much happiness right now, and it's always nice to share happy news for a change. Hopefully I'll get my turn soon once I actually get some sperm in me.

*This story has swearing. In case you are a delicate flower.*

Sunday, Manny and I went out for lunch with a group of friends. We had been out at someone's cabin, snowshoeing and skiing all morning, and it was cold out. One of the group suggested going for lunch in a little town on the way back home - everybody there knows about my crazy food restrictions, but I'll outline them for you here (pity and sympathy always welcome - I definitely spend lots of my time wallowing already). I can't eat:

wheat in any form
potatoes, tomatoes, bell peppers, eggplant
eggs
dairy
peanuts
oranges

None of my sensitivities are life-threatening - I don't have anaphylactic reactions to any of these foods. But they don't support my overall health (how I found this out is a long story that I will leave for another time) and I do react to some extent when I eat them.

Back to my little parable. So everybody knows I can't eat those things, but they do want us all to go for lunch, because they're hungry and besides it will just be such a charming way to cap off a nice weekend together, so they say things like, "There will be something for you to eat, right?" Take a look at the list, and imagine what I can eat in a restaurant known for its amazing burgers and tasty wraps? That's right, salad! Mmmm, just the thing I feel like eating after I've been tromping around in the snow all morning and it's -20 outside with the wind! (Sorry American readers, I'm a metric baby and have no idea what that is in Farenheit.)

So we go to the restaurant, and as we're coming in, I can see into the kitchen, where plates of amazing home-cut fries and cheeseburgers are piling up. Bowls of steaming, creamy soup. It smells amazing and everything looks so good. And I'm getting angrier and angrier that we're there, cause I know a freezing cold salad is in my immediate future and I won't even get to enjoy perusing the menu and having a choice about what I eat, which in my opinion is half the fun of eating out anyway. I know what my choices are going to be - salad or salad, and if I'm lucky they'll have a plain, unbreaded piece of chicken they can put on it.

And of course, just as I predicted, I get to chow down on a $10 salad, which is woefully small and unfilling, even with the chicken, as all around me, the table falls silent while my friends stuff themselves with potato soup, fries, clubhouse sandwiches, and burgers. Hot, filling food that makes them feel like going back home and having a nap on this Sunday afternoon. Food that makes them feel satisfied and happy. Food that feels like a treat.

In the middle of all of this, Manny, who has been eyeing the drinks menu up on a blackboard behind the counter, asks me if I like carrot juice. I deduce that they must have fresh juices here, and he's suggesting I get one to round out my meal, which everyone at the table can easily see is completely pitiful, and also because he cares for me and wants me to have something I like. And you know what? I don't mind carrot juice. It's ok. But one thing is so fucking obvious that it's all I can do not to lunge across the table at him brandishing my fork - CARROT JUICE DOES NOT EQUAL A PLATE OF FRIES!!!! And that's what I want. I most certainly do not want a fucking carrot juice, nor will it bring me any kind of joy or relief in this situation. And I know he, and everybody there, means well when they point out options for me, but the fact is they don't have a clue what I feel like. Not a sniff. They are just enjoying themselves, looking forward to the restaurant, going over the whole menu looking for the exact thing they want right now, and getting to enjoy that exact thing in the company of people who are doing the same thing. They might be wondering why I'm looking like I want to simultaneously burst into tears and kick all of them in the shins, but probably not. Probably they think I'm having just as good a time as they are.

In the car on the way home, in between waves of my seething rage, I started to understand that part of why I was so angry was that the lunch was just another way for me to feel isolated, and that the isolation of our infertility was so very similar to what I had just experienced. When I started to tell my family and friends about our infertility, they were able to listen and be compassionate for a while. But then, because they want to help, they start thinking of the solution. "Well, this isn't so bad. There are ways for you to get a baby, right?" Sure there are, it's just that those ways involve a lot of sacrifice and grief and will change me forever, but I guess you'd rather not discuss that. You just want to think about when you get to throw me a baby shower, and all the cute onesies you'll get to pick out, and how much you're a good person because you're going to love this grandchild/niece/nephew/baby no matter what, even if it is the spawn of some guy who needs the money somewhere in another country. So things move along, and I share updates, like my HSG was good, and so was my bloodwork, and we've got an appointment with the doctor in town that performs DI, and things are really moving along, finally, and that's really good. It is good, I am grateful, I do have hope. But I also have so much damn grief, and fear, and anger. And while I struggle everyday to keep it together, and not let my anger swallow me up, and work so hard on trying to accept that DI (hopefully) is how my baby will come to me, you are completely oblivious. You might even say something like, "Have you thought about adoption?" as though it's such a simple and comforting option that is just there for the ordering, much like a glass of carrot juice. And I have thought about adoption, and I think it's a beautiful way to build a family. But it's not what I really want. My heart's desire is to experience pregnancy, birth, breastfeeding. And for me, right now, there's just no substitute for that. And I feel like I've given up enough, thank you.

So I go on, feeling broken, walking around the world and interacting with all you people in my life. Trying to forgive you for what you don't understand.

Thanks in advance, friends, for hearing me.

tiny, wise, silver pod

2008-02-18T19:57:00.000-08:00

Today I'm feeling tired of the stress of the whole baby thing, so I'm lifting something fun from A Somewhat Ordinary Life (which is password protected so I'm not linking to it, and plus I've got a lot to learn about the whole etiquette of linking to stuff, so sorry if I've committed a major gaffe here or anywhere else for that matter) which I spent hours today reading. It may be old hat to many of you, but it was super fun for me. It's the iPod shuffle game - a kind of infertile fortune telling! Take the following 10 questions in order, shuffle songs on your iPod, and let the wisdom of the Pod speak to you.

I laughed and cried doing this. The only ones I skipped were the ones in Spanish or Portuguese, neither of which I speak. Sorry for the two complete songs in here, but I thought they were both so perfect I couldn't whittle either of them down to a few lines.

1. The song for you that existed before you ever thought about your fertility:
He Can Only Hold Her – Amy Winehouse

Even if she's content in his warmth
She is plagued with urgency

2. Would you really want to go back and be that person again?
Time’s Arrow – The Weakerthans

So you watch the sunrise sinking
And she's talking in her sleep
A dream of how alone she was
Tomorrow when you keep
All those promises to someone
In a mirror you will find
At your parents' house in 1989.

Terrorized by the ruling party: calendars and commas.
Small request, could we please (Turn around and around and around) turn around?

Then you whisper your arrival walking backwards to the door.
Wonder briefly what it is you're hesitating for.
All the streets lie down, deserted in the darkest part of night,
To lead you through the evening to the light.

Pulled along in the tender grip of watches and ellipses.
Small request. Could we please (Turn around and around and around) turn around? (Turn around and around and around)
Turn around?

3. The song for when you first started fertility treatments:
Gone for Good – The Shins

You want to jump and dance
But you sat on your hands
And lost your only chance

4. What did infertility do to your sex life?
I Shall Be Free – Bob Dylan

She’s a-tryin to hide
Pretendin' she don’t know me

5. What about superstitions and fertility rituals?
La La La – The Bird and The Bee

Take yourself out
Hit the tambourine
We have loaded up your eyes
And fed you tangerines

6. How about "alternative" treatments (such as acupuncture, yoga...)?
With My Own Two Hands – Ben Harper

I can hold you with my own two hands
I can comfort you with my own two hands but
You got to use
Use your own two hands

7. How do you feel about coming out of the IF closet?
Jump Up – Elvis Costello

Jump up hold on tight
Can’t trust a promise or a guarantee
Cause the man 'round the curve
Says that he’s never heard of
You or me

8. Your song for other people's baby showers:
It Takes A Lot To Laugh, It Takes A Train To Cry – Bob Dylan

[I think the title pretty much sums it up.]

9. What about our scary friend hope?
Make Up – Lou Reed

You’re a slick little girl
Such a slick little girl

10. And lastly, the theme song of your fertility journey:

Love in Mind – Neil Young

Woke up this morning with love in mind
It was raining outside but my love still shined
It kept me warm ‘til my plane touched the sky

And I’ve seen love make a fool of a man
He tried to make a loser win
But I got nothing to lose I can’t get back again

Man made rules been holding back my love
Can’t hold it back no more
Church has long preached sex is wrong
Jesus, where has nature gone?
What am I doing here?
What am I doing here?

Woke up this morning with love in mind
It was raining outside but my love still shined
It kept me warm ‘til my plane touched the sky

And I’ve seen love make a fool of a man
He tried to make a loser win
But I’ve got nothing to lose I can’t get back again

'tis better to have a secret blog than secret infertility

2008-02-17T21:24:00.000-08:00

Things are going a bit better today - my extreme angst of Friday has subsided a bit. We went out to the lake with friends who have a cabin out there, and had a big fire last night, and went snowshoeing today. It was good to spend time with other humans, and just have some fun. The fun thing is not something I'm naturally that good at, although I do try. I've always been a bit uptight, ever since I was a kid, and being sad and grouchy all the time really doesn't help my quest for fun and lightness.

I've been wondering who to tell about this blog. So far, my husband (since I can't yet bring myself to use "DH", he needs a nickname, so I'll call him Manny) knows I have it but I haven't sent him the link yet. I probably will, although that precludes me from ranting about him in my posts. That's probably a very good thing, as I tend to be pretty good at ranting in my head, and pretty bad at actually ever talking to him about stuff until it builds up and I have a little sobfest. Poor Manny, always getting blindsided by my freakouts.

I've only told one other person in my life about this blog, and it's a friend who lives overseas and who struggled with infertility for years prior to having her son. I know she understands what I'm going through, and there is no risk of anything I write becoming gossip fodder. That has already happened at least once that I know of among my friends here, and I'd like to be able to speak freely without worrying that it's going to become a little topic of interest among my extended circle of friends.

The people I wonder about most are my parents and sisters. I am very close to all of them, and they all pretty much know where we're at in the journey. But sometimes I struggle in this - the relationship becomes difficult when they offer advice (well-meaning, of course) or talk about my situation in a way that wounds me deeply, or just shows that they don't really understand what I'm going through. I wonder whether it is best to look for support from people who do understand, and leave the real life relationships for real life.

But at the same time, I'm refining and clarifying my thoughts in these posts. I'm writing with my heart and my mind. I'm expressing the parts of the journey that I tend to edit out when I share my situation the people in my life. And I don't have the energy to do that in all of my relationships all the time. The idea that I could invite my parents and sisters to read my blog to get a better sense of what I'm dealing with seems appealing. They can read, digest, think and hopefully learn - all in the comfort of their own computers, all in the safety of not being in a conversation with me right at the moment, all without me having to cry in public, be angry at them for not reacting the way I want, have the same conversations over and over - it all sounds so very nice.

Any thoughts, brave comrades? Experiences of tragedy and/or triumph would be most welcome. Little old annacyclopedia doesn't have a clue on this one.

made-up people i still compare myself to

2008-02-15T21:57:00.000-08:00

Today was the kind of day when I just feel angry and sad all day long, but nothing in particular set it off. It could very likely be partly related to the parasite/yeast cleanse I just started a few days ago on the advice of my naturopath. She's helped me do so much healing over the past 2 years, and I totally trust her. But I'm hoping this current "healing crisis" is over soon, cause it's a serious drag. The info that came with some of the herbs I'm taking for this cleanse said that I should be grateful to get symptoms because it means my body is talking to me. And I am, really, but sometimes I just need a break. And no such break seems to be forthcoming as I face the next 27 days killing the beasties within.

The thing about infertility I fear the most is that the crazy intensity of all the sadness, anger, jealousy, self-pity, anxiety, and loneliness is never going to go away. That no matter what happens, whether I have a baby or not, I'm never going to get a break from it. And right now, that seems almost worse to me than not having a baby.

I have some experience with this in relation to my health over the past few years. I was having some weird symptoms but the regular doctors weren't able to figure anything out, so I went to a naturopath and she completely changed my life. For the better, totally. But I've also had to radically change my diet, take piles of supplements, and give up all crutches - no caffeine, alcohol, and now, no sugar! It can be a real bitch on days like this to not have something to take the edge off. And I feel like I'm staring down the rest of my life with no crutches, no breaks, and it really terrifies me and pisses me off.

All of this only adds to my fury that I can't just be LIKE EVERYBODY ELSE! I don't get to have a baby like everybody else, I can't use booze or even food to comfort me or stuff my feelings like everybody else, I can't be healthy without taking extreme crunch-tastic action like everybody else, I can't seem to handle a full-time job like everybody else...

I know that "everybody else" is completely fictional. But days like this, when the misery and self-pity have me wandering around the house in a daze, unable to do anything other than fantasize about junk food and watch old Law & Order episodes, they sure feels real.

my journey so far...

2008-02-14T12:13:00.000-08:00

I'm married. I knew from very early in our relationship that my husband had gotten a vasectomy before we met. At first I thought that our relationship wouldn't be a lasting thing, as I was months away from moving to Japan when we first met, so I didn't worry about it. (He doesn't want kids...no problem! I'm not staying with this guy!) It didn't quite work out that way, and he moved to Japan, changed his mind about kids, and we got married. We spent two more years in Japan, enjoying the potato salad sandwiches, hilarious t-shirt slogans, gracious people, and the convenience of no birth control, blithely assuming that we'd get back to Canada, he'd have the reversal, and I'd promptly get knocked up.

Sigh. There are so many assumptions and decisions that I can question now that I am looking back on them. Should we have gotten married in the first place? Why didn't he get on the waiting list for surgery before he moved to Japan to be with me? Should we have taken the statistics on reversal success more seriously? Is there something else we should have done that would have changed the outcome for us?

We've been back home for nearly 5 years. It took 3 years for him to get the surgery, and another year of complications, questionable test results, and a lot of worry to find out that it didn't work. He has no sperm. There's always the possibility of extracting sperm from him and attempting IVF. But I've felt for a long time, even when the thought of dealing with infertility was just occupying a tiny space in the back of my mind, that IVF is not for me. The expense, the invasiveness, the crazy hormones whose long term safety is still questionable, the low success rate, the heartbreak when it doesn't work...I just don't think it's for me. I have nothing but admiration and respect for anyone who choses that path. But when it comes to me, my gut just says, "No."

So we've decided to embark on trying to have a baby using donor sperm. I still have a lot of questions about this, but I feel like we're getting closer to feeling fine with it. (I'll have to leave a lot of this discussion for another post or probably more like another hundred posts - I have a lot to say about this!)

It has been hard to be positive about the next steps since getting the news that the reversal didn't work. Seems like a lot of people in my life like to spout "The Secret"-type psychobabble at me and tell me I need to believe everything will work out. Well, I already did that - lived for years believing that my husband and I would get to have biological kids together. And it didn't work. I'm feeling pretty angry and not necessarily up to trying to live in hope all the time without doing something to protect my heart if I'm going to get disappointed again. I'm kind of getting there - we're getting close to being able to try, for real, with real live sperm, and it feels good to know that there's a possibility that we can really move on to another phase of this journey. But the fear and uncertainty are definitely still there.

For a long time, I've danced around the whole issue of infertility, mostly because I haven't felt like I really belonged in that community. I feel like I've got it pretty easy compared to a lot of people out there - there's no evidence that I have any fertility issues of my own, my mom and sisters conceive easily and have healthy pregnancies, and I do feel pretty deeply in my soul that I will be able to get pregnant and have a healthy baby.

So do I fit in with the infertility crowd? A couple years ago, I started checking out some message boards on infertility and was totally turned off by the chirpy tone (not aided whatsoever by the relentless abbreviations) and a strong sense that "these are not my people." (Hopefully you'll get a better sense of who my people are as I continue to post and you continue to read. Suffice it to say that I feel a bit rougher 'round the edges than the women who were posting on those message boards.) I quit looking for people who might understand what I was going through and tried to deal with things on my own until a few weeks ago, when I started checking out blogs on infertility. I must have been guided to the right ones, cause I seem to have found my people. I've read and connected with the stories of women (and some men) whose writing expresses so many things I've been struggling with, and whose courage in the face of such tremendous pain humbles and inspires me. I've had so many moments over the past few weeks, reading the stories of years of these strangers' lives, where I've felt connected, validated, understood. And that's just such a huge fucking relief!

So I'm giving it a go myself. I guess I hope that at some point, somebody will read my blog and get the same comfort from my words as I have from those of my brave comrades out there who are trying to become parents and generously sharing their experiences with the world. If not, well, I've already written more in this post than I have in my journal in the past 6 months...

not skulking, but contributing

2008-02-14T07:07:00.000-08:00

Wow. I'm really doing it. After 2 weeks of obsessively reading dozens of other people's blogs, I'm starting my own. It remains to be seen whether I will be disciplined enough or inspired enough to post regularly, but over the past while, doing what felt at times like stalking, I've been convinced that there is something to this blogging stuff. I've been energized, inspired, moved, and provoked by some of the stuff I've read, and I feel like I'm ready to start contributing. Instead of skulking around the blogosphere as I've done for the past couple weeks.