Dangle the Carrot

Let's be real for a second. The title of this post is so inaccurate, because really, if you are anyone BUT Bugs Bunny, nobody wants a carrot for enticement. This is me we're talking about. Read on to continue under the new, moderately appropriately named title for tonight's brief story...

 

Dangle the Chocolate-Covered-Anything

 

Yesterday was Day One, Round One of my very first IVF cycle!!!!!!!! HOLLA!

 

Today is Negative Day One, Round One, though. No cycle.

 

No kidding.

 

I checked in with my doctor this morning to confirm the start day and to begin my pill regimen, only to be taken back a notch when he called me at the very end of the day to tell me we have to post-pone to next month. Wait. WHAT?!?!?!?!

 

I've been patiently waiting since JUNE for yesterday to get here. Basically, I've been waiting three YEEEAAARRRSSSS for yesterday to get here. I couldn't have been more ready for my period to start. I think I might have even burst into song when I wiped red yesterday.

 

Apparently, the embryologists that are in charge of monitoring my egg fertilization between retrieval and transfer are going to be in a conference about furthering their education on SITTING IN A CHAIR WATCHING FREAKING EGGS AND SPERM MATE IN A DISH. I mean, REALLY!

 

However, said conference is in Honolulu. In October. In Hawaii. Paradise. (For those who weren't clear about that location. I'm pretty sure tomorrow's lesson is going to go something like this:

 

**Pulls up Google Maps with aerial views of the big island on the Promethean board.**

 

"Students, direct your attention to the paradise on the screen. This is the state of Hawaii. The capital city of Hawaii is Honolulu, where, this upcoming October, several multi-millionaire embryologists from VA IVF will be "conferencing"...HA. PUHLEASE. VOMIT...while I am here, with you, with my eggs fully fertilized and anxiously awaiting to be yanked out, by the same embryologists who will probably be laying on this section of Wakiki beach."

 

**Aggressively, angrily points to the coastline**

 

I hope they sunburn. And get sand fleas. And severely underestimate the island cost of living and run out of money on day four and have to come home prematurely.

 

SIKE. Who am I kidding? If that opportunity arose for me, I'd already be at the airport (a month early) in a fake floral lei and a grass skirt sippin' on a mai tai with a Dole Plantation Pineapple straight from the Hawaiian heartland to set the mood. It just royally bites the big one that men can't schedule worth a damn. You KNOW they knew about this trip. Why couldn't they have helped a sistah out and let her know??

 

My doctor thought I was joking when I told him after he apologized profusely that the only way they could make it up to me was to take Mike and I with them. I mean, you promise me a kid, (dangle the carrot), then tell me I have to wait ANOTHER month for it. He was like, "You're so young still, you're healthy, this is going to work. It's not like your ovaries are deteriorating"....This is where I'm like, "HOLD ON, BRO-THA! My tubes already DID deteriorate, let's not even PLAY about anything else doing the same". He was chuckling at my suggestion to take us while I wasn't saying a word. He heard crickets. I heard the roar of anger in my ears.

 

I could have gotten really attitudal with him, but I kept myself in check. My throat was doing that clogged-up weird thing right before you cry, so I really missed what he was saying the last thirty seconds of our conversation. It was a bunch of his "I've worked this a thousand different times, but I just can't get the timing to work on our side. I'm so sorry" along with a bunch of my "uh-huhs".

 

So we have been let down. AGAIN. So we are waiting. AGAIN. It's no use in even being upset at this point because finally, this time wasn't my fault.! It just wasn't meant to be. I'm all about signs, as you know, and having this procedure done in the same month exactly three years after my first miscarriage is pretty meaningful.

 

It's just a month. It's just a month. We've waited this long to get the show on the road so what's another few weeks. Except, saying that out loud is much easier to do than actually meaning it. The yarn has been extended and the carrot is out of reach for a little bit longer. I'll keep my tunnel vision on, because thank God, THANK GOD! at least we are still working in the produce section.  

Meanwhile, Out in Leftfield

For someone who is embarrassingly uncomfortable with numbers, they seem to be taking me over the last few weeks. Since school has started and I'm back to work, my alarm goes off and I start calculating in my head how much longer I can just lay there until I reach the top level of lateness. Oh yes. Different days warrant different levels of untimeliness. Level One is rolling in a minute or two past the time I'm actually supposed to be there. Level Two is "I'm in the parking lot texting somebody in the building to come let me in the back door". Level Three is "screw it, I'd rather arrive late than to arrive ugly", which can range from anywhere between the five and ten minute late mark. Level three days are the ones I feel like I look the best, but it took hell and high water to get there.

 

This isn't something new for me. As an adolescent, I was peer-pressured into playing softball. Instead of embracing my fiercely competitive side at every game, I basically stood on the field or in the dugout and stared at the countdown clock on the scoreboard. This anticipation had less to do with the heat of summertime and my wishing to be back at the pool I was dragged from to go put on the over-sized man t-shirts the league provided...and way more to do with the free hotdogs that all players got at the end of games. I mean, there would be girls (my teammates) actually CR-YING because we'd lost and I'd be all, "yeah we lost by ten and I'd like mustard and ketchup on my dog, and for God's sake, don't be scared to get a little crazy with the ketchup." I always seemed to make my best plays at the end of the game because I knew if I just did what needed to be done to bring in the runners or what play I needed to get the out, the sooner I'd be done with it. And the sooner I'd get a free hotdog.

 

In eleventh grade, I took my first SOL writing test. I think back then it was like the preliminary, trial tests, so the scores didn't actually count for anything. But I clearly remember sitting in the library configuring down to the minute how much time I had left. Apparently it was timed? (I'm not sure about any of this. I may even be making it up. Anything is possible.) The topic was something along the lines of "Write about a time that is meaningful to you. It can be funny or sad." I sat in the library for like, three hours making up some story about losing a loved one because I didn't have any background experience at the time with the topic. I thought a sad story would make the scorers feel sympathetic.

 

With forty-five minutes left to go, I changed my mind and started rewriting a story about the time I'd gone deep-sea fishing the summer before. I kept getting my line hung up with the other lines from the opposite side of the boat and people were losing their cool with me because of it...and tossin' their cookies all at the same time from seasickness. It. Was. Hilarious. I remember using post-it notes to figure out how much time I had left before they made me stop writing. <----This took probably ten minutes of actual writing time. I finished with a few minutes left to spare. I feel like I'm about to lie to you, but I'm pretty sure when the scores came back, I had a 600, which was the highest you could get. If somebody wants to go pull my permanent record from Central to verify, please do. Just don't post it publically if I didn't get a 600, because really, that would just ruin the "feel" of this story. Don't rain on my parade here.

 

Anyway! All that writing and changing and calculating was the first real time I remember thinking, "I'm one of those people who works best under pressure". I was so proud of myself with that score. To this day, I've been counting and calculating.

 

I start my first round of IVF in approximately two weeks. TWO! WEEKS! Ohemgee. When I get my period, which is supposed to happen around September 15th, it all begins. This means I have two weeks to finally start thinking about it! Since the removal of my plumbing, I've just been pushing it off and calculating the anticipated cycle dates. I've been drowning in paperwork from school. I've been signing up to do the most random nonsense. Anything to keep my mind from focusing on what's getting ready to happen. This is our only shot at making a kid. THE ONLY SHOT! You know, no pressure or anything.

 

The statistics show that two teenagers having unprotected sex have about a 20% chance at getting pregnant in a month. The statistics (as of June 2014) show that couples starting their first round of IVF have about a 50% chance of getting pregnant (and having a live birth). Um, 50%? I'll take that. I'm not so much concerned about getting pregnant as I am about keeping it. So while most women are joyous that they conceive with the first round(usually because they've never gotten a positive test before), I'll be joyous if we make it two weeks past a positive test. Which means that yes, you will probably know the timing of when I should find out if I'm pregnant or not...but my lips will be sealed far past the normal waiting period.

 

Since June, both Mike and I have been cracking down on ourselves to make this time the very best opportunity to stay pregnant. I want to go into this cycle with NO outside factors to cause a pregnancy not to work. If you cut my arm right now, I'd bleed straight folic acid. I've been My Fitness Pal'ing since April and I'm two pounds away from the goal weight my doctor set for me before my first cycle. Faulty tubes are no longer in the way. We've both been taking a high-powered antibiotic so we will surely have the cleanest, purest sperm and eggs anybody has ever seen, dammit! We are ridiculously healthy. The odds are ever in our favor...

 

And so the countdown begins. I'll calculate days and injections and pills. I'll keep my eyes on the scoreboard while my doctors keep their eyes on the many ultrasounds that are in my very near future. After all, I tend to do my best under the pressure of a timeline. But this time, hopefully we'll get a baby. Or if not, somebody at least better give me a free hotdog.