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.
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