Swings and Tears

I wish I had something funny to say today. But I guess 3 straight days of vivid dreams and tossing and turning through the night haven't left me feeling particularly entertaining.

Last night's dream is easy enough to reconcile. I went to see "The Change-Up" last night (really funny, by the way) and for some reason, all the previews were for horror movies. And for anyone who doesn't know, I'm a total bitch baby about scary movies. And scary movie previews, apparently.

There was this one preview for some bullshit vampire movie with Colin Farrell and McLovin'. And so last night my dream was that I was being stalked by some 15 year old boy vampire. I had something he wanted, though I didn't know what it was, and he was planning to kill me. At some point I realized that I was also a vampire, but only in the capacity that I could run fast enough to mostly get away from him. But I knew he was stronger and that he could easily kill me. I had stopped at a Walgreens and was picking up money from their Western Union for my rent and he showed up and was giving me the stink-eye like "as soon as we get out of here, I'm murdering the shit out of you". I ran away as fast as I could but I knew he was gaining on me and eventually I ended up boxing myself in on some secluded patch of woods where I would meet my untimely demise. That's when I woke up.

I don't remember the particulars of the dream I had Saturday night. Just that it was vivid and not exactly a nightmare. It's also probably in pieces because Caitlyn woke up a couple of times crying and refused to go back to sleep and we had to bring her into bed with us. So I hardly slept at all really.

The dream that I'm having trouble with was the one I had Friday night and it nagged at me all weekend, turning me into a blubbering mess or a hostile crazy person at regular intervals.

My dream was that I was 5 or 6 months pregnant with a baby boy. It wasn't Nicholas, of that I am sure. Because Caitlyn was there. She was maybe 3 years old and she was very excited about her baby brother. She kept rubbing my belly and feeling his kicks. Oh, the kicks. My subconcious must remember what baby kicks feel like very distinctly because everything about that dream felt exactly real and exactly right. I remember being vaguely anxious in my dream because I was very close to gestation where I lost Nicholas. But then I remember reassuring myself how strong this baby was- how I could feel his kicks and rolls so clearly and how I knew he would be ok. Then I woke up and cried for a while.

There's just so much I'm unsure of right now. I've been unsure of my marriage for the last several months, though that has been getting better. But with that come all the other questions I inevitably will have to answer no matter how my marriage plays out.

If my marriage ends I don't know where I stand when it comes to having more children. I don't want to be that girl with the Baby-Daddy drama. Rodolfo has too much pride to cause problems for me, but then... do I want to be that girl with multiple baby daddies? Not really. And then there is my age... I'll be 30 next year. Which isn't exceptionally old or anything, unless you are on the brink of a divorce and have to start all over again. Because something else I don't want to be is that desperate woman looking for a husband, her biological clock loudly ticking in the background of every interaction she has with every dude she meets. If I've learned anything, it's that you shouldn't rush into something like marrying a dude and having his baby.

Maybe that whole argument is moot, because at this point we are closer to reconcilation than divorce, but I guess I just had to talk about the fears associated with that possible outcome.

Next: Staying with my husband. This is the more likely path at this moment in time. I want another baby. Not right away, but I definitely want one. It's a point I was pretty fuzzy on till that dream made it crystal clear to me. The problem is that he regularly tells me that he doesn't see it happening. Not that he doesn't want another kid, exactly, but that it would be financially devastating to us at this point in time. He can't see past the cost of IVF, especially when it doesn't guarantee us anything. And if we've learned ANYTHING, it's that there certainly are no guarantees with fertility treatments. Even when they fucking WORK.

With my sudden, crystalized revelation that I definitely want another child and his constant reminders that I probably won't get one, I nearly imploded this weekend.

I've been reorganizing my house. Rodolfo attachs sentiment to very few things and just sees most of our stuff as space-wasters that we should get rid of. I, of course, attach sentiment to absolutely everything. My crazy sobbing fit (the first one, anyway) started because of Caitlyn's swing. He wanted to get rid of it. Besides the obvious implication that he never intends for us to have another baby, I have another attachment to that swing. Nicholas.

When I was pregnant with Nicholas, I spent a lot of time trolling Babies R Us. A LOT of time. I didn't know the sex of my baby at first (obviously) but I had chosen a few gender neutral things that I knew I was putting on my registry. There was a certain stroller I fell in love with and there was the swing I wanted. It was so pretty... yellow and green with bumblebees. Super adorable and appropriate for a boy or a girl. I was in LOVE with that swing actually.

When I think about it, it always seems like a cruel joke the universe was playing on me. I had my Level 2 ultrasound on February 19, 2009. I remember the date because my next appointment was exactly one month later: March 19, 2009-the day we found out we lost Nicholas. It seems absurd to think of all the things that happened in that one short month. It seems ridiculous to think about the fact that I spent almost the entire month picking out cute little outfits for my baby boy. Maybe it wasn't a joke. Maybe it was the only time I was truly able to embrace who he was supposed to be (I had been sure- SURE!- to that point that I was having a girl).

In that month I made my registry. I was so excited. I had been looking forward to it for 5 months. I knew what major items I was registering for, but after that I pretty much walked around and scanned half the store. I remember resting in a glider, going over Babies R Us's provided checklist with my mom. I remember asking her how many crib sheets she thought I would need. I remember going to Wendy's afterward, eating a salad and then promptly barfing that salad up into the rest of the salad. Mostly I remember being horrified to find out that my swing had been discontinued. HOW COULD THIS BE HAPPENING TO ME?

I spent the next 2 weeks calling every store in my area- even going to one and finding that the swing they had put aside after my phone call was, in fact, the WRONG swing. I called my mother, defeated, and she promised to find my swing. And less than a week later, she did. She said she would hold on to it. It would be part of my baby shower gift. And then we got the news that Nicholas had died. It was like a week after my mom bought his swing. I remember blubbering into the phone that she should return it.

Except she didn't. She knew how much I loved it and she knew that, maybe, when I was less emotional, I might want to keep it for my next child. And so when my baby shower for Caitlyn grew near, she asked me about it. She asked if I wanted to pick a different swing. And of course I didn't. It was sort of the one thing that seemed to connect my two babies, something they would always share. And Caitlyn loved that swing. I think she slept in it every night till she was like 3 months old. And it's resided in a corner of my closet ever since. Presumably till my next baby needs it.

And then Rodolfo told me how annoyed he was with it. How it was taking up so much space and he thought we should throw it away. "We can always buy a new one if we have another baby", he said when I yelled at him for dashing my dreams of ever having another child. Then I cried. Because I guess he just doesn't get it. And shouldn't he? He lost a son too. If anyone should get it, shouldn't it be him? Apparently not. It seems Angie is really the only one who understands me.

The weekend went a lot like that, with me cleaning out closets and him declaring that I should get rid of the things Caitlyn no longer uses. And then I would cry and he wouldn't understand why. Or I'd have a disproportionate amount of rage and anger toward him for no real reason or fault of his own. It sucked.

So I don't know. I don't know if another baby is in our future or my future or what. I don't know how to reconcile this feeling of longing. I know we aren't ready for it right now. I know I want more time with just Caitlyn before I throw another baby in the mix. And I absolutely realize that we just can't afford it right now. But it's there. And I have no idea what to do with it.

IVF is Fun Like a Roller Coaster is Fun Until Someone Falls Out

This weekend was kind of a busy one. I helped Nadine move on Saturday, then came home all jealous of her fancy new place and decided that I couldn't wait another second before getting my house in order.

The thing is, I've lived in my current apartment for 2 and a half years. And I'm just getting around to this shit now. It isn't my fault, exactly. You see, the thing is that I moved in February of 2009. I was 5 months pregnant with my son and vomitting and exhausted pretty much constantly. Then there were the 6 months after that pregnancy ended. Obviously there were emotional issues which made me not give a fuck about my house. Then there was IVF #2. Lemme break down my IVF cycle for you, to give you an idea of what I was dealing with:

Step 1: 2 weeks- birth control pills. They do this to stop your eggs from starting to mature because they want them all to be at the same level so you get more than one egg when you start stimulation. My body was not happy about this. I pretty much had what was essentially PMS for these 2 weeks. Murderous fury raged through my body. I hated everything.

Step 2: Stimulation. I actually had this easier than most IVFers. I did a minimal stimulation protocol which means I used Clomid instead of all the scary injections. But here's the thing about Clomid: You know those barren ovaries from 2 weeks ago? Yeah, they are in crazy estrogen mode now. Your body is flooded with crazy. All you can think about is ice cream and procreating. You pass by a high school and see a 17 year old on a skateboard and think how he's probably got healthy sperm. And you muse about how easy it would be to get a 17 year old to impregnate you. Way easier than IVF, that's for sure. Oh sure, he might be a little turned off by the sweating and irrational mood swings and maniacal cackling, but he would get over it. And you were going to Babies R Us anyway... I bet you could just buy him a video game and offer some poon and he would totally go for it.

Step 3: Monitoring. Technically this is part of the stimulation process, but it's just so fucking laborious that it needs to be it's own step. It went a little something like this: Go to the doctor, have blood drawn, drop trou and get violated by the dildogram. Go to work and wait several hours to get results and find out when your next appointment is. Phone obviously rings while a customer or your boss is standing in front of you and you have to excuse yourself to check on your eggs. Receive call, obsess. Repeat at next appointment, 4 days later. Repeat at following appointment 2 days after that. Repeat at appoinment after that, another 2 days later. Repeat another day after that. And the next day too. Oh wait...is it finally time for your retrieval? Perfect! I'm sure my job will be fine with 2 days notice. Oh and that Lupron nasal spray that tastes like a dead cat? SERIOUSLY, I've been looking forward to it!

Step 4: Egg Retrieval. Oh, how to put this delicately? Stirrups. Giant needle through your vaginal wall and into your ovary. Suck out contents of ovary. Repeat on the other side (did I mention that you aren't sedated? Yeah, a low dose Valium sounds totally appropriate here). But hey, you get the immediate satisfaction of knowing that they were able to retrieve eggs from all 3 of your mature follicles... but hey now, what's that about a "broken" egg? What the fuck is THAT supposed to mean? God, embryologists are SO fucking vague.

Step 5: Did you think monitoring was something fun to obsess about? Oh, yeah that was nothing. Did the eggs fertilize? Oh yeah. OK good. Except for that one broken one. I guess I should have expected that. Are they growing? Are they growing FAST enough? When are we scheduling the embryo transfer? Oh what's that? Only one of them made it past day 2? Fuck. One shot...

Step 6: Wait a fucking month. This isn't the usual, but Clomid can mess with implantation and I didn't get pregnant on my first fresh cycle, so my RE recommended freezing the embryo at day 5 and waiting a month (I should also mention that we went through all the motions of a cycle right up to scheduling a retrieval the month before this but cancelled at the last minute because we just had a bad feeling and something seemed...off).

Step 7: Bleed. Call doctor, start monitoring. Again.

Step 8: Finally, FINALLY schedule embryo transfer. Hope embryo survives thaw. Like half of them don't, in case you were wondering. Wouldn't that just be a bitch.

Step 9: More stirrups. Giant squirty straw. One live embryo, described by the nurse as "beautiful".

Step 10: More fucking waiting. Oh, and don't test at home because we gave you a shot of hormones that will turn the test positive even if you aren't pregnant. Oh and did we mention how we don't think you have had enough hormones in your body for the last couple of months? Take this estrogen and shove these progesterone suppositories into your vagina twice a day. They will give you symptoms to make you think you are pregnant even if you aren't. Oh, and they are gonna leak and stain your undies. Do you feel sexy and fertile yet?

Step 11: Test at home anyway. Feel excited but not too excited because it's-probably-just-the-shot when the test turns positive.

Step 12: Blood pregnancy test. Wait half a day to get results. Cry like a little baby bitch when they tell you that, yes, in fact you ARE pregnant. Mom doesn't appreciate it when you call her sobbing with GOOD news.

Step 13: Don't get your hopes up just yet bitch. Remember the last time you were pregnant?

Step 14: Schedule appointment with new OB. Start on blood thinners and baby aspirin because maybe you have a clotting problem seeing as how you had a late term loss last time.

Step 15: 7 week ultrasound with fertility doctor (RE). All is well. Baby has a heartbeat.

Step 16: 8 week ultrasound. Is that bleeding? Yeah. Sometimes that indicates an impending miscarriage. Fingers crossed, bitches.

Step 17: Be pregnant. Don't have a miscarriage. Don't eat deli meat. Call doctor crying because you didn't know the fondue cheese dip had liquor in it and you are pretty sure you are going to have a miscarriage. Finally stop vomitting at 16 weeks. Call doctor crying because you are pretty sure you are having a miscarriage. Baby starts sleeping in cycles. Call doctor crying during all sleep cycles because you are pretty sure you are having a miscarriage.

Step 18: Have a baby. Who would have thought? Baby is lovely and perfect. Spend first 3 months of her life imagining every horrible thing that could happen to her. Wake up in the night frequently to make sure she is still breathing (I still do this sometimes).

Step 19: Exclusively pump for 9 months, because this baby will not goddamn latch.

Step 20: Finally relax and enjoy motherhood. Maybe now you have time to address this shithole you live in? Fucking lazy whore...

So seriously people, don't judge me. I DID get around to it eventually. How do we feel about yellow?