Barren Mare

Saddle Sore- The Sequel

So, remember a couple weeks ago when I was talking about E.'s fresh obsession with the bikes? Yeah. Well, unlike many of his little whims, that one hasn't gone away. In fact, so inflamed was he by the bright spark of a new(ish) hobby, that he went out a bought a new mountain bike for himself.

I would like to say that I "allowed" this, but who am I kidding? I had hee-haw to say about it. He wanted it, he bought it and that was the end of it. My only comfort is that I now have a small bargaining chip to deploy when I finally take delivery of a certain handbag.

Unfortunately, getting a new bike meant that he wanted to go off and be able to ride it (surprise, surprise).

Now, one of the nice things about E. is that he likes my company, and as much as possible wants me to take part in these sorts of recreational activities, rather than disappearing off on his own for the entire weekend (although he does do that sometimes as well). On the downside, this may mean exerting a considerable amount of energy for an undertaking, er, not of my choosing.

Sunday, for example. It being a long holiday weekend, E decides this is an ideal time to test out the new wheels. Where shall we go?

"We?" I say. "As in...you and I? But I do not have mountain bike, remember?"

"That's OK," E announces, "you can ride the new one, and I will ride my old bike."

"My sweet," I reply in my best let's-be-reasonable tone of voice, "your bike will be a bit too big for me, no?"

"We'll put the seat down!" E says confidently.

Riiiiight. OK. I have grave doubts about this plan of action. That, together with the fact that, although I have done an immense of amount of road cycling, I have never tried proper off-road mountain biking before .

But one of the things that I adhere to in this relationship is that I must try, at all times, to be the best possible person I can be. So if that means donning my ridiculous old egg of a helmet (no streamlined newfangled model for me, oh no) and cycling valiantly up hills in the rain rather than staying at home with my cosy cups of tea and a book, well so be it. All in the name of love!

And so that is how I find myself doing just that- getting up early to help E stuff the bikes into the back of our tiny car. Arseing around for ages trying to get the wheel and brake clip reattached. Straining at the pedals up a steep gradiant, in the wind and lashing rain, while stylish young whippersnappers whizz past me, spraying fine gravel toward my face.

Oh, and for added entertainment value, my period, which arrived the previous morning (a mere hour or two after I carried out a rare HPT exercise) decides this is a good time to kick into high gear, singing Ave Maria in a high, slightly offkey accompaniment to crampy spasms at regular intervals.

I begin to rethink my crazy idealistic notions of love.

What we soon discover is that while I am absolutely fine- and indeed rather tenacious- about the going-up hill part, the downhill presents something of a problem. This is unfortunate, since undoubtedly, that is the whole point of going up in the first place. The path is muddy, there are big rocks jutting out at akward intervals and I don't feel as if I can control the bike, which in all honesty, really is slightly too big for me, despite having the seat put all the way down.

I descend like a little old lady- brake, brake, brake. E., who flies down at warp speed, waits for me, a slightly impatient look on his face.

"Sorry, sweetie," I gasp, skidding to a stop, my tiny feet flailing for the ground. "I don't think I am much good at this."

Does he give a charming wink and smile, or the thumbs up? Does he offer words of encouragement? Does he say to me, "Not to worry, my precious little egghead, my plucky pal, my stalwart cycling superstar sweetheart?"

No. He does not. Instead, he gives me a slightly condescending grin, and says, "Yeah, you are being kind of a wuss."

I am extremely tempted at that point to bite his leg, but he takes off at high speed before I am able to even issue a suitably crass rejoinder. Leaving me to struggle on down the remaining slope- as I vow, never again.

Sullen, in the car ride home, I wait for him to apologise. He does not. He cannot quite understand why I am so irritated with him.

"Look, it's not my fault if you suck at mountain-biking," he says after a long spell. "I thought you might enjoy it, but you don't. So we don't have to go again. I can go on my own next time."

I stare out the window.

"It's not that," I say, finally. "It's just that I didn't need yet another demonstration of what a big failure I am."

And it's true. I think what a large part of what annoys me about not getting pregnant is that I have failed, in some fundamental way, to do something that should come as naturally as rolling downhill. Other people are flying past, fearlessly, while I am skidding and braking for dear life. I tell myself it's not my fault that our path is rockier and bumpier than could have been expected. That I am doing the best I can.

But sometimes I wish for something as simple as a smooth novice's path. For a gentle pace, sunshine slanting through tall pines. For my feet to quickly and easily touch the ground.

Money to burn

A recent post over at Karen's (and the unmissable comments that followed) made me decide to share with you a certain key story from my childhood. It's one of those quintessential Mare family legends, referred to in hushed and reverent tones, even to this day.

It is the tale of the Burning of the $100 Bill.

It was just after Christmas. I was eleven years old. We had driven down to see my grandparents, and to endure the agony of the gift-giving ritual with them. I say agony, because my grandmother had extremely weird ideas about what constituted an acceptable present. Usually, what she would do is just look around the house to see if there was any stuff she no longer wanted. Then she'd wrap it up and stick it under the tree. One year, she gave me a grubby old softball.

But on this particular occasion, my grandfather (a real grumpy old coot) presented me with an envelope. Inside was a crisp new $100 bill. My jaw dropped. I have no idea what had come over him. I have since wondered if he had been at the bottle of port, because never before (and never again) was he ever so generous.

In today's terms, $100 may not seem like a lot of money. But for me, at eleven years old, it was an astonishing sum. I really don't know if I can convey to you how much it meant to me to be given this present. I put the envelope in my room, periodically slipping away from the festive merry-making to gaze at it. A $100 bill! All for me! From my mean grandfather! As a cautious little hoarder of money, I knew I was likely to thrill over it for a long time until finally, after much deliberation, I would blow it on some long-desired purchase.

When it came time to leave, somehow or other, the envelope was placed in a bag with a bunch of other stuff, including the old wrapping paper from some of the presents. In the general confusion of decanting ourselves from the car upon our arrival back home, that bag somehow got left in the trunk.

You'd think, given my fascination with the money, that I would have noticed sooner that the envelope was missing. But I didn't. There were lots of things to bring in, bags to unpack, all the other presents to stash away. And despite growing up to be a very organized and meticulous adult, I was a rather sloppy and distractable child.

Of course, I did remember, eventually. Where was the envelope? Where oh where? Not in my little purse, not in my suitcase, not with the other presents.

I wandered down to the kitchen to ask my mother if she'd seen it.

No, she said, preoccupied with getting dinner ready. Had I taken it out of the car?

I wasn't sure. It was in a bag, I recalled, with some other things...including the....old wrapping paper....

My mother turned around, suddenly, eyes wide.

"You'd better go ask your father," she said. "He's out back...burning the trash."

I never quite understood my father's fascination with burning the trash- most people I know just throw things away. I guess it was because we lived in a house in the middle of nowhere, away back a long gravel lane, and to haul all the rubbish out to the main road was a real pain. So my dad had a big old metal garbage can with holes cut in the bottom- and once a week or so, he would have a huge bonfire of the family's paper trash.

Oh god, my heart is beating faster just writing this, remembering. I went outside, and from a distance, I could see him tipping piles of papers into the bin. A flash of white, a sudden sprinkle of sparks. And everything went into super slow motion as I ran toward him, hand outstretched, screaming.

Stooooooooooooooooop!

Too late. He'd taken out the few presents and without checking further, dumped the bag with what he thought was just the remaining wrapping paper into the fire. By the time I reached it, the envelope- with the money still inside it- was going up in smoke.

As I stood there, horrified, a small piece of ash fluttered out and landed on the ground. I bent down and picked it up. All that remained of my grandfather's Christmas present- a tiny, charred green corner of the $100 bill.

The angry recriminations that followed are too unpleasant to recount. Let's just say there were tears, trauma and blame. Oh, how I sobbed that day. Why hadn't I looked after the envelope, or at least told somebody that the cash was in that bag? Why had my dad been so hasty to get on with burning the trash an hour after we got home? Why oh why oh why? From then on, we instituted a new rule about communicating, very clearly, as to the whereabouts of money or other important stuff- as in, I AM PUTTING THE CHECK BY THE DOOR, HERE, TO GO TO THE BANK IN THE MORNING. Over twenty years later, we're still doing that.

My dad felt so badly about the accidental incineration that he ended up quietly replacing the money on my desk later that week- a gesture for which he has my undying gratitude. But it wasn't the same, and we both knew it. And there was a part of me that never quite got over it.

I think I'm telling this story here and now (and I'm nearly finished, I promise) because I am well aware that we are on the brink of spending an awful lot of money for a medical treatment that may not work. Of course, compared to the price of IVF, $100 is a drop in the bucket- but that's not really the point. We could potentially end up throwing vast sums of cash on the bonfire of IVF, with absolutely nothing to show for it. And the very prospect stirs such a vivid and unhappy childhood memory.

Standing before the tinderbox of fertility treatment, I want to take the eleven year old girl within, and gently- very gently- cover her eyes.

Shoot that poison arrow in my heel

Like most people dealing with a long-term problem, I have good days and I have bad days.

Today was definitely a bad day.

I don't want to sound like a big whiner. I think, for the most part, I have thus far been a real little super trooper about a lot of this fucking bullshit.  I've put up with all the crap infertility dishes out- blood tests, invasive procedures, endless doctor's appointments, uncertainty, stress on my relationship, disappointment month after month, constant assvice and stupid comments, financial worries.  And apart from the very occasional meltdown, I have somehow on carried on functioning (more or less) as a relatively upbeat little person.

Today, however, I encountered what appears to be my ultimate Achilles heel.  And that is, simply, babies in the office. This is the second time this month this has happened, and I have discovered that my reaction to these types of visitations is an almost immediate Pavlovian breakdown. 

Today was the day my colleague (the one for whom I was also somehow specially picked to present with a "going-on-maternity-leave" parting gift) came in to the office with her beautiful 8 week old baby.  This is her second child in the space of the two years that I have been trying.  All of a sudden, there she was standing beside my desk with the pram, unannounced.

I attempted to staple on the Big Smile, give the obligatory nods and coos, while everybody in the room suddenly flocked around us. The baby gave a little shift, opening her tiny pink rosebud mouth to gurgle.

And then all of a sudden, I simply couldn't breathe.  One of my team looked over, saw my face, and mouthed, "Are you OK?"   Well, no, actually.  No, I was not OK. 

I don't even know how I got out of there, walking quickly to the sanctuary of the ladies' bathroom, where I barricaded myself in one of the stalls, cramming my fist in my mouth as I cried. Cried big, wet, sloppy tears. Someone came in while I was in there, trippy trapping over my bridge in their little goat heels.  Then they stood in front of the mirror, doing God knows what for what seemed half an hour- from my side of the cubicle wall, it sounded like they were giving themselves a home perm. I was trapped, but I didn't care, because I wasn't really planning on going anywhere for the next 8 hours. 

I ended up staying there until the colleague who had asked if I was OK eventually came in to find me, and to ask if there was anything she could do.  Fortunately, she was unfazed by the sight of my torn and bleeding heart lying, still thumping weakly, on the tiles.  She happily volunteered to go call a medivac and to retrieve my handbag, the latter being slightly more important, since it contains my "Emergency Infertility Crying Makeup Repair Kit".  Powder, check.  Blush, just a tiny bit, since I was already prettily flushed with weeping.  Eyeliner- essential to disguise those unsightly smudges. Lipstick- turn that frown upside down!

"The coast is clear now," my team member reported, "they have all gone for coffee."  Just outside the door, I heard the distant cry of a very small baby.

I stayed in the bathroom a little while longer.

I realised, as I carried on trying to spackle my face back into a presentable state, that I don't think there is any big insight to be gained from all of this. It's simple, really. Like most people who long for something which is seemingly unobtainable, I just don't do so great when that which I cannot have is proudly paraded right in front of me. 

Finally, I slunk back to my desk, a few stray entrails dangling behind me. Then I sat, trying to hold it together, but really just staring out of the window, at nothing. With a Herculean effort, I resumed my work. 

But there remained a large and jagged rift in the seam of my day, and I never did quite manage to mend it.

Faced with the Force

Yesterday, E. and I joined what seemed to be the entire population of Scotland in going to see the new Star Wars movie. We suspected it might be a big disappointment, but we were comforted by the thought that at least we could then indulge in nostalgic reminisicing about the good old days, about the triology of our youth.

And we were right.

[As an aside, can I just insert a small gripe here about people who bring very small kids to a movie which is clearly not suitable for children that age? The row in front of us was filled by a family with what seemed like half a dozen four year olds, who at the midway point got bored and started whining, needing the bathroom and wanting to goooooo home. Until the film got scary and then they were reduced to crying loudly under their seats. I like children, obviously, but limits, people, limits. 'Nuff said.]

Anyway, there are enough reviews out there to fill an entire galaxy, so I don't expect you really need to know my detailed opinion on the film. But all the post-mortem chat with E. did get me thinking about one scene from the original trilogy which I have always liked. It's the part where Yoda reads Luke the riot act for being too busy chasing adventure to stay "in the present".

"This one a long time have I watched. Never his mind on where he was . Hmm? On what he was doing.. Hmph!"

I've heard variations on this theme quite a lot since we started trying for a family. The idea seems to be that it is better simply focus on what you have, and enjoy your present blessings than go relentlessly chasing after something. You know, be happy with your present situation- enjoy the fact that you can sleep late on weekends, go out for long boozy dinners, take off on holidays when you feel like it, spend your money on treats for yourself. Blah blah blah.

Back in the early days, when we only feared (rather than confirmed) a problem, I actually had someone criticise me for being "too ambitious", and controlling about the process. "Let go," I was told, "it will happen in time."

Which, if you think about it, is rather hackneyed attempt at a Zen version of "just relax".

Thing is, I think it's all very well and good to talk about staying in the "now", focusing on what is before you, making the best of what you have. Except that for an infertile couple, the present can be an agonising place to be. When everything around you feels like a barren wasteland, when your landscape is a grim desert, blasted by the heat of two suns, OF COURSE you are going to think about gettng the fuck out of there on your landspeeder as soon as humanly possible.

We live in a society very much geared to both instant gratification and relentless self-improvement. Don't like the way you look? See your doctor, or order the FAST FIXX now, and get results quickly (not available anywhere else!) Stifled at work? Climb the company ladder, achieve your potential! Is your home too small? Invest in a bigger, better property! Don't be complacent! Be all that you can be! Live your dreams. Make it happen! Call 1-800-GET-A-LIFE!

All those messages are transmitted in a thousand different ways to us over time. How hard and contradictory it then seems to just stop, and suddenly expect to be happy with whatever point you have happened to reach at that particular moment. As if the only growing you are now allowed to do is toward acceptance of how far you have come, without going any further.

Thing is, most of the time, I do have my mind on where I am, and on what I am doing. It's hard not to, since much of what I do demands that I be fully engaged on a day to day basis. My present contains an interesting, if challenging job, a fulfilling relationship, a comfortable home, a loving family. It all takes work to maintain, and I do that work, gladly, since I value what I have.

But does that mean I should stop looking ahead for something else? Does that mean that I should simply accept things as they are? Stop wishing for something which I may not be able to have? Should I just be passive, go with the flow, stretch out with my feelings? In a situation where we are forced to make hard choices, should I just use the Force instead?

That would be fine, in theory. Except that right now, you know what? I'd so much rather be a mother than a Jedi Knight.

Pebble in my shoe

I'll put a pebble in my shoe
And watch me walk, I can walk and walk
I shall call the pebble dare
We will talk together about walking
Dare shall be carried, and when we both have had enough
I will take him from my shoe, singing, "Meet your new road"
                                                  - By My Side

One more month (minus a day) to go until the next appointment. I am wondering whether to stick up a giant calendar in my study with large red X's to mark the progress of time. Or maybe I will just claw another notch in the walls of my cell with my blunted, bloody stumps of fingers.

I was thinking today about the apparent and sudden mass migration from blogging.  I have also noticed a few comments elsewhere along the lines of "It's a sad time in Blogland"- not specifically in reference to the migration as such, but more in terms of things just going badly in certain quarters.  And that in turn reminded me of a conversation I had the other night with a fellow blogger, in which we mutually commiserated that we were stuck dealing with infertility, and really, wasn't that just basically shitty. Why us? 

What I think is this: by definition, a community such as ours at any one time is more than likely to beset by bad and disappointing news. For every happy announcement, at that precise moment, there is almost certainly going to be somebody else laid low by crushing disappointment.  I mean, let's face it, would any of us be here in the first place if things were going so great?  We are, by our very nature, a group of women (and a few men- sit up BHM, I am talking about you) drawn together by a particular problem.

We bring our own set of baggage to the tour bus, but almost all of us have bought the season pass for the same reason.  A lot of us sign up at a point where things have become so unbearable that we simply cannot live in our own heads anymore, and for the sake of our sanity, need to tell someone our particular story, even if that story is relayed in raw, frayed, gasping segments.

So to my mind, it is not really surprising that on many occasions, and at any given time, that the Way of the IF Blogger is bound to be underpinned with a fine and widespread pattern of sadness.

There have been many days when I have logged on to read news from a fellow castaway that has cut me to the core.  A reaction made all the more remarkable, given that I have never met any of you in the traditional sense, and wouldn't know you if I bumped into you at the bus stop in "real life".   Sometimes, I feel so sick at heart after reading the latest round up of blog posts from my friends that I wonder why I do it at all.  I wonder how much sadness can one stalwart little band of kickass women endure. 

I suppose the answer to that is in some cases, a finite amount. However, what I take from my time along the great roll of blogs is more often than not balanced with a large helping of laughter, a generous portion of perspective, and a constant reminder that nothing in life should be taken for granted. Sometimes I wish more than anything that we could all meet up in a parallel universe, where our stories were brighter, and the heartache and sadnesses were merely illusions. A place where we were were all guaranteed an upgrade to happy endings.

But we are where we are, and I expect that we'll continue to take the rough with the smooth. Unfortunate as it may be that it took infertility to bring us to this place- well, I can't help but be damned glad to meet you all the same.

And for those that are going, or taking a break, I wish you well and godspeed, on all your new roads.   

Saddle sore

Thank you all heaps and bunches, bunches and heaps for your nice comments. I didn't mean to repay your kindness by disappearing off for days on end. But the weather turned unexpectedly glorious over the weekend. In Scottish climate terms, this is roughly the equivalent of winning the lottery and finding a really good pair of designer shoes reduced by 75% in the Harvey Nichols sale ...in your size.

In this country, any sign of sunshine, (no matter how brief) means one must immediately rush headlong into spending as much time as humanly possible out of doors. Of course, for many people this extends no further than heading down to the local pub to sit in the open-air beer garden, usually dressed in unsuitably scanty attire, like a thin cotton haltertop, unflattering miniature shorts and flipflops.  As if somehow "sunshine" automatically equated with "80 degrees", or as if we were in Majorca or the Costa del Sol, rather than a country roughly on the same latitude as Anchorage, Alaska. 

E. decided that this was a good time to get out our trusty old bicycles.  I used to do quite a lot of cycling once upon a time, back in ye olde days when I actually used to have a life other than skulking around the flat, muttering about infertility. Unfortunately, with one thing or another, it's been at least three years since either of us has ridden our bikes, and there was a definite air of neglect in that corner of garage.  Flat tyres, rusted brakes, and a veritable Charlotte's Web of activity adorning the spokes meant we spent most of the afternoon wielding rags, WD40 and the bike pump. 

I can't remember the last time I have seen E. in such a happy mood, cursing away at the left rear valve, and nearly toppling over when his left foot became entangled in my rather complicated pedal clip arrangement.  E.'s solution to that little moment of merriment was to immediately demand I buy a new bike.

What is it with that?  I've had the same bike for 15 years. I've never had any problems with the pedal clips, or the racing handlebars.  The bike was very expensive when purchased way back when, bought for a transcontinental cycling adventure in my more energetic youth, and it's held up well, considering all the miles it has seen. Trading it in would be like...oh, forget it, that's not even an option, so let's not even go there.  Chalk it up to E.'s insatiable male lust for smoother, bigger, better gadgetry.

To prove to E. that with a bit of loving care, the old steed is still entirely roadworthy, we went out for a spin.  And it was such a nice afternoon that we ended up going quite a bit further than intended. We got back without too much difficulty, but the next day, our respective nether regions were feeling more than a little...tender.

Problem is, this was what I have come to think of as "baby sweeps" week.  If I have done my calculations correctly, I reckon we have at best one or two more au natural cycle attempts before we are shipped off to Camp A.R.T.   So I had intended to make the most of our last few college trys, as it were.  Unfortunately, tender nether regions do not assist in that endevour.

Worse, I have a really bad, painful mouth ulcer, right along my front gum. So sloppy kissing was pretty much off the cards as well. 

I did suggest at one point that we pretend I was Julia Roberts' Vivian to his Richard Gere's Edward Lewis - you know, the whole "I do everything but kiss on the lips" schtick.  But E. was curiously unmoved by what I imagine would have otherwise been a rather appealing notion.  Probably because he loathes Julia Roberts.  And ever since the whole "Phinneaus/Hazel peak of beauty glow" thing, I myself find it hard to regard her with much affection, never mind emulate her acting in the boudoir.

Instead we opted for some hedgehog-style lovin'- that is, very carefully. It is hedgehog breeding season, after all.  All those hedgehogs getting busy making little baby hoglets. Perhaps one day I shall give birth to this. 

Loneliness of the Long Distance Blogger

Guess what, dear friends and fellow castaways?  It's my one year blogiversary today!  I suppose that calls for some form of comment, an extra helping of cake and ice cream, and perhaps some tiny tapdancing on the keyboard.

I suppose what would be appropriate is to offer up an insight into how things have changed for me in the past year, both in infertility and in my blogging life. The thing is, I am not sure that much has changed, at least not in the visible sense.  I've watched other bloggers go through big, important changes- moving through pregnancies, adoption, or difficult decisions about family building. And I feel like much of the time, I have pretty much stayed in the same place- high up in the Island watchtower, scanning the horizon, waiting.  It's been lonely up here sometimes, wondering if my turn and my chance will ever ever come. Just lately I have sensed a fresh wind blowing, and I hope it's sending a ship my way.  But meantime, I'm still up here...still waiting.

The real changes have, I think, been largely in my head.  When I first started writing this post, I thought to myself that I haven't really changed at all as a person.  In many ways, I am exactly the same was when I started out- it's just that I have brought all those personality traits to this particular problem.  So I am the way I always have been- silly, deeply introspective, whimsical, fiesty, clumsy, self-pitying, optimistic, worried, wary and extremely curious about what lies ahead for me.  It's just that infertility has been the filter through which I have expressed all those things. 

Admittedly, I can add that I am probably now a little older and wiser about the pitfalls and perils of infertility, but we have a long way to go, and no doubt I am not done yet with those lessons.  I like to believe though that whatever happens, I am going to be OK.  One of the best things to happen in the recent months was the quiet, unremarked acceptance of the very thing I feared that most when we started out- that we really are infertile. 

So we are.  So we're dealing with it. So the earth continues to rotate on its pointy axis. So I'm still getting out of bed in the morning and going to work. Breathing in and out. Rolling my eyes at the loonieness of the world. Planning a future with my beloved E., come what may, and all the while laughing, fighting, screwing and dancing gabba gabba hey when a good song comes on the radio. 

It's been worrying me a little recently that in the absence of any immediate appointments, treatments and other assorted crisis/dramas that I have nothing much to say. It made me wonder if perhaps I was not as...well-rounded as I could be, not as multi-faceted and interesting as I always gave myself credit for.  Like maybe it was time to get a hobby, or embark on a big project, like trying to write a novel.  Because what concerns me greatly is that at the end of all this, I'll discover that infertility was the only real story I ever had to tell.

I suppose what I've concluded is that this wouldn't be such a bad thing- as long as I told it truly, and told it well.

So as we move into Season Two, I'll ask you all to help me out with that. If there are things you'd like to hear more about, please let me know.  If there are things you wish I'd shut up about, well, that would be interesting feedback too.  Or if you're just a lurker who has never commented, I'd be delighted if you'd take this opportunity to pipe up, even if you lapse back into stealthy blog skulkage immediately thereafter.

Time for a celebratory drink, I think.  I'm pretty sure I brought a bottle of something up here with me. And as I am writing this, I'm looking at the most beautiful sunset. 

Sometimes, the view from the Watchtower isn't so bad after all.    

The weather is pregnant, wish we weren't here

Mother's Day was relatively trauma free for me. OK, well, I cheated a little. Strictly speaking, it was not Mother's Day at all here in the UK.  For reasons which I have never quite understood, the British celebrate their mothers in March sometime- and I wasn't paying enough attention then to notice or care.

That doesn't mean I get out of it completely.  Oh no.  My mother lives in the States, and she very much adheres to the policy that maternal location should be the deciding factor for observance of that particular holiday.  And I learned a long time ago that life is too short to argue with my mother.

Any pangs I might have otherwise had about Mother's Day were neatly nullified by a monstrous hangover.  We went to a party on Saturday and got rat-arsed, complete with silly dancing.  Since I took you all at your word in the comments on the last post- you know, about the drinking more, and the jumping up and down.  It was a gathering of young, terminally hip thirty-somethings, none of whom evince the slightest inclination to have kids.  Which, as a battle-weary infertile, I find quite refreshing.

Interestingly, as E. and I stood in the kitchen (where all the best parties inevitably end up), a very drunken girl began flirting shamelessly with him.  This being a small country, it turns out that they had met once before some years ago (in a bar) via certain mutual acquaintances.  Obviously, whatever went on that night was enough (in her mind) to warrant an astonishing amount of eyelash fluttering and quick pats on his arm.  Flutter, flutter, touchy-touchy.  As a rule,  I am not particularly territorial about these things.  I accept that of course E. is a Sex God, and naturally women will throw themselves at him in an unseemly fashion.  But for heaven's sake, I was standing right there, rolling my eyes!  E. was his typically oblivious self- all he had to say afterwards was that she seemed "quite drunk".  Yeah. Uh huh.   

Another thing I have discovered recently is that after a few glasses of wine, I am handing out IVF revelations like party dip.  I may as well have taken out a full page ad in the local paper, there are so few people left in my social circle (or indeed, my immediate vicinity at any given time) who don't know.   

Thing is, it's still just so much easier for me to tell, particularly when confronted with the endless fascination in this country with the topic of summer holidays.  Virtually everyone I know takes a two week vacation between June-September, moving in a lemming-like mass to warmer climes or more exotic locales over these months.

So naturally this becomes a primary conversational cannon fodder for just about every social situation or encounter- wherever you go, whoever you meet.  Friends.  Colleagues. Taxi drivers.  Hairdressers.  Dentists. Plumber and TV repairmen.  Where are you going this year?  Oh, we went there two years ago. Yes, it was nice, we rented a place in so and so, and did this and that.  Oh, really? We were thinking of doing that, but instead we decided take an extra few days and see such and such. Oh, very nice. 

For us, however, it is nigh on impossible to plan a vacation this summer, because there are so many unknowns and variables.  We don't know exactly when IVF will commence, and we don't know if it will work. I could be pregnant by August, maybe-or, you know, not.  In which case we have to figure out what next, and as those of you who have been following along know, this might include a treatment cycle in America.  Thus foregoing a goodly chunk of my yearly holiday allowance.  And all of which means putting any holiday plans on the back burner for the time being.

So as an easy bypass to all that fruitless holiday chat, I can kibosh that entire conversational gambit with one quick IVF related blow.  Of course, I still have to listen to endless yammering about other's people vacations, but it saves me having to think up stupid excuses as to why we don't yet have anywhere to go, apart from the stirrups in the Assisted Conception.   

Maybe there should be a line of souvenir postcards for these situations. For example: "Greetings from the OC.  Gosh, the air conditioned waiting room is just a little slice of heaven.  Really enjoying the daily ultrasound womb tours. E. taking lots of photos, the slide show should be something else! See ya soon!"

Yeah. What a hoot.  I'll take half a dozen, and maybe one with the Loch Ness monster on it for good measure.

Are we there yet?

Right, I am officially bored with this waiting around for the next appointment shit.

It was amusing for, like, a few weeks. It enabled me to swan about, pressing a pale hand to my delicate chest and fluttering my eyelashes, saying "We're *gasp* doing *IVF* in June/July," before falling in a pretty swoon, calling for smelling salts. But I have known for some time that I am more of a calloused farmhand than a drooping maid. This is our particular row to hoe, so pass me the tools and let's get on with it.

Unfortunately, the lack of treatment action makes it hard to write lively, insightful posts. The Muse, she seems to have decided this is a good opportunity to squeeze in a quick cruise to the Caribbean. Maybe she'll bump into Hope at the bar. I wish she would at least send a postcard.

Really, what I want to do is go to sleep and not wake up until the next big step, when we meet the nurse on 17 June. I don't mean switch off in terms of my whole life as such, but rather, in all things infertility. I've been feeling curiously detached about what lies ahead. I figure that until we know more about the specifics of our treatment, there is very little point in fretting myself into oblivion. But the result is I feel very disengaged with the entire process right now. It's something that will happen eventually, but not yet. How exceedingly dull that is.

Interestingly, and somewhat unsurprisingly, E. is not quite as fixated as I am on the next date on our IVF itinerary. He e-mailed me the other day, and mentioned he was going to a conference in London on 17 June.

"No, you're not," I typed back, "We're meeting the nurse at the O.C. that day."

Cue ominous silence.

"Yes, I have the appointment in my diary," he finally replied.

So I sat there trying to decipher this. Did he mean he was going to London anyway, but would try to get back in time for the appointment? Or that he was not going to London? Or that he was aware of the appointment, but he was going to London anyway? Argggggh! Failure to communicate! Failure to communicate!

He was then less than amused with my subsequent snippy e-mail demanding reassurance as to his attendance. How could I be such a nagging shrew? OF COURSE, he was coming to the appointment and not going to London. He was well aware of the need to attend this appoinment. It was uppermost in his mind!

But my dearest muffin, I pointed out, five minutes ago you were not so aware. Oh, details, details. A minor lapse.

I guess as long as he doesn't forget on the actual day, I'm not going to argue with him. I don't have the energy to focus his mind when my own is so adrift- staring out the window from the passenger seat, eyes glazed, occasionally rousing myself from my stupour to check the road map to ensure we stil on course.

Asking, are we there yet? How much longer? Are we there yet?

Archeology

The phone rang during my nap, and E. answered it. I didn't even hear it ringing, actually, as I was lying in bed at the time, burrowed far under the covers and buried beneath layers and layers of pillows.

Many pillows are a feature on our bed. I'm not quite sure how we ended up with so many- sometimes I wonder if they have been breeding in the night. Big square pillows, normal sized pillows, small cushiony decorative pillows. I like them, but E. hates them. When he gets into bed, he proceeds to divest the immediate vicinity of all pillows but the one for his head.

I, on the other hand, need at least three pillows to get to sleep- two for my head, and a "cuddle pillow" to spoon up against. Ideally, the spooning spot would be filled by E, but he likes to cocoon himself in blankets, like a mummy, which makes it hard to get ahold of him.

As a rule, I dearly love napping, and seldom need an excuse to slope away on a rainy Sunday afternoon for a snooze. I confess though that on this occasion, it was a form of depressed, escapist sleeping, designed to take my mind off the fact that my period had showed up right on cue. Which once disproves that old wheeze that impending IVF treatment gets you pregnant.

E. came bounding in the bedroom to wake me up. First, he had to excavate through the topsoil of pillows, sifting out unwanted artifacts such as discarded socks and hankies, until he found me curled up in a sleepy ball.

Dr Billy Flynn just phoned," he announced.

"That's interesting," I said, wiping the drool off my cheek. "What did he say?"

Dr Flynn was phoning to give E. the results of last week's SA. The observant among you may be aware that over the course of the last year, E. has already had two sets of swimmer scans, both of which came back with a good count, but with the morphology just a wee bitty off. This, his third, was run within the O.C.'s. own lab as a precursor in the run up to tailoring our particular course of IVF.

"He says I'm above average! The results are all better than normal," E. chortled.

Of course, when I quizzed him, he was unable to give me specifics, like numbers or percentages. I looked at the piece of paper on which E had recorded the conversation in a series of hieroglyphic-like doodles.

"What does that say?" I asked, pointing to a squiggle.

"Oh, that was the name of the person calling," E. said.

"And that?" I asked, squinting at the bottom left of the page.

"That might say 69%."

"69% good, or bad?" I queried.

"Um. I am not sure. But he said I was all above average, and good."

"Oh," I said, putting down the useless scroll of paper and thinking of my lost nap. "That's good, then."

"Yes. He said we now just have to get to work on you."

"Oh, Dr Flynn said that, did he? Did he refer to me as "pet", or perhaps "chicken", while he was at it?"

"Yes," E. said, smiling the smile of the Smug Sperm Overachiever.

Until he saw my face.

"There's nothing to indicate this is my fault, you know," I snapped. "All my results came back excellent too!"

"I know," E. said. "I know. It's another good sign, though."

And he left me to return to my slumber, piling the pillows like a cairn, back on top of my head.

Thinking about it since then, I know he's right, and I should take it as another positive indicator that our chances are good. That there is nothing obvious to stop this from working. That there is every reason to be optimistic. But unfortunately, that feeling continues to go hand in hand with an unshakeable annoyance at having to dig so deep.

All that digging to find something which, according to the map, should be right there on the surface.