Wednesday, September 29, 2010

Irregular ovulation

Never happened before.  Ever.  We've used that monitor for about six months with nary an egg-less cycle.  Nina thinks it might be because Heather has a cold.  I can't believe that her sniffles are fucking us up so much.
Last night we snuggled up and told ourselves how we were only a day away from getting pregnant.  Heather reminded me to be positive, and I told her I was sorry that last month had affected me so much.  She said that she'd stop obsessing over signs, and we agreed we would distract ourselves for two weeks and only check after our anniversary trip.  Now we have a month to distract ourselves from disappointment and pretend that the only thing on our minds is how we're totally going to be pregnant in October.

20 more days of hard liquor!

(From September 29th...)
Today we've had what might be our worst disappointment yet.  We are at day 15 and Heather hasn't ovulated yet; Nurse Nina has advised us to send the sperm back and wait another month.
Monday I butted heads with my boss just about as much as we have ever done so; the last time, actually, was our previous insemination, when I told him I needed to be out for more than an hour at lunch.  We had the same drama this time as he implied that perhaps my presence at the clinic was optional.  Fortunately, it wasn't time, and we were back within an hour.  Our disagreement was a moot point, but now that we've given up for the month, I'd rather he be mad at me than watch Heather's face as she gets the news.

Tuesday, September 21, 2010

Counting our chickens

Because Heather and I, virtuous as we are, are disastrous budgeters, our life, individually and as a team, is divided into two-week increments, with about four days of relief and comfort followed by ten of anxiety and self-recrimination.

Thursday is payday.  It begins a new chapter in our financial life, and, within this chapter, we have the usual allocations for rent, utilities, credit card bills, and groceries, but my post-it note this time is $150 rent, $100 credit card, and $300 insemination.  Seven days into Heather's cycle, we're less than a week away from round two.

In this cycle, instead of focusing on mucus-interpretation and types of syringes, we have the luxury of handing those decisions to Nurse Nina.  She'll make the final call about whether Heather's cervix looks right, the syringe will be medical-grade, and we don't even have to pick up the cryo-tank from the clinic.  All we do is show up, show her Heather's lady parts, and either stick around or wait till later.

Tuesday, September 14, 2010

Back to the action plan

Heather is not pregnant.  We've already not-seen pink lines twice, and today we saw a minus sign instead of a plus.  Heather asked if I'd really believe it now.

The last two weeks have been emotionally chaotic and full of minute-to-minute violations of the sole post-insemination law: avoid obsessing over it.  First, Heather believed within just a few days that she was definitely pregnant.  I took the paternal position for the first time, dismissing her convictions as hysterical and hormonally-driven.  But I wanted it to be true, so I was fighting my own hysterical side as we evaluated the relative weight and veininess of her breasts.  Did they seem heavier?  Were the aureoles bigger or darker?  Could we see any blue on her cervix?

Monday, September 6, 2010

Fucking inaction plan

I don't know if you're aware, but it is hella difficult to forget your girlfriend might be pregnant.  And it turns out that it's way more difficult to forget that you might be pregnant.  So our household is a little high on drama lately.
Both Heather and I, in our turns and on our respective Apple products (MacBook Pro in the house, beyotch!), have done some shameful Googling of "early signs of pregnancy," with the conclusion on my end that the safest thing to do is put my fingers in my ears and go "la la la la la" for another ten days and, at Heather's end, to wonder whether she's crying because she's having a mood swing because she's pregnant, or if she's crying because there's a lot of motherfucking anticipation in the air.

Our fucking action plan, having reached its action-taking climax last Monday and Wednesday (it was an awesome action plan, so there were two climaxes), has reached the stage of fucking sitting around as we wait for the time we can justify buying six pregnancy tests.  The fertility monitor made Heather's cup of pee a normal feature of our bathroom counter-top; its significance in pregnancy testing makes it a golden shower indeed.  As comfortable as we are with her urine, it ain't gonna do us any good for at least a week, so we're in what, for us, is the unusual position of discarding her pee altogether.

It'd be easier to collect teardrops right now.  As exciting a prospect as the baby is, I guess neither of us really expected to get pregnant, preoccupied as we were with the process, and now we're both alarmed at the notion of success.
Fingers crossed, knocking wood... and the anxious watch for darkened, enlarged aureoles.

Saturday, September 4, 2010

Raccoons in the walls

This morning around 5:30, Heather and I woke up because of some loud banging next door.  We have watched too many TV specials about serial killers and both suspected that our neighbor had been subdued, bound, and left in a back room while his tormentor found pointy tools or stopped to pee.  The banging was our neighbor's desperate attempt to get our attention so we could save him, and I was afraid that, hours later, we would have to explain to cops and the man's grief-stricken family that we had heard his cries for help but ignored them because we were so sleepy.
Turns out that the guy actually was just banging on his walls because raccoons were nesting there and he wanted them out.