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I’m so tired. So, so tired. Like, same kind of tired as back when I mainlined gluten. Could I be making a baby? How early in a pregnancy is the begone-with-ye-I-must-sleep-for-a-fortnight feeling?
Come to think of it, glutenday got away from me a bit this week—I’ve had bread several days in a row. :/ Maybe that’s why I’m draggin ass?
…Though it could be because my jerk-brain’s been rattling me conscious at 4:30am lately.
…But it might be that I put the kibosh on caffeine the day of my insemination.
…Or maybe… maybe my body’s exhausted from growing a baby. I don’t want to count any chickens though! (One… two… threefourfivesixseveneight.)
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How long does it take to detox from caffeine? I’m dying. I’m dead. Put me in the ground so I don’t stink up the joint.
Would it be so bad? Just a little bit? I spend the afternoon googling. From AmericanPregnancy.org:
When I tell a friend at the gym about this dilemma, she mentions “the NASA study with the spiders”. What?
I go home and look it up:
Mother of! I’d be better off toking.
I decide to suffer through my fatigue. Woe.
**********
My resolve lasts 12 hours. Jerk-brain has roused me once again several hours before my already-obscene wakeup time, and I just can’t. just can’t. just can’t face the idea of molding the minds of 110 twelve-year-olds in the state I’m in. I make 3/4 decaf and just 1/4 caf, and tra la la, tra la la, and a heidy heidy ho! I feel like a million bucks!
Wait. Does that mean it was caffeine-withdrawal and not baby-growing? Now I feel like two bucks. A two-dollar bill. Queer and not that useful.
**********
Everyone keeps asking, “So?”
I don’t know yet. Not-as-nice nurse said to wait ’til Day 12 and, if I don’t get my period, to pee on a stick.
It’s Day 8.
Come on—BE DAY 12, BE DAY 12, BE DAY 12.
As there is no motherfucking way I’ll ever be able to do it myself, I text my friend who’s a nurse:
He comes over, and I’m a giddy mess.
Me: Hiiiiiii, do you need gloves?, I have gloves, and here’s the thingy, whatdoyoucallit syringe, the instructions say—wait, here are the instructions.
Him: I don’t need the instructions.
Me: Right!, No!, you have a degree in this stuff!, you know how to flick it, air bubbles and whatnot, so the instructions, they say to use alcohol swabs, but I don’t have alcohol swabs, but I do have alcohol and swabs.
Him: That’s fine.
Me: (reading from instructions) “Choose an injection site on the stomach, preferably around the belly button, but at least 1 inch away.” (lifting my tank top) Here I guess, hahahahahahahaha, I’m freakin out.
He washes his hands and rubs an alcohol-soaked swab over a spot an inch away from my navel. I make the mistake of watching him squirt the tiny drip out of the syringe. Uhhhhhhhhh. He pinches my belly fat and sticks me. All done. High-fives. Hugs. He leaves.
He texts me a minute later from the car. Our mutual friend who gave him a ride over has just said, “I bet this is the first time you’ve hoped to get a girl pregnant.”
**********
Four people offer to accompany me to my appointment. I turn them all down. I guess I just feel like, I’m going to be a single parent, I better get used to being alone.
I show up to the clinic a few minutes early and sit in the waiting room while they thaw the sperm. The same nurse from the most recent ultrasound takes me back to a room and says, “Naked from the waist down. I’ll be right back.” I don’t like her as much as the nurse who did my first ultrasound. First-ultrasound nurse said “undress”, not “naked”. Plus, second-ultrasound nurse is just not as nice.
Second-ultrasound/not-as-nice nurse comes back in and shows me the vial. It’s tiny, an inch and a quarter long maybe with a circumference slightly larger than a pencil. She points out my donor number on the sticker and says flatly, “There’s ten million in here. That’s good.”
She explains that it’s going to be like getting a pap smear except maybe more uncomfortable because they can’t use any lubricant during insemination. I put my heels in the stirrups and slide my butt down to the end of the table. Not-as-nice nurse inserts the speculum. “Hm,” she says. She slides it out and tries a different angle. “Well.” Out and back in again. “Your cervix is really deep in there. I’m gonna use a longer speculum.”
“OK,” I say, meekly.
She tries all through the winter, across the spring and summer, into late autumn, before she stands and says, “I can’t seem to find it. I’m going to get a physician.”
Shortly, she comes back in. “I couldn’t find a physician.” I think, You’re bad at finding stuff. “So I brought the next-best thing.” It’s first-ultrasound/nice nurse!
Immediately, I feel more relaxed. She’s having some trouble locating the target too, but she sounds like she genuinely wants to know when she says, “You doing OK?” and just radiates general warmth.
“There it is!” Finally. She inserts the catheter and shoots. “Swiiimmmmm,” she calls into my vagina. Speculum out, and I’m done.
Not-as-nice nurse tells me to lie there for ten minutes, after which I’m free to go. As she’s walking out the door, she says, “If you don’t get your period, take a home pregnancy test. If it’s positive, come in and we’ll draw blood.”
I stay for 11 minutes, just to be on the safe side, and head to work.
**********
All day, I have moments when I think I could be pregnant right now. I could be walking around with a zygote inside me. Right now.
The students are dismissed early because of imminent snow. I stay and plan with a colleague, after which the snow is no longer imminent but actual, spend 45 minutes driving the 5 miles home, and curl up on the couch with the dogs.
I risk giving myself bedsores watching season 8 of Weeds in its entirety.
I haven’t done my 20 minutes of meditation in days, and I realize I may be avoiding it on purpose. I make myself sit, and sure enough, within moments, I think, “What have I done?” and burst into tears.
I’m so scared.
I’m scared of being stuck in this devil-I-know job because it’s safe money. Terrible money but safe money.
I’m scared because having a kid on my own means I’ll never have another romantic relationship. I know that’s a myth, but it’s one to which I can’t seem to unsubscribe.
I’m scared of doing this alone. I don’t think I can do this alone.
Then I remember that my friend came to my house to give me a shot and four people offered to go with me to my appointment. I have to do this alone only if I choose to.
I go to CVS and hand over my prescriptions, one for Letrozole—to stimulate follicle development—and the other for an Ovidrel shot—to trigger ovulation. I’m absolutely sure the clerk is going to say, “OK, but your insurance doesn’t cover it, so that’ll be one million dollars please.” She tells me they have to order the Ovidrel so just come back the next day to pick them both up. I do, and she hands me the Letrozole—“That’ll be $12” (WHEW)—but the Ovidrel hasn’t come in yet.
The following day, I go to pick up the shot. “There was an issue with your insurance, so we’re waiting on Prior Authorization from your doctor,” the clerk says.
“Prior Authorization?…Isn’t a prescription already prior authorization?” I say.
No, she tells me. If I don’t want to wait, I can pay for it out of pocket. How much?, I ask. A hundred fifty bucks.
I’ll wait.
I get a text 24 hours later that my prescription is ready. Yay! That must mean my insurance people have a light spot in their black souls! I go to pick it up. Sixty-four dollars. The light spot in their souls is very tiny.
**********
I write an email to my doctor saying my #1 donor choice (CMV-positive) is a million times better than his CMV-negative runner up. I need him to tell me again that, in his medical opinion, I should pick #2. He writes back: Nah, do what you like; just sign a waiver saying you acknowledge the slight risk you could contract CMV from the sperm. I sign.
I go to the cryobank website and put one vial of sperm in my cart. A window pops up: YOU SHOULD REALLY BUY FIVE BECAUSE THAT’S WHAT IT USUALLY TAKES.
No. One vial, and fingers crossed.
My total is $890. I click Confirm Order.
**********
Second ultrasound to check if everything looks ripe. Different nurse, same lubey wand. She tells me my uterine lining is 6.9 mm. Ideal is 10, but the Letrozole often thins it. She points the rod toward my right side. On the screen, a black hole opens up amongst the clouds. “Oh yeah,” she says. “Big follicle right there.”
She shifts the wand around and finds another follicle on the same side but says it’s small. Then she checks the left. Again, a big one and a little one.
She says, “That’s exactly what we worry about.” I stiffen. She shakes her head. “What am I saying? You can tell it’s after lunch. I meant, that’s exactly what we hope for. Perfect.” I’m a noodle.
I check out at the front desk. It’s dripping cold rain, so I jog to my car, plop into the driver’s seat, and turn on the engine. Because public radio is having their spring fund drive this week, I have the dial set to a pop station. Justin Timberlike croons, “Cry me a river, oh.”
I text my family: My follicles are “perfect”. Getting inseminated on Wednesday.
And then I cry. A river.
Oh.
Who’da thunk that the most adorable interspecies friendship of all time was only the second-best Super Bowl commercial? Not me. But it’s true.
Because first place definitely belongs to Jamie Casino.
What a journey this opus took me on!
When it started out, I was all
what is happening? He’s commercialing about his old commercials?
But then, fifteen seconds in, I was like
he’s made a commercial that’s also an episode of Law & Order! AND HOLY SHIT, HE’S DOING PACINO. I DON’T KNOW IF IT’S MICHAEL CORLEONE OR TONY MONTANA, BUT HE’S DEFINITELY DOING PACINO.
It just gets better and better after that. Dude clearly spent some cashish on production, which makes the script problems/delights all the more glaring: “’til one day my little brother Michael and his friend were two of four people whose lives were taken.”
Um, what? Two of four people? We’re doing fractions? Also, “lives were taken”? By whom? That brick wall? And UGH (EEEEE!) with the passive voice.
And then we hit 0:45, and I don’t even I don’t even I can’t what is
IT’S A MUSIC VIDEO TOO?!?!?!
These are my thoughts after that point:
