We Interrupt This Photo Friday to Announce...

... that this is CD 1 of FET #2.

If you don't know what all those abbreviations mean, you're lucky.

(Cycle Day 1 of Frozen Embryo Transfer #2)

I can't say I've missed organizing our life around early morning probing and two week waiting.

Neither Pili nor I have a lot of hope that this will work. But as I went through hell to produce these FETS, it makes sense to use them.

But if you could whisper a quiet mantra or prayer or c'mon g-d get off yr butt already for us, we'd appreciate it.

My First Photo Friday!

And the topic is funky/ugly shoes.

But first, if you or anyone in your life has been touched by infertility, you must read this.

Okay, now on to the footwear.



These are my holey leopard print slippers next to Pili's holey leopard print slippers. I got the big puffy ones for Pili after she kept stealing mine. Now we have both broken them in so much, that she can't stand wearing mine. And I can't stand wearing hers. I think it's very strange how her big toe has poked a hole in only one slipper.



These are my favorite shoes. I wear them when I'm having a crappy day, and every time I look down at my feet it cheers me up.

Time Warp

Today, in the clinic waiting room, I went back in time.

A girl in her early teens was sitting with her mother. One of the nurse educators stopped to talk with them. The mother pulled out a thick file of records. The girl, bright-eyed, beautiful, and cheerful a few moments earlier, looked away, her eyes focusing on something that was not quite the row of ADA beanie babies on the receptionist's desk, not quite the closed door of the billing office - not quite anywhere.

The nurse first propped her hip on the arm of a chair and then settled in to it, taking the records and glancing over them. The girl's eyes, unseen by her mother or the nurse, glazed for a moment with tears and then settled on nowhere again. The mother and nurse discussed: yes, on this day I think she miscalculated the carbs at lunch. She's having some trouble remembering to decrease her basal when she has track practice. She, she, she. She, sitting there, gazing intently at the spots on the carpet.

I wanted so badly to go over to that girl, to say. You have a name. You have a voice. You are not she. This is your body and these are your decisions, and you, you have a voice. You are not a science experiement, a lab rat who can be discussed in the third person.

And then the nurse came to the door, only twenty minutes late this time*, and called my name, and in I went. I tried to catch her eye as I left, to let her know that someone saw her but her eyes stayed down, examining the tips of her glittery fingernails. Hers, and only hers.

Then sitting in my own nurse's office, staring at my own bitten, lancet-pocked fingertips, discussing once again how the only thing standing between me and a 4.0 gpa, I mean a 6.0 AIC, which for the record, I am nowhere near, is my own mind and my complicated relationship with food**, I thought of her again. And wished I had stopped, touched her arm, said - said - what could I should I have said? Something.


*This is a new record in promptness for McClinic, which may start with a J.
** I know I semi-unconciously underestimate my portions to avoid lows, which will require me to eat more, and to avoid the shame that I associate with over-eating and gaining weight. I know that. But I can't seem to change it. And I don't understand why the nurses and doctors at McClinic insist on fiddling with my carb ratios in such silly increments. 12 grams of carbs is one spoon more of rice than 10 grams of carbs. Unless you eat all your meals out of a box with the nutrition information on the side, how will you ever know whether it's 12 grams or 10?

Why Art-Sweet is Sour Instead of Sweet

The Things I Should Be Doing Instead of Blogging

1. Two cover letters for jobs I want


2. One cover letter for a job I'm not sure I want. Do I want to be the executive director of an organization that two different people have told me has an extraordinarily dysfunctional board? No, not really, but maybe that means they'll actually hire me


3. Thesis update to my advisor. Doesn't he have anything better to do than answer my emails immediately? Doesn't he realize that means I have to answer his email?


4. Editing newsletter for a professional organization


5. Many phone calls, emails, and writings for my various part-time gigs (see item #1)

What I am doing:

1. Blogging


2. Otherwise known as procrastinating


3. Wishing I lived somewhere where I could get this


4. Sending out BIG HUGE congratulations to two bloggers who have gotten good news today

In other news, I have an endo appt. tomorrow morning. I keep forgetting this and then remembering with a jolt. I am not anticipating that it will be especially pleasant.

I'm it!

I've been tagged!

Four Jobs I've Had:

1. Old-fashioned switchboard operator at a terrible camp for kids with diabetes. Seriously, they closed down the next year. Anyone know the one I'm talking about?



2. After-school ice skating instructor.

3. Camp Chef (different camp. wonderful place. not 'specially for kids with diabetes)

4. Door-to-door canvasser for an environmental group.

That takes me up to sophmore year of college!

Four Movies I Can Watch Over and Over Again

I'm a sap. And I, um, have an eye for the ladies.

1. But I'm a Cheerleader
2. Bound (Gina Gershon. No more need be said)
3. Say Anything
4. Current Fav: Brokeback Mountain. I've seen it twice, and I could see it again.

Four Places I've Lived (current not-included to protect the guilty):

1. Germany
2. New York City
3. Rural New Mexico
4. Ottawa
5. Chicago (counting, not such a strong point)

Four TV Shows...

I really don't watch TV. Too many blogs to read ;-)

Four Places I've Vacationed:

1. Iceland
2. India
3. Italy
4. Indiana? (Trying to stick with the "I" theme, but... )

I really love to travel and explore other cultures.

Four Favorite Foods Cuisines:


1. Indian
2. Thai
3. Ethiopian
4. The Food Groups Known as Chocolate and Sugar
5. The Food Group Known as Brunch
6. And fancy gourmet salads

Four Daily Websites

1. Bloglines! From whence I go to all others
2. Google. I am a google-holic
3. NY Times
4. My own (honesty prevails)

Four Places I'd Like to be RIGHT NOW

1. Northern California
2. Costa Rica
3. New York City
4. And in honor of V-Day: Anywhere with my Pili.

I TAG, some people who might not read this: PCDB who has not posted in a long time, Which One of You Ladies... and Maybe Expectant

Post-Modern Love

I don't normally much care for the modern love column in the Sunday Styles section of the Times. But today, instead of featuring yet another story of someone's love gone awry, Daniel Jones writes about what he's learned from editing these stories:

"I've read few accounts more fraught with hope and anxiety than those about people who want children but face obstacles: single with a ticking biological clock, infertile, genetically at-risk, gay... They worry about the implications and morality of their choices, about whether they're being selfish or playing God. But when a couple get their baby (if they do), the angst and doubt instantly melt away, and all they can think about is how much they love this no-longer-abstract child."

We went to a meeting of our local glbt families group today. I always feel hesitant and like a bit of a failure going to these things. After all, we still don't have kids. And the prospective parent status seems like it must be wearing thin after two-plus years.

My anxieties were blown away the minute we walked into the room. Everyone there was so incredibly welcoming and supportive. The noise level got a little intense at times with 15+ kids from 11 months to 11 years running loose, building everestian mountains of frosting on top of heart shaped sugar cookies. (Mmm... frosting. And chocolate covered strawberries. And a big chocolatey smooch to my friends at Lilly for inventing humalog. I love not having to wait an 1.5 hours for my quick-acting insulin to kick in). So many kids - both bio and adopted, from near and far. It was wonderful to see all the different ways that people have chosen to build their familes and all the love and thought that went into those families.

It may (sigh) will take a while yet for our child to move from the abstract to the real. But I want you to know, kiddo, whomever you may be and however you will come into our lives. You will be loved. A lot. With frosting on top.

Limited Exposure

I'm ruminating on another post about partners and diabetes, based on Kerri and Kassie's comments below. But in the meantime, it occurs to me that so far I've written mostly about my life as a person with diabetes. And that's not all there is to me...

---

"We really have no idea how fertile you are," Doctor Dumbass said to Pili, as we sat in his office for the initial consultation. "Given that you've had limited exposure to sperm."

I always assumed Pili would be plenty-fertile. Her mom had no trouble getting pregnant; I am a spoiled brat an only child not by choice. And then there was the diabetes thing. Why should I go to all the hassle of getting and staying pregnant with diabetes when there was another perfectly good uterus and ovaries in the mix. So what if she was in her late thirties?

Dr. Dumbass insisted that Pili ought to get a laproscopy to check out a cyst on her ovary. "I would hate for you to get pregnant and then we discover there's a REAL PROBLEM that starts with a C," he said. Oh, and I only use Sperm Bank X. Why would you want an identity-release donor anyway?

On to Dr. Hippie, who did another ultrasound and said, I could be doing laproscopies morning noon and night if I did them every time I saw one of those. Looks good to go. After a lot of obsessing about donors, and one very painful insemination later, he decided that maybe Pili should try cl*mid - otherwise known as the drug that turns wonderful sweet and caring women into raging maniacs who try to drive out of the garage with the hatchback open. A few cycles of that, and we were ready to move on to injectables - and to Dr. Only-Does-Fertility.

I confess to feeling a surge of delight small amount of satisfaction when Pili had to give herself shots. And remember to give herself shots. And worry about the timing of said shots. And this was only twice a day. For a few weeks. And surely it would work. Right? Right.

Eventually (this all condenses about two years into a few paragraphs) we decided that it was worth giving my younger eggs a try, dubious genetics and all. So this time, we both got to do shots. Bedtime was especially fun - lupron, gonal-f, lantus, and a humalog bolus if I needed it. Plus a shot of heparin to prevent clotting. Combine that with a regular regimen of injections and you wind up with technicolor tummy. I turned into a regular chicken shack of egg production, and wound up in the hospital (first time I've been in a hospital over night since my dx twenty years ago, knock on wood, keynahora, tuttuttut) with ovarian hyper stimulation, otherwise known as OUCH.

Despite all this, the embryos, they did not like their new home in Pili. Or something like that. Damn picky embryos. We still have a few more on the rocks, and I know that there are people who get pregnant from frozen embryos. But I'm not terribly optimistic, I guess. We're thinking about adoption, but I'm not sure that we're in the same chapter yet, let alone on the same page.

Me, I just want to be a mom. Now. Yesterday, if possible.

A question for other PWDs...

I woke up this morning all sweaty. Pili said, "I think you're low." Naa, I said. Just the lovely big fat comforter and flannel pjs effect. She raised an eyebrow, but I seemed relatively coherent, so she let me get to my coffee. Once I had gotten enough caffeine into my system to manage the hand-eye coordination challenge of blood onto strip, I discovered... 67.

If you have a partner/spouse/significant other, how involved are they in your daily diabetes routine? Is their level of involvement more or less than what you would like? Do they know you better than you know yourself?

Okay, I'm Being Petty

I enjoy reading medical blogs. I've dealt with so many doctors - both wonderful and terrible - over the course of my diabetes and other medical adventures - that I enjoy reading the other side of things.

I've read Kim's emergiblog for a while now and she has great stories about her work in the emergency room along with some fantastic old medical ads. But one post of hers just pissed me off. She writes (about making shredded wheat edible):

Unless..... you smooshed it all up until it looked like a bowl of twigs, added enough sugar to ensure juvenile onset diabetes and then smothered it in
milk, which you wouldn't drink afterward because little brown shredded wheat things were floating in it.

C'mon Kim. You're a nurse, for god's sake. You should know better then to spread this kind of stuff around. Does anyone else find this exceedingly irritating, or am I being over sensitive?

2/6: Kim has added a very clear explanation to her post stating that she was being sarcastic and that there is absolutely no relationship between sugar intake and type I. Thanks Kim! And do check out emergiblog - it's a great read.

Our cat-with-diabetes

and her non-diabetic pillow 

One more voice on the blog-wagon: why should I do it?

I've never been good at keeping a diary. Two or three paragraphs and my writing descends into a swirl of disgust and why-bother-writing-this. (Although I-do-like-dashes. (And parenthases)). And non-sequitors.

But reading other people's blogs has inspired me. Unlike those old diaries, with their flimsy little "ooh don't read me, no really, I mean dooon't..." locks, the diaries of the blogworld, seem to me to connect people and give a more authentic outlet. There's a sense of community. And I'd like to be a part of it.

My life, to be blunt, has been cheerier in the past than it is at the moment. I'm hoping that writing about it will help.

Without making it totally obvious who I am to the five people who may eventually read this: I'm living in a city I dislike intensely with a partner I love intensely (To be known as Pili). We have some pretty damn cute cats. We're wrestling with infertility. I have type I diabetes, which I should control better than I do. I also have depression, which waxes and wanes but never altogether goes away.

I'm artificially sweetened in many ways. Don't tell me that aspartame is going to give me cancer. Because nothing and no one comes between me and my Extra Green Apple Gum. Or my zol*oft.