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April 24, 2008

OMG TTC IS SO OOC

Hello friends.

There are so many things I have been wanting to write about but more and more, as I am embracing my true adulthood (holy shit I'm 31) I keep thinking about my footprint, what I leave behind, how the Internet is so not a place for me to just be putting all my private thoughts on blast. And then I say to myself, but I have so much to say about things that I truly believe other people care about! I have so much to say about Blackville*. I have so much to say about Glassjaw. I have so much to say about vaginas, quite frankly.

I've been debating whether or not I should open up about my personal process of trying to get pregnant. You see, it is not only my story. It is my husband's story as well and he probably doesn't want the world to know about his business this way. And by business I mean all things related to a man's part in getting his wife pregnant including talk of sperm, ejaculation, dicks and sex (!) plus all other things that a lady shouldn't say out loud, on the Internet no less. Then there's that whole other issue. In the event that there could be something truly wrong with me (or him) that would suck and to share it would be a bit too personally tragic to have on the real live Internet. I have hope that we are okay and that we are just stressed out or something. I can always blame the highly anticipated (if only by me) Glassjaw record and its ability to both monopolize our time and brain capacity and yet still take forever. An interesting phenomenon that even I -- in the midst of it, ears to the speakers -- have yet to decipher.

So I have decided to start sharing. No, not about the fact that I started watching Real World again (fucking fuck and there are no better, more eloquent words for it to be real with you). And no, not about Glassjaw shit. Although if I were allowed to share my opinion on the matter, I totally would because I agree with the patiently waiting fans when we all ask, in unison, WTF? [insert emoticon smashing computer with a hammer].

But instead I'll speak on my babies that I'd like to meet one day.

I will also say that at any time I have afforded myself the right to get ghost. And if I get ghost, you can interpret it as my baby's on the way or my baby's on the way from Cambodia (or Amityville, because I believe in supporting the local community).

Last week, my husband and I drove around Syosset aimlessly with a Tupperware of his dying sperm in the back seat.

These lab people need to get their shit together, seriously. I can explain.

In my mind, I have been trying to get pregnant for two years. That's when I got off The Pill. And that was a big sacrifice in terms of my vanity. I quit The Pill and my skin became a fucking nightmare. Breakouts, hyperpigmentation, self-consciousness -- all because I decided my body needed a break from The so deserves to be divinely capitalized Pill. I don't care what the studies have found and what the experts are saying, I believe that because I was on it for fifty-eleven years that my body forgot how to get pregnant and so I needed to retrain it by quitting. Which sucks. Because not only has my skin gotten brutal, but the periods! The return of the regular bleeding, my fucking g-d. It's like 8th grade all over again. I'm a grown ass woman. Am I really using tampons and maxi pads, avoiding white and sleeping on an "old" towel in King Tut formation three feet from my husband right now? Is this really happening? Do I want a baby this badly? Wow.

The cramps! New paragraph. The cramps. Fuck it all to hell. Shit! Oh my back. My neck and my back. It's like that!

Sure Justin and I have only been married for a mere fortnight but when we started dating, that eventful night that I vomited all over him (including his ear lobe) in front of Boy George, I knew that this was it for me. He was the proverbial ONE, all caps with a halo atop. So whether I had his babies (who will become the ultimate band) in or out of wedlock is a moot point. A point that matters only to my in-laws. Shorty and Mercy ain't even really tripping, they never do. Out of respect, I think my ovaries overrode my mind's decision and decided to shut the party down until Rabbi Tyrone pronounced a mother fucker "wife", but still. I was trying. And I was not secretive with the trying. I told him point blank.

"Justin Beck, I am trying to go halves on a baby so get there."

So the two years passed and still no baby. I discussed this with my sister-in-law and she gave me the number of her OB/GYN. She said go in, ask a lot of questions and she will check everything out.

I called over there and made an appointment. This OB/GYN is like the Russian waxing lady at H salon in LA. A waiting list for months! I put my name on the list anyway and kept my fingers crossed (and legs open) in the meantime.

I made a tiny confession on my last blog entry that I was trying to conceive. TTC is the formal abbreviation in pregnant people speak. Letters poured in about books I could read, tea I could drink, acupuncture I could fear and so on and so forth. To those of you out there that wrote me, bless your kind hearts. I have really taken all of your advice into consideration and I am reading Toni Weschler's Taking Charge of Your Fertility like a fiend. I love the color inserts, so gross and yet so engaging. So I thank you!

When I finally got to see the OB/GYN, I was armed with all kinds of information and like a first chair violinist, I was proud. Throwing out medical jargon that, unfortunately, the average woman doesn't even know about herself! She asked me a bunch of questions. How long have you been trying? How often do you exercise? Do you smoke? I usually exaggerate or omit because I am insecure. It's the standard frontin' like I get my fitness on and simultaneously don't get my recreational in. However, I answered these questions with clarity and truth because there's a greater goal to be achieved here.

She signed off on some paperwork and told me to go to this lab on the third day of my period and back again on the 21st day of that same cycle. I also got a prescription for my husband to have a semen analysis. Which leads me back to driving around Syosset at 85 mph looking for somebody to please test the sperm.

I did everything correctly. Made the appointments for the blood work. Picked up the special Tupperware for the sperm collection so that my husband wouldn't have to handle his business in a scary little cubicle with science class diagrams of vaginas on the walls. With the proper collection cup, he could instead do it at home as long as we made it back to the lab within a reasonably short time to test it. Well, the first lab said they don't do that. That some other place does that. Only on these days at this special time. The next lab that we raced to also said they so don't do that even though the first lab said they did. Hmph. So the sperm was left in the back seat to perish. And when we had to pick up his business partner Lee to run errands later that same day, Justin put it in his pocket so Lee didn't have to sit beside it. Lee, by the way, doesn't have sperm in his pocket. He has instead opted to place it in his wife's womb and thus, a new baby will be in my life soon enough so congratulations to the happy couple. The delicious baby will be here any day now!

So throughout the day, anytime Justin had to get his phone out of his pocket he'd have to remove the sperm which was funny at first and then upon further analysis, I realized was really gross and I asked him politely to do something with his jizz please.

He dumped it down the kitchen sink. Because we are not sociopaths, we chose not to put it in the mailbox of a misogynistic, demanding freak old ass client of mine who thinks when I say "How are you?" that I am being offensive. He scowls at me and looks dead in my face for an unnerving 45 whole seconds like I just said "How are you feeling about going back in the oven?" instead. We also decided not to put it under the car handle of the lady that sued my in-laws years ago for the Great Fireworks Debacle of '88 that left little Jakey supposedly deaf in one ear (liar) which put into motion my husband's present day disdain for all people that went to Kennedy High between 1990 and 1995, including Amy Fisher. But the thoughts alone were delightful.

My blood work on the first day checked out. I am waiting for the second set of results. I am ovulating normally, I think. Is that what she said? Yes. I am a real woman (golf claps). Now we wait. For Justin to jack off in a cubicle at the right time at the proper place (hopefully in Blackville) to get his shit checked. Please, before you embark on the world tour, if you're reading this lovely husband of mine. Hello!

And when that checks out, then I guess we move on to the next step which is to pump me full of dye to see if my fallopian tubes are blocked. YAY!

Posted by melissah at April 24, 2008 11:41 PM