DO SOMETHING

I know it's been radio silence from here for awhile. Just busy, nothing terrible.

I've not been big on political statements here, but I do not know how to do anything else today other than repeat this, over and over and over again:

if you are tired of the utter and deplorable lack of meaningful conversation about gun control in this country then today, do something about it.

Write to your representatives. Call your senator. Sign the White House petition. DO SOMETHING DO SOMETHING DO SOMETHING.

Do more than express sympathy on your face.book page: do something with it. (See above.)

I don't give a shit if you agree with me, personally, on gun control or not: I have no particular law in mind. But if we look those families in the face (even over the news) and we do nothing? Nothing at all just because we are afraid of being "too political" or pissing somebody off or stirring up controversy? Then shame on us.

Hug your kids: yes. Cry: yes. Pray: yes. And then do something.

limbo

So, we are still in the limbo of, "yes, we need to talk about it and one day we will eat a meal together that does not involve toddler-directed instructions to remove that finger from your nose but that day has not yet arrived." That is, we have not yet talked about whether to do anything more about having another baby (who would grow into another nose-picking toddler, one assumes). (It's only occasionally with the nose-picking thing, but it is kind of gross. On the other hand, when she held out her finger the other day, booger perched carefully on the tip, and said cheerfully, "hi, booger!" it was pretty funny.)

Anyway. I digress. Probably because my brain is actively trying to digress from the fact that I have just heard that my sister-in-law is pregnant.

Awesome.

It is most certainly different to hear that now than when it happened the first time, about three months before I got pregnant with the afore-mentioned booger girl. Then there was a lot of raging and crying and swearing, etc. Also glasses of wine.

I feel kind of numb about it this time. I suppose I should feel something more distinct, but "should" is a word that does not go well with "feel." I feel tired about it. Weary. Lapped, sort of. Except that we're out of the race - for now - so it's not a great metaphor. You can't get lapped if you're sitting on the sidelines.

The thing is, I mostly feel enormously satisfied with, and grateful for, my life. Just as it is. I am not very good with risk, and part of me is terrified to have another child. I mean, shit can happen and my reproductive record is spotty at best, so why tempt fate? Why try to mess with the goodness we have?

I think this about 95 percent of the time, but at 2:00am, I sometimes think about the handful of times I have taken a risk in my life, and how I've usually been glad that at least I tried.

So we did try, of course. We failed, but we tried. There's no more frozen embryo out there, alternately torturing and teasing us with the possibility of just one more. We took the risk. It's okay.

But is that it? I think so. And then I don't. And then I look at baby photos and I want another. And then I think about turning 40 in three months and I change my mind. And then I think about the fact that someday my husband and I will be dead and we will leave our daughter without any siblings. And then I think about how much I like sleeping through the night (most of the time).

It feels like it will never end.

It stays dormant until somebody else shares their happy news, and then something, somewhere, hurts. Not as deeply as it once did, for sure. My joy for her is more quickly present than the first time around.

But the scars don't go away, I guess. You learn to live with them. You just look at the thing on the tip of your finger, and smile, and say,

Hi, booger.

what now?

Since our daughter's birth,  my husband and I had agreed that one day we would try with our one frozen embryo to give her a sibling. If it worked, great. If it didn't, we would call it a day. Seven years of fertility treatment is enough.

I had made my peace with that.

I thought he had too.

Since our negative beta, he and I have not talked much about what we will do now, apart from ten seconds after I hung up with the nurse and said, "it didn't work," and his nearly-instant response was, "you know, we could try it again."

Uhh...WHAT?

We decided to let it lie for awhile. Schedules have been busy and we've had company, and there hasn't been time to have the discussion. Probably in the next week or so. I am not sure what to do with the fact that I really feel done with all of this: sad, that there won't be another baby, so much so that I try not to think about it very much, but not desperately unhappy. Quite content, much of the time, with the life we have.

I think perhaps his hopes had gotten much higher than mine. After all, we'd done IVF twice before and I had, technically, gotten pregnant both times - only one viable pregnancy, of course, but this was the first phone call we'd had which was an instant negative. Game over.

When we started all this, seven years ago, we ended up in a discussion about how much money we were willing to spend on fertility treatments. I was willing to break the bank. Spend it all. We could earn more, but we only had a certain window of time to have a kid. I would have borrowed, begged, and stolen to get it done.

He, on the other hand, calmly and wisely (not that I assessed it this way at the time) said that we needed to acknowledge that all the money in the world might not get us a child.  That we could break the bank, beg, borrow, and steal, and end up broke, indebted, and childless. Which would suck. (He had a better way of putting it.) That we needed to be able to love the life, and live the life, we actually had, and not just long for a future we might not get.

Now, our positions seem to be reversed. So very odd, what this stuff does to you.

nope.

So, perhaps the radio silence from o'er here clued you in, but the beta results yesterday were not good. Negative, to be exact. Definitely not good, although I would still take that over the "first beta positive, second beta disastrous" of 2009.

(I mistyped that last sentence "definitely not god," which has a certain truth to it, perhaps.)

Anyway. We were certainly disappointed. More so than I would have guessed. I have another post about that, but not for today.

Something else momentous happened yesterday, though. On my way out the door to my bloodwork appointment, I waved to my daughter and said, "I love you," which I say many times daily and every time I leave her, and for the first time she said, quite clearly, "I love you, mama."

Definitely God, there.

Thanks again for all the good wishes.

*twiddling thumbs*

While it's undoubtedly true that I don't have as much mental space to dedicate toward "constant, occasionally panicky deliberation of future hcg results" this time around, waiting for a pregnancy test post-transfer is still...well, I suck at waiting. That's pretty much it.

No home tests yet. Have managed not even to buy one, which is quite a feat for me. Maybe, just maybe, I'll get one today. Or not. Or maybe. I don't know.

You know how you want to know, but then you don't want to know if it's not positive, but then you do want to know just in case it's negative because you can prepare yourself for that call for the nurse, but then again you might get a false negative so you probably shouldn't take the test before the official one, but then you have to wait all the way until Saturday which is, like, an eternity, so...

...ladies and gentlemen, I present to you Exhibit One of How Much I Suck At Waiting.

That's about it for life around here. Thrilling, right?

p.u.p.o.

So. Now we wait.

All went well today - and thanks so much for your good wishes. I checked my phone shortly before we went into the transfer room, and it was delightful to know people were thinking of us.

Totsicle survived, and the transfer went without a hitch: three times now, and I think I have finally perfected the art of full-enough-bladder-without-hideous-discomfort.

Beta is next Saturday the 22nd, though we have told our families it's the 24th, to give us either a.) a few days to deal with disappointment, or b.) time to get through the second test. Once bitten, twice shy.

I am under no illusions whatsoever that I will be able to resist the pee stick. Drugstore. Tomorrow. Then, the wait really begins.

5...4...3...

The countdown is on.

Transfer is at 2:30pm today.

For all the ambivalence, worry, uncertainty, and confusion I've had during this cycle, all I want today is for this to work.

I'm a little terrified that they will call mid-morning and tell us that our totsicle didn't survive the thaw. (And by "a little," I mean, "a whole freaking lot.")

Whatever appendages you'd like to cross today on our behalf - prayer, good intentions, etc. - will be much appreciated.

6 hours to go.