Author Archives: Arcingpowerline

Pillars of Salt

14 Monday Jul 2014

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So you can imagine how I felt when I got to the airport to pick up my friend and saw that she, just as I feared, was sporting a 5 month bump. We had a few hours to catch up in the car, and we filled the time with talk of what are uteruses are and are not doing. I tend to intellectualize everything, especially events that are attached to so much emotion. I want to be able to explain why I feel something, and if I can understand it from an external source, then it’s easy to dismiss. I said to my friend that

– I wonder if my disappointment is tied to my fear of death.

– I wonder if I feel this pressure because we live in a patriarchy, which values women for our ability to reproduce sons for the state and honor motherhood more than the women who are mothers, so is this desire for pregnancy really my search to legitimize my existence?

– I wonder if I’m just bored and now that I have a decent career and income, own a home and have some friendships that I value, am I transferring all of the angst I used to feel about finding the right man to making a child? If I have a child, where will all that angst go?

And my friend listened patiently, and she said that she’d become pregnant by running out of birth control and not wanting to go to the doctor to refill the prescription. She has been way more tired than usual, but hasn’t had morning sickness. She drinks an occasional glass of wine. She drinks lattes. She is treating her pregnancy with the same regard that she gives tomato plants. She’s like, wouldn’t it be nice to grow some tomatoes? And then she hasn’t been the best about watering the plants, but she’s fertilized and pruned, and she just trusts that nature moves in a pattern that she’s a part of and does not over think.

The truth is that if I had become pregnant right away, I would have a toddler right now, and I would not be sweating any of the above bullet points. Instead, I’d be wondering if my toddler has autism or is allergic to pet dander and/or nuts. I might wonder if my body would ever be my own again. I’d wonder if I was damaging my kid with overly defined gender norms. I would be thinking that my child is either more advanced or less advanced than other toddlers, and I would find reasons to feel guilty about either case.

 

Some other friends from the same era came for the weekend, one of whom was my roommate for the year of 2006-2007. She is married now and has three stepchildren. She’s a great stepmother– patient and funny and caring. This is her family now. When we were roommates, she slept with a guy and didn’t use protection, and we meditated on a line– crush, crush, crush the baby– that was back when we didn’t want babies, when a baby would have been horribly inconvenient because we were about to be unemployed and homeless. I was in a relationship with a man (barely) who did not love me and didn’t even pretend to unless he was drunk and writing desperate middle-of-the-night texts about how he could not stand to lose me. Sobriety meant that he didn’t “feel the magic.” If I’d become pregnant back then, I would have kept the child and not told him. I would have been looking for signs of mental illness and general humorlessness in the infant. I would have been paranoid about instilling a sense of grit and follow-through. I would have had a giant baby.

Another of the friends to show over the weekend was a man I thought was interesting at the beginning of grad school. He was in the Peace Corps, and he traveled a lot and had interesting tattoos and a good collection of literature. He and I had that “If we haven’t married anyone by the time we’re 40” deal going on. I’m pretty sure he had the same deal with a large handful of other women too. Now he’s married, and so am I. The first night he was here, we caught up separately from the rest of the group and I remembered how easy it is to talk to him, how honest and self-deprecating he is. The first day they were here was great, but everyone drank too much and had no energy the next day and wanted to sit in the living room and watch soccer. But I wanted to keep the feeling of goodwill alive, so I dragged us downtown and then dragged us around the neighborhood to look for illegal fireworks, and what had been easy the night before was dead by nightfall. He and his wife left the next morning without saying goodbye. My pregnant friend reminded me that we used to hate that about him– he is a chronic early leaver. He’d invite people to the bar and then disappear to the bathroom and text that he was going home. Intense connection followed by immediate dismissal and always on his terms.

I talked to another friend who has a 1 year old baby who spends a lot of time in day care. This friend told me that maybe life is a balance and that I should beware the happiness tax, meaning that now that I am happily married and stable, wouldn’t adding a child to that equation tip the balance? Too much good in one person’s life invites disaster, she said. And I think that’s bullshit, especially because she uses that reasoning to justify leaving her child for long periods of time because she’s parenting solo and hasn’t made any compromises career-wise to make adjustments to be a mother. She feels guilty. But if anyone she paid to watch the baby were a blood relative, she could feel far less guilty.

My conclusion about all of this is that I can’t look back and think about how having a child any earlier would have been better. Having a child with any other man that I have been with or thought of being with would still leave me wishing for more. My life is boring because it’s good, and putting a child into the middle of this life is the right thing to do, and it was never the right thing to do before.  And the rightness and the wrongness does not matter. The pregnancy is like a tomato plant, the nurturing part is a matter of having the right fertilizer and the right soil and the right amount of light, and even with everything clicking like it should, sometimes plants just stop thriving. Sometimes there are aphids. That’s a lame metaphor, but as I watch most but not all of my houseplants doing alright without much intervention from me, I find it comforting.

 

 

Finding my way back to myself

23 Monday Jun 2014

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The school year ended last week, which is always a relief, but this year it marked a transition between being stressed out about work  (an ever present stress about schedules and too much to grade and kids’ lives) and what we’ve planned to be a transitional time. My husband is going to finish his degree this fall, but to do it, he has to go back to his original campus, which is three hours away. We wanted to make sure we have three medicated cycles– July, August, September– before he will be gone and the opportunity to Do It will be seriously diminished. Not that it matters. We’ve Done It only once in the last month (right in the middle of the month, coincidentally when my phone said I’d be ovulating, so now despite having very little chance of being pregnant, there’s still an outside chance, so I’ve got it in the back of my mind). I thought it was just me being absolutely exhausted, but we went to the coast this last weekend, where our usual activities are Doing It, walking along the beach, and eating salmon. We rented a big house, which felt like it would be too much space for just the two of us, so I invited another family along. Maybe that’s what killed it, I don’t know, but there was no sexing.

The couple we took with us was our third choice for couples to go to the coast with. They’re super planny, and the dude half of the couple is constantly down-trodden, like he’s carrying the weight of something unimaginably difficult, but whatever that might be is a mystery. Combine that with an attitude of arrogance and constant talking about how and who he was in high school (the smartest, the most athletic, the most awesome)– it was a trying weekend. I couldn’t stop complaining about him, which is not sexy, especially because I was the one who invited them. The truth, though, was that I was scared that once we got to the coast, we’d have nothing to say to each other because we’re always around each other. I wanted some shared ground, someone else to talk to and hang out with so that when I was alone with my husband, we could connect about what happened out of the eyesight and earshot of each other. It kind of backfired. When we got home, I made dinner, and we sat down to eat, and I got sucked in to reading the newspaper, and when I apologized for not exactly being attentive, he was like, “I love you, but there was a lot of talking this weekend. I’m cool with a little silence.”

So now I’m in a strange head space about when he goes back to school if he’ll just keep going further away, and if I’ll retreat too because that’s what I do. We’re both terrible correspondents, and I know that we would not have successfully dated had we not already been living together as roommates. Neither of us returns phone calls. Neither of us regularly checks texts. He loses his phone all the time. If I didn’t know that about him in the beginning, and if we’d been living apart, I’d think he was completely uninterested in me and I would have returned the same level of affection because I am too insecure for that.

His wedding ring fell apart this weekend. Mine broke. I’m trying not to see metaphors. We also blew a tire on the way home and found that the inside of the two front tires were bald too, so four tires and alignment sucked about $500 out of my uterus budget.

Next weekend, three of my friends from grad school are going to be here to hang out for the 4th of July. All of them are my age or older, and none of them have children. If they are pregnant, which I realize is a possibility, I will not let them stay at my house.

I go through this every single year, this disorientation between who I am as a teacher and who I am in the rest of my life, which should be my real life. I’ve ignored myself for so long I’m not sure what I do with my time. I don’t remember what I like to do, so I’m going to spend the next eight weeks figuring that out. Meanwhile, I’m going to work outside as much as I can, tend to some vegetables in my first ever raised garden bed, get a deep brown tan, listen to good music through headphones, draw, write.

Still more about infertility

20 Monday Jan 2014

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This weekend, I have decided to allow myself to be depressed about my infertility, and I have allowed myself to think of myself as infertile. We’re nearing three years without birth control– and actually, if I’m really thinking about it, you might add a month or two where we were careless (or thought we were careless but were actually not in danger of being pregnant, not even a little bit). When I remember what it felt like to be 34 and trying to have a child, it felt like good timing, like I was just squeaking in under the geriatric pregnancy radar, but now I’m 37, and in seven months, I will be 38, and we have been trying for three years with no success. I can look at other people’s blogs, and I see what looks like progress– TSH levels lowering, natural ovulation happening occasionally– and I think it’s just a matter of time before one of those fertilized eggs sticks. And if I’m being rational, I can see progress for me too. I waited to go to the doctor until just this last summer, where I found out that I have significant thyroid antibodies floating around in my blood, and that when I take fake thyroid, my phone can predict my cycle. And I’ve found out that it predicts a too-short cycle with a too-short luteal phase, that I need to find a way to prolong the LP, if I’m ovulating, which I don’t think I am. My temperatures are usually low with a higher spike or two, but nothing consistent, and nothing sustained. My cycle is, like, 24 days long. So I’m taking Vitex and Maca and vitamin b6 and feverfew (for headaches but the internet tells me that it used to be used for infertility) and a multivitamin and folic acid and levothyroxine, and I’m seeing an acupuncturist, and I’m smearing progesterone cream on any thin skin that hasn’t seen progesterone cream on it. My insurance does not cover fertility treatment. I have enough money in savings to pay for acupuncture, and that is it.

And I know a lot of what I want to write about is really repetitive because it’s essentially the same story every month. I want to be pregnant, and then I think we may or may not have missed the window, which either gives me hope or makes me feel exasperated, depending, and then I wait it out and sometimes remember to test my urine for ovulation, but more often forget, and then it’s a couple of weeks later, and I am bleeding again. The blood does not seem like real menstruation, by the way. It’s spotting, and then it’s bleeding, and then it’s spotting again. Since I’ve been on thyroid, I have not soaked a tampon or a pad. I’d apologize about too much information, but this blog is about infertility, which is all blood and jizz, blood and jizz. And awkward sex.

Speaking of awkward sex, I want to write about sex when trying to conceive. People warn you about it, and people joke about it, and everything they say is true– sex that is focused on sperm and a bathroom science lab is not that much fun. When I announced on my other blog that we had decided to toss the birth control, someone commented “Sex is more fun that way, anyway” and I thought, what are you, 16 years old? Do you have any idea how much less fun sex is when underneath any impulse to Do It is fear and insecurity and failure lurking? In the first couple of months of trying, the sex has depth. There is life-creation in the embrace, and you (meaning I) look at your partner as a parent, as someone you trust to create a whole new person who will forever link your families together. That’s some beautiful sex right there. And then flash forward three years, and it’s all about 2g of pre-seed lube in a syringe thing (that makes being in the mood for it completely moot, thank christ forreal) and your vagina and its associated reproductive parts are about as alluring as an IKEA dresser and an allen wrench and no discernible instructions.

Two months ago, we were some friends’ house to play games and drink. Everyone there except my husband and me is gay– a lesbian couple, and a gay couple, and I suppose you could argue that they deal with infertility every day, but that would be silly. I’d had two glasses of wine, and we were standing outside so that the lesbians could smoke cigarettes. And J leans over with her cigarette and asks if I want a drag (which I do, which I take) and then immediately asks if I’m pregnant. Then she apologizes for asking and says it’s her intuition and that she often senses these things. I say that no, there is no way I’m pregnant because I have recently started my period, which is why I’ll have a second glass of wine and take one drag from her cigarette. Then M says that if I really want to know the trick to pregnancy, it’s being exposed to lots and lots of cum. She tells me that when she was married to a man, she got pregnant whenever she sneezed– when she was menstruating and when she wasn’t and at the oddest times and even when they were using a diaphragm and when she was on the pill. Then she explains to me that she’s a witch, that I need to get a red candle and light it in the bedroom. Then she rubs my general uterine area and tells me that she’s blessing my womb.

I’ll take what I can get, right? If she wants to bless my womb with magic, then I’m in. I’m in agreement. Hook up the blessings because I’ll take whatever herb, and I’ll work out every day and quit coffee and quit drinking and meditate on the yellow warm light of my womb because why not? But at the same time, I’m thinking that maybe telling someone to be exposed to more cum as the answer for infertility woes is not the most compassionate response. Then J tops it and tells me that at 37, my body is heading toward menopause and I’m about to go through hormonal purgatory anyway.

Last night, we went to my brother in law’s birthday dinner. My sister in law has four children– two sets of twins. She shoots from both ovaries every month. She has had a couple of abortions because she, too, gets pregnant even while on birth control. After her second set of twins, she had a tubal ligation because she just couldn’t stop getting pregnant. My BIL’s friend was there with his wife, who has given birth to two daughters almost one year apart. My SIL sees the baby and turns to me and says, “Doesn’t looking at babies make you want to have one?” And the truth is no, looking at babies does not make me want to have one, and then I immediately wonder if this is the problem. That baby at dinner last night has empty shark eyes, and I am not exaggerating. She’s a sullen little bundle of no personality, and maybe she’s going to grow up to have some light in her eyes, but who knows? Another friend of mine had a baby on my birthday last year, and I swear to God, when I look at his pictures on facebook, the kid looks like a complete dick. When I look at those babies, I think about how odd it must be to give birth to a complete stranger. What a roll of the dice. Furthermore, one of my SIL’s kids is severely autistic, and she says she’s sure that the reason for his autism is her auto-immune disorder. Inflammation. And then I think about thyroid antibodies and how that’s evidence of an autoimmune disorder, and I wonder if my body is killing my eggs before they have a chance to grow. And I wonder how I would handle having a child with such severe disabilities.

To top off the evening, our waitress was pregnant. My husband used to work with her, and remarked that she’d gained some winter weight (“And it’s beautiful on you ha ha ha!”) and she replied that the pregnancy was definitely not planned; it was a complete shock, but not an unwelcome one, and they are just so damn excited.

Three years of infertility. Quite possibly a lifetime of infertility. What kind of adult life will I have without parenthood as a part of it? When do we get to give up and have sex again like people who love each other?

My Liver Qi is all jacked, apparently.

05 Sunday Jan 2014

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The last time I went to see my doctor, she mentioned some drugs to help me avoid migraines, but they’re all anti-seizure medications that are associated with birth defects.  She mentioned a friend of hers who does acupuncture and who has $20 Tuesdays, which all sounded great until I looked at the website; it’s part-salon, like you can have a manicure and also have acupuncture. You can have your toes done while you have needles in your ankles. This doesn’t really seem like the kind of experience I wanted to have, even if the result is all the same and it’s cheaper. So I called a friend of my friend’s. We set it up for Friday at 11:00. Even though it’s more expensive.

So I went. Even though I seriously consulted the internet for what to expect, I still didn’t know exactly what to expect, and the truth is that my experience was exactly what the internet said it would be. She looked at my tongue. She listened to my pulses. She stuck a few points in– top of my head, middle of my forehead, hands, and about six down each lower leg, and then I lay there for about a half an hour. I could feel aching in my hands, and something not unlike aching or like a deep stretch in my legs. I also swear I felt it in my ovary. The left one.

Before I left, she told me not to eat dairy and to exercise more. Stagnation of the liver qi, she said, which is not the liver but is a different kind of liver. This is what makes my menstrual blood brown and makes me hate my husband’s shirts and teeth right before I start menstruating. I need to go for long walks and breathe deeply, and unclog my qi to get the life force all up in my girlbits.

And okay, I know I’m being snarky. I wasn’t snarky when I left. I was all a warm puddle. I felt like my bones were soft and pliable, and while I was on the table, I could feel the possibility of life beginning with me. I wanted to take that feeling and hold onto it tightly and never, ever, let it go. But then two hours after I came home, Jesse and I were sword fighting in the dining room– I, with my roll of wrapping paper and he with the broken wand from the blinds– and then he didn’t have a face. He did, but he didn’t. And then I saw the zig-zag lines, like a carnival ride just out of my sight, and I knew I’d be in for a migraine. I went to see the acupuncturist about migraines and also about fertility. If it brought on a migraine, does that mean it will bring on fertility?

That migraine knocked me on my ass. I threw up; I couldn’t handle light or sound, and I couldn’t think of the correct words to use to say to turn the fucking television down. I took three aleve (knowing adverse affects on fertility, la la la) and when that didn’t do a thing to lessen the pain, I opted for a vicodin. It still hurt. Even today, it hurt, and then I was in for round two. This time, I took one of my friend’s Imitrex, which wiped it out within an hour. Monday, I am going to ask for a prescription for Imitrex for just me. I figure if the migraines are menstrual, it’ll probably be safe to take the drug since I’ll have missed whatever window may have existed for me to become pregnant.

I also wonder what the effect of pregnancy will be on my headaches. (Look how optimistic I just was.) If I go back for another acupuncture treatment (Thursday) and have another migraine, that will be the last time I ever have acupuncture. The migraine has taken away all of the fuzzy softness that the needles gave me.

On my phone’s accurate prediction of my period

02 Thursday Jan 2014

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On the flight from Las Vegas to Portland, I was reading The Adults by Alison Espach, and I got to a part that I would quote if I hadn’t read it on my kindle and could more easily find it. The protagonist is fifteen, and she is remembering peeing her pants at a funeral and telling her mother about it. She thinks of herself as a burden to her mother, who hugs her, and the protagonist thinks of this moment when she finds it life itself a burden; she thinks of the embrace as the result of love when you confuse someone’s skin for your own. Having just left my mother 38,000 feet and hundreds of miles below, I couldn’t help but cry on the plane.

And then I realized that what I was experiencing was PMS, and that I was going to start my period, just like my phone said I would. And it would be early by a day. Today, it is official. I am officially not pregnant. I’m 37 and a half, and I have not been able to get pregnant while I have been passively trying for three years. In the last year, that trying has been more frantic and deliberate, and I have realized that I don’t ovulate. I also think I have a luteal phase defect. I am hypothyroid, and I am treating it. And with each new menstrual cycle, I feel more acutely the passing of time. I see it in my gray eyebrow hair, my laugh lines, my stray chin whisker. I am losing time.

Lately, I’ve been thinking of numbers. I think about my own mother, who is 63, and who, if I had a child this year, might not see that child marry or have a child. My mother faces her mortality, and the answer to her mortality is that I have a child. The answer to my own mortality is that I have a child. 38 means I will be 56 at graduation. When my imaginary child is my age, I will be 75. I will be allowed to die; I will be passed over in the obituaries as not-so-much-a-shame, not someone with so much life left to live.

I imagine love. I imagine love in my belly. It is warm and yellow and it radiates. Can I will you, my child, into existence with my body? Can my mind convince my body to ooze my genes and hold them safe long enough for him to shoot his genes at mine, and that collision will mix with orgasms and then we will create a person. Why not my body? Why other bodies with meth amphetamines or cocaine or abuse and stress, but not mine? Why another woman’s one night stand but not my real love?

I imagine my grandmother hovering above me, waiting to live again, waiting for me to birth another extension of her into this world. I take back every time I ever said I did not want to live. I did not mean it. I want to live, I want to live, I want to live.

I watch television and I see that commercial, that give thanks commercial about children with cancer, and I wonder who has it worse– the childless or the parents whose child faces death prematurely, and I think I would rather not feel that pain. Then I wonder if my refusal to feel the pain of that immense loss is what prevents me from bringing to life a human being.

I am a scientist. My bathroom is full of my equipment. Test this urine. Spit on this slide. Hypothesize. Diagnose. Supplement and meditate and try again tomorrow. Or in twelve days. Or sixteen. Try not to resent the blood. The blood is life. I need this blood to go into a new body, and then I will love it; I will love that body so hard and I will whisper love, unconditional and warm into that brain, and I will hope against hope that the body I bring into existence with this alchemy of orgasms will not hate itself, will choose love and will love itself too.