For my love.

Ten years ago today
we talked in metaphor.
After weeks of dating without
saying we were dating,
we were together. For good.

We first exchanged
I Love Yous
on top of the Empire
State Building, facing
north.

We first kissed in a grungy
cabin in the woods.

We first lived in a studio
flat with an insanely yellow
bathroom,
a lobster toy
inexplicably hanging
from the cord.

We have explored
together – America, Scotland,
Italy, Canada, Holland, France,
England, Wales, Ireland -
and probably other places,
too.

We married ourselves with no
fanfare, or legality.
Four years ago today we made
it legal, but
to me
and to you
it is the ten years that count -
the law did not suddenly
make our marriage
more real.

We have lived in tents
for months at a time.
We have lived in that cabin
again and again. We have lived
in one of the world’s biggest
and most beautiful cities.
Now we live here,
surrounded by green.

We have been by bus,
train, plane, car, boat,
foot. Mile after mile in this
life
together,
me and you.

We have watched my belly
swell and ripen,
we have held two newborn
babies – a son
and a daughter -
and seen our family grow.

We’ve been wowed by our tiny
kitten, we have worked
for the same companies
three times,
we have laughed
and loved
a lot.

Thanks for this
ten years.

Thanks for the next sixty,
too.

A life of one’s own.

Nanowrimo starts soon. Still, before it begins, I will:

take another driving test
have four more driving lessons
become a citizen of this country
hopefully register to vote in my other country
have my four month anniversary at my new job
possibly get on the birth control pill for the ivf stuff
see High School Musical 3
see Ani DiFranco in concert
go to some Chuck D lecture thing with Aussie

I’ve just noted that November 1 we are due to have a Risk tournament at Epilady’s house. I’ve never played it before, but merely being in a house together with a group of people who think it is cool to play board games should mean that it’s quite a fun time. No, I am not being sarcastic.

Aussie once made us play some Dracula game, and I even enjoyed that; TMD did not.

I am going to try and not let Risk ruin Nano for me (for a link and more information, click ‘my memory stick’ at right), though my mother is also coming to visit for a week in November. Anyway.

Baby maroons.

Had a night of dreams about IVF, only they were not anxiety dreams. In fact, I rather liked living in that little world. I don’t know who looks forward to daily injections, needles being poked through the vaginal wall, and extreme nerviness of the two week wait (while you wait to see if you’re pregnant), but…..even if no one else does, I do.

Right now we’re waiting on the results of the chromosomal analysis and the cytic fibrosis tests. Assuming both those come back fine, we’re good to go. This means that when my period next starts, I’ll be on the birth control pill – I must say, the last time I came off of those puppies I didn’t think I’d ever go back on them.

So all being well, we’ll be doing the whole GET ME PREGNANT thing in December.

I wish it was tomorrow.

Just THINKING about the driving test Friday makes me uncontrollable.

This country:

allows you to reverse around corners
has no word for garbage trucks
thinks it’s okay to drink hot things in the summer

is awesome with gay things
gave birth to TMD
speaks the same language as me

All in all, it may look like the score is currently even. You know what screws it up?

Driving tests. These motherfuckers have such hard driving tests it is like you are training to be a surgeon or something. There’s the written test, another test where you stare at a computer screen for a million hours clicking the mouse whenever danger appears (awesome videos, let me tell you), and then the test itself. My driving instructor keeps telling me they (we, after I get citizenship on Monday) have the hardest practical driving test in the world.

Roll on, Saturday.

I am still angry at parallel parking. While a sane part of me knows our side mirror was probably not set up right, it was on a hill, and it was pitch black…..a more primal part of me wants to rip apart a driving instruction manual, piss on it, and then dance naked around it while chanting some threatening little ditty.

Watch this space.

Even the grey clouds can’t get me down.

Today is shaping up into an altogether tasty day. Highlights include:

1. My new career as an envelope decorator. One of the children I work with has a birthday soon, and I have rarely enjoyed coloured pens and stickers so much.

2. Myself and a friend at work are talking entirely in Haiku.

3. The session I was anxious about all last night was kickin’. I took the lead and I think it went really well. A little of my confidence is back.

4. My sister and I are exchanging very long emails about very big stuff. It feels gorgeous.

The only thing that would make today better is if I already had my license and TMD had left the car at home, allowing me to drive and pick up dinner. She’s out really late this evening, and I really fancy chips.

The only blight in my day, which is actually so screwy I kind of enjoy it, is that my septum really fucking hurts if I push up on it. I think this is my nose’s way of telling me it is not happy that it is not pierced. Damn TMD for repiercing her nose and looking so good – and not wanting to be ‘twins*.’ She wants to be ‘a cool lesbian mum.’

I will have to find a way to be cool. I suspect it will involve envelopes in some way.

Peace out, bro’. For reals.

* Besides, I tell her, you aren’t twins with someone if opposite sides of the nose are pierced. Dental health be damned, I never should have taken out my tongue ring. That’s cooler than the nose thing any day.

Baby momma.

Was back at the clinic this morning. Some complicated period math went on.

You see, I have to have all my blood tests back before I am accepted as an egg donor. The doctor-lady said I could start taking the pill next Tuesday (when my period is due, so whenever it actually starts) as then if the tests were all fine we could go ahead with the drugs and treatment.

Then there was a big ass gap before we saw the nurse. I think they were actually discussing a potential match? I’m not sure. The nurse gave me the pill (I need to regulate my cycle to match that of the egg recipient) but told me not to take it until they called. This effectively means I wouldn’t start it until around about 30 October, when the next period would be due. THIS means that drugs&stuff would start in November and intensify in December, when the egg retrieval and embryo replacement (can’t actually think of the technical term for this) would be.

THIS is dodgy because the clinic is closed in the week between Christmas and New Year, so if either of my next two periods are late it could push everything back grotesquely and we’d have to try later. The doctor-lady didn’t seem too worried about it, so nor will I.

Am still feeling very very VERY positive about IVF.

Had a ‘moment’ when filling in some egg donation forms. They asked if the first cycle wasn’t succesful and there were frozen embryos, could they continue to treat the egg recipient – or something to that effect. I suddenly thought/felt, If I’m going to do this, I’m going to do it right. I don’t wish any harm to the woman who will receive my eggs. I am working on being open-hearted enough to hope she has success, though that part is a bit difficult as I am still protective about my eggs.

But she’s been on a waiting list for a long time, I have thousands of eggs I will never use, and I know what it feels like to want a baby. I hope hope hope we get pregnant this first go, but if we don’t I think I’d happily go through another egg donation cycle of IVF.

Cross your fingers, yo-dee-lady-de-who.

It’s coming out of the crapper, take one.

Went to the hospital this morning for the longest consultation known to man. The doctor thinks my ‘problem’ is not gynocological in nature; indeed, she thinks I might have IBS.

I’m now stocked up on powdered laxatives and ‘anti-spasmodic’ drugs to take before I eat. I do this little routine for a month and cross my fingers. I have a follow up appointment in three months.

This is still very up-in-the-air, but the nice thing (I suppose) is that some student doctor got to see her first real live cervix today…….mine.

The doctor said I can go ahead with starting IVF for the next cycle. Tomorrow is our IVF consult. All I am waiting on is blood test results. I need to pick some up from my normal doctor’s; if they haven’t all been done, I need to get more blood drawn at a premium rate. Still, these outstanding blood tests are ones with quick results. That means that all going well, I’ll start taking some IVF related drugs next month!

Bring on the baby….and the poop.

September evenings smell so good.

Went back to the clinic this week for – drumroll, please – more blood tests. We also had ‘counselling.’ Over the past couple of weeks, I’ve had an intensifying feeling that I really may not be very good at my new job. Still, TMD keeps doing impressions of the counsellor we saw, and I think all I have to do to remember that I don’t suck is realise that at least I’m not OPENING MY MAIL during sessions.

Still, she hooked us up with what will probably be a useful network, told us to sort out our wills, and also showed us a book I really rilly want. It’s called Our Story, or something like that. It’s the story of two moms and their baby/child – how they had to go to the hospital to help get pregnant, etc. It’s not as creepy as Heather Has Two Moms (sorry, I know I am offending all you right on lesbians out there, but I remember that book being fucking WEIRD), and has cute kid-drawn illustrations. I want it, dudettes. Only seven smackaroonies.

The other useful thing the counsellor said was that we are already trying to conceive. In a bizarre way I already feel pregnant, though obviously that hasn’t happened. However, A Good Friend Who May Wish To Remain Anonymous thinks she’s pregnant with the next Jesus, and if that’s true I’m pregnant with Jesus III.

I think the only thing I have any doubts about is donating eggs. Am I not the altruistic kind? In a way, it feels like giving a child up for adoption or something. It’s odd as I have no ethical qualms about using donor sperm; though I do think women tend to be more precious about their eggs. Since our visit to the clinic on Thursday (?), I’ve been googling ‘IVF versus IUI’ a lot, and I am feeling really rock solid about IVF. It is the right choice for us.

There are fears – if IVF doesn’t work, it would feel sort of hope-draining to have to go ‘backwards’ to IUI. But as much as I resist it, I am feeling ridiculously positive and shining about the baby I know IVF will bring us. We’re going to the clinic again next week to have the IVF consult. The only thing hanging over my head is this fucking laparoscopy. The pain in my lower right abdomen is clearly going away, and I am so impatient to cook me up some baby pancakes that I almost don’t want to bother with the surgery. I’ve got the consult for that next Monday.

I’ve been to hospitals/clinics/my doctor more times since July than I have in the ENTIRE time I’ve lived in this country.  (Oh, I’m almost an official citizen! My ceremony is on October 6. Rock on free passport holder!)

Have I ever told you about Daisy and Joey? When we were growing up, my sister liked punching me in the stomach. Fuck knows why. I got around this for a number of years by telling her I had twins growing in me. At one point, another baby called Petunia joined the crew – but it was really Daisy and Joey who ruled the roost.

In a completely crazy, mostly unscientific sort of way, I am convinced we are going to have twins. One in four IVF births does result in multiples, so it’s not too unreasonable to think it might happen to us. I think the whole Daisy and Joey argument is perhaps erring on the side of wack-a-doodle-doo…..but my friend Opposite Gender Soulmate told me he had a dream a few months back that he was looking at pictures of me and TMD on Facebook, and we had twins. While he initially wrote this off due to stalking my profile AND seeing a scary movie about twins (why oh why didn’t I ask the name of it? I wish my wife liked scary movies!), he now says he thinks he ‘saw the faces of our future children.’

He also pointed out that I do like having two of everything (ie ‘one for best’).

Fuck it. If I’m not allowed to be chirpy and charmingly superstitious in my own diary, where can I be?

(I still am having big pooping problems. TMD is not amused.)

PS – The counsellor asked me what my orientation was. My reaction was a quiet astonishment, since I was there with my wife. Turns out she meant my theorectical counselling orientation.

PPS – I had a PPS but wanted to get down the PS first, and now I forgot it. Fuck.

PPPS – Fuck! Thought I remembered it, but then got dissauded by another PS and now I think I’ve forgot that one as well.

PPPPS – YES. Had a dream last night – been dreaming a lot about IVF. Last night we had two perfect embryos ready to be put back in my womb, and it was a boy and a girl. (No, we’re not planning on asking for this information in real life.) This is what TMD would like to happen, and I turned to her in the dream and sort of sigh-talked, ‘It’s just what we wanted!’

PPPPPS – I changed the name of this country’s currency for ‘smackaroonies.’ Am I uber-paraboid or what?

Ain’t no party like a Diet Coke party.

This whole baby thing is already driving me slightly crazy. I don’t know what it will be like to be actually trying for a child, because right now I haven’t had anything done to my body (not really, anyway), and I already feel I can wear the label ‘trying to conceive’ without it being a total lie.

Went to my doctor’s in my lunch hour to pick up blood tests – only two results were back. They were the two I didn’t even need. There is a big question mark over the other tests and whether they will be free or not. Tomorrow morning I’ve got blood tests at our non-free clinic – tests for cystic fibrosis as well as a chromosomal analysis. This is to make sure I’m not donating eggs to other people that will hatch baby monsters, I assume.

I am just not a take-it-easy kind of person, much as I would like to think I am. I need to have things planned out, have a clear outline – at least in relation to babymaking. I’d like to know when we can start, and there is so much uncertainty in the air I’m always feeling a wee bit nervous. I also feel really really positive, though, so that’s the good part.

Every time my right abdomen hurts, I get annoyed because it means I will have to go ahead and have the laparoscopy. Annoying, and I bet they find nothing aside from the tiny cyst non-free clinic found. (Free tests did NOT find it. I am not surprised – you get what you pay for?)

I also know I’ve got the tendancy to go a bit obsessive. I think my major task right now is just relaxing. To that end, I am drinking tea again on occasion, as well as the odd Diet Coke. Go, me! I’m so crazy I don’t know what to do with myself!

Erm.

Cast away.

For the moment, I’ve decided that babychart.wordpress.com is too much fucking trouble. Back to Fertility Friend I go.

Truth is, since we’ve basically decided on IVF life has turned good again. I’m still taking my temp every morning and peeing on little ovulation sticks, but I’m not so fussed about the whole thing. I’m having some coffee at work and some Diet Coke at home.

I’m got more relaxed about my cervix (although it was SO LOW today it felt like it was trying to make a break for freedom). Everything seems easier and more normal, and I think that is because IVF takes the trouble out of conceiving. Don’t get me wrong – it adds injections and all sorts of IVF-y problems, but it makes me less fearful to take an allergy pill because they dry out your cervical fluid, and that is a sign of fertility.

I took an allergy pill last night and it was almost sensual it’s been so long since I had one.

I think IVF is the way I’ll feel most like myself, able to just live ordinary life – at least for the next month or two while we build up to it. And I think pregnancy is best and most likely when life is going on as per usual (assuming, of course, that life per usual doesn’t involve drugs/alcohol/bad things).

While gardening today I kept thinking, ‘Next year at this time there will be a little baby.’ I really hope that’s true. Or true times two.