How Much Do You Trust FedEx?

Would you trust them with your kids? What about your frozen globs of potential kids? We need to have our 12 frozen embryos shipped from our old stomping grounds in NC here to TX so that they can be transferred into my uterus where they will promptly raise their tiny cellular middle fingers at me and fling themselves out of my cervix, having lost all will to live (apparantly, judging by our past success, my uterus is like a shady Motel 6 with cockroaches on the floor and suspicious stains on the sheets and crackheads next door... no place for proper refined embryos... my son must have low standards). I have dragged my feet on this task mainly because it involves getting 35,000 pieces of paper from various sources plus my husband, a notary and me in the same place all at once and that has proved almost impossible. (Hey... sounds like a good joke... "A husband, a notary and an infertile walk into a bar..."). Without officially signed pieces of paper, the labs that currently house our embryos won't ship them and the lab here won't receive them. And now suddenly I find myself starting a cycle in which embryos are supposed to be put in me and said embryos are half way across the country. I am torn between giving up on this month but trying to get them here for next month and spending all day talking to labs, finding a notary, throwing him into the back of a speeding white van with no windows (ski mask on my face, obviously), binding and gagging him, dragging him into the OR where my husband is busily giving his patients happy drugs, taking a hit for myself, getting those papers signed and overnighted, and hoping that FedEx pulls through for me.

I Think I've Found My Niche

I've been wondering how an MD with an aversion to work can come up with a little extra spending money. I've run through a million ideas in my head, but I think I may have finally stumbled across the right one. As you are aware from my previous posts, I have entered a crafty stage. First, please view my inspiration.

http://whatnottocrochet.wordpress.com/2008/01/12/tampon-cozies/

The uterus-shaped one got me thinking. There are WAHM (work at home moms) out there who crochet hats, scarves, blankets, sweaters, soakers for cloth diapers and the list goes on. But I've yet to run across anyone who has cornered the infertile market. So I'm gonna do it. Some ideas for my new line:

1. Teardrop-shaped tampon cozies for the times when seeing your period... AGAIN... is just a little more than you can handle.

2. Ovary ice-pack covers in sizes ranging from "raisin" for the "geriatric ovary" to "watermelon" for the PCOS-er for that post-retrieval tingle.

3. Socks that reach all the way up to your thighs to keep you warm in the stirrups.

4. Blankets that can be used as modesty sheets at the reproductive endocrinologist... I mean don't you feel kind of bad for the guy having to spend a fortune on all those paper sheets cycle after cycle after cycle?

5. Syringe cozies for warming up your progesterone in oil shots... because THAT's going to make it hurt less.

6. A discreet little carrying case with space for a vial, a needle, an alcohol wipe and a bandaid for the times you get to haul a bunch of embarrassing injectible drugs to your in-laws for dinner and crouch in their bathroom silently pumping your body full of hormones.

7. A Gatorade koozie- no OHSS for you!

8. Earmuffs for lunch with the girls, one of whom is forever wondering "when you're going to have kids already!" She just doesn't get why you don't, I mean she just has them without even trying! All he husband has to do is look at her. And you know, she just HATES being pregnant! All that nausea, the weight gain, lucky you, never being pregnant. Oops. You can't hear her. Darn earmuffs.

So these are just a few ideas I've been tossing around. I am sure I can come up with more. Now I'll need a name...

Maybe it Should Have Been Named "Marsupial Love"

So about this quilting class. I went yesterday and one of the other (maturer) students was acting... odd. She was odd at the first class, but this time she seemed to be both odd and pharmacologically enhanced in some way (Valium? Oxycontin?). So after listening to her talk incoherently about her new sewing machine (and TO her new sewing machine... the built-in scissors! the computer screen! the needle settings!) for most of the class, I am sitting across from her dutifully attempting to sew PRECISELY 1/4 inch seams into looooong strips of fabric. She looks up at me and says, "My little boy is getting frisky." I, um... your, um... um... what? "My little boy is getting frisky." So I give her my best "your particular brand of crazy is making me uncomfortable" look and say, "I don't understand what you mean." So she turns her back to me and sits there. Well, this clears it right up. Finally she says, "Don't you see it?" And then I do. I see something inside her shirt moving. I ask, "What IS that?" And she pulls out what looks very much like a rodent to me, but I have since been informed is a marsupial, thank you very much. More precisely, a sugar glider. It is in her shirt (and I can only assume has been in her shirt... doing what?... nursing?... for the past 2 hours) so that it becomes more friendly. I am quite sure I do not need or want to know any more about her friendly, bra-dwelling rodent/marsupial, but she's not done. Next, she starts talking about the female she has at home who is pregnant with twins (at this point I realize I am jealous of a rodent/marsupial) and how after this pregnancy, she'll have to separate her and her mate because her body needs a break from pregnancy. And finally the conversation (if you can call it that... one person talking, one sewing fast enough to make the machine hover ever so slightly over the table) turns to the sexual practices of her pets and how she's walked in on their rodent (sorry, marsupial) love three times. Oh my gawd.

So here is my question. Can marsupials have rabies, because I am starting to wonder of perhaps I should take precautions next week to ensure she doesn't bite me?

Me so crafty

I was going to title this one "Me 'sew' crafty," but I even annoyed myself with that title so I compromised. I am feeling uninspired.

I decided that there's really no reason to delay becoming an 80-year-old woman, so I have decided to add quilting and crocheting to my repertoire (which now consists of knitting and... knitting). It is my hope that by the end of the year I will have covered every surface in my home (including my husband and son) with crocheted white doilies. Why not? I've got nothing else to do. So I have enrolled myself in a beginning quilting class. The teacher is very nice and the other two students are... maturer than I. But before I can quilt I had to learn to sew so last weekend I went to a very cool, young, funky local craft shop and took a beginning sewing class. The other two students in that class were... less mature than I. It was a lot of fun and I came away with a new tote bag which I now carry everywhere and spend hours gazing adoringly at. I'd post a picture, but our only working computer has non-working USB ports so until the camera learns to send its pictures through mental telepathy the pics are all stuck inside of it.

Now that I can sew a wavy line and create simple tote bags, I have visions of a new craft business dancing in my head. Problem is that I have entirely too many ideas (and well, very little experience, except that I would be able to treat any injury I inflicted upon myself while wielding sharp scissors and needles and such). I will probably purchase a few patterns, test my hand at them with the intention of asking friends for opinions and promptly become bored and decide to train dogs for a living (this is exactly why I am an M.D. who doesn't practice).

In other news... it is very hard to try to pretend that you're not hoping to get pregnant when you know for sure that you're ovulating because all those years of injecting yourself full of cow hormones have caused your ovaries to start groaning and creaking and generally making themselves known every time they crank out an egg. Perhaps they'd chill out if I covered them with some nice white doilies.

Good-bye 2007. I spit in your general direction.

A good swift kick in the nuts to '07 on its way out, and welcome to what I can only pray will be a better year. Good-bye move halfway across the country, good-bye miscarriage, good-bye dislocated shoulder (my hubbie's, not mine), good-bye sweet favorite dog.

Not that it was all bad. Like every good infertile, I've gotta qualify any complaint with "well, at least we have our son." After all, you must make sure that the universe knows that you are GRATEFUL and HAPPY and for heaven's sakes, pleeeeease don't do anything to him, and well, ok, if it's not too much to ask, might we have another? Yet another sequela of infertility: the fear that what you finally got can be taken away in a flash. I am sure that every parent worries to varying degrees depending on their own personalities that something will happen to their children. It is that worry that keeps you vigilant so that your infant doesn't attempt sword-swallowing and your toddler doesn't ride his tricycle Evil Knievel-style off the staircase. However, I think it's different when your life circumstances have taught you to expect disappointment and sadness where children are concerned. But, I digress.

New year, new possibilities. Look out, '08. My expectations are high. You've got a lot of work to do.