Dr. Evil's Angelic Twin

Insemination Day on Thursday went swimmingly. We were a bit nervous about our reunion with Dr. Evil, as to be expected, but she must have sensed my psychotic and potentially violent tendencies because she sent her angelic Twin (Dr. WHO-THE-FUCK-ARE-YOU-AND-WHAT-HAVE-YOU-DONE-WITH-DR.-EVIL?)as her stand-in. She was like a regular Mary Frickin'-Frackin' Poppins... measuring practically perfect in every way. She was communicative, complimentary and down right delightful; complete with ear to ear smiles and genuine well-wishes. I dare confess that I actually felt a twinge of guilt for firing her. I mean... what kind of asshole fires Mary Poppins???

My two week wait will be spent largely relaxing on the beach in Oahu and Maui so I'm not frettin' that one teensy weensy bit. In fact... I don't know who drugged me but I'm feeling pretty darn delighted about this whole experience so far. Somebody pinch me. Or at least shoot me with a tranquilizer gun.

chubby eggs and awkward pauses

I had a Day 13 ultrasound today and by god those teensy tiny little fiery Baptist pills appear to have been successful, as my follicles, though not quite mature enough yet, were significantly closer to maturity at Day 13 than ever before. They were not their usual mostly circular shape, but instead have morphed into these odd elongated amoeba like spindly thingies, but hey... whatever. Maybe the longer they are, the more surface area they cover to make themselves available for the swimmers. Maybe swimmers prefer imperfect eggs? Hey... whatever works - I'll take it. The unfortunate news is that my damned polyp is back. Or maybe another one has grown, but some sort of polyp is there anyway. fuck a duck! So the plan of attack is to proceed through this cycle with an HCG shot tomorrow morning and then do an insemination on Thursday. If I don't conceive this cycle then I have to go back on Day 3 of my next cycle, get my uterus filled up with saline (YUM!) to have a closer looksy at this thing, and likely have it surgically removed. In other words, anesthesia and crapping my pants is likely in my near future. Gee... I know I've said this before but I SURE DO hope I get pregnant this cycle!!!

When we made our appointment for the insem, we were informed that it would be Dr. Evil who would be performing the IUI, MUCH to our chagrin. But... but... "you fired her" you might exclaim in shocked disbelief. Yes, yes indeed we did. And apparently that doesn't fuckin' matter. The way this clinic works, we don't have a choice with regards to the inseminations because they just get whomever is available. Can you say "awkward???" Yes... let's all say it together, shall we? I just hope that bitch has the professionalism and desire for self-preservation to not do something vile and spit in my sperm or something otherwise cruel to me out of bitterness and revenge. What if she switched the sperm sample and I ended up with a wonderbread baby??? Can you imagine. It's not like I can shout across the delivery table... "umm... excuse me, Dr. Baby Catcher, but this one is the wrong color. I was expecting one in a palish shade of olive. Can you please take this back." Because that would REALLY shatter my plans for "cut the cord and bring me another lover!" as my planned first sentence upon seeing my newborn beloved addition to the family. and I hate it when things don't go according to plan.

could have been but isn't so...

April 29th. Well… that makes me 34 and one quarters old. But there’s more (far less interesting though) significance to that date as well. Nine or so months ago I had signed up for the Baby Gaga site that was gracious enough to email me weekly updates about how my little fetus thingie was doing; what is was growing that week, what to expect to feel, etc. I distinctly remember celebrating “BRAINS” week. I was gulping my “ass powder” (don’t bother asking unless you really want to know) morning beverage in the kitchen at work when my coworker approached me and I excitedly declared…

“DUDE – CHECK IT OUT! Today, my pellet is growing BRAINS!!! It’s very important that you don’t fuck with me in any way shape or form today because I need to concentrate or Drakey will be VERY disappointed if the outcome isn’t what she paid for.”

She got it, I think; or perhaps was very afraid that Drakey would track her ass down and rip out her soul because she may have agitated her wife at such a fragile time with her statements, looks, demeanor or overall odor. Or at least she nodded and smiled and backed away slowly from the clearly insane pregnant lady. Whatever. She made good choices at the time.

But alas, that time and that dream passed. I’m not bitter. Ooooh okay, who the fuck am I kidding?… maybe just a little bit. But! Check it out. So, today I received my 38th weekly edition email from Baby Gaga saying… “YOUR PREGNANCY - WEEK 38” and I thought… well, maybe now would be a good time to unsubscribe to this god damn email since the baby ain’t comin’ and the number 38 now only refers to the number of inches I’ve gained around the belly in BEER and not babies over the past many months. I glanced at it more thoroughly before hitting the unsubscribe button and noticed that my due date would have been April 29th. Funny… you’d think that I would have known that but it’s one of those things that got pushed back into the crevasses of my ass-brain for probably some deeply psychological reasons that Sigmund Freud or Carl Jung would have spouted as text book “FUBAR”. Again… whatever. The psyche does what it needs to do. The somat gets fat just for good measure… and to honor the dead or what could have been, I suppose. I am sure I knew and remembered the due date at one point. And I was reminded again today. What struck me as interesting/ironic, however, is that it happens to coincide with the day we are leaving on our trip to Hawaii. You know… that trip to Hawaii that I’ve been growing so uncontrollably excited about over the past weeks that I can now barely stand to mention the word without peeing a little? Yah; *that* trip!

So… back to April 29th. Two scenarios. What could have been?
This feels like a bizarre twist on a Gweneth Paltrow movie about Sliding Doors. Hmm, let’s see… visions of primal screams, panic and rage, anxiety and hope, guts and glory, beauty and miracles and well… let’s be honest, blood guts and sterile metal stirrups with those clipper things that sever your chode from your chode from your whatever the hell you call it (maybe just “FUCKING OUCH!” to keep things simple and laymen-like). Oh, and of course there would be dancing, or at least the fist pumping version of it, from the peanut gallery; and many voices shouting “welcome to Earth” to the new mini-me.

Or… version TWO; dubbed “Reality”.
Greetings of “Aloha” in pleasant cultivated Hawaiian tones, the fragrance of fresh strung lei’s, maybe some hula dancing (but please god don’t let those penises flap around out of their grass skirts like that one dude’s did when my mother forced me to take hula dancing lessons when I was eight), MaiTai’s on the beach, Hawaiian massages, a little sunshine on my prego-imitation beer belly, adult beverages before noon, dancing wildly by a bonfire with only shells covering my nipples, and of course the primal pain of a hangover after a full day and night of sweet fruity alcoholic umbrella drinks. And for Christ's sake, dont' forget the plastic pink monkey's!!! Cuz those I'd be pulling out of my secret bra pockets the next day.

Honestly – if given the choice,I’d be knee deep in blood, nasty bits and primal screams if I could, but I’ve got to say that if I had to spend my “What-if” anniversary doing anything at all? I’ll take the Maui sunset. I'll take the reality of something to still look forward to. I'll accept the notion that the Universe will provide when the time is good and right. And you know what? I think I can find the strength to live with the compromise.

little pills

I *finally* arrived... bloated, zit faced and mildly homicidal on Cycle Day 1 last Thursday. Thank God and about blasted time! So, this means that I start my first cycle technically on fertility meds. whoo-fuckin'-hoo! My prescription says that I take 1 pill daily for just 5 days between CD 3 and CD 7. Yesterday was my first dosage and I haven't gained 30 pounds or attempted to hump any inanimate objects yet so according to my calculations, so far so good with regards to unwelcome side affects. I'm keeping my fingers crossed that I get through dosage # 2 unscathed as well. These pills are funny little things. They couldn't be 1/4 the size of my largest nostril but they are supposed to grow my follicles big and plump? Interesting. We'll see about that. I wonder how it all works; this biochemistry bit about western medicine? If I were a drug manufacturer I would probably do things a bit differently. First and foremost, I'd insist that everybody address me as "Thine Drug Lord" and secondly, instead of relying on years of medical research by well-educated PhD's and thousands of dollars spent on testing, love letters to the FDA, etc. I would likely try to come up with pills that worked through appealling to one's psyche or emotions versus one's body chemistry. For instance, wouldn't it be nice if that little pill served as like a highly affective lobbyist or maybe like a cross between an angry fitness trainer and a fiery babtist minister that got into my blood stream, made it's way into my ovaries and then just started hammering on my eggs, demanding them to do as they are told. "GROW EM' BIG BITCH, GROW 'EM BIG!!!!! Whose yo' Daddy??? Whose large and in charge here, yo?? C'Mon, puff up like you mean it! You can DOOOOOO ITTT!!!!!GRRRRRRROOOOOOOOOWWWWWWWWW!!!!!!!!!"

Clearly, I'm in the wrong profession and these talents and dreams, well... they remain unharvested.

moms malls and mervyns

Drakey and i were watching tv tonight in our side by side lazy girl chairs when an Olive Garden commercial came on with this business about pasta with cheese and angus beef and all sorts of off the hook goodness and i looked over to her and said something to the tune of...

"jesus tits ! - that looks good!!! i want to go there. and because the Olive Garden is right next to the mall, we should plan on saturday to go eat that beef and cheese pasta business and then mall walk all afternoon and just buy a whole bunch of shit. like... whatever we see."

and Drakey paused for a moment, reflectively; bent over and picked her jaw back up off of the floor, turned to me and said in a very serious, concerned tone... "who are you and what the fuck have you done with my wife?"

you see... i don't go to malls. EVER. at least not since i was old enough to make logical decisions or be forcefully resistant (ie... use highly advanced kung fu moves to combat my mother). i would honestly rather be tied to a barbed wire fence, naked and upside down with blood rushing to my head and oozing out my eyeballs and forced to listen to Annette Funicello songs on repeat in the pouring down rain - or hell, let's make that SLEET, than hang out in a MALL! really, i would. but don't send this info to the FBI or the Taliban, please.

and then the story came drooling out... of my memory as well as my mouth. one that drake actually HADN'T heard before which is a real shocker considering how much i enjoy talking about myself and my childhood. the truth of the matter is that i have spent A LOT of time at malls. i could make the Minnesotan bitches that frequent the Mall of America look like amateurs. my mother was a stay at home mom in the
70's/80's and well... liked to shop!!! i had no choice in the matter. i was forced against my will to walk malls as a child. A LOT! multiple times a week. it's how i stayed fit.

true story: when adults used to ask me the typical adult to child get to know you questions that were still safe to ask in the 80's - "how old are you and where do you live, little girl?" - my response was "I'm 6 and I live at Westgate". The Mall. One of 3 malls, actually, that I probably thought that I lived at. I blurted out this seemingly truthful exclamation in front of my father one day, mistakenly, and there followed some apparently uncomfortable conversations between he and my mother. For the record, I believe they've gotten over it now. Anyway... it all came back to me tonight. After I reached an age where I was physically capable of running for safety my mother used mind trickery and psychological mind-fuck tactics to force me to the mall with her. Her favorite schtick was to bribe me with A&W hotdogs (plain; no relish or yellow mustard) and rootbeer floats if I'd agree to go to the mall afterwards with her. Funny, 25-30years later, Drakey has clued in to this same technique to get me to go shopping with HER! the nerve. anyway... every Tuesday we had to visit my grandmother... ALL the live long day/afternoon. It was just a thing and it wasn't negotiable. I would, of course, get awfully bored hanging out with a bunch of old ladies (some of whom could not speak in complete sentences, which was clearly offensive to a highly intelligent 6-10 year old) and so my mother would send me next door to Mervyns. Mervyns was attached to a mall (West Gate, actually) but apparently I never ventured out of the underoos section of Mervyns. I hung out with and conversed with fabric-bound superheros and probably curious shoppers inquiring about the quality and desirability of children's undergarments an hour or two every Tuesday until my mother or one of my aunts would come fetch me. They, of course, could always count on my being in the underoos section so it really wasn't a problem. My point to all this (and I DO have one) is simple. Amusement. Self-entertainment. Being an only child, I became a highly resourceful, imaginative, self-amused person. I cut paper dolls out of Mervyns (okay, so maybe I'm starting to think there was some sort of Mervyn's issue?) catalog children's ads, put them into schools and gave them all names (all 500+ of them). They lived in shoe boxes when they weren't in class learning about politics and Southeast Asia and underoos, of course! I chilled, happily, at Mervyns amongst masses of underwear for hours at a time. I am no longer that person. Now, I freak out if I find myself bored for more than 2 minutes. I actually start to melt down. I can't imagine being stuck in an underwear section of a store in a mall TODAY! God help me! I get pissy with my wife if she is not in the mood to entertain me in some way. What happened? What is it that kids have that adults don't? and can this shit be bottled and sold in pill form? Cuz I'd pay. I'd pay big fuckin' bucks for those Mervyn's mentality days. At what age does that disappear? or does it? is it just me? I may be conducting some experiments in the coming days.

What's your wacky bored childhood story?