It is amazing how quickly you can become attached to someone you haven’t even met when you are growing a baby. Especially when with no warning, you’re not.

Monday morning I went in for routine blood work to check my levels and make sure everything was progressing normally. My appointment was at 7:30 a.m., so when 3:00 p.m. rolled around and I hadn’t heard from them, I started to get worried. Then I decided it probably was just a typical Monday and they were running a little behind.

I really should pay more attention to my instincts.

When I finally got the call, it was not good news. My progesterone had dropped from 31 to 9. And my hCG had only gone up marginally from 1850 to about 2210. She told me I needed to come in Tuesday for an ultrasound “to see where the pregnancy is and make sure it’s in your uterus.”

Definitely not what you want to hear.

So yesterday morning, I went in for a VAGINAL ULTRASOUND. They looked at my ovaries and they looked at my uterus. What they found was not promising. I have what might be 2 or 3 cysts on my right ovary and nothing in my uterus. It’s unclear if I had a chemical pregnancy, or if I was pregnant and my body absorbed the pregnancy or if I might possibly be having an ectopic pregnancy.

To say that I was devastated would be a gross understatement. It felt like my entire world had just been ripped from the seams in a matter of minutes.

I went in this morning for more blood work and just got the call this afternoon. My numbers are falling back down and are back to where I essentially was Monday before last. So now it’s just a waiting game for my body to let go of what is no longer mine.

I cannot say this enough about my husband: He is a great man and I love him with all my heart. He means the world to me and I could not have made it through my darkest hour yesterday without him there by my side, loving me. He picked up the pieces when I, and then BAD Boy couldn’t hold it together. And even though he had to deal with with his own pain and grief, he stayed strong for us. I can never adequately say or show the depth of my gratitude or love for this man. He is amazing beyond words.

Both my nurse and my OB/GYN reassured me that there is a silver lining in this dark cloud. And that is that I can get pregnant. And that while we may never know why it didn’t take this time, there is a very good chance that we can do it again.

When we’re ready.

In the meantime, my family and I will work on healing.

So today I went and had more blood drawn by the nice vampires. They checked my progesterone to see if I ovulated and released an egg…or from the way things felt, eleventy billion. Minor details.

ANYWAY.

My nurse today told me that they were looking for levels of progesterone at 14 or above. You know, this is a tangent, but I really wish they would tell me the unit of measurement they’re using. I feel so weird saying level of 14. I mean, 14 what? Progesterones? I don’t think they can be their own unit of measurement, can they? /end tangent

So, being the overachiever that I am, I came up with a whopping 41.5 progesterones. Yay me! Now I just have to wait until the end of this cycle to see if I’m pregnant or not which means I have to sit tight for about another week. Which is fine.

Except.

You know how the other day I told you Freddy K. was being a big fat jerk face and trying to claw his way out of my lower abdomen? Well, he’s traveled a little lower. I know, ladies, you’re cringing. And yeah, it’s really that bad. Guys? Just imagine that someone kicked you in the nuts. With steel toed boots. TWICE. IN A ROW. Or just repeatedly. That should about do it as far as understanding what it feels like.

So, I have this ever so slightly unpleasant sensation in my nether regions today that won’t go away and today was the Teacher Appreciation Luncheon at the school. Guess who got to sit with 18 4th graders for an hour and a half? Yeah, that’s right. Me and my Freddy Kruger inflicted vagina. So. Much. Fun.

So to assuage the pain, I met up with a friend I hadn’t seen in ages, caught up with her and bought some yarn. And some super cute bags. It definitely helped me feel better, but didn’t actually help alleviate any of the pain. So I think I have just proved that shopping cannot cure everything. Damn.

So now, I am going to go have a tylenol (or 2) and a lay down and pretend like it’s helping. Yippee.

I am currently not puking by sheer force of will.

Isn’t that just what you wanted to hear? Hear me out. You know when you read all the side effects on a medication and they list the really horrible ones that happen to < 1% of the population? I am one those < 1%. It is not one of those things I am so thrilled about. And you know how your mom is always telling you that you’re special? Well, this is one of those instances where being special sucks ass.

My current < 1% symptom? Acute abdominal is what the literature calls it. I call it Freddy Kruger Is Trying To Claw His Way Out of My Abdomen. And! This little gem started right around the time when I am supposed to be ovulating. OH. MY. GOD. Is this what ovulating is like? Because if it is? FUCK YOU OVARIES! You can SUCK IT. And right now it’s just getting worse.

How much worse? Well, this morning between 4:14 am and 5:21 am I kept dreaming that SOMEONE WAS TRYING TO KILL ME. And then I would wake up and realize, nope, it was just MY OWN BODY TRYING TO KILL ME. No one else was necessary.

I’ve put in a call to my nurse and she thinks that it might be a cyst. I was told to take some tylenol and she’s going to talk to the doc and then get back to me. In the meantime, if you see me curled in the fetal position, do me a favor and put me out of my misery. I would rather have a VAGINAL ULTRASOUND! than this. And I do not say that lightly.

Ugh.

One of the side effects of being on baby making pills is the Cybil-esque mood swings. At least, it is a side effect for me. (I have never been able to take birth control pills for this very reason.) It’s almost like I am split into 2 people. One who is all logic and very Vulcan in my ability to be reasonable (but still incredibly sci fi geeky).  The other is… um, well…completely batshit insane. The other me is all raw emotion and reactionary and has no grip on, well, much of anything.

Hormones just might not be my friend. And poor B. He’s gonna get the brunt of it no matter how hard I try to just be one semi-reasonably sane person instead of this Jekyll-Hyde bizarreness while I’m taking the baby making pills. The man is unbelievable patient and I am really lucky that he is.

I’m hoping against hope that my body will adjust to all these hormones its being flooded with and maybe I will become one whole person who can temper emotion with reason. Because I sure as hell don’t want to feel like this for any longer than absolutely necessary. According to the infertility nurse, we do this for 6 months before pursuing other options of we don’t get knocked up. If this is how it’s going to be every time, we may not make it past month 2. Three months tops.

I mean, as much as I would love to have  a kid, I like the idea of staying sane even more. I’m betting B would chose sanity, too.

It turns out that when you make a baby from scratch with SCIENCE!, your whole life become seriously focused around your cycle. In fact, there are times when I feel like my cycle is more important than me. Like, I am just some vessel in which my cycle resides. Does that sound crazy? Because I think it is crazy, but that’s how it is. This whole process is measured out and dictated by your cycle. Everything you do is based on what day of your cycle you are on. After all the blood being drawn and all the tests run and the consultation, I was suddenly left with nothing to do except count down the days of my last cycle so I could make a phone call to start Operation Make a Baby from Scratch.

It goes something like this:

Day 1: call your infertility nurse to tell her you have started your period. She in turn calls in your prescription for the baby making drug.(Or if you’re me, you start on a Saturday night and have to wait until Monday, aka Day 3, to call.)

Day 3 – 7: take 1 baby making pill.

Day 9 – 13: We do it like they do on the discovery channel. (Or just regular style. 10 points if you know which song lyric that is. 15 if you know the name of the song and the artist. 20 points if you just started singing it. 30 if you started singing it AND doing the dance. -5 if you had to google it first.)

Day 21: I go in for, guess what? More blood work. I think this blood is to check to make sure everything is going to plan. I’m not really sure, so I’ll go and find out and then let you know. Sound good?

I’ll be honest. I had a moment of sheer, blinding panic about this whole thing last night. I mean, really. A baby? Am I fucking nuts? No more sleeping in on the weekends, or ever sleeping again. Dirty diapers. Saggy tits. Potty training. I was ready to back pedal and be all like, “Baby? What baby? We’re not making a baby. Whatchu talkin’ ’bout, Willis?”

And then I thought about B and how much I love him. And how I want to have this experience with him and create with him in a way that none of my other crafts will ever be able to accomplish. I want to give BAD Boy the sibling he wants. I want to be a little selfish and have a legacy. Is it selfish to have a baby? In some ways, I think so. And in other ways, it’s a very selfless act, too. But I do know that deep down, no matter how scared or overwhelmed I get about and through this whole process, I really do want this. (And I really am more than just a vessel for my cycle. I think.)

So as you know, B and I are using to science to make a baby. What does that entail? I’ll tell you.

First, you  try to make a baby for awhile. When it doesn’t work out, you (ladies, not men) go see your OB/GYN and talk to her/him about it and your OB/GYN gives you a referral to see an infertility specialist.

Then, when you’re finally ready to call the infertility specialists, you call them on the very first day of your cycle. Because starting your period isn’t emotional enough when you’re trying to get knocked up. You leave them a message if they don’t answer and they call you back and you get 3 appointments set up that are every other day and very specific to your cycle and when you should be ovulating. You go in to get a lot of blood drawn on the first appointment. Then you go back for more blood to be drawn and a consultation on what the test results were on the first lot of blood drawn and what your plan is going to be. When you have the consultation is when you’re told your partner can come. And depending on your partner, this can either be a good thing or a bad thing. Or both.

And then you go back to have more blood drawn (I told you they were vampires). If having so much blood drawn that you start looking like a heroin addict isn’t bad enough, insult is added to injury with the VAGINAL ULTRASOUND. Yes, you read that right. VAGINAL ULTRASOUND. If you didn’t just have a full body convulsion, then something is not right with you. So anyway, the VAGINAL ULTRASOUND (I can’t type it any other way) is where your infertility nurse sticks what amounts to a dildo hooked up to an ultrasound machine in your vagina, complete with condom, to look at your uterus and ovaries. And then shows you it.

I’m not saying it’s not interesting to see the ultrasound, because it is. But hello! VAGINAL. ULTRASOUND. While she is showing your ovaries and uterus? SHE IS SWISHING THE DILDO AROUND. And you’re all splayed out on a table trying to pretend like that dildo isn’t trying to escape up INTO YOUR UTERUS and that this is totally normal. Because, you know, who doesn’t love a VAGINAL ULTRASOUND at 8:00 a.m. on a Saturday morning?

So, yeah. VAGINAL. ULTRASOUND. Not my favorite thing so far. It really kind of makes all the times I had to have my blood drawn seem like a lovely Sunday brunch, complete with mimosas and chocolate croissants. Mmmmm… mimosas…

Anyway.

The following week I got a call from my nurse telling me what was suspected all along – I don’t produce enough estrogen to ovulate or release an egg. This means that starting on Day One of my next cycle, I get to call her to let her know that I’ve started and then she will call in my prescription to my pharmacy for my “baby making” medicine. And then when I get to the “begins ovulation” stage of my cycle, Operation Make A Baby From Scratch (OMABFS) will commence in earnest. Unfortunately, part of OMABFS includes getting a shot in my butt to ensure that an egg is released from an ovary to meet the sperm halfway. Have I mentioned how much I hate needles? And getting shots? Because I hate needles and getting shots a lot. But I suppose getting a shot in the ass will still be better than a VAGINAL ULTRASOUND.