The Drought of 2007 & 2010

     A week or so ago, I was in the gyne's office pleading for a Mirena--a progesterone laced device that lures many women like me with promises of rest from the torturous monthlies we endure.  And maybe it could ease me with the pregnancy dreams.  Not dreams of being pregnant, but dreams you get when you are pregnant and progesterone laden.  You should also be reminded that Mirena is a contraceptive device.  But little did I know that my ambivalence and inner conflict would not pass the sniff test with this random doc. She started, "So what do you exactly want?  I am not so sure that this (the Mirena lure) will work for you, with what you've got going on.  Maybe you should wait."
    This woman was a random gyne assigned to me because mine had sent me the postcard saying, "Won't be there on November 2nd, so pick another one to do whatever it is you think you need."  Blessing in disguise, that is, this straw threatening to break my camel-back. That 'wait' part was the straw. And true to my camel nature, I gulped my intears and began unintelligible speak then. Complaints and whines about my satisfaction with their services, no clear plan, random encounters and management of my pregnancy and subsequent miscarriage, failed communications and cancellation postcards.  Ramblings about losing my good years under their care from 36 years old to now 40, having to travel to Atlanta for the world famous guy to straighten out my endo and them dropping the ball after that surgery.  So I felt. Mirena-- give me mine now to end all hope of babies. Relief.
     She widened her stance and looked at me squarely. "Your needs are not being met here. It looks like a few months ago you wanted a pregnancy? Or do you (now) want to hurry menopause?...What?...You need to get what you want, get your needs met elsewhere if we are not meeting them here. Look. Advocate for yourself." What moxie she had, but she was telling the truth and she said it with the right cadence and sincerity.  "If you want a baby, go somewhere else.  You have insurance, we are not the only reproductive endocrinologists in this area. I'll be happy to send you over to the other guys," she concluded.
 
     Three and a half years ago, and again this year we urban gardeners in this area had suffered loss after loss in drought and other climatic miseries.  And on top of losing 14 varieties of organic tomatoes to months of no rain and the best honeydews around, I had some kind of complex  miscarriage of at least one baby due on Leap Year Day-- February 29th. I will save that story for another day if you really must hear it. But for now, I cannot look at dead or dying plants much like I cannot hardly see the fruit of my own womb in the same state.  Nor beautiful greenery with absolutely stunted fruiting.  The slaughter of the 2010 season forced me to withdraw from my golden hands gardening because it was replicating my own fertility status.  Not even the weather had been cooperating; it too has been oppressive. (And yes this is color is hard to read, ironically.)

     True to her word, she did send my records to the competition.  And I got a phone call from the other guys the next day and the voice on the other end sounded as confused as I knew myself to be.  "Ahem, Ma'am? What exactly do you want? Did you want IVF or something else?" I had rarely gotten a call back, let alone one so timely. I began, "I don't know. I don't know.  Sigh.  I want to know what is possible. I want to know what the test results are when they are taken, I want to know what they mean.  That is what I want."  
     This I repeated to my new reproductive endocrinologist, Dr. K, then promised him that I would give myself a week to think twice about giving up my last good year of fertility.   Then I said it again to the lovely phlebotomist Synthia this morning when she drew two tubes for estradiol, follicular stimulating hormone and antimullerian hormone on Day 3.  True to my midwife nature, I want to be involved in my own babymaking.

Stay tuned for the good parts........
The Chocolate Cyster

     

From Day 1

We all know what day one means. Or from day one, I really should say.  Sentimental I am, ill-advisedly, and in hindsight, I should have known from day one what it all would mean.  Back in the days, boys used to offend my chastity and say, "If you don't use it now, cobwebs will grow all around it!" Hmph.  They were not right, but they were not exactly wrong either.  Well, I think what was optimal was what my Kentucky bred Dibbs (Daddy) used to randomly say and suggest to me in my early twenties...."Having babies is for the young." 
   As I moved through my twenties the rest of all my mother's huge litter (love you  'Ma) would tease and predict...."Guess who's havin' a baby---fifty-years-old!!!??....Yeah! Boo(my beloved urban nickname)!" They too were so very wrong and almost right.  Forty-years-old.  Ten years into an all-too-often-missed diagnosis of endometrosis after a 1999 laparascopic exploration showing no chocolate cysts--just lots of the dreaded cobwebs. Many years of supplements organic gardening, knitting, fasting, raw juicing and running from my husband's DNA.  I would say that these tactics were all worth it, they helped me survive and even get pregnant. Once.  That pregnancy became a huge learning experience that one day I will soon share with my virtual audience if you really really want me to.  In fact, I am so thankful for that experience because so many of my friends who are chasing fertility have never had the sublime privilege of being pregnant.
    Here on Day 2, I blog because have finally decided to descend into the Jetsonian pit of IVF. (Naw, do Black people do that junk? one person says....But its soo unnatural, my chocolate guy says).  After much melodrama, avoidance and conflict.  Long after not liking: the idea of culturing my babies in horse serum, or the last reproductive endocrinologist and that crazy miscarriage I had with him or trying to explain to my husband what in the world that last MRI was for....to.... I  cannot afford that.  To are we really to old to adopt?  To tired of living in utter stillness after work, hobbies, religion, volunteering and friends who really do have to go home. I am ready. In a protracted midtermitis as a student nurse midwife.  I am ready
     Tomorrow is Day 3...for the first lab draw in a long series of lab draws that may lead to what 'Ma says will be for certain three babies.  I dunno.  I will take one.  I will even just take my best shot because endo is fast on my heels and pregnancy in my size 6 waist case may stretch out any adhesions in my bod and give me a rest. I need a rest because symptomatic endo is beyond pain.  And I need some crazy lil brown babies with protuberant backsides and pouty lips running aroud here.  So back to tomorrow. To check my "ovarian reserve".... or the "are you in menopause yet test"for FSH (follicular stimulating hormone), I will go in before work and really hope that the menopause that endometriosis had me praying for has not yet descended upon me....I hope its not too late....
To be continued,
The Chocolate Cyster