Twisted Ovaries

12dp2dt

When you are towards the end of the two week wait, everything becomes a sign. The little things that you think or feel that would ordinarily never pass you by, become something that may or may not mean that you are pregnant. It is or isn’t working. IVF did or didn’t work. I will or will not be drinking heavily and back on the sleeping tablets.

With pregnancy, I guess it really is so black and white. In previous cycles I wasn’t superstitious as I simply didn’t know one way or another to be so. But I have been around the IVF block now, and even though I know that there is absolutely nothing I can do to influence this to work or not work (other than avoid things like bungee jumping and maybe laying off the crack brownies) something in my head still twigs things.

Statia had commented that she needed lucky socks, so I sent her some (which turned out to not be lucky. They were not the socks you seek. So I have sent new socks that I truly hope are the lucky socks.) She, in return, sent me some which I wore during the retrieval and transfer.

I hope they are my lucky socks.

I started this process two days before Mother’s Day here in England. I do my test two days before the American Mother’s Day, which I can’t help but feel that, while maybe not a sign, is at least a strange coincidence. As a donor my cycle was much longer than most, but so perfectly spaced between the two big Hallmark days is a pretty bizarre fluke.

The day I came home from retrieval a thin and lithe black cat dove out of the bushes on our street, crossing before me and the dog. I actually have a thing for black cats, I think they’re gorgeous, and this is one I have never seen on our little gravel road before. In England, a black cat crossing your path is a sign of good luck.

Right, then.

Yesterday on the way to the train station I saw a huge shadow in my driver’s window, and I turned to see an absolutely enormous bird flying next to the car. I started at first as I was 100% sure it was a stork, but it was instead a heron that flew alongside me for a minute before swerving off. I couldn’t believe such a large and beautiful bird accompanied me a short distance, a silent protector against the world at large, or at least the eater of the fish in our fish pond.

And that’s not taking into account the due date. I plugged the transfer date into an IVF calculator I found online, and it told me the date. Now, first off, nearly every single person in Angus’ family and extended family have birthdays in January, February and March (there are a couple of exceptions, but really it’s an expensive time of year for us.) January is the busiest month. And the due date pops up to be in January. Further, on one IVF calculator I found online (I found two) the due date came up with a specific date, a date on which I know so well. It was the anniversary of a suicide attempt I had some years ago, and the irony that perhaps there may be a life on the day I struggled for my own life is not lost on me.

I have absolutely no signs of my period coming, but that could be the progesterone. My breasts are still swollen and sore but that’s likely the progesterone, too. I’m hungry a lot and constantly have a sore throat and headache but, once again, could be the progesterone bandit. I’m struck sometimes by a strong, painful cramp but sometimes that’s just gas (nice) and maybe sometimes it’s the progesterone, shifting around the massive uterine lining that I’ve built up. And then this morning I was hideously nauseous and absolutely sure I was going to toss my cookies. In the end I didn’t but the point is I was nauseous. Then again could have been anything-dodgy food, ulcer, stomach flu, or karma kicking me in the stomach for being a bitch to whomever blocked my car in at the train station yesterday..

I have to force myself to not read too much into everything, because the fall could be so spectacular. I am a day and a half away from knowing what’s next. In 36 hours there will be an answer to the past 7 weeks, and that’s almost too much to wrap my head around. Every day this week has mercifully been spent going to and from London, and this business alone is what has kept me from wondering to the point of head explosion.

Tomorrow Aidan and I are going up to a part of the country I call Buttfuck (because it’s an extremely long journey for us to get there.) We have a meeting there all day tomorrow, which goes into a dinner tomorrow night. We’re staying in a hotel that night (while our puppy stays with a friend before getting dropped off to lose his testicles. Ironic, the day he loses his fertility I check to see if mine has succeeded.)

I had changed my mind about this. Previously I was adamant that we be home on Friday, but now I think it’s good to be away in many ways-Aidan and I get a night in a hotel room together, and we need the couple time. We get the distraction of a huge group dinner (which is on a boat, and I get seasick and I can’t drink so this’ll be BIG FUN.). And in the morning, we get to wake up in a place that’s not our own, and so if the message is bad, we won’t have to associate it with our beautiful home. We can have breakfast in bed and cuddle and take our time getting home, maybe stopping for a boozy lunch in London if it’s negative (if you see a theme about alcohol here, let me just say this: IT'S NOT A CRUTCH. IT'S A NECESSITY).

And let’s be honest-there’s a large chance it will be negative.

Statistically, it is the most prominent option.

But it doesn’t stop me from hoping that it won’t be.

I won’t be online until we get home on Friday, at which time we’ll all know which way the wind is going to blow.

Posted by Vanessa at May 10, 2006 03:36 PM | TrackBack