LIVE FREE OR DIE

Yup, another weekend in New Hampshire coming up.

To say I am not optimistic about the weekend would be the understatement of the year. So far this summer we have gone to NH three times, and all three weekends have been relative disasters.

The first time we went my parent's cottage, we were there for all of two hours before I started having an asthma attack and had to leave. I couldn't risk trying to stay the night, because we were about to begin IUI #1 and I was not allowed to take ANY medication other than my regular asthma inhaler, and the gonal-f injections I was about to begin. So, after driving two hours up to the house, we stayed all of two hours and quickly began the two hour drive home, me wheezing. Oh yeah, and we got pulled over.

Not the best weekend in NH.

The second weekend trip to NH was for the 4th of July weekend. Yes, that was the weekend that my IUI cycle was coming to an end, badly.

Definitely not a good weekend in NH.

The third and most recent weekend trip to NH was a complete, total disaster, as I had an emotional infertility induced nervous breakdown in front of my pregnant sister, on her birthday. Yeah.

Tomorrow is my youngest sister Cheryl's birthday. So away to NH we go, once again, but I am just not optimistic about it. I mean, I'm 0-3 this summer. And my cycle is going to begin ANY DAY NOW, which my moods are clearly indicating.

Life is a really funny thing. My sister Cheryl is eight years younger than I am, and she has declared on more than one occasion that she does not want children. I used to preach to her in a big sistery kind of way (because that is my job) that "someday, you'll change your mind about that." But I have learned better, because as hard as it is for me to comprehend, some people just don't want children. Furthermore, that is okay.

But life is funny because I think out of anyone in my family, Cheryl "gets" what I am going through more than anyone. Isn't that strange? A woman with no maternal instincts of her own can completely and totally understand the pain of an infertile woman like me. It is an amazing thing.

One day, not long after my first IUI failed, I received a beautiful card in the mail from her. She wanted me to know that she was thinking about me, and that she knew I was going through a very difficult time. I was so touched by her gesture and at the same time it seemed to punctuate that my mother and my pregnant sister, who should have been seeing my pain, were not. I am probably wrong, but I feel as though neither of them really had any idea what I had been going through until very recently, when I unfortunately broke down in front of them both. But Cheryl was keenly aware of my personal struggles early on, and took the time to acknowledge it to me. She was the first person, aside from my husband, to reach out to me and say "I know it hurts, I know you are sad, and you are not wrong for being angry." She was the first "outsider" to reach out and help, and help it did.

She continues to amaze me with her compassion and understanding for a situation that must be so foreign to her. One day recently, I happened to mention that I was feeling particularly blue, and suddenly a dozen big golden sunflowers arrived on my doorstep with a card from her saying "I thought you could use some sunshine."

I let her read my blog. I don't know, I guess I feel safe with her reading it. I don't let my parents read it because I just don't know how either of them would process or construe some of what I say here. I don't let my sister Eileen read it because she is pregnant, and I think she should be enjoying her pregnancy and not constantly be surrounded with so much sadness and negativity.

Cheryl is the youngest in our family and will always be my baby-sister, and yet she has handled my situation with more grace and maturity than anyone else. I am lucky to have her there for me, and I don't feel threatened that she gets to read about my deepest, darkest thoughts and emotions. I don't feel as though I need to censor my blog because my sister is reading. It is kind of cool.

So I guess what I am trying to say is that I feel guilty that I am not looking forward to the weekend in NH, because of her. It is her birthday and she deserves a nice weekend with the family. I hope and pray that it will be nice, I just don't have a good track record this summer so far.

There's always time to change that, though. Let's cross our fingers.

(And what I was doing on Wednesday evening instead of resting and recovering from surgery has to do with her birthday tomorrow. Since she reads my blog, that is why I haven't disclosed what I was doing, yet. I will post about that on Sunday. Too much build up now, though, it really was never that big of a deal!!!)

CELEBRITY SIGHTINGS

My cousin was telling me a story the other day about how her mother (my Godmother) found herself riding in an elevator with Tom Cruise in a hotel in Atlantic City. She didn't say a word, and as he stepped off of the elevator on his floor, he turned to her and said, "yes, I AM Tom Cruise." He flashed a big smile and the elevator doors closed.

Cute story, I thought, and I told her that those things never happen to me.

And then I thought about it, and realized that even though I don't feel as though I have had a lot of brushes with people of celebrity status, I actually have had quite a few experiences that are worth mentioning.

As a nice change of pace from the heavy duty infertility topic, I thought I would share some of my celebrity run-in stories, and I hope you will share some of your stories with me!

Ginger was being nostalgic about the good old 80's a week or so ago, and she confessed her once huge crush on Joey MacIntyre, from the New Kids on the Block. At which point I had to let her know that Joey MacIntyre lived in the apartment beneath mine in 1996 - 1997. Actually, he technically didn't "live" there; his best friend lived there and, when Joe was back and forth between New York City and Los Angeles, he would live with his friend in between gigs. I didn't ever have a chance to get to know him, but we did develop a "hey, 'sup?" relationship when we would run into one another coming and going from the apartment. That was pretty funny.

Since meeting Anthony I have had my fair share of sports figure sightings. We go to many Red Sox games, and I have Nomar's autograph twice (let's not discuss the fact that he was traded, we STILL haven't quite recovered from that!) In addition I have Brian Daubach's autograph, and when I ran into the Red Sox announcer Sean McDonough once at a celtic's game, I ran up to him to shake his hand and tell him how much I enjoyed listening to his broadcasts. He seemed genuinely surprised that a female was such a fan of HIS. But I am.

Speaking of the Celtics, I ran into Ron Mercer in the grocery store one Sunday night back when he was still in Boston. It cracked me up to see him pushing a carriage around the store. And one night at The Comedy Connection, a Comedy club in Boston, I literally walked into Rick Fox as he was coming down the staircase as I was walking up. He too was on Boston at the time, and apparently was recently traded back to the Celtics.

Speaking of the Comedy Connection, the last time I was there it was to see Robert Schimmel, and after the show I had a conversation with him about his new baby that he has just had with his new wife, because remarkably he is a cancer survivor. He even showed me pictures of his baby and seemed touched that I was interested.

Hmm...who else? I already have more than I thought, although none of these are earth shattering run-ins, they are pretty much run-of-the-mill.

When I was in college I made a birthday cake for Bill Guerin, who lived downstairs. Why? Because I am a loser.

As I mentioned in a previous post, one of the members of my husband's softball team is Doug Flutie. If he actually retires after this season, he will be present at all of their games, not just "some", like this past season.

I met the drummer for Duran Duran. No, not Roger Taylor. I met some guy who was touring with Duran Duran years after their hey-day. I think I pissed him off, though, because I kept repeating over and over "So, you actually KNOW John Taylor?" John was my idol when I was in High School. However I redeemed myself when this drummer guy told me it was his birthday and I sang "Happy Birthday" to him.

Again, none of these are too earth shattering. Here is my favorite brush with a celebrity:


meet my boyfriend, Rob. 

There were other girls in the picture, but I cut them out! Notice his arm is around me! Gotta love Robert Redford, is he handsome, or what? He was checking out some buildings near the company I used to work for, potentially to open a Sundance Theater, and we waited for him to return to his limo to get pictures and autographs. He was so nice about it.

I know I am forgetting some stories, but these are the highlights.

What about you? Got any good celebrity sightings to share with me?

THE RETURN OF THE POLYP

The surgery was worth doing after all.

The polyp, which had been removed in May, had in fact grown back. It has now been removed for a second time.

I asked my RE, before surgery began, if the injectible drugs are what caused the polyp to return. She said yes. I asked her if the polyp will grow back every time I am on injectible drugs. She said possibly.

Hmm...

I asked her what this means with our upcoming IVF cycle, if taking the injectibles will cause the polyp to grow back.

She said "all the polyp is, in essence, is excess lining. If you are pregnant, this isn't a problem. If you are not pregnant, we will just need to remove the excess. I think you'll be pregnant really soon so let's not worry about that possibility yet. Don't forget, that is the goal with everything we are doing - to get you pregnant."

"I hope so," I said to her.

"We WILL," she replied back with a warm smile.

I love her confidence. I wish I could learn to have the same level of confidence that she has.

Anyways the surgery was a success, and seeing that both this procedure AND the fact that I was under general anesthesia can cause women's periods to begin almost immediately, I should officially be starting my IVF cycle any day now. Wow!

Thank you SO MUCH for all your kind emails and comments wishing me well, that was so incredibly thoughtful and it means so, so much to me.

By the way, Prince was incredible. Except that he has gone the way of the Bible, so he no longer performs any of his risque songs. I wondered if that left him with any hits to play? (It did.) But I was really hoping I would hear a nasty rendition of "Sexy Mother Fucker," and I did not. Still, he was awesome.

Goodnight, my polyp-free (for now) body is going to get some rest, but in a few days remind me to tell you how I spent this evening "resting and recuperatng." The doctors would be pissed (and very confused) if they knew!

"DEARLY BELOVED..."

So, my hysteroscopy is tomorrow morning. I have been so busy I have hardly had any time to think about it. This was a good thing, up until about an hour ago when it hit me that I am having surgery tomorrow. At which point I started freaking out. I figured I would go home this evening and get a good night's sleep, try to relax, and be well rested for the procedure.

Then, I got this email from Anthony:

"ok, husband of the year award coming up......if you can find someone to go with you tonight, you are sitting on the Floor for Prince"

!!!!

Someone at work gave him two free tickets. The seats are amazing. The show is tonight.

Prince is on my list of "people I must see in concert before I die." I just love him. But, after following Bruce Springsteen around last year to eight concerts, we decided not to go to any shows at all this year once it was decided that we were building a house. I bit my tongue about Prince and agreed to the plan.

By rights I really have no business going out tonight, but I am going to. Eileen, my pregnant sis, is coming with me.

I can't wait!

"We are gathered here today to get through this thing called LIFE..."

IVF SCHOOL

After a marathon weekend of dining out (two dinners, one breakfast, one lunch, and one pizza delivery), Anthony and I started our Monday morning of this week by taking time off from work to attend IVF Orientation. "IVF School" as Anthony dubbed it. I had an apointment last Thursday with my RE in which I surprisingly learned that I had misunderstood her intentions with regards to my IVF cycle; I had received my consent forms in the mail the previous week with a standard form letter stating "Your IVF Cycle will begin with the period that begins between September 1 and September 30." Okay. If I guestimated, we were looking at September 20th as a start date. I called and signed up for orientation on September 15th and arranged with my boss to take the necessary time off from work. But no! I was wrong, my RE wants to start as soon as possible. "Why shouldn't we start with your August period?" she asked me. Bewildered, I said "that is fine with me, but your letter stated September start dates." Damn form letters.

So August it would be, as I frantically called the center on Friday to try to switch us from the September class to the August class, held TODAY. "It will be crowded," the nurse warned me on the phone, "but you are all set."

I must say, I was disappointed and happy with class at the same time. I was disappointed that I didn't learn anything new; I already knew it all. I was happy, though, because I already knew it all. For someone who is on hyperspeed when it comes to trying to learn as much as I can in such a short time about IVF, I was amazed to learn that I pretty much understand it all already, and I know what to expect. It was a little boring, therefore, but also incredibly satisfying. It was not unlike when Anthony and I attended pre-cana classes before getting married. We did not learn ONE new thing about each other that whole weekend, there were no bombshells to drop on one another; we walked out of that weekend saying "Well, I don't know anything more now about you than I knew beforehand, but I do know that we are READY to be married. We couldn't be more ready." It was a good, reassuring feeling of learning something we already knew. I guess that is how I felt about class today.

Then I looked over at Anthony.

Poor guy. He looked like he didn't know what hit him.

"Are you learning anything?" I asked him.

"My God yeah!" he exclaimed. "There is so much information to digest!"

Well duh. (I didn't say Duh to him).

Yes, infertility is our problem. This is something that is happening to us, that is touching us, not just me. But I'll admit, I sort of left him out of this whole IVF thing. Not on purpose; for one, I've known that we were going to do IVF for all of what? Two weeks? I've been studying on my own; cramming, actually. It never occurred to me, though, that I left him in the dust.

He had so many questions when we got in the car after class. "Why don't they just do ICSI for EVERY couple? Or assisted hatching, for that matter? Are we on the long protocol?" It was nice to see him so interested. It was even better to actually know the answers to his questions, that was great for my confidence.

I am not trying to paint a picture that he has been disinterested to this point; that is not it at all. It is just that he has his role in this, and I have mine, and we've established these roles and we are both okay with them. If he doesn't know all the details, that is okay. In fact, while I am consuming myself with these details I might rather that he consume himself with the details involved in, for example, selling our house. A trade-off.

He also doesn't really WANT all the details. He feels bad that I am the one undergoing all the procedures, all the injections, and all of the side effects. Therefore he sees it as his primary role to be my support system. He is who I complain to and lean on and his shoulder is the one I cry on. This makes him feel very, very useful. (He is right).

He knows that when it is injection time, it is his job to hold my hand, rub my back, or kiss my cheek. I know that it is my job not to bog him down with too many numbers and facts and details.

Work has been extremely rough for him for the past month, and then with having to be out this morning so unexpectedly, I decided to cut him a break. I told him he didn't need to take Wednesday off, that my mother could take me to and from the hospital for my surgery. He said he may take me up on that offer. I understood, but part of me secretly wished he had declined my gesture.

Tonight, on his way home from softball, he called me from the car. "Good news, I am taking Wednesday off."

"But I know you weren't sure if that was such a good idea right now, you really didn't have to."

"I know. But you are my wife, you are having surgery, we're doing IVF, and I need to be there for you. I WANT to be there for you, I want to be there when you wake up."

I think the IVF class fired him up. He immediately fell into "supportive husband" role, right on cue. Right when I needed it.

There is a learning curve with this whole process, and I think we're both doing the best we can.