girl:progress

You so do not want to go to Target on the Saturday before Christmas.

When I went to the eye doctor last week he told me that, though my eye bone was fractured (He actually used the word crushed, but when I think about that it meakes me feel a little sick to my stomach.), I would not need surgery. I was first surprised, as I must have blocked out the ER doctor discussing this as a possibility, completely terrified, and then relieved. But while he was explaining to me about why I didn't need the surgery he told me that some people's eye bone fractures are so severe that one of their eyes sinks back into their head and looks smaller than the other one so they have to go in and pull it out. Sick, right? Of course he told me about that before he actually said that I didn't need surgery. So guess what I'm looking for every time I look in the mirror. But still I'm relieved because I could be spending Christmas having my eye socket cut open. See, there really is a Santa.

How juvenile is it that every time, and I mean every single time, someone says 'liquor' this is what I am thinking: "Lick her! I don't even know her?"

So now my head is healing. My black eye is fading and I'm a little sad about that. I was hoping to scare some family members over the holidays. I'm not taking the vicodin, or the prescription ibuprofen. I've moved back to Advil to help quell The Headache That Will Never End. Another fun Sonnet bodily function fact, you say?  I am now blowing out these hardened chunks of blood and pus-y mucous that have travelled down my sinuses and are now unpleasantly lodged there, just above my nasal cavity, waiting to be expelled.

Aren't you glad you stopped by?

The Google search bar says it all.

I'd like to say that I got it in a barroom brawl, or that I fell off my Harley. But the truth is I was walking up the wooden gang plank walkway in front of my house and I slipped on the ice and landed - mostly - on my face. I sat on the ground hyperventilating for a couple of minutes and then managed to crab walk up into the house before collapsing. When I stood up a couple of minutes later and looked in the mirror I got scared, well, more scared. More hyperventilating, moaning "Oh my God. Oh my God. Oh my God."

Alex was still out of town so I went through a couple of numbers before Julia answered my hysterical, sobbing call. I'm pretty sure I scared her. She must have asked me four times, "Are you inside the house?" While she was speeding over to my house I did the most logical thing I could think of: I packed for the emergency room. My pants were wet so I grabbed another pair. Then realized that the shirt I was wearing didn't match so I grabbed a new shirt. I knew the battery on my phone was about to die so I remembered to bring my charger. And my security blanket. All of this I did while clutching an ice bag to the ping pong ball sized lump on the side of my face and sobbing loudly. I took a break on the couch and looked up emergency rooms on the internet. When I went to type in the Google search bar it read: "chemical pregnancy." I typed in a new search. Google: "emergency rooms austin"

Julia came in and said, "Yes. We are going to the emergency room." As we left I even thought, 'It might be dark when we get back. I should leave on a light.' Do you people see how neurotic I am? Do I need to wear a sign?

We get to the emergency room. Julia drops me off to park the car. I go in and fill out the check-in form. Name, Social Security, Date of Birth, Reason for Visit, and there at the bottom, Are you pregnant? Do you know what question they ask you a lot when you're a girl in an emergency room. First there was the form, then the first nurse, then the doctor, then the x-ray machine man, then the cat scan machine lady. "Is there any chance you might be pregnant?" That's how they ask that question. No. There is absolutely no chance. None.

There was some good news. It's just a possible periorbital fracture, a sore wrist, and a giant bruise on my hip. Plus, you know, the wicked shiner. And the exam room where we had to wait for the bulk of our three and a half hours was equipped our own TV with cable. And The Life Aquatic with Steve Zissou was just coming on. So there was Bill Murray to cheer us up. Plus, out in the waiting room there was a large African American man who the ER staff kept calling up to the desk. Mr. Dexter was his name. Every time they said it Julia and I would think of the dog and giggle.

Alex finally got home from D.C. at about four in the morning and we went to bed only to be awoken at about 6:30 by a crash in the living room. Alex got up to see what the noise was and found Dexter on the floor having a seizure. I ran in and began, you guessed it, hyperventilating, sobbing, moaning. Dexter was convulsing and I was lying on the floor next to him holding him. He poked his nose under my leg and jept it there. I had to put my head down on the floor to keep from passing out. Alex naturally went straight to the computer to look up what we should do. I had been through this once before but as a big sobbing, heaving, hysterical mess on the floor I was not particularly informative. Google: "dog seizure"

He's ok. I'm ok. Alex is ok. Somehow the bruises feel right to me. They don't come close to matching the pain I feel about the loss I suffered earlier this week, but it seems like people should take one look at me and shudder. That's how I feel inside.

So now we're just waiting for the locusts to descend, or the house to fall down. Until then you can find those of us here at Dexter's house curled up on the couch, under the glow of the Christmas tree lights, licking our wounds.

p.s. We here at Dexter's house would like to give big ups to Miss Julia, who not only spent her afternoon off in the E.R. with Hysterical Girl, but spent two nights in a row at my house so I wouldn't have to be alone. I won't tell my mom it was really you who gave me the shiner. Oops.

The Great Infertility Drama: Now with More Chemicals

I don't mean to sound melodramatic or self-pitying, though I'm sure this is both, but I think I know a little about hard. Not living-in-Bangladesh hard, or suffering-a-painful-and-disfiguring-disease hard. I think people under those circumstances might not have the energy for the kind of hard I've known. Those people might look at my loving, funny husband, my big house, my comfy and adorable car, my more comfy and adorable dog, my working limbs, and 'phht' at me like an old Jewish grandmother. But what I've been through feels like hard to me. Loss of a parent at a young age leading to 27 years of responsibility for other parent's well-being, yes. Eating disorder, yes. Typical self-esteem destroying relationship followed by atypical 6-months of crippling migraines, yes and yes. Depression, yes. And now that I've taken an entire paragraph to justify the pity party (Oh God. Did i just say that?) that will follow, I will move on, but first let me say this: The Great Infertility Drama of 2003, 2004, 2005, and Now Moving to 2006 feels like the hardest.

Saturday I took a home pregnancy test even though I was scheduled to have a blood test on Monday. The pregnancy test was negative. I am sad, but not surprised.

Monday I go to the lab for said blood test. Call the doctor's office Monday afternoon expecting bad news. The lovely nurse tells me that the test is positive. My Hcg is 46, which is a little low, but still positive. My progesterone level receives an A++ for the day coming in at an over-achieving 42.5. The doctor would like for me to come in on Wednesday for another blood test. According to the nurse, he'll will be monitoring my Hcg levels weekly. She tells me I can't leave town, can't drink or smoke, drink caffeine, take any medication besides Tylenol, on and on. We hang up. Cue confused and sheepish smiling between Sonnet and Alex before Alex leaves for D.C.

48 hours pass. There are thoughts and dreams and hopes, little prayers, every cheesy, silly, lovely little thing that you can imagine. I will not write them. I can't. But mostly I just felt relieved. I thought things might actually get a little easier, and if not easier than at least less soul destroying.

I wanted to be at the lab for the blood test as early as I could this morning, but that turned out to be not so early as Alex left me, as he said, "Knocked up, and sick with a terrible head cold." But I got there by ten and waited a couple of hours until I could safely assume that they had received the report before calling the nurse. (That's not true. I called before then, but only once, and was not even remotely snotty to the not-so-lovely-nurse who told me I might have to wait until tomorrow to get the results.) I could tell when the lovely nurse got back on the phone after getting the results. Monday her voice sounded so happy, like she really loved that she got to give me such good news. This time she sounded sad.

It's a chemical pregnancy, called that because the only confirmation of pregnancy is chemical detection, not ultrasound. That's what distinguishes a chemical pregnancy from a miscarriage. If you want to know more, I found Google quite handy. The nurse said I should expect some bleeding, and to call her if I had any questions.

I can't believe how hard this has been. And I cannot tell you what it has felt like. Nothing I say matches the sum of this experience. It has taken away my dignity, hope, privacy. It has been heart-breaking, lonely, humiliating, physically painful, grueling. I have lost friends, yelled at relatives, and felt so - crushed. And it is nothing compared to what I feel now.

I am staunchly and violently pro-choice. I deplore the rhetoric of the far right regarding conception because it is used to negate the rights of women. But I can't help feeling like I lost a baby today. I don't know what else to say.