A darling friend of mine is getting married! This is my first felting project and so if you see a petite and embarrassed woman toting this about - tell her congratulations on the upcoming nuptials! This is from Vogue Knitting.

Rose Trellis Bag

a little advice...

So I'm reading a book on how to treat infertiles in therapy. Waiting to see if my therapist sneaks in any of these moves. Overall the book is interesting and I will post a review once I've finished. However, this made me laugh out loud even though I'm depressed.

un rire noir as they say in French.

here's a helpful tip when your therapy clients are so stuck on having biological children:

"For instance, you can name well-known people who never had biological children, who have made significant contributions to humankind, such as Jesus, Helen Keller, Tennessee Williams, Mother Teresa, and Tom Cruise."

that's right me, Jesus and Tom all in one breath.

Don't you feel much better now?

owie ouch ouch

Okay so they did an endometrial biopsy to get out the tiny polyp. They stuck 4mm catheters, metal dilaters, something called a mandarin, flexible catheters, stiffer catheters, etc. into my cervix. ow ow ow ow

Hey now I distinctly know the difference between cervical pain and uterine pain - if I ever get pregnant I'll know where the pain is coming from!

It was about as pleasant as getting a root canal from Edward Scissorhands without Novocaine.

But the damn polyp is no more so IVF here we go!

the plot thickens

completely distracted by the smell of boeuf bourguignon simmering on the stove - mmmmm. Lest you be concerned I am a healthy carnivore who can say boeuf and polyp in the same breath without a moment's hesitation - maybe I should say boeuf and polype (Fr) pah-leep or poeuf and balleep - which sounds like Indian cartoon characters or pboeu and ahleep.

so I hear from my RE on Monday and now there is suddenly a way to remove the polyp WITHOUT SURGERY just with your regular old catheter and they can do it tomorrow morning.

My husband thinks it's because they finally realized who we are (we aren't much but our employer is their employer too) but maybe it was talking to another doctor who realized that mine was seriously pissing me off.

Did my weepy face have lawsuit written all over it?

All I have to do is take two ibuprofen and show up tomorrow.

I am writing this so that any of you out there will know that somehow there is a way with catheter and ultrasound to remove polyps WITHOUT ANESTHESIA. But it's a secret and they'll only tell you if you make a fuss, are important like us or weep in the hallway.

and it takes two doctors - maybe that's why it was a secret.

the lengths to which we go...

I've seen a lot of lists on blogs so I thought I'd write one as well.

Things I NEVER thought I would do but have done while trying to get pregnant:

1. Prepared syringes and given myself shots in a public bathroom with drunks in the next stall.
2. Had sex within earshot of my parents.
3. Taken mysterious Chinese herbs with no questions asked.
4. Had my cervix poked at least 10 times (it hurts like the dickens).
5. Cancelled trips to the South of France.
6. Gone to an acupuncturist (never thought I would but now I like it).
7. Stopped standing on my head.
8. Started standing on my head more.
9. Taken mind-altering hormone drugs in large doses.
10. Had sex when I didn't want to.
11. Didn't have sex when I did want to.
12. Taken my temperature when waking up (horrible).
13. Burned moxa sticks while waving them over my belly.
14. Read blogs obsessively.
15. Gone on boring business trips with my husband just to have obligatory sex.
16. Made my husband go on same with me for same reason.
17. Believed medical professionals.
18. Thought about suing medical professionals.
19. Used vaginal suppositories, ick, ick, ick.
20. Voluntarily had surgery with general anesthesia.

21. Started a blog!

should I do IVF if I don't trust my RE?

Obsession of this weekend. In January we finally decided to go forward with IVF. We found the money and decided to bite the bullet. Then I was told I needed another exam, the saline version of they hysterosalpingiogram. I have been going to this RE for over a year so I was surprised she'd never mentioned it at any of our previous meetings discussing IVF. I actually only found out because I went to IVF orientation for the free cookies.

Saline exam in Jan - two small polyps. RE says surgery is a must before IVF. They can't book me until end of March. (tick tock clock). Many weeks on BCP and general anesthesia and several days lost. She couldn't get through my cervix to do the surgery! Now this is after 7 IUIs and many, many exams. Part of my IUI ritual had become the nurse gaily waving the very bent catheter with glee to show me just how crooked my cervix was. So my RE can't go through with the surgery because.... drumroll... my cervix is crooked, very crooked. But we all knew this!

Another saline exam this week. Polyp still there. Hello little polyp. My RE doesn't show up (is she hiding from me?) and I talk to a different doctor who says 1. this polyp not so bad, top of uterus, maybe IVF ok AND 2. crooked cervix, no problem, different surgery protocol to whisk away the polyp. So then she asks me if I want to wait several months for another surgery or go forward with IVF.

Aren't they supposed to be informing me? I'm enraged. I have no idea what to do and I don't trust the lot of them. I am crooked cervix girl - I have a reputation with those nasty bent catheters - did my RE forget? Is she not reading my files? Is the whole clinic just making shit up so I won't give up and they can keep my $$? Why are they wasting my time, my money, my goodwill and abusing my poor nether regions like that?

any advice?

party like it's 1999

bear with me - I can't believe we have to edit our own code for blogger. I keep hearing that Prince song as I type my little html codes - how tedious - slightly less interesting than balancing my checkbook and a lot less interesting than obsessing while staring at the wall

testing..testing

I have been reading IF blogs for the last 10 months or so and I do believe that I would have lost my mind without them. My RE is not making any sense and I'm tired of the run-around so I thought I'd post a bit and see what voices responded out there.

We've been getting ready for IVF for close to 6 months now and spanners are being tossed into the works over and over again. And we ain't getting any younger!

Mother's day, preg SIL, hiding RE, you name it... same story as on many blogs. It may take me a while to find my poetic voice here...

gorey details to follow