Knocked Up

So I’m with child. Got a bun in the oven. Insert another euphemism for pregnancy here.

And, naturally, GAR and I are completely over the moon excited about this (and I'll try my hardest not to get too damn smug about it). I’d love to tell you allll about it and share witty tidbits from my journey thus far but, truth be told, I’m too tired. You guys, growing a baby is seriously exhausting. But no complaints since, truthfully, it’s the only pregnancy symptom I’ve experienced thus far (you’d think I’d be ecstatic to not have an ounce of morning sickness, and I am, but it also leads me into a panicked “Is everything okay in there??” mentality at times. Thankfully my expanding waistline continues to remind me that, yes, this shit is for real! Unless that’s just a result of all the ice cream I’ve been eating).

But, indeed, there is a wee one growing inside me. And, let me tell you, getting to this point was no easy endeavor … and it certainly wasn’t the result of some drunken romp in the backseat of GAR’s pickup truck. Thankfully I had the foresight to write all about it back when I actually did have energy to do such things. And, while this blog post takes you back to Election Day 2012, I should admit that I didn’t get pregnant the day I wrote this message. That happened a few weeks later (on my next “cycle” as they would say in the fertility biz). But, the process was pretty much the same.

So, without further ado…

Nov. 6, 2012: I have my husband’s sperm all up in me.

I know it’s Election Day and the nation is lining up at the polls for their chance to vote but all I can think about is today’s “nooner.” No, it wasn’t the hottest, sexiest, most romantic experience I’ve ever had, in fact it may have been the least va-va-voom “deposit” ever made, but it certainly was memorable nonetheless. That’s because I snuck out from work at lunchtime, drove right past my house, and pulled into the parking lot of the fertility clinic downtown. And there, right on the table in a chilly examining room, is where the “magic” happened. Let me tell you all the saucy details…

First I checked in at the steamy reception desk…

Then a nurse called me back to the waiting room and told me to undress from the waist down only … how naughty!

I draped my lower half with a paper thin covering – you know, just to leave a little to the imagination…

And when the aging, gray haired Dr. McDreamy strolled in I obediently thrust my legs up into some stirrups so he could get a closer look at what I’ve got going on “down there.”

Oh the rush of adrenaline as he pushed the cold speculum inside me! Generally I only allow this region to be penetrated by the very closest and most trusted penises (okay, and maybe a wayward “this one will do … I guess” willie a time or two in my younger years), but on this occasion I really let my guard down and ushered in all manner of foreign objects. Yes! I am a bad, bad girl!

And then it happened. My husband’s sperm appeared before me like a vision in a test tube. And oh the places it had been before meeting me here today! GAR's journey began in a bathroom in that same clinic the week before where he lovingly (after watching porn on his phone I’m sure) deposited this sperm into a cup. It was then frozen, defrosted days later, washed – can’t you just picture all 50 million or so of his happy little sperm dancing and tumbling together during the spin cycle? – and then left here … for me! And before I knew it – zoom! They were inside me and heading for the goal!

Like too many sexual encounters it was over all so quickly. Then I was left alone to lie on a hard table while the octogenarian Dr. McDreamy, the nurse and some random intern who watched the whole affair (like the naughty, naughty voyeur he is) went on with their day.

After 15 minutes I composed myself, climbed down from the table, pulled back on my trousers and paid my $30 co-pay (okay, yes – I admit it. I PAID for it. Come arrest me if you must. I know that paying for sex is a crime but I had to – I just HAD to. Don’t you see? It’s the only way!)

No, I mean it. It really is the only way. Lord knows that GAR and I have tried nearly every other way to get me pregnant but it just never “sticks.” After running dozens of tests on both of us, filling me full of every hormone known to (wo)man, spending every evening giving myself follicle stimulating injections until my tummy looked like a piece of Swiss cheese full of needle tracks, going in for ultrasounds every other day to monitor my ovaries (and I’m talking the sort of ultrasounds where they shove a giant dildo up inside you and poke all around to see every nook and cranny – so, yeah, perhaps I have not been so selective about what’s been going up my vagina lately after all), daily pill regimens for GAR and myself, having blood work drawn every 3 days (which also explains the heroine-esque trails on my arms as well), stalking the mailman who delivers weekly packages of assorted medicines that have to be put on ice as soon as they arrive, carrying a cooler full of said medicines to dinner functions so that I could be sure to take my required doses at the precise right time daily, administering a monthly shot that induces ovulation, trying, hoping, waiting, wishing, failing and then starting all over again … every month for a year … it’s finally come to this – IUI (better known to most people as “artificial insemination”), which gives GAR’s swimmers a quicker route to the finish line (without having to wind their way up and around the crazy maze that takes them from my lady bits up into my uterus). You know, just in case the reason we weren’t getting pregnant before is because his “girl” sperm have poor directional skills and his “boy” sperm refused to stop and ask for directions (how typical, right?)  And, now that it’s done (and it honestly felt like nothing happened at all), and his sperm are all up in me where they should be, I begin a new twice-daily regimen of estrogen pills and progesterone supplements (which, sadly, are not taken orally).

But, despite all this, Old Man McDreamy still says it’s a long shot this month … again. I just don’t produce enough “lady hormones” to, as Tim Gunn would say, “make it work.” In other words, based on my testosterone levels, I’m basically just a dude with a vagina (which, frankly, should surprise no woman who’s ever met me because, let’s face it, I’m really, really bad at being a “chick.” Scrapbooking? Not a chance. Rom com movies? Hell no. Designer handbags? A waste of money. Talking about your feelings? Let me refer you to GAR for that one. Football? Beer? Power tools? Sign me up!) I guess I should have seen this coming.

Not that this problem can’t be remedied by modern science (hooray science!), but it’s a difficult cocktail of oral hormones and injections that has to be mixed in perfect harmony … and the exact recipe varies from person to person and even, once you have the cocktail for one person down, from month to month. Last month the mixture resulted in me producing too many eggs, leading me to have to decide between scrapping treatments for the month or risking getting pregnant with quadruplets (maybe I could get my own show on TLC! Spoiler alert: I went for it and ended up not getting pregnant at all. There go my dreams of making big time tv money) and the overdose of female hormones that were completely unknown to me previously really messed with my mind (why am I crying? I never cry! Is this how other, normal women feel all the time? Seriously, what is this salty discharge coming from my eyes???) So this month they cut back on the meds and my body responded by upping the ante and producing 8 eggs this time around (you sneaky little bastards! You just WANT me to be the new Octomom, don’t you?) though only 1 of them “matured” enough to be considered viable (because there’s nothing more important than having a sophisticated embryo). And so it’s that one little guy (or gal) I’m feebly hanging my hopes on this Election Day.

And so God speed little semen. I’m taking this moment to honor you and wish you well as you run (I mean, swim) fearlessly into battle. Your service is truly to be applauded. Torpedoes on my friends – it’s time to penetrate!