A little bit of annasteezhuh pleezh

Okay I know I murdered the spelling, but it's funnetik you see... and I'm a lazy ho with attitude so there.

There isn't much to say but I felt that an update was in order, as much for myself as for anyone who might actually still be reading this diary. Like I said, I'm a lazy ho...did I mention the attitude part?

Let's see, well no baby making this month and already we're up to cycle day sixteen here. It's the thermometer against the wall thing, in other words...no temping! Yay! Who likes doing that anyway? Okay well, me I suppose, but I'm out of the habit so I feel all empowered about it.

Meanwhile I don't have my groovy, little advent calendar to moon over. That kind of stinks.

do you get it?...moon over...haven't lost my sense of humour in all of this.

I start suppressing ovulation on May first, May Day actually, and it's a full two and a half weeks before I even start stims. A long, drawn out month of highs and lows I'm sure.

I wasn't going to do the anaesthesia and had planned to be awake and fully AWARE of the 12 inch needle going into my Netherlands, not for the sake of safety or principle or anything like that, but for another more pressing reason. We got invited to Tuscany by my friend Riana and her husband and I really really, really wanted to go. My anaesthesia consultation appointment fell in the middle of the Tuscan week and it was going to be impossible to change it since it had been made nearly two months ago. Anyway, the choice was clearly, anaesthesia or Tuscany and I chose ... TUSCANY you fool! Oh my god who wouldn't, please what an idiot!

So anyway back from our super long weekend today there was a France Telecom message waiting for me. My appointment has been serendipitously changed to early next week just out of the blue. I couldn't believe my ears. A second chance to be anaesthetised. How could I say no when the anaesthesia Gods are sending me such a message as if from the heavens above?

So that's where I am as of today. Cool as a cucumber so far, I'll be officially starting my treatment in the rolling hills of Tuscany with a good friend and my anaesthesia consulatation all arranged. No worries.

I can't wait to get on with all of this and get a newborn baby in these hungry momma arms. And you know what, something makes me feel like it could happen very soon. Is it considered in poor taste to be optimistic at this point? No it's probably just plain sick, but I think I'm going to throw caution to the wind and plow ahead with the optimism thingy. No cheering me on please, I'm mumbling all this under my breath and darting my eyes around enough about it. If you say nice things I'll only go hide under the dining room table, chew my fingernails and start humming The Marseillaise.

Otherwise I have a plan B. I'm just going to go to the park next week and scream at some poor, isolated mother GIVE ME THAT BABY NOW LADY!! while I lunge myself at her funky, red aluminum wheeled Bugaboo stroller.

May day ...m'aider

I start my treatment on May day. Isn't that wonderful! I'm feeling back on cloud nine. The treatment is a little longer than the treatment for an IUI since for the first 13-16 days your ovulation is completely supressed, and then afterwards carefully controlled over a period of about 8-10 days while you take stims. For me that stimulant will be Gonal-F, 100 IUs this time instead of the 75 IU's I did for the inseminations. It's also combined with a drug called l'Uveris (in French at least), and well, not actally combined because one is in pen form and one is in regular old needle form. That means two, count 'em, two injections per night. Oh well, I think I'd do ten injections per night if I had to. I really don't care just gimme 'dat baby!

So this month is just a lazy month of kicking back and enjoying life as much as possible before entering the loony bin of laboratory manufactured hormones. I've decided I'm giving up alcohol and caffeine the last week of April, difficult I wanna tell you because I am such a wino and a total and complete caffeine wench, but sigh necessary I suppose. Hey you are talking to the woman who gave up coffee and almost all alcohol for 15 months during pregnancy and early breastfeeding, and that's when you really need it. I think I can do it again. It's just hard getting started and getting weaned off of the stuff.

I don't know if we will try to make babies this month or not. On the one hand I could get pregnant and not have to do the IVF can I get a whoo whoo but on the other hand I think we've been down that long and winding road before. Perhaps we will and perhaps we won't. The same goes for charting. I may take my temperature each and every morning and then again I may hit the snooze button and chuck the plastic piece of sh*t against the wall each morning just to hear the clang of the battery jar around inside. A lot of good the bastard's done me so far!

I guess we shall see shant we.

The incredibly amazing Doctor Dieu

It was so weird to see Dr. Dieu again after such a long absence. Our last meeting was in September. Nothing much had changed. I still think he should just go ahead and install those mirrors behind his patients in his office. He always acts like he's admiring himself anyway. His ego is really too big to fit into that tiny space.

A few brief facts about Dr. Dieu:

1)He was recommended to us as THE authority on IVF in the region
2)How could we disagree since he helped us have Baby S
3)He doesn't say anything when you first meet him, just stares at you and waits
4)This is some sort of tactic I'm sure--something he learned at a seminar
5)It bugs me.
6)Seb does the same thing but it's because he's timid and not brash
7)They stared at each other for an uncomfortable amount of time which was really funny, each waiting for the other to speak.
8)He drives an Austin Mini
9)And yet he's really tall for a French guy--it must be a funny sight to see him climb into that car
10)He makes chauvinistic jokes about women and then laughs while looking at the husband.
11)When I first met him he told me to stay off the internet because it would just confuse me.
12)How wrong he was, because that's how I got all of my information.
13) He never explains anything, he just makes small talk.
14)He makes lots of small talk about the United States.
15)He likes to tell me how Americans are allowed to transfer "as many embryos as they want" when they do IVF.
16) That remark caused me to lump him in with all the French people I meet who think all Americans wear cowboy hats and eat cheeseburgers.
17)He always reminds me that in France you can only transfer two embryos at a time.
18)I talked him into transferring three last time...and will talk him into three again I'm sure.
19)He once yelled at his stagiére and called him an imbecile in front of me and Seb
20)I Googled his name out of curiosity a few years ago and two French girls on an internet forum were saying how "easy on the eyes he was."
21)His teeth are yellow, crooked and have brown marks in between them.
22)The appointment, a private consultation lasted less than 15 minutes and cost me 80 euros.
23)He told me that I shouldn't complain about anything because my treatment was free.
24)I had to remind him that we pay taxes...lots of taxes.
24)He petted Baby S's head and told me he should be in magazines.
25)I had the distinct feeling he was taking credit for my baby I don't know why.
26)He told me that women who need more than local anaesthesia for IVF egg retrieval are imagining the pain,
27)Then he asked me if I'd given birth naturally as if that somehow would make it easier
28)His entire office reeks of cigarette smoke.

So there now you have a clearer picture of who I'm dealing with. He is a case and a half, a case for a reality check, a man who most likely charmed his way through medical school and beyond. He was the superior of Doctor Stonehenge for a couple of years and Dr. Stonehenge is severely intimidated by him. He is about as intimidating a character as a mouse on steroids, all tweek and no squeak. But I don't really see how I can reject him. I can't afford to not like him. He was the only thing that ever worked.

To me this overinflated bully represents hope. He is quite plainly my next best shot. I'm torn between admiration and revolt.

I guess I have to embrace him but I will never call him "easy on they eyes," mark my words.

And the break goes on

Yes it's still break time. It feels good. I don't feel like I've missed much, don't get a wave of nostalgia sweeping over me as I pass the pharmacy or my doctor's office, or when I open the fridge and see the opened box of Gonal F sitting there, waiting.

My consultation appointment with Dr. Dieu is this week.

My period is due tomorrow.

I'm ready to get back to normal.

It's funny what passes for normal these days.