Yoshimi grows a few more cells.

Third beta draw today:

10dpo: 32.5
12dpo: 87.5
14dpo: 193

Also, my progesterone seems to have shot up to the mid 30's, so that's exciting as well.

Nurse Dimples on the phone went ahead and scheduled my first ultrasound for May 14 at 8:30 in the morning. And that's sweet and all, but honestly, I can't even imagine still being pregnant then.

She was asking which day of the week was good, or what time, and I kept thinking this was all very ridiculous--I haven't made it to the first ultrasound since the blighted ovum, and even then it was in an emergency room, not a doctor's office. The idea that Dimples expects me to still be pregnant in two and a half weeks seems adorably quaint.

I appreciate the optimism, I really do, but let's not kid ourselves. It will be a miracle if I'm even in that office May 14 at 8:30 a.m., and the holy mother of all miracles if they can find a heartbeat.

I mean, I hope the pope is still in the United States, because he's going to want to drop in and confirm this himself. He's not going to want to leave this kind of thing to some third-rate Midwestern cardinal, looking to get his picture in the paper. No sir.

Hello, my name is

Betas back!

HCG 10dpo: 32.5
HCG 12dpo: 87.5

Doubling time: 33.3 hours. Whew.

And my progesterone is up to 26, which is nice, too.

So I'm at 4 weeks today, which is when I lost pg #2. Happy to report that so far I have had none of the spotting that has plagued previous pregnancies (knock wood). Mr. Newt and I are still feeling very cautious, but trying to be hopeful.

Oh, and we came up with a nickname. We've been calling the emby "Yoshimi" after the girl in the Flaming Lips song "Yoshimi Battles the Pink Robots."

Arcane? A little.
Awesome? Hell yeah.

All the ladies on the Nest are welcome to continue calling the baby "motherfucker," (after my declaration, "this little motherfucker better stick"). That still cracks me up.

But Mr. Newt and I are worried we're going to accidentally use that affectionate nickname during an ultrasound or something, and they'll call child services on us before the little motherfucker is even born.

So for now, it's Yoshimi. She is, after all, a blackbelt in karate. And it's just so important for embryos to be tough and disciplined if they're going to make it in today's dangerous uterine environment.

I have to go where my muse takes me...

...and today, my muse said, "limericks." My muse is a pain in the ass.

For Maribel:

Maribel is a woman I know
Who has such a pregnancy glow
If only Sephora
Could bottle her aura
They'd sure make a boatload of dough.

For Suzanne:

Cute Suzie thinks maybe she might
Just give up her acting to write
But I hope she will store
That SAG card in a drawer
For when Speilberg decides she's just right.

Drum Roll Please...

HCG: 32.5

P4: 20.8

And the contest result is a TIE between Maribel and Suzanne, with guesses of 32 and 33 respectively! Outstanding work, ladies! It's like you've got a psychic hotline straight to my uterus. I'll have your two haiku tomorrow, and I'll try to make them good.

Everybody else, thanks so much for playing, and for offering to kick people for me. Nurse Skunk did call with the results, and she was at least friendlier. But the first thing she said was "Well, you are pregnant" and then she paused, like she was waiting for me to shout for joy or something.

When she got tired of waiting, she said my hcg was low, but not to worry since it's early. And then she started to move right on to telling me to come in Saturday, and I had to make her back up and give me the number. Thirty-two isn't low for 10dpo! I've doubled up the betabase median!

So I'm perfectly happy. Well, as perfectly happy as a person with a history of early miscarriage can be at 10dpo. And I'll take that, for now.

On the perils of righteousness

Since it's a bit of a tradition now, here is the morning pee stick. Getting darker, right? I now have visible lines on four distinct brands of tests. I'm totally knocked up. And also, possibly, insane.

So I called the RE's office yesterday to report I had a positive home test, and needed betas and progesterone checked, preferably at a lab near me, so I wouldn't have to drive 45 minutes to the city. But Nurse Dimples, my regular nurse, explained that they were so keen to get my progesterone results, they didn't want to wait on my notoriously slow local lab, so could I pretty please make the drive up to the office?

OK, if it's in the interest of haste, I can do that. I am very pro-haste.

I was happy this morning, even after the long drive; I felt like my test results were being taken seriously. And I stayed happy right up until the time I met the new nurse, Nurse Skunk.

She looked at my chart, and said out loud, "So, you've had a positive home pregnancy test." I replied, "yes," indicating that I had a positive home pregnancy test. So I can only deduce that she knew I had a positive home pregnancy test. This part seems reasonable, right? I'm not jumping to any conclusions?

So then she starts taking my blood, and asks what cycle day I'm on. Being bad at math, I couldn't remember, but I told her I was only 10dpo, so it was not alarming if the beta comes back low.

Her needle-jabbing hand stiffened. A faint aroma of disapproval began to waft upward from her skin.

Her displeasure inspired me to go ahead and tax my brain with the math, so I did, and told her it was cycle day 25 (which sounded nice and long to me, because I often have 23 day cycles). CD 25! You could almost say my period was already late.

This did not help. I found myself wishing I had brought this morning's HPT in a baggie in my handbag. It takes a lot to make me wish I had something smelling of urine in my purse, but that's how much I hated all that silent disapproval.

So she finished the draw, and told me the results should come in around 3:00. Then she said, and this is where the wheels came off, "If it comes back positive, the doctor will want to schedule you for another draw in 48 hours."

After the last seven months, that one little word, that one little passive-aggressive, single-syllable declaration of my unreliability, my presumed hysteria, that nasty, totally intentional little "if" just broke me.

I got what my mother would call "real huffy." My nostrils may have flared.

In the most condescending voice a Midwesterner of five feet three and three-quarters inches can reasonably muster, I demanded to know, "What do you mean 'if'?"

Whew! I really put her in her place, didn't I? I cut her off at the knees. That is some scathing wit right there--I bet she will be reliving that moment in therapy for years to come.

So anyway, the question being rhetorical, I did not wait for an answer. But in order to declare my supreme confidence in at least the fact that I'm pregnant (give me that much, bitch), I very pointedly asked how we would do my next blood draw on Saturday. Would the office be open? Yes. Great.

And as I got in the car, still filled with white-hot righteousness, I suddenly realized that a gynecological nurse is probably the last person in the world you want to piss off. I had a feeling that at that very moment, as soon as my shadow cleared the doorway, Nurse Skunk was putting a special mark on my chart that means everyone should give me the extra tiny gowns and maybe freeze the speculum before I arrive.

Now if I get a frostbitten cooch, I have no one to blame but myself.

So that was my morning. I could be happier. In order to distract and amuse me, and so you too can declare your supreme confidence in the fact that I am at least pregnant, let's have a little contest.

Guess my first beta! Is that too weird? Yeah, I don't care. As long as your guess is over 10, I will take it as an indication of your confidence in my pregnancy. I won't start biting my nails until the next round.

I'm 10dpo and the progression of pee-sticks is available for your inspection (note: all the lines are a good 20% darker in real life). Put your answer in the comments, and whoever comes closest wins bragging rights and also a special haiku I will compose in your honor. Voting closes at 4:30 Central Time.

Witless

Last night's FRER is on top, this morning's is on bottom (enlargement recommended).

So I guess it's good I seem to be pg, since I'm out of haiku.

This is my original EDD, so that's...I don't know how that is. Lucky? Odd? Ironic? I don't know.

I'm trying to be optimistic, but I'm mostly scared. It's funny, I'm bouncing off the walls excited all through the 2WW, and then I just shut down when I'm finally convinced there's a line there. Things have never gone well from this point on.

I told Mr. Newt it's time to think of a nickname for the emby. He said he'll give it some thought, and we can start the nomination process after work today.

We are some sentimental fools.

8 DPO Madness

All righty, so this is the best pic I can get of the FRER I took at about 8 tonight. It's easier to see the light line if you enlarge the pic.

The photos came out better this afternoon when I took them in direct sunlight, but the sun went down on me. And it turns out that turning on all the lights in the living room doesn't equal direct sunlight. (Happy Earth Day! I have every light in the house burning!)

But you can tell me if you see something here. In person, it looks like a pink line maybe under a light layer of snow or behind frosted glass.

Here's the same pic, "solarized." You can just see sort of a dent in the black area when you do that.



Peeing again in the morning. Mr. Newt got me a three-pack of the FRERs, so that will last me until at least nine AM.

I need help (in so many ways)

I was determined to obsess in private but I'm hoping if I just post pics of my HPT's here, maybe I can finally walk away from them and get some work done. You all can squint at them for me, right? Because I'm going blind, and it's not getting me anywhere.

Here's the most promising one from this morning (click on the pic to enlarge). Honestly, is there something there? Is it an evap?

I know this is why you shouldn't start peeing on things at 8 DPO, but I can't help myself. It just feels soooooooooo good.

I'm going to put a poll in the sidebar. Please vote! Oh, and tell me the truth. I can take it.

Update: OK, Gemini taught me how to do some manipulation on the image. Here it is after undergoing a process Kodak Gallery calls "solarizing." Can you hear me now?

Eight Haiku for Eight DPO

Lily-white test line,
I will give you ten dollars
If you will turn pink.

Welcome to the womb!
Just put your feet up, baby
And grow a yolk sac.

If it would be wrong
To leave my pants button loose
I want to be wrong.

I should try again.
That was just a practice pee.
I call mulligan.

Why am I crying
At the tv commercials?
Is dog food so sad?

Though this test strip is
White as Marcia Cross's ass,
I will not despair.

With each step my boobs
Wobble like Jello on springs
And it hurts so good.

Progesterone pill
This better not be a tease
You motherfucker.

We interrupt your regularly scheduled Haiku...

...to bring you news of the unbelievably fabulous gift I just got from Katie. Ladies and gentlemen, I give you "Pinky the Wonder Ute"



Please pardon the mediocre image from my camera, which insists on telling me it knows better than I do when flashes are warranted and they're hardly ever warranted. But I'm here to tell you that this little beauty, which Katie knit with her own two hands, made me laugh until my always-weak bladder just gave up in defeat.

Mr. Newt especially likes the little strings coming from the ends of the tubes. He thinks it's a good sign that we have so many follicles. How did I ever find me a man who knows about follicles? I mean, it's not like I know all that much about balls.

Pinky is about to take up residence in a prominent place in our house. I'm not sure where yet, but I want everyone, from the mailman to the dog sitter to be asking me if that's really a knit uterus.

That is one question I cannot wait to answer.

Thanks, Katie!

Seven Haiku for Seven DPO

Constipated now.
I will spare you the details--
I just want to poop.

Should I mow the lawn?
That might hurt the little one,
Better nap instead.

Am I pregnant yet?
What does Magic 8-Ball say?
"Ask again later."

So round and perky--
A quarter could bounce off them.
I love my new rack.

Five Dollar Tree tests
Two internet cheapies, one
FRER: Locked and loaded.

Piss piss piss piss piss
My urine could water all
the world's golf courses.

Testing when I wake,
I want to dream of two lines
(Or of George Clooney).

Six Haiku for Six DPO

Drink water to help
Blastocyst swim through the tubes
Like Esther Williams.

Toxins all around.
Is whitening toothpaste bad?
Google is silent.

Pee sticks call my name
Pee on me! Pee on me, Newt!
Pee sticks are real pervs.

Prometrium pill,
You sure do make me dizzy.
Okay, dizzier.

Twinge in the belly.
Implantation? Probably!
Time to buy a crib.

So wet in my pants
Don't get excited, honey.
It's just the P4.

Five Haiku for Five DPO

Peach marble rolls in;
Peach sludge slowly oozes out--
Prometrium pill.

Check boobs. Check the boobs.
It is time to check the boobs.
Sore? Maybe a bit.

Pressure in the gut
Slowly releases its grip
Another good fart.

Is that a hot flash?
Stupid drugs. Make me fertile,
Not menopausal.

Craving fat and sweets.
Good sign! I should indulge it.
Deep-fried twinkie, please.

It's like Mardi Gras, only not fun.

Greetings from 3DPO!

Thanks to everyone who commented on my last post. You all made me laugh, and gave me lots more to obsess about. You're my favorite enablers ever!

I appreciate the warning that the prometrium is going to cause a lot of pregnancy-like symptoms, so I shouldn't get too excited if things start getting a little bit festive in my bra. But as long as I'm obsessing anyway, I think I'll go ahead and schedule twice-daily boob inspections. It's the only part of the festival of derangement (tm) that Mr. Newt actually likes.

I'm going to hang this in the bedroom, so we can keep an ongoing chart of my progress:


Right now, I'm measuring about level D on a good day. Hoping to work myself up to E by Monday. Tuesday at the latest.

Wish me luck, internet!

The big O

Hold on to your hat, internet: I ovulated.

My temperature took a nice jump this morning, right on time, Boo-ya! Let the two-week wait begin! Or what is generally called the 2WW, although that term might be a little wrong for this occasion, since I always start testing about eight days post ovulation (two weeks! are you kidding?).

And frankly I don't know that you could call what I do "waiting." I mean I guess it's technically a wait, no matter how restlessly and obsessively I do it, but there are better words to describe it: psychopathy, mental recess, crazypalooza. So instead of a two-week wait, let's just say I usually have something more like an eight-day festival of derangement, followed by two days of increasingly frequent testing, followed either by my period, or a very early BFP (and a very early miscarriage, but we'll try not to think about that part).

I have long since given in to this psychosis, and Mr. Newt knows that he should just hide the breakables and take cover when I get that batshit crazy glint in my eyes. So should you, internet. So should you.

Here is my plan for this particular festival of derangement:

1dpo: Celebrate ovulation. Assure Mr. Newt that it's not the end of sex week but rather the uncanny beauty of human reproduction that is making me so joyful. Hope that he buys this.

3dpo: Start prometrium, and probably spend two or three days obsessing over oddness and/or side effects of shoving a little round pill up my cooch. Fight back phobia that the pill is going to wiggle down and fall out a pant leg while I'm giving a talk to a room full of important people, making a clattering noise on the linoleum, and rolling over to come to a stop at the foot of some university VIP.

5dpo: Ceremonial trip to Dollar Tree to buy 5 cheap pregnancy tests (must not buy 10, must not buy 10). Shake each box individually to make sure some teenager hasn't stolen the test out from inside. Throw some other things in the basket so the clerk can pretend not to notice real and obvious purpose of this errand. Just needed a scented candle! And some bobby pins!

7dpo: Inspect chart three or four times to verify whether I might have actually ovulated a day or two earlier than the temp rise. Maybe it's time to test? No. Well, maybe.

8dpo: Test with first morning urine. This is, of course, much too early to get a positive result, but carry the negative test around the house anyway, inspecting it under different light sources and at different angles. Surely there's something there. Declare it a "pre-positive." Force Mr. Newt to agree, knowing that he will agree to anything if I will just, for the love of all things good and merciful, stop sticking urine-soaked objects in his face. Repeat every five hours.

9dpo: See 8dpo. Begin to despair that the pre-positives are not getting any darker. Sneak out to Dollar Tree for second round of tests.

Now historically, late in the day of 9dpo, I will either start to see something, or the game is over. I always have gotten my period about 10dpo, and even I can't pretend like that's a pre-positive. But this time around, the prometrium will extend my cycle, so this will be an interesting test of whether my maniacal stick-peeing will eventually burn out, or I can keep this up for four more days.

Will I run out of pee? Will the Dollar Tree run out of tests? Will Mr. Newt finally lock me in the bathroom and let me piss in my cups all fucking day as long as he doesn't have to keep squinting at the goddamn sticks anymore?

I, for one, can't wait to find out.

The laws of physics

Maria's post about how she always thought she'd be done having children by the time she was thirty has got me thinking. I wish I had ever had such a clear vision of my life. I didn't even meet Mr. Newt until I was thirty, so my life has been on the slow train, not the express. I still wonder how I was lucky enough to end up here, even though things haven't been so easy lately, what with all the lost babies.

I haven't even been sure I wanted children until the last few years. I was young, and I was a dork, and I think I was making room to be happy with whatever turn my life took.

If I never found someone, I still had a great job, and great friends, and I could have been happy. I certainly was determined never to get married unless I was rock-solid certain that this was the one for the rest of my life, and how was I even supposed to know that was a possibility until it happened? Maybe that's something that only happens in Nora Ephron movies, and sometimes not even there.

And even when I did think about maybe possibly getting married someday, I had a real dilemma about adding kids to the mix. I tended to alternate between dating guys who were responsible and appropriate and painfully boring, and guys who were eccentric and funny and painfully immature. I figured that if I settled down someday, it would probably be with one of the latter. They were the ones I liked better, even if I sometimes wanted to box their ears.

So I always suspected I might marry someone fascinating, but also irresponsible or hyper-creative or unpredictable. And I would always be the one doing the taxes while he pursued some crazy dream, or was just delightful in a childlike way. I could envision such a husband, a completely abstract husband (although in my mind he looked exactly like Owen Wilson), and know for sure that he would drive me bonkers as a co-parent, and having children would make us both miserable. So we wouldn't have kids; it was a sacrifice I would make for the marriage. Aren't I a saint?

Of course now I'm so grateful I never had to settle for Owen Wilson. I found Mr. Newt, and I can't imagine any other life.

And the thing I adore about Mr. Newt--well, one of the many things, but this sort of captures it--is that he is fascinating without being self-centered, and responsible without being boring. He's goofy and creative and he makes me laugh until my bladder leaks, but he also does the taxes, and we take the same things seriously. And so I know down to my toes that he is going to be the most wonderful father, and having kids will only make us happier. He has the gentlest hands, he sings little songs while he putters around the kitchen, and he loves the smell of babies' heads.

Geez, this has gotten really sappy all of a sudden.

So Mr. Newt is great, blah blah blah. That's all prelude to the story I set out to tell, which is this.

Last July, on the night before I got my first BFP, we went over to a friend's house for dinner. And this friend, let's call him Al because that's his name and there's nothing about this story that should embarrass him, has a dog, so we brought our dogs along for a play date.

We were sitting on Al's back porch, next to his pool, having a lovely evening talking and drinking and eating pasta while the dogs played in the yard. Because the little dog is blind, Mr. Newt put her on a long leash, and tied the leash to the table while we ate dinner so she wouldn't fall in the pool.

But then I got to feeling bad that the other dogs were running free, and my sweetie was tied to the table, so I suggested we let her go. Surely she would smell the chlorine, right? And if she put one paw down and noticed no ground, being a quadruped, she would have no trouble holding herself upright on the other three legs while she backed away from the edge. Both animal physiology and the laws of physics suggested that my little dog would not fall in the pool. It was foolproof. QED.

I unhooked her, and naturally she walked straight to the edge, and fell in the pool.

I managed to pull her out very quickly, and without having to jump in myself, but I did get a lot of water and dog hair all down the front of my clothes. The dog was soaking and clearly felt her trust had been betrayed. I was also soaking, but thankfully it was a hot night so I could bravely pretend it was somehow refreshing to be masquerading as the world's most pathetically endowed wet-t-shirt contestant. Still, we left not long after dinner, towels on the seat of the car. Mr. Newt never said "I told you so."

And I think that's when it occurred to me that I'm the flaky one in this marriage. Me.

I'm in my mid-thirties and I still don't always feel like an adult. My body feels increasingly old, especially in light of all this fertility hullabaloo, but in my head I'm still a dumb kid. And that future, the one I was trying to leave open? Well, it's here, ready or not. It's still a little hard for me to get my head around the fact that it's here. Kids? I'm ready and not ready at the same time.

The good news is that Mr. Newt is more wonderful than I could ever have envisioned (Sorry, Owen!). The bad news is I'm still kind of a dork.

Mr. Newt brings the Magic

So, time to make a baby. We started sex week two days ago, and I know I shouldn't be writing about this, but just this once, OK? It's not graphic, I promise.

On the first day of sex week, my true love gave to me...an accidental dose of soft-core porn.

No, seriously, it's not graphic. Mr. Newt and I just happened to be clearing out the TiVo memory, and we watched the most recent episode of The Tudors. If you haven't seen this show, it's on Showtime, and that means there's lots of booty. There's some rather bad theology, court intrigue, and a bit of jousting, but it's hardly noticeable amid all the booty. Now I'm not saying I was humming "Greensleeves" when we went to bed later or anything, but it set a nice tone for the evening.

On the second day of sex week, my true love gave to me...breathtaking hi-lar-i-ty.

So on day two, I made a remark about how it was a shame there wasn't anything from Showtime on the TiVo anymore. And Mr. Newt said if I wanted some inspiration, he had a little something tucked under the mattress. I, being the most naive person ever, didn't get the joke. The mattress?

So then poor Mr. Newt had to explain this was a reference to how teenage boys always tuck a playboy under the mattress. And of course, that's dumb, because teenage boys have parents, and surely they don't change their own sheets, and how exactly do they think they aren't going to get caught?

And then Mr. Newt told me the funniest story I have ever heard, and I'm sure this is the sort of thing that has happened to every teenage boy since they started drawing naked cavewomen on the walls of the cave, but still. Sexual humiliation just never stops being funny.

It seems that half a lifetime ago, Mr. Newt came home from high school in the company of two guys from the cross-country team who weren't exactly friends, but they were nice guys and they'd never been to his house before, and it was a good day not to be embarrassed, you know?

So my sweet, skinny, red-headed A student walks in with these two other kids, and finds his parents sitting on the couch, obviously waiting for him. And his mom says they found something in his room, and they set it on the bed, and maybe he would like to explain himself? And of course it's his Playboys, and of course his soul crumbled into ashes that day.

I'm not sure where the story goes from there, because I was unable to hear, speak, or breathe from laughing. My toes were curled, my pupils were dilated, my cheeks were dabbed with pink, and I could not catch my breath. Oh my stars and garters. It was not the kind of magic I was expecting, but leave it to Mr. Newt to bring the magic.

And then the other magic. Because there's no aphrodisiac like sexual humiliation.

Why, that's an Oxymoron!

So I guess I've been tagged.

I am instructed to list six unimportant things about myself, but frankly I'm confused by this premise. Every passing whim of mine is super-important. That's why I started a blog in the first place!

So under protest, here is my list:

1. I have a girl crush on Evangeline Lilly.

2. I have had a phobia about tidal waves since I was a little kid. I lived in Dayton, Ohio, so you can see why I would lie awake at night agonizing over the possibility that the ocean was going to swallow me in my bed at any minute.

3. I saw INXS in concert when I was in high school, and it was sublime.

4. I hate bras. I usually wear one when I'm out in the world, but I whip that puppy off the second I get home. Sometimes on planes I'll just unsnap my bra at take-off and leave it loose until we land--I'm pretty good at doing this discreetly, especially if I'm in the window seat. I've also been known to loosen my bra in cars or movie theaters. Klassy!

5. I sing off-key. Way off-key. Sadly, this fact has never deterred me from singing with great gusto, around the house and in the car.

6. I sometimes get plantar warts on my feet. Duct tape makes them go away in two or three days.

Somewhere along the way that list changed from (so-called) unimportant things about myself into embarrassing things about myself. Ah well. I guess I'm going to be one of those bloggers.

So, now I tag

Katie
Maria
Patricia
Tracy
Mrs. Soup
Sushilover

Sorry if any of you have already done this Meme. I'm new to this.

And for the record, I'm only letting Kristin off the hook because she has surgery Thursday. Take care, Kekis! I'm sending you lots of love.

And if I look a little blue in the face tomorrow, it's because I'm holding my breath until after dr. girlfriend's viability ultrasound. Come on baby girlfriend! Let's get that little heart beating so your Auntie Newt can exhale and stuff, OK? Good baby. Very good baby.

Am I smarter than a 5th grader?

No, but I can drink, and they can't, so ha ha.

Also, I have a driver's license and I get to have sex and buy my own shoes. Highly impractical, very slutty shoes. Eat that, fifth graders!

So, my big accomplishment of the night is that I just figured out how to get photos off my phone and into a jpeg file. I've known how to take pictures with the phone for a while (point, click, etc.), but up until now they've just sat on my phone because I haven't known how to upload them to anything. So tonight I figured that last part out, proving unequivocally that I'm at least as smart as a third grader.

Hey, what can I say? The Stanford/Tennessee game wasn't all that riveting.

So without further ado, Dear Gherkin proudly presents, fresh from the cell phone, photos of the dogs at the dog park!

Here's the big dog, investigating the camera:


And here's the little dog, being her sweet self:

I love how the wide-angle lens makes her head look really big and her feet look really little. I can promise, my little dog has normal cocker-spaniel-sized feet. Her head might be a little big, but it's mostly fur.

We keep her bangs long like that because our sweet little dog is completely blind from glaucoma. She runs into the walls a lot (and the furniture, and our legs, and the big dog), and all that hair helps cushion her poor head.

But she's a tough little broad. I love it when the bigger dogs come up to my girl at the park and try to sniff her privates or hump her. My sweet baby does a lip-curling snarl that makes my maternal heart skip a beat. I've seen her send pit bulls slinking off to the corner of the park, where they make a pitiful play to rediscover their masculinity with that slutty flea-bitten border collie who will roll over for anybody.

And my girl just gives a sassy little head-toss and goes on about her business, sniffing the ground and finding some dead squirrel guts to roll in, because she is all about the dignity, this little dog. She takes after me that way.

G is for GRATEFUL THAT IT'S OVER

So I'm done complaining about the HSG now, I promise. I thought I'd finish the trifecta of post-procedure posts with a nice list of three things that make me happy.

This seems like a good plan for a rainy Monday, and also will help me get into a positive mindset for getting back on the TTC horse this cycle (pun definitely not intended, internet, gawd you're such a perv). Besides, three is a lucky number, and I am doing everything I can to store up luck this time around. So, in no particular order:

1. I am happy that it's spring. This is our first spring in the new house, so I have had no idea what to expect in the way of flowers popping up around the hedges. I confess that when I noticed eight purple tulips spaced at sort of bizarre intervals in the front yard this morning, I was pleased but also confused. Welcome, tulips! Are you supposed to be purple like that?

2. I'm happy Mr. Newt and I had a fabulous and relaxing date night Saturday. I put on an actual dress, and we went up to the arts district in the city. We had a lovely dinner on the patio of a great restaurant we'd never tried before, and then went to see a gorgeous restored silent film with live musical accompaniment (on a harp! don't see that every day!). Mr. Newt almost fell asleep, but I blame the wine with dinner. Surely it wasn't the movie, which was riveting.

3. And finally, I am happy about the NCAA basketball tournaments, both men's and women's (but mostly women's). Seeing Tennessee squeak by LSU last night gently broke my heart, but boy was it a good game, with the star player on each team battling injury, and a buzzer-beater finish. LSU players and your possibly-crazy coach, you should go home proud.

But may I say, just briefly, that the LSU coach looks and talks like some kind of human cartoon character? Somebody get this guy a sitcom. I could totally see him as the wacky local judge in a small-town comedy, saying things like "Son, we have a saying around here. Your mare may have dropped it, but my pig rolled in it, so that horse pie's community property." And then there would be a laugh track, and everyone would learn a valuable lesson. Pure gold, right?

So anyway, a sad farewell to LSU, but now Candace Parker and Candice Wiggins can square off against each other in the final, and how can you not be excited about that? They have the same first name!

So that's all for today--no news of tests or TTC or anything strange my uterus is doing, and that's a real blessing for now. Thanks for indulging my little happy interlude. I'm sure this next two-week wait is going to be a real picnic, running right up against my original EDD of April 23, so I'm glad I'm setting my mind on tulips and the Candace/Candice rivalry while I still can.

So internet, help me out here. What are you happy about?

The S is for SADISM

Thank you to everyone who shared their HSG stories with me--I feel less like a pansy now.

And for those of you who still have the procedure coming up, I'm so sorry if I scared you. I didn't mean to, but I do sort of think the medical community has underestimated the amount of discomfort and invasiveness involved in shooting a bunch of dye, with pressure, up a woman's cervix. Why do they just tell you to take a little ibuprofin before the procedure? They should routinely offer something stronger.

Dentists do it. Anytime there's going to be drilling or tooth-pulling, they'll medicate you ten ways to Sunday. It's a pharmacological utopia, the dentist's office, and this is one of the great blessings of the modern world.

So come on, OB/GYN's! You're not going to let the dentists show you up in the area of humane medical practice, are you? Are you? Because I can tell you right now, my hoo-ha is a lot more sensitive than my gums.

I'm not a soapbox kind of girl (scared of heights, actually), but this has been bothering me, so let me finish my little rant here, and I promise my natural vertigo will prevent me from making a habit of it.

OK, sure, women are tough, and you don't want to overmedicate people, and some women don't have much cramping at all, and it's all over very quickly. But so what? Seriously, so what? If there's the real possibility that something is going to hurt like hell--and from everything I've read, my experience of the HSG was not a bit atypical--then you medicate people.

Don't you?

Maybe I'm a pansy after all, but I have a real aversion to meaningless, unnecessary suffering--mine or anyone else's. So Melissa, and Mrs. Soup, and anyone else who has an HSG in her future, I would really ask the doctor if you can be given a painkiller ahead of time. I have heard that some doctors will do this, and I think it would make a world of difference.

OK, rant over.

So, can you tell that I won't be going in for the whole unmedicated childbirth thing? Actually, can I have an epidural right now? I know I'm not pregnant yet, but I hate to leave something that important to the last minute.

The H is for HURTS

Um...I do not love Mr. Ibuprofin.

Mr. Valium, Mr. Codeine, or Mr. Percocet should call me, because I am available. I am a woman with needs, if you know what I mean (and I think you do).

I am dumping a box of Mr. Ibuprofin's CD's on his apartment step. He better not call me again.

So, the HSG. I went in this morning and I wasn't a bit nervous, I swear. I was all chipper checking in, and I got into the gown, and I shot the shit with the tech while she set up the instruments, like I didn't have a care in the world.

Dr. Necktie arrived, and we chatted about my FSH results--which came back 6.7, by the way. That's OK, right? I mean, I'd love to have the ovaries of a 17-year-old, but I'm twice that, so my ovaries are doing OK, right? Not bad? Pardon this needy interlude, but I would really like to know that my ovaries are OK.

So anyway, then I got the order to "scoot down" on the table and the entertainment began. First of all, let me say that I'm kind of an anatomy nerd. I loved dissecting that fetal pig in high school (sorry, pig) and I have a patently fetishistic fascination with surgeries of all kinds. So let's just say I'm not squeamish. Seriously. Not at all. So if you are a little squirrelly about graphic bodily descriptions, you might want to scoot on ahead. I talk about ice cream in the last paragraph. Yum! Everybody loves ice cream!

La de da de da.

So, my hardy friends, the HSG started off just peachy. The old speculum, no problem. Some kind of swabbing action to disinfect my cervix, no problem (but why exactly do they think my cervix isn't clean? I have very clean lady parts!). A nice swab of novacaine to numb the area, great! This is going to be a piece of cake. The easy kind of cake. Cake from a mix.

The only part I was nervous about was the insertion of the catheter into the cervix. I had a urinary catheter in the ER six months ago, on one of the worst days of my life, so those bad memories made me a little apprehensive about somebody poking a tube into my cervix. But after the novacaine, I couldn't even feel the catheter. I thought I was home free. Home. Free.

Pride, as I think I learned in high school, goeth before a fall.

So then Dr. Necktie started to push the fluid into the uterus. My brain was ecstatic. Looking at the x-ray monitor, the lovely slow outline of my uterus filling with dye was absolutely lovely. The sensuous curves of the womb, the delicate branching of the tubes, the exquisite pluming of the dye as it flowed out past the ovaries. Really, it was something to behold.

So I would like to think it was the breathtaking beauty of the human body that made my head fill with sparkles, and my cheeks go hot. But I have a feeling I'm just a big pussy.

My body was less happy than my brain. I got nauseated, realized my ladybits felt distinctly gross, and then I lost consciousness.

Yes, internet, I fainted on the x-ray table. Somewhere between the filling of the right tube and whatever came after that, sweet oblivion completely overtook me. I actually had a little dream on the table--I remember it quite clearly: I was on a subway, and Mr. Newt was there, and it looked (of all things) like the last scene in the third Final Destination movie. Or the fourth. Has there been a fourth? Who can keep track of those things?

So anyway, I was awakened by Dr. Necktie calling my name. I woke up and had no idea where I was. There were all these people standing around me, and my first thought was that this looked just like a movie, maybe the movie Seconds, with Rock Hudson. Really, that's what went through my mind.

I felt dizzy, and I said something clever along the lines of "Oh, I was asleep!" Like everyone in the room had somehow missed my sudden disappearance from the world of conscious thought. Thankfully, they were very nice, and didn't make fun of me for either the pantywaist fainting or the mushbrain waking. Did I mention that Dr. Necktie is very nice? He's very nice.

I managed to get up after a few minutes, wipe away all the dye that was leaking from my hoo-ha, and get dressed. The doctor gave me the good news that my uterus and tubes look just fine. No sign of blockages, fibroids, or septums (septi?). So that's good. But honestly, I can't even think about all that, because I'm just plain shaken.

I'm still getting my feet back under me. My belly is a little crampy, my head is still light, and I'm wiped out. This reminds me--uncannily--of my D&C. Is that why I passed out? Dr. Freud, iz zis my unconscious mind? I don't know. I just know I don't want an HSG ever again.

Mr. Newt, who I believe I mentioned is the best husband in the world, brought home some nice Thai food, and I have had some ice cream. I love ice cream. How much do I love ice cream? I love ice cream like Paris Hilton loves her damn self. That's how much I love ice cream. I love ice cream as much as I hate an HSG.

On love, marsupials, and waterboarding.

Well, I figured the RE would want to reschedule the HSG, after my body's peekaboo menstruation rather messed up our plans for this week.

I called the office yesterday, but the nurses were in clinic, so one of them returned the call while I was in a meeting, and I had to try again--etc. etc. I believe the young people call this "phone tag."

So that was all fun and games yesterday, but I really needed an answer today, since the HSG was originally scheduled for tomorrow. Naturally (Murphy's Law being the order of the day) the nurse called back while I was in the shower this morning.

Knowing this was a matter of some urgency, Mr. Newt kindly came into the bathroom, and asked if I wanted to get out to take the call, or should he try to handle it. I had a head full of shampoo, but there was no way I was going to let that nurse hang up.

Shouting from behind the shower curtain, I quickly prepped Mr. Newt on our two issues. One, we needed the CD 3 bloodwork order faxed to the lab today. And two, should I still come in for the HSG on Thursday, since that is going to be CD 4, rather than CD7? Mr. Newt, who is adorable, stood in the bathroom in his slippers and took notes.

My poor dear husband. First he had to get back on the phone and explain to the justifiably baffled nurse exactly how and why I (a grown woman, according to their files) was mistaken about the start of my period last Friday.

To his enormous credit, Mr. Newt did not just claim that his wife was a little bit wackadoo sometimes (although it would have been indisputably true). Instead, he went into a little spiel about how my luteal phase is usually 8-10 days, and somehow, despite a week of spotting, it had suddenly turned into 12. It was a natural mistake.

The term "luteal phase," I should note, is used in our household like I imagine the phrase, "Hi honey, I'm home" must be used in normal homes (while Wally and the Beav play in the back yard). After almost a year of reproductive disasters, Mr. Newt could write a dissertation on the endocrinology of ladybits.

Which brings me to my point: Mr. Newt is the greatest husband ever.

Seriously, how much do I love this man? I love this man like Sam Waterston loves justice. I love him like teenage boys love wanking off. I love him like koala bears love the delicious tang of eucalyptus.* Mr. Newt is the eucalyptus to my koala.

Unfortunately, in this case, his deliciousness may have backfired. It seems that his little display of gynecological competence, impressive as it must have been, emboldened the nurse a bit too much. Because when he asked question number two, about moving the HSG exam, she proceeded to inquire if my flow was likely to be heavy still on CD 4, or if it will just be spotting at that point. This is when my poor sweet baby hit a wall.

I really wish I had been able to witness it firsthand, because I have a feeling there was stammering, and my big strong husband may have blushed. He's very cute when he blushes.

I guess the nurse figured out that his expertise on this issue was a little less authoritative, because she let him off the hook, and gave him a two-part plan. If my period is still heavy tomorrow, I can call in the morning and reschedule. But if I am just spotting, I should go ahead and keep the appointment.

Finally, he got to hang up. And all before I finished conditioning. I always miss all the fun.

So as of this evening, it's a pretty light cycle, and I am planning to go in for what dr. girlfriend has encouragingly called the "waterboarding" of my uterus tomorrow. Anything to show my reproductive system who's boss, right?

Unfortunately, Mr. Newt can't come with me for the procedure, but my friend Mr. Ibuprofin will be there. How much do I love Mr. Ibuprofin? I'll tell you tomorrow.


*Koalas are not technically bears, but marsupials. Also, the male apparently has a bifurcated penis. Weird, huh?