neverlaternow

Seeing this 102-year-old woman (Jerry Emmett) from Arizona, older than women's right to vote, pledging delegates to the first woman presidential nominee.... you can be sure I had tears running down my face at this moment.  

Nice was my first experience of France, where I finally got to be out of Indiana, out of the US and somewhere exciting and new.  I had dreamed of it for so long and it was everything I thought it would be and more. I was mistaken for an Italian I don't know how many times, made friends with a grocer who sold me the most amazing pear I've ever had in my life, serenaded by a French psychic who would greet us every morning, and shared a meager dinner of bread and water with Michal our first night there because we were too tired and amazed by the place to do anything else.  We sat on a bench on the Promenade des Anglais sharing a baguette, watching the sunset, listening to the waves lap that unmistakable beach.

Now I’ve seen pictures of so many bodies scattered across the promenade we walked dozens of times.  I keep wanting to burst into tears because I don’t understand; it feels like these beautiful places that are so important to me keep getting ripped away.  The memories irreversibly warped.  Lives, so many full happy lives, celebrating in a beautiful city on a beautiful night for a beautiful tradition, cut so short.  Will I ever get to share the beauty with my family?  Will my memories be confined to a steel cage of fear, and France becomes like Somalia, Syria, Iraq... one of those places you just don’t go.  

T and I went to Paris after the attacks; I was more anxious leading up to it than actually being there.  And I was looking into a trip to Nice next year since the Caribbean and Mexico aren’t options while we try to get pregnant.  I don’t want to be ruled by fear and not go, but it feels like we need to be doing better.  As people, as the human race, in educating each other. Spreading the wealth and spreading the love.

Tonight I will be praying for France, praying for the victims, praying for our leaders to be better.  We just need to be better.  

I spent the morning trying to quell my panic and was mostly successful, but still had an anxiety-driven morning.  By the time I got to the surgery center (the actual one, after accidentally parking at and trying to find check-in in the wrong building) I was pretty hyped up, for good and bad.

Check-in was fast, but I had to sign all kinds of release and consent forms, including one where I would allow for blood transfusion or blood products to be used on me.  Eek!

They took me back and first had me pee in a cup (for a pregnancy test I’m guessing - yay for yet another bfn!) then get undressed from the waist down.  Despite all my time peeing in cups this last year I still managed to get pee all over my hands and the outside of the cup.  Then when I tried to put it on the sink so I could clean up, I accidentally put it under the automatic soap dispenser!  But pulled it away just in time.  

Back in the pre-op area I was able to keep my sweater on but then I put one of those short-sleeved hospital robes, that tie in the back, over it.  It was a hot look.  They had put a sheet on the chair, which when I first came in thought was funny, but then I sat there thinking, “Hmmm, they knew I would have my bare ass on this chair. Good thinking.”  I also got those little socks with treads.  What is it that is so comforting about having your feet bundled in a cold room?  They confirmed my name, date of birth, and medication allergy, then did blood pressure and heart rate.  It was high - 116!

My RE tried to talk to me before the procedure but unfortunately I was still getting undressed (I had gotten there kind of late), and I saw that she had a TON of paperwork to sign.  I really wish we could have had a little time to have a face-to-face though.  She was wearing a bunny suit (sterile suit over street clothes) so that made me feel better about minimizing risk of infection!

Then they put on a net over my hair, and a blanket around my waist because they had kept the bottom half of the back of the robe untied.  We walked around the corner to the x-ray suite.  It was a pretty big room with just a long gurney-type table in the middle, with the wonderful stirrups sticking out the sides towards the bottom.  The nurse took the blanket off my waist and I’m sure she saw my bare butt as she tried to tell me how to position myself correctly as I got up on the table.  Then they placed each of my legs in the stirrups.  These were really nice though!  More like leg and ankle pillows than the bare-bones metal ankle stirrups at the obgyn’s office.  It’s vain as hell but they called me super skinny and that made me feel really nice, especially since I’ve felt so much thicker in the last year.  

Then everything went REALLY FAST.

They had kept the blanket over my pelvis for privacy’s sake, but I swear they pulled the blanket up and the speculum went in immediately.  It really made me wish I had somehow “prepped” first, because I’m tight to begin with, but I was also super anxious. 

I kind of remember the nurse telling me to take deep slow breaths and not hold it, but I think I had a moment where my mind went somewhere else briefly, because I was like, Did she even tell me we were starting???  And then it was like my hearing came back and I could hear her saying she was starting to swab the cervix with iodine.  That felt like a pap smear, which I liken to the tactile equivalent of hearing nails on chalkboard, but this time a little more intense.  

Then she said she was giving me a numbing agent (topical or injection, who knows?) and I was confused because I had asked about that on the phone before the procedure and they said they didn’t use any anesthetic???  Then she said she was going to attach a clamp to my cervix (which is what the anesthetic was for). And again I was confused because I thought I had read online that most doctors didn’t use cervical clamps for this procedure anymore.  But at that point you just have to roll with it!  That definitely hurt, but it was more like a really deep and painful pinch.  There, and then just kind of dully aching until it was bumped again.  I had exclaimed, “Shit!” when she attached it and I heard her say, “Hmm, it doesn’t seem like this numbing agent is working for you,” and there was some more pain as she messed with it.

By this point I think I had said “Shit!” at least twice aloud, but I was past being bashful, especially about my language.  I think there were 5 seconds where I just felt some deep pushing and pulling sensations, I was trying to make sure I was relaxed and that my breath was relaxing me down to my toes, then there was a really big gush of something liquid spilling out of me and because she hadn’t told me what she was doing, I was like, “Uuuuhhhh, what was that?  I just felt a bunch of... blood?”  Of course I was worried some artery had been cut with the cervical clamp because I hadn’t been able to research that part!  And then the RE said, okay now I’m injecting the contrast dye.  Then all of them - the nurse at my head, the x-ray tech, and my RE were like - “Here comes the cramping!” like they knew that was the worst part and were feeling for me.

And the cramps were nothing.  For me it was like mild to low-medium period cramps. I was expecting so much worse. The nurse redirected my attention from the ceiling to the screen, where I could see my uterus, small but all crooked and drunken-looking, filling up with dye.  The dye spilled out of my left tube right away, but none or little was coming out of my right.  The RE started saying, “Come on right tube, come on right tube.” Then she like, jiggled the balloon or whatever was up there forcefully to try and push more dye into and out of the right tube, but there was no pain associated with that.  Again the only pain was centered around my cervix!  The dye started spilling out of my right tube and she declared them all clear.

Then everything was removed in, I swear, 3 seconds and I think I only said “Fuck” one last time when she took that thing off my cervix.  The nurse had prepared a pair of mesh panties (hey, I thought I wouldn’t see those until childbirth!) with one of those monster megapads, and slipped them on as she took my legs off the stirrups.  Then I had to pull them all the way up myself while laying on the table as they lowered it back down.  When she asked me how I was doing, I told her that all along I’ve been more afraid of the post-procedure complications like infection or bleeding.  She said infection was really unlikely but to just let them know if I developed a fever, and told me to expect some brown sticky discharge.

It just kept going so fast.  I went back to my changing area, the nurses were nice enough to ooh and aah over how well I did, and I started getting my jeans back on. The RE was outside the curtain and asked if I had any questions, so I said, “So what are the next steps?” because I still felt kind of out of it and didn’t know what to ask about the procedure that wouldn’t delay her another 10 minutes.  And I don’t know why I was disappointed, she was just there to do a procedure in the time scheduled, but she said, “I’m sorry but I don’t have your chart. I’m embarrassed but I haven’t had a chance to look over it.  I’ll have one of my nurses call you.”  And then she was gone.

And that was when I started not feeling great, because the whole thing had been pretty impersonal, I questioned whether or not I wanted this person to be my doctor, and it had gone so fast.  I’m not sure she even made eye contact with me once and I had felt shell-shocked basically since the speculum went it.  I got my shoes on, was handed a folder with basic discharge instructions, and escorted back to the lobby.  As I was walking out of the building I knew that my mind could take the whole experience to a really terrible victim-oriented place, so I told myself that I was safe, fine, healthy, and my tubes were clear.  These were all things to celebrate, and now I should just look forward to taking a nap and see if I felt more like myself afterward.  Later I realized that while I didn’t have a lot of pain during the procedure, my stress response - adrenaline, mind-racing, blood pressure shooting up, stress hormones out that wazoo - was making me feel awful.  I would almost prefer pain to the whole-body response to pain.  

The rest of the day I felt pretty yucky.  Just that general, all-body beginning-of-the-flu-like feeling that I get on CD1 and CD2 every month.  With a little extra pressure/soreness in the pelvis.  And I did in fact have actual bleeding - more bright pink than red - that tapered the rest of the day.  Probably a teaspoon or two total.  So it’s kind of like I had 2 periods this month.  Whomp whomp.  I was able to get in an hour or so nap, then had fries and a cookie dough blizzard (that seriously felt like actual medicine in making me feel better!) and went to teach my 3-hour cooking class.  By the end of the evening I wasn’t even noticing the pelvic discomfort, and it was easy to forget I had even had the procedure.  

Today I still feel kind of wiped and “flu-y” and I’m still wearing a liner just in case, but it’s slowly getting better.  Still though, when I think about my pelvic area it feels angry and “hot” as I call it.  Like there’s more activity there than there should be...  Hopefully by next week it will all be back to normal.

Last night I had a dream where I was taking care of a baby, a little girl, and the baby trusted me to protect her from everything that was out there and wrong in the world.  My heart wants it to be prophetic, but I know I just have babies on the mind.   In any case, my tubes are clear, or at least they are now, and hopefully this is one more step toward having a little one of my own.  

Quick Notes

I can see much more clearly why women would want to labor and deliver at home. That room was so sterile and too bright, and the doctor was too perfunctory.  I was always sure I would want to deliver at a hospital or hopefully birth center because they seem safer in case anything goes wrong, but there’s something about hospital birth that runs right into issues related to independent decision-making and bodily autonomy.  Things about the modern practice of medicine that, even though I desperately want to be a doctor, I haven’t yet reconciled for myself.

Relatedly, when I was on the table I questioned whether or not I could even handle childbirth.  This experience was nothing comparatively, and I’m afraid I’m not strong enough.  I just want to go back to feeling like myself so I can think more clearly about it.  

Other issues in care: contrasted with the distance of the doctor, my nurses were saints.  The one during the procedure was so unbelievably warm and caring, and offered me her hand to hold and squeeze.  I almost did, but really wanted to try and be brave.  Like, the level of her caring alone made me want to cry because normally people just aren’t like that.  And that’s her job.  A complete saint.

What are your most passionate interests or concerns?  What problem(s) most occupy your thinking and your efforts?

It is so hard to answer this question when you’re depressed.  Also depression fucks with your memory; I can’t even remember what it feels like to be passionate about something.

But maybe it’s the fact that I’ve come to reject measuring what’s important to me by what ignites my passion.  It’s like trying to measure my interest by level of motivation.  They’re fleeting.  

However, when I just try to think of things that might be worth working on, I’m not even sure what those would be.  My house is a mess.  I think about that a lot.  This latest round of the gun control debate fired me up.  I got really angry and then of course as I read more from each side I settled down but into a queasy middle ground.  There are no easy answers, and passion makes us think that there might be.  

Part two of this question - What problem most occupies your thinking and efforts - cracks me up because my number one problem that I think about roughly 16 hours of the day is the fact that I’m still not in med school.  And that’s why I need therapy.

And unfortunately depression has sapped me of putting much effort into anything.  Well, there’s the whole trying to get pregnant thing.  I’ve put a shit ton of effort into that but that has yielded very little.  No baby, but some knowledge about hormones and the menstrual cycle, and a nice community of women in the same boat.  People I think of as friends, but with the asterisk that they’re online, which feels only marginally better than imaginary.  

I guess this all means I need to figure out what I want to put effort into again.  Sigh.  

PostScript - It’s an easy trap to rail against the admissions process when things aren’t going your way, especially when you feel like you’re not up to snuff, but I’m going to jump into it anyway. This process is so competitive that there is so much pressure to distinguish ourselves exceptionally, but why I can’t be honest about my intentions and expectations?  I know that a doctor is a glorified technician and I still want to do it anyway.  I know that it’s sitting down with patients and listening to them describe taboo/intimate things like their snot, bowel movements, disturbed thoughts and putting together a constellation of signs and symptoms into a diagnosis or at least a treatment plan.  It’s wondering and possibly trying to ascertain if a parent is abusing a child, and trying to make the call on that.  I know that it’s operating in a field of gray, of subtlety but with self-imposed hard lines of black and white to protect against litigation, but I still want to do it.  What does it have to do with my passion?  It just sounds like a cool job that I would be good at.  The End.  Personal statement done.

Vacation didn’t help.

I thought that maybe I just needed a break, a time to breathe and think about life outside of work and infertility and career goals.  But it was all waiting when I got back.

My thrice rewritten personal statement needs to be done by the end of the week for an application that may take me far away from here, I’m disgusted with my job, I’m still not pregnant.

I’m wholly tired of my station in life right now but I don’t know how to change it.  Incompetence or impotence?  I’m not sure it matters when the outcome is the same either way: stagnation.  With the constant drumming of my age in my ears and the whisper you’re too old, you’ve wasted it.

No no no no it’s not going to be like that, no I’m not going to be like those ugly broken people

I’ll walk the path of the mighty the righteous and the willing and leave them breathless, speechless

I’ll dance jigs with the masses and break bread with the dunces while you bleed ink and treacle

And then I’ll turn to my partner and she’ll lead me to wells full of love so cool and cleansing

But will I stay... can I build walls to hold back my past... because

I love

I love the badge

So I keep coming, I’ll keep coming, I’ll keep coming back 

I have been studying the medical school admissions process for 7 years and I just found out that a II - as in - 

Oh my god I just got a II

Did you get a II?  Stats?  Complete date?

Do you know if they do pre-II rejections?

stands for INTERVIEW INVITE.

Do you ever have those moments where you’re looking at someone’s life, and you would give anything to have what they have?  

Odd moment of dissociation today as we screened a medical student with depression and for a few seconds my brain literally couldn’t compute why she would be depressed. She’s in med school!  What does she have to be depressed about?  She’s young!  I’m old, and I get depressed because I’m not in med school and I’m old... [ka-chungk, ka-chungk goes my brain].  

Another friend from high school has four kids. My freaking age and already has four kids.  She and the babes are totally healthy.  I want four healthy kids and to be totally healthy.  Really bad.  But I’m nearing the end of 30 and can’t even get one going.  

Currently I’m reading Dash and Lily’s Book of Dares.  It’s very sweet, and so easy to get through, but I find myself rolling my eyes or sighing because I recognize so acutely the shades of teenage angst these characters are processing.  And so YA books feel.... almost too young now.