Day 31 - not a great day

Ah, what do I say?! I just flew through the most epic weekend to this morning's scan, not even thinking or worrying about it much. Definitely a great strategy. My husband thinks I should write "The slut's IVF survival guide". However, that didn't help me much when it came to the actual scan this morning. Still only a minor response :-(. The consultant thinks it's too risky to put the dose up any more, so I am to continue on the existing dose for the next 4 days before we check again.

In my head I'm telling myself that's really ok. It doesn't matter how long it takes. The pencilled in date for egg collection on Thursday was just that - a pencilled in date. I always knew this wouldn't be straightforward and was more likely NOT to work. But maybe hidden underneath that was more hope than I wanted to admit to. Otherwise I wouldn't now be worrying what will happen what I don't ever respond on this dose - whether that will be IT already, without ever having got to a single embryo. Patience now feels like a bigger ask than three days ago. Sometimes I wished I could cry more easily. This edge of tears feeling is just tiring, let's just cry and get some catharsis. But that's not how I am and I can't force it - any more than I can force my ovaries to respond.

Day 28 - patiently waiting

So it was D-day yesterday, well first scan day, anyway. It all didn't start to well with a train cancellation and a mildly stressful drive to the clinic. I'd prepared myself for whatever outcome. I was perfectly aware that we'd started with a low dose of hormone, so as not to overstimulate me dangerously. As it was we'd barely stimulated me at all. But that's ok, there's no rush. We've upped the dose now and I'll have another scan on Monday. I thought I took it just fine, calmly and realistically - until I talked to someone in the evening who'd just lost his 22-year old daughter, never really having known her. Ah, daughters you may never know and the broken-heartedness that brings.

I'd managed to distract myself very successfully by having a drinks date with a potential dom on the night before the scan and a beautiful evening with my lover the night before. Unfortunately, both ended up shooting me in the foot somewhat - emotionally anyway. My lover really wants to see me next week and I very much want to see her and drink from that crazy happy state. However next week could be extraordinarily difficult for me. I don't know what it is I'll be needing in advance. I don't want to hurt her, especially as she's not used to being with a polyamorous lover, but I also don't want to hurt me or stress me more than I'll be able to handle. Delicately honest communication was the best I could do - the best anyone can ever do. I hope it was  enough.

With the dom - oh gosh, where do I start? It was fun and I really got very enthusiastic on the night, but I had some underlying uneasy feeling. It might be a bit to do with the boundary-pushing nature of the things he was proposing, but more with a lack of warmth I was feeling. I'm not good at saying "no" to people, especially if I've been very enthusiastic with them. More difficult communication! We've since talked about the affection question (sigh, he's also not used to playing with a poly) and maybe we just need to talk some more in person. Two difficult conversations and one disappointing scan - all a little too much for yesterday.

Guilty secret: subscription to "Conversations with God"

I have to confess to a guilty little secret of an entirely unsexual nature. I subscribe to Neale Donald Walsh's daily "What God wants you to know" messages and I absolutely love them. Below is today's message and it's so pertinent to yesterday's post, that I'll reproduce it below:

On this day of your life, dear friend, I believe God wants you to know...

...that safety is not the thing you should look for in the

future. Joy is what you should look for.

Security and joy may not come in the same package.

They can...but they also cannot.  There is no

guarantee.

If your primary concern is a guarantee of security,

you may never experience the truest joys of life.

This is not a suggestion that you become reckless,

but it is an invitation to at least become daring.

Day 25 - Life, wildly unpredictable

Gosh, day 25 already and barely keeping up with the writing. I’m pleased to report that my low mood didn’t last more than a couple of days. On the upswing I went a little wild! The “is this really wise” voice in my head sits there shaking her head at me, but I’m running with it. After all, only a couple more days and this will all get much more serious, as I’m about to find out whether the stimulating regime is doing anything at all. I might calm down a little then.

Meanwhile, I’ve managed to cause somewhat of a stir by engaging in oral sex with my friend at a small local fetish night and then having the gall to complain on a forum that everybody else was basically boring. Well, I didn’t put it that way – I’m far too politely constructive for that. I didn’t quite expect the debate that ensued. If there’s one thing I’m not in every day life, then it’s controversial! Interesting experience!

On the weekend I had a coffee date with a potential dom guy who was entirely lovely but who I didn’t really feel any chemistry with, to both our disappointment. Maybe I should have described the St. Paul’s guy to him – who was easily the most beautiful man I have ever had sex with, but with whom there simply wasn’t much of a spark either. Just a little later that evening however, I managed to completely fall for a girl who I’d never have predicted I’d fall for and found myself bursting with chemistry and spiritual connection, all in such a short space of time. I hardly got any sleep that night, had to stumble home in the morning for my injections and got to work very late! I’ve never actually met someone by chance before and then just spent the night. That may surprise you, but I have been with my man for 17 years and our swinging has had much more defined parameters. I don’t know where this is going to go yet or how long it may last, especially at a time when the voice is telling me I should play life safe. I’m probably just facing up to the fact that I’m essentially polyamorous. Meanwhile, this hasn’t really stopped me looking for a dom either. One I’m having drinks with tomorrow and another is driving me plain insane with his messages.

All of this – the emotion and the d/s flirtation - is bringing memories of Him back to me. He’s now seemingly a Dad. I thought that would upset me, but actually I found myself feeling a warm glow for all three of them. I’m guessing the last thing that they’ll need now is to be reminded of me, but if you’re still reading this: “Congratulations, I’m so pleased for you! He’s just as beautiful as his parents! I wish you all very, very well!” Ah, maybe, maybe, maybe, it’ll be us soon. Incidentally, finding this out was probably my last act of cyber-stalking you. We barely ever go to the club where we met anymore, so you can relax, there should be no difficult meetings and certainly no bunny-boiler incidents. One day I’ll write my book, you can sue me then ;-) Meanwhile I hope you keep well and fortune favours your cards. xxxx

Day 18 or: swinging moods are less fun than swinging

After an intense, debauched and slightly mad weekend, the mood swings have finally caught me. That seems fair enough, given that I had a fairly easy ride of it until now. Yesterday I could have cried pretty much all day. I thought perhaps I was just extra sensitive and there were a couple of things preying on my mind. But even after sorting those out, even after getting through the tension of an appointment at the fertility clinic, even after buying myself a new handbag (SUCH a girl these days), I still wanted to cry. My favourite dacryphile would have had a field day.

On the bright side - all the baseline results at the clinic were absolutely fine. Even my marathon period was easily explained by the hormonal suppressors that make their way under my skin each morning. Now I've got a fridge full of expensive human recombinant FSH (that's "follicle stimulating hormone" for the non-endocrinologists and the guys), sitting between the lettuce and the ready-made pizza. Saturday then. Saturday is the day when we start stimulating. I'll be counting my way through FSH vials 1, 2, 3, 4, 5 and 6 right up to the next scan.

With every little step along the way this feels a little more real. I had made a conscious decision to separate this whole process entirely from the possible outcome i.e. I deliberately don't think about the fact that this is about me having a baby. Seems weird? Straight self-protection - otherwise the expectation, the hope and the potential for devastation becomes too great. But it's becoming less easy. Every time I go to the clinic and see the photo gallery of their success stories, every day that passes that's getting me closer to having to look at my follicles on a fuzzy ultrasound screen, it's getting more difficult. I don't even hate the photo gallery any more, like I did at our first visit - now it just makes me want to cry. I know, everything makes me want to cry, but it's a sign that my defensiveness is eroding and giving way to longing once more. That's a good thing, a painful thing, but a good thing.

Day 13 - and I'm swinging!

Day 13 - that bloody period has finally stopped!!! Still no hot flashes or mood swings, but extraordinarily horny!
I had actually said that I wouldn't swing during the IVF process at all. I didn't know how the drugs were going to affect me and I thought I should take it easy, concentrate on the process. But I'm really fine at the moment and right now the sum total of the process is one injection each morning. With lots of exciting erotic opportunities manifesting themselves, let's just make the most out of it NOW! Who knows how I'll feel once I start on the stimulating drugs in another week or so.

At the back of my mind I know I'm fighting a bigger fight - I'm proving too myself and the world that I can do this and still live, still be happy and excited irrespective of the question whether the IVF will work or not. I'm also fighting the idea that I need to be a slave to this child already - in complete denial of any of my other needs. If this works, I may just eat my words on the day when I don't want to exist for anything other than my child. But today is not that day.

Wild Geese - on not getting with the program

Day 9 – no hot flashes so far, no tears, horny as hell and still on that period! For somebody who rarely ever gets them, this is becoming a bit annoying. In reality, this does of course mask some traces of concern, but I’ll give it a couple of days before I call the clinic.

Meanwhile, this seems like a good time to put into writing some of the thoughts that have been crystallising themselves over the last year or so. I guess it doesn’t get any more profound than talking about the purpose of life. Note that I didn’t say “the meaning of life”, I have no idea about that one, I mean the purpose that you put your life to.

In many ways, if it hadn’t been for my infertility, it would have been so easy to get with the program. School (check), university (check), PhD (check), build a career (check??), take a break to get pregnant, have a baby, arrange expensive childcare, work your arse off during the day to continue your career, see your child evenings and weekends, give up on anything else until your child is much older (have at least one more child along the way). I’m rapidly running out of checked boxes there.

When you drop out of the program and it isn’t by choice, you’ve really got two options: you feel bad about it or you decide to make your own. Actually, it’s far from simple – I’ve in the past spent an inordinate amount of time feeling bad about it until I eventually started to appreciate the joy of being free from that pre-set plan. But that’s ok – it’s an existential crisis, it’s allowed to be messy. I see people in this kind of crisis all the time. It's always tough, but if the opportunity in the crisis can be grasped, much can be gained. It’s a beautiful feat of human spirit.

Where am I in all this? Sometimes I think I’m still somewhere in the messy bit. In some areas of my life, I’m still living in the tattered remnants of the program, even if they don’t really fit me now. Yes, it’s work I’m talking about. But isn’t that perhaps another trap? The concept that your career has to be the focus of your life? I can tell you exactly what the focus of my life has been lately! Being a sexual adventuress and writing about it suits me just fine, no other focus needed. I would be very surprised if I didn’t lie on my deathbed one day thinking back fondly to that time.

But what about some kind of lasting legacy? Did this make a contribution to humanity? I don’t know! It made a few people quite happy. Perhaps it was even a tiny jigsaw piece in the continuing movement towards sexual liberation. Is yet another research paper in a journal that nobody reads any more of a contribution? I’d rather have a few thousand people read one of my literotica stories to be honest. And if we’re truly honest about it? Who ever gets to make one of those big lasting contributions anyway? Beyond the people you’ve known and touched personally in some way, who really will remember you? So if I don’t get to live on in my children or in any other lasting legacy, then perhaps I just don’t get to live on beyond my life. Maybe that’s ok? Isn’t that enough? More than enough even? Isn't it enough to make a conscious effort to LIVE your life at least? I’ll let another poet say it better than I can:

Wild Geese 
You do not have to be good. 
You do not have to walk on your knees 
for a hundred miles through the desert, repenting. 
You only have to let the soft animal of your body 
love what it loves. 
Tell me about despair, yours, and I will tell you mine. 
Meanwhile the world goes on. 
Meanwhile the sun and the clear pebbles of the rain 
are moving across the landscapes, 
over the prairies and the deep trees, 
the mountains and the rivers. 
Meanwhile the wild geese, high in the clean blue air, 
are heading home again. 
Whoever you are, no matter how lonely, 
the world offers itself to your imagination, 
calls to you like the wild geese, harsh and exciting--
over and over announcing your place 
in the family of things.

Copyright Mary Oliver Online source

Poetry of sorts: That one wild summer

That one wild summer
I will never forget that one wild summer.
Sharp and fresh as a blade of grass,
Cutting pale skin,
A single drop of blood trailing in its wake.
Can anything ever touch it?

"All comparison is lovelessness",
Says Teresa of Aquila.
What would she know of simple human passion?
What would she know of forbidden messages,
Of jumping in the car, abandoning work
At a single word from him.
Arriving at his door,
Moist,
Breathless,
Scared,
Aroused already by his words.
What's it going to be, my darling slut?
Unbearable sweetness?
Delicious cruelty?

You are asking me to be a saint,
Not to recall the sharp flavours of that summer, 

Asking me not to miss
Every second of that pure wild existence.

Sometimes I think you ask too much.
You say you ask for my own good.
But I know good,
It's not what you think.

And so it begins (Day 3)

Today I've learnt how to inject myself - not something I'd have thought I might ever have to know, but there you go. They even gave me my own miniature sharps bin - how weird!

What am I talking about? Well, today we've officially started our first IVF cycle. We've boarded the train, the show is on the road or whatever other mental image you might be able to conjure for a process that's now more or less out of my control. In the end, day 1 (or strictly day 3) arrived pretty quickly, paradoxically so after all these months of waiting. Not that I did much waiting in the end - much adventuring, much fucking, but not so much waiting. Wise move, I think.

I was asked whether I felt nervous and although I replied that I was shitting myself, actually I don't feel it today. Mentally I've decided to worry about this one step at a time. So for now, if I'm concerned about anything, it's about drug number one, Buserelin. That's the one that's intended to shut my own hormonal system down altogether and that might just bring me an early flavour of what it's like to hit menopause. It had better not mess with my libido too much or I'll be distinctly unimpressed! Anyway, let's do drug number one for a couple of weeks and then we worry about the serious stuff. But honestly, I'm far too tired today to worry much about anything. They told me that I might feel tired and tearful on the Buserelin, but actually I'm a bit fragile today anyway - minus the Buserelin. Perhaps it's just coming off the week's worth of artificial progesterone into my first period in 9 months that's knocked me out, the evil crampy bitch, or perhaps I'm also still hungover from my Sunday of depravity with Banshee girl. In any case, I'm just about ready for my sofa, a hot water bottle and a good dose of Stieg Larrson.  I've not felt this particular internal state for a little while - very, very soft with a big desire to take care of myself. All that rebellious edginess that's been my near constant companion since last spring - it's completely in the background right now. This particular girl - she's an old familiar friend. You know, I think I actually quite like her...