One small stick, err step, for babymaking

Who knew seaweed could be so horribly painful?

Now, I pride myself on having a high pain tolerance. However, I can’t say that applies to my cervix. The laminaria best known as the seaweed stick up my hoo-ha – a phrase my RE absolutely LOVED – sucked.

It started with me being shown said stick, a thin green piece of seaweed with string followed by me assuming the position. My RE proceeds to tell me he is numbing the cervix with two injections and that I should feel cramping right away.

I did.

Then over the next 20 minutes I tried to keep talking to the doctor and the nurse to keep from focusing on the cramping and pain I was feeling. At the end of it, I was flushed and sweating.

The RE and nurse both said I did extremely well. Most women were at the end of the table in pain. Whatever. It hurt WAAAY more than the HSG did.

So when given the go ahead, I got myself dressed and had my hubby drive me home, where I curled up to a heating pad and tylenol.

The curled upness didn’t last.

Our 5-month-old puppy had managed to lock herself in our basement while we were out. We have a baby gate installed and, apparently, my hubby didn’t close it all the way. (It’s a fancy swinging open-type one, very posh. Ha.) So, she pushed her way down but couldn’t open it.

To amuse herself, Molly chewed up a variety of things in the basement. Including a bunch of peanut M&Ms. First, she puked on the floor. Then she climbed on the bed next to me. And then buried her head between all the pillows and puked.

I then forgot all the achiness I was feeling and called the vet and tried to recreate how many M&M’s she could have consumed – this was complete with fishing the bag out of the trash and weighing it, the amount in the bowl next to my hubby’s computer, etc.

She didn’t consume enough to reach chocolate toxicity. Just enough to throw up three times. All this crazy smelling chocolate liquid with peanuts.

But by Friday night, I had had it. And I wasn’t looking forward to Saturday’s home removal.

While the insertion was worse, removal was far more awkward.

My instructions were brief -  find the gauze that was tied to the string and pull. The stick would follow. If not, call the clinic.

So I assumed the tampon insertion position Tampax diagrams when you are first trying to figure out how to put a tampon in there. Or, at least, that was my teenage self. Anyway, you know, the one foot on the toilet stance.

That wasn’t working for me, as I am not used to putting two fingers up my hoo-ha. Needless to say, I assumed the position on my bed. I couldn’t find the gauze though. I found the stick. So I pulled on it. And promised myself I wouldn’t look until it was all out.

The stick has expanded to the size of my pinky, like it was supposed to. But, OMG. Did I really need that much gauze in me? Seriously? I kind of gagged when I started thinking it looked like a mouse.

But I am thankful it is all out. Now I just hope it does its trick.

Three weeks and counting! Yay!

You don’t say…

 

I had to giggle when I read the news that Mama Spears is delaying her book about parenting. Really? That’s a shock. Although, I think Bestweekever.tv said it best…

So now that one of her daughters isn’t allowed to see her children, and her sixteen year-old is going to have one, Spears family matriarch Lynne has decided the time may be less than perfect for her new book about parenting, seeing as how there’s not much of a market for people trying to figure out how to become much worse parents.

Now where am I going to turn to for sage mothering advice? Hee…

I’m horrible.

Why Jamie-Lynn?

Oh. My. God. Y’all.

Jamie-Lynn Spears is pregnant. As in, 16-year-old sister of Britney. Knocked up by her long-term, live-in boyfriend, who happens to be 19.

Usually, being the gossip slut that I am, when I hear of these pregnant celebrities that jealous envious side of me kicks in. But with this? This doesn’t even register on my it’s-so-unfair-she’s-pregnant-and-I’m-not scale. It’s ranks high, however, on the does-she-really-understand-how-this-is-going-to-alter-the-rest-of-her-life scale.

And all I can think about with the news, aside from what parent actually lets their 16-year-old child live with a 19-year-old man, is my 16-year-old sister.

My youngest sister isn’t some Nickelodeon star or sibling of some crazy fading pop star. She’s just a high school sophomore with two older sisters, who aren’t famous or rich by any stretch of the imagination, and an older brother, a senior at her high school, who we surmise isn’t cool enough for her.

Oh yes, she is THAT girl.

The popular, pretty, bitchy type – complete with heavy eyeliner.

And it freaks me out.

I have no idea what being popular and pretty is like in high school. I was all about the newspaper, tennis team and my honors and AP classes. I wasn’t of the nerd herd but I wasn’t part of the clique trying to see who could sleep with the most guys either.

And even being THAT girl that I was, my senior year I fell for a football player at our rival high school. And I lost my virginity to him. The smart, eldest, responsible daughter.

I can only imagine what living in today’s sexualized society coupled with being a pretty, popular girl and having a recently-divorced mother on a man-mission to find rich hubby No. 3 does to a girl…

Thanks Jamie-Lynn. Now I am totally freaked that my littlest sister is going to get pregnant before she’s ready for that responsibility.

Planned Parenthood, here we come.

And we’re off…

What seemed like forever and a day in the waiting, has finally arrived. The moment we actually start injectibles and get this cycle rolling.

And I’m trying to be cautiously optimistic that this cycle will result in a properly positioned pregnancy. Although, I am super pissed that I ordered Lu.pron, which neither of my primary or secondary insurance covers. And my prescription only is for the $455 brand name version and I likely have enough from IVF No. 1 to last this cycle. Grr.

But if it results in a baby, what’s $455 right? At least, I am trying to tell myself that.

So I am squeezing in as much work as I can before Friday’s seaweed stick fun and next week’s vacation. Woo hoo.

Wish me luck with the lamineria. Any stories about success using this method are appreciated. Or stories of it not being awful doing the home removal (I can’t wait for that!)

Happy Monday!

A Chorus Line

The only time I ever wore legwarmers was in ballet class. And back in the days when I was a teenage dancer weighing 115 pounds, I looked good in them. Even in the full-on legwarmer-material tights you’d wear when the studio would get cold.

However, being that I am far removed from my teenage years and that lovely lithe body, I can’t bring myself to wear the legwarmers purchased two months ago.

But I can wear armwarmers. To work. Don’t laugh.

Photo courtesy Jen’s crappy cell phone camera 

And all I can think of is A Chorus Line. Like performing at my desk with a top hat and cane if I wasn’t hindered by the blanket wrapped around me, (yes, it is that cold at my desk, which emanates frigidness…) and throwing up jazz hands at anyone who happens to walk in. And then I wonder why on earth my mother let my sister and I watch that movie as children and not Flashdance in its entirety. Seriously. We loved A Chorus Line. And as we’ve discovered in our later years. We hate the movie. Like Stupidest. Movie. Ever.

I’m also obsessed with ABBA. But that is a whole different story, which includes my best friend and I as children pretending they were our parents. Frida, the redhead, was my mom.

My poor children are doomed.

Speaking of which, could this cycle be ANY longer? I’m very bummed that I have to wait this mandated three months to get going. All I am doing right now is abstaining from chocolate and popping my chewable, mint-flavored BCPs. At least next week Lu.pron starts. Maybe then it will feel like progress.

Until then, at least I’ve got warm forearms. One Singular Sensation…