Returning to Light

Long time…

Yeah, so its been a long time.  We’ve taken a huge, needed, break from TTC–but not entirely.  The Lady M & I have been going to acupuncture religiously and its made a good deal of difference to my cycle.  I seem to have finally recovered from the Clomid desert and am feeling so ready to try again.  I wish that I could get some of the weight off, so I’m trying to make some livable changes–like majorly reducing my sugar intake by cutting out coffee entirely because of its acidity.  I drink giant mochas every day if unrestrained!  I’m also trying to eat more vegetables to help with my bodies pH.

We’ve moved to an amazing “green” apartment with low voc paints & carpets, recycled rubber linoleum & countertops.  It has a rooftop garden to increase the air quality with swings, a fireplace, and a water fountain.  You name it. Its awesome!  Its LEED Silver certified and brand new everything.  Its so amazing to go from growing up in a shack–to living in a brand new apartment that no one else has ever lived in!  However, I still find myself hating the city life more and more with each SLOWLY passing winter.

The acupuncturist is amazing.  She has kept me almost sane this winter.  And I feel so ready to try again, blinded in my fertility goggles again–but honestly I dread the frozen sperm game.  The only upside to that is the fact that I have flex money aside for sperm…which really makes me laugh to think about.  It sounds like a far-side cartoon or somethin.  And my cycle now consists of flatlines so it seems like it will be easier to time the insems.  We won’t have to fight over asking for the money (even though it was promised to us) each month.  And we’ve decided to try with 3 vials at a time, at least at first.

But all of a sudden, we’ve been presented with a possible known donor.  Its brought up all sorts of questions & excited us immensely with the increased odds.  We’ve been waiting to hear a definite yes.  I thoroughly appreciate the fact that he wants to seriously consider the ramifications.  But as time goes by without an answer, I’ve begun to expect the no.

I wish it were easier.  I wish the odds were better with frozen…ugh, I just wish we could get onto having a family of our own already…

BFN…

So after the weekend camping trip in Michigan with my family (which I had to stay completely sober for) and feeling queasy and weird and late…I decided to test today because it is the beginning of our week of stacation.  I have lots of projects that I need to focus on this week.  I spend way too much time at work and coping with life. I need more time to work on my art.  Its the only thing that makes me really happy.  So I wanted to just know so that I can deal with it, accept the loss of this cycle, and just go on for a little while not thinking about it!  Sometimes I think that I just can’t take my temperatures anymore.  Maybe I will feel differently when the next cycle starts, but I am just so tired of over-focusing on TTC…the first thing when I wake up every morning, when I have sex, when I think about my future…its kinda crazy.  So I’ve also decided that I’m not gonna get all upset and crazy when I get my period.  Its just retarded to be that dramatic.  Sure the sperm is expensive, but I can make more money. I have lots more eggs to experiment with! And at least now I can go to a fertility doctor to see “why”.

The good news is that DCI may have fucked up my cycle but it is making me a more leveled out person, maybe its making both of us a little more leveled out.  We’ve been getting along so much better.  We enjoy every moment we spend together again, its felt like the old days with us, and the focus is not so “all about baby making all the time”…The camping trip made me kind of realize that maybe its just not time–and when it is time–it will happen in some way.  I’m not running out of time.  I’m just getting started with my art business endeavors.  Perhaps there’s a higher being that just thinks that I should wait because a baby might slow me down…

I have to focus on our projects now.  We have a paid commercial spot for a really neat alternative psychology treatment. M has a brand new exciting job.  There is always good around, even though sometimes its hard to see it.

I’m going to seriously look into adoption options for gay people.  I know they suck, but I’m gonna look into it when I can.  Then maybe we can try again with the same donor sperm in September.  I need to figure out my new DCI-induced cycles now…and perhaps I can get a vignette trailer edited together to scout out some funding for our TTC Documentary Project.

Crazy Cycle, D-chiro inositol & Insem…

Ugh, it was like gambling with $600! I’m just way to uptight about money to do that! I have a much easier time gambling with money when it comes to film equipment.  Sperm is just so…fleeting.  I can’t hold it in my hands like a fancy new light kit…well at least I don’t want to.

I have no idea why the DCI (d-chirol inositol) would have caused me to NOT OVULATE when I have ovulated every single month we have been charting…going on a year now.  Ugh, I never believed it would take this long.  The women in my family have babies against their will.  They give them away.  But I’m different.  I’ve always been different I guess.  For that, I am grateful. So like all things–I have to accept the good with the bad.  Its just the way I am.

They did the hormone blood test on day 3 and everything was fine–EXCEPT the free testosterone was too high. Ugh, yeah obviously…

This cycle I even broke down and went to a fertility specialist.  She said the dildocam gave good images of a healthy normal uterus & ovaries…

Why is the medical field so experimental yet costs soooo much?  Why doesn’t anyone know shit about lesbians hormones?  Ya’d think the religious right would be funding that research to try to “medicate their gay offspring” to be “normal” or something equally crazy.

I really think the DCI has reduced my testosterone though. I’m not as CRAZY about sex, I sleep a little more, and I’ve had less problems with mood swings.  The only real problem is the lack of ovulation signs.  I got a crazy amount of egg white on like CD 25!?!? WTF.  It was like 4 days after we inseminated so if that’s when I ovulated–we’re back at the crap table!  Maybe its just making me ovulate more?  Who the hells knows…I’m gonna go back to the fertility doctor after I get my period, to do more testing.

This cycle is kind of nice because I don’t have any expectations.  The waiting and wondering and then the bleeding are just getting to me.  I’m a strong baby dyke that can take a lot of pain.  My entire personality was shaped by heartache & pain…but these brutal cycles have really taken a toll on me.  BUT, it’s funny because the weather has completely changed my take on it all together.  I really think I can handle the trying and failing in the warm, nice weather with sun.  The gray Chicago days of winter (51 days straight of below freezing temperatures & over a foot of snow) made it absolutely HORRIBLE.  I will not try through the winter again.  It was a total waste.  My mind was not stable enough.  It was just something to occupy my crazy mind.  Thankfully I realize that now…

Wish we had some of that money back to try during the nice weather!  I’m stupid for being impatient and wanting to try during the horrible cold.  I just see babies everywhere and I want that future for us.  We’re not a typical couple, and we certainly wouldn’t be typical parents, but we would be good ones.  I know that.  And if anything, this brutal process has taught me that my partner is a dedicated, devoted, strong-loving person that would be an amazing parent.

And that amazing lady is starting her NEW job soon! Today is the last day of her current job–we vacation–and she starts at the new digs downtown with a view of a ferris wheel.  Perfect for her personality, seriously.  Its a whole new chapter for us…and we are extremely excited.  Chicago pulls us back in for another go’round!

Clawing a new life, in more ways than one.

I realize, after a long night of loneliness and blaming myself that I have driven my partner away from our mutual love and passion of filmmaking.  I strive to be the best at any and everything I touch–I practically kill myself trying.  But in that scraping and clawing, I have wore her down and made her unwilling to work on anything film related with me.  I’m just too hard on her and on us…

I feel terrible about that.  I want to change it, but the only way I see how is to go out on my own and focus on my skills to get me out of this boring, dead end, job.  It’s all I can do now.  Perhaps I can lure her back into my web and make it better for us this time around.   I just want a better life for us. It’s not that this is a bad life. We’ve done very well for ourselves since we moved to Chicago from Nashville.  We barely had an existence there at all…whereas here, we’re movers and shakers.  We’re involved with our own art and plugged into all sorts of neat things with the city.  Our connection to this crazy unapproachable city is strengthening.  VERY slowly…

But now I need to find that next step to make the leap from working on my film projects as a hobby to at least a solid part-time job and cut back my “day” job or even find a different job that is only part-time.

It’s so hard to make that decision and find a way.  But sometimes I think that prolonging it and thinking that I can “do both” is only pushing me further down the path of being “stuck in a life of middle class circumstance.”  I think I would rather be poor than limp and lifeless.

But I want to buy equipment.  Filmmaking is EXPENSIVE.  I’m trying to buy backup drives right now and it’s gonna cost $300 just to cover the basic needs that I have right now.  I need a system upgrade to give me access again to my mixer for sound production…another $200.  Not to mention, I’m hoping to take another production class this summer, but still paying on my production classes from last year!!  Urrgh.

I’ve taken steps towards a budget for us to live on, but even then…the bottom line is that sperm is sooooo expensive!  Still I have to find a way to juggle it all because we’re gonna have it all…damn’t. 

PCOS Blood Screening…finally

I have given up a close friend completely.  Forever.
She is a small-town racist that cannot accept the path that I long to take…down the road of having an interracial family.  She is gone.  I can’t help but feel sad about that, but at the same time relieved.

Her negative energy was engulfing my entire life.  Whew!

It’s been really hard to pick myself up from the 23 DPO major let down, but I am trying.  I feel like I’m clawing at the ground…as I slip into an early grave!  Dramatic, I am.  But still I feel like hell and it’s hard to find a reason to live.  I am so incredibly scared to try again…

The only good thing is that today I am going in for a full blood workup–to check my FSH, estrodial, testosterone, and progesterone, etc.  It’s a full PCOS screening…THANK YOU–Finally!  Maybe if I have a reason to blame myself, it might be easier to try again.

I’m running out of money and positive energy.

Swings

God our lives swing in the craziest directions…

I’m still waiting for my surge. My cervix has moved farther away and we have started to see the “waterfall” of CM. We’ll see what happens tonight. I just hope that my pending cold doesn’t screw things up this time. I have been drinking water constantly in the hopes of battling it. We just have not had a good try since our first time…when I actually did end up with a weird chemical pregnancy kind of situation…

I have to admit that I was kind of thrilled to go to the clinic to pick up the vials in our rented tank and see that they had little red caps!! Little red caps for red skinned folks. I dig it…and our little Chickpea will too. I think the girl was surprised and thought–”oh these aren’t yours, cuz you’re ol’ whitey”–but alas–they are mine!! I really really want to get pregnant this time. I feel like it is finally time. When we started we were so out of sorts and confused about everything. But during the past few months we’ve really worked out some big dramas. I’m so thankful to have a lady that is so perfect for me. It kind of scares me sometimes and I think that maybe I dreamed her up and she really doesn’t exist…and maybe these past 7 and a half years were all just a long drawn out dream.

Especially because I think back on some of the middle parts and feel like I’m missing time. But not anymore. I know now what I was blinded with. It’s just so incredibly clear.

So to make things even more exciting, the lady has had it out with her bosses at work for the past few days and plans to put in her two weeks notice in the next few days. She’ll also be paid out on her vacation but it’s looking like we’re going to be flapping in the wind again. No where to really turn, in a city that eats people up and spits them out homeless every single day.

I’m frightened, but I can’t stand the thought of her being mistreated and unhappy another week–so fuck it! We’ll live. Somehow. We always do.

I’m feeling the creativity jag coming on so I better sign off and work on my latest script project and figure out where I can get a reasonable DV tap cleaner for our mac daddy camera.

Here’s to hoping that those two little red capped vials of colombian sperm are golden!
~F

Clipped Wings

The body has an amazing way of protecting itself.  I must have had extremely elevated levels of progesterone because even as I started spotting light brown…we laughed and had one of the best days we’ve had in a long time.  It showed me that, maybe I am missing out on progesterone on a regular level?  (It being a natural anti-depressant and all.)  Even though I was so sad about the logistics of what was happening and sad that we just can’t try again for a while…still I laughed at every opportunity and I still had that overwhelming sense of happiness even as the horrible cramps and hemorrhaging began!  That is what it feels like, for me to be pregnant.  Really good.  Better than I’ve ever felt.

We spent almost the ENTIRE weekend knitting and talking.  It was like visiting an old friend.  We haven’t just WASTED mass amounts of time together in years (in our opinions of course–I’m sure others would think that we’ve wasted lots of time with our retarded short films and outlandish craft projects, but we work hard to make that crap!  While everyone else enjoys…I don’t know–TV?)  Anyway, I crossed a major hurdle with the rebirth of my mourned Cat Hat!  It protects me from the evils of the world…

Looking at our bank accounts yesterday morning online I realized that I had this dopey smile on my face (again) without even meaning to…I certainly NEVER smile when I look at our bank accounts anymore…

I know that something happened after this insemination.  There is no way that I could ever deny what happened.  It was not me just “looking for it” or “wishful thinking”–it was there.  It held on as long as it could.   I had the strangest LIGHT brown spotting for 2 full days and the frequent urination continued (every hour).  I wanted to convince myself that it was just late implantation bleeding.  But last night my hormones came crashing all around me. I guess the happy baby drugs finally succumbed to the HIGH testosterone levels that make my body what it is…a freak.

I’m more confused that ever.  In one sense I’m so glad to have even gotten THAT far and realize that I’m lucky to even have experienced anything on a first try and that I should see that as “progress.”  But then on the other hand it makes me want to over analyze and scrutinize myself to the point of pure rage.  Why did it happen?  It was sooo incredibly there.  Was it the chaste berry (vitex) tincture?  Was my body perfectly fine with an 11 day luteal phase in the first place?  Did I fuck everything up by OVER ANALYZING before even trying–the only thing I learned in my study of psychology??  Am I just too fat?  Or is is really that my testosterone levels are way too high and that even that stupid tincture couldn’t overcome it!  Maybe I should switch gears and stop taking vitex and only take vit B6 and use progesterone cream instead?  Maybe the testosterone is just too high…

Or maybe we caught the egg late.  I felt the ovulation twinge 15 minutes after we first inseminated.  Maybe we were a bit late, maybe the egg was a little too old by the time it met up with the sperm and just wasn’t strong enough?  Maybe it wasn’t my fault at all.  But who can say?  And who can spend $1100 a month to test it all out by trail and error–not to mention the taxing of my sanity!!

And then maybe it was because I didn’t really exercise at all during the TWW.  I was too afraid that it would just fall out.  What an idiot!  I mean, testosterone builds up without exercise!!!  That’s why I need to change my life.  Right now. I need to change it.  Drastically.

I feel like a basket case today because of the INCREASING levels of testosterone.  I can feel them filling my blood and tensing up my muscles.  I clench my jaw.  I want to run up a mountain.  I want a woman in black to slice my back open with a 12 foot whip.  I feel angry and alone in this horrible city as it turns cold and black.  I want to run to the sun of the west.  I want to stand on the side of I-10 and scream for my life back.  I want another chance in the sun.  I’m sorry, so fucking sorry, for what I did…

But I…like that Phoenix…have wings that seem way too big for me to handle.

On the flip side…hey at least I’ll get my excessive and insatiable sex drive back! No more knitting and crossword puzzles for me!  Wheeeeeeeeeeeeee!  Bust out the chains and leather–mama’s NOT pregnant…yet!

A day to be nervous. Just one.

I didn’t think I’d be this nervous. I’m not like freaking-out nervous, but I am nervous.

I thought that I would be so much cooler and calmer than anyone, but I can’t really quite believe that I will be injected with sperm…(gulp)… tomorrow.  That’s a crazy feeling for me.  I mean, I know that I should mentally prepare myself that it will take tons of tries, we’ll run out of money, move, light ourselves on fire, etc.  But honestly, it makes me excited just to try.  I know that in our situation, we may very well have to call it quits, at least for a while–even though I don’t really want to admit, even to myself, how important it is to me, to have my own family (again).  My original family was obliterated when I was 12 years old.  I spent half of the time since then, chasing that family, only to realize that they’re just not my family anymore.

Adoption is a crazy thing.  It saved all of our lives, individually.  However, it also severed our “Family Ties” forever.  And it also gave each of us our own individual servings of totally new and completely fucked up situations to deal with.  We did the best we could and we still saw each other as often as we could–but that doesn’t make you a family…Sure, we’ll always be “family.”  When I look at my brother, I see a passage of time.  His eyes remind me of my own.  I feel like I look into my own soul when I look at him sometimes.  My sister’s laugh sounds exactly like it did when she used to sing in her diaper to Fragg!e Rock songs.  We’re all grown, trying to assemble families of our own now.

Sometimes I lose my path…wandering, thinking that I’ve gone down the wrong road, but then I think–“Destiny Rules.”  Only she can guide me now.

“Maybe we should weigh it so that we can send around the birth announcement!”…”F is resting with the proposal.” Ha!  This guy is killing me with his birth jokes!  The timing is just uncanny!  Bwah!  My boss is completely cracking me up.

But one thing that isn’t really cracking me up is the lack of information afforded me with “charting my labido”–first of all, can there be such a thing as an increase…when it is maxxxed out all the time? Seriously, I have never cared much to attempt treatment of my (obvious) hormonal imbalances only out of fear that it might reduce my incredible sex drive.  Then what would I do?  Read?  Something other than the perverted, strange and unusual?  How could something be so wrong…that feels sooooo right?  I’m a creep, with a problem, but I have a hormonal reason… apparently. 

Running Down the Clock

We haven’t been this broke…in years.
And our lucky Colombian sperm swimmers arrive Friday…
I haven’t been this busy in my entire life. Completely overwhelmed with work, but that ends tonight at 10pm.

It’s funny working non-profit. I stay up all night working on a 25 million dollar proposal but yet I can’t afford to pay my rent or fix my car. It’s not funny like “haha-funny” either.

Ah well, this will be over soon and I can go back to working on films and painting. At least I’m not in a contract to actually DO THE SCIENCE of it! Whew! I missed that train by the skin on my teeth though…I studied electrical and biological engineering for over 3 years of my undergraduate career–I could’a been you.

You.

Wow…my boss, a man that I look up to…way too much for being a boss really. Maybe it’s because he walked right into a gay pride fest with me, in Santa Fe when we were there for a conference?  Well he completely inspired me again today. As we struggle with this proposal–he’s pulled actual “all-nighters” frantically writing…he said “ya know I relate it to child birth. It’s so extremely frightening–just absolutely terrifying!! BUT! At the end, you have this AMAZING JOY!” and he cradles his big engineering hands like he’s holding a baby with this huge smile. “ONLY with THIS, we won’t have any of that! We won’t have the “JOY” because we’ll just send it off and be done.”

Ha! Maybe “you” won’t, but I’ve been trying to get through this week as if it’s a marathon…and two extremely expensive vials of Colombian sperm are waiting at my finish line. Life is what you make of it.  I hope we can make a life of it.

Reunited and I feel so BROKE!

Well our car cost almost a million dollars to fix.  It was our good old standard fall–surprise you’re out of money, no car, broke, you betta walk bitches–time of year adventures!  Seriously, we have been together just over 7 years and we have ALWAYS been completely retardedly broke in the fall, but always do something spontaneous and wild.  We always end up destitute and kinda starving and it’s always the times of our lives that we remember the most.  And it’s also the times that we look back on and laugh because we’re lunatics, but god its so much more passionate that way.  I get so bored with the 9to5 culture of the city.  It’s so boring.  I look around at all the suit wearing condo owner/jogging/sports fans and think that we’re aliens, but thankful for it at the same time.

I’m feeling much better now that I’m reunited with my Jettie.  I spent last night chattin on the phone with my dear, crazy friend and that always brightens my spirits.  We talk like old women on the phone and hackle like two cats.  She says hilarious things about me trying to have a baby…[in a very pronounced Wisconsin accent] “Ah. You’re not going to be able to drink!” Haha…yeah I kinda know that.  “What are you going to do if you get a bunch of those eggs stuck up there?  Are you gonna have that shit sucked outta there–or are you gonna end up having quadruplets or somethin’??” Bwahahaha!  Laugh, she makes me cry.  God love her for even thinking that much or caring.  But why on earth would I have that many eggs?? I respond.  Obviously she’s been talkin’ to somebody that warned her of fertility treatments!  I’m like–no one in my family ever even had twins, why would I have quadruplets!?!?

She’s a riot.  I wish she lived closer. I hate the politics of Wisconsin or I’d move there just to act like old antique collecting fags with her more often.

I worked from home today and wow I really needed it.  I have been majorly stressing about this proposal at work and it’s not even over yet…but by Wed. @ midnight…it will be!  Hooray.  So for lunch, instead of eating, I decided to take a bike ride and thoroughly enjoyed myself.  I hate to “declare victory” but it was such a terrific ride!  I didn’t encounter ONE ASSHOLE!  That’s a first in the 3 years that I’ve lived in Chicago.  I cannot go outside without seeing someone that is just an asshole, doing something “assholey” (to quote Mariela).

It was nice to just get on my bicycle without even having a destination.  I rode to Southport and hooked up with the bike lane and just followed it until it ran out at Clybourn.  There was an awesome view of the city and a huge B&N Bookstore so I had to check out their lesbian baby book selections before returning of course.  I want to find more books to read, but surprisingly, it is somewhat difficult.  Considering Women & Children First, in the lesbian neighborhood, didn’t have really anything for lesbian’s having babies I thought, well checking a big ole corporate store couldn’t hurt at this point.  Yeah, well it didn’t help either.  Nothing.  They had one book that just looked stupid.  It was all about raising your children to be safe, stable, blah blah blah–feely, societal, overload.  So I shoved on.  But hey, at least I found a new movie theater that we can ride to entirely on a bike path…that’s THREE movie theaters…all on bike paths around us.  Pretty sweet, too bad we’re too broke to go to the movie.  I LOVE when we take nightly missions on our bikes–we ride the streets like two of the youngest “Outsiders”…the night air and lights on my face always makes me feel like “we’re lookin’ for trouble”…ha.

So I guess I’m going to have to ORDER lesbian baby books from Ahole.com instead of a real bookseller.  That stinks.  Maybe I can check out the bookstore in Milwaukee this weekend and get lucky with a better selection.

I tried to find this amazing picture book of Colombia again to look through, but couldn’t find it.  I can’t find anything when Mariela isn’t with me at the bookstore.  It’s pretty funny.  I’m extremely intelligent, but then there are these shockingly ignoramus things that I do or can’t do…like find a picture book.  But anyway the point is that I wanted to see more of what the “average” Colombian looks like…their color…facial features, etc.  I mean, I know what “my” Colombian looks like, but I guess I’m just really nervous about what the donor looks like?  Maybe that’s completely crazy.  I never wanted to worry about such a thing, but now that it’s approaching, I have to say that I’m a little more worked up.  I think that maybe ordering the photo might be a good thing…

But as a sidenote, as if I don’t make enough of them, the pictures of Colombian were absolutely beautiful that I did find.  I have such vivid dreams of going there someday and seeing it all with La-la.  It looks incredible.  I really want our babies to be connected to Colombia too.  I just shouldn’t even think about what he looks like.  It really doesn’t matter to me.  And it’s not that “I’m worried” about it–but just that I can’t stop thinking about it and want some confirmation–obsessing, that’s the word.  And it’s something that I promised I wouldn’t do. 

P.S. I think today was the first day without noticeable pain in my jaw in 10 days.  Whew! I can’t wait to sleep tonight.