Blog Rule #5: You’re An Idiot*

Here’s a new life lesson: If you happen to be getting ready for your first IVF cycle and have a blog, do not post anything about it unless it works. Especially if it’s anywhere within 100 feet of Christmas. I know you will be hopeful and scared and wanting to include everyone, but don’t. JUST DON’T. Because you will get a LOT of lovely, amazing people very, very excited.

These people will leave you wonderful comments. They will send you encouraging emails. They will mail you handwritten Christmas cards speaking hopefully of baby presents next year.

Which you will open the same day as the statement from the clinic that details the fact that you spent every last benefit dime on a procedure that did. not. work. And you will stand there looking at your Christmas card table envisioning setting the whole thing on fire, thinking, ‘what the hell do I say now?’.

Instead of figuring that out, anytime soon, you will go to a party the next day and get very, very drunk. You will be very, very hungover at your husband’s hockey game when one of the wives announces she’s pregnant. You will get up and move to the other fucking side of the arena in order not to murder anyone. You will go to your own going-away party and drink some more. You may start a kick-line in the middle of the city attorney’s living room and spill wine all over her wood floor. You will get up the next morning and start drinking as much damn coffee as you’ve ever wanted In. Your. Life. After which your neighbor will shoot the shit with your husband while he puts up lights, and casually mention that they are pregnant, too. Again. For the third time. OH, THE WOE.

You will be angry. You will be sad. Then you will be numb. Every time you try to write a post, you will be too tired, too worked up and entirely too unreasonable to make any sense at all. But if anything else, you will be 100% sure that saying any of this would only make those wonderful people feel bad. During Christmas.

So you will say nothing.

*Dear readers, just in case it’s not clear: I love you, love you, love you. I’m not calling YOU an idiot. I’m calling ME an idiot. Via the timeless wit of the Wedding Crashers.

Box of Hope and Hell

I’m working on a recap that’s gotten bigger than I ever intended, and I’ve quickly realized that I’m not going to be able to post it today. So until Monday, I’m just going to leap to the end of that “Things I’ve Been Up To Since August” list and shout out the biggest topic on it. More than anything else that’s happened, I’ve wanting to write about this one thing. And at the same time, have been utterly afraid to.

Afraid to be angry. Afraid to be sad. Afraid to sound bitter. Afraid to make other people feel bad. Afraid to lose friends. Afraid to look bad to potential employers. Because ALL of these things have happened.

But you know what? I HATE being afraid. It’s pointless and wasteful and doesn’t do a THING for you unless you’re directly being threatened by axe-murders or vampires or sexy-beast werewolves. In that case, yes. RUN YOUR ASS OFF.

Last week, this ginormous box of IVF drugs arrived at our house. After 3 months of waiting and testing and several sessions of crying.

Today I started taking them.

Warning of an Uncontrollable Reflex

May is a challenging month at our house. In addition to travel and a healthy schedule of birthdays and graduations and anniversaries – my birthday is seven days before our wedding anniversary. And Mother’s Day is smack in the middle of both.

This was not so much an issue a few years ago. We love our Mothers. We love showing them we love them. But. Then. Someone told us they were pregnant. THE DAY BEFORE MOTHER’S DAY. When we’d been trying for five god-damn years. (Now seven.)

And unless you are Travis, I don’t think there’s another person on Earth who can remotely fathom what a colossal mind-fuck that was. Because he alone experienced the day that Mother’s Day died and became the holiday known as: The Week of Hateful Darkness Wherein Jules Ignores All Life.

I am getting better. I think. For the most part, the hate is a lot less intense. But I still don’t watch much tv. Or want go shopping. Or care to talk to people.

It’s hard avoiding a holiday that screams ‘HEY! Look at me! And all the wonderful things YOU DON’T GET TO HAVE. Ha-ha!’ like some gargantuan, retarded, one-eyed Cookie Monster who’s everywhere you look and everywhere you go. And whom apparently, feels the need to manifest in everyone you meet.

Under this constant barrage of words and images, I’ve never felt so much the urge to stab somone with a set of dull car keys as when I’m out trying to maintain my sanity doing normal everyday stuff – and a waiter or grocer or volunteer invades my crazy-space by handing me a carnation and wishes me a ‘Happy Mother’s Day’.

I don’t expect people to know I’m not a Mom by looking at me. I don’t expect them to understand why it pisses me off. I just expect them to not exist for a while.

So I stay home.

Message: Do not EVER hand Jules anything while saying ‘Happy Mother’s Day’. It could be chocolate, it could be diamonds. It doesn’t matter. You will still lose an eye. Say, ‘Happy Anti-Social Week’. Or ‘Happy Drink Until You Forget Your Name Day’. Just don’t say ‘Mom’. It’s safer for everyone.

Its Time to Eat the Doughnuts

Yes. Those are donuts. In my car. In a convenient easy reach package.

Because today? God. damn.

If I get one more fricking email about this stupid project that amounts to nothing, that absolutely refuses to go right, that takes over and derails my entire day…

If I lose one more day to this tiny-ass roadblock on which no one is capable of helping me out or make a decision or even RESPOND within three fricking days…

If I get passed off to one more random person to loop in and keep track of on this ever-expanding list of project ‘participants’…

If one more woman tells me “I have some news…I’m PREGNANT!! Isn’t it GREAT?!”…

If I have one more person tell me about this woman they know who just delivered via IVF and it made them think of me….

If I have one more acquantance/stranger offer me their uterus or suggest some dumb ass infertility miracle like say, ACUPUNTURE…(A real, live, serious person told me this would solve ALL my problems. Do we LIVE IN THE MATRIX?! I. DON’T. THINK. SO.)

If I have to hear one more time how wonderfully beautiful and GLOWING my pregnant sister, oh no wait, my preganant sister-in-law, or no wait, my pregnant sister’s friend’s wife is…

I’m going to stab myself in the eye with a pair of large, rusty scissors.

So I’m going to sit right here and eat this entire box of perfect, round chocolate covered bites of escapism while watching the Work Out marathon and living vicariously through other people who can kick some ASS.