PURSUING POSITIVE

inseminate |inˈseməˌnāt|
verb [ trans. ] (often be inseminated)
introduce semen into (a woman or a female animal) by natural or artificial means.

My vagina has been seeing a lot of action lately. Two pelvic ultrasounds. Two encounters with a speculum in less than a week. Two acts of “timed relations.” A pap smear. A catheter and a syringe up the cervix. And now progesterone tablets inserted vaginally every night. In the past two weeks, six different people have been all up in my hooha’s business, not including me. It’s amazing to think of my teenage self, who occasionally would sneak a shy peak at my nether regions in my bedroom mirror. Now it’s like a popular attraction at a freak show. Step right up to see the amazing bearded lady! What, too far?

The good news is that my first IUI went off like gangbusters, so now I just have to wait for two agonizing weeks. The IUI was scheduled for this past Friday, and I had taken the whole day off. I was nervous, so I did everything I could think of to relax in the morning. I booked a lovely professional massage. I did 10 minutes of yoga. I even had a devotional time and read the Bible.

When we got to the treatment room at the fertility clinic, the nurse told Philip his sample was “A+,” news about which we were both very pleased. Philip prattled on about the Tigers as the catheter and syringe went in, which was a welcome distraction from the weird and uncomfortable dilating and cramping. Afterward I lay on my back for 15 minutes visualizing a swarm of swimmers surrounding and assailing my unsuspecting egg. (Eggs? Who knows how many mature follicles I ended up with this time.)

I spent the rest of the day on the couch in my sweatpants watching New Girl and Mindy Project. It was basically paradise. I also received many encouraging texts from friends, which made me feel very loved. And also kind of vulnerable. I mean, my boss had even hugged me and wished me luck the day before. No secrets here. (I also argued with my parents last week about testing early for pregnancy, something I am somehow pretty disciplined about not doing. They are DYING to know if this worked or not.)

Fast forward two nights, and I am being rudely awakened at 2:30 a.m. by my cat AJ horking on the bed. For fuck’s sake, cat. I fling him off, but not before he’s able to puke a bit on the duvet. Then he makes a beeline for our high-pile Pottery Barn rug. Seventeen hundred square feet of hard wood and tile, and the cats ALWAYS want to cough up their hairballs on something soft and hard to clean.

So now we’re wide awake, and I have to pee. But am I allowed to pee? Philip strips the duvet and wipes up the spew on the floor while I Google “progesterone tablet vaginal urinate.” The message-board community tells me not to pee, or the progesterone will all just come right out. Philip also does a little online research and tells me the next morning, “I was on a blog last night called Stirrup Queens. That sounds like porn.”

“She has twins through IUI,” I respond. What a weird, weird thing this infertility world is.

I lay awake for about an hour trying to think of anything besides my full bladder. Eventually I fall back asleep. I make it another three hours before I pee out all my progesterone support at 5:30 a.m.

Sunday morning I am standing at the sink washing strawberries. Philip tells me about a cutesy pregnancy announcement he is viewing on Facebook: a Disney-loving couple standing in front of Cinderella’s castle. They’re both wearing mouse ears and holding a mini pair of mouse ears over the wife’s stomach. My face must fall a little, because Philip says, “How do you feel?”

“I feel progesterone leaking into my underwear,” I say.

It’s hard to feel positive. Everyone says I should think positively, but in my heart, I don’t believe this is going to work. Every time I start to imagine a positive pregnancy test — the joy of my friends and family, the thrill of buying baby stuff and designing a nursery — some scolding voice in my head goes, “Stop it, you fool. Why would this work? It doesn’t work for most people. You don’t deserve to get pregnant ‘so easily.’ Don’t get your hopes up. In two weeks we’ll be sobbing into our pillow. Prepare for THAT, you sap.”

Geez, that voice in my head is mean! Very Gollum-ish, in fact.

I continue to strive for that positivity (but Master looks after us!). Not necessarily that this will work, but that no matter what, everything will be OK, I will carry on, we’ll be a step closer, and God is in control.

He sent me such a reminder the night before the IUI. Philip and I had gone on a date and were driving home at 10:15 at night. About a mile from our house, we passed a young woman walking on the side of the road with her three small children. Philip immediately noticed her and voiced concern to me.

“Turn around, and we’ll ask her if she needs a ride,” I responded. So we did. And she did. As soon as she and her kids were safely crammed into the back seat of my 1997 Saturn, I heard her murmur, “Thank you, Jesus.”

They had spent the day at the hospital near our house. Her youngest son had broken his arm. By the time they were discharged, the bus from the hospital was no longer running, so she was wandering along Orange Avenue hoping to stumble across another bus stop. They had been at the hospital for seven hours and hadn’t had dinner.

We took them to McDonald’s and drove them the six miles to their apartment, located in a low-income part of town. As soon as we dropped them off and pulled away, I choked, “How would they have ever gotten home?!” Philip and I both cried, thinking of how God had placed us on that street at that exact moment.

It was a reminder of how blessed we are — our $100 steak dinner juxtaposed with a McDouble; our warm, beautiful home compared to a tiny, rundown apartment in a dangerous neighborhood. And it was an assurance that even when it seems like God is MIA, He’s still present and involved and working for good.