STILL FIGHTING

These last couple of weeks were rough for Philip and me. It began with our final IVF consult, which did not go awesome. Here are some things that happened:

1. The cheerful woman who came in to take my ultrasound chirped at me: "Let's see if that cyst went away!" To which I replied, "Uhhhmm, I don't think I have a cyst?" She frowned and claimed that my nurse had just told her we were checking for a cyst. I've never had an ovarian cyst in my life, to my knowledge.

2. We found out our stimulation injections were going to start a week later than I thought, and I had to stay on birth control for another week.

3. My nurse tried to rush through all the injection instructions while Philip was in the bathroom. I interrupted her: "Can we please wait for my husband to get back? He's the one who will be administering these injections."

4. After being shuttled from an exam room to a nurse's office, we were shuttled to the checkout area, then shuttled BACK to the nurse's office so that, at our request, our doctor could give us a wham-bam overview of preimplantation genetic screening (PGS) of embryos, a test the doctor had never brought up to us as an option.

5. After all of this stellar customer service, we went back to the checkout area, where the clerk asked us how much we owed. "I don't know?" I replied. She made a phone call and then said, "That'll be $11,710." <commence choking on my own saliva>

Would you like to know what is stressful? ALL OF THAT. Being caused unnecessary alarm about an imaginary cyst. Getting my carefully plotted timeline thrown into the dumpster. Getting overwhelmed with information when my partner is taking a quick pee. Getting herded from room to room like cattle. Getting the world's most rushed explanation of a very complex, controversial testing procedure. And then being charged an astronomical amount of money for all of the above.

The appointment threw me into a massive funk, and in the midst of that funk, we had to make progress on two giant homework assignments: Figure out what credit card to apply for that would yield the best rewards for spending upwards of $11K, and read/decipher a pile of jumbled papers about PGS so we could let our doctor know asap if we wanted to do it.

Oh, and by the way, in the middle of that, Philip was trying to get his mom signed up for health insurance via the Affordable Care Act before the deadline, AND he was working on filing our taxes.

So what happened was, we started bickering. A tense moment here, a moment of lashing out there.

Things came to a head on a Saturday night. We were out at a pub crawl in our neighborhood for a friend's birthday, and I didn't want to be there. I just wasn't in the mood to be celebratory and crazy with a bunch of people I didn't really know. Plus, we'd been trying to cut out alcohol consumption ... Philip wasn't in the mood to babysit me, and on the walk home, our patience ran out. There was yelling in the streets. There was sweater throwing. There was stomping on said sweater.

When we got home at 2 a.m., the quarrel escalated to even higher comical telenovela levels. We were both drunk and tired. At the height of the argument, I ran out to my car barefoot with no license like I was just going to drive away. (Where the eff was I going to go?) Philip followed in his underwear, angrily hurling my shoes up onto the carport and standing behind my car to block my path. The standoff lasted for awhile before I agreed to come back inside if he would get my shoes off the carport roof. He did.

The next day, we laughed about the dramatic fight, but we were war-weary. Usually weekends are our time to reconnect and recharge, but we went into the following workweek completely drained, and the bickering continued. My closest ally was distant and cold. The loneliness I felt was crushing.

On a Thursday night, Philip went to see a friend perform in concert while I ran a 5K race. I tried to meet up with him afterward, but I had the venue wrong. I stood inside Austin's looking in vain for a group of people who were at Stardust. Back in my car, I started crying maniacally. I was bawling so hard I had to pull over. I let the sobs just wrack me; I wailed as loud as I wanted. I cried until I was weak and shaky.

Is this when it happens? When the infertility becomes too much? When the couple doesn't recognize each other anymore? When they finally give up on each other?

Philip texted me, offering to leave and bring us dinner.

I replied: "No don't leave. I tried. I've cried what's left of my makeup off. I'm smelly. I'm going to take a shower and go to sleep. I feel really bad for dampening your evening. I'm lonely and unhappy and that doesn't make me an appealing wife."

He wrote back, "I'm coming home."

He decided to keep trying, to continue fighting for us, like he has since the very earliest days of our relationship. He had plans with some friends on Saturday, but he canceled so that the two of us could reconnect. We slept in, made love, made breakfast. We booked a kayaking tour near Cocoa Beach, and after, we sat overlooking the water enjoying nachos and mixed drinks. We prioritized each other; we prioritized relaxation. We traveled the distance back into each other's space. And in the following days, he lovingly studied all the medication instructions and bravely injected me with very high doses of artificial hormones.