A Mess

I am wearing slightly damp pants this morning.  Actually, by now, at 6:21 a.m., they are almost dry as I sit at a coffee shop (not a new school "coffee shop" like Starbucks or Coffee Bean, but an old school truck stop where you eat hash and eggs coffee shop) and write this.

I found out I was pregnant via IVF a couple of weeks ago and have been tired beyond anything I could ever have imagined.  I get home from work and fall into bed.  Last night, in a fit of positiveness that I could stay awake, I washed the pants I wanted to wear today.  I had to wash them because they were the same pants I wore yesterday and the ones I spilled cottage cheese on driving to work.  Right now, only one pair of pants fit because with all the hormones and the pregnancy, I look like a sausage version of my former self.  It doesn't help that every suit (I wear skirt suits) is at the cleaners.

This morning, I woke up, took a shower and walked to the laundry room in my robe.  Cursing, I grabbed my pants out of the washer and tried to throw them into the dryer with the load of towels from last night.  The towels were still wet and the dryer wouldn't turn on so I put the pants on damp and went to get ready.  As I combed my hair back, I noticed that the left edges are starting to turn grey and my keratin straightening treatment was done so long ago that my hair is a mass of frizz and curl, but I have neither the time nor the inclination (too worried about the chemicals) to get my hair done.

I fed the dogs, walked them outside briefly and kissed my husband goodbye while whispering in his ear, "The dryer won't turn on."  Even though I knew I should wait for the towels to dry, I didn't.  I thought that maybe my hubby would take care of it and maybe he would even fold the towels (wishful thinking, instead my mother-in-law would probably give me a glare when I got home).

Plus, I needed to write.

Further exacerbating my mess of a self is the worry tickling the back of my mind at all times like a constant feather.  A worry that the pregnancy won't take.  Every twinge sends me into a panic and while I know I must relax, I also know that relaxation is not in my nature.

Maybe things would be easier if I could stay home which is not an option.  I need my benefits and salary.  Of course, I wish I could stay in bed for ten months just to make sure everything turns out OK.  And, I wish there was a guarantee.  Alas, I know there is not.

While trying to write and eat, I spill egg on my shirt and think, this is not going to get better.   I am a mess.  A chunky, damp pant and stained shirt wearing hot stinking mess.

I would not have it any other way.

Oh Baby

On Wednesday we did the first IVF treatment.  They inserted two embryos into my uterus.  The doctor, in his typical Newport surfer meets pragmatic meets spiritualist way, told me the rest was up to God.

Already knowing this, I had lit a candle at church on the Sunday prior.  And put a note in Virgin Mary's basket.  I asked her to make this happen.  Then I went to the Jesus statue and prayed.

Some Catholics might have an issue with IVF but I think that God would understand that sometimes intervention is needed.  That sometimes God needs help to do what is meant to be.  Things are meant to be is a saying my sister Annie always says. I am hoping this is meant to be.  I want to be a mommy.  Does that sound weird coming from me?  To show my sweet feminine side is not usually my thing, but this punk rock girl does have a maternal side.  I have been my sarcastic, bitter and non-hopeful self for so long that this me is terrifying.  Who am I?  I don't really know anymore.

Caring so much is scary.  I would rather be apathetic, but it's not in my nature.

This whole process has changed me.  It made me realize that the thing I have been yearning and searching for is love.  Not romantic love, but maternal love.  The kind of love that makes you work hard every day.  An age old kind of pure love.

My real problem is that I have come to realize, that for me, without this kind of love, a child's love, there is really no point to it all.  Life is not about so called success or money, it is about creating family.

And that my friends, is what I want.  I want to be the mom cutting her kids' food at the table next to me.

And if I don't get it, oh baby.  

Greens and Blues

I am listening to the new Pixies album Indie Cindy on repeat.  My favorite song is Greens and Blues. The refrain goes like this,

"I'm wasting your time, just talking to you/Maybe best you go on home/I'll leave you alone, fade from your mind/Slip into the greens and blues."

Like all of the Pixies' best work, the lyrics are a bit murky and symbolic and edged with a sliver of meloncholy.  There is something about Frank Black's rusty edged voice that gets me.  Some singers let you see into their soul when they sing and Frank Black is one of those type of singers.

Listening to the Pixies' new album raced me back in my memory to my high school years when the Pixies' best albums Sufer Rosa and Doolittle came out.  Those albums were my junior and senior years of high school and my best friends Melinda, Tracy and I would listen to the CDs over and over dancing on the stairs and trying to figure out the undecipherable meaning of songs like Tame, Debaser and Where is My Mind.   Frank Black's lyrics are steeped in a mix of religion and surrealism and draw the listener in with the mix of hard and soft.  The thing people often miss about the Pixies is how melodic many of their songs are.  There is always a catchy melody embedded within the walls of a Pixis song.  You just have to find it.

Their music inspires me.  Making music looks easy but all creation is hard.  It is like digging into your heart and mind and cutting out a piece of yourself and putting it on a plate for all to see and consume.  Writing is never easy for me, but it satiates me.  My memoir has been a work in progress for years and I know it just needs a little time and TLC to germinate into what I want and need it to be.

Like my art, making a baby has not been easy.  Nothing in my life has been easy but this process has been the hardest.  Harder than anything.   But, I can't let this go.  I have too much hope that I am meant to create this life.

There are no guarantees.  That I know.  I am a cynic by nature.  This whole fertlility process could be a big disappointment or it could be one of the greatest moments in my life.

For now, I will just sit in bed and hope and pray that something takes root.  And try not to slip into the greens and blues.