Six weeks and counting and hoping and praying

I am sitting on the beach in Newport writing this.  My hubby took my mother-in-law and I here to enjoy the sun and sand.  I needed to clear my mind and for me, sitting on the beach and watching the ocean is a tranquil and meditative environment.

My mind is swirling like the waves before me.  Last week, I went to get a six week ultrasound and while they saw a gestational sac, they didn't see anything else.  Of course, I overreacted and didn't sleep for days worrying that there is not a baby there despite all evidence to the contrary (rising hormone levels, expanding girth etc) and ignoring the fact that the ultrasound was very early.

After a week of angst and much research, I have come to the conclusion that I should not have had such an early ultrasound. There were no danger signs such as bleeding or cramping and thus, it wasn't medically indicated in my non expert opinion because all it did was freak me out.

When I talked to my doctor, he pleaded with me not to worry and said that I could return in a week

Tomorrow I will have another ultrasound and am hoping and praying everything goes well.  Wish me luck.  In the end, I have to believe all is OK.  And whatever will be, will be.

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.

My Admissions

I am sitting in a hospital bed listening to the lady next to me cough, hack and vomit. I didn't expect to be here.  It's 4 am and in an effort to distract myself, I am watching Sex and the City and listening to Carrie Bradshaw's narration about Mr. Big.

My Mr. Big is in Vegas on a boy's trip.  I wouldn't let him come home.  Not for this.

It all started when my fertility doctor did an iron study for my upcoming IVF.  The numbers were bad.  My hemoglobin was 7 which means I'm in the danger level for anemia.  The anemia was a consequence of weight loss surgery two years prior.  The weight came off, but so did the iron.

On Wednesday I went to my hematologist appointment.  He was older but articulate and kind.  The first thing he said was, "You should not be able to walk around like this."  At the end of the visit, he assured me that we could do an iron infusion in office.

"It could push your IVF back," he said with a grimace.

"That can't happen," I told him with a firm smile.  "Let's get this handled."  My teeth were showing.

Later that evening, we dropped my best friend Tracy's daughter at a concert in Pomona.   We sat at a restaurant and ordered food.  My phone rang.  It was the hematologist.

"This is Dr. C.  You need to go to the hospital tonight.  I can't even do an infusion because your hemoglobin has dropped again below seven.  Go to the hospital tonight for a blood transfusion.  It's an emergency."

"What the hell?" I thought to myself.  I knew what the ER was like at night.  There was no way I was going.  Plus I had Pixies tickets for the next night.

"Ummm, no," I stammered back.  "I will go on Friday."

"Friday is too late.  You need to go now," he said.  "At the latest go tomorrow in the morning.  It's dangerous."

I hung up the phone and looked at Tracy and said, "Guess who's going to the ER tomorrow?  Adrian is gonna freak, but just think, I will be able to hold this over his head forever."

I called Adrian who wanted to jump on a plane.  I negotiate for a living, persuasion is my job.

I reassured him.  "I'll be fine baby.  I will just be there a couple hours."

There was no way I was going to let him ruin his trip. Adrian never went anywhere without me.  This was his first guy trip in years.  There was no way he was coming home.

At the ER the next morning at 8 am, I told the check-in nurse at San Antonio Hospital my hemoglobin situation.  She said, "They will check you in immediately."  Within five minutes I was in a bed being poked and prodded.  That was quick, I thought to myself.

More blood work.

The orderlies were all male and joked around with me.  I told them my hubby was in Vegas and they said I was a good wife to leave him there.

About an hour later, the ER doctor came into the room with a stomp and a hard pull of the curtain.  He looked to be in his late thirties with curly brown hair.  He wasn't smiling.

"This hemoglobin is ridiculously low," he said with a stern frown.  I looked back at him and smiled and tried to explain about my gastric bypass two years ago and my IVF process recently.  He held up his hand and went on.  "Why didn't you come in sooner.? You could have passed out and not woken up.  Do you realize that?  Was no one monitoring your blood?"

I was being cross-examined and I folded.

"I was in trial," I stammered.  "As soon as my hematologist told me it was urgent, I came in.  My primary doctor just told me to take my supplements."

The ER doctor looked at me with an open mouth.  "Trial?  Really.  Well trial or no trial, you should have been in when you got your blood work.  Your hemoglobin has now dropped to six.  Your doctors are incompetent.  I would have admitted you weeks ago."

He made me feel like an idiot.  I should have came in.  Why didn't I?  I gave him a sheepish grin and shrugged my shoulders and said with a sigh, "I know, you're right."

The doctor seemed mollified by my admission.  "Well, we're admitting you overnight.  You need multiple bags of red blood cells and iron."

By noon, I was in a hospital room.  They brought me some broth and jello.  My chart on the wall specified an all clear liquid diet.  I should have eaten breakfast and I would have killed for a diet coke.

The lady in the next bed coughed and vomited all day and night.  At one point, I pressed my emergency button for her because it seemed like she was going to choke to death.

The nurses were kind and efficient.  One of them told me that my IVF would never have taken with my hemoglobin so low.  Her statement hit me in the gut.  I had struggled through the IVF process for the last year and I could have ruined it all by forgetting the obvious.

I needed to take care of me.  Nothing else mattered.  Work and trips and concerts didn't matter.  The signs were there for me to admit that I could not do it all.  That I needed help.

And that this may be my only chance.

The World According to Me

It is midnight and I am writing while listening to the rat a tat tat of gunfire.  Gunfire from the video game my husband Adrian is playing.  He mutters to himself while he plays, "Finally getting some fucking kills," he says softly.

How does he expect me to sleep through this chaos?  At the very least, I should expect to wake up in a PTSD state.

This is my life.  I could go sleep on the couch but all I am wearing is a 16 Candles Jake Ryan t-shirt and underwear,  Plus, the dogs would follow me and bark at every noise.  And, did I mention that we live with my 80 year old mother-in-law?

And, we have been trying to have a baby for five years to no avail.  I see people in my job everyday that have multiple kids that they can't take care of.  All we want is one.  Just one child.  We would give that child everything.  Just ask our two shih-tzus who are spoiled rotten and loved to distraction.  Is it too much to ask for?

I still love Adrian more than ever.  

Adrian's hair is thick and black and he blow dries it in the morning arms out, elbows raised like John Travolta in Saturday Night Fever.  His eyes are the color of caramel and he has an endearing way of squinting into the sun with those eyes of his.  I tell him to wear sunglasses so he doesn't get crinkles, but he hates being told what to do.  Adrian is insanely stubborn like his mother, but soulful and sweet.  And, I feel safe when he's near.  Feeling safe is a big deal for me.  I haven't always felt safe but from the day I met Adrian 21 plus years ago, it was as if he was a warm blanket of comfort.  I yearned to be enveloped by it.

Plus, we still have fun.  Adrian loves music and concerts almost as much as I do.  The other day, a Police song came on the radio and we both sang it as loud as we could in the car in unison like two maniacs.

"I see you sent my letters back.  And my LP records and they're all scratched."

Call of Duty game aside (if I ever time travel, the first thing I will do is kill the COD creators), I am a lucky girl.  No one else could put up with my nonsense.  And I would not want anyone else to have to.  I may, despite all my complaining and whining, look back at these years as the best of times.

Am I crazy?  Maybe.  But remember, this is the world according to me.

Gravity II

Some might start the day by saying thank god it's Friday but I won't because I have a sad day ahead with my friend Felicia's funeral.  Really, I don't even want to get out of bed.  My preference is to stay covered up and warm with my dogs by my side in a cocoon of blankets and Shih-Tzus.  Hidden away.  

The funeral is not until this afternoon, but I couldn't bear to go into work today.  I had nothing on calendar and knew I would sit in my office and mope and get nothing done.  Instead, I am taking the morning off and watching TV and writing.  Price is Right and Let's Make a Deal are on my must watch list.  It is the best form of therapy.

No one likes funerals but I've had too many in my life.   I planned the funerals for both my dad John W. Mantz Jr. and my father-in-law Alberto Pelaez (who I had known for 17 years).   Funerals are mostly sad occasions that blur by, but there is always some glimmer of silver lining that peeks through.  My father's eulogy about our nights at the drive-in when I was little turned into one of the first stories in my memoir.  I hope today turns out that way.  And that it is not just the senseless tragedy I think it is for someone to die at 26.  That it all means something.

When I turned on the TV this morning, "Up Close and Personal" was on with Robert Redford and Michelle Pheiffer.  The movie is a romance and the Robert Redford character dies at the end.  I knew the ending but couldn't help watching all teary eyed.  After it was over, I switched to Sex and the City reruns on E and of course, the episode involved a funeral.  It appears that the universe is telling me that death is part of life. 

At the very least, the recent death of Felicia has made me realize that spirituality is one of the pieces missing from my life.  Wednesday was the beginning of Lent and when a co-worker walked by with ashes on her forehead, I dropped an F Bomb and rushed down to my mom's house to pick her up for the Ash Wednesday mass.  It felt necessary for some reason.

My mom and I sat in the small church on Arrow Highway in Fontana and the priest's homily talked about how love perfects faith.  It was a compelling sermon and during it, I kept looking at my mom and thinking of how hard she worked as a waitress when we were little.  How she and my father paid for our catholic school with their blood, sweat and tears.  And I remembered how she would take us to church every Sunday.  

When we got up to take communion, my mom saw her friend and told her, "I prayed that my daughter would come to church with me today and here she is.  It is a miracle."

Both my mom and I take my silver linings where we can.  Everything means something.