Ramblings

Sorry I've been absent so long children. Granted, I've not been as lax as some people who wait nearly a damn calendar month between posts, or others who manage to stretch the silence nearly three whole months. I do have quite a bit to say, I'm just too lazy to say it. I occasionally look at the computer with mild disdain, think of poor, languishing BarrenAlbion with its readers slowly dropping off due to boredom and for a moment I pause, believing I should post. Eventually common sense prevails, I grab a little B&J's and resettle on the PruDent in the sofa.

I have shunned the B&J's today, and here I am. I do have a lot to say with not much coherency, so I'm just going to resort to bullet points. Segues be damned!

1) Gestational diabetes: guess who might have it? At my midwife appointment last Thursday they detected some naughty stuff in my urine, so I had a blood test on Friday to test my levels. I have yet to get the results, and knowing my absent-minded, scatterbrained-as-fuck midwife, I'll maybe find out once my 15 pound baby is born if I had gd.

Initially I cried. I know, I'm such a wuss. Who cries when they discover they may have gd? It wasn't so much that I felt as if having gestational diabetes was the end of the world, but I have reached the end of my tether with PCOS. I hate the bitch. I wish she would just fuck off and harass some deserving person for awhile. Pregnancy was supposed to be the one time in the past 10 years that I've felt like a normal woman, yet it seems a hiatus from being a reproductive freakshow was not meant to be. PCOS was all, "Shit. Bitch got pregnant. Hmm...what can we do now to remind her that I will be here for eternity?"

I blame PCOS because, well, why not? I haven't gained much weight in this pregnancy, I have been disciplined with my sugar intake, and I have gotten more exercise than I ever did not pregnant. Yet, take a look at the information online about gd and it's all about the fat and/or old people. No mention of those of us who just may have been shortchanged in the endocrinology department. Just like infertility, it's all simplified to say that it's just the fat and old with the problems. Bah.

2) The in-laws: Yes, so I bought a doppler to hear the baby's heartbeat. No, I know you didn't feel the need to do that, but then again, my attempts to get pregnant involved a little more than a drunken shag after a curry. I'm just sayin'. Also, I don't care that you don't see the sense in us paying for a private ultrasound next week. I want to see my Enid, and if I want to see my Enid and use my money to see my Enid, I will.

Seriously, these people roll their eyes and cluck at us each time we tell them what we're doing regarding Enid. I know they think I'm the domineering puppetmaster behind it all, and I want The Dude to tell them that he is a willing participant in this. Just you wait until I go back to work - some riveting blog posts will surely result from that. Let us just say that the family is not exactly in favour of the working mother. To them, my kid will be on the fast track to Cracktown in no time once I start working again.

3) Fertile-type behaviour in yours truly: A few weeks ago a woman glanced at my stomach, then made eye contact with me. She looked pained, and I could tell exactly what she was thinking. I wanted to make some sort of Club of the Infertile gesture, like simulating a catheter being shoved up my cooter, or wrapping my hand around an invisible Puregon Pen and stabbing my stomach with a massive smile plastered on my face. Unfortunately, no such universal gestures are widely accepted. Pity.

The tragedy in this situation, aside from this woman's obvious anguish, was that up to that point it had never occurred to me that other infertile women might be looking at me in my current state the way I used to look at pregnant women. I have been existing in my happy little "infertile makes good" bubble that I haven't thought about the fact that other women might be secretly hating me. I think they do what I always did when I saw a young, pregnant woman - I assumed it came easy for her. This, despite the fact that I am young and still had to do IVF to end up here. The next time I notice a woman looking at me in this way, I shall say, "This youthful face belies the truth! I too know of endless cooter pokings and hormonal rampages! I too have endured weeks of waxiness due to pussaries! I am a sister, not the enemy!"

4) Speaking of cooter pokings, a dear friend in blogging will be facing her first appointment today with her male RE. Said friend was worried about the awkwardness caused by her husband's presence when another male has his hands all up in her business. I read her comment and laughed, but the laughter soon turned to a feeling of resigned shame when I realised that I wouldn't even consider that an uncomfortable situation. In fact, the last time I was probed by a medical professional it was by the fingers of a male doctor during my transfer. Oh, and there was more than one male there getting in on the action. I was laying on the table like an old pro, legs splayed, with a lamp containing a 500,000 watt bulb poised over my vagina. Gloved hands belonging to a few people were in and out of the snatch, along with numerous catheters and cold metal instruments. The Dude sat to my left, completely nonplussed. He was probably singing a Sugababes song to himself or something, he was so casual about it all.

5) Again with the laziness: I was eating a pretzel the other day, and a piece of one fell into my cavernous cleavage. I glanced down at it, nestled on the top of the underwire of my bra, decided that I would call too much attention to myself were I to dig it out, and arrived at the conclusion that a lot of energy would also be expended trying to retrieve it. So yeah...I left it there. Well, until I next went to the bathroom and could dig it out in private.

I'll leave it at that. I will try to post next week, as I am having an ultrasound next Wednesday to find out if Enid is an Enid, or a slow Bertrand after all. I should also, airheaded midwife willing, have the results of my gestational diabetes blood test. If it's positive, believe me, I will have enough bile to unleash and turn into a blog post. No one will want to read it, but hey...I'll feel better!