The things memories are made of...

I'm in Atlanta this week on business. I spend a lot of time on the road, and am thankful that one of my customers is in the southeast. There's an odd comfort in hearing "ya'll" and seeing things like fried green tomatoes and peach cobbler on the restaurant menu. Mind you...the whole 8 years of my formative youth spent in upstate NY causes me to avoid those things, but they still make me smile anyways.

I really never considered Atlanta some place memorable....even though I've been here many times before. However, this time I'm staying right downtown - and I seem to be surrounded by memories. I'm in the Westin, which is a very tall round building. On the top is the Sundial Restaurant, Bar & View (I really like the way they named that), which is a rotating restaurant where you can enjoy fine dining while getting a 360-degree view of the city. It just so happens that I ate at that restaurant - circa 1982. My aunt and uncle were living in Atlanta at the time, and we came to visit. What I remember most is that my brother got up to go to the restroom, and when he came out, our table had obviously moved. He ended up in tears because he thought he'd been abandoned. I thought he was a sissy. (still do for that matter :-) ). I must say, a rotating restaurant is cool at any age.

Then I leave the hotel tonight to go to dinner, and across the street is the Hard Rock Cafe. It just so happens that I celebrated my 21st birthday with my Mom there. She was in Atlanta for business, I was not too far up the road at Clemson. We met there - I'm sure I drank some form of alcohol, but that part wasn't terribly memorable. It was one of the few times in my memory where my Mom was the mom and I was the child. There have been way too many years where the opposite was true.

It's a weird little trip down memory lane. My youth and my family can be aptly described as highly dysfunctional. I'd have to say that rarely do I have purely happy memories that aren't tinged by some sort of negativity. It was quite nice to have these little glimpses into what was happy and normal in my life all those years ago.

Blog about infertility...

When I left the doctor the other day, I glanced at the little diagnosis section at the bottom. And there it said "Infertility Female Unknown". For some reason it kind of hit me at that point - wow...I really do have an infertility issue.

When I started this blog, it was all about lesbian moms and having babies with a "frozen pop", as my sister-in-law calls it. Well, now on try number 8, with hormones in the mix, it has now morphed into a blog about infertility.

I find it strange that this is the most natural process in the world, yet it simply doesn't work for some folks. For me, I'm not too old in the grand scheme (33) and all indicators show that my baby manufacturing equipment is in working order. So I wonder what on earth makes the egg and swimmers not get along?

We are going to the doctor every month for IUI - which basically puts the swimmers that the front of my filopian tubes so they don't have far to go (my egg is hiding up there in the tube somewhere). I've already been tested for blocked tubes, and they are clear and working. And my lab work says that my ovulation works fine every month. So it really seems like this should be easier.

I know we are lucky - we've only been through this 8 times, some women do this for years. However, it boggles my logical mind how you can put 19 million healthy active swimmers probably within about 6 inches of the egg, and they either can't find each other, or they just don't get along. I have to wonder...is it me? Is my egg just genetically disposed to ward off anything male? Are the swimmers intimidated, thinking I might be one of those "angry lesbians" (my father had a fear of those at one point)? Or do they just take a look at each other and say "nah...not in the mood to fight with it right now"?

Whatever it is, I'm hoping that they are in the mood to cooperate this month. We'd really like to stop boring you with all of this fertility nonsense, and start grossing you out with stories about morning sickness. :-)

It's all in what you can't see...

So, insemination day. I didn't have Dr. Painful, so it went pretty well. (Dr. Painful has done it twice, and both times I've ended up curled up in pain for the rest of the day - I think he bruises my uterus or something). All in all, pretty positive experience today.

The thing that never ceases to amaze me is the "report card" that they give us on the sperm sample. Today was "we have 19 million very active sperm - they look really good". I feel good about that - 19 million swimmers - all ready to swim. Yeah, that gives me confidence.

Then I have the thought "how the hell do they know?". I mean...is this something they guess at and tell folks, or is there really some machine that can measure the number of microscopic swimmers? I get that a microscope can probably give them the info about their activity - but what in the world can count that there are 19 million of them there in that tiny vial?

So, if their claims are to be believed, we have 19 million swimmers and two eggs. The ratio there never ceases to amaze me...

My thoughts on Gay Marriage

OK...so I'm going to turn some friends into blog fodder...you know who you are, and you'll forgive me for it eventually.

I get a lot of random questions about the whole "marriage" thing. A surprising number of folks don't really understand that we aren't (and can't be) legally married. Those who do get that part are slightly confused by how we pick and choose the marriage norms we want to include in our life. For instance:

I saw a couple of friends yesterday, and was talking about "the wife". Somebody was apparently confused by me using that term and so the statement was made "well I guess that makes you the husband". Uhhh...no. Really no. A brief primer on marital terminology:

Wife: The female in the relationship

Husband: The male in the relationship

Spouse: A generic term that can be used to describe either person

And the gay side of relationship terminology:

Partner - the significant other, a term very similar in definition to spouse, but without all the heterosexual implications

Life Partner - same sort of definition, but for those who are afraid that using the term "Partner" may be misconstrued to mean that the person you live with is somehow a business partner.

For many years, I used partner. These days, I figure I'm going to even up the playing field, and used the generally accepted marital terminology, as I consider my relationship to be a marriage. So, yes, we are both considered the wife...as we are both female. The comment was made during this conversation that why don't I just call her "the spouse" - which I guess would work, but we'd still both be "the spouse", so I'm not sure how that would make it any more clear about who is who.

More confusion on gay marriage:

Kind of along the same lines...but we don't necessarily have gender roles. We are women, and we both are pretty feminine. But, since there isn't a guy around, we have to do some of the "traditional" guy things, like fixing stuff, building stuff, and doing car stuff. That doesn't make us masculine...it just means that we're too
cheap and resourceful to outsource those things. So questions like "who's
the guy?" really confuse us - I thought the boobs and "lesbian" classification
cleared up the fact that there isn't one. (Although, we readily recognize
that some lesbians are masculine, and some gay men are feminine in nature, but
that doesn't mean everyone is.)

Our relationships are not fundamentally different from heterosexual relationships. We have fights and general marital conflicts. There isn't a rule book for us that is separate and different...we have the challenges of living together, making decisions together, and still fight over who hogs the blankets at night. We're pretty normal.

For the life of me, I can't figure out why people are so scared of gay folks marrying, but that's a rant for another blog post. Hopefully you all won't notice that when I use the term "the wife", I am actually communicating in the secret gay code language that we use in our quest for world domination. :-)

What's new in our world...

So, we went to the neurologist today. I have to go - for all that silly epilepsy business. The wife has to go with me as well because the doctor asks things like "how long did your seizure last?" "what was the seizure like?". Maybe I'm the only one who sees how ridiculous it is to ask an epileptic about what was going on during the period of time when she is clearly not conscious and is drooling. Anyways...the wife must be present for these types of questions. If she wasn't, who knows what kind of snide remark would fly out of my mouth.

So...fun things from the neurologists office:

1. She asked how I was handling the hormones..."are they making you kind of crazy?" (grin and wink from the doc). I started to say "yeah...a bit", when the wife comes out with "OOOOOH YEAH". Not necessary...not necessary at all.


2. My epilepsy medication is the same stuff (but different dose) that they prescribe for bipolar disorder. Both the wife and the doc seem to think that this is a helpful coincidence, and I'm better off for the extra mood boost. No offense to those out there with actual bipolar disorder, but between the hormone comment, and this conversation, I'm beginning to think that the wife and the doc are plotting against me.


3. The fertility clinic has hit my only good vein for drawing blood too much, and the lab tech didn't want to hit it again today for the necessary bloodwork. I only have one good vein...tried to explain this to the tech, to no avail. Instead, she thought it would be a good idea to torture my other arm without result, bandage that up, then use an infant's needle to get it out of my hand. I have a welt on my hand, turning into an ugly bruise, and still hurting 12 hours later.

So...that is more fun in my "yes, I'm a human pincushion" saga. The doc is upping my meds a bit - she was concerned that I was scaring the public last month with a seizure in the middle of the Target lawn & garden department. So - next time you see me, don't mind the happy-go-lucky...that's just my bipolar on an upswing.

We have good news, we have bad news...

The good news is that I can drink at all the July 4th festivities this weekend!

The bad news is...well, you all know what the bad news is... :-(