irony

iro·ny

Pronunciation:ˈī-rə-nē

Function: noun

1: a pretense of ignorance and of willingness to learn from another assumed in order to make the other's false conceptions conspicuous by adroit questioning

ie: incongruity between the actual result of a sequence of events and the normal or expected result

2: an event or result marked by such incongruity

ie: after being informed that your baby-maker is busted for the better part of a calendar year, sitting in the doctors office and watching his mouth move as he tells you to NOT have unprotected sex until your next period, after spending roughly $2,000 this month to assure the medical arena that i SHOULD in fact have all the unprotected sex my bitter heart desires. ...and then some more.

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it's 1233PM on monday afternoon and i'm just back in my seat after my THIRD day in the infertility clinic's office. i'm halfway through a glass of wine and i'll probably rip your head off if you make one comment about it.

i.
deserve.
it.

you know....nobody ever tells you it will get exponentially MORE difficult before it gets easier. you put in your time, "to give it time...just try on your own for a few more months....try to relax and be patient...let TIME take it's god-awful course."

so by the time you come to the point of enlisting a professional at the clinic...you're pretty much brain-dead from beating your head against the wall. the desk. the keyboard. you're desperate. you're scared. you're hopeless. which is JUST where they want you, because then they can guiltlessly charge you thousands of dollars a month, because you're absolutely at the end of your rope. they are, after all, the saviors of the world by this point. can't have babies, if the mother otherwise decided to jump off a cliff in a moment of complete devastation. and so you beg them for their supernatural powers and assume they'll snap their fingers and the world will start spinning again and they'll stop the not-so-merry-go-round, allowing you to FREAKING GET OFF ALREADY.

oh.
no.
that, dear infertile, would be too, too easy.

diagnosis: she doesn't ovulate.

remedy: give her pills to enduce black rage. what?! it failed to work. give her MORE pills to enduce black rage. YOURE JOKING?! it failed again. give her MOOOOORE pills to make her SUICIDAL.....and.....it failed to work.....again.

come back to the drawing board.
INJECTIONS! that's the answer.
shoot her up with hormones for 7 days....
lo' and behold.....twelve eggs show up to the party.
TWELVE.

to put that into perspective....an average ole girl ovulates ONE. and stands a 20% chance any given month of getting pregnant in her 20's.
now i'm no math-whiz....but....my situation as of saturday left me with a 200% chance of having twins OR MORE.
so....the infertility wizards decided to bring me back in on sunday....to monitor all 12 to see if maybe some would shrink and dissolve and if the dominant eggs would progress (there were 3 dominant ones).
well....the news sunday was positive.
three eggs got bigger.
9 eggs got smaller.
movement in the right direction.
that was when hope entered into the picture, again.....stupid me.

as of this morning.....the 3 dominant eggs are monsters. massive. ready to blow.
23mm.
21mm.
20mm.
19mm.
18mm.
and the rest....grew again as well.

essentially, i'm left with an astronomical chance of having quads or....more.
if they triggered ovulation today, i'd drop 12 eggs with a 20% chance of each one fertilizing.

and so.....the gavel game crashing down and the ruling is:
no insemination.
no sex.
no possibility of a due date of july 28, 2008.
no room left in my heart for forgiveness. do not ask me who i'd be withholding forgiveness from.

reasons i should be grateful. i will say them now, so you don't feel AT ALL obligated to shuffle forward with your niceties and "silver linings." save it. i do not...and i repeat...do not want to hear it today.

1) the injections work. too well. my body GETS IT, when injected with the potion. next month, i won't have to take NEARLY as much and still have better results. though hope knocks at the door of my heart, i've currently got it barricaded shut and refuse to accept it's comfort.

2) i go to an office where the doctors and nurses genuinely care more for my health than their end of the year statistics. what you may not understand is, infertility clinics LIVE for stats. since everybody basically pays dearly out of pocket, women spend ALOT OF TIME comparing stats with hopes for the best bang for their buck. if stats were the driving force behind my clinic's protocol -- i'd be undergoing the insemination tomorrow. because i'd be a slam dunk for a pregnancy, despite the fact that they'd then force me to undergo embryo reduction (aka., aborting over half the embryo's with hope of offering 2 the best shot at 40 weeks in-utero.) and they'd fail to tell me that the average women carrying quads miscarries at 19 weeks. a total loss of 4 babies. or that the average girl carrying triplets delivers at 30 weeks. or even the average girl carrying twins, delivers 6 full weeks shy of full development. "though this is a loss of one month, allison, consider the exponential loss in 6 months when you deliver quints 20 weeks early." i'm fortunate enough to have a panel of world-class doctors deciding what's best for my future. and though this is an utter financial loss of a month....my doctors are still considered aggressive and if nothing pans out in 2 months....they will send me straight to IVF. shady grove does not consider triplets to be a success story. i don't think i would either. i weigh 105 pounds. i doubt i'd be able to carry to anything REMOTELY close to full term. i can recognize THAT stress to be MORE intense than what i'm currently experiencing, which feels like a million daggers to my heart.

reasons those reasons don't alleviate my distress today:

1) i am tired. i am so, so, so tired.
i am thinking thoughts i ever imagined thinking.
i am doubting things i never imagined doubting.
i am believing things i never imagined believing.
i am questioning things i never imagined questioning.
i am becoming somebody i never imagined becoming.
holding onto hope feels like....catching feathers.
hope drifted so close this month...and you run in circles grasping to catch it...and in a moment it flitters away and leaves you empty. in agony. grasping for your next breath. it happens just like that. in a matter of moments.
and another part of you dies.

"allison, you've lost 10 days.....you can start fresh next month....in my medical opinion, i simply cannot sleep at night allowing you to move forward with this insemination. you're too young. you're too healthy. if you were 40, i wouldn't think twice....it's only been a 10 day loss.....we'll try again next month....."

10 day loss?!!!
i cleaned my ears out to make sure i was hearing correctly.
no, doctor, it's NOT a 10 day loss. it's a THIRTY day loss if you want to get TECHNICAL about it. but furthermore, each of those ten days has twenty four hours in it. each hour with sixty minutes. each minute with countless seconds....
have you ever COUNTED to 777,000??
no?
well, i have.
i have lived through all 777,000 seconds since the start of this cycle.
i don't even escape it when i sleep.
i wake up and it's there. on the front burner. stealing me away.
770,000 thoughts of the future.
770,000 thoughts of joy.
770,000 thoughts of WHAT IF.....
or thoughts of....what if NOT....
or thoughts of....WHAT IF NEVER....
or thoughts of....HOW WILL I HANDLE IT.....
or thoughts of....HOW SHOULD I PRAY TODAY....
or thoughts of....WHAT WILL I DO NEXT.....
or thoughts of....HOW WILL I FUNCTION UNTIL MY NEXT EXAM....

only for the feather to slip outside of my reach.....and flutter away.....again.
no.
no it's NOT just 10 days.
it's a FREAKING ETERNITY that you will never, EVER, in your power understand unless you've walked in my shoes. ever.

he kept his hand on my knee and his eyes softened while i sat on the table with my paper skirt...and wept. again. he did not try to say anything else other than voicing his sympathies. the nurse handed me a tissue and they walked out of the room so i could get dressed.

no, they never tell you it gets worse before it gets better.
...but why should they.
it isn't as if you have any alternatives.
there is no Plan B for people like me.
you do it.
.....or you don't.

"i could NEVER give myself those shots....HOW DO YOU DO IT!? i cannot BELIEVE you have to do that!!! that is INSANE....how ON EARTH...."

i do it the same way you would.
there is no strength to spare for bucking the system. for denial.
and even when you would come to the absolute end of your resolve...when the very words would escape you as you attempt to reconcile this in your brain...and though you would feel as though your very soul can't be crushed anymore...you'd still have no choice.
...and neither do i.
because walking away just isn't an option. it's just not.
there is only one avenue between me....and what i want.
and this is it.

take it.
...or leave it.

but it changes you forever.
each day i wake up to a person i find more and more unrecognizable.
senses a little more deadened.
highs a little less high.
lows a little bit lower.
hope a little bit more lofty.
time a little bit slower. yet faster. yet slower....

and my faith....being tried by fire....feels as though it could snap under the weight....

.....under the weight....of a feather....