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| Stork. Family: Ciconiidae |
Ah ha ha. Heh heh... ahh.
That was fun, wasn't it? Thanks, everybody, for the kind words and confused emails; and for your patience - I hadn't intended to let the rumor mill churn on for quite so long, but wouldn't you know it? Not ten minutes after I posted my little mystery, the wi-fi my house has been stealing for the past three months (named after the Pope, and with just as much unilateral discretion) mysteriously disappeared. So sorry to leave you hanging.
I'm not pregnant.
Though I think if I took a pregnancy test in the next week or so it might tell me that I am.
Let me 'splain:
Remember January? It was kind of a downer. OMSI rejected me, chemo started, the generous state of Arizona kicked me out of its welfare system. Briefly grasping at any and all crazystraws (the circus, the census, etc.) I decided to look more seriously into egg donation.
As a girl on a college campus, I’d of course seen advertisements (some of which could use some extra punctuation) on the back page of the local free weeklys: “WOMEN HELPING WOMEN BE AN EGG DONOR Pay off bills while helping others” Strategically and reassuringly placed between the ads for hypnotherapy and usable glass art, these piqued my curiosity, but always seemed juuust sketchy enough that I never looked into it. However, a year or more ago I learned that one of my good friends from high school was donating with a reputable organization in Portland. She's a scientist, so I respect her healthy skepticism, and her opinion of a clinic's professionalism and the safety of all the required meds. So when January rolled around and I felt so at sea, I decided to go for it.
What followed was a very slow process. A lengthy written application plumbing my views on life, sports, religion, my favorite color, favorite foods, art, and my family's health histories sat half-done in my backpack for quite a while. It wasn't daunting, as long as I did it in fits and starts, but it did lead to a very ill-timed interview where I grilled Dad on whether anyone in his family had suffered or died from a number of maladies that may or may not have a genetic component -- all while he lay feverish in his Intensive Care bed. Not my most sensitive move, but hey - we both had the free time, and damn I had to do something to feel productive.
After the extensive internet-dating-esque paperwork came the swimsuit portion of our program! Not really, but they wanted baby photos. Then a perfunctory blood test and psychological screening designed to weed out only the most patently obvious crazies. ("I feel that my thoughts are sometimes controlled by nefarious forces. Always/Sometimes/Never")
Then, someone (a lady) somewhere (presumably in the Portland Metro area) picked me. Me! Anonymous donor #whatever. Maybe her favorite food is also sandwiches. Or maybe she doesn't mind that all of us Goldmans wear glasses. Whatever the reason, I got picked, and spent the next couple months being synced up with someone else's menstrual cycle. Odd. To be fair, that only involved me taking birth control pills, but for a 26-year-old queer woman, that was novelty enough. Legal documents were signed stating that I wouldn't try to sue for custody at the end of the process (Yeah right. Only if these kids turn out really, really cute.) and then some more hurry up and wait.
Then August: the grit and grind of the whole process. Now that some lady (The Recipient) and me (The Donor) had synchronized biological watches, I was to take a variety of hormones. Some that repressed my body's natural intentions to single-mindedly produce an egg every month, and some that really really encouraged this intention, much more so than usual.
You see, the thing about Assisted Reproductive Technologies (ART) is that they're kind of precarious. They're expensive, they're involved, and they don't always work. Unassisted reproduction doesn't have the best statistical success rate in itself, but when you're monitoring and coaxing and throwing money at every step of a "natural" process, the stakes get a little higher. So to increase the chances of a successful cycle, my body was to be encouraged to produce a bunch of eggs instead of the usual one. The reproductive equivalent of tipping the vending machine.
I learned how to give myself tiny injections in my belly fat, to take prenatal vitamins and baby aspirin at very precise times. No matter where I was. In the past month, I shot up: in a hotel room, in the front seat of my car, in an airport restroom, on an airplane, in a National Parks visitor's center, outside of a dance hall, at my dining room table. It wasn't that bad, though I did still have to count to myself before I pushed the thin needle in, the same way I psyche myself up to dive into cold water.
I spent last month "half-pregnant," as my good friend's husband calls it. And, therefore, was told to act as such. Sigh. As the classic song goes, "No sex, no drugs, no wine, no women, no fun, no sin, no you, no wonder it's dark." Being pregnant's a drag. Except, I assume, for that whole bundle of joy thing at the end. I don't consider myself a big drinker, but it never seemed more of a temptation than when I couldn't do it. They also ask you to restrict your exercise - keep your heart rate down and not jostle around too much. I've never wanted to be upside down more in my life than I have this past month. Completely genuine, and completely irrational. Sure, I did miss a trapeze class, but I couldn't even do Downward Dog! I'd be walking through the empty Featured Exhibits Hall and get the sudden urge to do a handstand. I can't even really do a handstand! Yep, the limitations were more of a struggle for me than the additions (shots, pills, blood draws, early-morning ultrasounds). I'm not a girl who likes to be told what she can't do.
My egg-laying date was less than a week ago. The days leading up to the outpatient procedure, I felt very full, and couldn't wait to get the damn things out of me. That morning, my parents (my designated ride home post-anesthesia) surprised me by showing up at the beginning of the check-in procedure. For a change, I got to be the one lying in bed in the scratchy gown that ties in the back, and Dad got to sit in the nearby spartan chair and politely avoid telling me how dumb I looked in my blue poofy paper hat. What an interesting reversal of fortune. Mom, of course, filled her usual role: watching like a hawk as the nurse administered the IV, asking clarifying questions for post-op care.
My only job was to shuffle in paper booties into a dimly lit room, with a radio playing bouncy music on a faraway counter; lie down on the gurney, have my IV tubes arranged carefully around me and then watch as the doctor-shaped blurs in the room grew jumpier and more jumbled as the anesthesia hit me.
(Somewhere during this lost time, very steady hands poked yet another thin needle into me, and sucked out all of 14 precious ova. The dim light, I assume, was to make the screen of the ultrasound-guided needle easier to see. Also, I was told not to wear any scents stronger than deodorant - apparently eggs and sperm don't like it. How about that? The radio, I assume, was just for fun.)
I woke moments later in the recovery room and promptly started crying. Apparently this is just what happens to me with anesthesia. It happened when I got my wisdom teeth taken out, too. Feeling fine, not in pain. Just havin' a good cry. Then I was really glad that Mom was there. The rest of that day I felt really Benedryl-ed out, and napped in at least three different places around the house. Next day felt better, next day less full, and by now I'm almost back to normalish.
So, that's the nuts and bolts of the thing. I want to give the whys and wherefores their due, so maybe I'll wait until next time, dear readers. I have a feeling there might be some anxious to hear a fuller explanation than "Don't panic - things aren't life-changing." Sorry again, family! Please believe that when and if I ever do have a bun in the oven, you'll learn about it by better means than an internet post and a quote from Swamp Thing.
