Oh Google Joy!

In honour of (tomorrow being our important ICSI meeting)/as a strong omen (of future pregnancy)/just to make my day, Google's home page today is featuring a cousin of Clive! I present to you proof positive that Google cares about male fertility and the health of sperm, just look at how bravely the wee fellow is swimming with force and determination!

(Some independent observers maintain that the blue colour of the sperm suggests that this has been drawn by a sexually frustrated male artist. This is not confirmed and nevertheless, detracts not from the quality of the message.)

Disjoineted Bits

Mamma Mia was exceptional. No, really. Whatever, don't believe me if you don't wanna but you're missing out.

I've passed the One Week Born Again Non-Smoker mark. Whodathunk? More so as we had a barbecue in the weekend complete with smoking friends and beer!

It's now 2 days till our appointment and 6 days of young-ness. Sad. On both counts.

For the happier part... Aren't we the eternal hope-fools?!? Rhetoric. With all the Hollywood stories about miracle babies we thought Clive should be given fair chance to escape if he can and we surprised our bedroom walls which, these days, hear nothing but infertility talk and see but non-baby-making-sex. Why have we bothered you ask? Well, and this is what had us rather smug yesterday, *drum rolls* I Ovulated! The OPK was so dark it brought tears to my eyes.

Why is this special you ask? Well, this is our very first month after the failed ICSI/chemical/whateveritwas and we were very worried about time constraints on the second go but fully expecting my body to take its sweet time to recover from the ordeal - e.g. not O for a while and consequently not get AF-. If I could, I'd kiss my ovaries right about now! Not only have I Oed but yesterday was bang on CD 14 as usual.

Short, incomplete, TMI, mini story of Clive

I can't figure out how to back post. So here's parts of Clive's story:

A dark regular TTC cycle evening many moons ago:

“Me "This is all so useless keeping my legs up, it's not like they will all of a sudden swim uphill"
Viking "Yeah, all two of them! Damn it you moved!
Me "Yeah, there goes John!"
Viking "John?"
Me "Well there were only two, might as well give them names!"”

The next evening:

“We did BD last night but we did so knowing we are only sending Clive to the rescue. (He named this one.) And if we do again tonight it will most likely only send half a swimmer! I think tonights ought to be named Tarquin Fin-tim-lin-bin-whin-bim-lim-bus-stop-F'tang-F'tang-Olé-Biscuitbarrel to compensate for half of his body missing.

We also debated using a regular tampon in lieu of an Instead Cup to keep it prisoner. We decided against it as the Viking thought it would give Clive the idea swimming is not as fun as cuddling in cotton”

In very short and because you lot may potentially be as curious as a new friend who is compelled to find out everyone's diagnosis even surrounded by strange Croc-wearing-Re's, I'm 29 (till next week) he's 32. We've been together 2 years and after securing what we thought were hot jobs, beating my mother's cancer and purchasing our home in a Stockholm suburbia we set about the offspring business in December.

After a few months of perfection in timing and efforts I knew something was wrong (it is when we decided we'll ) as I had been pregnant before in my youth so he got tested and they found ZERO. No Clive at all. Azoospermia as a diagnosis was scary but we're stubborn biatches (sic!) so we were finding Clive through surgery in Spain a month after we found out. Another month later, in the same scary spain, 11 of my eggs were retrieved, 8 were mature enough to understand it's important and behave and 6 of them welcomed Clives and turned into embies, 2 of which were put back. 3 weeks later we were crying our eyes out for all the hurt and the effort and yeah, the money after a heart breaking faint BFP followed by dreadful beta tests.

After having successfully breaking plates, wiping our eyes, stomping our feet, biting our finger nails and aging 15 years we've gotten yet another loan, stopped smoking, started eating right and next week we have the second consultation to try ICSI again.

The Bankrupt and the Insane

Welcome to the 2008 Olympics of Infertility Sanity where we compete only against ourselves and are still losing.

Statistics:
6 days of no smoking - Do. Not. Make.Me.Kill.You!
5 days to the first second ICSI appointment
9 days of being reasonably young.

If anyone would have told me a couple of years ago that I'll spend the last days of my twenties thinking of little else but how to get an ultra expensive credit-card-baby I would have called them ... well, called them names.

I almost feel sorry for all the finance bureaucrats that dealt with the two of us over the past year. If all these bank managers had any clue they are signing and stamping on our ability to have cold, un/pleasant medical instruments shoved up my lady garden for a success probability (of producing more expense) of all of 30%, do you think they would have enough time to dial 911 before it would be too late for their poor heart?

This depth of knowledge achieved through mere contemplation and extraordinary insight I ought to keep away from even the Viking in a bid to protect his sanity.

I wish some producers would have the sense to replace "The Bold and the Beautiful" or "The Rich and the 3-Balled"with infertility related hits such as "The Broken and the Desperate" and "The Bankrupt and the Insane".

Right, off to convince the love of my life that seeing Mamma Mia tonight is NOT an unnecessary expense and we will NOT end up in poorman's jail because of it!

Have a lovely fertile Friday - if you can.

Love working with an imaginary team. Maybe I should call them departments.

You guessed it, we're short of people. How short? I'd have to kill you.

The advantages are never ending. Just this morning I called an impromptu brain storming session at 8:25 and within seconds the room was alight with words, mounting enthusiasm and shouted brilliant ideas punctured only by slaps over the arm to keep the nicotine patch in place and coffee breaks. It was fab. "We" came up with the concept for a new company brochure that will just blow your mind as we're at the same time clever and elegant. My own swarm of Michael Phelps!

In fact they performed so well I may just have to take them out for a beer later.

Caught myself looking at FF* today (how sad that I'm even still charting) and wondering when my O* day will be. As if. How am I expected to break the fag addiction when I can't even break the rabbit-ing addiction months after we know that all the legs in the air won't make Clives* magically appear?!?!


*Strange terms to the non-TTC-ers to be explained at another opportunity.

I may have to give hypnosis a go afterall, the Viking is light years ahead of me since he had no patch on but oh my living days is he an animal because of that!

Me: "Do you realize how awful you are?!?!"
Him: "No"
-"Very awful!"
"Am I like you then?"
-"Is that funny though?"
"Are you all high and mighty because you have a patch though?"
-"Forget it, I'll slap a couple of Nicotinelles down your butt cheeks as soon as you fall asleep tonight"

When we finally got to bed after watching a couple of episodes of the Apprentice UK (which was hilarious to my mind and highly embarrassing to his bleeding liberal heart) we had calmed down a tad so the following ensued:

*Me, while coughing uncontrollably*"How much weight can you shift in a week?"
*He shrugs then frowns in concentration* "Dunno, if I'm on vacation about 100 Kg per day or even more so at least 700, why, are we cleaning the shed?!?"
Me: "Of course we won't, that's preposterous, I told you that's our retiring activity! We should both lose weight that's all"
Him:"For the IVF"
Me: "Yeah, well no, for us, to be healthier, better parents when we make them...."
Him: "So not to get a baby"
Me: "Yeah to get a baby and keep a baby and raise a baby, also to breath better and to ... .what was that?"
Him: "That's right, I called you a Californian!"
Me: "Well honey, look at us and the country you make us live in, a loser is a loser no matter what the state"
Him: "Okay okay I'll be serious, so fat-attack, what do you want us to do?"
Me: "Dunno, take long walks?"
Him: "Yeah! We could walk to the mall in the next town, it has to be over an hour to be efficient anyhow, and then... once we're there we can...."
Me: "Ahem okay maybe walking is extreme, oh I know! We can have a Wii"
Him: "Together?"
Me: "Of course! All couples share these things!"
Him: "Okay but to be honest I don't understand how going to the loo together is going to improve our fitness!"

Hello world. I'll retain the hope that I can all all of my old diary entries into this thing so I won't spoil the surprise by one of them uninspired presentation entries.

Meanwhile I'll just post as normal. Fine so it's not clear, just don't subscribe until you get it, okay?!?!

As you were....