When Eggs Go Bad...

Frowny Faces

The best holiday tradition chez Badeggs is the Christmas Eve-Eve viewing of It's a Wonderful Life with champagne and popcorn accompaniments. This year was a corker, and I was so moved by the film, in a different way than usual, that in my champagne infused state, I decided to blog about it.

And I did.

I wrote my inebriated little heart out, pouring forth the insights that had suddenly come to me as I watched George Bailey question the value of his existence and his friends and family provide a resounding answer.

And then... Blogger ate it.

Yup. Story of my life, really.

Anyway, I had me some real good insights and let's leave it at that.

I am enjoying some extended Holiday time off, so probably won't blog much over the next few days, but I wanted to leave you with one of my New Year's Resolutions: I am writing a book. No, really! This time I'm serious. But it's not a novel. I am planning to write a book about all the dark feelings that miscarriage and stillbirth can give rise to. (I am still considering whether to include primary infertility; I've never experienced that side of things, plus I don't know if I'd be biting off more than I could chew. What do you think?) I plan on collecting accounts from women and their partners, and will probably set up a webpage to do this. Later on I'll post a symopsis so you can shower me with praise...erm, I mean offer constructive suggestions and earn a mention in the dedications page.

I'll be needing some encouragement to keep me going with this. But I figure that's how I'll entertain you (well, Thalia did ask) while I'm hiding the news of any pregnancies that might happen!

Hope your holidays were/are happy. Christmas, Hannukah, Kwaanza...it's all good.

Smiley Faces

I got a new kind of Ovulation Predictor Kit (and, by the way, though I have been very vocal about my dislike of cutesy euphemisms and abbreviations, I approve of OPK since it's just a regular old abbreviation). On the few occasions when I attempted to use OPKs previously, I have failed miserably, because for the life of me I cannot differentiate between the comparative darkness of the two lines. They always look exactly the same to me. But now, given that we live in the age of all things high tech, I have moved to digital OPKs and couldn't be happier.

With this little contraption, you get a reusable digital reader into which the pee stick is slotted. After a few minutes, you get either an empty circle (no LH surge) or a little smiley face, which means, apparently, Have a Nice Lay.

With all the stress of my daughter being in hospital, last month I was a full 2 days late for a 28-day cycle (or 3 for a 27-day cycle, and I have been alternating between the two since my last miscarriage). I didn't really know what to expect this month, but figured I might ovulate on Sunday. But, Friday night, to my surprise, the smiley face exhorted me to get shagging as ovulation was imminent. Mr Badeggs was, as always, quite willing to be ordered into bed. "You can't argue with the shagmometer," he quipped, "or is it a fuckulator? You know, like in fuckulator alligator." Oh yeah, I married a live one.

Anyway, having spent all weekend attempting to fertilise an egg, I need to let you all know something. Mr Badeggs and I have talked a lot about it, and we've decided that we aren't going to test until I've missed at least two periods. And we're not telling anyone until 13 weeks. In the first pregnancy, we told all the parents, the one sibling (Mr B is an only child), and a few friends only to find I had started bleeding the next day. With pregnancy no. 2, only my closest two friends and sister knew. With no. 3, best friends, sister and blogland knew. This time, we have vowed not to breathe a word.

It's not that we think we'll jinx it, really. It's just that we need to keep it as unreal as possible. The very act of telling people confers some solidity to it. It makes the fertilised egg into a baby. It's the same reason that we have decided not to take advantage of the early ultrasounds to which we're now entitled as fully paid up members of the Silver Cervix Club. The shadowy flicker on the ultrasound becomes a heartbeat, and the subsequent cessation of it, the change from clearly defined foetal pole into amorphous blob, becomes death. And we simply can't take any more of that.

Anyway, the point of all this is to let you know that, hard as the decision was to make, I won't be telling any of you unless and until I have a keeper in my womb or I miscarry again. I hope you'll still want to stick with me. My chances of carrying another baby to term have fallen with every miscarriage. Right now I think they stand at around 57%. Chances are good that I'll need your comfort when my 'unreal' pregnancy does a very real disappearing act.

The Smallest Thing Can Set Me Off

A Mother's Prayer/ Affirmation After Miscarriage

In this time of loss I call upon my spirit within to guide me to my strength so that I may find peace and completion.

I will use this strength to demand of myself and others my need to grieve completely, for this will be my first step to healing.

During my time of grief I will seek guidance not only from my inner spirit but from loving persons who may offer wisdom and comfort.

I need to understand that the soul as well as the physical body needs healing and to pay attention to this. I will learn to accept that the soul may never heal completely.

I will learn to live not in fear and once again see beauty in my world and purpose in my existence.

In spite of my new knowledge that things happen that cannot be controlled, I must call upon the places within me that tell me I do have control over much of my life and use this control to aid my healing.

Let me recognize the gift in my ability to conceive and carry life however briefly.

Let me take joy in my ability to love so deeply and desire to nurture a soul unbeknownst to me.

Let me find healing in the belief that this oul knew my love for it and that that love helped it to pass to another place.

Let me honor this short life not only with my love but in finding meaning in its existence.

Let me recognize this meaning in not only my ability to survive, but in my fullest appreciation of all the moments motherhood will bring me, along with my deeper compassion and sisterhood to other women who've experienced loss.

Let a part of this soul be reflected in the spirit of my future children, born or adopted, so that I may know it through them.

I will listen to and trust the place in my deepest heart that tells me I will once again be reunited with this soul and will fulfill the need to hold it in my arms.

I will help myself to feel comfort in the knowledge that there is a star in heaven that belongs to me.

by Stacey Dinner-Levin
From www.ivf.com

Pardon?

Whyohwhyohwhy... do grown women find themselves compelled to refer to all things fertility-realted with cutesy little acronyms, abbreviations and euphemisms? I've found so much comfort and support on miscarriage web forums (or fora, if you prefer), but, really, I have to force down the rising gorge every time I'm confronted with talk of BFPs, DHs, sticky baby dust, being PG (or preggo) and my personal nemesis: baby dancing.

I mean, this is serious stuff. We have experienced the worst that the reproduction lottery can throw at us: inability to conceive; IUS, IVF, ART; drugs and painful 'procedures'; chemical pregnancies; blighted ova; excruciating bloody losses; retained tissue; silently destructive 'missed' miscarriages and the ensuing D&Cs. We have between us seen our dead babies on scans, in our minds, or on the bathroom floor still in its perfectly intact gestational sac. We have discovered uterine anomalies, immunological conditions, genetic mutations, hormonal problems; or we have endured seemingly endless testing only to be left with question marks and the exhortation to "just try again". We have grieved, raged, wept, screamed, withdrawn, lashed out. We have peed on sticks way too early because we imagine that we feel nauseous; we have refused to test because as long as we don't know for sure, maybe another loss won't hurt as much. In short: we have been through hell and only some of us have come back.

So WHY do we render trivial the substance of reproduction by oblique references with sickly, jejeune code words, instead of just saying what we mean? Why this txt spk manqué?

I am about to ovulate. When I do, I'm going to have sex with my husband, possibly more than once on the same day. Two weeks later, if I don't get my period, I may choose to do a pregnancy test to see if it turns positive and I am, indeed, pregnant. Or I may wait. I am NOT about to O and planning to do the mattress mambo with DH, do the 2WW and, if AF doesn't visit see if I get a BFP. Is that even English?

I'm not putting this into the category of fuckwits. I 'know' (in an online sense) a lot of women who 'talk' this way. They have been through hell or are still there, and they certainly don't need me to excoriate them for their choice of language. Hell, maybe they have extremely good reasons for it. Maybe the insane tragedy and gravity (as opposed to gravidity...) of it all makes some women long for the simplicity and childish innocence of secret codes. Or maybe it's just easier to type.

For myself, I would still rather stick to the more robust euphemisms like knocked up, up the duff, and well and truly inseminated. And hopefully stay away from the worst abbreviation of all: m/c.

Shitter's Full!!

I know, I know. I don't usually post more than once a day, but I found this on Anna's blog and knew what my Christmas movie would be before I even did it. And I was right!

"We're gonna have the hap-hap-happiest Christmas since Bing Crosby Danced with Danny Fucking Kaye."

Your Christmas is Most Like: National Lampoon's Christmas Vacation

Christmas is a big, boisterous event at your place.And no matter what, something hilarious usually happens.

What Movie Is Your Christmas Most Like?

Angry Germans

Uneducated poor white people are the last acceptable target for bourgeois bitterness. Interesting.

Oh dear. Another anonymous commenter, though this one at least had a bit more originality in what it called itself. As I took pains to point out, I come from a long and distinguished line of uneducated poor white people, the kind for whom trailers would have been considered a luxury. So, erm, take your bleeding heart middle class political correctness and pseudo-intellectual prejudices against someone you don't know, who you think might represent bourgeoisie but aren't sure because you don't really know what it means, and fuck right off.

See, if you're speaking of the Marxist concept of the bourgeoisie, it really has nothing to do with the point I was trying to make. My bitterness has nothing to do with economic or social stratification and/or struggle, and everything to do with the fact that I have lost 4 babies and am still grieving them. But, hey, feel free to use your Philosophy of Socialism 101 bullshit to try to make me feel bad for having emotions and thoughts that don't fall within your rigid view of what is right and wrong if that's what makes you feel better about yourself. It won't work: I still won't care what you think and I'll have worked through some of my bitterness, while you'll still have all the insecurities that made you feel so threatened when you read my post.

In any case, you'll all be pleased to know that the po' unedumacated white folks are not in fact the only target for my fucked-offedness. Angry Germans are ranking pretty high up there.

I spent the weekend in Germany and had a run-in on the train from Frankfurt to Fulda with a man of breathtaking Teutonic arrogance and what may have been a mistaken belief that I personally was to blame for George Bush's election and the war in Iraq. He didn't actually say that; it was lurking there beneath the smirking delight he took as I struggled in halting German to explain to an irate woman who was yelling at me that I couldn't, in fact, speak German and therefore couldn't understand why she was cross with me. It was there in the extrem unfreundlich comment, in perfect English, that the woman really couldn't expect any different from me; it was obvious I was from the United States and "they all expect everyone to speak English for them". Erm, except that I had been trying to speak German, however badly.

Fawlty Towers fans will be pleased to know that I didn't mention the war... However, I did go on to tell him, in French, that I would be delighted to speak that language instead. I think he may have stuck his tongue out at that point. Or maybe that was me.

So, how was your weekend?

The White Trash Pregnancy Success Plan

Hey there, Mrs Badeggs!

We was real pleased to get yore registration for the White Trash Pregnancy Success Plan*. Vera Mae brought over a Cool Whip jello pie left over from her visit to Earl down in the Stookey prison, and we did some thinkin' about how we could give you a real good welcome.

Trisha came up with the idea of puttin' together this here list of thangs to do and not do when your tryin' to get knocked up. Course, she knows how important it is to have good advice, since her youngest, Lacey Sue, is already 14 and still ain't with child herself. (It's a tragedy, and how Trisha is holdin' herself together I do not know, particularly when you see the looks some people shoot her during Sunday worship.) Anyway, we started in on the list, and then Verla said we oughtta add do's and dont's for when you ARE with child, too, so we did that too and here it is:

1. Stop drinking all them fussy French wines and what not. A baby wants to grow in a womb that's got Pabst on tap. All that other garbage just ain't right.
2. Bobby Ray swears that his half-sister-aunt's triplets benefitted from their mama's dedicated watchin' of Jerry Springer on most afternoons, except when she had to go to bowling league (that Tonya runs a tight ship, and she don't much like it if her bowlers don't show up for league days, though she makes an exception for the King's birthday since she herself has gotta run the Love Me Tender block party and provide the jello salad.) Anyway, so watchin' Jerry. That's good advice right there.
3. Take up smoking. Menthol Salem's are best. They keep the baby real small so you can pop it out and still get home in time for the Wheel and Jeopardy.
4. Make sure your trailer is tornado-proof. It ain't easy to knock boots if your house is flyin' through the air like the Stuckey High School Cheerleading squads panties under the bleachers during halftime.
5. Don't tax yourself by lookin' for work. The WalMart ain't hiring right now, and anyway, welfare mama's qualify for extra cheese when their growin' a new citizen.
6. Remember: road kill is a good source of extra protein!
7. Unless you know who the daddy is, now ain't the time to be choosy. Try out a few men for size. Vera Mae taught her girls, Sue Ann and Lurlene, that the bigger a man's Harley, the bigger his...something...heart, I think. Anyway, you know, just look for shiny Hogs and dirty nails, and, you know, go shimmy for 'im! One of 'em is bound to be dumb enough to think he's the daddy if you tell him he is. You can always git yoreself a different one if the first one dont work out.

Well, Mrs Badeggs, that's about it. There's a whole mess of womenfolk at the Happy Uterus Trailer Park just a-rootin' for you. We've had 12 babies, 5 chilluns and a young'un between us this year, and we like to think we know what we's doin'. If you need any more help, why you just let us know.

Love

Luann Sorebeaver

*Before anyone gets huffy with me, I come from a long(ish) line of southern Missouri white trash, so I'm allowed to make fun. To even the score, I'm quite happy to lampoon the WASP wannabe side of the family, too.

Broken Hearts, Barren Wombs and the Buddha

Back in his batchelor days, Mr Badeggs had his heart broken by a heartless, cheating trollop (well, she was either that or very accident-prone, regularly falling over and landing on other men's penises). His wonderful friends helped him put the pieces back together, and one in particular, who had gone through a similar experience, gave him some advice: Mate, he said, you will probably never know why she did it. Don't beat yourself up trying to figure it out. And so it is with miscarriage. (Lookit, I can create a metaphor for miscarriage from pretty much anything. Just go with it, okay?)

As Mr B. and I stand poised at the edge of Tryagain Canyon (with its notable and treacherous Secondary Infertility Gully and Miscarriage Falls), I think about how we have spent this year desperately trying to find a reason for our losses. But it's like his friend said all those years ago: mate, you'll probably never know. And with the receipt of normal test results, it's less and less likely that we ever will.

For a while, I blamed God (and I think Mr B. still does, actually). My early posts on this blog go into some detail about that. But now, instead of trying to find an explanation or hold someone responsible for the past, I've started the new, somewhat insidious hobby of trying to tap into my inner psychic when I think about the future, specifically about conceiving again.

Sometimes it's good: I have a really good feeling that this time it will work!

Sometimes it's bad: I think we're in for more tragedy before it's all over.

The feelings are strong at any given time, but veer so often between the extremes that I know I can't trust any of them. Yet, I still seek that sign: the feeling of absolute conviction one way or another that signifies a true moment of clairvoyance.

I seek certainty because otherwise I have to face the fact that the outcome of my next pregnancy is subject to whims of fortune that I can neither foresee nor forestall. It's unknown, unknowable and completely, utterly random. I may get pregnant and 9 months later heave a squalling infant out of my hoo-ha. Or 9 weeks later be laid out on an operating table for my third D&C. Or I may not even be able to get pregnant again.

And it's that randomness that gets me every time. The Buddhist tradition as I understand it (and I am the first to admit that my knowledge of Buddhism is severely limited) teaches that peace is only possible when you are not attached to any given result. I cannot control the outcome, so all I can do is take the next step and then let go. I'm taking my vitamins and folic acid, eating well and trying to keep my stress levels down. All I can do is have sex at the right time and then let the universe do as it will. I suppose the only true certainty is that whatever happens will happen. The chromosomal activity that leads to a healthy birth of a full term infant or the faltering and death of a fertilised egg is set in motion and I can't change it. I can only make sure my body and environment are as healthy as possible.

But it doesn't stop me waiting for a moment of calm certainty, when somehow all will be revealed.

Mr Badeggs got over the evil, two-timing bitch. Eventually he accepted that his need to know all the whys and wherefores would never be satisfied. He has gone on to create a life that he fully admits is far better than he ever imagined having with her. His friends tell me they have never seen him happier, and if and when he thinks of her now, it is usually to utter a swift prayer of thanks that he found out her true nature before marriage and kids, rather than after.

In essence, Mr Badeggs let go and everything turned out exactly right even though at the time everything seemed exactly wrong. Will the same happen for us in terms of our reproductive shittitude?

There's only one way to find out.

Back to the Future

Well, my power suit remains on its hanger, and my killer heels are still gathering dust at the back of the closet. I never made it to the big exhibition, opting instead to rush my daughter to the hospital so the docs could scratch their chins over the thrilling combination of high fever, abdominal pains and nausea.

That was Tuesday morning. By Wednesday afternoon she was exhibiting only some of the classic symptoms of appendicitis. Blood tests let them know something wasn't right, but a urine test came back more or less normal. I had spent a sleepless night holding my daughter's hair back as she purged pretty much everything in her stomach and then some (which was pretty impressive for someone who had not been allowed to eat or drink all day in case of the need for emergency surgery). At one point, during the third or fourth bout of vomiting, she looked up at me and said, "I'm really not very well, am I?" That's some understatement for a 13-year-old.

Wednesday night at 11 pm she was finally taken into theatre (that's the OR for my US chums) for a laparoscopy, which ruled out appendicitis and any problems of bowel or gynaecological origin. Finally on Thursday a second urine test was, as the consultant put it, "teeming with bugs" and she was diagnosed with a severe kidney infection and placed on intravenous antibiotics. By Saturday evening, she was home, with instructions to recuperate for at least 2 weeks before returning to any normal activities.

We've spent a lot of time in this particular hospital, what with the miscarriages and all. In fact, my uterus was apparently very confused by this unplanned trip, clearly thinking: well if we're here then I must need to NOT contract and relinquish anything that might be in me, regardless of whether it needs to be expelled or not. I was 3 days late which, despite my best intentions, led to furtive pregnancy testing and furrowed brow when faced with the decidedly negative result. Once we'd left the hospital for good, my period started more or less immediately.

So, basically, last week seems kind of unreal now and I've resurfaced in the real world, looking forward and trying to work out what I need to do for the next few weeks until Christmas. My body is trying to cope with tasty, fresh food after days of stodgy meals in the hospital canteen. My daughter is back with her fuckwit father, and Mr Badeggs and I are contemplating the great Trying Again project shortly to commence with the Sperm Meets Egg Plan. I am secretly heaving a sigh of relief that Christmas overindulgence will not be hampered by pregnancy (in my family, Christmas = Champagne), and in any case if I had been pregnant, I would probably have lost it on Christmas day or something, given my comprehensive lack of luck on the reproductive front.

I will try to update a few more times this week. I'm off to Germany this Friday to visit a Weinachtsmarkt and stay in a castle! Thereafter, I will, of course, keep all of you lovely folks whom I have never met apprised of how often I knock boots with Mr Badeggs and the state of my cervical mucous.

Mmmm....mucous.....ggaarrhhgghhhhrrr