Come Together

I think the biggest thing I've learned on this journey to fertilization is how important timing really is in the great scheme of things. Certain things have to happen at certain, sometimes very precise times in order to get the outcome you want; in this case a baby. I've also learned my time is not nearly as important as the almighty doctor office time, friggin' bastardmotherfuckers. I had a little repeat of Sunday morning today by showing up at 8:00 on the dot for an ultrasound and bloodwork only to have to wait six hours to hear the results. Because why SHOULD they call me back before heading off to lunch, right? (Insert string of more colorful expletives here.)

But! The ultrasound showed what we wanted to see: the follies (Lolly and Ollie) have grown to the right size - rock ON, egg holders!! There were also other things they pointed out re: my uterus that I will spare you the details from; I'll just say everything looked the way it was supposed to look. They also took blood to determine if I was ovulating or not and that was the biggie that would determine if the Big Day would be Thursday or Friday. In the meantime I came back into work and found out the rest of my work week is going to be fairly frenzied. Of course. I spent the majority of the morning wondering what I'll need to do when, all while waiting for another FUCKING phone call.

But this time I only had to stalk Monique the nurse twice this time before she called me back with our instructions. According to the blood test, I'm not ovulating on my own (big surprise; this is what I think has caused our problems all along anyway - TIMING!), but no biggie; that is why we have the hSG medicine chilling in the fridge for. Tonight at 12:30 a.m., Brian will shoot me up one last time. This will then cause the peak time for the IUI to happen 11:30 Thursday morning. I hung up with Nusre Monique satisfied I finally have a date and time to look forward to. I was sitting there, absorbing the moment when my phone rang again.

It was Monique, calling me back to urgently tell me we need to have sex tonight. Normally, this would not cause me concern.

You know how I keep annoyingly bringing up timing? At the risk of sounding like my mother and repeating myself like a retard, here again is yet another example. She explained that on Thursday they'd like the sperm to be "fresh," and even though they want two days of build-up, more than that would be considered, well...old. And I thoroughly agree; I don't want some stale-ass sperm up in my nice new eggs, oh hells no. I don't keep milk or library books past the expiration date; I certainly don't want past-due seed.

There is a small problem however, in that tonight we actually have plans. Social plans that involve other people. In fact, the schedule, or timing, if you will, is so tight, I have to sneak out of work a half hour early, run home (well, driving would be faster, har har), get presentable and turn right around so we can meet our friends back downtown at 6:00 for dinner. After that we're seeing a Beatles tribute band in concert, something I couldn't give more of a shit less about now, but that Delorme had talked me into buying tickets for a month ago. We rarely if ever go out during the week, but of course, of course we are tonight.

I quickly came up with an efficient solution. I called Brian and directed him to snap one out as soon as he gets home from work; the earlier, the better. I think it caught him a little by surprise, but after a week or so of being allowed no release shall we say, he didn't put up much of an argument. Or actually any argument at all. Which makes me think. The more I go through all this stuff, the more I'm certain God has to be male. In order for me to have a baby, I've been poked, prodded, injected, given numerous vials of my blood, peed in numerous cups, taken all kinds of weird drugs, gotten so used to stripping from the waist down I don't even care who's in the fucking room anymore and all this is BEFORE going through the wonderous joys of pregnancy and childbirth. Him? He's had to jerk off a couple of times. Which, not to be rude, but that is not really much of a departure from his regularly scheduled program, if you know what I mean and I think you do. I'm not really complaining, but hell's bells it must be good to be a man!

To recap:
This afternoon/Tonight - Brian whacks off, we go hear Beatles music, we get home by 12:30 to inject me with ovulation drugs.
Tomorrow - I decide whether I will tell them at work I need Thursday off or not and if so, come up with some vague, yet plausible reason why I need to miss a very busy day.
Thursday morning - We leave home between 8:00 and 8:30 in order to get to the Charleston office by 10:30 at which time he spanks it yet again. An hour later Lolly and Ollie Follie finally meet Mr. Spunky and God help us all, our baby is made.
The next two weeks - I drive everyone insane until I'm able to take a pregnancy test.

Giddy-up!

The hook brings you back

For some reason, Heather Jo and I have been having a days' long conversation about perfume and cologne. I never realized I had that much to say on the subject, and also that I'm that interested in hearing others' experiences with scents. The fact I'm considering buying Love's Baby Soft the next time I go to Walmart, I'm blaming entirely on her. But we agreed - no matter what you prefer, certain smells have the ability to transport you RIGHT BACK to a certain person, place and time.

It makes me really appreciate my nose. And kind of bad that I spent the majority of my teenage years hating it for being round.

This time of year the smells and sights and sounds all seem to be geared toward nostalgia of some sort. Well, maybe they're not geared for it, per se, but that's how it ends up. Christmas music, obviously, but other stuff too. Heather had just mentioned Blues Traveler on her blog and I just so happen to keep this in my car at all times:

I listened to Hook, Runaround and a couple of other songs on the way into work this morning. (My commute has time for about four songs - sometimes I wish it was longer because I'd get to hear more music and also because I'm retarded).

This album, but Hook in particular, brings me right to when Brian and I first met. Which makes tons of sense because it had just come out in 1995 and we met in Februrary of '96. That excitement of getting all prettified to go out. That new-boyfriend frenzy that is so freaking intoxicating - I spent most of the first months working at this here school daydreaming about him. We only dated for five months before we moved in together and I love to remember that period of time, that honeymoon phase. Once I went over to his house on a Saturday we'd made plans to do something and on our way out he grabbed his toothbrush, a t-shirt, boxers and socks. It was sort of like he was saying, "You know and I know I'm spending the rest of the weekend at your place, but we're both too shy to say it, but we've already done it and spent the night together and this time I'd really like to have clean underwear." So cute! It kind of made me want to turn back around, go home and blow him. But I didn't - he had already left for work anyway. But I'm still all dreamy and romantical feeling now, hours later. All from a song! Crazy. And good.

I don't know. The hormones are kicking like Van Damme today and it was either write all shmoopy about him or bitch about something trivial. I probably bitch enough as it is, so schmoop, there it is. I was also going to write about the song that was playing the night of our first kiss, which happened outside in his front yard while it was snowing on a beautiful star-lit night, but that would be REALLY cheesy. Wonderwall by Oasis.

I pick up my smile put it in my pocket
Hold it for a while try not to have to drop it
Men are not to cry so how am I to stop it
Keep it all inside don't show how much she rocked ya
Ooh can you feel the same
Ooh you gotta love the pain
Ooh it looks like rain again
Ooh I feel it comin' in
The mountains win again
The mountains win again

I Got the Music in Me

The other day Brian sadly told me he accidentally washed (and dryed) his mp3 player while doing laundry. He was a little horrified, but I figured it was about time for its demise. I bought it for him over two years ago, some no-name brand at Best Buy for under a hundred bucks. Given his consistent propensity for destroying things, (He is not known as Captain Destructo for nothing) I was just happy it had lasted this long. He hasn't said anything about replacing it, but I know he loved his little gadget and the type of work he does allows him to listen to music and/or talk radio all day. Accordingly, I've been scouring the internets and the Sunday ads so I can get him a replacement for Christmas.

It's strange that I haven't owned one yet. Music has always been a very important thing to me. In my lifetime, I've grudgingly switched from albums to cassettes to cds to rabidly downloading songs to my computer(s). (The totally legal way. Totally.) I'm usually a few months to a year behind the times and all the cool kids, but I always cave and eventually make the upgrade. Although I would totally love to listen to an 8-track again. What?

But somehow I've managed to become one of the only people on earth not residing in a third world country without an Ipod or one of its poorer relations. We came close to scoring two of them last Christmas in one of those too-good-to-be-true-so-it-probably-isn't situations but alas, it wasn't meant to be. I'm starting to think it's finally time. Of course all that depends on how the next few weeks shape up financially, but if things go as well as they're looking, this is what might be at the top of my list to Santa.

J and I were talking about it last night, since she's also one of the few Ipod-less damned souls left, keeping me company in our sad musicless hell. For the past year of so we've said to each other, Eh - it would be nice, but how much would it really add to our lives? Last night we started listing the ways:

Exercising - music has ALWAYS been such a helpful tool with this. Whether I'm taking a brisk walk outside or chugging away on a gym machine, music makes it possible to go longer, sometimes faster and more fun. Shit, Madonna just popped into my head: "Music! Makes the people! Come together! Yeah." Damn it!

Household chores - you and I both know how much better it is when you're cleaning/straightening/putting stuff away and have some Beastie Boys (or whatever) cranked. Brian got me a really nice wall-mounted cd player/radio last Christmas that I currently use for this, but it's no good for cleaning out the car, raking leaves or putting clothes away back in the closet room unless it's cranked to a pissing-off-neighbors level. And while I do enjoy pissing off my neighbors, those fuckers are crazy and I'm scared of retaliation.

At the office - while I continue to hang in limbo waiting to see if I'll ever get my own space, I continue to be at the mercy of Crazypants. Almost every day, I am subjected to her noises, whether it be her radio playing Angry Black Preacher, Angry Black Talk Show Host, gospel music in addition to her fantastic telephone ettiquette. Every so often I'll play music on the computer to retaliate, but honestly, fighting noise wars or any battles with her just makes me tired. Had I a little earbud nestled securely in one of my earholes, I could block her out by listening to Angry White Talk Show Host and then throw in some Metallica - "Master! Master! Master of puppets is pulling your striiiing!" and I think that would relieve a lot of frustration.

As it stands right now, I'm mostly listening to music for short periods of time while in the car. As I have only a six mile commute, this is not nearly enough and I'm in musical withdrawal. And now that the weather has turned, it's time to break out and revise my Cold Weather mix. See, I have a Hot Weather mix, songs that are and will always be great to listen to in the Summer: David Lee Roth's Crazy from the Heat, Bon Jovi's 99 in the Shade, Tom Petty's Even the Losers, anything from the License to Ill album, etc. Then for Winter, Coldplay's Clocks, Bob Segar's Main Street, Counting Crow's Long December, Gerry Rafferty's Baker Street, etc. Seriously - play some of the songs I've listed and see if it doesn't conjure a certain time in your life, and it'll correspond to the correct weather situation. It's totally scientific and shit.

So, yeah. I think I have myself convinced. Time to join all the cool kids so I can be cool too. But right now I need to put something on so I can stop singing fucking Madonna.