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First off, let me just apologize for my long absence from the blog scene lately. I can blame it on the holidays, right? Those pesky holidays, taking me away from what I should really be doing: bitching over the internet to my imaginary friends.
Speaking of the holidays, mine were great, thank you very much. Christmas is all about children, right? So instead of staying home, staring at my tree and wishing my dog was a baby that I could dress up and plop on Santa's lap, the hubby, my mom, and I travelled to a far off land to spend with a real, live kid: my 5-year old nephew in Texas. (It was just a lucky coincidence that this also involved visiting my sis and bro-in-law). We had a blast watching the Nutcracker, tearing open presents, decorating a gingerbread house... and then dropping a gingerbread house ass-end up on the living room rug. I guess booze + loud Christmas carols + dancing around stoopidly while carrying said gingerbread house to the fridge = minor yuletide disaster. Mental note taken and filed away for next year.
New Year's Eve was equally memorable. We spent it frolicking in the snow at our friend's home in Lake Tahoe, one of my favorite places on earth. So what if 2 of the 3 women staying with us were pregnant, more champagne for me, right? I'm still patting myself on the back for surviving the pre-natal yoga class we all went to on new years day. Maybe I was still drunk, because I actually—are you ready for this?—enjoyed it. I feel like I've turned a corner, folks. I'm actually happy to be around pregnant women. Not like I'm some weirdo stalker who follows them around on the street or anything. It's just that, if I actually want to be one someday, maybe I shouldn't avoid them like the plague, ya know? I recently finished reading Pulling Down the Moon, and it's all natural-yoga-acupuncture-meditate-your-way-to-pregnancy type stuff, which I'm really down with, don't get me wrong. It's just hard sometimes to walk the walk and not just talk the talk. So one of my new years resolutions is to just let it go.... the jealousy, the heartache, the need to control. And to just BE HAPPY. That's what my grandma Caroline always said, BE HAPPY. Of course, she gave birth to 13 babies. Go figure...
Anywho.... I wanted to tell you all it's cycle day 1, and you know what that means... some random friend is sure to pop out of the woodwork and announce her pregnancy. (I really do have special powers in this category as evidenced here and here.) I honestly thought there were no girlfriends left. Then I had to go and email an old work colleague. I know, I asked for it, and lo and behold she's five months preggars. But you know what? I wasn't even sad. Ok, I felt about a nanosecond's worth of a jealous twinge, but then... just happy. Happy because another beautiful, innocent baby is soon to enter the world. Happy because my friend is excited beyond belief about the imminent miracle to enter her life. Happy that it is happening to someone, somewhere. Happy that these pregnant women seem to be circling around me; slowly closing in until the baby dust finally settles my way.
And happy that, for once, I just might have a new year's resolution worth keeping.
Last Friday I had a laparoscopy.
Laparoscopy is a surgery where they insert a camera ("laparoscope") through your bellybutton, along with various other implements through additional small points in your abdomen, in order to definitively diagnose and remove endometriosis. Now going into this surgery, I didn't naively expect it to be a magic panacea for my overall lack of fertility. Well, not totally. Sort of.
Ok, maybe just a little.
But can you blame me? As a veteran sub-fertile and part-time problem solver, I'm always on the look out for the Next Big Thing: a legitimate plan of action in a positive direction to finally turn this thing around. And when my doctor suddenly suspected endometriosis a month and a half ago, something (bingo!) went off in my head. It was a disease. With a NAME. And a KNOWN TREATMENT. Maybe this infertility stuff wasn't so hard to lick after all.
Even so, it actually took me a while to latch onto the endometriosis label. I still can't believe I actually possess it ("I have endometriosis" sounds so weird coming from my mouth). I've never met the standard criteria of having heavy periods and unbearable cramping. I've always thought I'd had quite mild periods, actually, and wrote the disease off years ago in my early inferti-education. I kinda half-expected to come out of the anesthesia to my doctor apologizing for having wasted my time. Nevertheless, there I was in my matching hair net and hospital gown, ready and willing to go under the knife to explore this new finding—and hopefully rid it from my body.
For the next 2 hours the surgeons did their best to remove all the offensive tissue. Turns out I do in fact have endometriosis, and not a mild case either. My doctor labeled it "moderate" and told me she found evidence of it on pretty much every available surface in my gut. End of story, right? Umm... no.
She sent me home with some saltine crackers and a handful of digital pictures. "Whaaa, what is thiiis?" I thought as we weaved our way home, me dreamily swaying in and out of awareness from the passenger's seat of our car. After fully coming to, my husband explained that the doctor said I have fatty ovaries.
Let me repeat: Fat. On my ovaries. I guess you could say I'd never been so insulted in all my life.
Now fatty ovaries was something that NEVER came up in my google studies. PCOS, yes. Blocked fallopian tubes, yes. But fat ovaries? Is this a joke? Please tell me there is someone out there that makes a slim-fast for my reproductive organs!!
After spending the weekend in pain, confusion, and a little embarrassment, I called my doctor first thing Monday to get some clarification. Turns out the fat isn't so much ON my ovaries as IS my ovaries. It seems that as the ovaries age, the active ovarian tissue actually turns into fat and becomes non-responsive. Just like our thighs.
Beings as I'm only 39, she was quite surprised to see my ovaries in such a state. Usually women much closer to menopause present with ovaries like these. Guess I'm an early bloomer.
Looks like the only thing for me and the ovaries to do is go on a diet. Just what do you feed overweight ovums? Eggbeaters?
