dear broke and confused

Stop blaming others for your situation and get yourself some pink, high gloss lipstick with glitter in it. You'll feel so much better. Also, try that saliva test thing that's out on the market called "maybe baby". It tells you when you're ovulating.

Dolly Doctor

Balls

Dear Dolly Doctor,

My partner's fertility specialist gave us the impression last month that she (my partner, not her fertility specialist) had definitely ovulated. She did this by saying to my parther: "You have ovulated." It seemed like that to me, too, from her temperature charts. So we did no further inseminating -having done three over the time it seemed she was ovulating- and later assumed her period was late for about five bizarre, hopeful, confusing days. Then a different person at the same clinic said "Oh no, you did not ovulate then...you ovulated only two weeks ago...and your period is therefore certain to come...probably tomorrow." And the second person, though annoying, was right. After many, many months of consults and herbs and acupuncture and dieting it seems no progress has been made, what with my partner's cycle still being completely indecypherable and all. Should we keep going to this very exclusive, expensive fertility clinic?

Signed,

Broke and Confused

After sending this off to Dolly Doctor and crying myself (and my beloved) to sleep I awoke with a new resolve: To make sweetie treats. The sweetie treats are within the rules of the fertility diet and I am calling them Spirolina Spheres; but on the name, I am open to suggestion. They are basically a rip-off of Bliss Balls that you can get from the food co-op and health food shops only made with whatever-was-in-my-pantry and spirolina. I am trying to get more spirolina into our diet as it is very high in protein. According to the lable, it has 300% more protein than fish, which KT took pains to explain to me was three times more, so I didn't need the song-and-dance routine so much. But song-and-dance routines need no reason, only rhyme.

Here is what I just made so my beloved can have treats even though she is not pregnant. All the ingredients are organic, so what with the spirolina in them as well I'd say the street value of these would be fitty bucks a gram.

They contain:

Medjool (fresh) dates
Toasted in the oven with a bit of mapes and a bit of olive oil -rice puffs
Shredded dessicated coconut, some of which got toasted also.
Dried Apricots (although if you were in a Shakespeare play they would be called Apricocks.)
Dried Cherries (needed some soaking in hot water first)
Toasted Almonds
Tahini
The cherry soaking water
A tiny squeeze of Orange Juice
Spirolina- two or three teaspoons
Carob Powder-I shook about half the bag in, in the end.

You put it all the big fruity things in a blender, or bit by bit in a blender. Then in a big mixing bowl and wooden spoon everything together till it looks like really thick muddy soil with bits in. Keep most of the rice puffs and coconut aside. Add wet and powdery things as you stir.
Make small balls, roll them in the coconut and rice puffs.

negative

negative test this morning and a slight drop in tempertaure, too.

To cheer ourselves up we had the following for breakfast:

Rice toast with lots of nuttlex
Bosc pears fried in olive oil, grated fresh ginger and maple syrup.

odds on

Whoever started up the rumour that no news was good news was an idiot. If people want to know whether or not we have news, they don't want us to say "no...no news". " Ahh...Good then."
Nevertheless, no news it is, good or bad.

Actually, KT180 is feeling very premenstrual and/or up the duff as we speak. Her period could come in the next few days. We went through this cycle in a blindfolded sort of way. Blindfolded in regard to when and if KT was ovulating and not, I hasten to add, while inseminating. And no, we haven't done a test because she did one last week and it was negative and that is too depressing.

But we will maybe do one in the morning.

If I had to put money down, I'd bet she was pregnant. Because her temperature is still pretty high. But often her temp stays high until the actual day of the period. That could be tomorrow or the next day. So I would only put about ten bucks on it. Any one care to wager?

All that Jizz

Yesterday we did our first insemination (with KT and MA). It went well, as far as these things can go. A bit business-like and a bit funny- as it should be. We have a new technique that we learned from a friend whose father is an IVF specialist and reckons the sperm must stay at body temperature the whole time to reduce the chance of miscarriage by something like 4o%. (I'll check that figure.) This is easy done with those groovy heat packs you get from the chemist while you're getting specimen jars and a 5 ml syringe.

We are not, by any means sure that KT is ovulating, but it was day 15 and there was a dip in her temperature and a rather soft cervix and we thought we'd give it a go. We have been hanging out with MA and JO for seven months and it was certainly time to stop talking about it. Incidentally, MA got results a couple of days ago that he is not a cystic fibrosis carrier so wacko and wack off.

We then thought we wouldn't tell anyone we had started inseminating and then I immediately told someone I hardly know last night. And then I told her not to tell anyone. Who the fek is she going to tell?

Starting to visualise a baby in our arms again.

side down

sorry team...but i'm in a play!!!! and the show is everything right now, and we haven't started doing anything with jiz yet. so let me juz get through opening night tonight and rock the house and then we'll get my woman pregnant. she is going really well with her cycle, btw. we are officially dealing with polycystic ovaries (coz we had things so easy before, the university sent us some obstacles). but we are feeling hopeful, and KT is not eating anything nice and we are putting it out there to the university that donor dad will not be a cystic fibrosis carrier (coz we recently learned that KT is -so we have to be sure that DD is not-coz the university thought those girls have been filthy lezzos for years now and deserve some obstacles).

i don't mean any of that. I don't think the university thinks.I am a crazy MF today. use it on stage, i tell myself...

anyway thanks for your patience. and don't even talk to me about patience...

mothers day

I've been feeling a bit bitter about the whole thing lately. The plans and the waiting and the obstacles KT and I have faced. Well, sad. I was in Myer in Hornsby the other day. Um, I did actually grow up in the old Horner, but that is no reason to go there on a Friday morning at age 35 and look for a mothers day gift. My mother, despite saying clever, witty things like " The good thing about Hornsby is that you can always leave.", insists on going back there monthly to see her old doctor. So I was in Hornsby Myer looking at disgusting dressing gowns and I saw -across the way in the kids section- a sleeveless parker for a two or three year old. It was gorgeous and I wanted to buy it. And a sob came up and a quick tear came out, and then I was fine.

It was ok. I'm ok with this sadness. I think it means I'm alright. It is quite thorough and sometimes productive (unlike the deadening, useless feeling of depression). Sadness of this sort often comes in big shops, I find, like I am a character in a television series. I feel like a "woman". I had a seriously big cry in the knitting section of Liverpool spotlight once. Liverpool is where I was, two and a half years ago, when the first miscarriage started. I spent deathly minutes looking for a medical centre there and talking to a very odd doctor who told me to drive myself home but not to go over any bumps. So I went through a "Nam Flashback" phase whenever I revisited Liverpool for a while there, but I am past that now. The good thing about Liverpool is you can always stage a production of The Leaving of Liverpool.