For the last 6 months, I go in twice a month to watch our system complete the billing tasks, usually leaving at 2 am. On these late nights, Dirk will venture out for a drink with Speedy. They always have the intention of waiting until I join them after my shift. Tonight, I was able to leave at 1:30 am, telling Dirk I will pick him up downtown at one of the local pubs.

When I get there he is very drunk and standing with a  group of girls completely  ignoring me until his conversation is complete – giving me the ‘just a minute signal’ (Not cool when I am tired from a long night working). Finally, he walks over and proclaims I need to touch this girls ears – fuck that – get in the car. 

When we arrive home, I noticed that Dirk is not packed and we are leaving for the airport in 5 hours. When I point this out, he claims he is packed, its just not ‘in the bag’. Okay – have fun getting organized in the morning.

As we are getting ready for bed, I ask where the dog is. He walks to the top of the stairs and yells ‘Dummy, come to bed were not going to see you for 2 weeks (we are actually only going to 5 days – but correcting a drunk is pointless) so come spend some time with me’. The dog does not come up.  

Next, he decides at 2 am we need to watch a movie. At 2:05 am, I shut it off as he is fast asleep. As I am laying in bed trying to ‘will’ myself asleep when I hear something. Is that a bark? I look at the clock – 2:30 am. Again, bark. ‘Dirk, is Cash outside?’ I ask. ‘No’ he grumbles. ‘Bark’. I go downstairs and let the dog in.

I am not sure when I finally fall asleep, but I am awaken by Dirk getting out of bed, I look at the clock, 4 am. Fuck – 2 1/2 hours until the alarm. The garbage can starts to bang around the bathroom loudly. Really!! What the fuck now!! Silence. Then more banging of the garbage can. Silence. He is back in bed.

The alarm rings at 6:30 am and I drag myself to the bathroom and stare at the garbage can in the middle of the bathroom. WTF?! Oh yeah – Dirk. Bing! I start to piece it together. He got up in the middle of the night and yup, took a piss  in the bin. I promptly tell him that he is an idiot and to clean it up.

My husband wrote an amazing post when our dog Mya passed away describing the pain and heartbreak one goes through to get to this decision, then to follow through. Two months ago, the doctor informed us that this was the end, Toulouse was only going to get worse. The cancer had now spread into his blood, his heart was failing quickly, and he could no longer digest food. They recommended we take him home and wait. After much discussion we realized the only one we were making happy were ourselves. We have done this three times before and each time we waited too long and our pets were suffering. Although this was the hardest choice I have made in a longtime – I know he is now happy and no longer suffering.

Rest in Peace My Friend
Toulouse LeBlanc Britton
November 11, 1996 to August 23, 2010

Victoria is a tourist town – most businesses are in the service industry and geared to the masses that start arriving  in May each year and continue to arrive until the middle of October. One hotel announced it is going to take their service one step further. The Holiday Inn is  now offering ‘bed warming’. Yes, bed warming. This entails a person showing up at your room wearing a head to toe flannel suit and laying in your bed until a thermometer they are wearing reaches 68 F (20 C).

So, you open the door to a six foot teletubbie who will then lay in your bed so it is warm for you. What do you do while they are laying in your bed? Shower? Make uncomfortable small talk?

‘Your not a Teletubbie!”‘
‘No, but I did stay at a Holiday Inn Express.’

We have had the car two and a half years. When we purchased it we took the ‘New Car Coverage’ which, if it every was to be written off, we would get our full purchase price back. The adjuster calls to say the car is repairable with only $6000 in damage. If the body shop comes back and it is double, then they will write it off as the car is worth around $17,000. Well, it came back at more then double his estimate. They are fixing the car – it is a rip off to take the coverage as they won’t pay it.

To add insult to injury – I was pulled over by the police in my shitty courtesy car. There was no insurance on the car and the officer noticed this by the lack the tags. I was able to talk my way out of the ticket.

What a cluster fuck this entire situation is!!

It was 1:30 in the afternoon and my co-workers and I had just finished a fantastic holiday lunch full of laughter and great food. I called Dirk for no reason at all – then told him I was about to start driving so he told me no talking on the phone. I hung up and turned out of the parking lot and onto the main road – two minutes later I was back on the phone telling Dirk I was just in a head on crash. He could not really hear me since my horn was blaring as I was still sitting in the car. Which now that I think back, I really don’t know why? When an air bag deploys the car fills with what looks like baby powder – so after the crash you really feel like you are in a dream. Maybe that is why I was in a fog.

I got out of the car and people were running over and I was, well, confused as to what just happened.  I called 9-1-1 and let them know I was in a head on crash, she then corrected me, I actually ‘t-boned’ a car. Help came in the form of a police officer on a petal bike (really the guy on the bike got there first) – followed by an ambulance – two fire trucks – and another police car.

The girl that I hit had to crawl out of the passenger door as I smashed into the drivers side. She was crying, so I gave her a hug and told her it would be fine. All she could say was that she was so sorry. She was just coming from making a donation at the Salvation Army and could not see me coming (no shit) due to a truck turning. She pulled out and BOOM. That is how I met Chelsa.

He starts by telling us that he has reviewed my file, which probably took him a while. With the excellent quality of embryo’s and all the different protocols they have tried we should have gotten a positive pregnancy test by now. This leads him back to something he told me during my first transfer, my endometrium is too thin.  A woman’s endometrium needs to be in the 8 mm to 14 mm range for a successful implantation. Mine was barely measuring 8mm, and I think he was rounding up. When a women is looking for someone to tell her she is thin, it is not their uterus lining they are hoping they point out. I am shocked, I never thought it would come to this, to the fact it is now my issue holding us back. My head is spinning: Does that mean we give up? Do we try again? What happens now?

He then tells us we still have options;

1. Reverse Dirk’s vasectomy
2. Donor Sperm
3. Find a Surrogate

We have all read about Dirk’s experience with the vasectomy – so that is not an option – even the doctor agrees. Donor Sperm does not appeal to me, that would mean the child was not fully ours, only mine. But wait, did he not just say my endometrium was too thin? When I raised this point he tells me the body reacts differently under natural circumstances and we could get pregnant. Too bad we don’t like these options.

That leaves the last option, finding someone to be a surrogate mother for our child. Dirk and I always talked about adopting if this process did not work for us, and to me this is pretty much the same thing.  Another women would carry a child that would eventually be ours, the only difference is that this child would be biologically ours.

This is our third attempt, and again it is different from the first two rounds. The first round, I felt completely nothing until the day of the pregnancy test when my boobs started to hurt. The second round, I had many symptoms: sore boobs, nausea, cramping. This round I have only had a lot of cramping, even in the last two days. My period is coming and that is really disappointing.

The morning is spent trying to lose myself in my work, but my mind always comes back to the sad thought of not being pregnant and starting over again. The clock ticks by slowly, it is now the late afternoon.  ’When are they going to phone?’  – keeps going through my head. The phone rings – we both jumped. The news is what we expected. My eyes tear up immediately, they confirmed my suspicions and it hurts.

We are not pregnant.

Our Three Embryo's

The phone rang this morning, it was the clinic to discuss how our thaw went. My heart goes to my throat ‘oh shit none made it’ rushes through my head. They tell me they thawed four and got three good ones. I am shocked and excited at the same time. They finish up by saying one looks like it has never been frozen. I don’t know what that means – but hell, it sounds good to me. They end the call by reminding me to have four glasses of water one hour before we arrive.

We get to the clinic late, or at least we think. We are actually 30 minutes early so we sit in the waiting room watching HGTV and flipping through magazines. Every few minutes I am asked how my bladder is holding up – each time I reply, ‘fine’. They put us in the procedure room where we wait for 30 minutes while they prep.  Holy Shit, I now need to pee, so I send Dirk out to find someone as it is getting tense.

The ultra sound reveals I have too much in my bladder so they hand me a cup and tell me only to let out enough to fill it. These people are nuts – there is no way I can measure my urine output like pouring milk. Once the tap is open, I am not sure I can get it closed in time.

I comment that I hope they are letting me go to the bathroom and not make me do it in the room. After a few laughs I walk down to the washroom – here goes nothing – or in my case one cup of pee. It went okay. I was able to stop the flow with only minimal spillage.  I empty the cup and stand there wondering if they recycle – I mean it is a plastic cup after all. The answer is clearly no, but I make the doctor laugh for asking.

Back in the room they look at my bladder again – shit – still to full. They hand me a dixie cup this time – ‘One and half fills please’ they tell me.  They are killing me – but off I go again. When I return the comment is made that they are impressed with my kegel ability. I did not know I even had it.

Now that I am comfortable and the doctor is satisfied at my bladder size, transfer begins. They display our three embryos on the screen for us to see, it is truly amazing. Once the transfer is complete, they administer another IV of inter-lipid to help with decreasing my immune system.

Three hours after we arrive, we are able to leave, buns in the oven. The twelve day wait begins.

Today, I received my next steps for our preparation for transfer on Wednesday. It is insane and I can not remember half the time what the hell I need to do and when. After deciphering the clinical coordinators notes and coming up with the timetable, I read this out to Dirk, he started to glaze over;

My process now starts at 6 am with a shot of Heparin (blood thinner), Estrace tablets (estrogen) and Prometrium tablets (progesterone). This is closely followed by a baby aspirin, prenatal vitamin, antibiotics, Vitamin D (2 tablets), and Calcium (3 tablets). At 2 pm I need to take Estrace and Prometrium. At 6 pm Heparin and Prometrium. At dinner another antibiotic and prenatal vitamin. Finally, at 10 pm my last daily dose of Estrace and Prometrium.

We need to create a daily schedule or we will miss something. Now, we have alarms set and each time it rings we look at the schedule and cross off what drugs we are to administer. I feel like a pill monster.