Vet Mafia Bitches

Fuck yeah! I’m the vettiest of all the Vet Mafia Bitches Bloggers. In pleasant blogville, I’m known as the sweet and supportive (and sometimes pushy) Babychaser.

But in the dirty underground of the VMB, they just call me EM/C. Why? Because, sista biotches, I am the motherfucking Early MisCarriage QUEEN of all time!

Who else can get a lighter shade of pink on the pee-test? What other chickie out there watches that pee-stick line get lighter day by day? Anyone else landed a beta below 40 … twice? How about having a miscarriage at the same time your beta’s doubling (but no pain killers, because maybe you're just losing one baby)? Anyone else pee on a stick every day for a WEEK after a missed period (after implantation bleeding), and only then have a faint, faint, so-faint-I’m-totally-imagining-things line show up? Anyone manage to get a high beta just once, just that one time, out of four fucking pregnancies, then end up in the ER a week later because the dumb-ass embryo crawled up into your tube before it settled in for a nice nap?

Yeah, I didn’t think so. You bitches can only dream of my bad-ass scars. (Not to mention the IRL scar, slashing across my pubic line like an opening salvo from Zorro.)

EM/C is my name, and broken dreams is my game. Can’t stay pregnant to save my life. Can’t stop trying. (How can you stop when it keeps almost working?)

My regular doctor says “just relax.”

My RE’s nurse says “God is just giving you a break—babies are a lot of work.”

My mom says “your infertility must come from your father’s side of the family.”

My mom-in-law says “can I have your sister’s e-mail address so I can send her a mother’s day card?”

… and she says “as soon as you put in the adoption paperwork you’ll get pregnant.”

My co-worker (who started TTC after I did and now has a toddler) says, “You should just adopt. I watch Wednesday’s Child all the time and I want to adopt them ALL.”

… and she says, “I have a friend who’s paying TWENTY-FIVE THOUSAND DOLLARS to doctors to get her pregnant. Can you even believe someone would do that???”

Angelina Jolie says, “of course I didn’t use ART to get pregnant with my twins.”

Hollywood says, "You know what would be hi-larious? A movie about a woman that has to hire a surrogate because she can't bear children! Laugh riot."

… and it says, “Let’s give Sex and the City a happy ending and make Charlotte preggers. After all, everyone knows as soon as you adopt you’ll get knocked up, right?"

My man’s twin brother says “we’re pregnant, and she was on the pill at the time (but the antibiotics made it less potent).”

… but he says he won’t even discuss being our sperm donor, because “you really should adopt.”

My cousin says “we’re pregnant.”

Our best friends say, “we’re pregnant.”

My other best friend says, “I’m pregnant.”

My co-worker says “I’m pregnant.”

What do I say?

I say FUCK THE FUCKING FERTILE HO-BITCHES.

I will cut a bitch.

Just try me.

I am EM/C, and I can bleed and cry at the same time. What can you do, beotch?

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Think you have what it takes to be a VMB? Come find out. I double dog dare you.

Vet Mafia Bloggers

Who Am I, Anyway?

I’ve been meaning to post for days now, but I just don’t know what to say. I have plenty to say when I’m commenting on others’ lives, but mine just seems so unworthy of mention.

The truth is, I feel empty inside. I was a pretty fun kid, then a wild and rebellious teenager (by Happy Valley, Utah standards), then a passionate college student. I’ve always liked myself, even when I was down about my looks, or my job, or some of my self-destructive tendencies. I always felt like I had personality to spare, that I could shine and sparkle and charm and generally feel great about myself because people liked me. I’ll admit it, because you are my no-censorship crowd: I always thought I was pretty damn cool.

Now? I hardly recognize myself. Occasionally I catch a glimpse of myself, usually in a storefront window reflection, and I can’t believe what I see. Am I that old? Am I that fat? Worse, am I that frumpy, in my orthotic shoes and the outfits designed to cover my flabby tummy? When did I become so … ordinary? So lifeless? So joyless?

Would I feel this way if I had a child? My first baby would be one and a half years old now, in those early stages of learning to walk and talk. And I don’t grieve that baby. It was never all that real to me. But the loss of opportunity, the time passing while my body grows older and older, while I watch myself fade into the washed-out background of my empty life, that’s something that hurts more and more, day by day.

So I guess I’m depressed. Not surprising. And I’m terribly lonely. Also not surprising. But mostly I’m just tired and disappointed with life. I want to go back in time, not that far, maybe eight or ten years back, and start all over again. I want to be young again. To be thin, to be sexy, to have energy to play, to go out dancing, to be wanted. I want to be able to work out without hurting myself. I want to wear pretty shoes. I want to have friends again, not the kind you see every three months––the kind you have to talk to on the phone every day. I want to flirt, to have guys flirt back, to feel that thrill of knowing I’m sexy. I want my husband to be thinner, and interested in having sex even when I don’t suggest it. I want our bodies to fit together the way they used to, and I want to be able to have wild sex without my back hurting the next day. I want to go back to a time when my whole life was ahead of me, when I could still dream about the joy (and discomfort) of pregnancy with the innocence of someone who’s never crashed and burned. I want to feel hope, without having to smash it down, terrified of letting myself dream.

I just want to be me again. Whoever that was. I really really miss me. I liked her. And I don’t like this me so much at all.

Motherfucking OWWWWWWW!!!!!

A word of warning to anyone considering a miscarriage: they hurt. And not just a little, ooh-was-that-a-twinge kind of hurt. They hurt like a motherfucker. Like a beast clawing at my uterus from the inside, shredding the lining that I took so many drugs to build. Like a hot poker twisting in my lower gut, trying to burn its way out. And this is with one and a half percocet already in there fighting the battle. Soon I will take more. Soon.

The thing is, I knew this was going to hurt. After all, I’ve done it three times before. And twice without any painkillers, because the miscarriage hadn’t been “confirmed” yet. But you never really remember how bad something hurts, until you go through it again. (I’m convinced this is why women have second children, even after experiencing labor once.)

I’ve known this was coming for a week now. And I’ve thought back on those other times, trying to prepare myself for what’s to come. But the miscarriages of the past are all so abstract. And maybe it’s because I like thinking of myself as tough (one of the only consolation prizes of multiple IVFs and multiple miscarriages is feeling like an infertility badass) but there’s almost touch of fondness when I look back on those memories. Yeah, I remember my first miscarriage, lying all curled up on the couch watching old episodes of Buffy, heating pad on ‘high’ strapped to my belly, getting up every five minutes to hit the toilet and see what comes out. Yeah, good times…. So the pain has actually managed to take my by surprise.

I’m actually kind of glad J has to work tonight. He’s not terribly overwrought by my pain; he doesn’t treat me like I’m made of cornflakes and will blow away in a strong wind; it doesn’t break him apart to see me cry. And for the most part, I think that’s good for me. I’m a terrible whiner, and I need a “buck-up, little tiger” person in my life to keep me from being totally pathetic. But for tonight, I just want to take my drugs and feel sorry for myself with no audience.

While I’ve been writing this, I’ve had the strangest image. The cramping is coming in waves, easing up for a minute or two, then, just when I forget about it, kicking in and burning and making me resort to my deep breathing exercises. But the image I have isn’t the cramps coming and going like the ocean. The image I like is a to-the-death battle taking place within my uterus, which I picture as a dark cave with deep red walls. The battle is between the slavering beast within and the wonderful, white, lovely percocet, which I guess looks kind of like the happy pill in the old zoloft commercials (but with a sword, of course!). One minute, the percocet will take the high ground, forcing the snarling, fanged beast into a corner where he can only chew on a small part of my uterine wall. The next minute, the beast has regained its footing and is ripping me to shreds while the white pill cowers and tries to hide. Hmm… maybe it’s time to send in reinforcements.

Out of the Woods

Looks like little McNulty is going to pull through. He spent a scary night in the hospital oxygen tank. A specialist came in and took and EKG. He doesn't think McNulty has a heart defect, but he also doesn't think it's pneumonia. He thinks McNulty had a damaged or injured lung, and that's caused pulmonary edema. We're going to be giving him some aggressive medication over the next month or so, and he should recover.

I don't know if this will be a recurring problem, but he seems out of the woods for now. Right now he's home and playful and cuddly and purring and sucking on my shirt again, all of which is very nice (except that when he sucks on my shirt he insists on kneading me with his claws, and he prefers to do that on my bare skin, which isn’t so nice).

And the last 24 hours cost us about $1,500, which is less nice. McNulty has now cost us more than our two 12-year-old cats cost us in their entire lifetimes, put together. He’d better be extra cute to make it up to me.

Here's a picture I took a couple of weeks ago. I like it because it shows off his goofy smile.

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In other news, my miscarriage finally started a couple of minutes ago. Thank god. Hopefully it will be quick. I’ve got percocet and maxipads, and I’ve arranged to work from home. So I should be all set. So far, my cold (which is STILL kicking my ass) and my sick kitty have done wonders to distract me from what’s going on (or rather what hasn’t been going on) in my uterus. Now that the miscarriage is finally here, I’m hoping to be totally blasé about it. That’s my goal, anyway.

Just want to mention that you all have been amazing and wonderful to me. I didn’t have anything like this kind of support last time I lost a pregnancy. I can’t describe how much it means to have friends that really understand what I’m gong through.

Love you all,

Babychaser

The Universe Hates Me

McNulty, my sweet little (okay, not so little anymore) kitten that I adopted purely as a measure to bring new life and joy into my dismal barren life, is very sick. He had his neuter surgery on Monday, and seemed like he was recovering fairly well yesterday. But this morning he seemed to have trouble breathing, was lethargic, and wouldn’t eat. This afternoon J took him to the vet. He just called. It’s very serious. Either McNulty has pneumonia or a heart defect.

J and I suspect it’s a heart defect. He’s always seemed a bit wheezy when we hold him on his back, and he doesn’t have a fever indicating an infection. I don’t know if he’ll even survive this. If he does, it’ll involve daily medication for the rest of his life. I don’t know if I’m up for that. I don’t know if I’m willing to bond even more with a pet that’s going to have a shaky life, and could die on me at any moment. And I’m sure this is costing me a fortune right now.

I’ve stopped crying, because I finally took a xanax. Luckily, no one at work is going to notice, because I’ve been so fucking sick for the past three days that my eyes and nose were already red and swollen, and my lips were already pink and puffy (and not in an attractive way, I assure you). Basically, ever since Sunday I’ve been coughing. Pretty much constantly. My throat is so raw it hurts to breathe. Last night and today the congestion kicked in on top of it.

And the miscarriage has yet to start, even though my beta was down to 6 on Monday. Why won’t it just fucking START already? While I’m already miserable. While I’m already incapable of functioning. But no, it has to wait. Wait until I’ve blown a sick day on the cold (stayed home Monday, but have been here at work yesterday and today), which I was hoping to save for the miscarriage. Wait until I’ve given in and cancelled all plans for the next week in anticipation of The Bleed. And now it’s waiting until I get news that my new there-is-still-hope kitten might die.

In 2007 I had two miscarriages, major surgery, and my 12-year-old cat died. I was kind of counting on 2008 to go better. But it’s less than half over and I’ve already got one negative beta, one miscarriage, a second mortgage if I want to keep trying to have a child, and now maybe another dead cat. I mean, seriously, how much more of this shit can one person take?