moosh in indy.

TMI is in the title. You’ve been warned.

I have tiny little fluid filled cysts on my ovaries. Well, tiny is all relative. If my ovary was the size of my head? The cyst on my left ovary would be roughly the size of a very large cat sitting on my head. My right ovary on the other hand would contain a litter of the very large cat’s kittens.

Not only are these cysts keeping me from getting pregnant they are basically like bodily weeds mucking up my entire internal business. (See Joaquin Phoenix reference in previous post.) These “cysts” are slowly turning me into a man.

With Cody freaking out about his 30th birthday on Wednesday it doesn’t help that his former petite feminine wife is slowly being turned into a testosterone laced barren swamp creature.

I admit the following because PCOS is common, it’s painful (!!!), and it can be rather embarrassing as you’re about to see. I have the acne of a teenager who smeared an entire large pepperoni pizza all over their face. I have been gaining an average of two pounds a week, mostly to my middle, for the last few months leaving me 17 lbs. overweight despite my best efforts. The hair on my head is falling out. If I don’t have a ponytail combed just right I have obvious bare patches of scalp showing, if I pull my hair back completely my receding hairline is painfully apparent. To counteract the hair falling out of my head I am growing hair in places Cody doesn’t even grow hair. Face, chest, shoulders, stomach, other parts, my tweezers can barely keep up. And finally? The symptom that has me ready to run into head on traffic?

Due to an increase in prolactin because my poor body doesn’t know what the heck is going on, I’m lactating.

Yep.

I was never able to nurse the moosh after she was born, but put some cysts in me and I could begin a career as a whet nurse.

The only other side common side effect to PCOS is depression. Thankfully I’m already medicated for that or that head on into traffic thing would become a serious problem.

I KID!

But only because I’m medicated.

So there you have it, I’m a short balding woman laden with acne sporting a rotund waistline and hairy chin who may squirt if you get too close.

I’ll put the whole wanting a baby thing to the side and replace it with “I just want my body back before some balls drop.”

Too far?

When I was but a young child I thought that when a dad’s bellybutton touched the mom’s bellybutton in a “baby hug” a mom got pregnant. The kid was in her stomach and after awhile she pooped it out. I never did understand where food went with all that baby crowding her business. I also never really learned the difference between pregnant and overweight until embarrassing my parents over and in front of a long time (heavy set) friend.

Sorry about that guys, kids, sheesh. Right?

My aunt remembers a dream from when she was little (well before she knew where babies were made and where they came out for reals) that she remembers to this day. She barfed the baby out of her stomach through her mouth (because in her world babies hung out in stomachs too) but it wasn’t “cooked” all the way. So she swallowed the baby and some sort of Polariod photo fluid to “develop” the baby.

the moosh is at a point where she believes that a baby is put in a mom’s tummy when Heavenly Father decides to get His act together and put one in there. Being four she’s big on turns, so when I told her that her friend was going to have another little sister she looked at me and said “God skipped you.”

Kids, sheesh.

Now that I’m a grownup I know where babies are made and I’m even more aware of where they come out and what they do to you while they’re shacking up in your uterus for the majority of a year. I’m also very aware that when there’s a problem with the baby making hardware there’s really only one easy way in.

What I wouldn’t have given for a zippered bellybutton today.

I’m just going to say it.

Vaginal ultrasound.

*shiver*

Now this is also where I date myself in the babymaking process, when the tech pulled out the “wand of wonder” today I said “THAT’S IT? The last time I had this done the thing was the size of a TSA wand in airport security.”

Obviously the girl was young, fresh and new because in her memory of schooling she had never seen one bigger than the one she was holding.

Dear 2003, I demand my dignity back. Those two ultrasounds I endured back then were similar to having a spatula inserted (and not an omlette spatula, a full on pancake spatula) resulting in the tech trying to flip my uterus back to my tailbone in one swift movement.

Today’s ultrasound had soothing music, dimmed lights and I’m pretty sure an aromatherpy something was involved. I had my own little screen to watch the goings on in the KC Baby Ranch. Sadly after two previous ultrasounds I know what wrong looks like.

And my insides are all wrong.

It’s as if the outside of me is an average everyday person with a few zits and chubby knees.

Inside? Joaquin Phoenix circa Late Show 2009.

There is a cyst party going on down south and no babies are invited until they get all of their slobbish fraternal ways off my ovaries.

The good news? I have an explanation on the sudden 15 pound weight gain, zits as far as the eye can see and hairs in places where there should never be hairs on a girl. This also includes hairs with texture that should never never be found on girls.

I thought pregnancy cured PCOS. LIES! ALL LIES!

Then there’s the results of the hundredteen blood tests I had done a few weeks ago.

Joaquin Pheonix.

Srsly.

I shudder every time I go out in public and someone inevitably  asks “So, what do you dooooo?”

A year ago I could leave the answer at “stay at home mom” but with the recent influx of opportunities as a result of this here blog I can’t really leave it at just mom anymore. This blogging thing can take a lot of (gratifying) work.

If nosy people could just let “I write.” be an answer my life would be a lot easier, but no. The nosy people need to know “Sooooo, what do you write about?” I guess that’s what makes them nosy as opposed to minding their own businessy.

My new doctor in charge of all things ladybits asked me the “So what do you do?” question at our first meeting, since I couldn’t redirect the question back to him since it was pretty obvious what he did and what he was about to do there was an awkward pause.

“Uh, I write about my life on the internet, given your striking resemblance to a soap opera doctor you may just make it into a post next week.”

And here he is. Just as I promised.

I’m going to need a nickname for this new doctor, because he’s going to be around a lot. Over $1,000 alone in blood tests and we haven’t even gotten to the dirty work. That comes next week. WHEE.

Oh hai, have I ever mentioned infertility is really long, exhausting, expensive, boring, and regularly anti climactic?

Taking suggestions for Dr. Soap Opera’s new nickname, he really is quite handsome, in an “I look at cervixes all day” kind of way. NO I’M SORRYS, this too shall pass in it’s own time, if I’ve learned anything it’s that. I’ve also learned how much I really like someone when I find out they’re pregnant (HI ANNA AND ERIKA! LOVE YOU AMBER!)

If you feel an incontrollable need to say “I’m sorry” tell me your favorite kind of cake instead. Mine’s chocolate, or any one from Costco. Costco cake, mmm.

Doctor Costco Cake has a nice ring…

Here goes nothing.

Up to this point I have not had anyone get medically involved in my fertility issues outside my yearly spread ‘em, scrape ‘em, squeeze ‘em. I didn’t have insurance nor was I completely sure that eight babies during law school was the best idea (wait, you mean not everyone that goes through fertility treatment gets eight babies? Bummer.)

This past Monday after a Blissful weekend I finally went in to see a doctor. I was in a jovial mood and joked about how I’d make him famous if he could get a litter into my uterus. We joked back and forth about the baby making process and about the appearance of stray body hair (Did I ever mention that I had PCOS? In addition to the occasional RUPTURE of a cyst on my ovary I had dark thick whiskers that grew from every crevice? I didn’t? Wonder why…)

When it came time for the actual exam, results and the real questions his face turned grim. I could tell he didn’t want to have to tell me what he found and what would have to be done about it.

I’m not ready to go into those details yet. With my upcoming travels through February and March it delays  what needs to be done due to timing. And focusing on what I’m going to have to go through will only cause me more heartache.

But let’s just say the answer is not as easy as a prescription for Clomid accompanied by a few months of hot flashes, scheduled sex and hormonal surges of crazy.

I’m going into this hoping to find the humor in it, for some reason I though being able to get pregnant would be natural. Like hunger.

You get hungry, you eat a cheeseburger.

You want to have a baby, you make out.

I’ve had so many sweet people email me thanking me for helping them through their own fertility issues. Some send pictures of their miracle babies, others send me photos of the little kids they were blessed to have through adoption.

I know there’s still some of you out there who can’t get babies where you want or need them to be. I can’t give up and lie to you about how much I’m hurting.

Because I am.

And I cannot be ignorant to all the kindness my readers have shown me. You don’t need to read this stuff, no one makes you. The world won’t stop if you don’t read my blog. But you do. And I’m grateful for that. Grateful that you take the time to send me hugs and kisses and chocolate.

@mooshinindy if it’s hell you have to go through then we will all go with you holding your hand. -@Adrienne

Thank you. All you faceless people and people whom I’ve had the honor of meeting. Thank you for letting me throw my little snit fit pity party.

Business as usual tomorrow? I’ll be discussing prenatal vitamins. If we can put a man on the moon and Apple can make the iPhone, why the hell can’t we make a prenatal vitamin smaller than the state of Rhode Island?

P.S. I’m leaving comments open as long AS NO ONE SAYS “I’M SORRY.”If you can’t think of anything to say besides “I’m sorry” then tell me your favorite kind of sandwich.

P.P.S. Oh, also, if I depressed you enough and you are an emotional eater HAVE I GOT THE GIVEAWAY FOR YOU! Martinis and Chocolate over at my review blog, you’re welcome.

I have this thing where I like to go into the moosh’s room at night and rock her while she’s sleeping. Kind of like that “Love You Forever” book but without all the creep. (Because that book creeped you out too didn’t it? Just a little bit? With the old lady and the grown man?) Anyway.

the moosh has not fallen asleep on me or in my arms in two years. TWO YEARS. The only chance I have to snuzzle that little sleeping ball of curls is when she’s already asleep. Trying to snuzzle an awake four year old will only end with a foot to your crotch and a knee to your neck.

Two nights ago I snuck in to hold my little kid. I picked her up, held her close and took a good long whiff of her lavender scented hair.

She sat up, looked at me, looked at her pillow, looked at me, pushed me away and curled back up on her pillow with her back to me.

DENIED!

And then I cried.

I have no little sleeping bodies left in this house to snuzzle. Sure I have Cody, but between the chest hair tickling my nose and the sounds and/or smells he emits while sleeping? Well…we’ll just leave it at that.

That lady in California had eight babies all at once when she already had six at home under seven.

I’ll tell you what, when I get to heaven I’m going to be sitting God down with a nice frothy mug of Hot Cocoa and I’m not leaving until I figure out his curious sense of irony and humor.

(Dear God, That is not an invitation to get me pregnant with octuplets. One at a time is good for me. Okay? xoxo-Casey)

I received my medical records in the mail today from my old OB who took care of my broken lady parts, got me pregnant with the moosh (well, Cody took care of the fun part) and brought little miss into this world (so I did most of the work, but he was there to catch, fairly important duty.)
This morning I would have told you I was a fairly low maintainence pregnant person (aside from all the vomit) but looking over my records? I would have put a block on my number if I had been my doctors nurse.
PAGES of
“Patient called…sick.”
“Patient called, still sick.”
“Patient called sick of being sick.”
“Patient called still sick of being sick.”
I didn’t realized they kept track of every phone call I made.
It’s a little embarrassing.
Plus with the way doctors and nurses throw around the words “vaginal” and “discharge” it’s enough to make anyone blush, I’m pretty sure the word “odor” was in there somewhere too.
It’s also humorous to see in my patient chart my weight drop each week as my belly measurement expanded.
There was a lot in there I had forgotten about, pains, bleeding, IV’s, meltdowns, tests, specialist visits…but even after reading it I’m ready to do it again.
Only next time I’ll try to keep the calls to a minimum.

Click through on the picture to see a whole bunch of notes on the “SIGNIFICANT FINDINGS.”

Nothing packs a wallop to a barren, unfruitful uterus like a Hollywood pregnancy. 

I’m not even talking about celebrities, which BTW, Britney? Why do you get two? And Angelina? Don’t even get me started.

I’m talking about movie pregnancies, television pregnancies and yes, even novel pregnancies.

I threw Breaking Dawn against the wall when I found out that little whiny human was knocked up by someone who doesn’t even produce sperm, just VENOM.

I screamed at the TV when Sun ended up LOST and pregnant on a deserted island with no one but her infertile husband Jin around to do the job.

Elizabeth the Golden Age? OF COURSE YOU CAN GET PREGNANT WITH THE QUEEN’S LOVE INTEREST THE FIRST TIME YOU DO THE DEED.

Meh.

There’s already a raging debate going on that romantic movies put too much pressure on everyday husbands who’s wives expect them to come home holding stereos playing Peter Gabriel above their heads every time they screw up. Fashion magazines put too much pressure on young girls to look flawless, tan and thin. Parenting magazines would have you believe that parenting is a beautiful joy spent surrounded by Pottery Barn furnishings and pastel clothing.

Well I’m here to say that movie pregnancies are just as bad.

There’s an ENTIRE MOVIE dedicated to getting pregnant off of a one night stand (and no, it’s not my kid in the movie.)

Yes, I know it can happen. Just like winning the lottery can happen.

But why my cousin can get his girlfriend pregnant, dump the kid on his handicapped parents,forcing them to adopt the baby, AND THEN GET THE SAME GIRLFRIEND pregnant again, even though they’ve had restraining orders on each other, twice, IS BEYOND ME.

I want to hear your favorite unrealistic pregnancy, real or theatrical. Maybe if I surround myself with so much ridiculousness I’ll be able to get pregnant while swimming through an ocean of fairies and twinkling lights while my husband is taking the bar and eating hot dogs half a world away while on my Barry Manilow karaoke world tour.

Hey, it could happen.

How much of me wants to be pregnant because I can’t?

This whole pregnancy thing goes in waves. But lately I’ve been beaten in the face with too many “why her and not me?” situations that the whole “WILL CASEY EVER BE PREGNANT AGAIN?” dilemma is beginning to eat a part of my brain previously saved for saving puppies, playing sudoku and baking cupcakes.

My big attitude of “MEH” towards the whole topic was smashed to pieces over the last month when both of my parents and crotchety old grandma asked why Cody and I weren’t producing more awesome with our reproductive parts. They never had to worry about “when” or “how” with babies, they just popped in and came out when they wanted them to. Same with my grandparents. Then there was the lady on the plane.

“So when are you going to make her a little brother?”

REALLY?

PEOPLE ASK CRAP LIKE THAT TO TOTAL STRANGERS?

I know Cody wants more babies, and he wants me to be a mom to more babies, he likes the way I do things. Cody wants to get me pregnant more than any man has ever wanted to impregnate a woman in the history of reproduction. It’s really hard to tell him each month that my body failed at making us more babies yet again.

I want to be pregnant. I liked being pregnant, I liked having that bump, feeling a little person kicking the daylights out of my internal organs. I even miss worrying that I would pop her head open every time I crossed my legs because the little kid decided to LODGE HERSELF in my crotch early on.

I don’t want to be pregnant. I didn’t like knowing what every food on God’s green Earth tasted like in reverse. I didn’t like having to eat only to have something to barf up an hour later. I didn’t like constantly feeling like I had drank my weight in cheap beer. I didn’t like having to plan my life around when and where I’d be when the need to barf hit me. I also didn’t like paying so much freaking money on medicines that only helped me barf a few less times a day.

I want to have another baby. I like babies. I really liked my baby and I really love the little kid that my little baby is growing up to be. I really love my sister and I really want my little kid to have a sister or brother of her own. I like this whole mom gig, while I’m not alway at the top of my game, I feel I put forth a game worth performance.

I don’t want to have another baby. Newborns, sleepless nights, barf, poop, diapers, manners, teething, time-outs…I think you get my point. If I were to stop with the moosh she’d be 18 when I turn 40, plenty of time to become a doctor or an acrobat or something.

Why all this mess and confusion? Why such a teeter totter of emotions?

Because.

Life is confusing and full of sucky sucky trials with no instruction booklet.

In my church back home in Indiana I have watched 46 pregnancies in less than three years. I have watched over a dozen women be pregnant twice, AND THAT’S JUST WOMEN I KNOW FROM CHURCH. There are quite a few women who have a child the moosh’s age AND TWO MORE younger than her. I have watched even more women go through pregnancy on the internet.  (To all the lovely ladies to whom I’m referring, especially the three dozen pregnant ones, I’m happy for you, this is nothing against you, please don’t take it personally. It’s just really hard for me. It’s not your fault you can get pregnant, so quit apologizing.)

Outside my church most women my age don’t have kids. Let alone two. Only in my chosen faith am I the lame duck. It’s not a commandment that women get knocked up young and often in the LDS religion, it’s just what seems to happen. Which leaves a lot of us women of the LDS faith feeling like we missed the booth where they were handing out fertility on our wedding days. 

Which brings me to adoption. I have a fierce admiration for couples who choose to adopt and am always brought to tears when I see a new family made by the sheer awesomeness that is adoption.

But I have never felt like it is for me.

Just as you may feel that a tattoo, marriage, children or Law School may never be right for you.

I wish I just had an answer.

Sometimes I think I won’t get pregnant because I couldn’t handle it, two kids, the PPD, the pregnancy. But then I read that Dooce is pregnant and the bitter hag that resides behind my kidney thinks up all sorts of horrible things. (Totally jealousy talking Heather. Sorry.)

Sometimes I think it’s just not the right time. Law school. Debt. Thousands of miles from family. Crummy insurance. But then I see plenty of other women with no committed partner, no family, drug addictions, no real home, no common sense and no insurance get pregnant. (Not to mention the ones that aren’t even old enough to get a driver’s license.)

Sometimes I think I’ll never be pregnant again and should just move on.

Get over it, you know? Part of me is actually envious when women have an absolute answer to their fertility, either they don’t have the parts, their husband’s don’t make the stuff, or they’ll die if they try. How’s that for an absolute? But that’s not acknowledging all the trials and crummy stuff they have to go through when that news is passed onto them. Surrogates? IVF? Sperm donors? Adoption? 

No one has it easy. 

Sometimes I even think that maybe I birthed my fallopian tubes along with the moosh and have no reproductive organs left. But then my period comes and I’m reminded once again that “DEAR CASEY, YOU STILL HAVE ALL YOUR PARTS AND GUESS WHAT? YOU ARE NOT PREGNANT.”

I used to be optimistic that because my body birthed a healthy baby once, it could totally do it again. Nature didn’t screw up on me, my parts knew how to get pregnant and get that kid out in one piece. 

I still am that kind of optimistic sometimes.

Other times I’m just plain ticked that I know DARN WELL that my body knows how to get pregnant but refuses to.

And then there’s that part of my brain that thinks “You did so well with the first one, why risk getting a dud the second time around?” Don’t roll your eyes at me. Enough mothers have admitted to me that fear of getting a different deal the second time around. (Sometimes even the first time.) While ultimately I would gladly take whatever child God sees fit to bless me with, I wonder what the heck I’d do if I had a kid with straight hair. How would I pick them out of a crowd?

I know my body can get pregnant. I know my husband can get me pregnant. I know that I could provide another little kid with a home, and love, and kisses, and snuggles and bedtime stories and songs and trips to the ice cream store and the best big sister ever. I know I’d do a good job even though I also know I’d second guess my decision every other half hour for the next, oh, until I die.

I’d try and do a really good job, the best I know how to do, if I could only get my womb on one.