Living on the Edge

I just finished Mary O'Hara's wonderful trilogy about life on a Wyoming horse ranch. This is from the third one, The Green Grass of Wyoming:

He had a sudden strange feeling that things were all in one piece, not strung out in time. Life was like a patterned cloth being drawn over a knife-edge. The knife-edge was the NOW and what was happening now - but the patterns were there on the cloth, all the same, before and after it had run over the knife-edge.

Wow.

Aha

Finally got some answers! I had an ultrasound that confirmed that I have polycystic ovarian syndrome. It was pretty clearcut - 16 follicles on each ovary, when I think the typical number is one or two. But the diagnosis is weird:

1. It's a kind of chronic long-term syndrome that usually crops up in early adolescence, not something that you develop later. But I had regular periods for years before I got pregnant the first time, and I didn't have trouble conceiving then. Why would I have developed this syndrome after my first pregnancy?
2. Often a pregnancy resolves the condition. In my case, it apparently triggered it, which makes no sense at all.
3. Some of the hallmarks of PCOS are being overweight, being diabetic or borderline, and having excess body and facial hair, acne, and painful periods. But those don't apply in my case (hmm, maybe the acne a bit, but it's not too bad). I guess I am an atypical patient.

At least I have a diagnosis. It was so hard not knowing what was going on and having to fend off suggestions like
"maybe you secretly don't want a baby, and this is your body's way of telling you"
"just adopt"
"maybe you're not trying hard enough"
"maybe you're trying too hard"
"maybe you're not 'doing it' right"
"oh well, it was easy for me"

The last is probably the one that drives me craziest. Some people have full, interesting, busy lives - they're advancing in their careers, traveling, doing home renovations, and still manage to get pregnant in their spare time without really trying. In my case, I've gone to soooo many doctors' appointments - expensive and time-consuming. I've been trying to relax, eat better, change my exercise routine, etc. all in hopes of improving my fertility by reducing my stress. And I'm still nowhere near the point where they'll be able to start treatment, let alone the point where I might achieve a pregnancy. It bugs me that some people have it so easy and apparently don't understand how hard it can be for others.

The standard treatment for PCOS is birth control pills (and as soon as you discontinue the pills, the syndrome comes right back). Obviously I don't want to do that. I have to do some more stupid tests now before I can schedule a consultation with my doctor and renew my requests for Clomid, the ovulation medication I've been asking for for a year. I hope he'll prescribe it. I read that patients with PCOS have a much harder time getting pregnant and have a 50% miscarriage rate (compared to the normal 15-20% rate), which is a bit scary, but I don't think there's much I can do about that. I just hope that in that area, I'll also be an atypical PCOS patient.

Update:
I talked to my doctor today. He said that the average number of follicles in a healthy ovary is 10-12, and that he'd rather see too many than not enough. So that makes me feel a little... well, closer to normal. Here I was thinking I was some kind of monster freak with my 16 follicles on each side.

I also underwent an HSG today (hysterosalpingogram), in which dye is squirted up through the reproductive tract to outline the uterus and fallopian tubes to make sure there isn't a blockage. Everything looks fine in my case. I was amazed to see that on the left side, the fallopian tube does a loop-the-loop! The doctor said that was perfectly normal and that the ovaries and tubes actually move around a bit in the pelvis and often are in unusual configurations, not just out to the side like the crosspiece of a capital T. Still. A loop-the-loop! Those little eggs have a long way to go on their roller-coaster ride to the uterus.

Bluffing

Today I took my daughter grocery shopping and we got one of those carts with the little plastic car built onto the front of it. She always asks to get one of those, but I usually refuse because they're so heavy to steer. Today I relented and she was beside herself with happiness, giggling the whole time we were shopping.

Afterwards, I loaded the groceries into the (real) car and then returned the cart to the collection area. When I crouched down next to the little car and said, "It's time to go home now. Come on, hop out," she said, "No, I'm going to stay here."

I said, "Right here?"

She said, "Yes. I'm going to stay here all night!"

I said, "Want me to come get you tomorrow morning?"

She nodded solemnly.

"OK," I said. "I'll pick you up before breakfast, OK?"

"OK," she said.

"Have a nice night," I told her. Then I got up and walked (slowly) away, straining every second for her to call out to me. When she did, I stopped right away. She was scrambling out of the car, saying, "No, Mama, I change my mind! I want to go home with you."

"Really?" I said, feigning surprise. "Well, okay." I picked her up and gave her a kiss on the cheek. She was giggling with relief as I carried her back to our car.

As we drove away, I thought
1) how much I love her
2) how someday, probably sooner than I expect, she'll call one of my bluffs
3) how it was almost as though we were putting on a show of how perfect and cute we are together, for a stranger who might think, "What a great mom. What a great kid," when in reality I don't always know what I'm doing, and she has her difficult moods, and it's not always sunshine and roses between us,
4) but most of the time it is.

Gotcha!

Today I caught a rabbit. With my bare hands.

That's a lie, actually - I was wearing gloves. But still! I just reached down and grabbed it! It was like I tapped into some superhuman powers and moved so fast I was just a blur.

I was in my garden, staking vampires - I mean tomato plants. I lifted a leaf, and there was the cutest little coney hiding under it, with its ears slicked back along its back. Oh my gosh it was adorable. It was like the pictures of cute bunnies that artists do watercolors of for Easter cards, with huge eyes and plushy brown fur. Even as I was marveling at how cute it was, my inner farmer rose to the challenge and I cried, "What are you doing in here? Inside my garden? Git!"

I might note that the garden has no fewer than three types of fencing around it. There's a four-foot high metal fence (to keep out the groundhogs), a smaller-mesh plastic fence as an inside liner (to keep out the rabbits), and netting over the top (to keep the deer from jumping in). There are woods and fields and plenty of things in the vicinity for the local wildlife to eat, but they seem drawn to my garden all the same. Anyway, I have no idea how a rabbit got in.

I chased it into the squash plants. Then it slipped past me into the pole beans. Then I chased it into the Swiss chard. It ran back to its original hiding place and dove in there under the tomato leaf. Like I was going to forget about catching it if I couldn't see it. I lifted the leaf again, put my hand down, and just grabbed it.

It scrabbled in the air a few times with its hind feet, but I set it down inside a handy plant pot and put my hand over the top to keep it from jumping out. Then I carried it over to the woods behind our property and let it out. As it slid out, it seemed a little dazed. I thought, "poor thing, it's probably asphyxiating of fear." But after I'd taken two steps away, I turned to look back, just in case it was just lying there gasping. A blade of grass was swaying. The rabbit was gone. I had visions of it beating me back to the garden as I tromped back across the lawn.

Still don't know how it got in there. What do I need to do, dig a moat around my garden?!

P & P x 3

I read Pride and Prejudice again recently (as a prelude to reading Pride and Prejudice and Zombies; I felt like I had to refresh myself on the original in order to get the most out of the parody. Zombies actually turns out to be the exact same text as the original, with "and turning, she rapidly slew three zombies in succession" inserted here and there.)

The first time I read it was in high school. I loved it. I couldn't wait to get through my math homework each afternoon so that I could read the day's quota of P&P. It seemed to have such relevance to my own life; I was in love, and I didn't know how to approach him, and here was a book all about a girl my age, dealing with misunderstandings and hurt feelings and social intrigue and gossip and class consciousness. I wrote him a letter pouring out my feelings. A few days later, we got to the part in the book where Elizabeth receives "the electrifying letter" from Darcy. I felt like I was burning with embarrassment and excitement at the parallels in my own life. At the end of the book, of course, love triumphs. At the end of the school year, we graduated and I never saw him or heard from him again.

A few years later I read Pride and Prejudice again. I remembered it being so juicy and full of suspense. But the second time through it seemed just silly. I couldn't understand why the characters spent time chewing over gossip and conjecturing what things might possibly have meant instead of just talking to each other directly and straightening things out. Why didn't Jane get in touch with Bingley herself, instead of pining? Why didn't Elizabeth go out with Colonel Fitzwilliam, who seemed like the nicest guy of the bunch? I felt impatient for things to get resolved and kept flipping ahead to see how many more pages there were. The women's exaggerated ladylike frailty seemed fake (Elizabeth colouring up every time she heard anything interesting, having to retire to her room for half an hour to regain her composure, Jane being sick in bed for days after being out in the rain for just a few minutes). I was working a job, sharing an apartment with roommates, and paying my own way in the world. I didn't have patience with such silliness.

This third time through, however, I loved it again. Partly because of the rich and intricate use of language. It's wonderful to read it out loud; the sentences start out in one direction, then curve over their own backs and interweave into unexpected spaces like a vine weaving its way through the ironwork of a railing. Partly because Austen does such a good job of blackening Darcy's character that even though you know he's going to be redeemed, in the early stages it's hard to imagine how that will be done. Partly because it was relaxing reading about people who have no obligation to earn a living and so much time on their hands that they can just while away their lives with needlework, long walks in the countryside, and social visits. The girls didn't even have to fix meals or do any housework, all that was done by servants. Partly because now that I'm married and boring and all the heart-pounding astonishment of falling in love is behind me, probably forever, it was nice to read about people having crushes on each other and being thrilled with the slightest mark of regard, and wondering with fascinated passion whether the other person still liked them or not. I could relive my glory days a little.

P&P is the only one of Austen's books that I've ever read. I'm so uncultured, it's awful. I have to at least read Sense & Sensibility, and Northanger Abbey, my mother's favorite.

So Far...

One week in, and being pure has been easier than I expected. I've resisted the cookies in the kitchen at work, the ice cream in the freezer at home, my favorite sugary yogurts, the cereals in my cupboard, even things like ketchup and popcorn seasoning that have sugar in them. The cravings haven't been too bad. I am letting myself have fruit, so in place of my usual dessert I just eat a handful of raisins or something and then I'm fine. I'm also trying to eat more greens and whole grains, and fewer fried things. I have this idea that the more I do it, the easier and more natural it will be, and the less I'll even want the junk. I even watched Julie & Julia - all those dinners smothered in butter, all that rich chocolate cake - without particularly wanting to eat anything afterward. The part of the movie I liked was her cooking the food, not the idea of eating it.

I slipped up just once so far - at a Fourth of July dinner party. My friend had made panna cotta (kind of lime-flavored mousse made with mascarpone cheese and topped with wild blueberries). It was chilled, in goblets, and they looked so pretty all lined up on the counter, cream and violet. She had already set one out for me and I wasn't going to turn it down. It was heavenly.

One week down, three to go!