Am I There Yet?

By the way, the trip to London turned out to be great.   I've been to London twice before, and never liked it very much, but this time, I really began to appreciate the city.  First of all, I was coming from an entirely different place and perspective.  The first two times I visited, I was still living in NYC, and so London felt like a European version of New York, except more sprawling and shapeless, less vibrant, more grey.  Dawg and I were considering living there, and I had thought: why move to this strange watered-down version of NYC?  I want to live in Paris!  But after living for 3 years in Paris, I was thrilled by London's similiarities to New York, and struck by how un-European it feels.  Oh, and to speak English!  It took me a day or two to get used to not having to plan my sentences minutes in advance.  I kept delighting in the fact that I could read any menu, argue with a salesclerk, or ask any amount of questions without hesitation.

I think having friends who lived there helped.  Even though Lilly is 9 months pregnant, she shopped with me for more than 6 hours!  Of course, we had breaks where we ate lunch or had some ice cream, but she hung in there, even with her perfectly round watermelon belly.  I kept asking her if she was okay, she said she felt fine.  I did feel somewhat wistful around her, but she didn't spend a lot of time talking about the pregnancy or baby. She said was fearful of becoming one of those mothers that only talked about her kid.  Well, I, for one, was grateful.  She spoke about the kid (a girl, I found out) whenever I brought it up, but generally, she didn't talk about it at all.  So, she still seemed like the same old Lilly.  

After checking out the Hopper exhibit at the Tate Modern, Dawg and I left London on Saturday morning and drove out to the Cotswolds (in central England) as neither of us had seen the English countryside.  We stayed in a village called Bledington, which, our bed and breakfast was proud to note, had been voted "best kept village" in 2003.  Who-hoo.  On the way there, we spent a few hours wandering around gorgeous old Oxford, peeking between the iron bars of to catch a glimpse of the old stone colleges, strolling in the botanical gardens, gawking with a certain amount of awe and envy at the graduates in their black robes.  We decided then and there, that we would pressure our children to go there.  (Joking, of course, can there be anything more pretentious than not being English, not living in England, and putting pressure your kids to study at Oxford? I can just hear us:  "No! You can't go out!  The A-levels are coming up.  Do you think you can be accepted at Oxford without having the highest marks on your A-levels?" (Whatever A-levels are.))  But we did wonder - assuming we ever get any kids, how in the world do you motivate them to want to go to a university like Oxford? They have to want it themselves, for sure, but how do you, as parents, encourage them to find that want within themselves? 

Bledington, the best kept village, was perfect; as quaint and charming as the villages described in an Agatha Christie mystery.   Every single house in the village was centuries old, made of grey stones, and shaped like a shoebox.  All of them had lovely gardens, or climbing flowering vines, or at least a couple of rosebushes out front.   I half-expected to see a small grey-haired old woman with twinkling china-blue eyes to be placidly clipping roses but taking careful, surreptitious scrunity of us as we wandered by.   Talk about idyllic. There was a long, narrow stream running through the village, home to about 30-something extremely contented-looking ducks, and a green where the local children (if there were any) could play soccer, and cricket (if that's a game English kids play).   And of course, there was a perfect little church, with a grey-yellow stone tower, sitting slightly above the village.  Dawg and I wandered up there on Sunday morning and explored the cemetary.  It was filled with huge slab-like tombstones, the engravings on most smooth with age, and some of the stones worn to a nub.   The earliest date on a headstone I saw was, I think, 1687.  Sixteen something, anyway.  And I saw a Vicar!  This was very important to me, as so many English mysteries involve in some way, the Vicar.   He looked exactly like I thought an English vicar should look: white-haired, kindly, lean.  I was so pleased that this village was so obliging in fulfilling my expectations.  If the village weren't in England, and under such perpetually grey skies, and so far from a major city, and so absolutely devoid of anyone with the slightest smidge of pigment in their skin, I'd have loved to live there.

I'm reading Reading Lolita in Tehran, by Azar Nafisi, and it is making me get serious about keeping a reading journal. The author draws fantastic parallels between her post-revolutionary life in Iran and Lolita, and her pre-revolutionary life in Iran and The Great Gatsbsy.  Such a unique, wonderful way to present a memoir, especially for those who love fiction.  I was so excited to read that the author and I shared several favorite passages from both books, and interpreted them similarly.

I read, literally, 2-3 novels a week, and while the details and my interpretation of certain books stand out in my memory, the majority get buried in the dust of my mind.  So, I want to write it all down in one place, so at least I can refresh my memory when I want.  I can't decide whether I want this to be an online thing, or a handwritten thing.  I'm strongly leaning toward handwritten, because I want to start taking notes on the book as I'm reading, and it's easier to do that with a journal by my side. Plus, even though I like this online blog because my writing is more clear (as deletion is so easy), I love re-reading all my past handwritten journals.  The experience is aesthetic. My memories of the entries are tied up in, not just the written word, but the color of the ink I used, the slant of my handwriting, the names of the places I write from, or even the cover of the journal.  Okay, I think I've convinced myself: handwritten it shall be.  I know I'll get as much pleasure reviewing my thoughts on the books I've read, as I do reviewing my observations on my own life.

Dawg and I are leaving for London on Wednesday and I'm dreading it. My friend Lilly is 9 months pregnant, and I'm going to be spending lots of time with her. Why would I put myself through this? I don't know.

I was fine after the lap. Relieved to not be thinking about whether I was or wasn't pregnant, or what X test results means, or whether I was about to ovulate, etc. Cheerful to have my old not-trying-to-have-a-baby life back for a little while. But then, I went to Germany for a 3-day visit with my friend Nan who is moving to Shanghai next month. She has a 3-month old.

I was great while I was there. She picked me up from the train station in her husband's rockin' bottle-green convertible Porche, sans baby, and we zoomed off to the Rhinegau, which is a wine-growing in Germany along the Rhine. We ended up at an old castle, had white wine and delicious cold cucumber soup while looking out at the vineyards. I felt good out there, with my friend in the sun, talking about life issues, which included, sometimes but not all the time, discussion of babies and infertility.

The next few days were nice. I was so proud of myself for not feeling jealous or unhappy. I rocked & played with the baby; enjoyed the feel of a baby in my arms, felt optimistic that someday the baby would be mine. But. I crashed on the train ride home. I didn't cry or anything, just sat there numbly, staring out the window. I kept thinking, where is my baby? as if I had a baby, but it had been stolen before I even got to see her. I felt so empty, so drained and bleak. And then, I realized that if I don't get pregnant and have a child, I will feel the loss of that child forever. Sometime more, sometimes less. But the loss of that child will stay with me, like a stone lodged in my heart, forever.

I don't know how I will face Lilly in all her burgeoning joy. But I will.

So, I had my lap yesterday. It wasn't too bad an experience at all. I was put, ironically, on the maternity ward, so I heard a lot of thin, newborn crying, and, once, a woman moaning. I didn't feel jealous, just hopeful that one day soon I'd be in the same bed, laboring with my own baby. Everyone was so nice. Even that RE whose opinions I mistrusted, and who wouldn't return my phone calls, gave us a friendly smile wave as we walked in. I'm such a pussy; I instantly forgave him everything and decided that if I do have IVF, I'd go with him. So ridiculous. You'd think I was an unloved child or something, desperate for affection.

Anyway, the hospital room was kind of like a hotel room, but more sterile and with hospital beds. White walls, light blue sheets, filmy white curtains, modern, well-tiled bathrooms. Nice. But the best part was the fact that you could order rooms service. And they had everything on this menu that you could get at a typical Parisian bistro: omelete, pave de boeuf, salmon, salade Nicoise, etc. Not to mention they offered 10 different types of wine, and 2 types of champagnes. Dawg and I were cracking up. Dawg swears it's a hospital for dictators and mobsters because there are always dark, expensive cars with mysterious-looking men wearing ear-pieces lounging out front. This menu confirmed this to him. (And later, when I was served dinner, we found out that the food is really quite good!)

Everything happened really fast. After I was roomed, I was told to shower with a disinfectant and pay special attention to my belly button, then dress in a hospital gown. I did, but apparently I didn't clean my navel well enough because the nurse came and redid it. Felt like she was trying to push my navel out through my back. Sheesh. After that, she gave me pills to help me to relax. I thought it would make me feel sleepy, but it didn't, just made my arms and legs feel rubbery. Then they put me on a gurney and wheeled me to the operating room. Dawg could accompany me as far as the operating room door, but then he had to stop. He told me later, he felt so sad to see me being wheeled off. It was a little weird. I felt like I was in a movie, or TV show. Even though I'd never been on a gurney before, it was oddly familiar to see the ceiling whizzing past, blurred faces in the hallway.

Everyone was all jokey with me in the operating room, and it was most efficient bunch of French people I'd ever seen. Nobody was standing around sullenly; everyone seemed to be trying to make me feel comfortable. Then the anesthesiologist strapped my arm down and hooked me up to an IV. That was a bit uncomfortable. It felt like he was injecting some ice-cold water into my veins, and even though my arm was supported by an arm-rest, it felt so heavy and cold, I could barely stand it. But, not wanting to be a wuss, I didn't complain. While all this was going on, my gynecologist, Dr. G, came in. She chatted with me briefly, then told me to imagine that I was going somewhere nice and to tell her where. I said, Hawaii (my mind was moving really slowly; I don't know why I couldn't think of somewhere closer). And she said, well, Dr. S is going to give you a nice big pina colada. And I saw a green plastic air mask hovering over my face. That's the last thing I remember.

Then, I woke up in the recovery room. Both doctors were there and the anesthesiologist said, "Tout est bien passe" but I hadn't been worried. I was just happy that I woke up. Dr. G told me that there was some old endometriosis but otherwise, I was fine. She said we'd do 3 rounds of IUI with controlled hyperstimulation, then move on to IVF.

So, that's that. Unexplained infertility.

Now I understand why Dante placed limbo in the first circle of Hell. But, unlike Dante's doomed, at least I have some hope.