Like a ghost into the fog where no one notices the contrast of white on white
End of Week 1 and first Weekend of IVF Egg Stim
This past week, R and I were watching The Bear1 and as soon as this song started playing with the episode credits, my eyes swelled with tears. Part of it was the heavy subject matter of the show (dealing with the aftermath of a suicide), part of it was the warble in the singer’s voice, part of it was the hormones. The singer’s voice was as familiar to me as my own limbs. No amount of time passing could make me forget that voice and everything it brings with it.
When I went to the bathroom to brush my teeth, I sat on the toilet seat and dug through Spotify to find this one particular song by said band. I found it and as the music ached its way out of my phone’s weak-ass speakers, I began to cry. Tears flowed heavily down my face. I didn’t want to stop listening though. This song always reminds me of my Dad. It reminds me of my childhood and listening to him sing along to the songs on this album in our house or in the car. It reminds me of who he was when I was younger; his strength, his dedication, his intellect. I was transported through time to the concert we went to that was [maybe] on a high school basketball court, hearing this song pulse through the crowd, everyone singing, and seeing my Dad’s wide, sweet smile.
I silently sob remembering that time in my life before so much changed. The song ends and I play it again. And again. And again. I am struck by how beautiful the lyrics are (the title of this post is one of them). It dawns on me that much of the music my Dad introduced me to can directly tie into the way I write, the subject matter I focus on, and the musicality of my poems. I cry more and try to brush my teeth through the salty tears.
I’ve listened the album now about fifty times in the last couple days, which is more than I’ve heard it in probably two decades. I don’t know why I fell away from listening to it. In my last newsletter I mentioned the made-up song I sing while driving in the dark. Well, that’s no exception. I sing when I make the dog’s food. I listen to music while I work, while I write, while I exercise, while I shower, and now, while I administer my shots.
Sometimes the only way for me to get through something is if there is music. In both my households growing up (Mom’s & Dad’s separately), I learned about and grew to love such a wide variety of music styles. That education (of sorts) taught me how to put many of my young-angsty emotions into songs. As I got older, I wove the poetry I wrote into chords I would play on the piano. When I’ve fallen in love, there was always a playlist. When I was hurting, there were probably fifteen playlists. When I found out that R was a musician, I wasn’t even slightly surprised. Of course the love of my life plays guitar and drums. Of course his tastes are wide ranging and eclectic. Of course we build each other playlists like love letters. Music has left a thin sheen across my entire life and all my memories.
In the interest of sharing, here are some of my public playlists on Spotify that I’ve been living in lately. I hope you enjoy my wide and strange range of tastes.
Day 4 - AM Shot
In my dream, R and I are trying to get to a climbing area by walking through a hotel or a convention center that wraps around and around and around. I eventually realize that I don’t have any of my gear and tell him we have to go back to get it. He is annoyed, but we head back. The carpet beneath our feet is red and the windows are all opaque and the same size. It feels like a maze and I just want to get out.
My eyes blink open because the little dog is running back and forth through the hallway, which always means that she needs to go out, urgently. I can feel R’s body still asleep next to me, so I slip out and get dressed to take care of her. I can’t explain it, but it feels like 4:30AM. There is something about the shade of black-blue of the sky. I tap my phone in the kitchen and it springs to life. 4:35AM. This is not something I am usually good at, but am pleased at myself for being right. I put on enough layers to keep me warm and harness the little puff as she fusses around. We walk out into the dark night and the thin cold hits my face hard. I close the door and down the stairs we go.
Whenever she has a nighttime-outside emergency, it’s always cold. It’s always dark. And she always sprints toward the grass and then fusses about where to go. Typically we speed walk about a quarter mile before she lets it happen. I love her more than anything, but it makes me crazy. She goes several times and I coo at her loving words to try to help. She finally makes her way back to me and we head inside, where she hops right into the bed and lays down against my pillow. I slip back into bed wrapping my body around her, the bigger dog, and R. Our large puddle of a family. My left hand finds my stomach. I think about our family growing, and fall back asleep, my face against her warm fur.
When the next alarm goes off, I realize I really need to get moving. I like my little routine of showering before the shot and plus I want to be clean because we have our first in-progress doctor’s appointment this morning. I barely have enough time to get everything done before I need to start work. The hectic-ness reminds me for the first day of shots, how rushed I felt. I try to tell myself to chill and slow down, but I don’t listen. I do put on a song to sing along to as I go through the process. I rush the steps and realize as I am injecting myself that I forgot to wipe my skin down with the alcohol pad. As soon as the needle is out, I am wiping it down after the fact. Probably not the best idea, but I tell myself it maybe helps. My belly hurts so I leave the ice pack on for a while after. I am both getting used to the pain and coming to expect it.
A couple hours later, R and I are in his truck heading to the doctor’s office. Outside the trees are all coated with a thin layer of snow and it is beautiful. Everything is so white it makes me squint. I should just close my blue eyes, but it’s so beautiful. I focus my tired vision closer, on a small purple flower sitting on the dashboard of the truck. The ends of the petals are bright lavender, while the parts that disappear into the stem are a deeper indigo. It’s been sitting there for some time. I try to remember when I gave him the flower, when he put it there, but it eludes me. The stamen’s yellow is paling so hard it’s nearly white. Even though the petals have held the color so nicely, I know that if I were to try and pick it up, the flower would disintegrate between my finger tips. I imagine the feeling of it turning to dust in my hands as the heat billows out of the vent onto my flushed face. I don’t try to touch it. Some things are best left alone. I close my eyes and drift in and out of the drive as a familiar song plays on the radio.
The office is crowed, but we find a pair of seats and wait. R picks up a magazine about golf and starts reading an article about the use of psilocybin in mental training. Sometimes I read articles over his shoulder, but I feel distracted today and people watch instead. Everyone in the waiting room is wearing at least one Carhartt branded clothing item. I find this amusing as probably all but one wears it for fashion over function. This transports me back to my little work college nestled in the thick woods of western North Carolina, when I worked on the Autoshop crew and we all got thick Carhartt jackets with our last names embroidered on the sleeve. I wore that jacket into the ground, but I can still see the A-Shop logo with the spark plug if I close my eyes. I can still remember the warmth of it against my skin. Those memories are close and far away and usually I don’t feel them unless a song comes at me from out of nowhere.
The nurse calls my name and breaks me out of memory. R and I stand up, and she tells him to sit back down, it’s just the blood portion and I’ll be right back out. This unnerves me, but I give him my coat and follow her back. I get lucky and she uses the smaller needle. I brace and when I feel nothing I look and the needle is already in, blood already flowing into the vial. That was incredible, I didn’t feel a thing, I say in disbelief. She tells me I can always ask for her and if she is there, she will do my bloodwork. I am grateful and head back to the waiting room. It is still full and it dawns on me that it’s probably because there were cancelled appointments from yesterday’s snow.
My name is called again and we head back to the ultrasound. The tech is the same one I had on Monday so we make small talk. We talk about the busy waiting room, the snow, and cancelled plans. Then it’s over and we are heading out. The elevator is full and R and I look at one another like we have a secret and hold hands.
Day 4 - PM Shot
The fatigue is real today. I can barely keep my eyes open throughout work. I get a call from around 1PM from a “No Caller ID” number and answer it, Hey Mom. The voice at the other end is my IVF nurse and I am so thrown off. I explain that I thought it was my mom calling since she too has an unlisted number, and we have a good laugh. My nurse tells me that I am progressing well and goes over my test results with me.
I ask her if it's a problem that I only have a few follicles in my ovaries and she assures me that everything looks normal and is progressing well. So well, that I can skip the bloodwork and ultrasound tomorrow and just go on Sunday. She also tells me that I will need to add another shot to my morning routine. This one is to prevent ovulation and I will need to take it till we get to the trigger days. The idea of injecting two needles in the morning feels weary, but honestly, what is one more? I smile as we say goodbye because it’s happening. This is all real. I wonder how many days it will take for the follicles to be big enough for retrieval. I wonder how many we will get and if it will yield enough embryos. I get lost in thought for most of the rest of the day.
After work, I go to a fitness class and it takes everything just to move my body. I can’t bend over much anymore because the ovaries are growing and it feels so uncomfortable. I sit with a friend and we chat about how it all is going. I am grateful when we are paired together for the workout. We are doing deadlifts and though I am only at 30lbs max, I up my reps. I do 3x15 at 30lbs and am momentarily sad that it’s not more weight. My friend sees my face fall and tells me that I am crushing it. I tell her, it doesn’t feel the same. True, she says, but your body is doing something amazing right now. I know she is right. I do my best to reframe and refocus. It’s still hard and I get distracted in thinking about the shot I am going to need to administer after class. The evening shot is the one that bruises the worst and burns. The dread mounting. When class is over, my watch tells me that I didn’t work that hard, but I feel wiped anyway.
After I shower, I clean the counter. It occurs to me that this is probably the cleanest this counter has ever been. The wet shine glares at me and I feel weirdly happy. It feels like it makes no sense, but there is just this bubbling happiness moving through my body. The dread of the needle is still there, but it’s relatively quiet. I put all the items on the paper towel and realize that it’s time for a new Follistim cartridge. There is still some left over in the current one but it’s not enough and I am not poking myself twice today. I message my nurse in the portal about the extra and watch the video again to make sure I load the new one properly.
The pen both does and doesn’t make self-administration easier. There is no mixing of vials and to get the right dosage you just toggle it to the correct number. The non-textured plastic makes it slippery and I have to move slow to not drop it. The needle tip is small and thin and goes into my skin easily. When I push down on the button at the end, the internal components of the pen rotate and it makes the whole thing hard to hold. I breathe slow and slow and slow. I’ve learned that once I am done administering the medication, I need to leave the needle in for another thirty seconds, otherwise some of the medication comes out with it. When it’s over R has the gauze ready and I press it against my body. Another day, another shot completed.
Day 5 - AM Shot
It is the weekend and my eyes are tight with dreams till around 5AM when my alarm goes off to take my thyroid medication. I stumble out of bed to grab my phone, quiet it, and bring it into the bedroom. I take my meds with my eyes closed. I have been doing this now for so many months, I don’t need to watch or really even think. I place the med bottle on the far side of the desk and curl back under the covers.
When the next alarm goes off at 6AM, I snooze it. 6:15AM, I snooze it. 6:30AM, I start moving. The nurse told me yesterday that this new medication I am adding in, needs to be taken before 7am. I move quickly but clumsily to the shower, knocking my shins into our constantly-overflowing recycling pile. The shower is warm, but I feel rushed today. I chastise myself for wasting time sleeping when I have a new procedure to add to the morning routine. The night before I’d read about this new shot on Reddit and the reviews were abysmal. Many women reported that the needle was much thicker which made it hard to penetrate the skin. Some inserted the medication into a different syringe with a smaller needle. Some added it to the other morning medication. I stand in the hot steam of the shower and contemplate the options. I didn’t have time to reach out to my nurse, so I decide I will just put a double ice pack on and hope for the best.
After the shower, I clean and lay everything out. I grab my computer and pull up the video for the new medication. Because the syringe is pre-filled, the process is pretty simple. Point the needle up, remove the safety cap, tap the top of the glass syringe to move the air bubbles up, compress the plunger to remove the air bubbles. Ones of the Reddit thread responses suggested wiping the needle down with an alcohol swab. I decide this is good advice, and do it. Before I inject myself I put on a song that always makes me smile and take a deep breath. The needle pushes in, my skin bowing around it. Where the other needles slide right in, this one doesn’t. It is definitely duller than the others. The skin is very numb from the ice pack, so I breathe in and push harder. It finally goes in and I can release my breath. After all the medication goes in and I remove the needle, the little hole in my skin bleeds. I clumsily ready the pre-prepped other needle while still compressing the gauze against the first injection site. Once ready, I pull the gauze away and put the other needle in. The hole from the first one weeps fluidy blood, so I move as fast as I can with the second needle. Once done, I put the gauze and the ice pack back on and hold them there for a couple minutes.
It’s all over and I notice that the song is still playing on repeat. It disappeared from my awareness through the whole process and only now am I aware of it again. The day needs to keep moving. I begin to clean up and sing along to the song on repeat. It's enough to drive you crazy if you let it…
Day 5 - PM Shot
The afternoon has other caregiving plans for me. My Dad had an ECHO test scheduled for this past Thursday, but because of the snow, it was rescheduled to today. We arrive early in a parking lot with only a couple cars scattered about. I park our vehicle facing the sun so it will be warm and comforting when we get back inside. I am tired but when he suggests we walk around before the appointment, I agree. He enjoys walking and I like when he is happy, so it’s easy to put my exhaustion aside. Plus, I always feel like I can at least walk, if nothing else. We walk around the parking lot before he decides it’s too cold and he wants to go inside instead.
The upper floor of the Heart Center is empty save for us and one person at the front desk. We check in and then walk laps around the large waiting room. It’s a large space and we get in at least five laps before he is called back. The technician doing his ECHO is the same woman that did mine back in December. In the room, she dims the lights and tells him to take off his shirt. I walked him through the whole process beforehand so nothing would come as a surprise. I hold his things and sit on a chair to the side. He is hooked up with sensors and cables and lays on his left side with his arm above his head. She begins the test, placing the wand gently against his chest. I watch him watch the screen. My eyes grow heavy. The room is warm and the tech’s presence is comforting. I know that if I sit too still, I will fall asleep. I alternate sitting up straight with crossing and uncrossing my legs. I take notes in my phone. The tiredness keeps seeping into my eyes.
See anything cool? I ask my Dad. Yeah, I love watching this, he replies. The room grows quiet again and I sink back into my exhaustion. She gets to the part of the test where his heart beat spills through the machine. I am lulled almost immediately to sleep listening to it. Fighting to keep my eyes open, I pull out my phone and record the sound of his heartbeat through the machine. I want to remember and remember and remember.
Later, R and I decide that it might be nice to do the evening shot a little early and then go for a long dog walk. I quickly ready the kitchen counter with all my meds and supplies. Grateful that it’s only one shot and not two, I move through the steps mechanically but efficiently. The bruising is worsening which makes it hard to find a spot to inject that isn’t sore, but I do my best to stay positive and make it work. I focus my tired brain on each step I need to take to move forward, and that’s enough.
Day 6 - AM Shot
When the 6AM alarm goes off, I move out of bed right away. I don’t bother waking R, letting him enjoy some extra sleep. In the shower, I sit on the floor and think about this process. The last few days have left me feeling incredibly positive and I start to wonder if maybe it’s just the hormones or maybe I am living in some dumb fantasy that this will all work out. The water pours down and over my face and I try not to look at the bulgy rolls of my stomach. The timer I set for myself goes off and it’s time to stop getting stuck in my thoughts and move.
Even though the sun is starting to peek up into the sky, our kitchen is still dark. I tell R that I am turning the lights on because our bedroom has doors that look out into the kitchen and living room. He mutters an okay, but rolls over, his face smothered in pillows. The medication has become routine. Even with the one I just started yesterday, I know what to expect and the consistency of it falls me into a kind of comfort. Shot one goes in and this time no blood. Shot two bleeds minimally and I place a bandaid over the two small puncture marks, close to one another. The clock moves to 6:59AM and I am pleased that I got it all done perfectly in time.
R finally gets up, we walk the dogs, and get in the car for the long ride down to the main office, which is about an hour away. Maybe it’s the caffeine from his coffee, but he is particularly chatty. We talk about all sorts of things and the conversation is easy. R sharing everything from work stuff to ways in which he hopes to parent our child. It reminds me of all the road trips we’ve been on. Music playing as an undercurrent to our conversation, mixing memory and the present. It almost makes me dizzy.
When we arrive at the office, they take blood from my bruised arm and send us upstairs. The waiting area is filled with couples. I know that IVF has become more and more common, and yet I still don’t have any friends who know exactly what this all feels like. I lay my head back against the seat I’m slouching in, because it’s no longer comfortable to sit up straight, and stare up. The ceiling tile reminds me of cake. I wish that I had a desire to eat. But I don’t. I am not hungry at all.
I wonder how much I can layer into myself. I wonder how sweet will this all really be. I wonder if there is a line for giving up, and where it might lay. They call us back for the ultrasound and I leave all my thoughts on the ceiling.
Day 6 - PM Shot
Earlier in the afternoon, the nurse had called to say that everything is growing well and to keep doing what I am doing. She tells me that I should still come in for my appointment tomorrow, and I say okay. I feel proud of myself for doing everything right, for my body to be responding, for a chance at all of this.
As I setup for the evening shot, I start singing along to a song. I keep returning to music as a way to take the bad emotions out of this little exercise. Like the music clears the stress and fear, and I can just focus on the steps and getting the job done. The evening shot goes smoothly, and R tells me he is impressed with me. Sometimes you just do what you have to do, I say. He shakes his head, yeah, sure, but you had such a phobia of needles and look how you worked through that. You do these so well, it’s really cool to see you grow like this. I’m really proud of you. I smile at him.
In the beginning, I had the intention of giving myself gifts or doing something nice for myself after the shots, but it didn’t exactly work out. I didn’t have time or energy to do another thing after the shots. The shot being done was the gift. The music during it is the gift. The process is the gift. I feel a swell of pride that I am doing this. That I keep doing this. That I am less scared and more proud of myself. Even though there have been many ups and downs, this feels like things are moving forward, like there is a real direction here. It feels, finally, like I am moving onward and through.
I will have more on Days 7-9 soon. Thank you for being on this journey with me.
Light and love,
Emma
Re: The Bear - I know I am late to this party but, if you haven’t seen it, race to Hulu and watch it. Like right now. I don’t think I’ve seen a better show in… maybe ever. Every single thing about it, from the dialogue to the cinematography to the character development and beyond, completely blew me away. It is hard at moments, but what a gift.