I Know I’m Double-Posting And I Hate Double-Posting Almost As Much As I Hate Double-Denim. But I Am On Hormones So If You Have A Problem With This I Will Personally Come Over And Wee On Your Front Door Mat.

I spent the day meowing showtunes.

It sounds odd but I swear to God, replacing song lyrics with meowing is *the* most therapeutic thing you can ever do. Go on. Try it. My recommendations for beginners are Jolene, bohemian Rhapsody and the theme music to Jaws. The more advanced can try showtunes like Oh What A Beautiful Morning, I Could Have Danced All Night, Phantom Of The Opera, and the Time Warp. The higher pitched, the better.

Strangely the dog totally ignores my supersonic meowing, and the cat looks at me like ‘you just called my mother a whore. I will bite your face off while you sleep.’

So, while jacked up on 450 units of Gonal-F per day, for 14 days, which is approximately enough hormones to kill an average sized elephant, I resorted to the highest of high-pitched meowing. It’s a better option than homicide.

So last night lying in bed with James:

Me: Meow-meow, meow-meow, meow-meow, meow-MEOW-OW-OW…
James: Stop meowing Jolene.
Me: If I meow the high-pitched parts of Bohemian Rhapsody, will you back me up with the low-pitched parts? Like the Galileo Galileo bit?
James: No.
Me: *meows Scaramouche-Scaramouche will you do the Fandango with such gusto that I let out a fart*
James: You are an embarrassment.
Me: If I get out of bed and get you a caramel swirl ice cream, will you meow?
*silence*
Me: A high-pitched meow? Just one?
*silence*
James: How high-pitched?
Me: High as you can go.
*silence*
James: Meow

And so I hauled my arse out of bed when it was so cold that the tears nearly froze on my cheeks, and I had to stop, doubled over, stop laughing long enough to go a few more steps. Worth it. So very, very worth it.

Sometimes, I just Wish I Could See. It’s Not Too Much To Ask.

So James had to fill in the paperwork for my egg retrieval:

James: What is your title?
Me: Timelord.
James: Miss, Mrs, Mz.
Me: Timelord.
James: I’m not putting that.
Me: And leave the name part blank. Obviously. Put that or I’ll dye my hair TARDIS blue. And my eyebrows to match.
James: No.
Me: And I’ll get a TARDIS tattoo on my arse.
James: I put Mrs and now I’ve moved on to your address.
Me: Ruiner.

If You’re Not Living On The Edge, You’re Taking Up Too Much Space

So I had to go in for yet *another* blood test to make sure that I have more hormones in my blood than alcohol. Or something like that.

And I got up and dressed all by myself and went and had the test like a big-girl, and came home and was sitting at the bench when James came home for lunch:

James: Have you already done the test?
Me: Yes I went in this morning.
James: *reaches forward and I think he’s going to rub noses Eskimo style but he picks at my jumper*
Me: What was that?
James: A Coco Pop on your jumper.
Me: *hangs head*
James: *reaches out and lifts my chin… and picks at my neck*
Me: What?
James: That was another one. On your bare skin. Did you go in to do the test like that?
Me: no?
James: Really?
Me: No?

So, no more Coco Pops.

But having Coco Pops at the arse crack of dawn gave me a whopping headache, and then when I reached up on the fridge to get panadeine, there were two boxes that felt about the same. Ah. We bought cat worming tablets on the weekend. Surely cat worming tablets can’t be that harmful to humans. Surely. They have worming tablets for humans, they’re probably exactly the same. Probably. There’s a 50/50 chance I’ll soon find out.

At least I had the tablet after the blood test. If they found cat worming tablets in my blood *and* Coco Pops stuck to my jumper, there’s no way I could show my face at that pathology centre again. Ever.

Killing Hormone Time.

Me: outside is dangerous, you know.
James: I’ve never met anyone who hates being outside more than you do.
Me: I’m super special. If I was in the FBI I’d be Super-Special Agent Taylor
James: You’re certainly something…
Me: I went outside to water the plants and walked through a spider web.
James: A web is not dangerous.
Me: But there *could* have been a spider in it so I started hitting myself in the face trying to kill any spiders and get rid of the web.
James: *silent*
Me: And then I realised that it wasn’t actually a web, it was a stray strand of hair that blew across my face. It hurt when I tugged at it.
James: More than hitting yourself in the face?
Me: Anyway so now I’m just going to let all the plants die. It’s not worth the risk.

And then I went back into my office to keep working and found that Bobcat had challenged Frankie to the Ultimate Farting Championship Heavyweight Title. A giant cat farting on the desk in front of me, a giant dog farting on the floor behind me. We’re never feeding either of them ever again. I think they were trying to gas me out so Frankie could jump on the computer and look up porn and Bobcat could google a good therapist.

Inside can be just as dangerous as outside, people.

One More, And I’ll Stab You While You’re Sleeping.

So I’m carrying around several lemons in my ovaries and it’s not very comfortable. I am the home of the giant follicle, and with another 36 hours to go before retrieval I’m considering downing a bottle of rubbing alcohol, grabbing the fruit knife and getting those suckers outta there myself. They’re getting so big I think they are planning to stage a coup and take over my entire body.

It’s not uncomfortable. No more ‘uncomfortable’ than applying a hot iron to one’s face would be. It’s fucking painful and if this was a perfect world then I would get to lie on a big white bed and have mignons bring me grapes and panadeine forte and strawberry milkshakes all day long and I wouldn’t ever have to waddle around with a gut full of lemons. Seriously, these follicles are like 5cm each. Baby lemons, yes, but if you want to argue the point with me then I will come over and wee on your front door mat out of pure frustration. They hurt.

And there’s just no exercising with these bastards in there. It’s like the Germans have invaded and are fucking everything up. As Germans are wont to do. I tried doing star jumps and managed one before I doubled over. Then I just decided to do the arm movements instead of the jumping as well, and ended up like a wind turbine. A council officer came over and asked to see my permit. So I’m giving up on exercising for a few days. But then I’ll get fat. Fuck you, Germans.

And then, James started saying the wrong thing. Everything anyone says at the moment is the wrong thing, granted, but really?

Me: My ovaries hurt. These giant follicles are killing me.
James: You remind me of the crayfish I caught as a kid, with their tails full of eggs.
Me: That was not the right thing to say, asshole.
James: Don’t worry. I always threw those ones back.

Quickly followed up just minutes later by:

Me: *dangling my foot in front of James’ face* Do you like my new slippers?
James: They sure are purple.
Me: Are they?
James: Yup. With a black sole with a blue ‘Bonds’ written on it. See? A black soul. Just like yours.

It’s pretty mean of him. I think he’s got some German in his heritage. He’s certainly got some stupid in his heritage. When I get my physical prowess back, I’m going to beat him like a Salvation Army drum.

NB: I don’t actually have anything against Germans. Well, besides a couple of bigarse wars. And them hating on Jewish people. And that smug look Germans always have. Don’t they always look just so fucking smug? And they need more vowels in their language. Can’t understand a fucking word. Like they’re talking with marbles in their mouths. Hmmm. Turns out I don’t like Germans much at all. I’m sure the modern ones are perfectly nice. When they’ve got that fucking smug look off their faces. I’m just angry. Maybe I have some German in my heritage.

IVF Drugs Don’t Make you Put On Weight. Drinking Four Strawberry Milkshakes In One Day Does.

So I started wondering if there is any clinical basis for IVF drugs to make me put on weight. I like to be prepared. Like, for the end of the world if possible. I have a zombie survival plan. Enough said.

And turns out that none of the drugs have any caloric or metabolic influence at all. *gasp* controversy. It’s just that they make you feel shit and that makes people comfort eat. Hello four strawberry milkshakes – without ice cream – in one day. Which still gave me chronic belly pains and I appeared to be randomly grimacing at people all day. Awkward.

Also, most people don’t want to exercise when they feel shit so strawberry milkshakes + couch = putting on weight. Strawberry milkshakes also = brings all the boys to the yard. And they’re all like, it’s better than yours. Damn right, it’s better than yours. I can teach you. But I’d have to charge.

Ahem.

I haven’t put on any weight. All these IVF drugs, and not a single gram. I like to be all pious and proud of being lean and fit and strong… but if I could eat chocolate or donuts or cakes or ice cream or lollies then it would totally be a different story. But all those things upset my tummy because of Irritable Bowel Syndrome, and combined with the rampaging effects of the hormones on my tender tummy it’s pretty much like having hormone induced involuntary bulimia.

And the exercise. Oh, the exercise. I workout like a military operative, fuelled by pure anxiety. I’m not sure it’s entirely normal to do 750 jabs, 750 upper cuts, 750 military punches, 750 knees, 1200 star jumps, 150 butt lifts and eight minutes of skipping every night. But it helps. Every little bit helps. Helps with the anxiety, helps keep my weight down, helps clear my head. Although now I have to go and see my physio because my knee keeps aching. I’m getting old. Either that or it’s going to rain.

My point is, I really like strawberry milkshakes. My other point is, this whole thing is a mind game. You can’t win or lose this game, you can just get through it however you can, whatever it takes.

Sometimes I get by with a little help from my friends. As in, I was complaining about my nasal spray causing massive hot flushes, oh my god why the fuck is it so hot in here? And she says ‘that must be like snorting cocaine. You’re like Lindsay Lohan, you’re going to have to get your nose fixed, that bit in the middle there.’ Which made me snort my tea out that very same nose. Sometimes you just need someone else to point out the funny side to you.

And sometimes, I don’t do very well at it. At all. Here’s an email I sent James:

‘Fuck you. I had to go out and fill up the dog food container because you are too fucked up to manage it. Fuck you.’

Y’all already knew I’m a bad person, right?

And then I feel bad for being mean and I am going to have to help thousands of old ladies across the road to equal out this bad karma but the sad thing is, being blind I’m probably not going to be very good at it so the headline would be ‘Kind Act Results In Death Of Hundreds’ and then A Current Affair would track me down and bang on my door wanting to know why I drag old ladies onto the road in front of cars and then I’d have to move out of my street because none of the neighbours would want anything to do with me and would throw eggs at my house and I’d have to move to Queensland because that’s where everyone leaving Ramsay Street seems to move to. Not that I am so low-brow as to watch soapies. Did you see that Steffi married Liam on the Bold and the Beautiful? I’d totally have to knock off killing old people on local roads at 4.30pm every day to catch The Bold. Maybe I could invite the survivors over to watch it and have a cuppa and a gluten free biscuit. Or a strawberry milkshake.

It’s not easy being on IVF meds. And oh my god why the fuck is it so hot in here?

Baby, I Know It

A whole week on Syneral. Oh, the headaches. Someone sedate me, please, I am psychotic again and moodiness just isn’t moodiness without randomly screaming ‘why can’t I get Barry fucking Manilow on this radio?’

Anyway. I think James is looking for something to put me to sleep. Not just for the night, either. The kind of sleep that’s followed by a funeral…

James: Myyyyy… way… to… the… danger zone…
Me: It’s ‘Highway,’ dickhead, not ‘my way.’
James: It’s ‘my way.’
Me: It’s ‘highway.’ There is only one way. It’s not like you’ve put ‘the danger zone’ into our satnav and its asked ‘do you want the shortest route to the danger zone, or the route with the best roads?’ There is only one way. The highway.
James: It’s ‘my way.’
Me: No, ‘My Way to the Danger Zone’ sounds like Frank Sinatra singing Danger Zone. And I’m pretty sure Frank Sinatra never felt the need.
James: The need?
Me: The need… for speed.
James: Google it.
Me: Fine. *googles* ha, dickhead, it is highway. Don’t try to fuck with a Top Fun fan.
James: I don’t even care.
Me: I know why.
James: Mmm?
Me: You never close your eyes… anymore when I kis your lips.
James: I know what you’re doing.
Me: And there’s no tenderness, like before, in your finger tips.
James: Please stop.
Me: You’re trying hard not to show it… but baby. Baby, I kno-ow it…
James: Here we fucking go.
Me: You’ve lost that lovin’ feeling… whoa-oh that looooovin’ feeling… you’ve lost that lovin’ feeling now it’s gone, gone, gone, whoa-oh-oh-oh.

And at that point James left the room, so I had to sing extra loud in case he couldn’t hear me any more and then I followed him around the house singing that he’s got no lovin’ feeling but then I tripped over the cat. And stopped singing.

But if I ever had to choose a wingman? It would totally be James.

Bribing Ovaries Is Harder Than It looks

So I’ve started my nasal spray for a down regulation cycle and you’d think that the whole ‘point-and-spray’ of a nasal spray would be super easy. Last night I missed my nostril all together and squirted it up the side of my face and into my eye. And started panicking that it would burn my eyeball out or leave my cheek hideously scarred. It took a good thirty seconds of frantic rinsing to realise that if the spray was that dangerous, they probably wouldn’t get me to spray it up my nose. Thank you, logic, for your late arrival. The situation wasn’t even covered in the little sheet that comes with it. I’m that clumsy, I require medical fact sheets to be re-written.

My point is, don’t give clumsy people medication that requires co-ordination. Needles are fine, my biggest worry there is having to do them so early in the morning that I haven’t woken up properly and I accidentally inject the cat. Who is currently leaving so much hair on my carpet that I’m thinking of cutting out the middle man and just vacuuming him. But every time I even look at him with the turbo head in my hand, he gives me this ‘bring it, bitch’ flick of the tail which means it’s on like Donkey Kong. I’m all like ‘oh yes I will’ and he’s all like ‘oh no you won’t or I’ll wee on the iPad’ and I’m all like ‘go ahead, loser, it’s James’ iPad not mine’ and then he’s all like ‘fine then I’ll get into your top draw again and bat all your tampons up and out and all over the house for your visitors to find in strange places’ and so I lose to the cat. Again.

Anyway. I’m too clumsy for nasal spray. Hell, I own plastic glasses because I’m too clumsy to have nice glass glasses. It’s not my fault though, because I have some kind of Munchausen’s by Proxy which makes me inflict pain on inanimate objects for sympathy. True story.

So I thought I could just try and work up a sweet deal instead of all the meds this time, but then the following conversation took place, possibly entirely in my own mind, and looks like the nasal spray is the only option:

My ovaries: Oh Lord, won’t you buy me, a Mercedes Be-enz…
Me: Are you trying to bribe me?
My Ovaries: My friends all drive porches…
Me: They do not.
My Ovaries: I must make a-mends. Worked hard all my lifetime…
Me: No you have not. You’ve done the opposite. You’ve worked un-hard all your lifetime. That’s why we’re doing IVF. Because you are lazy as, and can’t be arsed producing follicles.
My Ovaries: Maybe we would if we had a little incentive.
Me: A Mercedes Benz?
My Ovaries: Exactly.
Me: How about the next verse? A colour TV? Look, we bought you one. A shiny 54” plasma. For you.
My Ovaries: That’s not for us. You’ve had it for ages. You have to buy us something.
Me: It’s not for me. I’m blind. What the hell do I want with a giant TV? I’d be perfectly happy with one of those portable black and white tellys.
My Ovaries: We’re going to consult our union on this.
Me: Oh don’t start that shit again.
My ovaries: We have poor working conditions.
Me: that would be really bad. If you ever did any work. We both know you’re too lazy to take any industrial action.
My Ovaries: Not true. We already went online and ordered some miniature placards off vista print.
Me: Ho-ly shit. You’re staging a picket line in my abdomen.
My Ovaries: Pay up, bitch.
Me: or what?
My Ovaries: We’ll hold all your eggs hostage.
Me: uh, dudes, that’s pretty much what you’ve been doing anyway.
My Ovaries: Oh. Right. Well. We’ll release them one at a time until our demands are met.
Me: Which is like a 100 per cent performance increase.
My ovaries: You’re not making this easy.
Me: I don’t negotiate with terrorists. Get back to work.
My Ovaries: *sigh* okay. Fine. What-ev. Talk to the hand.
Me: You don’t have hands.
My Ovaries: This is discrimination.
Me: If you had tiny little hands, then maybe I could grease your palms with a little pay off.
My Ovaries: And we could use them to flip you the bird. Or do lines of cocaine.
Me: you guys are like Charlie Sheen meets Robert Downey Junior.
My Ovaries: Now all we need is those hands and some teeny tiny prostitutes in here.
Me: I’ll buy you a Mercedes if you shut up now.
*silence*

Yes? That’s A Converted Meth Lab In My Backyard?

So I’ve been taking a couple of dumbarse natural-therapy Style supplements that are supposed to improve egg quality. I think they are probably made from soil carted out of Fukashima and sold real cheap, but there is some solid empirical research and scientific data supporting it… so… sucker I am.

I’m taking royal jelly, which is, essentially, bee poo. It’s special bee poo, though. Worker bee’s secretion used to build special little homes for potential Queen Bees. And I am nothing if not the Queeniest of Queen Bees as anyone who has seen me throw a full blown tantrum can attest. Though it’s probably burned a great big repressive hole through their memory, so no point asking them.

I’m also taking co-enzyme Q10 which has way more scientific basis than the bee poo. Y’all know that honey is bee spew, right? It’s literally regurgitated nectar? Just thought I’d throw that in. Anyway. The Q10 bottle says ‘can infrequently cause severe nausea, stomach upset, or diarrhoea.’

Yep.

I got it all. The triumvirate.

Fuck you, Q10. I’m better off with bee poo.

Luckily, we have a toilet fan and a bathroom fan. Double fan it, people. Double fan it.

Then I took a break from sitting on the loo to get a load of washing done and, I was on the phone at the same time, in the laundry, and has to actually say ‘I have to go now, the cat is scratching around so loudly in his litter box I can’t hear you properly.’ And then the smell hit me and it was like being hit in the face with a poo. ‘Whoa, dude,’ I told the cat, ‘gold star for trying, but that thing is so big you couldn’t bury it if you had a miniature backhoe and six pallbearers in there.’

If only his little paws could reach the switch for the fan.

So I added Gastrostop to my morning tablets. One birth control pill, to level out hormones, one tablet for hypothyroidism, one Elevit, one bee poo, one Q10, and one Gastrostop.

This is insane.

But when I think about it… I’m really good at making things. DIY all the way. Hell, I could do my own pap smear with just two paddle pop sticks and a swab if I had to, my friends. I make my own bread, and I make… well making my own bread is enough, surely. Point is, I make stuff. So why not set up a little DIY pill factory in my backyard? It can’t be that hard, surely. Rednecks and Bogans do it all the time. Sure they blow themselves up and set fire to their houses a lot… but… well I can get James to do the dangerous bits.

Yes, a little pill press in the backyard would certainly go on the real estate ad if we ever decided to sell. DIY Baby Factory. For making babies. Oh shit that makes it sound like a whorehouse. Or a factory where babies work. No, that just wouldn’t be right. Their hands are only tiny, they’d keep stuffing up the Nike stitching, and I’d have to keep going out there yelling at them to try harder. Man, owning a baby factory is hard work.

But I will put a double-fan out there. Just in case.

Then I Saved A Litter Of Kittens. True Story.

Husbands put up with loads of shit during fertility treatment. Like hormonal women threatening to set their pillowcases on fire why they sleep. What? That’s only me? Oh. Okay then.

Anyway.

I thought I’d do something nice for James.

So I cleaned the shower.

Because I had a really bad headache, and took three aspirin. Then I had a shower. Which normally makes me feel better. Then I decided to shave my legs. And instead of feeling better, I freaked out that if I nicked my calf then my blood would be really thin from all the aspirin and I’d bleed out. Right there in the shower. And James would come home and find me dead on the shower floor and go ‘I knew she’d find some numb-arsed way to die’ and then he’d have to think up some story to tell the ambulance officers to make up for my embarrassing cause of death. Preferably a heroic story involving me trying to save an old lady, a newborn baby and a litter of kittens. People love other people who save kittens. I’m not sure why I’d have a litter of kittens in my bathroom though. Or the old lady and newborn baby, come to think of it. Anyway, that’s James’ problem. Well, it *would* have been, but then I realised that the ambulance officers would come in and go ‘Such a tragic way for a young lady to die, saving all those kittens in her bathroom. But don’t worry mate, it’s not that much of a loss,’ he would say as he patted James on the shoulder. ‘She didn’t even keep the shower clean. Look, there’s scum all under where the soap sits on the shelf.’ So to save James the embarrassment of all of that, I leapt out of the shower, grabbed the Shower Power and the cloth, scrubbed it all clean, and decided to get my legs waxed instead.

See what I did there? I took my anxiety-driven catastrophising and turned it into a present.

You’re welcome, James.