This time of year always brings conflicting emotions for me. On the one hand, I absolutely love the Christmas season. I love the fact that I can enjoy a Christian holiday with quasi-pagan traditions and can be secretly more excited about the changing of seasons than I am about anything else. I can enjoy family traditions and shoveling the driveway, we fluff the tree and hang lights on the bushes, it's all very festive and wonderfully cozy. The problem, for me, is this little holiday called Thanksgiving, in which we completely overindulge on tons of food and try and act like we're thankful for things after throwing half the food away because we can. It's really just a thorn because Thanksgiving causes people to get uppity about when you are and are not allowed to put up your Christmas tree or listen to Christmas music. People will flood Facebook with their righteous indignation upon seeing a Christmas display at the mall or Target because that's what Thanksgiving is for, getting pissed about Christmas being celebrated too early.
Basically all of this boils down to Thanksgiving being a terrible holiday. For one, if we need a holiday to remind us to be thankful for things then we're already screwed. For two, it's predicated on a ridiculous story about native people sharing with inept and intrusive Europeans who would later kill and steal form them all in the name of god and country. This is a great holiday. Let's remember to be thankful for all of that killing and stealing. Besides, Thanksgiving comes courtesy of some of the worst culinary inventions in history. What other time of the year is a dinner table graced with the presence of Green Been Casserole, Yams and Cranberries of which you are expected to mash all together and eat with something approximating pleasure. I don't understand these things so mostly I just eat rolls and quietly sit through dinner. I'm probably also shaking my head a lot and making rude comments, but that's beside the point.
The point is that Christmas is a far superior celebration than anything Thanksgiving can ever hope to muster out of it's sad revisionist history and apocryphal story telling. Mind you, I'm not referring to Coca-Cola-commercialized-spend-to-your-absolute-limit-and-then-some-Christmas. I'm talking about candle light midnight church service in which you sing carols and tell stories. I'm talking about early morning breakfast that is both simple and wonderful all at once. I'm talking about sharing gifts and lives and time and board games and general merriment involving good beer and conversation. There's snow on the ground, it's pleasantly cold out, hot cocoa abounds and you can simply sit and be with people instead of feeling rushed by the next day's shopping extravaganza. Life can take a break and you have a moment to breathe and relax and just be. Why should I wait until after Thanksgiving to be excited about that?
Bottom line: Thanksgiving misses out on being the worst holiday only because Columbus Day is, inexplicably, still a real thing...yay European imperialism.
X-Mas 4 Life
Thursday, November 24, 2011
Saturday, November 5, 2011
Because Sometimes the Magic Doesn't Happen In the Bedroom...It Happens In a Lab
There are few things in life that garner praises of perfection. My partner's uterus is one of them. I was under the impression that I'd been intimately aware of my partner's reproductive system for some time now. Apparently not so true. Thus we found ourselves beginning our first fertility treatment. Part three of the continuing saga in which I become a man required that I first understood a fraction of what it means to be a woman. It also required that my sperm take devastating hits to its self-esteem because that builds character, or something.
The moment that I realized this was actually happening was when my partner returned home to report on her first "monitoring session." As she began recounting the experience I was swiftly waylaid by something called an internal ultrasound. I was under the impression that ultrasounds only happen outside the body and require an instrument that looks something like a defibrillator paddle. Why in the hell would you want to stick something like that inside a person? I was assured the instrument was a bit more stream-lined. So, she goes in for this vag-o-gram and apparently passes with flying colors. And I quote, "Oh Kelly! Oh my! Oh Kelly! You just have the most beautiful uterus! I ought to take a picture of that and frame it to put up on my wall! Textbook perfect!" The, "Oh Kelly"'s were uttered in a breathy orgasmic tone; apparently the nurse was very enthusiastic, which I guess is a good thing seeing as one problem is more than enough. All the while my poor deformed sperm were sinking deeper into despair. They're textbook too, just of a different variety. Not only are they under-performing, come with at least two tails and few in numbers, but now they had to deal with the shame of entering a perfect uterus in order to do their job. It wasn't looking good.
In a show of support and solidarity we decided I should probably witness this vag-o-gram for myself, not least because this was really all my fault. And mind you, I wasn't expecting this to be any kind of a picnic. I've had doctors' hands up my anus. I understand uncomfortable. I was woefully unprepared for what came next. Before things started the nurse pulled out the the vag-o-wand which resembled a miniature mace sans spikes. Fear level was about a 3. It took me a minute or two to realize that this thing was going inside my partner's body. Fear level rose to a 7. As the actual vag-o-gramming began the fear level spiked and I quickly became concerned that the nurse was damaging the one thing that was healthy and going to allow us to have kids. That thought was replaced by astonishment at the actual range of motion the nurse was getting out of her inserted vag-o-wand which was again replaced by fear. So there I sat, in mixed horror and fascination, trying to make out anything other than gray matter on the TV screen set up for our convenience. By the way, I'm still not convinced anyone can see anything on those things. There is literally nothing to see. I'm operating under the assumption that the nurses are just making things up until such time as we manage a successful pregnancy.
So anyway, a number of these "monitoring sessions" and a shot in the stomach later (which I administered whilst groggy sometime around midnight thank you very much), we were back at the office preparing for our first IUI. IUI stands for Intrauterine Insemination, which, obviously. Essentially what happens is they turkey baster the sperm past the cervix (which is where most sperm go to die) and right into the uterus. The hope is that the sperm won't need to do much to successfully find and penetrate the egg that will be happily falling down the ole' Fallopian tube any minute. In addition to this express train into the uterus, they put the sperm through a wash which is basically a glorified tilt-a-whirl ride with chemicals that leaves only the best and brightest behind. I had a bad feeling when the nurse came in and informed us we would need to sign an extra consent as my sperm numbers were lower than is usually considered satisfactory for an IUI round. I, of course, was cursing my partner's perfect uterus and Nurse Uteran-Orgasm for dropping the guilt hammer on my poorly performing seed.
About two weeks later we got our results: negative. We were kind of expecting it though hoping for the best. After the IUI we had looked up statistics on how effective this was supposed to be and essentially halved it because of the added consent form we signed which basically told us this is not going to be successful. The one positive that came out of it was that our insurance accepted the doctor's recommendations to move on to IVF which I guess we can thank my bogus sperm for seeing as they turned in an absolutely abysmal performance. So now we're gearing up for an all together different and exponentially more intense experience trying to get pregnant; one in which my partner will be transformed into a walking pharmacy and we brace for the possibility of wildly outrageous hormonal reactions. I'm sure I'll be displaying couvade-like symptoms through all of this as well so it could also result in the end of all living things on Earth. For now, excuse me as I go and shove a needle in her stomach. Practice makes perfect.
The moment that I realized this was actually happening was when my partner returned home to report on her first "monitoring session." As she began recounting the experience I was swiftly waylaid by something called an internal ultrasound. I was under the impression that ultrasounds only happen outside the body and require an instrument that looks something like a defibrillator paddle. Why in the hell would you want to stick something like that inside a person? I was assured the instrument was a bit more stream-lined. So, she goes in for this vag-o-gram and apparently passes with flying colors. And I quote, "Oh Kelly! Oh my! Oh Kelly! You just have the most beautiful uterus! I ought to take a picture of that and frame it to put up on my wall! Textbook perfect!" The, "Oh Kelly"'s were uttered in a breathy orgasmic tone; apparently the nurse was very enthusiastic, which I guess is a good thing seeing as one problem is more than enough. All the while my poor deformed sperm were sinking deeper into despair. They're textbook too, just of a different variety. Not only are they under-performing, come with at least two tails and few in numbers, but now they had to deal with the shame of entering a perfect uterus in order to do their job. It wasn't looking good.
In a show of support and solidarity we decided I should probably witness this vag-o-gram for myself, not least because this was really all my fault. And mind you, I wasn't expecting this to be any kind of a picnic. I've had doctors' hands up my anus. I understand uncomfortable. I was woefully unprepared for what came next. Before things started the nurse pulled out the the vag-o-wand which resembled a miniature mace sans spikes. Fear level was about a 3. It took me a minute or two to realize that this thing was going inside my partner's body. Fear level rose to a 7. As the actual vag-o-gramming began the fear level spiked and I quickly became concerned that the nurse was damaging the one thing that was healthy and going to allow us to have kids. That thought was replaced by astonishment at the actual range of motion the nurse was getting out of her inserted vag-o-wand which was again replaced by fear. So there I sat, in mixed horror and fascination, trying to make out anything other than gray matter on the TV screen set up for our convenience. By the way, I'm still not convinced anyone can see anything on those things. There is literally nothing to see. I'm operating under the assumption that the nurses are just making things up until such time as we manage a successful pregnancy.
So anyway, a number of these "monitoring sessions" and a shot in the stomach later (which I administered whilst groggy sometime around midnight thank you very much), we were back at the office preparing for our first IUI. IUI stands for Intrauterine Insemination, which, obviously. Essentially what happens is they turkey baster the sperm past the cervix (which is where most sperm go to die) and right into the uterus. The hope is that the sperm won't need to do much to successfully find and penetrate the egg that will be happily falling down the ole' Fallopian tube any minute. In addition to this express train into the uterus, they put the sperm through a wash which is basically a glorified tilt-a-whirl ride with chemicals that leaves only the best and brightest behind. I had a bad feeling when the nurse came in and informed us we would need to sign an extra consent as my sperm numbers were lower than is usually considered satisfactory for an IUI round. I, of course, was cursing my partner's perfect uterus and Nurse Uteran-Orgasm for dropping the guilt hammer on my poorly performing seed.
About two weeks later we got our results: negative. We were kind of expecting it though hoping for the best. After the IUI we had looked up statistics on how effective this was supposed to be and essentially halved it because of the added consent form we signed which basically told us this is not going to be successful. The one positive that came out of it was that our insurance accepted the doctor's recommendations to move on to IVF which I guess we can thank my bogus sperm for seeing as they turned in an absolutely abysmal performance. So now we're gearing up for an all together different and exponentially more intense experience trying to get pregnant; one in which my partner will be transformed into a walking pharmacy and we brace for the possibility of wildly outrageous hormonal reactions. I'm sure I'll be displaying couvade-like symptoms through all of this as well so it could also result in the end of all living things on Earth. For now, excuse me as I go and shove a needle in her stomach. Practice makes perfect.
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