Betrayed by my own body

I have been betrayed by my own body. At least thats how it feels. This infertility testing is awful. It feels so surreal to walk into the clinic, all shiny with marble and stupid classical music playing softly in the background. There is a large flat panel screen in the wall playing scenes of marine fish and birds and the ocean. It does not feel relaxing, it simply feels patronizing. No one looks at each other, the nurse/receptionist just shuffles you through the paperwork, you sit. You sit and wait, wait for your name to be called to do whatever stupid thing they want you to do, give blood, take a physical, drop off a cup with semen in it. Whatever. And the Dr. He's a hoot. I assume he's good, my Ob/gyn recommended him and she's good, so I am trusting her judgement, I hope thats the right thing to do. He has dark slicked back hair, and he wears v-neck scrubs that shows his dark chest hair, bleh. oh and his gold chain. He's not all ostentatious really he just seems kinda cheesy. He speaks very softly, not certain if thats because he is trying to be "sensitive" or if you can hear right through the walls in his clinic, probably a little of both. We sat in this consultation room waiting for him to come and speak to us. theres a model of the uterus sitting on the table, all marked up from pens, like he's pointed to the same spots a million times. I"m certain he has. I thought about A&P lab, and how I would love to take that model in to show the students just what we DON'T want our models to look like. I figure he must not care since he's the one doing it. and he can buy about a bazillion more models from the looks of how many people are struggling to have children.

So many people. you just float in and out of the clinic, again, not looking at each other. and you smile and do what you're told, and all the while every one of us (at least I assume) is really wanting to break down and cry. Now, I don't know whats wrong with us yet. I don't know if its me, or him, or if its permanent or if its temporary. Whatever it is you just feel like a failure. I walked out of that f-ing clinic the other day and just felt numb. thoughts racing through my head.

"Is it me?"
"Is it him?"
"why us?"
"I absolutely hate this"
"biology is all about reproducing, and I can't seem to get that one biological act done."
"my body was made to hold and give life. Why won't it?"
"What good will my body be if it can't?"
"Why do I have to go through this?"

I walked back to my car, and just started crying, no, sobbing. I sobbed those big audible sobs, the kind that you just can't keep in. They have to be heard. You have to let it pour out. I rememberd back to all those times I had cramps, and hated wearing pads, and finally moved on to tampons (thank God for progress) and just in general hated that once a month interruptor. the once a month reminder of how great you feel when you don't have cramps ripping out your uterus. The once a month reminder (for me anyway) that god had made me a woman, and my body is meant to carry a child. meant to give life, to carry the one true miracle that people take part in. I've always had a deep connection with the essential female-ness of child bearing and motherhood. I've always wanted to be a mother. While the thought scares the daylights out of me, it also invokes in me a deep rooted feeling of necessity. I feel the need to have children. I want to have children, I want to bear a child. I don't know if that is how other women feel, but I know I do. Maybe it's societal programming, but I don't think so. I think its all biology. I think its all nature. It's one of the few things that still connects us to the earth and the other living things on this earth. For all our technology, we still cannot figure out where when or how the spark of life occurs. we only know it does, and we know it happens in a womb.

I'm supposed to go in for hormonal bloodwork on day 3 of my cycle then a sonogram on day 5 or 6. well my body has decided to menstruate while I am out of town. I've started but not heavily and the days are ticking away. I will have to wait another month to find out what is wrong with us. I can't do this. I can't go another month. I dont' know why, I've gone this long, whats one more month. I guess its that one more month of feeling like a damn rat in a lab. Thinking and thinking, waiting and waiting. Hopeing and praying, wishing and wondering. If I didn't already completely hate my body, well, just one more reason. *sigh*

a bit of randomness

Hello everyone out there in Blogland, here are few events of the day:

1. Caught 3 Sigmodon hispidus and 1 Peromyscus this morning. all in all 6% trap success, 6 rodents in 104 traps (2 trap nights)

2. I got a "100 grand" bar out of the vending machine today by accident, I meant to get the butterfinger crunch bar. However the 100 grand (its been a long time since I've had one of those) was extremely satisfying. cruncy chocolatey outside with lots of chewy caramel inside. yum! and what better way to wash down my lunch than with a diet Dr. Pepper. the stuff of legends.

3. Every time I listen to a book rep tout the book, I am sold. I try to stay impartial, but I'm pretty sold. I guess we'll see what happens tomorrow when I have 2 book reps coming to push 3 books. hmmmmm cause right now, its Bauman all the way!

Ok. well must run to class. more later.

-the fox.

Lent

Lent has begun. I didn't even make it a week.

I decided to give up the customary Candy for lent, but not only that, oh no. I decided to give up what I had termed, "extraneous sugar" meaning anything that had high amounts of sugar that were not necessary. Avoidable sugar in other words. Things like candy, cakes, cookies, soda, pie, donuts, ice cream, etc..... I can have diet soda, no extra sugar, and I can have items that don't contain sugar like savory items. I knew it would be hard, I have a sweet tooth the size of, well of, well of Texas I suppose (can't believe I just said that). I am a
candy-holic. And lately I had been turning to cookies as well. So anyway, I've been pretty strong, and in fact yesterday I was over t family's house and we had coffee and they pulled out the cookies. I was sitting right in between two containers of cookies, sweet Jesus! I felt that pull, that gutteral down deep need, to just take one and taste it. but, I refrained, I did well. I kept reminding myself of the movie, Passion of the Christ. I went to bed that night sugar less.

Then today, I've been feeling the sweet song of the sugar all day, and then I sat down, at my desk, after my weight watchers heat up lunch and I spied the small mini square size 3 muskteers in the jar on my desk. their silver beguiling wrapper, glinting in the flourescent glare.
Something came over me and I pulled one out all the while wondeirng who was controlling my arms cause surely it wasn't I who was moving the candy towards me!

I stared at the wrapper between my fingers and I gave it a quick yank. the small chocolate square, jumped out of the package, flipped a couple times and landed right side up on my desk, the perfect squarness and its smooth chocolatey waves were rich and dark.
I picked it up gently with both hands. I brought to my nose and I quietly inhaled. the sweet, milky, warm, sugary smell of chocolate traveled up my nose and into my body. Then. I licked it. ever so slightly, like just slightly tasting it wasn't really consuming it, and the brown smooth cocoa taste was soooo sweet, and familiar. All at once, I found that it had jumped into my mouth, and the soft fluffy chocolatey nougat, melting, melting. The sweet sinful goodness, was sooooooo much better than I had remembered it. All mushy, and smooth, and sweet! Oh so very sweet! And then it was swallowed down, gone.

Then I ate 3 more.

I felt the heavy, woolen, blanket of guilt settle on my shoulders for a minute, It's hard being Catholic.

Thank God for confession!

Thank God for forgiveness.
Thank God for Grace.
Thank God for tomorrow.

Thank God I'm not Jesus, I bet everybody else is pretty thankful for that too.

Thank God I'm not perfect, and God still loves me anyway.

Lent.

why can't it just be simple....

Ok this will be brief, I don't have time for this but I feel the nagging feeling. I need to get some anxiety out.

Why can't things be simple, like they should be. Gone for me are the days when I could just worry about classes. Make my lectures, go to class, actually have fun in class (cause my students were fun then, not insipid, gnarled hunks of cynical flesh staring back at me, mouths agape with apathy, unless the phrase extra credit appears then they are drooling yappy, begging dogs, practically peeing on themselves for extra points. Just do the work the first time around!!!) and then come back grade their exams and assignments and then go home at a reasonable hour and do it again the next day. Oooooohhhh no. Nooooo, see we have to have the overachievement going on. You know, I'm tired of the S.O. and I'm tired of being on this committee and that committee, and having meetings and then more meetings about our meetings, then we schedule a meeting to plan the committee that schedules the committees to plan more meetings. Augh, I'm pooped with the meetings and the crap.

honestly I don't want to have to pick another book, plan another event, make a presentation for some event, or coordinate other people and myself to do more things. and people keep asking, well lets do this, or lets do that. I've had all I can take of trying to coordinate crap. I'M NOT A COORDINATOR!!!! Can people be ok with that? I AM, why can't anyone else be?! I'M NOT ORGANIZED! I can sure as hell teach and I care about my students (usually, when they show that they actually care about themselves and about whether they learn or not. don't want to learn? I don't want to teach you then. Is that evil of me to say?) but I am not organized, nor am I an organizer, thats why all my friends are organizers, cause I'm not and I need someone to enable me! I'm a great HELPER. probably why I teach well, I feel like I'm helping people to understand, I like helping people learn.

Augh anyway, I'm rambled most of my agitation away, which is good. Let off some steam. I'll be trying to organize my office then off to the hobby lobby. I'm going to make myself take some time to go away for a bit. Just a few hours. If you don't make yourself leave, they'll just give you more and more reasons to stay later and later.

Thats all for now, maybe I can publish something a little less frazzled later.

-the fox