Flotsam

This morning at one o’clock, the world was sheathed in blackness. Somewhere, woodland creatures burrowed further into their nests, perhaps emitting a diminutive snuffle of content. Birds tucked demure heads under their wings, stars winked sleepily from above, and in a bed in St. Paul, my eyes snapped open.

Motherfucker, I thought, I’m awake.

Yesterday I started temping. The night before I placed my thermometer next to my bed, set an alarm for six o’ clock, and went to sleep…until 3:01. And then back to sleep…until 4:45. When I woke at 5:48 I went ahead and took my goddamn temperature.

Today it was 1:00, 1:22, and 5:00. When I woke up for the fourth time, at 5:27, I heard my thermometer laughing at me from its protective plastic case.

I have started charts at both Fertility Friend and iVillage, which uses Ovusoft. Why two, you ask? Because I don’t know how to determine the first day of this charade of a cycle. I know, I know, first day of red blood, spotting doesn’t count. I do have fingers, you know, I can Google as well as the next girl.
I woke up in the early hours of Monday morning (4:57, if you must know) with cramps, went to the bathroom, and saw red blood. Excellent! Let the games begin! I threw in a tampon and went back to bed. In late morning, I noticed the bleeding had slowed to something like spotting, only bright red. Maybe somewhere between spotting and a light period. By evening it had stopped.
So…was that day one, or is day one the next day, when things began in earnest?
Broken and sleep deprived, I started two separate charts, one for each contingency. Not that it matters, as I can’t get an accurate temperature reading due to the manic breakbeat that is my Circadian rhythm.

The one redeeming feature of being diagnosed as anovulatory and in need of fertility treatment was supposed to be that I would never have to chart again.

I miss Dr. Doctor, my beloved guru of all things reproductive and endocrinological. I miss her gentle, hygienic touch, the easily discernible ultrasound screen, the scientific drip of my blood into a labeled vial. Like Beth, who had a lovely post on the subject, I miss having someone to tell me what is happening with my body. Instead I am left adrift to interpret signs that feel as reliable as tea leaves. Remember? I might as well cast a handful of Runes onto the ground to predict my cycle length.
I thought about calling the clinic and saying that this isn’t working out, that my feet are itching for the stirrups and couldn’t they just wand me next week, just a little, and tell me what my ovaries are doing in there? But the whole point of flying solo until a luteal phase progesterone level is to save money, not to blow hundreds of dollars on ultrasounds that reveal yet another anovulatory cycle, merely to determine whether the Metformin has had an impact, especially when I still have a few scraps of dignity left that could so easily be disposed of with a week or two spent scrutinizing my cervical output in the bathroom at work.
Besides, charting will occupy my mind, which is so direly in need of occupation this month what with starting school next week and moving three cats, the Nearly, a few thousand books, and myself out of my apartment. Not to mention the daily homework for my class on stress-reduction techniques.
Actually, that I have been doing. It goes like this: I remember at the end of the night that I forgot to do said homework, panic, and have to do a breathing exercise to calm myself down.

Next: A post about school! OR a post about moving! Or, maybe, a post about tonight’s episodes of America’s Next Top Model and Top Chef (don’t you wish that were just one show—“America’s Next Top Model and Top Chef”? All those inane yet beautiful girls screaming about how they aren’t there to make friends, just like ANTM, only with more knife wielding? And Tyra saying “She takes beautiful pictures, but her Osso Buco was dreadful!”?).
Anyhow, I’ll figure that out tomorrow.
I can think about it during all that time I spend awake in the night…