Where Have You Been Hiding?

11th November 2008

posted in Cancer, TTC |

My friend Sarah, over at Dreams and False Alarms posted a comment, asking me “Eva, where are you hiding?” Well, Sarah, I’ve been hiding under my bed for the last week or so. When I get overwhelmed sometimes, I hide under my bed with the dust mites and boxes. It’s been a world wind of a week. It was the best of times and the worst of times…

1. November 2, 2008: IUI # 8. My eighth IUI was uneventful. The new facility is state of the art and it went with out a hitch. My donor numbers were impressive:53% motility and the doctor said they look for 40% in frozen sperm. Also they put back 40 million little guys and typically they look for 25 million, so that’s pretty good. After the procedure, I didn’t feel rushed. I felt the love, girls! The only challenge was getting back home during the NYC Marathon. I’m more than halfway through my TWW.
2. November 4, 2008: Mr. President. I felt exhilarated after the election. What a thrill. For the past 22 months, Nadia and I followed the election like two crack heads. I clicked on several left-leaning political websites a gazillion times per day. I couldn’t get enough of it. What a story and what a country. When I think about everything he overcame to win the Presidency, I feel truly inspired. His win is definitely one of the highlights of my life.

3. November 5, 2008: Not so Funny. A few months back, I wrote a post called, A Funny Thing Happened on the Way To… and it was about how Nadia’s sister become pregnant after knowing the baby’s father for a few months. Of course, I wished her well, but I was jealous. Well, unfortunately, the baby was born on November 5^th at 22 weeks, weighing 2lbs. Ouch! The baby has and 80% chance of survival and a 50% chance of having developmental delays. I feel awful. Nadia went to see her sister and the baby. She says the baby is doing okay and that she measures about 13 inches in height. This brought up so many emotions in me: fear, sadness, and extreme guilt.

4.November 6, 2008: Prop 8: It took a couple of days for all of the votes to be counted but by last Thursday we knew that Prop 8 had passed. Same-sex marriage was effectively banned in the state of California, which totally sucks. And to add insult to injury they saying that 70% of African-American voters who came out in support of Mr. O, voted for the measure. It’s very hard to be a black queer sometimes, well all of the time, but I feel really hurt by this. At the same time, I was very impressed when I received an email from a leading LGBT civil rights group, the National Center for Lesbian Rights, encouraging togetherness and community. This is not the time to point fingers. Unfortunately, there are some pretty hateful things being said to African-American’s at Prop 8 protest rallies, so there is a lot of work to be done in both communities as much as there is a need for a deeper analysis of what really happened there.Pam Spaudling writes a great article about this at the Huffington Post.

5. The C –Word: No date. It looms large in my consciousness and I can’t stop thinking about it. It has made the ttc less relevant for me. Nadia, however, keeps asking me what I’m so worried about and just wants me to proceed as normal. We’ve had a many arguments about the ttc timing. Ugh.

6. The photo: This is a photo of a carving of a wooden hand holding an egg that Mr. O keeps son his desk. It is a Kenyan symbol of the fragility of life. Life is fragile indeed.

This entry was posted on Tuesday, November 11th, 2008 at 9:10 am and is filed under Cancer, TTC. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.

1 On November 11th, 2008,

Melody said:

What an amazing and powerful symbol– and a worthy thing to have a symbol for. I adore it. If there’s a story associated with it, please share. I would love to have more context.

2 On November 11th, 2008,

virginia said:

I am neither black nor queer, but the passing of Prop 8 was a definite tarnish on election day for me. But I have Great Hope. California is full of the best and the brightest in our nation; this civil rights issue is far from over. I too read that HuffPo article and have sent forward a number of times. The comments following it are encouraging and give me hope. Hope Hope Hope. Word.

3 On November 12th, 2008,

giggleblue said:

thanks for the update!!! and i’m sending plenty of blessings to nadia’s niece and peace for her sister. may the baby progress nicely and avoid all complications!

4 On November 12th, 2008,

Sarah said:

Well, I’m glad my message reached you under the bed. Trust me when I say that if I hadn’t agreed to the blog cross pollination, I wouldn’t have written a substantial entry for like, 2 or 3 weeks. Sometimes, a girl needs her cave. I was so worked up over the election last week that I could hardly think on Tuesday. Prop Hate is a cryign shame. We, the straights out here, have to step up. Glad your frozen buddies were plentiful.

5 On November 12th, 2008,

KARI said:

do you know where we can get one of those wooden hands?

6 On November 12th, 2008,

Jen said:

So glad you’re back! It sounds like you have had quite a couple of weeks though. I hope your uneventful IUI turns out well, the numbers sound impressive and wouldn’t it be highly ironic if after everything you have been through, an impromptu, stress-free IUI does the trick. And, I do hope the baby is okay. I can’t imagine.

7 On November 14th, 2008,

Lizzie said:

i too have been distressed about the finger pointing at african americans. (and latinos.) truth is, those populations did vote more conservatively on prop 8 that i would have liked. but truth is also that the largely (almost entirely) white mormon church bankrolled the goddamn ‘yes on 8′ campaign. and truth is that the LGBTQ community (and its largely white leadership) didn’t get out in front of the hate campaign, was a bit lazy and only kicked it into high gear at the end, i think we though we were safe in california. there’s enough blame to go around. and then some. but the loss on 8 really takes the wind out of my election victory sails. the fight goes on.

glad to hear from you and hope this TWW is the one that ends in magic!

8 On November 18th, 2008,

Mo said:

Still hiding under the bed?

9 On November 20th, 2008,

Kymberli said:

I know I read this when you first posted it, but I could have sworn that I responded to it. That’s what I get for reading blogs at work. I have the time to read but not respond, and by the time I can respond, I forget to go back and comment on most of the posts that I read.

Anyway - this is my APB on EDP. Let us know how you’re doing ASAP.