Update

So, to update you on recent events….

As far as volunteering, I have signed up for an orientation at Open Books. They’re a great organization, and run a bookstore to help fund their literacy programs (donate your used books to them!). I’ll probably just work in the bookstore a couple days am month. It’s like a dream job! I’m really excited. It will just be a question of money and babysitters.

And, I just had the test to see if the Essure worked, and both fallopian tubes are STILL OPEN! Argh! Not to mention that test hurt like a sonofabitch. It’s an HSG test, and I think it’s very common for couples with fertility issues to have it done — there was another woman there having it done right before me, but hoping for very different results. They flood your uterus with dye, and then take and x-ray to see if the dye gets through your tubes. I don’t really know why it hurts so much — it was just very crampy. I had read that it would be “uncomfortable,” but thinking that this year I’d had a distending liver, an emergency c-section, and springs shoved in my fallopian tubes, it couldn’t be worse than any of those. But it was. On the up side, any regrets I may have had about never being in labor went right out the window. The nurses told me that all their patients who have the test done and already have children say it’s nothing compared to childbirth. I think they meant to console me, but then I told them I’d never been in labor, and they just looked confused and changed the subject.

The doctor who did the test, (not my usual doc) was just chitchatting beforehand, and asked how old my youngest son was. I told her almost a year, but he should only be 8 months. “Ohhhhh,” she said. “I knew your name sounded familiar! They took you to another hospital first, right? And then you had the baby at Prentice? Oh yeah, I totally remember.” I’m famous!

My doctor, whom I adore, called me afterwards to see how I was feeling about everything, and to give me a pep talk. The good news is that the springs look like they’re in the right places, but just the tissue hasn’t grown yet. So, hopefully when they do the test again in three months (oh joy), they’ll be closed off. I know so many people who are having trouble getting pregnant, and trying everything, and I feel like I’m trying everything NOT to be pregnant, and my body is working against me. “Cursed with fertility,” Joe called it. I wish they fallopian tube transplant surgery so I could just trade with some infertile couple with plugged up tubes. Sigh.