Preparing to go in for a saline sonogram, to see what is the status of my uterus, so we can be ready for an embryo transfer in a few months. It all feels a bit terrible. I have been so happy not doing any of that. The continuing scrutiny of my body looking for any imperfection is a gross terrible feeling. Maybe everything will be fine. But I am a bit angry at my doctors, because I followed their advice, got bad results, and every period of time that goes by we have to recheck to see if some new problem is going on with my uterus. I’m sick of these continued assaults on my body. I still think maybe it will be worth it at the end… but only that hope is making me hold on. And it’s not much.

I have been working on my art, preparing for a couple of shows and working on our kitchen renovations. And it’s great. I love it. Just getting to be a person again. I have had a few months off from this stuff, thank the gods. That doesn’t help that much when I’m going back into that space.

What does help though, is writing through it, and paying attention to the patterns I have around the stress. If I get badly anxioius I get depressed and have to sleep it off to recover. If I am low level anxious, I can sometimes write in my journal to blow off steam - it has to be full-throated, unedited release, not tidy cute journaling. But it does work. Moving helps too, though I have a hard time with that, because I feel so depleted that I have no energy.

It is validating to acknowledge that my anxiety is a response to a situation. I think we are all to ready to blame ourselves for anxiety or depression, as though it were a defect in our own makeup. But I think that we are under a lot of stress in our culture, with high prices, impending climate crisis, questionable democracy, separation from nature and being bombarded by noise, advertising and distraction, and then whatever individual things are going on. If everyone has ADHD, anxiety, depression and is highly sensitive, in the face of all that, I think it’s only natural. We were made to sit around the campfire to regroup and that’s what we did for a million generations. We weren’t made to sit around scrolling TikTok. That is not normal or natural.

That is what I am trying to do somehow in my life. Just get back to the campfire and feel a sense of grounded connection. Somehow that is a tall order.

I think we need nature and we need to feel a sense of belonging. There is, in western culture a sort of glorification of indigenous culture, because we somehow feel that they have access to wisdom that we have lost. And I think there is truth to that. Our American colonial approach is built on puritan protestantism and commercialism and capitalism, and that works really well if you want to do a lot of work and make some of the people really rich. But that is not that satisfying for the bulk of the people. And I think something is lost in a sense of finding belonging in nature. So even though I am not a descendant of indigenous people on my continent, I want to find ways to live with the natural world and creat a sense of belonging here, and connect with my ancestors and the world around me. I think that we as humans need that.

That’s a tangent, but not entirely, because that sense of belonging and alignment is all part of not being crippled by anxiety every time a doctor goes poking around with their ultrasound wands all up in my hooha.

The disconnection from natural fertility by using fertility treatment is its own whole thing. I feel it is a blessing and a curse. It provides hope that I may still get to be a mom, and it also has given me the worst traumas of my life. It’s a mixed bag. I don’t quite know how best to handle it. Part of me wishes it didn’t exist, because stringing out hope and doing countless procedures is so traumatic. But sometimes it works and then I guess it was all worth it. It is hard for me to see that place. But giving up would be a different and entirely additional grief that I can’t face. So I keep going. And I am grateful whenever I can let go and just be a person and do my work.

I am resolving also to take action when I feel anxiety stacking up. Write morning pages, write on this blog, dance in a ridiculous or angry manner. So that I don’t just have to endlessly swallow the feelings and absorb them down. That part feels so gross - having to absorb the feelings because there is nowhere to put them. I feel that on lot of topics - the news, fertility stuff, the irritation of waiting on hold and going through phone menus trying to ask a simple question. It’s all simultaneously not the end of the world, and just a bunch of nonsense and I don’t know why we have to do it that way. The best remedy that I know of for this is to be in nature as much as possible, and to not bottle it up, release it through whatever form feels best. So that is my goal.

Now I need to go see if my uterus passes muster!

Update: My uterus is great!

Thank everything! There is a small bit of scar tissue (Asherman’s Syndrome) from the D&C. So here’s a thing: apparently 25% of D&Cs result in scar tissue, which can cause problems with conception. Um, yikes, guys. Just made me wonder if I should have gone with Misoprostel/Mifeprestone instead of the D&C. That would have been painful, but I had contractions and a lot of pain with the D&C anyway. I was on the fence when I made the choice, and am not sure I made the “right choice,” but there’s no going back and it’s done. I don’t know that there was a right or a wrong choice in that situation. Just thankful the scarring is no worse!

But the scarring is only a little bit and in the top corner, so it won’t interfere with anything. No sign of any polyps or fibroids that poke into the uterine cavity. Yay! I have had a little bit of poky fibroid and a polyp removed a couple of years ago. But the fibroids haven’t grown and no other trouble. So maybe the green tea extract helps? There was a study that showed that green tea extract helps fibroids to not grow and maybe shrink. Is that real? Unsure! But it’s a pretty mellow treatment, so why not? I’ve been taking Vitamin E and L-Arginine and Black Cohosh too, which is supposed to be good for the uterine lining. Lining was good too! So success.

I am so glad to have nothing else that needs to be done to prepare for the embryo transfer in a few months. Just waiting for our egg donor cycle to happen, later this year. It’s still a mindfuck! But I am resting and healing my little self and working on art and kitchen remodeling and it is good to have a break from the uterus judgment!