My Left Ovary

I think every infertile woman (or fertile woman married to an infertile man, who still owns the infertility in the most tender spot of her heart) has a list of “please Gods”, a list of “if onlys”. Please God, if you give me a baby, I promise I will…If only I have a healthy child, I swear I won’t…If only I never find myself sobbing on the bathroom floor, clutching yet another negative home pregnancy test, if only I have a child who learns to say ‘mama’, I will be a better person, never ask for anything again, be worthy, please, how can I be worthy?

Oh please, I won’t: complain about my pregnancy symptoms, use “do you have children” as an icebreaker, post ultrasound pictures on Facebook, tell people without children how ‘lucky’ they are because they can (pick one or more from sleep in, go on vacation, have sex in the living room, just enjoy each other, go out without worrying about a babysitter), give unsolicited advice on getting pregnant (relax! get drunk! go on vacation! try this position!), try to tell anyone it’s God’s will or the timing just isn’t right or that it’ll happen when it’s meant to happen, be smug about my children and assume they are a testament to the wonderful love my husband and I have…

Please God, I will: be the best mother ever, be so patient with my child, teach my child how to read, write, spell, buy the safest crib and car seat, be grateful every day, keep up to date on vaccinations and well-child checks (please god give me a well child), clean the spare room, anything it takes.

I don’t believe in God. But oh, I believed in science. I had faith in science. I did not doubt science, I did not need to touch science’s wounds, science would give me my heart’s desire, for how could it not? Science is cold and objective, if this then that. If I inject the following drugs into my ass and abdomen, I will walk away with a baby. I injected, and science let me down. I injected, and I did not even get to the good part, to the sperm and egg part. The ovaries (my ovaries!) laughed at science and did their own thing. My left ovary said, “science, you are telling me not to recruit a follicle, not to start the maturation of an egg, not to release estradiol, not to signal the uterus to develop a thick, nourishing lining, but I’m sorry, that’s simply not the way we do things around here.” And it did its own thing, it did the right thing to get me pregnant under normal circumstances, but didn’t science tell it that these are irregular circumstances, that “the right thing” does not work.

And then the Provera, for 10 days, and then days and days of me begging my uterus to shed its lining, keenly aware of the irony, since I've spent the past year hoping for anything but. And it did, and so science began again--this time with added birth control pills! And Lupron the last week, and then a period, right on time. What could go wrong??

My left ovary. And a grape-fruit sized cyst concealing it. A week of tears, a week of Lupron, an "outside chance". And my ovaries this time just laughed again. The cyst, present. My antral follicles? Somehow growing! Oh yes, I am the proud owner of 3 12mm follicles, and 2 at about 10. But an e2 of only 90, a lining of 8mm...how did this happen??

I mean, really. How could science let me down, how did science not get the message to my stupid ovaries? How do my ovaries not know that there is no baby, there will never be a baby, if they do not stop doing their thing. Please ovaries, have faith in science, please release control, please I know you think this is how it works, but trust me, it’s not, not for us.

Hopefully an antagonist will be enough to send the message. But not for months. Until then, the cyst and I battle.