The Bad Patient

First of all, a heartfelt thanks to all my friends (from real life and from the blogosphere) for your sweet support and encouragement. I am feeling significantly less despondent today. Perhaps I will make it through an entire post without swearing.

We transferred three embryos. One was of average quality, and the other two were quite pitiful.

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Okay, so, I'm not always the model patient. Sometimes, when I feel I am not being understood or treated with respect, or given complete and full information about my treatment I tend to react emotionally. I cry, I raise my voice, I respond sarcastically. I have, at times I am sure, at best annoyed and at worst angered, various members of the reproductive medicine staff. For example, there was the time I yelled at the RE (you know, the one who flaunts pictures of his children) and, well, all but accused him of betrayal. And the time I hinted to the lab director that he was knowingly and maliciously withholding information about our embryos. And various other snide remarks that despite my husbands protests (shhh, they can HEAR you!), I'm sure are just out of earshot.

As I sit in the waiting room, I picture them all huddled together playing rock paper scissors to see who gets stuck with me. You take her. No you take her, I had her last time. If you take her, I'll remove and wash all the stained bedsheets for a week...

My husband plays the "good patient" to my "bad patient". As much as they dislike me, they adore him. And he loves playing this part. I catch him looking over my shoulder at the nurses and doctors, smiling apologetically with a look on his face that says, "Oh, I'm so sorry. You know the hormones and all. You should see what I get at home."

Well, today for our transfer, I decided to try a little role- reversal. I was going to be the delightful sweetheart, and my husband would be the demanding hardass. I was hoping the Valium I had to take would help mold me into my role. To help my husband play his part, I gave him a script. Basically, it had a list of very specific questions to ask as well as a list of unacceptable answers. For example, any response that began with "We've seen pregnancies occur..." was unacceptable. So was the sentence "There is reason to be optimistic." I wanted cold hard facts, numbers, science. I am sick of being placated.

So, to recap. Me= endearing angel, Husband= obnoxious heel. This was the plan.

So tell me how I ended up threatening to hit the lab tech.

Well, obviously neither my husband nor the Valium were doing their jobs.

I couldn't help it. She crossed the line. She told me to think positively, that unfeeling bitch. (So much for not swearing.) I told her that if one more person told me to think positively I was going to hit them. She promised not to say it ever again, and advised my husband to do the same (believe me, he has already learned that lesson the hard way). She tried to tell me that emotion has a lot to do with whether or not a pregnancy is achieved. Bullshit! (Gosh, I'm really failing at the no swearing thing.) What I wish I had said... "So if we get a negative the incapacitating grief will come with a heaping side of self-loathing and guilt because maybe I killed my embryos because I didn't nourish them with happy thoughts. " What I really said-- "Yeah, whatEVER."

So, once again, before we left, I got a look of disapproval. My husband got a hug.