POST 2 "How it all began or Adventures in Shtupping 101..."

OK, so wow, first of all a big, huge SHOUT OUT to all of you for your amazing responses both on and off this here bloggy thingy...I am truly touched...I never knew I had so much support at my fingertips...(sniffle, sniffle...no I'm not tearing up there's just something in my eye)...

So I'm gonna need to get y'all caught up before my first frozen embryo transfer (that's where, through the magic of modern medicine, Dr.'s take embryos that have been hanging out in the arctic circle (i.e. a tiny, frozen, glass straw), thaw them and immediately put them back into your uterus) which is happening in like, three weeks.
Yikes!
When doctors do a FET (Frozen Embryo Transfer) the hope is that the embryos will find it a mighty cozy womb with a view (where have I heard that one before??), decide to put down roots and grow into a fetus. I currently have nine of these little guys and they've been hanging out on ice since 2007. (Did ya catch them in "Embryos on Ice- the Disney Version"?! Nope? Shame, as they were spectacular! :) They've been in IceLandia for so long because I had to take a break from the baby making journey after I lost my third one to get some emotional healing time in and then a few months later when I was ready to start trying to get pregnant again, I was forced to deal with a lower back that was in major peril, needed extensive surgery and more than a year's healing time (more on that in another post). Say it loud and say it proud: "parenthesis are my friend, parenthesis are my friend!"...

Pretty cool that they were able to freeze my embryos, huh?!?  I either call them my
"little snowflake maybe-babies" or my "kick-ass, ready-made soccer team". Whatever name they respond to, they are my LAST chance to make a baby from my own DNA so there is a lot riding on their tiny little 8-celled backs. Yo Embryos: "I LOVE YOU GUYS...thanx for  chillin' (literally!!!), now go forth, and multiply, or is it divide?!?"

But I digress, let's start from the beginning, (no, not my beginning, cuz' that would take, like all night long and quite a few bottles of wine), of my fertility journey. So I came to find out what a FertileMertle I was one beautiful spring evening a long time ago in a galaxy far, far away, when I was new to this here Left coast. I was 29 and had been out here in California for almost 21 months. So I was modeling in a photo shoot for my boyfriend who was a photographer.. We were out on the water of the San Francisco Bay in this cozy little sailboat for most of the day and into the evening. Some hours after the shoot, right near Angel Island, a bottle of Jegermeister was introduced into the mix. Now there is a strong rumor that I have Native American blood and it is often supported by the fact that I have zero tolerance for alcohol. I just sniff the stuff and I'm drunk. One thing lead to another and we got biblical in the middle of the Bay. There's just one little thing I left out: we didn't have protection. Before you start to proselytize, please know that I am a huge, "if it's not encased, we ain't makin' haste" kinda gal and have been for many years. I know this behavior was supremely dumb and I never repeated it until many years later when I was trying to get pregnant. So yeah, I know that I used up one of my lifetime "stupid passes" that evening. Long story short, we practiced the old tried and true pull-out method and well, you can imagine the results.
On second thought, you probably can't imagine the results because for about a month and a half, everything was fine and mother nature made her monthly appearance several weeks after the act AND three seperate pregnancy tests said, "negativo" so we breathed a sigh of relief and went on our way...Cut to 6 weeks later when I was hiking up in the Anderson Valley and I apparently turned a ghostly white (on Lady Gaga it's attractive, on me, not so much)... An interesting thing about me is that I don't channel my pain normally, which explains why I was able to perform with Cirque Du Soleil at the ripe old age of 38 AND why I had to have a bionic lower-back installed about 3 years ago. Anyhoo, right before the hike I'd been complaining of mild cramps and then, Boom!, I apparently went down, face-first in one shockingly bold and ungraceful move, and was promptly rushed off to the nearest country hospital.

Thank Goddess my friends brought me to the hospital as they saved my life. Turns out one of my fallopian tubes had exploded due to the fact that there was a tiny little human in there desperately trying to grow larger. This little creature had made the brave journey all the way from my ovary down to the end of my fallopian tube but had stopped just short of my uterus. Probably was a male as they never ask for directions! Damn him! FYI-I am consciously sounding blasé right now, but back then it was truly devastating, with me on a lovely hike one minute, and then awakening the next to discover that, 1) I'd been pregnant 2) I didn't have the choice to say whether I'd like to keep the little one (I would have) AND 3) that one of my fallopian tubes was now hung with a plaque engraved with "permanently out-of-order". That was a truly sucky time. I got through it with major tenacity, tissues and the help of some loving and fiercely loyal girlfriends.

OK, so that then brings us into my 30s when I was married to Mr. International British DJ. He and I made a very yummy pair but we were way too busy jetsetting around this here little spinning marble to procreate. I was acting in Neverland (Los Angeles), and singing & dancing nationally with high-profile bands and he was flying all over the world for gigs, with me often in tow. It was a great life and I don't regret a single moment of it. Our plan was to have kids once we settled down as it wouldn't have been appropriate to have one whilst living a gypsy lifestyle (unless you're  Angelina Jolie & Brad Pitt and therefore have more money than God and Bill Gates put together...Go Ang & Brad, Y'all rock on with yo rich selves!)
A funny thing happened on the way to making my baby dreams come true...Was it John Lennon who said, "Life is what happens when you're busy making plans"? and some anonymous dude who said, "We make plans and God laughs"? Anyhoodles, I ended up leaving my marriage and becoming a single chiquita in my late 30s. I also moved around a bit whilst taking on really fabulous artistic and teaching endeavors.
In fact I spent a while in Africa traveling through 15 different countries and volunteering with AIDS and Malaria orphans (where the photo above was taken). There were many times that I wanted to smuggle a few precious children into my backpack and take them home with me so I could love them up forever and a day, but that was a bit of an impossibility given my lack of beaucoup funds (international adoption is a very expensive business- about $40,000. per kidlet).

Soooooooooo, I arrived home from Africa one day and an alarming realization hit me like a searing lightning bolt through the center of my forehead: "Oh my god, I'm almost 40 and I forgot to have kids!" Holy crap, what was I thinking?!! Well, what's a little ol' gal to do when confronted with this kind of tragic situation?? Tune in to the next post to find out...

Thanx for reading and oh, it's quote time again, isn't it? OK here's one of my favorites: "When you realize your the ocean, the waves don't scare you" ~Jennifer Wellwood
Over and out...