Round 2

So it begins again.

The last joint has been smoked, the cigarrettes hidden away, the blender is at the ready to prepare each morning's ashwaganda tonic, and tonight marks our first hers and hers accupuncture appointment. Couples accupuncture, if you will. Just as relaxing and romantic as a seaside massage, n'est pas?

But then again, the whole process of IVF, the stabbing oneself in the gut each day, the daily visits to the Doctor, with his evil vagina wand and the harried nurses with their own pinching needles, the drug-induced hour-long brain farts, the seething and terrible irritability....not so unlike the ol' down home method of getting pregnant! Right?

Or completely and profoundly opposite. Infuriatingly, maddeningly distinctive. For fertile straight people, getting knocked-up just "happens" (Jim, can you believe it?? We have returned from holiday with child!). No such luck for gays. We work hard for our offspring.

Our IVF goodie bag includes: bruised, lumpy, purple belly, long, frighteningly retarted afternoons at work, where each day you aren't fired is a small gift from god, and unbidden intimate relations with your chubby, inappropriate doctor who shops at Loehmanns.

Hello IVF my old friend! How I wrestled with you philisophically the first time we met, thumping and raging against the unfairness of not being physically able to stopper up my girlfriend's desperate urges for children! How dare science neglect this yawning gap. Shame upon it for not devising some drug that turns lesbians into the baby machines that so many straight people are. Those fucking homophobic scientists. Bastards.

I used to be so care-free. Traipsing about NYC, generally acting fresh. But IVF, that cruel and fickle little fucker, came along and tortured us for months and then failed us miserably.

It changed me.

Turned me into a shrill old bitter raisin, demanding success from our doctor, beating my fists on his cluttered desk, lined with little crystal awards, engraved with crap like "2002, Best At Telling His Patients The Myriad of Things Wrong With Them."

I'm 28, for chrissake. E is 30. My bright shiny new eggs, her clingy uterus. How could IVF fail us?

E, my girl, my fierce and gorgeous partner in crime, will carry my eggs through in vitro fertilization, after 6 failed "natural" cycles. Um, by natural I mean a Chubby Inappropriate Doctor Squirted Anonymous Sperm Up Her Girly Parts Whilst She Reclined On A Gyn Table Feet High In Plastic Stirrups kind of natural.

Chubby told us she had high FSH, declined ovarian reserve, perimenopausal ova, schmigldy lodarious pie, whatever other numerous indictments of her body and ovaries he could think of to explain why he was having about as much success in knocking her up as I was.

So we moved on to IVF with my eggs, and when cycle #1 fizzled, Chub McInaproppriatson turned his stubby finger from her to me, shrugging his meaty shoulders and saying, delicately, my eggs were not "quite what he'd hoped for." We turned tail and walked.

So Long to your ghetto staff, port-a-potty smelling waiting room and hour-long waits, all suffered through to no avail. This is NYC, afer all. There are doctors here who could impregnate my shrivelled old granny with semen from a condom discarded in Inwood Hill Park.

And thus, we're on to #2. This go I'll have my eggs hoovered by a tall and thin, softspoken (sans inappropriate comments re: how he'd like to get me and E preg) doctor who looks like he could be my age. This new clinic is tidy and fresh smelling; the girls behind the desk are sweet and informative; the wait, thus far, has not exceeded 10 minutes. Gratitute for these small wonders is softening my deep scowl lines.

Optimism, though, feels like a little bitty birdie that took flight many months ago. I thought maybe he'd be back for the summer months by now, but I think he likes it down there in Boca. He's kickin back by the pool, sipping a Gimlet. Maybe he'll fly back in August, maybe even September or October, cause he likes the fall colors in the Northeast. We'll see.