I’m a grandma. My two-year-old daughter had her baby this morning (yes, you read that correctly). It was somewhat of a relief because my daughter made me touch her belly every day to feel her baby kicking while she reminded me over and over and over again that there was “No baby in Mommy’s belly!” This morning she was holding her arms together and rocking back and forth. Miracle of miracles. Her baby was born this morning.

Her baby is…beyond a miracle…fantastic. When she wanted to eat a bagel for breakfast, the baby decided to stop crying so she could eat. She also told me that she was going to bring the baby to the grocery store this morning and let anyone kiss her and touch her face.

Traditionally someone this young would fall low on the sliding scale of happiness, but since it’s my daughter, I’ll give her a 10. Anyway, she told me I could babysit her baby and hold her whenever my daughter had to take a nap.

Just in case you were still guessing how selfish, petty, and small I truly am (as opposed to how selfish, petty, and small Grey’s Anatomy insinuates I am), I wanted to clear up all doubt by introducing you to the Stirrup Queen’s Sliding Scale of Happiness.

The Sliding Scale of Happiness (otherwise known as the SSH) is how happy I am to hear about your pregnancy. It’s the factors that go into my reaction–whether I’m racing to the kitchen to bake you a celebratory cake (with my infertility-induced professional cake-baking mad skills) or smiling widely and then locking myself in the bathroom to cry. And I know I’m small. And I know you’re probably rubbing your growing belly and thinking, “she’s so selfish. Why can’t she just be happy for me?” Well, you answered that yourself. Because I’m selfish. And because I have a sliding scale of happiness. And because you didn’t tell me in the way I wanted to be told for maximum happiness floated your way (see my answer to question four).

So how does one rank on my sliding scale? Let’s pretend it’s a numerical scale from 1 to 10 with 10 being a three-tiered cake, 5 being no-reaction, and 1 being a and-she-sobbed-sobbed-sobbed-all-the-way-home. And I say “let’s pretend” because the sliding scale is literally done automatically as if my heart is a cardiac calculator able to compute happiness in a split second. And interestingly enough, perhaps like women who live together and start getting their periods at the same time, my husband’s sliding scale clicked into sync with mine during infertility and now when I tell him that someone is pregnant, he either says, “that’s great!” or a snarky “good for them” at precisely the same level as my heart registered the information.

SQ and SPJ automatically make it into the 8–10 range. With true dancing-around-the-living-room happiness for the people who have been trying for years, going through multiple treatments, having multiple pregnancy losses, and are now either pregnant or adopting or using surrogacy.

All other people have an actual calculation that takes place. Is something else crappy happening in your life that evens out the playing field? Or are you someone who breezes through all major milestones unscathed and then got pregnant on the first try? And it’s terrible, I know. Let’s just take a look at celebrities–

Courtney Cox: 9 (IVF and multiple miscarriages AND was upfront about her fertility treatments).
Gwyneth Paltrow: 7 (no problems getting pregnant or maintaining a pregnancy, BUT she just lost her father).
Katie Holmes: 2 (do I really need to explain–y’all felt the same way).
The two Dixie Chicks sisters: 10 (because you did IF treatments AND you had to sing lullabies written by the other Chick to her son–and I know you love him and feel like an aunt to him, but that has to be hard).
Brooke Shields: 9 (just because she didn’t do treatments for her second child, she did them for the first and was still had a SQ’s mentality during the second pregnancy. PLUS, SQs have a higher rate of postpartum depression than the general population and her book brought a lot of attention to that fact).
Gwen Stefani: 2 (she would have been higher, but she had to announce how it wasn’t planned).

And–like Gwen Stefani–your initial ranking may drop if you tell me that (1) you got pregnant on the first try, (2) it was a happy accident, or (3) complain in any way about the timing of the pregnancy or the pregnancy itself. These are things that no one who has been trying for a long time wants to hear. No one truly wants to hear about how easy things are for you because I can guarantee you that the person you are speaking to is struggling with something (if not infertility then something else) in their life.

Many more people clear the bar and rank in the 6–10 range than receive my tears. I mean, how many people can you point to and say they’re not dealing with something in some other aspect of their life and deserve something to be easy for them? So those other factors raise their ranking and make my feet start dancing for them. And I’m well aware that someone may be silently battling something–information that I’m not privvy to that would raise their ranking. But like the bitch I am, I say: if you’re willing to share all of the ease in your life–the pregnancy on the first try–you should be willing to share the difficulties too.

Oh…and please please please…if you don’t want to fall off the scale entirely, don’t use the words my co-worker told me: “I know exactly how you feel because it took us three tries and I cried so hard with those first two negatives.”

Thud (that was the sound of a pregnant woman falling right off the round number zero).

I was tagged! By Erin the Angry IVFer. And since I always do what I’m told, I have filled out the following…
But can I first point out the fact that I have learned how to hyperlink to other sites. On my own? Aren’t you proud of my computer prowess? Filling this out made me start considering how boring I really am. Sniff. I’m going to go curl up in bed and watch a Harry Potter movie.

Four jobs I have had in my life:
1. Dishwasher at a café (most relaxing job I’ve ever had—I love cleaning).
2. Middle school English teacher
3. Video store clerk
4. Camp counselor

Four movies I watch over and over:
1. Jeffrey (please, can we not talk about it)
2. Hedwig and the Angry Inch
3. About a Boy
4. All the Harry Potter films

Four places I have lived:
1. Maryland (all over the place)
2. Sunderland, Massachusetts
3. Madison, Wisconsin
4. Um…can I put “in a dreamworld of my own making”? I haven’t lived anywhere else.

Four TV shows I love to watch:
1. Grey’s Anatomy
2. Desperate Housewives
3. Anything Alton Brown
4. The Iron Chef—America!

Four places I have been on vacation:
1. Norway
2. Italy
3. Spain
4. Israel

Four websites I visit daily:
1. Miss Snark
2. Gmail
3. Celebrity Baby Blog
4. Postsecret

Four of my favorite foods:
1. Cucumbers
2. Vegetarian Pho
3. Grilled tofu from Saigonese
4. Pad Thai

Four places I would rather be right now:
1. Nepal
2. Ethiopia
3. Vietnam
4. Anywhere in the South Pacific

Four favorite bands/singers:
1. Elvis Costello
2. Ben Folds
3. Fountains of Wayne
4. They Might Be Giants

Four folks I’m tagging, just because…
1. Carrie
2. Tertia
3. Carolyn
4. Emilie

Money ankles. All that positive thinking and relaxing just made me develop money ankles. Hence the swelling. Oh…you haven’t heard of money ankles? It’s just as realistic as some of the other advice I’ve gotten over the years so it sounds pretty sensible to me. You just wish and wish for money so you can do a treatment and then it starts pooling up. In your ankles.

Or you get a bug bite and you have a terrible reaction/infection that requires antibiotics.

One or the other.

I’m thinking the nurse practitioner who examined me wrote down infection in my chart. She took one look at my swollen ankle and said, “oh my.” So now I am on antibiotics and I can’t hang out in the sun for the next ten days. Writing the prescription meant we had to play the navigate-my-allergies game.

Which meant we had to play the are-you-pregnant game because the medication she wanted to prescribe would have been detrimental to a baby.

Nurse: Are you pregnant?
Me: No.
Nurse: You say that pretty confidently. How can you be sure?
Me: Um…I just am. I’m sure.
Nurse: Okay. Are you taking any other drugs because this antibiotic can interact with other drugs.
Me: No, I’m not on any medications.
Nurse: What about birth control pills? Because it interfers with birth control pills.
Me: No. No birth control pills (yeah, right, like I’m going to spend money on those?).
Nurse: Hmmm…no birth control pills.
Me: I don’t think we need them.
Nurse: Why not?
Me: Because I’m infertile.
Nurse: Oh. (Glances at chart) But it says that you have children.
Me: Conceived through fertility treatments.
Nurse: Oh.

And this is the line that makes her the most kick-ass ninja honourary Stirrup Queen nurse practitioner in the world.

Nurse: You must love them so much and are so happy they’re here since you had to work so hard to have them.

Hee-ah! With that, she handed me a prescription and chopped a board in half with her bare hand. Thank you, nurse practitioner. You saved my ankle from disgustingness and you saved me a car ride of tears after the appointment with your fantastic last line.

Operation Heads Up is well underway. For those who don’t know, Operation Heads Up is the database we’re collecting of personal reactions/points-of-view on procedures, medications, surgeries as well as personal tips to get your through the experience. In other words, everything your doctor can’t tell you because he hasn’t actually tried these things himself. A literal heads up so you know what to expect, what you should bring, what you should ask, etc.

People are also HIGHLY encouraged to add comments (either additional information or just a supportive cheer) on posts in order to get more points-of-view out there. I’ve been grouping all the posts together by making the date the 26th of July (the first one we posted). That way, someone can read all them by scrolling down. Links to these posts are also provided on the sidebar under Operation Heads Up. Click on the link and it will take you to the write up on that topic.

We still have a pretty big list so volunteer volunteer volunteer to do a write-up. Email me at thetowncriers@gmail.com if you’re interested. And people keep adding to the list all the time. Remember, I’m limited by my own IF experience–there are dozens of other tests/medications/procedures out there that we missed out on because we only had the poor egg/no progesterone diagnoses. So keep emailing me things that belong on this list.

Currently up-for-grabs Write-Ups That Need To Get Done (so volunteer to write one)

Basal Body Temperature (how to take it)
IM injections
IUI
IVF (transfer/retrieval)
Hysteroscopy
Semen analysis
Post-coital exam
D & C
Testicular biopsy
Vasography
Varicocelectomy
Oral (Clomid) and vaginal (Prometrium) medications
OPKS (when to use/how to use)
Transvaginal ultrasound
Sonohystogram