Just popping in quickly to say I’m quickly popping in. Ta!

You guys my hot streak came to an end yesterday when I experienced an entire day without blogging even a once. Here’s the problem: a bunch of shit actually happened Monday night. I was enjoying this little niche I carved out for myself of blogging about nothing and mostly just remembering what it feels like to string words together in this way and then Elliot had what’s most likely an allergic reaction to the FUCKING BAMBAS MY GUT WAS TELLING ME NOT TO GIVE HIM and he became violently ill and we had to go to the emergency room and it was a whole scary thing. So naturally I can’t write about that because it’s actually interesting. I only write about stuff that isn’t interesting that no one cares to read about. It’s a poor choice but this is how it has to be.

In all seriousness I actually could write about it and probably will but I talk about it on the most recent episode of my podcast which will be coming out tonight.

You guys I’m writing ANOTHER blog post. Can you even? I can barely.

Elliot is napping right now and I gave him Bambas peanut cheeto things earlier because that’s what everyone’s doing now in the hopes of preventing peanut allergies or something so I’m going to need to get up and creep into his room and make sure he’s still breathing. Hold please.

Very much still alive which is quite a relief. First I looked at the monitor which showed him clearly breathing but I had to see with my own eyes. And now because there are workmen painting the outside of this building which means scraping and crashing about, Wendy is barking so I suspect Elliot will be up in no time.

How do I feel about this situation? Not great.

How does Doreen feel about it? She’s ecstatic which causes me to question her very fitness for this job of being a fictional mommy blogger.

Now the workers are scraping on the northeast part of the house and Wendy’s in the southwest corner barking it up. Specifically, New Mexico. Also I’m sitting at my desk and our office is adjacent to a bathroom and the door is open and I can see one of their faces in the window and I so badly want to close the blinds but I think that would be rude. I hope the man with the face is enjoying his up close and personal view of my nail polishes, all of which are various shades of dark red or white/pale pink. (He’s at the nail polish window.)

Now he’s risen above the opening of the blinds and I can just see his white paint splattered shirt which is kind of cliche if you ask me.

Also I just sneezed and he didn’t even say bless you. I am tempted to take a picture of him.

Outside My Window Right Now

See what I’m saying about the shirt?

Anyway, I’d love to sit here live blogging the window but I must go.

Just yesterday I said I was going to write about baby spoons today and here I am about to write about baby spoons. The productivity and sticktoitiveness that’s dripping from my every pore and puddling at my feet creating a potential for mildew and slipping is simply astounding. I’m like a human lifehack and at this rate I will be tasting the fruits of blogging success in no time.

So anyway, when it came time to purchase spoons with which to feed my baby, I went onto Amazon and bought the bestseller. I bought these Munchkin Soft-Tipped Infant Spoons and they can suck a dick. Good thing I have a million of them.

Dick Sucking Spoons

The handle looks like a toothbrush but it’s not the handle’s optics (we’re all using that word now, right? It feels ON TREND) that really piss me off, it’s the way the handle is weighted weirdly so if you place the spoon in a smallish or shallow bowl of baby food—which they all are—or God forbid a baby food jar and walk a few feet like say from the counter where you’re preparing the food to the high chair where your baby is sitting the fucking spoon can’t be cool and freaks out and hurls itself overboard, launching bits of baby food all over your kitchen or your living room if you’re dumb enough to try to feed your baby in the living room which I was until these spoons made me rethink everything.

And don’t even think about setting the spoon on the edge of the bowl which you will be tempted to do mid-feed because that spoon is slimy and probably sticky so where pray-tell are you going to set it down for just a second while you grab something? NOT ON THE EDGE OF THE BOWL because it will wobble dangerously and then catapult oatmeal onto your curtains. Also, the business end of the spoon is very deep which isn’t ideal for little mouths that are just learning how to get food off a spoon but I didn’t realize that was problematic until, frustrated, I bought these spoons:

GREAT SPOONS!

They’re the Munchkin 6 Piece Lift Infant Spoons and I bought them because you can set them down and the spoon head (for real, what is the spoon part of the spoon called? The shovel?) doesn’t touch the table. But then they arrived and I worried the spoon head (see previous parenthetical) was too big and flattish so I continued to use the awful spoons until I decided what’s the worst that could happen if these spoons are too big and suddenly it was so much easier for Elliot to get the food off the spoon since he doesn’t have to commit to an archeological dig to find the food.

So there you have it. Honestly thinking of returning to blogging about nothing however I had strong feelings about spoons and needed to get them off my chest.

My God you guys. It’s less than 24 hours after I initially announced my intention to start blogging again (technically slightly more than 24 hours) and I’ve already blogged thrice if you count this one which you should. It’s amazing I’m getting anything else done given my hectic blog schedule and yet here I sit having just taken a shower. You guys I’m showering and blogging. Also other stuff. Anyway this particular entry is merely a teaser of what’s to come because I have A LOT OF THOUGHTS about baby spoons and I am going to share with you said thoughts tomorrow. At least that’s my plan. Anything could happen though so who knows if Doreen will comply with Alison’s plans.

Actually initially I was going to write the baby spoonologues TONITE but then I looked at the time and once a gal gets gabbin about spoons who knows where the time goes and one minute you’re bitching (there will be bitching) about a particular bestseller and the next, 30 years have passed and you really need to pee. I think you see my conundrum.

Also while I’m being on the level as opposed to above or below it, I guess, I’ve had a stomach ache ever since I started taking Lexapro. It feels like constant mild menstrual cramps. Is that a thing? I realize I won’t be getting any answers since for now these blogs are hidden in plain sight on my website under the blog tab which no one clicks on anymore since it’s been SO LONG but once people discover these I can’t wait to hear your responses. It’s also possible I’m using my abs to give Elliot a bath which involves bending over in a sort of awkward way. So maybe that’s what’s going on? I don’t think it’s that though. Ok bye.

Holy shit you guys it’s less than 12 hours (technically it’s more than 12 hours) since my last blog post and here I am again, continuing the hot streak I started yesterday but doubted I would be able to keep up. At this rate I will have all the success I mentioned in my last blog post AND MORE in fewer than 5 years. I will likely be blond Doreen with her smug sassy aprons in approx 3.5 years. Where will Alison go once I’ve fully transformed into Doreen the Successful Mommy Blogger? I don’t know but I’ll keep you posted.

In all seriousness I’m having trouble being serious. One of these days I will fix that because the truth is I’m in A LOT of thera$$$py (unfortunately that word doesn’t have an S and so I just had to cram those $$$ in wily nily) and spending a fair amount of time working through thorny issues surrounding my identity now and the transition to motherhood and what kind of mom I am versus what I grew up thinking a good mom is (for example I didn’t become fully aware of this until recently but I think I grew up believing the only way to be a good mother is to stay at home with your kids and not have childcare because to have childcare is somehow selfish and a sign you don’t want to take care of your own kids. So fast forward to right now, when I have childcare because I work and there’s no way to get work done while simultaneously taking care of a baby, and it’s creating a whole blooming onion (particularly an awesome blossom) of guilt. But somehow I never considered how this was going to work before I had Elliot. I figured I would just keep going with my career, in fact maybe my career would even pick up steam because that’s what’s supposed to happen after you have a baby because culture loves mothers or something and also I would stay at home with Elliot and would do both seamlessly and perfectly which is like thinking while 2+2 has always equaled 4, somehow after having a baby it will equal 5 and I’m not sure how or why but it just will.

Should I go back to inconsequential word play? Also what should I do about the fact I never closed the parenthesis above? Find out in my next blog post! (Note: You will likely not find out in my next blog post.)

I’ve decided I will be blogging more which is a decision I make slightly less than annually and of late I don’t execute the hot streak of non-stop blogging that I intend when announcing said decision and so I’m tempted not to even tell you. I’m tempted instead to be all quiet about it until suddenly it’s five years from now and I’m a critically acclaimed mommy blogger with multiple book deals, a merchandise line involving sassy aprons, webinars, Ted talks, 5 kids some of whom are likely multiples, a parrot because why not and more than one home. Also I will be blond at that point and my name will be Doreen. The thing is I don’t think I’m a mommy blogger. I’m a mom now, which is weird, and I have a website which has a tab for “blog” and I used to blog (and also vlog) frequently, so frequently that someone who’s on TV who was once my friend but then that friendship flamed out which is a longer story which I would love to be privy to since one day we were friends and the next we weren’t which apparently is kind of a pattern for this guy BUT ANYWAY we were all out in a group around the time I was really hitting the vlogs hard and I got up to use the bathroom which is my move when I need to pee and apparently he said something about how I’d probably posted 5 vlogs in the time I was gone. Or maybe, actually, he got up to get a drink and then came back and while I was out of earshot asked how many vlogs I’d posted while he was gone? The point is he made a snide comment about my voracious vlogging which was vigorous and vituperative. I’m going to have to look that last one up hold on. Holy shit it means bitter and abusive which totally works in this context although it’s a little more vociferous than intended. Uh-oh, hold again. It means vehement! Yet again I somewhat nailed it! I’m batting 1000 which is a sports reference. Anyway, that was the first whiff of our friendship falling apart and I forget what the next waft was but my point is I was doing Instagram stories and Snapchat when it was just called vlogging and it cost me a friendship.

But back to my blogging hot streak. I just read the above and it’s kind of hard to parse. Would Doreen employ frustrating run on sentences? Also, what kind of omelets would Doreen make? I feel like she does amazing things with farm fresh eggs and she collects egg cups.

Well it’s around that time that I’m going to need to no longer be writing this sentence but let it be known that it’s possible I will write more of them!

If you’re looking for an electric kettle because you’re tired of growing old while waiting for water to boil on the stove and/or waiting for it to boil in the microwave, I can’t recommend this one enough. It’s my favorite thing in the morning aside from Daniel and Wendy. It might even be on par with them. I did a lot of research because I find myself unable to buy anything online without making a whole big thing out of it, and what started as an idle thought, “I’d like to get an electric kettle because I’d like to drink a hot beverage in the same calendar year in which I start the process,” turned into a days long spiritual journey. Actually, that’s not true. But fuck it took me a long time. Anyway, fast forward to now and it was the best 30 or so dollars I’ve spent in a long time. There were kettles that were definitely cuter (I almost bought one such number) however this one is super fast and reliable.

Also, it’s weird that I’m writing about a tea kettle when really, I could be telling you all about the experience of shooting my pilot. But no, today is for kettles.

Also it’s for telling you that I’m on daily Lupron injections to suppress the endometriosis before transferring our frozen embryos (they’ll be thawed before transfer, perhaps with a splash of water from my electric kettle) and anyway, the side effects, of which there are many, have settled into a dull painful constant headache. I can handle the moodiness and the hot flashes, the fatigue and the forgetfulness, the lapse in judgment that makes me wax poetic about kettles, but I don’t know how long I can tolerate a constant headache. I’m not really a headache person. I’m more of a “pain in the guts” kind of person, in terms of what I deal with more frequently and my effect on other people. But in general I’m lucky enough not to feel daily pain outside of the endometriosis which I’ve been dealing with for so long, I don’t really notice it unless it’s particularly bad which is usually a few days a month. But not debilitating. Just uncomfortable. But I’m not a daily headache person except now I am. People with constant headaches, what do you do?

And while we’re talking about pain, I think of myself as a person with a healthy fear of pain but a pretty high threshold but the endometrial biopsy which is part of the mock cycle to figure out which day to transfer the embryos was incredibly painful. My doctor told me it would be a 6 or 7 out of 10 which struck me really high on the pain scale but I figured if something is really that painful, they wouldn’t do it without anesthesia. I don’t know why I thought that when she flat out told me how painful it would be. I guess because I’ve had other procedures (HSG test) that are supposed to be painful but they really didn’t bother me.

But back to kettles, here’s the tea I’ve been drinking lately. But I like to switch it up.

(BTW I’m not sponsored by any of the above products but if you buy through my Amazon banner on the right side of this web site or through the above links it throws a few cents my way. Just wanted to explain that because I could imagine people might think I’m on the tea kettle payroll but I am so not.)

I’m now at the point of the IVF cycle where I wake up wanting to punch something. It’s like my PMS has PMS only it isn’t PMS it’s a shitload of injectable hormones coursing through my system making me super irritable. I can sense people fidgeting in other rooms and I WOULD LIKE THEM TO STOP RIGHT NOW.

You, with your leg bouncing up and down making that squeaky sound. JUST STOP.

And the clock in my bathroom, ticking. Is it always this loud? It’s all very Edgar Allan Poe.

Someone just honked. I hate that person.

And my dog with her breathing. Actually, she gets a pass.

My stomach just growled or gurgled and it was deafening.

OH THAT INFERNAL TICKING. I have half a mind to march in there and yank out that double AA.

The real kick in the pantaloons is I’m trying to stay calm and relaxed because I think everything works better if you’re calm and relaxed however yesterday my anxiety and frustration began ratcheting up and today it is off the charts.

And the thing with hormones is you can’t be SURE that’s why you’re feeling so easily agitated. Maybe everyone really is being a fucknut and clocks are ticking loudly and nothing’s going right and no one cares and everyone’s ignoring you and THINGS ARE SUPER FUCKED. Probably not, but maybe.

Yesterday I began crying at the fertility clinic and I’m kind of surprised it’s taken me this long to lose my composure there considering the nature of infertility and all the hormones and the clinic’s insistence on early morning appointments and my not being a morning person.

So I trudged in there with my very little buffer yesterday and found out that even though everything looked really promising this month (it varies monthly and if things don’t look promising they will make you come back the following month instead of trying to do a cycle of IVF on a month where it won’t be effective. This has happened to me repeatedly and sometimes it’s a relief because I feel like I need a break and sometimes I just feel disheartened and as if I’m losing time), and even though my labs were excellent, like better than they’ve ever been, and even though I’m now on day 7 of jamming needles full of drugs into my stomach, and even though I’ve been feeling so positive about this cycle and so in tune with my body in a way I never have before to the extent that I thought I’d turned a corner and worked through whatever was holding me back prior to now and here we go, now my body will respond to the medication like most women respond and I can be like everyone else who does IVF and finally I’ll produce a bunch of eggs, enough that they can sort through them and find the good ones and we can create a real family with more than one kid instead of me being this weird outlier who for whatever undetermined reason isn’t pushing out many eggs (one in five eggs are good however I’m producing fewer than 5 eggs a cycle which means the road ahead is long and hard) and isn’t really responding to the drugs, um, this sentence has turned into a word labyrinth and I can’t find my way out.

Or maybe it’s turned into a corn maze of words? I could go either way.

Anyway, I guess it’s kind of silly to think just modifying my lifestyle a bit (working out more, changing my diet, meditating, getting massages which is as close to acupuncture as I can get presently because it scares me) would change something so fundamental inside me. And yet I kind of got into a magical thinking trap.

I’ve seen people close to me do this: blame themselves when their physical ailments or illnesses don’t abate despite a lot of mental work. And it always breaks my heart because it’s like, life is already piling on and now you’re kicking yourself too?

But for the short time when I thought that somehow I’d righted this ship by trying to take control of my mood and thoughts and “energy” and all that, I felt so empowered. And to fall back into what is probably the truth: that it’s capricious and random and out of my control, feels more scary than liberating.

Aaaand I’m realizing I never finished my thought above which is that I found out yesterday that my right ovary is “sleeping,” meaning it isn’t responding to the medications. My left is producing a few eggs which is good and which means all hope for this cycle isn’t lost, I just thought I was clearing the finish line and instead I’m in the dugout. (That’s the correct sports metaphor, right? I AM JOKING.)

And I know I said my goal was to be not tethered to the outcome. To live my life and do everything I can to get pregnant but not to be so hung up on if it’s working because it’s out of my control and etc. But things were looking so good that I allowed myself to really get my hopes up even though I wasn’t aware at the time that’s what I was doing.

But really, if I’m being honest which I am, this is partly about having a baby and partly about feeling like a weirdo outlier like I suggested earlier. It’s about feeling like I’m running in a race with all these swift, able bodied people but I’m lame and misshapen and my body just isn’t working like it’s supposed to. And I realize there are a thousand judgments and distortions in that sentence but it’s kicking around my brain and probably napping on my sleeping ovary.