Deep River

Here we go again.

The London drugs have arrived, the American drugs have arrived, the Ovitrelle is hiding behind the salad dressing bottles on the door of the fridge, my sharps container is vacant and waiting, and my flesh is ready to become a pincushion. Baby, this is our last try and we are not telling anyone. Not even RE.

Everything is different this time since we are doing a different type of IVF. New drugs, new timetable, new cost. Since the cost is already outrageous I ordered myself two mementos from Boden's website this morning. A striped dress I shall call my "Needle Dress" and a teal polka dot blouse that will pay homage to the way my upper buttocks will look for the next two months. Seems fair to me.

We are going to try to do the injections at dinnertime so I can hopefully sleep off most of the nasty side effects. Tonight, after RE left for a church activity and the house was empty, Greg retrieved the trusty rubbermaid-o-drugs and tried to remember how to fill a syringe. We swabbed my abdomen, squeezed the fat, and then I told Greg to wait because I had to go to the bathroom. Shots make me nervous. When I returned to the kitchen he was missing. I found him in the living room praying. He was praying that he wouldn't hurt me and that together we can do all of this again. Then we said a prayer together in the kitchen and hugged. It's such a huge gamble broken down into daily doses of hope. And shots.

One down, a zillion to go.

These next two weeks we will be shooting Lupron into my abdomen, which feels like fire ten seconds in and makes a huge welt. I called my doc tonight to see if the welt is because I'm allergic and he said it's just because the juice is nasty. Three hours in and I can still feel the burn. I'm thinking of newborn vampires from Twilight but if it leads to a newborn anything I'll keep doing it.

After last year's IVF failure I bought a CD of the Mormon Tabernacle Choir singing American folk hymns and spirituals. Song #12 is called "Deep River" and I have listened to it on repeat for 10 months. There aren't many words to the song:

Deep river, my home is over Jordan

Deep river, Lord

I want to cross over into campground.

Oh, don't you want to go to that Gospel feast,

That promised land where all is peace?

This is essentially the prayer I have had in my heart for the last month as we've ordered the meds, seen the doc, and geared up for Round 2.

Heavenly Father,

More water ahead.

Remember last winter when I tried to cross the Red Sea and thought you didn't part it for me? I'm so sorry. I know better now. The shores of the Red Sea were teeming with miracles and one of them is that I was carried to the other side to a new state of wandering.

I have had forty years (okay, ten months) to study this section of the Old Testament fanatically. Joshua succeeded Moses and led your people to the promised land: they wandered, they crossed the Jordan River, they screamed down the walls of Jericho.

You have promised me a baby and it is my promised land. I believe you. I trust you. I think I'm at the river and as luck would have it it's swollen at harvest time (literary coincidence?) and more daunting than I previously imagined. Greg and I always said we would try IVF twice. This is our last shot and I can see the campground and the feast on the other side of the water. I can imagine myself over there chowing down with a baby in my arms. Please, please, please let this be thy will and help me cross. We've done it before, we can do it again.

The priests holding the ark of the covenant simply had to stick their feet in the water. They had to take that first step into the unknown and then thy power was manifested. I just stepped in and the Lupron is still burning. Here I am! I'm willing to work for it and I will try so hard not to complain! I just read a quote about how you are more likely to help someone who is pushing their cart out of the mud than someone simply praying to have their cart removed from the mud. I'm pushing needles! All things according to thy will, Father. But we are so close. A new baby's scream would topple my Jericho.