You Really Can Pee for Ten Seconds

Don't you hate it when you make a plan with someone, and then at the last minute, the person asks you if you really want to do it, and you wonder if they doubt it or if it seems like you doubt it and that's why they're changing things? Like you're going to get Thai food, and you get to the restaurant and then your friend says, "we can go somewhere else if you want." So you think: Do you want to something else? Do you think that I want something else? But what you're really thinking is, No, I just want to stick to the damn plan and get my green curry and pretend you never said that.

On Friday morning, the embryologist called to tell us things were moving along as they'd hoped. All 9 embryos were still plugging away. If we wanted to, we could wait until day 5. We had enough that were looking like they were supposed to look on day 3 to go to day 5.

But no, we already agreed to day 3. So let's not change the plan.

And then we got the clinic. They were running late--they'd called us to tell us to come 2 hours later than our original time, and were still behind--and I couldn't help but wonder if they'd erased us off the day 3 list and put us on the day 5 list, thinking we'd go for it. Sure, their success rates are higher with day 5 transfers, but I DID a day 5 transfer, and we all know how that went. So I wanted to mix it up. Like we'd agreed.

Anyway, they make you start drinking water before you arrive, and then they were behind, and by the time the doctor was ready for us, I was starting to feel...peaked. Dr. Yoda sat us down and he told us that things looked great--we had four "perfect" embryos and everything else was at varying levels of good or decent. Then HE started in with the "you could wait until day 5." And I'm thinking, No, I am sitting here right in front of you with urine in my eyeballs, so let's do this thing. But I just said, "No, let's stick with the plan," which he seemed to think was fine.

And then he said, in his calm, Zen voice. "Are you uncomfortable?"

Well, I did just drink 32 ounces of water and sit around waiting for an hour, so you could say that. So he says that I have to go empty my bladder part of the way. Like I can pee for a count of 10, and then I have to stop. I want to throw up I have to pee so badly, I'm fantasizing about the near orgasmic relief of urination, and I'm being told that I have to cut it off after 10 seconds.

The crazy thing is, I did it.

I did it, and it totally worked. I felt better. I felt calm. I went into the transfer room and had the chocolates again, and the sappy music, and I watched the shot of light as those three little perfect embryos were placed in the nice cushion of my not-too-thick-lining, and I shut my eyes for a moment and just wished. And I wondered if I was foolish or hopeful to do this again, when statistics tell me no, when they SHOULD have said yes because I am young and healthy. I wonder if it is foolhardy to risk this disappointment. I wonder if I have not learned that perhaps, this is not meant to be. I wonder if I have not learned anything.

But then I remembered this: if I have learned nothing else, I have learned that I can make myself stop peeing on command.