I’m writing this while sitting in a tiny rental car. There seems to be free public wireless available, but so far the little icon shows a dancing yellow ‘trying to connect’ dot instead of actually being online.
So anyhow, I’m in this tiny rental car, on a huge loading dock leading up to the ferry terminal in Nanimo. It’s dark. It’s raining. I feel deliciously alone. I’m in a warm, safe cocoon with excellent music resonating all around. Songs of the seventies, the good ones… and a mixture of newer stuff... All musical delights which I can freely sing along with because there is no panel of judges to hear my wondrously off key voice. I mean, who can really sing “Rocket Man” and hit those high notes properly?
My dining choices are just as delicate. An illegal hit of heavily sugared Red Bull and equally heavily salted, crunchy kernels of shelled sunflower seeds. Dinner of the Gods and fat women everywhere.
*contented sigh*
Okay, so some catching up, avid reader, curious by-passer, disapproving relative, or true friend… some catching up.
The (Almost Non-Flight) Flight
Let’s start with the flight to Vancouver. I booked my flight, oh, about three weeks before departure. I checked my ticket and time about ten times before the flight was due. I checked in online, I printed my boarding pass. I had a 7:30 a.m. appointment the next morning, to start off what could be one of the biggest events of my life. We paid for our spot at the poker table, I had to be there to play the hand. You get my drift?
So anyhow, poker analogies aside, I worked my proverbial ass off all day to finish up everything I possibly could, rushed out of the store to retrieve my luggage and hurried over to the youngest of my litter’s worksite so he could drive me to the airport. That says something, doesn’t it? You might want to consider yourself a little too old to be squeezing out offspring when you have offspring old enough to have a worksite and credit card. Just a thought.
We arrived at the airport, and I excitedly draw up to the check in counter, weigh my ridiculously heavy suitcase and present required items of identification. So far, so good. Then the woman at the (AIR CANADA) unnamed airline counter says, “I’m really glad you checked in, you almost didn’t make it.”
I looked with panic at my ticket, then the clock on the wall. “Doesn’t my flight start boarding in 40 minutes?” I asked, horrified that I might have gotten my time mixed up.
“Oh,” she replied, “you’re here in lots of time, it’s just that you are the last passenger we’re letting on the flight. We’ve overbooked by seven people. If you hadn’t checked in, you might not have made it.”
I was just floored. I asked for clarification, “You mean, there are people on this flight who paid and are expecting to fly out of here and they won’t be permitted to board?”
“Yes, it’s policy, every airline does it,” she confirmed.
“Westjet doesn’t.” I countered, in defiance of my favorite company/airline of all time. “I’ve shown up ten minutes before takeoff and they would run with me to the aircraft… And… I paid for this flight, I have a really, really, really important medical appointment in Vancouver tomorrow morning. I would have been on this flight tonight, no matter what.”
“You wouldn’t have been on the flight if I said you wouldn’t be on the flight,” she retorted in that ‘don’t fuck with me, I’m an official person with power’ voice. “I’ll be telling seven people they won’t be on this flight – I hate that part of my job.”
Feeling sorry for my ill fated travel counterparts, but very thankful that I’d made it through the castors of injustice without harm, I just shook my head and went on to board the flight. Uneventful for the most part, just stormy and windy and dark, but upon touching down in Vancouver, I groaned loudly… I realized I’d left my precious baby binder on the couch in my Fort St John living room. Car confirmations, directions, signed medical releases, meds calendar (that one was a biggie – will explain soon), phone numbers… EVERYTHING to do with this journey was documented in beautiful pages and bound on plastic protective sleeves and in that freaking binder.
In Vancouver At Last
That was my first real feeling of despair. My first dawning realization of how alone I really was… how real that tiny knot of fear and doubt in my stomach really was… my first questioning of what I was doing and if it was right. Fighting panic and exhaustion and a dragging fear that that blue binder was not the only thing I’d left behind, I hurried through baggage and managed to get my car. I couldn’t find our GPS from the house when I left so I rented one at a staggering price of $210 (will be returning it, I bought another for a fraction of the rental cost) and found my little car, who was waiting patiently and bravely in the underground garage.
For ten minutes I struggled with the GPS. It had last been rented to someone who spoke German, and so of course, the instructions to change from German to English were, in German. This did nothing to ease my distrust of my decision that this was a good idea. Finally I managed to decipher the tiny computer and off we wandered.
The highways were very crowded. It was pouring rain and exceptionally dark. I have a stigmatism which makes night driving difficult. It makes night driving in rain downright dangerous. All the lights are like explosions that create a kaleidoscope of vivid, moving colors that completely obliterate any trace of highway, lines, and most signs. Yay. Happy, happy times. To top it off, the freaking GPS was on ‘simulation mode’ and kept telling me to turn in 2.1 kilometers… for nearly fifteen minutes.
I reached the hotel, not near tears, but nearing the near tears stage. I was utterly exhausted, totally worried about the shop back home, strained from the travel and visionary issues and freaked out to the point of panic at the amount of money we’d laid on the line. I don’t even know how to f*cking play poker, I thought to myself, miserably.
The room wasn’t too bad. I’d passed what looked like a haven of stress-related eating delicacies, a somewhat authentic looking and reputable pizza joint and hastily called to place my order of comfort food. A cheesy, saucy contraption, wrapped in a classy cardboard box might even be waiting on the table when I opened the door, I fantasized.... No such luck, but it wasn’t far behind.
After finding the essentials (remote, light switches, internet connection) I settled in, somewhat comforted by the hot cheese of the (also illegal) pizza. Called David. Reported on the highlights. Fell into a troubled sleep.
The Clinic
The morning drive was less busy, just as dark, even more wet. Downpour is not quite the word. I found the clinic without issue, but the two minutes it took to figure out the parking meter and get inside left me looking like I’d just stepped out of the shower. I proceeded directly to the bathroom where I used paper towels to dry my hair. I was still not feeling the love for this adventure, ya know?
The waiting room was really, really quiet, even though there were a lot of people in it. Mental note to suggest a radio, some music, dividing walls, something to ease the discomfort in that waiting room! Anyhow, the staff were great. I got my blood drawn with minimal discomfort, was told to go pee, and then await my ultrasound. It was like being in a herd of cows. A bunch of women waiting to get blood drawn, then to gain access to the bathroom to empty bladders, then to get prodded by the vet, I mean, Reproductive Endocrinologist, to check our prospective breedability.
The only really interesting moment was when the doctor said my lining was a little too thick and requested a pregnancy test. I’ve peed on so many of those strips and failed to produce a line that I really wasn’t concerned, of course, it was negative. I just hadn’t had AF yet.
On My Way To The Island & Some Instructions From The Nurse
I hurried into my little silver car and headed for the ferry terminal. My sister lives on the Island and I wanted to spend a few days with her since I didn’t have to be back until Monday night. During my drive through the city, that I am not familiar with, that had rush hour downtown traffic, that I was relying on a GPS to guide me through, the clinic called. I pulled over to the side of the road and got the stats. Everything was fine. E2 was at 85 (very good, the nurse said), and we were good to go.
Start meds tomorrow. That would be, start meds on the SIXTEENTH. Oh, remember back in early January when I got my first calendar? It said FIFTEENTH for starting meds. That’s one-five, not one-six. This little change in days didn’t seem to penetrate through my stretched-taut, sleep deprived, on the verge of being on the verge of tears, multitasking brain.
I proceeded to the ferry terminal. Somewhere on the drive, I found a good music station, the sun began to shine, and my hopes and spirits began to shift from a gloomy and ominous grey to a somewhat lighter shade of yellow with a few pink tinges of hope drifting through the veil. I started to relax, to enjoy the trip, to talk to passengers, and watch people. By the time I got to my sister’s place, I was in good spirits, could handle the car (no more turning on the wipers when I was looking for the turn signals), and was happy to be with family.
The Extreme Screw Up
We visited, had dinner, and I went and took my first round of meds. Yeah. You heard that right. I TOOK MY FIRST ROUND OF MEDS. It wasn’t until later that I realized…. It was not the one-six day of the month, it was the one-five day of the month. I took my first round a whole day early. Gawd-damn, sum-bitch, as my father used to say. Had I brought my precious blue binder, I would have seen that I'd replaced my old schedule (the one that I'd memorized every detail of) with a new one that I'd gotten in the mail a day before I left. Stating to start on the SIXTEENTH.
Called the clinic the next morning, where I was told that my partner was going to have to be more aware of the schedule… and had to admit to them that it was me, all me. Everything was fine, they said, they would just have to move the entire thing up one day early. Cool, except that we were trying to stretch it out so David could be there to inseminate my eggs without putting his extremely important career on the line. Oops. Again… Gawd-damn, sum-bitch.
David took the news in stride and we are still hoping everything will work out easily. I spent a couple of days with my sister, who, poor girl, is fighting a mighty battle with cancer and had just undergone a rough chemo treatment. I was able to help her through a rough night and day, including a four hour trip to emergency to monitor an alarming fever. We had some great talks, a few tears and a few laughs. I am sorry to cut our visit short by a day. I am going to try to be back on the island for the weekend, to help her through the next round.
And that brings me, dear reader, to where I am now. Page four on Microsoft Word (no internet, will cut and paste this later), now on the main passenger deck of the ferry, sharing my space with a whole lot of strangers, snippets of conversation floating through the air instead of my music, bright government issued light sources instead of the soft glow of my screen and the rain streaks on the windshield. More rainy, nighttime driving through a foreign city ahead of me, but I am feeling good. Hopeful, grateful, excited…. And happy.
