Crystals, Tattoos and Weed- How I Prep For IVF
A version of this essay appeared on www.glamour.com in March, 2018
In the last fifteen months, I’ve held approximately seventy-five pregnancy tests up to the light looking for two lines. I have spent a total of 85 weeks pregnant over six years, and have one living child who was delivered via an emergency C-Section. I was pregnant two times before my son was born. Two boys. There were complications and we chose to terminate for medical reasons at 14 weeks and 18 weeks. I have eagerly anticipated a heartbeat and was deafened by the silence in the ultrasound lab on two subsequent occasions- two miscarriages. The last one-our first girl.
The week leading up to this recent loss was the final straw. We went in for the ultrasound two days before Thanksgiving where we learned that our baby was at risk. It was too early to tell definitively, and there was nothing to do but wait. Ten days of purgatory colored by extended family and holiday gatherings with superficial small talk ensued. Our son was on Thanksgiving break which happen to precede a series of preschool illnesses including a diagnosis of strep throat and double ear infection. In other words, he was home with me. A lot. He and I were attached; I felt like I had an additional appendage. Simultaneously, I struggled with deep anxiety and impending grief and morning sickness. And so, I ate my feelings in pumpkin pie and stuffing and watched The Lego Ninjago Movie with him on repeat. And when it was confirmed ten days later, that my baby’s weak heart was no longer beating, I went home and prepared dinner for our son while my husband built Magna-tiles with him and fielded work emails. The next morning, I cried in fetal position in the passenger seat on the way to the surgery center. I found myself in the stir-ups, waiting for an IV and repeatedly asked my doctor through my tears if he was absolutely sure he didn’t hear a heartbeat. My body fought and resisted yet another procedure until the anesthesia finally kicked in. This is all to say that this loss hit us hard and without any time or space for reflection. Life kept moving and I appeared fully functional, though just below the surface I was breaking.
And for the weeks that followed this loss, I was convinced we were done with trying to have another child- done with trash cans filled with pregnancy tests. Done with hoping for two lines. Done with putting my career on hold. Done with the look on my OB’s face when he isn’t able to find a heartbeat on the Doppler. Or the face he makes when he sees a baby who doesn’t look well on the ultrasound. But instead, I dug deep and made an appointment with a fertility specialist to discuss a first and final round of IVF. One last attempt so I wouldn’t have to wonder, ‘What if…’
I have six weeks before my husband and I meet with Dr. H. to talk through the IVF process. Six weeks before I voluntarily give up my body to the science of assisted reproductive technology. Six weeks before hormone treatments and blood draws and multiple daily shots in my belly. Six weeks to eat what I want, to drink what I want, to take hot baths, to put on moisturizer with retinol and to not overthink the ingredients in my nail polish. Six weeks to pretend I’m footloose and fancy-free. Like a Los Angeles cliché, I indulge in wine, facials and back to back classes at SoulCycle. But, after all this time, before diving headlong into it all again, I think I need something stronger. I make like Bill Murray’s titular character in What about Bob, and take a vacation from my problems. Specifically, my fertility problems.
***
After pre-school drop off on an unusually hot January morning, I head into West Hollywood; there are billboards all over the city for this legal marijuana dispensary, including one with a joyful yet wise looking woman with white wispy hair and bold clip on earrings with the caption “Heal, it’s Legal.” It’s 9 am. A security guard checks my ID and stamps my arm with an unsubtle red cannabis leaf. I make eye contact with a guy who has the kind of ‘hipster with an expertise’ vibe that’s comparable to an Apple Genius. I ask him about the Dosist pens and tell him I’m looking for something that could give me a similar sensation to two glasses of wine. He directs me to a wall where the Dosist pens hang in streamlined commercialized packaging. He begins to talk to me about CBD and THC ratios and edibles. I look at him blankly. He suggests the Calm, Relief or Bliss Dosist pen.
“So I get a lot of people with kids who come in here, and for them I recommend always having a CBD pen available…it allows you to maintain your responsibilities…Or you know, if you have a job to go to or something…” he offers.
My takeaway from Cannabis Genius is that Calm is high in CBD and low in THC, so in theory, I should feel super mellow and I shouldn’t hallucinate or feel paranoid. Within minutes, I purchase my Calm pen and wash the stamp off my arm with the hand sanitizer I keep in my car- because petri-dish germy toddlers. I take a hit of the measured dose that night and subsequently have a panic attack. Turns out Calm does not calm me. However, I wake up in the morning and it feels as if the corset of everything pregnancy related has begun to loosen. I didn’t need the pen. I needed the freedom to be in my body and to inhale without care. My body didn’t have to answer to anyone. I feel calm. “Heal, it’s legal,” indeed.
I was beginning to feel the corset of every pregnancy-related worry loosening, but I needed more. “Anyone have an energy/crystal healer they like and trust?” I ask a moms’ group on Facebook days later. And because this group caters to the crunchy granola eastside of L.A., the recs are aplenty.
I do my research and email an energy healer about the different modalities she employs. She quickly responds that my Spirit will tell her Pendulum and then she will know. Seems reasonable. I book my appointment.
Before I lay on her table, I tell her about laboring for 24 hours with my son, only to have seven layers of skin cut through to deliver him via C-Section. I tell her about our babies who would have had a life of suffering and how we chose to terminate and the medical procedures that followed. I tell her about my two miscarriages within a year and a quarter. I tell her about the life and the death that has literally resided within my body. And that I haven’t had the space to process much of it because simply being and playing and imagining with my four and a half year old son continually demands that I return to the present.
The pendulum guides her to smudge the room with sage before she begins the sound healing using orchestral gongs, bells, and tuning forks. She lays colored silk cloths over my clothed body, and asks my Spirit which crystals she should place in my hands and on my body to unlock my negative cellular memory. This sweet 60-year-old former music teacher turned crystal energy healer makes contact with something otherworldly and chants it away. She tells me I am cleansed (but not of what, exactly). I feel relief mixed with tangible hope. I run home to walk our dogs and wonder if they sense something different in my energy. I then run to pick up my son from pre-school and wonder if I appear different to any of the parents, nannies or teachers. The mom on Facebook who recommended this healer tells me to get ready for my life to change. I’m ready.
I look at my wrist and find solace in the delicate tattoo I got to mark the anniversary of my soul-mate dog Seymour’s passing. This tiny letter ‘S’ is barely noticeable, yet it brings me incredible comfort. I book my appointment with the same tattoo artist to ink one small solid heart followed by four small heart outlines, representing my living son and his four lost siblings. This is an homage to the video game, the Legend of Zelda; these recovery hearts heal the lead character, Link. These hearts represent life. This feels like the last necessary piece to my procreation vacation. An artful scar to make the invisible visible. Concretized on my body.
My husband wondered if I was having a mid-life crisis. And I realized I was. But not the kind one thinks of when conjuring images of mid-life crisis. Sure, I played with the idea of getting botox and went shopping for weed while my son was at preschool. My therapist interpreted that this vacation seemed like I was preparing for something celebratory. Conversely, it felt like I was preparing for death. Living each day in the moment and enjoying my adventures with permission to leave mom guilt behind. Essentially, I realized my version of mid life crisis was defined by a desperate attempt to remember what it had been like to have a freedom and identity outside of this existence between life, creating it, and death. A literal mid-life crisis.
These experiences brought me back to myself- to a time before my being was consumed with pregnancies- to a time where I was actually able to live in the moment; a time where my body belonged to me.
Pot. Crystal Healings. Tattoos. Now I’m ready for all the limitations, shots and hormone pills that accompany IVF. And I am prepared to accept that this oftentimes isolating path might end in life, might end in death…or might just end.
~Jessica Wright Weinstock