View Discretion Advised

This may be too personal a question, but have you ever noticed how your cervix changes position over the course of your cycle? Well, it does more than just move a little bit--it changes color, shape, texture and more! If you'd like to see a cervix in action, check out this website where a woman took a picture of her cervix on every day of her cycle (using only a plastic speculum and the zoom function of her camera). As far as I'm concerned, it's an amazing feat of photo-journalism, documenting the beyond-amazingness of the female body. We are, indeed, always in a state of becoming...

http://www.beautifulcervix.com/cervix-photo-galleries/photos-of-cervix/

P.S. You gotta love this gal's boyfriend, who donned his headlamp and snapped the pics. He deserves one of those cool t-shirt that say "This is What a Feminist Looks Like"!

The Dark Side of the Moon

You know that chocolate bar called "New Moon," the one that's specifically geared toward New Agey women getting their periods? (Like me.) I'm thinking about the new moon, the time of darkest skies and no moon-shadow--we are most alone with ourselves during the new moon. That's how I feel tonight: I tried to share my worst fears with my dear husband, to commiserate over our latest disappointment and the unfairness of it all, and he responded with an optimism that made me scream inside (and be very witchy outside). Our periods are supposed to be a time of rest and restoration, but I feel like I'm facing the dark side of the moon in my heart and in my marriage--it's a cold and desolate, barren landscape.

Maybe I should eat some dark chocolate and call it a night.

Love Tokens

The contents of my "good luck on the IUI bag":

• Tiny froggie fetish no bigger than your thumbnail, wearing a dragonfly on her back
• Milky-blue (faux) robin's egg
• Transluscent red, uterus-sized heart
• Silver-spiral Balinese fertility charm necklace
• Nest-shaped, egg-image-filled "invitation," written to our baby/babies
• St. Brighid totem (patron saint of babies, midwives, poets, nuns, travellers and more!)

I hope it's enough magic...

Sex, Drugs & Rock 'n Roll

No, that's not another Georgia O'Keefe painting--but it could be, with those sensuous lines and rich colors. Instead, it's a fimbria: a magical "fringe of tissue" that sweeps a ripe egg into the fallopian tube. I think it looks like waving anemones, or a close-up of brain tissue, or a flamenco dancer's swirling skirts. All these comparisons imply many simultaneous impulses combining harmoniously and beautifully.

Hopefully, since my self-adminisistered 3am "trigger shot" of hCG 36 hours ago (good times), my fimbriae are doing this dance and will "swell with blood and hit the ovary in a gentle, sweeping motion. An oocyte is released from the ovary into the peritoneal cavity and the cilia of the fimbriae sweep the ovum into the fallopian tube" (Wiki). It sounds like a waltz, all that gentle sweeping about. Following my IUI this afternoon, I'm imagining my three eggs and millions of sperm waltzing around inside me. And then, maybe the music switches to rock 'n roll...and you know what rock 'n roll leads to...That right kids: BABIES!!!

In fact, our "homework" for tonight--doctor's orders--is to give this whole thing one more try the old-fashioned way. Let's hope every parent's prom nightmare (i.e. that alluring combo of sex, drugs and rock n' roll) is our dream come true.