game over

Beta today was 4. Which means we are out of the game. Which means that even as I was being so encouraged and helped by your emails and comments, our little guy had already given up the fight.

Still, once again, I cannot tell you how much it has all meant to me.

Manboy and I cried like wailing animals on the couch, and then, at his suggestion we did what any other sane grieving couple would do under similar circumstances :

We drank cheap beer and then jetted down to the Côte d’Azur to spend a day at the beach.

The Mediterranean waters were still a bit chilly, but the sand was hot. We layed close to each other the way unmarried peope do and slept and talked and cried and got sunburnt and got sand everywhere and said how we’d always remember the day Michael Jackson died as the day we knew our little embie was gone.

Something about knowing that our lonely little little embie had fought, and even implanted, makes its short existence that much more precious to me. Like the little guy wanted to be with us, but just didn’t make it. I know I’m imagining this, embies can’t want, they’re only cells, don’t have a brain yet, still…

Manboy suggested naming the embie ‘Jackson’.

Tonight we’re back, and I’ve already gotten my first assvice phone call. (crowd applauds)

I’m glad so many people seem to know so much about what they think is best for us and God’s frecking will and whatnot, but why do they so need to tell me about it before this little clump of cells that carried so much hope and promise of life has even left my body? Can’t I have 24 hours of “I’m sorry for your loss” before getting lectures about moving on and the ethics of reproductive science?

I spent a half hour heaving and crying in the shower after said telephone call. Manboy found me afterward, crumpled and shriveled like a raison in the tub covered by a wet towel and looking like something from an After School Special.

So tonight we’re opening a 2001 bottle of Côtes de Tricastan (yummy local wine) that my friend visiting last week left for us. Her instructions upon gifting the bottle were that it would be our celebratory bottle. If I got knocked up, we’d open it and Manboy could enjoy. If not, well, we’d still open it, but, eh, you get the picture.

I don’t think there’ll be a drop left in the bottle before we go to bed. Oh, and I’ve been hankering to try the homemade chestnut hooch I made and served to my guests last week, but couldn’t drink.Oh, and the bottle of muscat has been calling my name… and the creme de cassis…

If losing Jackson the Embie isn’t a worthy excuse to get happily hammered, I don’t know what is.