Bah

I may have mentioned in passing (cough) that Significant Other loathes Christmas and everything Christmas-related. The past three years have been a bit of a struggle as I love the festive season, but generally speaking we've all managed to have a fairly nice day.

This year, though, I think that it was all too much for him. We got to my parents' and did the traditional gift exchange, after which Significant Other retired to the spare room bed with his book. He came down for lunch and then went back up again, came down for dinner and then went back upstairs. My parents have become used to Significant Other yawning and sulking on the sofa in previous years but this year I could see them exchanging puzzled looks. My dad was even worried enough to keep my wine glass topped up (usually I'm allowed one glass maximum).

Meanwhile, I was miscarrying my third pregnancy. The clinic had told me that it would "be like a period, perhaps a bit heavier". Erm...not so much. The pain, the - well - the free-flow necessitating a visit to the loo four times an hour, and the pain. Even my mother didn't blink when she saw me wash down analgesics with a mouthful of Merlot.

Significant Other managed to muster up enough energy to come down to brunch the next day, which eased my parents' minds a little bit. He was silent the whole drive home and as soon as we got through the front door he retired to the bed and has been there ever since, only emerging for meals which I insist cannot be eaten in the bedroom.

We were meant to be going to visit some friends of mine for a few days over New Year, but Significant Other said this morning that he wasn't sure he felt like it after all. I'm torn - I really want to go anyway; they are very close friends whom I don't see nearly enough since they left London, and they live by the sea. I love being by the sea, it's where I'm unfailingly happy. But - I can't leave Significant Other alone over New Year, that's just not nice.

This year just doesn't stop sucking!!

the afternoon before Christmas

Thank you, everyone, for the wonderful and supportive comments. Thank you to those who came over from LFCA (and for whoever posted my news) and thank you most especially to those of you who took time from the pile of poo you yourselves are wading through to offer me comfort.

It seems so crass, in the face of all your support, to keep on keeping on, but I have another bone to pick with the universe. Not enough for me to miscarry my third pregnancy over Christmas, dear universe? Not enough for it to happen while I'm still suffering with a chest infection? Seriously, you had to give me a lump under my breast at the same time? I mean - seriously?? A lump so painful it actually restricts movement of my right arm? Did you think, dear universe, that giving me this just when I can't even attempt to make an appointment with my GP until Tuesday, would add spice to the festive season? Well, guess again. Too much has happened this year to make this anything to fret over.

So put that in your pipe and smoke it.

And having got that off my chest, I would like to, rather less dementedly, wish everyone a very peaceful Christmas.

extinguished

Just got the call from the clinic with the results of my second blood test. My beta hCG level is down to 38 (from 41) and the progesterone only increased slightly.

The nurse said that I can expect to start miscarrying in the next week.

That's two pregnancies lost in one year, 3 in less than 2 years. Starchild, Bean and now my little stars.

I don't know how we are going to bear this because this is so hard. It's too hard.

whinge-fest

So Sunday was the big family do at my aunt's house. A day or so before I got a text from my cousin (she's my favourite cousin, eight years younger than I am, I was her babysitter, confidante, advisor - big sister really). I already knew that she is pregnant but she wanted to warn me that she is starting to show and didn't want me to be faced suddenly with a pregnant belly. My cousin is the only family member apart from our parents to know of our struggles and losses - she herself lost her first pregnancy so she understands some of how I feel and has sensitivity and love enough to try and imagine the rest.

We had a good time at the party, I ate more food than I think is decent and Significant Other drank too much wine and snored loudly for the full hour's drive home. Later that evening I found out that Ross and Rachel had their baby, a gorgeous boy. I love them to bits and I am genuinely happy for them. But... oh, but... You all know only too well, I don't have to say it.

And then we decided that I should POAS on Monday morning so I staggered into the bathroom at 6.00am and did the needful on my penultimate stick. The wretched thing was a dud - I was using an own-brand from a large high street chemist chain and a positive test shows up as a cross in the first window and a line in the control window. I had half a cross and no control window line. Significant Other made me a large mug of hot blackcurrant cordial, we waited half an hour (bladder the size of a pea) and I tried again but this time on a F1rst Response EPT. A faint second line which if you weren't really looking for you would have missed.

Naturally, on the way to work, I stopped at my nearest branch of the same high street chemist chain and bought a 2-for-1 Cle@r Blue and did a third test in the ladies' loo at work. A much less faint, but faint nonetheless, positive. So I phoned the clinic and made an appointment for a blood test later that morning and waited.

Least Favourite Nurse rang with the results - "well, it's a positive result but the levels are very low" she said, coldly. Beta hCG was 41.4 (Nice Kiwi Nurse who took my blood told me that they were looking for over 100) and progesterone was 60.1 (hoping for over 200). Least Favourite Nurse made an appointment for another blood test on Friday morning, advised me to continue with the clex@ne injections and increase the cylc0gest to three times a day and that was that.

And on Tuesday morning I was struck down with an even nastier version of the chest infection I thought had been clearing. I have been home in bed, coughing up bits of lung, ever since. As Significant Other left London for a city in the Midlands on Monday, my mother came to stay and looked after me. I'm usually a reluctant patient, always think of myself as much less sick than I am and able to do much more than I can, but this week I have been luxuriating in having hot drinks and dry toast being brought to me during the times when I surfaced from those vaguely sinister dreams you have when you have a temperature.

Significant Other came back last night and my mother went home. I was meant to be going in for my second blood test this morning but the heavy snowfall and my improving but still tenacious chest infection made me put the appointment back until Monday. Another weekend of waiting is nothing to us IFers, accustomed as we are to possessing our souls in patience. But I did POAS on the last stick in the house - the second of the 2-for-1 Cle@r Blue. Even more faint, which I didn't think possible.

So, what do you think, dear interwebs? Chemical pregnancy? The remnant of beta hCG from the post-retrieval trigger injection? Final cosmic joke for 2009?

And finally, just to complete my sour, sorry-for-myself mood, Signficant Other has taken to the bed and banished me to the sofa. Apparently, although he had a high old time while he was out of London (2 Christmas dinners and 1 Christmas party), he's now "too sick" to get out of bed (he has an intermittent cough) and needs hot drinks and lots of snacks brought to him.

I'm sorry for being such a whingey old moo. I do plan on cheering up and getting more into the festive spirit (ho, ho, ho) but I just don't seem to be able to manage it this morning.

a handful of water

I haven't POAS yet but I just know that I'm not pregnant. You know what it's like, no-one is more in tune with her own body than an infertile.

But, because it isn't over until the fat lady sings, or in my case the slightly overweight lady pees, I haven't shared my sense of failure with Significant Other. He's still stressed enough already with work, Christmas (he's a rabid atheist and loathes the festive season) and, of course the whole infertility / loss / TTC extravaganza.

Helping to reduce stress in Significant Other includes being solely responsible for the preparations for Christmas, which is a time of year my beloved rabid atheist loathes. It means doing all the shopping, cooking, laundry and cleaning - although I have to admit that the last currently consists of nothing more than a cat's lick and a promise as having bronchitis has severely restricted my ability to dust or wield a vacuum cleaner. It means pretending that the clex@ne injections don't hurt and that waking up at 5.30 every morning for the first Cycl0gest pessary of the day is no biggie.

I'm trying so hard to keep everything held together and sometimes I think I'm managing. Other times, like today, I feel like I am trying to carry around a handful of water.

7dp2dt

Bang in the middle of the 2ww and I am having the usual attack of the split personality crazies.

Yesterday I was all "Woo-hoo, I just know that this worked! My b00bs are bigger! I have nausea!! I'm hungry all the time!!! I'm totally craving pizza!!!! Can't go 30 minutes without having to pee!!!!!"

Today Little Miss Rational has come to visit. My b00bs are exactly the same size as they've been since a couple of weeks after losing Bean. No nausea, normal appetite. I crave pizza all the time because it's a forbidden food and, trust me, gluten-free pizza bases taste like biscuits (cookies, not the sort you eat with gravy). And peeing the livelong day? Well, drinking several glasses of juice or water or cups of tea an hour will do that to a girl.

In order to distract myself I have been putting together a mini hamper to send to Significant Other's parents for Christmas. We have a number of small treats from H@rr0ds, a mini Christmas pudding from M&S and some cat toys from my darling little cat to their darling (somewhat larger) cat. The presents are beautifully wrapped in festive paper and I've even sprinkled some seasonal confetti inside the carton, and the parcel is sitting, ready to go, on the desk. Sounds good, doesn't it?

Last air mail posting day for parcels from England to the Antipodes was yesterday...

Amama

Amama (my grandmother) died today. She was 92, confused and very frail and it wasn't entirely unexpected but it was still a shock. She died peacefully, quickly and in her own bed, with family around her - and I guess that is all that we could ask for her. The last thing she did was to have a couple of sips of her morning coffee, a thought which even now, in my first pangs of grief, makes me smile. She passed her obsessive love of coffee to her daughters and her grand-daughters, you see.

The last time I spoke to her, Amama didn't always know who I was - sometimes she thought I was my mother (her daughter). But the last thing I said to her was that I missed her and I love her - and that will be true forever.

little stars

Please little stars, hang tight...

transfer

The embryologist phoned to tell us our four have become two. One was an immature egg, one didn't play nicely with Significant Other's swimmers and so we have two to work with.

Because of the low numbers, to give us the best chance, they have done something called "assisted hatching" - I don't understand fully the technicalities of it but it's something to do with a laser, the zona pellucida and a risk of a multiple pregnancy (ha!)

Anyway, so far I am going in tomorrow morning for transfer. Apparently both embryos (embryos? fertilized eggs? our children?) have a 95% chance of making it through tonight and, if they do, they will be placed safely inside me on what would have been Starchild's first birthday.

and the number is...

....drumroll please...


4.

Four. Okay, I know, that is 4 times better than nothing, which is what I thought would happen but still - when the clinic's average is 10 per patient, 4 is a little disheartening.

Still, until the embryologist calls later today and tells us otherwise (you see that Eyeore mode has been engaged!), we have 4 little tiny pieces of us somewhere in a petri dish in central London.

update

But first a big thank you to everyone who left such supportive comments on my last post. While this journey is so hard and we wouldn't wish it on anyone, it's so comforting to know that we're not alone, that there is this whole community out there knowing what we're individually going through, and being so supportive.

So I was scanned again on Tuesday and there was another decent-sized follicle (on my "lazy" right ovary) and a couple more on the left which the doctor thought may show potential. So, we are on for retrieval tomorrow. I can't believe that we have actually made it this far! It seemed so hopeless just a day ago. Digits crossed for a good haul!

hope

Another IF and loss irony - hope.

Because if this whole process isn't the epitome of hoping, I'm not sure what is.

We all go through this with the hope that the drugs will work, that they will make our ovaries produce follicles to produce eggs or that the drugs will help our DHs' swimmers go forth and multiply or that they will synch our cycles with our donor's cycle.

We hope that we have enough eggs, enough fertilize, make it to blastocysts, have some for frosties, transfer well.

We hope that our precious embryos settle in and hang on, hang in, hang tight.

We hope for that elusive, that longed-for, that wanted-so-much second line.

We hope to see a heartbeat, and that we will see it over and over again for 9 months until we have that living, breathing, beautiful, so so SO loved already bundle of hope cradled in our arms.

We hope never, ever, ever to go through what we have all gone through, what we are still going through again.

The whole journey / quest / trek / battle is from the very beginning wrapped up in hope.

So how come it's the first casualty? How does it drain away so quickly and yet be the one thing that carries us on to the next scan or the next blood test or the next injection?

Here I am, with 2 decent follicles after 10 days of stims, now on 2 injections of Cetr0tide a day instead of 1 in the hope of producing something to work with. Another scan and more bloods tomorrow as Dr Kind Eyes today said he "hopes this will stimulate better".

Me? I'm doing as I'm told but I've run out of hope.

still undecided

A scan at the rudely early time of 9.00 on a Sunday morning showed 5 average to a bit better than average follicles on the left and 3 teeny, tiny follicles on the right.
"Your right side is very lazy, Illanare," Hawkeye scolded as he waved the wand. I felt fleetingly responsible for my right ovary's sloth, which I told myself was stupid. But then I felt proud of left ovary's achievements which, funnily enough, I didn't take myself to task for...

Anyway, blood results from yesterday showed an E2 level in the four thousands (I think, Hawkeye mumbles on the phone rather) and I am going in for another scan in an hour. I've been promised a decision today, so fingers and toes are still being kept crossed...

jury still out

Friday's scan showed a microscopic follicle on the right, and five less-than-ideal on the left. So another scan tomorrow for a final decision whether to go for IVF or a slightly less satisfactory IUI. I know that IUI is better than nothing but still - hoping, hoping, hoping...

And I have a cold. I hate having colds - I very rarely get them and they make me disproportionatly fractious. Which is probably why I'm a bit miffed that Significant Other is out this evening at a dinner party hosted by his ex girlfriend. Still, I have a fluffy blanket, low-impact Saturday night TV and a purring cat to keep me company so it's really not all that bad :-)

Eey0re

I am very much afraid that the scan and blood test tomorrow will show I have had a poor response to the stims and that this cycle will be cancelled.

I know that I am a total IVF novice, but shouldn't I be able to feel something happening by now? I started stims on Saturday and have been on the increased dose of Men0pur since Tuesday and I feel no different. No bloating, no mood changes, no discomfort. The only effects (apart from itching and redness at the injection site immediately after the Cetr0tide) have been stomach upset - but that is because I started d0xycycline last night and antibiotics and I have issues. Oh and I have a (mild) cold.

I suppose I'm extra edgy because I didn't ovulate at all on my last round of Cl0mid and the final IUI cycle was abandoned.

And I suppose that infertility and loss makes second-guessers of us all.

Still, I am grateful that my scan appointment is in the morning and that by this time tomorrow I will have some kind of idea of what happens next.

Stims Day 5 in the BFN House...

...and Illanare is feeling disappointed.

Had my first monitoring scan and bloods yesterday, the sonographer could tell straight away that my ovaries weren't playing nicely. And the E2 results came back at 784 so I am now on 225iu of Men0pur instead of 150. Current cocktail is 225iu Men0pur, 225iu G0nal F, 0.25mg Cetr0tide, 100mg Cl0mid and, starting this evening, 100mg d0xycycline. Next scan on Friday, pretty please, ovaries, start responding!

injections

We did it! Or rather - Significant Other did it. First injections done this evening: the mix-it-yourself Men0pur and the handy pen G0nal-F.

And it didn't hurt a bit. Okay, the Men0pur stung just a teeny bit as the needle went in, but we did that one first. The G0nal-F? Didn't feel a thing.

Significant Other was awesome!

worries

It's been another difficult week for Significant Other. He has been unravelling at the seams at the prospect of the upcoming IVF. He seems fine most of the time, and then late in the evenings things start to go pear-shaped.

I try to talk to him about it but Significant Other is a very, very private person and talking things through is not his forte, in fact it makes things worse as he starts to hyperventilate at the mere thought of having a conversation about anything serious. But a few times this week, mainly about mid-night, he has been able to tell me some of his fears.

They mainly seem to be worry about what will happen if I get pregnant. Yes, if I DO get pregnant. I don't blame him, as he said in the wee smalls of Thursday morning, he's been through 2 pregnancies with bad results and that is a 100% failure rate.

I have asked the big question: do you want to go through with this or shall we stop now? And his answer has been each time that yes, he does want to have IVF, he does want to give this a go even if it's just this one time.

And then, that said, he turns over and falls asleep, not waking until his alarm goes off, while I am left wide awake and staring at the ceiling until I fall into a fitful doze at 3.00am.

I don't know how to help him. I can't promise him that this time it will be different and I will have a healthy pregnancy and present him with a healthy baby at the end of the alloted time. I wish that I could promise him that, don't we all wish that we could make this exact promise to our partners and to ourselves, with every confidence of being able to keep it? But that is yet another irony of loss and infertility - seeing that longed-for extra line isn't the end-point, it's the start of a whole different type of heart-wrenching waiting.

So, I don't know what to do. All I know is that I have to try and keep as much stress and worry away from Significant Other as possible. I need to try and stay upbeat and positive and give him all the support that I can. And hope that I can keep a lid on any hormone-induced mood swings and make home a calm place to be.

My period came yesterday and today I had a session with the wand (no cysts, lovely lining, all systems go!) and then we had an injection lesson. Significant Other took copious notes and watched the nurse's every movement carefully. He is adamant that he will give me the injections and I have every confidence in him.

And here we are, dear interwebs. I'm no longer blessed with faith so I don't pray, but if I did I would ask if I could please have the strength to help Significant Other through the next couple of weeks. That rest can come later. Thank you.

11th hour of the 11th day of the 11th month

slapstick

A few years ago I was in very early to work and, being the only one around, I allowed myself to sing along to my MP3 player.

Well, I say "sing", it was rather less tuneful than that. Anyway, I droned along as I sorted paper on my desk and added the odd interpretive dance move for good measure. And then I turned and saw Professor Brainiac leaning against the doorframe for support as he shook with laughter, tears streaming down his face.

Because I wasn't just singing tunelessly and dancing. No, I was singing "Isl@nds in the Stream". And if this wasn't quite naff enough, I was singing Dolly's part with my version of a Southern accent.

I learnt my lesson and have never burst into song or busted a move in the office since.

And then this morning I was once again the only person in at 7.30 and history repeated itself, only this time it was Dr Old-School who was observing the show. And I wasn't singing, I was playing air drums to this song and not doing as good a job as the drummer in this clip...

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=J8gvIscsMkg

box of tricks

Lor' love a duck, it's huge...

This is what £1163 buys you...


Hmm, what tasty supper treat can I make with hummus, a dried-up lemon, some G0nal-F and healthy dollop of Pregny.l...?

stormy weather

Thank you so much to those who commented on my last post, wishing me luck and giving me encouragement. I am a lot calmer now, thanks in no small part to those good wishes.

But it has been quite a week since that last post. I was recommended an online pharmacy by a friend who has already used them for IVF drugs. They are £700 cheaper than our clinic, and throw in extra needles, swabs, plasters and a sharps bin in for free. But a national postal strike meant that we had to have the prescription sent by courier and somehow, that small extra step threw poor Significant Other into a bit of a tailspin.

Suddenly it was of the utmost importance that he book himself into several work meetings and conferences that would take him out of London, the first starting on what looks likely to be the first day of injections and one, rather more worryingly, taking him to the other end of the country on what may potentially be retrieval day. I took a deep breath and agreed that of course he should go to all of the meetings, including the one that would keep him away for a week around and after potential transfer day BUT it was pretty important that he was in London for the day of collection. I think that my calm response calmed him a little, as he admitted that none of the meetings were mandatory and so of course he will wait until we know for sure before he books himself into the one which we think will fall on collection day.

Peace reigned for a day or so and then another wave of panic washed over him, this time about what would we do if I got pregnant and we lost the baby again. I wasn't able to answer this one any better than to say cope the best we can. That's the only thing to do, isn't it? It's what we've been doing after Starchild and Bean died, some days better than others, but coping nonetheless.

But the waves of panic kept rolling and this time washed him - and so me - on the shores of "and what if the IVF fails?" But this question Significant Other sort of answered himself (though I hope against hope that he didn't mean what it seems like he meant). He wants children so desperately. And he can have them, the problem here is mine and not his. He has super swimmers - billions of them, apparently, and all of Olympic gold standard. And he said that he wasn't sure if he could envision a life without children and for him, adopting is not an option.

So...

So...? I don't know. I don't know what is going to happen, and I can't really think about it right now or it all gets too overwhelming.

All I can do is to break everything down into bite-sized chunks and the mouthful for today is waiting in for the courier company to deliver the drugs.

protocol

I have my protocol in my suddenly clammy and trembling hands.

Cl0mid / Cetr0tide / Men0pur are my drugs of...well, not choice.

Men0pur 75iu - inject 3 ampoules daily for 9 days.
Cl0mid 50mgs twice daily for 5 days
Cetr0tide 0.25mg - inject 1 daily for 8 days
Pr0gynova 2mg - 1 tablet 3 times a day for 18 days
G0nal F 450iu - inject 225iu daily for 9 days

And of course, the garnish of Pr£gnyl 5000iu injection and Vibr@mycin 100mg for 8 days.

I'm scared.

Er...ouch?

This post is going to contain rather too much information, please feel free to avert your eyes.

Yesterday was D9 of my "preparation cycle" so, as instructed by Hawkeye (my consultant looks like Al@n Ald@), I took myself off to the clinic to have my dummy embryo transfer and HyCoSy.

The first, obviously, requires a full bladder so I duly drank a vat of water and hopped around the waiting room in agony until I was called.

"This won't take long," Calm Nurse said as I assumed the position and awkwardly exchanged handshakes with a new doctor who was already inspecting my lady-bits. The speculum went in, jiggled around a bit because it wasn't quite in the right position, jiggled around a bit more and then was extracted again.
"Sorry," muttered new doctor. "I will need to try it again."
This time she meant business and practically slammed it into position. Reeling from the pain, I was almost completely unaware of the catheter being placed, or the swabs being taken or even the probe pressing on my protesting bladder.

It truly didn't take very long and before I knew it, I was tottering off the table. I made a less-than-dignified sight hot-footing it down to the loo in my socks, sheet gathered around my bare nether half with the "NHS Property" stamp positioned comically over my rump.

Back then for the HyCoSy. I had been told that, while not something you would do for fun, the procedure was nowhere near as bad as an HSG. As I had sailed through that ordeal without too much trauma, I was rather arrogantly supposing that this one would be a piece of cake.

Not so much. Slam! The speculum went in. Eyes watering, I turned to the monitor to watch the show as the balloon followed the speculum. Out came the speculum to be replaced by the magic libido-reducing wand but nothing appeared on the monitor. New doctor moved the wand around with determination but still nothing. With a sigh she warned me that she would have to do the whole thing again.

By this time I think she had a grudge against my cervix as the speculum went in with such vigour I was concerned it might never come back out again. But apparently brute force does work because my innards filled with saline to new doctor's satisfaction and pretty soon I was tottering off the table again and inserting myself gratefully back into my clothing.

Last night and today I feel pretty grim, but anyone about to have an HyCoSy for the first time - don't be alarmed. You get given antibiotics afterwards, wherein lies the rub for me as antibiotics and I have a hate-hate relationship. They give me dreadful GI upset and all I am fit to do is sip ginger tea and lie on the sofa in a Camille-stylee.

So there we are. Nothing more to do until D14 when I start the Primolut again and head off down to The Cycle.

Crikey...

IVF's little ironies

Popping into the chemist at lunch-time to buy folic acid and a box of c0nd0ms...

A fairy story (pg mentioned)

Hey, did you hear the one about the couple who met, fell in love, got married, moved out of the city and bought a big house in the country, decided that they wanted a baby, 2 months later were expecting a baby, told all their friends almost before the stick was dry, had a healthy and care-free pregnancy followed by a beautiful, healthy baby?

True story, it happened to friends of mine. That's the Hans Christian Anderson part.

Here's the Brothers Grimm bit.

Same friend - who knows about the loss of Starchild and Bean and the TTC struggles - emailed baby photos with the message: "Motherhood is the best thing ever. You should try it."

A full day later and I still have no idea how to respond to that.

magic wand indeed

Because I was still Flo-free yesterday, 6 days post primolut, I was asked to go in for a session with the magic libido-reducing wand. The pregnant radiographer (dontcha love it?!) had a good peer around my ovaries (no cysts, hooray) and my uterus (thick lining, hooray) and was confident that it would only be a matter of days.

But Aunt Flo showed up this morning, around 4.30 and in an increasingly vicious mood as the day has worn on.

But - she is here and I go for my D3 baseline bloods and ultrasound on Friday.

Oh frabjous day! Callooh, callay!

IVF here we come.

Crikey...

a relaxed weekend

"Hasn't it been a nice, relaxed weekend?" Significant Other has just asked me as he stretched out on the bed after dinner, watching me put piles of newly-ironed clothes away. "We've done nothing!"

And indeed, WE have done nothing. I, on the other hand, have been food shopping, cleaned the flat, changed the bed linen, taken out the rubbish, changed a fuse, cooked two dinners and washed up afterwards, done 4 loads of washing and ironed for 2 hours.

To be fair, Significant Other did spend yesterday installing some new gadget. Apparently it records stuff straight to USB, pauses live TV, has some kind of fancy display, speaks six languages and massages your feet at the end of the day. And he did bring me a cup of coffee and a buttered crumpet this afternoon (Significant Other, not the gadget).

Still, one of us has had a rather more relaxed weekend than the other...

Day 49 in the BFN house...

... and despite having taken 5 days' of Primolut, Aunt Flo is still AWOL.

I've done everything. Apart from taking Primolut I have also:
worn my best white nether-garments
forgotten to take extra sanitary supplies and painkillers to work
changed the bed linen

What more is a woman to do??

thank you

I was overwhelmed to be given this award by the amazing Kate; thank you so much.

The rules are that you reveal 10 things not previously known about you, and pass along the award to others. Compiling the list below has proved a nice distraction this evening.

1. I have a wheat and gluten allergy and pizza in particular makes me very ill the next day. But sometimes I clear my weekend schedule and order in a deep-pan, seafood pizza with extra onion on a Friday night.

2. When I sing in the shower I think I sound wonderful even though I know that I couldn't carry a tune in a bucket.

3. Living alone never scared me; the thought of dying alone always has.

4. I twirl my hair when I'm nervous or stressed or upset. It feels like I have had a strand grafted to my fingers these past 18 months...

5. I got a tattoo for my 30th birthday as a present to myself. It is of a cat stalking along my right hip. I have never before or since let flow such a stream of profanity as I did when it was being done.

6. I was an ardent Catholic as a child and never really fully lost my faith until 28th April 2008 when we lost Starchild.

7. I hate clothes shopping, shoe shopping and grocery shopping but have to be dragged out of bookshops, protesting bitterly.

8. It bothers me beyond all sense when people wrongly use "and I" or "and me" (as in "my friend and me went to France" or "it was given to my husband and I").

9. I think that Ceylon tea is the best in the world and all other teas are mere upstarts.

10. I genuinely believe that my darling little cat understands every word I say to her.

I would like to share this with:
Circus Princess
Loribeth
BarrenBlog
IF Crossroads
May

that time again

ker-ching

For the past month I have been in denial but this evening, when I opened the freezer and the ice-tray was full of barely chilled water I realised that the time has come.

I need to buy a new fridge-freezer.

But that's okay because I realise that a couple of hundred pounds is nothing, a mere bagatelle. You know, after having spent £4000 on replacing windows in March and almost £1300 on vet's bills last month, and almost £1000 on IUI / drugs / consultations, and about to hand over thruppence ha'penny for IVF in the next few days.

Ho hum.

three years

It was Significant Other's and my 3rd year anniversary yesterday.

We put on our Sunday best, went to a fancy restaurant, had delicious food and wine, got a little squiffy, treated ourselves to a cab home.

We exchanged gifts: he bought me ear-rings, I bought him shoes (not so much romantic as practical).

We didn't talk about babies, treatment, money or the future.

It was a wonderful evening.

auto rant

CD39 and I know that Aunt Flo must be on her way because I can see the signs. More tired than usual, restless, fraying temper, chocolate craving (no, wait, that's every day). Anyway, the biggest clue was getting into a real strop last night. Over my payslip.

Yes it arrived 5 days late because once again it went to my namesake in a different department (I never get hers though, which I think is weird) - but that wasn't why.

Yes, I had less in it this month as my union membership fees went up - but that wasn't why.

It was because of the deduction for tax. Now I am usually as resigned as the next person watching a goodly portion of my salary disappear but I know that it goes to pay for infrastructure and social benefits for those in need (and to fund wars and apparently politicians' second homes but let's not get into that right now). But this month, with Aunt Flo late as usual, BFNs because we never stood a chance this time, pregnant friends / new babies all over the shop and the upcoming IVF, I got hyper-resentful.

What about MY maternity leave? If I never get pregnant and stay that way for the normal amount of time? I've been paying for other people's maternity leave since I was 18 so where's my cut? It's not my choice not to have children, why should I be expected to pay for other women and not get anything in return? (Where is Significant Other's possibly unclaimed paternity leave, come to that?)

So, in the spirit of fairness, if I can't have children I would like my salaried leave, please. I think I have not only paid for it, but earned it too.

poorly

I woke up at 4.00 this morning sick to my stomach. Five hours and several kneelings at the porcelain altar later I feel marginally better and very excited about being able to retain a cup of ginger tea.

numbers

£3927.40 is the total sum spent so far

20 is the total number of blood tests done

17 is the total number of BFNs

17 is also the total number of strangers who have peered, prodded or poked at my lady bits

14 is the number of pounds I have gained since we lost Bean in February

6 is the number of times Significant Other and I have tried to talk about what to do if we can't have children

2 is the total number of babies made

0 is the total number of babies born

100 is the total percent of hope I have lost at this moment in time.

I don't understand

I have just got off the phone with my friend Too. She rang to tell me about a friend of ours Wren who, 4 weeks ago felt her leg aching. A few days ago the ache turned into swelling and she was sent off to her local hospital for investigation of a possible DVT.

They found no indication of deep vein thr0mbosis.

Instead, they found that Wren has metastatic disease saturating her whole body. They think that it started in her lungs and spread rapidly.

She is in a hospice now and her husband told Too that she is expected to live for a few days, a few weeks at the outside.

Wren is 46 and has two young sons. She stopped smoking 25 years ago, after having smoked for a couple of years.

She didn't feel unwell apart from the recent leg pain.

I don't understand how this could happen so quickly. How could it have started in her lungs and she not feel anything amiss? Why wasn't she allowed some symptoms so that she could be investigated and treated from an early stage and so maybe have more time with her boys?

How could she be well one day and dying the next?

I don't understand.

weekends...

...just not long enough

my parents

I come from a close-knit family of many (many) aunts, uncles, cousins, second cousins, people who aren't related but are called cousins or aunts or uncles - you get the picture. News spreads round the extended family by some kind of supernatural osmosis. If I sneezed right now, here alone in my living room, I swear that in 10 minutes a cousin would be texting me to ask how my cold is.

Loving and generous though my family are, they are also mostly deeply religious and old-fashioned (it's mainly cultural) and they would find it difficult to understand assisted conception. In fact, I heard one of my uncles on the topic a few years ago and he is most certainly of the opinion that some people can't have children "for a god-given reason".

This knowledge makes me even more grateful than I already am to my parents, who not only know all the sad and often gory details of our quest to have a child, but are incredibly supportive. To be sure, my dad has to have most of the information filtered by my mum due to immense squeamishness (he almost passed out 2 Christmases ago when he saw the massive, purple bruises on my arms where my screening bloods had been taken), but they had my IUI days marked on their calendar, have spent ages with Dr Google scaring themselves silly and are constantly buy us treats (fancy chocolate, expensive coffee, hideous souvenirs from their holidays) because they feel so helpless otherwise. Not having to pretend or hide this from my parents, as I know so many people in the ALI community have to do, makes this tortuous trek so much easier.

Anyway, the reason for this somewhat incoherent ramble is I have been re-reading some of my past posts and have realised that I spend a lot of my time on this blog bemoaning my fate. I just wanted to put it down in writing for me to read again later on another "sorry for myself" day.

money, money, money

Readers of this blog will know that I love my darling little cat to the point of distraction, and her recent bout of ill-health has been stomach-churningly worrying. Today I have found out the financial cost - £1286.76. That is all but £313.24 of my IVF savings gone.

I have pet insurance so I know that I will see a goodly part of that sum come back - but probably not before we have to hand over the money for our (first?) cycle. I hope I have been a good enough customer at my bank for them to grant me a temporary overdraft...

half way

Three friends have had babies this year. That's three delighted smiles produced, three congratulatory emails sent, three lots of newborn photos admired, three visits to a baby-clothes shop, three cards and presents chosen and sent, three little bits of my heart chipped away.

Three down, three to go.

a song for every occasion

I love Abb@. Always have, even when it was categorically uncool to do so. They had a song for every occasion, from getting ready to go out ("D@ncing Qu£en") to wistful summing-up ("H@ppy New Ye@r") via escape fantasies ("E@gle").

This morning while driving to my parents, I realised that they even have a song for those of us going through fertility treatment:

"Sometimes when I'm mad
There's a part of me that seems to be a little sad.
Sometimes when I scream
There's a voice in me that says 'you shouldn't be so mean'
Oh no, oh no.
Part of me is acting while the other stands beside
Yes, I am to myself what Jekyll must have been to Hyde

We're like sun and rainy weather
Sometimes we're a hit together
Me and I
Gloomy moods and inspiration
We're a funny combination
Me and I"
(From "Me a.nd I" by Abb@)

Abb@ RULE!

tired and bored with myself

I have been allowing waves of self-pity to wash over me. It has been neither attractive or productive, quite the reverse. I seldom spend time peering at myself in the mirror in the ladies' loos at work - for one thing the lighting is brutal, for another the combination lock has been broken for years so it can be used by all and sundry - and I work in an hospital - so it's not a place you want to linger. But yesterday morning I was putting in my contact lenses so was forced to take a long look at myself.

And I was shocked by what I saw: dry and dull hair, huge bags under red eyes, face puffy and sore from too many tears and hardly any sleep, a 15-year-old shirt with 2 holes in it. The last time I looked this haggard was the evening of my best friend Kay's funeral 10 years ago. Something about that memory made me break the surface, shake the self-pity water from my eyes and strike for shore. (Yeah, I think I've worked that metaphor to breaking point).

Anyway, enough. In the words of Mr Spr1ngsteen, I wanted to change my clothes, my hair, my face. Luckily for me, in a moment worthy of a Hollywood film, I was handed a coupon for 50% off a hair-cut at a new and swanky salon which has opened next to the salad bar near work. I took a deep breath, walked in and made an appointment for that evening.

Also luckily for me, after work I was meeting Too, in town for just 2 days, for a quick glass of wine. Had it not been for that, and for Too marching me to the door of the salon, I don't think I would have had to courage to go. This is a seriously trendy place, staffed by narrow people clad in black and sporting aggressive hairstyles, mirrors all around and dance music pumping over the noise of the hairdryers. A supermodel/hairstylist took my hair from dry, near-waist length dullness to just below the shoulder, layered shine. Fuelled by the two glasses of wine on an empty stomach, I went a bit wild.
"Perhaps a side parting?" I suggested, throwing caution to the wind (while the woman sitting in the next chair was getting a pixie-cut from a purple-haired boy).

I don't think that the side parting really works for me, it looks a little bit care-in-the-community, but the point was that I had made a change that I intend to sustain. No more railing at the universe and at my body for what is, after all, just a tiny set-back. I now have a drug-free few weeks in which to lose some of the cl0mid weight, try and re-connect with Significant Other and get ready for IVF.

Basically, I've pulled on my big-girl knickers and I'm ready to go on.

cycle abandoned

Dr Kind-Eyes broke it to us gently - either I am not going to ovulate this month or I ovulated very early (CD9 or CD10) with an unviable egg. Either way, my last Cl0mid cycle is over with no IUI.

Next stop IVF.

TW3

The title of this post refers to an old BBC programme. Similarities end with the title.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/That_Was_The_Week_That_Was

So it's been a little bit of a hit-and-miss week. First ovulation scan on Tuesday. The pregnant doctor, after waving the Magic Libido-Vanishing Wand, said "hmm." Never a sound you want to hear.
"There is nothing to see on the left," she continued, pushing the probe over to emphasise her point. "And only a very small follicle on the right" (pulls probe over to the other side briskly). "Come back on Friday but do an ovulation test on Thursday."

Despite my misgivings (I have PCOS and seem to always test positive on an OPK, even when I was pregnant - I did a test for a laugh. I didn't get out much during the most recent first trimester), I duly PIAC and yep, tested positive. So I had to go back in for another scan on Thursday morning, it showed zero movement on follicles but the doctor decided I needed to have a blood test. And another scan on Friday. And another blood test on Friday (this time a student nurse who missed the vein twice in my right arm before the supervising nurse stepped in and did a little vein chasing in my left).

Anyway, scans seem to indicate that I am not going to ovulate this month. I have to go in for another scan tomorrow morning to confirm, but the single, non-growing follicle seems to indicate that this has been a complete waste of Clomid.

The news has affected us both in different, yet similar, ways. I have reached for chocolate in all its varied and delicious forms and been on the verge of tears every waking moment. Significant Other has, apparently (thank you for sharing, honey), been "thinking of what might have been had we not met" and yesterday chose to tell me that earlier this year he had looked up an ex-girlfriend ("we went out for a year, I had real hopes but it didn't work out") on F@ceb00k and found that she had married someone else and had a baby ("oh well, but I'm glad she's happy").

He's not a bad person, he's just sad. The past 18 or so months have been tough on both of us, but sometimes I think tougher on him because the fertility problems are mine and not his.

I just wish that he would think things through before he says them.

where's that hidden camera...

I know that child-care isn't always easy to arrange but - what makes women bring babies to an infertility clinic? There were three in the waiting room this afternoon, 2 young enough to be in prams and one toddler of not more than two years old. Their mothers weren't even accompanying infertile friends, they were the ones waiting for appointments.

The toddler was a charming child who passed the time by squirting milk out of his bottle at me and the woman sitting next to me while both his parents smiled fondly at him. Next he threw the bottle across the room at another waiting woman and again, his parents just smiled at him and then his father silently held his hand out to the woman to get back the bottle. The toddler then decided that what he wanted most in the world was to sit in the chair that I was on and started to try and push me off it. His mother looked at me and asked if I wouldn't mind...?

At this point my name was called and I stood up with alacrity, anxious to get away from what I was beginning think could only be some kind of hidden camera TV show ("Britian's Funniest Infertility Moments"?) to find myself being led to the ultrasound room by a new, and visibly pregnant, doctor...

"having fun trying!"

Before anything else I want to apologise in advance to my one IRL friend who knows about, and reads, this blog. In view of his problems at the moment, he's probably going to think "oh cry me a river". So, sorry, BFG.

But this is not an unusual experience among those of us TTC. Well-meaning friends and family who have no idea about what is going on in our lives, have got to the stage of asking Significant Other and me when we are going to have children. My aunts even go as far as to tell me that I'm "not getting any younger" (what? I'm not?? I wish I had known that sooner...). At first we would counter the questions with a casual "oh, we've only been together a year, let's see how it goes" but that doesn't suffice three years into our relationship. So instead we now say "well, fingers crossed..." Which usually leads to the nudge-wink-smirk "Ah, I bet you are having fun trying!" The only socially acceptable reply to that is to laugh and smirk back (Significant Other) or laugh and blush (me).

All the time, of course, we both want to yell - "fun? You think we are having FUN? Sit down, let us tell you how s£x is no longer fun, or romantic or even, quite often, loving. It is now just another stage in our carefully timed regimen of drugs, scans, procedures and testing. There are times when we have to do it, we have no option but to get busy and so we carefully plan mornings and evenings around it. The times when we are expressly forbidden to do it are actually a relief from something which has become a chore. Our baby, if it ever exists, will be conceived either while I am lying on a table in a freezing cold room after a female doctor has injected me with Significant Other's sp£rm, or in a petri dish. We are not having a fun time trying, we are hating every moment of this energy-sapping, money-draining, dignity-robbing, relationship-testing, life-consuming trek."

But we can't. So we make the gender-appropriate responses and move on.

cl0mid...

...tasty...

questions

Today was a very quiet day at work with even more folk away on holiday than last week. I was also mostly entering data onto a database which, as anyone who has ever done it will agree, is repetitive and eventually automatic. That left my mind free to wander /wonder.

So this evening I have questions.

1. Why does the man with the synthetic shirt and the hygiene issues always find me on the bus?
2. And how could he possibly smell so bad at 7.15 in the morning?
3. Last week I lost over 4lbs in weight, so how come this week I put on 5lbs?
4. Why, when I have put 5 clean and ironed shirts in the wardrobe for Significant Other, does he go to the ironing basket and pull out one that is so creased it concertinas and wear that one to work?
5. Why am I still occasionally gleefully replaying the P0nting run-out from yesterday's cricket match in my head?
6. Am I too old (at 41) to have long hair?
7. Why do Significant Other and I talk to each other in "lol-speak"? (nom...)
8. Why do I still think "please God..." even though I lost all vestiges of faith almost 2 years ago?
9. Why is my darling cat still sneezing, even after 5 days of antibiotics?
10. Why am I so completely, illogically, insanely, convinced that I would get (and stay) pregnant if Significant Other and I were married?????
    

CD40/CD1

Aunt Flo finally arrived this morning, bearing her usual gifts of backache, nausea and cramps. Never mind, she is here and I am back to CD1 for my last round of Clomid and my last cycle of IUI.

Also England regained the Ash£s this afternoon, after some quite extraordinary play at the Ov@l. Watching the highlights this evening, glass of wine in one hand and a bar of chocolate in the other, was deeply, deeply satisfying. :-)

my darling cat - update

My darling cat's ear infection has cleared up, for which I am grateful.

However:
She has a slight heart murmur
She is losing weight although her appetite is fine
That and elevated blood and urine glucose levels are leading the vet to think that she is on the road to feline diabetes
She has a slight upper respiratory tract infection for which I have to give her antibiotics.

My poor little darling cat :-(

CD36

The fridge is stockpiled with chocolate and rose wine.
The big comfy knickers are laundered and ready.
A new box of painkillers has been bought.
Everything is ready - but what has become of Aunt Flo?

st@tus upd@tes

Ah, F@ceb00k. Once just a way to play Scr@bble, to check to see if that witch from school who made your life a misery in the 5th Form failed her degree and ended up working in a fast-food outlet, and to keep up with friends without actually talking to them more than once a year. Good times...

Now of course, as every IF gal knows, it's called In Your F@ceb00k. In the time that Significant Other and I have been TTC / losing babies, friends have variously changed their profile photos to scans of their girlfriend's uterus, updated their status on a daily basis to "Smug is...only 10/9/8 days away from being a mummy", sent friends a gift list for a baby shower (we don't even do those in England, your life is not an episode of "Fr1ends", woman, get a grip) and sent weekly round-robin emails detailing weight gain, feeding regimen, sleeping patterns and stool texture. Okay, I lied about the stool texture, but it wouldn't have surprised me.

Today I was given 2 scoops of Other People's Good News: 1 lovely (and she is lovely, I'm envious but not a total b1tch - yet) baby girl born around the same time ours should have been and 1 photo of a pregnant-for-the-second-time belly, with the always welcome "time you had one of these" email message. To be fair, she knows nothing of our struggles but - how do you respond to that??

I'm happy for all my pregnant / new parent friends, I am really. No, I AM happy for them, like I said, envious but not yet a b1tch (note the use of the word "yet" for the 2nd time, I fear that b1tch-hood is not far away). But still - I'm seriously considering a F@ceb00k boycott until I too can change my profile photo to a grainy picture of my own innards.

love of my life

I told Significant Other last night that he isn't the love of my life. He was okay with that.

I met the love of my life 15 years ago and fell head over heels at first sight. We have seen each other every day since then, apart from when I have been on holiday.

The love of my life has always been there for me, unjudgemental and loving. Has stayed with me while I cried on the worst days of my life, has looked on tolerantly as I made dreadful wardrobe decisions, offered company when I was alone, made every one of my guests feel welcome and loved, has cheered my every single day since the first afternoon we met.

I don't know what I would do without her.

respite please

Apparently the last 18 months haven't been quite hard enough: losing two babies, relationship crises (yes, plural), car getting written-off before Christmas, having to spend £4k on new windows, work-related problems (me, not Significant Other), failed IUIs / timed interc.our.se, watching friends getting married, pregnant and having babies. That's a fairly full schedule for less than 2 years.

But not full enough it seems as last night, just before dinner, I got a call from the vet to say that my darling cat's blood tests showed "cause for concern" with grossly elevated liver enzymes and elevated creatinin. We have to take her in on Monday for another blood test, and a urine test the results of which should "give a better indication of prognosis". Not "diagnosis" but "prognosis". Maybe I have worked in the health service too long, or maybe it's because that was what they said about our second baby before her heart stopped, but I have such a feeling of impending devastation.

I've had just about as much as I think I can manage for a while so please - god /Gaia / universe / overlords from outer space - no more. Just for a little while? We need to re-group and we need my darling cat who is, after all, our one surviving child.

nope...

...not knocked up yet.

Frack.

treating a cat

How to give your cat her treatment for an ear infection:

1. Hunt all over the flat, find cat curled under your bed, dead centre
2. Try and sweet-talk cat out, she ignores you
3. Significant Other goes round other side of the bed and starts moving shoes and backpacks
4. Cat runs into the hall through your legs, you give chase, cat runs back to bedroom to be scooped up by Significant Other
5. Significant Other sits on the sofa, cat held firmly but gently in his arms
6. You approach them sideways, bottle of gunk-clearing liquid in your hands
7. Cat looks at you reproachfully - she never thought you would be the bad guy
8. Your heart breaks a little as you squirt liquid into her ear and "massage" in for 10 seconds
9. Cat shakes her head, liquid lands on Significant Other's lips.
10. Cat and Significant Other both look at you reproachfully
11. You put a bunched-up wad of cotton wool in your cat's ear, gently swirl, withdraw it covered in ear gunk
12. You repeat with the other ear, this time you cat shakes her head and expels the wad of cotton wool with which you were cleaning her.
13. Ear gunk lands on your cream-coloured dress, but still you and Significant Other think she's been very funny and cute
14. Significant Other puts cat down, she stares at you both in outrage and stalks off to the kitchen to await your apologetic offering of a snack
    
15. It's an hour later and time for the second stage - ear drops
16. You search for the cat, she's not under the bed or behind any curtains. She is finally found under the spare room bed, squashed up against the wall behind all those boxes you haven't quite got round to unpacking since you moved in 11 years ago
    
17. Significant Other makes to scoop her out, she cries, Significant Other gets upset, cat senses her advantage and makes a run for it
18. This time you catch her, she struggles, you get a long scratch on one arm
19. Significant Other takes her, she snuggles into his body, you feel both betrayed and betrayer
20. You put in the ear drops and "massage" her ears, and she is free to go
21. She belly-crawls under the bed, you feel dreadful, five minutes later you hear crunching from the kitchen where she is wolfing down the remains of her earlier snack
22. You go to the bathroom to apply S@vlon to your bleeding arm and then -
    
23. What you have been distracted from most of the evening stares at you
24. An HPT all ready and waiting for the morning...
25. And, after 2 weeks of waiting, you suddenly don't want to take it because then you'll know - and you won't be able to pretend to yourself any longer...
    

made my day

The lovely One Who Understands at http://onewhounderstands.blogspot.com/ nominated me for this award - thank you, what an amazing suprise.

The rules of the “One Lovely Blog Award” are: Accept the award, post it on your blog together with the name of the person who has granted the award, and his or her blog link. Pass the award to other blogs that you’ve newly discovered. Remember to contact the bloggers to let them know they have been chosen for this award.

I would like to pass this along to

• InfertileNaomi at 99 Reasons to Laugh at Infertility
• Best When Used By at Best When Used By
• C at Cats With Passports
• IVF 40+ at http://ivf40plus.blogspot.com/
• Mekate at I can't whistle
• Simple at Unconventional Journey
• Babychaser at The Baby Chase
  

There should be more on the list but so many of the blogs I follow have received the award already.

Thank you so much for reading my blog; while I wouldn't wish this struggle on anyone, it's very comforting to know that there are people who understand the battle.

ears

My darling cat has an ear infection. I am so thankful that it isn't anything worse that I am delighted to have to clean out her ears and put drops in them twice a day. She also had some blood taken so she has a shaved patch on her neck, which looks so sad.

BUT - she doesn't have any respiratory problems and her heart is good and strong. The relief is so great that it is well worth the £169 taken from my fertility treatment funds.

floods of tears

My darling cat spent a good while this afternoon sneezing and vigourously washing her little nose. She's stopped now, ambled into the kitchen and had a snack, settled back onto her favourite red jumper and is sound asleep.

I know that cat sneezes can be caused by anything and can mean anything. My darling cat is 15 years old and has (according to the vet) bad teeth. Google Vet tells me that infected dental abscesses can be the cause of sneezing... I completely freaked out and have spent the last 30 minutes in floods of tears.

Tears of worry for my darling cat, tears of hope for POAS-ing on Friday, tears because I think I have PMT (hence the tears) and therefore tears of advance disappointment for Friday. I am now bunged up, nasal, red-eyed and puffy-faced.

I have to get over myself and CHILL!! :-)

my darling little cat

it's all an act

My friend Phoebe at work is pregnant with her second child. Her daughter was conceived naturally but this baby is the result of IVF and is due in December. I'm very happy for Phoebe as she desperately wanted another child and had been TTC for 2 years.

Phoebe knows my history, she knows about both previous pregnancies and that we are trying again. She even knows I had my second IUI, which is why she stopped by my office today to ask how I was doing.
"Fine!" I said chirpily. "Just waiting to POAS but am feeling very good about it all." She asked how Significant Other is doing and I said again, smiling, "oh fine, anxious about the result but feeling positive".

"You've been so strong these past 18 months," Phoebe said. "I really admire how you've managed to stay so sane. I would have lost it completely by now."

You would think hearing those words would make me feel good, yes? No. I feel a fraud, and a liar and that I have stolen her admiration.

Because I'm a mess.

I miss my babies every day. I hate myself every day for not holding on to those pregnancies. I blame myself every day for letting my babies die inside me when I should have protected them and kept them safe and warm. It's the one place, isn't it? The one place in the world where you should be safe, inside your mother who loves you so much already.

I don't feel positive about this IUI. I know it's crazy but I also know I'm not alone in putting every single symptom, real or imagined, present or absent, under the microscope. I'm not feeling PMT-ish - is that good or bad. I'm going to the loo more - is that beta-HCG building up or did I just drink a lot today. Does my skin look different or is it the light.

Significant Other is also not feeling positive. We were working out the bill for this recent round, he said "how about I pay for this and you pay for the next?"

I keep looking at him and wondering - when is he going to leave me? Will he really wait for another cycle if this one fails? When will he say "enough" if we go on to IVF and that fails? If I get pregnant and lose it again, how long will he stay afterwards? I know that I have to have a healthy baby to keep this relationship together and the pressure is making me crazy.

Now I second-guess everything. At the weekend he got impatient with me because I asked him to get something down from the top of the wardrobe (I'm 5-foot nothing) and said "what would you do if I wasn't here?" - does that mean he's planning on not being here? He said he had to work after dinner this evening and went to the other room but when I went past he was looking at pictures of him and an ex-girlfriend - is he thinking of getting back together with her?

See? Not strong, not sane. Crazy.

Kay

Today was my best friend's 10 year anniversary. She and I had many nicknames for each other growing up, I'm going to use "Kay" to write about her.

We met on the first day of secondary school. Her deskmate had made an unkind comment about her, not realising Kay was standing right behind. As soon as she noticed, she and her coterie beat a hasty retreat and I, hapless 11-year-old that I was, said "she didn't mean it, I think she was talking about someone else".

Kay, with the grace that I soon came to realise was characteristic, let my inept lie pass unremarked and smiled. We were best friends from that moment until she died, far too early at the age of 31.

She was amazing, was Kay. She had a congenital disease with which she battled every day of her life, but you would never have known unless she told you. She had to take medication with every meal and very early on we developed a system to hide this from others. It was simple, but hey - we were 11 years old. At the appropriate time in the meal, Kay would glance at me and I would drop something, kicking it discretely so that it landed near to her. Kay would dive under the table, retrieve the fork / spoon / salt cellar and slip a tablet into her mouth. All through school people must have thought that I was both incredibly clumsy and incredibly rude to make someone else retrieve what I had dropped.

Because Kay refused to be defined by her disease or treated any differently, she hardly told a soul about it. Even later in her illness when she developed diabetes and needed to eat regularly and at certain times she was reluctant to say anything. She would get incredibly angry at her doctors who, with the best intentions, would often say things like "you've done so well to do your 'O'-Levels / go to university / travel / get married considering..." She felt that it took something away from her achievements.

Kay wasn't ever going to be able to have children, her body just wouldn't have been able to stand the strain pregnancy would have put on it. It was, apart from the disease itself, one of the biggest sorrows of her life. When she got married to her soulmate, the sorrow became even harder to bear. I would go and stay with her when her husband was away and we would have long, late-night discussions about if it would be possible for me to be a surrogate. I would have done anything for Kay and we were actually going to make enquiries when she got sick with what turned out to be her final illness.

One of my most treasured possessions is the last birthday present Kay gave me: a wire egg holder. I keep it on the kitchen window sill and every day it reminds me of my beloved best friend, and of life's little ironies.

in yer face

I have been faced with baby-overload today. It doesn't usually bother me quite so much but, when you are waiting to POAS, everything and anything stabs.

This morning, flushed with the victory of having persuaded (or rather blackmailed) Significant Other to come with me to help me buy and bring home a new ironing board (oh the glamour), I stopped first in the shopping centre's loo. And there, pasted to the back of the stall door, complete with colour images, was an advertisment for a nearby clinic which offers 3D scanning to pregnant women.

A couple of hours later, we were in our favourite pub for brunch and the paper. I bagged the review section of The Gu@rdi@n and settled back to read and the opening article was a 2-page spread (complete with pictures, natch) about the emerging literature on bringing up children.

Back home this afternoon my good friend Too rang for a chat, and to tell me that her sister-in-law had given birth to twins. Her sister-in-law is 46 and hadn't even been trying to get pregnant.

Also in the news yesterday, 51-year-old J@ckiey B.udden is reported as wanting to have a baby as a tribute to her late daughter. She is quoted as saying "I am sure I can get pregnant naturally so I don't even need to think about IVF". The poor woman lost her daughter earlier this year and I wouldn't wish that on anyone, but I will admit to you, dear interwebs, I found her complacency just a little bit galling.

waiting time

Second IUI took place this afternoon, and now we wait. Seventeen days until POAS, how did we get through it last time? Significant Other isn't good at waiting, in fact he's quite pants at it. They kept us waiting for almost an hour at the clinic and Significant Other was up and down like a jack-in-the-box, anxiously asking when it would be our turn. In the end I suggested that he go back to work but just as he jumped up eagerly to leave, we were called.

And so we wait...

moving on a-pace

Who would have thunk it, tiny follicle is now apparently about ready to pop. I was amazed at today's scan as past experience has taught me that this part of the process takes my body over a week. Still, I am not complaining! I was shuttled from the ultrasound room to the clinical area and given my HCG injection and the IUI takes place tomorrow at mid-day.

I'm far too wary to be excited. Significant Other is having a stressful day at work so all he could say when I told him that tomorrow was the day was "it's going to be very difficult taking 2 hours off". He doesn't mean it, he's just scared of getting excited, same as I am.

But, cautious though I'm being, I still can't help looking at my glass of diet coke and hoping, hoping, hoping that it will be my last for several months...

lists

I had the second ovulation scan this afternoon, little follicle had grown a minuscule amount since Friday. Back again tomorrow...

It's another blue day. I'm not sure why so I've decided to blame the frankly un-summery weather and to distract myself by making a list of things to do between now and the IUI. I love lists, they give me something tangible to do, and give my life structure during that brief 5 minutes between making the list and losing the list.

1. drink some wine, that lovely Blossom Hill White Zinfandel I like so much
2. have as much coffee as I like, and make sure it's the good stuff, not instant
3. have poached eggs on toast for supper one night
4. use the lavender bath oil I was given for my birthday
5. clean out the kitty litter - okay, not so much of a treat but still something I can't do while waiting to POAS...

As I've said before, it's the little things...

reasons to be cheerful

Sunday evenings are blue times. It's the end of the weekend, it's the start of another 5 days at work, it's when I weigh myself and usually find out that I haven't lost an ounce.

But - what never fails to lift my mood:

• http://icanhascheezburger.com/
• http://www.theonion.com/content/index
• a cup of tea and a chocolate digestive
• my cat
  

birthday

It was my birthday yesterday, celebrations started with leaving the house early to go to the clinic for my first ovulation scan of this cycle. A follicle, as I live and breathe! Tiny, naturally, as the day 10 scan is far too early for my messed up 40-day cycle, but a follicle nonetheless. This was followed by the joy that is having my blood taken. I have small and impish veins; just as the nurse thinks she's in, little vein decides to go for a wander a little more to the left. Nurse pursues with needle, vein double-backs, nurse and needle follow. Finally stabbed and blood extracted, little vein shows its disapproval of the process by bleeding freely for some considerable time.

We spent the rest of the day wandering around the South Bank and getting soaked. It was a nice day and I enjoyed spending some rare time with Significant Other. But the thought would keep creeping in - I was meant to have a 10-day old baby by now.