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.
Sunday, 6 September 2009
Saturday, 5 September 2009
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.
Tuesday, 1 September 2009
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...
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...
Monday, 31 August 2009
"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.
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.
Wednesday, 26 August 2009
Monday, 24 August 2009
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.
- Why does the man with the synthetic shirt and the hygiene issues always find me on the bus?
- And how could he possibly smell so bad at 7.15 in the morning?
- Last week I lost over 4lbs in weight, so how come this week I put on 5lbs?
- 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?
- Why am I still occasionally gleefully replaying the P0nting run-out from yesterday's cricket match in my head?
- Am I too old (at 41) to have long hair?
- Why do Significant Other and I talk to each other in "lol-speak"? (nom...)
- Why do I still think "please God..." even though I lost all vestiges of faith almost 2 years ago?
- Why is my darling cat still sneezing, even after 5 days of antibiotics?
- Why am I so completely, illogically, insanely, convinced that I would get (and stay) pregnant if Significant Other and I were married?????
Sunday, 23 August 2009
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. :-)
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