"I know exactly how you felt"

A small group of us gathered together for an evening of pizza, wine and gossip.  The conversation ranged from the situation in Crimea to who we thought should go through to the next round on "The Voice", the wine flowed, the pizza was guzzled and a jolly good time was had by all.

At the end of the evening I found myself in the kitchen with the hostess.

"This has been a lovely evening" I said.

"Just what I needed, really," the hostess replied.  "Husband and I have been going through a really difficult time lately and this has taken my mind off things for a while."

She went on to explain that she and her husband have been struggling with infertility and it's been a terrible strain on them both.  

"It's been five months," she sighed.  I stared at her, thinking of my years "in the trenches".

And then she said it:

"I know exactly how you felt when you went through this, Illanare."

I picked up the stuffed toy dog her two-year-old son (conceived after two months of trying and now sleeping sweetly upstairs), had left under the kitched table and handed it to her.

"No, you don't," I said.  "I'm sorry for your difficulties, but you have no idea - NO IDEA - how I feel."

on boys and makeup

A boy likes me!

After coffee on Tuesday S and I emailed and texted and then, out of the blue, he suggested an additional dinner date for Saturday night. A re-boot of the one my chest infection scuppered: drinks then dinner at his favourite French restaurant. I readily agreed and so 'twas so. And it was lovely.  One moment we were enjoying a glass of Pimms and the next instant it was five hours later and he was flagging me down a cab.

Yesterday we took books and a blanket to my local park, from where you can see all London laid out below, and just talked until another five hours had vanished and it was time to walk back down the hill for pizza.

We had The Conversation. Not, as it is in fertile world, about where-is-this-relationship-going.  No, we had this community's conversation about children. S had, on his profile, ticked "maybe" for "want children". I suspected that he'd said that more so that any potential woman who already has children wouldn't just click away from his page.  But I had to be sure and told him that kids are something I couldn't bring. I know that 4 dates in is pretty early to have this conversation but I didn't want to waste his time. Or, truth be told, find myself really liking him only to break up once he knew. And it turns out that he's never felt an overwhelming desire to have children but would have been open to building a family "with the right woman".

Gentle reader, I am officially dating someone. I'm still keeping this quiet IRL, until it goes from "dating" to "a relationship" but I am really rather happy :)

P.S. I lied - there's no talk about makeup

There have been a couple of great blog posts this week about comments that those of us going through infertility, and those of us who are living without children, face.  You can read them here on Mali's blog and here on Life Without Baby.

It does get easier to bear, with the passage of time, although I still aspire to point three on Mali's list, and I now am able to bat the "why don't/didn't you just adopt" with "why didn't/don't you?"  As these comments are always made by people I know well enough, I know I'm not committing my own thoughtless blunder.

However, last week I was completely blindsided by this comment, from someone I had just met that evening (a stay-at-home mother of two): "so what are you going to do to contribute to society, then?"

I was too taken aback by this to answer and stepped away from the conversation saying that was sorry but I just had to go and talk to so-and-so before they left.

What I wish I had had the presence of mind to say was that I contribute fine to society, thank you.  I have a job in medical research which enables me to pay tax - which in turn enabled her to have two lots of year-long maternity leave and now gives her children child benefit, free schooling, free library services, free travel on London Transport until age 14 and a host of other taxpayer funded services. And I'm doing this without any quid pro quo as I will never claim any of the above list for my own children.   (I also pay National Insurance which gives her and her children free health care, but of course this I also use myself!).

What would you have said?

"you are allowed to take care of yourself"

The above words were said to me over a year ago by Lovely Therapist, shortly after A left.  I feel rather ashamed of myself, but I applied those words to my Weekend of Double Whammy.  I couldn't get out of the Big Family Do, as it was held at my parents' place but I did sidle out of the couples-and-me lunch with friends.  I sort of lied - I said I had a migraine when in truth I only had an ordinary headache which would have gone away with a couple of over-the-counter painkillers.

Instead, I spent the day reading on the sofa, complete with my Darling Little Cat on my lap and endless cups of tea at my elbow.  And I have to say, I felt so much better equipped next day - which turned out to be extremely lovely and fun and full of food and noise and laughter.  My heavily pregnant cousin didn't come, which made the day easier for me, and the gods intervened and made my aunt not ask me about when I'm going to find someone new and did I want her to introduce me to so-and-so ("very nice man, darling, I was at school with his mother, divorced now of course and has two children, 10 and 13 I think").

And I came home with the remains of one of the desserts and a bottle of wine my mother pressed into my hands :-)

weekend double whammy

Some friends of mine have invited me to lunch on Saturday.  It's a sort of house-warming+his 45th birthday combined event.  Three married couples and single me.

And on Sunday I have a Big Family Do where cousins with children, pregnant cousins and bursting with pride grandparents will abound.  Because I have to drive there (I'm taking three desserts) I won't be able to have a glass of wine to take the edge off.

Meh.

out of nowhere

So there I was yesterday, immersed fathoms deep in a journal article I am writing with Dr Beardie, when this thought floated, unprompted and so unchecked, across my conciousness:
"I am never going to have a child"
 I lost my breath for a moment.

Infertility: the gift that keeps on giving.

in the paper

In yesterday's Guardian:
http://www.guardian.co.uk/lifeandstyle/2012/feb/25/child-free-women-jody-day

What do you think?

everywhere

From the barista at my local coffee shop to the receptionist at work (22, unplanned) via one of the nurses, it seems that everyone in my working day is pregnant.

I am so bitter and envious and raw and hurting that I don't recognise myself.

travelling

Given that I have been merrily sharing intimate details of my lady-parts over the past year, it feels strange to have been shy of mentioning before that I am leaving London, nay England, for 2 weeks tonight.

Significant Other flew off on Friday and is already in a land down-under and I am leaving on a jet-plane in about 2 hours to meet him there. We are going to spend two weeks with his parents in their holiday apartment in Australia. I guess the reason I didn't mention it before is that I wasn't sure if we would make it to this trip or if Significant Other would have left me by now.

Well, that is one of the reasons. The other reason is that I have met my not-in-laws in the flesh once before, 2 years ago while I was pregnant with Starchild. At that time the plan was to return this year with their 18-month-old grandchild; instead I am going with empty arms, a barren womb and no baby in the future.

On the plus side, of course, I get to spend two weeks on holiday on the other side of the world. And I also get to spend the next ten minutes wandering around staring longingly at unfeasibly large bars of chocolate in Duty Free...

moved

I bit the bullet and asked the wonderful Mel to move my blog from the "general infertility" room to the "child-free living" section of her amazing blogroll.

It may not sound like much, but it was.

The next step will be to give away the pregnancy books and the maternity clothes from my first two pregnancies. That is going to have to wait a while though. I want them out of the house, but I'm not strong enough yet to retrieve them from where we hid them after Bean died.

I guess it's really true. I'm never having children.

it's over

Significant Other told me last night that he doesn't want to do IUI with injectables after all, that he wants to stop TTC.

That's it, we're done.

My parents will never be grandparents.

I will never be pregnant again.

I will never hold our baby in my arms.

I will never be able to look into the face of that unique human who is the best of him and me.

I will never be a mother.

Will I ever stop grieving?