it begins again

We are going to have another cycle of IUI. I have a shiny new box of Clomid and the date for my first ovulation scan and away we go.

I've spent quite a number of hours hanging out in that waiting area (the term "waiting room" being altogether too grand for the partitioned-off section of corridor that it is) and have observed that there seem to be 4 quite distinct groups:
1) the wealthy overseas patients who seem faintly disappointed at first (the waiting area really is uncomfortable) but always come back out from seeing the medical staff smiling and reassured
2) the same-sex couples
3) the young Asian wife and the somewhat older husband
4) the middle-class 40-somethings who used to be called DINKIEs (double income, no kids)

Significant Other and I fall into a sub-group of the last one - the mixed race DINKIEs. We are never the only mixed race couple in the waiting area and on one occasion we were one of 3 matching sets (all Caucasian males and ethnic minority females at that).

Everyone at the clinic is really nice, all the patients are there for the same reason so there is no sense of curiosity or shame. In fact often you see some of the same women each time you go, as these things are quite carefully timed. Invasive and undignified procedures aside, it's not a bad place as clinics go.

But I still really, really, really wish that I wasn't back there again.

under pressure

Aunt Flo came a-calling today. (An American friend of mine used to call it "riding the cotton pony" which I love but have never quite had the confidence to say out loud). Apart from the usual pain and yuckiness, it's another reminder that once again my body has failed to do its womanly duty.

I'm starting to seriously worry about it now. The clocks, biological and otherwise, are ticking faster with each passing month. Either this next cyle or the one after we are going to have to start IVF. And if that fails, or if I do get pregnant but once again lose the baby, then I know that Significant Other and I will part company.

We are both longing for a child (it used to be "children" but beggars etc). The difference is that I want our child and he wants a child. And he knows that there is nothing wrong with him and he can have a proper family if he was with someone younger and whose body worked properly. Losing the second baby brought it all home to him even more than losing the first one did and he told me then that he couldn't say how long our relationship would last without children.

The next few months are, I think, going to be a bit challenging.

collywobbles

Yet another stomach upset brought me home early from work today. It's not all bad, I feel a bit better now and have brought some stuff with me to do later on this evening when I feel even better still.

I've been feeling bad about signing the downstairs neighbours up to receive mail from the RNID. Not on their behalf, but on behalf of the organisation. So I logged back onto their website and made a donation. Restores my sense of karma a little bit.

baby blues

Tomorrow would have been our baby's due date. This is the second time in 8 months that I am facing this empty day but our first lost baby's due date wasn't so bad because we had just found out I was pregnant again. No such distraction this time, alas.

I don't know if Significant Other has remembered, he's said nothing and I don't want to bring the topic up as it will hurt him. It's all made a little bit harder because three of my friends are pregnant and while I am delighted for all of them, I do find it tough sometimes. Today I had a wobble and just kept on thinking "it's not fair"!! Rachel and Ross haven't been trying as long and Rachel is years younger than I am, Phoebe and Joey already have a child and Monica and Chandler have a child too and she's younger than me. My better self has resurfaced this evening, though, and I am feeling a little less selfish.

childish

Our downstairs neighbours are incredibly noisy. There are three of them: Glamour Puss, Mr Thong and Yappy's Dad (Yappy is the dog).

One of them, we think it's Yappy's Dad, loves to play some kind of "blow-em-up" video game. He plays that every evening from around 8.00 until about 12.30.

Mr Thong is into dance music but never seems to listen to an entire track all the way through. Instead he prefers to take the track back to a particular favourite phrase over and over and over again. He likes his music loud enough to make our floor vibrate.

Glamour Puss switches on the CD player as soon as the two men leave the flat in the morning, around 7.00. She at least listens to songs all the way through. To give her credit, she does turn the volume down so that she can have yelled phone conversations in Polish for an hour or so.

They've lived downstairs for almost 2 years now, and only once have they very kindly turned down the noise at 1 am when Significant Other went to complain. I think I must be hormonal or something because this morning I had just had enough. I logged on to the RNID and have got Glamour Puss put on to their mailing list.

I haven't told Significant Other what I've done, he'd be very shocked and rather annoyed at me. Probably right, too. But it's done now and I have to say - I feel very much better about the sounds of virtual bombing coming up through the floorboards...

A glass of wine

I got dizzingly drunk after work last night. It wasn't my intention at all. The plan had been to have a nice, civilised cup of tea and a chocolate eclair in Patisserie Valerie and then go to an event at the Wellcome Collection.

However the tea turned into a glass of rose and the eclair turned into another glass of rose.
"Another?" asked JJ as she drained her white wine and got up resolutely, purse in hand. And then after three glasses of wine the symetery of drinking a fourth pleased us both...

I remember getting home. I remember a brief conversation with Significant Other's friend who was staying with us last night. I remember Significant Other insisting I drank a lot of water. And I remember waking up around midnight to find my cat sitting on my chest, fixing me with a baleful glare.

How did I get so drunk so quickly? I know that half-way down my second glass of wine I was feeling more than a little tipsy so why did I go on to have two more? Am I turning into a middle-aged binge drinker? If you suddenly find that I am blogging about smearing on bright red lipstick and calling waiters "darling", please will you phone Significant Other and tell him to take me home? Thank you.

Back to Life

I’m indulging in an orgy of nostalgia this evening. 80s music is pouring from my laptop, I have a strange craving for a Secret chocolate bar and a glass of Aqua Libra and my hair, because I didn’t attack it with the GHDs this morning, is doing a pretty good impersonation of Crystal Tips.

The reason for this retro mood is earlier this week I got back in contact with a friend I haven’t seen for about 20 years (god bless Facebook). Naturally, after the first email I made a bee-line for my old photo albums and plunged myself back into 1989. I was more than a little disconcerted to find that my hair-style is the same. In fact, because I didn’t iron the frizz flat today, I fastened it back with a clip I’m almost certain I’m wearing in a photo in which I am dressed in a mustard-yellow skirt, complete with braces, a white bat-wing t-shirt and black pixie boots. Don’t judge me hastily, I did much, much worse…

I haven’t seen the people in the photos for almost two decades, how can that possibly be correct? Despite the grey hairs and the occasional “call that music?” comment, I don’t feel I can be old enough for that amount of time to have passed…