"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.