Forgotten, then rediscovered.

About six years ago, I came across a lovely, soft corduroy material that was exactly what I wanted at the time for a baby blanket.

I bought enough for two, making a blanket for my friend, Mar, who was expecting her first child, and then beginning work on my own.  Graeme and I had begun trying for kids at that point, and I had no reason to think that I wouldn’t soon be in the family way.  I spent hours on this blanket, and I think it is some of the finest quilting I have ever done.

The years went by and no pregnancy ensued.  The blanket was packed away and mostly slipped from memory (mostly on purpose).  But, today, I came across it, again.  And, today, I was justified in pulling it out, shaking it off, and taking pleasure in it for the first time in years.

 

IVF Update

Hmm…I think it’s about time I updated you on my latest round of IVF.

We didn’t end up going to Germany, even though the clinic has a better success rate than the clinic in our neck of the woods, and even though it cost the same (including flights), and even though they would insert three embryos instead of two.  Instead, I realised that I simply did not have the energy to run back and forth and back and forth between countries.  Just thinking about the logistics exhausted me.  So the Aberdeen ARU (Assisted Reproduction Unit) it was.

Nothing untoward happened during the injection phase, except that I gained about six pounds this time around.  Six pounds doesn’t sound like a lot, and it isn’t, except that I’ve been more-or-less the same weight for the past twenty years.  Still, all in the name of progress, right?  And I could loose the pounds later, right?

Soon enough, the second biggest day came, I was given lots of fun drugs that make you not care what you talk about and then not remember afterwards what you said, and out of 14 follicles seven eggs were recovered.  Graeme did his thing, stuff was swirled around in a petri dish (possibly with wooden spoon, although perhaps not — I’m not really sure how that part of it works), and we waited.  Three days later, we had one “cracking” eight-cell embryo, one six-, and the rest were five- and four-cell embryos.  Although the ARU prefers that people don’t, we chose to have two embryos implanted that day.  I mean, it didn’t work the first time, so why wouldn’t I hedge my bets and insert the two I was allowed to?

And next was the 15 day wait before the pregnancy test, holding my breath and expecting to see pink every time I went to the toilet, analysing every twinge in the abdomen and comparing it to pre-period twinges and release.  (You probably didn’t want to know that.)  And then the morning came when I was allowed to pee on the little stick.  Of course, the night before, at 3am, I forgot about this and emptied my bladder.  I kicked myself in the morning when I remembered.  Still, I gave it a go anyway, because there was no way in h*ll I was going to be able to wait for another 24 hours.

And this is what I saw:

Huh.  It was a bit of a shock.  And of course I didn’t believe it so went straight out and bought a second pregnancy test, waited the 24 hours, didn’t pee at 3am, and found that it, too, had two pink stripes.

It’s funny how one’s brain sometimes refuses to comprehend a thing.

No.  I didn’t buy a third.  Yes, I kept the second stick with me the whole day (lid on) and kept sneaking peeks at it, and all day the next, too.

And now I’m just a wee bit over 12 weeks pregnant…

…with twins.

Our very first thought when we found out?  Thank the powers that be that we didn’t go to Germany where we would have had three embryos inserted.

So, ladies and gentlemen, this is about to turn into a pregnancy blog.  Good thing, too, since it was getting a bit boring what with not having chickens to talk about any more!

Oh, and on the house side of things: we have a meeting with the planning office on the 15th (or is the 16th?) of June, where they will tell us yes, no, or maybe.  I’m not sure what I think I want.  The floor-plan is fine, but the elevation drawings show it to be a really ugly building.  Anyway, now that the babies are on the the way, I’ve told hubby that we will be building a house next spring come hell or high water, even if it means giving up on the strawbale and building a kit house from the company down the road.

 

IVF

So, I’ve made a conscious decision to be fairly open about my need for IVF should the topic of my lack of children be addressed or should the need arise in other situations — such as giving the actual reason that I can’t actively participate in an adventure hen weekend planned for one week after my next brace of embryos are implanted. I don’t go out of my way to introduce the subject, but I no longer shy away from it should it be introduced.

A fun little side-effect of this is British discombobulation: it seems I’m breaking a few unspoken rules.

Ahhh…you British and your façade of propriety.

It’s so adorable.

And it exactly fits the stereotype we Canadians hold of you Brits. (You can blame Mary Poppins.) Of course, the reverse stereotype also comes into play for North Americans — to complete it, all I need do is talk in a loud voice about how much money I make and ask you how much your possessions cost.

Still, I’m no longer going to actively hide the fact that I cannot become pregnant the regular way. Oh, wait. Yes, I can become pregnant the regular way, because for thousands upon thousands of women all over the world, assisted reproduction is the regular way, if not the natural way. And, like other regular couples who are trying to become pregnant (assisted, wearing the paper booties and the hair-cap, or au naturale…or maybe just in the back of a car), my husband and I can also choose not to talk about when we are trying.

 

What We’ve Been Up To…

I think that I get so wrapped up in my day-to-day life that I forget that this blog is to update my family and friends on my day-to-day life.   There’s facebook, of course, and I keep in touch using that medium, but not everyone uses Facebook (and good for them for not getting sucked in), and, let’s be honest, we all know I’m a passive, not an active, user.  Same with the whole email thing.  So here’s the latest update:

Work…is work.   I’m in the same position, but will be in a slightly new role by the time you read this.   Hopefully, I’ll be a bit more in the background and less in the front-line, but still doing things that are necessary and have needed done for a long time.  We’re still short-staffed, but here’s hoping this slightly new set-up works…or I’m out of there.  Life’s too short for work to be this stressful, especially with the house-building and the infertility.  Which leads me to the next update…

Infertility.  A word that is beginning to bug me.  I’m fertile, dammit.  It’s just that the egg and the sperm can’t reach each other because of some sassin-frassin scar tissue.  Totally pisses me off.   We’re paying for the next round of IVF.  I’ll keep you updated.

House.  We’ve come to an impasse with the current design our architect has presented.  Over the Christmas holidays, while we were in our fancy-schmancy hotel, I designed a house I could happily live in for the next 20 years.    At the time of writing this, I still needed to pass it by our architect to see whether she is willing to work on it with me.   I don’t know how to address this with her and I don’t know how she is going to react.  Pleasant and professional would be my guess, as that is how she’s been with us from day one.  Still, what words do I use?  How do I introduce the subject and phrase this?  I simply have no idea. [Update: have spoken to the architect and forwarded the plans to her.  She was pleasant and professional and made me feel fine about dropping this bombshell on her.  She's to get back to me after she's had time to look at the drawings.]

Flat.  Our goal was to complete it as best we could over the Christmas holidays, seeing as we were both off until the 5th of January.   Then we caught the flu.  I mean we really caught the flu.  I don’t remember the last time I was that bone-achingly ill.  Now I understand why elderly people with low reserves don’t recover from something like that.  Next year I’m wussing-out and getting my flu shot.  No way am I going through that again.

Mobile Home/Static Caravan/Trailer home. We’ve been idiots.  There was a very small leak in the central heating system that we just. could. not. find.   We had to drain the radiators, etc, earlier in the year to fix a separate problem and didn’t want to fill the system with anti-freeze until we could find the leak.  And then it got cold, and I mean very cold.  -20C cold, one night.  Which was fine because we kept the central heating on a continuous low when we weren’t in the trailer so that it and the plumbing wouldn’t freeze up.   And then we went away for 36 hours, and instead of turning the central heating down, my traitorous wrist turned it OFF!!  Not realising I’d made this mistake, we had a great 36 hours…until we returned to the caravan to find everything — and I do mean everything — frozen.  Then, when things thawed , we found that something in the boiler had cracked.  Thankfully, we had spares from the first boiler we bust and my wonderful, handy husband was able to replace the broken piece.   Then the temperature dropped and everything froze again.  When things thawed, we found that the copper pipes inside the trailer had cracked.   With the use of much solder and flux, hubby thought he had them fixed…maybe…but everything had frozen, again, for the third time so we couldn’t turn on the water to check.  This drama began a little over five weeks ago.  It’s not over.  So we’ve been camped at the flat, where it’s noisy, but there’s running water and functioning central heating.  Oh, and we also have mice in the trailer.  Five caught in traps, so far; probably more of them around — I know this because one of them had been decapitated by the trap…and we never found the head!!  It’s been hauled away somewhere by its mates and probably eaten by them.  Blech.  (Do they call it headcheese in their mouse-language?) [Update: found where the mice are getting in.  Arms are too short to reach the hole and stuff it with steel wool, so went to B&Q hardware store to buy expanding foam to fill the hole.  B&Q had ONE canister, but sans nozzle.  ONE.  needless to say our zombie mice are still getting into the trailer.   Yes, zombie mice.  Eating brains of your own kind means you're a zombie.  I watch TV, I know these things.]

And that’s it for now.

 

IVF

I had my post-IVF appointment today to discuss the last cycle and to discuss where things are going to go from here.

Frustrating news: due to budget cuts, the waiting list for the assisted reproduction unit is now two years instead of one.  This doesn’t affect me because I got in under the bar and ‘only’ had to wait one year.

More frustrating news: due to budget cuts, the wait between IVF cycles is now six months instead of three.  This does affect me.  This morning, this news broke me.  (I’m better now, Mom.  I had a really good cry and am back to what stands for normal for me at the moment.)

So now I’m looking into private options.

I know a woman who is going through this, herself, and who has done the research.  We’re going to have a wee chat so that she can bring me up to speed on my UK options.  Hubby and I also have a friend in Germany who has connections with a clinic there.  I’ll be contacting her, as well.

On a side note, I had a good chat with the doctor about funding.  See, what I hadn’t realised is that the AR clinic is actually run by the University of A__.  The work they do is NHS-based, but the clinic, itself, is not run by the NHS.   Because the University of A__ is in financial straights, the funding has been cut and there’s not enough money for more than a certain number of non-private patients.  Patients who are able to pay for things themselves don’t have to wait, as they are covering their own costs.  To be fair, the rest of UK universities  are in financial straights as well thanks to the government cutting back on funding which is a result of the financial collapse which was a result of poor regulation which resulted in the banks fucking up the monetary system.  Also, the UK Border Agency has cracked down on visas meaning that the highly lucrative non-EU students (who pay tuition fees the universities actually make a profit on) are having a very hard time getting into the country.

This means no babies for me any-time soon.  Thanks banks and the UK Border Agency.  You’re the best.

Oh, I almost forgot to say: my job is finding European funding, so you can bet your ass I’ll be looking for funding for this unit.  Not that I’ll find any.  Fertility problems are not in vogue.  Hands up the number of people who know one or more couples with fertility problems.  So if the problem is so prevalent and touches so close to people’s hearts, why isn’t there funding for it?  My pet theory as to why?  Women don’t go public and vocal with their fertility problems.  It hurts too much.

 

 

 

 

IVF

Hmm…

After a conversation with my mom, I realised that some friends and family might think that they’ve inadvertently hurt me through various discussions we’ve had about IVF, adoption, etc.  This is just a quick note to let you know that you haven’t.  The latter part of the post was preemptive, more than anything.   I know that women with fertility problems don’t want to talk about what they’re going through, and I know that the friends and family of these women tend to tip-toe through subjects of babies-and-the-like, much like a tense soldier pretending to be nonchalant as he picks his way across a field he knows is seeded with land mines while the enemy watches on.  I guess you could say I was drawing you a sketchy map of how to cross that field.   I wasn’t in the happiest place when I wrote the post, but consider that colouring-in — I just made the map a bit more accurate.   So.  There’s been no inadvertent offence (except for one woman at work who doesn’t even know about this blog).  No harm.  No foul.

Love,

A woman waiting.

 

 

 

 

IVF

Finally…finally, after several hiccups,  we have completed the first round of IVF.  And it didn’t work.

Six eggs were collected.

Five eggs became fertilized.

On day three after fertilization, when the eggs were supposed to be at the eight-cell stage, I had one with seven cells, one with five cells, and the rest were four.

On day three, two embryos were inserted: the seven- and the five-cell.

And we waited.

Nine days after, I was almost sure it didn’t work.  14 after, my body and my head were telling me it hadn’t…but the heart still hopes.  15 after and the pregnancy test was negative.

…

…

…

Showing sympathy is okay.

But sympathising by example?  Please don’t.  Not unless you’ve actually been through it yourself.  I know you mean well when you tell me that you and your husband tried for three months before getting pregnant and you wondered what was wrong with you and you worried that you would never become pregnant (true story), but it really isn’t the same thing.  It will never be the same thing.

And trying to make me feel better by telling me it was probably for the best because if the embryo wasn’t strong enough then I wouldn’t have had a healthy baby?  Don’t do that.

Please also don’t tell me that adoption is an option if this doesn’t work.  I’ll say it to you about myself, because I don’t want to hear you say it first.  Hearing it just reminds me that statistics say it’s likely I won’t become pregnant and that we will have another long wait ahead of us.

I feel too old for this.  And too weary.  But we soldier on because we know it will be so very worth it if we get lucky.

 

IVF

I’ve been of two minds about whether I should use this medium to address my not being able to become pregnant after — what is it now? — almost four years (problem with me, not hubby).     Infertility — although not actually a societal taboo subject — is extremely (oh my god I had no idea how extremely until it was me on that side of the fence) personal and web logs aren’t.   But I have come to the conclusion that this web log, no matter what it is becoming and who is currently reading it, is, at its core, a way to keep my family and my friends updated.   I’m a long way away from you all and this blog helps keep me in your lives (to a degree) and you in mine.  Also, the fertility issue has become a bit less painful since the women close to my heart have all had their second child and few are likely to have a third  (please don’t misunderstand — I am truly happy for you, but I’m rather glad the reminders of where I should be in my life but am not are almost over, all-the-same), and since I’m about to begin IVF.

Well.  Almost about to begin IVF.  I had my first appointment last week and they need to do some more tests before we can proceed any further, but these tests need to be about a month from now.  This means we’re a month behind schedule, but since we’ve been waiting this long what’s another month? You see, because I’m in the UK and under their national health service, there is a one year waiting list for IVF treatment when you choose to have it paid for by the State — which we did.  Our year was up this month.

So, there you are.

Oh, there’s a lot more I could tell you…but I don’t want to on this blog.  I’ll occaisonally tell you the basics about the major milestones when they come around, but that’s about it.  I don’t want this subject to be taboo with my friends and family (that’s just not healthy).  So, if you’re my family, feel free to talk to Mom and Dad about the nitty-gritty details at the next family gathering; I truly don’t mind.  If you’re a close friend, please know that you can email or call or even write a letter if you have something you want to say or a question you want to ask (if you write a letter, I promise to write one back).  However, I’m keeping the comments closed on my IVF posts, and if you should call I reserve the right to say, “I don’t really want to talk about that right now.”