Thalia's fertility journey: hopefully more comedy than tragedy

Children of men

I finally watched Children of Men last night. Only the second film I've watched start to finish since Pob was born. When it finished, in fact before it finished, I was reduced to wracking sobs. I knew from about 10 minutes in that the film was going to destroy me, but somehow I couldn't stop watching. The bleakness of the world it portrayed got to me from the first minute, particularly that there were no good guys, everyone was in it for their own goals, including the so-called terrorists who wanted to liberate the country. Somehow the absence of children has created a world where either people don't care about anything any more, and hence commit suicide, or where they care passionately, without any barriers, about an ideal and are prepared to do anything to work towards what they think is right. The ideal, for the terrorists, has replaced any concern for individual humans, they have little fear for their own lives, and no care for the lives of others.

But the moment that recuced me to blubber was the walk that Theo and Kee take with the baby out of the building where the battle is going on. That everyone - soldiers, terrorists, fugitives alike - stops what they are doing to stare at the baby, to try to touch the baby - although in a gentle, rather than frightening way - brought home more than anything else in the film the utter devastation that not being able to have children has brought to the world. I wept because I remembered what it felt like to be just one individual, wanting to reach out and touch the babies I couldn't have, although I cannot really imagine what it would feel like if I was one of billions of people who felt the same way. I wept because I know how it feels to have our baby, to love her as much as I do, and to know that I have friends who are still reaching out but haven't been able to feel that love, friends who have stopped trying to have the baby, who ran out of runway. All that pain was beautifully portrayed on film, the hands, the faces, the arms, the eyes, the sotto voce singing of lullabies. It was utterly heartbreaking.

One thing that got to me, which presumably wouldn't have done before our recent issues, was the fact that Kee didn't seem to ever put the baby to the breast. When the baby was screaming, it seemed as if it would have been the 'natural' thing to do. "The baby must be STARVING," I was thinking, "why doesn't she feed her? Please let the baby be ok!" Perhaps the filmmakers felt that breastfeeding was a step too far for the viewing public, perhaps it just wasn't the issue, but I was so worried that this young girl wouldn't be able to care for her baby, having never seen anyone care for a newborn before, that she wouldn't know what to do. It didn't seem to be the message of the film, so I'm trying to take away a message of hope, but it was hard, the whole film was so bleak, I kept waiting for something else to go wrong.

It was a tough, tough film. All night I dreamt of not being able to feed my baby, of not being able to give birth at the right time, of trying to care for other people's babies. A long time ago I agreed with a friend that we didn't need to see films that were just horribly upsetting. I both wish and don't wish I was still following that agreement. Being that upset is horrible, but perhaps it's a good thing, to remember my own pain, to empathise again with the pain of others, to want to do anything I can to avoid a world without hope. Who knows what difficulties the world will get into during Pob's lifetime.  I can't quite imagine an infertile world, but I can imagine a world heading for environmental disaster, a disaster even closer than it seems today. For now I will redouble my efforts to turn down the heating, to recycle, to give up plastic bags, to buy without packaging, the little things I do which I hope will help her inherit a world with hope. Strange the effect that one film can have.

The magic of swaddling

I keep thinking that Pob is a bit old for us still to be swaddling her. But then I go to put her down for a nap. As I did 40 minutes ago. I swaddle her, using the large swaddle-me we bought a month ago when she outgrew the small one. She's tough to swaddle now as her hands come straight up to her mouth whenever she's given the chance. I think I've done a good job, I put her down in the cradle, turn on her music, give her her dummy, tuck the blanket in and go to sit out of sight on the bed. Within seconds she's back to her loud 'talking' which is this weeks latest trick. Not screaming, just talking, so I leave her alone. It rapidly, however, descends into screaming so I go back to the crib, tell her it's sleep time, turn the music back on, put her dummy back in, and go back to sit down. Screaming. Repeat. Screaming. Repeat. After three goes I check the swaddle and both her hands have wriggled up and are clasped at her chest. So I reswaddle, making sure they stay down by her sides. She looks at me, sighs, turns her head to the side, spits out her dummy, and is asleep in seconds.

I don't know what it is, but she seems to not only need to be swaddled, but need to be tightly swaddled with her hands down to get to sleep - the same thing has happened at 3 different nap times now .This isn't true if I take her out in the pram, then she will happily lie with arms free, up by her head in starfish pose, and just gradually drift off to sleep. She also wakes up after 40 minutes or so, but will usually settle down again so long as I keep moving.

I've checked Moxie, and the consensus seems to be that you can keep swaddling them as long as they need it. So I shouldn't worry, right? Should we start to wean her off the swaddle or just enjoy the fact that it helps her sleep so well?

Feeding, part one million and two

The feeding has been going pretty well, with a few blips. We're breast feeding, then supplementing while I pump at each feed. Just before Christmas I weighed Pob and found out she'd lost 200 grams (approx 7oz) over the last week, so we went on a feed-Pob-up binge, offering her 150mls after each breast feed to see how much she'd take. H would force feed her at night to make sure she got a big feed, and when we got back from the country we found she'd gained 750 grams in a week. Which I think means that the measurement the day I found she'd lost weight was probably off as I think it's close to impossible for her to have gained that much in a week. But it's all good as it meant she is back on the curve and I don't have to freak out (again). Since then she's been steadily gaining 100-200 grammes a week, and taking anywhere between 50 and 120 mls after each feed.

I've started to really enjoy the breast feeding itself. While we were away over New Year, and then a few times since, she has woken up early a few times, and I have taken to bringing her into bed with me and dozing while she feeds for an hour or so. These have been very much the kind of calm, loving, affectionate breastfeeding experiences that I'd really wanted. I'm so very glad I persevered with this, even though it continues to be a pain in the arse, and to massively restrict my movements with her. My friends ask why don't I stop pumping, and just breast feed and supplement with formula, but (i) I'd rather she got breastmilk if possible and (ii) I'm not sure I'd have enough milk for her to tolerate breastfeeding without the additional stimulation of pumping.

The pumping was going pretty well, such that we were only on formula for one feed every 3-4 days. I stopped taking any supplements before Christmas as I couldn't see what effect they were having. I started again in early January, but didn't see any impact so I've now stopped and am fairly sure I won't go back to them. I am still on Domperidone and will start to taper off it once I decide how much longer I'll persevere with feeding.

I say 'was going' above because it's been a bit of a crappy few days with the pump - my supply dropped about 20% from what I was pumping over the Christmas break. Not really sure why. This was then compounded by my rented Medela Symphony breaking on Sunday night, so I had to go back to first the Lactina I still had (rental, hadn't returned it yet, have now) and then the Pump in Style while I waited for a replacement. All I can say is ouch. My nipples may never forgive me, that Pump in Style is tough. Once I got the replacement Symphony going today I could barely feel it compared to the irriration of the Pump in Style. If you're finding this post while deciding what pump to use, all I can say is, shell out for the Symphony, and goodness knows don't bother with a Lactina. At least a Pump in Style is portable, the Lactina in my experience purports to be 'hospital grade' but gives less stimulation than the Pump in Style.

The fact that the feeding has been going well, and has become quite enjoyable, means it's hard to stop. I always thought I would stop before I went back to work, and I've decided to return to work at the end of April, in three months time. It will just be too hard to maintain feeding given my hours and the potential travel. But now I've worked this hard to get this far, I'm really reluctant to stop. I know I couldn't pump through my kind of work, but I'm wondering if I could maintain enough supply to still do a morning and/or an evening feed, although I suspect my supply will tank if I start to cut back on what I'm doing. Also, I don't want to start tapering down the feeding until I have to. Possibly late March, I'm not really sure. We'll see when we get there.

I know there will be benefits to stopping, but the benefits are mostly about me, and not benefits for Pob. It would allow me to cut back on the domperidone, which will help curb my appetite, which means hopefully I could start to lose some of this weight. Currently I'd have to buy a new wardrobe to go back to work in as I can't fit into any of my suits! My boobs would hopefully shrink a bit which would make running possible. I'd have a bit more time - time I could spend doing a bit more of a variety of activities with Pob as well as time to finish writing thank you cards, etc. I might even manage to cook dinner for H at some point.

So I want to continue with the currrent regime not just because I'm enjoying it even while I resent it, but also because it seems to work best for Pob, to give her the best possible nutrition. I don't know how much longer that will stay true, but it's true for now. Of course, there's the additional drive which is that we can't start to  reliably try again for number 2 until I've had one normal cycle, so at some point that will become a strong driver to stop. Perhaps the strongest, since I want to at least try for another one because I think that's best for Pob. It will be easier to stop if I feel it's doing something for her.

Not a baby at all

My fake baby was a program on Channel 4, Britain's 'alternative' channel, last week. Others have already written about this, but I'm feeling a need to process my feelings about it, so be prepared for some wandering around the topic.

These fake babies are dolls which are unbelievably realistic. Some even have breathing mechanisms inside, and heaters so that they feel warm. In the memorable words of one woman profiled on the programme, however, "They don't soil themselves." For some women (and I limit this to women advisedly, there were no men seen who were keen on the dolls), therefore, they are the perfect baby. They never grow up, they never make a mess, they never cry, they just look adorable and you can cuddle them to your hearts content. Or take them out in the pram.

One such woman explained that she and her husband had not wanted to have children earlier as they enjoyed their no-children lifestyle too much. They delayed and delayed and eventually realised they were never going to want to give up that lifestyle. I checked my infertile radar and decided that they probably weren't covering up difficulties in conceiving, they genuinely didn't want real, messy children. As evidenced by the scene of this woman cleaning the wheels of her pram. She had about 4-5 of the dolls, and about 4 prams, all white with white wheels. She likes to keep everything clean, so she has inside wheels and outside wheels, and washes them in between trips. To take the dolls out in the pram, to the park or to the shops. She saw the dolls as better than real children. They were no trouble, and they never grow out of their clothes. In one memorable scene she spent nearly £300 ($600) on 4 items of Roberto Cavalli clothing to create a 'coming home outfit' for the new doll she was expecting. She explained that it made more sense for her to spend that money on dressing a fake baby than a real one as at least this way the clothes would never get soiled.

For other women, these dolls fill an emotional void. In one disturbing scene, a woman collected the doll that had been made to look like her grandson when he was a baby. The grandson had gone to live in New Zealand, and this woman was bereft, so the doll was made to help her satisfy her craving for her grandson, but it was also her grandson at a stage when he needed her the the most, it wasn't just about her loss. To take this doll home, she buckled it into a car seat. A car seat. Later, she was seen walking the doll in a pram. For this woman, clearly, the doll was someone to love. She showed it over a webcam to the grandson, who insisted it was a doll, while she insisted it was a baby. He sounded confused.

Yet another woman has a whole nursery filled with the dolls, about 50 from what I could see. Most upsettingly, one of them was "the smallest size which can survive", a tiny micro-preemie sized doll, but without the lanugo and the red colouring of the micro preemies I have seen. Why if you are going to spend money on these dolls, do you buy one designed to mimic a baby that would have a hard time staying alive?

As with many others, I found the programme disturbing. I didn't want to watch, but I was fascinated. H refused to watch, echoing the comment of the woman with the grandson's husband, who told her he "didn't like it, it looks like something on a mortuary slab". Why did I want to watch?

Well, there was the car-crash tv element of it. I wanted to see odd people behaving oddly, and perhaps give myself a pat on the back for being that much more normal. I also wanted to watch for the infertility angle. Were these women looking for replacements for babies they couldn't have? Not really from what I saw, but perhaps in other instances? But would such a baby ever be satisfying to an infertile? Perhaps even more so than women who can pop babies out at the drop of a hat, aren't we very sure that we want the whole puking, shitting, laughing, growing, crying, unique package? Wouldn't one of these dolls be almost worse than not having anything at all, a constant reminder of what you don't have? Never to get a reaction to your hugs and kisses, why would that be a satisfying way to parent? Clearly, the dolls are being used as child substitutes, but they equally clearly don't fulfil the women who buy them - why else would someone have a whole nursery full and regularly buy more?

Another angle was the need to feel special. A woman who makes these dolls explained that when you have a newborn, everyone is interested, everyone comments and pays you attention. As the baby grows that stops, but with one of the dolls you never lose that specialness of being the mother to a new born. Only you're not. Would that attention feel wrong somehow, knowing you are misleading people? I can empathise with this, I'm feeling a distinct lack of special-ness right now as the task of looking after a 16.5-weeker starts to be routine and sometimes rather dull. But nothing can compare to the smiles and talking I get when she is in a good mood, something I would never get from one of the dolls.

I don't want to be cruel. As the women in the programme said several times, they aren't hurting anyone. They aren't hurting anyone else, I agree, but aren't they hurting themselves? The dolls are very far from being adequate substitutes for a real baby, they are dolls and could be satisfying as dolls, but as babies they are never going to be anything more than a very pale imitation of the real thing. Thus the least emotionally unsettling part was perhaps the woman with the white prams who wanted perfect babies who didn't cry. She wasn't very emotional about the dolls, they were genuinely possessions to be showed off, not babies to love. She is better off with a doll than a real baby who clearly would disturb the way she lives her life.

For some of the women profiled, these fake babies seemed to be relatively harmless. If they want to spend money on Roberto Cavalli or white prams, then it's their money. For others it seemed to be a displacement for feelings they no longer had an outlet for. Is this the healthiest way for them to deal with their losses? For another group it was a way of stopping themselves from being invisible, the woman who is not a parent, who doesn't attract attention of any kind - not young enough to get a wolf whistle, not a mother who gets attention reflected from her children. It felt sad. It felt wrong - the dolls are just that bit too close to looking like one of those death masks they used to make from guillotined heads. But for a few minutes, a few hours, perhaps longer, it made - makes - these women feel more fulfilled, feel more love(d). Who am I to question that?

Oh dear, what can the matter be?

What did I do? Too much about Pob? Too little? Annoying tone of voice? I promised I'd never do this kind of post, but I'm bemused at only 8 comments on that last post, that's the fewest comments I've had in, um, years. If there's something problematic, please do let me know.

Tonight H is taking me out to dinner for my birthday. It's a bit nervewracking. It's the first time we've left Pob when she will need a feed while we're out. It's only the third time we've left her at all - the first being my dash to the hairdressers before Christmas when she spent 2.5 hours asleep with her Grandma in attendance, the second being an evening after Christmas when we went to meet a friend in a nearby pub while Granny babysat for 1.5 hours. I'm going to pump before we go rather than try and rush through the 1830ish feed, and will probably be back in time for the late night feed as we have an early table. My mother (Granny) will be here, but she's not that great at getting Pob to take a bottle, and not great at getting her to sleep based on previous experience. I'm sure it will be fine, but it's quite likely that we'll return to a somewhat hungry, tired and awake Pob, and a tired grandmother, but isn't that what spending the evening with Granny is often about - doing things differently from the parents but somehow it all turns out ok?

I'm excited about visiting this restaurant again, it was the scene of a very lovely Valentine's evening a few years ago, and the food is delicious. I'm nervous about going as it's rather chic and none of my clothes fit me (the weight simply isn't coming off, cue guilt/desparation from me, subject of another post), and of course I'm nervous about Pob even though I know she'll be fine.

On the sleeping thing, things seem to have improved. Yesterday evening after her bath she screamed blue murder while I swaddled her, but then stopped screaming, gave a sigh and went straight to sleep when I put her in her crib. A kind of: "Thank goodness you've stopped futzing with me, mummy" sigh. Must remember that for future reference.

She's waking from her nap now, will get around to writing all these overdue posts soon:

1. Weight loss, or the lack of it
2. Update on feeding
3. Birth story (ouch, how long can I wait to finish that?!)
4. Ill-natured post
5. Post about My fake baby

When she was good, she was very very good, but when she was bad, she was horrid

We're back from a week in the frozen North of England. It was quite frozen, we had snow and hail and rain and driving winds, but we had a lovely time. Although having a lovely time involved torturing poor Pob somewhat by bundling her into a snow suit and strapping her to her father's chest every time we left the house. Even so he had to walk holding his rain coat around her when we were on the beach so that the wind didn't get into the small gap between his chest and her face. He's rather hardy and enjoys the wilder weather, so he didn't mind too much although a lack of gloves I'm sure meant that his hands were absolutely frozen.

Pob was a total angel on the car journey. We left around 10am, she slept for 1.5 hours, we stopped for lunch and she woke, we fed her and changed her, got back in the car, she slept for 2 hours, we stopped again to feed her etc., got back in the car, and drove for a further hour and a bit to our destination, during which she slept. I pumped after each stop and it went fine, it was much less awkward than I thought it would be - I just wore my pumping bra under my clothes, and wore a loose top over the top. I'm sure a couple of passing drivers got an eyeful of a nipple or two, but it didn't bother me and the yield was rather good. On the way back Pob was slightly worse, she got fed up for the last 20 minutes or so as we neared home and was very screamy but still, I couldn't quite believe our luck.

On the other hand, she has decided that going down for a nap or for the night is for the birds, and is now screaming the place down as we try and settle her. We've tried swaddling/not swaddling, going through a routine in the evening of feed/bath/books/bed, rocking/not rocking, singing/not singing, it doesn't seem to make much difference. She does go down just fine after the 11pm feed, even though she's wide awake when we put her down - something about the dark and quiet that helps perhaps? I think it's something to do with her increased awareness of the world and her own skills. She learnt to blow raspberries a few days ago, and now I hear her lying in her crib, practising blowing them and occasionally stopping to chat a little, it's very adorable.

She also has started to grasp things. When I shake her rattle in front of her she focuses really really hard on it, wobbling her head back and forth as she does so, and after 30 seconds or so she starts to try and reach out for it. She doesn't always get it, but she is trying, and on New Year's Eve she managed to grab and hold the rattle for a minute or so, a couple of times. We were very over-excited.

We saw the new year in dancing around the room to the sounds of Jools Holland's Hootenanny, watching the fireworks go off across the bay, illuminating the nearby castle. It was such a perfect moment, it made me cry. As did reading to Pob a few times from the copy of 'When we were very young' that I found at the cottage. Both are moments I'd dreamed of through the years of infertility, and even before that, and they happened. And they were perfect. Yes, she was rather wriggly while I read to her, yes she was a bit screamy when we put her to bed after the dancing, but those moments were perfect nonetheless, and they outweigh any amount of wriggling and screaming. We are so very lucky, and we continue to bask in that every day, screaminess or no.

A year ago today

Posts were written while we were away, hence I'm backdating them now so that they are in context

A year ago today I saw the follicle which contained the egg which became Pob. Sometime in the next 36 hours that egg met one of H's sperm, and Pob started her development. It wasn't a good week otherwise. I was in the cycle after an early miscarriage. My 40th birthday was 10 days away and I heard the death knell of my fertility sounding in my ears. We were in an observation cycle at a new clinic, a clinic I didn't like but was going to anyway, in the hopes that changing something, anything, would be the key to us finally getting our take home baby. I must be decent proof that that "The Secret" thing is nonsense. I had no real belief that we'd get pregnant this time, although of course I had some hope, otherwise we wouldn't have tried. It wasn't any different than any other cycle were we'd tried naturally, although we hadn't had many cycles in the previous year when we could try naturally given the laparoscopy took out 2 cycles and the Zoladex took out three more, and we did two IVFs and an FET which took out a further three. Seven chances to conceive naturally in a year. And on the eighth, we got Pob.

It's an odd anniversary. I'm unlikely to tell Pob of the significance of 3 January, at least until she is considerably older and more sophisticated - in her 30s, say - but I can't imagine I'll ever forget. I saw her when she was still haploid, before she had half the genetic complement that makes her who she is. That's amazing.