Thalia's fertility journey

Pob snippets no. 3

"Put the dummy there, just in case I need it"

While watching what looked like a rather fun art activity with a tennis ball, paint, and a lot of newspaper on CBeebies: "Do that tomorrow please"

"Poo in the potty, no, pee in the potty, yes!"

When I had to brake suddenly: "Going too fast Mummy!" 

When H and I were both cuddling her and pretending to eat her ears: "Silly Mummy! Silly Daddy!"

"Going to the park, Mummy, Daddy, Junior and Pob all together!"

"Go to the park soon, after sleep"

She is taking great care with pronunciation, particularly when there are two consonants together, so "sleep" is pronounced "sur-leep", "plan" is "pur-lan" etc.

September and October have been full of parties for her friends, so now every time she puts on a dress she says: "Party, Mummy?" And once, in the playground, rather wistfully "No party today, Mummy?" I think I will throw a little Chanukah party for her to keep up the party experience.

The end of the fertility journey

I will never be pregnant again.

Really. We have decided that we don't want any more children. The newborn stage with Junior has persuaded me that no matter how much I love my children, I don't need to be that sleep deprived again. Nor do I really want that emotional struggle with breast feeding again. If we'd started earlier, if I had that much more energy, if we even had the option of conceiving easily, when we wanted to, then it would be on the cards. But two children is perfect for us, and I can't help thinking that having three would start to get very complicated in the parenting stakes - speaking as one of three children.

Just because we don't want them, doesn't mean we wouldn't have a surprise. It's very unlikely, but it has happened to others in our community. Well, we are taking steps to remove that option. H has had the preliminary consult for a vasectomy, and has said he will make the appointment before the end of the week. He said, very forcefully, when I pushed him on whether he was happy with permanently ending his fertility, that even if he ended up in another relationship because I had died, he would have enough on his hands with his two children and would not want more. He is committed to the family we have.

We also have several frozen embryos. I can't actually remember how many, somewhere between 6-8. But they were never the best embryos from any cycle, and if we wanted to use them it would be a long and probably painful process of suppression, estrogen, trigger, progesterone, transfer, and possibly a chemical pregnancy or two before we were done. And besides, we don't want any more children. We don't want any more children.

As others have written, though, it's hard to let frozen potential children go even when you know a pregnancy might kill you, let alone because having more children just isn't right for you and your family. Nevertheless, I am psyching myself up to remove our frozen embryos as an option. We will donate them to research. There is no option that I know of to donate them to another family, and even if there was, I'm too old to be an egg donor in the UK so fairly sure that would rule us out. I'll make that call tomorrow. Or the next day. Or after the weekend, perhaps. Well, we have mentally let them go, at least.

With the vasectomy/donation double hit, we will have no other chances to be pregnant again. And I am sad about that, no matter how I think through the misery of sleep deprivation and the pain of failing again to breastfeed my children successfully. I am sad that Pob will not have a sister. I am sad that I will never again use the little white Egyptian cotton babygro with the two little embroidered silver feet on the breast, the babygro which was the first thing I ever bought for Pob. I am sad that I'll never again have that newborn on my chest, conked out between one suck and the next. I have fallen in love so hard with my babies, both times. I fell in love at different points, and it didn't preclude moments of despair and frustration at the screaming infant at a later point. But I won't get to fall in love like that again.

It's sad, but it's wonderful, too. Wonderful that I got to experience that at all. Five and a half years ago we started trying to conceive, and four and a half years ago I started writing about it. There were moments on the journey when I was convinced it would never happen for us. And then moments where I thought Pob would be an only, and mourned for her and for us that sibling relationship. But now here we are, a family of four, and those who meet us now assume it was all smooth sailing - after all, our children are only 21 months apart, and who would 'choose' that? And we have the boy and the girl that people assume must be what we wanted. We have been so incredibly lucky.

And yes, some of that luck is because I pressured and argued, researched and fought for the best treatment, the best treatment as soon as it was possible, fast, no waiting. But that's just a small part of how we got here. An important part, but a small part. Others argue and fight and research and it doesn't happen for them. I have no rationale for why it happened to us other than the weird quirks of my biology, the randomness of that sperm and that egg, and that sperm and that egg and that test tube and that embryologist and that catheter and that drug and the resulting embryo happening to hit the uterine lining just so, and find just the right blood vessel to colonise, and...

So the fertility journey is done. So what, pray, am I doing with this blog, with this blog title? Not writing much, that's for sure. But this isn't goodbye. It's my space, it's our community even if the community I am truly part of now is more naturally those parenting after infertility, with a strong emotional connection on my part, if not on theirs, to those who were in the trenches with me but who didn't make it out, whose embryos never quite found the right bit of the uterine lining. I will try to change the title to more accurately reflect my life now, but I will remain here until they consign Typepad to the dust. The blog got me through, you got me through, through infertility and pregnancy and breastfeeding and the start of parenting.

Junior is stirring. This post didn't end up being what I thought it was going to be. But it is what it is. And I am here, now. A parent.

So. Napping bootcamp then.

You asked what napping bootcamp entails? Well, it first entailed getting in a sleep nanny who was recommended by a colleague. She came in to do one nap with us, but stayed for two given that Junior simply refused to nap for the whole duration of the first one. She gave us various hints tips and tricks to try to get him down, most of which you've heard before, including darkening the room, swaddling him, having a regular schedule, offering a dummy as a nap cue but taking it away before he is completely asleep, picking him up if he gets distressed, patting until he's calm, then putting him down again, etc. She asked us to make sure that almost all his naps for the next week would be at home in a darkened room, and to make an exception only for the late afternoon nap if we had to.

Being me, we've adhered to the plan almost in every detail in an attempt to give it a good try. The only area where I've been a bit lax is in sticking precisely to time. Sometimes I'll go 15 minutes later if he's finally asleep rather than waking him. But other than that we've been very good. And the results have been...mixed. I thought we'd cracked it when on Monday it took only 15 minutes to get him down for his morning nap, and he went down with no fuss at all, just a little grumbling, for the lunchtime nap. But then Tuesday every nap took at least 25 minutes to kick in, and the breakfast one was really screamy as well. Yesterday the morning and lunchtime naps only took 10 minutes each, and the only crying was when I first put him down, he immediately calmed down when I put my hand on him and then just grumbled and then lay quietly while he waited for sleep. But yesterday afternoon he only slept for 10 minutes of the hour's nap time, and this morning took 20 minutes again, although not much of it was crying.

So I dunno. It's been a long week, and unlike the previous not-very-successful napping strategy of putting him in his pram and walking, I've barely left the house. I'm going to give it another 3 days or so and then start to try him in his pram as well as in his room as I'm not prepared to be housebound for the next three months. I like to think this will work eventually but so far I'm not totally convinced.

Boobs, bras and pregnancy

I don't have time to write a proper post, snowed with work and trying to see Pob, it's all got rather too busy and frustrating in the last week or so. So here's something I've had in draft for a while. Will try to write more soon.

There are a lot of myths about breasts, bras and pregnancy. I suffered through a month of a stupidly ugly and ill-fitting bra while I was pregnant due to these myths, so here's my chance to blow some of them away.

It is one of those facts that everyone just knows on the boards, rather like the one about how eating fresh pineapple helps implantation, that you must not wear underwire bras while pregnant. This myth leaves the big-busted among is in a quandry. At what point in the pregnancy are you supposed to ditch proper support for your even more enormous than usual breasts, and go for a non-underwired bra. I hit this decision at about 12 weeks, when my boobs had grown at least a cup size and my existing 36DD bras were uncomfortable. I originally ordered some bras online from an upmarket maternity lingerie online shop, but they didn't make sizes big enough for my breasts and I had to return their lovely lacy confections.

I then visited that old stand-by of lingerie shopping in the UK, John Lewis. It's not where you go to get the pretty stuff, but they do have a reputation for at least fitting you properly. I was fitted by a woman who was wearing full body covering, although not a face veil, and who looked to be no more than 18. She insisted I was a 38D and sold me a rather ugly, completely flimsy, beige bra for a bargain £10. I took it because I thought that was my lot as a pregnant woman. But after a week of itchy lace and boobs resting on my emerging bump due to lack of support, I decided to bite the bullet and go to the Queen's bra fitters, Rigby and Peller.

At this luxuriously appointed salon, they first made me wait for about an hour, then a seven month pregnant fitter eyeballed me, told me I was clearly a 38F, that the whole underwire thing was nonsense, and sold me a couple of underwired bras. They lasted til 7.5 months, at which point they became too uncomfortable due to the bump pushing up under the breasts. I then went back and got fitted for nursing bras. It was a bit early, but they just sold me one that was a cup size bigger than I was at the time, and one a size bigger than that. After the birth I wore the 2 bras I had for about 4 weeks, then figured out I had gone down a back size but was again a cup size larger. Given my inability to leave the house at the time due to extreme breast feeding psychosis, I ordered a few online from Figleaves, who have a good selection of actually quite pretty nursing bras that made me feel a bit human again.

I subsequently heard from Betty, who has a good friend who is a boob doctor, about the underwire thing. His opinion was that the most important thing during pregnancy is to get proper support, which means continuing to wear underwire if you are big boobed until you simply can't any more as the bump pushes up towards your boobs. After your milk comes in you need non-underwired nursing bras, and at that point you should pretty much never not wear a bra again. I'm currently sleeping in the nursing bras that are too big but at least are non-underwired, and it feels quite uncomfortable to be bra-less, something I used to enjoy at night.

So far in the last year I have been about six different bra sizes - from a 36DD before I got pregnant through a 36E through a 38G while I was pregnant, to a 38H when I was breastfeeding, and now down to a 34E. It makes my underwear drawer a confusing place.

The baby is fine, mummy will need some time to recover

As caused you much hilarity on my last post, all was fine. Pob had a hard time going down at bedtime, and got quite upset when we weren't there when they got back from the park at lunchtime today, but other than that she was happy and chirpy, did lots of walking (supported by Granny, I hasten to add), lots of standing up and cruising, lots of chatting and plenty of crawling.

The party was lovely. My friend really had thought of everything, and turns out all her friends are nice - from 4 or 5 major parts of her life, we by no means knew each other, but everyone got on and had a good time. "There are no assholes here," exclaimed one colleague after the first hour. We had afternoon tea on the lawn, drinks in a different part of the grounds, dinner outside with a huge barbeque, dancing and dessert inside the lovely dining room. I wimped out around midnight due to a rather frustrating stomach upset (must have eaten something that disagreed with me - odd because usually I have the iron constitution). H partied on with cigars and whiskey until 130 or so. So no nookie, which would have been nice, but a fun evening nonetheless.

We had a good time. I missed her. A lot. Last night I quite enjoyed being without Pob for the early evening. I was free to have a long soak in an 'infinity bath' (ever seen one of these? very funky. It had underwater glowing lights as well), then shave my legs, then have a shower. Then sit around with my hair wet and cool off a bit while watching my current favourite programme. Then dry my hair. Then sit around a bit more. Then get dressed, and choose my jewelry and my shoes. It all took nearly two hours and was most enjoyable. It was also good to sleep through the night and into the morning - although we both woke at 6, we managed to sleep until 8 before finally getting up (time for my injection, anyway).

But the rest of the time, I would have been happier if she had been with us. Yesterday afternoon, having tea on the lawn, in front of this beautiful hotel, in the very uncharacteristically glorious sunshine, I wished she was there, crawling around on the grass and telling us what she thought about it. This morning at breakfast another baby was shouting 'nananana' (meaning, give me more scrambled egg, daddy), and I imagined her shouting 'upupupup' at my mother, demanding more toast. It wasn't a horrible feeling, it was just a sensation that I would be happier if she was with me.

We arrived back at my mother's just before Pob woke up from her nap, and it felt wonderful to go in and get her when she started to stir. She was pleased to see me. She showed it not with big grins, but by hanging on for dear life for the first 15 minutes after she woke up. She was also pretty screamy for the rest of the afternoon, not sure if it's connected or not. She's happily asleep now despite it being 26 degrees in her room, so I imagine by the end of tomorrow she will have forgotten we ever left her.

So everyone concerned had a good time. My mum had a lovely time, although she did take the opportunity this afternoon to drop in a few more comments about how she thinks we overfeed Pob (more on this in another post. I am a bit worried about it - Pob has shot up to the 95th centile for weight (75th for height), and I don't quite know what to do. Anyway, more in another post). But it was good. And I'm glad we're back.

Tonight we sleep the sleep of the just

A veritable bevy of follicles. 21, 19, 19, 17, 15, 13 plus some little ones on the right, 17, 16, 16, 16, 13, 12 on the left. We are to trigger at 2330 tomorrow night and go in for collection on Tuesday.

Yet another new-to-me doctor (nice, blonde, good sense of humour) told me we should be there at 7 on Tuesday morning, but given I've previously triggered at 2230 and still waited hours for retrieval, I negotiated an 8am arrival so that we can be at home with Pob until the nanny arrives.

We put Pob down for her afternoon nap at Granny's house, and are now heading out of the big smoke towards druid country. I am quite nervous about leaving Pob but I know she'll be fine. She'll miss us, but she'll be fine. We'll miss her, but we'll be fine.

Must write something, anything!

I am really busy. Work is busy. We are having a baby blessing for Pob on Saturday so organising that and the party afterwards which includes 17 children and three babies is keeping me busy. Plus the weather forecast is awful so we've had to run around trying to find a marquee as there isn't room for everyone in the house. I've been to the US and back this week - for a worthwhile meeting but still, it takes time out of the week.

I'm busy hoping against hope I will get pregnant this month and we won't have to do IVF, but pragmatically ordered the drugs I need, which were delivered today. Neither H nor I have told anyone we're doing a cycle, except me telling the internets of course. It somehow seems less of a big deal this time. I'm sure I won't feel that way if it fails, but it feels that way right now. Oh how I am not looking forward to those PIO shots. Not to mention my current travel schedule and how that works with retrieval etc.

Pob is wonderful but after about 2 weeks of sleeping well, she's waking up again around 3, having done a huge poo, and then isn't going back to sleep again after we change her, just lying awake and alternating whining, chatting and crying for several hours. It's not very restful - for us and for her. Hope this is just another tooth coming through and we get some sleep in at some point.

Must go and do stuff.

Pob at six months

She's six months old. I've put away most of her 3-6 month size clothes as she's already too big for them, and some of the French and Italian 9-month size are only going to last another week or so. Those continental babies must be much skinnier than our English ones. But as my old nanny used to say, this is a baby who pays for dressing - she looks adorable in most things I put her in.

On the day of her half birthday she looked like a 1950s baby in a little sailor dress, all big smiles, mohican hair and lots of drool. Yesterday, when we had a few friends and family over for tea she wowed the crowds in trousers and a navy shirt, covered for the first part of the party by a long-sleeved bib which was rapidly smeared with the very delicious banana and apple she had for tea. She was very good natured as she was passed from lap to lap, grinning at everyone who smiled at her, peering around me as I fed her to look at the assembled crowds. Eventually at about 5pm she'd had enough and screeched loudly until I took her up for a nap. Unusually for her, she needed me to stay with her until she settled. I patted her gently and she stared at me with slightly worried eyes until eventually, with a big sigh, she spat out the dummy, turned her head and went to sleep. By the time she woke up everyone had gone, and when I brought her back downstairs she kept looking around the room, and then looking up at me, as if to ask where her adoring fan club had gone.

She loves people. When I take her to Gymboree she spends most of the time looking at the other babies and at the instructor, giving the adults in particular big gummy grins. After she grins she usually has to hide her head in my shoulder, as if her own charm is overwhelming her. This love of faces now extends to her toys, and she shows a marked preference for dolls and animal toys. Of course the first thing she does is to stick their heads in her mouth, but still, it's a preference. Jimbo the clown is the one toy we can use to make her laugh - singing the Jimbo song (to the tune of 'Wheels on the bus') makes her giggle with joy.

She's been sitting unaided since the day of her half birthday. She'd been managing 30 seconds or so for the last week or so, but that day was the first she really sat, bolt upright, and even managed to correct herself when she wobbled by throwing out her arm. She still has a tendency to overbalance and fall backwards, so some strategically placed pillows, or Mummy's legs, are still essential. If she goes forwards she simply rolls herself onto her arms, so that direction doesn't need protection to the same extent. The arrival of the Mozart cube from the US has helped the sitting up, as it keeps her entertained while she leans forward to chew on a corner or lean on a panel, and the lights keep her watching it as she sits upright and wobbles to and fro. Our early observation that music seemed to help calm her has been confirmed by her special interest in this toy, as well as by her wondering look and instant silence if she's been screamy, when we launch into song.

She now won't stay on her back for more than a few seconds, rolling over onto her tummy is now essential. Once on her tummy, though, she rapidly gets frustrated by her inability to go anywhere - and rolling back onto her back seems not to be the point, even though she can do it if she wants to. Instead, she wiggles desperately on her tummy in one of two ways - using her tummy as a pivot she rocks back and forth, kicking her legs and waving her arms, or she plants her face to the floor and wriggles one leg forward under her hips, then the other in a crawling motion but without ever having both her hips up in the air at the same time. She will eventually pause and lift herself up on her arms with a big sigh, looking around and exclaiming loudly at the annoyances of life. Our downstairs floor is slippery enough that this motion often pushes her backwards, and this really drives her bananas as she just gets further away from the object of interest. She can, however, twist herself round on her tummy to get at something she's interested in, or to watch us as we move around her. I regularly come back from the loo to find she's in a completely different position than when I left her. We keep meaning to start child proofing, but have done nothing about it yet. I'm sure that will come back to haunt us.

I bought her a bouncer a few weeks ago and she LOVES it especially when we turn on the nasty flashing lights. It's a horrible piece of plastic tat, the kind of thing you always thought you no child of yours would ever be allowed, but we don't have any doorways suitable for one of the plain door frame-based bouncers so it was this or nothing. And it makes her so happy, who I am to deny her the flashing lights and tinny music.  She loves bouncing enough that she often does it when being held upright on our laps, too, and this child is STRONG!

She was starting to babble about two weeks ago, saying 'Ma' for the first time on Mothering Sunday, followed by a selection of 'ba's 'da's and 'ya's. Since she started on the crawling motions and sitting, she's been babbling less, although I could have sworn she did a 'Mama' yesterday. Her cries of outrage also sound more like talking now. She doesn't just blow us an outraged raspberry, she articulates her frustration with a range of vowel sounds. This happens when I take her off the boob for a burp, when we aren't responding fast enough to her need for food once I've put her in the high chair, or when we've left her too long on her playmat without attention.

Feeding is going well. We started giving her solids a couple of weeks ago, and so far she's loved everything except broccoli, potato and mango (not together). Her favourite seems to be pear, with a mixture of avocado and banana a close second. I've been steaming and purreeing up a storm, and we now have a freezer full of cubes of courgette, apple, pear, sweet potato, butternut squash, carrot, broccoli, cauliflower, and pea. Today we'll give her courgette for the first time, tomorrow perhaps a second go at potato as the first one didn't mash well so she got a bunch of larger lumps in her mouth which made her gag. The solids have reduced her milk drinking somewhat - I breast feed her before each of her two solid meals a day then offer her milk again afterwards but she usually doesn't want it, or takes only an ounce. She has a huge bottle feed just before bed - often taking around 300mls (10 oz) - of a mixture of breast milk and formula, depending on how much I've pumped. And that's the big revolution around here, I've stopped pumping during the day. I started off by missing it, feeling it was a waste to leave any milk in the boobs at the end of a feed, but the extra benefits of having more time to do things, has persuaded me it's worthwhile. I've also skipped a couple of the 330am pumps, and although I'm not really feeling any less sleep deprived, I'm feeling better about starting to wean from the pump. Plus it means she gets a great feed when she wakes up, so that feels good.

The next step for us is to gradually reduce the breastfeeding. I feel incredibly proud of what we've achieved. After having successfully breast fed at the British Museum this week, and rather less successfully at the Natural History Museum - the difference being I was in private at the first, and in public at the second and BOY does this baby prefer to look around than to suck - I've managed to do what I always envisaged. I'm not ready to stop, but the looming of my return to work, and the need to start my reproductive system going again, mean it's time. I'm down to 30mg of domperidone a day, and expect to have stopped taking it by the end of the month. So far my supply seems to have persisted quite well, at least enough to get through four or five feeds a day, plus a couple of decent pumps - one in place of the dream feed and one in the middle of the night if I choose to do it. The next step is to drop a day time feed, and I haven't felt quite ready to do that yet, but I know it's necessary if we're even going to attempt giving Pob a sibling, and you know how important I think that is. It's coming. I'll miss it, but it's time.

Sleeping is better. We got her back to sleeping through the night by offering her 'hungry baby' formula at the dream feed, after her breast feed. That meant she just woke up once, usually around three, but was easily settled with a dummy and a bit of patting. Then we got ambitious. Two nights ago we decided to skip the dream feed. She always seemed to hate being woken, and it seemed worth a try. The first night she went til around 330, and after a go at settling her we gave in and fed her around 415. The second night - last night - she woke just once, at midnight, and settled after 10 minutes of patting. It seems we might be about to have a baby who sort of sleeps through the night. For a short while, I'm not counting any chickens, you understand.

What we didn't count on is how much WE enjoyed the dream feed. Although I know it's supposed to involve keeping the baby almost asleep while you feed, it never worked that way for us as by the time I'd breastfed the sleepy baby, then we'd given her the top up bottle, and changed her nappy, she was always pretty much awake. And we both really enjoyed hanging out together in bed with her. She'd be very smiley and happy, and often very cute as she drifted between sleep and sucking. When I breastfed her at this feed she's often fall asleep on me, and I'd pull her off the boob and let her sleep in my arms for a few minutes, enjoying the sneaky cuddle time that she doesn't allow when she's awake. When she'd scream because we'd interrupted her eating to burp her we'd sing to help her calm down and she'd look at us with such a look of puzzlement we'd always burst out laughing.We didn't do one final dream feed to enjoy it that last time, and so the first night we went without it we really struggled, sitting together on the sofa, moaning about how much we missed her. We don't know how to recreate that particular snuggle time, we'll have to figure something out as we're both in serious withdrawal.

Pob is a real person now, a real person who loves us and who loves our friends and family. She loves music. She loves bouncing. She's fascinated by mugs and glasses and water bottles. She sticks everything in her mouth. She loves Jimbo the clown. She loves pears and apples and carrots and butternut squash. She doesn't like being held too tight when there is a world to look at. I miss the tiny baby, but I love the explorer she's becoming.  Roll on the next six months. 

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.