Thalia's fertility journey

I really thought...

...That I might get pregnant this month. Yes, we are 'done,' and yes, I am
old, and yes, I am sub fertile, but silly old me thought that a holiday
full of, um, enjoying ourselves, at something approximating the right time
of month, might work. Of course if it had it would have had a lot of
tensions and concerns, but still, my little daydreams were rather
enjoyable.

But no.

It never quite goes away, does it?

Pob figures it out

Pob: When I'm a grown-up, I think I'll have two sisters and a brother.

Thalia: Do you mean daughters and....?

Pob [interrupting]: NO! I will have two sisters and a brother. And maybe the brother will be a daughter

Thalia: Will they be your children?

Pob: Yes

Thalia: Who will be their daddy?

Pob: I think he will grow in my tummy and come out and grow up and then he'll be a daddy. And then a Granny and a Grandpa will appear, and then a Grandma and a Grandad!

Pob: And when they are babies I'll feed them from my big boobs

Pob: That's what I'll do when I'm a grown up

Junior's language at two

At two Junior is genuinely chatty. His whole day is narrated, at great length and with frequent repetition: "Mummy, water in there! Water in there Mummy! In there! Water! Mummy! Water in there!" I long ago stopped counting his words but he is able to say most things he wants, and has some interesting nuances: "actually" is a new favourite. We are quite good on subject/verb/object, occasionally with an adverb or adjective thrown in although not necessarily in the right order. He is also very clear on what he wants and needs, and is unsurprisingly intolerant of that not happening instantly.

"Mummy, bird fly gone fast"

"Where bird gone?"

"Find bird now"

"Find bird now"

"Find bird NOW Mummy!"

He has just started to know colours (with no effort from us to teach them - classic second child neglect). Blue is usually correct. Red sometimes. Orange often. The rest a bit random.

He counts, in the fashion of one, two, five, seven, although he can recognise many of the numbers correctly (the 'hippos go beserk' book is a good one for this). He can say "I'm two" and does a lovely rendition of "Happy Birthday":

"Happy birthday mummy daddy, birthday birthday, mummy daddy [Pob] [Junior], happy birthday"

He knows an extraordinary number of animals, including 'pider, chicken, duck (loves ducks), magpie, cat, doggie, giraffe, tiger, bunny, flamingo, caterpillar, ant, bee, ladybird, armadillo, jaguar and ephelunt.

He has a great ear and repeats most things accurately the first time he hears them: "ballerina," "bolognese" "Beethoven" were all pronounced correctly this evening.

Nonetheless, he has the usual complement of adorable mis-sayings, even though some of the best are now gone (cockee has become coffee, nummy has gone to dummy). Our favourites are:

• 'poon
• ephelunt
• tupper (supper)
• paghetti
• lellow
• Teebee (tv)
• piggle piggle (iggle piggle)

My mother was busy correcting his pronounciation of 'poon this evening and I had to stop her - I want to hold on to his baby hood a little longer.

This time two years ago

This time two years ago it was sultry. Boiling hot. I couldn't stop sweating.

This time two years ago I had agonising haemorrhoids and was experimenting with condoms filled with water and then frozen to see if they relieved the pain. They didn't.

This time two years ago my bag was packed. It contained, among other things, domperidone, fennel tea and fenugreek capsules. And a pumping bra. I wasn't taking any chances.

This time two years ago we had put the crib together and it stood at the foot of the bed, made up with the blue liner and the new white (organic) cotton sheets.

This time two years ago I poked my stomach every few minutes just to make sure he was ok in there.

This time two years ago I had sung Pob to sleep with her favouite song - the Pob song. I was very nervous about how the next few days would make her feel.

This time new years ago we were excited, and hopeful, and nervous.

This time two years ago we were just 10 hours away from meeting Junior.

 

 

 

Things that don't get better

A good friend has just had total pPROM at 17 weeks. It is her third pregnancy, and the longest one so far. It came out of her fifth IVF cycle. She is 42. She is single and has been using donor sperm, and of course dealing with all the challenges without a partner.

The baby still has a heartbeat but the prognosis is awful as she has no fluid, not even a little tiny bit, so there is no way for the baby's lungs to develop unless the fluid starts pooling again. And it seems the menbranes have just gone - they could not even see them on the scan. And she is leaking fluid. So it's close to over. And she has that nightmare decision of whether to wait it out or agree with the common sense answer that this baby can't survive. The longer she waits, the more likely it is that she'd have to go through labour to deliver the baby if s/he does not survive. And she's not sure if that would be easier - to be able to see the baby and say goodbye - or to have a termination now.

She has chosen to wait and see, barring any infection or fetal demise, for at least a week. Having reviewed a lot of material in the last few 24 hours, and even having had this conversation with Kay of blessed memory when Alexa's waters broke at about 23 weeks, I want to have some hope but I really don't.

All over the world, every minute, this kind of bloody awful situation is happening to someone. The usual litany of 'it's not fair,' 'you can try again,' 'I'm so sorry,' are haunting her ears, as they've haunted the ears of this community.

I am gutted for her and resorting to research as the only help I can provide - she has supportive family around her. I am remembering last weekend when I sent her home with a package of pregnancy books and my favourite matenity clothes, the ones I had hoped to give to my sister in law.

My sister-in-law who is not yet pregnant after a year of trying; and the docs refuse to intervene because her test results, and my brother's, are so good. But she is 37 and has a history of sub-fertility given she tried for 4 years in her previous marriage to get pregnant. I want to shout at them to get into treatment, but they won't. They are confident it will probably happen without treatment based on what the docs said. And it might. But it might not.

Sometimes standing and watching - watching a dreadful loss happen just when you thought things might be ok; watching a potential train wreck without any ability to make it better - is enough to drive me insane.

What I've always said

http://www.bmj.com/content/342/bmj.d223

As we've discussed on many occasions, despite what your friends, your mother, your husband, your doctor and the stranger in the supermarket will say,

THERE IS NO DEMONSTRABLE LINK BETWEEN STRESS AND YOUR ABILITY TO CONCEIVE*, EVEN THROUGH IVF

There you go. I shouted.

* PS unless you are anovulatory, in which case stress may be a cause of your lack of ovulation. But for everything else, there is no link. And if you are anovulatory and you're doing IVF, then IVF is fixing your problem for you, so STRESS IS NOT THE ISSUE.

 

 

Junior's language at 18 months

One of those posts that mostly for me.

At 18 months Junior has a deceptive amount of language. Deceptive becuase his pronunciation is often poor, and because once he has a word that works for him, he sticks with it, even if it's wrong. And because of course we have Pob in our heads, and at this age she was already using short sentences. But he is starting to really communicate, and his frustration is somewhat less, which is fantastic. We are getting a lot less pinching and biting, although sibling rivalry is on the rapid rise.

At 18 months Junior says

Yes
No
Please (he pronounces the 'pl' really beautifully)
Thank you (tankoo)
Mine
Dere (there)
Dereyougo (all one word, but very clear and situation-specific - he says it as he gives you something)
Ok
More
Hello
Byebye
Sky
Tree
Buggy
Plane
Car
Bus
Choo-choo
Boat
Nee-naw (as in either ambulance, fire engine, police car - anything with a siren)
Stairs
Down
Up
Poo
Wee-wee
Nappy
Bubbles
Bath
Splash
Wash
Hug
Cuddle
'Gai (again)
More
Chair
Toast
Hot
Pasta (pat-ta)
Bowl
Broc'li
'Mato
Milk (very mangled, he says something like 'mix' but he signs when he does this)
Carrot (cah-rit)
Apple (very deliberately - App-Pull)
Orange
Nana
Drink (dink)
Porridge
Cockee (coffee - applied indiscriminately to whatever an adult is drinking)
Tea
Button
Clothes
Bin
Nummy (dummy)
Mummy
Daddy
'Dina
[short version of Pob]
Nanny (Granny)
'raff (Giraffe)
Doggie
Bobo  (as in the book 'Hug')
Camel (yes we read 'dear zoo' a lot!)
Mouse
Moon
Book
Socks (very mangled but he's got the cks sound right)
Shoes
Toes
Nose
Ears
Eyes
Hand
Mouth
Hair
Teeth
Peppa (Pig)
Animal noises - woof, roar, ssss, oink, meow, eeee (squeak)
Go
Singing
Sorry (sssor-ee)
Ow
Music
Gone
Allgone
'ight (light)
On
Off
'upper (supper)

Think that's about it, I've probably forgotten a few, but a good indication of where he is.

 

About time

Long time, yadda yadda yadda. I didn't mean to leave that post up as the last one for so long, but life just is busy and my blogging muscle (along with many other muscles!) is out of shape.

First, I need to thank you so much for the sensitivity and thoughtfulness you put into the comments and emails on that last post. I really needed that prod to think through how I was really feeling, to continue the process that had been milling about in my head for months before I posted. It was a real signal of just how mixed up I was (am) that every comment, as they switched tack and made different points, meant something to me, and made me think differently about the situation.

Where have I ended up? Well, first, I have not 'ended' anywhere. This is an ongoing process of making our marriage work, or not, so I don't expect everything to be suddenly hunky dory. I did bring up some of what I wrote about, and we've had some productive discussions together. I need to do more on this. H is seeing a shrink, and he's finding that helpful to process some stuff which is going on for him and which he's never dealt with. We haven't yet decided to do couples counselling although I think it's a good suggestion.

One reflection after your comments was that I haven't been 'in love' very often in my life. And I wonder how much this is to do with my first very serious partnership, the guy I lived with for 3 years when we were doing our PhDs. It's a long story but the short version says he wanted to be gay, but was drawn into a relationship with me nonetheless. I fell quite heavily in love with him, but part way through the relationship he made it clear he did not see the relationship as long term, that he wanted to use the move we would both make for our post-docs as an ending. I had to force myself to fall out of love with him in an attempt to protect myself. It was really painful, and left me very angry. Although I had very strong 'lust' for the following three relationships, the ones before H, I don't think I fell in love again in the same way.

Yet I think I did fall in love with H. I remember just sitting and smiling at each other. Just feeling so happy because he was in the same room. And our first kiss, on our second date, was electric. We were passionate, but H's sexual issues have come in the way of that over the years.

I take my marriage vows very seriously (as does H). For better, for poorer, etc. We owe it to each other and to the children to do whatever we can to make this work. There is lots good. We have to figure out what we can do about the less good, and where that leaves us.

Being married

I haven't been very settled, recently. Work is... frustrating. I don't feel in balance between work and home, yet not sure what to do about it. And I'm not sure if I am happy in my marriage.

It's not a good place to be. I love my husband, but I'm not in love with him. And I haven't been for a long time. I don't know why or where it started, it goes back certainly to the challenges I wrote about here, that he was never the person I had dreamed about, but he was here, he was lovely, he was solid, he looked after me. And he persuaded me, through consistency and support, that he was right for me. And I was 35 and I thought I should stop messing around and marry the man who loved me. Who I loved.

And through infertility I knew I had chosen well. He was there, he supported me, he did what I needed him to do, he was my rock. And I loved him.

He was not a great father originally. Of course he loved Pob from the beginning, but he didn't really know what to do with her, so he focused on supporting me. Then he took voluntary redundancy when she was 6 months old, and his relationship with her developed from there. They are fantastic together now, as he is with Junior. I love his parenting, most of the time. He is, also, too impatient sometimes, a bit too controlling, but none of us are perfect parents, and he is the hands on father I wanted for my children.

But he isn't the man I envisaged for myself, and I think there is a barrier there that I'm not sure is surmountable. I am impatient when he is slow to catch on to things, embarassed when he makes a verbal quip that doesn't work. I compare him with my colleague's spouses, who seem to a man/woman to be accomplished, impressive in their own rights. I want someone who matches me intellectually, and he isn't that, he never pretended he was. I am tired of being the one who keeps us going financially, even while I'm aware that's completely unfair, I have a high paying job I enjoy and he has a less well paid job that he is good at. And he picks up the slack domestically to somewhat compensate for that.

I want to be in love. I admire him in so many ways, his loyalty, his care for me and the children, his passion for what's right. If I was married to someone more high powered we'd either need to have substantially more domestic help, or I'd have to stop working. H makes our life work by picking up a lot of domestic responsibilities - although I do most things associated with the children's activities and schools, he does more of the 'washing machine needs mending' bit.

We don't have sex, much at all, I miss it. He says more would be good, I say so too. Yet we mostly don't make the time for it, and his sexual issues are unresolved.

I don't want to be divorced. I can't envisage how I would parent the children if I was on my own. I like being a couple. And I love him. But I want passion in my partnership, not just the passion I feel for my children. I don't know if I can rekindle that in our partnership, or if in the end it will come from outside. I hate the sense that I'm biding time because it's easier this way. Why don't I invest properly to see if it can work rather than just letting it tick along? It's easier this way, but it's not fun, or fulfilling.

This of course is not the end of this. I don't think I should post this, but it is what it is. It's where I am right now. I started the blog so I could talk about what I really felt. And this is it.

Pob snippets #10

Thalia: What did you have for your snack today, Pob

Pob: I had several raisins, Mummy

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Thalia: The lift's not working, darling, let's take the escalator

Pob: Why isn't the lift working, Mummy?

Thalia: I'm not sure, sweetie, perhaps the buttons are stuck

Pob: Why are the buttons stuck, Mummy?

Thalia: I don't know darling, perhaps someone pushed them too hard

Pob: Why did someone push them too hard, Mummy?

Thalia: I'm not sure, darling, perhaps they were in a bad mood

Pob: Why were they in a bad mood, Mummy?

Thalia: Perhaps they didn't eat their breakfast this morning

Pob: But why wasn't the lift working, Mummy?

Thalia: [losing patience with this conversation] Perhaps it didn't have enough breakfast this morning

Pob: [thinking]

Pob: No, Mummy, perhaps it didn't have enough PETROL this morning.

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Pob is having a bad morning, breakdowns at the smallest things

Thalia: Are you in a bad mood this morning, Pob?

Pob: Yes, I'm very sad

Thalia: Why are you very sad, darling?

Pob: Because I'm scared you'll go away again

Thalia: [immediate working Mummy guilt]

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Pob: I wish Mummy and Daddy were at home all the time

Thalia: [immediate working Mummy guilt]

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Pob: Where's Mummy, Nanny?

Nanny: Mummy's away tonight, Pob, I am staying instead

Pob: Where are you sleeping, Nanny?

Nanny: In the spare room

Pob: I'll get you comfortable, Nanny!

Runs between her room and the spare room, bringing about half her stuffed animals and a blanket. Turns the light on in the spare room.

Pob: You'll need some friends to keep you company, Nanny, and I've turned on the light so you won't be scared. Would you like me to talk to the friends and tell them to look after you?

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