Thalia's fertility journey

Yet another addiction

I didn't ought to be let loose in a bookshop, ever. This includes amazon so I'm not quite sure how I expect this edict to be policed on my behalf, but take this as a cry for help. I went into Books etc. this afternoon to buy books for a baby party we're going to tomorrow. I came out having spent £86.24 on books. I bought a new novel I want to read. I bought some books for my nephew, and I bought a bunch of books for the baby: Each Peach Pear Plum, Peepo, That's not my lion, Dear Zoo, Rosie's Walk, We're going on a bear hunt, and Hairy Maclary from Donaldson's dairy. Pretty much my standard list. I know she's not ready for them yet, but I like to start building children's libraries early and all these are absolute classics, and I have yet to meet the baby who didn't love them at some point.

Note this is not a baby shower (we don't really have them in the U.K.), since the baby is already 3 months old, but a party to welcome her into the world. I'm looking forward to it in a way, since the father is a good friend who I met through work and haven't seen much of since they moved to Denmark. Of course part of me knows I'll be sad, but I think in this instance I'll be able to cope.

That depends, of course, on what happens tonight. H. and I tried to be good this month, after not even trying last month. We started going to bed early each evening and fooling around around the time my period finished, hoping to build up feeling relaxed about sex. But today is the positive OPK day and we haven't yet had penetrative sex this month. So the pressure is on, and I know H. is tense. Part of me thinks I should just give up trying and wait til after the operation next month, but how can I do that when every month my eggs are getting older? Last month I screamed and cried and did my monthly mourning on ovulation day rather than on the first day of my period, but I felt the same sadness, the same feeling of loss for the baby that wouldn't be due on 30 December, or ever.

I know I don't get this right. I get anxious and that winds H up even more. I'm our own worst enemy. Well, we've got a dinner reservation and I think it's a day to relax my moratorium on alcohol. We both need a drink!

The best kind of Seder

I have a mixed Jewish background. My father isn't Jewish, my mother comes from a very aristocratic Anglo-Jewish family. My great-(lots of greats)-grandfather arrived in this country as Court Physician to William and Mary in 1692 from Spain via 10ish generations in Amsterdam. Understandably, my mother's family had lost most of their traditions in the 250 years between this arrival and her birth, although they had hung onto a strong Jewish identity, perhaps because of how segregated British society was (my grandmother was the first generation of Jewish women who could be presented at Court). My mother's family don't eat chicken soup, they do eat bacon. But they also go to Synagogue every week, celebrate all the holidays, and generally define themselves as Jews.

My parents gave up religion when they got married, because they'd had so much hassle from their families (although my father once confessed that there would have been even more outcry if he'd brought home a catholic - at least a Jew was exotic!). So we were brought up to be nothing. When I was eight, I decided that I wanted to be Jewish. My grandmother was delighted. After that I spent all the Jewish holidays with her, and learnt our family's traditions from her. This included always attending Seders, where I was frequently the youngest person there, so I'm pretty good at Ma Nishtanah.

During my childhood my parents had a big family row with my uncle and grandmother - it was about money, what can I say. This resulted in my mother not seeing her mother for several years. Yet through all of this I remained close to my grandmother, and my mother supported this. I can only now understand how hard that must have been.

There is a point. I'm getting there

However when my grandmother died nearly 6 years ago (many years after having reconciled with my mother), it left me without a close Jewish part of the family. Although my uncle and aunt are civil to me in Synagogue, and my cousin and I have regained some of the closeness we had as children, they never invite me for family meals around the holidays, or for Seder. Luckily one of my mother's best friends, A. (who also happens to be my aunt's cousin) has taken me under her wing. She's invited me each year to her family Seder. See, we're at the point.

Most years, this Seder is quite formal. Not as formal as some, but Sephardic and serious. This year, however, for the first time, all of A.'s grandchildren attended. There are five boys, ranging in age from 3 to 9. And in the interim, A.'s husband has had a stroke and finds it hard to read. So this year the five boys gathered around their grandfather at one end of the table, and he told them a story.

He told it incredibly well. He has a great voice, and he held them entranced from start to finish. A., sitting next to H and opposite me at the far end of the table, kept getting anxious that the children were losing interest. But they weren't. They listened with open mouths to their grandfather telling the story of what happened in Egypt. The older boys piped in the names of the plagues. They jointly recited the questions in English as their grandfather led them through. And then we had dinner.

We didn't say most of the prayers, we missed one of the glasses of wine, we only sang one song. But I think we did the right thing.

Why I love TV

Tertia started a discussion a week or so ago on her blog about TV. Essentially that she didn't see the point but that her husband was annoyingly addicted. It made me think. I think I have to announce that I am a TV addict. And I've been thinking about why.

I've always loved TV. When I was about 8 my father came home with a little colour television that became the family set, relegating our large black and white set to the floor where most of our bedrooms were. It lived on a trolley-table in my parents bedroom, but when we were ill we were allowed to have it in our rooms. I managed to have it in my room a lot of the time, and even used to do my homework with it on. My mother was sure that this was a terrible idea and used to try all sorts of threats to get me to keep it off, but since I pretty much always had straight As, it wasn't very convincing.

Over the years my parents tried everything to limit our television watching. One technique was that we were only allowed to watch one programme each a day, although we were also allowed to watch each other's. Another was an hour a day total for each child, full stop. We always had to switch off the television and come for dinner when called, although we often did so with much whining and moaning, even after we got a VCR when I was about 14 and so could have recorded whatever we were missing.

This wasn't behaviour that was being role modelled to us. My parents are both very erudite with an academic bent. My mother was actually an academic, my father a business man. My father would retreat to the sitting room with a glass of wine and a good book after dinner, would put on some beautiful music and sit quite happily for hours. We were welcome to join him, but mostly did not. My mother would climb up to her attic office and work - either reading or writing - on her magnum opus. Having quit work for eight years after I was born, she always felt that she had a lot of ground to make up when she went back.

So I'm not sure of the origin of this addiction that afflicted my parents children. None of us have outgrown it, although brother number one has mostly sublimated it into watching very worthy nature and science programmes, and brother number two is so addicted to football that that television addiction mostly goes unnoticed. I do note that both my nephews (one to each brother) are already showing the signs of addiction. J. (brother number two's son) has to watch a bit of teletubbies before he can fall asleep at night, and S. (belonging to brother number one) has even pursuaded Granny to buy him videos.

During my three year shrinkage we explored the realisation I came to that I will always find something to distract myself. I think television is part of that. When I lived alone the first thing I would do when I came in was to turn on the television or the radio, and even when I work at home at the weekends I usually have the television on in the background. At work I flick through websites in the background even when I'm on quite tight deadlines. My shrink believed that I was scared of how good I could be if I really let myself focus and concentrate. But could that have kicked in even at seven or eight, the age at which I remember starting to watch more television?

So how does this show up now? Well, I have an incredibly stressful job (not up there with doctors, but not far below it). I work very long hours, during most of which I have to be social and positive and keep others going. So when I get home I mostly don't want to talk. I want to eat and switch off. And that's what television does for me - it allows me to switch off. I watch programmes like Big Brother and Supernanny, America's Next Top Model and Hell's Kitchen and I feel more relaxed, happier with where I am that day. I was addicted to Bridezilla last year during the wedding madness, and frequently browse the other programmes on Discovery Health. I love cooking programmes, particularly Nigella and Jamie, and I can watch house and home programmes like Property Ladder, Location, Location, Location and Grand Designs, even down to scary stuff like Extreme Makeover: Home edition, until the cows come home. Finally, I am also addicted to great television like Spooks, West Wing, and ER, and when they were on, I'd cancel everything to watch Buffy and Angel - two of the best programmes ever made, I'd argue, in terms of characterisation, script, and acting.

At the other end of the spectrum, I can't tolerate real dross. So, for example, I don't watch Footballer's Wives, or There's something about Miriam, or anything on Channel 5 really. So somewhere in my head there's a line - not a moral high ground line, but an enjoyment line. If they're boring, they don't do it for me. If they're really scurrilous, they don't do it for me. They need to strike the fine balance between appealing to my baser nature and actually providing me with some entertainment.

H and I share a passion for the great drama programmes (although I met him too late to persuade him about Buffy and Angel). But for great drama I have to concentrate. It's crappy, manipulative reality shows that I use to switch off. Unfortunately they drive H. wild (all except Hell's Kitchen, which he can tolerate because it involves cooking). So we have a truce negotiated which is that he can listen to his ipod while I watch reality tv if I get home in time during the week, and on Sunday mornings the television is mine and I work through a whole set of material that our Skyplus box has recorded. He, on the other hand, gets to watch endless rugby and motor sport when I'm either working or blogging or away from home.

I'm not alone in this. I work with a lot of very smart people, and there's a distinct group of us who are equally addicted to shows like Big Brother. Perhaps I should do some more in depth analysis and see what we all have in common apart from the stressful job and priviledged lifestyle?

Lucky escape

When, a month ago, H.said told some friends of his they were welcome to drop in for lunch today, he forgot that Passover starts tonight. I made him feel bad about it for a while, then said that so long as he cooked and cleaned up and didn't make anything traif it would be ok. So he did. At the last minute I decided that being pudding-less was a bad idea so I whipped up some caramel oranges which turned out surprisingly well.

Anyway, there's me being distracted by food again. The point of this entry was to say that on my way home last night I was suddenly stricken by a belief that these friends would announce today that the wife, P., is pregnant. M and P met three months after we did, got engaged 2 months after we did, moved in together 2 months after we did, and got married 2 months after we did. So I decided that since the universe is good at throwing these kind of curve balls, they would undoubtedly be pregnant having started trying 2 months after we did.

I freaked out a bit, and my lovely husband managed to calm me down. He called M on a pretext about something else, and managed to elicit the information that P is not pregnant. He didn't ask if they were trying, so I've no idea if this is ok by them or something that they're finding hard. My guess is the former since she is much younger than me (around 30 I think) and they spoke excitedly about a trip to Indonesia this summer which I don't think they'd be planning if they were trying.

I don't know how I would have coped if they were pregnant. I teared up just thinking about it last night. I know that's mean and irrational but there you go, I guess that's just where I am right now. Perhaps it's being compounded by a little Passover stress. Contemplating the next 8 days full of Matzah doesn't fill me with joy, but there you go. It's even worse for H. because he's such a bread addict. I've bought some matzah meal which I don't usually do so I'm going to see what I can make from Evelyn Rose's cook book that will help get him through next week.

In the meantime I need to go and get changed before we head over to my cousin's house for Seder. Happy Pesach to everyone, I hope your Seder this evening goes well. And if you're not the Seder kind, I hope your Saturday evening is a lovely one.

Dr Candour takes a glass half full perspective

Feeling pretty good after the discussion with Dr Candour this morning. He went through our test results and told us that all our results (but one) were good to great. My progesterone in particular he described as spectacular. I felt quite weak at the knees. My FSH it turns out was 7.6 which I worried was a bit high, but he said anything below 10 is fine - studies show no correlation with problems below 10, and plenty above 10. "It could be 8.6, 7.6 or 2.6 and we'd have no reason to think there was any issue," he said.

However. There was a dark bulge on my HSG. This corresponds to what had been considered a potential fibroid on my ultrasound, which despite what the wand monkey said, is probably inside, not outside the uterus. Dr Candour thinks that these two signs probably correspond to a polyp, not a fibroid, but he can't be sure. If it's a fibroid, it's bad news. If it's a polyp, it's probably not an issue. If it is a fibroid, about 50% of the uterus surface is currently a fine place to implant, but 50% is not. If it is a polyp I think that it doesn't have a lot of impact on implantation.

A hysteroscopy (to investigate further) and a laparoscopy (to do surgery if necessary and investigate e.g., any endometriosis that hasn't shown up on the current investigations) would be the next steps. However, according to the man himself, this is not essential given that 50% of the surface is fine. "If you were 42 I'd tell you you need the surgery as soon as possible," he said. "If you were 21 I'd tell you not to bother. But you're somewhere in between so you need to think through what you want to do."

I want to do the surgery. The way I figure it is this

• You start in any one month with a theoretical 100% chance of conception
• Then you factor in general egg quality issues at my age, and take that down to 50%
• Then you factor in my stress level, and take it down to 40%
• Then you factor in the 25% crappy sperm that H has, and take the percentage down to 35%
• Then you factor in our infrequent sexual cycle due to H's issues, and take it down to 25%
• And then you factor this in and reduce the chance of implantation by 50%, that leaves us with let's say a 12.5% chance of getting pregnant in any one month. If surgery can take that back up to 25% that seems like a good option to me.

H. didn't initially want me to do it as he thinks I'm signing up for an invasive procedure that I don't need. However, they won't do an IUI until I've done this, and as discussed previously, I want to do the IUI to take the pressure off H. They want to do this before an IUI because success rates per IUI cycle are anyway so low that they do all they can to bring them up again. The procedure will be covered on my insurance, which covers most procedures up to and including a diagnosis of infertility, after which it pays for nothing. So for IUIs, IVFs and onwards, we are on our own. I don't care (much). The baby is worth paying for (remind me of this in a year's time when I've spent our life's savings on IVF).

I've booked in to do it on 19 May, which at least enables us to try on our own this cycle. What do you all think?

Hmm

I've been enjoying the google searches that bring people here ("egg white" and "fertility" brings you to my entry about Pavlova, "despair" plus "2ww" plus "aussie" brings you to the personal comedy category due to me mentioning Dietgirl), but started to note a somewhat disturbing trend. I did a bit of googling myself and discovered that Thalia is both the name of a Mexican actress with a serious following, and a porn star. That explains the number of "thalia" + "sex" googles I was getting.

Oh well, I'm not about to change my name now. Sorry to those who come here in error, I wish you much luck elsewhere.

Nigella bites

I'm getting a tad pissed off with Nigella. Too many recipes recently have had problems. I think I mentioned that the muffin recipes in How to be a Domestic Goddess invariably make less than they say they will. In addition, the banana muffin recipe makes horrible tasting muffins - tough and tasteless. I tried them this morning and they were nasty. I think it may be the lack of egg. I've been googling for all I'm worth and I have yet to find a non-egg containing muffin recipe, even if it specifies egg whites or egg substitute. I have made these before but I think I must have added an egg without thinking as they were quite edible, if not actually delicious.

So the first batch went in the bin, and after extensive googling I found a recipe that had been rated highly by others, and was incredibly simple, so I decided to go for it. They are delicious. Lovely and crispy on the outside, warm and lightly chewy and banana-y on the inside. H. is very happy.

It's a beautiful day but I need to work. H. is not happy about that but is taking it well. But as usual I'm finding it hard to get going. Once I've posted this I have no more excuses as H. has now settled down to a long afternoon of watching live Moto GP. He rides bikes whenever he can, and loves to dream that he is Valentino Rossi. I think Valentino Rossi is cute, but looks a bit babyish. I'd rather have H.

More than half full

Today I did the usual Saturday afternoon thing and went through a pile of post that had come in during the week. One letter turned out to be some of our test results and the news is great! My progesterone test came back at 59 at approx 6 days post ovulation (according to BBT), meaning that I am almost certainly ovulating, and H.'s sperm test came back at a count of 44 million with 72% total motility and 47% progressive motility after 45 minutes, and no round cells, which I understand from Dr Google is only ok on the count, but great on the motility. He missed the cup for the first bit of the sample which apparently contains the highest concentration of sperm, so I'm going to chose not to worry at all about the count. He also tested negative for IgG. The letter from Dr Candour said that he was happy with the results, so I'm taking it as good all round. There was no morphology score apart from the comment about round cells. Anyone else in the UK had a sperm count know why they might not do this test here?

In other good news the chocolate chip cookie dough that I froze after my mammoth baking session a few weeks ago turned out to have survived very well and the cookies were much much better than the first batch. I'd rolled the dough into a sausage shape before I froze it, and so today when I felt like H. needed cheering up (it was pre opening the letter and he was suffering from Saturday afternoon ennui), I got it out of the freezer, unwrapped the clingfilm, and used one of our super sharp Global knives to simply slice the frozen dough sausage into quite chunky discs (about 2 cm thick), and put them straight onto a baking sheet. I flattened them a little as they softened while I waited for the oven to warm up, and I kept a very close eye on them once they were in the oven to make sure I didn't overcook them. They are yummy. I finally managed to make chewy chocolate chip cookies. A red letter day indeed. Not helping the waistline thing, but we both did a tough workout this morning (we see the same trainer in different slots) so I think we can get away with a cookie today.

Tonight we're meeting up with a University friend of mine to see Maria full of Grace so I hope that doesn't eliminate the good mood. I'm feeling happy for what feels like the first time in ages!

Glass half full

It's been a relatively good week. I'm hopeful about the meeting next week with the fertility doc (need a good name for him). I went to Boston for a one hour meeting, and today got fantastically positive feedback about my contribution, which made it all worthwhile. Had a productive meeting today with my client team, and tonight am heading off to the opera with my husband. What a turn around from my mood last weekend!

Still trying not to eat all the candy in sight - I was helped in this by the lack of peanut butter M&Ms at Logan airport. Not much to buy at all - why are American airports so bad on airport shopping? Most of the birthday presents etc I need to get are now purchased at Heathrow, which has great shopping, particularly for my husband since there's a Zegna store which does great shirts, ties and sweaters that really suit him.

I have to confess to having dropped rather a lot of money at Heathrow on my way out to Boston. I found I wasn't wearing any earrings, and you know for big presentations you need the big jewelry, so I went shopping. Sadly (ha!) the cheapo store had nothing suitable, while Cartier had a very unusual and elegant pair of drop crystal earrings that were quite the business. So I bought them. I know I shouldn't have spent that much (we're trying to save up for a new kitchen), but there you go. I'm worth it.

Thank you, again

Dear everyone,

Thank you so much for the support over the last few days. As usual, your comments plus 24 hours spent almost entirely on the sofa (except for 2 hours at the gym, approx 30 mins in the shower and 8 hours in bed!), are all contributing to me feeling much much better. Actually, correct that. The day also involved an argument that started with a conversation about who was reading what bit of the paper that then turned into a huge row apropos the conception thing. Amazing how we can mess ourselves up that way, isn't it? When we'd both calmed down and I'd realised how upset he was (he never cries, and for the second time in 5 weeks he cried), we had a good talk and made a plan of sorts.

You are all right, I can see that this is an intolerable pressure-filled situation for H. He already had a problem, and now a problem has become the problem, at least as far as we know. Given that there is now no way we can get pregnant this month, we've resolved to use the time to just fool around, get comfortable sexually again. Hopefully that will help.

To those who asked, he does have a prescription for an ED drug. It's not V*iagra, it's one of the others which is supposed to be more gentle. However, I now know that these drugs are only a miracle if the problem the man has is physical. They don't do much, if anything, if the problem is psychological. Yes, if he starts feeling turned on they help by increasing blood flow, but his brain can just as easily cut that off again. So they helped the first month he took them because he believed they would fix him, but now they pretty much seem to have no effect. Because of trying to get pregnant, the problem he had which was "oh shit what if I don't get an erection," has become "oh shit what if I can't ejaculate".

As you all said, roll on the IUI. If I'm not in the room, i.e. it's not about penetrative sex, he usually doesn't have a problem so the IUI should be ok. Having said that, I'm sure his brain can come up with some way to scupper things but I'm going to conveniently forget that that is a possibility for now.

I'm resisting the urge to bake. I love to bake, but if I bake we eat my baking and I'm already half a stone (7 lbs) heavier than when we got married, and I'm determined not to get fat again. H is overweight, but he's also incredibly fit and muscly so not a huge issue, although it's obviously not good for him to get fatter. But this hole I feel in my life seems to want to be filled with sweet baked things (and not simply chocolate, which is my usual poison). I guess what this is telling me is that despite having managed a huge dose of will power last year, I haven't fixed my issues with eating and food.

Anybody got any satisfying baking recipes that I can make and not make us both fat?

Despair, redux

Check back to my entry for about 26/27 days ago (sorry I haven't figured out how to link back yet). The one where H and I had failed yet again to have sex because he had performance anxiety. The big row, the stress, him going out for a drive. Then think to today, the one day we can try this month before it's too late. That shouldn't cause any performance anxiety, right? Yeah, you got it. We spent 2 hours earlier failing to have sex. I stopped when it got too stressful, which luckily coincided with when the baked potatoes I'd put in the oven for supper started burning.

We had yet another talk over supper, he took yet another walk. He's gone to bed and I'm not sure how to help him any more. We keep talking stuff through, but the following month it happens again. How can we get to a point where we talk it through and it keeps working?

Tonight is the last point it's worth trying this month as I know my temp will be up tomorrow. We can keep having sex which may be a good thing - lots of practice to get his confidence back (that's if it works). But what I want right now is a baby. If there's no hope of that, I'm not so excited about the sex. I know I should be, but I'm not.

I promise to start writing happy posts again at some point.

Good news or bad news?

Thank you all for the advice. I dosed myself up with painkillers and it was pretty painful but not agony. The doctor was very nice and chatted away about my engagement ring as they took the pictures. The goods news is that nothing looks badly wrong. The dye went all the way through and out the other side, no worries. The uterus looks the right shape, said the doctor, although it looked a bit wonky to me. Not T-shaped, but not exactly triangular either. According to the doctor, no one's does, except in the text books.

So is that good news or bad news? Of course I know I should be thinking it's good news, and I do intellectually know that's true, but first I'm not convinced until I see the uber doc that really it's all fine, and second if this is fine then that means there's no obvious reason (at least that the bastards have told us about yet) why we're not getting pregnant, which is not helpful in terms of thinking what to do next.

I've made an appointment to see the fertility doc on 19 April, which will be around the first day of my next cycle. I'm worried that means we'll have to wait a whole cycle before we start any treatment. Anyone (particularly in the UK) have a perspective on that? I really want to do an IUI sharpish, I'm sick of faffing around.

Damn and blast

I usually ovulate (at least as far as one can tell from an OPK and taking temperatures) on about CD14. This month I have the HSG scheduled for CD12. You'd think that would work, right? Have you figured out yet what's coming? Yup, today the OPK is positive. That's cycle day 11. Which means I will probably ovulate right as the nasty dye is being pumped into my uterus tomorrow. So a month without being able to try to conceive.

Yes I know it's not the end of the world. But it felt that way when I looked at the stick this morning. That's it, no baby in 2005. I'm consoling myself with the thought that at least our poor, potential, imaginary child won't have to have a birthday on New Year's Eve.

Panicking

I was so knackered yesterday afternoon that instead of climbing into the shower when I got back from the gym, I climbed into bed and slept for nearly 2 hours until H came up to wake me up. The sun was setting as we laid in bed together for a while, chatting about this and that.

We talked about the coming week, with the HSG on Thursday, and discussed if we would be able to try this month given that the HSG is on CD12. With H's issue, I really hate that we have yet another month where the first time we try to have sex will be a critical day (because we have to have 'safe sex' until the day of the HSG).

I said I wanted to schedule an IUI for the next cycle if it doesn't work this cycle, and started to figure out when the baby would be due if the IUI worked (I know, I know). It turns out the due date would be end Jan which is slap bang in the middle of almost all the other birthdays in H's family: His nephew on 5 jan, mine on 13 Jan, his mother on 18 Jan, my father on 24 Jan, his father on 4 Feb, his sister-in-law on 21 Feb. We laughed that his family will give us a really hard time for introducing another birthday into that mess.

Then I did something really stupid. I started to think about the next baby, and realised that there is no way it would arrive before I'm 40. In fact we'd have to start trying just 5-6 months after number one if we wanted to get pregnant before I'm 40, let alone have a baby. I started to get really panicky about the likelihood we'll just have one child, when I've always had real concerns about only children after some experiences in my early 20s (another post I think). H managed to calm me down with his mantra of: "I believe everything will be ok," but I was in a bit of a funk for the rest of the evening.

Yes I know this is utterly ridiculous. I'm thinking back to what my friend K said a few weeks ago: "T., you've always been a worrier". I hadn't thought about it that way, but she's right. So if stress is a problem in conception (and yes I know the argument about crack whores but it still might be one of many contributing factors), I'm toast. Got to get back to meditating, which I'm actively resisting right now for some reason.

Although I'm also getting better at setting boundaries. I'm in Copenhagen tomorrow for an internal meeting, which is set up such that I'd have to fly the night before to be there on time, and I've just told them that I'll be there late - taking the first flight Monday morning instead of screwing up my Sunday. Tough.

Now I have to go and work. What was that about boundaries again?