Thalia's fertility journey

Not my baby

My baby nephew is here to stay for the long weekend. He is two months old. He's not gorgeous but not ugly either (don't tell his parents I said that). I spent yesterday afternoon finding it very hard to interact with him, despite the fact that I usually am a sucker for babies and am happy to take them off their parents' hands. It just seemed too hard. I'm fine with my five year old nephew, S, I think because he's a real person to me, not a baby. If I had a child, it wouldn't be S, it would be our baby - mine and H's. With baby nephew he's still such an indistinct personality that he fills more of the generic role of "Baby", whom I do not have. Of course he looks nothing like any baby we would have - he's very blond and blue eyed while we are likely to produce a more brown haired, brown eyed baby. But that doesn't seem to matter. It was all too painful watching his parents interact with him, his mother feeding him, his big brother kissing him, his granny changing his nappy. H thoughtfully took them off to the park while I chilled out on the sofa for an hour.

Today seems better. My mother was here because she babysat last night while we went out with my brother and sister-in-law to see the Star Wars movie (I had incredibly low expectations, it was better than that, the special effects were stupendous, Nathalie Portman was the only person involved giving an even vaguely credible performance). When I came down this morning the baby had just woken up so she just handed him to me while she entertained the five year old. The baby is pretty hard to resist at that close range - he's very chatty and interactive and needs a lot of attention, so the two of us hang out for an hour or so, and it wasn't too bad. I remembered that I'm good with babies and that doesn't go away just because I don't have one of my own.

In the meantime I'm massively regretting telling my mother anything about what's going on. She's constantly offering me what friend X did about endometriosis, what doctor Y said when friend X saw him, what Z acupuncturist did for daughter of colleague Q, etc. Then she did the classic: "why don't you look after the baby for a day, then maybe you won't want one so much". I didn't dignify that with an answer!

I'm about to take Internal Spring's advice and go to the gym - first time since the operation. I think I'll feel better about myself if I stop being such a slug and start trying to tone up some of the flab that's arrived since Christmas. Hope all of you are enjoying your Sunday.

Coming to terms - not

We saw Dr Candour today. He lived up to his name. He showed me all the pictures from the operation. Basically my left ovary had adhered to the wall of my pelvis, and was completely surrounded by adhesions. He classified it as "medium" endometriosis. He also showed me the cyst being drained - I'll spare you the details but yuck!

We decided to go for IUI, after a long discussion which included him pointing out that IUI chances are only about 15 percent per cycle, when natural trying would be at about 10%. I tell you, I'll take the extra 5%. Yay, I thought, off to IUI we go in June. Oh no. For two reasons - first that my travel in June is horrific and second because we have to do additional tests (why on earth they don't get you to do these in advance I don't know - I'm furious!) which will take at least a week and will therefore run into the beginning of my next cycle. It's just HIV and hepatitis but it'll take that long to get them organised etc. Dr Candour advised to not stress on this and just cycle in July. Ok I thought, I can live with that.

Then we went down to the IVF clinic to set up our consultation appointment where they'll ask all sorts of incredibly nosy questions about our lifestyle that are mandated by the government in case we're just putting ourselves through this in order to molest the child when it does arrive. And then they'll give us a prescription for yummy clomid and gonadotrophins. And guess what. Despite the fact that this is private medicine, the first consultation appointment they have is 11 July. 11 July! That's six weeks away! What the fuck is this? That will mean two cycles before we get to even try IUI. I know this is a very boring line from me but what the hell, I can say what I like on here: I thought I'd have a baby by now, but I'm not even pregnant. And who knows if IUI will actually work. I'm only going to give it one try, I think, then on to IVF asap. I can't bear wasting any more time.

My brother, sister in law, and two nephews arrive for the long weekend tomorrow. The baby was conceived while we were on honeymoon. I wish I was going to be pleased to see them.

A year on, and even better

I wrote this yesterday, but didn't manage to post til today

A year ago today, we were married. I'm sitting in a rather lovely hotel room in Rome, but sadly without my husband because I'm here, as usual, on business. We did take the chance to celebrate last night. He made me an amazing dinner (he's taking a cordon bleu cookery course right now), and we had a great chat, with a break between the main course and desert for some time upstairs which was very nice, although he was too concerned about my stitches etc for it to be a no-holds barred rumpy pumpy session.

We had a lovely wedding day, although I was my usual self and wasted a lot of it worrying about what was not going to plan. The sun shone, I looked fab, he looked fab, lots of lovely people came to wish us well and they all looked fab, the Rabbi did an absolutely wonderful job - in particular his singing, the flowers were amazing, the food was delicious, we messed up our dance but no one noticed, the cake was the most fabulous that anyone had ever seen - or tasted, the children loved the bouncy castle and their special supper on the lawn and all the nannies ensured that their parents also had a good time, and the fireworks were the best that anyone had ever seen.

I spent a lot of today remembering what we were doing this time last year, and to be honest wishing I could have that day again, and that sense that it was ok to focus on me for a while - ok to make time to exercise and to eat well, ok to go for a pedicure, facial or manicure. I miss that. I miss having all our friends fly in to wish us well, and I miss the lovely holiday that we had afterwards!

About this time last year the fireworks finished and we got in the car and drove off down a drive with Roman Candles exploding either side. I was wrapped in a shawl that my great grandmother brought back from India 100 years ago and we were smiling and waving for all we were worth.

In a minute I'll get into bed and call my husband so we can reminisce together. The good thing is that I love him more now than I did a year ago. As he said last night, it's a deeper love, based on a greater understanding of how we want to handle life together, and an even greater sense of commitment to each other. I love him very much. My anniversary present to him was a set of vouchers (one turn of me clearing up the bedroom, one full afternoon of watching rugby, etc.), and a letter, written in a notebook that I bought that reminded me of our honeymoon destination. Writing it made me realise just how wonderful he is, and watching him read it made it all worthwhile. I am very lucky.

Invasive surgery can be a good thing

Yesterday was op day. The scheduled Laparoscopy and Hysteroscopy plus whatever else they needed to do while they were in there. You should have seen the consent form - it had about 10 procedures on there!

It went fine. It turns out to have been a very good idea to have the operation. Not only was the growth in my uterus a fibroid, not a polyp, but they also found endometriosis on the left ovary. This was pushing the tube away such that any ovulation from the left ovary would have been wasted as eggs would have been blocked from getting into the tube. And finally they drained a large "chocolate" cyst on the right ovary. (Chocolate indeed. Trust them to make this sound like something yummy when it's actually blood-filled). They also found other fibroids on the surface of the uterus, but they left those alone. I was completely out of it when Dr Candour came to see me in the recovery room, but he also went to see H. and H. said that Dr Candour was visibly relieved that we'd had this done and excited about us moving forward now.

Hopefully this will really help as we've not only fixed one, known problem affecting our implantation chances, but also a second which would have been reducing our chances to one in two ovulations (approx.).

I'm in some pain - better than yesterday but still much more sore than I expected to be. Mostly I am just feeling very emotionally fragile. I made the mistake of turning on my computer to find all sorts of urgent emails etc., and just burst into tears - I can't handle all these demands right now. I'm going to go back to the sofa and find something fun to watch.

Apple Snow

Briefly, because I really should be working - or sleeping, one or the other. Apple snow, as ManhattanAnne guessed (or knew?) is a meringue-based dessert, but the odd thing is that you don't bake it. Basically, you peel, core and slice about 5-6 flavour-full apples (I used some yummy English coxes), then put them in a pan with a dash of filtered water, put on a low heat, clamp the lid on and cook until soft (about 10-15 mins). I also added some lemon zest and grated ginger, but it's not compulsory.

While the apples are cooking, whip two egg whites until stiff peaks form. Then add about 1/2 a cup of castor sugar, slowly while you keep beating, to make the meringue.

Drain the apples in a colander, put them back in the pan and squash to break up the slices- or you could use a potato masher to make a real puree. Then just mix the two mixtures together.

That, officially is the end of the recipe. It makes a lovely, soft, cloud-like desert with soft chunks of apple hidden in the cloud. I like to make things complicated so I used our blow torch to crisp up the top so that we had a lovely contrast of textures.

Wow I feel just like a food blog. But then I'd need to be posting a really sexy photo of my finished work, and I'm just not that technically accomplished!

Struggling

So many things to say, only one blog entry to say it in. I feel frustrated because the blog is turning into a diary/journal type blog as opposed to a thoughtful/issues driven set of entries. Of course there are those, like Wessel, who manage to combine the two but I seem to be struggling. I think it's because I write these pretty quickly. I type very fast so can write pretty much as fast as the ideas come. Which is good in that I can hammer out an entry fast and get my thought out there. But bad in that I don't do the more reflective stuff well. And bad in that my entries are not my best writing - I found on my previous blog that I'd read them back and they just wouldn't make sense as I'd had too many ideas to convey clearly in one entry - although I think I've been slightly better at that here. However, I've just spent a couple of hours at the gym, so I'm full of all the reflection I did while I was boringly pounding on the cross trainer (for some reason my hip hurt too much to run. No idea why and haven't had that particular ailment before). Sadly all that reflection is the seemingly insoluble issues that are on my mind right now. So stop reading now if you want to spare yourself some serious whining!

I'm struggling with several things right now. The first is our impending first wedding anniversary. For which I thought we'd have a baby. Instead H has planned, for the night before rather than the night of since I have to go out of town that evening, a night away someplace fancy. I'm not really looking forward to it. I am incredibly happy that I married him, and I think I love him more than I did this time last year, but I'm so very sad about the lack of a baby that it's hard to know what else to talk about.

Second, I'm scared of the laparoscopy. I want there to be a problem so that it can be fixed and then we can have a baby, but what if we do this and still no pregnancy? I feel as if something else must be wrong, or we would have been pregnant by now, polyp or no polyp.

Third, this is the month from hell at work and I'm nervous about delivering on all my obligations.

Fourth, my assistant has been awol for a while and I don't know why. I've asked her but she says there's nothing wrong. Yet she keeps messing up and it's starting to be quite stressful. Not sure what to do next on that one.

Finally, and most importantly, I'm worried about H. His job has been crap for ages, so that's depressing him - it's boring and badly set up, and because he's in sales, that means he is earning very little since so much of his compensation is in the sales bonus. The depression really doesn't help the impotence - in fact I'm beginning to think that the recurrence in the summer - after it was fine for the first couple of months after we married - was probably job-depression related. He's finding life harder and harder and he doesn't talk to anyone except me, and I'm worried I'm sometimes not the right receptacle for his concerns so they don't come out at all. Last night his car got broken into and they stole his sunglasses, stereo, CDs, etc. He stomped around afterwards saying he'd like to beat them up, then went out saying "why is everything in our life going wrong right now?". I know that he knows that not everything is bad, but I can see that it feels that way to him, and I feel powerless to make him feel better.

Oh, I forgot one. I'm relentlessly gaining weight. Little by little that weight I worked so hard to lose last year is creeping back on. Because I'm exercising a lot less (partly because I've lost my early morning before-work slot to this ridiculous work schedule I've got at the moment, and partly because I've been cutting back in the 2ww even though the doctor said there was no real need to), and being much less careful about what I eat. For some reason I have really caught the baking bug, which would be ok if I had some self control. But I don't. It's not like I eat whole cakes in one sitting, but I do seem to be having at last one cookie/slice of cake equivalent every day after dinner, and then my usual piece of dark chocolate as well, and boy is it adding up - along with being a lot less strong about not snacking at work etc.. I hate that I only have four suits left that fit me (I threw out all my fat clothes last summer), and that many of my honeymoon clothes are too tight to look good.

Ok, at least I've got the worries out there. Maybe it's ok to whine on here. It's my space after all. H is watching rugby which seems to be cheering him up. I'm going to go make apple snow for dinner since we have a glut of apples right now. Thanks for reading.

No moral high ground

You all rock. Thank you for the comments on the last post.

So, in line with Wessel's suggestion, I made a big fuss. I called and tried to speak to the woman who books the theatres. She is out on holiday til Monday. So I called the woman in charge of the private wing at the hospital*, she said it was nothing to do with her, but gave me the consultant's secretary's number. I finally got through to her and explained the situation. She was apologetic, but said there was nothing she could do. There were two turning points in the conversation. One was that she asked me when I'd received the letter, and was shocked to hear that it was just that morning. Apparently Dr Candour is going to a conference that day and they've known for over a month. The second was when I burst into tears and pointed out how hard it would be for me to miss this appointment (it's been a year, it will be another two months, I've arranged all my work around this, etc.). She continued to apologise, and promised to speak to Dr Candour about it. I assumed that that was that. I'd get an apology, and have to wait two months for another appointment.

But about 30 minutes later my phone rang. I excused myself from my meeting and went to answer it. It was Dr Candour's secretay again.

"Dr Candour feels very bad about the fact that we didn't notify you sooner, so he has decided to come in and do the operation on you, then go to his conference after that. You'll be the first and only patient he operates on that day."

I felt stunned. I could barely stammer out my thank you before she'd gone. Of course I immediately felt horribly guilty, and convinced that I never should have made such a fuss. Why on earth I felt that way I don't know. It's that guilt thing again I was speaking about a couple of weeks ago. Somehow when I do get people to do something that's better for me than for them it turns on the guilt, big time.

I went back to work. During the day I became convinced that because I'd made such a big fuss, I would definitely not be pregnant. "Don't be ridiculous," said H. when I told him. But the fear persisted. Late in the day I started to get cramps. Friday morning my temperature nose dived. Friday at 11am it was all over, again. Hence the moral high ground of the title. I made a fuss, I got my period - it's just my dues for having made someone inconvenience themselves.

I so wanted to not have to have this operation. On one hand I'm incredibly glad that I made that fuss so that I can have it and not have to wait. On the other I'm convinced that it won't make any difference. We've been trying for nearly a year to no avail, and this shouldn't be making that much difference, according to Dr Candour.

Someone teach me the art of positive thinking, quickly!

Thanks again for all the support. You make all the difference to me, honestly.

* As a refresher on the medical payment situation, we are now seeing Dr Candour privately, even though our original referral to him was on the NHS. So we have to pay for everything at the moment. Luckily my insurance covers fertility investigation, so this operation is covered. Once we move on to treatment we'll be on our own. Apparently only one company in the U.K. covers their employees for fertility treatment, and it's one of the big banks, where, of course, they can all afford it anyway. Just another one of life's little ironies.

Can they do this to me?

On my way out the door this morning I saw an official looking letter that had arrived yesterday for me, so I opened it, and promptly ruined my morning. My Lap/hysteroscopy that was scheduled for next thursday, the appointment made over 6 weeks ago, has unilaterally been rescheduled for the following Thursday. Which I can't do, and which even if I could do is likely to be about day 14 of a cycle, and so would prevent us from trying that month, which is exactly what the consultant suggested we avoid doing.

I've got the month from hell coming up as I try to run three projects, do the annual reviews for my staff and generally try to keep things under control. I'd scheduled the whole month around allowing myself 2 days off for this operation, at great inconvenience to my team and my clients. Given how busy the next two months are, if I can't get it reinstated to the 19th, I won't be able to have the operation until July, which will make it over 14 months since we started trying. I can't bear it.

I've been in floods of tears but have to run now and be all chirpy and upbeat for my team. The bastards at the hospital of course aren't even in yet so I can't do anything to sort this out until later today.

I'm assuming I'm not pregnant, of course, 12 dpo and counting but temp not looking good this morning. Yesterday I was all hopeful and today it all seems hopeless. This is hard.

Tense

10 dpo today. My luteal phase is sometimes only 10 days. I woke up very early this morning - mostly because we have no curtains and it's very bright here today, not because of any tension - and lay there thinking about taking my temperature. There's not much point taking it at this stage. Either I'm pregnant and I'll find out in a couple of days when I finally allow myself to pee on a stick, or I'm not. All the temperature taking does is make me a bit tense while the thermometer is in my mouth, and potentially flag the day I should get depressed. So what do I do? I roll over and take my temperature. Then after falling back to sleep for 20 minutes I wake up and do it again. Idiot.

Looking at my old charts they mostly show a substantial drop in temperature the day I get my period. Today my temperature was down on yesterday. Not by much but enough that it's not a good sign. I have absolutely no pregnancy signs, despite how hard I'm searching for them. I don't feel pregnant. Yes, I know that people are often pregnant despite not feeling so, but somehow this lack of positive signs is speaking to me. Another two cycles before we can try again.

I want to be pregnant so much. Nothing in my life seems important other than that. How do I keep going, keep motivating my colleagues to do the right thing, keep counselling my clients, when I really don't care that much? I only care about having a baby.

Somehow I'll keep putting one foot in front of another. Because I have to for my own sanity and professional responsibility. But it's hard.

This just in: Children are hard work!

We've had a friend of mine and her two year old to stay this weekend, and today were joined by another friend and her three year old, and a single friend - we were all at university together. It was lovely, but blooming hard work. The two year old, R., is adorable but very very into everything - needs lots of explanation, wants lots of attention. Mostly she wants you to do everything she's doing. Which is fine when it's colouring, but slightly distracting when it's reading a book. She'd hand me one, then grab one herself, and ask me to read to her while she read to me. Of course she can't read so she just makes up stories while turning the pages, but if I stop reading out loud she says, imperiously: "Talking reading, please", so both of us are 'reading' out loud at once. Very entertaining.

This morning we made muffins together, which caused a huge mess but was tremendous fun, and the muffins came out fine - one batch of blueberry, once batch of banana. She was very excited at the pink silicone muffin tray I've got, as everything pink is good with her. It was hard to persuade her that it had to go in the oven - she didn't want to part with it!

Once we had two of them it was both harder and easier. They play well together, but at their age it can deteriorate rapidly into a fight so it required quite a lot of intervention. Plus I have a cupboard in the playroom which holds presents, and one that holds books and toys for children who come to play. Previously they've been young enough not to think about the present cupboard, but today it held great attraction so we constantly had to go and shut it again! I'll have to rearrange things before they come again.

It was fun, but it's nice to be on our own again now. H. is a bit under the weather so he's just lying on the sofa watching sport - one of his favourite Sunday activities. I'm about to go and persuade him that watching American Idol can also be fun. Not sure how easy that's going to be.

Eight dpo? What's that?

Preternaturally hopeful

Not sure why, but this month I'm somehow convinced that I will be pregnant. I think the reason is that sex was not stressful for the first time in months. However, the first month we really tried, in December, the sex wasn't stressful either, so there's no logic there. (Obviously there's no logic anyway, don't worry, I haven't completely lost it).

Another reason is probably my subliminal buying-in to the "if you just...you'll get pregnant". The fact I've got the lap and hyseroscopy scheduled for 19 May means that I'll get pregnant before hand, right?

Sadly this means that Hope is here in my suitcase with me, smiling at me at every turn. Which means that in approximately 7-8 days I'll be sitting on the bathroom floor howling again.

Anyone for cake?

Good choices

I made entirely the right decision not to go off on the business trip yesterday. We had a lovely day at home, went for a long walk by the river in the sun, and generally had fun hanging out together. Of course I then had to work for a lot of the evening, but that turned out ok. I spent time on the phone with the team guiding them through today's workshop so that they and I felt confident about how the day would go. I made a lovely butternut squash thai curry for dinner and we watched an episode of Dr Who before bed. All in all a very good use of my time.

Today is going less well in that I just had my pre-review meeting with my evaluator. The way my company works is that you're never told you're doing well - we just focus on what else you should be doing. This discussion was just like that, but it hurt even so to hear that those I've been working with think I'm doing great on the day-to-day stuff, but that I'm not spending enough time on creating new opportunities. Of course what has been going on is that I've been killing myself to deliver the day-to-day, and I've wanted to create at least some time for myself and H., so the thing that's slipped is the developing opportunities piece. It's just a bit hard to hear that if I want to truly be considered high performing, I have to work even harder than I am doing already. It seems unmanageable.

Oh dear. I wanted to write a happy post. I'll stop now and say you were all right, and I made the right decision not to fly out yesterday. Keep your fingers crossed that today's workshop goes well and it turns out to have been a great opportunity for them to step up since I wasn't there.

Phew

Damn. Just lost the first version of this to a google experiment. That will teach me.

Last night was a success. We had a lovely dinner (food wasn't great but we had a good time together). We consumed about 2/3 of a bottle of great red wine - mostly H but I had more than I usually do. We had an affectionate walk home. Then we nearly ruined everything by having a stupid row about tidying the kitchen (don't ask. We're idiots. There's a reason G-d's not allowing us to conceive). Somehow we managed to rescue things, and miraculously had no real issues in bed. H said he got tense a couple of times, but managed to send away the negative thoughts.

I can't express how relieved I am, although now I have something else to worry about. My temperature was up this morning. Which means that I ovulated sometime yesterday (damn those OPKs. They used to give me a 24 hour warning of the temp rise, now they're positive the same day. Something is out to get me). So quite possibly the egg was hanging around too long waiting for the sperm, which didn't arrive til 23:45 or so. So this may not be our month (again). Boy do we need to have more sex.

Oh yes and another thing to worry about. I had told my team that I couldn't join them on a business trip til Tuesday evening, therefore missing the big meeting on that trip. What I didn't tell them is my reasoning: because that would allow us to try to conceive up to the evening of day 14, which is my usual ovulation day. Now my blasted body (told you something was out to get me) has decided to ovulate early, on day 12, there is no reason why I can't fly out tomorrow night, Monday, and be there in time for the big meeting. But I don't want to. I want to have a nice relaxing day with H tomorrow (Monday is a holiday here) since today is taken up with a family party at his parents' house, and the aforementioned baby party. A colleague has stepped in to substitute for me at the big meeting I've opted out of on Tuesday, so it's not like the team is unsupported without me. But I know if I'm there I can catch things that the team won't, and when I do get there I'll have more catching up to do.

Damn this guilt thing. Anyone got any ideas for a cure?