Embracing Infertility: Boys are strong, like King Kong

I know exactly when it happened. When I turned the corner and stood face to face with the fact:

I am infertile

I had spent years skirting around the issue, the word, the stigma. Years justifying it with:

"I get pregnant literally all the time, so we're obviously fertile."
"We've become parents once before, it will surely happen again. We don't need extra help."
"I'm not the infertile one with the *thing* causing the problems, it's my partner."


I want to explain something here that I have never dealt with - I don't think?? - on either of my blogs [aside: I had a different blog for two years before Sunny Side Up and it is this first blog that I intend to dissect and repost here over time]. It speaks to that need to belong. That feeling of wondering "where do I fit?" in the world of infertility and pregnancy loss. I thought infertility was one and the same. I thought it was something you either had... or you didn't.


Here's what happened to me:

One day several years ago, I sat with my growing folder of assisted conception paperwork all on IVF Clinic letterhead, browsing the information while I waited for my latest blood test with my nurse. Suddenly, I sat bolt upright. There, staring me in the face were the words "Infertile Couple" on some referral letter or another. After the initial feelings of shock and indignation wore me down and I sat with the label for the rest of the day, I supposed that if this was how the medical system viewed me and Steve then it simply had to be. If we had to be considered on paper as "infertile" in order to receive treatment to hopefully skirt our genetic factor, then so be it. At least it was feeling like it was getting us somewhere further in our seemingly never-ending journey to bring home a child. I made nothing much more of it.

A few months later. I was served a lesson that smacked me once and for all between the eyes.

Reading on a forum I used to frequent in my "trying for another baby" days/months/years, the deflection and denial turned into reflection and acceptance. I saw an exchange between two women - and I can't tell you with any great accuracy how much IVF drugs may or may not have played a part in how hotly this got debated and weighed in on - that basically went like this:

"Oh, it's not me with the problem. It's my husband." I began to nod along with what the woman was expressing, until I read the response...

"Honey, you're in a relationship with this man? And he is the infertile one? Then sorry, you are both infertile."

It was so harsh. My cheeks flushed instantly and I felt so indignant that I rose a little off my seat, so ready was I to bash out a retort on my overworked keyboard. The cursor blinked back at me in its sea of white. I sat there staring at the other member's words. And then, as the realisation finished all its connections I raised my eyes from the screen and focused somewhere off into the middle distance in front of me.

Holy shit. That's me.

I wanted to recoil. To cringe. To shy away from all that I had been merrily labelling my own husband with before tripping off into some fanciful "Get out of jail free" type card. I realised with a start that I had been absolutely fooling myself all along and it had taken a virtual stranger's words to stun me out of my oblivion.

Ever since the test results had come back, in 2002.
Ever since we had been given a Russian Roulette-style run-down by a geneticist with more statistics than a statistician.
Ever since we were told we were "lucky" we could "get pregnant easily" by the geneticists.
Ever since we discovered our choices were, if we wanted a child, to either keep conceiving and hoping for a "normal one" or we saved up for IVF. Very expensive pre-implantation genetic diagnosis (PGD) - biopsy of embryos after ICSI (Intra Cytoplasmic Sperm Injection) - kind of IVF.


We had already welcomed our first child in to the world. Against ALL odds. We had also farewelled her just 31 days later. My realisation came many long months in to our continuing, angst-filled journey to conceive again. When I attempted to join in to online groups, I entered with the added confusing twist that I was already a mother. But technically, not "mothering". Mostly, I was invited in with welcome arms by fascinating, insightful and supportive women all going through the IVF mill and sharing the process and the journey with each other.

I had experienced the wonder of pregnancy and birth. I felt somewhat set apart from people who had not experienced either of those things. "Set apart" in that I felt guilty, somewhat of an imposter. Should I be chatting with these women, many of whom were yet to even fall pregnant, when I had experienced it time and again? How much knowledge should I impart to them? What was too much information? What was not enough sharing of my vast experience with pregnancy (to not share what I knew was equally irresponsible of me, in my books)?

It was a brilliant - absolutely invaluable - learning ground. I learned how and where and what to pitch about myself. I honed a sense of tact and diplomacy. I learned to recognise how exhausted I felt after I put too much of myself out for others to voyeuristically take from - a truly useful thing, given that the birth of my blog was just around the corner.

But I still wasn't entirely sure I shouldn't be in with the "secondary infertility mums" - those who were experiencing infertility but who already had at least one child. I'd go in there and they would be discussing the trials of IVF cycles around play dates and kinder meetings. I couldn't possibly do that, it gutted me. So I stayed with the first-timers. Those yet to become parents. And I cried countless times, privately, at how much I couldn't share about my daughter. It was well known on the forum that I had lost a child. I spoke about it in different areas of the board. But remained respectful on the IVF forum.

Once I had our second daughter, the LGBB, I was well and truly ousted. The "trying to get pregnant" crowd naturally booted me from the nest I was so safe in. I don't blame them, I would have done the same thing. I didn't know where to fit in after that. I was not someone who had come to motherhood in a relatively straightforward way, so I felt quite set apart from other new mothers - "normal" mothers, I considered them, in my hazy newborn-mind state. And I found I could not really handle reading about the change in some of the people who had struggled through the tedious nature of infertility (or otherwise just an unexplained "long time to conceive"), now mothers and complaining about it all the way. That was really hard. I floundered for a while, but left the community within the year.

I stayed with the one thing that accepted me how it found me: my blog. I made the rules there. I didn't need a label there. Eventually, I felt compelled to find and embrace my voice as a mother, a fully-fledged mother (regardless of my shattered journey to getting there eventually) and I began to flex my muscles - on the blog - about the hard parts of motherhood. I agonised for the first year of Lolly's life and it literally almost sent me mad. Oh the guilt at complaining! So I felt like I had well and truly alienated myself from any of my "IF sisters" from the online community I had joined. I struggled to join in with mothers who didn't have a deceased child anywhere in their brood. I straddled both worlds and felt accepted in neither.

But I digress. Back to the subject of embracing infertility.

----

I came to realise that Steve and I were in this together. That simply because my body was not the "issue", my reluctance to get on board and properly partner him - embrace the fact together - sent him a really awful, lonely, unintentional message on my part.

I embraced our infertility then. In fact, I took it on so much that an exasperated friend at one point asked me when I was going to "stop allowing" infertility (and loss) to define me. The truth is, it has defined me. If nothing else, I have grown my compassionate self, have championed the cause alongside others, have really discovered the depth and breadth of who I am because of our conception history, not in spite of it.

And as for Steve, well, I could not be more proud of him flying the flag. Hell, the guy has even had his sperm talked about on national radio (more than once)! You've gotta be okay within yourself to be down with that, don't you? When I stand back and have a look at our learning curve, together as a couple, it's a wonder we haven't run away and hidden under adjacent very big rocks. As facetious as it might sound, I am proud of my partner. Deeply respectful of the processing he has done, all on his own, to reach a point of acceptance in himself to be okay with our situation being discussed in public. In a book. And, of course, in depth in my book about our journey.

----

It's a very deeply personal and subjective, er, subject. So I would never rush to encourage anyone else to do anything other than what feels right for them. But if nothing else, above all, I feel more comfortable saying now that "we" are infertile - despite the fact that I am about to go and do the kinder run to collect our only surviving child - and I will never again look on infertility as being the issue of either the male or female. To me, it is a couple thing. At least, that's what worked for us.

If you would like to chat privately about this post, please feel free to email me. My contact information should be up there ^^^ in my profile.

What IF: Creating a positive force for change?

I was deeply moved by this video. In the online world, "IF" stands for "Infertility." I found that out the hard, smack-in-the-kisser way. Oh, didn't you know? We are technically infertile. It was a hard thing to admit at the time. A strange thing to wrap our heads around, particularly after we gave birth to our first (and then second) child, unaided by the medical profession. But, be that as it may, our recurrent miscarriage "efforts" afford us that branding. And on paper, yes, we are indeed... IF.

This is a courageous video, made by a woman on a mission named Keiko Zoll. I love her work:

What IF? A Portrait of Infertility from Keiko Zoll on Vimeo.

Read the full description here: hannahweptsarahlaughed.blogspot.com/2010/04/what-if.html

IF. A word of possibilities, choices, paths. IF, the acronym in the blogging community for infertility, a world full of choices, paths, possibilities... IFs.

This video is a response to RESOLVE and Melissa Ford's #ProjectIF, as part of National Infertility Awareness Week 2010. As a member and blogger of the ALI (Adoption/Loss/Infertility) Community, this project is so important this year to bring real stories, real faces to the issue of infertility. My hope is that this video illustrates the "everydayness" of coping with infertility.

I'm known on the internet as Miriam, writing for my IF blog, "Hannah Wept, Sarah Laughed." It is my hope that by publicly "outing" myself and my struggle with infertility that I can help erase some of the stigma surrounding the subject. I hope I can be a voice for those women and couples who can't speak up or speak out for themselves. I hope that my legislators can see that yes, infertility IS a disease, and that healthcare coverage of infertility treatment is a worthwhile cause to the health and welfare of their constituents.

When infertility takes so much of your sense of control away from you, it's advocacy projects like these that allow us to take charge again.

What IF we no longer remain silent about our infertility?

What IF we give infertility a face, a name, a story?

What IF we can become a positive force for change?

Seeing the light vs desperation to get out

Every time I am away from my blog, my mind is heavy with things I have to say. Then I get back here and *vooop* they all just vanish.

So. With that in mind, I guess this is going to be one of those dogs' dinners of thoughts all piled in together. The Bubble and Squeak post, if you will.

This past fortnight or so, I have been holding the energy (or rather, assisting my teacher to hold it) of etheric transfusion. In a nutshell, so far it seems to be a very, very positive experience that involves simply placing yourself in a space of 'wait' and trust, in order for transposition of old gnarled thoughts and learned processes to evolve into something more close to your true soul purpose (as opposed to beating the drum that has been how you were raised/taught/"wired" from external influences). It's much more than this, but I am rushing and paraphrasing like a madwoman. I am busier than I've ever been before, am juggling so much right now in my personal, work, family and social lives, and yet I am taking it all on, one bite at a time.

I remember times past when such converging would have sent me under in a hurry. But at the moment, I feel enveloped somewhat by the knowledge of whomever it is Upstairs that arranges these passages is keeping me steady. I often have the image of the sport, curling, in my head to imagine what could be going on.

With my own set of sweepers, then, I'm inching forward in my life at the moment. I'm having clarity about my maternal line, I'm seeing things there quite clearly and also watching with interest how these unlockings are happening in my own brain. My wiring, if you will. It is opening things up like Spring sunshine and air in a dusty, closed up room.

I recall times over the years when I would say to Steve, in sheer desperation, that I had to "get out". This meant different things at different times. Sometimes it meant "out" of our relationship, once we were married it sometimes meant "out" of the marriage. Often it meant "out" of the prison-like walls of our house (because, like so many modern homes, it was a home that filled the block it was on and I felt thoroughly stifled, not being able to see anything on the horizon - literally - and only able to look at neighbours' roofs or up to the sky). I wanted to move, for years. The first opportunity that presented itself was a 1/3 acre block of land on a huge hillside with 180º + views. Change much? Mmm hmm, I thought it was. I was 28 weeks' pregnant with Ella when we began talks with the builder, both Steve and I very excited that we would be moving not long after the long-awaited arrival of our Ella-bubble.

The profit we made on the sale of that block (for neither of us could even contemplate moving there without her after she died) was more than double. We used that money in two parts: the obvious plan to us was to use it to adopt a child. Sooooooo much red tape there that it was then that I succumbed to trying IVF. PGD to be exact. Much of what we earned on the block went into just the first cycle, nearly $20,000 in fact. What a lot to, literally, lose down the drain, huh? But it was a choice we made. And it kept our sanity intact for 2005 through an incredibly trying and gruelling succession of personal grievances and realisations, as a couple and as individuals, until our saving grace came along.

We also decided at this time to renovate our existing kitchen - "it's the heart of any home, you're giving your home a heart transplant!" my dear, sweet SIL said to me before looking at me, horrified, at what she thought was a blunder.... my breath had caught in my throat when she said it, but not because I was offended. It was a realisation. It was something we - Steve and I - needed to do for ourselves, for our ongoing survival, if we were to stay in that same home that had, now, so very many boggy memories of pregnancies lost. The concept of a house's kitchen being the "heart" of the family, and the fact we were facelifting ours, was more poignant to us because of Ella's heart defect.

Where am I going? I don't know.... Ummmm! I feel pressed for time but urged to tell you more.

Might just let this sit and see what happens, eh?

Whose is whose?

I actually wrote this post a week ago and then deleted it off my blog. I do that. Anyone who's been reading since 2oo5 would know that by now, and anybody who uses a notifier to receive my posts would have already had this one last week, so apologies for the repeat. But I saved it, sat on it. Interesting to me to note now that I used the word "sift", for that is exactly what we ended up looking at on Wednesday during Lime Ray.... now's the time for sorting, sifting and lifting all the old crud.

Now, days after I initially burst this onto my screen in a flurry of flying fingers, I'm not so hot under the collar about it. I can read it more objectively. And I'm going to keep it posted up here because, frankly, it covers a fair few important topics with regard to coping with other mothers when you've become one yourself and then lost your child. So, without further ado, here's Take II.

* * * *

Gosh, I'm not even quite sure where to start on this one.

It's been a day of my indignation flaring, I'm afraid. Despite my better self, the one who knows better, to not get upset by an email I received, I find my thoughts pacing. I'm not. But my thoughts are.

I think it's because I've been thrown right back to the middle of 2005, the year we still had no baby. The year after four brand new beautiful babies came safely to their parents and into Steve's and my lives after we lost Ella. Six months after we celebrated with friends the first birth day of Ellanor, the mother of one of those babies (who had been invited to attend on that day but never committed, never replied to any of my emails or my phone message inviting them) suddenly contacted me with a "Sorry, but..." email.

I love the "Sorry, but..." email. And when I say "love", I mean really deeply despise.

It is the kind of correspondence that builds the sender's out-clause. Their trump card for them - I'll give you an example: "I realise you wanted us to be there and I'm sorry we weren't, but...". Normally, what happens in the dot-dot-dot section after the "but" is a long list of reasons by the sender, designed to build their case and usually comes off looking guilty as all get-out whilst at the same time is really an impassioned plea for the receiver's understanding. It really doesn't read as genuine because it jumps too quickly into the justifications and isn't that a pity.

A pity, too, for this particular sender, then, that I had by then weighed up my various duties to her and visits to her and her newborn in 2004 (not many, granted, but heck I wasn't really "up" for visits like that in that first year) and I decided I had done all I felt capable of doing for her. I didn't need that particular brand of flogging anymore, I didn't have to be there for every person who seemed like they wanted me in their life. I didn't need phone conversations whereby they were so comfortable with me now that I was told, basically, that she had never really been sure she wanted a baby, but rather she "just wanted to know I could do it and I got pregnant quickly." Ah, the old "I don't want to be a failure in the conception department, lest that make me somewhat less of a woman" thing. I get that. No, totally. I really do. However, it's not really something one wants to hear when still in the deep mourning period of losing one's own newborn. I'm talking, less than six months had passed.

But did I give her a bit of "Hang on a minute, can you hear what you're saying? And to whom you're saying it?" Perhaps stupidly, in hindsight, no I did not. I did what I always do. I allow that person to say anything because they are expressing their feelings. One thing that's most painfully obvious to me now, though, is that it's not too good if I do this and don't cross-check what feelings it brings up with me on the spot. What I would have been better off doing is simply saying "I understand this is how you feel and you most certainly don't mean to hurt me, but.. I'm not quite sure how I feel about you saying this to me. I'm going to have to go away and think about this now. Bye!" Maybe that way, it would have been flagged by them as an issue for me. Read that, though, because it's important: an issue for me. Not them. Don't need anyone to own it or change it, because it's simply my shit to work out.

Why, then, if I can see what is mine to own and sort out and work on, do others sometimes not know how to do the same? Why am I sitting here with another email burning a hole in my inbox? An email which is very clearly another attempt at providing me a list of excuses, which I understood the first time?

I fully appreciate and understand that some people, sometimes (or all the time or most of the time), were not going to be able to handle "me". Mine was/is an ongoing situation that in the beginning, very definitely required the donning of kid-gloves and a bit of taking a backseat to personal issues, particularly if those issues related to your own troubles with the bairns. However, I never asked people to do this. I simply accepted what was offered. I didn't force myself on people - rather the opposite - so I found it very poor form when certain members of my circle at that time would not only come seek me out, they'd dump on me (or overjustify themselves somewhere amongst their apology for "whatever" they felt they'd let me down on).

It's hard to be my friend, it seems.

So then we had a situation where I was diving straight into IVF after the pain of terminating a baby at ten weeks at the end of 2004 (a baby I had only told her about, by accident because I let it slip on the phone to her mere weeks before Ellanor's first birthday, and somewhat ironically, had to have that termination only three days after I told her I was pregnant again). Because of this, 2005 was pretty much taken up for us with continuing our grieving and healing and doing two rounds of very taxing PGD. Oh, and getting pregnant again towards the end of that year (more stress, stress, stress) with the good old LGBB.

I didn't know what this woman was up to. Frankly, her six-month-late apology/response for not attending Ella's birthday was not timely, to me. It was, by that stage, surely being done so that she could ease her own conscience because how could it help me, that late in the peace? Especially when it was buffered either side by excuses for where she had been. Okay, I conceded at the time, you're busy. You're "with your child". You're coping as best you know how. Okay. And it was also evident to me at the time that what I couldn't cope with was the fact that all her issues preventing her support of me were issues that, to me at the time, were not as significant. We were both in our own pain-filled bubbles for two different reasons - namely, I was depressed and grieving because my child wasn't here and she was depressed and grieving because she had a child. Something, again, with time I have been really able to appreciate more. But not back then. There was no way I could know what it was like for her. All I heard was someone who couldn't pick up and come to a picnic for a couple of hours with a 6 month-old. I get it so much more now, why that was not possible. I genuinely, sincerely mean that. When someone is consumed by what's in front of them, I perfectly understand they have to be in that place. I didn't ask any more of her, I never have. I do smart, though, at the thinly-veiled inference that what she was going through was tougher than what I was going through. That one's always very difficult to hear. But it's something that's been used to trump me (because i didn't have a child at the time and merely had to trust these mothers when they said, "Hey, you don't know how hard it is" - to me, it seemed a walk in the park compared to trying to mother without my child here... try that one on for size and see which is more difficult, I challenge any of my detractors now that I've done both).

But when I am then contacted, completely out of the blue, some three years later and told that it's "assumed" I am still pissed at her, I've gotta say... "Lady, I think there's some sifting of issues to be had here."

It seems, even in your own out-of-the-way head-down little world, you can still be sought out, contacted and had more crap dumped on you.

Eurgh. Just a big, resounding, sighing EURGH. Bitter, me? Noh, never. Although, with some things... I do have to say, I'd feel mighty justified if I was.

Just don't know if I can do it

It's an empty box of tissues.

It's just an empty. Box. Of tissues.

With teddies on it.

This box of tissues was bought in the year 2000. I was six weeks pregnant. I was going to put this box of tissues in the nursery for that baby. About seven weeks later, I was shattered for the first of many times when I had to have a D&C for the missed miscarriage that had happened.

The box of tissues stayed in the top of our pantry. I didn't tell Steve about them. Just kept them there. He never needed tissues so was never going to open a box. They were safe there.

Each time, through each pregnancy, and the painful months in between when I was either recovering from miscarriage or waiting to find out if I was pregnant that month, I'd glance into the top of the pantry and in a split second, be placed back in that hospital theatre room just before they put the mask over my face. Knew that the box of tissues had always represented to me what I had lost that night.

In 2003, when I was 16 weeks' pregnant, we painted the bedroom that was to be Ella's first nursery. I took out this same box of tissues and put them on the shelf we'd put in there. This time, I thought. This time I'll have them to use in the baby's room.

After Ella died, I actually took this box out of the room that was to be hers, even though the rest of the furniture remained intact, assembled and in place, until Lolly used it as her first room two years later.

The box of tissues went back to the top of the pantry.

I almost beheaded Steve one night in 2005 (I shall unashamedly blame fertility drugs) when he - who the feck knew he used them - needed a tissue. He reached up to the pantry and brought down this box. He had no idea they'd already been there for over four years when he tried to use them.

That's when I had to tell him through embarrassed and broken tears that I had been saving the box for our baby. Any baby. He'd pierced the perforated top. He apologised profusely and rubbed my arm and then drew me in for a big hug. I sobbed. And then I laughed. And he laughed. It was so ridiculous, It's just a box of fucking tissues, I said.

And that it is. We've used them now. I ceremoniously cracked open the box, starting at the hole Steve had made with his thumb the year before, when the LGBB was no more than four weeks old. Every time I've seen the box in there, I have remembered its story. In, out, up, down out of that ruddy pantry and baby's room.

Tell me it's just a box? I actually want to reduce the clutter here, not add to it. But I'm finding it a tad hard to flippantly toss the thing. I can't actually even reduce the box down for putting in recyclying rubbish. Is that pathetic of me?

Erm, yes, and I am sentimental. Very... just in case it's not been obvious before now.

A very brief summary on PGD (IVF), amongst other things

I made this post recently somewhere else *taps nose*. After writing it, I discovered it was probably quite a good summation of our history, which I don't think I have anywhere on this current blog. So... FYI's sake if nothing else, here it is. You can find out more about Steve's balanced translocation, from our perspective/understanding, here.


My husband has a balanced translocation and whilst we seem to have no trouble getting pregnant, retaining a pregnancy has so far proven almost impossible.

After enduring three m/c's in a row, we did some testing and it was discovered then that Steve had this chromosomal anomoly. We went for genetic counselling, at which time (in 2002) PGD was still relatively new in Australia and they - the genetic counsellors at the IVF clinic - virtually steered us against doing it.

I had one more miscarriage before conceiving our first daughter, who chromosomally speaking was perfectly normal. She passed away due to completely different issues so we had to start TTC again. After two more failed pregnancies the year she passed ('04), I decided to try IVF - Steve had wanted to do it earlier but I had personal issues with it, it was a big decision for me. We discussed adoption and looked into it extensively, also considering foster parenting at this time too. But because we had conceived and then lost our only child to date, it seemed far too difficult and rigorous an emotional journey for us to contemplate taking on. It seems, in hindsight, that IVF appeared the least strenuous (for us as a couple) option at the time, even though it took far more an emotional, angst-ridden toll on us than we expected.

We tried PGD twice in '05, yielded really poor results - for PGD, where the more fertilised eggs for testing purposes, the better - and ended up with only one normal/balanced emby to transfer both times (only 3-4 eggs fertilised from 6-7 retrieved, both times, despite our high fertility rate naturally, I was devastated I had not "performed better" and of those, most were carrying the unbalanced translocation anyway). There were none to freeze, obviously. The second time I had a chemical pregnancy and we decided we could do that on our own at zero financial expense! So we stopped IVF (we were going to do 3 tries).

I fell pregnant naturally the following month with our only surviving child to date, another daughter. She is a carrier but otherwise healthy in every way.

In my opinion, there was a lot of good to come out of our brief IVF journey including -
* It meant we would not always wonder or regret not attempting it if we found ourselves childless at the end of our years of trying to conceive.
* We made the most of the information that was gathered during our stint. The sperm testing was most important (they offered this as a free non-diagnostic test - as it was then in trial phase and so we would also be helping them with their studies into the accuracy of the data, etc.), as it showed my husband's own specific sperm quality. He was at his peak in health, incl. being on naturopathics to increase chances of the lower volume of healthy sperm being the ones to get to the egg so it was a very good indicator for us.

They found approx. 26% of sperm was normal. It was consistent with what we had been informed by the geneticists the whole way through the process so it was good to have it confirmed, it was more than just general statistics. For us, roughly 4 in 6 pregnancies will be abnormal/unbalanced. We've had 11 pregnancies so far.

The decision to start trying again naturally was hard and scary. But as we had no dependants and we were still in our late 20's and early 30's respectively, we agreed that we would live with whatever the outcome (for us, an unbalanced child would result in varied high care mental/physical disabilities so a very serious consideration). That "whoever" came to us in whatever form, we would handle it.

Diary of an IVF whore

23.2.05
"...Now see here, journal, I don't want to see any miscarriage stories this year in this one! So much progress towards starting IVF - it's quite amazing to find myself in this position - so close to starting after so many, many months and years of waiting and heartbreak.
I had to terminate the pregnancy we had in December '04 (two months ago). It surprised me a little how relatively easy I found it to cope with.
And so, lying in Recovery, I made the decision: we are going to start using Preimplantation Genetic Diagnosis with IVF to try and make our family now. I wish it hadn't resorted to this, but then how long do I continue to do this? To my mind and body?"

8.5.05 Mother's Day
"...Bought a bunch of flowers for myeslf yesterday. No one in the family has mentioned today to us at all. Don't know what else I was expecting.
I start sniffing Synarel tomorrow. I am soooooo excited. Really looking forward to seeing how well my body reacts."

11.5.05
"...I'm trying very hard and so far I've not mastered it properly, but I really need to concentrate on bringing in this baby's energy. We're so close now. I have to keep remembering what Steve has started saying: 'Don't look over there, or over there - just keep bringing in that baby.' I really do feel like it's just him and me this time. Funny that surrounded by practically zero family, only dr's/nurses at the IVF clinic and many strangers mostly via the net, we seem to feel really strong and focused. There's not much doubt, certainly not as much as when we were trying to conceive naturally."

24.5.05
"...Did my first injection last night. Weirrrrrrd!! But now I've done it once, I am sure I will be able to do them quite easily. It's funny, I'm not resentful or 'hating' this process or the drugs at all - it's a bit scary, yes, but it still feels like we're heading in a positive direction.
You are so longed for, little one! We want you here with us and would go to any length to get you here safely. I'm feeling very positive about the outcome of all this. I don't think we will be too disappointed. I fear saying that, in case something goes wrong and it all ends in a miscarriage again, or no pregnancy at all.... but I really don't think that will result.
No, I know this baby will be strong and fit and healthy. We are waiting for you. We are ready to catch you. Please don't hesitate."

27.5.05
"...I can't believe it's only a week from today until Egg Pick Up! These years of yearning and trying to conceive our family have been so long and at times painful, lonely, boring, difficult and filled with immense sorrow. That it could all be about to end is a bit incomprehensible. I mean, I was also sure that Ella was "the one", I could never have guessed it would all end up the way it has. So it's very hard to not have reservations. I'm having to let go an 'identity' of sorts.
I wasn't sure before, but now I've seen: You are NOT my mission or purpose in life, little one. Although I am more than willing to have you become part of our lives. xx"

31.5.05
"...Ok, whoa. Trying very, very hard to stay positive today. It's so very difficult to keep focused on you, my little one. You haven't made yourself known to me just yet. I have to keep trusting this process.
This morning I went for my first ultrasound to check how many follicles have been produced. There were 14. I know my eggies are good! It only takes on. One special little one. Come on! We'll always be here in the meantime, but hurry up already, will ya!"

5.6.05
"...Optimism being smashed to pieces here! 6 eggs retrieved from those 14 follicles. Only three have fertilised. We now have to wait all day today and right through tomorrow (biopsy day) to find out many have survived.
The chances of of one of those three being both normal AND living for 5 days and growing all the while is just so slim.
I can't bear it. By far, this is the worst, the most cruel wait I've ever encountered during our years trying to conceive.
To top everything off, that girl has completely done her top over something I vented publicly abouty her behaviour towards me (particularly at Ella's birthday "celebration" where they arrived with their child and didn't even come over to say hi). That and other things she's said or gestures she's made that I find totally inappropriate and insensitive.
I was asked by Steve not to confront her - I see now it's not for me to do that in an attempt to alter her behaviour and frankly, from her reaction, I doubt she would have cared about me if I'd put my heart on my sleeve and gone straight to her anyway, which would have crushed me even more - But I needed to get it out somehow. I was also unsure (as I am about just so many things) if what I was feeling was justified, that maybe I had it all wrong about her.
So I wrote it out, posted it and received pages of sympathetic feedback. I was able to put it all behind me after that acknowledgement/validation. Well, through her own snooping (which she has cleverly skirted), she has come across the post with all the comments now, 6 months later.
Great timing!
And once again, I am left doubting if I have this right in my head - this, however, is denying my feelings. She is simply livid at being called on her two-facedness. If she would just stop going around acting like a perfect saviour and generous person, and stop talking about the same people she's so "generous" towards behind their backs, perhaps she wouldn't be so confused about why I feel like this."

7.6.05
"...Well my goodness. One (at least) of those 3 little embies is normal. Not only normal but going strong.
This morning, when I woke up, I was just filled with dread waiting for "the call". Overnight, I had to get up at least 8 times with excruciating stomach cramps and rather violent trips to the toilet. I've lost 2kg in about 2 days, as this started on Sunday. I believe this is all manifesting from sheer terror. I wanted to feel so fit and healthy to welcome this emby aboard! But I feel quite wretched right now."

8.6.05
"...You're in, little fella! It still may all end in tears (have a blood test on 20/6) but I hope with everything i have in me that it will end in tears of happiness sometime in the first months of 2006. I feel so calm and peaceful, it feels quite surreal compared to the past five days of raw nerves."

22.6.05
"...Well, miracle emby did not stay. I started bleeding on Friday morning, unbelievable pain that went away after I passed a rather sizable clot. Lovely!
Spent the weekend recovering, accepting, gathering strength again. Steve seems to have taken it quite well, no tears from him and buckets from me.
I'm fine now though. Whatever 'fine' is...
We're not quite back at square one and that's a good feeling."

15.8.05
"...I'm currently well on my way through our second PGD cycle. This time, hardly anyone knows and those who do are in the dark about dates, timing, etc.
Interesting to observe that up until this past weekend, Ella was very prominent in my thoughts for over a week or two. I brought it up with Steve last Wednesday night and he said that, yes, he too had been thinking of her much more recently.
We revisited that yesterday and noted that our thoughts of our girl had died down again. Funny thing is - and I haven't really shared this because a) I'm still a tad unsure of whether my mind is playing tricks and getting in the way and b) I wouldn't know how to explain it out loud and still sound convincing - but anyway, I think I have vaguely sensed Ellanor again. There is a very, very slight sense of her around me. I'm unsure about it. I want desperately for it to be a 'sign'... yet I don't want it to be my conscious making stuff up."

24.8.05
"...Trying desperately not to be despondent about today's ultrasound results. Once again, I'm caught up in dates, numbers, measurements, instead of sitting back and trusting."

28.8.05
"...And here I am again, waiting for Egg Pick Up tomorrow. I'm neither excited nor anxious, happy or sad. I feel completely exhausted and somewhat defeated already, to be perfectly honest. Part of my tiredness comes from the drugs, yes... but mostly I really do just feel so exhausted about my 'existence'. That we came so close last ycle but didn't get pregnant, that people around me either continue to fall pregnant easily or have their precious next pregnancy again after miscarrying or losing their own baby.
There is a real sense that so many are moving on (although of course I realise many aren't) and I feel left behind. I surprise myself that I am genuinely ecstatic for so many of the girls I am on this journey with (on EB), when they fall pregnant after their own perseverence. And I am equally distraught if any of them miscarry (which happens all too often).
But I seriously rue my role becoming one of inactive supporter - I wouldn't be so gracious if my own chances got to the point of being futile.

6.9.05
"...Well, it worked. It's happened and I am sitting here again waiting for next week's blood test to confirm whether the embryo transferred last Friday has implanted. Oh, will you grace us with your presence this time, I wonder!?
I have pregnancy symptoms already - bloated, on-off nausea, tender breasts, discomfort around waistline - all caused solely by the Crinone gel which does a bloody good job of mimicking a pregnancy.
So much of my married/adult life has been taken up with shit like this! I say to myself and others, so often, "I'm so SICK of wanting a baby who won't come", "I'm giving up", "I'm not doing THIS anymore"... And here I still am. Writing the same goddamn thoughts and hopes every time I put pen to paper in here. SHITS ME!!!!!"

20.10.05 (first day of period in the cycle Lolly was conceived)
"...It wasn't just the Crinone gel. I did get pregnant with that last little miracle. We knew and were elated for approximately two days before the bleeding started. I'm uplifted and relieved that we have definitely closed the IVF option door.
We always agreed on only trying 3 times but we feel, after achieving our aim (to "get pregnant") on our second attempt and having it end in miscarriage anyway after all that effort to ensure it's a healthy emby, that we have tried this and know that perhaps one day if we kept trying, it would work.
But we're not prepared to keep endlessly trying with PGD/IVF. If anything, that kind of seems more hopeless to me."

12.12.05
"...Who thought we'd get another pregnancy in before the end of the year? I am roughly 6 weeks pregnant and holding out hope that it's a keeper, conceived naturally. Hanging out very anxiously, whilst getting very tired and sick, until next scan next week. God, here's hoping we have another healthy miracle in there."

19.4.06
"...Well, we sure DO have a healthy, naturally conceived absolute miracle on our hands here! "Lolly" is currently barrelling towards his/her July 28th due date. I love you already.
I hope you can trust me and go easy on me! You, your dad and me... we'll be the tightest team. I admire you already for this mammoth task you've taken on. I mean, I know we will see you right and love and nurture you so well - but coming in as you have done, after losing our first daughter, and all these other miscarriages... well I think it's a big task to take on. But I'm so glad it was YOU who chose it.
I can already kind of get the feeling of you. You're much like your direct and unflappable Dad. Not at all 'fragile' or delicate - like I felt with Ella. She herself was strong, but I always had a rather 'fragile' feeling when pregnant with her. Not with you, though! I do believe you're as strong as an ox and having a ball already. You bring us joy."

13.6.06
"...Little Lolly, I was so scared today. Had a yucky dream that stayed with me. Luckily I had an appointment with (Dr Luffley) and I got to see you again on the screen.
Your whole face filled the monitor and you sucked your thumb, then rubbed your eyes. I could hardly believe what I was seeing!
We are ready for you!
I look forward to meeting you every day now. We love you so much already and cannot wait to include you in our daily lives.
I watched your Dad as he slept the other morning and cried silently. With joy, with a bit of melancholy, with the knowledge that you and I are about to make him so happy. I want to watch him be a dad. It was cut so short with Ella. And I look forward as much to seeing you as I do to seeing him hold you and kiss you, bath you and dress you and whisper to you as you sleep.
Come safely, lovely one."