Here we have:
No pregnancies, ongoing or otherwise (so Vivien is quite safe here)
No trying to get pregnant, either - Mr Spouse has decided that we will be OK using Persona-as-it-was-intended for the next month. We'll see how he feels after 10 red days...
No foster carer preparation course (it starts before we go away to Foreign Parts but we wouldn't finish it)
No social worker (she was supposed to come round and check our forms, but got held up at work - not complaining - but she didn't call - I think this is common - still, they aren't as bad as workmen, eh?)
No actual tears, yet, but they may be triggered by either my neighbour/workmate bringing her sick baby in to the office as she can't go to nursery and there's a big job on at the moment or the thought that our lovely family house that was supposed to have nappies in the airing cupboard and a new loo under the stairs when they grew into bathroom-hogging teenagers, may never see children, if my pending job application goes anywhere.
Friday, September 28, 2007
Tuesday, September 25, 2007
Philosophical
I'm not quite sure why we bothered with all that, erm, as Mr Spouse put it, activity, as it's CD1, bang on time, today. Of course I did a small test yesterday, and of course I've been wondering what would happen if I were pregnant. What would have happened was:
But it's scary doing that for a non-medical reason - which is why we haven't since I had a complete meltdown two months after the first miscarriage and Mr Spouse insisted. I feel like I have about 10 eggs left and skipping a month leaves me with 9.
Edit, in response to comment, as it seemed simpler than a v long comment myself, or a whole new post:
I've had four miscarriages, and apart from the most recent one, no pregnancy has effectively developed beyond 6 weeks. This doesn't fit the pattern of an anatomical irregularity, though I'm not completely familiar with this, my understanding is these are usually later first-trimester. My most developed foetus was only just under 8w.
But I've also had: lap & dye, numerous internal scans, and very good care from one of the main research centres in the UK in recurrent miscarriage. RCOG guidelines (medics' version here) suggest that internal scans are just as good as HSG (which I've effectively had, anyway) in diagnosing these.
- I wouldn't be able to have my travel vaccinations tomorrow
- I would have had to wait to see if I miscarried at 5w again to book our overseas trip
- If I hadn't we wouldn't have been able to go to malarial parts at the end of October
- Mr Spouse would have been very cross as he has arranged for his last day at work to allow this trip
- and to use part of his large redundancy payment for the trip, too - I'm going for work but he's going along for the ride
- Things would have got very complicated with a potential new job application too as
- I have a very very long notice period and although
- I actually am hoping applying for this will nudge my current employers into a possible promotion
- I wouldn't have been able to say anything to either of them and
- if I had moved jobs I wouldn't have got salary-related maternity pay.
But it's scary doing that for a non-medical reason - which is why we haven't since I had a complete meltdown two months after the first miscarriage and Mr Spouse insisted. I feel like I have about 10 eggs left and skipping a month leaves me with 9.
Edit, in response to comment, as it seemed simpler than a v long comment myself, or a whole new post:
I've had four miscarriages, and apart from the most recent one, no pregnancy has effectively developed beyond 6 weeks. This doesn't fit the pattern of an anatomical irregularity, though I'm not completely familiar with this, my understanding is these are usually later first-trimester. My most developed foetus was only just under 8w.
But I've also had: lap & dye, numerous internal scans, and very good care from one of the main research centres in the UK in recurrent miscarriage. RCOG guidelines (medics' version here) suggest that internal scans are just as good as HSG (which I've effectively had, anyway) in diagnosing these.
Tuesday, September 18, 2007
Seven weird things
Okay, I'll do it!
*nasty plant growing in US West, for my UK readers
- I can speak pretty fluent Swahili (though it's not as good as it used to be)
- I play the bassoon. Though rarely these days.
- I once moved 4 times in a year, and three of the moves were between continents, the fourth being across a whole continent
- I used to live next door to someone who was on Big Brother 1 - after she was famous. She was actually pretty nice. She had a housewarming party and no slebs were invited - only her real friends.
- As a child, I went to a nursery in a foreign country but only picked up my colours, numbers, and the phrase "That's mine".
- I'm not allergic to anything except penicillin - but at one point when I was a child we thought I was allergic to marinated artichoke. We couldn't think of anything else I'd never eaten before, and I'd even had steamed artichoke. But I think it was a red herring and I had in fact been in contact with some poison oak*
- As it's late, I'm going to say, I need a ridiculous amount of sleep - I could probably sleep for 10 hours a night if I had the time to do it, even when not pregnant. So I'm going to go and do that now.
*nasty plant growing in US West, for my UK readers
Sunday, September 16, 2007
How to try to get pregnant
- Go to the south of France
- Drink lots of wine
- Ditto coffee
- And Diet Coke
- Eat lots of unpasteurised cheese
- Sit in smoky cafés
- Climb some steep hills
- Get dehydrated and spend lots of time obsessing over mucus*
- Don't wear very many clothes
- Spend lots of time in bed with your husband
I think the only things I've missed are blue cheese and paté.
*I've been having a protracted online argument with a rabid RC type (male of course) over whether natural family planning, relying on identifying mucus production, works because you can't get pregnant if you don't have fertile mucus, and therefore anyone who thinks they have didn't know how to recognise it, or whether it doesn't work because for a lot of people all they get are patches for a day or two, followed by a long, but fertile, gap.
PS I know I've been tagged by May - will do that when I get my breath back.
Sorry but...
a) this isn't really an update and b) this could turn into a bit of a rant.
The very nice and extremely well-informed Aurelia blogged about a variety of things, including some not-very-new (sorry) "news" that there has been an increase in the number of babies removed from their mothers into foster care. Apparently as well as the Torygraph this has also appeared in the Daily Mail and the Times - both noted anti-social-worker papers. Yes, I am a woolly lefty. But I'm also a member of the British public who reeled in shock as we read about how Victoria Climbie fell through the cracks of the system - and yes, how two adoptive parents were accused (but acquitted) of killing their son.
If we become either adoptive parents or foster carers, we will have social workers in our face, mithering us to death. If I carry a baby to term, I will have a health visitor come to the house before the birth, as well as the midwife. If my birth or adoptive child is injured, the hospital will inform at least the health visitor. The HV will also check for signs of antenatal or postnatal depression. I believe this is right.
I do not believe that babies are being "taken for adoption" - I do believe that the childcare system - hospitals, HVs, midwives, social workers - has become a lot more jumpy. It is true that potential adoptive parents would like healthy white babies, but currently the choice is a) adopt a baby with a disability, a non-white baby (and that's pretty hard if you aren't black or mixed race yourself) or adopt an older child or siblings or b) don't adopt at all, what potential adoptive parents want and what they get bear little relationship to each other. Many people I've chatted to online have rung up their local social services to be told "there are no white children under 5" or " we aren't taking adopters on at the moment" (the latter being more or less what our county told us).
Loads of funding DOES go to women to help keep their babies. If we end up fostering that will be our main purpose - to help care for children while they have contact with birth families and the birth families sort their lives out. Where a child is in temporary foster care, it's for their safety, but children aren't placed directly for the adoption in the UK, ever - they are all placed in foster care in order to give the birth families space and time to be better able to care for them. It's only when that can't happen that a permanency plan that doesn't involve birth family is made - I know that this sometimes means that birth parents who later get their lives together do lose a child but for the sake of the child long periods of uncertainty are bad.
The very nice and extremely well-informed Aurelia blogged about a variety of things, including some not-very-new (sorry) "news" that there has been an increase in the number of babies removed from their mothers into foster care. Apparently as well as the Torygraph this has also appeared in the Daily Mail and the Times - both noted anti-social-worker papers. Yes, I am a woolly lefty. But I'm also a member of the British public who reeled in shock as we read about how Victoria Climbie fell through the cracks of the system - and yes, how two adoptive parents were accused (but acquitted) of killing their son.
If we become either adoptive parents or foster carers, we will have social workers in our face, mithering us to death. If I carry a baby to term, I will have a health visitor come to the house before the birth, as well as the midwife. If my birth or adoptive child is injured, the hospital will inform at least the health visitor. The HV will also check for signs of antenatal or postnatal depression. I believe this is right.
I do not believe that babies are being "taken for adoption" - I do believe that the childcare system - hospitals, HVs, midwives, social workers - has become a lot more jumpy. It is true that potential adoptive parents would like healthy white babies, but currently the choice is a) adopt a baby with a disability, a non-white baby (and that's pretty hard if you aren't black or mixed race yourself) or adopt an older child or siblings or b) don't adopt at all, what potential adoptive parents want and what they get bear little relationship to each other. Many people I've chatted to online have rung up their local social services to be told "there are no white children under 5" or " we aren't taking adopters on at the moment" (the latter being more or less what our county told us).
Loads of funding DOES go to women to help keep their babies. If we end up fostering that will be our main purpose - to help care for children while they have contact with birth families and the birth families sort their lives out. Where a child is in temporary foster care, it's for their safety, but children aren't placed directly for the adoption in the UK, ever - they are all placed in foster care in order to give the birth families space and time to be better able to care for them. It's only when that can't happen that a permanency plan that doesn't involve birth family is made - I know that this sometimes means that birth parents who later get their lives together do lose a child but for the sake of the child long periods of uncertainty are bad.
Monday, August 27, 2007
Another bizarre dream
I do seem to specialise in these. Last night I dreamt that I got up early and took a pregnancy test, and there were two lines on it but I knew this meant I wasn't pregnant, and I was relieved. Then Rory Gilmore and Logan Huntsberger were having coffee, dressed in 19th century Life and Death Brigade clothes, and they were just finalising their divorce*, following which they went to bed and slept together for the first time**.
Then I woke up, patted Mr Spouse on the hand as he had been sick, and didn't take a pregnancy test: my period is due tomorrow or the next day, I do occasionally take one the day before it's due and not actually based on any symptoms, more based on desperation/mood, but I went on a long walk with my dad, who is staying, today, and I reckoned that ignorance was probably better in this case. It's a Bank Holiday here and the weather was actually OK - neither too hot nor pouring with rain - the latter being typical for this particular Bank Holiday.
Work continues to be actually reasonable - a more satisfying than expected conference last week, some tasks accomplished despite my poor expectations of my own performance - and I'm feeling reasonably upbeat. Probably because we are going on holiday to the South of France on Sunday. Might have something to do with it. Two weeks in Nice.
*I don't think they actually got married in Gilmore Girls, at least if they did I wasn't paying attention, or it was in episodes we haven't got here yet. So don't spoil it if they do.
**I do however remember that they did sleep together.
Then I woke up, patted Mr Spouse on the hand as he had been sick, and didn't take a pregnancy test: my period is due tomorrow or the next day, I do occasionally take one the day before it's due and not actually based on any symptoms, more based on desperation/mood, but I went on a long walk with my dad, who is staying, today, and I reckoned that ignorance was probably better in this case. It's a Bank Holiday here and the weather was actually OK - neither too hot nor pouring with rain - the latter being typical for this particular Bank Holiday.
Work continues to be actually reasonable - a more satisfying than expected conference last week, some tasks accomplished despite my poor expectations of my own performance - and I'm feeling reasonably upbeat. Probably because we are going on holiday to the South of France on Sunday. Might have something to do with it. Two weeks in Nice.
*I don't think they actually got married in Gilmore Girls, at least if they did I wasn't paying attention, or it was in episodes we haven't got here yet. So don't spoil it if they do.
**I do however remember that they did sleep together.
Saturday, August 18, 2007
The roller blind
I said I'd do a picture - well, here, finally, it is. It looks quite professional but is actually not very straight, and rather wavy. But it charmed my niece.
Friday, August 17, 2007
I am boring
No-one ever lands here having googled anything exciting. Not since the "I am a media tart" post, over a year ago.
Sigh.
Sigh.
Slightly eccentric, and mildly hard of hearing
but very pleasant and normal - that was the social worker, who came for a "chat" last night. She happens to live about 10 minutes walk from us, and the support person who will sort out some of our paperwork lives on the next street. We live in a small town.
I am not going to post masses of detail about interactions with social workers, partly as I know this is not great from the point of view of security. To be honest most of the information about what's involved in the process of being approved as a foster carer or adopter is a) pretty much public domain and b) extremely variable from agency to agency. It's more the kind of answers you "have to give" to be approved that I am going to try and be more cautious about.
Anyway she seemed happy with us, our house, and our motivations - she didn't delve too deeply into our fertility issues, in fact I felt she rather glossed over the miscarriages, but it did prevent me from bursting into tears. It seems unlikely that we'd be doing respite care for real babies, though there are apparently quite a few in foster care, as there's a lot of drug use around even our leafy little city and its bigger run-down seaside neighbour. Under-3s, and especially nursery and primary age, however, seem very possible.
She also agreed with my indignation about my brother and sister-in-law's ideas about bringing up their two (lack of bedtimes and routines especially - the latest however is that the younger one, aged 15 months, is going to be at one set of grandparents' while the older one is at my mum's, for a month, while they are on a course. I have politely suggested they look into the onsite nursery, or a child-minder's, so the younger one doesn't actually forget her parents).
We now have to wait for them to timetable a foster care preparation course. I have to say (I think I have to say a lot of things - it seems to be a phrase I like) that I do think this seems like the right thing for us now, based on the fact that I am not incredibly anxious about the next step, and feeling like I want everything to happen Right Now, nor am I worried about what happens if I get pregnant, or if I don't get pregnant.
I am not going to post masses of detail about interactions with social workers, partly as I know this is not great from the point of view of security. To be honest most of the information about what's involved in the process of being approved as a foster carer or adopter is a) pretty much public domain and b) extremely variable from agency to agency. It's more the kind of answers you "have to give" to be approved that I am going to try and be more cautious about.
Anyway she seemed happy with us, our house, and our motivations - she didn't delve too deeply into our fertility issues, in fact I felt she rather glossed over the miscarriages, but it did prevent me from bursting into tears. It seems unlikely that we'd be doing respite care for real babies, though there are apparently quite a few in foster care, as there's a lot of drug use around even our leafy little city and its bigger run-down seaside neighbour. Under-3s, and especially nursery and primary age, however, seem very possible.
She also agreed with my indignation about my brother and sister-in-law's ideas about bringing up their two (lack of bedtimes and routines especially - the latest however is that the younger one, aged 15 months, is going to be at one set of grandparents' while the older one is at my mum's, for a month, while they are on a course. I have politely suggested they look into the onsite nursery, or a child-minder's, so the younger one doesn't actually forget her parents).
We now have to wait for them to timetable a foster care preparation course. I have to say (I think I have to say a lot of things - it seems to be a phrase I like) that I do think this seems like the right thing for us now, based on the fact that I am not incredibly anxious about the next step, and feeling like I want everything to happen Right Now, nor am I worried about what happens if I get pregnant, or if I don't get pregnant.
Saturday, August 11, 2007
Weird
I have a recurring image in my head of the lab extracting tissue to do the genetics testing on Sprout. I keep wondering what it would have looked like, whether it was recognisably a foetus or whether it was all mashed up. If it had been a still-birth I assume they would do a post-mortem and I think that must be very affecting for the pathologists, even if they see lots of them, and I just keep wondering what the geneticists are thinking when they do post-miscarriage tests.
Nothing else to say. Just that.
Nothing else to say. Just that.
Monday, August 06, 2007
Sproutetta*
We had our followup appointment with the consultant today and neither the results, nor my reaction to them, were quite what I was expecting. For some reason I thought the foetus was male - and was convinced they'd find a trisomy. In fact the results came back as a normal female. They only test for sex and 5 other chromosomes, but the ones they test for cover 60-70% of trisomies - the others available cost about £1000 per probe to use and even if we'd been asked if we would pay for that, I think the answer would have been no.
I had thought that if we were given this result, I would be completely unconvinced that they had cultured foetal material. But from what he told us about the lab report (that they managed to get material to grow from the "solid" material) then it/he seemed reasonably confident that it was foetal. And he referred me to this study which found less than half of samples were abnormal. I believe the same group also found developmental abnormalities in about 1/3 of specimens but they don't do that analysis at our hospital.
Oddly I feel quite positive about this. I think it might have been rather depressing to be told there was a trisomy, with the increased risk of future trisomies. We are of course assuming that the other miscarriages were major genetic problems, but we've nothing officially on our slate, so to speak. Risk of miscarriage goes up by about 3-6% per subsequent miscarriage, but doesn't seem to be exponential by any means. He's not as convinced as the previous doctor that getting to a heartbeat means we've a better chance in the future, nor (like the pessimists we are) that having tried everything and failed means less chance. Mr. Spouse says he felt that he - like the smiley doctor - feels more than just professionally sympathetic.
I am quite tired, but feel quite positive in a way, even though we are of course assuming the previous miscarriages were chromosomal abnormalities. I think we are prepared to go on trying for the moment - we have agreed to think about a best-before-date, after which we probably won't go on trying, though I'm not sure it would be the age of 46 (their oldest patient to date with a successful delivery).
(*see Wayne and Waynetta)
I had thought that if we were given this result, I would be completely unconvinced that they had cultured foetal material. But from what he told us about the lab report (that they managed to get material to grow from the "solid" material) then it/he seemed reasonably confident that it was foetal. And he referred me to this study which found less than half of samples were abnormal. I believe the same group also found developmental abnormalities in about 1/3 of specimens but they don't do that analysis at our hospital.
Oddly I feel quite positive about this. I think it might have been rather depressing to be told there was a trisomy, with the increased risk of future trisomies. We are of course assuming that the other miscarriages were major genetic problems, but we've nothing officially on our slate, so to speak. Risk of miscarriage goes up by about 3-6% per subsequent miscarriage, but doesn't seem to be exponential by any means. He's not as convinced as the previous doctor that getting to a heartbeat means we've a better chance in the future, nor (like the pessimists we are) that having tried everything and failed means less chance. Mr. Spouse says he felt that he - like the smiley doctor - feels more than just professionally sympathetic.
I am quite tired, but feel quite positive in a way, even though we are of course assuming the previous miscarriages were chromosomal abnormalities. I think we are prepared to go on trying for the moment - we have agreed to think about a best-before-date, after which we probably won't go on trying, though I'm not sure it would be the age of 46 (their oldest patient to date with a successful delivery).
(*see Wayne and Waynetta)
Tuesday, July 31, 2007
I have turned into a sensitive flower
in that everything and anything seems to turn my stomach. I don't think it was a chemical pregnancy (my period started today), as I did test and it was negative (Of course I tested! Who do you think I am! Even though I said I wouldn't till my mother, who is busy being a drama queen at our house for a change, left). Perhaps it is the homeopathic medicine. Perhaps I should stop taking it, as it suggests in their leaflet, and start drinking coffee again. Hmmm.
I think it's probably accurate to say that I have rarely been more relieved to have my period, but that does not really convey the very very low amount of relief that conveys. In fact I am desperate to be pregnant and very sad that I'm not.
But for a change I can see some good things about not being pregnant - I really don't want to slow down at work, as for a change I am getting some serious stuff done, not just staring out of the window and surfing t'internet. I think I've lost a little weight (am doing the Paul McKenna trying to eat slowly till you're full, thing, but not the crazy pseudoscience tapping thing, thank you, but I can see the sense of not weighing myself just yet) and it would be good for me to carry that on. I've climbed two more big hills, I don't really feel like starting running again but I actually feel like I have some energy and I do seriously think this is contributing to my relatively good mood, so I don't want to have to stop that either. And I have a few short trips lined up - London this weekend, a conference in Germany in a couple of weeks, and the South of France in September.
But I don't think any of this is enough, sadly, to stop me wanting to get pregnant. If I didn't want to it would be a lot easier.
I think it's probably accurate to say that I have rarely been more relieved to have my period, but that does not really convey the very very low amount of relief that conveys. In fact I am desperate to be pregnant and very sad that I'm not.
But for a change I can see some good things about not being pregnant - I really don't want to slow down at work, as for a change I am getting some serious stuff done, not just staring out of the window and surfing t'internet. I think I've lost a little weight (am doing the Paul McKenna trying to eat slowly till you're full, thing, but not the crazy pseudoscience tapping thing, thank you, but I can see the sense of not weighing myself just yet) and it would be good for me to carry that on. I've climbed two more big hills, I don't really feel like starting running again but I actually feel like I have some energy and I do seriously think this is contributing to my relatively good mood, so I don't want to have to stop that either. And I have a few short trips lined up - London this weekend, a conference in Germany in a couple of weeks, and the South of France in September.
But I don't think any of this is enough, sadly, to stop me wanting to get pregnant. If I didn't want to it would be a lot easier.
Tuesday, July 24, 2007
Bits and pieces
Not a lot going on but:
Got my medicines (finally) from the Alternaclinic. Some homeopathic ones (but it would actually be good for me to give up coffee - I am not convinced about homeopathy, but I did take some when I had a severe stomach problem nearly 15 years ago, and either that or diet helped. But I had already been trying diet for several months at that point), plus a load of supplements - magnesium (which I'm deficient in), B complex (to help absorb the Mg), and calcium for some reason. Apparently I am vastly over-supplemented with folate so as far as I'm concerned, that's OK.
I think my cycles are getting back to normal, as I've had some small end-of-cycle cramps and ditto sore boobs - not uncomfortable, but enough that I'm pretty sure I ovulated this cycle, though I wasn't sure about the last one.
I've been making up the roller blind for the spare/back/whatever bedroom - I may even post a picture if I get round to it - and moving all the single bedding down there, and putting up a surprising number of elephant-themed wall decorations, and I have obtained (from our local equivalent to Freecycle) a waterproof undersheet. So at least my niece will be catered for.
Mr Spouse was threatened with jury duty to coincide with our 6th August hospital appointment, but it has been cancelled. And the social worker is coming round on the evening of the 18th August - unfortunately Mr Spouse's work situation is definitely busy, and possibly precarious*, at the moment, so he can't really work from home, which may mean the social worker gets irritated with post-commuter-train meetings after not very long.
*Don't worry - he has been with the same firm for more years than even a donkey can remember, so would be getting the largest redundancy cheque anyone has ever seen. Which may equally mean they decide he's too expensive to get rid of. They have done this twice already.
Got my medicines (finally) from the Alternaclinic. Some homeopathic ones (but it would actually be good for me to give up coffee - I am not convinced about homeopathy, but I did take some when I had a severe stomach problem nearly 15 years ago, and either that or diet helped. But I had already been trying diet for several months at that point), plus a load of supplements - magnesium (which I'm deficient in), B complex (to help absorb the Mg), and calcium for some reason. Apparently I am vastly over-supplemented with folate so as far as I'm concerned, that's OK.
I think my cycles are getting back to normal, as I've had some small end-of-cycle cramps and ditto sore boobs - not uncomfortable, but enough that I'm pretty sure I ovulated this cycle, though I wasn't sure about the last one.
I've been making up the roller blind for the spare/back/whatever bedroom - I may even post a picture if I get round to it - and moving all the single bedding down there, and putting up a surprising number of elephant-themed wall decorations, and I have obtained (from our local equivalent to Freecycle) a waterproof undersheet. So at least my niece will be catered for.
Mr Spouse was threatened with jury duty to coincide with our 6th August hospital appointment, but it has been cancelled. And the social worker is coming round on the evening of the 18th August - unfortunately Mr Spouse's work situation is definitely busy, and possibly precarious*, at the moment, so he can't really work from home, which may mean the social worker gets irritated with post-commuter-train meetings after not very long.
*Don't worry - he has been with the same firm for more years than even a donkey can remember, so would be getting the largest redundancy cheque anyone has ever seen. Which may equally mean they decide he's too expensive to get rid of. They have done this twice already.
Sunday, July 15, 2007
Oh, I forgot
I did manage to get to see Dr Alterna-tweed. Although he wasn't actually wearing a tweed waistcoat at the time, which disappointed me.
The consultation was fairly similar to May's, with some helpful parts and some not so helpful. It was pricey, but the Americans renting our flat were paying, and it was the very first private medical consultation we've done in this whole thing, so that's not too bad. He's going to check my blood levels of various micronutrients, which makes sense, as I do know that the theory behind some people having babies with spina bifida despite adequate folate intake is that they don't absorb it. So it would be good to know if all this folate I'm taking is going to the right place. He couldn't find much wrong with me using his twiddly homeopathy machine, although he kept trying to make me admit I had had lots of ear infections as a child - actually it was lots of throat infections but he wasn't having any of that. And he suggested that, er, perhaps eating lots of sugar wasn't such a good idea when I've had borderline high blood sugar.
No, really, those aren't muffins cooling in the kitchen. Honest. Well, OK, perhaps they are, but I climbed a hill today from which you can see Blackpool Tower and there were hundreds of blueberry bushes at the bottom and I had to pick enough for muffins, OK?
But he did irritate me in his assessment of my fertility chances. Of course it is due to my age - well, I'm not arguing with him there, though I would interpret it as a chance effect which all women have some chance of but older women have a greater chance of. However he somewhat bizarrely seemed to think that we were "very fertile" given my age - I count about 6 months per pregnancy, which is the average for all women, and slightly more frequent than the average for my age, but it is very hard to tell if statistics are applicable to 40 year olds who have only been married for 3 years, and not living together for years before that, and hence perhaps a little more, er, active than some other 40-year-olds.
But what really irritated me is that he suggested that IVF might reduce our chance of a miscarriage. There is absolutely no evidence that this might be the case, not a jot - he seemed convinced that "picking the embryos with the best morphology" would reduce the risk of miscarriage. He also thinks that big studies have "too many variables" so even if they show that IVF doesn't reduce the risk, then it might at some clinics. Problem is, if on average over a large number of women - especially if they are at a variety of clinics - there is no reduction in miscarriage (I think even possibly a rise) then if for some women the risk reduces, for others it must increase, and I don't know which side I'd be on.
Incidentally I have read the NEJM PGS article, and although I'm not convinced that it actually shows that PGS makes the outcome worse, it really doesn't improve chances in the case of advanced maternal age. Other bloggers, and commenters, have said that the study was flawed because they "only" checked 4-cell embryos. Actually they only checked embryos that were at least 4 cells, and although I don't know much about embryology, it sounds like they were trying to do a study of "PGS as it is practiced in the real world" i.e. checking embryos that can be checked, i.e. that have reached at least a certain size. So, PGS as it is practiced in the real world is not helpful for achieving pregnancy if you are older, and it is not helpful for unexplained recurrent miscarriage. Once again - and I know none of you were thinking otherwise - there is no point in doing IVF for us.
One of the birthday couples had her own (38th) birthday this week so I rang for an update. They've had all their tests done and are just waiting for results in about 6 weeks. Unfortunately it looks like it might be male factor - her husband's brother is infertile, and incidentally (or perhaps not) his marriage broke up after I believe a matter of months or even weeks. She seems fine with the idea of IVF, and sure that her NHS trust will pay for it (I didn't like to say that I thought it somewhat likely they would try and put her on a waiting list till she was 40 - cynical, me?)
And lastly we got our foster care pack through, we think we are going to apply and hope to get a place on their training course quite soon, and when we have done that finally tell the adoption agency what we are doing. After decorating before we were away I've been re-tidying the "green room" (ex-study/sewing room, current single spare room/sewing room, possible future children's room) and it needs a "window treatment" - I found some batik purple/green giraffe fabric in my fabric mountain, it is very cute but not too childish, so that is going to be made into a blind. My niece (with my mad brother and my slightly less mad mother) is coming to stay next month, so I am billing this as her/her sister's room. If we do foster, there will be a lot of things that we need to buy, but I am oddly excited about possibly needing to buy a waterproof undersheet for this visit.
Yes, I know. Very few people could actually say that.
The consultation was fairly similar to May's, with some helpful parts and some not so helpful. It was pricey, but the Americans renting our flat were paying, and it was the very first private medical consultation we've done in this whole thing, so that's not too bad. He's going to check my blood levels of various micronutrients, which makes sense, as I do know that the theory behind some people having babies with spina bifida despite adequate folate intake is that they don't absorb it. So it would be good to know if all this folate I'm taking is going to the right place. He couldn't find much wrong with me using his twiddly homeopathy machine, although he kept trying to make me admit I had had lots of ear infections as a child - actually it was lots of throat infections but he wasn't having any of that. And he suggested that, er, perhaps eating lots of sugar wasn't such a good idea when I've had borderline high blood sugar.
No, really, those aren't muffins cooling in the kitchen. Honest. Well, OK, perhaps they are, but I climbed a hill today from which you can see Blackpool Tower and there were hundreds of blueberry bushes at the bottom and I had to pick enough for muffins, OK?
But he did irritate me in his assessment of my fertility chances. Of course it is due to my age - well, I'm not arguing with him there, though I would interpret it as a chance effect which all women have some chance of but older women have a greater chance of. However he somewhat bizarrely seemed to think that we were "very fertile" given my age - I count about 6 months per pregnancy, which is the average for all women, and slightly more frequent than the average for my age, but it is very hard to tell if statistics are applicable to 40 year olds who have only been married for 3 years, and not living together for years before that, and hence perhaps a little more, er, active than some other 40-year-olds.
But what really irritated me is that he suggested that IVF might reduce our chance of a miscarriage. There is absolutely no evidence that this might be the case, not a jot - he seemed convinced that "picking the embryos with the best morphology" would reduce the risk of miscarriage. He also thinks that big studies have "too many variables" so even if they show that IVF doesn't reduce the risk, then it might at some clinics. Problem is, if on average over a large number of women - especially if they are at a variety of clinics - there is no reduction in miscarriage (I think even possibly a rise) then if for some women the risk reduces, for others it must increase, and I don't know which side I'd be on.
Incidentally I have read the NEJM PGS article, and although I'm not convinced that it actually shows that PGS makes the outcome worse, it really doesn't improve chances in the case of advanced maternal age. Other bloggers, and commenters, have said that the study was flawed because they "only" checked 4-cell embryos. Actually they only checked embryos that were at least 4 cells, and although I don't know much about embryology, it sounds like they were trying to do a study of "PGS as it is practiced in the real world" i.e. checking embryos that can be checked, i.e. that have reached at least a certain size. So, PGS as it is practiced in the real world is not helpful for achieving pregnancy if you are older, and it is not helpful for unexplained recurrent miscarriage. Once again - and I know none of you were thinking otherwise - there is no point in doing IVF for us.
One of the birthday couples had her own (38th) birthday this week so I rang for an update. They've had all their tests done and are just waiting for results in about 6 weeks. Unfortunately it looks like it might be male factor - her husband's brother is infertile, and incidentally (or perhaps not) his marriage broke up after I believe a matter of months or even weeks. She seems fine with the idea of IVF, and sure that her NHS trust will pay for it (I didn't like to say that I thought it somewhat likely they would try and put her on a waiting list till she was 40 - cynical, me?)
And lastly we got our foster care pack through, we think we are going to apply and hope to get a place on their training course quite soon, and when we have done that finally tell the adoption agency what we are doing. After decorating before we were away I've been re-tidying the "green room" (ex-study/sewing room, current single spare room/sewing room, possible future children's room) and it needs a "window treatment" - I found some batik purple/green giraffe fabric in my fabric mountain, it is very cute but not too childish, so that is going to be made into a blind. My niece (with my mad brother and my slightly less mad mother) is coming to stay next month, so I am billing this as her/her sister's room. If we do foster, there will be a lot of things that we need to buy, but I am oddly excited about possibly needing to buy a waterproof undersheet for this visit.
Yes, I know. Very few people could actually say that.
Tuesday, July 10, 2007
Something Else
Had a fairly rotten holiday and have come back to a load of Very Urgent emails and a horrible cold. I can't really be bothered to tell you all the details but lots of drains, trains and sniffing.
I think we are now relatively sure that we don't want to give up trying to get pregnant, at least not for the moment. But as I think I have said before we are not sure that going ahead with the adoption process immediately, or hoping that we can get through the approval without another miscarriage, or indeed without another pregnancy, would be such a good idea.
So we are thinking of something else. Respite foster care. Most foster carers have one partner at home full time or at least part time but respite care is mainly weekends/holidays and as an online friend put it, involves having children in your life but having time to be adults too. Some message board enquiries left me a bit confused as some people seemed to be suggesting that, like with adoption, the expectation was that you would both give up work and not be thinking of getting pregnant, but opinions differ, and I had a very positive phone call with our local authority this afternoon. They thought it was fine that we both work, and didn't seem put off by the fact that neither of us have children. They did want to know how big our house is, and what age we were thinking of. I said not teenagers just yet. But perhaps we should be "greedy" and ask for babies!
It seems to take about 3-6 months for approval - even erring on the long side, this is quicker than any estimates for adoption approval, and given our current progress it does sound practical to hope that we'd be able to do some foster care before either deciding finally to give up on getting pregnant and to adopt, or, realistically, before any viable pregnancy. We would need to be approved as adopters separately, it doesn't shorten the process, and it is rare in the UK for foster carers to adopt a child who has been in their care - we know it's not a shortcut. But it would be very good experience if we did want to adopt, and Mr. Spouse likes the idea of being able to give the children back when we are done.
The back bedroom is also now light green (as were my arms last weekend), and my computer has moved out of there; I'm working on moving my sewing stuff out, too. My Persona sticks didn't arrive before we went away on what turned out to be CD1 (about 5w after the ERPC) so I'm going to have another cycle of not really knowing what's happening, but I think I'm OK with that.
I think we are now relatively sure that we don't want to give up trying to get pregnant, at least not for the moment. But as I think I have said before we are not sure that going ahead with the adoption process immediately, or hoping that we can get through the approval without another miscarriage, or indeed without another pregnancy, would be such a good idea.
So we are thinking of something else. Respite foster care. Most foster carers have one partner at home full time or at least part time but respite care is mainly weekends/holidays and as an online friend put it, involves having children in your life but having time to be adults too. Some message board enquiries left me a bit confused as some people seemed to be suggesting that, like with adoption, the expectation was that you would both give up work and not be thinking of getting pregnant, but opinions differ, and I had a very positive phone call with our local authority this afternoon. They thought it was fine that we both work, and didn't seem put off by the fact that neither of us have children. They did want to know how big our house is, and what age we were thinking of. I said not teenagers just yet. But perhaps we should be "greedy" and ask for babies!
It seems to take about 3-6 months for approval - even erring on the long side, this is quicker than any estimates for adoption approval, and given our current progress it does sound practical to hope that we'd be able to do some foster care before either deciding finally to give up on getting pregnant and to adopt, or, realistically, before any viable pregnancy. We would need to be approved as adopters separately, it doesn't shorten the process, and it is rare in the UK for foster carers to adopt a child who has been in their care - we know it's not a shortcut. But it would be very good experience if we did want to adopt, and Mr. Spouse likes the idea of being able to give the children back when we are done.
The back bedroom is also now light green (as were my arms last weekend), and my computer has moved out of there; I'm working on moving my sewing stuff out, too. My Persona sticks didn't arrive before we went away on what turned out to be CD1 (about 5w after the ERPC) so I'm going to have another cycle of not really knowing what's happening, but I think I'm OK with that.
Friday, June 29, 2007
The construction of pregnancy
or to be more specific, this last pregnancy.
We always want to give meaning to things, to associate them with what we feel they should be linked to. On a Monday in April we saw our consultant and heard that neither PGD (as we don't have a balanced translocation, and it is flawed anyway) nor PGS (as it is also flawed) would help us. Up until then I had been feeling that although we might have a family, it would not start in our kingsized bed. We then visited the small-but-very-convenient-for-our-London-flat clinic, and they also quite honestly told us they didn't think they could help. It is entirely possible that we then went straight home and conceived Sprout. Either then, or over that weekend.
The previous day, my friend A who was 3 days older than me, and the mother of two under-5s, died. We heard about this on the Sunday and went to her funeral the following Friday, a week before I found out I was pregnant.
I could not help but feel that this last pregnancy was linked to her. At the start I felt that either a) it was her soul coming back [cheesy, I know, and definitely not something I'd normally think) or b) that because she had had a miscarriage previously, it would be her first baby's soul or c) because she had died, this meant the pregnancy was doomed or possibly d) because she had had a successful pregnancy following a miscarriage* then this would be OK.
I didn't think that much about these associations, though obviously a fair bit about A herself, over the weeks of the pregnancy. But now I am thinking about them again. Just thought I'd share that.
In other news, I tried to get an appointment at May's V. Pricey Alternaclinic but they have no spaces for when I am down in London next week, so I will give them a ring after they fail to give me a cancellation, and try to nip down some other time. However, the idea of having a break seems to have gone out of the window. Possibly more on that shortly, but I don't think I'm taking my laptop away with us, so you may have to wait another week.
*In fact, I happen to know they didn't take a break after her nearly-14-week miscarriage and conceived their first daughter immediately.
We always want to give meaning to things, to associate them with what we feel they should be linked to. On a Monday in April we saw our consultant and heard that neither PGD (as we don't have a balanced translocation, and it is flawed anyway) nor PGS (as it is also flawed) would help us. Up until then I had been feeling that although we might have a family, it would not start in our kingsized bed. We then visited the small-but-very-convenient-for-our-London-flat clinic, and they also quite honestly told us they didn't think they could help. It is entirely possible that we then went straight home and conceived Sprout. Either then, or over that weekend.
The previous day, my friend A who was 3 days older than me, and the mother of two under-5s, died. We heard about this on the Sunday and went to her funeral the following Friday, a week before I found out I was pregnant.
I could not help but feel that this last pregnancy was linked to her. At the start I felt that either a) it was her soul coming back [cheesy, I know, and definitely not something I'd normally think) or b) that because she had had a miscarriage previously, it would be her first baby's soul or c) because she had died, this meant the pregnancy was doomed or possibly d) because she had had a successful pregnancy following a miscarriage* then this would be OK.
I didn't think that much about these associations, though obviously a fair bit about A herself, over the weeks of the pregnancy. But now I am thinking about them again. Just thought I'd share that.
In other news, I tried to get an appointment at May's V. Pricey Alternaclinic but they have no spaces for when I am down in London next week, so I will give them a ring after they fail to give me a cancellation, and try to nip down some other time. However, the idea of having a break seems to have gone out of the window. Possibly more on that shortly, but I don't think I'm taking my laptop away with us, so you may have to wait another week.
*In fact, I happen to know they didn't take a break after her nearly-14-week miscarriage and conceived their first daughter immediately.
Thursday, June 21, 2007
The construction of childlessness
One of the problems with our particular version of not-being-able-to-have-kids is that everyone we have talked to about it, who is professionally involved with it, has a different construction on it.
Doctors and nurses see recurrent miscarriage, and long gaps between (some) conceptions as a medical problem. They can't explain it in our case, but they do have at least some medical interventions which have some success in getting to a live birth of a child genetically related to us, which is their goal.
Alternative practitioners seem to view it similarly - my previous acupuncturist was very focussed on getting and keeping me pregnant, and not on helping me stay sane. Although I had my first reflexology appointment yesterday, and the therapist seemed more focussed on general wellbeing, helping me relax and work through my grief, which my old acupuncturist was not really - she even said "so, you've had a period" when I miscarried at 5w.
Social workers see it as a social problem. If we are able to give up on the idea of having children that are genetically ours, they will be much more willing to work with us towards their goal of gaining permanent families for children who do not have them.
We have not consulted any psychologists (well, I've consulted myself and some colleagues, and I did see the scary shirt man) but I don't know of any particular school of thought that would direct a decision one way or the other, the main emphasis being on being happier with what is happening in life anyway; in other words, it is constructed as a cognitive problem - if you look on yourself as childless, you will not be satisfied, but if you look on yourself as childfree you might be.
Going back to the alternative practitioners, I am wondering about seeing a different acupuncturist and/or a TCM specialist. I feel in need of at least a short break, so now might be the time for some herbs, if appropriate. Any suggestions in the NW of England, or London, gratefully received.
(I have a little more to post about The Hospital Experience but that one seemed to want to come out now).
Doctors and nurses see recurrent miscarriage, and long gaps between (some) conceptions as a medical problem. They can't explain it in our case, but they do have at least some medical interventions which have some success in getting to a live birth of a child genetically related to us, which is their goal.
Alternative practitioners seem to view it similarly - my previous acupuncturist was very focussed on getting and keeping me pregnant, and not on helping me stay sane. Although I had my first reflexology appointment yesterday, and the therapist seemed more focussed on general wellbeing, helping me relax and work through my grief, which my old acupuncturist was not really - she even said "so, you've had a period" when I miscarried at 5w.
Social workers see it as a social problem. If we are able to give up on the idea of having children that are genetically ours, they will be much more willing to work with us towards their goal of gaining permanent families for children who do not have them.
We have not consulted any psychologists (well, I've consulted myself and some colleagues, and I did see the scary shirt man) but I don't know of any particular school of thought that would direct a decision one way or the other, the main emphasis being on being happier with what is happening in life anyway; in other words, it is constructed as a cognitive problem - if you look on yourself as childless, you will not be satisfied, but if you look on yourself as childfree you might be.
Going back to the alternative practitioners, I am wondering about seeing a different acupuncturist and/or a TCM specialist. I feel in need of at least a short break, so now might be the time for some herbs, if appropriate. Any suggestions in the NW of England, or London, gratefully received.
(I have a little more to post about The Hospital Experience but that one seemed to want to come out now).
Monday, June 18, 2007
Sad
I was feeling overall better today but remembered later - and was again reminded because Mr. Spouse remembered - that we were supposed to be going for our nuchal scan today, which was booked at the 8w scan, so even before the 10w-scan-that-never-happened. For a complicated work-related and season-ticket-related reason he had to buy a return to the same place we get the train to for the hospital, today, even though he wasn't going there.
That is just the kind of thing that makes me come over all sad. He is such a girl.
That is just the kind of thing that makes me come over all sad. He is such a girl.
Sunday, June 17, 2007
Next
Next morning - Weds, 30th May - I rang the local hospital to find out if they had a scan time first thing for me, which they didn't, so I rang the specialist hospital and was told that in order to have an ERPC* at that hospital, my scan had to be there, and that they could fit me in at lunchtime for a scan, and it was likely they could then do the ERPC that night. So I packed my bag (forgetting dressing gown, slippers, and earphones to listen to music on my phone) and we set off, ringing the local hospital as we passed it to tell them we weren't coming.
We needed to go to A&E at the specialist hospital but as it is specialist, and the labour ward is elsewhere, it was relatively quick, and I suspect almost everyone there is in for a similar problem. A quick triage and we were sent downstairs for a scan, where the radiographer did a thoroughly decent job including using visual doppler and narrowing in on the chest area, but couldn't find anything resembling a heartbeat. As I posted previously the foetus was much more as I expected in shape - similar to the previous week - and did not look like it had disintegrated, only like it had not grown further - it still had a distinguishable head and body, and measured 7w6d.
Of course we have since racked our brains for anything that might have happened around 5d after our second scan but that particular Tuesday was quite relaxing so, although we know intellectually that it is unlikely anything I did caused the foetus to stop growing, it is helpful to actually feel blame-free too.
Back up to A&E and a few tears were shed while a junior doctor talked us through the options - well, rushed over medical management, didn't mention expectant management, and talked more about surgical management. I mentioned for the first of about five times that we needed analysis of the foetal material. While we were waiting to be allocated a bed someone in the next cubicle was having a very loud doppler with a pregnancy of uncertain gestation, "about 16 weeks".
I had at this point not had anything to eat since 8.30 and no water since midday, before the scan. They found me a bed and at about 4pm confirmed they'd be able to do the ERPC that day, and that I should be able to go home at 10pm, but I decided I didn't want to arrive home woozy at nearly midnight, so Mr. Spouse went and got me a magazine (forgetting chocolate - he was in trouble later) and went home. More waiting, I went down for the op, and eventually came back to the ward and demanded food. I spent most of the rest of the evening demanding more food, and asking to go to the shop to buy chocolate, and not being allowed to go. I think I finished my magazine, and my first book, and checked various things on t'internet on my phone, and dozed off about 10.30 after the other girls on the ward (unidentified serious gynae op, and huge ovarian abscess) had watched the first Big Brother, and the old lady in the next bed (some type of gynae cancer, removed) had started snoring.
I did have my earplugs, but about 4am was woken by an emergency admission, one of those things that actually makes you feel lucky - early 20s, suspected ectopic, very frightened. I tried really hard not to cry too loudly, and read most of my second book, until drugs came round at 6am and I went back to sleep.
Before Mr. Spouse arrived one of the doctors from the miscarriage clinic came to see me, admired my (Paul Frank) pyjama bottoms, and said how sorry (blah blah) she was to hear this, and then totally blew me out of the water by saying how encouraging it was that we had got this far, we had never got this far before, what they are doing must be working, etc. etc. I have to say that I hadn't thought at all that it was encouraging - more along the lines of, they do everything they can and still it doesn't work - but perhaps she is right. Except she isn't really going to just tell us to go away and give up, is she? Or is she? I have since thought that maybe, if there are two problems (rubbish embryos with genetic abnormalities, and an unsupportive environment), if we can sort out the second, then possibly luck will lead us to have a chance with the first, statistically.
We went back home about midday on the Thursday, after they had finally found me some anti-D (as I'm Rh -ve, and this was my first surgical management). The girl in the next bed still hadn't been scanned, and was getting very fed up of being on a drip. I gave her my magazines and commiserated about waiting for a scan when you are nervous.
I spent the next two or three days in a complete haze, mainly in bed ringing down for things to be brought to me, not even really making it onto the laptop. I think those days were more upsetting for Mr. Spouse, with me being so out of it, and his emotions being very raw, but he was at home with me, and very solicitous too I may say.
It's late, and I'm getting over the (ahem) tiredness from yesterday which followed on from the black tie do of the day before, so I will sign off. Probably only one more update installment - Hospital Visit Mark 2.
Incidentally we (as in, our household) don't do Father's Day - something that Mr. Spouse told me when his father was alive, so it's not that he wants to avoid it because of not being a father yet, or because of missing his father who died last year - my own father has never even mentioned it, except possibly to agree with my mother (always wise, at least when she's in the room) when she bemoaned its artificiality when we were children. I don't remember her acknowledging it when her father was alive either - even though she expected something from us on UK Mothering Sunday, and called her own mother on US Mother's Day. So. I haven't commented on it. But Mr. Spouse has been a bit out of sorts today. Though I think it's his Open University assignment, and the same (ahem) tiredness as me, to be honest.
As he's now asleep I'm not going to wake him up and say "oh, were you upset because it's Father's Day and your dad died last year". I'm nice like that.
*Evacuation of Retained Products of Conception. I think in some places they still do D&C as standard, or else a lot of women are told that's what they are getting, as I've seen a lot of people still referring to D&C, even for recent pregnancies. I even saw an online gynae query where the gynae "wasn't familiar with the abbreviation ERPC". But I believe ERPC is best practice now.
We needed to go to A&E at the specialist hospital but as it is specialist, and the labour ward is elsewhere, it was relatively quick, and I suspect almost everyone there is in for a similar problem. A quick triage and we were sent downstairs for a scan, where the radiographer did a thoroughly decent job including using visual doppler and narrowing in on the chest area, but couldn't find anything resembling a heartbeat. As I posted previously the foetus was much more as I expected in shape - similar to the previous week - and did not look like it had disintegrated, only like it had not grown further - it still had a distinguishable head and body, and measured 7w6d.
Of course we have since racked our brains for anything that might have happened around 5d after our second scan but that particular Tuesday was quite relaxing so, although we know intellectually that it is unlikely anything I did caused the foetus to stop growing, it is helpful to actually feel blame-free too.
Back up to A&E and a few tears were shed while a junior doctor talked us through the options - well, rushed over medical management, didn't mention expectant management, and talked more about surgical management. I mentioned for the first of about five times that we needed analysis of the foetal material. While we were waiting to be allocated a bed someone in the next cubicle was having a very loud doppler with a pregnancy of uncertain gestation, "about 16 weeks".
I had at this point not had anything to eat since 8.30 and no water since midday, before the scan. They found me a bed and at about 4pm confirmed they'd be able to do the ERPC that day, and that I should be able to go home at 10pm, but I decided I didn't want to arrive home woozy at nearly midnight, so Mr. Spouse went and got me a magazine (forgetting chocolate - he was in trouble later) and went home. More waiting, I went down for the op, and eventually came back to the ward and demanded food. I spent most of the rest of the evening demanding more food, and asking to go to the shop to buy chocolate, and not being allowed to go. I think I finished my magazine, and my first book, and checked various things on t'internet on my phone, and dozed off about 10.30 after the other girls on the ward (unidentified serious gynae op, and huge ovarian abscess) had watched the first Big Brother, and the old lady in the next bed (some type of gynae cancer, removed) had started snoring.
I did have my earplugs, but about 4am was woken by an emergency admission, one of those things that actually makes you feel lucky - early 20s, suspected ectopic, very frightened. I tried really hard not to cry too loudly, and read most of my second book, until drugs came round at 6am and I went back to sleep.
Before Mr. Spouse arrived one of the doctors from the miscarriage clinic came to see me, admired my (Paul Frank) pyjama bottoms, and said how sorry (blah blah) she was to hear this, and then totally blew me out of the water by saying how encouraging it was that we had got this far, we had never got this far before, what they are doing must be working, etc. etc. I have to say that I hadn't thought at all that it was encouraging - more along the lines of, they do everything they can and still it doesn't work - but perhaps she is right. Except she isn't really going to just tell us to go away and give up, is she? Or is she? I have since thought that maybe, if there are two problems (rubbish embryos with genetic abnormalities, and an unsupportive environment), if we can sort out the second, then possibly luck will lead us to have a chance with the first, statistically.
We went back home about midday on the Thursday, after they had finally found me some anti-D (as I'm Rh -ve, and this was my first surgical management). The girl in the next bed still hadn't been scanned, and was getting very fed up of being on a drip. I gave her my magazines and commiserated about waiting for a scan when you are nervous.
I spent the next two or three days in a complete haze, mainly in bed ringing down for things to be brought to me, not even really making it onto the laptop. I think those days were more upsetting for Mr. Spouse, with me being so out of it, and his emotions being very raw, but he was at home with me, and very solicitous too I may say.
It's late, and I'm getting over the (ahem) tiredness from yesterday which followed on from the black tie do of the day before, so I will sign off. Probably only one more update installment - Hospital Visit Mark 2.
Incidentally we (as in, our household) don't do Father's Day - something that Mr. Spouse told me when his father was alive, so it's not that he wants to avoid it because of not being a father yet, or because of missing his father who died last year - my own father has never even mentioned it, except possibly to agree with my mother (always wise, at least when she's in the room) when she bemoaned its artificiality when we were children. I don't remember her acknowledging it when her father was alive either - even though she expected something from us on UK Mothering Sunday, and called her own mother on US Mother's Day. So. I haven't commented on it. But Mr. Spouse has been a bit out of sorts today. Though I think it's his Open University assignment, and the same (ahem) tiredness as me, to be honest.
As he's now asleep I'm not going to wake him up and say "oh, were you upset because it's Father's Day and your dad died last year". I'm nice like that.
*Evacuation of Retained Products of Conception. I think in some places they still do D&C as standard, or else a lot of women are told that's what they are getting, as I've seen a lot of people still referring to D&C, even for recent pregnancies. I even saw an online gynae query where the gynae "wasn't familiar with the abbreviation ERPC". But I believe ERPC is best practice now.
Thursday, June 14, 2007
In all its gory detail
You realise this is mainly for me, not for you, OK? So feel free to nod off.
Tuesday 29th May, a.m.: After having had a small amount of brown blood (and I mean small - titchy in fact) over the weekend, I rang Liverpool and got Accident & Emergency who said yes, I could come in, they could not promise to scan me that day, but they could check my cervix. I decided to book a G.P. appointment for that day as a quicker way to check if it was closed. My friend J rang, who had the day off and who I'd completely forgotten might come down to see me if she wasn't too tired after being on call. She is a consultant anaesthetist who lives about an hour and a half away from me. This point will become important later. I realised that there was no other day that week for her to come, and at that point was feeling OK, so I asked her to come down that morning and planned to have lunch with her.
After she arrived, I opened my birthday present from her (she is a busy woman!) and that was my last panic-free moment. The paper is, I think, still sitting in the dining room. One part of the present was a blank book and I remember thinking I could put stuff relating to the baby in the book. That is also still sitting there. We decided to walk into town and get lunch, and I nipped to the loo where true panic set in - I found some red blood. I wasn't even sure whether to tell her but decided she'd know what to do. I remember saying "I don't know what to do now". She suggested that I needed to eat (that was a mistake, really as the place we chose to eat took over an hour to serve us some rather mediocre sandwiches - we chose it as it is on the same side of town as the hospital, and there isn't much else out there except my work) and that going to A&E after that would be quicker than waiting for the GP, who probably wouldn't examine my cervix anyway.
So, about 3pm we were in the hospital and after we had refused the medical student trying to put a canula in and the A&E registrar had failed she did it herself. It is very handy having someone bossy and knowledgeable in a hospital, even if she doesn't know as much about fertility/miscarriage as I do - which made me feel slightly better. By 4 we'd been taken up to an examination room in the gynae ward, and finally at about 4.30 I'd been examined, pronounced to be closed, the bleeding had pretty much given up and I and was about to go home feeling much better, with a promise of a scan slot at some time in the morning. J didn't know what they meant by a follicle tracking appointment [which might have been free] nor when I explained I thought it was for the IUI they do at a different local hospital did she know what IUI was. And she didn't know the condoms in the box on the shelf were for TV scans.
We'd been talking about her pregnancy (she didn't find out till she was 19 weeks - she was on the mini-pill and religious about taking it, but had been vomiting - her daughter was just 7 - she is a big lass but although I only saw her after the birth, having not seen her for a few years, I don't think she was that big!) and antenatal testing (she pointed out, quite rightly, that if the baby had a fatal condition I would be wasting six months to a year of my fertility if I didn't terminate early), and everything felt calm.
Then one of the radiographers (I'm assuming - whoever it was, I've never seen him before, and even J who likes her patients unconscious was aghast at his lack of bedside manner) arrived with a portable scanner although I actually felt very calm, and somehow knew it wasn't going to be good, even before he switched much too quickly from an abdominal to a TV scan. The previous scan had been abdominal and very quickly found something - although looking back now I think even if things had been OK he might not have been able to see much since the resolution is very poor on the portable scanner. But I suppose it was probably best for me not to hang on in hope, as in the first pregnancy I had an overnight of hanging on in hope when Mr. Spouse had given up.
On the TV scan the foetus was measuring just 7w - smaller than when we had seen it nearly 2 weeks previously - and he could not see a heartbeat, and the shape was really blobby and not at all foetus-like. I managed to hold it together until J took me home, by which time Mr. Spouse was there, and she went and made a cup of tea while I collapsed, sobbing, into his arms. At this point I was thinking that the foetus had deteriorated into a mass of undifferentiated tissue, and had been partly reabsorbed, and even was wondering if the first miscarriage (empty sac at 10+2) was in fact more advanced than we had previously thought, but had been reabsorbed. I was also feeling even more depressed (personally) than after any previous miscarriage - serious thoughts of self-harm and even suicide), which very much worried Mr. Spouse.
I've known J since we were both 18, but she isn't a very touchy-feely person - I was very touched when she pressed my shoulder before leaving and said "take care of yourself".
We were still promised a full scan the next day, either in an early morning slot or mid-afternoon. I can't really write much more now, but having started the story I think I'm going to have to finish it at some point. Nudge me if you think I have gone off into a deep depression (honestly, I wouldn't be able to write this if I wasn't feeling a whole lot better).
Tuesday 29th May, a.m.: After having had a small amount of brown blood (and I mean small - titchy in fact) over the weekend, I rang Liverpool and got Accident & Emergency who said yes, I could come in, they could not promise to scan me that day, but they could check my cervix. I decided to book a G.P. appointment for that day as a quicker way to check if it was closed. My friend J rang, who had the day off and who I'd completely forgotten might come down to see me if she wasn't too tired after being on call. She is a consultant anaesthetist who lives about an hour and a half away from me. This point will become important later. I realised that there was no other day that week for her to come, and at that point was feeling OK, so I asked her to come down that morning and planned to have lunch with her.
After she arrived, I opened my birthday present from her (she is a busy woman!) and that was my last panic-free moment. The paper is, I think, still sitting in the dining room. One part of the present was a blank book and I remember thinking I could put stuff relating to the baby in the book. That is also still sitting there. We decided to walk into town and get lunch, and I nipped to the loo where true panic set in - I found some red blood. I wasn't even sure whether to tell her but decided she'd know what to do. I remember saying "I don't know what to do now". She suggested that I needed to eat (that was a mistake, really as the place we chose to eat took over an hour to serve us some rather mediocre sandwiches - we chose it as it is on the same side of town as the hospital, and there isn't much else out there except my work) and that going to A&E after that would be quicker than waiting for the GP, who probably wouldn't examine my cervix anyway.
So, about 3pm we were in the hospital and after we had refused the medical student trying to put a canula in and the A&E registrar had failed she did it herself. It is very handy having someone bossy and knowledgeable in a hospital, even if she doesn't know as much about fertility/miscarriage as I do - which made me feel slightly better. By 4 we'd been taken up to an examination room in the gynae ward, and finally at about 4.30 I'd been examined, pronounced to be closed, the bleeding had pretty much given up and I and was about to go home feeling much better, with a promise of a scan slot at some time in the morning. J didn't know what they meant by a follicle tracking appointment [which might have been free] nor when I explained I thought it was for the IUI they do at a different local hospital did she know what IUI was. And she didn't know the condoms in the box on the shelf were for TV scans.
We'd been talking about her pregnancy (she didn't find out till she was 19 weeks - she was on the mini-pill and religious about taking it, but had been vomiting - her daughter was just 7 - she is a big lass but although I only saw her after the birth, having not seen her for a few years, I don't think she was that big!) and antenatal testing (she pointed out, quite rightly, that if the baby had a fatal condition I would be wasting six months to a year of my fertility if I didn't terminate early), and everything felt calm.
Then one of the radiographers (I'm assuming - whoever it was, I've never seen him before, and even J who likes her patients unconscious was aghast at his lack of bedside manner) arrived with a portable scanner although I actually felt very calm, and somehow knew it wasn't going to be good, even before he switched much too quickly from an abdominal to a TV scan. The previous scan had been abdominal and very quickly found something - although looking back now I think even if things had been OK he might not have been able to see much since the resolution is very poor on the portable scanner. But I suppose it was probably best for me not to hang on in hope, as in the first pregnancy I had an overnight of hanging on in hope when Mr. Spouse had given up.
On the TV scan the foetus was measuring just 7w - smaller than when we had seen it nearly 2 weeks previously - and he could not see a heartbeat, and the shape was really blobby and not at all foetus-like. I managed to hold it together until J took me home, by which time Mr. Spouse was there, and she went and made a cup of tea while I collapsed, sobbing, into his arms. At this point I was thinking that the foetus had deteriorated into a mass of undifferentiated tissue, and had been partly reabsorbed, and even was wondering if the first miscarriage (empty sac at 10+2) was in fact more advanced than we had previously thought, but had been reabsorbed. I was also feeling even more depressed (personally) than after any previous miscarriage - serious thoughts of self-harm and even suicide), which very much worried Mr. Spouse.
I've known J since we were both 18, but she isn't a very touchy-feely person - I was very touched when she pressed my shoulder before leaving and said "take care of yourself".
We were still promised a full scan the next day, either in an early morning slot or mid-afternoon. I can't really write much more now, but having started the story I think I'm going to have to finish it at some point. Nudge me if you think I have gone off into a deep depression (honestly, I wouldn't be able to write this if I wasn't feeling a whole lot better).
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