Privilege

I'm afraid I'm jumping on geepeemum's bandwagon with this one... it seemed intriguing.

1. Father went to college.

My dad has a degree from Oxbridge as well as a PhD ditto. I suspect my father is a tiny bit disappointed only one of his children went to his old college and that my PhD is from The Other Oxbridge.

2.Father finished college.

See above

3.Mother went to college.

Ivy League - one where, at the time she went there, there were separate women's and men's institutions.

4.Mother finished college.

Ditto. She has been heard to express regret at being the only person in her immediate family who only has a BSc - her father and brother, ex-husband (my dad) and two children all have PhDs, and her mother had a Masters.

5. Have any relative who is an attorney, physician, or professor.

My paternal grandfather, and his father, were doctors. My maternal grandfather, maternal uncle, and father, are all academics (only my maternal grandfather I think is "professor" as my dad didn't get that high and my maternal uncle is in a research institution so I'm not sure of his title - but what they call professors in the US, certainly). Sundry other academic relatives, too.

6. Were the same or higher class than your high school teachers.

As my mother at the time was a secondary school teacher, and several children of the teachers were at my school, I'm guessing the same.

7. Had more than 50 books in your childhood home.

Many more

8. Had more than 500 books in your childhood home

Probably yes. Oddly I don't think we do now, as I'm trying to be better at decluttering. I keep special books, and easily available ones that I think I'll read again soon, and get rid of the rest.

9. Were read children’s books by a parent.

Yes, until I could read myself, and even then my dad read us big book series - Narnia, Swallows and Amazons.

10. Had lessons of any kind before you turned 18.

I'm assuming this means music/dance etc. rather than "going to school and having lessons" - in which case yes - lots of music, some ballet but I was rubbish at that.

11.Had more than two kinds of lessons before you turned 18.

Three musical instruments (piano, flute, bassoon) and ballet.

12. The people in the media who dress and talk like me are portrayed positively.

Possibly, apart from the "absent-minded boffin" stereotype

13. Had a credit card with your name on it before you turned 18.

I think I'd heard of other children having a credit card when I was a child, but only in films.

14. Your parents (or a trust) paid for the majority of your college costs

Fees from the Local Authority, and grant from my parents for the first 4 years (I dithered) and then half parental money and half grant in the last year as my brother was also at university that year.

15. Your parents (or a trust) paid for all of your college costs

Not in my last year, and not for my PhD - not a penny for that, in fact - thank you, MRC.

16. Went to a private high school

Yes - I was due to start secondary school a couple of years after a big change to the school system - my dad who had been to private school (well, actually "public school") would have pushed for this anyway and my mum didn't resist much.

17. Went to summer camp

Unless Guide camp, or a few days at day camp in the US count, no.

18. Had a private tutor before you turned 18

I was a swot and didn't need tutoring, plus my dad is a hard scientist and could help with some of the basic stuff.

19. Family vacations involved staying at hotels

I think so - at least, I am pretty sure we had a skiing holiday in a hotel once when I was about 13, and a few nights in hotels on our way to and from places. Although some of them may have been motels. Mostly we went self-catering or stayed with relatives or friends, though. My family don't camp and definitely don't stay in caravans, although strangely there appears to be a picture of me aged 1 in wellies and nappy outside a caravan but perhaps it belonged to a friend of the family.

20. Your clothing was all bought new before you turned 18.

No way, and are you kidding? Although I'm the oldest child and the second-oldest girl cousin, I still got a lot of my clothes from that cousin, and even a few from the boy cousin who's a couple of months older (but quite hefty). I'm not too sure any of my baby/young child clothes came from charity shops but as soon as I started having my own clothes budget, aged about 14, I was a regular - so much so that I started working in one and got a discount. My mother is a seamstress and knitter and one of the jumpers she made me was then my brother's

21. Your parents bought you a car that was not a hand-me-down from them

The first car I owned was a 1969 Beetle (so, 2 years younger than me) when I last lived in the US, at the age of 31 (meanly, Mr Spouse won't let me get another one when we go this year). The first car I bought in this country was however new.

22. There was original art in your house when you were a child.

Yes - prints done by a family friend who makes a living from her art (so, not famous, but definitely professional) and lots of historic stuff.

23. You and your family lived in a single-family house.

I think this means detached, rather than "not a flat" but I'm not entirely sure. We lived in a whole house, but it was terraced.

24. Your parent(s) owned their own house or apartment before you left home

Yes - they bought it just before I was born for about £3000 and it had mushrooms in the basement!

25. You had your own room as a child

When I was about 10 the attic was converted to be my room. I chose the wallpaper - pink flowers, of course.

26. You had a phone in your room before you turned 18

I'm not sure we had more than one phone in the house before I left home.

27. Participated in a SAT/ACT prep course

I'm assuming this is some kind of college preparation course. We did have special lessons at school for those taking the Oxbridge exams, but within school time.

28. Had your own TV in your room in high school.

We only had one telly in the house, and my parents still have one each (as they live in different houses now...)

29. Owned a mutual fund or IRA in high school or college.

I had a building society account but I don't think that counts!

30. Flew anywhere on a commercial airline before you turned 16.

First flew to the US to visit my grandparents when I was 3 months old. I think my childhood carbon footprint must have been horrendous.

31. Went on a cruise with your family.

Don't think the overnight ferry to Denmark counts.

32. Went on more than one cruise with your family.

33. Your parents took you to museums and art galleries as you grew up.

Yes, lots, and I do remember being bored at times!

34. You were unaware of how much heating bills were for your family

I wasn't aware though was probably told to turn the radiator down sometimes, and until we moved into this house I lived in small flats/houses (the largest being a small mid-terrace). We now live in a large end-of-terrace that is probably similar in heating costs to my parents' house and good grief, the heating bills. Thankfully double glazing should come soon.

22/34. Slightly higher than geepeemum but in that ballpark. I think some of these are either more common in the UK (private school is a bit more common, museums and art galleries are very accessible) or vanishingly rare here (cruises, children having their own phone lines)

*The original authors of this exercise are Will Barratt, Meagan Cahill, Angie Carlen, Minnette Huck, Drew Lurker, and Stacy Ploskonka at Illinois State University. If you participate, they ask that you PLEASE acknowledge their copyright.

[This was written ages ago but I never published it, I hope I've got the formatting at least slightly OK]

Car crash

Someone tell me, why am I compelled to watch/read these things?

In Mr Spouse's diabetes magazine, alongside the ads for stairlifts and bath hoists and comfy shoes, they have Real Life Stories. We read them, shocked ("She went blind at 19! He died of a hypo on his wedding day!"). This month was the story of a woman had seven miscarriages and two stillbirths. Now, diabetes increases the likelihood of miscarriage and stillbirth, and I have nothing for admiration for people who are, so to speak, further along in their allotted number of miscarriages (and possibly who can get pregnant more quickly than me), but in this case I didn't feel sympathy or admiration, or even glad that it wasn't me. It just made me angry. This woman wasn't controlling her diabetes, wasn't even really attempting to - she was in denial that she had diabetes, essentially.

Today I got home a bit early and was flicking through the offerings Tivo had decided we'd like when I came across Britain's Youngest Grannies. Another car crash - two who were upset their daughters had followed them by being teenage mothers (and in both cases the mother was 18 or 20 when their daughter was born while the daughter got pregnant at 15); and one who was pleased, and thought 25 was too old to be a mother. Then I turned off.

Anyway to get to my point, I was home early because of going to the GP who assured me I had no lumps in my breasts, that some pain at all points in the cycle is relatively common ("wear a supportive bra, take ibuprofen at the start of the cycle" - well, I am a 34F, so I know about supportive bras, thanks), and that there wasn't much point in doing day 2/3 FSH etc. - I definitely don't have PCOS, and I don't have any menopausal symptoms, and it wouldn't be a result I could do anything about, but that is worth repeating the day 21 progesterone. I am still pretty sure I am ovulating each month, but we'll see. I don't know if she'd be in favour of Clomid "just in case", if she'd give me it without sending me to the local hospital, or if she'll decide to refer me if the day 21 test is normal. I didn't get round to ringing the miscarriage clinic, and to be honest I think the local gynae will do another round of fertility investigations just as competently as they will (in fact she used to work with them), and will be easier to get to.

Oh, I forgot the best bit - she said "after all, you're only 41".

Yes, no, yes, no, yes...

That's more about our state of indecision and panic than in any particular order about decisions:
I didn't get my grant (boo) which means I'm going to have to bash away at several other grants (boo) in order to eventually get promotion (boo/hooray) and to have any chance, alternatively, of applying for another job. But it means that we are sorted as to what we are doing: we are going to Southern California for 8 months in August (hooray).

After dithering with Mr Spouse and dithering with the acupuncturist (who pointed out quite rightly that I don't have much time to be doing tests) but also getting increasingly irritated (boo) with the 3-4 days of somewhat tender boobs at the start of my cycle (not as tender as before my period, not tender enough to give me any thoughts of pregnancy, but tender enough to be very annoying), I decided to book in to see the GP. Mr Spouse wasn't too keen on the whole idea of more tests as he knows me very well ("you are just hoping they'll find something they can fix, I know you, and you know they won't") but was swayed by the "new symptom" card. I'm seeing the nice female GP who signed me off for four weeks after the last miscarriage, next week.

I'm going to try and call the clinic nurse, too, though as they are a) miscarriage not infertility for the most part and b) a long way away and c) a tertiary referral centre, I may need to get the primary-to-secondary referral anyway.

Both Mr Spouse and the acupuncturist (I'm regretting sending him to see her as I envisage them ganging up on me now...) asked what if I got pregnant before we went away. Mr Spouse and I had a little chat about it and I think we are both happier - if I was more than 12 weeks pregnant, I think we'd be confident to travel and would probably spend a few months there anyway (it would be nice to be preparing for leave, away from people who wanted a piece of me before I vanished!). If I was, say, 10 weeks pregnant we'd delay until we were more sure. If I got to the point where I could be 6 weeks pregnant at the time we left, I'd be the first one to call a break for a month. And if I found out I was pregnant while we were there, my medical insurance covers pregnancy.

You've got spam

I had a hugely long spam comment on one of my posts last night (it was a long post, and the spam was about 4x the length of the post). I've deleted it, but if anyone has any clues about how to deal with these - I think I'm probably quite lucky with just the one in 3 years.

I realised this morning that this is the longest I've lived in one dwelling and the longest I've been in one job/course of study since leaving school. Time for a move I think. I'm waiting to hear about the grant which will decide where we go for about 8-9 months, and when, but we are definitely going somewhere. I think Mr Spouse is more anxious than I am because his new job is continuing to bore him rigid.

Himself

Although he is, in general, Mr Sceptical, he has agreed with absolutely no argument to go to the acupuncturist when she next has a Saturday morning space. Isn't he nice? I think it should help his shoulder too, and she is a no-nonsense nurse so I think she won't tell him any guff about changing his diet and curing his diabetes, either. I went to a yoga class while on holiday and the teacher was waffling at the start about Ayurvedic medicine and how Western medicine has killed more than it has cured and I bit my tongue and didn't say "like my husband, you mean?".

He may get a bit suspicious if she tells him about the "more beans and pulses, lots of veg" as we had falafel burgers last night and he actually quite liked them...

It is nearly our fourth anniversary and I think I'm finally getting over the shock of being married, and becoming largely comfortable with it. I just ordered his present - it's "fruits and flowers" and he's allergic to most scented flowers, but aha! Hops are a flower, are they not? So he's getting this: not that he's a beginner but it only has one of each in case he doesn't like any of them. I've left an annotated Bravissimo catalogue lying around. I am not sure if he's being dense or subtle but he claimed not to have spotted it so I will have to put it in a more prominent place. I believe in having some surprises but also in getting presents that I actually want!

Would it be worth....

asking if the GP/local gynae/miscarriage clinic (as they are a general gynae clinic too) would do another day 3 FSH for me? Or getting one of those pee sticks**? As this is now about my 10th cycle. It's 2 years since my last FSH, which was 6 I seem to remember (just looking it up*). They might also suggest an HSG as none of the other factors are likely to have changed but they did a lap and dye after about 9 months without conception before, and I don't think I'm even slightly at risk of endo now (since I had none before, and no different symptoms). It just struck me that they might also want to redo the SA.

It doesn't seem worth them doing the LH (though they probably would - but all my Persona sticks are negative until at least day 14) or progesterone (as otherwise why would my boobs be hellish from about day 18 to about day 28?), but FSH might have changed.

Or would it just be really frustrating if the FSH was impossibly high, as we don't even know when we are going abroad (or in fact where, which is what determines when) and therefore when we'd come back and be able to move on to adoption - and the earliest it would be is a year from now? and therefore the plan has so far been just keep at it for the next year?

I have had a couple of random "will be nice when I can stop taking folate and vitamins pointlessly every bloomin' morning" thoughts and even one "should we just stop trying now, perhaps I'd feel better". I think the day may come when I actually feel OK about giving up (even if it's for a year or so) on trying to get pregnant. I'm not sure I actually felt it would be OK before - just that it would be necessary.

*It was 7.
**Edited for complete clarity - it would not be because of cost if I got a pee stick as all of this would be done on the NHS, and they have been very good about not making me wait too long for things, too. And I'm not sure if those FSH pee sticks are supposed to be that great, anyway - aren't they supposed to only tell you "sorry, luv, menopause all over"? The question is would the information actually help anything?

Next

We've been invited to go on the foster carers' course - it's not till June, but at least that means we can be sure we'll be able to go, and it's something to look forward to. I think even if I do get pregnant again before then we'll go anyway. I am not completely sure how positive Mr Spouse feels about this, but he didn't say "no point in doing that, is there, as we won't finish our approval before we go abroad" - instead he agreed with me that we might just squeeze it in or alternatively we might do part of it.

I'm happy to say my powers of magical thinking aren't what they were, and all was well at Slightly Annoying But Friendly Couple's scan. Sadly (oh how gutted I am) this will mean no more joint skiing trips with them. Equally surprisingly (not) is that there was no mention of the twins they were sure it was when we saw them last week. Him: "you've put on SO much weight dear, it MUST be twins" Her: "Harumph".

Me to her later "It's mainly fluid, you know you need the extra blood, twins are pretty rare you know". Her to me: "Oh, but they run in the family" Me: "What, your family?" Her: "No, there's one pair of twins in his family". Erm, don't think that counts... Other thing I did not say: "You know your chance of a miscarriage even at 13 weeks is greater than your chance of twins?"

I'm very well behaved, aren't I?

Back last night from our holiday - I did have internet while away (thank you to whoever didn't secure their Netgear box in the apartment block) but as my laptop was monopolised the whole time by Mr Spouse and, mainly the wife (but also the husband) of the couple we were with who needed to check Facebook hourly, and play Scrabble, and I didn't really want anyone looking over my shoulder while I blogged, no updates. But I have been reading. I think everyone managed without me.

Now, you may be detecting a tiny bit of resentment towards said wife. I am now going to totally exaggerate everything that is wrong with her in order to gain loads of sympathy from my dear readers. This is the couple made up of Mr Spouse's best man and his wife, who've been trying to get pregnant for (as far as I can work out) nearly 4 years - pretty much since they got married. They'd had 3 unsuccessful IUIs and were about to consider taking a break since the husband needed to go on a medicine that apparently causes birth defects (now I am not sure this is possible, since it's never been listed in all those Scare Story What Not To Do when you are TTC lists, but this is the woman who hasn't eaten blue cheese for 2 weeks every month for 4 years). Guess when they chose to tell us she was pregnant? That's right, the first evening of our holiday, when I'd just found out the activity I'd been longing to do had finished for the season an hour previously*. Obviously I am very happy for them. But.

This is also the wife that is "allergic" to everything in sight - not just the few things that lots of people can't have but are easily avoidable, but some of those ingredients that sneak into everything, and which I am pretty confident occur naturally in a lot of foods (funnily, she can eat those) and who is therefore a nightmare to shop and cook for. Add to that pregnancy restrictions ("darling, I don't think you can eat this pasta sauce, it says it has sheep's milk in it") and an unwillingness to go out to a restaurant that had main courses listed at about £10-£15 (they live in SE England, we are not sure whether they ever go out to dinner at home, and you should have seen the prices of lift passes!), and constantly telling us how she couldn't use the hot tub, what baby-related gifts she was going to buy her husband for his birthday present, how she kept having to email her parents to say she was still OK, worrying about falling over**, telling me she couldn't have a manicure "because they want to do something with your fingernails at the booking appointment" etc. etc.

She wasn't really that bad, in fact I think her husband fusses over her more (in general as well as now she is pregnant) and only moaned about the couple of infections she'd picked up rather than about pregnancy-related sickness, but you can appreciate that 10 days of this did not a relaxing holiday make.

I was very, very good and resisted telling her that when she went for her scan it was totally possible that there would be an empty sac. Hope you are all very proud of me. Now I feel mean as they were supposed to contact us when they had the scan and they should be back now, and no news, but then they do have all their Facebook contacts to update. And I may have offended her (though I think she understood) by asking for no pictures.

*Fortunately Mr Spouse is very very nice to me and we worked out it was cheaper to hire a car and go elsewhere where it was still happening, than for me to pay for a lift pass all week and ski with them and be miserable, and he even came with me and learned new things for part of the week.

**I had briefly considered what if I was pregnant on this holiday, and falling over didn't really bother me, but I thought I would probably sit on the sofa and watch DVDs/potter about on snowshoes/go shopping if I had been, not because of falling, but because of the exercise often being quite vigorous.

Is it really bad...

that one reason I was hoping I'd be pregnant is so I can be a bit more relaxed about the timing of, erm, activity? We don't do too badly, our minimum average per month I'd say was about twice a week, and although I do use Persona or sometimes OPK thingys I mainly do them so I know when the second half of my cycle starts as that's fairly predictable, the first half only varying by 1 or at most 3 days but it all helps in the Keep Calm enterprise. I'm not really into timing, more into quantity.

But an average of twice a week conceals a large range (from zero to, therefore, 4 or more) and sometimes I do feel like zero and if that's the second week of my cycle, well, I do feel like I've wasted one more month.

In slightly brighter news, the social worker I'd been muttering about ("where's this preparation course, we've been waiting ages, has she just forgotten about us, does she think people don't have lives and don't need any notice") actually hadn't told us the dates for this month's course because... it's next month. It won't be in the school holidays so it has to be logically after we get back from our skiing trip. Yes, we are a childless couple who goes on lots of foreign holidays. No clichés here.

Trigger-happy versus gun-shy

Why is it that on day 28 I can get up, think "yeah, why not test" and go ahead and do it without any premeditation, but on day 30 I spend half the night agonising about whether or not to test? Both negative, of course. And my period started later today, of course.

An online friend, R, whose 3-year-old has moderate spina bifida (operation at birth and more in the future, but walked at about 2 and very verbal and bright) just went for her second pregnancy 20 week scan. Multiple abnormalities. Probable Edwards syndrome. Having decided firmly against termination last time, this one is probably an even harder call for them, leaving aside the complete devastation they must be feeling.

In brighter news, Overseas Adoption Couple are just back from a week in Central America to visit their baby. The photos are beyond cute but the adoption hotel sounds surreal.

Trying from the laptop

Unusually I seem to be better working on the laptop on the sofa so I'm trying a quick update:

Valentine's day: Wishing of course for pink lines, fearing instead red loo paper, I in fact got neither and was left hoping. Of course my period started the next day. We did have a nice chocolatey meal in.

My birthday -1 (Monday 18th). Disorganisation means that I couldn't arrange for a massage on my birthday, when I was planning to take the day off, so I booked in for a manicure on the day itself and then investigated massages. While doing this I found a new acupuncturist so arranged to see her also.

My birthday - A nice day, in fact. Skive off work early, manicure, out to dinner with Mr Spouse. Sadly no chocolatey puddings on the menu. I have a very large almond crême brulée.

Thursday - Wake up with sore throat. Go for my first acupuncture session. Very sympathetic lady who seems to do quite a bit of obstetric work and does not seem phased by treating me during a risky pregnancy. Have one session and book in for a second. Feel better after session but at work immediately start feeling shaky, ache all over and feel nauseous. Go home and go to bed. Not sure when back/shoulders started to ache but feel it by now.

Friday - Feel slightly better and get some work done, then have afternoon off for massage. Very relaxing and shoulders feel better.

Saturday - Not entirely sure this was the cause, but I have a new stand-up craft table and used it today, and my back started getting worse.

Sunday to Wednesday - Back starts hurting more, start sleeping less, and start feeling increasingly despairing about even being awake in the bedroom at the same time as Mr Spouse. Did I mention he started a new job this week that involves a 7.15 train?

Wednesday - Go to acupuncturist again. Realise I am feeling guilty for a) giving acupuncturist any grounds for believing I could get pregnant this month and b) spending all that money on acupuncturist.

Thursday-Friday - Decide to take back in hand, so to speak. Cut down slightly on computer use on Thursday, cut out knitting, and have non-computer-based meeting on Friday. Back feels slightly better and I get some sleep.

Weekend - Mr Spouse feels more awake on Saturday morning. Make very short list of essential computer-based and standing-up-based tasks and then step away from computer. Back starts to feel even better. Avoid the issue of Mothering Sunday by not going to church in the morning, and then feeling too knackered from a long walk to go in the evening (traditionally less gooey anyway).

Today - Try to keep time at computer to 1/2 hour continuously. This is helped by power cut in the middle of the day.

That wasn't very quick... but you are now up to date. I don't feel as old as I did before my birthday, but I still feel old.

Sorry...

I've done something to my upper back which seems to be exacerbated by sitting at the computer. I'm trying really hard to minimise my non-work computer use... hence no posts.

Zonk

I keep meaning to post about my birthday, Valentines, my week of wellbeing, and other stuff. But instead I am going to go to bed.

Crazy lady...

Anyone else ever think of claiming they got a very faint positive, followed by a bleed, and weren't sure so wanted to go and get it checked out, just to make sure everything's still in place?

Or is it just me?

A post I've been meaning to write for a while, based on something geepeemum said (on her old site). Do we feel the need for others to validate our choices? If we are heading down a given route, do we suggest this to others in order to help us to feel this is the right choice? If they don't choose that route, does it make us feel it's less right, or that they are telling us it's less right?

So of our three or four couples of friends in similar circumstances, one continued to try to get pregnant despite three losses (and are now, what, 25 weeks pregnant?), but stated that adoption would never happen for them mainly because the husband would not accede to the home study/preparation process and the probable requirement for him to be an at-home dad. One is going for ICSI (MF; very negative about adopting from foster care) and one for international adoption, and then there's us - currently still trying but very much in favour of adopting from foster care.

I've had several people say "why aren't you doing IVF" (no point as the success rate is no higher than we currently have either for pregnancy or, hypothetically, for miscarriage); "would you consider donor eggs" (no, mainly because although we've a strong hunch we've no evidence my eggs are genetically cr*p but also because if we're going to have children that aren't related to us genetically we don't mind if they are unrelated to both of us); "why don't you think about adopting from overseas?" (because there's no guarantee we'd get a child who was either younger or less traumatised than one from the UK - sure, some people get lucky, but so do they with UK adoption).

But then I know I do it to others. I try and bring up adoption with the ICSI couple (she works in an inner city primary school and sees the result of some bad foster care arrangements) and the now-pregnant couple. I talk about domestic adoption to the overseas adoption couple (I think they are less concerned than us about children who don't look like they could belong genetically to one or other of us). I think I even asked the overseas adoption couple if they'd considered donor eggs, though to be fair on me as it's not a choice of ours it wasn't a validation question, it was more curiosity and possibly devil's advocate (as they'd probably be asked it in preparation).

The other thing I think we may do is, if a couple has an outcome that is good for them but would be very much second (or last) choice for us, is to feel sorry for them. We don't know if they tried things in chronological order because of the way the world is arranged, not because that's the order of their choices. The overseas adoption couple tried IVF but didn't get beyond the first scan, but for them it was really that if they wanted to try it at any point, they had to do it before adoption, as you can't do them in parallel and after adoption would be too late. I don't get the sense that it was first choice, and adoption was second, at least not after they had realised natural pregnancy wasn't happening. But I've not been privy to many people's decision-making processes in that way.

Pancakes

I am very bad at making English-style (or possibly really French-style) pancakes (crêpes). I can do American style ones, probably because that's what my mother taught me to make. Because of this, I am ashamed to say, despite my foodie pretensions, that I buy ready-made ones from Sainsbury's. I was thinking at the weekend how I could accomplish this as we had a busy day on Tuesday, including some horrid dental work on Mr Spouse, who was going to need a pickup afterwards, followed by choir.

I then remembered three years ago - not to the date, but to the festival - when I went to A&E with bleeding at 10 weeks in my first pregnancy, thought everything was going to be OK, went home and had ready-made pancakes, followed by a scan the next morning revealing an empty sac. I was confident that evening that NigelandDelia would make it. Mr Spouse wasn't.

Needless to say, the last few days have not been great. Three years ago we went to an Ash Wednesday service but yesterday I stayed late at work and we forgot until we'd finished dinner, at which point it was too late. We were both annoyed - it is a very appropriate service for our mood.

I have moaned before about my choir and the requirement to attend a certain number of rehearsals if you want to sing in the concert. I like some aspects of choir but don't feel excited about going to rehearsals, and it seems to be such an effort to make the required number of rehearsals, especially as work commitments can mean I then have to go when I'm feeling under the weather (as on Tuesday when I skipped it), so I think I am giving it up. It is a fairly prestigious choir with an audition requirement, but I guess I think they have an inflated opinion of themselves and the difficulty of the music as I have been told I can't sing in concerts I have definitely felt prepared for. We'll see what they say this term as the structure of the music means I am in a very small group for some pieces.

Sorry for the moan, got that off my chest now I think!

Do I have the energy??!

With both of us being really sick last month while we were on holiday, not very much action took place (stop reading now if you really don't care!). I decided once we were hale and hearty that this month could be different.

We have a short trip over a weekend to a European capital, sounds perfect, especially (so those mice-and-men type plans went) given where it was in my cycle. But a lot of ganging agley has happened, with my cycle realigning itself earlier, and the three previous days being a work visit for me, and it looks like unless things get more delayed this cycle, we'll need to get active a few days earlier, and time it a bit better (I said stop reading - but basically morning I'm leaving on the trip, plus evening he joins me).

Question is, do I a) explain this to him in graphic detail or b) say I'm disappointed we'll miss the best days but can we do our best or c) not tell him anything and just try and persuade him I've been deprived/know I'm going to miss him loads??!

I have occasionally in the past suggested "the meter says today is a good day" and it's not been received totally negatively, but usually it's been in a situation where either today or tomorrow would do equally well. He doesn't have performance issues as such (the pointy pills, small yellow triangular ones not blue ones, are for his diabetes. The blue ones have to be taken on an empty stomach and interfere with digestion - how useful is that for diabetics who have to eat regularly?) but hates feeling pressured emotionally. He doesn't need the pointy pills that often, anyway, so it's not a case of needing advance notice.

Now I've gone and done it.

Come back! Come back! All is forgiven! Of course I didn't mean I was going to delete your blog from bloglines.

Here's what. I promise I'll never delete anyone's blog that has commented on my blog. That should give you sufficient reason to never comment on mine.

Plus ca change...

New fretting this week - my period arrived two days early, despite knowing when I ovulated (at least, I know the earliest possible). I've never had a variable luteal phase, nor much in the way of spotting, so I'm panicking my reproductive system is packing up. Of course I know it hasn't and this can happen, but you know how it is. The dreadful cold that is only just going away meant precious little chance of anything other than a period, though, so I wasn't too surprised.

We are seeing a different social worker for the fostering tomorrow (the one we saw previously seemed really relaxed, probably because she was just about to retire. She didn't tell us that bit). I'm working from home so I guess it will be my lunch hour. Mr Spouse is still job-hunting so it's a good time to start the process - though I'm not actually clear if she is wanting another introductory chat, or this is the start of the home study proper. It's not normally done till after the preparation course in adoption, but perhaps they just want to get on with it for foster carers.

Almost everyone on my bloglines seems to be pregnant, even the ones in my "infertility/miscarriage/adoption" category, apart of course from the ones that have been matched with children. I only have one "parents" category (no "parenting after..." versus "never had any trouble...") but all the ones who are pregnant there, too, seem to be ones who graduated from the other category. Perhaps I want the bloggers I read to have a big struggle rather than just an average one as I'm thinking of crossing a few people off. Although some of them are people who have had a big struggle but I don't seem to be able to keep up with their prolific posting - I don't seem to read blogs as much these days.

Strangely, though, one of the most prolific blogs (Daddy Types) is so not about infertiles, and I would never delete that one. They have such fun toys!

On another note, why oh why oh why does Blogger tell me at least three times every time I bring it up that I don't have cookies enabled? On about the third or fourth attempt it will then show me the dashboard as if it had never refused me anything.

Not another pregnant friend

That could be read as "Not another pregnant friend" (why do the have the temerity to keep reproducing when we can't?) or "My friend is not pregnant/no longer pregnant". In fact it is "Not your average pregnant friend". Our friend M has just had her 20 week anomaly scan and all was well. This after 3 unexplained miscarriages (and a possible fourth very early one). She is 44. We are very pleased for her. I do not feel any of the normal jealousy - I just feel this is a hopeful sign for us.

I rang the friend with the failed ICSI after Christmas and had a nice long chat and she is obviously finding the twins news hard. She heard the day after her period started (she was asked to test on a set day anyway and so it was the day before she got a negative test). She is a very positive person and seems to be putting a brave face on it but must make a mental note to call her often and see how she is doing. I don't call my friends enough.

We spent King's Day with my nieces who are mainly nice and (although my mother has opinions on everything and anything) on the whole thriving though I am heartily glad we were staying down the road and not with them, given the lack of bedtimes (I know their little cousins have later bedtimes than British kids, but they have them) and my brother's insistence that his children will not need to go to school because he will be able to teach them everything they need to know, and ditto that I know nothing about current research into the best educational methods.

I should be back at work but I have the tail end of dreadful flu and a meeting which involves a long journey - part of it tomorrow and part on Monday - so I am ignoring work and nagging Mr Spouse and blogging.

Holy Innocents

Today is the day the Church remembers the children massacred by Herod: Rachel weeping for her children.

It is also my due date. It has been an OK day, or even a good day. We're in a posh hotel for a few nights before going away to see the family hordes, and had my mother and mother-in-law for Christmas, so need a break. Today was a museum, shopping, and church. Tomorrow a massage, returning some Christmas presents, and a meal out in the evening; for once I seem to have a more interesting new year planned than most of my friends.

Should I call? Or will it make it worse?

1) Very close friend S (was my best woman) and her husband J - I blogged about this - had a recently failed ICSI cycle. Just got a Christmas card from her best woman R. She has a son about the age our first would have been, and confided she had to have some kind of op (to remove polyps? is that even likely?) and then got pregnant. She is expecting twins. I imagine S knew about R's pregnancy before we did, but she hasn't mentioned it, though this may be because R didn't want her to. Not sure if I should call and see how she's doing in light of this.

2) Friend S at work - adopting from central America - I saw a few days ago that adoptions have been closed from her country - now, I am assuming she knows as the news is a little old, but after she got her referral, no idea how these things work, whether they would just slam the door on everyone, or process people who had got beyond a certain stage, or if the cutoff is in the future. They had originally planned to adopt from China but her husband M is too old, and I told her as soon as I saw the news, they contacted their agency who asked if they'd like to be rushed through, and they said no, they'd switch countries. So I feel like the bearer of bad news/as if I am poking them with a stick reminding them if they already know.

Dilemmas. I would maybe email the second couple before going back to work in January, as I don't know them that well, but a friendly Christmas call to my friends S & J would be appropriate anyway.

(Edited: I just looked up more about the overseas adoption news and it looks like they may have gotten far enough along in the process that they will be OK. But I'm still not sure whether to ask or not)

Just relax(in)

I was intrigued to find, at a small internal conference, a poster by a student in another department at my university, on this link - the possibility that relaxin may be crucial for embryo implantation. I think this is well-known in animal research but it seems they are only just transferring it to humans. Not that relevant to me, but I'm not sure the article would have meant much to me at all if I hadn't had a few pregnancies and/or read up about reproductive physiology a bit.

Anyway I am pretty exhausted after a long haul up to Christmas, and am in theory supposed to be doing some work today, but so far have only answered a few emails and developed period pain and a headache. I'm not sure if I really wanted to be stressed and pregnant again on the anniversary of my first positive pregnancy test and Sproutetta's due date (both the 30th) but I'm not.

It's been 6 cycles since my last pregnancy ended and this is the point at which I started making appointments to see the GP the first time around - and started the blog. I am not sure seeing anyone about fertility is what I want to do at this stage - all the fixable and permanent/structural things, as well as MF, have been ruled out, both medically and by our approximately 6-9 month latency of pregnancy on average. I know I'm ovulating every month as I get very clear progesterone symptoms (actually feeling hot, sore boobs, some cramps). If I didn't have a calendar I would still know when day 21 was. I suppose I could ask for an FSH test but although if it was massively elevated it might make us decide to give up on even trying to get pregnant, we aren't in a position to do anything else in the next year, so we might as well just carry on. I guess I feel OK about this.

I was very weepy yesterday watching Cranford (it's a period drama, based very loosely on some novels by Mrs Gaskell) for some bizarre reason (a small boy with a thirst for literacy but whose father doesn't see the point of books is taken in by a kindly clerk, who dies and leaves him money to go to school and indeed to build a school). Mr Spouse gave me a hug and suggested we steal a small Central American baby when we go to the US. "No-one will notice", he said kindly.

Miscommunication

The other day:
Me: Mmm, hellooooo, are you awake?
Him: What does your meter* say?
Me: Red, why?
Him: Well, that's more complicated, not sure I feel like...
Me: Well, you're a bit late to think about that, we've been ignoring it so far!
Him: Oh, I thought we were paying attention to it...

I apologised the next day for not discussing it with him.
Him: Oh, I just do what you tell me. I don't mind.

You can see why I love him.

More news from the trenches

Recently I have noticed that when I am awake at night worrying, or sitting at my desk trying to think of something to write on a project, or lying on my yoga mat, it is mainly not having a baby that is preoccupying my mind. It is mainly work, or Alien Spouse*'s work, or family arrangements, or what we're doing at the weekend, or the dismal state of repair/tidiness of our house (the last much improved recently actually).

I'm not sure if this is a sign of a lot going on at work, or in other parts of my life, or if my mood has actually improved, or if it's the omega 3s, or having a somewhat less stressed Alien Spouse, but it's quite good. I even heard that one of the admin people at work is expecting a second baby (her first was born two months before our first would have been - so I knew she was pregnant when I wasn't telling people I was), and managed not to cry at my desk later.

In other news, and I am shamefully late with this first one, S at work and her husband have heard they have a referral for a baby in Central America. Fabulous news as they were not sure the programme was even continuing. Very young baby - as it is so rare in the UK to adopt from overseas I have probably already said too much.

Secondly however I got a text from my best woman tonight saying she had a negative test after their first ICSI. "Gutted" obviously, but clearly that doesn't even begin to describe it. I don't know whether to call or leave them to have some space so I think I will text back and suggest she calls if she needs to. I think we are probably lucky that we haven't had to consider that - although it has at times been very frustrating to have month after month of nothing, we've never really had one big cycle that everything was hanging on, nor any reason to believe we can't get pregnant on our own. Having something they can theoretically fix must make it much worse when the fixing doesn't work.

*In preparation for our possible US stay we've been looking up visas - I am a citizen, which seems to make things more complicated, not less. But this makes him an Alien Spouse. I told him to comb his tentacles and hide them under a hat at the interview.

It never rains but it pours...

Sorry for the deluge of posts after the silence! I had been very mysterious about a couple of things before going away but the summary is I'd applied for a job, had a telephone interview while I was away, but didn't get it. I should hear this week whether my work is going to give me a sabbatical but if they don't, although I will be complaining vociferously (there are equal opps issues) that should mean we are staying put and not just doing the training and approval process for foster care, but actually going ahead with some placements, in 2008. If we did go away on sabbatical we'd probably get the training and approval out of the way before we went, but no placements.

I think you need to reconfirm your approval annually, so we'd then need to be reconfirmed when we returned. But that wouldn't be a big deal. And by that time we would probably have decided whether that is our long-term future or whether we want to switch to adoption - but I'd be happy to do the respite foster caring while we went through adoption approval.

If you had never seen or heard of an ultrasound

what would you think of it?

A colleague is starting a research project which will involve giving ultrasounds to pregnant women in a developing country. While there are lots of benefits, I am sure, especially as many of these mothers are at risk of mental health problems and bonding with their baby may help them with this, lots of them are at risk for other things - particularly stillbirth - some of which might be noticed on an ultrasound before they are noticed at birth. Would it be isolating or traumatic to find out something was badly wrong before birth, when you knew other women who'd had a stillbirth or a neonatal death but mainly they had found out after the birth that something was wrong? Would you think the ultrasound had caused the problem?

I've been involved with the consent explanations for this - the information sheet you get when participating in medical research, in this case including an oral explanation - and I've probably had the most ultrasounds of anyone involved on the project, including the British colleague with two children. So I'm gathering my thoughts for further information that the women might need, that we can add to the explanations.

Surprise...

is the name of a two-year-old chimpanzee. She lives with her mother, Katie, in a refuge for orphaned and trafficked chimpanzees. As the refuge area is only theoretically big enough for four chimps to have enough to eat in the wild, and in fact more than 40 live there (they are fed four times daily by their keepers), the females are given contraceptive implants - but, like humans, they don't always work. Hence Surprise. We saw her and the other 40 on their island last Saturday.

All of the other chimps want to care for Surprise, but Katie only lets those who have been nice to her in the past have contact with the baby. Most of the new chimps who come into the refuge are quite young, less than 3 years old (chimps stay with their mother until they are about 12) - usually they are orphaned when their parents are killed, or discovered when someone is trying to sell them as house pets or to a circus - and the other adult chimps also compete to become a foster carer for the new babies. Seems that chimps can also feel childless.

I am of course very interested in primate communication, though, so I'll not have any comments about how very human they are, and how they can TALK you know, TALK. They have some gestures - but according to my data, the ones they develop spontaneously or learn from each other are about the level of a 6 to 7 month-old human infant. If you are at all interested, the difference between the species seems to be mainly due to the human infant's desperate desire to connect with, copy, and attend to the same things as, older humans. Chimps may love each other and they are definitely affectionate but they when they make eye contact it is direct - they don't seem to work out that someone else looking at something means they are paying attention to it, nor therefore to extrapolate that the look-er wants them to pay attention too.

Off

Tomorrow afternoon, to foreign and warm, but probably quite rainy climes - it's the rainy season - Mr Spouse said "ooh, there will be thunderstorms, shall I take a raincoat" and I pointed out that a) he'd just get sweaty and b) that just means lots of rain as that's what tropical rain does.

He has been with me before but it was the dry season. He has just left his increasingly horrible job, the nicest part about it recently being the large redundancy payment, and will be looking for a new one when we get back.

I actually have a post in my head but may not get time to write it tomorrow, so behave yourselves while I'm gone.

Stuck

I have been feeling a little stuck recently - possibly because we are having an enforced break for a month (maybe two), but this has been highlighted by lovely news from three adoption blogs - jennyanydots has been linked with a child and has started visiting Mothercare; and both Jonathan at Life and Times * and Vivien at Getting off the Rollercoaster have been approved to adopt. Meanwhile we haven't been able to sign up for this month's foster carer preparation course as it extends into our overseas trip, and there is so much uncertainty at work. And I feel bad to compare people who have been through such a lot, to where I am now, but can't help feeling perhaps we should have chosen not to keep trying, and we might be there ourselves now.

This might involve longer periods overseas, which would be lovely but which would mean no adoption process for at least two years, or it might mean a move within the UK next year, but moving to a different area could make things harder or easier. We just don't know. If we do go overseas, we might get trained as foster carers and do some caring before we go, or we might not have time. And other things that I would like to do and in fact have told people I will do - like starting a new Brownie group - are having to be on hold, and I can't tell people why, exactly the same as when I was pregnant in the spring.

My mother and one of my many aunts were visiting at the weekend and we were looking at our wedding photos. We saw my grandfather (father of this aunt, but not my mother) and his wife (stepmother that this aunt grew up with) as well as my father-in-law and my friend A, all of whom have died since then, two of them somewhat (in A's case very) before their time. I also saw all the babies and two or three pregnant ladies and remembered that at the time I thought "it will be my turn next". I felt sad. I said it was because of A - and of course, it was, but also for other reasons.

And of course now there are the usual large number of large pregnant ladies around, only now I know that's what I would have been like now, which I am finding Hard. I actually don't feel as sad as I did around this stage two years ago, before my first due date, and although this sounds like I am feeling really negative at the moment, in fact I am surprisingly OK - I am, for a wonder, throwing myself into my work (ignore the timestamp on this... I have almost got my October list of things to do, done, so am giving myself a break) hence lack of commenting on other people's blogs.

We are discussing what to do for Christmas, when I would have been imminently due - my preference is somewhere far, far away or at least private - my due date was Dec 30th officially so I am hoping that concentrating on that particular date will help me get through Christmas, and will mean I can cope with family in the New Year when people seem to be planning a get-together, with my insensitive brother, very busy sister-in-law and noisy nieces.

*blog very general and mainly about software - but there are so few UK adoption blogs, even including the few overseas adoption blogs, that I feel I need to read them all.

Other people's stories

Just for a change.

S, my colleague at work, and her husband, M (however I put those two together if you are British it spells something silly or unfortunate) have been approved for adoption in Guatemala. These are the couple who had only just started when adoption in China was closed to those over 45 (I believe - too young for them anyway). She sounds very tired of the process and not at all excited - the US agency they would go through has just warned them that things may be closing down in Guatemala. They are not sure they would try another country, having initially thought about Russia, then China, they feel this may be the end of the road.

The other S, my best woman, and her husband, J, have an IVF information and planning appointment next week. I am assuming she will be starting downregulation (that's the sniffing, right?) a week later on her next CD1. I think she needs to get on t'internet as I think I know more about it than she does. I say IVF, but it will actually be ICSI - turns out J has low sperm count and motility (I think - perhaps it was poor morphology). She sounds slightly overwhelmed, which is not surprising since they were only told in August that they would need this and could have 2 rounds on the NHS, starting right now as she is 38, though he is a lot younger.

Apparently J's brother also has male factor, and in his case it is not fixable, and has probably contributed to the breakdown of his marriage. Both her sisters-in-law (one each side) are pregnant, one in SE Asia (S: She was a bit worried at the start of the pregnancy, not sure why. Me: Er, malaria? Very bad for babies? Causes miscarriages? S: I thought it was only dangerous after birth. Me: No - mosquitoes like pregnant women, too, because they are warm, and the parasite likes bits of you with lots of small capillaries, like your brain or the placenta. Actually (though I didn't say this) it is a huge risk factor throughout pregnancy).

Went to see Dr Alternative yesterday, who again recommended homeopathy (I had stopped taking it on the grounds that a) I don't believe in it and b) it was making me feel ill). Might not do me any harm to give up coffee again, though. He was even more pleasant this time, though he still harped on IVF, and it still won't increase our chances of pregnancy over what we've managed so far, nor decrease our chances of miscarriage, he was more accepting of our reasons not to do it. He reminded me I need to find a different, less food-Nazi, acupuncturist locally. He also said I looked well, and I think I do feel well. I've had a fairly calm summer, and I actually think some of the supplements might be helping me feel calmer and more productive. If I had to put my finger on it I'd say the omega-3s.

No nothing

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.

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:

• 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.

I think I may bite the bullet and see if we can't use contraception this month - we go away a week after my next period is due - Mr S will be a lot less stressed after that and a lot more up for late mornings in bed, so it's a good month to waste - and if I get an interview for the new job things won't be clouded by that, though the length of my notice period means I could still be without decent maternity pay, though I'd be unlikely to be without adoption leave as the process takes so long.

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.

Seven weird things

Okay, I'll do it!

1. I can speak pretty fluent Swahili (though it's not as good as it used to be)
   
2. I play the bassoon. Though rarely these days.
   
3. I once moved 4 times in a year, and three of the moves were between continents, the fourth being across a whole continent
4. 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.
   
5. 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".
6. 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*
7. 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.

I guess if I have to tag three people... er... people who haven't been tagged, and aren't about to give birth... well, I don't know for sure if they have been but I tag Geohde, Becky and Perceval (let me know in comments if you read that you are tagged and/or did it already, but I'll try and remember to tell you in your comments!)

*nasty plant growing in US West, for my UK readers

How to try to get pregnant

1. Go to the south of France
2. Drink lots of wine
3. Ditto coffee
4. And Diet Coke
   
5. Eat lots of unpasteurised cheese
6. Sit in smoky cafés
7. Climb some steep hills
8. Get dehydrated and spend lots of time obsessing over mucus*
9. Don't wear very many clothes
   
10. 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.

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.

The roller blind

Giraffe roller blind
Originally uploaded by katiea

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.

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.

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.

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.

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 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.

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.

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.

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.

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.

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).

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.