I was kind of hoping this cycle would be quite long (well, you know, 40 weeks long but if not, maybe 29 or 30 days!) and the next one as my lap and dye is scheduled for what would be day 7 of a 28 day cycle; if it was, say, day 3 then (perhaps I'm being naive here) I might be Up For It as normal in the middle of that cycle.
But today's day 18 and already (in fact, yesterday) I've been getting post-ovulation breast tenderness. I'm supposed to have my day 21 progesterone test on Thursday (along with lots of clotting tests) and I'm assuming that a) the reason I get this every month is because I have plenty, in fact loads, of progesterone and b) the timing isn't that crucial. In fact, the gynae told me it wasn't - although I can't for the life of me remember if she told me what the day 21 test was for. But I may be suffering from source amnesia (where you know something, but don't know where you got the information from). I already know what the test is for, so didn't bother noting a new provider of that information...
Tuesday, January 17, 2006
Monday, January 16, 2006
One and only?
Julie asks: If you're infertile and don't yet have a child, have your feelings changed about how many you'd like?
Before I met Mr Spouse I assumed I'd have two, by whatever means (maybe adoption - a good friend has two adopted boys and is single, and I would not have wanted donor insemination or a helpful friend or anything like that to get me pregnant if I was still single). He is an only child, and was a happy only child, and when I brought up the topic of child(ren) his reaction was: "one is scary enough, but two??" Most of the happier families I've known have had children more widely spaced, so I assumed we'd do that, too.
When I was pregnant we referred to the baby as Nigel-and-Delia (you need to watch Shameless to understand that. I just googled "Shameless Nigel Delia" and about the 8th link was a post by me on a pregnancy board about calling them that, from this time last year). I think we had at that point decided there might be more than one.
Now we are hoping to get pregnant in the fairly near future obviously but if it does happen but takes a fairly long time - say, more than a year from now to getting pregnant - then I think I will be more content than I would have been to have one child. I am not sure we'd look into adoption for a second, if we found we couldn't get pregnant again. And I think knowing Mr Spouse's contentment with only-child-dom makes me feel better about that. But if we did try for a second it would be pretty sharpish after the first.
However, before all this fertility palaver, I had, as I say, considered adoption, and we'd discussed it as well in a hypothetical sense. I had always thought adopting one child at a time would be ideal, and I was sure Mr Spouse would think the same. Now, however, knowing more about adoption and the procedures, adopting two might be a better option - we aren't very far down that route, and things could change, but Mr Spouse didn't seem wholly negative about the idea of adopting siblings.
So, oddly, this whole thing has completely flipped: from wanting two, from fairly widely spaced pregnancies, to wanting one from a pregnancy that might or might not be followed closely by a second pregnancy. From wanting one, maybe two but not at the same time, through adoption, to thinking about adopting two at the same time.
Before I met Mr Spouse I assumed I'd have two, by whatever means (maybe adoption - a good friend has two adopted boys and is single, and I would not have wanted donor insemination or a helpful friend or anything like that to get me pregnant if I was still single). He is an only child, and was a happy only child, and when I brought up the topic of child(ren) his reaction was: "one is scary enough, but two??" Most of the happier families I've known have had children more widely spaced, so I assumed we'd do that, too.
When I was pregnant we referred to the baby as Nigel-and-Delia (you need to watch Shameless to understand that. I just googled "Shameless Nigel Delia" and about the 8th link was a post by me on a pregnancy board about calling them that, from this time last year). I think we had at that point decided there might be more than one.
Now we are hoping to get pregnant in the fairly near future obviously but if it does happen but takes a fairly long time - say, more than a year from now to getting pregnant - then I think I will be more content than I would have been to have one child. I am not sure we'd look into adoption for a second, if we found we couldn't get pregnant again. And I think knowing Mr Spouse's contentment with only-child-dom makes me feel better about that. But if we did try for a second it would be pretty sharpish after the first.
However, before all this fertility palaver, I had, as I say, considered adoption, and we'd discussed it as well in a hypothetical sense. I had always thought adopting one child at a time would be ideal, and I was sure Mr Spouse would think the same. Now, however, knowing more about adoption and the procedures, adopting two might be a better option - we aren't very far down that route, and things could change, but Mr Spouse didn't seem wholly negative about the idea of adopting siblings.
So, oddly, this whole thing has completely flipped: from wanting two, from fairly widely spaced pregnancies, to wanting one from a pregnancy that might or might not be followed closely by a second pregnancy. From wanting one, maybe two but not at the same time, through adoption, to thinking about adopting two at the same time.
Friday, January 13, 2006
Pah.
I just noticed the consultant put "Primary infertility" on my blood test requests. And after what I posted the other day...
Actually...
that was really not too bad.
The (nice, female) gynaecologist combined with a (nice, female) medical "studant" (I'm guessing the nurse who can't spell wrote up the board this morning) agreed that yes, I'm probably ovulating fine, did not say anything approaching You Are Too Old Why Are You Bothering, and wanted to get all my tests sorted out ASAP.
I thought she was going to be the same person we saw when I had just had my scan showing an empty sac but either I was too out of it to remember, or we have TWO female gynaes at our local hospital. Wonders will never cease. The only person who wanted to be a gynae in my (one) year at medical school was a bloke who, er, would never willingly put his hands on women's bits in any recreational setting...
So this means day 21 together with multiple clotting factor tests next week (and no messing with "you haven't had three miscarriages", which leads me to wonder why they don't do that after every miscarriage), and day 2 FSH/LH at the start of my next cycle (I am very pleased I go past the hospital on the way to work... I could go to the GP practice nurse but it's actually more inconvenient), and a lap and dye (and she'll burn off any endo she finds) on March 6th.
This could have been sooner but I want to take up her recommendation of a full week off work and it would be harder to rearrange things before then; Mr Spouse has to do his business too before then, and given the unearthly time he has to leave for work in the morning, it's going to mean taking a day at home and taking it in himself, for which I am actually pretty grateful. I did suggest finding a clinic near work and nipping in to use their magazines but, funnily enough, he wasn't too happy with that. Perhaps on a day off he could cope with that but not in his lunch hour...
Now it occurs to me that of all the major causes of infertility, I'm only having one test for PCOS (I assume I'm right in thinking that the LH test is for PCOS). So I guess when I do go in again I will need to ask if there are other tests for that - one would imagine a clear view of my ovaries will mean a clear view of any cysts, though. But my symptoms are much more suggestive of endo than PCOS.
I'm also wondering if the praise for my nice midcycle mucus and injunction to jump on Mr Spouse at the weekend would have seemed quite so appropriate coming from a male gynae...
The (nice, female) gynaecologist combined with a (nice, female) medical "studant" (I'm guessing the nurse who can't spell wrote up the board this morning) agreed that yes, I'm probably ovulating fine, did not say anything approaching You Are Too Old Why Are You Bothering, and wanted to get all my tests sorted out ASAP.
I thought she was going to be the same person we saw when I had just had my scan showing an empty sac but either I was too out of it to remember, or we have TWO female gynaes at our local hospital. Wonders will never cease. The only person who wanted to be a gynae in my (one) year at medical school was a bloke who, er, would never willingly put his hands on women's bits in any recreational setting...
So this means day 21 together with multiple clotting factor tests next week (and no messing with "you haven't had three miscarriages", which leads me to wonder why they don't do that after every miscarriage), and day 2 FSH/LH at the start of my next cycle (I am very pleased I go past the hospital on the way to work... I could go to the GP practice nurse but it's actually more inconvenient), and a lap and dye (and she'll burn off any endo she finds) on March 6th.
This could have been sooner but I want to take up her recommendation of a full week off work and it would be harder to rearrange things before then; Mr Spouse has to do his business too before then, and given the unearthly time he has to leave for work in the morning, it's going to mean taking a day at home and taking it in himself, for which I am actually pretty grateful. I did suggest finding a clinic near work and nipping in to use their magazines but, funnily enough, he wasn't too happy with that. Perhaps on a day off he could cope with that but not in his lunch hour...
Now it occurs to me that of all the major causes of infertility, I'm only having one test for PCOS (I assume I'm right in thinking that the LH test is for PCOS). So I guess when I do go in again I will need to ask if there are other tests for that - one would imagine a clear view of my ovaries will mean a clear view of any cysts, though. But my symptoms are much more suggestive of endo than PCOS.
I'm also wondering if the praise for my nice midcycle mucus and injunction to jump on Mr Spouse at the weekend would have seemed quite so appropriate coming from a male gynae...
Wednesday, January 11, 2006
Harumph.
Ms Smug is one of the many pregnant people on the message board where Mr Spouse and I met. I blogged about hearing she was pregnant here. Today she is complaining she has a cold and can't take Lemsip. I do actually sympathise as I remember feeling rotten and not being able to take anything. But those cold sachets are basically just overpriced paracetemol, so I posted as much, and was told to take my advice and shove it, basically. Apparently the brand she wants to take has a decongestant in it.
What do you think - is it worth pointing out that I would love to be in her position?
What do you think - is it worth pointing out that I would love to be in her position?
Secondary level...
I found out a little while ago that what I have can also be called "secondary infertility". I thought that was only infertility after having a child, but apparently it can also be after miscarriage, or even ability to conceive followed by recurrent miscarriage. Confusing... but perhaps that answers the question in my blog's title.
But I can't be fagged to change it, to be honest.
But I can't be fagged to change it, to be honest.
Tuesday, January 10, 2006
Tears...
No, not mine, for a change, though there were some earlier in the week...
I walked into a colleague's office (to be fair, she did say "Come in") and found her weeping into a tissue. My first thought was "she's just found out she isn't pregnant". Obsessed? Moi?
To be fair, I had had lunch with my other colleague, S, who told me she's been trying on and off for five years. They are now looking into overseas adoption, although she is still trying to work out if there are some non-IVF treatments she can have, despite Stupid Consultant putting them on the year-long waiting list, when they don't want to do that. So I guess it was on my mind. But she also says she has a good feeling about us, and it made me happy when she said "well, we should just get pregnant together, and go off and leave the department in the lurch. That would show them."
It was quite helpful actually talking to her as she and her husband have a similar age gap to us - both he, and Mr Spouse, have clearly spent years thinking they would never have children, and now with advent of Young Things the idea has been placed in front of them, but it is much easier for the two husbands to go back to thinking "actually, it probably won't happen for me" than it has been for S and me, who have spent most of our young adult life thinking that this would be in our future. It made it easier for me to see how Mr Spouse must be feeling.
I have an obsession with wanting to know what is next, and what after that, whereas Mr Spouse does not; hence the tears on Sunday. He doesn't really want to discuss what-if and what-then, whereas I want to know exactly what will happen a week on Tuesday in 2011. But he knows this more now, and we did discuss some of the options in more general terms, and he doesn't seem entirely negative about the idea of adopting younger children (if we can, which seems possible - at least, it doesn't seem to depend on our age quite as much as I thought), and even possibly adopting two together (which seems like the best way of adopting under-5s in the UK). So, although this may not be what is in store for us, it feels like there is another door we might be able to choose if door A is closed. Perhaps that is door A, the first one being door P...
I walked into a colleague's office (to be fair, she did say "Come in") and found her weeping into a tissue. My first thought was "she's just found out she isn't pregnant". Obsessed? Moi?
To be fair, I had had lunch with my other colleague, S, who told me she's been trying on and off for five years. They are now looking into overseas adoption, although she is still trying to work out if there are some non-IVF treatments she can have, despite Stupid Consultant putting them on the year-long waiting list, when they don't want to do that. So I guess it was on my mind. But she also says she has a good feeling about us, and it made me happy when she said "well, we should just get pregnant together, and go off and leave the department in the lurch. That would show them."
It was quite helpful actually talking to her as she and her husband have a similar age gap to us - both he, and Mr Spouse, have clearly spent years thinking they would never have children, and now with advent of Young Things the idea has been placed in front of them, but it is much easier for the two husbands to go back to thinking "actually, it probably won't happen for me" than it has been for S and me, who have spent most of our young adult life thinking that this would be in our future. It made it easier for me to see how Mr Spouse must be feeling.
I have an obsession with wanting to know what is next, and what after that, whereas Mr Spouse does not; hence the tears on Sunday. He doesn't really want to discuss what-if and what-then, whereas I want to know exactly what will happen a week on Tuesday in 2011. But he knows this more now, and we did discuss some of the options in more general terms, and he doesn't seem entirely negative about the idea of adopting younger children (if we can, which seems possible - at least, it doesn't seem to depend on our age quite as much as I thought), and even possibly adopting two together (which seems like the best way of adopting under-5s in the UK). So, although this may not be what is in store for us, it feels like there is another door we might be able to choose if door A is closed. Perhaps that is door A, the first one being door P...
Saturday, January 07, 2006
Plans for the year
Last year at this time, I had already made several travel plans for the year: chaos ensued when I found out I was pregnant, had to make contingency plans, find out about travel insurance that would covere both pregnant me and diabetic Mr Spouse, and then re-make those plans after the miscarriage. I confirmed a conference I had been going to cancel, or rather, the conference organiser confirmed before I did, which was a bit irritating. And I cancelled a conference I was too worn out for, after I'd overdone it on one trip, which led to a snotty email from the organiser of that one, all about how this was clearly due to my bad planning, and he was going to "tell the committee". Happily for my professional reputation, I only told him part of what I thought of him in my reply...
And then we had a holiday planned to coincide with, and distract us from, my due date, cancelled a regular festival attendance when I would have been 38 weeks. All of this planned last minute, on the fly, to make up for things and "if this we'll do this, if that we'll do that".
This year, I've made out a list. Things we are going to do and when. Where we are going, pretty much planned till the end of the year, including where we might spend next Christmas.
We already had a nice night away (last night, in a Restaurant with Rooms we've been trying to go to for a while). And you know what?
It actually feels good to say "we may not get pregnant this year, but we will take advantage of being able to travel".
After that... I have no idea!
And then we had a holiday planned to coincide with, and distract us from, my due date, cancelled a regular festival attendance when I would have been 38 weeks. All of this planned last minute, on the fly, to make up for things and "if this we'll do this, if that we'll do that".
This year, I've made out a list. Things we are going to do and when. Where we are going, pretty much planned till the end of the year, including where we might spend next Christmas.
We already had a nice night away (last night, in a Restaurant with Rooms we've been trying to go to for a while). And you know what?
It actually feels good to say "we may not get pregnant this year, but we will take advantage of being able to travel".
After that... I have no idea!
Wednesday, January 04, 2006
That was quick...
We have an appointment with the gynaecologist on the 13th January - so I'm going to get going on the HUGE list of questions I want to ask. Please contribute yours here...
I have just updated Firefox at work and wonder if this will stop Blogger from crashing, and losing posts, all the time. Doubt it, but if it does that will be yet another major waste of time to keep me from concentrating on work!
I have just updated Firefox at work and wonder if this will stop Blogger from crashing, and losing posts, all the time. Doubt it, but if it does that will be yet another major waste of time to keep me from concentrating on work!
Sunday, January 01, 2006
New Year's Eve
Last New Year's Eve I had found out I was pregnant the previous day; we weren't telling anyone, but we went to a party an hour away and I was happy on a small glass of champagne, and happy to drive home.
This NYE I woke up in the night, 1 day late, no bleeding yet; at 9 a.m. Mr Spouse was confiding his fear of parenthood; by 9.10 of course my new, Christmas present pyjamas had a nice red stain on them. I know I am superstitious and believed completely irrationally that we'd get good news at the same time this year as last. But I was sorry to see Mr Spouse go down the same road. He was very sorry he'd started to express hope, as he knows it upsets me more.
But we do have these superstitions, and the New Year is one of the biggest: this year, none of the bad things will happen that dogged last year. It's a completely arbitrary date change. But here's to 2006!
Thursday, December 29, 2005
Worry wart
Write down your worries, we are told... this will stop the 3am worrying. So in the last couple of days I've been worrying about:
- work, irritatingly, since I have a week off - how far behind various people's expectations I am, how much I have to do when I go back, and how I am not doing any over Christmas, unlike, I suspect, many of my colleagues.
For some of them (D, who has a six-year-old with autistic spectrum disorder) this is because they really don't have time to get the basics done during term time, for others (perhaps S, whose main relationships before becoming a permanent member of staff were short-term ones with students, and who was warned off making this a habit so who has taken to teaching summer schools in order to meet new students...) because they don't have much of a life away from work, but for others (probably C, my mentor) because that's the way he meets his million obligatory obligations and million-and-one self-chosen obligations. Which is why he's a professor, and I'm not.
- my current round of symptom spotting, of course - CD27 and I still have sore boobs [usually they start around CD21 and stop about 4 or 5 days later, but once they continued into about the next CD3], but nothing else to speak of [no cramps, thankfully, as I'm a bit fed up of sharp, miscarriage-style cramps before my period].
- not sleeping well in my worry about whether or not my period will start - a common one, this.
- driving to the snowy NE of England tomorrow, taking ages and/or getting stuck, or alternatively, staying an extra night at my mother's, having told our friends we'll be there tomorrow. And all the food we need to buy for the stay in the cottage as three of the other guests are coming on the train and the fourth is my empty-larder single-bloke cousin.
- poor Mr Spouse having to spend an extra night at my mother's.
- poor Mr Spouse having to drive in the snow.
- poor Dr Spouse trying to persuade Mr Spouse that she also doesn't want to hang around her mother's house longer than necessary, and that we really won't get stuck in the snow.
- that all the snow will have gone by the time we get to the NE.
Tuesday, December 27, 2005
Euphemism...
People always talk of "losing" a baby - often they use the phrase even for babies lost very early in pregnancy - in fact later on, babies are allowed to "die" rather than be "lost". Very careless of mothers...
Well, last night I dreamt that we had been looking after someone else's 18-month-old girl, Grace (this is a ficticious child but I do remember the name) and we had our own baby boy (I don't know what he was called!). But we lost them both.
As in, mislaid them. Misplaced them. Didn't know where they were. Grace, I think, was left unattended for a moment and we thought she'd wandered off, but then in our panic we left the baby boy in the hospital nursery and then he vanished. We were it seems in the middle of trying to adopt but they wouldn't let us have any children because we had lost those we were responsible for.
At this point I woke up - noisily, I suspect, because I woke Mr Spouse up too. I went back to sleep fairly rapidly and oddly resumed the dream. It got more dramatic, but had a partly happy ending - it turns out Grace was snatched by her father, who was wanted for something else by the police - a trap was set involving £65,000 in cash (never say my dreams do not have realistic details), he turned up and Grace was found. Of the baby boy, I do not know.
Well, last night I dreamt that we had been looking after someone else's 18-month-old girl, Grace (this is a ficticious child but I do remember the name) and we had our own baby boy (I don't know what he was called!). But we lost them both.
As in, mislaid them. Misplaced them. Didn't know where they were. Grace, I think, was left unattended for a moment and we thought she'd wandered off, but then in our panic we left the baby boy in the hospital nursery and then he vanished. We were it seems in the middle of trying to adopt but they wouldn't let us have any children because we had lost those we were responsible for.
At this point I woke up - noisily, I suspect, because I woke Mr Spouse up too. I went back to sleep fairly rapidly and oddly resumed the dream. It got more dramatic, but had a partly happy ending - it turns out Grace was snatched by her father, who was wanted for something else by the police - a trap was set involving £65,000 in cash (never say my dreams do not have realistic details), he turned up and Grace was found. Of the baby boy, I do not know.
Friday, December 23, 2005
It's that time of year again...
when everyone sends out those Christmas cards, and, more annoying, those Christmas letters. We never do them (we made a small exception in sending wedding invitation/announcements when we were planning the wedding) and my usual rule is write a couple of lines by hand (shock horror) inside the card of people I haven't seen for a while.
So, when the news hasn't been great, what to do? I am afraid I did tell about four or five unfortunate friends about the miscarriage (and the two elderly relatives that died, and the fact that Mr Spouse nearly lost his job - told you the news hadn't been great). A few other people got a very cheery "Well, it's not been a great year, here's hoping 2006 is better!". Nothing like a bit of Christmas cheer, is there?
So this is by way of an apology to people who get inappropriate news in their Christmas cards... and thanks to my friend J, who I actually knew had had a miscarriage herself but at the time I didn't feel up to sharing the lovely news with absolutely everyone - and who rang me last night as soon as she got my card, and who I managed also to tell about our unsuccessful attempts to get pregnant again. I was welling up a bit on the phone, though.
It's good to talk...
So, when the news hasn't been great, what to do? I am afraid I did tell about four or five unfortunate friends about the miscarriage (and the two elderly relatives that died, and the fact that Mr Spouse nearly lost his job - told you the news hadn't been great). A few other people got a very cheery "Well, it's not been a great year, here's hoping 2006 is better!". Nothing like a bit of Christmas cheer, is there?
So this is by way of an apology to people who get inappropriate news in their Christmas cards... and thanks to my friend J, who I actually knew had had a miscarriage herself but at the time I didn't feel up to sharing the lovely news with absolutely everyone - and who rang me last night as soon as she got my card, and who I managed also to tell about our unsuccessful attempts to get pregnant again. I was welling up a bit on the phone, though.
It's good to talk...
Tuesday, December 13, 2005
Three years ago today...
I met Mr Spouse, in person, for the first time - we'd been emailing for about a month before that, but it wasn't Swoon at First Sight and in fact took another six weeks of emailing and MSN before another meeting and... well, the rest is history.
And it was a Friday... and I had said to a friend "why would I want to go on another blind date, all the rest were awful"... But I went, and I'm jolly glad I did.
It seems both like much longer, and much less time. But you will be able to calculate on your fingers from the fact that we've been "trying" for over a year now, and that we got married in May last year, that I haven't exactly been "defying nature" as a certain irritating gynaecologist would have it - unseemly haste would be more like it.
Although I did spend some of my 20s and 30s gallivanting round the world, having children has always been on the agenda, just not on that of any of the men I met - nor, indeed, has pairing off with me. I'm heartily grateful, in retrospect, that it didn't work out with anyone except Mr Spouse, perhaps he could have crawled out from under his stone* a little sooner but given the age gap, and the kind of people we were in respectively our 20s and 30s, we are not too sure that would have made much difference.
*this is where we reckon he must have been hiding all that time, and the reason why no-one else snapped him up earlier.
And it was a Friday... and I had said to a friend "why would I want to go on another blind date, all the rest were awful"... But I went, and I'm jolly glad I did.
It seems both like much longer, and much less time. But you will be able to calculate on your fingers from the fact that we've been "trying" for over a year now, and that we got married in May last year, that I haven't exactly been "defying nature" as a certain irritating gynaecologist would have it - unseemly haste would be more like it.
Although I did spend some of my 20s and 30s gallivanting round the world, having children has always been on the agenda, just not on that of any of the men I met - nor, indeed, has pairing off with me. I'm heartily grateful, in retrospect, that it didn't work out with anyone except Mr Spouse, perhaps he could have crawled out from under his stone* a little sooner but given the age gap, and the kind of people we were in respectively our 20s and 30s, we are not too sure that would have made much difference.
*this is where we reckon he must have been hiding all that time, and the reason why no-one else snapped him up earlier.
Sunday, December 11, 2005
Odd
Without any "props", the fertility meter from the trial I was on, any ovulation predictor kits or anything, I actually feel a lot more relaxed about both trying to conceive and whether I do or don't this cycle.
Whether this will last is another thing - this is the cycle I got pregnant last year, so emotions could still take over. And it could have something to do with the fact that I've been feeling like cr*p, with an inner ear infection that's made me dizzy and headachy for a week now - I was starting to come out of it yesterday, when we foolishly spent the day in Nearest Big City shopping, followed by a fairly quiet but quite late night at the house of a friend of Mr Spouse.
Whether this will last is another thing - this is the cycle I got pregnant last year, so emotions could still take over. And it could have something to do with the fact that I've been feeling like cr*p, with an inner ear infection that's made me dizzy and headachy for a week now - I was starting to come out of it yesterday, when we foolishly spent the day in Nearest Big City shopping, followed by a fairly quiet but quite late night at the house of a friend of Mr Spouse.
Wednesday, December 07, 2005
My first google
I didn't think my blog was googleable yet, but apparently it is, because someone got here by googling "does early pregnancy feel like impending menstruation".
I am faced with a bit of a dilemma. I am not sure (and scanning old posts doesn't help me, partly because I'm dreadful at skim reading and skipping things) if I've actually told Mr Spouse about this blog. I was reminded of this for a slightly circuitous reason, when I was using his smartphone and he said he had a link to my other blog (light, frothy, tales of knitting and snow and such-like) - I know he reads that one - I don't (think) I post anything here I wouldn't want him to read, and I know he always wants to hear if I'm upset or dwelling on something... but some of this blog falls into what a newly married, long-time bachelor aged 50 would count as "too much information". I am training him in the ways of womanhood and the fact that, when you are married and trying to get pregnant, there is not any such thing as too much information, and he is a quick learner, but he isn't entirely there yet.
I am faced with a bit of a dilemma. I am not sure (and scanning old posts doesn't help me, partly because I'm dreadful at skim reading and skipping things) if I've actually told Mr Spouse about this blog. I was reminded of this for a slightly circuitous reason, when I was using his smartphone and he said he had a link to my other blog (light, frothy, tales of knitting and snow and such-like) - I know he reads that one - I don't (think) I post anything here I wouldn't want him to read, and I know he always wants to hear if I'm upset or dwelling on something... but some of this blog falls into what a newly married, long-time bachelor aged 50 would count as "too much information". I am training him in the ways of womanhood and the fact that, when you are married and trying to get pregnant, there is not any such thing as too much information, and he is a quick learner, but he isn't entirely there yet.
Monday, December 05, 2005
My friend says...
No, not me, honest. I seriously thought I'd already blogged about this but perhaps the computer at work ate it. If you spot it in a previous post do tell it to make itself known...
I have a friend at work who is a year younger than me, and her husband is a couple of years older than Mr Spouse (early 50s), and they have been undergoing fertility investigations and also investigating adoption. Based on the publicly available information, they were told they couldn't adopt a child under 7 in the UK, and they already had various tests showing that she has no problems at all but he has borderline to low motility.
So far so irritating. They were talking about adopting from Russia, and then found they had an adoption information evening and a fertility clinic appointment on the same day.
Fertility clinic: Your only hope is IVF, we'll put you on the waiting list straight away, [they don't want to consider IVF], it's your eggs dear, you are too old, there is nothing wrong with your husband, we'll give you C.lomid to give you a bit of a boost (no mention of monitoring ovulation while on C.lomid).
Adoption information: yes, adoption of a younger child (under 5, anyway) IS possible where one of the couple is older, transracial ditto, for at least their local authority and another one neighbouring (neither of which is ours, but both of which are close enough that it might be possible to apply to them).
I have a friend at work who is a year younger than me, and her husband is a couple of years older than Mr Spouse (early 50s), and they have been undergoing fertility investigations and also investigating adoption. Based on the publicly available information, they were told they couldn't adopt a child under 7 in the UK, and they already had various tests showing that she has no problems at all but he has borderline to low motility.
So far so irritating. They were talking about adopting from Russia, and then found they had an adoption information evening and a fertility clinic appointment on the same day.
Fertility clinic: Your only hope is IVF, we'll put you on the waiting list straight away, [they don't want to consider IVF], it's your eggs dear, you are too old, there is nothing wrong with your husband, we'll give you C.lomid to give you a bit of a boost (no mention of monitoring ovulation while on C.lomid).
Adoption information: yes, adoption of a younger child (under 5, anyway) IS possible where one of the couple is older, transracial ditto, for at least their local authority and another one neighbouring (neither of which is ours, but both of which are close enough that it might be possible to apply to them).
Just what I didn't need...
We had one weekend to ourselves before Christmas, which would have been a good time to either a) get excited about being pregnant (ha!) b) have a bit of bonding before another month of trying again or c) do some productive things in the house/related to Christmas.
So, instead, I choose to have an insecurity fit. This is where I decide I am being ignored and throw a wobbly, and Mr Spouse feels very guilty and hides in a corner.
And he's not sleeping (at weekends) and I'm not sleeping (during the week). Joy.
So, instead, I choose to have an insecurity fit. This is where I decide I am being ignored and throw a wobbly, and Mr Spouse feels very guilty and hides in a corner.
And he's not sleeping (at weekends) and I'm not sleeping (during the week). Joy.
Friday, December 02, 2005
I was right...
about the spot.
Also didn't sleep at all well last night, and managed to lose my purse between buying a coffee on my way from the bus stop, and reaching my office.
I think this is what's known in the business as a Bad Day.
Also didn't sleep at all well last night, and managed to lose my purse between buying a coffee on my way from the bus stop, and reaching my office.
I think this is what's known in the business as a Bad Day.
Thursday, December 01, 2005
Disappointments
So far:
- I got a letter this morning to say I didn't get the grant. "Resubmission is not invited".
- Negative test also this morning - truly, clearly negative, not even "well, part of that line is a little blue even if it doesn't go all the way down" as has happened twice before when I've been late.
- I have a large spot. Highly predictive of impending menstruation.
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