Lacking expectations

We have moved to more optimistic premises

2010-05-26T14:55:00.000-07:00

I've decided that it's time to pull the shutters down on Lacking Expectations. There's something about that title that evokes doom and gloom, and the new Jane is all about the positive and the joy in life. So on that note, I have started a new blog called Back to Life . The address is www.theallnewadventuresofjaneandjohn.blogspot.com. I hope you'll come on over and keep us company.

Bleughhh

2010-05-06T09:37:00.000-07:00

Got turned down for a job the other day. Days after the MD of the company told a family member of mine that I was the best candidate for the job, and that it was mine. Then they turn around and give the job to someone else. For fucks sake.

Then good old AF arrives after the worst bout of PMT for months.

Oh infertility, how I hate thee.
Oh unemployment, how I hate thee.

Sheikh, rattle and roll

2010-04-07T11:13:00.000-07:00

A fitting title for my first blog post since our return from the middle east (geddit?). I haven't felt like blogging much of late, and I'm beginning to think of winding down the IF blogging for good. I just find that since I stopped focusing on trying to get pregnant, and started focusing on just getting myself fit and healthy, that I am a far happier person. When I think about IF blogging I just feel so down again. So hence I haven't been blogging much of late.

So what have I been doing? Well I have been losing weight. Since I started in early January, I have lost approximately 18 pounds. I have dropped one dress size, and am on the way to dropping another. This is the lowest my weight has been in over three years. So I am very happy with that. I'm hoping to lose another eight pounds or so, and then I would be very happy with myself.

And then there was the big trip to Dubai. Nine days of soaking up the sun, swanning around a city (what a treat for a bog dweller such as myself!), going to swanky restaurants, eating lovely food and drinking lovely wine, getting pampered to within an inch of my life by a team of Filipino beauticians whilst I quaffed champagne, cruising in an Arab dhou off the coast of Oman, going dune bashing in a 4x4, and generally living it up. Bliss!

Not much more to say for the moment, but here's a pic of us all dolled up and out on the town.

HSG done and dusted

2010-02-10T10:03:00.000-08:00

I had the HSG yesterday morning. Well it wasn't as bad as I expected. The two neurofen extra that I popped an hour in advance undoubtedly helped, as did the quick whiff of rescue remedy I took as I changed into my hospital gown. The worst part was the waiting. The first nurse who came into the room was one of these very softly spoken "how are you lovey?" kind of women. To be honest she was making it a bit hard for me to switch off and relax, between the well intentioned sympathetic pats on the arm and glances. In the end I had to say that I was fine, just trying to relax. After about 15 minutes of faffing around the radiologist arrived, and said something about this not being the worst thing either of us had been through. I pointed out that he might find that easy to say, him being the one without the vagina. Luckily he had a sense of humour. I was given a injection of muscle relaxant and then we were ready for the off.

Another very nice nurse came in and let me squeeze the living daylights out of both her hands whilst the speculum went in. I remember having a "going anywhere nice on holidays?" conversation, to which I eagerly replied "Yes! We're off to Dubai in five weeks time". So through gritted teeth I had a conversation about how amazing Dubai is reputed to be, all the while a doctor I had never met before was shoving a plastic object up my lady business. The nice nurse had to go once the x-raying began, because of the radiation, so I was left to bite on the side of my gown while mumbling "ouch! fuck! stingy!" under my breadth. It was all over a lot quicker that I expected. It did sting a bit, but not too badly. The bad news is that my left tube is now blocked, due to the after effects of the ectopic pregnancy surgery. But the good news is that the right tube is still in good working order, so at least I am firing on one cylinder, so to speak.

So all in all, not the most pleasant experience I have ever been through, but nowhere near the most painful. Where we go from here with one blocked tube I do not know right now, but for the moment I am not going to dwell on it. When we get back from holidays we will start gearing up to get back on the ttc train.

HSG - info appreciated

2010-01-30T07:06:00.000-08:00

Since the good surgeons of Limerick Regional managed to save my left tube after the ectopic pregnancy of two months ago, I'm now faced with the delightful prospect of a HSG to follow up on how the healing process is going. I'm currently around day 23 of this cycle, so when the crimson tide rises once more, I have to phone my consultant's secretary and schedule the appointment for as near to day 10 of my cycle as possible.

So, my lovely internet friends.....those of you who have had this done, any advice or info I should know about? My GP told me I would probably be sedated, but from what I have read, I don't think this will be the case. I will ask the secretary when I phone her. So if there is no sedation involved, would it be a good idea to self medicate in advance, like pop a couple of strong neurofen or solpadeine? Did it really hurt like a motherf***er? Any helpful advice would really be appreciated.

Losing the gut

2010-01-25T08:31:00.000-08:00

I told you a couple of weeks ago that I had signed up for a twenty week weight loss programme with Motivation Weight Management Clinics. Well I'm now getting to the end of week 3, and when I weighed myself this morning, I had lost a total of seven and a half pounds to date. I'm delighted with that result, and hoping to have the next seven pounds down within the next month.

I'm finding the programme fairly easy to follow. I have upped my protein intake, cut back drastically on carbs, but not cut them out totally, started drinking approx 2 litres of water daily, and given up the chocolate, cakes, biscuits, crisps and general crap that I had been stuffing my face with all Christmas. I've also given up alcohol for the moment. This was the bit I thought I would find most difficult. Not that I'm a raging dipso or anything, but alcohol and socialising usually go hand in hand for me. That is whenever I do get out, which is not all that often these days since we live in a one horse town where even the horse has fucked off to find livelier pastures.

So last Saturday night presented me with my first opportunity for partying since I started this programme (don't want to use the word diet, it just sounds too much like punishment). One of my old Uni buddies was having her fortieth birthday party in a hotel in Galway, the city we went to college in. Now there's always been this association with Galway and getting tanked to the lugs, but this party was going to be different for me, with sparkling water my chosen tipple for the night. When we got there, a waitress was pouring wine for everyone as they arrived. John grabbed a glass, and straight away I was tempted to have just the one. But as I was driving, I wouldn't have felt comfortable even having one drink, so fizzy water it was for me.

Then the buffet was rolled out. The usual party food, sandwiches, cocktail sausages, vol au vents, that kind of thing. I had the foresight to suggest we went out for dinner beforehand so that we would be full up with healthy option type food before we hit the party, so I wasn't in the least bit tempted by the nibbles. The one treat I allowed myself was a slice of the most orgastric chocolate birthday cake I have ever tasted. Divine.....mmm.... Then the DJ started up and we were all dragged out on the floor to get the dancing started. Now dancing in stillettos has never been a talent of mine, but dancing sober in stillettos was even more like hard work. But the DJ was brilliant and really got the craic going. After a while I got John to run out to the car and fetch me a pair of flat shoes I had brought as backup. Much better. I danced and danced for at least two hours solid. I hadn't danced that much in years! So I definitely got my exercise in for the day, if not the weekend.

The great thing was the next morning I woke up with a clear head, rearing to head to the leisure centre. I swam for twenty minutes, and then we relaxed in the outdoor hot tub for a while. Bloody freezing when you step outside in January in your swimming togs, but so warm when you get into the tub. So all in all a really enjoyable and healthy weekend. And I proved to myself that I can party my socks off without touching a drop of alcohol, so I now I don't feel like I will have to live like a hermit until I finish this programme. My next weigh in is tomorrow morning. I will report back here regularly on my progress.

Water is back!

2010-01-17T11:20:00.000-08:00

Oh joy. I was lying awake at around 3.40am Friday night/Saturday morning, when I heard a sound which was like sweet music to my ears. The sound of water filling up the tank in the attic. I elbowed John awake.

"Did you hear that?"

"Wha what what?"

"The tank, it's filling up with WATER!!"

"Really? Great"

"Shall we have a shag to celebrate?"

"Go back to sleep, Jane"

*small voice* "Oh, okay"

The big freeze, New Year's Resolutions and a New Kitteh on the block

2010-01-15T03:03:00.000-08:00

You know that saying careful what you wish for? Well we got a prime example of it in the last few days. As I'm sure most of you know, Ireland regressed to the Ice Age over Christmas, and it's only in the last couple of days that we're beginning to thaw. Temperatures went down as far as -8C, which for us is bloody cold. Strangely enough, our little town didn't get the snow until Saturday, and we were beginning to feel a bit left out, watching the rest of the country on the news under several inches of the stuff. The inner children in us were longing for a good old snowball fight.

We hadn't got over to visit my in laws, who live a 40 minute drive away all Christmas, because the roads were just too icy. John had been talking to them every day, and it had got to a stage that their water had gone on the blink. So last Saturday we decided icy roads or not, we'd get in the car and drive over, even if we had to go 20mph all the way. Halfway there, it started snowing. Shortly after we arrived at the house, parents in law arrived back from a trip to town to bring home one of the cats from the vet. They have what I could only describe as a tribe of black cats in their yard, mostly feral, who would make great extras for a Hitchcock type movie. Anyway one of them came out the wrong side of a fight a few months back with what we guess must have been a dog or a fox, and she lost more than half her tail as a result. It got infected, and the poor thing was in pain, so mother in law got some sort of trap from the vet to catch her and bring her in for treatment.

She was released from the vet with instructions to keep her indoors. Now I knew there was no way in hell that my parents in law were going to do that. As far as they are concerned humans live indoors, dogs and cats live outdoors, end of. She was very distressed from being in a cage and travelling in the car when they got her home. I opened the lid of her cage to pet her and calm her down, and within minutes she was purring and nuzzling my hand. So I took pity on the poor little thing and after working on John for a couple of minutes, declared that we would take her home to care for her. So we loaded her cage into the back seat of the car, and off we went into the snowy night. Driving on a windy crappy road in the snow at night can be a stressful enough experience, but when you have an extremely traumatised injured cat providing the soundtrack, it's pretty headwrecking. We stopped off at the supermarket en route to buy her a bed and some extra food, and by the time we got home it was 7pm.

Once in the house, I went to fill the kettle. No water. We checked with our neighbours, and their water was fine. Ours had frozen over because we were out of the house all day. D'oh. That was Saturday, it's now the Friday, and it still hasn't come back. So we've been showering in the gym and filling our water tank in the attic via a hose from our next door neighbours. On top of that, we both came down with colds this week. I am still smothered with it. Yuck.

We made a little safe haven for the new cat in the sun room, and managed to smuggle her in without our own two cats noticing there was a new resident under our roof. Little by little I started to gain her trust, to the point I got her to sit on my knee. When she does this she purrs like an engine, then she claws me to ribbons in happiness, and drools profusely. Nice. Yesterday I spoke to her vet who told me that what's left of her tail needs to be bathed three times a day. Ever since I have been having great fun and games trying to get at her tail, and every time I get near to clean it, she tucks it in under herself. Our cats have begun to cop on that there is a house guest in residence. So far there hasn't been too much hostility which I'm surprised at really, they are normally extremely territorial when it comes to their home turf. So I don't know yet if we'll keep her or try and re-home her. Whichever way, I'm not sending her back to her original home as she will only get booted out the door again, which is a pity because she has great potential to be a really affectionate lap cat. But I'm afraid that I am on the slippery slope to becoming one of those witchy old cat women if I keep her and then have three of them.

Anyway, enough pussy talk (fnarr fnarr). I gained quite a few pounds weight in the last month or so, between Christmas and a post ectopic pregnancy comfort eating binge, so I decided to do something about it for once and for all. I signed up and paid up for a 20 week weight loss programme with Motivation Weight Management Clinic. Two of my brothers did their programme and had great success with it, one of them lost three and a half stone last year (49 lbs) so I decided to give it a go. I want to lose around two stone (28 lbs). So far on the first week I was down 4 lbs. My sister in law has very generously booked us flights to visit her and her husband in Dubai in March, so my aim is to be down at least 14 lbs by then. I was doing well on the exercise front until this cold hit me, and now all I want to do is curl up in bed with a hot water bottle. But hopefully I will shake it off before too long and will be back up on the treadmill soon.

So there's my New Year's Resolution. To be back in size 12-14 by Summer time. And hopefully I will then go and undo all my good work by getting pregnant and actually carrying it to full term.
I'd better go now, I have to play Florence Nightingale to the furry amputee. Here kitty, kitty.....

I'm dreaming of a not so shite Christmas

2009-12-24T05:15:00.000-08:00

I have been extremely crap when it comes to blogging, answering comments and leaving comments on other peoples' blogs lately, so you will have to forgive me. Recovering from pregnancy loss in the run up to Christmas ain't easy. Although the whole process of having to go through the motions of getting ready for the festive season is a bit of a distraction, I still feel fairly crap about it all. But I would do anything to distract from cleaning my house right now, so I thought I might as well come on here and blog.

So, the year that was 2009:

January - Rang in the new year full of optimism. I believe my phrase was "this has to be our year". Never going to say that again

February - Still not pregnant, but not trying again all that long, so have to be patient.

March - Am told I am going to be made redundant in May. Go on holidays to UK for a week, try SMEP, doesn't work. All that drunken sex for nothing. How bad.

April - This month marks the three year anniversary of us starting to try to conceive. John turns 43. We celebrate our fourth wedding anniversary. Not pregnant.

May - Finish up at work. I turn 40 at the end of the month and have a big party.

June - Ten days holiday in Northern Italy. Fab time. Weather in Ireland turns Mediterranean.

July - Post holiday false alarm on the pregnancy front. Shit.

August - In typical Irish summer fashion, the weather has gone to crap and it is lashing rain every day. I do my first job interview in five years. The role ends up being filled internally, but am told I interviewed well. Considering I was strung out on mood altering fertility drugs at the time, I'm taking that as a good thing. Begin counselling to try and get our heads around where we are going on the baby making front.

September - Weather picks up. I decide to come off clomid after over a year of consecutive cycles on the Satan sweets.

October - Feeling better for being off clomid. Not pregnant though.

November - Another job interview. Again am told that I didn't get the job but interviewed well. John gets struck down with man flu. I take advantage of his weakened state and jump his bones. Results in me getting pregnant. Afraid to hope, but I still feel more relaxed about this pregnancy than any other before.

December - After a week of on and off abdominal pain, I go into maternity hospital for emergency scan at six weeks gestation. Diagnosed with ectopic pregnancy and have surgery. Fifth pregnancy loss and fourth round of surgery since we started ttc. Blurgh.

So that's the year in review. Wishing you all as peaceful and relaxing Christmas as possible, here's to the new decade. And I'm not going to stick my neck out and say this will be our year. Maybe it will, maybe it won't.

Ghosts of Christmases past

2009-12-11T02:08:00.000-08:00

The grief of pregnancy loss can be devastating any time of the year, but it is particularly amplified at Christmas. Christmas is a time for families, particularly those of young children. A number of times this week on various fora I have read the comment "Christmas is really all about the children in your life". Well the only children in our life are our nieces and nephews, whom we don't get to see all that often, and whom we won't be spending Christmas with. So if you have no kids near you, who is it all about?

This year I am opting out of Christmas as much as I can. I have spent the last three Christmases putting on a brave face, cooking dinner and entertaining parents or in laws. Three years ago we were reeling from the loss of our first baby, the following year we had chalked up three more pregnancy losses, one of which had an unfulfilled due date of December 21st, and last year my period arrived on Christmas Eve. Spectacular timing. This year, I can't quite believe that we have once again been side swiped by the bereavement that is pregnancy loss.

So this year, as far as Christmas is concerned, enough is enough. The in laws are going to John's brother's house and we are having Christmas day to ourselves. Us and the cats and nobody else. I have decided not to send Christmas cards. I don't know if it is etiquette elsewhere in the world, but in Ireland in the Christmas following a family bereavement one is not expected to send Christmas cards. So I'm opting out. And I'm hoping any family and friends with babies will think before they address the obligitary cutesy baby photo card to us.

I have done almost all of my gift buying over the internet. A little voice in my head told me two weeks ago to do this just in case things went wrong and I couldn't face the shops nearer the time. Well yay for pessimism, the negative thinking fairy got it in one. Because I'm not at work at the moment I haven't had to listen to the non stop Santa talk from my work colleagues. And I've had no work parties to attend. So really the only things I have done towards Christmas so far are a little internet shopping and the baking of a Christmas cake for my mother in law. Tonight we are putting up the tree, and apart from a bit of gift wrapping, that will be it from me.

Christmas has never felt so surreal. It's like it has been cancelled but the rest of the world haven't copped on to the fact yet.

Neighbours.......everybody needs good neighbours

2009-12-09T02:29:00.000-08:00

I'm still gobsmacked at an exchange between us and our neighbour six doors down on Monday night. A bit of background first of all. We've been living in the same cul de sac for almost four years now. Our neighbours own a large boxer dog. Their gate at the side of their house is not high enough to contain the dog, and she regularly jumps over it and gets out to run around the estate. Loose dogs running around is a bugbear of mine, particularly when you have to pick your steps over the dog shit when you are trying to get out for a walk. As well as that, the dog has ran in front of my car and twice nearly caused me to crash. We have said it to them a number of times that the dog is running around loose, and asked them to keep her in.

The first few times it happened I went around there with the approach "you might not have realised, but your dog has gotten out of your garden". In other words, politely and softly softly saying "keep your dog in your garden". We are not the only ones who have an issue with her. Our next door neighbour has a young son and they used to be afraid to walk by the house when the dog was out because she is so big. The last time she ran in front of my car, early in September, I knocked on their door and gave the neighbour an earful. Her attitude was very much "Ah sure what can I do, my husband isn't home and he's the only one who can get her in". I told her I nearly crashed my car because of the dog, and if she wasn't careful somebody is going to get hurt one of these days.

Anyway the other night John was calling the cats in. We always make sure to get them into the house around nightfall, partly for their own safety and partly because we are mindful that our neighbours do not need to be kept awake by cats yowling all night. When you live in close proximity to your neighbours and you keep pets you have to show some consideration for people around you. Anyway Tigger comes running up the driveway when John calls him, and out of nowhere the neighbour's boxer dog comes running behind him and makes a lunge for him (Tigger that is, not John). Given what we had been through in the past week, John was in overprotective mode. After giving the dog a swift boot up the arse, he went down and knocked on their owners' door and gave them an earful. They said the dog had only just got out that minute, and they basically got very thick with John over it so he walked away.

Five minutes later there came a knock on our door and I went out to answer it. It was the neighbour. This was the exchange.

Neighbour "Did your husband just come knocking on our door"
Me "Yes, your dog was out again and he attacked our cat"
Neighbour "What do you expect, that's what dogs and cats do"
Me "But it's illegal to let your dog run around loose"
Neighbour "We didn't let her out, she got out on her own. She had only just gotten out"
Me "Well she is out running around the whole time" (she is out very regularly)
Neighbour (shouting loudly) "No she's not, this is the first time this has happened since you said it to me last" (absolute horseshit)
Me "Bullshit, I have seen her out loads of times since"
Neighbour "No you have not, she has not been out"
Me (blood pressure sky high at this point and totally losing it) "Look we have just lost a baby and we don't need this kind of stress right now"
Neighbour "Well you shouldn't have come knocking on our door then" and she storms off.

Fucking bitch. I won't be braking the next time the dog runs in front of my car.

Once more through the mill

2009-12-04T03:28:00.001-08:00

There's something about the combination of pregnancy and Christmas that always seems to conspire to bite us in the arse, and I was really hoping that wouldn't prove to be the case this time around. Unfortunately, it was not meant to turn out that way.

Events took a dramatic turn on Tuesday morning. I had been suffering with abdominal pain and cramping for a few days, along with a small amount of bleeding the previous week. The pain seemed to be getting worse on Monday, and I was not due to go in to the hospital for a scan until December 16th. I went for my weekly blood test on Tuesday morning, and on my napro nurse's advice I phoned the hospital to request an emergency scan. At this point I have to say a big thank you to my bloggy buddy Fran for raising my awareness of the potential danger of ectopic pregnancy.

So off we went into Limerick, and no pregnancy sac could be located in the uterine cavity. They did however see something measuring 2 cm in the vicinity of my left ovary, pretty much indicating an ectopic pregnancy. I was given some battering by the dildo cam which left me in quite a lot of pain on my left side, and if that wasn't enough violation for one morning, the registrar then came along and gave me another internal. Next time I am definitely coming back as a man. Shortly afterwards I was given a shot of pethadene for the pain, which did sweet FA really, and I was dispatched by ambulance to the regional hospital.

Luckily a private room came free just as I arrived, and our health insurance was adequate to cover it. On Wednesday afternoon I was operated on, and sure enough there was an ectopic pregnancy on my left tube. They managed to save the tube, but only on our insistance. The fact that we really had to stand our ground over this issue we both found quite upsetting, but they respected our wishes in the end and did everything they could to save it. It means that I run a risk of 10% of having the same issue recur again in the same tube, but the thoughts of risking losing one tube now and possibly the other one sometime down the line if God forbid it happened on the other side was too much to contemplate for us. The medics' response to this dilemma seemed a little cavalier for our liking at first, we were told "well you always have the option of IVF if you should lose both tubes". Cause it's just that easy, right?

I had pretty excruciating referred pain under my ribs and in my neck and shoulders after the surgery, which was laparoscopic, so I needed pretty heavy pain relief in order to breath, which was quite frightening. So Wednesday night's sleep was very much broken. Yesterday my belly was bloated up like a balloon, so they wrote me up for peppermint oil capsules. I don't know if this had a direct knock on effect, but I ended up with a severe case of the squirts. Like up to the toilet 8 times last night. Yuck.

Anyway they let me out this morning with a prescription for strong painkillers and antibiotics if needed. I'm still kind on in shock about the whole thing. I think it will take a while for the reality of the last few days to sink in. I was really hoping and praying that life would not be so cruel to us this time, but I'm afraid that's the way it goes sometimes. Shitty things happen to nice people and there's not a lot any of us can do about it.

Second beta results in

2009-11-27T06:18:00.000-08:00

20 DPO beta hcg = 564.

As good as can be expected. And I'm feeling knackered, also a good sign. Will blog again later when I have more energy.

Deja Vu

2009-11-23T04:36:00.000-08:00

Last night I started to feel abdominal pain. I thought it felt like cystitis, thinking it might be (TMI alert) a reaction to the scented panty liners I had been using, since I am on twice daily pessaries of cyclogest. So I sent John down to the shop for some cranberry juice, and tried to put it out of my head.

When I went to the toilet just before I went to bed, there it was. Blood. Not much more than spotting, but definitely there, and dark red. Here we go again. This has been par for the course in all my pregnancies so far, so I suppose I should have been expecting it to kick off between weeks 5 and 6.

There's not whole pile we can do for the moment but just wait it out and see. I'm going for another blood test tonight, and after that I am going to start on hcg injections. I'm not sure that they will be of any benefit, but they certainly won't do any harm. There is no point in going to hospital for a scan at this stage, as they most likely won't see anything at the five week mark, and not being able to see anything will only leave me more upset. I'm still seeing light brown spotting today, so I think if this doesn't settle down in the next week, I will call the hospital if I get as far as six weeks.

Well I suppose I was right not to get too excited. But I really wish I could just have in incident free pregnancy for once.

So far, so good

2009-11-21T06:25:00.000-08:00

I've spent the last few days peeing on sticks, comparing the darkness of second lines and all the usual neurotic shit that pregnant women with a history of miscarriage go on with. I had my first blood test to check progesterone, oestradiol and beta hcg on Wednesday, and the levels were all as good as can be expected at this stage. HCG was 49, but given that was 15 dpo, that is ok. Of course when I got the results, I immediately started googling "hcg levels 15 dpo". Anyway it's all good so far.

I'm going to continue going to my wonderful Napro nurse for weekly blood tests for the next few weeks, so she is more or less taking on my care for the first trimester. It gives me a great feeling of reassurance to have my hormone levels checked on a weekly basis. I felt brave enough the other day to put my name down for an early ultrasound, so I called the Early Pregnancy Unit in Limerick maternity hospital. So December the 16th I will have my first ultrasound. If I am still pregnant by then, I should be 8 weeks along. Part of me is thinking all sorts of negative thoughts. Like what if they diagnose a missed miscarriage then and they take me in for another D&C a few days before Christmas. My sister calls this kind of thought process meeting trouble half way, so I am trying not to think like this.

The other half of my brain is already working out due dates, churning possible names around in my head, and wondering if it's a boy or a girl. For some reason we both think boy this time. Oh well, I suppose we have a 50/50 chance of being correct. I am really trying not to indulge in these kind of thoughts too. I just don't want to make too much emotional investment in this and then have my world come crashing down around me again.

The wonderful thing about not being back at work these days is that I can hide away from the world and rest whenever I feel like it. So there's no trying to stay awake at my desk or answer queries from head office when all I want to do is go home and sleep. If I'm tired, I can just rest up on demand. So there's something to be said for unemployment after all.

Yesterday I took another digital clear blue test and it came up "pregnant 2-3 weeks", so that gave me more reassurance that my hcg levels must be rising to some extent. My next beta is on Tuesday, so I'm keeping everything crossed until then. The a la carte crisis Catholic in me is even lighting candles. I will keep you posted on results.

Conceived in man flu

2009-11-17T08:42:00.000-08:00

After thirteen cycles of clomid and (I think!) fifteen on pregnyl injections with nothing to show for it but non stop mood swings, exhaustion and hot flushes, I finally kicked the fertility drug habit two months ago. I had had enough. Physically and emotionally I just had to get off the hamster wheel.

Two weeks ago, John was home sick with man flu. He was making noises about swine flu, but given that he was still getting out of bed and faffing about the house, he wasn't getting a huge amount of sympathy from me. Cups of tea and dinners, yes, sympathy, no. Heartless bitch of a wife that I am. So when I got a smiley face on an OPK, I jumped his flu ridden bones. A woman's got to do what a woman's got to do.

This month marked our twelfth month trying on this stint of the ttc journey. That's not to say we have been at this lark for a only year. We first started humping and hoping way back in the spring of 2006. So imagine my gobsmackedness when I got this result this afternoon.

Believe it or not, ladies and gentlemen. Conceived in man flu and without the aid of fertility drugs. I'm still pinching myself.

That time of the year again

2009-11-12T04:48:00.000-08:00

I ventured as far as Cork at the weekend, to visit one of my long term friends. We went to Uni together, way back in the late 80's, so we've seen each other through many of life's ups and downs in the past 22 years. (Yes we were both child geniuses who gained entry to a B.Sc. course at the age of eight. I wish.) She has just broken up with her boyfriend of the past 18 months, so I was on a cheer my friend up mission. We went out for dinner, drinks and dancing which was nice, it's a while since we have caught up and done that.

On Saturday we headed into the city centre for a spot of retail therapy. And there it was in every shop we entered. Christmas stuff. Arghhhhh! I mean come on lads, I've only just finished gorging myself on the mini chocolate bar multi packs bought for the trick or treaters who never showed up. It's the first week of November for the love of Jehovah. Can't we have a couple more weeks grace before all this shite kicks in?

As we drove out towards my friend's house, she sighed "Another Christmas being single.....it's crap". I agreed with her that I'm not all that keen on the festive season either. She asked why, and I explained that the lack of customers for Santa tends to get to me a bit. It hadn't occured to her. I suppose to a long term single person of our age, being happily married is the recipe for contentment in life. It made me realise that it could be a hell of a lot worse. I could still be married to old Bollicky Head (an affectionate term for my ex husband) and be as miserable as sin, or I might never have met anyone since I left him eleven years ago. I know someone my age who this year was widowed after three years of marriage, six months after her husband was diagnosed with cancer. I can't begin to imagine what Christmas will be like for her this year.

So while we might not have that nuclear family chocolate box dream of Christmas to look forward to this year, we still have each other, we have our health, we have our home. And feck it, Santa still comes to our house. He brought John a top of the range digital Scalextric set the first year we were married. Mind you, he's been having a bit of trouble equalling that one ever since. He aimed a bit too high in the first year I think. It's great fun watching the cats in the middle of it though!

Speaking of me kittehs....

2009-10-29T16:47:00.000-07:00

I used to think that teeny tiny kittens had the monopoly on fluffy cuteness until our two grew up. Here's some seriously cute kitteh video footage. Warning: this contains some disturbingly incestuous tongue action between two litter mates.

The ice breaker

2009-10-23T02:31:00.000-07:00

When we moved five years ago to the town we currently live in, we knew nobody here. I had never lived in a small town before. I grew up in the country, where everyone seems to be a distant cousin of their neighbour and the postman knows what you had for breakfast. From there I moved on to university life in Galway, a small city in the West of Ireland. College life is the easiest time to make friends because everyone is up for partying and meeting new people.

After that I lived in the UK for a short stint, on the outskirts of London, and from there I moved to Dublin. Dublin is an easy place for a country person (or culchie, as the Dubs like to call us) to make friends, as there are enclaves in Dublin, mainly around the Dublin 6 area, inhabited by culchies in their twenties and early thirties. Working in any large organisation in Dublin, you will easily make more friends from outside of Dublin than Dubs. It's a sense of all being in the same boat which fosters a certain cameraderie.

So it was a bit of a culture shock to say the least, when I moved down the the arse end of Tipperary, to a town with a population of around 7,500. Work colleagues my age were people local to the area, who had never really lived anywhere too far from home, so they had their own lives, family units and social circles well established, and had no interest in meeting new people. My sister had moved to a town outside of Dublin in the mid 90s, and she always said what broke the ice for her was her kids. She struck up friendships with women at mother and toddler groups, or even just striking up conversations with other pram pushing Mammys when she went out for a walk. Once her girls started school, she made new friends at the school gates. So all in all, when you move to a new town, kids are the ultimate ice breaker.

So what happens when the kids just don't come along and you're living in a small town? Well we were lucky enough to meet a younger crowd of people through my work. Mainly professionals in their mid twenties to early thirties, these people were blow ins just like us. Unfortunately, now that the plant has downsized hugely, most of these people have moved on, and we are getting back to square one. I often go out for a walk during the day, and I notice how the women with babies and toddlers in buggies tend to stop and talk to each other. I often wonder will I ever be part of that.

One day when the sun was shining last week, I pulled on my runners and set off to walk the three mile round path that starts at the end of our estate. I had borrowed a cat carrier from my vet a few days previously when I was bringing the fur babies in to get microchipped. Since the vet's surgery is only a ten minute walk away and it was on my route, I grabbed the cat carrier on my way out the door since I was going to be passing the way. As usual, I met a few mothers and babies along the way, and I just smiled and nodded hello at them.

Then as I walked along, a lady came up to me and the following conversation ensued:
"Ah, are you bringing your cat to the vet?".
"No, just returning a carrier I borrowed to bring them the other day".
"Are they ok now?"
"No, they weren't sick, I just took them in to get chipped"
"I'm up and down to the vet the whole time with my two, they're getting very old. How many have you?"
"I have two, but they're only four, so they're fairly healthy apart from the odd eye infection or war wounds"
"I don't know what I'll do when mine are gone, you get so used to them around the house don't you?"
"I know, I dread the thoughts of anything happening them, you just get so attached"
"Ah sure they'll be fine, they're only young yet"

And with that, we went our seperate ways, me with a smile on my face. So you see, kids aren't the only icebreakers.

International pregnancy and infant loss awareness day

2009-10-15T03:08:00.000-07:00

DEAR PARENTS

I did not die young
I lived my span of life,
Within your body
And within your love.

There are many
Who have lived long lives
And have not been loved as me.

If you would honor me
Then speak my name
And number me among your family.

If you would honor me.
Then strive to live in love
For in that love, I live.

Never ever doubt
That we will meet again.

Until that happy day,
I will grow with God
And wait for you.

by Christy Kenneally

Why don't you just.....?

2009-10-12T07:53:00.000-07:00

This is a topic that had been done to death on message boards and infertility blogs, but it's a bugbear of mine these days, since many people have thrown this question at me.

Why don't you just adopt?

Or, the more sensitive version, have you considered adoption as a possibility?

The more sensitive version I can answer in a calm manner, and I usually get a reasonable response. So I say "no, it's not where we are at for the moment" or "no, we've talked about it and just don't think it's for us". To which the enquirer usually says, "fair enough, it's not for everyone". End of discussion.

On the other hand the "why don't you *just* adopt?" people really rub me up the wrong way. When I give the same response as above, they usually look at me aghast, and ask in wide eyed terms "why ever not?". Recently someone (a mother herself) said this to me, followed by "but those Chinese babies are just soooo cute, I'd love one". To which I replied "Well if you're so keen on them yourself, away with you to China".

It's the word *just* that really gets on my wick. It's not as if there's a special on babies and children at your local Tesco this week. What gets me is that people who have never been faced with involuntary childlessness have no idea what the adoption process is like in this country. A work colleague of mine who was going down the adoption route gave me a brief overview a while back. Basically, in Ireland, domestic adoption is almost unheard of these days. Nobody, or very few, are giving newborns up for adoption. There might be two or three babies a year who come up for adoption, but as the waiting list of couples is several hundred names long, the chances are between slim and nil. As for adopting older children, this doesn't really happen in Ireland either. Social services are reluctant to take children away from the family unit on a permanent basis. So while there may be a large number of children and teens in foster care, these children rarely become available for adoption.

So the only other option is overseas adoption. I don't know a huge amount about this, having never gone down that road, but I do know that it takes a very long time between initiating the process and bringing your new son or daughter home. At least five to six years on average. So if we were to start the process now, we would be in our mid to late forties before we could expect to become parents. Up until recently, a large amount of overseas adoptions were from Vietnam. From what I can gather from internet boards, Vietnam is now closed to prospective adoptions by Irish couples due to international laws.

From what I have read on parenting message boards, it's a very emotionally fraught process, and not an inexpensive one. Also, when you live in a rural location which is not particularly multi cultural, as we eventually will, you are facing a whole other set of issues. I read a thread on one site the other day where a mother was asking others in the same situation how do you deal with instrusive remarks and questions. She said someone came up to her in a supermarket when she was with her adopted Chinese daughter, and asked her straight out how much she paid for her. Enough said.

The other thing that really irks me is when infertility and associated treatments come up as a topic of discussion on mainstream internet sites. Invariably someone will wade in with a comment along the lines that why do these infertiles think they are so special that they have to have children with their own DNA? And that IVF should be banned until all the orphans and abandoned children in the world are adopted. And that the world's population is far too large as it is without bringing more people into it. I shy away from getting into these arguments, as they have a tendancy to raise my blood pressure, but I always wonder about the people who make these comments. Have they children of their own? Are they biological or adopted? Or if they haven't yet gone down the road of starting a family, are they going to consider adoption as their first option in family building rather than trying to conceive a biological child? After all, our planet is over populated, why leave it to the infertiles to pick up the slack? Let's ban natural conception until all orphans and abandoned children have been adopted!

From the archives

2009-10-11T05:24:00.000-07:00

The only baby photo of me that I know of, taken when I was over a year old.

Deep in conversation with my faithful friend Scottie the sheepdog, age 3 (me age 3, not Scottie!)

School portrait photo, age 4 or so (wasn't I a lil cutie?)

Incidentally, me age 36. I really must change my hairstyle one of these decades.

Lapped again

2009-10-09T09:21:00.000-07:00

This weekend three years ago we went to a wedding of friends of ours in France. We conceived for the first time on that weekend away, but lost our baby at just over seven weeks. The newly married couple had their first baby just a few days shy of their first wedding anniversary. I've followed her progress on Facebook for the past two years. She's an absolute cutey, with big brown eyes just like her Dad.

This week I noticed a new photo on her Dad's profile. It was the birth tag from the hospital announcing the details of their new baby daughter. We didn't even know they were expecting again. I logged onto Facebook just now, and there are two new albums. One for Julie's second birthday and one for newborn Marie.

And here we still are, standing still while all around us friends' lives move on. I need a stiff drink.

It's simple, black puddings.

2009-10-05T14:16:00.000-07:00

Those of you on the other side of the Atlantic might not be aware that Ireland voted yes to ratify the Lisbon Treaty last Friday. In the run up to the referendum, the Vote No side were mounting a campaign based on ever increasingly nonsensical slogans. Some genius in I think Trinity College Dublin developed this little gem, the Vote No poster generator. Just click on the "Click here, receive poster" line for some excellent reasons to vote no to Lisbon. Pure comedy gold!

Headin' Wesht

2009-10-02T04:13:00.000-07:00

We seem to be constantly on the road these days attending family birthday celebrations. It was Dublin two weeks ago, Cork last weekend and this weekend we are heading to Mayo for my nephew's 21st party. My parents' and my brother's house are already booked out with visitors/party goers, so I decided to treat ourselves and book into the new hotel in the town where the party is being held.

It just so happens that I will probably be ovulating within the next 24-36 hours. So if I do get preggers this month (which I seriously doubt, but sure you never know your luck), and we were to take a leaf out of the Beckhams' book and name our first born after the place s/he was conceived, then we would to saying hello to little baby Kiltimagh in nine months time. Nice ring to it, don't you think?

As it so happens, Kiltimagh's most famous son is music mogul and X Factor judge Louis Walsh. My nephew (the birthday boy) plays in a band with his nephews. These guys are in no way your usual musical fodder of the Louis Walsh stable. No crooning poof boy band stuff for these dudes. It's more Dad Rock for them, Led Zep, Hendrix, Doors, with a bit of Arctic Monkeys and Talking Heads thrown in. I'm rather proud of them really. So let's hope when they're headlining in Slane in ten years' time, they remember all their ould Aunties and Uncles.

Better things

2009-09-30T13:25:00.000-07:00

This time of the year I always get a little sad recalling unhappy memories of the breakup of my first marriage. This song always reminds me of that time.

And better things certainly did come my way.

18 and counting

2009-09-29T06:49:00.000-07:00

My sister and I were talking last week about the Dugger family's impending 19th child. Apparantly my eleven year old niece's comment on the topic was "I think they need to get a hobby". To which her mum replied "I think they already have one, honey".

21

2009-09-27T13:32:00.000-07:00

My oldest nephew turned twenty one today. Boy, that makes me feel old. It seems like no length of time since I used to bounce him on my knee and change his nappies. No doubt that would be a very disturbing thought to remind him of. At this stage, if we do eventually have children, there will be a bigger age gap between David, my oldest nephew, and our kids than there is between him and me. So I will be relying on him to lead them astray at a young age and buy them pints when they are penniless students.

John's youngest niece turned one year old last week. We went down to Cork to visit her last night. She is just adorable. She definitely looks like her Daddy's side of the family, with big brown eyes and the cutest little smile. Whenever I see her it just makes me imagine what our little one might have looked like, as she could easily pass for being John's little girl. He is her godfather, and is so proud of her. If anything seeing her renewed my longing to have a baby, but not in a sad way, more in a positive way. But as it is, it's lovely to have a little one like her in our lives, even if it's just in an Uncle and Auntie capacity.

The joys of domestic goddess-hood

2009-09-25T09:17:00.000-07:00

This summer I have really gotten into baking. More for the sake of something to do than anything else, but I've also noticed how appreciated it is when you visit friends or family with some home baked cakes. My mother in law is a typical Irish mammy who has no truck with "shop bread", so when I started visiting bearing gifts of homemade banana bread and madeira cakes, I was elevated to status of daughter in law numero uno.

Years ago I bought "How to be a domestic goddess" by Nigella Lawson for my sister for Christmas. Not that I thought she needed any help in that department, Lord no, this is the woman who single handedly made our wedding cake. But she said in passing that she was dying to get a copy of this particular book. As it turned out, by the time I had bought it, she had already bought a copy from a book club. So I kept the copy I had, flicking through it occasionally but rarely baking anything from it, apart from pizza base.

So early this June I dusted down my copy, and started a baking habit. As I write I have a lemon madeira cake in the oven. It's baking 101, but so yummy.

Here's how it goes:

240 gr softened butter
200 gr caster sugar, plus extra for sprinkling
grated zest and juice of one lemon
3 large eggs
210 gr self-raising flour
90 gr plain flour

Butter and line a 23 x 13 x 7 cm loaf tin. Preheat oven to 170 C or gas mark 3.
Cream butter, sugar and lemon zest. Add eggs one at a time with tablespoon of flour for each. Gently mix in rest of flour, and finally, the lemon juice. Sprinkle with approx 2 tablespoons caster sugar as it goes into the oven and bake for one hour. Let it cool in the tin before turning out. Tuck in. Yum-yum.

All hail Nigella.

Dole office 2009

2009-09-23T06:09:00.000-07:00

It's now over three months since I swapped my corporate Amex card for a much less glamourous social security card. The first couple of months were great. I really enjoyed the novelty of having time on my hands, to visit people, potter about the house and garden and just relax for a while. If I was to believe the purveyors of assvice, the relaxing should have done wonders for my ability to conceive. Well newsflash, it hasn't.

But this post is not about infertility, it's about unemployment in the noughties. I went through a fairly long stint of unemployment when I left university, and I have to say Ireland was a pretty grim place to be back in the early nineties before the boom happened. There was very little money about. Now we're back to that again, but I really don't think the reality of it has hit home to a lot of people yet.

I see people walking into the social welfare office in designer jeans. I see people driving up to the post office to pick up their welfare in 4x4 jeeps. Obviously the trappings of former wealth. I think there are a lot of people out there who have received redundancy lump sums who just haven't had the reality of their situation really hit them yet.

The first day I went into my local social welfare office to sign on, I met a girl I knew who used to work in the same manufacturing plant as me. She and her family moved over here from the north of England when the company closed the plant there and moved the production lines to our facility in Ireland. Anyway the Irish plant has now downsized hugely (from a workforce of 500+ to approx 160, which in a town with a population of around 7,500 is a huge blow to the area) and many people opted to take voluntary redundancy.

Anyway, I overheard this girl (you couldn't but overhear her, she was talking at the top of her voice in a very small waiting area) saying the following (think Yorkshire accent) : "Ah missed mah signin' date last week, cuz I were in Baaacelona for t'Man Unigh'd match. Now they've told me I 'ave to sign on in two weeks, but I'm gonna be in fuckin' Mexico on me 'olidays, in' I?".

Ladies and gentlemen, welcome to Dole Office 2009.

That was easier than I expected

2009-09-23T05:55:00.000-07:00

Turned out Saturday night's birthday gathering was just for immediate family, spouses and kids. So no awkward questions from people I haven't met in over a decade as regards our family situation or lack thereof. Phew!

I stayed with my sister on Saturday night and on Sunday morning I went to mass with her and my nieces. I'm not a regular Sunday mass punter, but when in Rome, or in this case Kildare, do as the Romans, or Lilly Whites, do. So off I trotted.

The second reading made me remember why I don't go to church more often. It went something along the lines of "If you want something, pray for it. If your prayers are not answered, then you are not praying correctly". Well that told me rightly, didn't it? What about my sister in law who died of cancer in her mid thirties? She had half the country praying for her recovery. Were all these people not praying correctly?

Bye bye clomid!

2009-09-17T05:41:00.000-07:00

No, I don't have any "good news", today is CD2. Bleughh! I was of course holding out for this being one of those stories that goes something like "and believe it or not, just when we decided to ditch the fertility drugs, I found I was already knocked up!". Not so for me. No bun in the oven. Meh.

So this month is going to be totally free of fertility drugs. No horrible shitty clomid. No horrible stingy hcg injections. Hopefully I will start feeling a little less down and a little more energetic. Part of me is still holding out for the off chance that we will just spontaneously hit target all of a sudden. But if it hasn't happened after almost a year of ttc on clomid, I don't think it's going to happen au naturel.

This Saturday I'm going to Dublin for my brother's 50th birthday party. He's decided to make it an early evening gathering, so as to be a family friendly bash. Cue Jane being the only one rocking up to the party without an ankle biter or a teenage offspring in tow. I'm already laying bets in my head as to how many drinks I will be down before someone, an in law or friend of the host who I haven't seen in several years, asks the question "so do you have any kids, Jane?" and I give them the inevitable answer, while trying to keep a pleasant smile on my face "No..."
Guaranteed to kill the conversation stone dead every time.

You really like me....boo hoo....

2009-09-17T05:14:00.000-07:00

Thanks so much to Melissa at What? IF? and C at Cats with Passports for nominating me for a One Lovely Blog Award. Apologies for the late acceptance, but better late than never! I can't help thinking of Craggy Island's Lovely Girls competition when I think of the term Lovely Blog. Those of you who are Fr Ted fans will know what I mean, those of you who are not, look it up on youtube, it's bound to be there.

Anyway, I'm passing on the award, so the nominees for lovely girls and boys of the IF/pregnancy/parenting blog world are:

Cats with Passports
Murgdan
Diary of a Miracle
Nuts in May
Hot Mama Bear
Paint it Black
Sarah
Hairy Farmer Family
Fee Bee
Mick
Womb4improvement
Xbox

As I haven't been surfing around the blogosphere as much these days as I used to, my nomination list is a little short, and it's one of long term favourite reads.

Not gone away yet.

2009-08-31T02:09:00.000-07:00

Throughout the month of August I seem to have been struck down with blogger's block. The truth of it really was that I was beginning to get a pain in my face from all this infertility shite. The clomid and hcg shots were making me more and more exhausted and depressed. We went away for a romantic weekend to Killarney in the middle of the month and AF arrived two days early. That put paid to the romance I can tell you! We still made the best we could out of the weekend, but it was still a downer.

We signed up for counselling a couple of months back, after the false alarm debacle, and I have to say it did help us to get our heads around where we are with this whole journey and what we want to do next. We came to the conclusion that since I am now on my thirteenth consecutive round of clomid and facing into my seventeenth round of hcg shots, it's time for a break. So we went back to the clinic last week and I pretty much threw a hissy fit at the doctor and said (no, sobbed!) that I had had enough. So the plan of action is this: after this cycle, if there's nothing happening, I am going to take a break from meds for at least two months. Then I am going to try another fertility drug, femara. If that doesn't work after a few months, then we are going back to our GP for a referral to a mainstream fertility clinic, with the view to doing IUI.

One piece of possible good news is regards our health insurance. John's employers pay our policy for us, and recently they changed insurance provider. It turns out that the new provider is going to allow a contribution of EUR 1,000 for one course of fertility treatment, either IUI, IVF or ICSI. given that IVF costs approx EUR5,000 per cycle in Ireland that is not a huge contribution, but as they say, it's better than a slap in the belly with a wet fish. AS far as I know, IUI costs around EUR1,000, so that would cover one round of treatment. It's good to know it's there in any case.

So we'll see what happens with this cycle, and after that I am going drug free for a while. I feel as though a weight had been lifted off my shoulders. Clomid is nasty stuff and I really don't think anyone should be on it for more than six months. It's just too damn hard on the system. At this stage I am really beginning to wonder if this will ever happen for us, and the idea of it never happening seems far too hard to contemplate.

I have wanted to be a Mum ever since I was twenty years old, when I used to help my mother with minding my oldest nephew. When I was 21 I met my first husband, and I was sure back then that I would be a mother in my late twenties. However, the time never seemed right. I wanted to be married before we had kids, I suppose you could put that down to a traditionalist Catholic upbringing. Then when we did get married, I was 27 at the time, we were renting a tiny flat and were stoney broke trying to save the money for a house deposit. I was in a low paid job and the time just didn't seem right. I started my exams, which was a four year part time course, so the goal posts of starting a family were pushed out for another few years. The plan was to get the exams in the bag by the time I was 31 or 32 and then it was baby time. Every time I felt the tug of maternal instincts I just pushed them out of my mind. We would do it when the time was right, that's what I kept telling myself.

Unfortunately, baby time came around a little early for my then husband, earlier than it came around for me. He started an affair less than two years into our marriage, I actually think it wasn't his first one, and after a number of months of very strange behavior on his part I confronted him and he admitted his guilt. I left shortly afterward, and around that time he and his 22 year old girlfriend conceived their son. It was a very hard kick in the stomach for me. Like now, every time I walked down the street I seemed to see pregnant women. I was like they were creeping up through the cracks in the pavement. Cute babies everywhere. Work colleagues having babies and bringing them into the office to show off. Me fast approaching thirty and further away than ever from motherhood.

I was lucky to meet John soon after my first marriage ended. As a friend of mine said, I met a good guy before I had the chance to grow bitter. It took me a long time to get over the heartbreak, plus I had to wait four years before I could file for divorce, so we both knew that marriage and babies weren't on the cards for us for a few years. All the while we attended weddings of friends and family, and watched many of them start and complete their families while we just sat in limbo. All the time I just kept telling myself it will happen when the time is right. I remember going to visit my sister in hospital when her third child was born. It was two days after John's sister's funeral. As I took my new niece in my arms, a combination of emotions hit me at once. First of all it was the joy of seeing a new life, the grief that I had just witnessed the death and burial of a beautiful vivacious 36 year old woman, and the sheer anguish of "am I ever going to hold my own baby?".

I have felt that anguish, that yearning so many times since then. When at long last the time felt right, my body didn't seem to concur with my mind. Sometimes I feel like it's saying "tough shit, you had your chances, you should have just taken them". Nowadays I go visiting friends who are ten years younger than me, bringing gifts for their newborns. Some of them have already completed their families. Everywhere we go we see couples with babies. Every shopping mall, street, park, restaurant they are there, the happy families. John still smiles and says "that will be us, just you wait and see". I just shrug my shoulders and say "maybe".

Happy Blogoversary to me!

2009-07-30T01:20:00.000-07:00

This day last year I took the plunge and decided to start a blog. I had been following and commenting on a few infertility blogs for a while, mainly The Waiting Game and Xbox4nappyrash . It was around about that time that I realised that I was not going to be a mother before my 40th birthday. This was something I found extremely difficult to get my head around. One year on, and I realise that I am not going to be a mother before my 41st birthday. Such is life. At this stage I don't know if I ever will have a baby of my own.

I have been on clomid for more cycles than I care to count at this stage (I think it's around 12). I have been on pregnyl injections for I think 17 months. I beginning to feel like a 12 stone hamster on a very large wheel. A very very tired hamster to boot. All these fertility meds have taken a huge toll on my body, and even though I have been out of work for two months now, I still feel exhausted. I heard yesterday about the possibility of a new job, but it would involve over an hour commute each way daily. I know that doesn't sound like a lot, but when I am this exhausted on a constant basis I really don't know if I could manage it. We'll see, I will cross that bridge when I get to it I suppose.

In the past few weeks John and I have started going to counselling. After the highs and lows of last month's false alarm I really felt like we needed help getting our heads around this ongoing torture. Luckily enough, I am still covered by my previous employer's benefit plan, one part of which is the employee assistance scheme which provides five sessions of counselling free of charge if needed. Since it is not costing us anything, I thought feck it, why not, so we have had two sessions so far. We're trying to see where we go from here, come to some sort of decision as to how long we will keep on the road we are on, and then see what other options are open to us. So we will see how it goes.

Like all other infertility bloggers, I have gained an amazing support network of online friends in my first year of blogging. It seems funny to know so much about the day to day lives of people I have never met face to face. Last week I met face to face with another infertility blogger (hi M!). We live a twenty minute drive from each other, are the same age and have both been through the experience of miscarriage. Like us, her and her husband are trying to conceive their first child. We met for a coffee, which turned out to be a three hour chat. It was lovely to connect with someone my own age, as most of my friends here are much younger than me, and very few of them have been through a miscarriage. It was both strange and nice meeting someone face to face whom I had read about online. We both admitted that our husbands had misgivings at the idea of meeting someone from the internet. John was cracking jokes that my body would be washed up in Lough Derg without any kidneys, and her husband was worried about me finding out where they lived! Don't worry lads, neither of us are bunny boilers.

To all the wonderful people I have met in the last year, I just want to say thank you for all your friendship and support. Some of you have attained the holy grail of a healthy pregnancy, and to you I wish every congratulations and continued good health and luck. Some of you, like me, are still on this long road, and I hope and pray that we will see the end of it soon, and that one of these days life will bring is the joy that we have awaited for so long.

False Alarm

2009-07-14T01:41:00.000-07:00

I haven't blogged in over a week because I am royally pissed off. I had a false alarm over the weekend. I tested on peak +15 and got a quite strong line. I thought this might be down to residual hcg in my system from the pregnyl injections, so didn't get too excited. I tested again the following day and the line was still there, but weaker. So I thought ok, it's not happening.

Being the POAS addict that I am, I decided to give it one last test on Friday, peak +17. By this stage there shouldn't have been a sniff of hcg left in my system. I got a very faint positive. I went out and bought a double pack of digital tests. Tested again and got a "Pregnant 1-2". I still felt a wee bit sceptical about it, as I was feeling crampy, but then I have heard stories of women getting severe period like pains and then discovering that they are in fact pregnant. I phoned the clinic in Galway and they told me to get a blood test done to check progesterone and oestradiol levels, and start on progesterone support immediately.

This I did, but the following day something at the back of my mind was still making me feel doubtful, so I tested again. Not pregnant. I got another double pack of digital tests from the pharmacy (I'm so going to get a good dividend this year!) and tested again on Sunday and Monday morning. Both not pregnant. So there you are, false alarm. I rang the clinic back and told them, the doctor said it sounds like a false alarm alright, and to discontinue the progesterone support. I said my period was unusually late, but he said that is down to the synthetic progesterone in my system. So basically synthetic hcg remained in my system, temporarily fooling me into thinking I was pregnant, and now synthetic progesterone has fucked up my cycle and delayed my period.

My head is fucking melted. I hate all this.

Holy high risk of multiples, Batman!

2009-07-02T00:41:00.000-07:00

I got my bloods tested on Tuesday, results back yesterday.

Oestradiol = 1238 (should be 400-800)
Progesterone = 150.8 (should be 60-100)

This result means that there is a very strong chance that I produced more than one egg this month. So if we hit target, we could have two little stowaways from Italy on our hands. I have never had a result like this before. WTF? Was it the Italian air, the Mediterranean diet, all the wine, or dare I say it, the relaxed state I have been in since I left work? Who knows?

The other day I was saying to John that I don't want to stick my neck out too far, but I have a good feeling about this month. I was on a supplement called FertileCM, which not only improves the go goo (TM Xbox) but also increases the libido. So between that and the heat in Italy, John thought all his birthdays and Christmases had come at once! The marathon 2ww is due to finish tomorrow week, so I will keep you posted. In the meantime I am going to lead a life of virtue with lots of fruit and veg, swimming, gym, and as little alcohol as possible. So begins another painfully long week.

The life of leisure

2009-06-29T01:13:00.000-07:00

Well I am now heading into my fifth week since my exit from my previous job. The time is just flying by. Going on holidays for 10 days in the middle of the month broke it up hugely, but I still can't believe a month has gone by. By and large I am really enjoying the time off. It's great to have time to just look after myself. I was given a number of vouchers for a local beauty salon, so I block booked myself a course of swedish massages. So now every Wednesday, I go for a 30 minute massage. It's pure bliss.

The other thing I am loving is that I have really got back into cooking for the first time in years. For the past ten years or so I have been working in large organisations with subsidised canteens, so I had totally gotten out of the habit of cooking dinner during the week. In the past year or so, the standard of food in the canteen was going downhill, but I still didn't bother cooking dinner. Now I cook good healthy dishes for dinner every day. John hasn't been this well fed since he left his mother's house! We had our next door neighbours over for dinner last week, and I even baked a pavlova. I filled it with raspberries, and topped it off with grated dark chocolate. Yummmm. It's been about two years since I have done any baking, so I was really proud of myself.

Anyway, I promised you some Italy photos, so here goes....

Street scene, Riva del Garda

Us on the ferry from Riva to Desanzano, with the Dolomite mountains in the background.

Beautiful Lake Garda
I read in a guidebook that the emblem on the rails outside the Colleoni Chapel in Bergamo of three testicles is a fertility symbol, and it's good luck for couples trying to conceive to touch it. So I duly dropped the hand on the three goolies. Desperate times, desperate measures :o)

While in Milan I decided to take a cultural walking tour....
which finished with us taking in the cafe culture.

This little D&G number was a snip. Perfect for those dominatrix nights.

And finally, a couple of nice pics of me and mah honey.

Bella Italia

2009-06-14T09:05:00.000-07:00

Bon giorno internets! It's Sunday evening, the sun is shining and we have been in beautiful Riva del Garda 4 days now. All I can say is wow. We have totally fallen in love with Italy. It's our first visit and we are just loving it. We arrived in Bergamo on Thursday morning, picked up our hire car, a dinky little Fiat 500, at lunchtime and took our life into our own hands on the Milan to Venice motorway. I thought Irish drivers were crap motorway drivers, but we're in the tuppence ha'penny league compared to these guys. As a front seat passenger, I would strongly recommend a valium sandwich for lunch before you set off, possibly with a stiff G&T chaser.

Once we left the motorway and got onto the Roverto to Riva road, we entered a long tunnel, which took an age to exit. We soon realised that the traffic was backed up at least a mile. It turned out there was an accident up the road. But even in a traffic jam you couldn't help but smile when you are surrounded by breathtaking scenery and rows of vines at every turn. We got to Riva in the early evening. As luck would have it, our hotel is just on the edge of the town, so we found it in about 3 minutes. It's a stone's throw away from the lakefront, with the dolomites providing a dramatic backdrop. Gorgeous.

We immediately warmed to the Italians. Neither of us had a word of Italian before we arrived, but a quick consultation with the Rough Guide language section afforded us the basics. The old "cupla focail" (couple of words) of Italiano definitely endears you to the locals. Mind you they're probably smiling at us warmly while disguising their mirth at our pathetic attempts to speak their language. So far they seem to be like Paddies with suntans and a jaw dropping sense of style. When it comes to style, these people have it in spades. Same goes for charm, and sense of humour, as well as the innate ability to flirt. I love them. Next life, I want to come back as an Italian.

I'm off now for a swim in spectacular Lake Garda. When I get to it I will uploads some photos, just to piss you all off even further. So until next time internets, ciao!

Joy to the world.....

2009-06-09T00:57:00.000-07:00

ET and Xbox have good news!

May I say in my inimitable Wesht of Ireland way, I'm feckin' delighted for ye, lads!

Another proud godmother moment

2009-06-08T00:34:00.000-07:00

On Saturday, my twelve year old niece and godchild Lisa captained her school's football team to victory in the county schools final. I'm convinced she will play for our county yet, and when she does I will be there in Croke Park cheering her on. What a wonderful talented kid. I'm so proud to be her godmother.

In other news, AF rode in on her red broomstick this morning. To be honest, I wasn't all that disappointed this month. If anything, after all the partying of the last week in honour of my 40th, I would have been a little freaked out at the thoughts of a pregnancy this month. I pretty much knew that it wasn't going to be our month so no major let down there.

We are all set for our holidays (did I mention we are off to Italy? No? Well we are, on Thursday, nah-nah-nee-nah-naaaaaaah!) I was in Limerick yesterday in TK.Maxx and picked myself up the most blingtastic pair of Versace shades for €80. I mean dahhling, if you're going to Milan, you've got to look the part, right? Oh I can't wait....only 3 more sleeps to go and we're on the plane. Wooo hoooo!

Life begins

2009-06-04T11:35:00.000-07:00

I have been keeping a low profile in blogland for the past week or so. Partly because I have shuffled off the shackles of full time employment, so I'm not tethered to a desk and computer for seven hours a day anymore. You can tell I obviously loved my job, by the way. Anyway, a brief rundown of the past week:

Wednesday night was the night before I was due to finish up at work. I was doing some shopping for the birthday party that evening, and then I called in to see a friend of mine. It was 11.30pm before I got to bed, and when I did, the most crippling gut pain enveloped me. I ended up running in and out to the bathroom all night. And not in a throwing up, might be pregnant way. More in a bad food poisoning Johnny Cash song way. Not good. The following day, I phoned work to say I wouldn't be in until lunchtime. So in I went around 12.30. Most of the day was spent copying files and photos onto a memory stick, emailing my goodbyes to overseas colleagues and saying goodbye face to face to Irish based colleagues. I was presented with a yummy cake, a gorgeous bouquet of flowers and a voucher for my favourite beauty salon from my department, along with a 40th birthday card and a Sorry you're leaving card.

That night was a repeat of the previous one in terms of the tummy bug. John was working tirelessly on the sunroom all week to try and get as much of it completed as possible for the party. Mainly cosmetic stuff like indoor plastering and cladding. The house pretty much still resembled a building site the next day when I hit for Dublin to bring my niece to Beyonce. I still had the remains of the trots, but I managed to make it to my sister's house in Kildare by 5.30, and from there we bussed it to the O2 stadium for the concert.

I have never in my life bought a Beyonce CD, but I figured she would put on a good show, and that my 14 year old niece would get a great kick out of going to see her for her first big grown up concert. I was very right on both counts. The show started at 8pm with a warm up act from a singer called Chantelle. She said she was Beyonce's sister, but I don't know if she meant blood relation sister or sistah. Either way, she had a fine pair of lungs on her. The main woman herself came on stage around 9.15. And wow, she was totally worth the wait. As stunningly gorgeous in the flesh as she is on TV, she treated us to what can only be described as a spectacular show. She even belted out an Alannis Morrisette song at one point, as well as a rendition of Ave Maria in Latin. Amazing.

The following morning I was on the motorway again, heading home to prepare for the party. Thankfully the tummy bug had left the building at that stage. When I got home, John presented me with the first part of my birthday present, a Wii! I loved it! Then came the big surprise, when he brought me out to the sunroom to show me the work he had done, and there mounted on the wall was a 42 inch LCD TV. To say my jaw dropped would be an understatement. Shortly after that, an interflora van arrived, with two beautiful bouquets of flowers and a bottle of champagne from some friends who couldn't make it on the night.

I then set in and started vacuuming and making up beds for guests. At around 2pm my cousin phoned from the local hotel where she was staying. She turned 40 that day, so it was lovely to share a big milestone birthday together. For somebody who had never visited us in our house before, she totally rowed in and helped us with the cleanup. It was like "Hi Siobhan, welcome to Tipperary, happy birthday, now here's the vacuum cleaner, I'm off to the hairdresser's, see you in two hours, byeeee!" I had a hairdresser's appointment at 3.45pm, so I had to abandon ship for a couple of hours and leave my army of helpers to it. By the time I got back the place was gleaming, and my parents, sister and more friends from Dublin had arrived.

I had hired two eight foot tables, sixteen fold down chairs and 30 champagne flutes from a cater hire firm in Limerick. Totally worth it. Also, I went very grown up and posh and hired my next door neighbour to do the catering. And what a job she did. Her and her fiance slaved over a hot barbeque, and served up a feast. We set up the sunroom with the tables, chairs, white table clothes, silver star table confetti, gold helium balloons and lighted tea lights. It really looked fantastic. My mum had seen the building site that was our house that morning, and said the transformation was like something out of a reality TV show, like Changing Rooms!

We partied until the sun came up, and long after. The funniest part of the night was when the assembled crew sang happy birthday to me, with the help of the remaining helium balloons. It was like being serenaded by a small army of smurfs! One of my friends caught it on video, so when I get it off her I will post it on here. My brother brought his guitar, so around 2.30am the obligitary sing song started. Around 4am I have hazy memories of playing a four man game of Mario Karts, which I had to do with one eye closed as I was having difficulties focusing on the screen at that stage! All in all an excellent party and a fitting way to embark on my new decade.

The other amazing thing about the past week has been the weather. The mediteranean miraculously came to Ireland this day last week and it hasn't left yet. The weather has been up in the late 20's, although it cooled down a little today. This has meant we've had a few very pleasant evenings since the party, sitting in either the garden or the sunroom sipping rose and feeling like we are on holidays, which we will be this time next week. So I am taking to this life of leisure really well. Already my energy levels are higher and I feel like a weight has been lifted off my shoulders. My 2 week wait is due to end on Monday, and quite honestly I'm not obsessing about it, which is a huge change for me. Long may this feeling last

Counting down

2009-05-26T04:55:00.000-07:00

Next Sunday I will celebrate my 40th birthday, and embark on my fifth decade. Well actually, Saturday night at 8pm is when the celebrations are kicking off, with a barbeque in our house for family and friends. A few months back I decided that I wasn't going to go into a corner and sulk about turning 40, no matter what our situation was by then. I was of course hoping that I would be pregnant by the time the big milestone came along, but no such luck. Although I am currently on the two week wait, due to end on June 8th. So I might be, and not know it. Or I might not. I'm not going to tie myself in knots wondering about it, I'm just going to enjoy the party.

I was thinking back the other day on my thirties, and all the things that have happened to me over the past ten years. It was by far the best decade so far. I holidayed and travelled more than ever before, to Greece, Turkey, Spain, Portugal, France, Holland, Belgium, USA, Malaysia, Thailand, Singapore, Australia, and Cuba. I studied part time and gained a professional qualification in Management Accountancy. I learned to drive and passed my driving test finally at the age of 36 (hey, better late than never!) and bought myself a car. I got divorced and remarried. I bought my first house. All in all a very good decade.

So what's in store for my forties? Will life begin on Sunday? I'm finishing up in work at the end of this week, so that heralds a new chapter in life. I'm looking forward to taking time off over the Summer, but hoping that the break won't be too long. We finally booked our Italian trip, and we are flying to Bergamo on June 11th to spend seven days in Riva del Garda and three days in Bergamo, hopefully with some day trips thrown in like Verona and Milan. Neither of us have ever been to Italy before, so I am really looking forward to the holiday.

So here's to the next decade. Let the adventure begin!

Nollaig

2009-05-18T09:14:00.001-07:00

This day two years ago, we found out that I had suffered my second miscarriage in six months. I was just over nine weeks along, the furthest I have gotten with any pregnancy. I'm not going to post all the details again, as I have told the story before.

As with my first pregnancy, I had a strong gut feeling as to the sex of this baby. I tend to have witch like tendancies when it comes to babies, in that at one stage, whenever I dreamed of a pregnancy in my family, it was pretty much always followed by a real life pregnancy announcement. During this pregnancy, I repeatedly dreamed about baby girls, so I was convinced that I was carrying a girl. I even tried the old wives tale test of hanging my wedding ring on a piece of thread and dangling it over my belly, just for the laugh. I swore it was going around in circles on its own (circles are supposed to be for a girl, back and over for a boy) although John was pretty sure that it was my hand rotating in circles, not the wedding ring :)

She would have been due on December 21st 2007, so I was pretty much resigned to spending Christmas in the maternity hospital. Sadly, we lost her seven months before that. As with my previous pregnancy, I decided to have her recorded at the Shrine of the Holy Innocents. When it came to naming her, we picked the name Nollaig, which is the Irish word for Christmas, and is the Irish translation of the name Noelle or Noel.

In our lives for a short time, but in our hearts forever. Our little Nollaig.

More condom conundrums

2009-05-18T09:14:00.000-07:00

My post last week regarding our fertility clinic and their Catholic ethos and approach to collection of semen for analyis proved to be a bit of a jaw dropper. Xbox was saying that as far as he was aware, the Catholic Church had no issue with IUI, as it does not involve the discarding of fertilitised ova. I thought that they were averse to IUI, on the grounds that the collection of semen by means of "manual methods" constitutes an immoral act. I did a bit of googling to investigate further the Catholic Church's stance on IUI. Here's what I found.

Basically, the Catholic Church is ok with IUI, as long as the sperm is obtained through what they term "licit means", as in through an act of sexual intercourse between husband and wife, using a perforated condom as a collection device. From what I can gather, the condom has to be perforated in order to comply with the church's regulations as regards contraceptive devices. Which is laughable really, considering the fact that any couple pursuing fertility treatments are doing so because they cannot conceive without medical intervention. I very much doubt if any of them with Houdini like tendancies are going to make their way to the fallopian tubes if they couldn't manage it without the obstruction of a condom in their way.

It's all a bit bizarre really. They don't want fertile people to prevent themselves conceiving, and they don't want infertile people enlisting the help of medical professionals to enable them to conceive. No wonder people my generation are deserting the church in their droves. Thankfully we are now living in an Ireland which is not ruled by the church, and fertility treatments are widely available, albeit if you have the money to pay for them. It's about time that health insurance cover was available for fertility treatments in Ireland, but that's a whole other rant.

And so it continues....

2009-05-11T02:29:00.000-07:00

I get the feeling that this blog is becoming somewhat repetitive.
Day 1 - Angst ridden rant.
Day 7 - I fucking hate clomid. Boo hoo, sob, sob.
CD 15 - Wooo hoo, let the horizontal tango commence.
8 DPO - Are these real symptoms or am I just pimping?
15 DPO - Oh fuck it I don't care anymore. But I might just do a sneaky test....BFN...fuck.
Day 1 - Angst ridden rant.

I kept the angst ridden rant short and sweet this month. To be honest, I wasn't really expecting to be pregnant. We were a wee bit hit and missing with our timings, mainly due to me being unusually busy at work and running around like a blue arsed fly entertaining my work guest. And let's face it, if the previous month's military campaign that is the SMEP plan didn't work, then this was hardly going to. So no major shock when I woke up early on Thursday morning and blearily went in search of painkillers. This does mean that with my birthday in less than three weeks, there will be no chance for a BFP before my 40th, which sucks.

I mentioned that we had a visit to the fertility clinic the week before last. The fertility clinic we are with have the objective of taking the more "natural" approach. So that excludes IUI or IVF. They do however prescribe clomid, pregnyl and all manner of fertility drugs, which in my book stretches the bounds of "natural" ferility treatment somewhat. Their ethos is very much a Catholic one. The manual we were given at our first appointment was full of quotes from scripture, papal encyclicals, and much denouncing the evil on society that is artificial contraception. Heavy stuff. But if it gets us a baby at the end of all this, then I'm prepared to suck it up (although that's probably on their list of banned acts, fnarrr fnarrr).

Anyway, this visit our good doctor suggested that we get John's side of it checked out, as in an SA. I was always wondering how they did this, since, shall we say manual handling of one's own wedding tackle is after all a mortal sin. It turns out they have a way around this. John was given on our way out of the clinic, a perforated condom and a collecting jar. The rationale she gave us for this was that pre-ejaculatory fluid contains mucho sperm, and this isn't collected properly when one bashes the bishop, so to speak (I'm so looking forward to reviewing my google analytics account after this post). So in keeping with the "Every sperm is sacred" ethos, we have to have sex using a perforated condom, then John has to quickly decant the resulting product into a jar, hose down his undercarriage, get his clothes on, and drive to the nearest lab which is approximately 40 minutes drive away in light traffic, and deposit the sample within one hour of production. Why do I suddenly have the theme to "Mission impossible" going around my brain? The doctor suggested that maybe we have a romantic night somewhere nearer the hospital. This is all well and good but the hospital is in Limerick, a city more famous for drive by shootings and stabbings than romantic getaways. It's just such never ending fun isn't it?

Other than that, the doctor decided to try me on a couple more supplements, since I'm clearly not shoving enough capsules, tablets and horse pills down my neck every day. So here's a run down on my chemical consumption for an average month:

Every day of cycle:
2 x fertility plus for women (seriously evil smelling and tasting capsules, shudder)
2 x pyrodoxine (Vit B6)
1 x probiotic capsule
1 x omega something fish oil
2 x glutamine (for better cervical mucous production)
1 x Vitamin D
1 x Calcium supplement
3 x Fertile CM supplement (same purpose as glutamine)
1 x Low dose Naltrexone

Days 3-7:
3 x 50 mg clomid

Day 12-19:
3 x mucodyne capsules

3, 5, 7 & 9 DPO:
1 x pregnyl injection

Natural fertility treatment indeed.

Here we go again.

2009-05-07T06:13:00.000-07:00

I was awoken this morning around 5.45 with period pains. Ding ding, clomid round ten begins.

This day four years ago...

2009-04-30T02:58:00.000-07:00

I walked up the aisle on my Daddy's arm in Holycross Abbey, Co Tipperary, and married my lovely husband John.

I remember waking up at seven in the morning to the sound of rain beating off my bedroom window. So the Child of Prague statue, placed under a bush the night before to bring us good weather, had not come up with the goods. Ah well, you take your chances with the weather if you decide to marry in Ireland, no matter what time of the year it is. By the time we set off for the church, which was an hour away from the house we were living in at the time, it had brightened up a little bit.

I was determined to be as near to on time as possible, to the extent that everyone was still hanging around outside the church when the wedding car carrying my parents and me came rolling down the road. My bridesmaid had to hunt John into the church so that he wouldn't get a glimpse of me before the ceremony.

The walk up the aisle was one of the loveliest experiences of my life so far. Seeing all your family and friends in the one place wishing you well is very special. I was nodding and grinning like a halfwit at everyone. John's jaw dropped when he saw me, which was pretty much the reaction I was going for. The ceremony itself was really lovely, and in no time at all we were walking back down the aisle as Mr & Mrs. As you can see from the photo, John looked very chuffed with himself!

The rest of the day went by in a blur. There just didn't seem to be enough time to get around to talking to everyone, between photos, dancing, eating and drinking. I didn't really relax until the band finished playing, the older generation of non drinkers went home, and then those who were left went downstairs to the residents bar, where the after hours party began in earnest.

At this stage the guitars came out, I had a large glass of white wine parked in front of me, and I finally got to enjoy my favourite part of the reception - the sing song in the ressies bar! One of my party pieces is a reggae version of an old traditional Irish song called Spancil Hill. True to form after a few vinos I stood up and started belting it out. By now my demure Audrey Hepburn look was well and truly blown out of the water! We ended up the last people standing, along with one of my brothers and two friends, at 5.30am. Needless to say the bridal suite saw little action that night, we had to return on our first anniversary to make up for that one (TMI I know!).

Happy Anniversary honey, may we have many more of them!

8 DPO

2009-04-28T03:07:00.000-07:00

This last week has been extremely busy, so much so that I hardly had time to check in here, let alone post. As I said last week, I had a colleague visiting from the US for a handover. It was quite a full on week between training her and entertaining her. She had never been outside America before, let alone been to Ireland, so I kind of felt I should look after her. So I gave her lifts from her hotel to the office and back every day, and I invited her over to our house for a traditional Irish meal of enchiladas one night. I also brought her out to dinner the following night to Killaloe, a lovely scenic village on the Shannon. So at least she got to see more of Ireland than a hotel room and a factory. But man, I was exhausted from all the running around by Friday.

No rest for the wicked though, or should I say the righteous, as I had to jump in the car on Friday night and drive the two and a half hour drive to Mayo for my godchild's confirmation on Saturday morning. I don't know how I managed the drive. I think it was a combination of Lucozade Sport, many sticks of chewing gum and the eighties show on Today FM, which I sang along to at the top of my voice for the entire journey.

I had gotten a really talented artist I know to paint a picture of my niece as a gift for her. I emailed her a photo last month of Lisa, also one of her dog, and gave her an idea of what her interests are - piano playing, Arsenal FC and Mayo gaelic football team. Lisa is also a cracking little footballer herself, and I fully expect to see her togging out for the Mayo ladies team in the next ten years. Anyway Susan came back to me with a fantastic piece of work. It featured Lisa playing the piano, with an Arsenal scarf hanging down from the piano stool. Under the piano stool was a football, and in the foreground was her doggie sitting on a Mayo jersey. She also added her name and "Confirmation Day 25th April 2009" on the bottom. Lisa was absolutely gobsmacked when she unwrapped it and realised that this was a specially commissioned painting of her. She hung it on the kitchen wall in her house and showed it to everyone who called in that day. I was so chuffed that she liked it so much.

Lisa also gave me another reason to be chuffed and very proud when she told me she was taking Jane as her confirmation name. It's a family name with a tradition that goes back three generations before her, so as well as it being her Auntie/ Godmother's name, it has a significant history in the family too. She looked absolutely gorgeous on the day, with her hair in long curls. I like to think of her as my Mini Me, but I don't know if I was ever as pretty as she is now. I wish I could post a photo on here, but I don't feel at liberty to post photos of other people's kids, so I can't do it. But suffice to say I was a very proud Godmother on the day.

So I am 8 dpo today. Yesterday I noticed a dip in my BBT. I forgot to take it this morning, so who knows? We are off to the fertility clinic in Galway today. I don't know that there is a whole lot new they can do for us at the moment. I'd imagine she will say to keep on the meds I am on, since the bloods have been consistantly good for five months now. We'll still have to hand over €200 though.

A quick update from the bunker

2009-04-20T08:44:00.001-07:00

No sooner had my auditors left me last week, than I had to prepare for the visit and training sessions of my replacement from the USA. So I'm grabbing a quick minute to catch up in between. Easter was lovely. I brought John to a beautiful country house in County Waterford for the night before his birthday. I had arranged to have a bottle of bubbly waiting in the room when we arrived, so we enjoyed a few drinkies before we sat down to a fabulous dinner. Breakfast next morning included stewed rhubarb with strawberries.....nom nom nom.... I went there on a recommendation of my brother and his wife, both keen foodies, and we will definitely be going back there. Just gorgeous, from the room to the food, to the friendly welcome. Fab.

The following day we journeyed farther south to Dunmore East where John's brother and his wife had hired a holiday home for the Easter holidays. It was a bit of a Walton's Mountain type gathering. John's parents, two brothers, their wives and between them four children. But it was nice to spend time with the clan.

In the past few months John has had his Bob the Builder hat on a lot of the time, building an extension on to the back of our house, onto the kitchen. It's a sunroom, roughly 12ft x 13ft, which is the same floor area as the kitchen. Nowadays it is really coming into its own, as our back garden faces south. So now every day there is any bit of sunshine the temperature in there is in the mid twenties or higher. There still is quite a bit of work needed to complete it, the ceiling has to be insulated and plastered, but we have got to the stage where it's habitable. A couple of weeks ago we dragged the sofas out there from the living room, and set up the computer so that we can watch movies in the evenings. But I love just coming home from work, sitting down with a book in the sunshine and just chilling. Absolute heaven. I just hope that we will get a good summer this year and that I will have a life of leisure in the sunshine for a couple of months.

Today is cd19, and I only got a smiley face this morning, which is rather later than usual. I was beginning to think that this was going to be an anovulatory cycles, but my ovaries have finally gotten off their sun loungers and kicked into action. I'm going through alternating cycles of "Right, this is going to be the month" and "Jeez I am pissed off with all this, I really can't be arsed". We are due back to the fertility clinic on Tuesday week, so we will see where we go from here.

So another two week wait begins. My expectations are lacking as ever.

Happy Ostara

2009-04-10T05:53:00.000-07:00

I've just been doing a quick search on the net about the Pagan Roots of Easter and fertility symbolism associated with same. Fascinating stuff. So according to our pagan ancestors, 'tis the season to be gettin jiggy with it if we are in the market for making babies.

I've been in the depths of fatigue and angst for the past week or so (you'd never guess it from my last two posts at all, would you?) due to the untimely arrival of the dreaded red house painters, and the ensuing five day 150mg per day dose of clomid. On Tuesday I went for accupuncture and was barely about to keep my eyes open for the evening afterwards. I was still absolutely shattered with exhaustion the following day, when our auditors arrived to start my interim financial audit. Lovely. I hate audits at the best of times, but audits when one is on mood altering fertility drugs really aren't advisable. But I couldn't really tell them that when they emailed me to say they would be out with me this week. Hey ho.

Yesterday I was somewhat better on the energy level front, possibly due to some little chinese herbal pill things the accupuncturist suggested I try. But I hit the teary gibbering wreck stage of the clomid cycle.

BoohooeveryoneispregnantbutmeandImnearlyfortyanditsnevergoingtohappenforuswahwahwah.

You get the picture. Today I'm feeling a lot brighter. In part due to the chemicals wearing off, in part due to the auditors not working on Good Friday, and part due to the fact it is Friday, and even though I had to work today, I still have a bank holiday weekend to look forward to. It's John's birthday on Sunday, so I'm kidnapping him and bringing him to a secret location tomorrow for the night. I can't give any more information than that in case he reads this before we set off. Suffice to say it will involve wining and dining and marital relations (I hope! Hell, I'm spending money on him, he'd better put out.)

Anyway, keeping with the happier theme, we're thinking about our summer holidays this year. We've decided on Italy, most likely Lake Garda, the last two weeks of June. I want a nice holiday since it's my fortieth, maybe a night or two in Milan or Venice and then onto the lake for a week or so. We don't want the budget to run into big bucks though, since I will no longer be in gainful employment come June. I'm just wondering if any of you internets have been there, and if so, do you have any particular recommendations as regards towns and hotels to stay in? Somebody mentioned Riva to me, and someone else Pesceria (sp?). All advice gratefully appreciated.

Clomid - Take 9

2009-04-06T08:22:00.000-07:00

Yes that right folks, I started my ninth round of clomid on Saturday night. I don't even know how long you are supposed be prescribed it for, i.e. how many cycles are deemed too many? When we went to see our fertility specialist last November/December, she told us that it could take up to a year for us to conceive again and we would just have to be patient. My patience is already wearing thin.

The really head meltingly frustrating thing about where we are right now is that before I ever went near clomid, hcg shots, naltrexone, mucodyne, pyrodoxine, fertility plus or any of the other plethera of supplements I am taking daily, I got pregnant relatively easily.

We started ttc in April 06, started using OPKs in Sept '06, started charting BBT in Oct '06 and bingo! We hit target that month. So first our attempt took us six months.

I miscarried at the end of November, we were advised to let one cycle go by before trying again, so we started again in January '07. This time it took two months. We definately had the knack at this stage.

Unfortunately, I didn't have the knacked of holding onto these little guys, and that pregnancy turned out to be a chemical one, or a very early miscarraige, whichever you want to label it. We decided not to waste any more time and went for it again the following month. Got pregnant on the first try. We lost this little bean at nine and a half weeks.

The next time we tried was October '07, and again we acheived our mission on the first attempt. This makes us sound like disgustingly fertile people, but my definition of fertility is one that includes a viable pregnancy and live birth. So when we lost this pregnancy at five and a half weeks, we knew that it was time to seek the help of a fertility specialist.

I do think when we first visited the clinic she did talk up our chances of success. She told us that they have an 80% success rate with recurrent miscarriage patients. She explained the process, finding the problem, treating the problem and counting effective cycles, and the anticipated timelines of each phase. She said since we didn't have an issue getting pregnant in the past, that we probably wouldn't have much of a problem in that department in the future. We just had to get the treatment right. We anticipated that this wouldn't take that many months to sort out. It ended up taking a year. A very long agonising year. A year in which our friends and family moved on with their lives. John's youngest brother and his wife had their first baby in that time. A couple who hadn't gotten together when we started ttc had their first baby and conceived their second. We were still stuck in reverse when everyone else was cruising along in top gear.

And here we still are. Stuck in the slow lane, plodding along. The next step might be to get John's side of things checked out. We are due back to the clinic on April 28th so we will see how we go from there. Last August I said I would give this another year and a half, then it's time to move on.

Pass me the crazy pills and hide the kitchen knives. Honey, I'm home!

Hello 2010

2009-04-02T08:30:00.000-07:00

It's official, our last chance for a 2009 baby has left the building, as the painters entered it this afternoon. This coming month also marks the start of our fourth year of trying to conceive (including the medically enforced year off to get my hormones up to scratch).

I can't believe it's three years since we started all this. It was April 2006, we had just moved into our new house, John turned 40 and was made permanent in his job, and we knew it was now or never time. Little did we think that we would still have an empty house three years on.

I really had a good feeling about this month. We gave it our all. Took a weeks holidays to relax and dedicate ourselves to the cause. To put it bluntly, we went at it like rabbits. I had all the symptoms. I was so sure. As soon as I saw the temp drop yesterday morning I knew. I tested anyway last night, just in case, since I wasn't feeling at all crampy and my boobs were killing me. BFN. Temperature was down again this morning. Cramps started around 11am.

So we're looking at 2010 at the earliest, if we are lucky. I think the worst thing about this right now is not knowing when it's going to end. I just want a normal life where I am not stuffing my gob with supplements and vitamins and fertility drugs all the time. Where we don't have to figure out how to pack and transport my hcg shots, which have to be kept refrigerated, every time we want to go on a weekend away or a holiday. Where I'm not constantly knicker watching and counting cycle days. Where we are normal people with a normal family life and not the childless freaks whom everyone feels sorry for.

CD 32, 16 DPO

2009-04-01T04:53:00.000-07:00

Temp down to 36.55 this morning, indicating that this cycle is coming to an end. Feck it anyway. I was really hoping this month.

CD 30, 14 DPO

2009-03-30T07:15:00.000-07:00

Another three days to go on the 17 day wait.

Symptoms: Frequent bathroom visits, achey boobs, strong sense of smell, tiredness.

Trying not to read too much into this, but hard to ignore it all the same. I'll probably be able to do a sneaky test on Wednesday. In the meantime I will keep taking my BBT every morning. That's usually a good indicator.

Puts it all in perspective

2009-03-27T01:49:00.000-07:00

I'm travelling up to my homeplace in Mayo today to attend the funeral of my brother's brother in law. He died on Wednesday night, aged 48, leaving behind a widow of my age and an eighteen month old daughter. He was diagnosed with cancer only six months ago. Just makes you realise how fragile life is.

RIP Seamus.

Assvice

2009-03-25T07:48:00.000-07:00

A poem I found on the internet recently:

Useful Advice

You're 37? Don't you think that maybe
It's time you settled down and had a baby?
No wine? Does this mean happy news? I knew it!
Hey, are you sure you two know how to do it?
All Dennis has to do is look at me
And I'm knocked up. Some things aren't meant to be.
It's sad, but try to see this as God's will.
I've heard that sometimes when you take the Pill—
A friend of mine got pregnant when she stopped
Working so hard. Why don't you two adopt?
You'll have one of your own then, like my niece.
At work I heard about this herb from Greece—
My sister swears by dong quai. Want to try it?
Forget the high-tech stuff. Just change your diet.
It’s true! Too much caffeine can make you sterile.
Yoga is good for that. My cousin Carol—
They have these ceremonies in Peru—
You mind my asking, is it him or you?
Have you tried acupuncture? Meditation?
It’s in your head. Relax! Take a vacation
And have some fun. You think too much. Stop trying.
Did I say something wrong? Why are you crying?

Catherine Tufariello

Back to the grind

2009-03-23T09:07:00.000-07:00

We had a lovely break in Merry Englande last week. Flew out on Monday and came back on Saturday. The weather was just fantastic for March. We even managed to barbeque on St Patrick's Day! Much relaxing, eating, drinking nice wine and baby making.

The day we arrived, my sister in law had a journalist and photographer around from House Beautiful doing a photo shoot in her gaff. She and her husband bought a (I think) two hundred year old stone cottage in the Cotswolds last year. When they bought it, it was very dark with lots of little adjoining rooms. They got an architect and builders in, completely gutted the place and modernised it inside. The result is nothing short of stunning. It's the kind of house I would dream about buying if I ever won the lotto. So it's great to have use of it as a base whenever the mood takes our fancy. This was the second trip we have taken over there in six months. It's just as beautiful there in Spring as it is in Autumn. We took a trip up to Hampton Court Palace while we were there. I have always had a fascination with Henry VIII and his wives, so it's somewhere I had wanted to visit for a long time. It was well worth the four hour round trip, particularly when the weather was so good.

Anyway I ovulated on the Monday, day one of our holiday. We had roughly been following the SMEP since I think day ten. We missed out on day 12, went for it on day 14, got a smiley face on day 15, so went for it again. The smiley face was still there on Monday morning, day 16, before we flew out. We hadn't time to do the necessary as our flight was quiet early in the morning, but managed a quicky that evening. So quick that if we conceived that day it'll be called Speedy Gonzalez. Or Sauvignon Blanc, as I was quite inebriated at the time. As I said before I don't usually go in for drunken shagging, but needs must and all that. (Apologies to my brother if he's reading this, for way TMI). We went for a bonus round on day 17, and after that we were officially all shagged out. Mind you Ireland's historic rugby victory on Saturday did prompt us to run upstairs and celebrate in a patriotic manner (i.e. a manner which might result in producing a future Irish tax payer). So we are both walking like John Wayne at this stage.

It's now day 23 and I'm going for my blood test this evening. Last month's results were still excellent, so I hope all the boozing of last week hasn't knocked me out of kilter hormone wise. As for 2ww symptoms, my boobs do feel a little bit sore today. But I'm paying it no attention, those fake symptoms I get from the HCG injections have fooled me too many times before. The crimson tide is due on April 2nd, which is ten days away. Any ideas for distractions for the next ten days?

Back to the task in hand...

2009-03-11T07:51:00.000-07:00

Since I got the news of redundancy last Friday, my blogging mojo has been flagging somewhat. I'm trying to keep as positive as I can about my situation, but something tells me I might be starting an enforced career break in June. Hopefully it won't last all that long.

Anyway, on a more positive note, my good buddy Xbox has a beautifully written article in today's Irish Times. Well done X, for flying the flag for us infertiles. I have posted a link on a ttc board I frequent and the praise was very high indeed.

As for us, I have decided that we are going to try the Sperm meets Egg plan this month. That means starting action on CD8 (or later depending on when you ovulate), doing the deed every second day until you get a positive on an OPK, and then going at it three days in a row, break for one night and then one last go for the road. So the spare bed in my sister in law's house is going to see some action next week. I think we will be in need of a holiday after our holiday.

The axe has fallen

2009-03-06T08:15:00.000-08:00

I am to be made redundant on the 29th May, two days before I turn 40. I was expecting this news for a while, and if anything it's good to know one way or the other what the situation is. I have been in my job 5 years so I will leave with quite a nice lump sum, which will cushion the blow somewhat. I will also be able to sign on for unemployment benefit which is EUR 200 per week, and we had the foresight to take out mortgage protection insurance when we bought our house. Also, if I don't find another job straight away, John will be able to claim some of my tax credits, if we tell the tax office that we want to be taxed as a married couple. This would be worth EUR 152 per month, not a lot, but every penny counts towards paying the bills.

For the past few weeks I have been trying to convince myself that unemployment won't be as bad for me as it was in the early 90's. I went through a stint of long term unemployment after graduating from Uni which was nothing short of soul destroying. I left college without a penny to my name, and moved to England to be with my boyfriend of the time. We lived in a crappy damp house with no central heating. The only TV we had was a black and white portable. We was poor, we was. We were also living in a town where I knew nobody, which was a very isolating experience. Living hand to mouth meant I had no money for clothes, which made the job hunting experience even more difficult, as I wasn't equipped with an appropriate work wardrobe, let alone a credible CV.

Whereas now I am a homeowner, and we have a very comfortable warm 4 bed house with a large back garden (well large by the standards of modern estates in Ireland!). I can drive and have my own car, which gives me a huge degree of independence. I have a few very good friends in the area or within driving distance who I can call into. I have a gym membership which I am definitely going to keep, job or no job, because that will be my reason for getting out of bed in the morning and will get the happy hormones going. I'm also going to use the opportunity to get my accountancy text books down out of the attic, and brush up on all I learned when I was studying for my CIMA membership. As for my CV, I have ten years experience with two large very well known organisations, which makes for a very strong work record, as well as a membership of an accountancy body. And above all, I have a supportive husband who will help me get through this bump on the road, and that is the most important thing of all.

If it ain't one thing

2009-03-05T08:13:00.000-08:00

it's another. I am going to be told tomorrow whether or not I am to be made redundant. Strongly suspect that I am. I'm crapping myself. If you are so inclined, say a prayer that I will get to keep my job. Positive vibes also appreciated.

A change is as good as a rest

2009-03-03T04:11:00.000-08:00

Or so they say. On that basis we decided at the weekend that we would take the week of St Patrick's Day off and take ourselves off to sis in law's place in the Cotswolds for a few days. As my cycle started on March 1st this month, and I normally ovulate sometime around cd16-cd18, it's highly likely that St Patrick's Day (March 17th) will be more to do with lovin' than drinking this year. John and I are very compatible in many ways, but one of them is that neither of us are very good at drunken sex. We've attempted it a couple of times, but invariably neither of us are up to it (if you'll pardon the pun!) and we end up snoring.

So we'll put this "just relax" malarkey to the test this month and see what happens. We fly out on Monday 16th, with no other plan than to lounge around a very nice cottage in the country, have lots of lie-ins, possibly a few country walks and maybe a bit of shopping and wining and dining.

If we hit target this month I would be 12 weeks gone on my 40th birthday. I'm already dreaming about how I could announce it at my birthday party. Somebody shoot me now.

Ouch

2009-02-28T09:19:00.000-08:00

Hangovers and period pain do not make for a good mix.

Same shit, different month

2009-02-27T03:12:00.000-08:00

15 DPO today. I have been checking my temps every morning for the past week or so. It was constant at 36.8+, it dropped to 36.58 this morning, signalling that the end is nigh for this cycle. Even though I held out little hope after ovulation that this would be our month, due to my knackered back and John's cold putting a bit of a brake on the baby making, there was still this "hmmmmm...maybe" glimmer at the back of my mind.

I blame the hcg injections myself. They are the instigators of fake symptoms which trick me every time. Two injections into the cycle and I am piddling like a puppy (well not all over the kitchen floor, but the same regularity), feeling a bit on the tired side, with mildly aching boobs. I try and ignore it all for the first week of the two week wait. Then on the second week, the "maybe" thoughts start creeping in. It only took us one go in the past..... But then by the end of the second week (around about now) the hcg has worked it's way out of my system, and the symptoms have disappeared, along with my optimism.

Sometimes I wonder are we mad to keep going at our age. I will be 40 at the end of May and John is three years older than me. In saying that, I think we are quite young in our appearance and in our ways for a couple our age. But my eggs don't know that I have young looking skin and that I like to shop in Oasis, they're still 40 year old eggs. And by the time our kids would be in their teens, we would be in our mid 50's. That's provided it happens for us soon.

The other thing that saddens me is that this has taken over three out of the first four years of our married life together. Early married life should be more fun than this. It shouldn't be about fertility drugs, mood swings, injections, timetable sex, disappointment, worry and anxiety. It just feels like we are on this non stop treadmill and we daren't press the stop button. It feels more and more difficult to keep going, but the consequences of stopping are just too hard to contemplate.

WTF?

2009-02-26T04:33:00.001-08:00

A friend of mine has a fourteen month old baby. She is pregnant again, four months gone. She also is a smoker. She smoked all the way through her first pregnancy, but once the baby was born, she did not and does not smoke around her. Now that she's pregnant again, she has no intentions of giving up smoking. But she won't smoke around the baby once it's born, because that would be bad for him or her.

Is there some logic there that I am missing?

39 going on ninety

2009-02-25T04:36:00.000-08:00

So this is what I get for getting enthusiastic about my gardening activities. As I said a couple of posts ago, I suffer with lower back pain every now and again. It started when I was a teenager, just before I left school, probably due to carrying an overloaded schoolbag on one shoulder.

Over the years it has come back to haunt me. I've seen all manner of doctor/quacks/ alternative medicine practitioners about it. GPs, an orthopedic consultant, a physiotherapist, some dodgy dude who called himself a "spinologist" (in my defence I was a crippled 19 year old at the time, and if Jack the Ripper had suggested chopping my head off at that point I'd probably have agreed to it if it took the pain away), a chiropractor who I think may have done me more harm than good, and told me that one of my legs was longer than the other; and several different osteopaths, one of whom told me that the one leg longer than the other theory was bullshit, and that my joints were out of alignment. One loud click later and hey presto, my legs were the same length again. I've also tried accupuncture for it, which seemed to give temporary relief.

Last year I had an MRI scan taken, and the results showed that I have wear and tear on one of my discs, on the lumbar sacchral joint. That means sweet FA to me, but all I know is that every now and then it flares up, and when it does I end up with excrutiating pain from my lower back down to my left foot. Anyway, a few week back, I went to lift a rather large planter pot in the garden, not realising that it was water logged. Straight away I could feel it. Ouch!!! It has got gradually worse over the weeks, to the point that operation Hump n' Hope was almost cancelled this month.

Anyway, to cut a long story short, last Monday morning, I woke up in agony. It was like all the muscles in my lower back had gone into spasm, and I could only walk, or should I say waddle, like a duck. I went into work for the morning, but left before lunchtime. I rang the osteopath and got a cancellation for 5pm that evening. I went to bed, fell asleep and woke up at 4.25pm. Yikes! Got up, dressed, made myself a sandwich since I had not eaten anything that day. Hobbled to the car, realised I was almost out of petrol. Went to the petrol station at the top of our road, petrol pumps out of order. Muttered expletives under my breadth whilst zooming out to the Limerick road, in as much as you can zoom in a 13 year old 1.1L Peugot 106 (our other car is a big shiney Audi, honest!). Then I met roadworks, complete with traffic lights which change every five minutes. The petrol light was flashing furiously at this stage. I prayed that I wouldn't run out of petrol in the middle of 60mph traffic on the N7. Made it to the petrol station (phew!), stuck €20 worth of fuel in the Puggernaut, and headed off in the direction of Killaloe.

About half a mile up the road after taking the turn off for Killaloe, I met a tractor. Lovely. Farmer Ryan dutifully pulled into his yard and got the fuck out of my way, leaving me stuck in the middle of about twenty cows blocking a seriously narrow road. At this stage my inner farmer's daughter came out. I blasted them out of it with the car horn, shouting "move you stupid fucking animals", whilst they happily grazed at the hedgerows and sprayed the bonnet of my car with cow shit. Oh the joys of rural living. No wonder I left city life behind me. I pushed my way through, to find a Killaloe Yummy Mummy the other side of the traffic sitting there gingerly in her 4x4, looking terrified to move. Obviously not the product of an agricultural upbringing like yours truly. For the love of God woman, you have bull bars, use the fucking things!

I made it to the osteopath 10 minutes late. It was a new osteopath, so he wasn't familiar with my history, and couldn't find any record of me on his database. So after I gave him the same run down as I gave the GPs, orthopedic consultant, spinologist, chiropractor, three previous osteopaths and my accupunturist, I realised that he was probably looking under the wrong name. I have an unusual surname beginning with a G, which sounds very like a far more common surname, which begins with a D. Sure enough he was looking under Jane D******* and not Jane G*******. Anyway, up on the examination bed/table I crawled and the torture began. Does this hurt? FUCK!!!!! (You can take that as a yes by the way). This went on for almost an hour, but by the end of it he had worked a good bit of the muscle spasm out. I was told to go home and put ice on it to bring down the inflamation. A packet of frozen peas would do the job nicely. So I parted with €65 and went on my merry way to my local purveyor of frozen legumes.

I spent most of the day in bed yesterday bored out of my head playing Sudoku on my DS Lite, trying to work myself up to the frozen pea treatment. So I'm back at my desk today, feeling a lot better and walking much more like a 39 year old than a ninety year old woman, or a duck. I'll just have to cancel that bungy jump I had planned for the weekend. Damn! Anyone for dominoes?

Signs of life

2009-02-20T03:34:00.001-08:00

Some pics I took in our garden yesterday.....

Snow drop

First daffs of the year

A very early tulip

There's something really lovely about seeing the first signs of life in the garden after a long dreary winter. It gives me hope for the new year.

Am I turning into a middle aged old fart when I'm getting excited about my garden?

2ww - take 3

2009-02-16T07:33:00.000-08:00

Well it was a case of effort in the face of adversity this month. John got struck down by a dose of the man flu, and my lower back pain flared up again for the first time in a while. I've suffered with back pain on and off since I was eighteen years old, so twenty one years. When it strikes it is nothing short of debilitating. So I don't know how we managed it, but we did make a couple of attempts at project Hump and Hope (copyright Xbox). If we're successful this month it will be as Miranda said of the conception of her son on Sex and the City, "the special Olympics of conception".

I found out the other day that my next door neighbours had recently become proud parents of a beautiful baby girl. So I did the neighbourly thing and popped in with a gift for the little one and a quick chat. As my neighbour said, they have seen a lot of life changes in the past year. They got married last Spring, and now they are parents. My untold story felt like the elephant in the room. We have lived next door to each other for three years now, we were already married when we moved in, so where are the babies? I don't know them well enough to tell them about our "journey" and they thankfully have the tact not to ask, but I left the house feeling they must be wondering what's the story on our side of the fence.

So I'm once more onto the pregnyl injection week of my cycle. We've been doing these injections four times a month now since last March, so we've nearly completed a year of them. At the start it was very daunting fiddling around with needles and syringes in our own house, but luckily one of my best friends is a nurse so she helped us out for the first two times. Now it seems easy, if a little bit tiresome that I'm still injecting myself with hcg hormones derived from the urine of pregnant women. Nice thought, huh?

So another two week wait begins, due to end on March 1st. Watch this space.

The perfect valentine card

2009-02-11T04:49:00.000-08:00

For a long term clomid user to give to her other half. I found this card in my local bookshop last night.

On the outside, a picture of a cartoon crab, with the word "Valentine", on the inside the message "Thank you for loving me even when I'm crabby".

Love it!

Conversations with the clueless

2009-02-09T03:17:00.000-08:00

Some conversations I have been party to in the past year or more.

Over lunch, talking amoung a group of people who don't know anything about my situation. Conversation got around to a couple, who after many years of marriage, had two children in close succession. One woman, who has a young family herself, pipes up "Yes, it's funny that, some people wait years and years to have kids and then they have one after the other!". Yes, it's a funny one alright, not so funny for the couple who are more than like not waiting by choice, but who are trying and trying for years in vain, before finally having their family by the assisted conception route. Not that I threw in this tuppence worth into the conversation.

Talking to a colleague, who I would consider a close enough friend. She knows about all my losses. I was taking the following day off for my first appointment with the fertility clinic we are attending. Told her this. She looks at me like I am a moron, and says very slowly "you do know fertility treatment is for people who can't conceive in the first place, don't you?". Oh shit, I never thought of that, I did no research whatsoever and just picked a random name out of the phone book. Better get on to them and cancel the appointment, because my friend, who has never tried to conceive, never mind had any children, but thinks she knows everything there is to know about fertility, pregnancy and childbirth because her sisters have kids, told me to. Thanks for putting me right on that one.

Same friend, in the later side of her mid thirties, always saying she would love to have children, but in absolutely no hurry to have them all the same. Again may I reiterate that she knows that at this stage we had been trying approx two and a half years, had suffered 4 pregnancy losses and that I was dosing myself to the gills with fertility drugs which were giving me severe depression and mood swings. Says to me one day "If I ever have kids, I hope I'll be able to pop them out like my sister. She's really lucky, not a bit of morning sickness. Flew through all her pregnancies. I hope I'll be like her. It must be horrible to cope with morning sickness". Well love, if you're thinking of starting trying to conceive in your late 30's, morning sickness most likely will be the least of your worries.

Head, meet wall.

All aboard the lurve train...

2009-02-06T08:13:00.000-08:00

So it's CD11, and we're gearing up for this month's burst of timetable lurvin', aka the week we have to ride. Oh to be 25 and energetic again. Last month we laid back and thought of Ireland on cd 16, 18, 19 and 20. CD20 was one of those "will we go again?" "all right then, might as well" ones. Offer it up for the Holy Souls. Where is the passion? Where is the romance?

Last month I ovulated on CD18. On CD18 this month, we are planning on going here for a rosamantic dinner, one of my favourite restaurants. All very conducive to seduction, one would think? Slight fly in the ointment though. As it's many miles away from our house and a ten minute drive from John's parents, we've arranged to stay with the in-laws that night, so that we'll be taxi distance from our bed and can enjoy a few glasses (ok, bottles) of wine. But how does one avoid the uber chatty mother in law who wants to engage in conversation until all hours when we get home? Sorry Missus, we've got to go and make a grandchild for you?

This reminds me of a baby making attempt last summer, when we were visiting my parents for the weekend. My uncle was also staying, as he was recouperating from an illness at the time and he was sleeping in the main guest room with the double bed. So we were sleeping in the upstairs twin bedroom, my teenage bedroom, directly over the living room. I had to drop elephant sized hints to John that it was bedtime, while he and my Dad were thoroughly absorbed in some kind of home computer conundrum that John always fixes every time we visit my parents. So off we toddled to bed, trying to do the deed in a very very single bed, which was very mobile and noisey, directly over my parents' living room. Cringe! As it happened, our attempts were in vain. It would have made for a good story to mortify any resulting offspring with in years to come.

So this time next week it will be out with the peesticks, preseed, mucodyne and sexy undies and away with the comfy pyjamas, woolly bedsocks and hotwater bottle. Here we go again...

Cottage Cheese anyone?

2009-02-03T04:40:00.000-08:00

Did I mention in my last couple of posts that John and I were put on extremely strong antibiotics for three weeks? The idea was just in case I might have some kind of low grade bacterial infection of the endometrium. So we had to take two weeks of flagyl and three weeks of klacid, to run concurrently. The flagyl was particularly nasty. We both noticed that if you didn't eat before taking it, you end of with a dose of the shakes. I also had an extremely nasty bitter taste in my mouth, pretty much all the time. So I was really glad when I had taken my last flagyl dose last Friday morning.

However, worse was yet to come. By Sunday morning I noticed evidence of a nasty yeast infection in my undies (aka thrush, hence the photo, gettit?). YUCK!! So now as well as swallowing the following every day - two klacid, two pyrodoxene (vit b6), two fertility plus supplements (the smelliest most vile supplements known to womankind), four probiotic tablets, one calcium supplement, one fish oil supplement and one Vit D supplement - I now have the added joy of canesten pessaries and cream.

Can a woman's life get any better?

Auntie Flo is a bitch from hell

2009-01-27T06:27:00.000-08:00

Why do periods have to be so goddam painful? It's enough that they show up when you least want them, taunting you "na-na-nee-na-naaaaaa, you're not pregnant", but they back that up with crippling back pain, belly ache and general all over shitty feeling. I just want to curl up into a corner and cry today.

I know, it's only two months since we got the go ahead to try again, and I shouldn't be expecting it to happen for us straight away, but in April it will be three fucking years since we started trying to conceive. Three years. There's a couple I know expecting their second baby who hadn't even gotten together when we started ttc. And we are still stuck in this shitty never ending rut. And I'm going to be 40 in just over 4 months time. It's not fair. This was supposed to be our happy ending. Why is it so easy for some people and so very hard for others?

That old familiar crampy feeling

2009-01-26T07:06:00.000-08:00

Yuck. The unwanted visitor is on its way, bang on time on 17dpo. I'm nothing if not consistant. We're looking at round eight of clomid. Is it my imagination, or do these pills taste more and more bitter as the months pass?

I think I'm going to have a date with a hot water bottle, a shed load of chocolate and a trashy mag or two tonight.

Insomnia

2009-01-23T04:40:00.000-08:00

I've found myself waking up in the middle of the night and not being able to get back to sleep for ages these past few nights. It might be a side effect of all the meds I am on, or it might be my spud powered hot water bottle (ie John) snoring like a chainsaw beside me. Either way I'm a bit bleary eyed today. I remember lying awake around 2am crafting a really good post in my head. Pity I didn't write it down because I haven't a clue what it was all about.

There was an extremely harrowing abuse case in the Irish courts this week. Be warned, the details of this case are very disturbing. It raises a huge amount of questions as to why the health boards and social services did not intervene at an earlier stage. Why did the authorities in the schools these children attended not raise the alarm? Who exactly are the organisation who funded this woman's legal fees when she got a court injunction against the health board? And above all, how could any parent inflict this level of abuse and neglect on their children, or on any child? It just defies belief.

As the saying goes, you need a license for a dog......

Getting to Croke Park

2009-01-21T06:14:00.000-08:00

The non Irish readers among you will have no idea what the title of this post is. Croke Park is the premier gaelic games stadium in Ireland, where all Ireland finals and semi finals are fought out in Gaelic football and hurling. I'm originally from a predominantly footballing county, even though I now live in a county where hurling is like a religion. By hurling I mean a very fast sport played with a heavy stick and a ball, and nothing that involves projectile vomiting.

Anyway, I digress. My own native county, Mayo, have not won an all Ireland Final since the early 1950's. To put it in perspective, my parents celebrated their 51st wedding anniversary last October, and they weren't even dating when Mayo last brought the Sam Maguire cup home. That's not to say that we haven't got to the final much in recent times. Oh no, we get there every few years. The championship runs over the summer months. With each victory, the excitement builds, the hopes of a county are raised. There are murmers from Belmullet to Kiltimagh that this could be our year, we could pull it off at last. The forwards are strong, we have a striker with a sweet right boot, that sort of thing. Tickets for the final are like gold dust. Half of Mayo converge on Croke Park, many of them (usually like me!) going there ticketless on spec, in the hopes of picking up a terrace ticket before the match. Then our guys meet the opposition, usually from Kerry. And Kerry royally wipe the floor with us. The fans stay to the end but exit the grounds dejected, defeated gutted. Hopes and dreams of victory lie in tatters. My Dad is 77 years old and he has always said that he thinks we will never win an all Ireland in his lifetime. I would love if he were proven wrong.

Our baby making attempts are like the reproductive equivalent of the Mayo football championship campaign. We don't have a huge amount of difficulty getting past the first obstacle, ie getting knocked up. When it happens the excitement is uncontainable. Those two lines carry so many hopes and dreams. Maybe this one is going to be a keeper. This will be our year. Keep thinking positively. But then another voice in my head says "don't get your hopes up, just in case...". So we wait and wait, hearts in our mouths, for that scan date that will tell us if our baby is alive or not. And so far our hopes have been dashed, our dreams left in tatters. But every time we get back past that first hurdle we try and put the past behind us and convince ourselves that it will be different this time.

If we ever do get there, it will be like winning the biggest prize imaginable. I just hope that we do get to see that day, and preferably in our parents' lifetime. Only five more days before we see if we've made it to the reproductive equivalent of Croke Park. Anyone want to open a book on this one?

Good bloods again

2009-01-19T08:19:00.000-08:00

It looks like we have cracked the hormone issue for the third month running, despite me breaking my non dairy diet and gorging myself on chocolate all Christmas.

Progesterone - 129.2 (slightly high, but not bad)
Oestradiol - 693

I'm on CD27, but I can't test for another week. So I'm more than halfway through the 2WW. No major symptoms to report this month. John and I have been put on antibiotics for three weeks by our fertility doctor, just in case I might have a low grade uterine infection. A friend of mine was on them a few years back and told me they can make you quite quesy. I took my first two on Friday night and my second two Saturday morning. I feel really rough after the second dose, and ended up staying in my PJs all day.

So seven days to go. So far January has seemed to have flown. What's the bets this week will feel like an eternity?

The alternative to just relaxing

2009-01-14T03:39:00.000-08:00

The Irish Catholic alternative that is, for the over 70s - religion! Again, why didn't I think of that? Here's a sample of older generations' comments and advice -

"You should get your house blessed. I did that and a year later we had our first child". So if I give in and do this, and we do have a baby, it'll be all down to the ould shake of holy water that Father Pat threw around the gaff, not the year of fertility drugs and the hammer and tongs shagging.

"How about a trip to Lourdes? Lots of women conceive after dunking in the holy water baths there". What? You mean their tubes miraculously unknot or their polycystic ovaries are polycystic no more? The closest I've ever known of a miraculous cure was the one my brothers used to get every Sunday morning in the pub in Knock. Courtesy of St Arthur Guinness.

"I'm praying to Padre Pio/St Joseph/St Anne to get you pregnant". Really, Padre Pio is going to do the job. And I was going to give my husband all the credit. While you're at it throw in a few words to St Jude, he's for hopeless causes, isn't he?

Why is it that some people make me feel like I am just not on good enough terms with the Man Above to warrant a baby? Do they think it's only church goers who earn themselves babies?
What about all the smack heads, murderers and general wrong doers who have kids?

***Pfffzzzzzzztttt*** (Bolt of lightening strikes Jane and she descends straight to hell)

That bloody "R" word

2009-01-13T08:11:00.000-08:00

Lately a few people have started to ask me how our fertility treatment is going. I usually explain to them about the treatment I'm on, and how after a very tough year we have now been given the go ahead to start trying to conceive again.

And guess what pearl of wisdom always comes next? "Well the main thing really is that you need to relax about it all and it will happen". Really? Like, no shit? Gosh I've never heard that before. What original unsolicited advice you offer, you patronising fertile person. Any ideas on relaxations techniques? A bit of ohm chanting before shagging? Meditating under one of those hippy pyramid things? Inscence burning? No ideas? Then fuck off and keep your platitudes to yourself.

And so the madness starts again.

2009-01-11T13:15:00.000-08:00

Got a smiley face on the OPK yesterday morning. So we went for Operation Shag and Awe all weekend, carpet bombing that egg into submission. Day 1 of the 17 day wait. Hey ho. Hopefully it won't be as fraught as last month, when Christmas added an extra dimension of expectation and madness to the proceedings. There are no major events coming up this month, so it should be a bit calmer. I have sworn I won't waste my money pissing about (literally) trying to test early this time.

I decided to come out of the blogging closet, to a limited extent, last weekend. Two of my brothers are bloggers, so last weekend I decided to out myself to one of them and sent him the link to this blog. He was glad that I shared it with him, and I was glad myself that I had done so. So if you're reading, Gerry, hello, hope you're not too grossed out reading about the working of your little sister's reproductive bits and sex life! At least you will be privy to any news we might have before anyone else. Feel free to delurk and leave comments.

I also want to give a shout out to Xbox who emailed me the other day on hearing that John's employers had announced a huge amount of redundancies. Thankfully John's job is safe. We both received a lot of calls and texts from concerned family members and friends, but I especially appreciated the support of a friend we have never even met in real life. X, we are definately meeting for a pint the next time you're back in Ireland. No excuses!

Budget 2008 - Penny pinching at its lowest form

2009-01-08T07:10:00.000-08:00

I've been meaning to write a post about this for the last couple of months, since Budget day. As many of you probably know, there is little or no financial assistance for fertility treatment in Ireland. Some fertility clinics make exceptions for medical card holders, but in order to hold a medical card, you need to be on an extremely low income (see details of income limits here). So basically, if you are infertile couple on a middle income in Ireland, you have to foot the bill if you want fertility treatment. Now there is a scheme which limits the amount of monthly expenditure that a household must pay for prescription drugs, so luckily the meds associated with IVF are covered by this. Also, medical expenses are tax refundable, but this is the crux of this post.

Until last year, tax relief on medical expenses was claimable at the higher tax rate of 41%. This was a financial respite of sorts for those unfortunate couples shovelling out literally thousands of Euro on fertility treatment. The average IVF cycle in Ireland costs €3K-€4k. A lot of money when you consider that five in six couples acheive the same result by simply having sex. However, in the last budget, the rules were changed, so that medical expenses are now claimable at the lower rate of 20%. Most middle income earners are in the higher tax bracket. Also, the threshold for monthly prescription drug refunds has been increased from €80 to €100 per month. So the amount of tax relief claimable for consultants and clinic fees for fertility treatment has effectively been halved. I know there is a recession on, and we all have to tighten our belts, but this has to be bean counting in its meanest form.

Can you wake me up on Feb 1st please?

2009-01-06T06:14:00.000-08:00

God I really hate January. Not that I'm the greatest Christmas enthusiast, but I always feel somewhat deflated when it's all over, and all we're left with is a wilting tree, cold weather and long dark evenings. And sonofabitch, we're having a cold one this year. I'm lucky enough in that I live a ten minute walk from work, or a 2 minute drive if I'm feeling very lazy or it's very cold. Some of my colleagues were telling me that their car thermometres were reading -7C this morning. By 10.30am it was still -2C. That's abnormally cold for Ireland.

It's times like this that I wish I was a hibernating animal, and you could just leave me snoring away until February. If I could wake up 3 months pregnant it would be even better.

That's it, next time I'm coming back as a squirrel. And a male one at that.

Optimism or bust

2009-01-04T13:37:00.000-08:00

X box commented in my last post that my optimistic attitude is a refreshing one. In a way I feel like the biggest fake in the world. Part of me thinks this will be our year. It just has to be. The alternative is just too unbearable to contemplate. I cannot get to pushing 41 and not have had a child. If it hasn't happened by this time next year, I don't think it will ever happen, and that thought just scares the living crap out of me.

Whenever I contemplate what our life will be like if we never have children, I just feel like I have been kicked in the stomach. The feeling of sadness and grief for the children I carried but never got to meet is just overwhelming. The thoughts of always being Auntie Jane and Uncle John but never Mammy and Daddy just break my heart. The idea of us having no family around us in our old age, nobody coming to visit us, no grandchildren to dote on.

I really felt the loss of our babies as profoundly as ever this Christmas, if not moreso than previous years. We are now the only childless couple in both our families. I just feel like a spare wheel at family gatherings when all everyone can talk about is their kids. I really don't want to feel like this for the rest of our lives. I don't want us waking up on Christmas morning without our children. I don't want to paint this smile on my face and just get on with Christmas every year for the rest of our lives. I want a family to celebrate with.

So that's why we can not give up hope. This year has to be our year.

New Year, new hope

2009-01-01T09:58:00.000-08:00

I'm sitting here on my sofa nursing my first hangover of 2009 and trying to touch type on a laptop, which is really frustrating with a crappy little keyboard and a sore head. Last night John and I got all glammed up and went to a black tie party in a pub in Limerick with a few of our friends. We finished partying at around 5am, and once again I am swearing off gin and tonics for at least a month. In fairness, it was the only night out we had all Christmas, so we got all our alcohol units in for the past two weeks in one night.

The night started off all nice and glamorous, as illustrated above. By 3am it had descended into the following:

Classy chick, huh? Photos were cropped to protect the identity of the innocent.

Ever since John and I met, we have always rang in the New Year together, apart from the one year when I was in Australia five years ago. To me New Years is always more significant than Christmas. If you have had a tough year, then it's a time to draw a line in the sand and move on to the clean slate of another year. Last night we said to each other, 2009 will be our year. And what was really lovely was that all our friends said the same thing to us. When we moved here four and a half years ago, we knew none of these people, but they have shown us such incredible friendship and support in the past few years that I really don't know where we would be without them.

Anyway, onwards and upwards. I'm on CD 9 today, and I finished my monthly dose of the crazy pills two days ago. No major psychotic outbursts this month, thank goodness. In around a weeks time we'll be launching our next two week wait. Hopefully we won't have twelve of them this year.

I'm dreaming of a red Christmas

2008-12-24T07:21:00.000-08:00

There's no other way to say it, the red menace is on its way. I'm in bits with period pain, which isn't good on Christmas Eve when I am running around like a blue arsed fly icing Christmas cakes, doing last minute shopping (mainly booze to drown the sorrows), washing floors and making trifle.

To all the lovely bloggy friends I made this year, thank you all for your support in the past few months. Have a very happy Christmas, and may all your wishes come true in the coming year.

I've a bottle of Veuve Cliquot in the fridge with my name on it. Not for any reason of celebration, but just because I can drink on Christmas day. Slainte!

Ahhhh! I'm meltingggg!

2008-12-22T03:43:00.000-08:00

Well my head is anyway. Being a hardened pee stick addict, I decided at the weekend that I couldn't bare the suspense until Wednesday, so I conducted a wee experiment (literally).

Because I have had four hcg injections over the nine days following ovulation, I still have a certain level of synthetic pregnancy hormone in my system, which means that if I take a pregnancy test before 17 dpo, I will get a false positive result. So I figured the only way to test early is to test two days in a row and see if the line is getting weaker or stronger. So I did a test on Saturday and then another on Sunday, and the line was weaker on the Sunday. So far so shit.

It probably wasn't the wisest of days in the week to do this to myself, as we had decided to drive to a large shopping centre outside Dublin on Sunday to do the last of our Christmas shopping. So we parked up and made our way to the shops, passing a line of twenty or so little kids queueing to visit Santa. I remember passing a similar line of kids in the same centre this time last year and hoping that I would at least have a bump on me at this stage if not pushing a buggy. It just served to remind me that we are still stuck in the middle of all this shite, albeit with a small chink of light at the end of the tunnel, in that at least we are allowed to try to conceive again, for the first time in months.

Anyway the shops were absolutely thronged to the point of clausterphobia, and after a couple of hours I began to feel that old familiar crampy feeling in my belly. I found a bench outside the bookshop that John was in and as soon as I sat down I could feel the tears coming. I just felt so angry at myself for getting my hopes up and thinking we just might hit target the first month. For thinking we might have a reason to celebrate this Christmas, instead of the usual put-on-a-smile-and-get-on-with-it Christmases we have endured for the past two years.

I didn't bother testing again this morning, the thought of no line there at all was just too depressing to contemplate. But then as I got dressed I noticed my boobs feeling really sore and swollen, which is usually a pregnancy symptom rather than a PMT symptom for me. I'm still feeling tired too. So which is it? Is the witch on her way or not?

This is all such a head fuck.

Santa Claus is coming to town...

2008-12-19T04:56:00.000-08:00

Just to prove that I am doing more than sitting around obsessing about the 17 day wait, here's a couple of shots of our living room, decorated to a standard that I hope will entice the fat man in the red suit to pay us a visit a day early with a great big present.

The cats as always at Christmas think we are the best humans ever, since we installed a great big fuck off cat toy for them to pull apart and destroy every day. They love punching the baubles until they get them on the ground, then they chase them around the living room. They also prey on my poor little rag doll reindeers, santas and angels. I regularly find them face down on the floor, murder victim style, all that's missing is the chalk mark surround and it would be CSI Tipperary. Then we drop hugely in their opinion in early January, when we take away their gigantic toy. Strange creatures, these humans.

I've gone really festive with the fireplace this year too. There's a whole raft of snow people, santas, reindeers and Santa bears hanging out waiting for a visit from the man himself. I even have a washing line of Santa's laundry, even though judging by the size of his mittens compared to his jackets and trousers, he's disturbingly out of proportion. So far the cats haven't taken a swipe at that, but I wouldn't rule it out yet.

So it's five days to Christmas Eve. I'm still feeling totally and utterly ran-over-by-a-steamroller knackered, even though I was in bed asleep at 10.30pm last night. And either my sense of smell is going into overdrive or some farmer collecting his pension in the post office this morning brought a serious amount of cowshite in with him on his wellies, because the smell nearly knocked me over. I've also had the passing twinge in my bosom region, but not the usual increase in cup size. So who knows. Having said all that, I had all those symptoms in a far more noticable way last time I was pregnant, and it was all over ten days after getting my BFP, so early strong symptoms are no gaurantee of a lasting pregnancy, if there is one there at all to begin with.

Ok *slaps self around the chops in an effort to cop oneself on* stop bloody obsessing Jane!

Ten down, seven to go

2008-12-17T04:07:00.000-08:00

Days that is, on my super extended two week wait. I got this month's blood test results back this morning, and it looks like we've got the formula right at last as results were.....

*** X factoresque drumroll***

Oestradiol 655
Progesterone 125.5

***Jane's ovaries burst into tears in a display of emotion to rival Alexandra***

I'm very happy to report that I am feeling like total shit. I was at my Christmas party at the weekend, had approx 4 drinks, was in bed at 3.30am and I'm still feeling like I need to catch up on my sleep after it, despite being in bed crashed out at 10pm the following night, and falling asleep on the couch at 9pm last night. But then I'm like a cat when it comes to sleep. I'd nearly sleep standing up. But still, I'm feeling knackered....hmmmm.....

In other news, my 14 year old niece is writing to the Pope to nominate me for canonisation, since I booked tickets to the Beyoncé gig for me and her. It happens to fall two days before my 40th birthday, but I'm sure that won't interfere with the party plans. I texted her to tell her, and got back one of those OMG OMG OMG texts in response. Ah bless. I might be pregnant by then, but I'm sure I will still manage to be Bootylicious as always (I certainly have an ample enough booty to shake anyway).

So anyway, I'm totally obsessing about the 2ww here. If anyone has any suggestions for fun ways of passing the time until Christmas Eve without ending up in one of those nice jackets you can hug yourself all day long in, please share.

Pimp mah symptoms

2008-12-12T03:38:00.001-08:00

So I ovulated on Sunday, and despite me being plagued with a dose of man flu, we managed some rather enjoyable baby making attempts. As I said in the comments in my last post, it turns out that the digital opks I picked up in the company shop are actually being given away for free. I have no idea why they are doing this, it's hardly profitable for them to encourage the female half of their workforce to get knocked up, but I'm not complaining. The kits they are giving away cost approximately €40 to buy in the pharmacy, so happy days.

I'm now officially on the two week wait, for the first time in months. The last time I was on the 2ww was last June, and I wasn't particularly hopeful, as I think we got the go ahead to ttc after I had actually ovulated, which wasn't much good. The time before that was October 07, which was our first time to try again after a miscarriage at 9.5 weeks. That was the most freakish two week wait I have ever had. Within 3 days of ovulation (yes 3 DAYS!) I suddenly had melons for boobs (ok, I'll admit I'm not lacking in the chest department as it is), a sense of smell to rival any blood hound, and an overall bleurgh exhausted/flu like feeling. It turned out that I was in fact pregnant, but it was a very short lived one.

A poster on a ttc board I frequent started a thread some months back entitled "Pimp my symptoms" for two week waiters who wanted to be totally irrational regarding every little twinge and sniffle. Stuff like "I have terrible wind, is this a symptom?", "My pet cat is ignoring me, could this be a sign?". You get the drift. It's nothing to do with that vindaloo you ate last night, or that cats are snotty little fuckers at the best of times (except of course for my little fur babies, who are four legged love sluts). So this morning when I woke up and felt a slight sore twinge in my right chesticle, the pimping began in earnest. I've been feeling a bit knackered for the past couple of days, but that could be post man flu fatigue. Or, it could be a.....SYMPTOM!
I've been peeing like a race horse in the past couple of days, but ordinarily I think I must have the tiniest bladder in Ireland, so that's nothing new. So far I haven't experienced any bionic nasal passage tendancies, which is usually a dead giveaway. The last time I was pregnant, I could smell bacon frying in the staff canteen as I walked past the car park, which is a freakish distance for a cooking smell to carry. I will keep you informed if this starts happening again.

Because of the fertility drugs I am on, my luteal phase is almost always bang on 16 days. I am on hcg injections on peak (i.e. ovulation day) +3, +5, +7 and +9. Because it takes some time for the hcg to work its way out of my system, I am not allowed to take a pregnancy test until peak +17. So looking at the calendar and counting 17 days from December 7th, it looks like the either the wicked witch or Santa with a very big Christmas gift is due to show up on Christmas Eve. So it could be the Best Christmas Ever Ever, or it could be the Biggest Bummer Ever Ever.

I've never been much of a Mariah Carey fan, but this morning I found myself glancing down at my belly in the shower singing the following:

"I just want you for my own,
more than you will ever know,
make my wish come true,
cos all I want for Christmas is youuuuuuuuu, babeeeeeeee"

Let's hope I don't scare the little bugger off.

I really am a share holder...

2008-12-04T04:29:00.001-08:00

...in Clearblue. In my more active baby making stick peeing days, I used to joke to John that I should have shares in Clearblue, I'd spent that much money on their products. Well I found out yesterday that I actually have shares in the company that manufactures them. As I mentioned in a previous post, I work for a multinational which makes all manner of consumer goods, one of them being Clearblue pee sticks. And I happen to be a member of the share ownership scheme at work. So there you go. Keep peeing ladies, I want a good dividend this year.

The way I found out was that when I visited the site shop yesterday to stock up on skincare products for myself, shaving products for John, and nappies for our as yet unconceived children, there on the shelves were Clearblue Ovulation kits, the digital ones. So I grabbed a box, thinking they have to be cheaper than the pharmacy, even though I have a stash of cheapie internet ones at home. But hey, when you're an addict, you can never have enough peesticks in stock. Anyway got to the counter, trying to avoid other people looking at my purchases. The guy behind the counter said "sorry, you can't buy these (the peesticks) until next week, they're not input in the system yet". I went "well.....erm....I kinda need them this week". Without making eye contact he went "Oh. Right so. You can pay for them next week then. Is that all?". Me: "Em no, you haven't scanned this (inordinately large) pack of nappies, God loves a trier eh?". I don't know who was cringing more, me or him.

Anyway I reckon the shagfest begins this weekend, even though I am smothered with a cold. I think I'll go home, get on the hot lemon drinks and try to shake it off. Nothing worse than coughing and spluttering when you're trying to get it on.

And the clanger of the year award 2008 goes to....

2008-12-01T06:11:00.000-08:00

my brother in law's big mouthed twat of a friend. As I mentioned last week, we were attending John's nieces christening last Saturday. Not only that, but I was at the end of this month's clomid dose, and the hormones were all over the place, to say the least. The new parents are John's youngest brother (seven years younger than John) and his wife (four years younger than me). All in all, it was a pretty tough gig to attend, given what we have been going through for the past two years. I was pretty much prepared for somebody to put their foot in it as regards our sprogless state, but I thought it would be in a small group setting, possibly at the party when there were a few drinks down.

But no, it happened much earlier in the day than anticipated. After the baby dunking, renouncing the devil and praying was over, it was time for the photos. When it came to the Godparents shot, John was handed the baby to hold. In front of everyone in the church, a voice shouted up from the pew behind me "You'll be next John, ha, ha!". I tried my best to let that go over my hormonal head, when he followed it up with "Are you getting broody yet John?". At this point I turned around and hit him with a death ray. Bitchy I know, but at least it shut him up. At that point I just wanted to run for the door. We went back to brother in law's house, and I just went upstairs and cried my eyes out.

The tactless twat later apologised to John, saying he only meant it as a joke. Well forgive me, but my sense of humour has been stretched just a tad past its elastic limit. I know he had no clue what we've been going through, but given that we are married longer than the other couple, and a few years older than them, it shouldn't take a genius to figure out that we might be having issues in the fertility department. I just wish that I had turned around to him and asked him how was his sex life since he was so concerned with ours.

Waiting to hatch

2008-11-26T06:26:00.000-08:00

Well the Red Menace has almost left the building, and I'm already gearing up to hatch the golden egg. I have to admit, my clean living halo slipped a little (well ok, a lot) over the weekend. I noticed the other day that a restaurant in town was now allowing punters to BYO and not charging corkage. I rang up one of my friends and suggested getting a few people together for dinner. She said why not, let's put the session back in recession. So four of us headed out, bottle of wine each in hand. We left the restaurant, bottle of wine each down the hatch. We then progressed to the pub, and from there John and I went home, grabbed whatever booze we could lay our hands on, and popped in next door to see our neighbours. Luckily they are as big a pair of pissheads as we normally are, so they were their usual hospitable selves. The next day was a total write off. I didn't get out of the scratcher until around 5pm. As sick as a plane to Lourdes, I was.

Anyway, all that hedonism is behind me now, and I'm back on healthy form again. I went back to Catherine, my wonder woman acupuncturist yesterday evening for another session. For the first time ever, I bled when she took the needles out. Don't know what that means, but I suppose my circulation must be healthy enough. I also went back to the gym last night, before I fell off the wagon entirely. I started on the Evil Pills on Sunday night. I'm feeling a teeny bit weepy on them today, so I think it's off to the gym for me again tonight to get those endorphins flowing. I received my order from the medical test centre on Monday too. Preseed and peesticks galore. I had to tell John that preseed is not something you get from the garden centre to spread on your spring bulbs. It's more to do with lady gardens. Enough said.

This Saturday we are heading down south for John's niece's christening. I'm looking forward to it and dreading it all at the same time. I'm delighted for the new parents, you couldn't meet nicer people, but I'm dreading somebody not in the know of our situation giving it the "when is she getting a little cousin, nudge nudge, wink wink". I'll let you know how it goes.

Another remembrance

2008-11-21T05:49:00.000-08:00

This day two years ago, Tuesday November 21st, 2006, I underwent a D&C after I had been told that my first pregnancy had ended in a missed miscarriage. It was one of the saddest days of my life.

We had been trying to conceive for six months when we got lucky. It was the first month that we got in any way scientific about the whole business; I invested in a digital thermometer and a charting book from Boots, as well as a pack of OPKs. My ovulation date co-incided with a long weekend at the wedding of friends in the Ardeche region of France. The setting was beautiful, the weather was spectacular, the wedding itself was amazing, and we were in honeymoon mode. We were at it "comme les lapins" all weekend.

Two weeks later, much to our delight, we found out that we had brought an extra little passenger back from France. In our minds it was a boy, no rational explanation for why we thought that, just pure gut feeling for both of us. Being the ever pc people that we are, we nicknamed him Kermit the Frog, since he was made in France. A week later, I started to get light brown spotting. It was the start of a bank holiday weekend. We didn't panic at first, but my GP told me to call him in a couple of days if it got any worse. Over the weekend it got heavier, so the following Tuesday I phoned the GP back and he told me to go straight to our local maternity hospital. A friend of mine from work drove me to Limerick and John met me in there.

At that stage it was too early to see a heartbeat on an ultrasound, but we did see the gestational sac, so there was no doubt that there was a pregnancy there. I was sent away and told to come back the following week for another scan. The following Tuesday I was scanned again, and this time we could see a heartbeat on an internal scan. The first time you see your own baby's heart beating is an amazing one. The sheer awe you experience looking at that tiny little pulse on the screen. Unfortunately it wasn't all good news that day, we were told the gestational sac was a very irregular shape, and this was an indication that the pregnancy might not be viable, although the sonographer said that she had seen this before and it was not always bad news. We were given another appointment for a week's time and sent on our way.

At this point I started googling "gestational sac" and "irregular shape" at every opportunity. Not a good idea really when you are trying to put your mind at rest. One friend of mine told me that she had been told the same thing at an early scan on her first pregnancy, and she went on to deliver a perfectly healthy baby girl. That gave me some reassurance. The following Tuesday we went back to Limerick for another scan, and we were given the bad news that our baby had died. The gestational sac was measuring six weeks three days, when it should have been a week more than that. We were absolutely devastated. I suppose in hindsight we were naive as regards the statistics of miscarriage, one in four pregancies. At that stage I had nine nieces and nine nephews, and only one of my siblings out of six had ever experienced a loss in pregnancy. My mother had one loss out of eight pregnancies. I never thought it was something that would touch us. How wrong could I have been?

A week later, I was admitted to hospital for a D&C. Physically and emotionally it was an extremely tough day. It was a cold day in November, and the hospital was undergoing renovations. I was admitted to a day ward around 10am, fasting from 6pm the evening before (big mistake, I should have eaten much later in the night, nearer to midnight) and the noise level in the ward was horrendous. It was like someone was operating a jackhammer just under my bed. A few people had told me in advance of the D&C that it is a painless procedure. John's sister, who had had it done a number of times to remove fibroids described it as quite uncomfortable. This was the only warning I had in advance.

Uncomfortable was the understatement of the year. After about an hour I was put on a saline drip to stop me getting dehydrated. At around noon, my gynaecologist came in and introduced herself, and without further ado shoved a couple of pessaries up into my cervix (pleased to meet you, Doctor, OWWWW!). The midwives told me that there would be pain relief available should I need it. I was doing the whole brave patient routine, thinking there are women in here in the throes of labour, I'm not going to start shouting for pain relief over a few little cramps. I sent John down town to get some lunch and I settled in for the afternoon. All of a sudden what had been like minor period pain was like the most excrutiating period pain, multiplied by around 20. I rang John on his mobile in agony to tell him get straight back here. I was getting progressively weaker from the lack of food. The room seemed to be getting colder, and the jackhammer was still hammering away at top volume.

I rang the bell and asked the midwife for pain relief. She took my blood pressure and told me that it was dropping, and we would be getting a slot for theatre soon. At this stage it must have been around 4pm. I was writhing around the bed in pain at this stage and begged for something, anything, so she gave me pethadeine. This made me really woozy and out of it, and not in a good way. It didn't really do much for the pain either, probably because I had asked for it too late. If I had asked before the pain increased to unbearable levels, it would probably have stopped it before it got really intense. The midwife and porter came to wheel me up to theatre just after that, and the combination of the motion of the moving bed and the pethadeine really started to give me the room spins. I met the gynaecologist outside the theatre again, and I was almost passing out at this stage. It took two people to lift me onto the operation table. I was so out of it I literally could not move a muscle.

I woke up probably around twenty minutes later, still in pain. It was then that it really hit me, my baby was gone. I was given two rounds of painkillers in suppository form. I was wheeled back down to the ward and left to rest for a while. At one stage I went to go to the bathroom and when I stood up I literally saw stars. I was discharged later that evening, so glad to get back home to the comfort of our own bed. After a couple of days I was feeling much better physically, but it took much longer for the emotional pain to ease. In some ways I think it has never fully gone away and it never will.

A few months later I found a post on a parenting website about the Shrine of the Holy Innocents in New York. It is based in a Church in Manhattan, and is dedicated to all children who have died before birth. Parents of babies lost through miscarriage or stillbirth can name them and have recorded in a book of remembrance kept in the shrine. Although I was brought up by religious parents, I am not strongly religious myself, but the idea of this brought me some comfort. We named our lost little one Kieran, because as I said before, we always thought I was carrying a boy. I have been thinking about him a lot in the past month or so, wondering what he would have looked like, imagining all the mischief he would be getting into now if he was still with us. No doubt he would be chasing the poor cats around the house, terrorising them. I like to think him and his sister and our other lost little ones are waiting for us, somewhere in the next life.

The green light at last

2008-11-20T07:18:00.000-08:00

At long last after twelve long months of knicker watching and ewcm charting, eight months of home injecting, four months of clomid popping and all the associated angst, we have been given the green light to go. All I'm waiting for now is the Goddam witch to arrive so that can get this party started.

I've got my prescription for five days of clomid @ 150mg per day at the ready. I went online today and ordered a ten pack of opks, a ten pack of hpts and a six pack of pre seed. Maybe I should pop down to the offie for a six pack of beer as well just to get us in the mood. Did I ever think when we started off on this baby making journey way back in the spring of 2006 that it would involve such a plethora of pharmaceutical goods? Erm, no, actually. I thought all we would need would be a glass or two of wine (enough to get in the mood without getting comatose), a nice bit of nookie and Bob's your uncle, or rather Jane's your Mammy and John's your Daddy. I never thought it would get to the stage that I'd end up on first name terms with my local pharmacist, a fertility specialist, my gynaecologist's receptionist; or that I would end up having repeated rendez vous with a dildo cam. But such is life.

So as of this month, we have graduated into a class of real ttc'ers. I'm already looking to the calender and trying to figure out will John's work's Christmas do coincide with my ovulation date, and if so, will he co-operate and stay off the beer for the night, or will I have to take advantage of him in his drunken state? If this cycle goes like the last one, my next visit from the red menace will be due around December 23rd. I'm trying not to get my hopes up, because I know if I build myself up too much the let down will be great, especially on Christmas week. But isn't it the time of year for magic and wishes coming true? So Santa, if you're reading, I've been a very good girl all year, and I promise to go to bed early every night between now and Christmas, so can you please bring us a BFP?

Good news at last

2008-11-11T08:16:00.000-08:00

Woooo hoooooo!! I had my blood test this morning and results were excellent.

Oestradiol 686 (needs to be 400-800, has never been more than 380 before)
Progeterone 81 (needs to be 60-100)

So it looks like we have the go ahead.

Think I will go and ride the living daylights out of my husband to celebrate.

Lest we forget...

2008-11-10T08:41:00.000-08:00

Yesterday John and I travelled to Dublin for the day to attend the Miscarriage Association of Ireland's annual remembrance service. This is something I have been wanting to do for some time, but didn't get to it last year, probably because we were still reeling from a fourth loss in the space of a year. I was looking out for remembrance services closer to where we live, but there don't seem to be any. The other day I was on an Irish parenting website and a poster mentioned that it was on this weekend, so very much at the last minute we decided to go. We were both so glad that we did.

When you lose a baby early in pregnancy, there is plenty of grief associated with that loss, but very little ritual with which to vent that grief. There's no funeral, no grave. For a lot of people there is very little public acknowledgement of the fact that they have lost a child, which only serves to compound the grief and pain. Some people plant trees in memory of their lost little ones, which is something we did, but it was very much a private thing between John and I. This service was really beautiful in that it gave parents (and we are parents, in a different respect to most people) an opportunity to come together in an interdenominational service, to offer prayers, listen to readings and music and to just openly grieve their losses in a way that is just not possible in everyday life.

The most poignant part of the whole ceremony was the procession of light. We were all invited to light a candle for each of our lost babies and carry them to the steps in front of the altar. We carried up four candles between us. It was kind of surreal getting a light from another couple at the back of the church, knowing what or whom these little lights signified. They looked a good ten years younger than us, and they were lighting two candles themselves. In the end of the procession, the steps were covered with candles, each one representing somebody's lost baby.

The church was absolutely packed with people of all ages. I noticed an elderly man sitting alone who I would guess was around eighty years of age with three candles lined up on the back of the pew in front of him. In the row in front of us were three ladies who looked in their sixties or seventies. I would guess they had been coming there for years. There were also many families with young children, which represented a beacon of hope, and also middle aged couples with teenage or twenty something offspring in tow. Here and there were childless couples like John and me, huddled together for comfort. One of the bidding prayers was for parents who have no other children. We both cried buckets throughout, to the point that I had a headache from crying by the end of the ceremony, but our tears were cathartic ones.

At the end of the service each family was presented with a silver Christmas tree ornament of a dove. The theme of the ceremony was the dove as a symbol of hope and peace. We then got to sign the book of remembrance and enter the names and memories of our lost little ones. All in all it was a beautiful ceremony and we will definately go to it again in years to come. I would really recommend a similar service to anyone who has experienced the loss of a baby.

Filling in time

2008-11-07T07:43:00.001-08:00

As many of the blogging brethren have commented on their own blogs this month, it's hard to think what to blog about when you're not actively ttc in a particular cycle. Unfortunately that's my lot on an ongoing basis, until the powers that be up in Galway deem my hormones to be of an acceptable level with which to have a go at baby making. It's now a year since I last was pregnant, so it seems as though a lot of time and procreational opportunities have slipped past since then. Like my fellow ttc'ers I am still on a waiting game, but mine is a month long wait from one blood test to the next instead of a two week wait.

Anyway I'm blathering on here because I have little to report really. I'm still going to the gym, and so far I have lost 3 lbs (yay me!), but seem to be up a lb this morning compared to last Friday (boo me!). I haven't been drinking, have had a little bit of junk food this week, but not a huge amount, so I don't know what's going on. Mind you, this is my usual pattern when I try to lose weight, and I usually give up at this point. But I am determined this time. The muffin top is almost gone, and I have toned up a bit around my middle and my jelly belly, so that's progress. I'm trying to get to the gym three times a week, and not be intimidated by all the baldy, grunting, sweaty steroid heads who frequent the place. So far I have managed to avoid passively inhaling the fug of testosterone, so I haven't morphed into an Eastern European shot putter (yet).

I managed to get through this month's clomid cycle without too much weeping and wailing. I was a bit down in the dumps last weekend, but I think that could be due to the start of official winter time, and the dark evenings. I'm hoping the endorphins will keep the blues at bay.

John's niece is being christened at the end of the month, and I estimate from my ovulation date this week that I am going to be on cycle day 2 on the big day. This is usually marked by crippling period pains and full force of the crimson tide. Crimson tsunami even. I've told him that if I'm not up to it I might bow out. The other thing about it I'm dreading is that there will be friends of my brother in law's who are also friends of John's there. Some of them we haven't seen since brother in law's wedding, and they also came to our wedding. I'm pretty sure they haven't got a clue what's been going on with us for the past two years, so there's plenty potential for foot in mouth remarks as regards to our baby making plans, particularly when John is the godfather to this little one. So I'm kind of dreading the whole thing, even though it will be a nice family gathering. I just know that one misplaced remark would be enough to send me running for the bathroom.

Another event that has potential for awkwardness is coming up next week. There's a reunion on in Dublin for the bank I used to work at. When I was in my last job two or three years, the bank was bought out, and a lot of long term employees took voluntary redundancy. They still keep in touch with everyone who has left and every two years or so they have a reunion. I missed the last one as it was when I had my first miscarriage. I am going to go, because it's an opportunity to catch up with friends I haven't seen in a few years, but I'm just dreading somebody asking me how long are we married now, and any sign of the patter of little feet? Maybe most people will know not to ask, given that we've been married over three years now and I am 39 years old, which means we have either no interest in having kids, or we are trying and there's nothing happening. There's always the potential for somebody to drop a clanger though.

I'm due to have my next blood test on Tuesday. I've tried everything this month - dairy free diet, no alcohol, exercise, accupuncture. If that doesn't work I don't know what will. Tune in next week for results.

Feeling virtuous....

2008-10-28T07:04:00.000-07:00

I had a very healthy weekend. I decided this month to not drink any alcohol whatsoever while I'm on Clomid and see if that helps its effectiveness. It was a bank holiday weekend here in Ireland and I'm pleased to say not one drop of the demon drink did pass my lips.

I also got out for a 3 mile walk on Sunday morning. One good thing about the town we live in is that there are plenty of walking paths. One of the more popular ones passes near to our house, so every so often I take a walk there. Part of the walk is lined with some really beautiful trees, mainly horse chestnut, so it's particularly pretty this time of the year.

I also started my Christmas shopping yesterday. I don't normally start this early, but I was in a shopping centre and saw something I thought one of my in laws might like, so I bought it. I also got the ingredients for my annual attempt at baking. I appointed myself as Christmas cake supplier to my parents in law a few years back, and now that I've established this tradition I feel like there's no backing out on the job. John's sister used always make a Christmas cake for their mother, and since she passed away I have taken up the baton. I love the smell of baking around the house, but I wouldn't bake a Christmas cake just for John and I as we would eat the whole thing ourselves in the space of a few days. So I make a cake for my in laws, and I usually end up bringing a quarter of it home to our house. I just have to get myself into the mood for baking.

I finished the clomid last night, and am happy to report that I haven't morphed into a wailing banshee so far. Note the so far, this may be subject to change. I did have one or two tetchy moments on Sunday when we were wrestling with the grating blade on my food processor, but apart from that I've been ok I think. Felt a bit "yuck, I don't want to go to work today" this morning, but I'd say that's a natural reaction to Tuesday morning after a bank holiday.

I'm starting accupuncture this evening, and after that I'm off to the gym to start my new fitness programme. I had a fitness assessment on Friday evening (yes, I went to the gym on a Friday, wonders will never cease!) and I actually registered better results in lung capacity, resting heart rate and flexibility than I did the previous time I had one done last February. Mind you my weight was exactly the same as last time, but at least I haven't gained anything. So all in all I felt pretty happy with that. I'll report back on the accupuncture tomorrow.

I'm still gasping for a nice chilled glass of sauvignon blanc though.....

I'm bringin' sexah back

2008-10-24T03:40:00.000-07:00

There must be something in the air in the IF blogosphere in the last few days, since some of us have taken to exercise all of a sudden. May is extolling the benefits of walking (albeit reluctant extolling, and walking with "a face like a bulldog licking piss of a nettle" (love it!), while Womb for improvement has come over all zen like and gone back to yoga. The health kick buzz has also descended upon Chez Jane & John here in the arse end of Midlands Ireland.

To tell the truth, we've been members of the leisure centre in the one decent hotel in town since we moved here around four and a half years ago. When we joined, we were a year away from our wedding, so our mantra was "We are not going to look like fat skobies (chavs, trailer trash, whatever) in our wedding photos". So four nights a week we were down at the pool, swimming away to beat the band. I was determined to get into a size 12 Audrey Hepburn style little number for our wedding, which I managed to do after much pain and sweat.

I was trying to lose the weight gained while spent backpacking around Australia for 3 months the previous winter. I've started reading "Eat, pray, love" by Elizabeth Gilbert this week. It's about a 34 year old divorcee who embarks on a year of solo travel in 2003 in search of her inner self. Which is a little bit of a coincidence, since in 2003 I became a divorcee, and later that year, at the age of 34, I chucked in my permanent pensionable job at the bank, got out my Jesus sandals and rucksack, and hightailed it off down under for 3 months on my own. If I was to write a book about my adventures and travels, it would be a lot less spiritual, and more likely to be entitled "Eat, eat, drink". I literally lived on beer, nasty deep fried food and ice cream for three months. When I returned to my soon to be fiancé, there was an extra stone and a half of me to love (that's 21 pounds for my readers across the Atlantic). And I wasn't exactly a stick insect to begin with.

Anyway, I digress...Since our wedding both of us have battled with a yo-yo-ing weight issue. We both gained at least seven pounds on our two week honeymoon. That's what you get for going all inclusive. There's this inner voice telling you "F*ck it, we've paid for this, let's get our value for money" which results in you gorging yourself on food and drink. I went on a health kick in the month leading up to John's brother's wedding the following year, but once that was over I fell off the wagon with a resounding thump once more. That Autumn, I became pregnant for the first time, and was barely keeping my eyes open with the tiredness, let alone getting out for a walk. With the result that the pounds started to pile on. Then I miscarried, which kicked off a comfort eating frenzy that continued for at least 3 months. By that stage I had reached my heaviest ever, tipping over 12 stone on the scales, and for the first time ever in my life I was clinically overweight. Eeeeekkk!! This is the girl who used to be known as Twiggy for all of her childhood and teenage years, or just Skinny Bitch to my sister. I used to wear size 8 jeans when I was 16 for God's sake! Now I was reaching for size 16!

From there on a cycle of half hearted health kick, lose 3 lbs, get pregnant, put on more weight, miscarry, comfort eat carried on. I tried during the Summer to get on the wagon once more, but I just couldn't get myself in the frame of mind. My hormones were all over the place with Clomid, injections, disappointing blood tests, resulting downer, blah de blah de blah, that I just couldn't get off my arse and do anything about it. The past few weekends we have been saying "Ok, starting Monday, we are going back to the gym", but we've always found excuses not to. So last weekend I went down town, purchased a pair of shiny white trainers and some tracky bottoms which cover my ample bottom in as flattering a manner as possible, and we bit the bullet and went back. You always feel sheepish walking in there when you haven't been in over six months. Especially when you have been paying €45 a month not to use the facilities. Making donations if you will.

But this time I'm determined.
Because I am sick of having a muffin top in my favourite jeans.
Because I have a wardrobe full of relatively expensive clothes (Coast dresses, bustiers and the like) that don't fit me anymore.
Because I'm sicking of seeing myself in photos with three chins and a face like a full moon in a fog.
Because I'm sick of going shopping and struggling to find clothes that look halfway decent on me.
Because I'm sick of (to paraphrase Neil Hannon of The Divine Comedy) the fact that my arse is the size of a small country.
Because this weight makes me look every bit of my 39 years, and I am vain and like to think that I don't look a day over 34.
Because I want to start my next pregnancy (and there will be a next one, God willing) a stone lighter, so that when I gain baby weight I will not end up 16 stone post pregnancy.

So here goes, **gets up on the stepper machine without having a coronary in the process**.....I'm bringin' sexah back.....do do do....

Pulling out all the stops

2008-10-20T07:50:00.000-07:00

This month's blood test results were extremely disappointing, so this month we are bringing in the big guns. My fertility specialist has prescibed 150mg clomid for 5 days. This I am dreading, because by day 5 I am guaranteed to be a weeping gibbering basket case. But hopefully I will be able to time that with the upcoming bank holiday weekend, and if so I am just going to have an extended duvet day. A duvet weekend if you will. I'm not going to issue any invitations to potential visitors and will just chill out and enjoy some books and films at home.

I've also decided to give accupunture a try. I have tried it before for back pain, fatigue and post miscarriage recovery, and found it good for all three, so I'm going to see if it's any good for kicking my hormones up the arse. So tomorrow week I'm going in for my first session. Ironically, my accupuncturist is back from maternity leave after having her fifth child. What's more she's younger than me. She's an incredibly chilled out lady, but I suppose you'd have to be really!

I'm also going to take my non dairy diet seriously for a change. I had food intolerance testing done a few months back on the advice of my fertility clinic. I suffer from IBS and have done for years, so it seemed like a good idea to get checked out. It turned out that I have major intolerance for cow's milk. Since then, I have weaned myself off cow's milk, cut back on cheese, but I have found it very difficult to sever my love affair with Ben & Jerrys. I never realised how much dairy crops up on menus until I tried to give it up. Try ordering a non dairy desert in a restaurant. I have yet to find one that doesn't involve cream, ice cream, soft cheese or some form of milk product. The other day my fertility specialist told me I have to stick to the non dairy diet rigidly, as this can have a hugely adverse effect on hormone levels. I had been using goat's milk and associated products as a substitute, but I have been told that these are a no-no also. So as of this month, I can haz no cheezeburger. Sob! How am I going survive the infertility blues if I can't dive face first into a vat of caramel chew chew? It's going to be a tough month...