We have moved to more optimistic premises

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

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

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

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

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

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!

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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....

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

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

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