We’re not here May 22, 2009

We are, in fact, there *points northwards*

Well, we will be.

H has just this minute told me we may well not have any internet access when we get there.

I have screamed like banshee stepping barefoot on a lego brick at three in the morning.

Very well then. We will be back in civilized parts on Sunday the 30th of May. If you don’t hear from me before then, dinna fash yersel’*. If you don’t hear from me after then either, fash away like anything.

In my possible (and enforced) absence from internetland, a) I shall turn 34 – same birthday as Queen Victoria and Bob Dylan, dontcher know – and b) it will be the anniversary of the miscarriage. The fatal scan that proved Pikaia was utterly dead was on the 27th, three days after my 33rd birthday. It will be an interesting holiday. Which is why we’re going on it.

*Proper Northern for ‘don’t worry yourself’.

Psyched! May 21, 2009

Item – Yes! We psyched out the Cute Ute! She’s still only spotting! Bring on the Scan Day! Bring it on.

Item – She’s cramping something fierce though. Bitch.

Item – Work, now, is doing my head in. It’s my last week in Junior Role, and I am frantically sorting through, tying off, tucking away, and in drastic cases snipping off and hiding, all loose ends. Naturally, I am flustered, and as I have not been sleeping at all well (again. Jeez, but it’s getting old), I look, well, like shit. I can prove this. Four, FOUR, colleagues asked me if I was OK today. I considered saying no, very tired, have cramps, these boxes way a tonne, my left foot is mysteriously painful so I am indeed limping a little, tomorrow will no doubt be worse, well the cramps certainly will be, did you want to know that? No? I smile. Mention the ‘a bit tired’ thing. Go and look in mirror. Urgh. I look like a burst pillow. With two mascara smears for eyes. No, I am not wearing make-up today.

Item – Oh, and there’s this one colleague, who I had assumed was also making a determined assault on Fortress Pregnant. I base this assumption on the following points: a) she married recently, b) once a month or so, she goes through a phase of taking a mug into the toilet with her, and c) once, I was in the toilet cubicle next to her and her mug (I knew it was her, I don’t think she knew it was me) and she dropped a Clearblue wrapper, which slipped under the partition, so I could see it. I don’t know whether it was a pregnancy test, or an OPK, but it was a Clearblue wrapper. And I had meant to take her off for coffee one afternoon and Work My Nosey Way Around To The Subject. Possibly not mentioning the wrapper. Or, for that matter, the mug thing. So. Anyway, today, a student had bought a rather rambunctious toddler into the library with her, and said toddler rambuncted, as they do, and bellowed when his parent forcibly disentangled him from the book trolleys, and had to be marched out in disgrace when other students complained. And this colleague turned to me and told me how much she hated kids, and was glad she didn’t have any. WTF? OK, May is hanging her deerstalker back up right now. Or, wait, now, is this self-defence she is practicing? Nevertheless, did I mention WTF?

Item – Last day of work tomorrow! And then I get to run away and play for a week! I can totally do this!

Item – Period coinciding with anniversary of miscarriage, I feel I ought to be more put out by it. In fact, I feel… mellow. Which leads me to fear I am in huge denial and Bad Things will bite my arse. Or, possibly, I am really mellow and doing quite well, thank you.

Spit spot May 20, 2009

You know, I blame H. He was the one who pointed out, repeatedly, that if my period started before the weekend it would mean Day Nine – or Scan Day! – would come to pass while we were still flailing about in the Lake District, and therefore, naturally, we would have a late scan, confirming only that I’d ovulated eighty-three times in Kumquat alone, and now we’d be having decaplets. Or that Satsuma had tripled in size, gone nova and was now referring to herself as ‘V-ger’ and glowing ethereally.

Then he bought tampons. In a ‘well, if I don’t, May’s period will start right away and there will be much wailing and scrubbing of gussets, but if I do, said period will stay away for another fortnight or two, and May will get wound up, but hey, we can relax on our holiday,’ way.

My uterus will not be out-psyched by a mere man, and took this all as a colossal dare.

Day two of spotting, just morphing into a little red flow. Day One tomorrow (see? now I’m trying to psych that damn uterus out). Day Nine, halfway up Scafell Pike. Ha ha ha ha ha.

If H attempts to avoid sex, based on ridiculous fantasies of high-order multiples, over this holiday, I will, I swear, tell him all about testicular sperm aspiration. With pictures. While holding a bread-knife and a drinking straw.

I sulked, I ate salad, I sulked again May 18, 2009

You-all know by now I am NOT COOL about talking about my weight. Not cool at all. I find the whole subject painfully embarrassing and irritating, and nothing will piss me quite so off as being given dieting advice.

Nevertheless, I was sent off to lose weight before the IVF clinic would let me come near them and their stabby stabby needles.

Aigh.

Anyway, I sulked a bit (a lot. A lot a lot a lot) and even put on a few pounds. (Yeah, I know. That’s sulking for you). And then I got a grip, and went back to the old ‘eat less and exercise’.

In the past three weeks I have lost 5 lbs.

I don’t know whether to be pleased with myself (this would be the simple, user-friendly option); disgusted that ‘eat less and exercise’ actually works when you, you know, actually do it (the default pissed-off infertile fatty option); or depressed that neither H nor I can see where, exactly, the 5 lbs have come off from (the other default infertile fatty option that is not helping with the pissed-offness).

Oh, all right, I am doing two of my bras up one notch tighter. But I am bloated (provera and constipation, sitting in a tree, kay eye ess ess eye en gee) and, damn it, my waistbands are as tight as ever. And I don’t look thinner. Not a bit. Not that I am vain or anything (Anything, thy name is Woman! May specifically!). It’s just, 5 lbs, you know. It ought to show. It would be ethical of it to show, instead of sneaking off into the night and no-one knowing noticing it’s missing until a post-card from Bermuda turns up seven months later.

There’s no pleasing some people, is there?

Meh, I say. Meh. Meh meh meh. May 17, 2009

And I have so very little to be meh about. I think I have meh poisoning: -

Item – To complete the week of career triumph chez May et H, I too had a job interview, for the more senior of the two jobs that I do part-time (and which, frankly, I’ve been doing full-time for the past three weeks owing to massive staffing crisis, so it would be nice to be paid for doing it full-time, ya know?) The interview lasted about 7 minutes, and went, ‘so, you can already do this job, can’t you, May. Do you like it? Yes? Good. What do you think of the staffing crisis? Sucks? Yes, it does rather. Heigh ho. What did you have for lunch? Salad? Well done you’. The wait lasted about, ooh, three minutes. And then my line-manager popped her head round the office door and asked me to step back into the interview room, and tah-dah! I have the job, formally full-time, starting next week. Absolute multi-participant freak-out now occuring as to who will take over what from my junior job, while they work out if, how, and when to replace me. I would laugh, but I sense a week of late working clanking about in the offing.

Item – So, I finished the provera on Thursday, and will of course start bleeding at whatever point between now and, say, the 28th of May that is most likely to cause inconvenience, embarrassment, or distressing flash-backs. Because. But fear not! H came back from the supermarket this afternoon with a large box of super-double-plus tampons. Yes! My husband buys me tampons! Without being asked! I know!

Item – Next Saturday, H and I are driving away away away to the Lake District, where we shall spend a week in the rain (yes, I checked the long-range weather forecast. Rain it is). The point being, we like the Lake District, and it will be my birthday, and we would both like to be as far as possible from London, hospitals, pregnant people, and my mother (sorry, Mum).

Item – We will also be starting Clomid Take 6. 100 mg a day. I think we need a deal of room in case the term ‘blast radius’ becomes applicable, don’t you? Lake District in the rain it is, then. Luckily sheep, though easily startled, are too dense to be easily traumatised.

Item – My Mum called me today, to plan a nice birthday outing with me. Oy. Vey. Guess, go on, guess how long ago I began announcing we’d be away for my birthday. Yes? Any of you get March? And yes, she pulled the ‘oh, it’ll be sad, not being able to see you on your birthday!’ card. And I did not pull the ‘yes, well, it’s the anniversary of the miscarriage at which time, you remember, you sucked’ card, because I was beautifully brought up, ironically by this very same woman who doesn’t hesitate to use emotional blackmail as even minor loose change in intra-familial transactions.

Item – I’m an ungrateful wretch, so I am.

Item – Meh.

That seems… fair… May 12, 2009

So. Slept very badly last night, and eventually was fanfared out of bed by the Four Horsemen of The Migraine, Blurry, Woozey, Sicky and Sparkly.

Emailed work (I think I misspelled every other word), took the horse-pills, went back to bed. Lay there with pillow over eyes to shield them from the (burning! blazing! searing!) dimness of my blinds-drawn bedroom. Thought jolly little thoughts about cutting my own head off. Eventually, fell asleep again (oh, thank God) face-down in a puddle of my own drool and tears. Woke up at 3 o’clock with face stuck to mattress. Marvellous.

But the headache was a lot better, so I got up, had a cup of tea, and watched telly for a bit, until my eyes began to point out they were still not over the photophobia thing, really, and did I mind? So I went back to bed and listened to the radio instead.

And thought, so, I don’t sleep because of the whole Anniversary of the Peestick thing, and I am not sleeping because I am hurting emotionally, and what does the caring sharing universe do for me? Hurt me more so, physically. You know, for perspective.

The best I can do right now May 11, 2009

Item – And this is where I was this time last year.

Damn, eh?

Which is pretty much what I said to C the counsellor this evening.

Item – It’s been a strange day. H had a job interview for the job he’s been doing pro tem while they interviewed for a new member of staff to do the job that H is, like I said, doing already thank you. They told him later they couldn’t give any feedback on his interview, because it was absolutely perfect. Oh, and would he like the job? So hurrah! We are happy! Go H! And so on!

Item – And then we went for our counselling session and it was all ‘ohh, we’re happy – ohh, we’re destroyificated with anxst and gloom – hurrah, we’re going on holiday – gah, I want to bang my head on the wall for a bit – sob sob, dead baby dreams – wahey, progress from H on sharing feelings – bah, my boss is driving me nuts – arse, but everything is driving me nuts – sob giggle yay!’

Item – I’m knackered. You try being anxst-ridden and grief-stricken and delighted and ever-so-proud of your husband not only on the same day but in the same sentence.

Item – I think a lot of the anxst and bad dreams are to do with sheer, naked, self-widdling terror that I will never get pregnant again (don’t try to talk me out of it. I won’t be talked). It’s reached the point where I flinch when people mention adoption, fostering, surrogacy, donor eggs, and leaving all one’s money to one’s nieces. (By ‘flinch’, keep in mind I am normally ‘flinching’ out of the office, down the stairs, across the street and into the coffee shop. I’m going to get caffeine poisoning).

Item – On Saturday, we met up with some friends for a Nice Day Out. Which it was, I hasten to add, before The Bitching, Oy Vey It Commenceth. I had a fabulous day. My friends are a very special bunch of very kind, sweet, funny, loving people, and I would (and did) pay good money just to sit in the sun with them and talk drivel for hours. And I’m not just saying that because a couple of them read this (hi!). And now I can bitch. Well, whine self-pityingly, really. One of the group’s second child was born only a couple of weeks before Pikaia’s unfulfilled due date. My God, I could have had a baby strapped to my front too. I really could have. I should have. That size. Well, maybe not that size, as she seems to be breeding prop forwards, but still. And I have (privately, silently) had issues about her tendency to go on about how she doesn’t feel like a ‘Real Woman’ ™ because she had a caesarian for the first and some minor issues breastfeeding. Constant refrain in own head: ‘What does that make me then? A fucking replicant? Also, I’ve been cut open twice already, like I’d give a fuck if they did it again in exchange for a healthy baby.’ Why I have such issues (privately, silently) with someone I actually like, and in any case don’t meet face-to-face very often at all, is beyond me. I think it’s probably unfortunate that her pregnancies coincided with a) me realising I was as sterile as a bleached petri-dish and also bleeding to death (or at least, to very, very, very, very pale indeed) and b) Pikaia, or, what should have been Pikaia. I think I am projecting, or possibly doing transference, or both. Can you do both?

Item – Anyway. I have started on the Provera. Clomid cycle 5, the One With The Added Ovary And Still No Dice, is over. Thank fuck.

The dreams May 5, 2009

I am pregnant. I go for a scan, and the baby is gone. I am not pregnant. There never was a baby. The baby is in my hand, the size of a kitten, and clearly dead.

I am not pregnant. I am hunting for a doll in an entire city of discarded toys. It has a soul, and I have to find it before it turns back into a doll, or the emperor of the city of thrown-away, unloved toys will keep it forever. I am running down alleyways between twenty-storey towers of boxes.

I am giving birth. The baby is laid on my pillow. I turn to look at it, and accidentally knock it onto the floor. They take it away at once, and refuse to bring it back. I cry and cry.

H has gone away. I have a shoe-box. I am carrying it to the little cemetery near my childhood home. Why has H gone away? Why am I doing this alone? The shoe-box is very light. I am nearly at the cemetery gate. It is raining. I drop the shoe-box, and something tiny rolls out into the mud. I can’t see where it went.

Well, nothing, really. May 3, 2009

Item: When did I last post? Dear God, it was only Tuesday? I feel like it was at least ninety-seven days ago.

Item: Busy-swamped at work – did I mention that? – and also I am applying for the second half of my own job, so flustered at work, must impress Alpha Boss.

Item: And then, and then, on Wednesday, we went out to a concert in the evening, and during the concert the day’s vague feeling of grouchy nausea became somewhat of a belly-ache, and I was becoming rather nervous on the train home, and because the gods decided I needed a teeny weeny break they did in fact let me get all the way home before unleashing the Dire Rear. Which led to a deeply unpleasant and boring evening trapped in the bathroom, and several emergency leapings-out-of-bed in the small hours, and Thursday spent curled up in a ball, too terrified to fart, and eventually very tentatively ingesting white rice and chicken soup (well, I am a bit Jewish, and if I believe in anything, I believe in Chicken Soup). To my horror, Thursday morning H was getting ready for work when whatever-the-damn-bug-was had a go at him too, so he spent Thursday quietly sat in the loo with his iPhone.

Item: *sigh*

Item: Went back to work on Friday, despite feeling somewhat… drained… and was terribly efficient all day. Also, have lost three pounds this week. Damn and blast, but gastroenteritis is effective.

Item: Saturday, out with friends. This was very nice indeed, also, see? I do to have friends.

Item: Sunday, was supposed to be out with friends, woke up with SODDING headache, spent most of day in bed again, fiddling about with my job application and generally feeling perfectly bloody. So we watched 300. Moral gained, if in doubt, push an elephant off a cliff. (Also, about the elephant thing, David Wenham is in 300, and he was also in Lord of the Rings. He could have told the Persians that war elephants just don’t bloody work. Honestly).

Item: I have my provera and all my extra clomid, and I’m all set to end this pointless cycle of pointlessness, but H and I did sums, and if I take the provera now we may well be on holiday the other end of the country when I shall need to be scanned (and on a double dose of clomid, why, yes, I would like to be scanned, thank you). If I wait until next weekend to start the provera, then I probably won’t be at the other end of the country when I need to be scanned. After much logic, calm discussion of pros and cons, and a great deal of counting on one’s fingers, I agreed it was probably best to leave the provera until next weekend.

Item: This is now pissing me off. One more week of waiting seems like a freaking eternity. Oh God, how badly I wanted to be pregnant again before the anniversary of the miscarriage. And now there’s no, absolutely none, no, chance at all of that. Fuck my life.