Tired woman is sick and tired of being sick and tired February 26, 2012

A second week of painful, pointless cramps is drawing to a whiny, pointless close, chez May. Dear God, peeps, I am so sick of this. Ow.

Incidentally (do I mean ‘incidentally’? Probably I do not. I am too tired to go and check what I really mean. We’ll have to wing it) – incidentally, did I tell you my left Fallopian tube is stuck to my lower bowel? I mean, I didn’t even know I had a left Fallopian tube – I thought I’d lost most of it when I lost my left ovary to a gigantic rogue teratoma that twisted and ruptured when I was 18. However, when I last saw Miss Consultant, the other week, she showed me photographs of my innards, and lo-and-behold most of my left tube is still there – I only lost the fimbria. The tube, disconcertingly, is stuck firmly down to my descending colon in a frankly graceless zig-zag. Miss Consultant didn’t seem particularly bothered by it – after all, it’s not as if I use that tube for anything these days – but it occurs to me, do you think it might be painful to have, well, basically an extension of your bloated and much troubled uterus glued to your lower bowel? As in a regular, reccuring viciously stabbing burning pain, worse during menstruation and the follicular phase when everything is being oestrogenic and sucky anyway? Any thoughts? Because, OW THE FUCKING FUCK.

Anyhoodle, I am in pain and very tired and oh my word I am cranky. Cranky is an interestingly cute term for border-line psychotic, isn’t it?

H is feeling a bit better, if not Quite The Thing – his distressed belly has a tendency to make a noise like elderly plumbing contending with the radiators in an underfunded stately home – and he will be going back to the doctor’s in a few days time for blood-test results and what-have-you. Between us we’re not exactly Happy McClappy The Picture Of Health, eh?

I will spare you eighty-seven bitter paragraphs on the matter of sex, sex when trying to get pregnant for the sixth Goddamn year in a row, sex when feeling under-the-weather, sex when one is a ‘habitual’ miscarrier, and, grandiloquently, sex when all-of-the-above. But it’s not pretty.

I wish I wasn’t so tired. I have several things I want to blog about and no bloody energy. H and I went for a walk today and when we got home I did some washing up and after that I felt like I’d gone three rounds with Mike Tyson and I don’t like it.

Two item posts in a row? You’re spoiling… something February 21, 2012

Item – My laptop died. I think. Or at least is terminally unwell. I don’t know. I daren’t switch it off and on again in case it melts. But! Happy ending! I have a new (well, second-hand reconditioned) laptop! Which is not terminally unwell! So I may actually post more often, also comment! Wheeeeeeee!

Item – H isn’t very well. Actually, now we stop to do sums, we realised he hasn’t been entirely well for a couple of months, but we kept putting it down to stress (H very much emotes with his guts), or Christmassy rich food, or too much chocolate at Valentine’s Day, or, eh, well, whatever. So he went to the doctor, and the doctor said, oh dear, and wants to test his iron levels, his thyroid, his liver function, blood glucose, his bone somethingorother and his levels of creatine and urea (kidney function, right?). Just in case. Meanwhile H is having text-book symptomatology of IBS. Poor H. He would have IBS. I’ve just mentioned he emotes almost entirely with his gut. If he complains of stomach ache, my first question is now always ‘is anything stressing you out?’, because I know him. His gut knows he’s stressed before his brain does. So I worry. (I emote through the spasming arteries in my skull, whereas. And being wide awake).

Item – Dance workshop last weekend half-slayed me. I am still hobbling about and making distressing rusted-machinery noises every time I have to lift something heavy (including self out of armchair). Would I do it again? Oh, probably. But maybe not for another few months. Years. Months. Another lots of months.

Item – Tangientially, I was glaring at my (static) weight-loss ticker, and gearing up to give myself a psychological kicking, waily waily, which no doubt would have lead to OverEating Extravaganza and self-dislike-spiral-of-sulk, when it occurred to me to check the private little Bridget Jones-style list of weight-loss I was keeping a few months ago. Um. Well. Yes. I’m 5 pounds skinnier than I was then. I am the skinniest I have been for years. I am more than a stone lighter than I was on my wedding day. So, May, leave May the fuck alone, OK? OK. Right.

Item – On matters more internal, this past week has been rather hard on me. I’ve been having very painful cramps every day, usually worse at night (insomnia! There you are!), and generally feeling grim and tired and royally fucked off. Combine this with the Day of UnGodly Misery that kicked off my most recent period, and, well, what in buggery did I give wheat up for then? Eh? EH? Gah.

Item – Of course, Fertile Signs are Fertile again. Am I in the mood for sex? Am I fuck. Or, not fuck. Just, fuck everything. Even me, if possible. Fuck it.

A daimen icker February 16, 2012

Item – Hello. Life goes on. Aten’t dead. Tralala.

Item – Valentine’s Day was nice. H and I gave each other chocolate from the same fancy chocolate store (that was amusing, swapping identical gift-bags). We took the afternoon off and went to an exhibition, happily geeking out together. H gave me a sweet card. I wrote him a poem. (BTW, writing poems will get you laid on Valentine’s Day. Word). We are probably making you feel a little ill. Sorry about that.

Item – I didn’t go and get my oestrogen/FSH test on day 3 of my cycle, because a) it was still snowing (making public transport Officially Tiresome), and b) I still felt like shit. Next time, eh?

Item – My mother and I were invited to dinner by an old friend of hers (that, is, an old friend of my mother’s), ostensibly to see her daughter (I was friends with her at school but hadn’t seen her for about ten years (she moved to another hemisphere and got married, you see)) who was back in the country for a couple of weeks. My school-friend has a very beautiful toddler, who, despite the fact her body-clock was completely cockaleekie with jetlag, behaved adorably for the entire refusing-to-go-to-bed evening. And the scenario was, friend and I would talk incessantly with hand-gestures about all our old mutual friends and acquaintances, also our respective spouses and no doubt about the beautiful toddler, while our mothers talked about their respective mutual friends and acquaintances incessantly with hand-gestures also amiable grandmothering anecdotage. Good plan, eh? I was mostly uneasy at having to fend off the ‘where are your beautiful toddlers?’ queries while being stuck in a room with My Mother The Overshare Queen. Actually, in the end, what ganged agley was my friend’s mother, who talked so very much, so very dominantly, that the rest of us got not a word in edgeways. Not. A. Word. It was a bravura talkathon. I think she must have been breathing through her ears. And she talked exclusively about Fascinating Things She Did In Her Younger Days. Don’t get me wrong, they were fascinating things and she is quite the adventuress, but, I swear, the rest of us said nada. And I have no idea what my old friend is doing for a living, or how any of our mutual acquaintance are, or if she likes Doctor Who or anything and what’s more, she hasn’t a clue what my husband’s name is yet. I wish now I’d turned to her and said ‘I saw a pub just round the corner. Quick, let’s run!’ Eheu.

Item – Oh, wait, apart from the bit, a couple of drinks in, when my mother and her mother discussed all the adopted children (now grown up) they know of who have massive psychological problems. I have no idea how they got onto the subject (I had gone to the loo) and I had no idea how to get them off the subject, and, seriously? the issues? were nothing to do with being adopted, poor kids, and pretty much everything to do with having been adopted by jackasses. Point surprisingly hard to make, considering that my hostess was friends with a good handful of said jackasses. So I discussed Sesame Street with the beautiful toddler instead, and we agreed that Big Bird is really big, also yellow, and this is very funny.

Item – H and I are going to my mother’s for the weekend. Where we will do a dance workshop (the fuck? when did I sign up to that?), and also meet new baby cousins. As I am grouchy emotional Lord of the Dorks at the moment, I predict this will end in Awkward.

Item – I have nothing to say about IVF at the moment, not because I have no opinion, but because I have about 27 flatly contradictory opinions and 56 caveats to boot. I’ll have to get back to you on that.

Phase change February 9, 2012

On Tuesday we, H and I, went back to see Miss Consultant for my post-surgery now-what appointment.

I’d've written about it sooner, but my period turned up a day early and proceeded to trample me into the dust of the carpets (literally (as in, yes, really. Also, we should hoover more often)). I don’t know if it was a spectacularly bad one anyway, or because it turned up early I didn’t transition from mefenamic acid to diclofenac quickly enough (I normally take mefenamic acid the day before I start, and then switch to the diclofenac when I bleed, but it was early, so I was taking only the mefenamic acid when the bleeding ramped up, and ohhh, God Almighty), but I ended up lying face down on the floor, unable to stand up because the muscles in my left thigh had gone absolutely rigid with cramp, groaning, sobbing, speechless, and vomiting. H in the end tucked hot-water-bottles round me and a blanket over me and sat on the floor next to me for a while, stroking my back. Eventually the drugs kicked in and I went to bed. I didn’t sleep much. The pain had abated to not-vomiting, but it was still bad enough to keep me awake, counting the hours until I could take another dose of diclofenac and more tramadol.

Today I feel a lot better. I even ate half a mug of chicken soup with rice, and drank several cups of tea, and I haven’t been sick again. I feel like I’ve been beaten with baseball bats and I am so tired I keep dozing off, but so much better.

So that put rather a crimp in everything.

(I am very annoyed it hurt so much. I am also very annoyed I can’t really tell if it actually was Really Bad, or because I screwed up the medication plan which Must Not Be Screwed Up. Honestly, I’ve learnt that the hard way before. *Head-desk*. Whereas if it was Really Bad, then what the hell have I been ignoring wheat for for over two months? Gah).

Anyhoodle. Miss Consultant’s post-surgical what-next consultation. For which I was not late, despite the best efforts of public transport. Huzzah!

First, Miss Consultant was pleased I’d lost a little more weight since she’d last seen me. I didn’t tell her it’d've been more but for the January ricepotatosugar-athon. I just smiled demurely.

We then admired my insides – well, Miss Consultant and I admired my insides. I think H was admiring the ceiling tiles. We went over the details again – normal healthy-looking ovary with no cysts (that’s what regular(ish) cycles will do for a gonad), nice clear fallopian tube, inside of uterus very good with no polyps or damaged areas of lining or fibroid intrusions. On the other hand, said uterus is ‘globular’ and was too big and in-the-way for Miss Consultant to get her instruments in under it, and there was a leetle patch of endometriosis or two in there. You’ll be relieved-and-bewildered (I know I was) to hear the patch is really quite tiny. The nasty squashed strawberry photo I saw right after surgery was an extreme close-up. So Miss Consultant was of the opinion it wasn’t interfering with anything at all, and that the significant cause of my extremely painful periods was actually Cute Ute and her giant bloater adenomyosis problem. Or, possibly, the small patch of endometriosis has found a main nerve to colonise, given the FORTHELOVEOFGODKILLME level of pain a trapped fart can cause at the wrong time of the month.

We then discussed the fact I haven’t been pregnant for an entire year despite regular cycles and regular sex (I may have only hinted at the regular sex. H was sitting right next to me). And, well, how did we feel about IVF?

We feel we are fresh out of other options, to be honest.

So we discussed what we needed to do to get back on that bandwagon. Miss Consultant’s clinic can’t do IVF for me, because of my geographical location, so she will have to refer me to another clinic absolutely fucking miles away. I was referred to them before, years ago, before I started getting pregnant all by myself and the NHS took IVF back off the table, and was ‘discharged’ for being too fat. So Miss Consultant worked out exactly how many more pounds I had to lose to suit their criteria, and as soon as I’ve lost them, she’ll refer me. She also decided to check my oestrogen/FSH balance, and see if my ovary is still in reasonable nick.

My last oestrogen/FSH day three blood test was taken a year ago. It was perfectly fine. My oestrogen was not too high and my FSH was 5… somethings, which is very well behaved of it. The women in my family tend not to go into menopause until their mid-to-late fifties, and several had spontaneous babies in their mid-forties. So hopefully, it will still be reasonable now. Hopefully? I’m hoping now? What is this, optimism? I must be high. If it stops bloody snowing, I shall go to the clinic tomorrow and get the test done right away.

(Yep, it’s snowing again. We’re actually having a winter! Imagine!)

H and I discussed it on the way home. Do we do this via the NHS? Do we see if we can get referred to Miss Consultant’s clinic rather than this stupid effin’ miles away clinic? How long is the waiting list these days? Do we at least look at going private? Is OHSS really a big worry (H is terrified of it)? Do we really want to do this? Do we really want to reach our forties and think ‘well, we didn’t try everything…’.

Miss Consultant was very sweet as we were leaving. She mentioned we’d known each other a long time now, and she’d like us to stay in touch whatever we choose to do. Made my leathery pinched heart swell.

Right. Diet and exercise. Just as soon as I can stand up without trembling.

I’m not a survivor yet February 6, 2012

There’s a drama series on the telly at the moment, Call the Midwife. By all accounts it’s excellent. It stars Miranda Hart, who I have quite a crush on. It’s a costume drama set in the ’50s. It has medical emergencies and is about brave intelligent women being brave and intelligent and saving the day. What’s not to like? By rights I should be glued to it.

I can’t bring myself to watch anything that’s all about babies, and birth, and pregnancy, and babies, and more babies, and women having babies, and for all I know because I haven’t watched a single minute of it, but it wouldn’t be a serious drama if they didn’t, babies dying, or nearly dying, and emergencies, and blood, and women grieving. I can’t watch it. I can’t. I’d either be sick with envy, or flung into a nice little bout of PTSD, or both in the same half-hour, which I can tell you makes for a bloody uncomfortable night.

*spoiler alert*

I am currently forcing myself to watch The Time-Traveler’s Wife, despite the fact I know very well the plot features RPL. Because I am sick of avoiding things just in case they freak me out. One movie I can take, yes? Yes I can.

Though I am absolutely baffled, baffled I tell you, by how few reviews mention the miscarriages and the sorrow it causes the main characters and how it drives their decisions and therefore the plot. BAFFLED. Jesus. It’s one of the main strands of the entire fucking movie and no one mentions it. Or they mention ‘complications in the marriage’. Or ‘problems’, if they’re feeling particularly shameless.

Reviewers will talk about how the film-makers handled death, mutilation, kinky sex, muggings, alcoholism, cancer, vomit, creepy paedophiliac overtones, guns, homophobia, surgery, emotional abuse, eating live goldfish, genocide, nazism, hell, they’ll talk at length about the costumes and whether or not the accents are believable. But not miscarriage. Not even when it’s central to the plot.

I don’t, actually, understand why humans are so very bad at dealing with other people’s grief generally. I don’t understand, either, in a culture that will happily share pictures of their shit-encrusted children, or their afterbirth, or their own arse-crack, on facebook, why miscarriage is still such a taboo hush-hush subject. Of course it is – in a movie where one of the main plot points was recurrent miscarriage, none of the reviews I read on IMDB mentioned it. And I read dozens.

Anyway, it’s been a year since I last saw a (faint. Risibly faint) second line on a pregnancy test. Part of me feels I should, therefore, be Over It, whatever Over It means, and that is why I made myself watch The Time Traveler’s Wife (being British, I am desperate to make that a double L). And, er, well, yes, I am over it in that I can watch scenes of miscarriage on screen and ‘merely’ feel a great empathic wrench at the guts. I think I was more affected by the scene in which they argue about whether or not to carry on trying.

But I’m still not going to watch Call the Midwife. Because that would bring up the horrible, unspeakable subject of envy. And I don’t care to reduce myself to throwing hissy fits at the telly because some silly little pixellated imaginary character has convincingly mimed giving birth to a rubber doll for our entertainment.

As it is we had to stop watching Dexter halfway through series 3 because it was beginning to uncomfortably warm my piss that they used threatened pregnancy loss as a plot-device to heighten tension and increase the stakes. Oh, yes, very well, I know it bloody does heighten tension and increase stakes (have you seen my blog ratings whenever I miscarry? They triple for that month). But given the storyline, it was unnecessary. And cheesy. And of course everything was fine and they were fine and Dexter felt all protective because they’d had a scare yada yada. Pure Kraft Singles. (There’s also the whole even-a-serial-killer-can-get-his-girlfriend-knocked-up-by-accident thing. But that’s just petty of me. We should finish watching the third series of Dexter).

So what do we learn from all this? That whereas screenwriters are perfectly happy to use miscarriage and threatened miscarriage to increase dramatic tension, the General Public does NOT want to talk about it, hell, would much rather talk about fountaining nasal mucous. That even a year after the last one, I feel angry, and sad, and cheated, that I had so many miscarriages. That it takes longer than a year, more than one good cry. That I am drowning in limbo. That because so few people will speak of it, write of it, make TV programs about it that show all the times it doesn’t all work out well, what happened to me, is still happening to me, is, literally, unspeakable.

How do you survive something which simply does not exist in your culture?

In isolation February 4, 2012

Item – H has gone down to see his family, because waiting around here for news was making him antsy, and an antsy H is a misery to himself and others. This isn’t a desperate last-chance dash, before you all panic on our behalf. If it were, I’d've gone with him. It’s just an ant-removing expedition. Updates when H returns on Sunday evening.

Item – Speaking of which, now that H is 100 miles away and reliant on the trains to get home again tomorrow, it is snowing. Of course it is.

Item – The snow is exceedingly pretty.

Item – British trains are singularly craptastic in any weather that is not between 10C and 25C, bone-dry, and windless. Also, they cannot cope with leaves on the line, sheep on the line, llamas on the line, and the signal boxes are prone to both freezing in cold weather and sticking in hot weather. I think they make them out of damp chewed string and toffee. It is entirely possible that I now won’t see H until Tuesday. I hope he took my fussbiscuiting to heart and packed spare underpants.

Item – My appointment with Miss Consultant is on Tuesday *gives the weather the stink-eye*.

Item – Meanwhile, in matters internal, my period is due on Thursday, so well done Satsuma for pulling herself together and producing an egg last week even though it was January and none of us could be arsed to do anything at all except bitch, snivel and whinge, in between headaches and temper tantrums.

Item – Having the flat to myself, I spent the day watching rugby, knitting, and yattering away on FB. It was splendidly relaxing. And now, because I am deep-down really about fifteen years old, I am going to stay up really late and watch silly movies. Hurrah!