I win. Damn. November 5, 2009

Item – Since the momentous day I decided not to renew my Pill prescription, four years ago now (four! Four years! For fuck’s sake!), and start a determined assault on Castle Baby, I have had twelve ovulatory cycles. Twelve in four years. Pfft. However, of those twelve cycles, two (with an option on possibly three) ended in pregnancy – I use the word ended with all possible irony. Even I have to admit two (three) out of twelve is really not bad. It’s ’statistically normal’, or possibly even slightly better than ’statistically normal’. I win.

Item – I was so worried about the state of the One And Only Fallopian Tube. I have had two HSGs, and both times the radiologist mentioned it looked, well, borked, and both times Miss Consultant thought it looked OK, and I would wind myself into a frenzy about it. I think, now, with two intrauterine pregnancies (or, fuck-ups, as I prefer to call them when I’m in this mood), we can be sure the damn thing is not blocked. It may be leaking unspeakable fluids of toxic death into my uterus from the possible mild hydrosalpinx the radiologist kept seeing, but it’s not blocked or so damaged it stops eggs wafting along it in a timely fashion. So, I win.

Item – My mother came over for dinner last night. It was good. She seems to get it now. She did bring up the whole ’so excited you can get pregnant!’ thing, but she followed it up by saying ‘because, after last time, I was so worried you wouldn’t be able to again.’ And looked sad. And my heart melted. I won that one, in the end, but sheesh, be careful what you wish for, you might just get it. (And apparantly, when Mum told Diva about the miscarriage, Diva cried. Oh God).

Item – I thought of another possible diagnosis that would explain both the miscarriages and the fact I bleed like stink during periods and bled so very, very ludicrously much for a less-than-five-weeks-gone loss. Von Willebrand’s disease, or a similar clotting factor deficiency. About one in a hundred women have it. It is hereditable, from one or both parents, and the mild version is sometimes not even noticed at all in men (though my Dad has a tendency to turn a small kitchen accident into a flailing blood-spraying-up-the-walls melodrama. Maybe he’s not actually being melodramatic? For once?). In women, it causes really, really heavy periods and pain on ovulation (from internal bleeding). And possibly an increased risk of early miscarriage. Of course, the GP ordered the blood tests for a clotting disorder, not a bleeding one. I was thinking about this, nodding along with the GP’s thinking, and I announced firmly to H that it’s not like I bruise easily or get nosebleeds much, and he looked at me as if I had suddenly declared I was a turquoise stoat and pointed out I do bruise easily and I get a damn nose-bleed every time I get a damn cold (only, they tend to come on at night and end up in my throat rather than down my face. Umm. That was disgusting, wasn’t it?). So I thought, indeed, why a clotting disorder? I am positively lavish with my blood. I catch a hang-nail and it bleeds for fifteen fucking minutes. Should we perhaps be looking in the opposite direction? What do you people think? Is this a win for self-diagnosis and Dr Google, or a fail for vapouring?

Item – At this very moment I am only being tested for the clotting disorders mentioned before. I’ve had my thyroid tested (twice) in the past, and both times it came back normal. My mother, however, who does have real official thyroid problems, got a little hacked off about this and pointed out there were several different things that needed to be tested to determine thyroid function, and they only found her issue by testing all of them, as the standard test comes back normal for her and frankly, her thyroid is visible across the sodding room. So I think I need a proper thyroid screen, clotting tests, bleeding tests, karyotyping for the both of us, FSH and LH tests, testosterone and SHBG tests, progesterone, estrogen, anything I’ve missed out? I shall have to print out a list and take it with me to the clinic. And this is a win, you know, because thanks to the wonders of blogging, I have internet friends who can tell me I need these tests. I have advocates.

Item – I’ve lost a few more pounds this week. I am thinner than I was when we married. I am thinner than I have been for seven or eight years. I am within a few pounds of BMI 29, and the green light to go ahead with IVF (this being a whole ‘nother post, you understand). It’s a fucker of a way to lose weight, though. Bit of a pyrrhic victory.

Item – I am watching movies and eating chocolate in my pyjamas, on a Thursday afternoon. This is totally a win.

Nowhere near positive enough June 24, 2009

Hang on, where were we? There were several issues and questions and sucharama that commentators presented me with over the past few weeks. I meant to talk about them (the issues, that is. Not the commentators. Hi, guys! Talking about you! Not really!).

The National Health Service – A couple of dear darling commentators have wantd to know why I, May, don’t do this or take that drug or what-have-you. I’ll tell you why. It’s because I’m being treated by the NHS is why. They take a very dim view of people buying their own medication and throwing it into the mix, especially without or against their advice. They have been known to refuse people free treatment for that kind of stunt. And, before you protest, by and large, I think they are right to. I am not a gynaecological consultant (or RE, as the trans-Atlantic cousins call them). I do not know what more or mixed drugs would do to Satsuma. I have PCOS, I have just over half the regulation number of ovaries. I am a ‘hyperstimulation candidate’ ipso facto. I get migraines. I have some (mild) allergies. I do not wish to fuck with either my health or my continuing free medical treatment. It may not be stellar medical treatment, but it’s FREE. Well, not technically free, as I am a tax payer, but free at point of need.

IVF – In my particular trust (and GOD does it BUG THE LIVING CRAP OUT OF ME that each trust sets its own rules about this – NHS FAIL), I can have two IVF cycles, and the money for them has been put aside, as long as I have a BMI of 30 or under when I start treatment. If, however, I have private infertility treatment beforehand, I forfeit my free cycles. This is why I am eating salad, exercising, cursing like a navvy, and not investigating private clinics just yet. Even though I do have a bit of money saved up.

Clomid – To do another Clomid cycle or not to do another Clomid cycle: that is the question: Whether ’tis nobler in the ute to suffer The prods and pokings of outrageous ultrasounds, Or to close mouths against that pill of troubles, And by refusing end them? Will have to get back to you on that.

Injectables – I have not been offered injectables. Miss Consultant, and the IVF consultant, both think IVF is the next step, really, and are not prepared to waste more tax-payer’s money on shilly-shallying about. I think Miss Consultant is more concerned than she is prepared to admit about the state of the One and Only Fallopian Tube. Also, I am 34. I am running out of time. If I was 24, hell, yes, as many ’see what you can do in your own bed’ cycles as I liked.

IUI – See above. The NHS thinks I am too old and ought to be getting the hell on with IVF, as soon as I can whittle my flabby arse down for it. This is cheaper for them, as they don’t think IUIs and injectables will work, so why waste money on them? And I can’t go and do them privately, see above above. Hmm. This all sucks a bit, doesn’t it?

Metformin – The NHS does not think metformin that good a treatment for PCOS, unless you actually HAVE developed Type II Diabetes. There’s some research somewhere that showed ovulation rates on met and clomid were actually worse than on clomid alone, go figure. Several doctors and consultants now have lectured me on the subject, the consensus being that if you lose weight on met, you will put it all back on in seconds when you come off met, and you will come off it to do IVF (they don’t care for medication variables in Blighty, do they?), so there’s no point. And your body, allegedly, ‘forgets’ how to regulate its own insulin while you’re on met, and so if you do come off it it’s harder than ever to keep the weight off, and more likely than ever that your pancreas will emigrate. Apparantly. And all the benefits of met can be reaped in more sustainable form by the whole eat-the-fucking-salad, do-the-fucking-exercise thing, apparantly. I don’t know. I hear so many State-side stories of met being vunderbar and fantabulous and miraculous. And diarrhoea-inducingly vile. I am currently actually losing weight without met, so am inclined to keep on avoiding it until and unless the weight-loss goes tits-up for reasons OTHER than Ben and Jerrys. I hate the idea of having to be on strong medication for life, and I hate the idea of screwing further with my already screwed metabolism.

Counselling – H thinks this is going well. We are having fewer and fewer appointments, with longer gaps between them, like giving up cigarettes. I feel frustrated with it. H will not bring his issues up in the sessions, and when the issue concerns H, or is to do with H’s behaviour, I feel disloyal bringing it up myself. Also, I am getting fed up with the constant focus on how to create situations in which H feels comfortable sharing his feelings etc. Childish desire to scream ‘But what about meeeeeeeee?’ recrudesces at these junctures. On the other hand, H is sharing his feelings a lot more, and instead of getting defensive and sulky when I challenge him on his avoidance thing, he is far more likely to take it on the chin and try to have a proper talk about whateverthehellitis. So. Counselling. It’s working for H. It’s working for our relationship. I am a special flower who needs extra cookies. Also, is it normal to feel you can’t share certain issues with your counsellor out of sheer embarrassment?

Acupuncture – H has found an acupuncturist specialising in infertility. I now have to call and book an initial consultation. I am a sceptical, atheistical, anti-hippy-crap person. And yet I think this is a good idea. Not necessarily because I think acupuncture works, even, though I have seen interesting studies about it, and anyway, I like the placebo effect. The NHS could do with a bit more placebo effect itself. But, see above, strong desire to be centre of attention, issues regarding, etc., thank you. Also, it’s (allegedly) good for migraines – and I am getting really really sick of them – insomnia, and general teeth-gritting refusal to relax the hell already. Not that relaxing gets a girl pregnant. Oh no. Ovulating does that.

The Size of My Arse -Working on it. Have now got to weirdly upsetting stage in which I can comfortably get into trousers that two months ago I could not do up, and last month I squeezed out over the top of like too much rising dough in a very small bread-tin, but haven’t lost a single ounce for two weeks now. Horrible fanasies of going back to IVF clinic looking trim as anything, clambering onto scales, and being thrown back out again because my bones have turned to lead and they won’t believe it’s lead and not lard despite the smaller trousers.

Satsuma – is thinking about it. Also, EWCM has reappeared. Assume Clomid Fail has worn off, leaving me with standard mind-fuck PCOS fail to be getting on with.

Work/Life balance – Gone to pot.

Step we waily, on we go June 14, 2009

I don’t really know what to do with myself now.

Obviously, there is the Next Step, and the Next Step is IVF, but I have at least a stone to lose, a stone-and-a-half, say, before the NHS will agree to do it. Enter hiatus of, I hope, merely several months, while I wrestle a) my love-handles, b) my lazy arse, c) my demons and d) my thing about chocolate when peeved, into submission.

What the hell am I supposed to do with myself for months on end, waiting to be treated? I was going to be doing clomid cycles, about which Miss Consultant wasn’t hugely optimistic, but clearly she thought, and I agreed, that they’d keep me busy. And clomid has shat on me and flown away.

H, who very much wishes to do or say something helpful, has suggested acupuncture. Hell, I’ll do acupuncture. I was raised by credulous hippies, and therefore am very keen on scientific method, double blind trials, results reproduceable under laboratory conditions, and, umm, the placebo effect. I may not have much faith in being stabbed, but I do have a lot of faith in having somebody prepared to take me and my failing, battered, ornery blob of a body seriously, and dedicating time and sympathetic attention to it (and me). This is not something the NHS has the money to do. It will treat me when I meet its checklist. When I don’t meet its checklist, it will turf me gently out until I do. How I get to meet the checklist is no concern of theirs.

(H was also raised by credulous hippies. In is case, he is still three eights credulous hippy, bless him).

I am actually losing weight, so I am not sure why I am having helpless hopeless wailfest moment here.

Except that I am 34. And if it does take me months to lose the weight, which no doubt it will, as PCOS makes your fat cells cling oh so determinedly to every damn ounce, well, then it will be months and months before I do IVF. I could be 35. My sodding lazy eggs could be withering away inside my sodding lazy ovary, week by week. Yes, my mother got pregnant at 38, so I should have no trouble on that score, or so family members have reassured me, and yes, but, this being the kicker, my mother never had PCOS. I should imagine that has a much greater effect on my fertility than whatever Catholic-Jewish Rabbit genes I inherited from either side of the family.

Anyway, I was bollixed from birth, so clearly didn’t inherit any of them. I had a dermoid cyst that destroyed an ovary – you’re born with those. I have an arcuate uterus – not a problem as such, but something clearly went slightly awry in the growing of me. And look at my hands. My ring fingers are longer than my index fingers, a sure sign of raised testosterone levels in utero, and does that sound good for a woman’s fertility to you? (though it also apparantly means I will be athletic, mathematically and spatially gifted and not so good with words. Yeah, athletic, haha, and I still can’t do primary-school level mental arithmetic without a pencil and the back of an envelope, regularly walk into tables and door-frames, and write sestinas for fun, so either I am an anomaly or the finger thing is drivel). Where was I going with this?

Oh yes. I feel that as I am reproductively botched, I don’t have the time to faff about eating lettuce and ‘concentrating on my career’ until next year.

I agree, written down this all sounds stupidly neurotic and vapouring. It’s only a few months. It’s fine.

It’s not fine. I’m panicking. It’s not fine at all. On with the needles.

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?

Fat March 29, 2009

While we wait for anything at all to happen within the recesses of my person, I thought I had better write that post I’d been carefully putting off, about the size of my arse. A couple of weeks ago, I made notes and everything. So. But because I am incapable of organising my thoughts into anything cohesive, I have made no improvement on the notes and shall present them in all their bullet-pointed glory. With rambling addenda. Of course!

• I find talking about my weight boring and embarrassing. Very very boring, and very very embarrassing. If I am going to diet and exercise, I shall do so quite quietly, and absolutely avoid any and all advice about exercise plans, good and bad foods, and vitamin supplements. I certainly hate getting into discussions with people about diets and exercise, most particularly when the other person snivelling about their squashiness weighs a good two stone less than I do. In fact, all you people out there who like to discuss your fat arse at length in the office canteen, etc., for the love of God, look at your conversational partner. Is she fatter than you? Yes? Then SHUT THE FUCK UP. Save it for blogging, where those who can’t take it can escape and those who can will actually be interested. Thank you.
• Context: I am the only Fatty in a Skinny family. A Skinny family who, bless them and all their tormenting little ways, have an infuriating habit of ’suggesting’ diets and exercise regimes (all involving seaweed, brown rice, and extreme mortification of the flesh), while feeding me chocolate biscuits and second helpings. And then we have ridiculous coversations along the line of: ‘Well, have you tried eating only raw food? It’s so detoxing and healthy, and then if you do yoga every day and avoid yeast it’ll be so good for you, have some more roast potatoes, what do you mean, you don’t want more potatoes? They’re good! And it’s silly to leave only a teeny bit. And then we can have chocolate hobnobs for tea – oh, you and your silly fancies, not liking biscuits, have one, go on, and have you read this book on the 1000-calorie-a-day diet? Do you eat too much bread? I bet you eat too much bread.’
• I think they like having a token Fatty around. You can’t feel properly Skinny-smug without a Fatty to patronise. I am perfectly aware most slim people do not go around sneering at fat people, by the way. My family are not most people. My family are a bunch of neurotic, self-obsessed, competitive, rivalrous, snobbish, judgemental and low-self-esteem-afflicted loud-mouths. Feel that your marriage is cracking up? Hey, at least you’re not as fat as May! Unable to keep a job? But you’re skinnier than May! Children driving you batshit? Hey, May is twice your size, go and stand next to her for an hour, you’ll feel marvellous!
• Also, oh, the raging irony of having a biscuit-obsessed 10 stone mother, whereas I hate biscuits and weigh 14 stone 7. Rage, rage.
• It has taken me years to get to a place where I have stopped equating my wobbly tummy and over-ripe thighs with sheer hideousness, where I am comfortable in my skin, where I do not automatically equate slimness with beauty and moral worth. I do not want to go back to a place where food is the enemy and I am the enemy too for eating it.
• When I was a teenager, I was very thin. Yes, I was. Ribs. Hands like bird-claws. I did it by Not Eating. I was a bit depressed, you see. I also had  a side-line in self-harming. But hey! I was thin!
• And I was also very ill. I had glandular fever, badly, which turned into post-viral fatigue syndrome just in time for A-levels, and I had a giant ovarian cyst that was slowly twisting my left ovary into a pretzel and caused me constant pain, deeply whacked out cycles, outbreaks of haemorrhage and a fetching moustache. I had to have emergency surgery in the end, because I collapsed shrieking in agony, my ovary beginning to actually tear itself in half. I now have a scar that runs from hip to hip along my knicker line. The cyst was 18 cm across when they removed it (and the ovary. And most of the fallopian tube, which had also got tangled up in the action).
• I now, neurotically, associate being thin with, perhaps, looking good and being virtuous, but also with pain, depression, hospitals, scars, being neglected by the medical establishment (‘Oh, all teenage girls get painful irregular periods! There’s nothing wrong with you! Have some Femin.ax!’). I am scared of being thin.
• But being fat is making me barren. And is preventing me from doing IVF. And, frankly, makes wearing skirts in the summer uncomfortably rubby in the thigh area.
• So I must diet and exercise.
• Being fat is a big fertility issue, and my fertility, lack of, is a big fat issue, so I am getting it off my chest (Hah hah. Bwahahahah, in fact). I am only venting about the issue and why I find it difficult and saddening. Only venting.
• Therefore I’d like everyone to seriously resist the temptation to give advice and tips. Please. Be considerate. Remember that you don’t actually know that much about my eating habits and exercise regimes. Remember that ‘just relax’ and ‘have you tried cough medicine/ pineapple/ propping your hips up/ a vacation?’ are craptastic things to say to an infertile person. Well, ‘have you tried the South Beach Diet/ smaller plates/ larger plates/ Pilates/ colonic irrigation?’ are craptastic things to say to a fat person.

Quickly now, I have a train to catch March 7, 2009

Item: IVF clinic says no. But in a nice, caring way. I still have to lose weight, so I have been discharged from the waiting list, but, the day, the very DAY, I hit fighting weight, I can leap back on the list and get seen a month or so later. So it’s not the gigantic snake that wiggles from Square 98 to Square 1.

Item: The IVF clinic consultant gynaecologist (do we even have RE’s in Britain? Do we simply call them something different?) was a sweetheart, and was happy to spend ages answering every single question we could come up with.

Item: H was in Marvellous Involved Husband Mode, the angel, and asked quadrillions of sensible questions about the extra risks owing to my mono-ovary-of-crappitude state. Yes, I am at a higher risk of OHSS. Yes, Satsuma will produce as many eggs as two ovaries would – a single ovary somehow usually compensates for its sibling’s absence. (Fuckin’ OW).

Item: I was weighed and measured again, this time by a nurse who was DETERMINED to get it right and took a great deal of care about my height, and, guess what? At the last visit to Miss Consultant her nurse had got my height wrong by about three centimetres – yes, I thought she was measuring it off my hair-line, and did say, but she assured me it was OK. Ha ha. So I have less than a stone and a half to lose, but a stone and a half is recommended ‘to be on the safe side’, which I assume provides me with a medication-induced-bloat cushion.

Item: Meanwhile, on with the Clomid, and the Sweetheart doctor said kindly that she really hoped she wouldn’t have to see us again. Well, ditto, Sweetheart.

Item: And then I went to work, and work sprung about half-a-dozen career-opportunity-related surprises on me, good ones, which is actually slightly scary, and I ended up discussing IVF as being possible next Academic year, and infertility generally, with my line-manager, in a cheerful, matter-of-fact way, and there she was, planning how to get me out of all the physical aspects of my job (lifting boxes, shelving, cart pushing, etc) if and when I needed it, which, now that I think of it, sounds very like someone who has a clue what IVF involves.

….

Gosh.

Item: H and I are off to spend the night with friends, so I simply must stop talking to you, shower, and pack my toothbrush and clean unmentionables.

Item:By unmentionables I also mean 47 tampons in assorted sizes from pencil to carrot, panty-liners, great big super pads, and four varieties of painkiller, for I took the last provera Thursday, and though it’s unlikely The Period will turn up before Tuesday or Wednesday, I wouldn’t put it past the Cute Ute to pull a fast one and ruin my weekend. I have found the remains of the diclofenac sodium I was prescribed when I last had surgery, and as I won’t be driving or operating heavy machinery, am seriously considering using it to blot out the pain, and, hey, names, dates, faces, and which way round shoes go on as well. At least I won’t be white and green and dizzy and crumpling in the middle.

Through the medium of the Spaghetti Western reference February 25, 2009

The Infertility and Loss Counsellor:

• The Good – She lives just around the corner. H got up and bared his manly forearms and did all the phoning and organising appointments himself, and all I had to do was turn up, clutching his hand and looking frail and interesting. She made Useful and Interesting suggestions. I started crying piteously the moment I mentioned Pikaia and didn’t stop until the end of the session, and, you know, that was OK. Not only was it OK, she seemed to think it perfectly normal. And she had tissues with butterflies on. So. Nine months on, crying, to be expected. I am relieved.
• The Bad – H and I have been rowing almost non-stop since the appointment. Mostly because every little thing H does makes me want to scream. And probably because we’ve spent nine months not dealing with each other’s reactions to the miscarriage, and going to the counsellor is making us deal. Which is the point. Which I am not dealing with.
• The Ugly – My reaction to H’s latest attempt to explain that he compartmentalises his feelings and doesn’t express much emotion over these issues because he wants to ’stay strong’ for me. I think I accused him of not so much ’staying strong’ for me, as staying out of it for him. What’s worse, I am right, and H admits it. Fuck.
  

The consultation with Miss Consultant:

• The Good – Miss Consultant was very sweet. She apologised for the 40 minute languish in the overheated waiting room, watching small children and little old ladies queue to get their hearing checked. She wants to do some more Clomid cycles. She wants to monitor the next one. She was pleased I had lost weight. She had checked my notes and decided the Fallopian Tube looked OK. There was no more talk of fibroids (see? I told you I didn’t have a fibroid).
• The Bad – I completely forgot to grill her like a kebab over a) the impossibility of getting in touch with her by telephone, b) incidentally, why the fuck are my periods still so ungodly painful? and c) the incommunicado thing again. And then she said, as we were leaving, ’stay in touch!’. I caught H’s eye. Ah hah hah hah.
• The Ugly – She warned me that not only do my IVF clinic want you have a BMI of 30 or under before they treat you, they also want you to have been that way for six months. And then we looked at a BMI chart and worked out I have to lose 2 (two) (that’s one, and then a whole ‘nother one) stone, and then KEEP IT OFF for six months. At which point, praising me for the few pounds I have lost seemed a little like praising Moby Dick for only drowning most of the crew.

FIL:

• The Good – he’s back home again at last.
• The Bad – on Warfarin and with a pacemaker.
• The Ugly – I don’t know if there is an ugly on this, and I bloody well hope there isn’t.

Everything else:

• The Good – I have three new bras that fit. And that I bought with minimum inconvenience and sobbing, in the first retailer of undergarments that I entered. Admittedly, they are not lingerie, in that they are sturdy and beige (‘nude’, it says on the box), but then nothing I wear is lingerie. Every lingerie retailer I have lingered in has made it pretty clear to me that lingerie is mostly designed for those who do not need support or corralling.
• The Bad – Insomnia. Work very tedious and dull right now. H and I have stopped having sex again, probably due to the FIL situation and the general pointlessness of this cycle, but just because I understand and can sympathise doesn’t mean I have to be happy about it (also, rows mentioned above? Lack of sex could be a factor, don’t you think? Or are only men allowed to be like that). The flat is damp.
• The Ugly – My mood.

Ambivalence, I haz it. February 23, 2009

So, you weren’t sure how on earth I was feeling on being given an appointment, an actual appointment, with the IVF clinic. To be honest, neither was I. Gob-smacked will do for now. I thought we wouldn’t reach the top of the list until September at the earliest.

But I can’t be all delighted about it. I simply can’t. I’m not done here yet.

As I was saying to my brand new infertility and loss counsellor this evening, I got pregnant on nothing but Clomid once before. The sperm works, the tube works, the lining works, all we need is an egg, and if we can get an egg and bang like a barn door in a twister, we will get pregnant again. Won’t we? I’ve only ovulated three times since Pikaia, so statistically it was Not Likely even if two of said ovulations hadn’t been very very late and therefore probably a bit manky. In any case, don’t we get to try it that way?

As for my body’s current rejection of all things Clomid, well, I was only on 50 mg an evening, and I hear of women taking 100, 150, mg routinely. I may very simply need a larger dose. In any case, don’t we get to try it that way?

And then, if Clomid really doesn’t work for me any more, there’s Femara. That induces ovulation in PCOS women, doesn’t it? And it doesn’t thin the uterine lining like Clomid can. Though I have heard Femara works less well on fatter women, so my arse might get in the way. In any case, don’t we get to try it that way?

And then, there’s the tube. I know I said it worked. Well, it worked for Pikaia. I don’t know if it works any more, what with That Infection. If it is Comprehensively Buggered, as the HSG lady likes to insist, they’ll probably want to remove it before doing IVF in case it is leaking Evil Fluids of Unspeakable Embryonic Doom back into the uterine cavity. Apparantly buggered fallopian tubes do this, the little bastards. If they do take the tube, it’s IVF or nothing. No hope of a Whoopsie Hello Miracle Baby. No hope of the Surprise! I didn’t downregulate! ultrasound. No making the child of our hearts in the first bed we bought together. And I’m going to have to process losing that chance, however miniscule it ever was going to have been.

And I feel all this giving up and moving on has been forced on me, by bureaucracy, by Miss Consultant’s lackadaisical attitude to her patients’ requests for advice, by this cycle being so stupid and long and doomed. And I am stubborn. I do not give up and move on easily. I will damn well master this level before I go on to the next.

And I do so want a real chance at conceiving our child in our bed. Even if it doesn’t work, I so very much want to have had that chance.

Now wait just one teensy second February 21, 2009

Look at this. The post-man delivered it this very morning. Look at it. An appointment with the IVF clinic, a mere fecking week after the appointment with Miss Consultant at the Fertility Clinic.

Jesus H. Christ on a motorcycle.

Scream if you want to go faster February 12, 2009

Miss Consultant’s poor benighted secretary, a cross between an angel, a slave and wikipedia, got back to me yesterday. Guess what Miss Consultant wants me to do?

Wait.

Because I’m seeing her on the 25th and what’s two more weeks?

Well, for starters, if she’d got back to me when I first asked, it’d've been four weeks and pretty much enough time for another whole cycle, but never mind. It’s not like I’ve spent the two weeks I’ve been begging for her attention filling in IVF paperwork or any other little thing like that that concentrates the mind WONDERFULLY.

It’s not that I want to not do IVF, not that I’m hugely keen on needles and bloating. But I did want to give Clomid a proper actual try, you know, with several goes and a possibility of it working properly on account of my actually ovulating, before I jogged on to the next task in this giant game of Myst, Infertile Island Edition.

Because Clomid worked before (Hah. See? These infertility doctors are infecting me with their jargon. ‘Worked’ indeed). And if all the matter is, is I can’t ovulate or, at least, can’t ovulate in a timely fashion and before the given egg has been boiled hard in a soup of estrogen and LH, then surely Clomid is the answer. Therefore the thing to do is get me to ovulate before the end of the third week of the cycle, several cycles in a row. And then panic and bring on the needles. Surely. And all this fucking about waiting for clinic appointments because my consultant ‘doesn’t do’ calling back, is a complete waste of time.

Incidentally, H was on an IVF message board earlier this week (no, I had no idea, this was his own spontaneous action, and I was so startled at the information I think I forgot to be touched and delighted), and Miss Consultant apparantly has rather a reputation for being inaccessible and not answering her patients’ calls.

Dear Christ in heaven, why me?

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In other Fairly Major News, my FIL had open-heart surgery today. He seems to have come through it fine, and they didn’t have to replace anything with metal or pig-parts, which was a worry and is a bonus (I mean, my MIL is an insomniac as it is – imagine asking the poor woman to sleep next to a man who clanks all night). He’s still sedated in Intensive Care (normal after a heart op), so we have to wait, wait, waitwaitwaitwaitwait, until tomorrow to get a proper update. H is like a cat in a rocking-chair factory, poor lamb. Think happy thoughts for H’s Dad, and H’s Mum, and grandparents, and brother, and for H too, please, dear internets.