Notes on recovery November 9, 2009

I’ve even left the house a few times.

I know, big hairy deal.

Except, actually, it is a bit of a big deal. The one thing I can’t shake is this endless sense of exhaustion. I stopped spotting altogether a week ago, so it’s not continuous bleeding. I finished the whole course of antibiotics on Thursday, so my bowel function (sorry, but antibiotics play hob with said function) is returning to normal, and I am eating sensible healthy meals and taking my vitamins and iron supplements. I’m even sleeping quite well. What more can I do? I have been signed off work until next week, so this is in no way a vital or pressing question. I am just. So. Fucking. Tired. So I am very proud that I went out, walked about, and came back. Especially so as I got to meet Womb for Improvement for hot chocolate (squeeeeeee!)

Last time I miscarried, I was very emotional. Devastated. Heart-broken. Raging and inconsolable. This time I feel, chiefly, tired and bitter. So far at any rate. We shall see what spectacular outbreaks I come up with as time goes by. Because, oh, yes, H and I got into a deeply, deeply pointless fight last night, based on the sort of infinitesimal misunderstanding we’d normally clear up in seventeen placid seconds. It then occurred to me that we went through this sort of stupid blow-up and resultant disproportionate fury from last time. It’s like misery-induced paranoia, as if there was no possible way anything could be meant in all innocence. The universe is, after all, a heap of shite, right?

I personally attribute the lack of immediate devastation to:

• a) Denial. It’ll smack me upside the head at some point. Heigh ho.
• b) I’ve already lost my miscarriage virginity. The first time, I knew intellectually that shit happens, but, in my innocence, thought getting pregnant was the hard part, and that I had, therefore, paid my ‘hard part’ dues. This time? Feh. I am comfortably tucked into the box marked ’shit happens’.
• c) By the time I knew I was pregnant, I had already been cramping and spotting. I knew it was doomed. I had no chance whatsoever of getting attached, or invested, or whatever. Actually, I suspect that this will be the part of this loss that will come back to haunt me most. Me, watching the second pink line coming up on the pee-stick, and thinking not: ‘hurrah, I’m pregnant!’ but ‘oh God. This isn’t a wonky period. This is a miscarriage. Oh, please, no. Not again.’

H also seems more resigned. He is also more communicative (yay for counselling!), and we both seem to find the fact that we’re being taken very seriously and sent off to specialists reassuring. Last time, we were adrift on a vast ocean of confusion and loss, and nobody in the least bit interested in hauling us in to shore. Contrary to popular (medical) belief, there is nothing in the least bit reassuring or comforting about the diagnosis ‘It’s just bad luck, it almost certainly won’t happen again.’ Statistics may say this is so. We, the couple sitting before you, are not statistics. Statistically, any given couple should get happily, innocently pregnant in one year of banging away. We have already flicked the V at statistics. We can’t possibly feel that statistics apply to us any more. The unreasoning, meaningless diagnosis ‘bad luck’ is also the unreasoning, meaningless diagnosis ‘there’s fuck all we can/will do for you. Now bugger off.’

*Momentary pause while I feel some sympathy for doctors saddled with having to give the diagnosis ‘bad luck’, and the powerlessness they get to ‘enjoy’ too.*

And now all is onwards and upwards. Take more blood. Do more tests. Test both of us. Find a cause. Treat it. We may turn out to be in a shitty-bad place, but at least we won’t be lost in the dark anymore.

At least, I hope so.

In which I lose all self-respect October 29, 2009

Hello, I’m back, I’m writing this in the comfort of my very own armchair, drinking flat ginger ale out of my very own glass, wearing (thank God) my very own pyjamas. Aaaaaand…. breathe.

Well, that sucked. As H said, yesterday I was sitting about at home, minding my own very gloomy miserable business, when I noticed the bleeding getting more-so. Fair enough, I am having a miscarriage. The pain is getting more-so too. Only to be expected. Only, hang on, surely, this is just a little much? This pain, this bleeding, a bit fucking much? And at the point where I collapsed on the bed sobbing and howling in a manner that makes me feel quite pink with embarrassment to recall, H decided, that is enough. And started calling in medical assistance. I have no idea who said what to whom about what and when, as by this point I was kneeling on the bathroom floor with my head in the toilet. Oh, joy. And then there was an almost-pleasant-in-comparison interval while I lay on my face, thinking ‘holy hell, when did I last mop in here? This floor is disgusting‘ while H ran about finding clothes to stuff me into and books and keys and phones and a bag and whathaveyou while waiting for the ambulance.

The gas and air in said ambulance was very nice, by the way, once they’d solved the air-lock in the feed which had the mouthpiece making a hideously funny farting noise every time I sucked on it. The pain was still going on, but it was happening to some other poor unfortunate woman just over there, so that was all right (I remember pethidine having much the same effect on me). I was aware that my undercarriage was very very wet, downright soggy, even, and possibly this was cause for concern, but hey! gas and air says relax!

When the ambulance driver was helping me roll from their trolley-bed onto the hospital trolley bed she said ‘oh! You’re actively bleeding, aren’t you!’ and I was alas too stoned to say ‘nooooo, I’m definitely passively bleeding… I’m just lying here getting you to do all the heavy lifting…’ Then the gas and air wore off (the cruel brutes were taking the cyclinder back to the ambulance with them, as if anyone else needed it more than me, HAH) and I realised that in the 30 to 40 minutes we’d been in the ambulance (they were taking us back to the hospital that released me the day before, hence long drive), I had bled through a super-duper heavy flow pad, the track-suit bottoms H had shuffled me into, the thick towelling dressing-gown ditto, the ambulance blanket, the sheet, and onto the trolley.

Yes, I know. Yuk. Exactly.

Anyway, this sort of thing gets the attention of the A&E doctors fairly sharpish, and I was being peeled out of my sodden clothes and put into a hospital gown in short order. My blood pressure had dropped, not catastrophically (or I suppose they’d've been ripping me open looking for internal bleeding), but definitely, so they got a drip in – the poor nurse had to dig for a vein, what with mine all being half-empty and pathetic, and I even noticed that it bloody hurt despite Cute Ute ramping up the hysterics. And then the on-call gynae doctor turned up, and she was very nice, and announced she was going to examine me internally, at which point H firmly announced he was going outside to find a glass of water. I think he’d had about as much gore and sobbing as he could take, poor lamb.

Cue unpleasant episode with speculum, swabs, tweezers, and so on.

Gynae doctor finally explained that she thought a piece of pregnancy tissue had got stuck in the cervix, and all the massive cramps, bleeding, vomiting and horrible horrible blood-clots where the Cute Ute’s attempts to get it out (cervixes are fussy like that). It had gone now, anyway. And finally, here was some codeine to make it all better, and a bed in a private room to feel all better on. And poor H, who had reappeared when the exam was over and had been holding my hand and carrying bags of my blood-stained clothes about, was allowed to go home.

Today started quite well. The sweet doctor who had diagnosed the not-ectopic-after-all reappeared, and there was talk of scans and second opinions. I felt… OK. Sore, but OK. I read my book. I dutifully used bed-pans so the nurses could check the amount of fluid coming out of me was matching the amount going in, and (urgh urgh urgh) keep an eye on the blood-clots to make sure I was passing pregnancy tissue, as they kept calling it. I was. Urgh.

By lunch time everything was going tits-up again. The sweet doctor and the nurses had got all at cross-purposes, and no-one knew who was doing what with me when, or, at least, certainly not bothering to explain it to me. H called the ward at midday to ask after me, but they didn’t bother to tell me that, and I was wondering where the hell he was. They told him I had had a scan (I so had not) and a second opinion was needed (actually, sweet doctor wanted a second opinion to decide if there was any need to do a scan). H called back at 2, and no one told him that I was asking for him, ohh, no, and then no one told me that H said he’d be along at some point later that afternoon, so I was getting quite stressed on the ‘where the buggery fuck is my bloody husband?’ scale. This was all compounded by the fact the pain was back, in spades, with added burningness and tenderness, and by the time I drew the nurses’ attention to this and she finally got around to finding some more codeine, I was having a ‘pain peak’ in the cute phrase of the sweet doctor and neither codeine nor diclofenac could control it.

In short, gentle readers, I panicked, and cried. Again. Which sucked.

Luckily, sweet doctor had been collecting together all my blood and urine test results and had found her second opinion and came back to find me tear-stained and dishevelled (thank GOD for the private room, eh?) and in need of reassurance. So she gave it. The blood test (the Beta, you call it in the States) was under 5, and the pee-stick was negative, and there was no danger of a lingering ectopic they’d missed. The cramps were certainly caused by the passing of the ‘pregnancy tissue’ and would get better over the next few days, as should the bleeding.

As for the rather extreme nature of the pain I was in? Umm, well, it would seem I had managed to pick up a urinary tract infection on top of everything else. The burning pain? Err, that was that. Made worse by pressing on a wildly cramping uterus and all the general prostaglandin excess in the area.

The indignity of it. A feckin’ UTI. I cried like a terrified six-year-old over a UTI. I will now burst into flames of shame. *foom*

And, naturally, having discovered that the reason I was feverish, with a racing pulse, cramping and aching horribly, and feeling like I’d been run over by a small-to-medium sized tractor, was a mere UTI (oh, and some mere serious blood-loss), and not internal bleeding or a ruptured ovary or John Hurt’s Alien heading for fresh air and daylight, I cheered the fuck up and felt much much better. And then H turned up, and I felt better still. So much so that they agreed I could go home, with a big pile of antibiotics and pain-killers, and lots of warnings about coming straight back if I got worse again (or panicked myself into hysterics again. Hah hah).

Embarrassing, really, to discover just how much you can aggravate your own physical pain by being terrified and miserable. Also, my famous posh British stiff upper lip? I’ve lost it. I shall have to make do with a fake mustache.

Anyway, Gentle Readers, I love you all. Thank you a thousand times for the support and comments.

Smell of burning October 20, 2009

I am cold. It is cold. But I am cold, in that my temperature was down (aaaaaaaagh) this morning. Positive Thinking Fairy is pointing out that I had a temperature dip about this time on the One and Only Pregnancy Cycle, hurrah hurrah. Bitter McTwisted, who is, I think, a sensible woman, points out day 10 is about time my temperature starts slowly tumbling back towards normal, to meet the rising Crimson Tide.

*sigh*

I had an anxiety attack at work, you know. I made a teeny weeny simple mistake, realised I’d made it within five minutes, corrected it (which took, ooh, 0.2 of a second), and carried on with no one else in any way affected or in the least aware of it. And then spent my entire tea-break talking myself down of the Ledge of I-Am-A-Cretin-And-Don’t-Deserve-To-Be-Employed. For a mistake the like of which I make at least once a week and usually correct but no-one cares if I don’t. For a mistake over which I normally don’t so much as waste the bat of an eyelid. Yes. Indeed. That’s what I thought.

(I wish being anxious didn’t make me feel so… contaminated. Ahh, me and my hang-ups).

Anyway, I am frazzled to buggery (less fun than it sounds) over work, writing course, almost certain lack of indwellers, uncertainty regarding almost certain lack of indwellers, course (did I mention course?), and suddenly highly active and entertaining social life (I have a social life? How the hell did that happen?) giving me very little time to work on writing course, aaaagh first assignment due in next week aaaaagh, oh, and the bathroom needs cleaning.

The smell? Is my brain melting. Disgusting, isn’t it?

PTSD October 12, 2009

OK. Let’s talk about this.

Since the miscarriage, I have had about nine? ten? periods/provera-induced bleeds/whateverthehells. (The ones on provera were not nearly as vile as the ovulatory ‘proper’ periods, but yes, they were vile too. Vile is not binary). Anyway, as they have come, stamped up and down on my belly in spiked rugby boots, and gone, I began to notice H was being a little… off. Not quite H-ish.

You see, H’s normal reaction to an unwell May is to tuck her up in bed and bring her tea and stroke her hair, while May bats him crossly away and demands to be left in peace for God’s sake. But during a period (I hate the word ‘period’. I really do. Not as much as I hate ‘Aunt Flo’ or ‘The Painters’ or ‘That Time of the Month’, admittedly, but still), H would, in fact, leave May alone. He would bring tea and refill hot-water-bottles, but having delivered them he would scarper. Admittedly, I’m not a good conversationalist at these times and about as easy to cuddle as a brass elbow. It was quite a big deal for both of us when, on one particularly shitty night in a hotel in Zurich, H sat up at about 2 am and massaged my feet in a kindly attempt to distract me from the cramps in my thighs, back, belly, buttocks and jaw (from teeth-clenching). It was such a big deal, in fact, that it made me think about the fact that the normally very huggy cuddlefest that is H on a compassion bender, doesn’t touch me when I have my (ugh) period.

Oh, hey, part of me is saying. I don’t blame him. I wouldn’t touch me either. Also, usually, when I am not well, I don’t actually like being touched or asked how I am in a worrity little voice. Just keep the tea coming and pass me the TV remote.

The miscarriage has changed everything, though. The whole I’m-all-disappointed-and-hejeebuz-but-this-hurts-too-much thing? Now I want to be stroked and cuddled. It doesn’t have to be all cuddle all the time, you know. Tea is good, too. And I am aware that while sleep becomes that Vanished Good of Golden Yore for me, at least until the Cute Ute shuts the fuck up, other humans will be and deserve to be blissfully unconscious between 11 pm and 7 am. But, some cuddle? A little cuddle? Mini-cuddle? Cuddle if you ever want a blow-job ever again?

Anyway, a couple of weeks ago, in my best wifely, concerned, caring way, I got H in a headlock and threatened to tear his ears off if he didn’t talk right now this minute as to WTF was up with the distant no-touchy thing during the Visitation of the Red Menace. Eventually I had to let go of him as his replies were rather muffled, but when he repeated it all, I gathered that, basically, my periods are so fucking awful that they remind him of my post-miscarriage collapse. And that scares and upsets him, as it was a (yes, really!) scary and upsetting experience, and he deals with it in the way he usually deals with horrible shit, i.e. he puts it a box, tapes the lid on with gaffer tape, puts the box in a locked filing cabinet, and then buries the lot under a deserted cross-roads at midnight. In other words, avoidance tactics. In practice, this means he pretends I don’t really exist until about day 4 of said period, when I am clearly feeling a lot better and have become a cushiony armful of yumminess again.

H did not realise this would be in any way a problem because I am usually so keen on being left alone (only, bring the tea) when not well.

I agree it might have helped if I had said, look, yes, normally, but when I am menstruating, I need cuddles, OK? Only, and this is a stinger, this is pretty much exactly what I did say several months ago. Hence, you see, the need for head-locks. What? I’m not normally violent.

H admits I did say that. It’s just, when faced with me rocking back and forth in foetal position, communicating in grunts through clenched teeth, with the sweaty complexion of a good stilton, he panics. Any intelligent memories of a (pink, comfortable, upright and voluble) wife saying, ‘remember, a back rub would be nice at this point,’ are swamped by fear and grief, and therefore, you know, the whole ‘box, gaffer-tape, spade, if anyone asks, I’ll be down at the old cross-roads’ routine kicks in.

Self-defence. And for exactly the same reason I want the cuddle. It’s all too like the miscarriage, and the aftermath of the miscarriage, and we are both upset and disappointed and dealing with crappy memories, and it really, really is a bit fucking much that I have to do a live-action re-enactment of the whole sodding thing just to prove that I’m still not pregnant, and I want to deal with it by hugging and being treated like a super-special snowflake, and H wants to deal with it by, well, not dealing with it.

We both promised to do better at the communication lark. Well, no, I actually promised I would be promising to do better if I hadn’t already done better, thank you. H promised to, well, get over himself and rub feet.

The thing that really annoys me, however, is that from the very day I lost Pikaia, yea even while lying in my hospital bed feeling like road-kill, I was worried about how H would deal with it all. And H spent quite a few months denying that it had any kind of permanent or traumatic effect on him at all, why should it have, I mean, he was sad, obviously, but, it’s all over now, onwards and upwards. Hah, I say. Hah.

You remember we went to a counsellor about my (our! It was supposed to be our!) inability to get over it and cheer the fuck up. We did do lots of useful work on communication and acknowledgement of each other’s feelings and more communication and that it’s normal to feel crushed to pulp by years of embarrassing medical shit topped off with infertility and a dollop of miscarriage. But I am actually quite annoyed, then and now, that the one thing we never discussed at length was H’s feelings, because H was always denying he even had any. Yeah. He does have a remarkably elaborate burial ritual going for these feelings he doesn’t actually have, doesn’t he? And denial is in Egypt.

PS I am well aware you are all staring at me in disgust because H is obviously an angel in chinos. Tea, hot-water-bottles, and now I want foot-rubs? Just how special is this super-snowflake?

Flab October 3, 2009

I tried to buy a bra today. God knows why, as I am perfectly aware trying to buy a bra invariably kicks me into the Slough of Despond and then pushes me in deeper with a broom-handle.

I was standing, naked from the waist up, in a cubicle, with mirrors on every damn side. It is hard not to observe one’s bulges curves under the circumstances. In a spirit of good-will and great cheer, I began the observation by reminding myself I had lost more weight, yes, and was about half a stone away from IVF weight now, I am so very good and clever, and so I should be looking noticeably slimmer. And I was. Am. Really. I look noticeably slimmer, noticeably even to sour-puss Bitter McTwisted ol’ me. (Also, now, none of my trousers or belts fit properly).

But, arse and bugger and damn, I do not look good. I have stretchmarks on the backs of my arms, fer Chrissakes. I have a belly like over-risen dough. And muffin-top. I still cannot force my hearty peasant calves into knee-high boots (I cannot wear wide-fitting knee-high boots because I have skinny feet and ankles. Why, yes, I do look like I stand on pig-trotters. It’s a fab look, dontcherknow). My breasts, which are DD, are sliding veerrrryy slooowwwwwly down my ribs, and to my peeved and jaundiced eye, no longer look in the least bit cute or interesting, at least, not without the aid of a Very Good Bra Indeed. We shall not discuss the thighs. I did not take my trousers off. I was trying on bras, also, I have some sense of self-preservation left. I look, in short, like a collapsing soufflé. I hate it.

I hate that even all the weight-loss in the world won’t make me perky again. I hate that the stretch-marks are permanent. I hate that even if I do get all the way down to a dainty BMI of 25 or something, I will never have a flat stomach. I will have loose skin. I’ve been too fat, too long, and anyway, the scars on my belly have rather interfered with the way my skin arranges itself.

(I could add a very self-pitying and snivelling paragraph here about how most women who look like me, look like me because they’ve had at least one kid, and if I had a kid, I’d wear the sag and flab and scar with, if not pride, exactly, then at least with the resignation of someone who knows that there was a point to it all, even if said point is currently eating his own ear-wax in the middle of the super-market aisle. But I shan’t add such a paragraph because I never never snivel. What, never? No never! What, never!? Well, hardly ever).

Coupled with the infertility thang, it all gains enough momentum to feel like a smash in the teeth. I can’t like my body for nurturing or feeding another human, because it bloody hasn’t and seemingly won’t. I can’t like it for giving me an easy ride through life because it prefers to hurt me or go wrong in complicated surgical ways. I can’t admire it for its ornamental properties because appears to be made out of suet. What the hell am I supposed to do with it? What the hell have I done to it? What did I do in a past life? Who did I piss off or fail to sleep with? Why can’t I go back in time and tell the 20-year-old me to a) eat salad rather than chocolate and b) fucking do some fucking exercise already?

And then H tells me my ears are pretty, and I want to cry, because he has such faith in my attractiveness, he believes I’m cute, an I’m sure this is based on his mental image of me aged 20, the days when I had great legs and a teeny tiny waist, and I am terrified he’ll suddenly decide to take a really good look at me one day, and think ‘oh dear, oh dear, oh dear.’ And then all the pretty ears in the universe won’t help.

Also, none of the pretty bras fitted properly, and I went home with a bath-sponge and a pair of tights instead. Go me.

What is it now? What? September 19, 2009

Item – We are preparing for our voyage to the Chalet of Terror (as HFF so fittingly named it), for the In-Law Extravaganza. So far the preparations have involved me accidentally finding the sun-screen, and having a panic-attack about my passport (when I, apropos of nothing at all, suddenly muttered ’shit!’ and hurled myself towards the study, H leapt after me shouting ‘your passport’s FINE.’ And then he claims he is neither observant nor empathic. LIAR). We set off on Wednesday. Ample time for dithering about trousers and which of the 97 books I wish to take will actually fit in the suitcase. Ample.

Item – I admit I am in a bit of a state (my God, you mean your last post was a clue?). This culminated last night in me losing it with H for not having done his teeth yet, inconsiderate swine that he is, and rapidly passed through the ‘and another thing!’ fringes of disconnected lunacy before landing with a tearful squelch in ‘And My Entire Life Sucks’. And then I looked up at H through red and puffy eyes and said ‘This is PMT, isn’t it? I know you’re thinking the same thing,’ and his ears went absolutely scarlet.

Item – The thing is, I really don’t like my job. Not because it’s a bad job, or at a bad place, or among bad people. Obviously, there are frustrations and the odd work-place loon, because that’s standard and how work just is. But I don’t like it because it’s not what I want out of my life. At all. I thought perhaps getting a professional qualification and a proper full-time job like a real grown-up would help. Actually, it’s making me feel increasingly trapped and dear God I am so bored. If I had a private office, hell, a private cubicle, and if I had more flexible hours, then I think I could take it, as the work itself is interesting and I am good at it. But, as any fule kno, Hell is other people. Even when they are harmlessly humming to themselves or slurping Cream of Pondweed soup at the desk next to me or peering over my shoulder to ask who I’m emailing and why I’m emailing instead of cataloguing those DVDs on the urgent shelf. (We in Britain spell cataloguing with a u. Because it’s French, apparantly, but when we first adopted the word in the Middle Ages we spelt it without the u, by and large, so this is mostly affectation. But it’s our affectation, so it must be right).

Item – Anyway, I am in a bit of a state. Is it very noticeable?

Item – Furthermore, today is 10dpo. For the past few days I have been having odd cramps and twinges. Yesterday (9dpo) my temperature dropped, bastard temperature, possibly not helping with the ‘My Life, Suckage Of’ crisis, as I thought this cycle was a bust. Today, however, temperature was higher than ever. I mentioned this to H (well, he did ask what my chart was doing, so…) and he gave me a hug. I was impelled by Mysterious Forces to say ‘and the last and only time my chart did that…’ but H interrupted, saying ‘I know‘ very firmly indeed, earning himself several brownie points for observation (again, when he next insists he’s not very observant, one of you set fire to his pants for me, would you? Because, LIAR).

Item – And I went bra-buying today. After much wrestling in and out of various confections of lace and elastic and wire, I bought another copy of the rather plain and menopausal bra I got last time I went bra-buying. Because seeing my squashed nipples through the mesh of a sort of frilly shrimping-net was depressing me. Also, bra-shopping with noticeably enlarged and painful breasts is a very very silly idea. I am an eejit. I need more bras. Arse.

Item – So, basically, I am pissed off with my job, and Bitch Hope is tearing holes in my trouser-legs, and I only have three Internet Pee-Sticks of Doom left. I had two batches, which ended up in the same box. One batch is labelled 25 mIU, and the other isn’t labelled at all, so is probably more of an ‘oops, you’re crowning’ mIU. I have two of one and one of the other. I am pretending I have none at all, and this is all nothing to do with me, and on Monday I am going to the Big Chemist near work to get my prescription for mefenamic and tranexamic acid, and lots of sticky-back duvets, and I am not going to go and look at the pregnancy tests at all, oh no, absolutely not, so there.

This is all terribly dull. Did I mention, boring? September 6, 2009

Well. It’s that phase of trying to conceive, isn’t it? The seriously boring phase. The part when you actually get the time and energy to realise you’re 34 already – how the buggery fuck did that happen? – and Dream Job is beginning to get a little *ahem* unchallenging, which gives you time to notice that your boss is just a teeny weeny bit of a control freak and some of your colleagues are unreasonably stupid and all of them are just bloody there all day, seriously interfering with a girl’s ability to get a vast mug of coffee, put her feet on her desk, and fish out her knitting (funnily enough (no, not really) this urge is always at its most almighty when Alpha Boss has one of her periodic ‘and everybody must be extremely punctual or Alpha Boss will pitch a fit’ moments). And you think, shit, my entire life is turning beige.

See, as far as I have been able to make out from my extensive but haphazard skimming of the infertility blogs of the world, TTC does sometimes fall into a tedious, oh, look, there’s the rest of my life and it is also tedious phase. The basic story arc goes something like this:

1. First inkling that getting pregnant is hard, Barbie. Much fretting about what the matter is, and if medical attention should be sought, and what, exactly, one is prepared to do or not do in order to procreate (this last hilarious in retrospect. Hil. Ar. Ious. Such innocence). Others in the same position start popping up to hold hands. Veterans pop up to stroke hair.
2. First doctor’s appointment made. Massively exciting and distressing rollercoaster now embarked on. Infertile blogger usually screaming to get off somewhere between first transvaginal ultrasound and the hysterosalpingogram. Tests, whether infuriatingly inconclusive or hideously conclusive, all depressing. Sex life wobbles precariously on brink of toilet. But lo! a hopeful light at yonder window breaks! Devoted readers start to hang out on the blog, cheerleading and/or kibitzing.
3. First rounds of treatment, whether Clomid or a spot of surgical interference to tidy up whatever inner mess is the issue, or straight into Big Guns Land with IVF. Sex resumes urgency if not always passion and tenderness. That Bitch Hope starts sniffing around the ankles. Things are very exciting and dramatic and, frankly, make great reading.
4. A few people are allowed out of the fun fair at this point, as said treatments worked and thank God, they have a child at last. The rest are getting a bit sick of it all. The fireworks and champagne are interspersed with wailing and gnashing of teeth
5. Treatments fail. Treatments work, heartbreakingly, for a few weeks, and then fail. Bodies become resistant to drugs. Bodies overreact ridiculously to drugs. There are more tests, more surgeries, more valiant attempts, on and on, with nerves slowly winched out on the rack to well past the point of permanent damage. Another handful of people nevertheless hit the jack-pot and are allowed to leave. The regular readers are all chewing their nails off by now.
6. And then, nothing. Nada. Zip. One has temporarily run out of options, or funding, or strength, or all of the above. Some more people run away from or are chased out of the fair, this time with no prizes. The rest mill about for a while, until they get the wherewithall to clamber back on the rides. Weeks, months, drift past. The regular readers hang on grimly, bless them; the occasional soap-opera fans dissolve back into the ether, to hunt for something just a tad more fascinating than watching someone lose weight at snails-pace or save money at glacial rates. One in a hundred has a miracle. Everyone else instantly hates their own sodding unmiraculous bastard innards just that little bit more.
7. Repeat 5 and 6 ad nauseam.

I am afraid that chez May we are currently stuck in phase 6. And I agree, my God it is dull. I had no idea infertility could be so bloody boring. Did you know? I mean, before you got to phase six? Me, I’m now very glad my acupuncturist wants to impale me with burning needles, because otherwise I’d have to impale myself just to give you-all something to read.

No, Satsuma still hasn’t come out of her room. How did you guess?

Can’t post, am too busy writing posts September 5, 2009

No, really. I have about ninety-seven exceedingly whining posts, all of which I am heartily ashamed of, snivelling away in my wordpress dashboard. I must go on a deleting frenzy. They mostly run on the theme of ‘Woe is me, gnashing teeth now, I’m not pregnant, boo hoo hoo.’ Hmmm. Must go and rescue my big-girl panties from the laundry-basket.

Ovulatory news – none at all. I thought, briefly, that Satsuma was doing something, but when I asked her about it she threw an ‘I can’t work under these conditions!’ hissy fit and flounced away into her room, banging the door.

Acupuncture news – on Wednesday, I saw Nice Earrings again, and she was pleased with the state of my pulses, but thoroughly disappointed in the persistent coolness of my belly. Bellies, you see, should be warm, and mine is not and never has been. I’d always put this down to beautifully insulating deposits of lard, myself, but noooo, it’s an imbalance. H and I did try the moxa stick warming thing at home, but H is very dissatisfied, as the damn thing made the entire flat smell like a bonfire of wet wool. For days. I am very much wondering why a hot-water-bottle won’t do as well. Anyway, next session, Nice Earrings wishes to put a dozen or so needles in said belly and then set fire to them. Blimey, but she’s determined.

Family news – the plans for Chalet of Terror are still on, now with added Mother, who has decided to stay on a few days extra. Give me strength. Give me gin.

Work news – my job is getting on my tits now. That is all.

H news – H woke up this morning with such a bad headache he actually took paracetamol. Seeing as he was raised by hippies and regards pills from the chemist (as opposed to from the florist, sorry, herbalist) with unconcealed suspicion, I take this to mean his head felt like someone was smashing it in with a brick. He is currently in bed playing Civilization on his iPhone and drinking chicken soup. Poor lamb. Especially as I need him for procreation purposes, headache or no headache.

Onwards.

Is not OK August 28, 2009

I’m finding this very hard to write about. I’ve written several versions of this post, re-read them, and cried, ‘Oh, the drama!’ while frantically jabbing the delete key. And then I wonder why I’m channelling my mother so very efficiently, and start again.

(My mother has only recently come round to the idea that her eldest daughter is, in fact, borked, and not merely a gigantic whiner).

So, for the past eleven days (since the day I got my period, for those of you singing along), I have been getting into a fouler and fouler mood. By foul, I mean the whole sulky rat-bag deal, insomnia, bad dreams, inability to concentrate, strong urge to staple colleagues’ tongues to their desks. H is being saintly and doing most of the cooking, possibly in self defence (it’s hard to work up a good snarl against a man who is cooking you dinner. Husbands of the world, take note), so I can come home of an evening and fling myself into an armchair with a face like a slapped arse in peace.

Anyway. I am getting sick of myself, so I decided perhaps I had better sit down and actually ask myself what in hejeebuz was eating at me. So I did. Not that I liked the answer much.

You see, a small part of me is convinced that I had a chemical pregnancy this last cycle.

And so far, all the stern talking-to I am capable of hasn’t budged this part of me an inch.

Sensible me (shades of the Positive Thinking Fairy) points out that my period started on time, that I never had a positive pregnancy test, that I never got bullet-nipples or sore breasts.

And Bitter McTwisted replies, yes, periods do that with chemical pregnancies. The Internet Pee-Sticks of Doom are not exactly those sensitive ‘test the day before you’re due!’ types, are they? And last time I was pregnant, I noticed the almighty rockery-boob danger-nipples a few days after the positive pregnancy test, which was therefore also a few days after my period was due.

And Bitter McTwisted points out that I had that weird watery spotting and cramping episode on day 10. And after it, the cramps and spotting stopped again. She mentions ‘implantation’, darkly, and I want to hit her.

I wish I could talk that small part of myself out of this morbid, self-tormenting, melodramatic, stupid (did I mention morbid? Oh yes, so I did) delusion. It’s making me miserable.

And that small part of me sticks her middle finger in the air and wishes someone would say, ‘well, yes, you probably did have a chemical pregnancy. I certainly thought so at the time but didn’t dare mention it. You have every right to be in a funk. You don’t have to keep pretending everything’s OK. You’ve got a really good reason not to be OK.’

Managing the management August 25, 2009

So, being me, and being a lucky lucky super-special snowflake, I have two (2) chronic, intermittent, extremely-painful-and-debilitating-when-they-happen conditions. One is socially acceptable and gets me quite a lot of sympathy, even from Alpha Boss, who thinks sympathy weakens the spine. The other, err, isn’t and doesn’t.

Are you all with me?

Well done. Yes, the first is migraines; the second is painful heavy periods, or, dysmenorrhea and menorrhagia (or, Cinderella’s Meany Sisters).

Hurray for migraines! I infinitely prefer them to my periods (not all migraneurs/menstruators are the same, your mileage may vary). I do get the full-on classic aura, complete with sparkling lights, dizziness, partial loss of field of vision, minor hallucinations, photophobia, phonophobia and slurred speech (makes getting home from work a real fair-ground challenge), but it usually wears off in an hour or so. And the headache, while it lasts, may be ARGH ARGH ARGH MY HEAD I’M DYING, but it only lasts a few hours (like I said, your mileage may vary. I know I’m lucky). I can count the migraines that have lasted longer than 12 hours on the fingers of one finger (and I think that it was really two-in-a-row, as I fell asleep and then had a sort of aura all over again in the middle. Normally, falling asleep is good, because when I wake up it’s over).

The period thing, well, you all know about the period thing now.

Anyway, I missed two-and-a-bit days of work last week, and naturally my colleagues are curious. I left work on that Tuesday afternoon saying I felt ill, in a non-specific sort of way, and as I usually manage an attractive ashes-and-pond-weed coloration at these times, I was bustled out of the building with much solicitude. On my return, Friday, I discovered that everyone was under the impression I had had a killer migraine. I suppose because they are the usual thing that have me going a strange colour and rushing out into the street.

So far, I have been letting them think that.

I am stricken with a sense of law-breaking anxst, though, at the thought that I have therefore lied to HR and to Alpha Boss.

But explaining the lie, especially to Alpha Boss, who I have to sit facing every day, ugh.

Also, Alpha Boss knows bloody well that some of my afflictions are menstrual. The fact that she insists on presuming all afflicted episodes are migraines rather than full-on uterine rebellion means, well, what, exactly? That she doesn’t want to know about anything awful in the Embarrassing Zone? That she’s pretending she thinks it’s migraine to spare me having to explain things that might fluster me? That she’s forgotten about the bad periods thing? That she simply doesn’t believe a period could make a woman that bloody ill?

If Satsuma has got some sort of a grip, bless her (she’s going twingle ping as we speak, stupid little gonad. It’s day eight), then I will be missing a lot more work. Under said circumstances, should I be sending HR and Alpha Boss a note saying: ‘Umm, yes, well, I can give you nearly two weeks’ notice of every time I’m going to be taking two days off. Would that help?’