Stirring dull roots with spring rain May 14, 2013

So we went to the Riverside Clinic, for the Great Big Consultation To End All Consultations (please God).

I am having trouble processing it all.

Obviously, you, my Gentle Readers, would like to know what went down, and all I can say is, I don’t freakin’ know.

Item – Our consultant reminded me insistently of George Clooney at his most winsome. There is a goodly chance this man will have seen my vagina by Rosh Hashanah. Halp.

Item – The friendly chat with Dr George lasted well over an hour. I have never, ever, in my born days, ever had a consultant, NHS or private, who was happy to sit there for over an hour, going over things carefully and thoroughly, making all the ‘yes, I’ve read your notes and remember stuff’ noises. Never. For this alone, even H has a little crush on the man (me, I think he looks like George Clooney, remember? (H disagrees. H thinks he looks like Jon Stewart. Me, I am now having severe hormonal difficulty with the concept of the awesomeness of a Clooney/Stewart mashup. Seeing me naked)).

Item – The Riverside Clinic does this thing where they have you turn up for the initial consultation an hour early, for paperwork, and also so the male partner can retire to a private room and ‘provide a sample’. And then the results of the sample turn up mid-consultation (oh, good Lord, is this what money gets you?) So H was removed by a smiling friendly wee nurse leaving me in charge of the paperwork. I of course dropped the sodding lot all over the floor of the office, and while I was at it I dropped H’s music folder, and the nice lady helping me with it scrambled to pick sheaves of paper up for me. And handed me, poker-faced, the sheet-music for this*.

Item – It took me ten minutes sitting in the waiting-room, shoulders shaking, scarlet face in hands, to recover my composure. I’m quite sure the other couples thought I must have had NEWS OF EXCEEDING DOOM. Oopsie.

Item – H informs me the Riverside Wankatorium is devoid of Worrying Pictures Of My Parental Homes. It is also devoid of select images for the discerning gentleman’s gentleman (boo!) and the images presented for H’s delectation, while, he admits, were acceptable (real boobies!), they weren’t massively inspiring either. And he could hear people tramping up and down the corridor asking each other for files. Poor lamb. Nevertheless, his sample was magnificent, full to bursting with healthy handsome single-headed sperm swimming in nice straight lines. Dr George was pleased. I was pleased. H tried not to look smug.

Item – As for me, my AMH results from three years ago were so bloody spiffing, Dr George is quite sure my ovary is in tip-top condition, and likely to do rather well if encouraged. We’ll be retesting the AMH, but his optimism on the subject was bewilderingly lovely.

Item – The adenomyosis should not be a problem. I am the only person in the world concerned that I might give birth to Flat Stanley. And pregnancy would be good for the adenomyosis. Oh. OK. Oh. I… OK. *weeps with relief*

Item – My weight is not a factor. It’s not an issue. It was not worth even mentioning to me. We could cycle as soon as my period starts if I like. WHAT THE HOLY FUCK?

Item – Apparently, we have a pretty decent chance of getting a take-home baby with IVF. That’s hope right there, that is. I don’t do hope. I have not done hope for so long that it feels very much like it does when you’ve been kneeling awkwardly for hours and your foot has gone completely to sleep. You stand up and said numb foot is suddenly an agonising mass of tingles and throbs, and you can’t put any weight on it because it is not accepting neural feedback and feels like it’s made of jelly and wet sponges. Hope is decidedly unpleasant. Ow. Ow ow ow *hop hop* owie I think I might sit down again.

Item – And then we walked half-way across town in the rain. Because sometimes you just need to walk in the rain for a while.

Item – I’m having Drambuie on the rocks now. You?

*Providing link rather than naming the song, because not many choirs are singing it this summer, and we don’t want a massive H-TMI-reveal to his adoring fans, now, do we? No, we don’t. But the story was too good not to share. Shhh.

The unbloggable April 28, 2013

H and I have been going through a Bad Patch, relationship-wise.

I, even I, May, the Greatly Articulate, do not have the words to be fair, to be reasonable, and to be accurate about it all.

Disclaimer! There has been no adultery, violence, addiction, crime, financial misdemeanor, lies about Really Important Stuff, or any other Irrevocable Deal Breaker. You may continue serenely in your opinion that May and/or H is and/or are sweetness and rectitude personified who chiefly need a cuddle.

We just fundamentally came adrift on the matter of infertility, miscarriage, treatment, progress, lack of progress, what to do next, etc.

Since the chemical ‘pregnancy’ of Valentines’ Day 2011, I have been considerably more gung-ho about pursuing treatment than H. H has dealt with it all by simply pretending none of it existed, not infertility, not adenomyosis, not PCOS, not endometriosis, and absolutely not the nasty little biological fact that his wife was getting older.

And older.

I will be 38 in less than a month.

I have dealt with it by wasting appalling amounts of time and energy in trying to get H and I onto the same page about treatment-or-not. OK, same chapter. Same book? Same section of the library?

I had – still have, frankly – a neurotic ungovernable horror of the idea of trying to have a child without my spouse’s full cooperation and consent. I know many partners have been reluctant and uninterested right up until the child arrives, and then become doting parents of the bestest sort. This is not how it works in my family, though. In my family, a partner is reluctant and uninterested until the baby is an undeniable and looming reality, and then said partner will cycle through furious, trapped, raging, hateful, abandoning, depressed, shitty uninvolved parent of epic sexism, and divorced. So. As far as I was concerned, for my increasingly brittle sense of mental equilibrium and inner strength/peace/not-flaking-outness, I needed H to understand what was involved, what was at stake, and to be prepared to ring clinics, make appointments, nag mildly dense and disorganised secretaries etc. while I got on with the Epic Physical Suffering and Angst (this deal still seems absolutely fair enough to me. If H would like to take custody of the uterus while I make the phone-calls, I would be delighted). And H did not get it. At all. Especially not the bit about May getting older and iller and LESS ALMIGHTY FUCKING FERTILE with each passing month.

That, Gentle Readers, was very difficult for me to deal with – his utter indifference to the fact his stalling was directly prolonging my suffering and reducing our chances. Not that he was stalling per se, mind you. If he’d asked for a time out so he could have a good old stall I could’ve gone on the pill or what have you and Not Suffered Epically while he carefully eased his head out of his bum. I wouldn’t've been pleased, but I would’ve understood. And we could’ve negotiated time limits and rules – six months No Talking About It and then we talk about it again, nine months then final decision, sort of thing.

This refusal to talk about talking about it (very meta) also meant that he was never saying he wouldn’t pursue treatment/consider quitting/have sex with me this month. So I would wait for an answer, or hope for a timely shag, or whatever, and it wouldn’t happen, and I’d be angry, and H would explain he had a headache/tummy-ache/bad day/bad leg/bridge was blown up by squirrels, and this only applied to THIS month and NEXT month would be different, and I would shout ‘oh for FUCK’S SAKE, that’s what you said LAST MONTH,’ and H would look bewildered and say, ‘no, last month it was raining/business trip/man-flu/attack of the were-rabbit,’ and I would say ‘DON’T YOU SEE THE PATTERN HERE?’ and H would look even more bewildered and say ‘errr… no?’ and I would throw a cup at him.

No, I’m not saying I dealt with it particularly well either. Constant physical pain will do that even to someone as God-like in her understanding and general loveliness as me.

And then the possible chemical pregnancy this February. On the anniversary of the last one.

I… I shall draw a veil, I think. I don’t want to revisit the past few months in detail. It was all very very angry, and very unhappy, and I still feel betrayed by H, and not as forgiving as I would like to feel.

I believe it only just these past few weeks that it actually dawned on H for the first time ever that the adeno/endo/PCOS/age thing was not actually in stasis at all, and he may have disastrously fucked things up by spending so long on that peaceful river cruise in Egypt.

(I know that when he turned to me the other night and asked, in tones of dawning wonder, if I’d ever considered the fact that my stiff and distorted uterus might actually be a problem, I very nearly jammed my wedding ring up his fundament and walked out on him. Because I have ‘only’ been worrying myself sick about the same fact since I was first diagnosed three or four years ago, which is why I asked every single medical professional we ever did see about it, and why my conversation since has been littered with such terms as miscarriage, bleeding during pregnancy, restricted intra-uterine growth, premature labour, obstructed labour, placenta accreta and post-partum haemorrhage).

Anyway. You can judge either or both of us if you like, but I’d rather not hear it.

I mean it. I will go on a comment-deleting spree if you make me cry and feel ashamed.

The net result of all this Weltschmerz is that I am thoroughly under the weather. 2013 has been The Year Of The Unwellness. I began February with norovirus. Then I had the possible chemical pregnancy that shattered me. Then I had the flu – proper, six days of fever, laryngitis, cough that lingered for weeks, oh-God-I-feel-awful flu. Then I got my period again and that was again shockingly and lingeringly painful. And then, right in the middle of that cycle, out of nowhere, I got thrush. I spent a week with my favourite lady-parts a fiery itchy hell-circle of No Sleep For YOU! (Canesten sorted it out. Canesten and I are kissing in a tree). Then I got my period again last Tuesday and I was horribly sick. I haven’t vomited that much that hard for nearly two years. My entire intestinal tract, from mouth to… well… anyway, none of it is speaking to me, and Cute Ute the Destroyer is still rampaging about bleeding everywhere and generally acting like a baited wolverine chained to a stake. And I’ve had two migraines already. And violent cramp in my leg, almost certainly due to dehydration, so now I can’t walk normally. And hayfever, now that bloody Spring is bloody here at bloody last and all the bloody trees are bloody flowering.

Fuck my life.

What went down April 1, 2013

Heya, Best Beloveds. I’m sorry I’ve worried you by going into a month-long sulk of advanced and extreme sulkiness. Nothing massively exciting or new has happened, and I was having something of a crisis. Let me make itemised lists at you, given that it’s my ‘thing’:

Item – H and I have not been very pleased with each other. I mean, I still love the man dearly, but for a while there I didn’t like him very much. Remember the Possible-Chemical I had for Valentine’s Day this year? It upset me badly, and also upset H badly, and H had an ‘oh, that reminds me, I am actually very sad about all the previous miscarriages’ mind-fuck moment, and ran off into the Cul-de-Sac of Solipsism – actually, he’s been spending quite a lot of time in the Cul-de-Sac of Solipsism since he began counselling – and I had an ‘I have been completely abandoned by the entire Universe and frankly, this is not a good moment to be abandoned by the entire Universe’ shriekathon and yes, it was oodles of fun. So, the past month, we have mostly been having very un-amusing fights.

Item – One of the Big Things We Fight About is the fact H has been dragging his feet and digging his heels in and in extreme cases wiping the whole saga from his memory when it comes to Moving Forward In A Forward And Purposeful Direction when it comes to actually treating the causes of our infertility and recurrent miscarriages. It’s not that H doesn’t want kids – he does, very much. But he very much does not want to be the infertile tragic couple who need to do all this medical shit with no guarantee it will work, so he tries to pretend it isn’t happening, which may be good for his psyche but it is very bad for his marriage, as, fuck it, we are the infertile tragic couple who need to do medical shit. Especially as my uterus is something of a destroyed wasteland, and my immune system is a silly, silly bitch who can’t tell an embryo from a tumour. We had the ‘I am 38 in May and you have destroyed my only chance to have a child with your foot-dragging nonsense’ talk. Yes, I went there. Which was very un-amusing.

Item – H is now playing a ridiculous game of phone-and-email-tag with Doctor Fourth Opinion’s distressingly ditzy secretary, to set up LIT and intralipid schedule and work out who, when, and how he will have an HIV test and so on. We’ve been given a provisional date for LIT of ‘April’. Oh, for the sake of fuck. But at least H is On It, and no longer on his prolonged river cruise in Egypt.

Item – Then I got flu. I spent a week with a fever. I haven’t been so unwell from a mere germ for years. I missed several days of work because I was so ill. I’m still hoarse, three weeks later. OH GOD I WAS SO VERY VERY ILL.

Item – And then I got my period. Ow. It’s day 14 of this cycle and I still haven’t had a day I could get through without at least one dose of painkillers.

Item – This makes me rather poor company, and I apologise to the friends I visited last week in a state of disgruntled mutism. Hi! It was all totally me! You were lovely and delightful and charming and made gluten-free cheesecake you absolute STAR!

Item – Oh, and I visited family. Conversation with my aunts ensued, and The Menopause was the subject du jour. I said, wryly, that I must be the only woman I knew desperately hoping for an early menopause, and alas the ladies in my family keep going until their late 50s. So one Aunt wanted to know why (are you kidding me? Haven’t we discussed this?). I explained (again) that I had adenomyosis and endometriosis. ‘Endometriosis?’ said Aunt, ‘Oh, I had a friend at yoga with that. She had a little operation and now she’s fine. Why haven’t you tried that?’ I blinked. I stared at her. I blinked again. I said, eventually, ‘but I’ve had several operations, Aunt. And they haven’t worked. We’ve discussed this. You gave me all those herbal remedy tips about how to recover from the anaesthetic.’ Aunt, then, shamelessly, started telling me all about Curing All Known Diseases By Yoga. I don’t even.

Item – I am generally getting the impression from a great many friends and family that they’re very much over May being chronically unwell and infertile and the dead embryo thing, ugh. So most people now ignore it all. They ignore it all so well they keep forgetting that being chronically ill means that once a month (32 day cycle. Like FUCKING UNWELCOME CLOCKWORK) I am too ill to do anything, and for three weeks out of five I am in near constant pain and consequently exhausted. I mean, who the hell is chronically ill for years on end, anyway? Oh, right, CHRONICALLY ILL PEOPLE.

Item – Why, yes, I am depressed, thank you for noticing. Why on earth shouldn’t I be?

Sparklepants February 26, 2013

Having arranged the appointment with Shiny Private Clinic for me, the nurse said she’d send me all the details of ‘the procedure’ in an email. Duly, a few hours later, an email arrived. I printed out the consent form, checked the address in the email, made sure I’d remembered the ibuprofen and sanitary towels, drew myself a little map, and this morning plodded off to work in perfect serenity.

I lie. I was nervous as hell. Just, not about the location.

At the appointed time, therefore, I was in the wrong clinic, explaining myself to a bewildered receptionist who couldn’t find my name on the schedule. But wait! I was on the other clinic’s schedule! The other clinic? Yes! Just around the corner! So I sprinted back out into the drizzle, cussing these fancy-pants multi-location private fertility services and their expensive cupboards dotted all over the city centre like £1000-confetti.

It was fine. Bewildered Receptionist had called Correct Receptionist to let her know I was belting down the road, scarf flying out behind me like a banner, leaving a filthy blue contrail. Apart from the bit where she had to shout ‘push the door now. No, now! Now! Push!’ through the intercom at me while I pulled frantically. My nerves let me down.

Anyway, it being a tiny private clinic concentrating on egg retrieval and imaging, I was being handed my surgical gown and fluffy slippers within minutes of my solving the door riddle. And then a very sweet young nurse introduced me to a very sweet middle-aged doctor, and between them they introduced me to the first comfortable pair of stirrups I have ever wrestled with, and then I lay back and stared at the ceiling of the tiny room while they hoisted me five feet in the air and winched my delicates open with a speculum (I hate specula. Hate hate hate. Hate).

Doctor: Oh, is your period is just finishing, then?
Me: Well, it’s day 12 of this cycle, but I usually spot for about a week at the end of my period because I have adenomyosis.

*Pause, while they insert the catheter, inflate the little balloon that holds it in place (this does not hurt at all. I am astonished), and then remove the speculum and replace it with the dildo-cam (this is less comfortable). The doctor then turns the ultrasound screen so I can see it too. Imagine! Being allowed to behold my own innards!*

Doctor: And there’s your ovary…
Me: *silently, so as not to startle man who has three kinds of hardware up my personals* HOLY FUCK IT LOOKS LIKE A NORMAL OVARY! Ooh, look, you can see the lead follicle and everything. I give it a week to pop. Bets, anyone?

*Nurse presses plunger on syringe full of saline attached to catheter above-mentioned. Absolutely nothing happens*

Doctor: Hmm, I can’t get a clear image of the inside of your uterus. Do you have fibroids?
Me: *pointedly, see above* I have adenomyosis.
Doctor: Oh, yes. Well, I’m going to need to adjust all this to get a better view.

*Out comes the blood-streaked dildo-cam (ew), and the catheter, and rather a lot of fluid (nothing says ‘dignity’ like something dripping down the cheeks of your arse while medical professionals hunt out the wipes and the lube bottle). In goes the speculum again. Fiddle fiddle. Out with speculum, back in with dildo-cam, at a somewhat more uncomfortable angle. And another syringe-full of saline is squeezed up there. Again, nothing happens, though at least they can see where my uterine cavity should be, if I had one. They crack open a new bottle of saline and top up the syringe. For fuck’s sake*

Doctor: Oh, no, look, there it goes! I think the adenomyosis has made your uterus rather stiff. I can’t get the cavity to stretch open fully, but there’s no sign of adhesions or polyps. Are you alright?
Me: *surprisingly* yes!
Doctor: To check your fallopian tube is open, we use a foam, so it shows up on ultrasound.
Me: Foam?

*The foam is so white and high-contrast it practically sparkles on the ultrasound screen. It wooshes straight through my uterus and blossoms out the end of my fallopian tube in short order. We all stare at it.*

Doctor: Your tube looks perfect.
Me: Thank you.

And throughout, the Doctor and the Nurse kept telling me I was being very brave, and I felt like a total fraud because it really did not hurt. It was uncomfortable, and the speculum pinched, but pain? Nope. There was gore, though, me being me. I needed a fresh surgical gown to shuffle back to the changing rooms in.

And that was it. I paid them, they gave me a single hefty dose of Azithromycin (in case of chlamydia! which you don’t want forced up your passages!) and warned me not to have any alcohol after taking it (boo!), and then the Nurse sat me down in a corridor and carefully made sure I was feeling fine, not in pain, not feeling faint or sick or anything, before releasing me.

So I went and had lunch, took my Azithromycin, and went back to work for the rest of the afternoon. And that was that.

So, step two. We go back to Doctor Fourth Opinion, to do LIT. And then cry havoc and let slip the bunnies of fornication. And see where we’ve got to by the time I’m 38.

Mice and men February 25, 2013

The Plan:

• Step one: Find a private clinic who do hysterosalpingograms of some sort, and check that the interior of the blasted wasteland of my uterus is respectable, and the one-and-only fallopian tube is unblocked and lacking in endometriosis-induced peculiarities (you know the patch of endo in my Pouch of Douglas? I can feel it for over a week after my period finishes, like a sort of bruise).
• Step two, gentle version: If Cute Ute and her tube are still functional, we do LIT, and then spend three or four months shagging like bunnies in the hope of impregnating me. We may or may not do intralipids at the same time; we will discuss this with Doctor Fourth Opinion when we go for LIT.
• Step two, fuck it version: If the tube is blocked or damaged, we go straight to IVF. With LIT and intralipids.
• Step two, scorched earth version: If tube is blocked and Cute Ute is fried, we insert a Mirena coil and then blow the savings on a holiday to Canada/USA/New Zealand/Patagonia/The Ends of the Motherfucking Earth.
• Step three: if step two gentle version does not work, move to step two fuck it version.
• Step four: if step two, fuck it version doesn’t work, move to step two, scorched earth version, only possibly with a reduced itinerary, because we’ll have made a sizeable dent in the savings.

So H called any number of private clinics until he found one that would do a ‘hycosy’, as they cutely refer to it, without me needing to be their IVF patient or having an NHS doctor’s referral. It’s a well-known clinic, and conveniently near to work, and doesn’t cost a terrifying amount of money, and they share their results with you immediately (which makes a lovely change from the NHS).

And I am going there tomorrow. By tomorrow evening, I will know. We will know. Hurrah.

I am going by myself, as H has a very, very important meeting he can’t get out of. I’ve had HSGs before, and not suffered vastly, so I am electing to be optimistic, take an ibuprofen, and carry cheerfully on. If this backfires, I will thoroughly and happily enjoy the resultant melodrama. Especially if it gets me off work for a few days.

I am still in rather a state of angry grief about the way the last cycle ended, you see.

The times when blogging is too much of an arse February 18, 2013

Item – I had noro.

Item – I was angry and unhappy and sulky at the way things were going in the comments in the last two posts, and I didn’t (I still don’t) know how to respond.

Item – H has had a nasty, constant cough for four whole weeks now. We’re both sleep deprived.

Item – My period was late. Not, late as in a longer-than-28-day-cycle (my cycle is ALWAYS longer than 28 days), but proper real ‘your luteal phase is longer than usual’ late. Mine has been 11 days long for four cycles in a row. Before that, it was always 12 or 13 days long unless, and sometimes even if, I was pregnant. This month? It went 16 days. I had a nervous breakdown. Three negative pregnancy tests and brutal arrival of said period later, Occam’s razor dictates, given the near-total lack of marital congress round these parts (see Item 3, above), that, actually, I probably had the day of ovulation wrong, and my calculations were thrown by the fact I had noro and therefore a fever. Anyway, even so, my luteal phase was longer. This is good, I think. I think.

Item – I really did have a bit of a nervous break down. I spent three days begging and pleading with the indifferent universe not to be pregnant, because if I were, I’d absolutely certainly lose the baby, and I couldn’t take it, not again, ‘chemical pregnancy’ be fucked. The cognitive dissonance has torn all my protective scabs and callouses off.

Whoa Nellie February 3, 2013

Item – Excuse long absence from blog. Had migraine. It sucked.

Item – This weekend, just to shake things up a little, I have Norovirus. Hello. Every single muscle, layer of skin, bone, joint, nail and inch of gut aches, I am freezing cold despite the fact H is wandering about the house shirtless, I have consumed exactly three cups of cold tea since yesterday evening, and this morning saw me taking a plastic washing-up basin to the privy for a half-hour I’d give my eye-tooth not to have to endure ever again.

Item – So, last post’s comment-related kerfuffle. 1) I want to make it perfectly clear Sheila is a dear and valued Gentle Reader of some duration, and who has dealt with some of the same doctors I have, and therefore I take her comment as coming from a place of friendly interest, affectionate concern, and natural curiosity. And I’ll get to answering it all when I feel less like the entire French Rugby team ran me down and sat on me. 2) That said, I also see where The Comment That Broke The Camel’s Back is coming from, I think. I myself have found it amazingly fucking irritating when people have popped up on my blog for seemingly the sole purpose of telling me I’m Doing It Wrong, and that my doctors are Doing It Wrong, especially if it devolves into people playing the ‘The NHS sucks and socialised medicine sucks and no wonder you Europeans are dying in ditches in droves’ card (especially because of the awkward fact that, actually, Europeans aren’t dying in ditches in droves and for MOST purposes the NHS is one of the best health services in the entire world and May is also a socialist herself so BACK THE FUCK OFF*). 4) So, my rule of thumb is, a long-term reader and commentator who has so far been a total darling, and very supportive, and who has had similar history, can be allowed questions and phrasings that could possibly come across as aggressive and self-righteous from a relative newcomer to the blog who has an axe to grind/bone to pick/kerfuffle to get off on. So, Sheila, please carry on. Comment That Broke The Camel’s Back, I appreciate you going to bat for me very much, but I think you batted the wrong person this time. 5) I am a little unclear who is calling whom a concern troll. But let’s just go with, no one is a concern troll today. Just, people are concerned, bless them. And leave it at that.

*P.S. – Being a socialist in Europe is normal, healthy, intelligent, and reasonable, and there are lots of us. We think the (I, of course, generalise) American hysterical reaction to the word ‘socialist’ is fucking hilarious.

P.P.S. – Socialists! Socialists! Socialists! “Though cowards flinch and traitors sneer, We’ll keep the red flag flying here!” Tee hee hee. Sorry. I am light-headed through fever and lack of nourishment.

Brace the mainsail January 30, 2013

The thing about getting a fourth opinion is, that you might agree with the fourth opinion. And then you have to do something about it. And then, and then. Hope is painful. Medical treatments raise the stakes, and failed cycles drive those stakes into your back. It’s been two years, nearly, since I was last officially, look-I-have-two-lines pregnant. It’s been miserable, but, as Woody Allen said, life is divided into the miserable and the horrible. Be happy when you’re miserable, at least it isn’t horrible.

H is liaising (or, actually, playing telephone tennis) with Dr 4th Opinion’s secretary. We are seeing about scheduling an HSG, to check the endometriosis hasn’t glued the one-and-only fallopian tube shut (it’s been over a year since anyone last took a peek at it). And then we do LIT. And aspirin, and heparin, and Intralipids. If the tube is damaged, we go straight to IVF. If the tube is fine, perhaps we carry on trying au naturel for a few cycles, then retest to see if the LIT sensitisation is still holding, and then rethink the IVF option if there have been no two-lines. Dr 4th Opinion thinks IVIG, neupogen, clomid, steroids and progesterone support are all unnecessary, especially as the lining of my uterus is not infested with psychotic killer cells looking for embryos to slay.

I can go with this. H can go with this. So we are going with this.

I Just don’t expect any enthusiasm or positive thinking. They burnt out of me long, long ago.

Trauma January 21, 2013

No, I’m not dead, nor on holiday, nor did the infrastructure of the known world collapse, taking the internets down with it. I was just… sulking.

Shark week, it has been, and a good brutal one too. It’s day seven now, and I’m still bleeding like a stuck pig, which you’ll agree is not optimal. Cute Ute the Despoiler has decided she rather likes the trick of easing up on the bleeding, waiting until I am lulled into a false sense of security also mere ‘super’ tampons (as opposed to double-plus super extra ultra tampons, which can double as marital aids, frankly), and then yanking out the bathplug and laughing hysterically (ho ho ho) as I leap to my feet with a tiny shriek and flee to the bathroom, blood running briskly down my leg. I am very tired.

On Sunday night, a week ago now, as full of cramps and anxst as can be, I decided to check my medication supply to see if I needed to renew any prescriptions any time soon. There was no urgency. There was a whole box of diclofenac suppositories right there, see? I don’t remember leaving a half-empty box back on the shelf, so it must be a full box… you see where this is headed, right? Because you don’t have the IQ of a house-plant, unlike me. So on Monday morning, in quite heady amounts of pain and starting to spot, I took my slightly-out-of-date repeat prescription form to the GP, to see if they’d renew it urgently, as, obviously, to my mind at least, anyone on this kind of painkiller really rather means it when they say they need it urgently, nu?

I am, personally, absolutely freaked out and humiliated by what happened next.

The receptionist was adamant that they did not renew prescriptions the same day, it would take 48 hours. That there new policy was that GPs were not to be disturbed for anything short of an emergency. That renewing a prescription was NOT an emergency. That they couldn’t renew it anyway, as it was out of date. That I’d need to make an appointment to see a GP. That there were no GP appointments left for that day. That coming in that evening for the emergency appointments first-come-first-served slots was not an option because they were for emergencies, which this was not. At this point, in tears, I asked if it would be considered an emergency if I threw up or fainted while waiting, and the receptionist told me that wasn’t very nice. She actually thought I meant it as some kind of passive-aggressive twatweaselry. I actually meant the question seriously, because I was in pain and freaking out and what the hell else was I supposed to do?

I was crying too hard to speak at this point, and I was in a waiting room full of people, and so I fled home again. H, thank fuck, was still at home himself, and promptly grabbed his coat in one hand, me in the other, and dragged both back to the surgery, where he, very calmly but sternly explained to the receptionist that this was not about some idiot trying to game the system, this was about a person in serious pain, and that he’d seen how the pain affected me, and that I did, actually, need this drug with some urgency, thank you, and after a few minutes bluster she caved completely and arranged for my prescription to be renewed and waiting for me by lunch-time. So in the end all was well.

And I cried all morning, because I had been so very scared I’d have to do Shark Week with inadequate pain-relief, and because the whole thing was so humiliating. I’m thirty-seven. I’m a nice respectable middle-class over-educated lady with a cut-glass accent. I can, if necessary, out-posh the Queen. How was I reduced to weeping hysteria in a GP waiting-room, being treated like a moronic teenager having a tantrum by a GP’s receptionist?

I don’t think I can do this for very much longer – menstruate, that is. It’s giving me shell-shock. Every cycle, also, is doing more damage to my uterus. When I lie on my back and rest my hand on my belly, now, I can feel it even through my ample padding, a great heavy bruised fist buried in my guts, an obscene parody of early pregnancy.

Pissiness January 8, 2013

I don’t know why, but I’m feeling angry and sad at the moment.

Maybe it’s because we’re going to get a fourth opinion, things are moving forward, we might be about to do something big and, err, doey, about the infertility/RPL Suck Permanence that is my life. It’s frightening. Suck Permanence may be deeply unpleasant and soul-destroying, but it tends not to put your soul on the line and then jump up and down on it in hobnailed boots.

Maybe it’s because I’m feeling a tad lonely these days. Hello, Gentle Readers. How many of you are five, six, seven, more, years into trying to have a child, and yet still childless? Do you also, just sometimes, feel a bit left-in-a-ditch? Not that anyone wants to leave us in a ditch, of course not. But here is the ditch of years-and-years-and-nothing, and we are in it, and quite a lot of our best and most beloved cheerleaders aren’t, and there are moments when we just feel… slightly… a tad… well, left-in-a-ditch. I must give myself a hearty slap and shake before I start wailing ‘nobody understands meeeeeeeeeeee’. So jejune.

And I’ve not done myself any favours by falling out of the blogging-and-commenting loop the past few months (aha! Favourite punctuation of the day, the hyphen!). Woe is me, self-inflicted woe is me too. Woe!

And then there’s my uterus. My period is due next Monday, possibly Tuesday. I would like a pint of strong coffee and a very large bottle of wine now please. Remind me to tell you about the actual state of said uterus at some point when we’re all either slightly drunk or feeling very strong-stomached. *shudder*

Anyway! And another thing that made me angry today! -

I was in a coffee shop this lunch-time, buying soup, when I overheard two women at the table behind me. One was saying: ‘No, I don’t have kids.’ The other replied, in tones of excitable jollity: ‘Oh, but you should! Kids are great!’

Oh, for the sake of fuck.

I took my soup and my tea and slunk sloshily away. I don’t even know how the first woman reacted. But on behalf of all childless people everywhere, I’d like to say:

Never say ‘You should have kids!’ to a childless person.

Two reasons:

One: They really don’t want kids. They know they don’t want kids, can’t afford kids financially or psychologically or physically, don’t like kids perhaps, and did I mention? Do not want kids. Telling them they should have kids regardless? Anyone who has the intelligence and insight to know they can’t do parenting and then take steps to prevent themselves becoming a parent should be celebrated. I can think of few acts more morally awkward than bringing an unwanted, unloved child into this world. I know many oops! pregnancies have turned out for the best, and the parent has found new reserves of love and strength and dealt with it with grace and courage, even if that includes the courage to let the child go to another family. But then, so many more (in my own family, even, and by the dozen) have turned out, if not actually horrifically, then into low-grade, dreary, resentful misery which sets up a whole new generation of neurotic and damaged people to be unwilling and shitty parents. It’s just not fair to do that. It’s not fair to wish parenting on people who bloody well know it’s not something they can handle. Think of the children! A person who does not want kids, and therefore does not have them, should have their hand shaken, and that is the end of that.

Two: They really do want kids. Best case scenario, they have only recently started trying for a baby, and will have one very soon, and your thoughtless squeaky remark is merely utterly pointless and bossy. They’re already on that! FFS! More likely, they want kids, but can’t have them. They are still single, perhaps, so just rub that the fuck in why don’t you? Or they’ve been trying for a while. You know you’ve just basically slapped them in the face? Or maybe they’ve been trying for years, or had a miscarriage? Well, now, would you go up to a car-crash victim in a wheelchair and burble: ‘Legs! They’re great! You should try having some!’? Would you skip past a homeless man shrieking: ‘Houses are fabulous, dude! I love my house!’? Would you prance up to a widow or widower and chortle: ‘Isn’t marriage great? Why aren’t you married? Try being married!’? No? But you just did the moral equivalent, you turnip-head.

Excuse me; I am going to fume picturesquely in the middle distance.