Snarling noises off November 21, 2009

I am, sorry, but I am, in a fucking foul mood at the moment. I need not to be, as it is H’s birthday on Monday, and his parents are coming to stay for a couple of days, and I took time off work to (don’t tell H) (H, don’t read this bit) go shopping for him, which was niiiiiiice, and I’ve been to a couple of quite seriously good concerts and a dinner out, in the company of lovely people, and you’d've thought I’d be quite chirpy now.

I even got a really good mark for my Creative Writing assignment, which startled me (I thought it was pants), and which made H point and laugh, because, really, he always cheerleads me on, telling me I’m marvellous, and I always spend the entire essay/dissertation/story/poem/shopping list vapouring about my extreme rubbishness, and tah-dah! It was fine (again) and I was being silly (again) and H gets to point and laugh and so he should. Not that it’s a habit I can shake (You do know, don’t you, that you’re not really enjoying my blog at all, and it bores and irritates you in equal measure? That you’re not laughing at any of the jokes, in fact, you hadn’t realised there were jokes, and any minute now the clouds of delusion will lift and you will all realise this and briskly delete me from your feeds, turning to each other in embarrassment and saying you can’t believe I conned you all into sticking around for so long. Right? Anyone?).

Back on Planet Bitter McTwisted, Infertility Edition, I was jolted into rather an overshare at work on Thursday. Up until that point, all my colleagues were being rather sweet and discreet about my massive three-week absence. Probably gossiping like meerkats in my absence, but still, splendid lack of awkwardness. Until Thursday. Tech Guy (who is a sweetheart, really) came wandering in, and did the whole ‘hey, May, lovely to have you back! How are you! Better? Excellent!’ thing, which was gratefully received. Alas, on receiving this unwitting encouragement, he launched into a really quite intense ‘So! What happened to you then? We were all quite worried! Three weeks is a long time off sick, you know,’ (yes, I do know, thank you). ‘Was it swine flu? No? Normal flu? Not flu at all? It sounds serious! Tell me about it!’ (I wish I was shitting you, but I’m not) ‘Ohh, an accident, you say? What sort of accident? Did you have to go to hospital? Oh, you did? Why? Blood loss? You lost a lot of blood, you say? Ohh, dear. How did you…’ And at this point, thank arsing fuck, someone else popped their head round the door and said something had gone horribly wrong with the printer, and Tech Guy assured me he’d catch up with me later before sprinting off (shit).

My colleague S, who sits at the next desk, had been getting an unavoidable earful of this, and could see that I was flustered. She asked if I was OK. I nodded. She (quietly, not at the top of her healthy young lungs, colleagues take note), then told me she hadn’t asked me many questions because she didn’t think it was really her business, but she did want me to know that she did care and had been worried too. Never be kind to a flustered person. I sort of blurt-whispered ‘It’s just that, you know, I had a miscarriage, and it’s not that I mind people knowing, but I find it really hard to talk about it, especially in front of the whole office.’ And S said instantly that she was so, so sorry. And, did I have to go to hospital like I said. I said yes, that bit was perfectly true, as was the blood loss bit, and she looked quite miserable for me. And she asked how H was doing, which in my book earns her a Small Gold Star Certificate for Having Empathy And Intelligence.

Anyway. After a few minutes, people started coming back into the office, so we both coughed and stared casually out of the window or back at our computer screens and probably looked exactly like teenagers caught passing notes in assembly.

It’s true, though. I don’t mind people knowing one little bit. I just don’t want to be the one doing the telling. I most certainly don’t want to be the one answering questions or explaining next steps or trying to enlighten the unenlightened as to karyotyping or factor V Leiden, and also why, under the circumstances, it’s quite important that I absolutely don’t relax and go on vayyyycayyyyytion. Relaxing and vacationing might just work (hey, they sort of did in Switzerland, as I conceived about a week after we got back) and that’d be a great blog fodder anecdote. Hello! I nearly bled to death in a bus station in the Algarve! Also, I don’t speak Spanish!

My, I’m all unicorn ballet and rainbows today.

Anyway, part of the glumness is because on Sunday H and his dad are going out to do Manly Father-Son Bonding and I will be doing Girly Night In with my MiL. Now, she tried quite desperately to talk to me ‘about it all’ when I lost Pikaia, and I equally as desperately DID NOT WANT and became very good at changing the subject and/or if necessary volunteering to do the washing up. It was easy, because the rest of the family were milling about on most visits and MiL was clearly not prepared to broach things in front of *gasp* men. Not even my FiL or my husband. (I, personally, find protecting the Squeamish Sex from the realities of the massive and sometimes horrible sacrifices women make to keep the human race going, offensive both to their intelligence and our experience, but still…). A whole evening in, just the two of us, and a fresh new disaster to discuss? Oy vey.

I absolutely know in my heart her motives are the best and most pure. She is sad and sorry and wants to sympathise. She had a miscarriage herself, between H and his brother. It’s not like she’s going to say or think anything too clueless and irritate me that way. And this is her family, continuance of. And she has wanted to be a grandmother since H and I moved in together last century, and she has had the decency to more or less shut up about it. On points, she wins a total victory over my own female relations, who never shut up about anything at all ever.

But. But but but. You knew there was at least one but, didn’t you? The but is, as I said, that I just do not want to talk about it with people who need things explaining to them. And the other but is, MiL is a sort of emotional sponge. We all know people like this, don’t we? Unlike emotional vampires, who suck you dry, or emotional shit-stirrers, who like creating high drama for their own warped amusement, emotional sponges can’t hear a tale of woe without it becoming their tale of woe. They feel everything so intensely, they can’t separate out their own distress from the distress of the person concerned. MiL is prone to anxiety and sadness anyway, and is always taking the weight of the world on her shoulders, even about situations which she can’t possibly have any real responsibility for or interest in. My case is definitely meaningful for her and close to her heart. I feel awful because I know she already feels awful. I feel awful because she gets upset about the very idea of hospital visits and tests (I can’t cope with that. As far as I’m concerned, the up-coming visits and tests and hopefully answers are the only thing keeping me from booking a hysterectomy). I feel awful because it awakes bad memories for her. I feel awful because I’m part of a series of shitty things that have happened to H’s side of the family these past few years, and I feel I am adding to her burdens (regardless of whether it’s sensible of her to take on these emotional burdens or not, she does, and I’m hardly going to be able to magically change that for her with three well-chosen pieces of assvice).

And I feel awful because she has tried to say ‘I know how you feel’. And I can’t really sit there and say: ‘no, you don’t. You had a kid. You had one miscarriage. You had another kid. As for the grandkids thing, H has a brother, I’m not your only freakin’ chance. What you felt/ feel is in no way ‘less’ or ‘better’ than how I feel, but it is different. Because you never, not for a minute in your entire life, had to sit and face the possibility of never becoming a mother. And I have been doing that for the past four years. You probably had a far more realistic view of parenthood and what, exactly, you had lost when you miscarried H’s little sibling. You knew that loss, that grief, in a way I never could. I wouldn’t dream of telling a woman who had living children but lost the next pregnancy that I knew how she felt. I don’t. My beautifully idealised picture of my children is just that, an idealised picture. The weight that reality, practical understanding, can give to grief, I don’t feel. But similarly, a woman with at least one living child before her first loss cannot feel the bitter hopelessness of nothing but losses. She may understand, or empathise, but she cannot feel it.’

But I can’t say that. It’s not kind. And my MiL deserves kindness as much as I do.

Here’s to courage, and a stiff upper lip, and to iron bands around the heart. One day I’ll be able to take them off and go into hysterics. But, please, not this weekend.

I am having a moment November 10, 2009

Please excuse me, my beloved regular Gentle Readers. I must just get a few things off my not-inconsiderable chest. You may prefer to avoid this post and return next time, as I can assure you I am not talking to any of you.

Item – If a blogger wants people to comment on her/his blog, it’s a good (logical?) idea to make sure they can. To take, ooh, a completely random example, if a blogger has a blogspot account, they might want to make sure they haven’t left the settings so only people with blogspot or google accounts can comment. As lovely as a given blog-post is, I am so not going to set up yet another account, on top of my wordpress ones, my hotmail one, my university one, my work one, my favourite forum one, my favourite forum off-shoot one, and my fertility charting one, just so I can say something on a new-to-me blog, on what might be a one-off mission. It’d be infinitely more courteous of the blogger to quickly-quickly-takes-three-minutes change his/her settings to accept openID or similar. No, I don’t mind doing word verification. Yes, I can perfectly see why a person wouldn’t want any old anonymous wing-nut barging about in the comments. Still. OpenID. Is way to go.

Item – Please don’t email me privately just to tell me how your four miscarriages and two failed IVFs trump my two (three?) miscarriages and six Clomid cycles. Of course they do. I never said they didn’t. I am well aware there are bloggers/blog-readers out there whose stories make mine look like a brisk skip through the autumn leaves in my favourite park. But, you see, my blog is about (go figure!) me. It would be very odd if it were about you, don’t you think? You’re perfectly entitled to set up your own blog and ask for your well-deserved cookies and cuddles on that. Meanwhile, as I skipped through said park, I trod on a rake. I may not have fallen in a bear-trap as you did, but my nose is bleeding right now and a hanky would be more… befitting?… than a lecture on the bigness and sharpness of the stakes you fell on. (For the record, I am writing this here instead of replying to you privately because my hand went into a sort of spasm as I read your email, and I hit ‘delete’ and then I hit ‘delete irretrievably forever’. And then I ran away and made a cup of tea and spilt said tea over carpet. When I had finished mopping and hyperventilating, I realised I couldn’t retrieve the email. This is probably for the best). (Also for the record, this email was (apparently) not from a blogger or a regular reader/lurker).

Item – To the person who, anonymously, left a ‘how exciting! Congratulations!’ comment on the post with the positive pregnancy test this morning: That photo was taken more than two weeks ago. There have been, what, ten? posts since that one. While I appreciate the sentiment, it is a good idea in general to check the most recent post on a blog if you’re late to the party. Especially on an IF blog. We are the club of Shit Happens. I’m afraid I have deleted the comment. I’m in a button-stabbing sort of mood. I do appreciate the sentiment, I swear. It’s just the timing of it that… is not quite… you know. (Incidentally, this happened last time too. *sigh*).

To those of you who read all this anyway, despite the fact it didn’t apply to you, sorry about that. I must now go and knit something at a ferociously tight tension and knock another cup of tea over.

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.

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.

Status report November 3, 2009

First, a quick State-of-May report:

• Uterus – has shut up. Is merely spotting. This is good.
• Bladder – has also shut up, most of the time, but still thinks making me need to pee every seventeen minutes is funny.
• Stomach – being walloped by the antibiotics (the antibiotics are for the UTI). Seriously, I get to feel sick for an hour or so every morning. Yes. I miscarried last week and I get to feel sick every morning this week. Because, you know, the universe has a very strange sense of humour.
• Pallor – much improved, thank you. I just look tired and sulky now.
• Emotional state – numb. Or furious. Mostly numb. Realised last night that we actually got pregnant all by ourselves, and all my fears and vapourings about never getting pregnant again after Pikaia were completely unfounded, and laughed the sort of laugh that is shortly followed by a thunderstorm, mysterious groans and lurchings about in the cellar, and fifty-odd villagers with pitch-forks turning up at the front door.

And now for the State-of-Play report:

H and I went to the GP yesterday, to get the referral to the Recurrent Miscarriage clinic, and to get a sick note, so I can stay at home and sulk for a bit. I took H along in case I got flustered and incoherent. We saw Doc Tashless, because I asked to, because it’s boring explaining all the past history over and over again and he has seen me often enough to have a vague grip on it all. Upshot:

• When I mentioned perhaps taking the rest of the week off work, he promptly signed me off for two weeks. H mentioned that last time round I’d probably gone back to work a little too soon, and Doc Tashless promptly decided I’d need to see him again on the last day of my sick leave so he could be sure I didn’t need even more time off. Oy vey, but that’s being taken seriously.
• I asked him to be perfectly open and put ‘miscarriage’ on the sick leave form. You see, sick leave taken for reasons of pregnancy or maternity cannot be added to your sick-leave total and used against you in disciplinary procedures, and I am off sick every sodding month as it is, so I thought, and H thought, my ass, covered, please. Not that I think anyone at work will make a fuss, but HR has an automatic sick-leave tracking system and gets your line manager to have words with you if you take more than a certain amount of time off in a year, and my line manager has already had to do this once. She was lovely about it, but nerves? Racked.
• We discussed the recurrent nature of the situation, and I (hesitantly, feeling like a dork) mentioned the possible chemical in July, and he took that seriously too, which made me feel flustered and like a dork because, you know, no proof beyond a ‘funny feeling’ (incidentally, a funny feeling I had this time round, and Pikaia time round, eeeeeeek eeeek eeeeek eeeek, but I digress). I hunted down their website this morning and found out that the RM clinic takes referrals from couples who’ve had only two consecutive miscarriages, so I could’ve left the possible chemical buried in decent obscurity and not endorkified myself.
• Doc Tashless decided we may as well get the ball rolling, as the referral could take a couple of months, and sent me directly to the phlebotomy nurse to collect what little remains of my blood for examination of my Antiphospholipid Antibodies, Cardiolipin Antibodies, and I think the paperwork said something about Lupus as well. In the event the needle-jockey only took one vial, so either they don’t need much for each test or they’re all the same test or the needle-jockey can’t read Doc Tashless’s handwriting.
• It made me quite sad and cross that I recognise the above terms, and have heard of Hughes syndrome, without Doc Tashless having to explain a word of it. But, hey, if that is it, it is treatable.
• I’m always impressed when someone, anyone, remembers to ask how H is doing as well. Because, yes, I may be the one leaking tears and snot into this wad of blue paper ripped hurridly off the roll normally used for protecting the examination couch, but H also lost a baby. And had to deal with a sobbing, vomiting, haemorrhaging emergency wife. Which was no picnic. I’d've hated it and freaked the fuck out when it was all over, had the roles been reversed.

Conclusion – I now am, and for some time shall be, sitting about at home, ‘resting’, and being kindly distracted by friendly visits, emails, and phone-calls. H went back to work this morning, so hopefully was keeping busy there. We are waiting for a date from the RM clinic. We are waiting for the results of Doc Tashless’s blood tests.

I still feel mostly numb.

These are the good parts October 30, 2009

Item – HFF sent me these:

The bouquet was too big to put in any of our vases, so I made H divide and conquer it, and now the flat looks like a stage-star’s dressing-room, with flowers all over the place. Can you see the white roses? I love roses. And lisianthus. *pleased sigh* (God knows what the florist thought on being asked to write ‘Love, the Hairy Farmer Family’ on the little card. I had a mental image of him/her desperately maintaining a very professional poker-face. For some reason it made me giggle for hours).

Item – I have had so many kind, supportive text-messages, from HFF (hi, HFF!), and from my friends Ben (hi Ben!), who comments here, and her lovely husband, who doesn’t, but does read (hah! Hi to you too!). There are people out there who really really care about me. Nice, funny, sweet, intelligent people. I can’t tell you how much it helps to feel people (especially people I know and am fond of) care. I also have a friend who doesn’t know about this blog, but who I had to strand on his own on a theatre door-step with no bed for the night because I was, uh, miscarrying again (he was around the first time I miscarried too, and I messed up his plans that time as well). He has been emailing me an endearing mix of kind, caring emails and some excellent gallows-humour. I am so proud of my friends.

Item – The comments! Dear God, the wonderful, wonderful comments, from my usual Bloggy pals, and from new people wandering over from LFCA (I got three mentions in a row!), and from long-time lurkers decloaking in my time of need. I am so touched. You have made me feel so cared for. OK, now I need a tissue.

Item – My Friend Who Knows Who She Is came round with a bucket of ice-cream and a precious packet of real Russian cocoa from her super-special stash. And we had one of those pleasant, slightly twisted conversations which meandered through miscarriage and various other medical mishaps and ended up cheerfully general, and we ate the icecream and then we had tea and tea-cake. I felt quite jolly after that. It takes a magic sort of person to make a woman in my state feel jolly. I am impressed. And grateful.

Item – Codeine. Codeine is good. Only, it makes me burble like a loon and walk into furniture. Hot damn, but I feel so much better today. It can’t all be the codeine, can it? Look, if I sound stoned, it’s because I am. I’ll probably read this tomorrow and see all the typos and infelicities of orthography and cry.

Item – My tutor has, cheerfully and for the mere asking (though I did mention ‘hospital’ and ‘emergency’), given me extra time to finish my first assignment for the creative writing course. Bless her. I was beginning to feel a little melodramatic about that. Because, seriously, every SINGLE time I have been studying in my ENTIRE LIFE, some huge and ridiculous drama has blown up in my face. And now, again? I was only doing the creative writing for fun, FFS.

Item – H. H is the best part of my life so far.

Next time, the wolf will eat me. October 25, 2009

I never got to play with my new expensive pee-sticks. I started spotting and cramping instead.

Thank you all for your kind words and support. I feel deeply peeved that we couldn’t finish the weekend off with a celebratory can-can and fire-work display. That would have been much more fun, yes? Yes, well. I know. Disappointment, after all that build-up. It’s a giant, hairy, pimply arse, isn’t it?

As for you, Cute Ute, you disgrace to the name of internal organ, you’ve spent two and a half days playing a giant game of Chicken with your poor benighted hostess, you’ve raised everybody’s hopes, you’ve been, in short, showing off in the worst possible way. You’ve let me down. You’ve let H down. You’ve let the entire bloody internet down. But worst of all, you’ve let yourself down. And now you shall have to put up with the consequences. Yes, and they’re not very nice consequences either, are they? You should’ve thought of that before embarking on your lively career as Drama Queen and Hysteric*. Now, stop snivelling, be brave, and take your pain-killers.

(Positive Thinking Fairy wishes to note, at this point, that a 14 day luteal phase is not to be sneezed at, and I should be pleased my body seems to be more healthy and regular. Shall I hold her down while you lot kick her, or do you want to hold while I kick?)

*Ooh, go me with the bilingual punning across the centuries. I’m so funny I just slay myself.

15th of October again October 15, 2009

It’s Pregnancy and Infant Loss Remembrance Day again. When I got home (late, irritable, desiring strongly to flick rubber-bands at my persnicketty boss) H had already lit our candle and placed it by the living-room window, so I could see it from the cold dark yard outside. I stood and watched it for a moment, and felt guilty, because my first thought was not one of mourning, or remembrance, or solidarity, or even wistfulness about nine-month-olds covered in mashed carrot. It was anger. I was bloody angry that it was now, what, 17? 18? months since the miscarriage, and I still wasn’t pregnant again, and this was all taking too fucking long. I am such a class act.

And then I took a deep breath and went inside. And found poor H having a thoughtful moment in contemplation of the candle-flame. Thank crikey for deep breaths. I don’t think a raging harpy would have been ideal company for him at that moment. So we held hands for a while.

What I Did On My Holidays, by May Aged 34-and-nearly-a-half October 2, 2009

It’s me! I’m back! I’m alive and everything! In fact, I got back on Wednesday night, and have very rudely ignored the internet altogether while I dealt with the Great! Big! Annoying! issues that were waiting on the door-step for us. Here, for example, we have a letter telling us our water was being cut off, because we are, apparantly, to my astonishment, moving house. Cue me falling to my knees and wailing ‘but we only went to Switzerland for a week!’ while H does all the sensible things like calling the water company and repeating to them over and over and over, ‘no, there’s been a mistake. We are not moving. We are staying here,’ until some tired call-centre jockey in New Delhi confesses that an utter numb-nut had entered the wrong address on the internet database. And here we have a letter from my creative writing course people, asking me to enroll and pay my fees, you know, the fees I paid over a week ago already, also, I am totally enrolled, and I have a tutor and everything, I have emails from said tutor, and a work-book, and lectures on CD, so, seriously, WTF? And we had tickets for two concerts on Thursday. Oh, and laundry. We’d been hiking for five or six hours a day, for a week. Hoooo, boy, there is laundry.

Anyway. To Switzerland!

Holiday High Points:

• Let us begin with the Red Menace, as I could concentrate on very little else for the first two days of the trip. The tranexamic acid worked. I bled a decorous medium-heavy amount, and brought most of my sanitary supplies untouched back to Blighty. And I did not faint or vomit at any point at all. I was feeling pretty fine by Friday morning. But see also low points.
• Swiss public lavatories. They are so clean. They smell nice. They have toilet-roll and soap and hand-towels and air-freshener. Even on top of a freaking mountain. Even in a freaking train (though the sight of the sleepers rushing away at the bottom of the toilet-bowl is… disconcerting. As is the breeze when you sit down).
• The old centre of Zurich is very, very, very pretty. Very. And clean. We saw one (1) sweetie wrapper lying in the street. We actually stopped and stared at it. And the swans on the lake are as white as driven snow, unlike London swans, who are usually on the Tallulah Bankhead end of the driven frozen water products spectrum. We then looked into the lake, and realised we could see the bottom. Ah. Well then. Blimey, this place is clean.
• The view from the balcony of the Chalet of Terror. Oh. My. God. Every single time I walked past the window and caught sight of it, I’d stand transfixed. The chalet is built on the knees of a mountain, looking straight down an alpine valley dotted with little steep-roofed barns and geranium-lined farm-houses, and dinky nearly vertical patches of meadow in between the cliffs and pine-forests. At the end of the valley, a snow-white medieval church with a spire stands tiny and perfect against the blue-green slopes of the distant alps.
• The Chalet of Terror itself. It is very nice and very swanky, and my step-Dad has thoughtfully filled it to the brim with books.
• Hiking down the mountain for a couple of hours, to a village of enchanting prettiness, collapsing in the garden of a beautiful old hotel, begging for cake, and being bought a slab of plum tart the size of a roofing-tile, smothered in a mini-alp of collapsing whipped cream.
• Swiss cakes generally.
• Despite which, I lost three pounds.
• My Mum and I got on very well indeed, and apart from a brief tantrum because I needed the loo and she needed to look at boots in shop-windows, we were thoroughly pleased with each other.
• Being woken every morning at dawn by cow-bells as the herds go out to pasture.

Holiday Low Points:

• My period. Though I bled much much less, the cramps were still pretty much in Torment of the Damned league. The mefenamic acid did, I admit, take the edge off, so I could walk upright and talk, but failed to restore my sense of humour, or sense of proportion, or fresh rosy complexion (I looked like curdled milk for three days. So adorable). Every time I made the mistake of thinking the mefenamic acid was a total con and a barrel of shite, it’d wear off, sometimes hours before I could take the next dose, and I’d slowly curl up like a dying leaf and stop talking altogether.
• H and I had a Discussion, alas at about 1 am, when we were both too tired to make any sense at all. But this one probably needs a whole post of its own. (We’ve kissed and made up, don’t panic).
• The morning I woke up after a three-and-a-half hour descent from the top of the peak opposite, all down a 4:1 grit track of extreme skiddiness, and realised I couldn’t straighten my sodding legs as my calves had seized up completely.
• There were moments when I am not sure what prevented me from running round the living room shouting ‘will you all just go away and stop talking to me!’ These tended to occur mostly when I was trying to read a book and my In-Laws treated this as an invitation to tell me all about how they haven’t had a cold for two years thanks to the power of, possibly, smugness (I can’t be sure. It may have been healthy living and Chinese herbs. I was trying very hard not to listen).
• Also, that little tantrum I had when on a day-trip to the nearest big town, because Mum and H were cheerfully ignoring my increasingly desperate pleas for a) a pee and b) lunch and carrying on photographing random street-corners and cooing over shoes. I am a little ashamed of just how tantrumy and adolescent said tantrum was. Nobody over the age of 21 should be allowed to say ‘no one ever listens to me!’ in public, especially not in that tone of voice.
• Being woken every morning at dawn by cow-bells as the herds go out to pasture.

Holiday WTF Moments:

• Swiss teenagers all carry guitars. And when school is over, they sit about in the square or on the train and play guitar at each other. However, nearly peed self laughing at sight of three youngsters playing ‘Knocking on Heaven’s Door’ quite loudly but singing the words in teeny tiny little shy embarrassed voices. They were almost inaudible and they even had a mike. Ohhhh, bless.
• Waking up at 3 am every single night, in a muck sweat, despite lovely fresh air wafting in from the window and absolutely everyone’s reassurance that the heating really didn’t come on in the middle of the night. My Mum has the exact same thing, but, people, she’s menopausal.
• Seeing Boris Becker sitting at the next table when we stopped for tea in Zurich. Really! He was even limping (BB has recently had a hip operation). We acted all classy and smooth and pretended we hadn’t a clue who he was. Except for all the excited whispering and long thoughtful stares.
• In German, I can say the following: ‘Bitte, Danke, Toiletten, Kaffee, Scheiße.’ As you can imagine, I was a conversational rock-star in Switzerland.
• Being woken every morning at dawn by cow-bells as the herds go out to pasture.

So, I think, Red Menace 1, Chalet of Terror 0.

I loved long and long September 15, 2009

Xbox (hi, Xbox!) posted this back at the end of July. In particular he says, of the child he and his wife are at last expecting :

We’ll know it as the kid that has kept us going for two years….

So no, I’m not nervous, I’m excited at the thought of finally getting to meet in the flesh, someone who has already done so much for us. Someone we’re already familiar with after years of ups and downs.

Someone we’ve already known for a long, long time.

A brand new old friend.

I think I cried when I first read it (sorry, Xbox!). Mostly because it’s exactly true. I was teetering on the verge of writing about it too. And then a couple of weeks later Mel of Stirrup Queens posted some thoughts along the same lines, and I got a little overwrought in my whole-hearted, nay, whole-bodied agreement and shelved the whole subject until it felt safe. Because, for me, it’s not a beautiful, heart-filling, piercingly sweet thought any more.

When I lost Pikaia (and I always think of her as female, even though we never knew if she was), I didn’t just lose a few weeks-worth of pointless pregnancy. I didn’t lose a mere blob of genetic material, a non-person. I lost that child who had already been in my heart for the whole two-and-a-half years we’d been trying. We’d been trying for her, after all. Through the polyps and anovulation and bleeding and surgery and drugs, the hope of her, the reality of her, was the one Pole-Star that kept us going. It was for her we did it. It was for her we clung on.

When I lost Pikaia, it was all that that died.

It took a year, at least a year, for me to get to a place where my heart wasn’t crying to have her back again. Oh, yes, I wanted to get pregnant again, of course I did. But in the night, when I wept, I wept oh come back to me, come back to me.

Finally, my heart managed to bury her.

Today I am able to hope and wish for a baby without instantly being hijacked by yearning for her.

Some people talk an awful lot of bumfluff about the influence psychology has on physiology. I have been told that, for example, painful periods are a result of my disappointment at not being pregnant (what, when I was fourteen?). That you must ‘make room in your heart’ for a pregnancy. That you have to be ready. And that, dear friends, is exactly why I have not talked about this before. Certainly not while I was still yearning for my first pregnancy to somehow miraculously come back. Some platitudinous twerp, I felt sure, would bounce out of the woodwork and tell me to free my soul or what-have-you, and I’d have to go round to their house and spit in their eye, which comes expensive if they live across the oceans. Every blog, message board, personal account I ever read or heard confirmed that getting pregnant again is a great healer and helps a person move on. I have yet to hear that wallowing in grief is a natural sterilizer. God, and if it were, all war-torn countries would have a birth-rate of precisely fuck-all (and they notoriously don’t). (And it kinda rankles that we had to get over Pikaia’s loss all by ourselves).

But still, it’s a, well, not a relief at all, really, but it’s something to be able to long for a baby, and not that baby anymore.

Not that either of us can forget her. H (to my (possibly unworthy) surprise) began to talk about Pikaia last night, and then he lit her candle for a while, and we spent the rest of the evening in its glow. See?

And so we go on, knowing only that it will go on for ever, and, perversely, the only life Pikaia has is in our desire, as she was made of our longing before she existed, and is made of our longing now she has ceased to exist.