Tuesday 28 August 2007

Fertility update - rant alert

Today Adriano and I went to the hospital to talk about the results of my HSG.
The consultant said everything looked normal, I should ignore the pains I get (?!) and that maybe the blood test results I had back in April were a bit borderline on the progesterone. I TOLD THEM I THOUGHT MY PROGESTERONE WAS LOW OVER A YEAR AGO. Why do 'they' not listen? My mum had low progesterone and I suspected from my charting that sometimes I don't actually ovulate. All along I have raised this and been told that 'probably everything is fine', and I have been discouraged from drawing my own conclusions from my experience of my body. Now I'm being told I need more blood tests.

Still no mention of diet, stress levels, or anything which even remotely looks at getting pregnant as a holistic endeavour. Oh no. It just involves male and female reproductive plumbing and apparently nothing else. Except maybe some drugs. *Sigh*

Actually the hardest thing about it was that the gyn. department is in the same waiting room as the Early Pregnancy Unit. I was surrounded by pregnant women. Four people asked me if I was there for a scan. By the last time I almost shouted my reply: No, I'm not here for a scan; I'm not pregnant, in fact today is the first day of yet another period, so please, please unless you are going to give me some hope, just leave me alone.

The consultant mumbled, and although he meant well, I had to tell him several times before he registered that I was saying that today was Day 1 of my cycle. He didn't seem to believe me when I said that I'd had the Day 21 blood test on Day 24 deliberately because I have a long cycle. He then told me a few times that women like me with long cycles are likely to ovulate a week later sometimes. Like I didn't know. ARRRGGGHHHHHH.
He was a nice man really so it was a good job Adriano was there to stop me from getting too stroppy. In fact he said nice things such as "it's more 'when' you get pregnant rather than 'if'" - but it's so hard to believe that after so many many months of disappointment.
I feel as though I need my brain wiped of all the negativity that the infertility and depression have brought me. I am considering going to hypnotherapy for that very purpose.

In other news today I got a postcard from my friend Kirsty in Papua New Guinea. Kirsty if you're reading this I'm sending you a big hug!

I also wrote a proper letter to my sister's best friend whose little boy died recently. He would have been 6 years old next week.

I feel huge feelings of gratitude to Adriano lately for his support. PMT made me hell to live with on occasional days this past fortnight. He's always there, no matter what. I appreciate what he gives me. He gives so much, even though he has his own struggles too. In that, I am lucky.

PS No one cares about the endometriosis diagnosis now. I may have it, I may not, but as long as I'm not taking too much time off work with the pain, and as long as it's not the cause of my lack of pregnancy, then it doesn't matter for now. Fair enough, I guess.

PPS Today would have been my mum's mum's 106th birthday! I'm thinking of her today. Lilian Mabel was her name. The ninth of ten children. The story goes that her family remembered her birthday wrong - they thought it was Sept 28th until years later when the register office records proved it was the month before. Weird.

PPPS Yesterday my family visited: mum, dad, my brother, my sister, and my youngest niece. We all had tea and cake and biscuits and crudites and pizza and then went for a walk in the park. It was fantastic to see them.

Monday 27 August 2007

Adriano, my dad and my brother.







Teeny snails from our garden.
Friendly neighbouring cat.




Taken on a canal path yesterday.

Tuesday 21 August 2007

Moving on





I have left my job. It is now my 'old job'. I had a wonderful send-off involving poems, chocolate brownies, arabesques, even a bit of singing. It was emotional and surreal to be coming to the end of an era. I am scared but when am I ever free from fear? I know that moving on is the right thing for me, but I am so grateful for the love and support of the people I worked with. I hope to keep in touch with many of them.


For the past 6 days I have been away on holiday with Adriano. We started out at a festival in Wales, but the weather was so rainy and COLD that we decided to leave and go on a mini roadtrip. Here are the photos.

Thursday 9 August 2007

photo taken from a train window, somewhere in Kent

On Tuesday it was my brother's birthday. When I phoned up from my somewhat hermetic office to wish him a good day, I discovered that he and all of the rest of my family were in a tea shop by the sea, eating cake. Oh the injustice!


At the end of that day, I heard the sobering and just plain awful news that my sister's best friend's little boy had died that afternoon, after a battle with cancer. I knew he had a tumour and was fighting, but I didn't realise that it had got to this stage. I feel so sad for his mum and dad and his little sister. Seeing your young child struggle with illness and die must be one of the worst experiences life has to offer.


Yesterday I heard that the mother of another of my friends died suddenly in the night. My friend is distraught as she had been happily planning her wedding and now her mum is not going to be there.


Yesterday I also read that a blogging friend has lost her dear auntie now too. This really struck a chord with me as I'm super-close to one of my aunties and I sometimes think about how it would be if she was no longer in my life. I feel it could be nothing but devastating.


Please hold them all in your thoughts.


In other news, today I had an HSG. The confusing although excellent news is that my tubes are not blocked. So presumably that means that if I do have endometriosis, it hasn't botched my tubes. They are going to check the x-ray pics for other abnormalities and discuss it with me in a follow-up appointment in a few weeks. I had read that if there are blockages, it tends to be an extremely painful procedure, but luckily I seemed to escape that. It was uncomfortable and a bit crampy but over quite quickly. I took all the antibiotics they gave me (which made me feel horribly nauseous for a while) plus as many painkillers as I dared, and so far so good; no ill effects. I am really quite surprised the tubes are clear, but pleased! I don't get it. Not sure where we go from here but I guess I'll find out in a few weeks. I was so glad that Adriano could reschedule his work day to be there: to make me breakfast when I felt too pukey, to give me moral support, and to give me a gigantic hug when I got out of the treatment room.

Thursday 2 August 2007

Navel-gazing

I am in a strange no-man's land in so many ways.
I have 6 working days left of my current job. I feel ready to go but also quite emotional and nervous about actually leaving.
I have felt really quite low today. Also yesterday I was pretty teary after digesting the fact that yet again I'm not pregnant. I ache with it. This time at least there's some movement on that front though, as I finally have an HSG appointment for a week's time. I really hope I get some helpful information from that, and I hope goes smoothly, and preferably without pain.
There's a bit of relationship backstory relating to this month's lack of pregnancy, so I'm contemplating that too, and wondering whether I'm dwelling on it too much or not enough (sorry to be cryptic but it's unbloggable).
Also I've been having some really disturbing dreams lately. Like being strangled by my boyfriend. Luckily I know he would never hurt me so I'm sure it's not prophetic! But it was seriously horrible and I woke up sobbing.

Things I am thankful for:
Friendliness and sense of humour of my colleagues.
Beautiful pictures of nature sent to me yesterday.
Lunch with girlie friends, and promises to meet up more in the future.
Prospect of going to see my friend T and her children and her new chickens tomorrow.
Texts from my caring mum and dad.
Loving, interesting, funny emails from my brother.
A live performance of Britten's piano concerto at a Prom concert this last week.

Things I am hoping for in the near future:
A good night's sleep.
A lottery win. Any kind of lottery, as long as the prize is good.

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* proud new mother * last child * youngest daughter * tallest sister * favourite auntie * honest lover * furtive photographer * diary writer * compulsive dancer * tree hugger * mooncup promoter * chocolate taster * house plant murderer *

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