Bugger!

I really thought it had worked this month.

Edited:

It's a good job it's many Danish pastries day at work today.

you may have noticed

I've been fiddling with the blog settings so now anyone can post comments and I'll get comments from those hundreds of lurkers that don't have a blogger account (not).

I've also added a ticker, I'm not sure about this one so it might go again but I'll leave it for now.

missed opportunities?

I read a blog (thalia) the other day where someone listed the ages that her children would have been if things had worked out differently and it got me thinking (thanks to the town criers best of 2006 for the link).

I mentioned previously that I had an abortion years ago and although it was absolutely the right decision to make I do wonder about it sometimes. In reality my relationship was on the rocks, I was 22, broke and in the middle of a PhD, I don't regret it at all.

But - and isn't there always a but - I had always assumed that it was a normal pregnancy but I have no way of knowing. I also always took it as a sign that at least I was fertile and when the time was right I would be able to have kids. Every so often I work out how old that child would be now if I had made a different choice (9 - wow haven't done that for a while) and now I sometimes wonder if that was my one chance.

It's possible that there is a reason for the two miscarriages I've had and that pregnancy was also affected by whatever it is. I won't know until/unless I miscarry again, which I sincerely hope I don't. This is because two miscarriages are regarded as "just one of those things" and not a sign of something wrong whereas three are a reason to start investigating the cause. As a scientist I can rationally understand this, the statistics for loss in the first twelve weeks mean that two losses in the first 12 weeks can easily be down to "chance" and not an indication of a problem. However, emotionally, it is hard to not think that there must be something wrong with me when so many other women seem to be able to get pregnant and stay that way.

Oh and for completeness, the ages of the other "missed opportunities" would be 6 months and a week (maybe).

of course I did!

Yup I gave in and googled "early pregnancy symptoms" and managed to convince myself that I may have some of them.

Or of course it could be a completely normal cycle with my period arriving later this week.

aaarrrrrggghh!

Also I am really struggling to stay awake today because we were out late both Friday and Saturday night (well more accurately the next morning). What's that you say? Yes I'm over thirty and stayed out 2 nights running until after 3am and it was fun! But I'm soooo tired today, it didn't help that the clocks went forward on Saturday night/Sunday morning so we realised that it was actually 4am not 3am just as we were going home.

I won't get excited

or at least I'll try not to.

It's 6 days since the ovulation stick was positive and I've had a weird taste in my mouth for a couple of days.

It's probably just because the dentist poked my gums and made them bleed yesterday - right?

Must resist the temptation to go and check twoweekwait to compare symptoms.

Resiiist resiiiiiiisssst.

other peoples' pregnancies

This is a subject that comes up a lot in fertility blogs and it's something I'm thinking about a lot and the people fall into several categories:

Friends
Yesterday I got an email from a dear friend who is pregnant. To be honest her announcement came at a bad time and I've been terrible at keeping in touch with her ever since. Well yesterday she emailed me that she only has 3 weeks to go and sent a picture of herself looking gorgeous with a huge bump. While I am so happy for her I'm also so jealous, she is exactly the same age as me and her and her husband have been together about a month longer than us and here's the kicker - she got pregnant easily. I guess that drops her a couple of points on stirrup queen's sliding scale. She did use an approved method of letting me know though - email (from stirrup queen).

I have another friend however who scored a little lower on the scale, she stopped taking the pill to "clear out the hormones" in preparation for starting to try "in about 6 months or so" and oops pregnant. To be fair she has no idea what we've been through but it was very hard to listen to the tales of money worries and bad timing.

The others amongst our friends include the friend who was pregnant at the same time as me the first time and now has a beautiful daughter. Not the easiest for me to deal with as her daughter reaches all the stages my nearly never did. Then there's the friend who told me she was pregnant the day my period started - the first period after we started trying again after the second miscarriage.

These people are the hardest to deal with especially those who tell us face to face.

Family
In the last 18 months, 4 of our cousins (2 each of mine and my husbands) have also proved their fertility, for three of the four it's their second. I'm sure my MIL watching her brother and sister becoming grandparents again has made her desperation to be a grandmother herself even worse which means we're bound to get inappropriate questions sooner or later. (Did I mention my husband is an only child and that his mother is less than happy about him living so far away).

Colleagues
Luckily since nearly all my colleagues are men I won't be seeing any pregnant bumps at work (unlike my poor husband, 2 of them). The two female colleagues are unlikely to get pregnant either, one is a grandmother and the other has 4 children already. It's not impossible I will have to cope with the mens fertility since they are young and several of them have one kid so far so may have another but at least I won't have to see pregnant bellies.

Complete strangers
Oh my god these are endless - how is it that when you are trying desperately to get pregnant it seems like nearly every other person you see is pregnant or has several cute kids in tow.

And the worst part of all this?
The person I was before all this would have been happy for the friends and family and probably wouldn't have noticed the strangers. The person I am now is small and mean and grumpy and hates herself for it. It's basic envy, the small child inside me is shouting "NOT FAIR!", "I WANT ONE!" and I can't shut her up.

happy birthday!

It's my wonderful husbands birthday today. Since I've been a bit negative recently I thought I'd better add that actually most of the time life is good. I have a secure job doing what I enjoy, a great husband who I love very much and we recently bought our first house with a garden.

Yup life is (mostly) good.

Oh and tonight we will be drinking beer and eating curry to celebrate the toyboy's 30th.

Timing

I had a long talk with the mr last night about the whole TTC thing. We are trying to be rational about the fact that it's only been a few months active trying in the most recent period. The problem is that it's been 18 months total since we started this process - and that's a long time. A long time to spend TTC, pregnant or recovering from a miscarriage.

It's not just the time, it's the fact that it affects the rest of your life in so many ways. When planning future holidays we have to think about whether it's suitable for travelling to if I'm pregnant by then. Also I spend my life in a "pre-pregnant" state where I avoid drinking in case it's worked this month. Add to this the stress of living in 2 week blocks from period to ovulation to period again. It puts a strain on the sex life too, I mean it's way past the "lets just have fun and see what happens" stage.

On top of this is the fact that in the last 18 months several of our friends and relatives have got pregnant and some of them have also given birth. While of course you never know the full story it seems like they've all got pregnant easily and we're both jealous. It's horrible but the truth is our first reaction when our loved ones tell us their happy news is to be jealous and we hate ourselves for it.

Fundamentally all this leads to a low level depressed feeling which also effects my ability and motivation for work and some days (like today) I feel like hiding under the duvet and not facing the world at all.

And of course there's always someone who just tells you to relax and it'll happen when your not expecting it - yeah right!

pants

You Are Basic Panties

You are a laid back chick with a real natural beauty. You can make unwashed hair and minimal make-up super sexy. Men tend to notice you show the "real you" - and they appreciate it. And while basic makes boring for some, it looks classic on you.

What Kind of Panties Are You?

random thoughts

I followed a link to this site today structured procrastination which gives some good tips for those procrastinators amongst us. I'm not sure that blogging counts as useful procrastination. I am very tempted to buy the t-shirt or possibly a mug though.

nor does this really but hey
Cowboy-ninja-pirate-knight test
a Cowboy

You scored 5 Honor, 4 Justice, 8 Adventure, and 6 Individuality!

Well pardner, the thing that drives you is a sense of adventure. You're willing to play by the rules, but only so long as you've got open territory to cover and new frontiers to explore. You don't need much and you don't ask much.

Strap on your six gun and wear your Stetson proud. I think you'll do just fine

I also got to thinking about weird things in labs.
Like the fact that our lab often smells of onions. The reason for this? Well there is an enzyme we work with that is found in tears and the easiest supply of it is tears generated by sliced onions. So if we need some enzyme one of us cuts up an onion and holds it close to his/her eyes while the other one collects the tears with a pipette.

Previously I've had to buy large quantities of KY-jelly and liquid paraffin for experiments - it's strange what becomes normal.

Reality check

This always happens when you're feeling sorry for yourself (see last post).

I was speaking to a very good friend on Friday night and her Grandfather just died, they found out a couple of months ago that he had liver cancer and now he's dead. This is the grandfather that practically raised her after her parents divorced when she was very young. To add to this she has spent the last 2 weeks sorting out paperwork to get his body back to Bosnia for a funeral and is now laid up in bed with pneumonia. Perhaps my life is actually pretty good right now after all.

Periods

I got to thinking about my changing attitude to my period over the years so I decided it would make a good blog subject.

As a late developing teen I couldn't wait for my first period to arrive so I could catch up with my peers. This rapidly developed into monthly annoyance as they became extremely heavy and were accompanied by severe cramps. Then there was a period (te he) when their arrival was mildly annoying but mixed with a slight sense of relief that my contraception seemed to be working fine. Then due to a change in contraception I went through a time when I had few periods, with them arriving at most every couple of months and lasting 2 days and quite frankly I didn't miss them.

Generally though periods have always been ok, part of my womanhood, something to just deal with each month. Of course the bursting into tears for no apparent reason and extreme clumsiness could be annoying but not that big a deal.

When we started trying to conceive it was reassuring to have my period arrive regularly, a sign that years of hormonal contraception didn't seem to have buggered up my insides.

But now?

Now I hate my period with a passion. It's failure pure and simple, failure to get pregnant again - despite our efforts and as someone who is used to achieving whatever I set out to achieve both academically and otherwise I'm not very good at failure.