Still Passing Open Windows ....

Should I or shouldn't I?

I have two friends who regularly consult psychics, well, three probably although the third friend doesn't talk about it as much as the first two. The first two have disastrous love affairs and are looking for Mr. Right. The first friend sees pyschics who tell her that the current man is not Mr. Right but Mr. Right is just around the corner and she'll meet him in 6 months/at the end of the year/this summer. She decided to hell with it and fell pregnant with Mr. Sort-of-Right and you can imagine the rest of the story, yes, we sort of drifted apart. The second friend gets more detailed information from psychics, details about her current man and his situation and when he will eventually commit.

I don't know if they have been helped by these predictions. I'm not sure. Anyway. Last week I was desperate and I asked for the phone number from friend no. 2. "You'll love her," she promised me, "She is just amazing, the things she can tell you, it's frightening how accurate she can be." The woman sounded very normal on the phone which was reassuring, no wafts of mysterious mist came through the receiver and she dealt with details in a businesslike manner as if I was making an appointment to discuss a bank loan. However, as our meeting approached I started to wonder if I actually did want to know what she saw in my future. And did I want other superflous information she was bound to give me, about my relationship with various people, about H, stuff that I had no way of verifying and could possibly disturb me for no good reason. So I cancelled my appointment with her.

And now I am wondering if I shouldn't meet her after all ...

Have you ever consulted a psychic? Did it help? Did it bother you?

I saw a flea market fortune teller once. It was almost a dare. I was wandering around the stalls with two girl friends and we decided to have our fortunes told. One by one we entered a little tent and a woman read cards and looked at our palms. We all came out a little pale and unwilling to talk about it but bit by bit the stories came out. All of us had been told something disturbing. I was told my mother's family was cursed and I would struggle to break free. I was also told my boyfriend at the time was Not The One and that my life was going to be in a different country. That last bit I thought anyone could have come up with. I was young, the chances of me breaking up with my boyfriend were high, and I spoke with an accent so I wasn't from England and the chances of me leaving were also high. The whole experience was unsettling, though, and I have avoided palm readings and the like ever since. Last week I just wanted to know, I just wanted a guarantee that some time in the future all this will bear fruit. I know there are no guarantees and no way of knowing the future but sometimes, I just want some reassurance, any reassurance that this is worth it.

Notes to self

Note to self #1: you can live on a diet of pure Reeces and nothing else but by 5pm you WILL feel sick.

Note to self #2: don't go to the garden centre after a fight with H. You will spend far too much money and come back with a rosebush that is taller than you and can't fit in the front seat just because it reminds you of home.

Note to self #3: never ever wear pale blue yoga pants. When you are doing downward dog, your bum will look HUGE.

Back

We're back home after being away for five weeks. When we landed, for the first time in years I felt glad to be back. Glad to see the dense green of the trees with their summer growth and even glad to see colleagues and be back at work. Europe seems to have regained some of its magic for me, I see why I love it again and don't think, "What on earth am I doing here?"

I had a dentist's appointment this morning before work and my path to work led through a market. It is a beautiful market. I must try and take a photo one day so you can see it. There are different types of lettuce laid out in boxes and rows and rows of raspberries and strawberries and gnarled bread and the people serving you have thick fingers with dark soil under their finger nails as if they had picked the vegetables that morning. They were selling edible flowers for salads, little purple blossoms and nasturtium-looking flowers, and if I had had more money I would bought some just because they were pretty.

"When do you go back?" asked a friend, referring to the next IVF cycle.

"Sometime in July or August," I said.

"Have you contacted your RE?" asked H.

"No," I said and just leaned back against the pillar behind me, waiting for the conversation to move along. 

I think the cancellation of the last IVF hit me harder than I realise. I don't want to talk about any of this any more. I don't want to think about it even. I don't even know if I want to do it. "What will bring you joy?" is the question I should be asking to decide the right direction for me, I read today. "So, what will bring me joy?" I thought, "A baby," I replied. "Even a baby with donor eggs?" I just don't know. Part of me thinks that I need to keep my eye on what I want and accept what it takes to get there while part of me is a little girl who stamps her foot and says, "I want it to be mine, all mine!" I feel as if I am becoming more and more superfluous. I won't carry this baby and now it looks as if this baby won't carry a part of me and that is hard. What makes me hesitate is that I don't even feel excited about the idea of a donor egg surrogate pregnancy. I just feel all 'yeah, whatever,' as if I am being given the last prize in the box and being told, "But look how much fun this egg cup is, look how much you can do with it! Look, you can fill it with water and empty it out, and you can ... erm, well, there will be so many fun things to do with it." And it's just not fair to feel this unexcited about a child who is going to be born.

Trying to enjoy life

Thank you to everyone who has commented. I am very touched as always and every time I read a comment I feel more guilty for my absence. I am lying on the couch and slouching around the streets bemoaning my lot and muttering, "Why me?" as I walk past yet another pregnant woman or twin stroller.

My uncle has this theory that you see what you are looking out for. I decided to test this theory and look for fairies. Probability of failure guaranteed I decided. During the day I saw 756 pregnant women or little babies and then all of a sudden, what do you know, I saw a little fairy doll dropped near a railing. I'm still looking out for fairies but the pregnant women keep blocking my view (if you read this, Becky, you're excluded, you can block my view any time!)

So, today I am trying to find 5 things that are going well in my life because honestly things are not that bad, I just keep seeing the pregnant woman in the corner and dammit, this cannot go on. Surely at some point it will end?

1. I am down a pants size at Banana Republic. Yes!!!!
2. It is not raining (listen, I'm trying to be positive)
3. H and I are not fighting (scraping the barrel here but 5 good things? Today that seems like a lot)\
4. I have 2 new cute tops to wear
5. There is nothing I am dreading this week (so far)

I mean, come on, I can enjoy life even though I have been trying for five years to have a child, even though I have lost two babies, even though the doctors are so un-positive about my chances of having a baby at all. I mean there are still things to enjoy. Aren't there? I just have to figure out how. My capacity for enjoyment seems to have shrivelled up completely.

Well ...

You know what's coming don't you? This cycle started ok. There were four follicules, not a lot admittedly but at least a starting point. I did the injections etc. etc. and at my first scan what do they spot? A dominant monster follicule. So, this cycle is officially cancelled.

I keep on telling myself it could be worse. It was a risk with a the protocol I was following, that there would be a dominant follicule. At least I responded. At least there were follicules. At least it wasn't cancelled because of lack of follicules. Still, I am pretty pissed off, which I suppose is also better than being weepy. Anyway. So, I have cancelled the hotel, changed my ticket and the good thing is I fly back to H tomorrow. Also I have done some fun things this week and I always like travelling so it's not like it is all bad.

Have to hang on to that thought.

Chocolate spread on toast

There is wonderful news at the moment and there is really shitty news . I am like a janus face, smiling with joy at Niobe's and feeling so sad about Aunty Becky's. I don't tie things together well and I am unable to go on and pay tribute to either of these great bloggers and link their news into my post, but their news really touched me and I wanted to mention them.

Back to me, I am eating chocolate spread on toast. H is out tonight and leaves on a trip tomorrow so it will be a week of toast. Toast with tuna. Toast with sardines. Toast with chocolate spread. Toast with marmite. Maybe toast with cheese as we have a LOT of cheese in the fridge and we leave on Saturday. Me for The Cycle, H on business.

This week I promise to myself to stay out of pharmacies. Today I had to buy sunblock and some rescue remedy so I went to two different pharmacies, actually three as I had to drop off a prescription too. Big mistake. At the first pharmacy I bought maca because the little advertising thingy to the left of the till said it boosted male and female fertility. At the second pharmacy I bought royal jelly as I read last week that it boosts ovarian function. At the third pharmacy I was starting to slow down and I only bought rescue remedy. Thank goodness. Once I pick up this prescription, which is vitamins and oligo elements, my suitcase will be 80% pills. And then I come home and eat chocolate on toast. Well, it is organic chocolate spread. And the bread was organic too. And it had sesame seeds. Those must count for something.

If anyone has any tips for fertility boosting, I'm your woman. Any ideas on stress management will also be welcome. So far I only have herbal sleeping tablets, homeopathic anxiety drops, herbal tea, decaf coffee, my yoga book and one bottle of rescue remedy and one box of rescue remedy pills. Still lots of room. Worried? Who, me?

And Niobe and Becky's news helps to encourage and remind me in equal measure. Anything is possible.

The time to hesitate is through

I'm listening to The Doors, can you tell? As the date for the IVF cycle approaches I am surprisingly calm. I don't know how this will go but I am hoping that it all goes ok. I am hoping that I remain this calm. I hope there are enough follicules. I hope enough fertilise. I hope this finally gives us a child.

I can see our children sometimes. I can imagine a lanky ten year old leaning against me as I sit at my aunt's dining room table, just because he's bored (and yes, I know boys don't do this but it's my daydream). I imagine his slightly bolshy sister downstairs in her bedroom shouting at her younger brother because A SHOP KEEPER IS NOT SUPPOSED TO PLAY CARS! I can see a little bemused toddler with food all over her face from lunch sitting on the floor and watching this scene, and I can hear my aunt looking frazzled and saying, "Carlynn, shouldn't you go down there?" I know, I know, four kids. Where did I come up with that? I don't know. It's just the scene I imagined. Maybe it's because after all this time I don't know how many children will fill this need that drives me on. I wonder if we have one child from this surrogacy if I will always want another child and if somehow I will pass this feeling of not being enough on to my only child? I wonder if I have two if I will always long for more. And I wonder if somehow we did have four kids, how would H manage? Four kids is a lot of money, and H takes his responsibilities seriously. Not to mention his love of plush hotels and nice restaurants! As you can see, despite myself I am taking this daydream seriously. It sure beats worrying about the number of embryos.

If suddenly today you could have as many children as your heart desired (physical limits and money aside), how many do you think you would like?

Warming up

Tomorrow I start phase 1 of this next IVF cycle. I am not thinking about it. La la la la la. LA LA LA. Not thinking about it. So far it is working, but I am pretty sure that by the time I hit wand exams I will be a nervous wreck, hitting all my little homeopathic bottles of remedies and then spending 3 hours feverishly searching the internet for any possible reason why I should not be taking such-and-such remedy while doing IVF.

It's weird. I don't really know where I am. There is part of me that really misses being pregnant and hopes that one day, against all the odds, I will actually carry a pregnancy to term. Then there is another part of me that is so tired of trying the latest fertility trick/avoiding coffee/trying to reduce stress/doing yet another blood test. Part of me is just so used to not having children that I think, "Is it really worth it, Carlynn?" And then I will have a seriously bad day and think piteously, "I would be such a great mother!" and I'm off searching for adoption sites and stories. This is usually followed by another day of lying on the couch with a junk book and chocolate and thinking, "Man, I just don't have the generosity of spirit to be a mother."

So you see, no idea where I stand.

I'm sort of in limbo. There are still possibilities and so I don't have to work on accepting a childfree life. And I am terrified of diving into that swamp because it tends to suck me down and I spend the next month spitting out black self-hatred and smelling evilly of swamp water as I slump through life with my knuckles grazing the ground like a true swamp creature (well, the swamp creatures in my mind at least) trying to avoid everyone.

In the meantime I am apartment hunting. You know, why not buy a new flat and move everything we own while we attempt to have a baby and H is sweating blood as he learns a new demanding job that means a lot to him?  Oh yes, and did I tell you I crashed into a motorbike  a motorbike crashed into me last week and my car might be totalled? While waiting to hear its fate I am taking the bus with crazy bag ladies who yell, "It's green! Go! Go!" to the bus driver as soon as the traffic lights change.   

Testing, testing, once, twice ...

As one does, I was sitting at work thinking about life in general and my hormones in particular. Tuesday I went to see my RE. The first time I saw him, he barely looked up from the paperwork and seemed shocked to hear me express an opinion, mainly one of "No hormones. I want to do an unmedicated IUI." Fast forward three years, molto IUIs, molto injections, one IVF cycle, three transfers and two losses and he now says, "I know how much you have suffered." I'm thinking his clinic has sent him on a touchy feely seminar or his wife gave him a stiff talking to about his bedside manner. Whatever it is, I don't think it's a good sign. I obviously spend too much time in tears in his office.

"But it's good that he understands what you're going through," says a friend.

Mmm. I guess. I would have preferred to still have our slightly distant relationship that an IVF cycle every 2-3 years for the next child would have brought us.

Anyway, back to my desk. So I was sitting there thinking about my hormones and as one does, I got to reading about FSH on the internet. Not a good idea, as we all know. I found out that one high FSH reading is a very bad sign. One high FSH pretty much means your eggs are on the downward slide, even if they are sandwiched between two totally normal readings. I also kept on reading about the FSH test being done on day 3. The more I thought about it, the more I was convinced that I had done the FSH test with my RE on day one. The fourth time I read this, I gathered up my handbag and my coat and headed off to the closest laboratory to do the test on the real day 3.

"When will you have the results?" I asked.

"Tomorrow afternoon," said the nurse.

The next afternoon I was in the laboratory as soon as I could leave work and opening the envelope in the lift on the way down. "FSH: 6.6." I read and I burst into tears. I still pick up the piece of paper and look at that figure and think, "Thank you, thank you, thank you so much."

One piece of good news. Finally. My FSH hasn't budged since 2006. My RE is testing my AMH which he says is a more accurate measurement but I don't care. If we are to go forward with another cycle, the clinic we are working with just wants an FSH below 10 and the estradiol reading; and they are fine. And I am so glad. So happy. It feels like a reprieve.

And for now it feels wonderful.

Bagels

We brought back bagels from our trip. Lots of bagels. "I'll just get a dozen," said H. Into the bag went pumperknickel, cinnamon raisin and some everything. "And 2 poppy seed and 4 sesame," says H. "You have 14 already," replies the guy behind the counter. Needless to say we travelled back with a huge bag of bagels and a little cloud of garlic that was practically visible.

So, we have been eating lots of bagels. My favourite is cinnamon raisin with peanut butter. H's favourite is an everything with cream cheese, ham and cheese.

What's your favourite bagel topping?