Just to say that I haven't dropped off the face of the earth.
I am feeling a lot better about the fact that we will remain a family of three but still feel like I need to sort through some of the stuff in my head. I will be seeing a counsellor next week and I hope that will help. I am due to have a prolapse repair and possibly a hysterectomy later in the year, which scares me silly - especially when you add sleep apnoea, high blood pressure and a clotting condition to the mix. Before that, I have an appointment at the breast clinic to check out the fact that I'm a bit lumpy and there seems to be a tiny amount of what looks like milk coming from the left boo*b (can make a small amount come from the right, too, but it doesn't happen spontaneously). I alternate between breast cancer and a brain tumour as a diagnosis - obviously hoping it's actually just a weird hormonal thing.
The boy is amazing and frustrating. His language comes on in leaps and bounds and he is so physically active. His listening ears, on the other hand, work intermittently and he sometimes smiles or outright laughs when he is told off. The nursery obviously find this as irritating as I do! He can also be kind, sharing and very funny. Probably a normal three year old! We are trying to potty train him at the moment and it ain't going smoothly - we will get there in the end though (none of my Primary 1 children have ever come to me in nappies, so I have faith).
I have several posts in my head about parenting after infertility and being an older mum and another several about my family and how the dynamics have changed now that my parents, my sister and her family and I all live in the same city. Maybe I'll even have time to write one of them sometime - there seems to be no time for anything else but work and parenting. I really miss having time with friends and being able to chat and relax. I feel like any problem I have is magnified by the fact that I can't just chew it over with a friend. Not sure what to do about that.
I am also trying very hard to find time to exercise in an attempt (along with half-hearted calorie reduction) to lose some weight before my op. However, see above re how my time is spent to get an idea of how that is going.
Does every other parent (who also works full-time) find life so squeezed?
Saturday, April 5, 2014
Monday, September 16, 2013
Still Not Over It
I'm not very sure where I go from here, both in terms of this blog and in terms of my "recurrent miscarrier/subfertile" self.
I'm getting on with life and the initial grief over the last cycle not working has passed. That said, now that the journey is over - at least in terms of new treatments and new babies - I am becoming aware of what it has left behind.
I have an amazing son and I love him with all my heart. I love him in exactly the way I expected to love my child way back at the start of this journey, when I thought that I would have a child that was genetically mine in the old-fashioned way (involving my husband, a bed and myself, all in one room - not it different cities). I do not feel any grief over the fact that he did not result from my eggs - thankfully, I discovered that was a part of parenthood I didn't require. But I do feel grief about what a very long time it took us to get here, about the fact that I am an "older" parent when I was not planning it that way, about the losses along the way (although I do not feel those as the loss of children - personally, they were very early and I view them as the loss of pregnancies and possibilities) and about the other losses we suffered while pursuing parenthood (career progression, romance & intimacy, money, self-worth, friends, confidence in my body - the list goes on).
I think I'm a better person after all this - I am definitely stronger, I empathise more with others in their difficulties in life, I am less self-obsessed (though look at me, starting every paragraph with "I"). I also maintain that even if we hadn't had a child, I would be OK - not brilliant, but OK - and I am OK with one child.
I do get angry sometimes, though, when there seems to be an expectation that I will be more grateful for my very hard-won singleton than my friends should be with their easily achieved 2.4 kids. After all, I nearly had no children - so I must be very happy to have one. It's true that I do feel lucky to have him and grateful beyond words that I had the money and other resources to pursue treatment and to be living in a time when treatments are possible. I feel immensely grateful when I think of myself as part of the IF/Loss community - without entering the pain Olympics, I think we went through a lot, but I know that there are people out there dealing with worse and not getting the result we got - how could I possibly not acknowledge my luck here. But when those around me in real life, say things like "You must be so happy that it all worked out for you?!" or "You are very lucky to have him." when referring to my son, I feel angry. Because 7 years of trying, 6 losses, countless failed treatments, embarrassing procedures, tests and questions, the discovery of several chronic conditions along the way and a failed attempt to have a sibling doesn't strike me as very lucky. Lucky would be planning a child, trying for a couple of months, getting pregnant and having a baby, followed by something similar a couple of years later if you wanted more than one!
When reading other people's blogs, I find myself reading about women who are going through such a similar journey to mine (including a couple recently from the UK who have clearly been visiting the same clinics and specialists that I did) and I hear/see them saying the same things I did. I want to rescue them - I want to tell them not to get sucked in to treatments that cost huge amounts of money and are not backed up by good research. I want to tell them not to see donor eggs as a last resort. But that's not my job or my business - I had to go through that process and I would probably not have appreciated someone telling me I was on the wrong track (even someone who'd been there before). I am helping out as often as I can at our SANDS group for those with IF (sadly most have also had a miscarriage or a stillbirth as well - please tell me there's research that's trying to join those dots because it doesn't seem like a coincidence to me).
Anyway, here I am, not quite sure where to go.
I'm getting on with life and the initial grief over the last cycle not working has passed. That said, now that the journey is over - at least in terms of new treatments and new babies - I am becoming aware of what it has left behind.
I have an amazing son and I love him with all my heart. I love him in exactly the way I expected to love my child way back at the start of this journey, when I thought that I would have a child that was genetically mine in the old-fashioned way (involving my husband, a bed and myself, all in one room - not it different cities). I do not feel any grief over the fact that he did not result from my eggs - thankfully, I discovered that was a part of parenthood I didn't require. But I do feel grief about what a very long time it took us to get here, about the fact that I am an "older" parent when I was not planning it that way, about the losses along the way (although I do not feel those as the loss of children - personally, they were very early and I view them as the loss of pregnancies and possibilities) and about the other losses we suffered while pursuing parenthood (career progression, romance & intimacy, money, self-worth, friends, confidence in my body - the list goes on).
I think I'm a better person after all this - I am definitely stronger, I empathise more with others in their difficulties in life, I am less self-obsessed (though look at me, starting every paragraph with "I"). I also maintain that even if we hadn't had a child, I would be OK - not brilliant, but OK - and I am OK with one child.
I do get angry sometimes, though, when there seems to be an expectation that I will be more grateful for my very hard-won singleton than my friends should be with their easily achieved 2.4 kids. After all, I nearly had no children - so I must be very happy to have one. It's true that I do feel lucky to have him and grateful beyond words that I had the money and other resources to pursue treatment and to be living in a time when treatments are possible. I feel immensely grateful when I think of myself as part of the IF/Loss community - without entering the pain Olympics, I think we went through a lot, but I know that there are people out there dealing with worse and not getting the result we got - how could I possibly not acknowledge my luck here. But when those around me in real life, say things like "You must be so happy that it all worked out for you?!" or "You are very lucky to have him." when referring to my son, I feel angry. Because 7 years of trying, 6 losses, countless failed treatments, embarrassing procedures, tests and questions, the discovery of several chronic conditions along the way and a failed attempt to have a sibling doesn't strike me as very lucky. Lucky would be planning a child, trying for a couple of months, getting pregnant and having a baby, followed by something similar a couple of years later if you wanted more than one!
When reading other people's blogs, I find myself reading about women who are going through such a similar journey to mine (including a couple recently from the UK who have clearly been visiting the same clinics and specialists that I did) and I hear/see them saying the same things I did. I want to rescue them - I want to tell them not to get sucked in to treatments that cost huge amounts of money and are not backed up by good research. I want to tell them not to see donor eggs as a last resort. But that's not my job or my business - I had to go through that process and I would probably not have appreciated someone telling me I was on the wrong track (even someone who'd been there before). I am helping out as often as I can at our SANDS group for those with IF (sadly most have also had a miscarriage or a stillbirth as well - please tell me there's research that's trying to join those dots because it doesn't seem like a coincidence to me).
Anyway, here I am, not quite sure where to go.
Monday, June 17, 2013
Ouch!
Being the mum of a baby who resulted from DE brings some painful hits.
Several people - including my own husband, to his subsequent horror and shame - have referred to my son's donor as his "real mother". This week, a good, kind friend at work (who knows my situation) was talking to me about a plotline on a UK soap about gestational surrogacy, where the surrogate wants to keep the child. My friend said she thought is was awful, as the child was not genetically the surrogate's, "she just cooked it".
Like I said, "Ouch!".
Several people - including my own husband, to his subsequent horror and shame - have referred to my son's donor as his "real mother". This week, a good, kind friend at work (who knows my situation) was talking to me about a plotline on a UK soap about gestational surrogacy, where the surrogate wants to keep the child. My friend said she thought is was awful, as the child was not genetically the surrogate's, "she just cooked it".
Like I said, "Ouch!".
Wednesday, May 15, 2013
Done and Done
This cycle is over and so is our journey through infertility and loss.
I thought I'd be ok but then the nurse who took my blood this morning was nice to me and I've been trying not to cry all day. The final straw was the call to get the result I already knew. I had to give a presentation to the staff at my school after the kids went (I hadn't been able to rehearse it because last night, when I came in from the infertility support group I help out with, I got a migraine - hardly any wonder, really - stress at work, failed cycle and hormones - the perfect storm). So, the call had to wait.
Tonight, I want comfort food and wine. Tomorrow, I want to restart my anti-anx.iety medication. I want to be numb for a while. I don't want to think about those three embryos that could have been my son's brothers or sisters and the fact that, even if we did do more treatment (which we can't/won't) we can never have that donor and that genetic combination again. That breaks my heart - how could I not want more like him - more for him?
And if one more person tells me "it wasn't meant to be", I might say something unforgivable.
Of course, although the physical journey is over the emotional one is not - and we will always carry it with us. Everything feels fragile right now - I am terrified that we will lose our wee boy, which would be to lose everything. And I can't bear the thought that he might be lonely - if not now, then one day in the future.
I think I have some processing to do.
I thought I'd be ok but then the nurse who took my blood this morning was nice to me and I've been trying not to cry all day. The final straw was the call to get the result I already knew. I had to give a presentation to the staff at my school after the kids went (I hadn't been able to rehearse it because last night, when I came in from the infertility support group I help out with, I got a migraine - hardly any wonder, really - stress at work, failed cycle and hormones - the perfect storm). So, the call had to wait.
Tonight, I want comfort food and wine. Tomorrow, I want to restart my anti-anx.iety medication. I want to be numb for a while. I don't want to think about those three embryos that could have been my son's brothers or sisters and the fact that, even if we did do more treatment (which we can't/won't) we can never have that donor and that genetic combination again. That breaks my heart - how could I not want more like him - more for him?
And if one more person tells me "it wasn't meant to be", I might say something unforgivable.
Of course, although the physical journey is over the emotional one is not - and we will always carry it with us. Everything feels fragile right now - I am terrified that we will lose our wee boy, which would be to lose everything. And I can't bear the thought that he might be lonely - if not now, then one day in the future.
I think I have some processing to do.
Saturday, May 11, 2013
Familiar Feelings
I went to the shopping centre today and there seemed to be babies everywhere.
And Clea.rblue seem to be advertising pregnancy tests on TV a lot. On Thursday, I passed a couple and the guy was pushing a double pram - "That's not fair!" I thought, "They got two at one go!". Yup, all the sad, angry, bitter, jealous stuff I thought I'd ditched when I had my son has come back. In fact, some of it I thought I had ditched before he was conceived. They're subtly changed this time - babies and pregnant tummies are still triggers by themselves, but siblings are really hitting the jealousy button. I saw a couple in the supermarket today with a toddler and a very new baby in a sling - and to cap it all the guy was singing to the baby and his partner (wearing the sling) was doing a little dance! Do they not know I'm in a delicate place right now?!
I POAS yesterday afternoon - I was cleaning the bathroom and there are two tests in the cabinet, both almost two years out of date (no idea whether that stops them working or not) and the urge took me. Very negative. That was 6dp3dt, so I know it was obscenely early and, working backwards with the figures from my son's HCG levels, I don't think he would have shown up as a positive at that point. I got a level of 120 at 12dp3dt and working on the idea that it would at least halve (since it was more than doubling) every 48 hours working back, it would have been 15 at 6dp3dt. I think Cle.arblue registers positive at about 25. So, probably too early on an out of date stick but I still feel low about it - mainly because my gut tells me it's right (oh and, by the way, can you tell I'm thinking about this a lot?).
I got a pack of new ones today and will test again tomorrow. Most cycles when we were having some sort of treatment, this was my strategy: test early and when you get a negative, you're disappointed but you know there's a chance you're just too early, repeat daily till you lose all hope. I liked to think it let me down gently - there was certainly no way that I was entertaining the idea of success right up till the clinic called with the beta to shatter my dreams again.
As for all those horrible feelings, I will get past them. I had achieved a state of relative equilibrium even before my son was conceived. After his birth, I was unstoppable - I patted bumps, cuddled babies and burbled away about the joys of breastfeeding. And for a long time, I did not think there would be any children, never mind two of them and I was delighted with the one I got. For the first year or so, I didn't even think of the frozen embryos - and we actually talked about donating them on, till the clinic told us that was not allowed in this country. I think that the fact that half of the girls from my antenatal group have had baby no.2 and the other half are trying has something to do with it - and the fact that most of my friends have two (or three) kids. Briefly, I was "one of them" and now I feel different again and I don't like it. Some people do not view parents and one child as a family, I find. For some people, it has to be two parents and two children - nice and symmetrical. And we did, way back in our courting days, agree that we wanted two.
Of course, the biggest and best reason we wanted this to work is for our son. His best friend came round last night and the pair of them ran and played and climbed and giggled so much. It was quite a different atmosphere to when it is just the three of us. It made me feel sad. At one point they were in the bath together and my son was swinging his toy watering can and it hit his friend and I told him to be careful of his brother. I have no idea where that came from - except I suppose that I do - wishful thinking.
I will be ok again. The hormones will settle, I can take my anti-dep.ressant/ anti-an.xiety medication again and I can switch from the beta-bloc.kers that make me tired to more modern blood press.ure medication. Oh, and the ring pessary for the prolapse being too big and in the wrong place is probably not helping my mood right now (noone wants to go near it till they know whether I'm pregnant or not) - I could have the repair surgery and do much more than I can now. I can grieve what we have lost and get on with enjoying life with my wee boy - which he deserves.
I will be ok again.
And Clea.rblue seem to be advertising pregnancy tests on TV a lot. On Thursday, I passed a couple and the guy was pushing a double pram - "That's not fair!" I thought, "They got two at one go!". Yup, all the sad, angry, bitter, jealous stuff I thought I'd ditched when I had my son has come back. In fact, some of it I thought I had ditched before he was conceived. They're subtly changed this time - babies and pregnant tummies are still triggers by themselves, but siblings are really hitting the jealousy button. I saw a couple in the supermarket today with a toddler and a very new baby in a sling - and to cap it all the guy was singing to the baby and his partner (wearing the sling) was doing a little dance! Do they not know I'm in a delicate place right now?!
I POAS yesterday afternoon - I was cleaning the bathroom and there are two tests in the cabinet, both almost two years out of date (no idea whether that stops them working or not) and the urge took me. Very negative. That was 6dp3dt, so I know it was obscenely early and, working backwards with the figures from my son's HCG levels, I don't think he would have shown up as a positive at that point. I got a level of 120 at 12dp3dt and working on the idea that it would at least halve (since it was more than doubling) every 48 hours working back, it would have been 15 at 6dp3dt. I think Cle.arblue registers positive at about 25. So, probably too early on an out of date stick but I still feel low about it - mainly because my gut tells me it's right (oh and, by the way, can you tell I'm thinking about this a lot?).
I got a pack of new ones today and will test again tomorrow. Most cycles when we were having some sort of treatment, this was my strategy: test early and when you get a negative, you're disappointed but you know there's a chance you're just too early, repeat daily till you lose all hope. I liked to think it let me down gently - there was certainly no way that I was entertaining the idea of success right up till the clinic called with the beta to shatter my dreams again.
As for all those horrible feelings, I will get past them. I had achieved a state of relative equilibrium even before my son was conceived. After his birth, I was unstoppable - I patted bumps, cuddled babies and burbled away about the joys of breastfeeding. And for a long time, I did not think there would be any children, never mind two of them and I was delighted with the one I got. For the first year or so, I didn't even think of the frozen embryos - and we actually talked about donating them on, till the clinic told us that was not allowed in this country. I think that the fact that half of the girls from my antenatal group have had baby no.2 and the other half are trying has something to do with it - and the fact that most of my friends have two (or three) kids. Briefly, I was "one of them" and now I feel different again and I don't like it. Some people do not view parents and one child as a family, I find. For some people, it has to be two parents and two children - nice and symmetrical. And we did, way back in our courting days, agree that we wanted two.
Of course, the biggest and best reason we wanted this to work is for our son. His best friend came round last night and the pair of them ran and played and climbed and giggled so much. It was quite a different atmosphere to when it is just the three of us. It made me feel sad. At one point they were in the bath together and my son was swinging his toy watering can and it hit his friend and I told him to be careful of his brother. I have no idea where that came from - except I suppose that I do - wishful thinking.
I will be ok again. The hormones will settle, I can take my anti-dep.ressant/ anti-an.xiety medication again and I can switch from the beta-bloc.kers that make me tired to more modern blood press.ure medication. Oh, and the ring pessary for the prolapse being too big and in the wrong place is probably not helping my mood right now (noone wants to go near it till they know whether I'm pregnant or not) - I could have the repair surgery and do much more than I can now. I can grieve what we have lost and get on with enjoying life with my wee boy - which he deserves.
I will be ok again.
Tuesday, May 7, 2013
No More Second Chances
The other embryos did not survive the culturing on process. We didn't think they would but it's still sad. This cycle is bringing back a lot of negative "not fair" feelings I thought I had let go of when my son was born. I can only hope they'll fade with time.
Sunday, May 5, 2013
Never Simple
So . . . I have a 7 cell day 3 embryo on board.
Of the three we had to defrost, one was a no-hoper (lost 7 out of its 8 cells), one lost 5 out of its 9 cells and they'll culture it on but don't have much hope for it and the one that went back kept 7 out of 8 cells. So no choosing from three lovely day 5 blasts for me but a clear decision for a day 3 which takes some of the agonising out of it.
Feeling pretty miserable though as the bl**dy ring pessary I have for my prolapse had to come out for transfer and wouldn't go back in properly. Ended up at the hospital gynae ward but they couldn't sort it out fully and I've now got a bigger size of ring but it's still not sitting properly AND I'm terrified that all the pushing and shoving down there will have ruined any chance of this working :(. As post transfer techniques go, it's hardly ideal! Feel particularly miserable about the possibility of letting my son down by not giving him a sibling.
Test date is Fri 17th but I'll POAS before then. The problem with the ring also has implications if I do get pregnant, as it suggests the prolapse has worsened. The only treatment for prolapse while you're pregnant is the ring pessary but it seems my muscle-tone is now so poor that it wont stay in place at all. So there may come a point where bedrest is the only alternative which would be disastrous with my clotting issues (need to remain relatively active). If anyone out there has any knowledge or experience of pregnancy with prolapse, I'd love to hear it - I can find almost nothing online
Ugh - just feel miserable.
Of the three we had to defrost, one was a no-hoper (lost 7 out of its 8 cells), one lost 5 out of its 9 cells and they'll culture it on but don't have much hope for it and the one that went back kept 7 out of 8 cells. So no choosing from three lovely day 5 blasts for me but a clear decision for a day 3 which takes some of the agonising out of it.
Feeling pretty miserable though as the bl**dy ring pessary I have for my prolapse had to come out for transfer and wouldn't go back in properly. Ended up at the hospital gynae ward but they couldn't sort it out fully and I've now got a bigger size of ring but it's still not sitting properly AND I'm terrified that all the pushing and shoving down there will have ruined any chance of this working :(. As post transfer techniques go, it's hardly ideal! Feel particularly miserable about the possibility of letting my son down by not giving him a sibling.
Test date is Fri 17th but I'll POAS before then. The problem with the ring also has implications if I do get pregnant, as it suggests the prolapse has worsened. The only treatment for prolapse while you're pregnant is the ring pessary but it seems my muscle-tone is now so poor that it wont stay in place at all. So there may come a point where bedrest is the only alternative which would be disastrous with my clotting issues (need to remain relatively active). If anyone out there has any knowledge or experience of pregnancy with prolapse, I'd love to hear it - I can find almost nothing online
Ugh - just feel miserable.
Friday, May 3, 2013
Staring at Change
Our embryos come out of the freezer at about 9am tomorrow - our 10 year, one month journey may be over by lunchtime.
I thought that having nothing to transfer might be a relief - it won't be. Turns out I really do want this - for me and for my husband (in those naive, early days, we agreed we wanted two kids) and very, very much for my son. I have been panicking about the fact that maybe I waited too long, that I am not fit enough, that I am too fat, that the badly fitting ring pess.ary that's holding my prolapse in is interfering with the absorption of the Cyc.logest . . . you get the picture.
I am also preparing for grief. This all started with a first pregnancy that ended in a first miscarriage and I fought all the way from there to here. I didn't really stop to grieve because I was never very sure what I was grieving. The losses were early - I didn't feel like I had lost a baby, more that I had lost the possibility of motherhood this time. But six losses mount up. Six losses (all natural pregnancies, separate from treatments), failed rounds of clom.id, a failed IUI, two failed IVFs. Some interesting diagnoses along the way - high blood pressure, a clotting condition that affects others in my family. And then there's the lost friendships and the lost opportunities - the career chances I didn't take because we were focusing on treatment, the holidays we couldn't take because we were paying for treatment. A lot of stuff.
And I think that, mainly, I pushed it all down and deferred it - waiting for "the end" - the time when I would know what I was grieving. Was it going to be the losses I spoke of above or was it going to be the much bigger loss - was I going to be grieving the loss of motherhood?
I am one of the lucky ones - we have our son. And one thing I don't grieve is my genes. Happily, since he arrived, I have never felt the need to mourn the fact that he is not my genetic child. How could I? He is all I could ever have hoped for - I love him more than I thought it was possible to love anything.
But, as we get closer (maybe very close) to the end of our journey, I realise that there is grief there and I'm a bit scared of how it's going to come out. I also realise that infertility/miscarriage is always going to be part of our lives. Because our son is the result of donor eggs and we intend to be (are already being) honest about this with him, we are not going to be merging into the world of fertiles now that we have our son. No bad thing, I think. I want what I went through to count for something, to help someone other than me. I am already helping out with the infertility support group at our local SANDS and I would like to be involved with the Donor Conception Network - an organisation whose ideals I strongly agree with.
The name of my blog becomes very relevant again. For our embryos, for us, for my son, I need to hope for the best. But I'm not sure how prepared I am for the worst. We'll see . . .
I thought that having nothing to transfer might be a relief - it won't be. Turns out I really do want this - for me and for my husband (in those naive, early days, we agreed we wanted two kids) and very, very much for my son. I have been panicking about the fact that maybe I waited too long, that I am not fit enough, that I am too fat, that the badly fitting ring pess.ary that's holding my prolapse in is interfering with the absorption of the Cyc.logest . . . you get the picture.
I am also preparing for grief. This all started with a first pregnancy that ended in a first miscarriage and I fought all the way from there to here. I didn't really stop to grieve because I was never very sure what I was grieving. The losses were early - I didn't feel like I had lost a baby, more that I had lost the possibility of motherhood this time. But six losses mount up. Six losses (all natural pregnancies, separate from treatments), failed rounds of clom.id, a failed IUI, two failed IVFs. Some interesting diagnoses along the way - high blood pressure, a clotting condition that affects others in my family. And then there's the lost friendships and the lost opportunities - the career chances I didn't take because we were focusing on treatment, the holidays we couldn't take because we were paying for treatment. A lot of stuff.
And I think that, mainly, I pushed it all down and deferred it - waiting for "the end" - the time when I would know what I was grieving. Was it going to be the losses I spoke of above or was it going to be the much bigger loss - was I going to be grieving the loss of motherhood?
I am one of the lucky ones - we have our son. And one thing I don't grieve is my genes. Happily, since he arrived, I have never felt the need to mourn the fact that he is not my genetic child. How could I? He is all I could ever have hoped for - I love him more than I thought it was possible to love anything.
But, as we get closer (maybe very close) to the end of our journey, I realise that there is grief there and I'm a bit scared of how it's going to come out. I also realise that infertility/miscarriage is always going to be part of our lives. Because our son is the result of donor eggs and we intend to be (are already being) honest about this with him, we are not going to be merging into the world of fertiles now that we have our son. No bad thing, I think. I want what I went through to count for something, to help someone other than me. I am already helping out with the infertility support group at our local SANDS and I would like to be involved with the Donor Conception Network - an organisation whose ideals I strongly agree with.
The name of my blog becomes very relevant again. For our embryos, for us, for my son, I need to hope for the best. But I'm not sure how prepared I am for the worst. We'll see . . .
Wednesday, April 24, 2013
This is . . . Different
I did my 2nd Cet.rotide shot in the kitchen today while the wee one ate dinner in his highchair - not how I remember the last cycle!
I'm also telling almost noone: immediate family, best friend, two closest friends in town and definitely not my work. I was always very honest about my treatment before but things have changed at work and I don't want any decisions to be made about what class I have next year based on the fact that I might get pregnant. Also, strangely, after 10 years of not minding, this time I feel more of a resentment that other folk get to do this the old-fashioned, private way while we have to involve a medical team and schedule it all around work. Thankfully, as I'm on a constructed cycle and with a clinic that works weekends, they can schedule transfer (should there be a transfer) for a weekend.
Bad news is that our babysitters are all away for the possible weekends. No way am I taking a toddler to the clinic - for his sake and for the sake of the other patients (just not fair!) - so my husband will drop me off & take the wee one out somewhere in the city our clinic is in and come back for me when it's done. Again, a little different from the last time when he came in and held my hand through it all. But I'm a big girl now and I am doing this cycle pretty much solo. Same will be true of high risk appointments if it works - because they're on the day CM is home with the wee one. That's fine though because its how you have to do it once you already have one child. And I just feel fantastically lucky to be in that position.
I'm also telling almost noone: immediate family, best friend, two closest friends in town and definitely not my work. I was always very honest about my treatment before but things have changed at work and I don't want any decisions to be made about what class I have next year based on the fact that I might get pregnant. Also, strangely, after 10 years of not minding, this time I feel more of a resentment that other folk get to do this the old-fashioned, private way while we have to involve a medical team and schedule it all around work. Thankfully, as I'm on a constructed cycle and with a clinic that works weekends, they can schedule transfer (should there be a transfer) for a weekend.
Bad news is that our babysitters are all away for the possible weekends. No way am I taking a toddler to the clinic - for his sake and for the sake of the other patients (just not fair!) - so my husband will drop me off & take the wee one out somewhere in the city our clinic is in and come back for me when it's done. Again, a little different from the last time when he came in and held my hand through it all. But I'm a big girl now and I am doing this cycle pretty much solo. Same will be true of high risk appointments if it works - because they're on the day CM is home with the wee one. That's fine though because its how you have to do it once you already have one child. And I just feel fantastically lucky to be in that position.
Wednesday, April 17, 2013
Here We Go Again!
I picked up the meds for our FET today. Gulp.
My period is due sometime this week. Transfer - if we have anything to transfer - will likely be in about 2 weeks time. We have three good embryos frozen, we will defrost all three, try to take them to day 5 and, if any of them get that far, transfer the best. If either or both of the others survive and look good enough, we will refreeze them in case this cycle doesn't work.
They may not survive the thaw. If they do, they may not survive to day 5. If they do, it may not implant (strictly single embryo transfer for this 44 year old, high-risk mum with post-birth prolapse!). If it does, it may still miscarry. Etc, etc, etc. I know what can go wrong - and I know that things can go wrong that you don't even think of.
My biggest fear is that I do get pregnant and one of us (or both) doesn't survive - but that is every mum's worst fear, isn't it? There are many others, involving health, money, stamina, work and family. The last time, I felt like I had nothing to lose - this time it feels like everything. I am happy, mostly. I am mummy to an amazing little boy - which is all I ever wanted. So why do this? I am risking it for him - to give him a sibling (a full sibling, as the embryos are from the same batch as him - although I am less and less convinced that this matters - family comes in many forms). And for them, the embryos. I am not a religious person but I cannot bring myself to sign a form and allow the embryos to "perish". They exist because of us and I feel like we owe them a chance.
I have no idea how I'm going to feel about either a BFN or a BFP. I imagine a BFN will leave me sad and disappointed but a little relieved - infertility and miscarriage has been a ten year journey and I am ready for it to be over. A BFP might be exciting but terrifying. Who knows?! Let's wait and see . . .
My period is due sometime this week. Transfer - if we have anything to transfer - will likely be in about 2 weeks time. We have three good embryos frozen, we will defrost all three, try to take them to day 5 and, if any of them get that far, transfer the best. If either or both of the others survive and look good enough, we will refreeze them in case this cycle doesn't work.
They may not survive the thaw. If they do, they may not survive to day 5. If they do, it may not implant (strictly single embryo transfer for this 44 year old, high-risk mum with post-birth prolapse!). If it does, it may still miscarry. Etc, etc, etc. I know what can go wrong - and I know that things can go wrong that you don't even think of.
My biggest fear is that I do get pregnant and one of us (or both) doesn't survive - but that is every mum's worst fear, isn't it? There are many others, involving health, money, stamina, work and family. The last time, I felt like I had nothing to lose - this time it feels like everything. I am happy, mostly. I am mummy to an amazing little boy - which is all I ever wanted. So why do this? I am risking it for him - to give him a sibling (a full sibling, as the embryos are from the same batch as him - although I am less and less convinced that this matters - family comes in many forms). And for them, the embryos. I am not a religious person but I cannot bring myself to sign a form and allow the embryos to "perish". They exist because of us and I feel like we owe them a chance.
I have no idea how I'm going to feel about either a BFN or a BFP. I imagine a BFN will leave me sad and disappointed but a little relieved - infertility and miscarriage has been a ten year journey and I am ready for it to be over. A BFP might be exciting but terrifying. Who knows?! Let's wait and see . . .
Wednesday, March 6, 2013
The Small Things
The friend I wrote about back in July of 2012 - the one who had been trying even longer than us and was finally pregnant - is in hospital being induced right now.
She went in on Saturday and, as of last night, had not had the baby yet. I'm jumping at every text alert, checking Facebook obsessively and wondering if today is the day she finally gets to hold her child. It's my dad's 77th birthday today and it's also my best friend's birthday so I reckon 6th March is a good day for this very welcome little one to arrive.
I'm thinking back to my own experience of childbirth and becoming a mum (so far, quite similar to hers) and how it took me a while to feel the joy of it. I kind of hinted at this to her - I wish someone had told me that it was normal to find the first few months so hard. Needless to say, I wondered if it was me, if I was too old, too late, whether it was the fact I'd used donor eggs. Actually, it just turned out I was really tired and slightly in shock. As time went by, I settled in to it all and one day found that it really was wonderful after all - extraordinarily hard work but wonderful too.
As the two years and two months have gone by since my son's birth, sometimes the big things have felt slightly flat. First Christmas - both of us ill and me in crisis with my work. First birthday - same holiday, same issues. First trip away - I slept in the bottom part of a bunk bed with him and my husband slept in another. First tooth - slightly eclipsed by the fact it was discovered during a hospital appointment that confirmed he had reflux and I'd not been aware of it. First crawl - while my husband and I were out and grandparents had him. First steps - missed those too.
What I'd like to tell my friend, I realise, is not to stress about these supposedly important events. In being a mother, it's actually the small stuff that counts: getting up at 3am to rock them back to sleep, finding the things they'll want to eat and are also good for them, that kind of thing.
And sometimes, it's the small stuff that knocks you sideways and reminds you that all of that waiting and hoping paid off.
Stepping on a piece of lego - you have toys on your floor!
Seeing little plates and cutlery with your own in the washing-up pile.
Finding that your Am.azon recommendations are full of picture books.
Hearing a wee voice calling for you as you wake in the morning.
Seeing little plates and cutlery with your own in the washing-up pile.
Finding that your Am.azon recommendations are full of picture books.
Hearing a wee voice calling for you as you wake in the morning.
It happened - you're a parent - at last.
Sunday, January 6, 2013
You, At Two
You are two years old today. I thought of my labour last night, as I wrapped your presents - long and difficult but with the best result I could ever have hoped for.
I have been terrible at keeping note of your milestones - getting our house built and going back to work full-time (not to mention looking after you) have not been conducive to record-keeping. Luckily, your Bumpa loves to take videos, there are soooooo many photos of you from my phone, your nursery home communication diary is full of information and your mummy has a reasonably good memory.
But today, I wanted to put down some stuff to keep - I want to look back and remember . . .
You are hard work sometimes - you have really embraced the idea of the "terrible twos" and have simultaneously developed a terrible case of "only mummy will do". There are days I want to run out of the house, jump in the car and head for the nearest coffee shop to hide for a while. As soon as I got there, of course, I would want to get back to you as quickly as I could!
A year ago, you couldn't walk. Now you run, jump, dance, climb and spin. And, wow - you on your ride-ons! Daddy and I joke about handbrake turns and wonder if you'll scare us silly with your driving.
You love technology - you want to know how things work and you want to get your hands on every item of hardware daddy and I have. Paddy the iPad is your favourite - we still get a surprise when we hear your cousin's voice in the room when he's not here and realise that you've Sk.yped him. Your almost-favourite thing to do on any device, though, is still to watch videos of cows! This is second only to sitting on Bumpa's knee, watching the videos he has made of YOU! It's the best little mutual admiration society there is.
You are the biggest procrastinator in the house. You have turned putting things off into an art form. You will deny dirty nappies, swear blind that toothbrushing has happened when it hasn't, find important things to do when tea is ready and will say "hold on" numerous times, as you nip out of bed during your bedtime story to go and find another that you think we might be persuaded to read.
Speaking of which, books are are a big love of yours. Early in 2012, when you were quite poorly, you once lay on the couch with me from 9am to 2.30pm listening to stories - you just wanted to be read to. I was almost hoarse by the time you let me put the TV on for some respite! Luckily, mummy and daddy love books too and can usually be persuaded to read another (and another and another . . . ). We are so happy that you enjoy stories.
Your speech has come on amazingly in the last 6 months. You talk mostly in sentences now and we understand a lot - though not all - of what you tell us. Your first understandable word was "kangaroo" - this was before you really called daddy anything and WAY before you called mummy anything - which, by the way, was only about 4 months ago!
You are very funny about our names. If you call us, you start off with "mummy" or "daddy", if you don't get a response you'll progress to "MUM" or "DAD" and if that fails, you shout our actual names. You also love to recite the names of your relatives, in their family groups and not forgetting any pets.
Your family is important to you - especially your big cousins, who you adore and who adore you in return. We are so lucky that they are coming to live round the corner - we'll have some fun! "Ganny" and "Bumpa" are very adequate replacements for mummy and daddy and you spent your first overnight with them at the end of December - Granny said it was the best night's sleep she's had in ages!
Sleep - ah, yes. There's still a mattress on your floor and only very recently have mummy and daddy slept in their own bed at the same time as each other. You still take a loooong time to go to sleep sometimes, with frequent chuckings out of the dee-dee (your dummy) and attempts to engage us in conversation. And you still go through phases of waking during the night or getting up at half-past stupid o'clock. But you are much better than you were.
You are not good at sharing and the words "no" and "mine" occasionally accompanied by snatching and hitting are frequently heard during playdates with your friend V (actually, I think the term is "frienemies"). But you are also incredibly empathetic - you notice if people have hurt themselves or are sad and you want to comfort them - I love this about you. The other day, I was feeling tired and rested my head on my hand and you looked at me and said "mummy sad" and gave me a cuddle!
Which reminds me - you give the best cuddles in.the.world and lots of them. You went through a phase in the spring of cuddling all your little friends so tight it looked like you might suffocate them - but it started a trend at nursery ;-). You made your own best friend at nursery - your very own friend who you made before you were one year old and whom you love and are very loyal to. I'm sad that when you move to your new room at nursery this week, he won't be going too just yet.
Your smile is amazing. When you smile at me, everything is good. And it's not just me - I have lost count of the times people have stopped me while we're out and told me what a wonderful smile you have. One little old lady, whom you smiled at in the chemists, followed us to the traffic lights to get another and told me you had made her day!
I love you more than I thought it was possible to love anyone or anything. When I tell you I love you more than life itself, I am not exaggerating. I still can't believe we finally made it - made YOU. You are worth every single moment of the time we waited for you. I am so proud of you.
Saturday, December 8, 2012
Some Ramblings
I really don't have time to do this right now - there are about a million things that need my attention - but I fear that if I don't write something soon, I may never do so again. Plus, I'm a terrible procrastinator - all sorts of things suddenly look attractive when there's actual work to be done!
We have made no decision yet on whether/when to go forward with a FET with our DE frosties - I change my mind at least daily. Sadly, since my husband is still only on three days a week at work and there is no certainty that he will even have a job this time next year, money is a huge issue. We took on the house project in the same week we discovered that I was pregnant with our wee boy - we had no idea they would both come to fruition. As a result, we ended up with a huge mortgage and an expensive little bundle - childcare costs the same as our mortgage. If it were my job that was uncertain and part-time, I might consider quitting and taking the wee one out of childcare. But it's not - my job is secure and we need it. I hate the thought that money might be what makes the decision on whether we have another child but I have to be sensible about it. When layed alongside the health and age issue, it does make me wonder whether we should go ahead. Then I think of writing to ask for the embryos to be allowed to perish and I can't face that thought.
I am not enjoying being a mum that works full-time. While I would not make a great stay-at-home mum, I really liked having my Wednesdays with the boy. I think I do my job better, working full-time, but it doesn't make me a better mother and certainly not a better housewife. Our house looks like it's been overrun by dustbunnies and there are rooms that aren't entirely safe to enter, lest a teetering pile overbalance and bury you!
All that said, I feel incredibly lucky. I have an amazing son who said "Love you, mummy!" for the first time last night - words I thought I might never hear. I have a husband that I don't spend nearly enough time with but I do love him (and sometimes even like him, despite the ongoing sleep deprivation and life-stress). My parents live downstairs and, while not in their first flush and with one or two health issues, they are wearing pretty well. And, joy of joys, my sister and her family are moving to our city, to a house round the corner, four along from ours!
My sister and her husband had what I describe as a joint mid-life crisis back at the start of 2012. They have been living in London for about 15 years, maybe more, and have been planning to leave for at least half of that time. In January, they decided they were going to do something about it. In April, they packed up all their belongings, put most of them in storage, bought a trailer to hitch to the car for the rest, made sure the dog had had her rabies shots and set off for France. They had one week booked in self-catering accommodation in the north of the country and then they drove south till they found somewhere they liked and stopped. Their kids - a girl of 10 and a boy of 12 - were put into school speaking no French and have coped remarkably well. There was talk of moving on to Canada, Australia or other far away places. We used all our airmiles visiting them in October, thinking we'd better make the most of it while they were still within reach. Then, the day before we were due to set off to see them, my mother sent me a message asking if I knew that my sister had a job interview in our home city that week. I didn't! She got it and they are moving here in just over a week!
I love my wee sister and I also adore my niece and nephew - they were born before all our miscarriages and, for a long time, I thought they were probably going to be the nearest thing I got to having my own children. My son thinks they are brilliant and they seem to think the same of him. The thought that he might grow up with them near by makes me feel a little easier with the possibility that he might be an only child.
I am counting my blessings here because it is a very difficult time for a lot of my friends right now - particularly my work friends. They are facing illness, the loss of parents, the loss of partners and partners losing jobs. This last week brought so much bad news in our workplace. It's not the easiest time of year for primary teachers. We don't so much wind down towards the holidays as get wound up, with parties, plays, activities and the general Christmas atmosphere that means that our pupils are overtired and overexcited (never a good combination!). It's extra hard, in the midst of all that, for these friends to be dealing with serious family issues and hard for others to make time to offer them help or a listening ear. But that's what we need to do - just be there for them and try to make things just a little better in any way we can.
Monday, July 16, 2012
DE Subtleties
The ALI community is an incredibly varied one.
I'm happy to say that, in real life at least, my experience of it has been of women banding together and supporting each other regardless of where they are in their journey. Before I came to the stage of looking at donor eggs, I was unaware of the maze I was entering. Sure, I knew that DE was different from DS, and harder to come by. But once we had decided that it was something we could/should do, what a lot of decisions there were! Should we accept the offers of eggs from several friends/family who were, medically speaking, bad bets? Should we approach other friends and family who were younger or had better pregnancy records to ask for their eggs? Should we join a waiting list at our local clinic for an altruistic donor (even though the consultant was very discouraging)? Should we go further afield in the UK for egg-share? Should we go abroad, where the donation would be anonymous but the wait shorter?
In the end, we went to a clinic in our part of the UK - not local, but somewhere we wouldn't have to factor in accommodation for appointments - which was the only one in Scotland doing egg-share and the only one we came across that seemed to have a waiting list you could join for DE (and combined altruistic donation and egg-share - you were offered whatever option came up when you were top of the list). Our donor turned out to be an egg-sharer.
There are some who feel that this form of DE is exploitative of women who might feel this was their only way to do IVF - that did give me pause. On the other hand, our donor had already had a child (a prerequisite for a donor at our clinic) and she'd had him by IVF (male factor, so I'm assuming ICSI), so they'd managed to afford it before and also knew the territory. Plus, there was a part of me that felt pleased that we might help someone fulfil their dream at the same time as trying to achieve ours - she had said pretty much the same thing on her form, apparently.
So I was very pleased to read this blog entry from a co-founder of the UK's Donor Conception Network which seems to echo my feelings on egg-sharing. I'm also wondering - is egg-sharing a peculiarly British thing, or are there other countries that do it to? Anyone out there know?
I'm happy to say that, in real life at least, my experience of it has been of women banding together and supporting each other regardless of where they are in their journey. Before I came to the stage of looking at donor eggs, I was unaware of the maze I was entering. Sure, I knew that DE was different from DS, and harder to come by. But once we had decided that it was something we could/should do, what a lot of decisions there were! Should we accept the offers of eggs from several friends/family who were, medically speaking, bad bets? Should we approach other friends and family who were younger or had better pregnancy records to ask for their eggs? Should we join a waiting list at our local clinic for an altruistic donor (even though the consultant was very discouraging)? Should we go further afield in the UK for egg-share? Should we go abroad, where the donation would be anonymous but the wait shorter?
In the end, we went to a clinic in our part of the UK - not local, but somewhere we wouldn't have to factor in accommodation for appointments - which was the only one in Scotland doing egg-share and the only one we came across that seemed to have a waiting list you could join for DE (and combined altruistic donation and egg-share - you were offered whatever option came up when you were top of the list). Our donor turned out to be an egg-sharer.
There are some who feel that this form of DE is exploitative of women who might feel this was their only way to do IVF - that did give me pause. On the other hand, our donor had already had a child (a prerequisite for a donor at our clinic) and she'd had him by IVF (male factor, so I'm assuming ICSI), so they'd managed to afford it before and also knew the territory. Plus, there was a part of me that felt pleased that we might help someone fulfil their dream at the same time as trying to achieve ours - she had said pretty much the same thing on her form, apparently.
So I was very pleased to read this blog entry from a co-founder of the UK's Donor Conception Network which seems to echo my feelings on egg-sharing. I'm also wondering - is egg-sharing a peculiarly British thing, or are there other countries that do it to? Anyone out there know?
Monday, July 2, 2012
One Big Good Thing
I haven't done very well at keeping up with my "5 good things" posts - life is busy and that's good in itself.
I have a friend who I met through my main online infertility support group. We met IRL about 7 years ago just as we were both starting IVF treatment at the same NHS centre. She and her DH had already been trying for around 5 years, at that point, to my 2 years. They are the only IF couple that my DH and I have met up with regularly together - the 2 DHs are in the same line of work and get on well. She has tried just about everything alongside her IVF treatments - all sorts of special diets, complimentary therapies, immune treatments, genetic testing of embryos. She had one precious, short-lived biochemical pregnancy about 5 years ago and hadn't done any treatment for a couple of years. She is the same age as me - 43 - and she and her DH have spent every penny they have (and some they haven't) on treatment. They have been stalwart friends to us through our own journey - and even met up with us while I was heavily pregnant, when our son was a newborn and earlier this year when he had just started walking. Every one of those visits must have cost them, emotionally. If babies could be awarded for sheer hard work and dedication, they'd have had one a long time ago.
I got a text from my friend two weeks ago to say that they were abroad and in the middle of a donor egg cycle. I was so pleased - we'd spoken about DE before but they were uncertain. I got a message last week to say that she'd had her first ever positive pee-stick and then another message to tell me she had a really strong beta, then yet another to say the following beta had shown lovely 48 hour doubling.
She is in brand new territory - after 12 years of trying! - and taking things one day at a time, naturally. But I am ecstatically, deliriously, overwhelmingly happy for her and her DH and hoping and praying that this is FINALLY their turn.
I have a friend who I met through my main online infertility support group. We met IRL about 7 years ago just as we were both starting IVF treatment at the same NHS centre. She and her DH had already been trying for around 5 years, at that point, to my 2 years. They are the only IF couple that my DH and I have met up with regularly together - the 2 DHs are in the same line of work and get on well. She has tried just about everything alongside her IVF treatments - all sorts of special diets, complimentary therapies, immune treatments, genetic testing of embryos. She had one precious, short-lived biochemical pregnancy about 5 years ago and hadn't done any treatment for a couple of years. She is the same age as me - 43 - and she and her DH have spent every penny they have (and some they haven't) on treatment. They have been stalwart friends to us through our own journey - and even met up with us while I was heavily pregnant, when our son was a newborn and earlier this year when he had just started walking. Every one of those visits must have cost them, emotionally. If babies could be awarded for sheer hard work and dedication, they'd have had one a long time ago.
I got a text from my friend two weeks ago to say that they were abroad and in the middle of a donor egg cycle. I was so pleased - we'd spoken about DE before but they were uncertain. I got a message last week to say that she'd had her first ever positive pee-stick and then another message to tell me she had a really strong beta, then yet another to say the following beta had shown lovely 48 hour doubling.
She is in brand new territory - after 12 years of trying! - and taking things one day at a time, naturally. But I am ecstatically, deliriously, overwhelmingly happy for her and her DH and hoping and praying that this is FINALLY their turn.
Saturday, May 5, 2012
It's All Coming Back To Me Now
I am seriously investigating whether we should do a FET with our remaining embryos. I have also discovered that two of my friends are going through infertility and pregnancy loss and my heart breaks for them. Infertility and loss are back in my life in a big way.
We have three Grade 1 embryos left from our donor egg cycle. If they didn't exist, then my wee boy would remain an only child - no doubt about it. I would not pursue a fresh donor cycle - too much waiting, too much money, adding another thread to our family that may or may not become an issue for any resulting child and the existing one sometime in the future.
However, there are some real considerations as to whether it is wise to try for another baby - mainly to do with my health. My DE pregnancy was high risk - I have glucose intolerance, hypothyroidism, high blood pressure and not one but TWO clotting issues. I am also over forty. I spent a lot of time in the hospital during my pregnancy and took a lot of medications, some of which are not usually advised during pregnancy but the risks of not taking them outweighed the risks of taking them. As it turned out, the pregnancy itself went remarkably well. The birth and its aftermath, not so much. None of the other issues have gone away and I can now add slightly odd heart rhythms (so far benign) and prolapse, front, back and middle to the cocktail - and I'm more than two years older. My mother has also had a DVT - she has the same clotting issues as I do and this is significant - the medics will have a different attitude to my Factor V Leiden now that I have an immediate relative with it who has had a clot (especially as it was spontaneous and not related to flying or surgery). Emotionally, I did not handle the early days of motherhood too well either and work-wise, it's tough-going even now.
When you also consider that my husband's working hours (and therefore his salary) have now been reduced because of the recession and that we also have an enormous mortgage on our new property, both of which mean that I HAVE to work full time from August, you have to wonder whether an addition to the family makes any sense at all.
These are the negatives - very real and rather risky. Let's face it - losing a real mother in pursuit of a hypothetical sibling would be a pretty bad deal for my boy. But the positives - far less concrete and practical - are also huge. We always wanted two children - back in the days where we thought we could have any at all in the normal fashion. We gave up on the idea fairly quickly but it was always the ideal.
I love my sister dearly and having her in my life is one of the best things about it - why would I not want to try to give my son that joy. And there's another, deeper, vein to the sibling thing - it would be a full sibling to my son - someone who is the same as him. I don't know how he's going to feel about being donor conceived but it's possible that having a full sibling is something that would make him feel more part of something (same goes for the sibling of course).
Then there's the embryos. Oh the guilt! On the cycles with our own eggs, before all my medical issues bubbled up and when I was under 40, extra embryos would have been so welcomed. Now they feel like such a mixed blessing. Like I said, if they didn't exist, there would be no dilemma about a sibling. We'd be living our lives, grateful for our son, slightly wistful about the absence of a sibling but knowing there's nothing we could do about it without significantly disadvantaging him in another way.
And I love those embryos. Unlike the unused embryos from our failed cycles, which were very poor quality, clearly not going to turn into babies and already failing by the time any decision on freezing came up, these ones are not just cells to us - they are our sons potential brothers and/or sisters. I cannot bear the idea of having to allow them to perish. We would love to have donated them (and we had a particular couple in mind), but because of the laws around donation in this country, we can't. Donation is anonymous when it happens, but the donor has a responsibility to update the clinic with any significant medical changes, any house moves etc because when our son turns 18 he can contact her. This was very important to us and it was why we waited to do DE here rather than abroad. But it does mean that we can't pass our embryos on to a third party - the contract was exclusively between the donor and us.
Let me be very clear - I know how lucky we are. After all our years of trying and losses, we have a child - a wonderful, amazing son. AND we have 3 great quality embryos in the freezer. I know there are people out there who would LOVE to be in our situation. I am incredibly grateful for our boy, but the existence of the embryos is bittersweet.
I just don't know what to do! My husband feels it is up to me - the risks are mainly mine. I think he leans to the side of not trying again but he can see the advantages to our son of having a sibling. I am trying to get an appointment with our high risk OB to see whether she thinks it's reasonable to go ahead. I spoke to her before our DE cycle, because by that time we knew of all the medical issues I was facing going into pregnancy. Now I need to go back to her and add the new ones and see if she still thinks pregnancy is a good idea for me. If she says no, I think that will make my decision - I'm not keen on dying and the idea of taking an unborn baby with me and leaving my son motherless - or possibly leaving two motherless babies to be cared for by a grieving father and grandparents - is appalling.
Unlike before the birth of my son, I don't know where to go for emotional support and a chance to discuss the feelings behind this decision. I cannot go along to an infertility or miscarriage support group and whine about not knowing about what to do with spare embryos when there are women who still haven't had their first child or their rainbow baby.
As far as I know, there isn't a support group for infertile-recurrent-miscarriers-who-have-a-baby-and-don't-know-whether-to-risk-having-another ;-). Don't suppose anyone out there fancies setting one up with me?
We have three Grade 1 embryos left from our donor egg cycle. If they didn't exist, then my wee boy would remain an only child - no doubt about it. I would not pursue a fresh donor cycle - too much waiting, too much money, adding another thread to our family that may or may not become an issue for any resulting child and the existing one sometime in the future.
However, there are some real considerations as to whether it is wise to try for another baby - mainly to do with my health. My DE pregnancy was high risk - I have glucose intolerance, hypothyroidism, high blood pressure and not one but TWO clotting issues. I am also over forty. I spent a lot of time in the hospital during my pregnancy and took a lot of medications, some of which are not usually advised during pregnancy but the risks of not taking them outweighed the risks of taking them. As it turned out, the pregnancy itself went remarkably well. The birth and its aftermath, not so much. None of the other issues have gone away and I can now add slightly odd heart rhythms (so far benign) and prolapse, front, back and middle to the cocktail - and I'm more than two years older. My mother has also had a DVT - she has the same clotting issues as I do and this is significant - the medics will have a different attitude to my Factor V Leiden now that I have an immediate relative with it who has had a clot (especially as it was spontaneous and not related to flying or surgery). Emotionally, I did not handle the early days of motherhood too well either and work-wise, it's tough-going even now.
When you also consider that my husband's working hours (and therefore his salary) have now been reduced because of the recession and that we also have an enormous mortgage on our new property, both of which mean that I HAVE to work full time from August, you have to wonder whether an addition to the family makes any sense at all.
These are the negatives - very real and rather risky. Let's face it - losing a real mother in pursuit of a hypothetical sibling would be a pretty bad deal for my boy. But the positives - far less concrete and practical - are also huge. We always wanted two children - back in the days where we thought we could have any at all in the normal fashion. We gave up on the idea fairly quickly but it was always the ideal.
I love my sister dearly and having her in my life is one of the best things about it - why would I not want to try to give my son that joy. And there's another, deeper, vein to the sibling thing - it would be a full sibling to my son - someone who is the same as him. I don't know how he's going to feel about being donor conceived but it's possible that having a full sibling is something that would make him feel more part of something (same goes for the sibling of course).
Then there's the embryos. Oh the guilt! On the cycles with our own eggs, before all my medical issues bubbled up and when I was under 40, extra embryos would have been so welcomed. Now they feel like such a mixed blessing. Like I said, if they didn't exist, there would be no dilemma about a sibling. We'd be living our lives, grateful for our son, slightly wistful about the absence of a sibling but knowing there's nothing we could do about it without significantly disadvantaging him in another way.
And I love those embryos. Unlike the unused embryos from our failed cycles, which were very poor quality, clearly not going to turn into babies and already failing by the time any decision on freezing came up, these ones are not just cells to us - they are our sons potential brothers and/or sisters. I cannot bear the idea of having to allow them to perish. We would love to have donated them (and we had a particular couple in mind), but because of the laws around donation in this country, we can't. Donation is anonymous when it happens, but the donor has a responsibility to update the clinic with any significant medical changes, any house moves etc because when our son turns 18 he can contact her. This was very important to us and it was why we waited to do DE here rather than abroad. But it does mean that we can't pass our embryos on to a third party - the contract was exclusively between the donor and us.
Let me be very clear - I know how lucky we are. After all our years of trying and losses, we have a child - a wonderful, amazing son. AND we have 3 great quality embryos in the freezer. I know there are people out there who would LOVE to be in our situation. I am incredibly grateful for our boy, but the existence of the embryos is bittersweet.
I just don't know what to do! My husband feels it is up to me - the risks are mainly mine. I think he leans to the side of not trying again but he can see the advantages to our son of having a sibling. I am trying to get an appointment with our high risk OB to see whether she thinks it's reasonable to go ahead. I spoke to her before our DE cycle, because by that time we knew of all the medical issues I was facing going into pregnancy. Now I need to go back to her and add the new ones and see if she still thinks pregnancy is a good idea for me. If she says no, I think that will make my decision - I'm not keen on dying and the idea of taking an unborn baby with me and leaving my son motherless - or possibly leaving two motherless babies to be cared for by a grieving father and grandparents - is appalling.
Unlike before the birth of my son, I don't know where to go for emotional support and a chance to discuss the feelings behind this decision. I cannot go along to an infertility or miscarriage support group and whine about not knowing about what to do with spare embryos when there are women who still haven't had their first child or their rainbow baby.
As far as I know, there isn't a support group for infertile-recurrent-miscarriers-who-have-a-baby-and-don't-know-whether-to-risk-having-another ;-). Don't suppose anyone out there fancies setting one up with me?
Tuesday, April 3, 2012
Feeling a Bit Sad
I'm finding it hard to find 5 good things just now.
My sister and my niece and nephew came for a whirlwind 24 hour goodbye visit. They are off on their exciting adventure to places unknown and for an indefinite time - possibly permanently. I am going to miss them terribly. My niece and nephew were born before we started trying to conceive and their existence has been untainted with the jealousies and bitterness that made it hard to be happy about new babies after that. For a long time, they were the nearest I thought I was going to get to having my own children. And they are fantastic cousins to my wee boy - he has such fun with them. Because of our huge mortgage and our small (totally worth it) drain on our resources, it's going to be hard for us to visit them - wherever they go.
So, on that theme, here are my 5 good things:
1. Sky.pe - it's what kept me in touch with my wonderful friend while she was literally on the other side of the world and I'm counting on it to do the same for me with my sister and family.
2. Email - my nephew and niece have got their own email addresses (they're aged nearly 12 and nearly 10) so I can keep up with them that way too.
3. Touch - an instant messaging app that they also have - my niece, in particular, likes to send me funny messages on a Friday night. Another good way of keeping in contact - though I don't think it'll catch on as a verb in the way Sky,pe has ;-).
4. Modern transport - as long as they don't go TOO far out of the way, we should be able to see them in real life very occasionally (as long as we save like crazy).
5 Family - I'm reminding myself that this wouldn't hurt so bad if I didn't have such a wonderful sister, niece and nephew.
Saturday, March 24, 2012
5 Bad Things That Turned Out Good
So . . . yes, as predicted, every day posting was a bit much to achieve.
Looking back over the past couple of days, though, the good things began to take on a theme: stories with a bad beginning and a happy . . . not ending, that's not right . . . a happy new beginning.
1. A very minor one to start with - after a long, hard week at work, I summoned up my courage, told my boss I was not going to the "optional" professional development course on Friday afternoon and caught up with some routine stuff instead. Not an easy thing to do just now, but I'm glad I did it, because it meant I came home with a lot less work than I might have done and had time to spend with my boys.
2. My wee boy is on the mend, having been very poorly all week. Major vomiting, not keeping anything down - even fluids. We got to the same point that we did just before Christmas when he had the no.rovir.us - syringing fluids into him in 5-10ml doses every 10 minutes. He has lost weight, visibly, making him look fragile and somehow older. CM and I took turns to have days of work and take care of him. We took him to the GP twice and the consensus seems to be that it's an ear infection that has vomiting as a side-effect - antibiotics were prescribed. The sickness was so frequent and we got to the point where we rolled up the living-room rug, put towels on the sofas and wore our scuzziest old clothes. We cancelled our trip to the Don.or Conce.ption Netwo.rk meeting today and spent the day hanging out at home together, getting fluid into him and giving him little bits of very plain food. Thankfully, tonight, we put a much happier, healthier baby to bed. I feel so much better now that I feel he's on the mend. After our journey, we're probably a bit jumpier about the wee one being under the weather and we take nothing for granted.
3. Related to number 1, my mother LOVES my wee boy. She called first thing this morning to say that she had been searching ear infections and sickness on Google last night because she was so worried about her grandchild and that she reckons the doctors were right and that he'd be fine. After all that reading, she was able to sleep. I think she literally spent hours researching the topic. The previous night, she had heard him crying pitifully in the early hours and texted me then and there to check he was ok and ask if we needed help (they live downstairs now, remember?). CM and I took a long time to come to our decision to use donor eggs and it was very much our decision. Our families did not make a decision - they were presented with it. I did have some faint concerns about whether they would embrace a donor baby - CM's because they are religious and have some pretty strong feelings about some issues and mine because they are not genetically related to our son. They knew about our plans and had always been verbally supportive - we would almost certainly have been given pause about our decision if we felt we were bringing a baby into an unwelcoming family. This morning's conversation brought home to me just how very much he is loved and wanted by his whole family - genetics are irrelevant when it comes to love here, it appears.
4. Rebecca, over at Which Way to Baby? welcomed her beautiful baby girl to the world a week ago today and, yesterday, there were photos! I have a lot in common with Rebecca - a list of health issues that may or may not contribute to our infertility/losses, the same number of pregnancies, a love of dogs and now, finally, motherhood. She had such a long, hard road to this point and was incredibly kind and generous with her comments while I was pregnant, which I really appreciated. I am beyond happy that she is a mummy now.
5. A very dear friend is coming home. I say "home" but it's not her home - that's about 800 miles east-north-east of here. By a happy coincidence, she was living in the tenement next door to our's when we had our babies. She is an academic, funded by her home university to gain expertise abroad to bring back eventually. She had been working in South America, about to move to the Antipodes when she became pregnant. As a result of immigration laws, she had to delay her move to her new workplace and needed someplace to have her baby and continue her work. Her home university has some contacts here and got her a place in a lab. We were in the same NHS antenatal classes, but didn't get to know each other then. We bumped into each other, each of us heavily pregnant coming out of our front doors just before Christmas. We commented on the coincidence and went on our ways. After we had our sons - her wee boy was born 10 days before mine - we kept bumping into each other and ended up going for coffee. It turns out that, despite differences in our languages, ages, professions and paths to pregnancy, we were having remarkably similar experiences of the difficulties of first-time motherhood - hard! We bonded in that quick, powerful way that you do when you meet someone in intense times - my best friend and I bonded in a similar way right at the start of university in Freshers' Week. For nine months (is that significant?) we saw each other about 3-4 times a week, our babies played together and our partners got on too. And then they had to leave to take up that post on the other side of the world! We stayed in touch by email, sk.ype and text, missing each other and talking about our lives happening as far away from each other as it's possible to get. Then she told me that things weren't as they should be at her new lab and she felt she had to leave - the USA was a possibility (and I started checking out air-fares!). This week, it became definite that her new lab would be back here and that she and her partner and son would be moving in to a flat round the corner from our new one. I am delighted and looking forward to having sunny evenings chatting and drinking wine on our terrace while our little boys play together again and our big boys put the world to rights :-).
Wednesday, March 21, 2012
Struggling For 5 Good Things!
It has been a long day.
My wee one is still not well and is very clingy and totally out of his routine, sleeping badly (and only if he's in bed with me or on my lap) and is vomiting. So I have spent most of the day trying to get fluid into the wee soul and to do washing with a small person clinging to my leg in between changing clothes on him and me and cleaning various bits of furniture.
Hence the difficulty in finding 5 good things today - but here goes:
1. I got an ok night of sleep - no 2 hour periods of wide-awake baby.
2. It was a beautiful day here - blue skies and warm sun (which is unusual for March!).
3. Two visits from my dad - he came to deliver messages from my mum but stayed to play.
4. A nice cup of coffee and a donut at my local cafe.
5. At above cafe, wee boy was much admired by several other customers - lots of smiles.
Hope that we have enough of a recovery to make the Donor Conception meeting on Saturday! We also have a 2nd birthday party of double donor twins to attend on Sunday :-).
Tuesday, March 20, 2012
Five Good Things
I'd had the sixth miscarriage in September, discovered a lump on my ankle in October that turned out to be a tumour (thankfully benign), started to have some serious stomach issues in January, my dad was diagnosed with high grade Non-Hodg.kins Lym.pho.ma very suddenly in March and a week later I started being investigated for possible bowel cancer. Between all that and a rather unfortunate series of miscommunications with and within the medics involved in my case, I became extremely worried and it turned into full-blown anxiety/depression.
All I wanted to do was sleep but as soon as I woke in the morning, the anxiety kicked in and I just couldn't. Nor could I drag myself out of the bed. I know now that activity is the key to busting anxiety. Basically, your body is in "flight or fight" and pumping adrenalin and the worst thing you can do is remain still. My dad - who was going through chemo and was 71 years old so, really, I should have been looking after him - would take me for walks with the dog in the afternoon and by the evening I would feel quite human but by the following morning, I was a gibbering wreck again.
My GP recommended Cogn.itive Beh.avio.ural The.ra.py so I gave it a go. It wasn't my thing - as I said to the therapist, if I had a irrational fear of lampposts, this might be the very way to kick it but, when you're being checked out for cancer, fear of cancer is actually pretty rational. Plus, he was a bit patronising. He assumed that my fear was of death and pointed out that we all have to die (Really? No way?!). I said that I wasn't afraid of death at all - I assumed that there would either be something better afterwards or nothing at all - I was afraid of the pain and suffering that precedes death. Again, not irrational, to my mind. So we parted company.
The one thing that I liked about CBT and that really did help was the practice of finding 5 good things about your day. When I was feeling really down and negative, it took some serious effort to find 5 good things and they were usually pretty small, like watching a TV show I liked. But it made me see that there were good things in my life. As time went by, every day one of the things on my list would be my walks with dad. Not knowing how his treatment was going to turn out, I began to treasure that time - they fixed him, thanks be, and I still treasure that time and any time we have together now.
Recently, things have been tough - not tough like they were back then, but not great. My husband's job is at risk, my own job has been very stressful, my wee boy has been poorly a lot, my sister and her family and my much-loved sister-in-law and her family have both announced that they are leaving the country, probably permanently, taking the nearest thing that my wee one will probably ever have to siblings with them, an old (but too young) friend died of cancer at New Year and another (even older but still too young) friend has just started chemo. My husband has been very low about it all as well and we're not doing a great job of cheering each other up. I also have po.st-na.tal an.xiety/depr.ession (or more likely, my tendencies in that direction have been tipped by tiredness, stress and hormones).
Following all the recent upheaval over PAIL etc, I am going to be totally honest - being a parent is wonderful in many ways and I am very lucky to have my son but it does not fix everything else in life and it's a bloody hard job which brings with it a whole new set of problems. Intellectually, I knew this before I had my son but the combined desire and inability to become a parent can make the negatives of parenting seem trivial. Admitting that it's not all joy and happiness can seem like a betrayal of those still in the trenches or like ingratitude for the amazing gift we've been given. Equally, I'm feeling like I need a reminder that there were times that I would have given anything to be where I am now and that life is basically good. I told my husband about the 5 good things exercise and recommended it to him, then thought I should take my own advice.
So, I'm going to use my blog to list 5 good things from the day - though it almost certainly won't be every day but just as often as I can as I don't want to turn it into another stress-inducing thing.
Today's 5 good things:
1. Lots of cuddles from my poorly wee boy.
2. Mum brought up casserole and apple crumble so we don't need to cook tonight.
3. I found out about the details of a local Donor Conception Network meeting happening this weekend.
4. An email from my best friend.
5. "Al.cat.raz" starts on UK TV tonight!
I'm thinking that the DCNetwork meeting might bring up some blog-worthy stuff . . .
My "always" good things.
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