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Wednesday 28 February 2007

'So Close' - The Book

I have followed Tertia Albertyn’s blog, So Close (link to the right), for more than two years. I can’t remember how I came across her, but I am so glad that I did. She is a funny, courageous, amazing woman. She has been through more heartache and heartbreak than anyone should have to endure …more than most could endure …in her fight to have a child.

She has now written 'So Close' the book, and although it's not available outside South Africa yet (as far as I know), I was able to order it online from Kalahari. I've added a link straight to Kalahari and the book on the right.

Her story is one you should read if infertility has touched your life in any way ...whether you have experienced/are experiencing it yourself, or a friend or family member is struggling with it. What an infertile suffers is impossible to understand unless you have lived it, but this book is a little window that lets you see into the shattered heart of an infertile, the desperation and hopelessness, and will give you an idea. Hopefully, it will give you an appreciation.

Tertia endured so many fertility treatments, including 9 IVF cycles (9 !!!) before she and her husband, Marko, welcomed their gorgeous twins, Adam and Kate into the world.

Tertia's book takes you through her journey in a way that should change you forever.

She takes you through every step, and down into the darkest, darkest days following the birth of her and Marko's beautiful first son, Ben, who was born too early at 25 weeks 4 days. After the bravest fight, at just 10 days old, Ben died in Tertia's arms.

This book has given me the courage to face what comes next for us, and has reminded me that everything I feel is ok. She is one of the bravest people I 'know'.

Thank you T.

Tuesday 27 February 2007

What to do with a clever cat

At the moment, there is a serious parent/child battle of wills going on in my household. It’s requiring some thought and cunning on my part to gain the upper hand, and most of the time, I’m losing.

I am also getting a lot of disdainful ‘Do you really think you’re smarter than I am?’ looks from my cat.

The problem is this – Jazz has decided that she prefers dog biscuits to cat biscuits. For ages I kept finding these little piles of bicky ‘sawdust’ in the dogs bowls, and couldn’t work it out …until one day I caught the little villain. It really did look very funny, and extremely cute, with this little cat munching out of the dogs' bowls, crunching up biscuits she couldn't even fit into her mouth …but now she won’t eat her cat biscuits for love nor money.

I phoned Jansens to see whether the whole dog vs cat biscuit thing would be that much of a problem (thinking I could maybe just leave the cat to eat dog biscuits until she got bored, and put herself back onto cat biscuits ...presuming of course that she would get bored), and apparently it is. Crap. Once the guy on the other end of the phone had actually processed that my cat will only eat dog biscuits (she's not just getting on the dog biscuits every now and again for a laugh, or to torment the puppies), he told me that dog biscuits lack an ingredient (Thiamine? Something starting with ‘T’ anyway) that cat biscuits have, and that cats need, to help the kitties break them down.

Of course, this wouldn’t be an issue if the dogs would just guts their biscuits like most normal dogs … (We’re establishing a bit of a theme here aren’t we? But I swear the animals were all unbalanced when we got them!!) ...or if they wouldn't just sit there politely watching the cat and waiting for her to finish before taking their biscuits back over for themselves!

So, I launched my attack.

Firstly, I changed her food to Iams - the same brand and flavour as the dog biscuits as I thought they might taste pretty much the same. That worked well ...for a few days.

I then tried mixing her bickies with wet food …and she just looked at me as if to say "I am not stupid. Get these damn biscuits out of my wet food".

I tried putting cat biscuits in the dogs bowls, which she did fall for. Once.

I then I thought I’d struck gold. I sprinkled a few Whiskas bickies over the top of her Iams (She looooves Whiskas, but she’s not allowed them because they make her throw up), and she made seriously short work of her bickies for about 2 weeks. But then, when we arrived home on Sunday, we found that all the Whiskas bickies had been carefully picked off the top of her bowl, and the bicky sawdust was back in the dogs bowls (I’d forgotten to empty what was left in the bowls before we went away on Saturday morning).

So, I've realised that I really need to start at the source of the problem. How does one teach one's cat, that she is a cat not a dog ...?

Still, I suppose they did tell me at the pet store* when I got her that she had heaps of personality. I can't say I wasn't warned ...






* Yes, all 3 of our animals are pet store babies. Although you probably think we should have gotten animals from the SPCA, each of Jazz, Jack and Jess have been ‘rescued’ in their own right.

Jazz – Jazzy was 5 months old when we got her. The pet store we got her from was affiliated with ‘The Lonely Meow’ and Jazz was part of a rescue. She was too big for many people to want as a kitten (being close to her full size), and so had sat around in the pet store without too many prospects, until I brought her home. She more than likely would have been put down had we not been able to give her a home.

Jess – Jess was an older baby as well, so had gotten too big at the pet store for many people to be interested in her as a pup. For whatever reason, when the rest of the litter she came into the pet store with found homes, she didn’t, and she’d outlasted two further litters of puppies as well, all without finding a home. Also, by the time we got her, she’d been in the pet store too long, and had developed some seriously bad habits (especially nipping and biting - this was from being in a cage, and jumping up to get people's attention, and to get to hands that were dangled over the side of the pen for some lovin').


Jack – We came across in a pet store down the line and he was the tiniest little pup you’ve ever seen (taken away from his mum too early). He couldn’t walk, and couldn’t even lap properly …and he was in a cage by himself at the back of a dirty, smelly, pet store with no food or water, and the cage lining was covered in wee and diarrhea. It turned out once we had him home, and took him to the vet, he was also very sick with a nasty parasite in his gut. Those people had been shut down twice by the SPCA, and have since been shut down again, hopefully permanently!

Monday 26 February 2007

Did I tell you ...?

I've got my handbag! Woppee!! (Check it out by clicking the Moochi link, then look under 'collection', and 'accessories'. It's the Alley Bag).

It gets better too! Do you know what the best thing about it is? It didn't cost a thing! Well, pretty much anyway. Do you want to know how I managed to make my handbag appear, and $359.99 disappear?

1. I got given 3 months free access under my mobile phone plan last week (thank you Vodafone!) - $60 towards the bag (amount left to justify - $300).

2. I've just racked up another loyalty credit at the store I bought the bag from (they do a 'spend $500, get a $50 credit' thing) - $50 towards the bag (amount left to justify - $250).

3. I have a birthday coming up - you know ...this year sometime ...and Al always gives me $100* towards something. This year, that 'something' is the bag - $100.00 towards the bag (amount left to justify - $150). (And with a bit of luck, by the time my birthday actually rolls around, he'll have forgotten about his donation** and I'll be able to con him out of something else! Magic!)

4. I decided I could live without one of the tops on my winter clothing wish list (which has been fully budgeted for) - $110 towards the bag (amount left to justify - $40)

5. I actually told Al that the bag was $350, because somehow that seemed so much better than $359.99 - $10.00 towards the bag (amount left to justify - $30).

6. When you think about it, what can you buy for $10 these days anyway? Exactly. Nothing much at all (Ok ...this one is stretching it a bit, but when you look at it in the context of the rest of the spending justification ...well, it pales in comparison doesn't it? It's hardly worth worrying about!) - another $10.00 towards the bag (amount left to justify - $20).

7. I usually buy my lunch once a week, mostly on a Friday when I've given up on being good for the week, and I'm far too bleary eyed by Friday to organise a packed lunch anyway. I can handle not giving in to my bleary-eyedness until Saturday for a couple of weeks - $20.00 towards the bag (amount left to justify - $0 !! )

See? Just like that, the bag didn't cost a thing!

And if you're very concerned about poor Al and his wallet in all of this ...? Don't be. Seriously. I have a shopping list of sorts for big purchases and spends this year. For example, we are re-doing our bathroom next month, and we are going to buy a new dining suite this year. We're practising living off his incomce, and mine is being dedicated towards the big stuff - it's like living off a single income with training wheels. It doesn't matter too much if I cock it up initially. So far it's going OK though ...which is kind of surprising considering half of this partnership of ours is ...well, me!

Anywaayyyyy ...I was going somewhere with that ...

One thing Al really really wants, being an enormous coffee lover, proud home barista, and complete snob (he seriously is ...we were sitting in a cafe at the weekend, and Al takes a sip of his coffee, considers the whole flavour, texture, aroma thing and says 'this is almost as good as one of mine' !!! Snob!), is a new coffee machine ...and guess how many Moochi handbags it takes to pay for the new coffee machine ...?

You don't want to know, and I'm not telling ...but he's not as hard done by as you might think :-)



* This started about 5 years ago when he sent me out for my birthday to get my hair done and and gave me an open budget. Suffice it to say, I got the works, and looked great ...but I've never been allowed an open budget for anything every again. Woops.

** AND that I've just given the blimin game away here. Damn it! ...Maybe he doesn't read the footnotes. Do you think there's a snowball's chance?

Thank goodness for coffee!

I must have looked a bit rough as I stumbled through the door of Luscious this morning gasping "Coffee …! Large …! …and please, please, please hurry!" because the coffee girl was already making it by the time I got to the counter, and the yummy cakes girl was poised over the cabinet with tongs in hand ready to give me my heart’s desire before I hit the floor, face first. I went for the orange blossom cake because she was standing right in front of it, thus cutting down to a minimum the time it would take for the sugar to get to me.

My baby brother’s engagement party was Saturday night (yes, the baby brother who sent his girlfriend a text message saying that he was going to ask her to marry him, and did he have to have a shower first?). Sounds simple enough? …You’d think, but no.

Disaster 1: Al works at Air NZ and couldn’t get leave for Friday night, meaning that he’d be working until 6-6.30am Saturday morning, and the party was in Palmerston North on Saturday night. (His shifts are 6 on, 3 off, 10pm to 6.30am. The shift pattern alone makes it a ’mare trying to make special occasions work …Air NZ’s policy of making leave as hard as possible to get makes it even more interesting).

Disaster 2: We were going to fly (subload flights) and couldn’t. Because Al was working Friday night, the plan was that we’d fly down at sparrow’s fart Saturday morning – he’d finish work at 6-6.30am and we’d jump on the 7am flight. Ha! Hahahaha!! He has the ability to look at the flight loadings (to check the likelihood of there being spare seats for us), and did so throughout the week …only to watch them dwindle rapidly. All of them. All day Saturday. Chocka. By Friday night the planes for Saturday weren’t just full, the seats were oversold (although, much to our teeth-clenched delight, had we been flying Friday night, there were were seats available up the wazoo!). There was no way we were going to be flying. It turns out that not only was it orientation weekend at Massey University, there was a Kapahaka (sp?) festival on as well. Crap.

So we drove it. Al on absolutely no sleep, and me on not very much sleep (courtesy of a first class dose of the heebie jeebies from watching ‘Supernatural’ before I went to bed Friday night). From Auckland to Palmerston North and back again in one weekend. With an engagement party in between. And it was worth every ounce of effort it took to get there.

We had a hilarious night – the highlight of which I’d have to say was one of my brother’s best mates, fondly known as ‘White Nut’, burning his arse on the BBQ. I don’t know what he thought was going to happen when he sat on a BBQ (wedging his butt between the sausages and steaks) that we'd been cooking stuff on for a good hour, but the entertainment value was right up there for everyone else (...and in case you’re wondering? I did ask where the nickname came from, and no I’m not going to repeat it …I’m still a bit traumatised from the …errr…demonstration side of the explanation! ...Needless to say that when I was introduced to ‘Sawn Off’, I just stuck my hand out and said that it was nice to meet him). And these people are invited to the wedding. I’ll be taking popcorn.

I am immensely happy to be welcoming Lou into the family. She is beyond fantastic. I remember a couple of years ago, she complained to my little brother that they weren’t spending any time together (he is a builder, and works hard), and do you know what he said? "I’ve got to build a fence at the weekend ...you can come and dig the post holes." (Yes, he did!) One of the things I love about my little brother is that he honestly doesn’t see how this might have gotten him killed and buried in one of said post holes. And, what I really love about my SIL-to-be is that she went out and dug the post holes!

Oh, and we’re going wedding dress shopping. Just her and I. Wicked.

Friday 23 February 2007

Oh, and kiddies?

I'm going away this weekend, so the next post will be Monday.

Have a fab weekend xoxo

The happy post (dealing with it)

A lot of people, friends, acquaintances and cyber-pals, say that they admire my attitude and strength in dealing with my infertility. I don't feel particularly strong, but I do want to hold onto my good humour as much as I possibly can. Although it can be hard sometimes, it really is worth not giving in to the bad stuff ...for myself, my husband and my family.

Giving myself things to look forward to from day to day, week to week, and month to month, has made a huge difference ...and even when things are perfectly fine, as they are most days, I still treat myself every day. It's my 'Happy Credits' system!! (Or ...you know ...a good way to write off my lack of self control ...)

My indulgent treat of the moment (well, aside from the handbag, a couple of new tops, the pants and super cool looking hoodie I've ordered off the winter preview at Moochi, the .....oh. No, no, no ...That's everything. Honest! No shoes. Not even half a shoe. Ahem. Moving on ....) is stopping off on my way to work and picking up a large cappuccino. There is a café in Onehunga called Luscious that I pass every day, and they make a really good cappuccino. I love parking and then wandering down to the café (I always park down the street a bit so I can do the ceremonial wander), ordering my drink and then sitting and looking at all the yummy things in the cabinets, planning what I’m going to try the next time I need a bit more than just my cappuccino (next time it’s a lemon meringue slice ...last time it was apple rhubarb pie). About once a week I’ll grab a little bag of biscotti or mini melting moments too, for the days when Al makes my coffee for me before I leave for work.* Yum! It’s really naughty and indulgent, and therefore very, very enjoyable to have a cappuccino and a biscotti or a mini melting moment at 7.30 in the morning! (I know …I’m completely disgusting). But, it’s something good and cheerful, and it’s a little thing that makes me smile. Plus, I'd rather destroy a lovely bicky at 7.30am, than swallow a couple of Citalopram** ...and it works for me.

I tend to bring out the big guns for the end of a cycle though, I have to admit. Getting through the end of a cycle can be tough. You suffer through that infernal two week wait (TWW) after ovulation, hoping that this time a miracle will happen …then your period arrives, and that means it’s over. Again. Even when it’s inevitable and you know it's coming, you still feel a sense of loss. It’s the loss of hope.

So, I plan something in particular to look forward to each month for when my period is due. It's a really good distraction. Usually it’s getting my eyebrows and eyelashes 'done’, or maybe getting a haircut (handing over $100 at Tony & Guy for a cut is just the start ….praying that Al doesn’t get to the VISA bill before I do is the distraction bit!), buying a book or a pampery product ...or both!!…things like that. I’m not entirely sure that the bikini wax of a couple of months ago was the best idea I’ve ever had …but it did distract me!**

It was also particuarly convenient late last year when the Auckland U2 concert fitted in nicely with the end of a cycle ...and I could therefore pay a criminally inflated price for my tickets on Trademe guilt free in the name of Happy Credits.

This month, I’ve booked a pedicure. It’s extremely frivolous, I know, but this cycle is a significant one. Once this cycle ends, things are going to change and it all gets very, very serious. It’s going to stop being about achieving our miracle on our own, and it’s going to start being about assisted reproduction ...drugs or injections or both, scans and monitoring, and hard medical science. So, I’m getting a pedicure. Obviously, after I've had my beloved bikini wax.



* In case you're wondering why I don't make it myself ...In a well planned move on my part, I haven't quite learned how to use the machine (that we've owned for about 2 years) yet ;-)

** Anti-depressant meds.

***In relation to bikini waxes …if I can offer just a wee piece of advice? If you have your first ever bikini wax, and spend the entire duration of said wax jumping off the bed and muttering (ok, ok …fine …yelling) the worst swear words you know, and then the beauty therapist says (as you’re in the process of paying for the extreme pain you just endured) "Do you want to book a repeat appointment?" and you say "Not on your damned life you evil, evil, pain inflicting wench" and she says "Why don’t we just pencil it in, in case you change your mind?" and you seem to forget completely how to form the words ‘No’, ‘Bugger off’ and 'Over my dead body' ...you will end up back on that bed, having another bikini wax.

Wednesday 21 February 2007

Free to a good home - 1x Husband

OK, so at the start of every season, I turf everything out of my wardrobe, take a good look at what I have, what I need to replace or want to update, or what I haven't worn for a year that I can recycle. And then I make a list of wants and needs and run it past Al. I try to be good, but ....well. Ahem. So, he's pretty well used to me not sticking to the list, and he hardly ever tells me off. Usually he just raises his eyebrows if I've amassed about 10 black cardi's (sp?) or something that all look the same to him ...then he gets sat down, and I explain to him in intricate detail why they are completely different, and then after about an hour of forced examination of the cardi's (again, sp?) he's too terified to say another word and quietly retreats to the couch.

I managed to behave myself very well this summer and just added a few items to last year's stuff (and even got most of the new stuff on sale!). It helps a lot that I started a new job in the second half of last year which is based in the middle of an industrial zone and far far away (in terms of lunch hour amusement) from Newmarket where I used to work. Al was beside himself with joy initially at the thought of my being removed from the shopping district during the working week ...until he realised that I'd built up such a good relationship with one of my favourite stores, that they'd courier stuff to me to play with! Poor boy :-) But, like I said, I did behave myself. Sort of.

I've also been good about my winter list. I made it a couple of weeks ago, found a couple of things to recycle, planned what I wanted and had the list approved. I even found a couple of things in the summer sales (for layering) which I can knock off my list. Wooppee!

Anyway! As a result of said good behaviour over summer, and good behaviour so far for winter, I'm sort of on good behaviour credit at the moment. Soooo ...when I saw the most gorgeous handbag in my favourite store's winter preview I fell madly and completely in love, and ordered one (which Al knew about ...he sort of assumed that the endless badgering was leading up to something. I work on the theory that if I badger him endlessly about something, by the time it eventuates (eg. I buy the item in question), he's so relieved that the badgering is over, he doesn't care what it costs! Usually.). The only problem with the handbag was that it hadn't been priced when I ordered it.

Yesterday, the price was released! Eek!

The 'releasing the information to the husband' conversation went like this:



Him "How's your day been?"

Me "Today has been a bad day. A very bad day."

Him "Why's that?"

Me "My handbag has just been priced..." (Obviously, there are real tragedies in my world ...none of this orphans starving in Africa or whatever crap for me!)

Him "Yeah? How much?"

Me "Heaps"

Him "That's not telling me how much. How much?"

Me "$350.00"

Him [Not sounding particularly surprised or shocked] "Oh. OK."

Me [Sounding particularly surprised and shocked] "What? What? You don't sound shocked ...You should be shocked!"

Him "Well, you've bought handbags for more than a couple of hundred before ..."

Me "Yeah ...but ..."

Him "Sooooo ....this sexual favours thing ....."

Oh for goodness sake!!

The sad post (infertility)

Al and I were watching TV last night and there was an ad which started something like ‘If you had a spare $10,000.00 in your pocket what would you do with it?’ …and I said "An IVF cycle". Al just looked at me and said "You want a baby that much? You didn’t even hesitate". Honestly, it just came out before I even realised the thought was there. Pop! And then there were those 3 words hanging in the air in front of me (yes, I know that IVF is an acronym, but somehow ‘there were those two words and an acronym hanging in the air’ doesn’t quite have the same ring to it). I think he was expecting me to say "A shopping trip to Vegas" or something. Ha! Haha! Got him! ………Althouuuughhh ….No. The IVF. Definitely. And perhaps I’d just offer up a few heartfelt and earnest prayers that the cycle didn’t cost the full $10,000.00 whack, and I’d be able to squeeze a pair of shoes or a handbag out of it as well.

That little moment did get me thinking about my infertility though, and the impact that it has had on my life. Sometimes, I feel as though I have almost become about my infertility. I identify myself with it and it’s a huge part of who I am. After all, my life has revolved around it for almost 2 years. I have good days and bad days, days where it’s just normal life and absolutely lovely, and days where I can’t think of anything but the baby I haven’t been able to have, and my disgusting traitorous body which won’t do what it’s supposed to. Some days I just can’t believe that I’m that person who could ovulate a trailer-load of eggs, stand on their head after sex and think fertile thoughts up the wazoo, but who it wouldn’t make a blind bit of difference for.

I can’t explain to you the devastation and sense of loss that I felt, the lows I reached, when I realised and tried to accept that this wasn’t going to be easy for us. I don’t think you’d believe me, and, to be honest, I don’t even want to remember those months where I had to fight every single day to claw back my sanity. I know that all sounds terribly dramatic, but I felt like I was living in this bubble where everything was kind of muffled, the world was shades of grey and there was this permanent pounding in my ears. In the end, it wasn’t even me that was holding onto my sanity by a thread. Al was doing it for me because I was completely incapable. I was grieving.

I do still feel the most incredible rage sometimes. It sneaks up on me every now and again, though luckily, not very often. I do think I’m entitled to it, and it’s generally short lived so in my opinion, it's no harm, no foul. It gets it out too, and away from my heart. Usually it comes from encounters with well meaning people who just have absolutely no idea about infertility. It never ceases to amaze me how someone who has taken 3 months to get pregnant naturally thinks that theirs is an example of ‘the light at the end of the tunnel …evidence that there is an end to the waiting’ (I mean, seriously? How do some people think?). That sort of comment hurts people like me. There are also the ‘just relax’ sorts, the ‘don’t think about it’ sorts, and the ‘it’ll happen when it happens’ sorts. Honestly, although I even thought those things myself in the early days, once you get to 12 months, 18 months …well, it’s quite obvious that you can relax yourself into oblivion and all you’re going to be at the end of it is …relaxed. Not pregnant. Never pregnant.

Oh, and there are also the (this is one of my favourites) ‘We tried for ages (read - two months) and then we booked a holiday to Timbuctoo, and found out we were pregnant [insert conclusion of choice here - a) after we paid an enormous deposit b) just before we left c) when we got back]!" Oooohhh …. Oh, well then! Point me in the direction of the travel agent! (Actually, that one could be kind of handy …I can see the conversation now. Me saying to Al ..."Darling, we really need to book a shopping holiday to Vegas so we can fall pregnant. It'll work, honest!"). Murphy's Law and all that. If you make it so that it would be as inconvenient as humanly possible to fall pregnant, then it’ll happen. I wonder if that would work if I went out and spent a fortune on the new handbag I've been badgering Al about …..? It’d obviously be pretty crazy if I was actually, finally pregnant when Al beats me over the head with a spade and buries me in the back yard …Still, I could ward him off by waving a positive HPT under his nose (which would hopefully work) AND I’d have a new handbag.

The big thing to understand, for those of you who know an infertile, is that if there is a reason that that couple aren’t getting pregnant, a medial diagnosis to back it up, then relaxing, waiting, hoping …none of it will change anything. If they get pregnant naturally, it’s a miracle. It means that something has gone absolutely, incredibly, right, when by rights it shouldn’t have.

And lastly, just remember that if you know someone who is infertile and struggling to conceive – they are fighting it every single day. Some of those days are going to be good, and some of those days are going to be very, very bad. Bear with them.

Tuesday 20 February 2007

Get out of jail free

Allan (my husband) read my blog last night and I realised something quite alarming. I need a system. I need a 'get out of jail free' if he's going to read this thing.

So, I raised the 'get out of jail free' while we were out walking the dogs. The conversation went something like this ...

Me "About the blog. We need a system."

Him "A system for what?"

Me "I need a 'get out of jail free' for if you read something you don't like."

Him "What wouldn't I like?"

Me [innocently] "Nothing at all."

Me again [not so innocently, although I tried really hard to sound it] "But I need a 'get out of jail free' just in case ...and I'm going to need to accumulate them." (The needing to accumulate bit was probably what tipped it)

Him "I still want to know what you want it for."

Me "Well ...what if I go shopping or something and talk about it?"

Him [stops walking, raises his eyebrows and gives me 'the look' and says ...] "What IF??" (Personally, I really didn't see the need for that level of sarcasm)

Me [barelling on and not thinking before I speak, obviously] "I suppose we could discuss a credit system for sexual favours*..."

I did not like the look in his eye after that, so that was where the conversation ended. I decided that so far during the course of our 5 year marriage, I've been living off one big 'get out of jail free', and that the current system of me getting away with blue murder on a regular basis is quite satisfactory really. 'If it aint broke' and all that! Phew.**


*This is a long-standing running joke between he and I that is only taken seriously on occasion ... ie. when serious distraction is required from something I've done that he's found out about. Sort of like when he's mowed the lawn and taken his boots off inside or something and I'm about to let fire at him and he waves a chocolate biscuit under my nose. Instant distraction.

** Note to self - Do however be very careful when retelling the ladle story ...and if (Ahhh...who am I kidding? When!) doing a post-shopping-spree run down, do *not* include prices. Or else discount them heavily.

Monday 19 February 2007

This is not a blog about cake

Well, not yet anyway. This could get messy though, and 'messy' requires cake. Lots of it.

Sadly, my story isn't unusual, it's just that it is my story - I am infertile, and therefore struggling to have a child. My husband and I have been trying to conceive for 21 cycles (possibly 22 ...I've honestly lost count. Cycle 19 was the last one I can remember being certain about, and that was a good couple of cycles ago). That's a blimmin long time to be waiting, hoping and disappointed ...especially when I thought that all it would take for me was a shag or two, or ten (and a few extra just for fun). Ha! Hahahaha!! See the wee piggies flying past ....?

I had endometriosis diagnosed in September last year, and removed via laparoscopic surgery. It was Grade I and conceiving should have been easy after that. But it wasn't. 5 months and counting later, we're still twiddling our thumbs ...which probably has something to do with the PCOS. Did I mention the PCOS ...? No? Huh. That's probably because NO ONE MENTIONED IT TO ME! Go figure. You'd think that that would be one of those things that would go in the 'other medical conditions discovered during surgery that the patient might like to know about' file. But that's just my opinion. That little gem emerged just last week when I requested a letter from my Dr confirming I had the endo surgery last year, and his letter enclosed a copy of the post-op report from my specialist. Cue deafening silence as I read " ...ovaries polycystic in appearance ...multiple follicular cysts ..." and subsequent cogs-turning-things-falling-into-place type noises, and a phone call to my Dr for a wee ....chat.

So, rather than sitting around any longer, we've just upped the ante and booked our first fertility consult with Fertility Associates, where we come face to face with the big stuff. Assisted reproduction. It gets a whole lot scarier from here ...and I don't just mean the medical bills.

I have learned a lot along the way, but there's still more to go. A lot more. I wanted to start this blog to help people understand, people who love me who don't want to ask, people who want to know where we're up to, people I don't know who want to understand, and also for myself ...to laugh, cry, think and do whatever I want to, somewhere where I feel free.

Welcome along for the ride!