I'm fed up.

I'm sure this is something every infertile feels at some point.

We are nearing our 6 year mark and I've had enough. My original consultant said 3.5yrs?! That's a long time to try and get pregnant. 3.5yrs now to me feels like nothing. I didn't cry about it then, I didn't sit here and wonder if I would ever get to hold my baby in my arms whilst I kiss its head. I just took for granted that it would eventually happen. 6yrs on and I'm now thinking it probably won't.

Everytime I hear a pregnancy announcement from one of my friends it's like a kick in the gut. Most of them aren't trying and the ones that did compare their measly 6  month struggle to mine and tell me that they must know how I'm feeling.

They have absolutely NO idea and very few are interesting in actually trying to find out if I'm ok. They all seem to want to know what is going on with the IVF cycle and when we will try again, but they don't actually care that some nights I just want to cry myself to sleep or that sometimes I'm overcome with positivity. This journey doesn't concern them because they're not fully invested in it like I am and they like I did, take their fertility for granted.

I know most fertile people will understand this, but when you mention to a friend that someone you both know is pregnant we want you to be outraged that it's them that fell pregnant and not you. Not just say oh yeah, I saw that on facebook. Sometimes we just need to have a good bitch about fertile people even if it's just to make us feel a bit better for a few minutes.

This is my 6th Christmas baby free. Guess it means I can have a few drinks, but who wants drinks when you could cuddle up with your baby?

Shopping

So, last night we went to the town where I had my scan before the abortion. We go there a lot and most of the time I'm fine. It's only when we're walking over a bridge to the car park and I see the cinema and the lights outside that I'm reminded of it.

It looks exactly the same as it did and it makes me feel miserable, guilt and despair that I can't get pregnant. Strange how one thing can remind you of something. Jim obviously was asking me what was wrong and he's asked me before when we've been there at night and I've told him. This time I just said I'm fine. He knows though. I've just pulled a box down from my wardrobe which has my baby uggs in them and I honestly just feel like giving them away to someone who can actually use them. I've had them almost 2 years after buying them in a sale. I've got knitted clothing and blankets and I just want everything gone now. I have no idea why I put myself through this. 

There's an app for that!!

I hardly ever update my blog...there I said it I'm crap! Buuuuuut I just found that there's an app for it so I will try and do it more often. 

I never have time, I'm either at work or at home flat out knitting for expectant mothers, at netball or some other displacement activity.

I'm 3 days in on my last cycle of birth control and tbh I have quite enjoyed knowing I won't get pregnant without all the hoping and stress of I "might" get pregnant. There's more chance of me getting rid of Oscar than there is of that happening. 

I feel like I should explain myself, I am not a bad person. I am a struggling person with few people to talk to. I have made a couple of good friends during this journey but they too are equally struggling. I closed my Facebook account, I did this because I'd realised my life was miserable enough without making myself feel even worse looking at the lives of my friends unfolding exactly how they wanted. Two girls who I was good friends with at school married around the same time I did and they both now have baby daughters. It's so depressing. Those that aren't pregnant are getting engaged, flying around the world, new jobs, cars etc. Not one of them has advertised that their boyfriend has cheated on them or that their lives are just as crap as mine. I do feel bad for closing it suddenly as it must have looked as though I was jealous of the girls in a Facebook group I started but I wasn't I was truly happy for them. Like I said I'm just really struggling trying to get myself to a point where I'm just ok. I hardly ever updated my Facebook status, I'd stopped putting pictures up and really only used Instagram for that. I just snapped and thought why an I torturing myself looking at this and so I closed it. I miss my girls, but they're in a very different place with their journey now and I don't want to be the one who's always miserable (because I am - you wouldn't know it to talk to me but I can cry without a moments notice) and having them feel guilty for being pregnant. Out of sight out of mind. 

I can't remember the last time I came on here to update, but I have been meaning to do it for a while, unfortunately life has been getting the way.

I am currently on day 21 of sniffing synarel for ivf down regulation. It hasn't been as bad as I anticipated and I haven't had any symptoms etc, etc weight gain. Whatever I do get side effects from any medicine it's weight gain. Just as I was finally starting to lose weight from the clomid. Oh well if it works I don't care how fat I am.

It has been a long time since I updated my blog and unfortunately I am in exactly if not worse position than I was previously.

We have had a round of ivf which we were very lucky to have funded by the NHS, but unfortunately it was just the one round and it failed. I was absolutely heartbroken and didn't want to do anything or go anywhere that had "people" this probably makes no sense, but I just wanted to be left alone to wollow in my own self pity.

Since then we have taken a holiday to Egypt which to my surprise is selling Clomid in the hotel reception. I took a months worth, but alas it worked in helping raise my progesterone levels, but not in conceiving. We have looked into another round of ivf, but at the moment we just don't have the funds to pay for it and so we looked into donor cycles whereby one or both of us would donate our genetic material. I was instantly refused because I have a bone disease and it's not known if it is, but it is thought to be hereditary. Jim was approved despite his mum having MS and we had the counseling and were getting close to actually starting our second round. I called 7 days after the counseling as instructed to let them know that we wish to go ahead and Jim spoke with a nurse who said that he would need to go in 20 times to make his donations and he would have to do this week days before 1:30pm. Well he doesn't finish work til 1:30pm most days and the clinic is an hour away. He isn't prepared to tell work to get lost and go anyway. So I started looking into new clinics and found one which is an hour away and they allow sperm donations until 3pm which sounded perfect. Problem came in that they refused him because his mum has MS. How can one clinic refuse and another be so willing?!

We've had talks about it where I have said that I think he needs to tell work to get lost as its just work, it's not his life, it's not his future and there are other jobs. He said he agreed with me, but as of yet he hasn't really been forthcoming in doing anything about it. I'm just constantly thinking what was different when I got pregnant previously? What can I do? What else is left to try?

Anyway as of my next period I am going on the contraceptive pill for 2-3 months. I need a break and who knows it may trick my body into thinking I'm pregnant and be more receptive if I get back on the clomid in December. I know it probably sounds like a stupid thing to say I'm going to actively try to not get pregnant when you're trying to conceive, but I need to put some control back into my life and this might make me feel like I'm stopping it from happening rather than it just not happening.

Any comments welcome - I'll try and do better at keeping this updated. Nothing has really happened lately, but at the same time so much has happened!

I haven't updated this in a while. I don't know if that's because I'm feeling better about everything or simply because with everything else going on in my life I just don't have the time or the energy.


I started reflexology on the 6th of July and I'm now going on to my 5th session. I like it. It's probably the more enjoyable of alternative therapies I have tried. I don't know if it's having any effect as of yet I am to see the benefit of anything I try. I think like a lot of things I will wonder if all the time, energy and money when I eventually end up pregnant actually paid any part in where I end up. Maybe if it happened within a month or so I would believe it.

For me it is actually strange that I am approaching any kind of alternative therapy full stop. I know that there is a basis behind their theories and they must work otherwise they wouldn't be as ancient as they are and would have died out years ago, but I think I will put most of my trust in western medicine. Which frankly hasn't got me anywhere yet.

I have started doing yoga and it's ok, being a netballer and a runner it's so so so weird for me to lay on the floor for 5 minutes with my eyes shut and my arms out to my side whilst I concentrate on my breathing. Usually I'm concentrating on actually breathing. Period. I don't know how to relax, I don't know if that's partly because I always have somewhere I need to be or something I need to do or just that it's not in my nature. I have always been told that if I'm sat in front of the tv that I am wasting my time and should be doing something useful so that's what I do. Be it go to the gym, cleaning the house, doing the laundry. I always have to be doing something. I'm hoping that with practice this will come.

My next hospital appointment is in a week. I'm anxious, but I already know what the outcome will be "just keep doing what you're doing". I'm planning on asking if I can try an IUI. Even if I don't get pregnant I need to feel like I'm doing everything I can. It's just the same as any woman who after sex lays there with her legs in the air. Scientifically it's not going to make any difference, but we still do it, just to feel like we are doing something. I hope they let me do it because frankly I am so over clomid. I know they wanted to start me on metformin, but I have been taking that for 3 months so far and not a sausage.

Maybe next time....

1st anniversary

So today is our first anniversary.

I should be happy, but as usual I'm not. We have been together 12yrs and married for 1yr. This time last year I didn't know that there was anything medically wrong with me, but I had a good idea what with trying to conceive for 3.5yrs at that point and nothing happening.

Now I know there is something wrong with me and they plan to keep me on clomid for another 6 months. I almost wish that the doctors weren't sure what was wrong so that the ball would get rolling quicker. I honestly and truthfully think the only way I will end up pregnant is by IVF and god knows how long the wait is for that; I'd have to get referred first. Definitely another 6 months :-(

I'm at the stage now where I wish I had never dared to want a child. I hope one day I will wake up and find that this was all a bad dream.