My broken hormones

Last week I had a very vivid dream about bleeding. I have them from time to time: such an endearing echo of baby loss trauma. In this one I began bleeding thick gloopy bright red blood. It filled a pad, it was on my hands and smeared on my top. I asked my Mum again and again and again if it was normal. I showed her my hands but she had no answers for me. The dream scared me awake.

Two days after my dream my period started. On CD 15. Not ovulation spotting but proper bleeding.

My last period was 5 days late, light, long and drawn out.

If my period had stayed as advertised, and I had been pregnant this month my due date would have been George's day. I rather liked the symmetry of that. If. If. If. I hate that I torture myself like this.

I was afraid that the bleeding would get heavier and heavier but, oh thank goodness, it's getting lighter now.

I saw Dr Compassion yesterday and he thinks it's most likely my age but it might be a blip caused by the stress of worrying about Ray's pooposcopy. He took some blood to see if there are any hormones left and also to check for pregnancy. No, no, I really really really don't think I am.

I don't think I have ovulated in the last two months: not even a hint of a line on an ovulation test. I'd like to hope that my body is just taking a break and resetting itself but I have so little hope left and it's stretched so thin that I don't dare. But once again, I don't dare think of the alternatives.

Hopefully my hormones aren't broken yet: just bent out of shape a bit.

Future imperfect

There was no conscious decision to give up.

Only the feeling of utter hopelessness after losing the tiny leap of faith that was Little P.

Walking through the waiting area filled with expectant life after the ultrasound that showed only death we were both ridiculously embarrassed, Ray called it "The Walk Of Shame", and we both felt like imposters. I couldn't bear the thought that we might fail a third time. I couldn't bear the thought of that walk again. I couldn't bear any thoughts at all to be honest. In the space of a moment my mind became sludge.

We were destroyed.

(I have read the comments on that page several times and they never fail to make me cry. You are all so kind.)

One or two people (in the real world) made comments along the lines of, "You'll get there" and "It'll happen" and I would shrug without enthusiasm and mumble a non-committal, "We'll see" whilst thinking, "Oh no we won't".

But the thing is, when I did start to think through the sludge, it turned out that the thought of giving up was so much scarier than the thought of trying again. I mean way scarier. In fact giving up felt wrong. Feels wrong.

It's been about four months since we lost Little P. (I'm trying hard not to keep track of how far along I would be.) and my ladyparts seem to be functioning as best they can. I notice signs of fertility, I feel ovulation twinges and my cycle is regular.


And so...

And so, we are going to try to become pregnant one more time. We are going to try to stay pregnant one more time and try to give birth to a living child at the right time.


There will be no IVF, no donor eggs, please don't suggest it, we have no money and we will not get into debt. This is one last try with my old scrambled eggs, good food, vitamins, the odd herbal thingy, plenty of water, and whatnot. At least the whatnot is fun. Mostly.

We can't go on indefinitely, hoping and hoping and hoping not because it's exhausting but because we are running out of time. But we can go on for a little while longer. We can hope a little more.

I might let you know if it works. Well no, that sounds like a mean tease. Of course I WILL let you know if it works but probably not until I see a heartbeat and possibly not until after any scary tests and even then maybe only in an email* if you really want to know. 

This secrecy idea is partly because we wouldn't tell anyone out here in the real world, especially my parents, for as long as possible. The memory of my Mum's heart breaking when I told her about Little Poppet still haunts me and I won't do that to her (or me) again.


And if it doesn't work... well, that doesn't bear thinking about any more than we have already so we won't go there again for a while.


All I would ask of you is that you muster yourselves, perhaps light a candle or burn something, maybe walk around it three times, do a fertility dance or ritual, utter some sort of incantation and send the biggest most concentrated, clearest heap of conception intentions our way. We need them. Seriously.


And then,

well,

we'll see.

*drop me a line and I'll add you to my "in case of pregnancy, inform" list.

Lab rat

While researching with professor and doctor Google about clo.mid with a view to trying it next month or the month after I kept coming across articles and forum posts about "nature's clo.mid" or soy isoflavones and how wonderful they were and how many positive pregnancy tests....... hmmmm.

Soy isoflavones are purported to do a very similar job to clo.mid so I thought as this month is obviously going to be a bust too, especially with all the stress I've been buried under, I would experiment on myself and see if they messed up my cycle completely.

Feeling as if I was tempting fate I bought a menopause multi-vitamin which came with with a separate herbal supplement of soy isoflavones which was on special offer at a local pharmacy (I'm nothing if not cheap). I took out 5 pills and then carefully put the menopause vitamins away for a very rainy day.

I took 120mg of isoflavones (100mg from the herbal and 20mg from the multivit) on cd4-8 and I ovulated early, day 11 I believe, with lots of sharp, crampy ovulation pain. I couldn't possibly say if this is what helped us get pregnant but I thought I'd put it out there in case anyone might be interested.

Two toilet rolls

It's getting closer to OVULATION TIME now and I am wondering how we'll manage the deed with drippy noses and very little enthusiasm for anything other than non-blocked doses. "Hey Poppid, by righd dostril is clear! Woo hoo achoo!"

Ok, here's the thing.

IF I ovulate on schedule and IF we managed to get pregnant this month and IF I managed to keep the baby safe inside my belly until it was ready to be born ALIVE,   

THEN our due date would be VERY close to George's day.

HMMM, and how would we feel about that then? Well, due dates are only estimations and I won't can't take the chance of missing a chance to conceive and some perverse part of me would really like to give birth to a living breathing screaming baby on that day because then it wouldn't be just a day of death and at least we wouldn't be following the same timeline. The point is, I think, that I wouldn't be 20 weeks and 5 days on that day.

Anyhow... I'll process all that if I have to and dear Universe I would very much like to have to process thoughts like that if you don't mind very much thank you.

IN THE MEANTIME If you have a moment over the next few days please  ZAP us with some super energised, clear nosed conception vibes!

Because I have to hang on to HOPE don't I?

Oh yes, two toilet rolls? One each. A whole toilet roll each for drips and blows and snuffles over the course of two colds x 2 people.

Dads enuf dow. I'b doroughly fed ub wid habing a code id by dose.

AaaaaCHOOOO!

Today I have nothing left

Tomorrow I'll get over it, again and start the plod through yet another month with no baby outside and no baby intside.

But just for a couple of days, at the end of a cycle, I'm a whole mess of jibbering blubbering hope. Of course on the surface I am the picture of calm (ahem) but inside my head... peee-ow... stand back.

These are the in between days when there is a tiny possibility of sunshine even though the general forecast is for rain.

I never realised just how much I wanted to be a mother until I finally met the man I wanted to father my children and heard him say, "I think we'd make good parents". I never realised how much I really wanted to be a mother until our baby died and we met our son. I didn't know how much I wanted that life until the point when I was just 7 weeks pregnant with George and dreamed of bleeding and then woke to bleeding.

At 39 I had pushed the thought of mummyhood to the very dusty corners of my mind and covered it over with an old threadbare rug. Mother, baby, parent, father, child, mummy, daddy. And then I met Ray.

At 42, at 13dpo I feel it slipping away. How long do we carry on trying for? Or, how much longer can I cope with trying? Could I cope with not trying? We have another appointment with the fertile nurse in February. I wonder if they can or will help us. We can't afford private treatment so this is it.


I think I'm going to rearrange my blog again. I might change it's title. I'm going to wash the kitchen floor. I should be changing nappies not cleaning out a litter box. Must finish some jewellery. I miss the life we don't have. Rice and veg for dinner. Need to change the bed. Distractions.

Disclaimer
These are the ramblings of a premenstrual, hormonally challenged mind and in no way represent said mind's normal state of being. (Well, maybe a teeny tiny bit.) The author is in no way seeking pity but simply spewing said ramblings into space to remove them from the space between her ears. However the odd "Awww" or "Hug" is most welcome.

The skin I'm in...

... doesn't fit any more.

Some days I look in the mirror and I don't recognise me. There's too much age; too much weight; there's a spark missing; I'm lacking in motherhood and there's too much sad in the eyes that stare back at the me that should be holding George.

Other days I feel more me than I ever did in my teens, twenties or thirties.

Admittedly these non-fitting days are days that usually have somewhere in the region of "14dpo" attached to them so I try not to pay too much attention to the hormone riddled, disappointed, bloated brain that over-thinks over-dramatic thoughts of this calibre. But still. There they are these thoughts, nudging, insisting and nibbling away at hope.

As soon as my period arrives, which I'm sure it will by Tuesday, after a huge rush of the "Waaaaah, why me's" I start to get over it, start planning, start hoping and start wishing again. It is just so very very tiring being a hostage to time.

And for now, if you don't mind, I feel like crying big fat hormonal tears. Feel free to look the other way and I'll be back shortly with some optimism.

The visit

It was ok-ish. We waited in the waiting room in the early pregnancy/fertility unit, in the ultrasound department, in the maternity unit where we sat after my first bleed at 7 weeks with George. Where I cried at seeing his little heart fickering away. Where last year we heard someone coming out 0f their emergency ultrasound saying oh-so-matter of factly that it was dead and they were going to get it out.

I thought I was doing ok with all the questions until we started talking about "the baby" and if any tests had been done on "the baby" after "it died". I had a bit of a cry, slipped into the conversation that "the baby" had been called George, and he wasn't autopsied, then cried a bit more and had a cup of tea. Someone always seems to make us a cup of tea in the maternity unit.

The appointment was with one of the fertility nurses, rather than the ob/gyn. She now wants all the testing done before we see her. Okeydokey.

Blood tests, blood tests and more blood tests on different cycle days, of course. And just one teeny tiny "test" for Ray.

I need to lose weight. I know, I know, I know but not working and painful feet don't help. At least I've got the comfort eating under control again. Did I mention that had reared it's ugly head again? And don't be silly, I am not giving up chocolate. Ever.

The fertile nurse (as Ray called her) then told us that the very act of "handing over responsibility" for our fertility often lifts a lot of stress and sometimes has the desired effect, and we must tell them if we get pregnant at the end of this cycle because they will still ultrasound us at 6, 8 and 10 weeks before handing us over for consultant-led care. The desired effect. Wouldn't that be nice.

Talking about 6, 8 and 10 weeks reminded me that getting pregnant is only the first hurdle; the one I've been concentrating so hard on. So many others.

I think I ovulated early this month, cd 10 instead of cd 13, according to my pee-sticks.

Think those fertile thoughts for us will you?

Think us a baby will you?

And dear lovely Danielle and Rach. Offering me your "turns" was just about the most wonderfullest, kindest, loveliest gift I have ever received. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. Love you.

10 dpo cd 23 npd 9365

npd? non pregnant day

It's raining here. It's been raining all day and the forecast is for a wet August. Summer is a bust. I have periody type cramps and I'm expecting not to be expecting once again this month. Boo. Hiss. Waaa. etc. Still 3 days to go so I'm sure I'll pee on at least one stick before the end of this cycle, but don't hold your breath.

So, being a sucker for punishment, I decided to calculate the number of days in my life when I haven't been pregnant.

No not from my birth day.

Shall I count from my first period ever? 9 years old. It is feasible of course, but obviously unlikely.

Ah, my first sexual experience? Do you want to know? Of course you do. I was 16. Too young, too early, too soon, blah blah blah, but my choice and not one I particularly regret. *cue music... "regrets, I've had a few... but then again, to0 few to mention"*

Ok, so starting from my 16th birthday there have been 9512 days.
(I have been alive for 15356 days. Yikes.)
George's pregnancy lasted 147 days. (Isn't it amazing that out of 15356 days 147 of them could have had such a momentous impact)
9512 - 147 = 9365.
npd 9365.
26 years of "fertility".
311 months of not getting that bun in the oven.
Sucker.

Do I regret these npm's? (non pregnant months.) No and yes. No, not at all, because for whatever reason I had to wait till I was 40 to meet the love of my life, if I'd had a child with someone else I would never have met Ray and he is so obviously my other half, the missing piece in my puzzle, the sunshine in my sky (oh shut up) that I can't imagine us not being. I have never met anyone I wanted to have a child with SO much. Yes, because I'm running out of time. Tick tock.

ZAP!

Ok, now you can do the conception vibe thang!

Cross your fingers and toes, concentrate really hard (just for a moment) and think baaaaabbbbyyyyy...

Think creation, think super sperm meeting exceptional egg, think impressive implantation, think wonder womb, think super safe soughts.... um, thoughts.

Zap 'em this way!

Hormones 3 Barbara 0

I'm trying hard not to think of this cycle as a failure. It just didn't work.

I'm trying not to think of how much I wanted to be pregnant at a similar time to last year.

I don't know why I wanted this, every sensible bone in my body (little toe?) was screaming that it would be a bad baaad idea to be at a similar (one week behind) gestation on 20th October, one year from losing George. But still I wanted it.

I didn't think I would be recreating George's pregnancy, of course not, that would be impossible. But still I wanted it.

I'm deeply disappointed today. Why did anyone ever use that word to describe my loss of my son to me?

Tomorrow will be better.

Day 1.

Want

We went to a car boot sale* today. It was more than usually full of people selling off their baby things. Prams, high chairs, cots, bouncy seats, toys of every description, car seats, amazingly lovely onesies at 50p each, anything you could think of and mostly good quality.

I look and I want and I want and I want.

And I want to need.






*You have things to sell? Fill your car, turn up on sale day, set up table next to car, arrange items, sell.

That time of the month...

...is here again.

When I ask for a moment of your time to zap us with some good baby-making-conception vibes. Please?

In return for a virtual share in any resulting live baby.

Nuf said.

The scoreboard...

...as you know, currently stands at 2 - 0 (bollocks*)

Not bad I suppose in the trying to conceive stakes since we've only been trying again seriously* for two cycles and I know, I know some of you out there have/had been trying for what feels like forever. However, in my world at the moment, I'm so so SO aware of my biological alarm clock that it feels as if it's shaking itself off the shelf it's ringing so loud. And each unpregnant cycle seems like another step towards menopause or on particularly hormonal days another giant leap towards menopause. I'm going to be 42 in July. Forty-bloody-two! How on earth did that happen? I was 32 just a few minutes ago wasn't I?

I'm working on relaxing (hahaha) and trying to think of things other than babybabybabybaby (hahahahaha). (Or as Sally more accurately put it GeorgebabyGeorgebabyGeorgebaby) I'm doing those visualisation exercises when I can, picturing my womb as welcoming and comfortable and safe safe safe, not wasting any energy thinking about those evilfibroids (oops) and going on an imaginary walk around our house with a new baby, letting him or her know that she or he is welcome, that there is space for him or her in our lives. A good space. Cluttered maybe, but a space nonetheless and one that can easily be cleared. I showed this imaginary our baby where we would put his or her cot in our room, how we would move chests of drawers and wardrobes around in her or his bedroom and where we would keep her or his things.

The other week I received a catalogue from the NCT. I didn't open it and Ray thoughtfully* put it in the bin. A few days later I emptied the bins, fished the catalogue out and hid it under our bed. I've been looking at it occasionally torturing myself with the things I don't need yet allowing myself to dream. I've thrown it out now. Enough. Stop. Wait.

I have some small canvasses and I'm planning on painting them with brightly coloured bugs and trees and flowers and putting them in the drawer.

Hopes and dreams. I'm hanging on to them although my nails are somewhat shredded and bloody.




*sorry my language is becoming bloody awful

*entirely peeing-on-sticks, bicycling-legs-in-the-air-while-Ray-showers-first bloody desperately seriously. That's how seriously.

*not sarcastic

Hormones 2 Barbara 0

Bollocks.

Day 1

Toilet humour

I needed to do a pregnancy test and instead of peeing on the stick whilst sitting on the loo* I peed whilst lying next to Ray in the bed. "It'll be ok" I mumbled as I peed and peed and peed and woke with a start.

No... did I?

Phew, didn't pee in the bed. I've only done this once in my adult life and goodness, even though there was no one else there, it was embarrassing.

2.30am Thinking about peeing on sticks. 12dpo now, raging cramps yesterday, slight nausea, emotional mess, all the symptoms of my period starting in the next couple of days. Well, apart from emotional messness, that's pretty much constant.

2.50am Hmmm no cramps at all at the moment though.

3.15am I have one digital test. We did one when I was pregnant with George and it seemed silly to do another when it was shouting "Pregnant" at us (that and the four other non digital tests I did before I even mentioned that I thought I might be pregnant).

3.45 There is a digital test in the bathroom at the bottom of my ovulation stick/tampon/pad basket

4.05am Oh what the hell.

4.10am "not pregnant"

4.10.01am Bugger

4.15 Back to bed, sleep.

8.50 Wide awake, feed madly purring cattons*, make tea, back to bed, tell Ray about dream, fail to mention that I did a pregnancy test based on a bed-wetting dream whilst in the midst of pms induced insomnia.






*etymology
*catton - not yet a cat but no longer a kitten.

Reality...

...bytes!

1. obsessively checking for symptoms at 6dpo (idiot = stop it and w a i t)
2. hiding away some baby books outgrown by a friends grandson and donated to mother-in-law's charity shop. (optimistic = ok)
3. watching a really sweet cot on ebay. (over-optimistic = steady on)
4. cycling between hopeful thoughts and resignation to months of trying (bleh = bleh bleh)
5. not dealing with stress of any kind very well at all (phone call with benefits agency, lost [by them] payslips/dr certificate, delay in payments = Aaaaaargh!)
6. baby-making-love-making-sex (better and better = hooray!)
7. over-analysing everything and making lists (*sigh*)
   

If...

...my hormones don't just sort themselves out soon I'm seriously thinking of ditching them and getting some new ones. Hormones R Us?

I feel like an emotional 15 year old. Sadly, my body doesn't act like a 15 year old body. It creaks and cracks and aches rather too much these days.

Dear sperm

Just, like, well, you know, do your job(s).

Please.

Mmmkay?

I made a new one!

I finished all of the orders from the website now and I'll be posting tomorrow! For a sneak preview of some of them, pop over to my shop and have a look!

I made a new necklace too!



In other news. I peed on a stick today, checking for early signs of ovulation, ready and willing to "get busy" in the name of newbaby making. A little too early for testing really, but hey, desperate times and all that. It's bloody scary I can tell you... but I'm sure you know that.

We thought we had evilfibroids to blame and then *poof* we're told there's nothing in the wrong place. I'm going to wrap myself up in cotton wool for this pregnancy, and even that won't guarantee us a real live breathing baby at the end of it. But when when when we have our livebaby at home I'll be getting those bloody fibroids removed if I have to do it myself with a spoon. Yes indeedy. Uh huh.

A balancing act

After we'd been not-exactly-trying-but-not-doing-anything-to-stop-a-pregnancy for the 6 months after we got together I decided to take it a bit more seriously and I started looking into nutrition and fertility. I think I mentioned before that I'm a researcher by nature and taking my age into consideration I decided that anything I could do that wouldn't harm couldn't hurt and after being diagnosed as anaemic it seemed important to get everything balanced.

So now I'm getting back into the routine of taking the supplements that might (or might not) have helped to make George in the hope that they will help to make George's little sister or brother.

Clockwise from the top:
two vitex (agnus castus) to balance hormones
one calcium + vitamin d
one b6 supplement, more balancing.
one pregnancare multivitamin (I still have some left; I had enough for 40 weeks of pregnancy)
one high dose vitamin c with bioflavoniods.
And in the middle the prescribed iron supplement. Two times a day.

Once I was settling in with the Great Pill Routine I started ovulation testing, but I'm not bothering with that until after the tests and possible evilfibroidectomy (um, I'm almost sure that's not the right term).

I suppose concentrating on these supplements rather than the Great Two Week Wait and the Great Period Disappointment helped me stay vaguely sane before we made George and hopefully will give me something positive to focus on in the new year.

Oh yes, and apart from the pills and the ovulation testing there was lots and lots of lovely love making baby making lovely sex.

I'm always on the lookout for anything else that might help so if you have any ideas please let me know. I'm particularly interested in the weird and wonderful, stupid and laughable things you might have heard of or been told. We all need a laugh, oh yes.


Today I'm feeling a little less hormonal. Whoop de doo.