| Pondering it all |
[Jan. 14th, 2008|04:10 pm] |
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| |  contemplative | ] |
In a week or so's time, this journal will be four years old. I always hoped that one day I'd be able to write the kind of entries I can write now, talking about our child, and how much they enrich our lives. It's true, Ember is more fabulous than we could ever have hoped, but when I think of writing in this journal, I find other thoughts come to mind.
I started this journal in order to document my experience as the non-biological mother of our child. Since I began it, I've been the potential bio and non-bio parent, and experienced the highs and lows of many unsuccessful attempts in each role. During the pregnancy and birth I realise now that I was so focused on the experience that documenting the differences between the two roles wasn't a major consideration, though I'm sure that this would have been much less the case if the roles had been reversed. As it was, P would sometimes admit to not having thought about the pregnancy for a time, something that for me was unimaginable, but then the changes in my body were constant reminders. Now however, I find myself contemplating those different roles again, and as I do so, with our beautiful daughter asleep in the chair behind me, I find that it's finally sunk in that those two roles are no longer different at all.
Our daughter has two mothers who both wanted her for a long time before she came and who both dote on her now. She knows this. It shows in the way that her face lights up with a beautiful smile whenever either of us approach her, in the way she settles to sleep in either of our arms, and in her calm and confidence in the world. P summed it up beautifully a few days after the birth. I can't say if this is exactly right but her words were something very close to: "I don't know why people worry so much about bonding as the non-biological parent. I adored her from the moment she was born. I couldn't love her more if I'd given birth to her myself."
Not surprisingly, the world feels like a very different place now that we're parents. Most of those changes are documented in every parenting book out there, but there is one place where the difference is extremely noticeable to us. It's in the way we now contemplate trying to conceive again.
We've spent some time considering having another child. Even up until Ember's birth we had thought we'd want to start trying again quite soon with P. She's going to be 40 later this year and if she is ever to bear a child herself we felt we'd need to really get cracking, but now that Ember is here, things feel very different. Having her has made it clear that it makes no difference to us which of us bears any future children - they will be loved and wanted by us both regardless. It's also made us realise how amazingly precious every moment is with one's own child. We're loving having her so much that we find ourselves not wanting to have another child yet. We want to bask in the joy that she brings us for a while, without having to think about ovulation predictor tests, cervical mucus or arranging donations. It feels wrong to try to create a child for any reason other than simply wanting them. It would undoubtedly be unnecessarily stressful to go through the whole 'trying to conceive roller coaster' without really, really wanting the outcome and if we're honest, we just don't want another child yet. I have no doubt that one day we will, but that day is not today. When it comes we'll decide whether we want to try with P at all, at whatever age she may be by then, or if we just want to try with me. Either way we'll be creating our child, and either way, if successful, will result in a child we both adore.
So, back to this journal, it's up-coming anniversary and the quite amazing journey it's been with us on. The name is now clearly entirely wrong. I'm not a nonbiomum, and there's a chance I might never be. But after all these years I'm finally a mum. Be it bio or non-bio, that's all that really matters. |
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| Birth Story |
[Jan. 4th, 2008|01:16 pm] |
It's taken a long time to get round to writing this, my story of Ember's birth. However, I'm lucky and I have write ups by both my midwife and my sister to help me get things in the right order - much of the first 24 hours or so are something of a blur to me now. But here goes. The birth of Ember Joy.
( Read more... ) |
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| We did it. |
[Oct. 28th, 2007|04:24 pm] |
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| |  happy | ] |
I'm sorry that it's taken me so long to get on here and make this announcement. The last week or so have been rather busy, but in the nicest possible way.
Our daughter, Ember Joy, was born at 5:54 am on October 19th, at home after a 27 hour, completely natural and un-medicated labour. It was extremely tough, which I'd expected, but as these things are inclined to be it was tough in ways I hadn't in any way anticipated. However, my wonderful birthing team consisting of P, our midwife and my sister and cousin kept me on track. They were all fantastic, and by the time I was pushing her out on my knees over our sofa I was thoroughly enjoying myself. Ember weighed in at 8lb 11oz and although she was born 5 days over her hospital due date she came along 40 weeks to the day from the day we inseminated last, the day I believe I ovulated. Punctual little lady!
Since the birth we've had some problems feeding and are currently syringe feeding expressed breast milk. She is finally beginning to get the hang of the breast for short periods though, so hopefully eventually we'll get there.
We are loving being mothers, and loving our daughter more than we ever thought possible. And on that note, it's time for our bath, so I'd better go. |
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| Gearing up |
[Sep. 28th, 2007|07:10 am] |
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| |  ready | ] |
Well, we're now well into the 'full term' time, just about to hit 38 weeks, and my body is getting ready to birth this baby. I've been contracting on and off for the last week, occasionally getting to the point of having them every ten minutes or so for a while, but they always seem to ease off again eventually. The last few nights I've been woken in the night by them, as they're sometimes getting a bit painful. From around 2-6am this morning I could only doze a little between them, as there was no way I was sleeping through them once they hit. I gave up trying at 6, and got up, finally put together the base for the moses basket and got on with the last of the baby laundry - the sheets and burp cloths. They're now drying out the back, and that's it. Once they're dry and away I think we're there. As ready as we're going to be.
With all this going on physically I'm beginning to doubt we'll make it to 40 weeks. Although this morning's contractions stopped once I was up and about and I've only had the odd one since, this much action in my uterus makes me think things won't stay put for that much longer. But who knows really? At least we're ready now, and we're full term, and all the signs are that I and the baby are perfectly healthy and raring to go.
I talked earlier in the pregnancy about how I struggled to feel connected to this child. Some connection has happened by default, certainly since I've felt them moving around so much. I even feel as though sometimes I get a feel for the mood that they're in by the nature of their movements, and I talk to them regularly. However, there still isn't that sense of magical bonding and one-ness that I once anticipated. I feel a lot better about this now. It's little things, like the realisation that this baby is a completely separate individual to me, with their own character, their own sense of the world, that help. We share physical space (and an oxygen supply among other things) at the moment, but we are two separate people. I know I'm going to love this person intensely, and thoroughly enjoy getting to know them and watch them grow, but I don't actually know who they are yet. Until I get to meet them, how can I? And so getting to meet them at last is something that is a very exciting proposition. I'm anticipating that will be the true moment of awe and wonder, and the best bit of that is I'll be sharing that moment with P. Unlike the pregnancy, that moment will be a completely shared and equal one, where we, all three of us, will meet in person for the first time.
Bring it on. |
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| 36 weeks |
[Sep. 18th, 2007|06:37 pm] |
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| |  grumpy | ] |
We've just come back from our last holiday alone together. It's been very lovely on one level - ten days in P's parent's caravan which is right by the coast in a stunning part of South West Wales. We always enjoy it down there, but I have to admit I found it a little tough going. I didn't get stuck in any of the caravan doors though, which I did fear I might.
I've definitely entered the final pull - things are hard work now. My hips have suddenly become a lot more painful in the last week or so, so whenever I need to change position in the night I have to wake for the full military style turning operation, and usually to empty my bladder as well. Walking is also harder and more painful. More than a hundred metres or so on the flat without a sit down is pushing it a bit. Add to that the fact that my stomach officially has no more room to exist, so I'm getting acid reflux constantly and am dealing with nausea and sickness a lot of the time (it's almost like morning sickness all over again) and I'm tending towards the grumpy end of the spectrum more than I'd usually like to be.
And I shouldn't be, because we're going to meet our baby - the baby that we waited so long for - very soon. That is going to be truly amazing.
We saw our midwife today. Given my various symptoms and a few other things like the change in cervical mucus I've noticed this week and the fact that the baby has now moved into the absolute optimum position for birth, our midwife believes that this baby might be coming sooner rather than later. I can't say I'd be concerned if that were the case. We're now pretty much full term anyway and according to my bump measurements the baby is something like 7lb now (around 3.2kg). If born tomorrow, the chances are it'd be fine, though our midwife has politely requested I wait until the weekend when we'll officially hit the 37 week mark. I don't have a sense that birth is that imminent anyway, but it's exciting to think that after all this time, it could literally be days away.
We're not quite ready anyway. We still need to get a bean bag, and some water-proof sheets (to protect the sofa), and a liner and a thermometer for the pool, and a changing mat, and some more muslin squares.... But other than that I think we've got everything we need. We're very nearly as ready as we're going to be. |
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| 34 weeks and 4 days |
[Sep. 6th, 2007|07:10 pm] |
I just thought I'd post a quick updated bump picture.
Several people, having seen either me in person or this picture this week, have changed their opinion on the gender of our child. For most of this pregnancy, people's guesses have been about 80% in favour of a girl. Now, it has dramatically swung the other way and almost everyone is suddenly nodding sagely and advising us of the boy within.
Only time will tell! And not much of it now either.
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| Getting ever closer |
[Aug. 28th, 2007|01:03 pm] |
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We saw our midwife this morning. According to the size of my bump and the personalised growth chart that the hospital worked out for me, this baby now weighs something in the region of 5lb 9 oz. When I was born at 36 weeks, I weighed 5lb 7 oz, so if the charts are accurate, this baby has now outgrown me, in a manner of speaking at least. Our midwife was very relaxed about all this, basically stating that things look so bouncy and health in there that even if this baby was born now, at just shy of 34 weeks, it would do fine. That's good to hear, though I will be surprised if it does pop out much if anything before 40 weeks.
Next Friday we're back to the hospital for the last of our kidney scans, this time with a consultant radiologist who will also be scanning our baby after it's born to check what's going on with them then. After that, we're on holiday for a week and after that our midwife is happy to consider us at full term, or close enough to it for the exact day not to matter too much. That suddenly all feels rather close, although in reality I could still be pregnant for a good six weeks after that too. At present, it feels exciting. I've done a lot of preparation already, and really it just feel like its the practical elements, like buying waterproof sheets for the birth that still need to happen before we're 'ready', or maybe that should be 'ready enough'. I think I've given up waiting for this sense of real readiness to arrive. I have no expectation that when I first hold our baby after the birth I will feel in any way truly 'ready' for it, as amazing as I'm sure that experience will be. But I'm sure we'll cope, and that we'll make our mistakes and realise the gaping holes in our previously 'highly comprehensive' parenting preparation only once that baby is out and in our arms, as probably all new parents do.
Our midwife is a real sweetie though. She's so good at seeing us as joint parents that she keeps accidentally referring to P as the other biological parent. Today, we were discussing the neonatal screen and she was talking about genetic conditions that it can pick up, but that if P and I both had no family history of certain things then the chances would be very slim of any of them affecting our baby. She had to stop herself several times and remember to refer to the donor instead of P. It was rather amusing, in a very sweet way. |
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| *hic* |
[Aug. 17th, 2007|05:05 pm] |
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For the last ten minutes, our baby has had hiccups. S/he has been getting them a lot recently. It feels really funny, in a nice way. |
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| Update |
[Aug. 16th, 2007|09:53 am] |
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| |  tired | ] |
This pregnancy is really ticking along. Our midwife has said that, depending on other health factors she'd probably be willing to consider me full term from 36 weeks. That's just over 4 weeks away. Although I have no expectation of having this baby early the thought that it could be so soon feels strange. Exciting and terrifiying. I was born at 36 weeks after all. I know that whatever happens the next few weeks are going to fly. Even if the baby comes after 40 weeks, it's still not long to go now.
In the last week I've stopped being able to sleep well at all. The baby's movements are now dramatic enough to wake me up and my bladder has about the same capacity as an egg cup. The hip and back ache don't help either. Still, I'm managing to fit in a good five hours a night in fits and starts, and the odd nap in the afternoon, so I'm guessing I'm still getting more than I probably will once the little one arrives.
On Tuesday we had a very baby-stuff-filled day. In the morning, P's Mum came over as she'd offered to contribute towards the cost of washable nappies as her birthing gift. I met a woman a few months ago who is a rep for a nappy organisation. They stock a whole range of different brands and styles of washable nappies so with mum-in-law in tow we tripped off to the reps house to get to see, feel and ultimately decide what nappies we were going to go for. I thoroughly enjoyed the whole experience, and I love what we've chosen. We have different types for night and day use and the night ones are as soft and fluffy as a teddy bear. Lovely. And we believe that the choices we've made will dry quickly enough that we won't have to contemplate buying a tumble dryer after all because they fold out into flat sheets for drying which is a relief, for both financial and environmental reasons.
In the afternoon we were off to the hospital to see a cardiologist and obstetrician joint team to check that my extremely minor heart condition (that was only diagnosed last year, affects almost my whole family and that no-one has ever had any problems with) wasn't going to cause me to keel over during labour. It was a rather long-winded process as they decided they wanted to do an ECG while I was there but then couldn't find a nurse who knew how to use the machine for a while, and they wanted bloods taken as well which took another while to wait for, but ultimately I'm completely and utterly fine and there should be no problem at all. We have an emergency back-up plan now just in case but I'm sure we won't need it. I do have to go back for an ultrasound scan of my heart next week just to check that out too, but the cardiologist, although very pleasant, was clearly not remotely concerned and almost doubted my need to have turned up there in the first place.
So all is well. The baby is growing at a sensible rate and I'm within normal growth parameters too. S/he is wriggling plenty, his/her heart beat is always there loud and clear whenever anyone fancies hunting for it, s/he is mostly head down these days and is occasionally dropping into my pelvis with hilarious need-to-empty-my-bladder-NOW consequences for me, my belly is now covered with a rather pretty patterning of stretch marks and I have three weeks of work left.
In terms of other preparations we now have a car seat and base, a nappy bucket, organic cotton wool and other changing bits and pieces, this weekend a friend is dropping off the cot they're giving us, another friend is giving us their moses basket, we have a bouncy chair, a small mountain of baby clothes and a small stuffed lion toy. We've now realised we need to get a new cupboard to keep all this stuff in.
We really are having a baby. |
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| Joyous times |
[Aug. 2nd, 2007|05:18 pm] |
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| |  sore | ] |
All of a sudden, this pregnancy has become harder. It seems that the bump has expanded quite dramatically in the last week or so. It hasn't in any real sense, but its shape has changed - I'm guessing something significant has shifted internally with regards to where all my bits and pieces and this large melon of a uterus fit together. It feels a lot more prominent and heavy, and my hips and back have been hurting a lot more as a result. It is now not uncommon for me to lie down on the sofa or bed and have my hips seize, so that getting up is very difficult without assistance. Yesterday this happened whilst I was on the sofa and P was in the shower, so I did what I could to hoist myself out by pushing my knees out over the edge and then slowly rolling over onto them so I ended up in a kneeling position on the floor over the sofa.
All well and good I thought, as I creaked into an upright position and hobbled off, except during the course of the evening my left knee began to hurt. By the time we went to bed, it was getting really quite sore, and by the time I woke at 5:30 for my second night-time toilet visit, I could barely walk. A trip to A&E this morning has had me diagnosed with  Prepatellar Bursitis and given that anti-inflammatory drugs are out thanks to being pregnant, all I can do is rest up and regularly apply ice. It is really quite breathtakingly painful at times, but at least it's forcing me to do the resting that my body has been hinting at me for a while that I should be doing more of. However, one day of daytime TV is already hurting my brain. I might have gone quietly mad by the time it's settled down, which will hopefully be within a few days. So far it's just been getting progressively worse though, so I'll believe that one when it happens.
So much for delivering this baby on my hands and knees. I think I might find myself thoroughly exploring alternative positions because if I'm prone to this after spending time on my knees I so do not want to be setting myself up for a first week of motherhood totally incapacitated.
Anyway, that's my whinge out the way.
Last week we had another progress scan to check on the little one's kidney's. They're still enlarged so we're back yet again for another scan in another four weeks. This time, it'll be with a consultant and will hopefully be our last visit until after the birth when a paediatrician will follow up. As lovely as it is to see our baby at regular intervals, and the way each time we see it, less and less fits on the screen at any one time, it also involves an awful lot of hanging around in waiting rooms and dealing with highly disorganised hospital administration. Here's a picture from this time. Some of the images we saw of the face were really quite clear. This wasn't the best one, but it's the only one we got a print out of.
And, on popular request, here's a more recent bump pic. It's a few weeks old, so hasn't captured the new, improved, practically-living-independently bump I now have, but it's getting there.
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| The neon sign |
[Jul. 23rd, 2007|12:05 am] |
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I am sitting here, soon to go to bed, with an extremely active baby in my belly. In the last few days s/he has been moving so much more than usual, and in new ways. I was getting used to having small feet pummel my ribs on my right side, as for the last few weeks this seems to have been the position the baby has been settling in. S/he still seems to settle in it now, but in between is doing all kinds of gymnastics and dramatic gestures.
I'm now 28 weeks pregnant, a week into my third trimester. I've been thinking in the last few days about how easy it seems to be here, to be experiencing pregnancy, the growth of our child, the wonder and pleasure of it (and the increasing physical discomfort of it), how things are progressing wonderfully, yet remembering that it was only a short time ago that I was beginning to consider life without a child, after our years of not conceiving. I have seen others go through this, try, then sooner or later succeed, and then become regular passengers on the 'pregnancy and parenthood' train. I don't think anyone who has been through this process really forgets what the trying side of things was like, but it's so very, very easy to let it fade in significance once the end is actually in sight. I still identify so strongly with that person I was when we were trying, and I feel good about that person, and our partnership through that time. The tears and the anguish that we learned to deal with, and keep at bay. The strength we had to dig deep to find to enable us to keep going, but that we found. Trying to conceive was such a big part of our lives for so long, I think part of me will always be living there in some ways. Finding faith and holding on to hope are qualities that I learned the benefit of most in that time, and that I hope I will always retain.
And here I am now, with a child in my belly, a child that, even if born now, would most likely survive. There is no question now that motherhood is imminent for both of us, but the concept of being a mother, although dreamed about for so long, is so huge that I don't know how to take it in. How do I embrace it? The reality that my own identity is actually going to change very soon feels so strange. I'm reminded of where we came from and of what we went through to get here. That journey was tough, really tough a times, but I knew how to do it, how to survive it. Now I'm on the brink of something new, and huge. The word 'mother' is plastered in neon lights over the door of my future, and despite avid reading and several years of relevant work experience the prospect is simply overwhelming.
But it took us years to get here. Years in which we were challenged, we dealt with lost dreams and massive insecurities, we found new dreams and tried not to get attached to them, we worried, and we learned that faith and trust and positive thinking can make a world of difference. I know that no-one could ever be truly prepared for parenthood, but if there ever was to be a crash course in the basic skills of surviving it, maybe the rollercoaster we rode in order to get here wasn't a bad approximation of it.
What a journey this is. |
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| Flying |
[Jul. 2nd, 2007|07:55 pm] |
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My, doesn't time fly when you're having fun? A whole month has passed and it feels as though we've barely blinked an eye. I'll have given birth before I know it at this rate.
And that time is beginning to feel a little closer. I am increasingly feeling huge, and just in the last week I've reached the point where I'm extremely aware that there's something rather large in my belly as I can no longer take a full breath or slouch without giving myself acid reflux - there simply isn't room for everything inside me. I'm also getting kicked and punched on a very regular basis. Yesterday the little munchkin even managed to whack me in my cervix and my ribs simultaneously, which gives a good impression of how big s/he must be. We're now officially viable, having crossed over that 24 week mark just over a week ago, and that too helps the sense that this little person is actually going to make it and be a long-term part of our lives.
We went back for another scan last week, to check on the baby's kidneys. They're still enlarged, so we've been officially diagnosed with mild hydronephrosis and will be scanned again in another four weeks, possible again after that a time or two but either way we'll be off to see a paediatrician when the baby is a few days old to check up on how things are post birth. The long term prognosis is pretty good though, as we're still only a mild case and the majority of those clear up by themselves. We've also now learned that another child that our donor fathered had the same condition, and it cleared up by itself, so we're feeling pretty relaxed about the whole thing. We'll probably take ourselves off to see a homeopath to look at less medically intensive alternatives to potential treatments before the birth so we've got option when the time comes, if we need them.
However, the scan was rather lovely, despite it being much shorted than the last one we had. Here's a pic:
The baby is looking decidedly larger and chubbier than at the last scan, which is about right. S/he also measuring slightly bigger than average for the dates which presumably means s/he is doing rather well. It doesn't necessarily bode well for my perineum come the birth, but we'll cross that bridge when we come to it.
I also saw what, to me, was reasonably clear evidence of our baby's gender. However, we didn't ask for clarification and P didn't notice it at all, so I'm keeping quiet on that one. We wanted it to be a surprise anyway. I can't work out if I'm glad or slightly disappointed to have a definite leaning one way now. I'm quite content though, but then I still would be if my observations were incorrect, so I guess time will tell on that one. |
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| Half way |
[May. 29th, 2007|11:16 pm] |
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| | happy | ] |
Somehow, we seem to have made it to 20 week pregnant. We're half way through, according to the system that we're counting by anyway. Actually, we've only known for 16 weeks and we've another 20 to go so its not quite halfway in terms of our own experience, but hey, 20 is a nice round number and it seems to count for a lot as far as the medical world is concerned.
And we're there. Our baby would no be getting on for 11 inches tall if it could stand up straight, and my belly agrees. I'm getting regular movements now, particularly in the evenings and in bed, and I feel as though there's no room any more for the rest of me in there. I can't imagine what 40 weeks must feel like, I'm already waddling, stretch-marked and taking an age to get up off the sofa. I'm loving it though, even in the moments where I'm having a whinge about acid reflux...
Here's an up-to-date bump picture, taken today:
We booked the independent midwife, O, and we had our first main appointment with her a few days ago. All is well, and the baby's heart rate was 148 bpm - nicely in the middle of the healthy range. Tomorrow we'll be having our 20 week scan and another lot of checks on the NHS, though these will be our last as we're transferring our care over to our midwife after we've had the scan. I'm very much looking forward to seeing the baby again, although we won't be finding out the gender, despite my earlier wobbles on whether we should or not.
And things are feeling good. P and I haven't had much close time recently because of her studies, but that should ease up in a week or two, and despite that we're definitely getting more settled into the idea that we're pregnant. Over the weekend we had a big sort out and cleared out a load of our own old clothes to free up a chest of drawers for the baby's things. We've been given some lovely baby clothes. To be honest, I don't think we're going to need much more and we haven't bought a single item ourselves yet. I'm looking forward to stopping work in another three months so that I can really get to grips with sorting through all the baby stuff we've been given, find places to keep it all and, well, generally nest. I'm still no closer to being able picture this little person that is going to take over our lives so radically, but at least I'm getting into the swing of preparing for them.
The next question - what type of washable nappies to go for. |
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| A good beating |
[May. 1st, 2007|04:06 pm] |
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Earlier this afternoon I had my 16 week antenatal appointment with the community midwife. It was surprisingly brief, but all the news was good. All my blood tests results have come back bouncily healthy and my blood pressure is as perfect as it can be (120/60). Just before I left, the midwife asked if we could have a listen to the baby's heart beat. That was a silly question - I was on that couch in a matter of seconds. The student midwife got out the doppler and pressed it against my belly, warning me that it might take a minute or two to find because at this point the baby still has a bit of room to move around so could be a bit difficult to find. As it was, that lovely brisk beat was playing out to us in seconds and it fluctuated between 138 and 145 beats per minute in the time we listened to it. It did move away and then come back a few times so I can only assume that the podlet was doing some in-utero gymnastics in between readings.
It was beautiful to hear, but I was also saddened that P wasn't there to hear it too. These midwife appointments only run on Tuesday afternoons, a time that P is usually unable to get away from her work/studies. I'm considering buying a hand-held amplifier - not a doppler - but one of those gadgets that simply amplifies the sounds from inside the belly - or whatever other part of the body you press it against. I'm guessing my clients might like to borrow it sometimes too, so I should be able to claim it as a work expense. It'd be so good for P to get to hear those affirming sounds too.
Tonight, the local independent midwife that we're probably going to take on is coming over. I've worked with her a little before, but as it happens, we attended a client in labour together just last week and I really enjoyed working so closely with her. I have a lot of respect for the way that she works and I trust her judgement, and the fact that the NHS can offer me no real continuity of care throughout this pregnancy and birth I strongly suspect she'll be hired before the night is out. P hasn't met her yet, she's just heard me enthuse about her. Tonight is their first meeting and hopefully that will be enough for P to know one way or another whether she's happy to have her with us at our birth. Fingers crossed she is.
I know that O, the independent midwife, carries a heart monitor with her too and I'm hoping I might be able to convince her to let P have a listen tonight. It would be so nice for us both to go to bed tonight with the memory of that magical sound in our ears.
And you know what, for the first time in a while I'm feeling amazingly tired this afternoon and am tempted to go and have a nap. This week is a busy one for me so I guess I should make the most of the opportunity while I have it. |
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| Baby-related acquisitions |
[Apr. 20th, 2007|06:36 pm] |
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| |  busy | ] |
We are now almost fifteen weeks pregnant. I had a moment today when I thought ahead to a family gathering we're going to tomorrow and I realised I might find myself at the receiving end of a tiny bit of special attention and it felt completely and utterly wrong. It's that whole 'fake' thing coming in again. like I still don't quite believe what's happened, and happening and that I'm worthy of it. Perhaps I need to accept that I'm going to have moments of that for quite a while.
The bump appears to be shrinking, well, not really, but it hasn't grown noticeably for a few weeks. I've been taking weekly belly shots and the 14 week ones look identical to the 12 week ones. This is probably a good thing. Continued growth at the rate I experience between 10 and 12 weeks would have had me too large to fit through doors within weeks, let alone by the 9 month mark.
We are beginning to get our heads around some of the practicalities of having this baby though. I'm halfway through crocheting it it's first poncho, although as yet that's the only baby-related thing we have in the house. At the family gathering tomorrow I have a feeling we might have a few bags of hand-me-down baby stuff awaiting us so this is probably about to change. We've also spoken to family lawyer about all the bits and pieces we need to get sorted to be as legally secure in our family as we can be. We're going to be meeting her for the first time in a few weeks to get our wills completed and do as much of the preparatory paperwork for P's parental order as we can before the birth. That way we can submit it as soon as the baby is born and we can rest assured that at least she has equal parenting rights, even if she's not a full parent in terms of inheritance and a few other things until the adoption goes through. The adoption stuff we're going to have to wait a while for, as we can't get that approved until we've been living together as a family for six months - so basically once the baby is six months old. Our lawyer has told us not to prep for this yet as the law might change again before then - its been playing catch up for a while since civil partnerships came in and is changing quite frequently.
Seeing a lawyer is expensive. I'd always thought it would be but it really is. Mind you, if we'd ended up having to have even one round of IVF we'd have paid out several times as much as we're going to have to pay for this legal support so it's not that bad in the greater scheme of things. Thanks to our very generous and committed donor we've managed to create our family with significantly less financial outlay than many in our position have, and for that we're very grateful.
There are other financial costs we're having to consider, quite apart from having to acquire baby-related stuff like a car seat and a stash of washable nappies. Our fridge and freezer are both rather small and in anticipation of wanting to get lots of quick and easy meals in storage for soon after the birth and then for storing expressed breast milk and later, home-made squishy meals for the baby we're going to have to upgrade. We're also strongly toying with the idea of getting a tumble drier. The environmental impact isn't great, but we're going to have our baby just as we go into winter and we don't have many places we can dry clothes (or nappies) in our little house. We just about manage ourselves but everyone talks about the amazing amount of laundry a little person can generate and we don't think we'd be able to cope all the time.
Plus we want to get all the left over bits of work that need to be done on the house finished so we can sit back for a while (and possibly also sell up and me somewhere more rural before too long) so we need to get the front of the house re-rendered, and the building work in the conservatory finished, and the garden drastically tidied up.
And then of course we do actually need to make sure we've got everything we need for the baby too. This is going to be a busy year.
But oh, so worth it. :) |
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| Going public |
[Apr. 11th, 2007|06:35 pm] |
| [ | Current Mood |
| | thoughtful | ] |
Somehow we've made it to thirteen weeks pregnant. More in fact. We're half way to fourteen. This baby really does seem to be planning on sticking around, and all the signs are that it's a healthy little thing too. It's amazing how much the world can change in just a few weeks. I've got lots of half-formed philosophical thoughts about it all in my head but I've also been really busy in the last week or so so they're no closer to being fully formed and ready for public scrutiny yet.
However, on a practical level we have now told pretty much all the essential people in our lives. Our families on both sides and most of our friends have had the pleasure of being faced with a grainy ultrasound photo and our accompanying grins. So far, every one of them has been wonderfully excited on our behalf, which has been very lovely for us. We now have more offers of hand-me-down baby clothes than this baby could ever possibly wear and a few bags of maternity clothes are now waiting in attics with my name on them - and they can't come too soon. My regular jeans are now officially retired for the year and the bump is steadily growing. It's a strange feeling. I've fantasised about getting to experience this for so long that I was functioning under the illusion that I'd know what to expect. Although I had anticipated growing a bump, and expanding breasts, I hadn't anticipated the associated slightly unpleasant sensation of skin stretching tighter than it ever has before, or how much a bra that fitted perfectly well just a few weeks ago can cut into tender breast tissue once yet another cup size is surpassed. These all factor into those philosophical musings that are still gestating themselves.
There is one small thing that I'm a little reluctant to even mention for fear of jinxing it but both the last two nights as I've lain down in bed I've thought to this baby and think I've felt the tiniest flutterings of movement. If I have, it's early for me to be feeling them. Even second time mums who know what they're sensing tend to only begin to feel movement at 14 weeks or so. But I think I have, and I'm looking forward to bed tonight so that I can see if I feel it once more. |
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| Getting upgraded |
[Mar. 30th, 2007|01:35 pm] |
| [ | Current Mood |
| |  optimistic | ] |
This morning we went to have our dating scan. These are usually done between 12 and 13 weeks but we were given a date at 11 weeks on the nose and in the end decided that changing it wasn't worth the hassle, so along we went.
It was in a local children and family centre that we'd never even heard of until we got our appointment through. It was built last year and has been open about three months. It's fantastic! The local midwifery team is based there, and there are play groups, and 'bumps and beyond' sessions, and all kinds of additional support for families on low incomes. Plus its brand spanking new! Everything is shiny, there was free internet access in the waiting room and free tea and coffee, and friendly faces everywhere. I asked about getting involved professionally, maybe running some classes there and they practically jumped on me, so I'll be ringing up their outreach person shortly to arrange a meeting... but I digress. Professionally it was a great place, but personally it was too, and the midwife we saw today was wonderful. If the whole team was like her I'd be extremely happy.
We didn't have to wait long before being called up and introduced to the lovely midwife and her trainee. The trainee was to be doing the scan whilst being observed by the midwife but she's clearly been doing it for a while as she was straight in there, and there was our bean, waving at us on the screen. S/he was moving around, kicking her/his little legs, waving and rolling over. Her/his heart was pumping soundly away and s/he's been on something of a growth spurt in the last couple of weeks as s/he is now measuring a full five days ahead of what we know s/he is at. This morning I woke up 11 weeks pregnant. According to the scan - and this was the official dating scan so is the date they're going to use on my medical records - today I'm 11 weeks and 5 days. I'm a little uncomfortable about the date changing, as if I go over 40 weeks it'll mean they'll think I'm nearly a week more overdue than I am and it might get to be more of a battle to keep the birth non-medicalised, but that issue is a long way off and, well, it's quite nice to have suddenly jumped five days. It means I'm twelve weeks pregnant in two days. In a week I'll enter the second trimester. Wow.
That is quite a scary thought now I come to say it. We really are going to have to start thinking about the arrival of this baby before long. I don't know if I'm ready for that yet. Maybe I'll just sit and admire my little bump for a bit longer...
Actually, I think the whole thing is going to feel pretty different very soon. We've got visits planned with family and friends over the next week or two and we're planning to tell everyone then. Once everyone knows I think its going to be a lot harder to remain in denial. Partly because I strongly suspect my sister is probably going to be right out there buying tiny t-shirts with silly slogans on them, and once we've got a few items of baby stuff in the house it's surely going to start sinking in. We can hope so at least.
Regardless of any of that though, today we saw our baby again, and now s/he really does look like a baby, especially when wiggling around. We got some lovely images on the screen or our baby's face in profile - that was the only moment this time where I nearly cried. Seeing a face makes them feel much more of a person. And not just any person - that face is going to be one of the most beautiful faces in the world to me, attached to one of the most beautiful people - our child. I guess that parental bias is kicking in already.
Here's a pic:
The two whiter blobs near the head are her/his little fists, and you can see the nearer arm running down from the hand. Both legs were curled under in this picture - you can see them but they're not stretched out. Baby has them in a kind of crossed legs position. If you look closely, you can make out an oval blob in the chest area. This is the heart, and on the screen we could see it beating away. We also saw the umbilical cord pulsing in time to the heart beat which was absolutely amazing. We didn't get a take-away picture of the face in profile - not without a hand in the way anyway, so that little image will just have to be filed away in the photo album in my memory.
So that's it. We appear to have come through the scary, risky part of this pregnancy. It was quite horrendously stressful at first, but as I commented to P last night, now I feel less ill and less stressed, I actually seem to forget I'm pregnant for good chunks of time. I'm sure that will get harder as my bump increases in size, but now we really can start to look forward to that happening, to expect things to continue. And, when we're ready, to start to anticipate the arrival of a child in our lives. Parenthood - here we come!
I still don't think I quite believe it. |
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| Bumpy ride |
[Mar. 26th, 2007|02:52 pm] |
| [ | Current Mood |
| | happy | ] |
I have a bump. It seems to have sprung from nowhere. This weekend, due to being on a basket-making course rather than needing to be vaguely presentable for work purposes, I wore jogging bottoms instead of my jeans (which are still fine size and comfort-wise as long as I keep the top button undone). My belly now reaches out as far as my breasts and is beginning to be pregnant-shaped as well. I'm not a slim person so had a bit of a belly to begin with, but certainly nothing that could come near to rivalling my breasts in the 'greatest protrusion to the front' stakes. I've still got ten days or so to go before we reach that magical twelve week mark and start being more relaxed about telling folk, and P assures me that no-one would assume I was pregnant quite yet, just that I'd put on a few pounds if I wore a loose top, but still, I wasn't expecting to have a belly quite so soon. It does seem to have pounced on us rather suddenly, but then according to my reading my pelvis is pretty much packed full of uterus and assorted baby-related contents now, so everything else has had to move up a bit, so some change is to be expected.
But I have to say that any concerns I have about people prematurely guessing or even needing to get on with buying some new clothes pretty sharpish and having no clue where to go to do so are vastly outweighed by the sheer joy of having a definite belly. I've found myself doing the classic thing of resting my hand on it at any spare moment, stroking it (and admittedly massaging the somewhat tender muscles and ligaments that must have been doing a good bit of stretching as they've been a little sore recently) and feeling connected with it. I told everyone on the course I was on this weekend, partly because there was another pregnant woman there and the teacher started advising her to do things a little differently to save straining herself or risking harm so I thought it would be advisable for me to announce it so that I could do the same. I loved being open about it, and feeling free to let my belly be whatever shape it chose, and given that most of the other course participants were older women it prompted lots of talk about pregnancy, babies and related topics. The two men in the group bore it very well I have to say.
We've also had the date come through for our 12 week scan, except in our case its at 11 weeks - this Friday. I plan to see if we can make it a little later - mostly so we get a thumbs up as close to that magical 12 week mark as possible, but we shall see. Both P and I are getting pretty well settled into the idea of this pregnancy sticking around now. We're no longer prefacing everything we say about it with 'as long as things go well' and we're beginning to make decisions for the rest of the year that take into account my relative bump and potentially impeded physical state - like deciding that taking two weeks to go walking in the Scottish mountains in September like we planned might actually be a bit too adventurous at 8 months. We still haven't put any energy into thinking about things that we'll need to acquire and prepare before this baby arrives but there's still plenty of time for that, and like I said in my last entry although the pregnancy now feels real the child that will arrive in our lives at its end still feels a bit too distant yet.
But I have a bump. And there's nothing quite like that feeling. |
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| Onwards and upwards |
[Mar. 20th, 2007|11:10 pm] |
| [ | Current Mood |
| | in the moment | ] |
It's been a strange few weeks. On the one hand, I've gradually settled in more and more to this being pregnant thing. Both P and I have completely failed to get any closer to really and truly believing that we'll probably have a baby by the end of this year, but I've begun to get more settled into 'being pregnant'. As yet, 'being pregnant' and 'going to have a baby' are two entirely separate concepts but I've quite enjoyed getting into the former. I've wanted to be pregnant for a very long time, and now I am, and all the discomfort and bodily changes are daily reminders that I've got that dream at last. It's a journey and a half.
My pelvis can't handle me standing or leaning in certain positions, or lying on my back. I'm guessing that's from softening ligaments and so far it's easy enough just to avoid those positions that are uncomfortable. Whenever I get that 'Ooh!' feeling when I've put my weight the wrong way I experience a mixture of physical discomfort at the symptom and emotional joy at the cause. My nausea has also become more extreme, but more erratic, although there is still very little actual sickness going on. I now have obvious good days and obvious bad days. The bad days I'm a terrible grump, I feel really icky and can't figure out what to do with myself. The good days I feel completely and utterly fine. Gradually, the bad days are getting less frequent. I've just had two good days on the trot.
Yesterday morning I gave my tummy a good feel. My trousers have started to become a little tight and although I look virtually no different (to me, there's a tiny bit more bulge, to everyone else, it's a touch more flab) when I press my tummy I can feel a hard, curved object above my pubic bone. My uterus is beginning its take-over bid on my belly and it was such a lovely feeling to realise it. My breasts have been expanding since before we got our positive test, but now they're looking positively buoyant. My body is changing. My body is pregnant.
So the last few weeks have been quite pleasant in that way, but I've gradually become more and more anxious about the prospects for this baby. I've not been able to shake off the sense that our first scan wasn't quite as good as it should have been. The heart beat was there, but it wasn't measured, and to my eye I counted it to be beating at around 90 beats a minute - which is very slow for a 6-7 weeks old embryo. The embryo also measured 3 days less developed than it actually was which can be another sign that things are not as well as they could be. I know it's a side effect of reading so much about early pregnancy, which has its good and bad sides, but it's been preying on my mind quite a bit. We've still got three weeks to go before we get our next NHS scan at 12-13 weeks and it's felt like such an age. This weekend I ended up having a stress in front of P about it - I'd kept it to myself until then. She was lovely about it of course and when I brought up the possibility of having another scan she said to just go for it if I felt I needed it. And so we did.
I've surprised myself really. I've been really anti-ultrasound scans in pregnancy for a good while, but now that I'm pregnant and being somewhat neurotic about the health of our baby suddenly all my previous issues suddenly have very little weight at all. I now feel a little guilty for having ranted about it in the past, but then as always, strong ethical stances are easy to have if they don't directly affect you at the time. Amongst many other things, it seems that pregnancy is teaching me humility.
And so, embracing my newly humbled position on the ultrasound scan, earlier this evening we found ourselves at a private scanning clinic a few miles away for a second ultrasound scan. This time, the sonographer used an abdominal scan and having that bit of uterus peeking up above my pubic bone meant that a lovely clear image was there right in front of our eyes the moment he pressed the probe against my belly. And there was our baby, looking decidedly more baby-like this time. Its head makes up about half its size, and after a few seconds of having us looking at it it kicked its little legs out. It was beautiful. Its heart was beating clearly and strongly, and this time it was measured - a very healthy 168 beats per minute. The sonographer also did a range of other checks, including showing us a highlighted image of the blood flow to and from the baby via the placenta and umbilical cord. He even turned the sound up so that we could hear its little heart, whooshing away. We saw our baby move!
And its now caught up with itself and is actually measuring one day more developed than we know it is from my ovulation date. Our baby measures 25.3 mm from crown to rump (so not including its little legs, which are still pretty little really) so over an inch long. The placenta looks great. Everything is exactly as it should be. The notes we were given diagnosed me as having 'a viable intrauterine pregnancy'. Thank goodness for that.
And because it was a private scan, we were not only given a full two page print out of my diagnostic notes (which will go into my main pregnancy notes) but also four print outs of pictures of our baby and a CD with numerous pictures and several video clips from the scan. Unfortunately, none of the video clips caught the few times we saw our baby kick, but we've got some lovely shots where it wiggles a little and you can see its heart beating. I've uploaded one here. And another here. For some reason they're not as clear online as the are on my machine at home. Still, hopefully they give an idea of the wonders we saw.
We'll be ten weeks pregnant on Friday. That means we've only two weeks left before we reach that magical 12 week mark. Regardless though, I think I'm there after the scan today. I still haven't connected the stunning images we saw on that screen this evening with the fact that I'll be giving birth in October, but can certainly feel the amazement at having seen them and quite frankly I am in awe. In awe at my body, at the miracle that is happening. What this miracle means for our future is something that hasn't sunk in yet, but I think I might finally be beginning to properly connect with the present.
Right now there is a miracle going on inside me.
And to be frank, when you're living a miracle right now, planning for the future can wait, at least for a while. |
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| Feeling a fraud |
[Mar. 5th, 2007|06:04 pm] |
| [ | Current Mood |
| |  sick | ] |
All the signs are definitely saying I'm pregnant. We haven't done a test for a while but there's been no sign of a period, or, these days, of much of a premenstrual symptom. I've been getting days in which I only manage a few hours of functional waking time before needing to nap, and nap some more, and over the last few weeks I've been getting more and more nausea. I was actually sick for the first time today. I've even put on some weight, albeit just a few pounds, although I'm not officially supposed to do that yet.
This weekend we hosted a course for a group of women on Mayan abdominal massage and traditional healing. It was a really lovely weekend, with four very enthusiastic and nature-focused women plus ourselves learning together and sharing time and space. Everyone was very sweet towards me and kept making special efforts to make sure I was comfortable. I, of course, was on full hostess mode so I cooked for everyone each meal-time and then received many comments on how delicious the food was but how inappropriate it was that the pregnant one was doing all the catering. And I was the pregnant one. Everyone kept saying so, and to be honest on several occasions I felt so crappy that I did believe it for a while.
But still I feel like I don't really believe it. There's all this intellectual stuff going on - like when I was being sick earlier I was reminding myself that traditional Mayan healers consider sickness in pregnancy to be a really positive thing as its the body cleansing itself for the growing child. And I'm trying to be really aware of what I eat to make sure I both try to keep the nausea at bay but that I also absolutely cover all the main food groups and give my body all the nutrition it needs - much more so than I would normally do. Whenever anyone mentions anything about plans for later in the year I do a quick calculation about how pregnant I'll be (6 months at S's naming ceremony, 7 months and J&M's wedding) and the fact that I've had to get up in the night for a wee every night since I hit fine and a half weeks is serving as something of a good reminder of what's happening too. But still the fact that there's a small person inside me, one with a beating heart, with small arms and legs and by the end of this week, every organ in place (in a primitive kind of way) is something I can't quite grasp.
This was highlighted for me today when I received a letter from my midwife. (I have a midwife!) She wrote to me to ask me to give her a call so she could arrange to come over to start doing my antenatal checks. The first sentence of her letter was 'Congratulations on your pregnancy'. I read the letter feeling really quite gleeful, but at the same time feeling like a fraud. There was still a part of me that felt as though I wasn't really deserving of such a letter, like this was something incredibly minor that I shouldn't make a fuss about, and that no-one else should too.
I've got to find a way to break through this. The woman who was teaching us the massage this weekend said some really sensible things, including telling me that I wasn't doing myself any favours by trying to deny this pregnancy or keep the reality of it at bay; that I was clearly going to be devastated if things didn't work out regardless of whether I let myself believe in and get attached to this baby or not, so all that I was doing by holding myself back was causing me stress and denying myself some incredibly joyous experiences. It really does make sense, but right now I don't feel that I know how to connect to this baby. I've wanted him/her for so long, that moving from wanting them to believing I have them is a momentous step that I'm not sure how to take.
I know I have to find out how to though. I had some beautiful spiritual experiences early in the pregnancy - even before we knew I was pregnant that made me feel so, so sure that this child had arrived and that this journey had suddenly taken a new turn. Now I seem to have lost some of that certainty, but I need to get it back. I want to know this child. Somewhere deep down I know I can. I just have to find out how. |
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| Believing |
[Feb. 28th, 2007|07:18 pm] |
| [ | Current Mood |
| |  beginning to believe | ] |
Today we had our scan. Over the last week or so I've begun to relax more into the idea that yes, actually, I might just be pregnant. It's amazing what a constant dose of exhaustion and nausea can do in that regard. Having some very definite pregnancy symptoms has certainly helped along the way to having faith that at least something was going on there, despite the fact that I've continued to have occasional spotting. However, today we had our scan and as this week dawned and I knew that some definite information about how well or not this pregnancy was going was just around the corner, my level of anxiety has been on the increase again.
On the way to the hospital today, P and I came up with an action plan of what we would do if we found out that we'd had or were going to have a miscarriage. By the time we got out the car, somehow the fact that we knew what we'd do if the news was bad was a little more calming. We got in and had to wait half an hour before we were called, and during this time my heart rate gradually slowed and I became more calm again.
Then we were called. At first, the nurse decided to try to do an abdominal scan so she smeared my belly with jelly and gave me a good once over with the scanner. She couldn't even see my uterus as it was nicely tucked away somewhere, so she sent me out to empty my bladder and wipe off the gunk in preparation for a vaginal scan. I have developed a very close relationship with the dildo-cam after all the months of ovulation tracking scans I've had so this felt better to me in a strange kind of way. Anyway, she started the scan and I reached over and took P's hand. My nerves had suddenly returned.
I've seen enough images of scans to know what we should have been seeing, and as soon as the probe was in there we got a lovely clear image of an amniotic sac... and more amniotic sac... I was waiting and waiting for the blob that was our baby to appear but then the nurse ran out of sac and went back over it for a second run. It was only at the end of this second run, several long, long seconds after we'd seen this lovely big sac appear empty that she found the little corner where our baby was hiding. We finally found our blob. I think I may have dared to breath again at this point. The nurse zoomed in to the blob and there before our eyes was the steady pulse of a tiny heartbeat. At that point I think I said something along the lines of 'Oh thank goodness' and promptly started crying. P managed to be much more cool, and she just stared at the screen with a big grin on her face. I think she might have managed a 'Wow'.
So we have a blob. We have a blob with a heart beat. Look! (OK, you can't see the heartbeat on our static print-out, but you can imagine it.) The black kidney shape is the amniotic sac - at least it's the little bit of it that the baby is hiding in - there was a lot more of it than this. The blobby thing inside it is the baby and the point where that meets the uterus is the placenta.
This has actually, really happened, and it's actually, really working. We are, without a shadow of a doubt pregnant. So far, we appear to be healthily so too. Depending on what report you read our risk of miscarriage has now dropped to somewhere between 10% and 2%. I like those odds. They're definitely better than the 20-30% odds we had just this morning.
Since the scan, P and I have been slowly beginning to feel it hit us. We've realised that the years we've spent trying have hardened us somewhat. We've both been so cautious about this, about letting ourselves have faith that this might work out that our defences have become so strong that neither of us has really been able to let ourselves think about the possible positive outcome in this. It's been too painful in the past to have hoped for it and then lost that hope over and over again. The fact that we might actually be having a baby later this year is something we've tried very hard not to get attached to, and so far in this pregnancy we've pretty much managed it.
I think that today, we've finally begun to let some of those defences down. Some of the moments we've had this afternoon, the 'Oh fuck, this is really happening isn't it?' moments are ones that years ago we might have had as soon as we had a positive pregnancy test. We've both commented that there's been no leaping for joy and no bubbly excitement since we had that first positive test, and I think we'd expected there to be at least some of that. But now I think we might begin to get it. Now we might begin to let ourselves believe it. We're not out of the woods yet, but we're a lot closer now and maybe, just maybe, we can finally begin to let ourselves believe that we have a baby on the way. |
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| The strain |
[Feb. 23rd, 2007|10:59 am] |
| [ | Current Mood |
| | tired | ] |
Wow, I've managed to go a whole week without writing more about this pregnancy lark. I'm now six weeks pregnant. The tiny person inside me has now been in existence for nearly a month. They're now half a centimetre long and they've got a beating heart, the beginnings of eyes and buds that will become the arms and the legs. They also have a tail, but they'll get sick of that soon and it'll disappear. All that and I still don't really have any morning sickness although I do seem to be sleeping rather a lot. At the moment, a day without a nap is not a day worth getting up for.
I'm feeling more positive. I think we both are. There has been no more spotting and we've managed to stop testing compulsively. We only did one this week, a few days ago, and it was instantly positive. So we know we have a nice healthy placenta in there and it's producing lots of HCG to prevent me from having a period and bleeding it out. We just have to hope that there's an embryo attached to it. We find out in five days.
We did have some drama yesterday. For a few days I've been getting chest pains, but only when I inhaled. It wasn't pleasant but I was guessing it was some kind of strained muscle. I mentioned it on a forum I'm on elsewhere and I got an immediate response saying I should go to see my GP to check it out as any kind of chest pain, especially in pregnancy should be investigated. Suitably chastened I made an appointment with my GP for yesterday morning. I was really quite surprised when she sent me straight off to the hospital. Apparently the fact that when she prodded my chest and shoulder a lot I didn't go 'Ow!' meant that she couldn't be sure it was a muscle strain, so she then had to rule out a possible blood clot - the risks of which go up quite a bit in pregnancy apparently. So I ended up spending all of yesterday in my local Hospital's MAU while they did numerous tests to make sure I wasn't about to keel over. They were very thorough, which has to be a good thing, but the fact that I'm at home now and typing this should make it obvious that I don't have a blood clot. I have a strained muscle.
It was quite a stressful day, all in. And the most stressful part by far was worrying about the well-being of this tiny person inside me. I'm not sure what they would have done if they thought I had got a blood clot, but I'm guessing it would have probably involved some kind of drug treatment to thin my blood and I bet that wouldn't have been that great for baby. Plus because I was walking and clearly otherwise well I didn't merit a cubicle, just a plastic chair in the waiting room - all day. I did manage a bit of a nap but it gave me a terrible crick in my neck - not much help for the strain then.
In retrospect I suppose it was heartening. They took everything very seriously - mostly because of the pregnancy it felt like. I was seen immediately (well, on the same day at least) and everyone was very pleasant. There is certainly a lot of medical support for you when you're pregnant around here. In other ways I wish I hadn't taken the advice to go and see my GP, although I certainly wouldn't be saying that if they'd diagnosed me with a blood clot so I suppose it all works out in the end. Yesterday was stressful though. I was extremely glad to get home. |
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| Days of tension |
[Feb. 16th, 2007|10:37 pm] |
| [ | Current Mood |
| |  nervous | ] |
Things have been a little stressful over the last few days. I started getting some light spotting two evenings ago. I did some checking online and on several forums I had other women tell me that they'd experienced the same and, although scary, everything was fine. After it happened last night too I rang my clinic this morning. They assured me it was very common and completely normal, but did tell me that if I started bleeding properly then I should go straight to A&E. There's been nothing like full bleeding though, basically only slightly stained mucus. I'm trying to convince myself that things are no less OK now than they were a few days ago, but I can't help but be anxious about it.
I never anticipated early pregnancy to be quite so nerve-wracking. It dawned on me earlier today that this is probably a good taster of what it's like to be a parent.
Symptom-wise things are pretty boring. I have developed extremely tender breasts in the last few days and am a little more tired than normal but still no nausea and my appetite has been a little less gargantuan than earlier this week. I'm still getting cramps that feel extremely like premenstrual cramps. According to the nurse this morning my uterus is already stretching so that might explain it. There is an amniotic sac and a yolk sac in there at the moment and together they're around one centimetre across. Not much of a stretch I admit, but more than it's dealt with before I guess. I wonder if subsequent pregnancies hurt less in the early days due to it having stretched before.
I'm five weeks pregnant today.
Sometime this week a little heart should start beating in there.
Hopefully, soon, I'll relax a little more. |
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| It's a date |
[Feb. 13th, 2007|03:57 pm] |
| [ | Current Mood |
| | waiting | ] |
We have our date through for our early scan. It's on February 28th. That's two weeks tomorrow when, all being well, I'll be 6 weeks and 5 days pregnant. From everything I've ready there really should be a heart beat by then, and if there isn't then we can assume things aren't going well. That's what it boils down to really. A heart beat or no heart beat. The former will give us an approximate 90% chance of having the pregnancy go to term, the latter about the same chance that it won't. It all seems bizarrely rigid. Yes or no. We'll find out in two weeks.
In the meantime we just have to hold tight and keep our fingers (and legs in my case) crossed.
I've started to get inklings of symptoms, which is heartening. I've needed an afternoon nap for the last three days which isn't exactly normal for me, and I'm permanently hungry. I can eat a full meal and be ready for another in an hour. But no sickness. None at all. Hopefully it'll stay that way. |
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| Its official |
[Feb. 12th, 2007|04:11 pm] |
| [ | Current Mood |
| |  normal | ] |
Today, following advice from our clinic, we went to see our GP. As it was three of the regular doctors were off sick so we saw someone we haven't seen before, but he was very lovely. He took all my medications off my repeat prescription list - the Metformin was only there to get me to ovulate and I hopefully won't be needing to do that for a while, and all the other drugs were pain meds for endo pain with my periods, and likewise, all being well I won't be facing that particular trauma for some time. It's quite bizarre to be prescription free, although the folic acid is still being popped daily.
I had been hoping to get a copy of the book that they give out to all first time parents, mainly to get the low-down on what things it's recommended I do and don't eat. I have a feeling I'd have ended up being more relaxed that the formal guidelines anyway but as it turns out he ran through the list and there are very few things to avoid, and none of them are things we regularly eat anyway. And peanuts are OK apparently, which given the amount of the stuff we normally get through is a very positive thing.
He congratulated us. He confirmed our due date to be October 19th. He's booked me into the system for antenatal care - I'll be continuing under the care of the consultant who we were under for the fertility support for the time being, even though she's based at a different hospital to the one closest to us. Assuming all goes well I'll be signing off from consultant care later in the pregnancy as I'll want midwife-led care and a home birth, but for the time being it'll be quite nice to be under Dr D. At least we might get to see her and thank her face-to-face.
It suddenly all feels more real. We've now had five positive pregnancy tests, each a little stronger than the one before. I think we might be able to stop testing now and just have some faith. The doctor we saw today told us that the strength of the line on the test doesn't mean anything anyway. If there's a line, it's positive, however strong it is.
We are now officially pregnant. The bean has at least got itself nicely embedded in there and seems to be staying put for now. It just needs to keep growing and doing all the miraculous things it's been doing. It would be nice to feel miraculous in some way too, to echo the brilliance of the event going on in there, but I just feel normal. Still kind of premenstrual, with regular aches in my belly, but normal. It's amazing to think that inside my normal, everyday body there is now another human being. A pretty tiny one, one that's only just beginning to take on the task of building itself a nervous system, but a human being all the same.
Hello little one. Stick with us. |
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| And counting... |
[Feb. 11th, 2007|07:37 pm] |
| [ | Current Mood |
| | thoughtful | ] |
We're feeling more positive. Yesterday morning the second line was twice as strong as the one the day before, and the test we did this morning showed one that was stronger again. At least we've now progressed comfortably beyond the point we reached last time. In fact we've never been close to this far before. So far, so good. Only another 250 days or so to go...
For some reason I had Monday set as my first personal deadline. If we're still testing nicely positive in the morning, I think I'll be willing to stop testing and wait for the scan in a few weeks time, or until something happens that indicates all is not well. I might also call my doctor too, as the clinic said I could do that any time so that I get 'into the system', although I won't have an antenatal appointment until I'm twelve weeks, again, assuming we get that far. They might do a blood test though, which will be interesting from my perspective as I'd like to know what my HCG levels are. They could be another indication to us that things are well, or not. They're supposed to double every 48 hours, and given that we know exactly when we conceived (January 26th) we should be able to work out whether the result is good or not once we have one.
Its a very strange feeling. We've been trying for so long. Over the years, particularly online I've built up a network of friends on similar journeys and the friendships and mutual support they've given have been invaluable in helping me to get through it all. Suddenly I feel somehow set apart. In some ways I even feel a little set apart from myself. I'm so used to this 'trying to conceive' roller-coaster. Even when we haven't been actively trying we've known we were coming back to it. I don't know how to do this next bit. I've fantasised about it for so long but the reality of course feels nothing like my fantasy world in which everything was rosy an we went from conception to birth in no time at all. If all goes well, I'm going to be pregnant for a long time. Until late October, probably. That's most of this year. I'm surprising myself by feeling surprised at that.
These are, without a doubt, extremely interesting times. |
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| Pain and fireworks. |
[Feb. 9th, 2007|10:45 pm] |
| [ | Current Mood |
| | scared | ] |
We did another test this morning. It was still faint, but it was also still positive.
However, today I hurt. Who'd have thought having your body adjust to early pregnancy would hurt so much. I actually ended up ringing my clinic earlier today just to ask if I could take any pain medication because I was getting a bit beyond coping on my own. Apparently paracetamol is OK. I risked one half dose. It feels like my normal premenstrual aches with the volume turned up very high. J, the lovely nurse at the clinic was extremely reassuring and told me it was perfectly normal, that there was a lot going on in there and extreme versions of premenstrual symptoms are very common in the first few weeks of pregnancy. In one way it's strangely reassuring. In another its bloody uncomfortable.
I've been very distracted today. P was actually in tears this morning as we did our second test. Last time we got a positive test was with her 18 months ago. Then, the test we did the day after was negative, and sure enough a few days later she started to bleed. This morning that faint second line took a minute or two to appear. In those seconds we both relived that time 18 months ago in our own ways as powerfully as if it had been yesterday. I didn't fully realise it until this morning, but now I know that until we've continued to have positive tests for some time I don't think either of us will be able to even begin to relax. We know only too well how tentative a hold the little beginnings of a person inside me has on life.
I know I need to find some faith from somewhere. Until this morning my caution was balanced with a sense of optimism that now seems to have faded. I need to try to find it again. Actually, now I come to write this and to try and feel for it, I find it is there. There's a strange sense of certainty in me that this little one is OK. I seem to have been rather good at not picking up on that today. There's a line between caution and celebration that I need to find, and walk. Hopefully it will get easier with time. Hopefully I will have time in which to find it.
J was wonderfully excited and congratulatory on the phone today. She ran off the huge list of things I'm not supposed to eat any more that I'll probably consider for a while, research and, for the most part, eventually choose to ignore. She also told me she'd arrange for an appointment for an early scan at 6/7 weeks and will send out a letter with an appointment. I see this as the next target. If I'm still pregnant then, then we've crossed another hurdle, and we'll know if things look good, or not. The odds of us getting there and having a positive scan are around 75-80% apparently. (I've spent quite some time today researching miscarriage statistics.) If all is well then, we've about a 90-95% chance of getting to 12 weeks, by which time the odds of this pregnancy going to term are about 98%.
Every day the odds get better. The next two months are going to go very slowly.
In brief moments, in between the concern, the hope, and fear, I get a slice of time in which it suddenly hits me that I'm pregnant.
We're pregnant.
I've waited four years to say that.
Those slices of time are fireworks of celebration.
They are worth every second of the anguish that lies on either side of them, and that came before. |
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| That's a turn up for the books |
[Feb. 8th, 2007|12:37 pm] |
| [ | Current Mood |
| |  stunned | ] |
I'm not quite sure how I feel about typing this. Part of me I think is a little scared of jinxing what positivity there is by speaking about it, but this morning I did a pregnancy test, and it was positive.
P is working from home today as the whole country is under a blanket of snow and after hearing the forecasts she planned her work so she wouldn't have to brave the elements. We'd talked about not testing for another few days. Our past experience of getting early positive results isn't exactly good. However, last night before I went to bed I noticed a slight pinky discharge so was sure my period would be arriving today, a day early. This morning the discharge has completely disappeared, and that was enough for me to feel there were too many questions and risk an early test. P was on the phone at the time and I hadn't told her I was testing. The line was faint, but clearly there. Given my period isn't officially due until tomorrow the fact that it's faint isn't surprising.
But it's there. Absolutely and utterly there.
After I got the result I came down and waited for P to finish her phone call before showing her the test. We spent the next half hour curled up together on an armchair, me crying and trying very hard not to let my hopes get too high, P feeling shell-shocked but managing to remain much more cool and collected than I was. I think it'll take a while. We'll test again on and off for the next few days. If we're still getting a positive early next week we'll dare to ring the hospital and see what they have to say.
I'm surprised at how unsurprised I feel, as though the part of me that has managed to remain optimistic all this time has now taken over and is simply saying 'told you so, get on with it then'.
We're one step closer. There are still so many hurdles to successfully navigate, but we've got the biggest one out the way. And most importantly, even if things don't work out this time, we've proven we can do it, that what we've been doing to try and support my system at least hasn't been doing us harm, and might well have done us good.
We're pregnant.
Now we just need to stay that way. |
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| Thumb-twiddling |
[Feb. 6th, 2007|08:12 pm] |
| [ | Current Mood |
| |  impatient | ] |
Still waiting, waiting, waiting. This few weeks has really felt as though it's been dragging. I've been over-analysing every sensation, but have also managed to almost maintain a calm and collected front. The one thing that has stood out this cycle is the amount of breast tenderness I've had. It started around four or five days after we inseminated - which is very early for me even on a month when I'm getting lots of premenstrual symptoms. Now they're aching - not feeling tender to the touch like they normally do, but aching. It's not actually very pleasant, but I'll happily suffer it if it's a sign that something is happening.
I've also been getting abdominal twinges, again from about 4-5 days after I ovulated. I'm daring to conclude that something might actually be happening. However, my body could equally be being super-efficient and be planning on giving me my period several days early. If that's the case I'm experiencing bog standard premenstrual symptoms and there's nothing more to it than that.
There are still another four days until we'll have any chance of knowing. Bah. |
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| Ms Cool vs Obsession |
[Jan. 30th, 2007|09:52 am] |
| [ | Current Mood |
| |  distracted | ] |
Righty-ho! We have inseminated, twice, as it turns out on the day before and the day on which I ovulated, which is great. We had originally planned to do the second insemination a day after we did, but my ovulation twinges were so great last Friday that we too the risk of bringing the second one forward. It paid off, as when I was scanned yesterday there was no sign of any follicle or fluid around my ovary which shows I ovulated at least 24 hours previously, probably a bit more. Perfect timing. It's in the hands of the gods now.
I'm feeling positive, for the most part. The day after I ovulated I kept getting strange sensations which the not-so-firmly-rooted-in-the-real-world part of me kept thinking was thanks to something magical going on in there. By the day after I felt completely and utterly normal, which I still do, so there's nothing to cling to and nothing to get distracted about. I'm attempting to just focus on real life, and am managing that some of the time. I have rediscovered my slightly obsessive streak this time though, which is a little disappointing after months of being seriously cool about the whole thing. I've a very busy week this week though, so I'm hoping the distractions will pull me out of it.
At the scan yesterday the fertility nurse, for the first time, gave me instructions on what to do if we got a positive test. It touched me that she clearly has enough positive feeling about this cycle to believe it could be successful. I'm still reeling a little from how good it feels to actually have average chances of this working after so long wondering if we really had much at all.
And another positive bit of news is that I rang a different fertility clinic and this one would have no qualms about working with us with our donor if we were to end up pursuing that route. In fact, if we went for IUI they'd be happy to use his fresh sperm - so no six month quarantine, although for IVF it'd have to be frozen. That's a HFEA rule apparently, so one that every clinic has no choice in. It's still something that feels a long way off, but getting the information doesn't hurt. This clinic has higher success rates than the other one too.
So now it's just on with the waiting game. |
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| More good news, and a touch of bad for good measure |
[Jan. 24th, 2007|09:14 pm] |
| [ | Current Mood |
| | okay | ] |
Today, two good things happened, and one not-so-good. The first good thing was that I got scanned again, and that follicle is doing wonderfully. So wonderfully in fact that the fertility nurse suggested we bring the first day of our inseminations forward a day just be sure we caught it. So now we're hoping to inseminate tomorrow and Saturday, which should give us the best 'spread' over the fertile window. I'm just waiting to hear back from our donor to make sure he can make it. Fingers crossed!
The other positive thing was that I had my first acupuncture session with N, my friendly local and recommended acupuncturist. I don't really know what I expected but it was fine and dandy, until a few moments after she'd put the first needles in, when the sites began to itch, and itch, and itch. By the time she'd finished the session she'd put needles into ten points, but several of them she'd tried a few times to get the exact right spot so I had around fifteen points that had come up into large, very itchy lumps. Apparently it's a reaction some people with very sensitive skin have and it wasn't pleasant. It took a good few hours for the itching to go too. However, aside from that it was a good session and I'll be back there next week as long as the funds allow it. It can be an expensive lark this complimentary therapy business! I think P and I will need to have a good think about what we can afford long term.
The not so great news, which isn't in anyway terrible as it doesn't really affect us yet, is about what might happen further down the line if we need further treatment. We haven't had discussions with our donor about that possibility yet, mostly because we still see ourselves as not being that close to it, but it has been mentioned a few times by the fertility nurses so I thought it might be worth us getting a bit of information together so we could be prepared for those discussions just in case. When I asked the nurse today she told me they no longer do any further treatments, but refer to one of the local private hospitals so she gave me their number to ring for information. I spoke to their receptionist today and the first thing she told me was that if we were to go to them with a known donor he'd have to fit within their own criteria for sperm donors. The first one of those is a cut off upper age of 40!
I was surprised at this, because the reading I've done indicates there is only very slight reduction in sperm quality with age in men, certainly not enough to rule out any potential donors because of age given the current sperm crisis in the UK - although I have to admit I'm not as well read on this as I could be. Regardless of my opinion on it though, it means that if we happen to need further medical support then we won't be able to use our donor for it. He's automatically off the list because of a pretty arbitrary-seeming age limit. I wonder how he'd feel about that.
So that's one conversation we won't be needing to have with him. And an even bigger incentive to keep going with our current way of trying for as long as we can possibly justify it I guess. |
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| Lift off! |
[Jan. 22nd, 2007|10:56 am] |
| [ | Current Mood |
| |  daring to be a little excited | ] |
Look! I have a functioning body! :)
Sure enough, just over two weeks after I was sure I'd ovulated, my period arrived. It came right in time for my birthday dinner, so I ended up pretty out of it on drugs for that one, but it arrived and I got going with my new cycle. The day after it arrived, we went back to see our new naturopath. She was generally pretty pleased with progress but reminded me that in addition to the dietary changes and supplements I'm taking I should also be having castor oil hot packs on my belly three times a week and be taking epsom salt baths twice a week. Having decided that this cycle was it, I promptly started doing just that.
We also started listening to a 'trying to conceive' hypnotherapy CD. I began training in natal hypnotherapy a couple of months back so hypnotherapy is now something I'm feeling very positive and excited about, and the CD we're using is produced by the woman who taught me, so everything links together nicely. From the first day we used it I started to feel different. It brought up new things and helped lay to rest others, and even though I'm a hypnotherapy convert these days the power of it surprised me.
For example, for some time now I've been aware of really hoping that when we did conceive, we'd have a girl baby. There are several reasons for this but the biggest one is the fact that we've got quite an army of nephews (and more arriving all the time) but only one niece. The gender balance in our family is off and I, of course, was trying to take sole responsibility for changing it. During the hypnotherapy CD at one point a suggestion is made that we think of our future child, and the child that I saw in that instant surprised me by being a boy. That moment seemed to instantly clear away any gender preferences I had been having, and it really did feel as though something somewhere was released, was freed.
Another thing that came out of starting to use the hypnotherapy was actually taking up the suggestions to make as many positive steps as possible towards improving health and vitality in preparation for pregnancy. After months of deliberation, I finally found the inspiration to get off my bottom and find myself an acupuncturist. We have out first appointment in a few days time.
So, for the first time in a long time, I've been finding myself feeling wonderfully open and positive about our trying to conceive journey. This was proven appropriate this morning, when I went for my first ovulation tracking scan to find that I've got a lovely fertile looking follicle growing on my right ovary. Today is day 12 of my cycle. In recent months I haven't shown a jot of activity until at least day 20. This cycle is looking normal even by normal people's standards!
So amazingly, we're looking at inseminating towards the end of this week. Our donor is available and my body is being a textbook as it's possible to be. Wow. I'm going to go out on a limb and say our chances of success this cycle might actually be average! Who'd have thought it? |
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| Turn up for the books |
[Dec. 27th, 2006|10:44 am] |
| [ | Current Mood |
| | positive | ] |
Something rather surprising has just happened. For the last several weeks I've been getting spotting - no pain, not sign that it's a period on its way, but just a bit of spotting. I haven't really known what to make of it other than to assume that my body was in a complete state and really didn't know whether it was coming or going. It's been a tough time generally and I've been beginning to focus much more on the possible need to look at things like IVF, which I know should still be a way off for us.
I know there's a part of me that has absolute faith that it will happen, that it's meant to happen, but that for whatever reason, something just hasn't been quite right yet. I've just not been quite as able as I'd like to be to hold on to that. But a few days ago, my body went and slapped me in the face with a good slice of faith by giving me the most fertile mucus I've had for a very long time, followed by yesterday, a good solid day of ovulation type pains. I know that I ovulated yesterday. My body told me in no uncertain terms that it did, and that it was functioning fine, thank you very much (even if fine for it is way off the scales for 'average').
So my positivity is back with a vengeance. My body will bleed in two weeks time, of that I'm pretty sure. Then we'll be on to a fresh new cycle, with a cleaner, leaner body, and more positivity than you can shake a stick at. |
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| Tough times |
[Dec. 17th, 2006|05:42 pm] |
| [ | Current Mood |
| |  blank | ] |
It's been a crazy busy few weeks here, involving both of us working and studying hard. I was away for four weeks training. It was great - and a wonderful new skill to add to my self-employed tool-set, but it was tough being away from P. We've become a bit wimpy at being away from each other for extended periods in our old age.
It's also bee a rough week or two. P's Nan died while I was away on my course. It wasn't entirely out of the blue - she'd been ill for a long time, but it was, or course, very sad. P was very close to her. It was her funeral on Friday so we've been having a very quiet weekend, getting in some quality time together.
As for things in the fertility stakes, after apparently missing ovulation this cycle we started to plod on and think of ways to make the most of this unexpected two month break. The naturopath who has completely revolutionised my diet. I've been instructed to give up dairy (no biggy for me), wheat (a task and a half) and sugar (my favourite substance in the world) for the sake of my currently off-balance hormonal body type. It was really interesting as a session and there's common sense in a lot of what she said. I've been doing the new diet for a week now and at times I could cry my cravings for chocolate are so strong. I'm determined to stick with it though, at least until my next appointment with her in mid-January but so far I'm one hell of a grumpy sod to be around, especially at meal times. P's diet has also changed, but isn't quite as restrictive. That'll teach me for getting us onto a health kick together won't it?
Some more not-so-great news is that my period was supposed to arrive early last week - or should have done if I did indeed ovulate when they thought I had. So far, there's no period, and no hint of my body gearing up for it either. Not a premenstrual symptom in sight! I'm nearly a week overdue now, which I'm assuming means that I didn't and haven't ovulated and my body is regressing to its pre-metformin state. I saw my GP on Friday for a prescription review and he upped my dose of Metformin to 2000mg a day which is a regular dose for a diabetic. I'm hoping this will kick my body into touch but if it doesn't and it looks like the Metformin is no longer working I'm not really sure what the next step for us is. I might ring my clinic next week just for a chat to see what they have to say.
So all in all I'm not feeling my most positive about several things right now. However, on a more positive note P and I will become legal civil partners on Thursday. We've been planning it for some time and it will be a very quiet affair, but we're looking forward to it. It'll be yet another 'up yours' to the NHS for denying us treatment based on our sexuality. Not only will we have been together more than twice as long as they require for heterosexual couples, but we'll also be the equivalent of married, which isn't even a requirement, but will certainly say something about our relationship being 'stable' and 'committed'. |
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| Getting up again |
[Nov. 30th, 2006|04:34 pm] |
| [ | Current Mood |
| | okay | ] |
Apologies for yesterdays low. I was in the thick of it, and P was out at meetings all day so I couldn't even call her with the news. I'm beginning to feel better now. A little frustrated still, but certainly a touch more rational and able to see that the world isn't really ending.
Last night we talked about it all and decided to see this unexpected two months off as a really positive thing. We can really get into shape, physically and emotionally for continuing to try so that when we do get to try in January we're in an even better state than we have been up to now. With that in mind I've booked for us both to go and see a naturopath next weekend. P has allergies and I've been trying to convince her to see a naturopath for years. Now, with me wanting to address some of my fertility and general menstrual issues it seems like a good thing to do together. I'm pretty sure some dietary changes will be recommended so having us there together will help us both stick to our new regimes as well as support each other through them. That's the plan anyway!
So we've got an unexpected two months grace to get our bodies in shape. Time to crack on with it! |
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| Another blow |
[Nov. 29th, 2006|04:28 pm] |
| [ | Current Mood |
| |  sad | ] |
I got some pretty sh**ty news today. I went for a scan last week on cycle day 15 and there was nothing happening, which was fair enough given that the cycle before I hadn't ovulated until day 25. I was booked in for a scan today, day 20, to see how things were progressing. Last cycle on day 20 I had a medium-big follicle that was eventually the one that ovulated five days later. I got in there today and there's no big follicle, just little ones, but there is fluid around my right ovary which indicates that actually I ovulated around 24 hours ago. It looks like we missed it.
I don't know whether to be angry or just to cry. Well, actually I'm already doing the latter. For some reason this feels so much worse than last cycle's negative. At least we gave everything as good a chance as we could then, but to have no chance at all this cycle just feels so unfair. Plus, it turns out that the clinic is shut over christmas, and having just spoken to our donor to tell him the news he's probably going to be overseas then anyway so we won't be able to try next cycle either. I'm being scanned again on Friday just in case, but it's a pretty pie-in-the-sky hope really. We've been home for the last week and our donor has been ready and waiting for our call. We could have tried ever so easily if only we'd known. I spent this morning at a doula & client coffee morning too, surrounded by pregnant women and two with babies and thinking 'we'll be trying for ours again in the next few days'. Yeah, right.
I'm at my lowest right now and I know I'll feel better once it's sunk in, but right now I'm really just wondering how much longer I can actually keep this up. We're just entering our fourth year of trying. Maybe we should just take the hint that it isn't meant to be. |
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| That's that then. |
[Nov. 11th, 2006|04:24 pm] |
| [ | Current Mood |
| | positive | ] |
My period arrived yesterday. It was entirely expected, so it wasn't really much of a blow at all. We both could sense it on the horizon, so were already looking forward to this next cycle. And we are.
Thank goodness we don't seem to be getting as emotionally tied up in these attempts as we used to be. |
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| A bit behind the times |
[Oct. 30th, 2006|01:54 pm] |
| [ | Current Mood |
| |  Bah | ] |
Bad news. I had another scan this morning and there was still a big follical there, this is three days after I should have ovulated. It's still so I guess that explains why. It did have uneven edges and there was fluid around it so the nurse said she thought it had popped in the last 24 hours. I guess our timing wasn't really that great this cycle after all. Our last insemination would have been about 3.5 days before I ovulated. If we're lucky and our donor has super-sperm some of it might still be around but the odds of success aren't that great. I'll be having blood tests next week to check my progesterone level which should help to pinpoint the timing of this ovulation better and give us more information to go on next time. I guess I should be happy that I ovulated at all, but I was pretty sure we'd given ourselves a really decent chance this time so it's a bit of a blow to know it's probably a write-off.
So be it.
On the positive side, I asked the nurse what their policy was when someone does conceive and they offer a scan at 7 weeks as standard which I'm pleased to hear. In the last year I've had several friends get pregnant only to find at the 12/13 week scan that their foetus stopped growing at 7 weeks or so. I know this is one of those things, but when we do get pregnant I know I'll feel lighter having a scan at around the 7 week mark. If things are well then then there's a statistically much higher chance of the pregnancy going to term. If not, well, at least we'll know earlier.
Still, it's a bugger to think we've missed this one. I'm going to assume the worst for sanity's sake. At least then my period won't come as a disappointment. Bah. |
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| Here we go again! |
[Oct. 27th, 2006|04:09 pm] |
| [ | Current Mood |
| | calm | ] |
Right then! We've now inseminated twice, last night and the night before. I had buckets of fertile-looking mucus yesterday, got strong positives on the LH surge tests both days (although that's not uncommon for me) and I'm getting lots of ovulation twinges today so I think we got it pretty much spot on. Now we just need to wait and see.
We're going to test on 17th November which is three weeks away - if my period hasn't arrived by then of course. Fingers crossed!
It's been a bit bizarre, having to get used to it all again. I definitely found it all a bit more 'icky' than I used to, which has surprised me. Being bisexual and having had relationships with men in the past sperm definitely doesn't have the same negative implications for me that it does for P. I'm kind of used to being the hardened one that deals well with the spermy parts of the process, but this time I definitely felt a little odd this time. The worst thing I think was the 'dribble'. I think that has to be one of the low-lights. We have to make sure we've got a towel under the bum of whichever of us is being inseminated when we do the insemination because there always seems to be a little leakage, which is fair enough I guess, but it's a strange sensation when these days its so outside the real of normal experiences.
Smelling faintly of 'boy' when going to the loo for the 12 hours or so after the deed is done is really quite odd as well. |
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