Current mood:

happy

fertility, fear and delivery
Well, after weeks of waiting both me and the fertility nurse at the hospital decided it was time to help nature along so she sent me out a prescription for drugs to trigger another period. I'm just recovering from several days of pain killing drug-induced haze, but at least a new cycle has now begun. I'm going to have first scan next Wednesday, and probably another two the week after that. Our next appointemtnwith the lovely specialist is the following week, so it's not long to wait now before we'll have an answer to whether or not I'm going to get fertility drugs.

This is a far cry to where I was a year ago, adamently refusing medical assistance and going the natural way. Part of me feels a little sad that I didn't stick to my ideals in that regard, but ultimately, after what we've been through with my body in the last year, I think I'm justified in wanting some more concrete answers and some additinal support, even if it doesn't fit entirely with my hippy-like ideals.

I was talking to a colleague the other day, one that I'd consider a friend too, and I told her what was going on. It struck me then that if I do get treatment and it works, I could actually be pregnant in a few months time. I've had similar thoughts before - they're around all the time when we're actually trying, but for some reason this felt different. There was a hint of fear in it, and that's new. The only time I've had a taste of something similar is on the few occassions when, for whatever reason, we've genuinely thought we were pregnant. At those times, there always seemed to be an singular moment for which the only words that can be used to accurately describe it are 'Oh fuck.' It's the moment when all the hope, effort, sweat and tears clarifies into one crystalised certainty that we are having a baby. The dreams become reality, fantasy is fantasy no more, and suddenly the weight what has been done lands squarely on our shoulders. It's not a negative thing, but it is a moment of slight panic I think. It's a point of transistion, and I find it really interesting that I now have it all the time when I think about the possibility of being pregnant in the not so distant future. I know I'm not fearful about pregnancy or labour, as I know P can be sometimes. I suppose, having been through it, there might be some element of fear about miscarriage, which is justified. Or maybe it's just because it's taken us so long already that the slight hint of new hope on the horizon contrasts so strongly with the somewhat downtrodden sense of the inevitability of failure that I've grown accustomed to.

In other news, all the reading, online searching and researching I've done over the last few years is finally beginning to give dividends in other areas. I've been studying in elements of holistic health for several years now, with a vague and in no way defined plan to do a career switch at some point in the future. n the last month or so I begain revisiting the idea of using both my alternative therapy skills and my knowledge of women's health, fertility and pregnancy by training to become a doula. The idea has progressed quickly, and in almost no time at all I've found myself enrolled on a doula course starting at the end of September, and booked to attend my first birth as a trainee a few weeks beforehand. It's all amazingly exciting, and it feels as though many of the strands I've been following seperately over the years are magically coming together into this one direction. There's also a sense of completion to it too, even though it's early days. The woman whose birth I'll be attending in September is due three days before I would have been due if I hadn't miscarried in January. There's a sense of everything coming full circle with it. I clearly wasn't meant to carry that child but the experience, and all the experiences that lead to it have brought me to a place where I will be participating in a labour at the same time, but from a very different position. It feels right, in a well, right kind of way.

So there's exciting stuff going on, in a number of areas. Several people in my life are expecting the imminent arrival of babies in their lives, and I feel nothing but excitement and joy for them. I really do feel as though everything is right in the world for me at the moment, and there's no pressure for us to conceive in the near future, even though the fertility folk at the hospital might be able to make that happen. Maybe that's what the fear is about. It's not something we feel a desperate need for at the moment, so it's slightly more daunting than it was when it was something we wanted so desperately that any risks or potential problems were swept so quickly aside. It's probably a much more healthy approach actually.