I thought the world would be kind to me

I'm probably wallowing in my own self-pity here and I'd be the first to admit that I have been feeling especially sorry for myself lately. But I thought the world might feel sorry for me too. I've been through a terrible time. I can't have possibly been bad enough in my life to deserve to lose two precious babies and go through a horrific operation, so I would hope that most people would acknowledge that the blow I have been dealt is cruel and unfair. So why are people adding to it? I've posted about my toxic friend, but I am in the process of trying to get back to work to regain some sense of normality over my life and my boss is throwing obstacles up at every turn. He fakes concern about me but the truth is he doesn't want to pay me to come back for just a few days before Christmas and it's inconvenient for him as he's given my desk away to a new girl (so who knows what has happened to all my stuff amalgamated over the 6 years I have sat at that desk?) without so much as an email or phone call in my direction. And then, I have just had an email from Mr W's cousin. So far she has avoided all communication with us. No flowers, no card, no text message. And then I get an email entitled 'Hi there!'. Now that put me on the bad foot straight away. I'm not cheery, this is not a chatty email asking what I've been up to over the last few weeks, this is an email where she is going to discuss the death of my two precious babies and she starts with 'Hi there!'??? She gives no reason as to why the email is 2 weeks late, even though her mother (Mr W's auntie) sent a lovely card 10 days ago. And then after a brief 'Sorry to hear your bad news' she proceeds to tell me all about how precious her newborn son is (born over a month ago so I guess that could explain why she hasn't been in touch but then can't either new parent text anyone when you have a newborn?? They were quick enough to do so to announce their good news from my recollection). Mr W can't understand why I'm upset. 'They got in touch eventually' he said, and he can't see the poor taste of gloating about her baby boy in front of a woman who has lost two. 'If I had lost a leg,' I say to Mr W, 'would you not think that an email to me boasting about how she has two legs would be in bad taste?'. So now he's upstairs in his office thinking I have totally lost it and I am down in the living room writing this. To the only people that will understand. Because it seems that the world is a cruel place and I had better get used to it quickly.

Now that I have got over my angst, I do want to add that I have also been touched to the bottom of my heart by the kindness of others. My friend that hand-knitted me a hot water bottle cover. The girl I know through an internet support site for women with problems conceiving that sent me beautiful flowers having never met me. The work colleague that sat talking to Mr W for ages and offering him hope that we would one day get the child of our dreams. My best friend who has, without fail, text me everyday to see how I am and made a near 5 hour round trip to see me for a few hours. The local friend who brought groceries round to cook us a healthy & wonderful meal. The childhood friend from school whom I haven't seen for a year that rang me as soon as she heard the news. So the world has been kind to me in unforeseen ways, as it has also been cruel. I guess this is what they mean by really evaluating who your friends are. In my 29 years on this earth I have never been forced to make this evaluation. Friends have dropped out of my life based on circumstance or situation. But I feel now I have to somehow take charge and concentrate my time and effort on the people who have shown how much they really think of me. Because without these touches of kindness, I don't think I could have survived the last two weeks. The touches are healing, warm, rejuvenating, restoring. And for every toxic and poisonous sting of venom, I have received ten fold more kind and healing touches. So I have a lot to be thankful for. And I need to shake this self-pity because the world is kinder to me than I give it credit for.

Thank you for reading

Will I always hate Mondays?

Monday was the day I lost my babies. I am already dreading tomorrow. I know I will be sad. I know I will cry. I know I will think back to a lifetime ago (just 2 weeks and a day in real time) when I was still full of the joys of a very precious pregnancy. How can my life have changed so much in a matter of a few short hours? And the night before I lost my babies I was eating curry. Now if I even see curry advertised on the TV I have to turn over. Seeing the takeaway menu from our favourite Indian restaurant made me cry and removing it from the fridge and shredding it didn't seem to stop the tears. I have been changed and I fear the change is forever. I used to love Mondays as they were full of promise for the week ahead (Tuesdays were the day I usually disliked instead as then the week had already had its tone set and it was often the same as the week before) and I used to love curry. But it's not just those superficial things. I feel changed inside. I feel like I will never be truly happy again. I feel my life will always be clouded by what could have been. I dreamt about my babies last night. My beautiful twins that would have looked just like their daddy. My babies that would have been the most cherished children that ever lived. I dreamt about them as babies, putting them to bed in their cots. I dreamt about them as young children, riding their bikes and playing in the park. But those experiences of pure pleasure will always remain in my dreams. The future of my babies was stolen from them and from me. And I don't understand why God chose to take them so soon. And I don't know if I will ever be able to like Mondays or curry again.

Toxic Friends

I've just been reading an article in a magazine about how to rid yourself of toxic friends and make a new start next year. If only it was that simple. I can easily identify my 'toxic friend'. After my double ectopic pregnancy she sent me an email saying 'Well, you've had an eventful week. You don't do things by halves do you?' and then continued to tell me all about her and her week where she was singing in a local choir concert which I would have loved had I bothered to buy tickets. The fact that I was in hospital after an emergency operation seemed to have slipped her mind at this point. This is probably the hardest thing in my life that I have ever been through and to have people making me feel like a drama queen is not what I need at all. This friend is so self-centred I don't even think she was being deliberately cruel, just what is going on in her life is so much more important than what is happening in mine.

But how do you rid yourself of these friends? She's getting married next year and Mr W is an usher, we have a lot of mutual friends too which means I can hardly cut her out of my life. I just don't want her to contact me anymore. I don't want her toxic remarks that just make me feel even worse at a time when I already feel I am just barely stopping myself from breaking into a hundred thousand pieces. I am fragile and I need cotton wool to surround me not razor sharp needles. My close friend tells me I have to let it go. I have to stop caring about her and what she thinks. I know I still have to see her in group situations, but I don't want her to call or email or offer her 'support'. She even told a mutual friend of ours that my operation wasn't that bad because the worst part about a laparoscopy was the gas they pump into you (may I add that this toxic friend is a doctor). Firstly, this wasn't just an operation. I lost two babies. She's a woman and a woman that wants children as she has vocally expressed in the past. So how can she not understand that I wouldn't give a sh*t about gas?! The worst part about my operation was the emptiness that I still have in my heart. The hole in my life that my two babies, although only days old, have left. Even without that aching, burning grief that shows no signs of healing along with my poor body, my operation was actually a laparotomy. So I was cut from one side of my groin to the other. Two weeks later and I have only just stopped bleeding. I only have one Fallopian tube left which is badly scarred and a 20% chance of another ectopic pregnancy, which makes both Mr W and I petrified to try again. As a doctor, I expected understanding; as a friend, empathy. I got neither. And can a friendship ever recover from such a betrayal? Her fiance called Mr W to offer his condolences. He shared with him hope for the future from a medical perspective (he's also a doctor) and Mr W actually felt much better after speaking to him. But my friend is apparently 'waiting for my call' which she will be waiting for a long, long time yet.

To my Babies

They lived
It was us who gave life to them
We started to love them
Unconditionally.

They knew
They would look like their Daddy
And he would teach them
How to be good.

They grew
But it was too soon
I couldn't protect them
My little ones.

Ectopic
Is what they called you
But you're my angels
One day I'll meet.

I know
You'll look just like your Daddy
God takes good care of you
As I never could.

We know
We will never forget you
You were our babies
Taken too soon.

Two Precious Angels

I wake up in the recovery room and Dr Mumble is there. He is explaning that my right tube was too damaged to save and he is also saying that there was another ectopic pregnancy in my left tube. They had to remove it but they put the tube back together as best they could. He was asking if I understood what he was saying. The nurse told him I was too drowsy and he would need to speak to me again. But I understood. There were two babies. Two angels. Twins that I could not keep safe. Twins that God had wanted so much he took them before they had even really begun to grow. My precious babies that were too good for this cruel world of ours.

It's a week since my operation and physically I am healing day by day. But my heart feels like it will never be mended. I feel that I will always have this emptiness inside. That I will never truly feel whole. Mr W and I went to the hospital chapel the day after the operation and we said some prayers and hung a bauble on their christmas tree with our own little prayer attached. We thanked God for the strength he had given us to get through that terrible day and we asked that he take good care of our precious angels that we never got to meet. Because I know that everything is decided about you from the moment you are conceived. Your hair colour, your eye colour, your height, all those physical characteristics are determined in that one moment. God knows what you are going to look like. You may be a fetus to the medical world, but to him you are a child created in his image. And I know my babies would have looked just like their Daddy. And I know we would have loved them so very, very much. And it hurts that I never got the chance to see them and that I never got to hold them and tell them how much they were loved. My friend says that they are my guardian angels. That they were sent to show me that I can get pregnant, that there is hope for me and that one day I will hold that precious child in my arms. And that just makes them all the more special.

So at this moment, the dream of being a mummy still remains unfulfilled. Because of scarring in my left tube I have a 20% chance of another ectopic and I will be monitored closely if we do fall pregnant again naturally. Or there is IVF. I know I will try again. I know I will find the strength to pick myself up and move onto the next step of the journey. Because life does not kill the dream you dreamed, not while you still have hope. Mr W says he knows we will be parents. He feels it in his heart. But all I feel is emptiness and the absence in my life of the two beautiful babies we should have been welcoming into our lives this summer. The preparations are on hold, the names remain unused, and my heart stays broken.

The best of times, the worst of times

I have been away again for a while and a lot has happened. I will try and recreate for you all the original feelings as best I can. It will be hard as they are now tainted by what was to follow ...

On the morning of the 20th November I wake up and go to the bathroom and pee into a plastic cup. I come back and hand said cup to Mr W. Oh the romance of it! He wanted me to take a test as we were going away for the weekend, but I was not convinced it would be anything different than the normal bright white window staring back at me. So I said he could do it. I got back into bed and shut my eyes as he opened the test packet and proceeded to dip it in the cup, carefully timing all the while. He put the lid back on the test and waited. The 3 minutes up I heard him rustling around with the instructions. What was he doing? He'd seen a negative test before! 'It's negative right?' I said opening my eyes and his face turned to me and said the words I will never forget 'I think it's positive'. I jumped out of bed and snatched the test out of his hands. There was that second pink line that I really had started to think was just the stuff of dreams. The clomid had worked! We were pregnant! I went to the doctor the following Tuesday convinced she would tell me it was all a mirage, but she did another test (despite me taking mine with me!) and it was positive again! 5 1/2 weeks pregnant with a due date of 25th July. We were so excited. I can't even begin to describe the joy we felt. We made plans, we discussed names, I know it was early but we were both convinced that after nearly 2 years of hell this was our time and we were determined to grab hold of the dream and not let it go. We were ready for this, we had been ready for a long time. It seemed so natural that this was happening and that in a few weeks we would be telling our families over Christmas dinner. Those few days really were the best of times.

But it was not to last. The best of times were soon to turn into the worst of times. On Saturday 28th November I started to feel a lot of abdominal pain. I was eating Rennie tablets like they were going out of fashion thinking it was trapped wind. I was sore and bloated and it hurt to stand up and sit down. Somewhere in the pit of my stomach I knew something was wrong. Sunday came and my Mum begged me to go to the doctor. My back and shoulders hurt and when I cried because I was scared I was losing the baby, my whole body was wracked with pain. I knew this wasn't right. We went to our out of hours doctor at the local hospital who asked if I suspected an ectopic pregnancy. He took a test to prove that I was still pregnant and it was positive which gave me hope. Because I was in pain all over my tummy and it was all tender, he also suggested that it might be appendicitis which would involve an operation that could be harmful for the baby. I still hoped and prayed it was the latter and that little Bubba W was a fighter. I was taken to the ward while Mr W was sent home to collect a few things for me. I bled a little in the night and felt sure I was losing our precious baby but the nurses seemed more optimistic. I had a urine infection, they explained, and there was not a lot of blood. I was told to keep thinking positively.

Monday 30th November. Ten days after our positive pregnancy test. Two days before my 29th birthday. And officially recorded in my history book as the worst day of my life. The rollercoaster started in the morning with the doctor offering me hope. It was good that I had only bled once and it was not continuous. The pain had started to subside and she was sending me for a scan. I went down with a nurse from the Early Pregnancy Unit and another lady who was 8 weeks pregnant. She had also been bleeding. Her scan was first and it was good news. The baby was growing and she was happy. She went back to the ward pretty quickly and I felt sure it would be good news for me too. I went into the ultrasound room and it was the same lady who had diagnosed the cysts on my ovaries last time. She didn't recognise me. She moved the instrument around the bottom of my tummy and just kept moving it and moving it. I knew then it was bad news. Surely she would know where the baby was? She would be able to see it, just like with the lady before me. She then had to use the transvaginal probe camera which I managed to escape last time. But I didn't care. I just felt totally numb. She told me then that it was looking like an ectopic pregnancy on my right-hand side that had ruptured. There was a sac inside my womb mirroring the pregnancy but it was full of blood and my womb was also filled with blood and fluid. There was a layer of blood around my tubes which indicated the pregnancy had ruptured after becoming too big for the tube. And then she left me outside in the corridor to speak to the nurse. And it was there I sobbed. I sobbed because my heart was breaking into a million tiny pieces and there was nothing I could do to stop it. I sobbed because this world is a cruel, cruel place. I sobbed because no medical miracle could save my precious baby, he was doomed before his life even really began. I sobbed without control. I didn't care where I was or who saw me. I didn't care that all the pregnant ladies with their beautiful bumps coming for their routine scans were looking at me, staring at me, feeling pity for me. The nurse called me into her office but I didn't really hear what she said. She mentioned surgery and she had paged the doctor. She then took me back outside to wait for a porter to bring a wheelchair to take me back to the ward. I protested that I would walk, I knew Mr W was waiting for me, and the pregnant women in the waiting room were too much to bear, but she wouldn't hear of it so I stood in the corridor with fresh tears rolling down my face. The porter came and we went back to the ward in silence.

When I got to my bed, Mr W was there. He knew by my face it was bad news and we sat and cried and cried while someone pulled the curtains around us. But there was little time for grief at that moment. Within 20 minutes I was surrounded by nurses and two doctors and a bed showed up with a porter ready to take me to theatre. Nurses were undressing me and putting surgical socks on me and tying one of those horrible gowns that always seems to leave your arse on show. The original doctor who saw me, the registrar we nicknamed Dr Mumble, gave me some consent forms to sign and went on in his mumbling tones about the risks of bladder and bowel infections and a whole list of other potential effects of the surgery I was about to have that I didn't understand. I signed it and was helped onto the bed. In a whirlwind I left the ward with Mr W alongside the bed. When we reached the theatre doors and he was told he could go no further, he kissed me and said everything would be alright. It was only when I turned to see him for one last time and I saw his face drained to grey and his eyes filled with worry that I knew maybe it wouldn't be ok. Once inside the theatre, another consultant read out the surgery I was about to have and the jokey assistant said 'Did you get that? It's blah de blah de blah'. 'That's what I heard' I joked as the anaesthetist suddenly popped into my eyeline. He explained that because I had eaten they would have to put pressure on my throat to stop me from throwing up into my lungs when the anaesthetic was administered. I remember thinking I would not like that at all as I hate any pressure on my throat and have thrown up at the dentist when they have applied too much pressure or gone too far into the back of my mouth. However, the assistant put two fingers on my throat and warned he would have to press harder when I was going off to sleep and that was the last thing I remember ...

Funerals, Births, & Bumps

Well, I have been away for a while and I do have good reason. Mr W's uncle died suddenly in Ireland so we went back to help organise the funeral and the two day wake in true Irish tradition. I will never understand why the mourning family have to make tea, sandwiches, and cake for around 500 people at the height of their grief but it seems to be a tradition that the Irish hold onto.

So I was trying to be a good wife and support Mr W through his grief and also shed a few tears myself for a much loved Uncle-in-Law I will sadly miss. But I was distracted by the inevitable bumps and babies that seem to follow me around. Friends of ours had seen the recent newborn in Ireland which Mr W and I have not had the strength to see ourselves yet and of course there were the inevitable photos which I had to force myself to ooh and ahh over. I know I probably sound like a heartless b*tch (and believe me I feel like one) but I just can't get over the pang I feel when I want that to be me so much that it clouds everything else. It clouds happiness for them, it clouds grief for a lost loved one, it clouds every worry or every feeling I have. This must be what they mean by an obsession.

To add to this, there were two cousins of Mr W noticeably pregnant at the funeral with their lovely pregnant glow and their beautiful bumps. Again the green-eyed monster took me away from my surroundings and all I could do was focus on them and the horrible feelings of envy I had inside. We also had another birth while we were there which is another new born we will have to see on our next visit. I'm at the stage now where I don't think I can even bring myself to buy the card so Mr W has offered to do it. Just the thought of picking it up and writing my congratulations in it makes me want to curl up in a ball and sob my heart out.

Has it really come to this? Have I lost all my compassion and joy for other people in a horrible jealous frenzy of wanting what it seems is still out of my reach, while those around me enjoy it with seemingly little effort. I feel like I'm ready to give up but I can never truly get off this rollercoaster of my own accord. I feel sick, but it's almost time to start the ride again as I feel sure my monthly visitor is just around the corner.

Sex Education in Schools

Ok this is a little off the general topic of things but I have just been listening to a programme on the radio about sex education in schools and a local school near me is going to start sex education for children at primary school in Year 6. I think this makes them about 10/11 years old which I think is too young. I believe children have a natural innocence that they grow out of when they are ready. You can't force that. Of course, girls of a certain age need the chat about what is happening to their body. Maybe I am lucky in the fact that chat came from my Mum but I am sure a school nurse or teacher would do a great job too. But that's not about sex, that's about the changes happening to a girl's body to prepare her for future motherhood (hopefully). I clearly remember the day I learnt about the sexual difference between boys and girls. I was in our family bathroom which had never had a lock on it. We used to walk in and out with no bother as children so it had never been needed. The shower screen was glass and I was 12 years old and starting to develop. My brother, 15 months younger than me, came in to the bathroom with his friends to see if he could borrow my camping mat. I screamed the place down and I still remember my brother's bewilderment at why he couldn't come into the bathroom when I was in there just as he had always done. And a lock got fitted on the door soon after that. It was sad in a way, because I was no longer a 'child'. But I didn't need someone at school to teach me that, I learnt it in my own time.

They say teaching children about sex from a young age will stop teenage pregnancy but I don't agree. Will it stop children like Alfie Patten and his girlfriend Chantelle having sex under her parent's roof? Not at all. The fact that a 14 year old girl had sex with at least two boys in her childhood bed with her parents in the house would not be solved by better sex education in schools. She, and I believe her parents, knew exactly what they were doing. I don't know how to solve a problem like that, but it's not going to be done by robbing other children of their innocence before they're ready.

I'm NOT Symptom Spotting!

Why do we do it? Month after month of the same behaviour as soon as we hit the 2ww. Everytime I promise myself I won't do it and every month I do. This month is worse because I feel the clomid has done something in the ovarian region, judging by the pain there, so all signs point towards ovulating (yay!) and with all the baby-dancing, if we didn't catch it I don't know how I can possibly step it up next month. Apart from maybe cancelling work and all social activities and just having sex all day every day!! I don't think Mr W & I have had this much sex since we got together 6 years ago. I had gone off the boil somewhat of late with ttc sex but it seems that Sergeant Major Clomid has me back on that gravy train with avengeance! But despite my renewed enthusiasm, it's left me back where I always seem to be: spotting symptoms in the 2ww and desperately trying not to.

According to the holy grail that is EWCM, I would have ovulated Thursday or Friday last week. Which would make me 7dpo today and too early for any symptoms I'm sure. But this is what I have:

Sore throat but no cold for the past 3-4 days (I'm just fighting a bug off)

Very tired (again fighting that bug and the clomid still in my system)

Sore nipples & sides of breasts (again, the clomid, who knows what it's done to the normal cycle of things?)

Felt a bit nauseous this morning (I am totally imagining that and I do it every month! I think I make myself feel sick just to keep the hope alive)

Terrible skin (again, I think this is the clomid. Or AF arriving earlier than her usual 35 day show?)

Slightly elevated temperature (when has it not been elevated during this month's clomid-induced heat wave going on in my body?)

All this, and I still have another week to go. Oh, and on the theme of weird dreams, I dreamt last night that I checked my nipples to see if they'd turned darker (as we all do I'm sure!) and they were almost black! I don't know what that means but I checked when I woke up and they are still a normal colour. The 'bumps' are the same as normal and nothing in that department has changed colour or got bigger. I think the other symptoms might be all in my head.

21 Day Bloods

Today I am sporting the latest in TTC fashion, a little white cotton ball held in place by tape in the crook of my right arm. I also know I have the start of a bruise underneath as I can feel the ache. It's the evidence of my 21 day progesterone blood test to see if Sergeant Major Clomid is doing his job properly. My first 21 day bloods resulted in bad bruising on both arms as the poor phlebotomist struggled to find a decent vein, and yet my arms seem to be covered in them! But this time was relatively less painful so now I have to just sit and wait for the results. I will be the first to admit that I hate to fail at anything. I have always been a swot and a straight A student and actually cried my heart out over one exam at school that didn't go so well in case (heaven forbid!) I got a B. At university I wasn't happy with anything but a First Class degree, and that is what I got through a lot of hard work and the added gift of being good at exams. But this is something I can fail, this is something that no matter how hard I have worked and how much I have done, it is truly out of my control. I can have all the acupuncture, take all the vitamins, follow the best PCOS diet, have all the sex humanly possible in all the best positions, and there is still no guarantee that I will pass my 21 day blood test. And for someone like me that seems so hard to come to terms with. This is out of my hands. My doctor, my acupuncturist, keep telling me I am doing all I can but how can that be good enough when I haven't succeeded? I have read a lot about clomid making you ovulate later than CD21 so I am not going to give up on the baby-dancing as I AM determined to do all I can. And then I just have to add to that a bit of hoping & praying that this time, for lucky cycle 21, it's finally enough.

Zita West's Visualisation

I am trying something different this month for lucky month 21. I am trying Zita West's visualisation technique. Well, I don't know if she patented it but it was in her book so I am going to call it hers. It involves visualising what is happening at each stage of the baby-making process. So it goes something like this:

Pre-ovulation: Imagine that follicle growing
Ovulation: Picture that fabulously matured egg starting its fallopian journey
After baby-dancing: Cheer on those sperm swimming their way through your uterus
Post-ovulation: Picture the sperm sweet-talking the egg & see one get lucky
Implantation: Watch the fertilised egg cling on to the uterus lining & burrow

When you break it down like that it doesn't seem so hard to believe that we haven't conceived after nearly 2 years. Firstly, I don't seem to be doing so well at releasing the mature eggs and secondly, my uterus lining is thinner than 'normal'. So even if my poor egg gets fertilised, I can imagine it trying to cling onto a rope made of fine thread before it plunges into the abyss. Plus, all it needs is some killer acidic cervical mucus to stop all the sperm dead in their tracks. And some months I just know my cervical mucus is as much of a turn off to them as my call to 'just hurry up & ejaculate' is to Mr W.

But for this month I am putting all that cynicism aside. The visualisation technique isn't scientific and I'm sure few people would say it would have any influence on the outcome. But I'm willing to try anything.

My Pledge to Infertility

Perhaps this post should come with a warning as I'm going to be honest, brutal even, and some people may not like what they read. You have been warned!

If God does decides to bless me with a child of my own then I owe it to all the other ladies suffering along with me to make this pledge:

1. I will NOT use the photo of my first u/s as my profile on Facebook. Controversial maybe but the amount of people that have floored me with that as their way of announcing their pregnancy and the tears that follow will never be forgotten

2. Similarly, I will NOT use my status updates to regularly remind all those ladies I am friends with who are not pregnant just what they are missing out on. Like me at this current time, I am sure they know all too well

3. I will NEVER tell anyone they will never understand unconditional love until they are a mother. We all have family, friends, pets that we can love unconditionally. I already understand what that means

4. I will NEVER ask anyone 'So, what about children?' or 'So when will you be having babies?' or any of those intrusive questions that are really none of my god damn business. Similarly, I will NEVER refer to the biological clock. That must have been a man's invention

5. I will NEVER ask any woman if she wants to stroke my tummy and I will instruct Mr W NOT to tell people I am the most beautiful pregnant woman he has seen. Both have happened to me recently and I walked away both times to hide my tears. Said people involved probably now view me as some hideous monster

6. I will NEVER tell anyone to 'just relax and it will happen'. I promise not to forget how infuriating those words are

7. I will ALWAYS look at women suffering infertility with the utmost admiration and respect. How we get up every morning and carry on with this cloud hanging over us all of the time truly astounds and amazes me

8. If I see a woman looking at me & my baby with longing, I will REMEMBER what that felt like. I promise NOT to look at her like she's a circus freak. 'Roll up, roll up and come look at the woman with the non-functioning ovaries'. In a similar vein, I will NEVER judge anyone I see buying baby clothes with tears in their eyes

9. I will be grateful every day for what I have. I will NEVER moan about sleepless nights or feeds or nappies or mood swings when they reach puberty. My child will always be the most precious gift to me

10. Although I will always feel the statement above, I promise NOT to include those sentiments in similar Facebook status updates. I don't need to shout my joy from the rooftops for people to know it is there

Finally I also pledge that I will not hide away from the journey I have taken. I will not be ashamed to tell the world about the cycles of frustration and disappointment.

And I hope with all my heart that I get to fulfil my pledge and that my current infertility is a stage in my life and not its definition.

Sergeant Major Clomid

I don't feel I can go any further without telling you a little bit about clomid & it's impact on my life. I as yet cannot tell you if it's the wonder drug that you seem to read about but it certainly seems to be running my life at the moment.

Side effect no 1: the headaches. I don't suffer from migraines so I can only assume what I get is pretty mild but they feel like someone has your head in a vice at your temples & they are continually squeezing it a little tighter. They seem to start around 10 or 11 a.m. & not go away all day regardless of what you take to get rid of them.

Side effect no 2: hot flashes. These can come without warning & leave you with your make-up sliding down your face a la me in House of Fraser last weekend. Not pretty at all. If I looked a bit older people would think I am going through the menopause. It's not that you are sweating a lot as such, just that you are so unbelievably hot that even if you took all your clothes off & bathed in ice you would still feel like you were boiling inside.

Side effect no 3: bloating. I am actually trying to put these in a vague order of how prominent they are & how much they effect my life but I think this would be joint second with the hot flashes. The headaches are the worst simply because they seem to happen every day! The bloating is awful though & there are times (thankfully mostly in the evening when I'm at home in my elasticated jogging bottoms) when I look about 5 months pregnant. There is pain too, low down where your ovaries are. Kind of like an ache or a stretching pain. I convince myself it means they are waking up from their temporary hibernation! Sergeant Clomid is rounding the eggs up for duty!

Side effect no 4: the moods. I have always been subject to a hormonal mood swing now and again (haven't we all girlies?!) but this is on a whole new scale & you can't contain it. I shouted at my brother-in-law for watching the X Factor when I don't like it & proceeded to rant about it for about 10 minutes even after he'd changed the channel! I can take any little comment the wrong way & I have never been a sensitive soul. I asked Mr W to list the clomid side effects from his point of view & he put this as no 1! Although he termed it as 'it makes you agitated'. Doesn't it just!!

Side effect no 5: crazy dreams & interrupted sleep. One of my work colleagues is pregnant & she comes in & tells us about the crazy dreams she has had. She doesn't have a patch on me, although I try not to share too much as no one at work knows we are ttc & crazy hormonal dreams might alert them that something is going on. Honestly, they can be some really weird sh*t. I've chased a giant sandwich (not sure why), ridden on the back of a dragon, been pregnant with various different creatures (none of whom human), and so on. None of them are particularly disturbing at the time but I wake up feeling just as tired as when I went to bed. And I have to pee at least once in the night, usually about 4 a.m. which is unusual for me. It might have something to do with the glass of water I gulp around 1 a.m. when I wake up so hot my blood must be boiling. And I have to fight not to go to bed at 9 p.m. on a Saturday night. What social life?!

My advice to those ladies about to start clomid? Drink plenty of water. I used to drink my 2 litres per day but I have upped it to 3 or even 4 & it has helped me to feel better. The more water I drink, the more the side effects seem to subside. Also, have acupuncture. It's been a god send to me & I don't know how I would have coped with everyday life without it. And find someone to talk to. Even if it's on a chat forum, or it's your acupunturist, or someone not that close to you. You'll feel like someone has pulled the rug out from under you & you can't underestimate the power of someone asking you how you are doing & really being able to answer truthfully. And most of all, I wish you all the luck in the world & hope that all of us will be adding to the clomid success statistics very soon.

My TTC Journey So Far

As I am starting this blog already quite far into the TTC journey I thought I should provide you with an update of where I am &how I got here. We first started ttc in March 2008 on our fabulous honeymoon. Now like most girls I was always taught that it only takes one 'little slip' without contraception to get you good & pregnant so I was convinced the first time Mr W & I got jiggy with it was enough. I felt I had all the pregnancy symptoms under the sun. I was definitely pregnant. My period didn't arrive so off I went to the doctor for a pregnancy test. It was negative & she told me there was little chance I was pregnant. 'Go away and come back in 6 months if you still haven't had a period' was her reply. I was upset, but not distraught, I'd get it next time. And then the next time. And then the next time. Then there was a breakthrough when at the end of May 2008 my period was late & an afternoon test showed a positive blue line! Yippee!! I couldn't stop smiling. The line was faint so Mr W told me to take another one the next morning, which, as you may have guessed, was a BFN. Then my period started. The doc's weren't too concerned, probably just an evap line rather than a chemical pregnancy as I couldn't remember if I'd checked it in the 3-10 minute window (in future tests I always set a timer to avoid this). But to me that baby had been real, if only for a few days. I was gutted & as the months went on I started to sink into despair. People around me got pregnant at the drop of a hat it seemed & I started to see bumps and babies everywhere.

In January of 2009 I realised I had wasted one of the most precious gifts that life can give you: the first year of married life. I had been an emotional mess & even sought counselling. So I decided to turn over a new leaf & stop obsessing about ttc every moment of every day. By July 2009 though Mr W & I both decided enough was enough & we made an appointment with the doctor. 21 day blood tests revealed I had PCOS & it was confirmed by a ultrasound scan of my bulky, good-for-nothing ovaries. The one slight up side was I managed to fill my bladder perfectly for my scan so I didn't have to have it 'trans-vaginally'! Those very words on the letter filled me with absolute dread! They were accompanied by the lovely explanation from the NHS: 'You will be having an ultrasound scan just like an expectant mother would have of her baby'! Thanks for the tact guys, I needed reminding that the first u/s scan I'm having is not for the baby I desperately want but to see what's wrong with my stupid body & why it can't do what should be perfectly natural! So armed with my PCOS diagnosis I went to my GP who asked me if I wanted to try metformin first or skip straight to the hard stuff - the famous clomid I had heard so much about on the internet. I opted for the hard stuff. Cycle 1 was a dead loss as my period didn't arrive on time much to my annoyance (again allowing myself that little bit of hope to creep in & having to face two BFNs to knock me back down to earth); but I'm now on Cycle 2 & took the clomid on the right days. Soooooo, I'm CD19 now & technically just starting the 2ww. Who knows if Sergeant Major Clomid whipped at least one ovary into shape in time to fulfill their part of the deal? I can but hope and pray, which is pretty much what I've done for the last 21 cycles. So I should be getting good at it ...

My Introduction....

I have been following lots of different blogs across the internet lately and it got me thinking that maybe it would be therapeutic for me to start my own. My biggest hope is that my ttc journey will be at an end very, very soon but, like a truly greedy individual, I am sure I will still want more. More children definitely, although after the heartache of the last twenty-odd months I really do feel I mean it at the moment when I say I'd be happy with one. I have a Daruma figure at home from my time spent in Japan and you are meant to make a wish and colour in one eye. When your wish comes true then you can colour the other eye in. I left Japan over 6 years ago and when I did I coloured in the eye and I made my wish. Now I am usually a firm believer in not sharing wishes in case it jinxes them to not come true, but I hope my superstition won't get the better of me if I share my wish with you. I wished for Mr W and I to live happily ever after and I wished for children. Now, I didn't actually know Mr W at this stage so it was more of a generic wish but at the tender age of just 23 I knew I wanted my family. I have known I have wanted my family from a much younger age than that, but time and experience have made me realise that it's not as easy as it seemed back then. So after nearly 2 years of ttc and many, many months of heartache my Daruma doll sits in my spare room, that would be the nursery, mocking me with its one eye. Half the wish is complete, I have a fabulous husband and I really do feel I have met my soulmate, but we don't have our family. Some days I feel like I am asking for too much. Those same days where I beg and plead with God to just let me have one baby and I'll stop asking for anything ever again. It makes me sadder than I ever thought possible to write that I really don't feel I will ever be happy if my wish isn't granted.

I have spent a lot of time this year thinking about why I want to be a mother. Discovering that it is not a God given right but a blessing have led me to justify why I deserve to be. I'm no saint but I think I would give a child a good start by teaching them how to treat others as they would like to be treated. I would love teaching them about the world and sharing all their new experiences. I know this as I do part of it already with my nieces and nephews. But I have to hand them back, I don't get to share everything with them, and they already have a mother and a father. I have thought about adoption, as I know I don't need a biological child to do all the things I have said; but I want a biological child. I want a child that shares Mr W's genes more than my own. I want a child that has his eyes, his smile, and I want him to look at his child and see himself. And I can't justify that. I can't say I deserve that child. But it doesn't make me want them any less. And selfishly I ask for that child every day. I ask for them before I pray for anyone else, and I make a deal that if my prayer is answered I will never ask for anything ever again.