4 Weeks to Go - Minutiae

It has been a pretty good week, though I still have swollen glands and a barking cough – I have been to the doctor and she has given me some anti biotics so hopefully that will knock it on the head soon.  Other than that, I am still feeling very ready for the cycle and getting really excited now.  We have an embryo that is the exact quality that JBB was so I am hoping that this

Most of the week, my bestie and I have been consumed with the minutiae of the trip.  We constantly discuss the trip down to the smallest detail and the thing that is making me the most happy is that we have been examining any stressors on the trip and eliminating them one by one.  For example, we have booked a car and driver for us to use on the day of the transfer.  It really is not that far from the hotel but for both transfers last year, I have gotten on the train going the wrong way and have had to get off at the next stop and rush back.  Once I go in for the transfer, my bestie will then take the car and driver and go and shop to her hearts content!!  Another item that has been organised is JBB.  JBB goes to bed at 7pm and as JourneyMan is taking us to the airport we will need to leave at around 7:30pm.  We have been looking for someone to come over to our place and sit in the house while JBB is snoozing there but my Mum wasn’t able to because she can’t really leave my Dad for that long now and JourneyMan’s Mum is working on that night.  I realised that my Mum is minding JBB on the Friday while JourneyMan was at work so asked if JBB could have a sleepover that night, which she of course said yes to – bless her!!  It means that we can get JBB tucked in with Nanna and then head off to the airport.  Gosh, I am going to miss him sooooooo much when I’m away.  We are planning to Skype every day so hopefully it will keep us all happy.

The funny thing about discussing the minutiae of the trip with my bestie is that JourneyMan is very unlike me in this respect.  I told him what we had been discussing and he said he preferred to be in the ‘macronutia’ and that if he was coming the only thing he would be concerned about is plane-hotel-clinic-hotel-plane home.  This I know for sure!!  He has tried to make fun of me saying things like ‘oh, I think that you should have a decaf coffee before you go in for the transfer’ at this place or that place and the funny thing is, we’ve already talked about those things.  I like the planning of a holiday, it serves to make the holiday way more fun in my mind!!

 There was also a day spent discussing JBB’s birthday party.  We are having his 2^nd birthday party at our new house and it is also for my sister (who’s birthday is on the same day as JBB), my sister’s husband and my Aunt.  It is family only (a apart from my bestie who is my family!!) which means that there are around 30 people coming.  I had pretty much done all the menu and a few people were helping out with some dishes but I have found a wholesale party food place who will provide a pack of food and 50 balloons and deliver to us on the morning of the party – sooooo happy!!  One thing that I do want to do for JBB (and also his sister or brother when they come along) is to make them a special birthday cake every year.  Last year because we had the big combined (with my 40^th) birthday party, I made and decorated 90 cupcakes and arranged them into the shape of a big number 1.  This year I am making a train cake which I am sure he is going to totally love!!  I have to admit, I have gone a bit over the top with his birthday presents, I just keep on seeing things that he would love and buying them – he is so spoilt!!

So, the trip is very organised.  Our finances are very healthy and I have also submitted my quarterly tax on time – yayers!!  Once we hit August, it will be all go – there is a lot to organise and do.  I am very excited now and I am still feeling very ready to be pregnant again and to hold a little baby in my arms again.

Ready.....

Now that I have mostly shaken off the illness of the past week or so, I have come to face the undeniable fact that I am now ready.  Ready to go to Thailand, ready for another cycle, ready for another baby.  I have not been this ready since we went to Thailand the first time to have JBB.  

I feel good in my body (I have lost almost 20kg’s / 42lbs), despite not doing any running this past week – I can easily run 5km, so I feel very fit and strong.  My body is now ready for another pregnancy.  I have decided to stop the running from now on because it is really taxing me – I am wanting the next 38 days to be all about, replenishing, nourishing and nurturing my body so that I am 100% ready to go for the transfer.  That doesn’t mean that I am stopping exercise, I am not – I still plan on walking an hour a day, at least 5-6 times per week.  I do need to get back to doing my yoga – that makes me feel very stretched and strong as well.  I will be doing that 5-6 times per week also.

We are now ready in our living situation as well.  We are in a house that has plenty of space for all of us as well as ample to bring another person into our family.  JBB and JourneyDog absolutely love the space to run around in and we have a new bedroom all ready and waiting for a little baby to come and join us!  We haven’t completely set the baby’s room up yet, we just haven’t had a chance to.  I don’t mind though, that space is all there ready for our new little one to arrive.  Previously, we were in a 2 bedroom unit with a small living area and a courtyard, now we are in a 3 bedroom house with a nice living area and a good sized backyard.  We are also in a very family friendly neighbourhood rather than on a main road where we were before..  I know that we would have been able to bring a baby into that unit and it would have been okay but I would much rather have the extra space and the baby to have a room all of their own rather than share.

I am now ready in my mind.  I now feel extremely confident that I can handle a new baby coming into our lives.  That doesn’t mean that I don’t think that there will be times when I am tearing my hair out from exhaustion and frustration – no, I understand that 2 children means double the work, it’s just that I know in my heart that I can handle it now (there were definitely doubts before).  In hindsight, I wasn’t ready in October last year and I still wasn’t in December.  I feel, I was more trying to work to a timeline rather than readying myself for another pregnancy and baby.  I really wanted it all to be ‘over with’ rather than concentrating on accepting another miracle into our lives and building our lives into the kind of family life that we will all enjoy.

I also mainly wanted a sibling for JBB and whilst this has not changed, I also want another baby for myself and JourneyMan.  Previously, I had believed that if I hadn’t wanted a sibling for JBB so badly, I would have moved past IVF altogether and gotten on with our lives.  That’s not true now.  I want to have another baby to relish their differences from JBB, to be pregnant again (and hopefully not worry as much this time), to have a newborn and see them changing every day.  Once my sister had her baby, my heart started to yearn again for a baby in the house.

I don’t necessarily think that this ‘readiness’ is the difference between success and failure of the cycle – who knows why any cycle is a success or a failure?  However, I do feel much better in myself about my own preparedness.  I haven’t been 100% on my plan to do all of my complimentary therapies but I feel that I have done enough.  Enough that if it is negative that I am not going to beat up on myself and blame myself for it.  It will just not be the right time.  Don’t get me wrong, if it is negative, I will be upset and will grieve very much (certainly because it is our last ditch effort for a full blood sibling for JBB) but I am not going to fillet myself with thoughts and words.  I have spent the past 8 months between cycles very well.  I have worked on myself, physically, mentally and emotionally.  We have also changed our living situation considerably, we are all happier.

So, I am ready – what am I going to do with these last 38 days?!??!?!  

Oh yes, packing, cleaning, organising JBB’s 2^nd Birthday, cooking some food for JourneyMan and JBB to have while I am away – oh yeah, still lots to do!!

A Weekend O Shite

The Journey House has not been a happy one over the past few days.  JBB has been sick and so has Journey Man.  JBB has also been getting up at around 4am every morning for the last few months.  We put him back to his room whereupon he cries for around an hour because we then get up at the more ‘civilised’ time of 5am.  In addition to that, he has started to eschew his daily nap.  The result has been one very, very tired and grumpy little boy.

JourneyMan has also been very grumpy because he is sick as well and because he has not been wearing the CPAP machine for the past few nights, I haven’t been getting much sleep either.  On Saturday evening, things took a turn for the worse.  I was cutting up JBB’s dinner when I was doubled over with a pain in my side.  It kept on occurring for awhile and because it was similar to the pain that I had when I had the blood clot in my lung, I was worried.  I called the Nurses on Call, who immediately called the ambulance.  The ambulance people checked me out and said that I needed to go into emergency for further testing so we organised for JourneyMan’s Mum to have JBB for the night and I headed in to the hospital.

An emergency room on a Saturday night when the moon is full is not a particularly fun place to be.  We waited for a long time.  I felt pretty stupid because I didn’t really believe that it was a blood clot but we felt like it had to be ruled out for safety’s sake.  After about 3 hours of waiting, a blood test and a chest xray, I had some raised blood indicators that made them want me to stay in over night and get an MRI scan in the morning.  Until there were the raised indicators, I wasn’t really worried, I thought they would rule it out and then I would go home.

That gave me pause to think about the consequences of it being a clot.  I would have needed to have blood thinning therapy for approximately 12 months which would rule out the cycle in August or really any other cycles for at least a year.  This sent me reeling a bit because we had already determined that we would hopefully (worst case scenario) be finished with cycles by the end of 2013. 

Thankfully, we don’t have to consider the changes that this would have wreaked as the scan on Sunday turned out to be clear.  It turns out that I have some pleurisy in the lungs (Pleurisy is inflammation of the lining of the lungs and chest (the pleura) that leads to chest pain -usually sharp- when you take a breath or cough.) from a viral infection so apart from some pain killers to deal with the pain of it, there is nothing further that can be done.

Hopefully, the Journey house will return to good health and lots of sleeping soon (though I am thinking that we need a good plan for our rascally little JBB).

6 and a half weeks to go!!

Something I can’t get off my mind

I am going to a baby shower in a few weeks and apart from the fact that I am not telling any of my friends (except my bestie who is coming – yayers!) about the cycle in Thailand in August, I don’t mind baby showers now.  They used to hold so many emotions for me, jealousy, hope, wishful thinking, hurt, self pity but now they are a genuine chance to be happy for my friends who are having babies. I am lucky enough to have had my baby shower and I am happy not to have another one (though I still want another baby of course!!).

The friend whose shower it is for is 43 and is pregnant with her boyfriend of a year.  There is no judgement there, I more than anyone else know how loud the biological clock can tick and definitely would have preferred a baby over a wedding any day of the week.  She also has a long history of bad luck with boyfriends and had basically given up any chance of a baby of her own a while ago, so I am very happy indeed at her change in circumstances.

I saw her awhile ago and was really excited to talk to her about the baby.  I was pretty much shut down though (she was about 20 weeks at the time) when she really brushed aside my congratulations.  In my mind, I thought ‘weird’ but tried again.  ‘So how are you feeling, it must be all very exciting?’  Her answer to this was ‘not really, it is all pretty boring’.  She also told me that she didn’t see the point in stopping work early (I wanted to let her know to enjoy those halcyon days when you finish work and the baby hasn’t come yet because there is not much sleep for a while after that) and said that she is working up until the week the baby is due.  Ooooookay, no worries, everyone is different and have there own choices to make, right?

Generally, I consider myself a pretty inclusive person – I really don’t mind what anyone does (as long as they are not hurting anyone else of course) but this burned me and I have been thinking about it for weeks.  Let me recap – she got pregnant at 43 without any trouble that is surely worth a bit of excitement and gratitude!!!  I have felt really affronted by her lack of excitement, or even any real interest.  I know that this is really about me and my journey and probably the fact that I worked so hard for my pregnancy but didn’t really enjoy it because I was so worried, so I know that it’s not her fault, it’s mine.  I didn’t know that something like this would bother me so much but I wanted to shake the pregnant woman and tell her to be excited, dammit.  Not really good behaviour for polite company!!

I hope that there is a little more excitement at the baby shower, either way, I promise there will be no shaking of the pregnant lady.

Great Post O Whinging (read at own risk)

It is a sad fact that I am feeling pretty miserable at the moment.  The weather for one is really getting me down.  I have been getting up at 5am a few times a week to go running and it is very cold and it’s raining so much. This morning, I just couldn’t face getting out of bed and going for a run in the rain again today – yesterday, I was saturated when I got home and I felt cold for the rest of the day.  The building at work is also cold so I am sitting at my desk all day freezing, my bestie and I go for a walk at lunch time and because of the rain, we walk up and down the mulit level car park (so that we don’t get wet) for an hour – it is hardly inspirational scenery., the concrete jungle of a car park.  I am also pretty strictly dieting so that I can lose as much weight as possible before I go to Thailand for the cycle.  Basically I feel like I am in ‘Survivor’, I am cold and hungry (and sometimes battling the elements in physical challenges) most of the time.

To add to my misery this past week, the cramps have come back.  The past few months I have been relatively cramp free – this is a huge improvement from the 3 weeks per month of cramping that I had been having previously but now they are back again and with a vengeance!!  I think probably because I am on the pill it is throwing my hormones out again.  It is exhausting to be in pain all the time, I hope that it won’t be the whole time until I go to Thailand.

I also must say that I am tired of this journey.  Just bone tired.  I was reading through my blog yesterday and I realised that we are actually coming up on our six year anniversary of dealing with infertility and cycles.  In all of that 6 years the only time that I haven’t been considering a cycle, preparing for a cycle or going through a cycle was during the time that I was pregnant with JBB.  Even then I was calculating how long we would need before we could go back and try again.  The mental, physical and emotional energy needed to go through a cycle is phenomenal.  To keep fronting up cycle after cycle takes a monumental effort.  In the beginning, we were in a huge hurry because I was 35 and the clock was ticking ominously.  In a few weeks, I am going to be turning 41 – nuff said.

I know that it is our choice to try for another child, I don’t need any well meaning friends or relatives to tell me how lucky I am to have JBB and that I should be satisfied with our success (if you are looking for a really great article about what to say and what not to say to someone who is experiencing infertility – go here).  I absolutely 100% realise how lucky that I am and since I am his mother, I want the best for him and I want him to have a sibling to go through life with.  I don’t think that it’s too much to ask for our son to grow up with a sibling.  I will do as much as I possibly can to make this happen (which is why I will continue to walk in the concrete jungle and run in the rain and diet until I go).

Unless you’ve been through it, most people don’t understand just how much planning cycles, preparing for cycles, going through cycles and recovering from cycles infiltrates every part of your life.  From the moment I wake up in the morning to the time I go to bed at night – every decision that I make is considered with the cycle in mind.  Even something so simple as getting the timing of medications, supplements and Chinese herbs right takes a good plan to make sure that there are no contraindications etc.

I know that I am just having a down day, I know that I am lucky and that many others are still battling in the trenches without any success.  I know that I am a big whinger.  I will not be angry if you have skipped over this post – there is only so much whinging anyone can take.

There is no possibility of a time warp, right - seriously, I feel as if time is going in super slow motion right now.  I usually would never say this but I really wish it would speed up a bit.

I am sure that the sun will come out tomorrow – right?!?!?

Trust

I am slightly panicked at the moment.  As you know, I started the pill and clexane a couple of weeks ago so I feel like the cycle has started but then of course, I have been having breakthrough bleeding for the past week, along with pretty bad cramps..  It is not even just a little bit of spotting, it is actually a lot (sorry TMI).  I don’t think that it matters in terms of the cycle, I mean, the thinner the lining when I start the Progynova the better, right.  It is just an inkling that my body is not responding as it should be to the drugs.

I am always trying to be positive about my body but years of hatred of it has left some very bad habits.  I need to trust myself and trust my body that it knows what to do.  The weird thing is that it’s not as if I haven’t been pregnant before.  This is a bit of a revelation because after the last two failed cycles, I seem to have transported myself back in time to when I had never been pregnant, never seen those two lines on the test, not carried a baby full term.  It is weird that something that was so profound and meaningful in my life has been relegated to almost feeling like a dream, I mean how is that even possible?  I seem to be so desperate to find the bad in myself that I have forgotten that my body was there for me at the best time in my life. 

I got pregnant and it was a pretty uneventful pregnancy.  I was looked after well by my OB but the main thing is that my body did everything that it was supposed to do.  So how has all of that goodness been wiped away by a couple of failed cycles?  In many ways, I was so worried in the pregnancy that I didn’t even relate that JBB was in my body and when he was born, it was like I had never even carried him.  In my mind, I had even believed that my main contribution to JBB’s existence was the fact that I found the clinic.  How can this happen – I really just think that after a lifetime of blaming my body for the ills of my life that I went back to what I know.  I think that this is very sad but now that I am aware of it, I can make some steps to change.

Last night, JBB was pretty cranky so I had Thomas the Tank Engine on the TV and he was snuggled up to me and it was at that point I tapped in to how utterly grateful that I was able to carry him, to grow him from an embryo and to take care of him from the day he was transferred.  I think that this is a big breakthrough – I feel so much better about myself and way more confident that I can once again get pregnant and carry another child full term.  

Only seven and a half weeks until I fly to Thailand, I am ready to trust my body again, I am ready..