And slowly, but surely, we passed the milestones. The early scan at the clinic where they were utterly unbothered by the previous week’s bleeding and said that sometimes these things just happen and any reason is gone without trace by the time they’re scanning. The viability scan at ten weeks, and the Harmony test that is no longer called the Harmony test, but is the same sort of test for genetic abnormalities. The midwife booking in appointment. The 12 week scan. And it wasn’t that I wasn’t thinking about it. Or that I wasn’t anxious. But, unlike when I was pregnant before, there were so many other demands on my time, and my attention.
Continue readingTag Archives: fertility
Not not a thing…
So, there I was, utterly convinced — yet again — that it wasn’t going to work. Because, as per usual, I didn’t feel any different. And the first time I tested, I got a result I’d never had before. Not “pregnant”, not “not pregnant”, nothing at all. Not a single line.
And so I tested again, and there it was a faint, faint line that suggested that I wasn’t entirely “not pregnant”, a whisper of HCG, that magical hormone that indicated that something had happened, and that even if it didn’t continue to happen, for a brief moment, however fleeting, things were, well, positive.
Continue readingGiving it another go…?
I wondered whether the miscarriage would make us more or less enthusiastic about trying again. In my case, nothing had really changed, all my reasons for wanting a sibling for my son were still there, and his charmingly demanding presence just hadn’t given me the opportunity to dwell on the miscarriage or wallow as I might have done. And I think B probably felt the same.
The only thing was my cycle was, well, not exactly what you’d call regular. It had fleetingly slipped into some sort of a monthly-ish pattern after I stopped breastfeeding, but given that at points I was on “day 57”, I didn’t really feel I was in a position to hang around and so I convinced the clinic that while they would have liked me to have a “normal period” before embarking on another cycle, they should let me just crack on, assuming everything on the scan looked OK. And yet at the same time as really wanting this to happen, I also didn’t want to put our lives on hold, I didn’t want to miss out on my living, breathing child because I was so preoccupied with one that didn’t yet exist. And so we made plans, and booked holidays.
And — of course, of COURSE — the timing of my period, when it eventually came, suggested that I’d need a scan while I was away. And so I organised this, and learnt how to ask for the images and information that I needed in a foreign language, and took a whole load of medication away with me. And having got the images and the information that I needed and sent them through to my clinic, I tried not to panic when I got a call from them telling me I needed to start taking the medication there and then, and could I please be back for an embryo transfer four days later, slap bang in the middle of our two week holiday.
And so I got on a plane, the day before, and had a little 48 hour mini-break at home, before flying back out to continue my holiday, feeling like I couldn’t NOT have done exactly what I did, but also fully expecting it to have been a waste of time and money. (I mean I say mini break, I will never forget the pain of having a bladder that felt fuller than it had ever been before in my life. Because the last transfer I did had had to be delayed because I hadn’t drunk enough water and I was determined that that wouldn’t happen again, I drank what felt like gallons of the stuff. And then they were running late. And I could barely exchange pleasantries with the consultant who was doing the transfer because I just wanted him to hurry the fuck up so I could go and wee.)
It’s been a while…
… and I have a tonne of draft posts that I started scrawling on my phone and never finished, but quite a lot has happened since July 2022, so for anyone who’s still reading and interested, I thought I’d try to post them, this one is from March 2023…
Things have changed quite a lot since my last post. I can genuinely say I’m enjoying life as a mother. Not all the time, obviously, (and I mistrust anyone who says they do) but as my baby becomes a toddler, with a personality, an infectious giggle and increasing independence, I feel partly as if I’m getting back some of my independence in work, and nights out, but also like we’re getting closer to the tipping point where the aspects that we’ve lost of our pre-baby life are starting to be outweighed by the benefits that we’re gaining from having a child.
Continue readingBe careful what you wish for…
I’ve hesitated to write this post because… oh for a million different reasons. Partly because it felt like the blog ended nicely, on Mother’s Day no less, tied up with the bow of a baby — finally — after all this time. Partly because I’ve never seen a post like this by anyone who writes about infertility. Partly because I wasn’t sure I wanted it down in black and white. Partly because I wasn’t sure when I would actually have the time to arrange my thoughts and get them down.
But then I’ve never been anything other than brutally honest on this blog and I know that there are people who have gone through fertility treatment who read this blog, and I kind of wanted to write about this for them, as much as for me — because part of the problem with this whole thing was feeling, a bit like I felt when I was first freezing my eggs, that it was just me. And I’m fairly sure it’s not just me. Anyway, I’ll stop caveating and get to the point…
Continue readingThe end…
… well not really, it’s just the beginning isn’t it? Because after all this – egg freezing, solo IVF with donor sperm, B appearing when I had given up on love and relationships, IVF as a couple, unexpected natural conception, miscarriage, and ultimately going down the route of IVF with donor eggs – we have our beautiful baby (who we obviously think is perfect in every way.)
Continue readingIn the middle…
Last year when I got pregnant naturally and accidentally, I felt a sense of almost guilt about being such a cliché. Woman stops trying to get pregnant, gets pregnant, here’s the Hollywood ending (that I always secretly hated and resented when I heard it in others’ stories.)
Continue readingTalking and telling…
Now that I’m at the point where, despite what I thought was clever dressing to conceal my bump, I am very obviously, it appears, pregnant, I am confronted by yet another issue. How much do I say about our baby’s origins?
Continue readingWhat happens next…
It’s hard to know what this blog – which has been all about trying to get pregnant – should be about now I’m actually pregnant. And I suppose that sentence alone is something that speaks volumes. I didn’t start this as a blog about trying to get pregnant. When I started it, it was a blog about freezing my eggs. And when, later, I came back to it, I thought it was going to be a blog about being a solo mother. But life has other plans. And so I suppose now it’s a blog about being pregnant with a donor egg after trying to get pregnant for so long.
Continue readingTempting fate…
You know I’m not superstitious. But perhaps inevitably I can’t help being with this. Given everything that’s gone before, I don’t know how I couldn’t be. How I could ever be someone who would assume it would all be fine. Despite all the scans that told me otherwise.
Because we’d had that six week scan, and then our clinic offered us an early scan at eight weeks, and then because we wanted to do the Harmony test (a blood test that looks for three different chromosomal abnormalities and can be done from ten weeks onwards. It’s sometimes offered on the NHS but if it is, it’s usually at a later stage) we booked a private package that combined a 10-week scan, the Harmony test and a 12-week scan. And all of them were fine. In all of them, the measurements were what they should be. The things they were meant to be able to see, they could see. Everything looked normal.
Continue reading
Egged On 