Tag Archives: single

The nuts and bolts…

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I’m about to write another post about what I think of as the slightly boring (for you) minutiae of appointments and numbers and stuff, and I’m not really sure if this is for you or for me, or just for the sake of completeness because I’m a bit obsessive like that. If I were you, I’d be more interested in the emotional fuckwittery, but maybe you’re interested — anyway, consider yourself duly warned.

So, before the cycle started, I had my TSH (Thyroid Stimulating Hormone) levels checked Continue reading →

I’ve gone quiet…

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Sorry.

I just realised, in the same way that I’ve realised in real life, that up until this point I’ve been fine jabbering away about things, but now shit just got real. (I said that ironically, OK? In a pseudo-American accent. Don’t think I’m one of those people who say “shit just got real” in a deadpan way. I’m not.)

Anyway, what I mean by that is that this is all so timed, in that if you ovulate on this day, then your eggs and the sperm are defrosted Continue reading →

Doing things differently…

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I just realised you probably thought that this post was a reference to the fact that, as I’ve mentioned a few times before, this whole trying-to-get-preg-on-my-own type thing wasn’t exactly Plan A. Or maybe to the fact that what I’m doing is, as I’ve mentioned before, not exactly the norm within my group of predominantly hetero, predominantly married-with-children friends. But it’s not (well, it kind of is, because everything I write on this blog is basically about the same thing.) No, this is something I wanted to write before I’m actually mired in the depths of the treatment. As a marker, maybe, as a reminder of why I’m doing this. So here goes… Continue reading →

Emotional fuckwittery…

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I promised you the headfuckery, the emotional fuckwittery, the messy lifeness, the mental rollercoaster. And what better day to write about all that than at the very end of the year? Here! Have it! My unburdening, so I can sally forth into 2017, lighter, happier, whatever, I don’t know.

In October I wrote that I had made a decision. I wrote that after

thinking, and dating, and sleeping with unsuitable people, and thinking that something might become A THING — and then realising that it wasn’t going to…

I had decided to try to get pregnant on my own. And making that decision was exciting, and terrifying, and empowering, and terrifying, and for a while it made me feel utterly invincible. Which sounds like a totally Continue reading →

Blood tests, and acronyms…

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Ugh I just found this in my drafts – it’s from about a month ago, sorry about that, but you know, read it, then you’re pretty much up to date… 

So, of course it wasn’t that straightforward, like I said, these things never are. Before I left the clinic my consultant sent me for a blood test to test my thyroid levels. Yet another of those things that you never even think about, but apparently your thyroid has to be operating at a certain level to create optimum conditions for pregnancy.

And whaddaya know, mine wasn’t. My blood test showed that my Thyroid Stimulating Hormone (TSH) levels were at around 5. The top end of normal in the regular population is 4.5 (although other people will say that normal can go up to 10) but crucially if you want to get pregnant with IVF, they want it closer to 2.5. The solution: daily pills of a drug called levothyroxine, which I have to take for three weeks or so and then get tested again to see if it’s doing what it needs to, or if I need a higher dose. Continue reading →

Tired…

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Allow me a small diversion from the whole egg / baby thing — although it is kind of related…

I’ve spoken before about how I really resent arbitrary divisions being made between people — and particularly between women — defining individuals as single or part of a couple, pitting mothers against non-mothers and so on. And, with respect to the latter, one of the things I have real beef with is the idea that “until you’re a mum you have no idea what X means” where X is equal to “love”, “exhaustion”, “worry”, “fear” etc etc. Ultimately I think it’s hugely insulting to anyone to undermine their emotion by telling them that because they’re not a parent, there’s no value in what they feel.

Continue reading →

Cognitive dissonance…

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I was recently talking to a friend of mine, who had been going through IVF, about her experiences, and she was talking about the cognitive dissonance that seems inherent in all this.

You might never have done IVF, and you might not call it cognitive dissonance, but if you’ve ever been a teenager, you’ll know what she’s on about.

Maybe it was just me (I assumed it was everyone) who, as a teenager,  Continue reading →

PS Brilliant women writing

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You might recall that in posts past I’ve bitched about the lack of publicity given to women who don’t have children given that there are meant to be so bloody many of us. Well clearly it’s like buses – you wait ages then blah, blah, blah (god that’s a shit cliché, after all, everyone’s got an app on their phone that tells them when the bus is coming now so you don’t ACTUALLY wait ages…) I DIGRESS.

Two brilliant pieces in the national press Continue reading →

Dating observations….

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I SO have no intention of becoming a Bridget Jones-style diarist for my generation — not least because I can think of nothing more boring than counting calories or alcohol units. But given the undeniable link between my dating success (or lack of it) and the reason why I’m writing this blog in the first place, it seems ridiculous not to at least mention it, if only in passing.

Obviously this isn’t a dating blog. Amusing as my escapades over the last few years with a variety of ill-advised suitors may have been Continue reading →

I’m back (again)….

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It’s almost Easter, which can mean only one thing… actually, no, I can’t. I think I eggshausted all my egg-based puns two years ago. So that’s not why I’m back. I’m back because I’m taking the next step. Or at least preparing to. More putting on my shoes and thinking about lacing them up, rather than Continue reading →