(almost) wordless wednesday

and I am only 11 weeks. Oh my.
Apparently I may have to come out about this publicly a lot sooner than I planned to...

blergh.

Ugh, I am sick. Not pregnancy-sick, but cold-sick. My very inconsiderate workmate dragged her sorry ass into work almost two weeks ago, sick as a dog. Coughed and spluttered everywhere. I was livid. Last time she did this, I ended up sick for two weeks. Manny ended up sick for two weeks.

Surely enough, within a few days, BAM. Sickness hits. I swear this is the worst cold ever. My mother insists very dramatically that I have The Flu but I'm pretty sure it's just my pregnancy making the cold ten times as miserable for me (this always seems to happen). I have been pretty much a sick, useless blob on the couch for a week and a half now! I think I am finally on the mend - I am starting to be able to taste food again (yay!) and almost have my sense of smell back. Lucky me though, the pregnancy nausea hasn't let up any. Seriously hoping for an end to that in the next few weeks (please?).

Because we are moderately insane, we are also trying to co-ordinate an extension to our house at the moment. I should have started it at least 6 months ago but it just all seemed too hard. To be honest, it still all feels too hard but we can no longer afford the payments on this house so we have to sell it. Before we can sell it though, we have to do a full reno (it was always our intention). I feel like once again we are going to end up with this spectacular house...and won't get to enjoy it at all! Oh well. I am seriously looking forward to being debt free (with a healthy bank balance) for a while when we sell :)

So there are lots of exciting developments coming up - luckily I am busy enough to keep my mind off the upcoming u/s next tuesday....most of the time....

Ch-ch-ch-ch-changes

Hello again,
You may notice some changes going on around here in the days and weeks to come. I have wanted to change the direction this blog was going for quite a while, but as anyone who has gone through infertility treatments will attest - it tends to somewhat dominate your life!

This was supposed to be a family blog, and a place to help motivate me to become a better housewife. Then the IVF crazies took hold and everything else sort of faded into the background while my brain screamed "BABYBABYBABYBABY" on repeat for a year and a half. I am hoping, with all I have in me, that that particular insanity is over for us, at least for now.

To celebrate this, I have moved the majority of the entries dealing with IVF over to a new blog, Suzy Does IVF. I'm hoping that I can write the closing chapter of that blog in a week and a half after our Nuchal Screening, and hibernate that part of my life, (at least for a year or so!)

This blog will (hopefully) now be able to turn back to what I had originally envisioned. I have a very talented friend working on a new blog design (yay!) and I look forward to filling this space with all kinds of goodies in the months to come.

I feel like I have really let myself down by failing to mention my crazy kids who actually walk this earth with me, focussing so hard on documenting all my little lost loves. I have a hysterically funny, emotional and intelligent 2 year old and an extremely challenging 9 year old, who amazingly have escaped almost completely from being immortalised in this Mama's blog. For shame.

I am still terrified every day that something will go wrong here. That just because we are past the point that *I* miscarry, does not mean I am home free. The possibility of stillbirth is never far from my mind. Nor is the fact that we have gambled with my genetics again, and we may face another terminal diagnosis. I am choosing to hope at this point.

For those of you following along at home:

Hurdle #1 - BFP (10dpo extremely faint - 12dpo strong line)
Hurdle #2 - Beta (16dpo - Beta HCG 330)
Hurdle #3 - Ultrasound (6+2 weeks) - measured 5w5d
Hurdle #4 - Usual miscarriage point (7 weeks) - passed!
First Appointment (8 weeks) - u/s with hb and CRL of 7+6
Hurdle #5 - Nuchal screening to check if baby has trisomies (12 weeks) - 2nd August
Hurdle #6 - Anomaly scan - check for trisomy markers (18 weeks)
Hurdle #7 - Viability! (24 weeks)
Hurdle #8 - Make it to 36 weeks without losing my mind/the baby.

Ten Weeks

I have come back so many times to try and write an entry, and just haven't been able to.

As of today, I am ten weeks pregnant.

Just typing that scares me. It scares me that it could still end at any moment. It scares me so much that I think I am still in some kind of protect-my-heart-denial.

The same denial that I wrapped myself up in each time I was pregnant, and each time I miscarried. The same denial that prevented me from falling apart each time I lost another precious little baby. I just took it all in my stride. I was so tough.

I wasn't tough. I wasn't a "trooper". I was in denial. I still am. He has graduated to Fetus stage. He looks like a real baby now. But I still can't quite wrap my head around it.

I had a bunch of things that I wanted to do to celebrate, to commemorate this pregnancy. Photo series', collecting pieces of fabric each week to put together to make a little baby quilt for the baby...but I haven't been able to bring myself to it. I just can't.

And every day that goes by reminds me that I am letting all this pass me by, too afraid to feel anything.

Except nausea.

I feel that 24 hours a day.

crisis/crises/crazies

I think I'm having another identity crisis. Or maybe it's more of an existential crisis. I can never be sure. I go through these periodically. Who am I? Why am I here? WTF is the point of my life?

To be honest with you, I started having existential crises at 6 years old (no, I'm not kidding). It used to keep me awake at night. What is the meaning of life and why are we here? What is the point of anything we do?

All questions I've never been able to answer.

The creation of self, the identity I have created for myself, where did that come from? How did I become the person I am right now, and if I'm not happy with the way I am, should I mould myself a somewhat new identity? How far can I actually change who I am, and how much of it is innate?

Woah, right?

I think I've been spending too much time lying around recently (due to the fact that standing = migraine, nausea and almost passing out). I think I might need to get out of the house and back into the real world...

all is well...

Sorry to keep you hanging, I started this days ago and just didn't get around to finishing it. To be perfectly honest, using blogger on my iPad is c-r-a-p and just takes too long and it's hard for my ADD self to do.


Short version: Tuesday's appointment went well, dr says u/s showed heartbeat and CRL of 1.59cm exactly matching dates.

Long version is sooooo much longer. It was an EPIC appointment. For a start they left me waiting over an hour. Pretty normal for a public patient, but as I am part of the medical team, it's always under 20 minutes. I had no other plans for the day though and Manny slept the ENTIRE time so I was in no real hurry.

Eventually, after the entire waiting room had been called in and left, a young guy calls me back. Oh great. I think to myself. I get a resident.

But no. It's a student. Of course it is. So he starts filling out my new record. Has NO IDEA what he is doing so he copies out the one from last time *headdesk* seriously. Eventually reaches the point where he admits he has no idea what to do next, and calls the Dr in.

Turns out Dr A****** is not a woman, but an Old Dude. I have no problem with Old Dudes, my regular OB is one :) The first thing he says is "so, you're 8 weeks?" I nod. "Err, why are you here?" I had to explain that I simply asked for an appointment earlier than 11 weeks and this is what they booked me. He shrugged and said "Ok then".

He seems to at least know what he's doing...but the first thing he does to put me offside is disagree with my due date. "No, see you add 7 days to the LMP and subtract 2 months". This changes my EDD by three days and I am not a happy camper. I want to say "sure Old Dude, back in the 1940s thats how they did it but they have these newfangled things called computers which is how the student came up with the (correct) date."

Decided not to bother. Will bring it up with Dr P*** if I manage to see him.

Tell him of the pain in my right side. Do not confess that I have already had a scan. So he does a quick exam and an even quicker u/s where he points out the hb (which I pretty much couldnt see but trust his judgement) and prints out a photo which I cant make heads nor tails of, and declares all is well, dates are right, and there is a cyst on my right side which won't be a problem at all and will resolve itself. Doesn't bother to measure it. Says it could be very painful if it bursts. Oh goody, something to look forward to.

He books my nuchal screening for 4 weeks time. The first thing he did to make me smile was say to the receptionist as he booked it "can I get a nuchal for this high risk lady please"

HUZZAH! A Dr that agrees I am high risk!! I was always told through Manny's pregnancy that despite the stillbirth and increased risk of trisomy due to the double aneuploidy, that I wasn't high risk. And yet here, now, I am officially high risk :) (If you're wondering why this is a good thing, it means all the tests and all the scans we could ever ask for, and then some, are all covered through our public system)

He asked at the end "Is there a reason you would like to see Dr P***?" I replied that I would like that very much if possible, and he said "No problem" putting me down for an appt with him a week after the nuchal, to get all the results.

The only downside out of the appointment was the news of my blood pressure, which was 90/60. No wonder I've been nearly passing out every time I stand up!

So there you go.

I feel 100% like crap 100% of the time, I've never been so tired in my life and this pregnancy is kicking my ASS daily.

I hope it continues......

on feeling mediocre

I feel lost, and in a rut. The weekend saw another of my birthdays come and go, and all I can feel is that yet another year has passed me by with no change, just with me going through the motions.

I haven't achieved anything, haven't changed any of the things I wanted to over the last year. I still have no passion, no drive, no real focus. Every day is the same. Work, home, chores, tv, bed.

It's just. so. normal. It's so mundane. I need something bright, something interesting to focus on. I tried the photography thing. But my poor little ego is too fragile and I take things too personally. And I am moderately obsessive. And a total perfectionist. No photo is ever right, ever the way it's 'supposed to be'. So I spend hours obsessing over every edit. Then days obsessing when I finally send out the photos - when the person doesn't contact me straight away all I can think is "they hate them! They're disappointed and they think I'm crap. I am crap. I should never do this again".

So the photography thing didn't really work out....

I have to keep telling myself that the fact that just about everyone in the blogosphere is writing a book, or starting a business, or making a fortune off their blogs - does not mean that I have to. Plenty of people lead perfectly monotonous lives and are perfectly content with them.

Why aren't I?



I haven't been focussing on anything in particular lately. I haven't been working on our renovations, I haven't had any sort of project on the go. I think that contributes to my general feeling of melancholy and rut-ness. I get this way periodically. I think also that spending so long actively trying to conceive has taken its toll. We have quite literally spent the better part of a year and a half undergoing fertility treatments one after the other after the other, pausing only each time I conceived, and starting again straight after each miscarriage. The only time we truly paused was when we went on our spur of the moment trip across the planet. And now, here I sit, possibly hopefully done with them for at least (please god) a year or so - and it feels like we have dedicated so much to the process, forgetting everything else.

It feels like waking up from a very long, tedious, boring nightmare to be honest with you.