it’ll be alright in the end

Right now, we are winding down … decided to take tomorrow off, which was a good move in terms of mental health and relaxation

Aside from all the insem crap and stress etc, we’ve had a tough couple of weeks with work and other pressures, so it’s vvvvvv good to have the day off tomorrow. Would like to take a holiday, but that’s impossible at the moment because of the above reasons. Well, it’ll be worth it!

I just wanted to blog tonight, mainly to say thanks again to you people who added comments to my last post – you are truly nice people and seriously I feel so touched. Vee reads more blogs than I; she’s the household Bloglines Queen (set up by me, the household Geek Queen), and she tells me snippets about what’s going on every day. I do love to know how you’re all getting on but I have to be honest and say I find it hard to read some of your blogs, simply cos I am quite an emotional person and I can’t cope with the injustices of this world very easily. Also cos I WANT A BABY LIKE, NOW, AND IT MAKES ME MAD THAT OTHER PEOPLE ARE AS DESPERATE AS ME!!!!

I wish we all had our babies now and lived happily ever after. Imagine live was that simple!? Wow.

AAAAAAAAAGH! But folks, it all boils down to biology, doesn’t it? And that’s one thing you can’t fight.

Talking of biology I want to make it clear I’m not jealous of Vee for being the 1st bio-trier or anything like that. It’s not even an issue, despite me being possibly a tad crazier than she is. No not at all… I just feel odd, like I physically don’t fit into any of the roles in the Big Masterplan that we’re all taught at school…. like man meets woman and they have sex and have children and all that. OK so I’ve always been a non-conformist but I kind of wish someone would hand me a leaflet and say “This is what you need to do next” obviously, I will and do support Vee but aside from that, what do I do?

It’s almost as if there’s no place for me in this world, and then I get comments from you guys and I feel sooooo like there IS. So, thanks

So now I will shut up and look forward to our impending 3-day weekend, and feel glad that there are nice people in this weird old world!

- jay xx

self-absorbed wailings from a non-bio wannabe mother

OK so I haven’t blogged for 6 weeks, and when I finally get round to it (ie now), I have really crap news to share with youse. Such is life eh!

Our KD’s wife just texted me to tell me that they’ve decided to go on holiday today, rather than next week, thus missing our next insem, and she hopes we aren’t too mad. Mad? Sorry, but people with kids just don’t get it. At f***ing all!

I don’t know how mad I am on the scale of madness, as opposed to being devastated, gutted and somewhere along the lines I am furious. I can’t even think about it, and I can’t do my work either, so here I am blogging with half a devastated/gutted/furious brain.

And yes I know they are doing it out of the goodness of their good hearts, and somewhere in my own heart I do still love them… but that really does take the piss.

I feel so helpless it’s unbelievable. That’s probably why I haven’t blogged for 6 weeks too… as the non-bio mother, what is there for me to say? I don’t have a chart to do or whatever, and my future opportunity of parenting the child(ren) I so desperately want depends entirely on other people.

Dependency isn’t something I find at all easy to live with, for various reasons I’d rather not go into here, so maybe it’s just easier to say nothing at all, and watch your life being planned out for you (or not)? I dunno, maybe that’s how the non-bio mother is supposed to feel, or maybe I’m just a particularly grumpy specimen????

Enlighten me please, fellow non-bios?? )

Anyway, gotta look on the bright side… at least we don’t have to find a dogsitter for the insem. The dog is happy!

- jay x

bad news/good news

For those of you who haven’t guessed or read it elsewhere, it was indeed another bad news month on the baby front.

I think we’re both now picked up, dusted off and ready to try again now. Oddly, I didn’t find it as bad this month. Last month was our first try and of course I was hoping in my secret heart that I would be one of those mythical women who get pregnant first time. That’s a lot to hope for – winning the lottery on your first attempt.

This time round…well…it was just different. I suppose because I’ve now progressed to the “somewhere-between-two-and-several-tries” category, which feels, at least at this end of the spectrum, less pressured somehow. The fear of progressing into the “really-taking-some-time-to-conceive” or “have-fertility-problems” is small and contained. For now. I hope it stays that way.

We plan to try again around the 29th, just before our donor goes away for 3 weeks. It’s probably too a bit too early really, but we reckon that trying, even despite knowing that, is better than not trying (we’re a fresh at point of delivery set up, so cost is not a factor). And he’ll be back in good time for an August insem, we hope.

On the good news front, my luteal phase seemed to make it to a whole 12 days this cycle! I did have several days of light spotting beforehand, but still, that’s an improvement. I’ll definitely be sticking to those vitamins, washed down with yummy green tea.
vee

Game over?

I have pink spotting.
Just a tiny bit.
Surely it can’t be the start of my period. I’m only 7 DPO for goodness sake!!
AND i’ve been dosing up with vitamins and green tea in the hope that my luteal phase would get longer, not shorter.
I don’t even want to think that it might be implantation spotting. That’s what I hoped last month and I was wrong.
*sigh* I feel a bit sad.
I don’t want to give up on this cycle yet.
Especially when it looks likely that we’ll miss July and/or August, as our donor is going on holiday.
Grrr.
vee

Tip of the Day

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Do you find yourself returning repeatedly to blogs in search of new postings?
Is blog stalking taking over your life?

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[management cannot accept any responsibility for subsequent development of obsessive bloglines checking].

vee

Time flies

Well, this TWW is fairly flying by! Almost a week down already, and given that my “two weeks” is unlikely to be more than 11 days, that means we’re over half way there. Unless we’re lucky of course and I’ve caught, but let’s not get our hopes up, eh.

Time has flown past mainly because we’ve been so busy. Jay and I generally live a quiet existence, but this week we’ve had two overnight visitors, been to a party and travelled around 500 miles visiting and staying with two old friends (who live in different places)!

One thing that has really struck me in the midst of this whirlwind of social jollity is how much things in this country revolve around having a drink. It would feel so impolite to arrive to stay with someone without bringing wine. Flowers or chocolates just don’t really cut it. And, as for a party….well, the bottle and can recyclers will be earning their money this week.

So all in all, I’ve had an interesting experience observing others get slowly (or quickly) sloshed. The range of effects is fascinating. Take the party, for instance – Birthday Boy reduced to grinning and swaying (although, to be fair, he’s quiet and shy at the best of times), Hostess Woman turned uberhousewife, cleaning and scrubbing once all the guests had left (not a bad idea, actually – better than waking up to the mess), Smiley Friend becomes Giggling Smiley Friend and, most fascinating of all, Talk A Lot Friend morphing into Talk The Hind Leg Off A Donkey Don’t Pause For Breath It Might Let The Other Person Get A Word In Edgeways Girl. She even followed the hosts up to bed and continued to talk to them once they were in bed trying to sleep, before finally finding her way to the guest bedroom!

Don’t get me wrong, I like a drink myself. In fact I was positively gagging for one last night, though I managed to restrain the urge and console myself with extra helpings of potato salad. I do think though that having two weeks in every four totally sworn off the stuff is changing my perspective on drinking. The problem in the UK I think is that we are so enculturated into believing that we couldn’t possibly have a good time unless we get at least slightly tipsy, that we never actually go sober enough for long enough to realise that it’s simply not true.

Or maybe taking the moral high ground is simply a way of making me feel better about missing out?

One disadvantage to not drinking, when everyone around you sets such store by it being an essential ingredient to having a good time, is that a non-drinker is conspicuous. You get asked why you are not drinking, and you’d better have a damned good reason. Which is tricky for me because, whilst I do have a damned good reason, it’s not one I want to share with all and sundry. In fact, it’s not one that Jay and I have chosen to share with many people at all, yet (apart from the entire internet, of course). I have issues with discussing our TTC plans with people I actually know. I think though, that perhaps I should blog about that another day.
vee

If at first you don’t succeed….

That’s what my daddy taught me. Well, that’s probably what everyone’s daddy (or mummy) teaches them, but that doesn’t make it any less right.

And so we did. Try again that is. Twice.

Saying it like that makes it sound so easy and breezy, but that couldn’t be further from the truth. This insemination was Indiana Jones and the Yogurt Pot of Sperm (I know, technically that should be semen, but I just can’t warm to that word), crossed with a particularly bizarre Monty Python sketch.

It went something like this –

After an eleventh hour dogsitting crisis, we found another sitter and after dropping off the furball, we finally got on the road, straight into rush hour. Our donor couple live about 2 hours from where we do. Sometimes. Sometimes they live nearer, sometimes they live further away, but usually it’s just 2 hours. They travel you see. I told you they were full hippies!

Anyhow, we’d agreed to see if we could manage two insems this month, so we rolled into the nearest town and pitched our little tent, before heading off to see them. There it is again, that easy breezy phrasing! “Seeing them” involved a short drive from the campsite, followed by a half mile hike across country up hill and down dale! No roads you see – in and out by foot or water only, and I wasn’t up for swimming there.

The next part was unadventurous by comparison. Once all four of their kids were in bed asleep, they got down to “collecting the goods” so to speak. Very quietly of course, with the kids just down the way, and us sitting outside. But then, they wouldn’t have ended up with four of their own if they’d not figured out how to do it quietly!

Yogurt pot of goodness in hand, we set off on the half mile hike to the car. In the dark. I am proud to say that I, designated Carrier Of The Goods, never even stumbled. It was then a short speed in the car back to the tent and the moment of reckoning.

Next morning, before we’d even managed a cup of coffee, a text message sent us scurrying off again to repeat the whole process. Heaven alone knows what the other people on the campsite thought we were up to, especially when we both dived into the tent again after just having gotten up, jay only re-emerging and then battening the hatches leaving me sweltering inside on one of the hottest days of a very hot English summer (which isn’t actually that hot in real terms, but we’re not used to it you know!) They were certainly twitching their copies of the Daily Mail like mad.

If this palaver actually results in a baby, we reckon he or she will be torn between adventurer and comedian as a future career.

So, to all you women out there who get this stuff delivered to your door once a month (and those of you who moan about having to fetch it from the Fed Ex depot cos they tried to deliver when you were out – you know who you are), spare a thought for us crazy Brits next time you get down to the baby making business. If nothing else, it’ll probably make you smile.

Good luck to all this time round. Into the TWW we go!
vee