2.0 FET #1- 3dp5dt

More bullet points on what’s happening chez Turia

• TWWs suck. This one especially sucks because they’ve told me to wait a full two weeks even though it was a blastocyst. I guess the whole “being frozen for three years” side of things can slow the little darlings down. Still. This is going to take FOREVER. (And no, I won’t POAS early.)
• I’m sick. Apparently my body decided the absolute best time to get my annual ‘start of a new semester’ cold was yesterday. I’ve had a bit of a runny nose for the last couple of days, but yesterday I felt miserable all day and by the afternoon I’d lost my voice. No fever, thankfully, but I can’t say my general state of health led me to believe that an embryo would think my uterus was a good place in which to stick around. I went to bed at 9 p.m. and slept through until E. woke up, weeping (as he does every morning these days), “Mummy no go away! Mummy come back!”, at 6 a.m.
• I had a whole lot of cramps in the ol’ uterus on Thursday afternoon, which is not surprising given what it had been subjected to that morning. Nothing to report since then.
• I’m getting big hard lumps in my butt from the PIO shots, even with doing them in the morning so I can walk around and use the muscle all day. Sometimes they don’t hurt at all. Sometimes they’re pretty uncomfortable and I get dizzy and have to sit with my head between my knees as soon as Q. pulls the needle out. We manage.
• E. has noticed my Fragmin bruises: “Mummy has dots on her tummy! Purple dots! Purple dot train!”
• I’m back to having insomnia and waking up at 5 or 5:30 a.m. (with the exception of last night), so the extreme-sleepiness stage of the drugs seems to have ended.
• E.’s Mummyitis shows absolutely no signs of abating and is far worse than it has ever been. Q. says he was starting to head in this direction in our last couple of weeks in the U.K., where he would get quite upset when I left and would be crabby most of the day, continually asking when I would be home again, but it’s at an entirely different level now. Fridays are the worst, as that’s the day I teach, so I need to leave early, and I don’t get home until it’s almost supper. E. is basically inconsolable from the moment I walk out the door until Q. gets him out the door to walk to nursery school thirty or so minutes later. This past Friday E. took his shoes off in protest while Q. was putting his own on (I am aware this would be normal toddler tantrum behaviour for some children- in E. this means he is unbelievably upset). He was ok walking to school, had an ok day at school, and then said, “Mummy come back!” every ten seconds or so from the moment Q. picked him up until I came in the door. Poor Aunty C. came home before I did, and E. obviously thought it was going to be me, and he was not pleased.
• There is a family tale that when I was two and a half or so, my Aunt had been over for the day. She had played with me all day- ponies, drawing, stories, etc. I’d had a blast. And then my father came home from work, and I (as family lore records) said: “You go hone Aunt L. You not stay for supper my house, you haf supper your house. You not play wif my Daddy. You go hone.” On Friday, when E. had calmed down upon seeing it was Aunty C. coming in the door and not Mummy, he spent a happy thirty minutes or so with her, while she read him stories, drew him pictures, etc. Then I came in, and E. came out with the following monologue: “E. no yike Aunty C-. Aunty C- go back outside. Aunty C- no play wif E. E. yike playing wif Mummy.” It went on for a good while. We got it on video to show our aunt and our mother. E., it seems, truly is his mother’s son.
• Another classic E. moment: Monday night, Aunty C. cooked dinner (it was delicious). I asked E. if he wanted some of the sauce for dipping (he loves dipping things at the moment). E. agreed with enthusiasm, dipped in his rice, took a big bite, and said, “E. no yike it. That’s a really bad one.” Q., Aunty C. and I just dissolved into laughter.
• We’re all working really hard at telling E. what day it is. He understands that on Mondays Mummy comes to school for her duty day, and on Fridays Mummy goes to teach her class (“E. no yike Mummy teaching her class. E. no yike it when Mummy goes away.”), and we’ve talked a lot over the last two days about the weekend and how that means Mummy and Daddy and E. all get to stay at home, but it’s going to be a slow process. His teachers said he’d settle by the end of September, but I think all the chaos at the start of the month set that back. At this stage we’re hoping by the end of October we might be over the worst of the broken-hearted wailing.
• The separation anxiety makes E. really hard to live with right now. And that is hard too because I know that he is acting out and pushing our buttons and resolutely refusing to comply with anything we ask and changing his mind every two seconds because of the separation anxiety. He is trying to process the changes in his life, trying to make sure that he can still depend on us, trying to make sure that we’re not going to abandon him, that we’re still going to love him, even if he’s tormenting the cats or throwing his toothbrush down the stairs. But it is hard to stay patient and calm and warm and loving when he is driving us crazy. And then every now and then he’ll do something – like yesterday when after he’d finished eating lunch (or, to be more accurate, shouting “No!” and refusing to sit at the table to eat lunch), he went into the living room and put away his Duplo and his Megabloks, sorting them into the appropriate containers, without being asked or prompted, in order to get ready for his nap – and we feel like maybe, just maybe, our sweet gentle son is still in there. And then he’ll have a good nap, and wake up properly rested (for lack of sleep is a huge part of this issue, as he’s staying up too late at night worrying “Mummy no go away”, and he’s waking up too early wanting “Mummy come back” and he’s not napping on the days he’s at nursery school) and he’ll be cheerful and loving and fun to be with again and we can all take a deep breath and reset. Yesterday afternoon I was really really unwell, and E. was happy to mostly amuse himself for close to two hours while I lay on the couch, occasionally putting together a rocket ship or helicopter out of Megabloks. At one point he climbed up on to the couch and lay next to me and we had a lovely cuddle while he said (and I repeated after him, every time he said it), “Mummy loves you very much. Daddy loves you very much. Aunty C. loves you very much.” He was stating it, affirming, confirming.
• I hate what this is doing to him, our gentle, sensitive, soul. I wish I could stay at home with him. I have to finish my dissertation. I’m feeling ripped in half right now.

Transfer complete!

Everything went smoothly today. My f/s was only an hour later than the original appointment time (normally he is at least ninety minutes, so this was a nice surprise). The blastocyst survived the thaw and still looked great. We still have one frozen. My f/s had no problem seeing my uterus with the ultrasound to get the blastocyst where he wanted it to go.

They gave me my drug protocol- nothing changes except I need to start Fragmin this afternoon. I think I’ll do one this afternoon and then switch to doing them in the morning, along with the PIO shot. Might as well get all the jabbing done in one hit.

The only complicating factor is I’m not meant to lift anything heavier than 20 lb, which includes E., who, despite being WAAAY down the charts for weight, still weighs a bit over 25 lb.

I can’t put E. in the crib or pick him out of it.

I can’t lift him into the bath, or up onto the change table (that one at least won’t be a problem as it’s easy enough to change him on the floor).

I can’t carry the stroller down the stairs.

I can’t pick E. up for a cuddle. E., my son, who is so filled to the brim with separation anxiety right now that we have night wakings. E., who has said “NO!” to me more times in the last week than he has in his entire life combined. E., who is getting his final molar. E., who still isn’t sure every morning whether he is going to nursery school or not, although he knows that he “is a bit sad when Mummy goes away”.

This could get interesting.

—

I ended up a bit emotional in the bathroom after the transfer. It is just…different this time around. I KNOW what the result could be. I can’t be as emotionally detached from these blastocysts. They’re not just snowbabies.

This embryo once was in the same petri dish as the embryo that became our E.

When our f/s showed us the blastocyst before the transfer, I had a vision of that screen in August 2010, when we looked at two little blastocysts, one of which became our son.

We walked out at 1:20 p.m., with me officially pregnant.

Now I just have to stay that way.

Beta on the 3rd of October.

Running on empty

Bullet points on what’s happening chez Turia

• Yesterday I started the PIO shots. I had a lot of anxiety leading up to the first injection, but Q., bless him, hasn’t lost his touch and I barely felt the needle. The castor oil does take much more effort to inject, and I’m already developing some soreness. We’re doing them first thing in the morning on the nurse’s recommendation so I have the day to walk around and move the muscle. This makes sense, but it is problematic getting them done while also getting E. breakfast before he starts shrieking. While we were doing the shot this morning and E. was wailing in his crib at the top of his lungs because he wouldn’t stay downstairs while we did it, and we needed to contain him, because the LAST thing he needs right now is to watch Daddy give Mummy a needle, I looked at Q. and said, “Remind me again why we want to have two of them?”
• I had a dream last night that I was pregnant, and then in the dream I realized it had to be a dream because I hadn’t even had the transfer yet and had only done one PIO shot. And then I thought I was awake, until I woke up and realized I hadn’t been. A dream within a dream.
• All the meds are starting to take a toll. I’m exhausted all the time, and it must be from one of the meds (or some combination) as I spent all summer needing barely any sleep. I’m also very short-tempered. This is not a good combination given E.’s current state of mind.
• Holy separation anxiety, Batman! E. is a MESS. He has spent this entire weekend melting down at the drop of a hat. This morning he just yelled and cried non-stop from the moment I went in to get him out of the crib to when he went down for a nap (this is an exaggeration, but not by much). I had to give myself a time-out as I was about to start yelling myself. I think we are not going to make pancakes for the next few months. It’s too unpleasant dealing with E. having to wait for breakfast. At lunch today we asked him why he was so sad, and he replied, “I no want Mummy to go away when I’m at school.” That’s what is underlying ALL of his behaviour right now. He will be playing with his toys, or otherwise perfectly content, and then he’ll just stop, burst into tears, and cry out, “Mummy no go away!” We are trying to give him lots of extra love and support and comfort, but it is hard to stay patient when he is yelling at us ALL.THE.TIME.
• I need to stop asking him things and just start doing them. Don’t ask if he wants fruit- cut it up and put it on a plate and put it out. He just says ‘no’ on principle to everything right now and works himself up into a tizzy.
• He had his best day yet at nursery school on Friday and even took a nap there, despite him melting down when I went out the door to teach my first class of the semester (and he continued melting down for twenty minutes until it was time for him and Q. to walk to school). He liked eating lunch and playing outside, even though he was “a bit sad at school”.
• I need to get my hands on a copy of Llama Llama Misses Mama. Stat.
• I think my first class went well. I could have thirty, but only have twenty-two registered at the moment. If it stays like that, it will be amazing- so much less marking.
• Q. arrived back home safe and sound (and even earlier than expected!) Thursday night. The only advantage to him being utterly and completely exhausted is he doesn’t seem to be experiencing any jet lag. In fact he’s less sleepy than I am. He has coped manfully with arriving into a household filled with a sister-in-law, an irate, anxious and overwrought toddler, and a stressed-out and over-medicated wife.
• On that note, I wish I could say to people who get caught up in the vision of romance and true love presented to us in movies and what not: “That’s not real love. Real love isn’t chasing after someone in an airport. Real love is being willing to stick a needle in your wife’s ass when she needs you to, and making sure you learn how to do it well so you don’t hurt her.”

This too shall pass. This too shall pass. This too shall pass.

On being THAT woman (and FET update)

I did something today I swore I would never do.

I brought E. with me to the clinic.

There was no reason that I had to do this: his auntie C. was ready and willing and eager to keep an eye on him and take him to the park.

But yesterday was the first day I left E. at nursery school for the whole day.

We were both crying when I left. I knew I was supposed to maintain a calm, confident face, but I couldn’t do it. The nursery school supervisor, bless her, took a picture of us (red-eyed and weepy) with her iPhone, and then took E. with her to print it out while I made my exit (crying all the way to the subway station). She called me five minutes after I had left to say that he hadn’t cried once, they had printed out multiple copies of the photo, they’d put one on the wall, and he was carrying around another one. Then she e-mailed me another photo at 10:30 that morning showing him happily playing.

This place is AMAZING. So loving and caring, for the parent as much as the child.

Her kind phone call meant I could get through the rest of the day without being too much of a mess myself (including a meeting with a prospective post-doc supervisor).

When I went to pick him up in the afternoon, she told me that he had had some rough moments, especially around transitions when he suddenly had nothing to focus on. But he was easily distracted. They’d obviously spent a lot of time with him as he was chanting their “Mummies and Daddies always come back” song all the way home, and all through the afternoon. And he kept telling me that he had “felt a bit sad at school” so they were obviously talking to him about his feelings.

So he’d managed, but it had been hard on him.

And then last night I had to go out again because it was the mandatory policy review for the nursery school, and I couldn’t do my duty day until I’d had the anaphylaxis training (there are two children with Epi-pens in the school). I’d already missed the original session because we were at the wedding out of province.

I really didn’t have a choice.

It was TERRIBLE timing.

E. burst into tears as soon as I started preparing him for what was going to happen. He hadn’t napped at nursery school, so we ate dinner a bit early and I was able to do the entire bedtime routine before I had to go. And we talked about how Mummy was going to come right back, and I would take off my shoes, creep up the stairs, open his door, and give him a kiss. But Auntie C. had a rough evening- he popped up in hysterics less than five minutes after I left the house, and it then took over an hour to get him to fall asleep.  She ended up reading him multiple stories, singing him lullabies, and rubbing his back until he finally went to sleep.

This morning, at breakfast, E. suddenly remembered that I had told him yesterday that I was going to see my doctor and he was going to play with Auntie C., and he absolutely lost it.

So I took him with me, and Auntie C. (bless her) came along as well to wrangle him when I was getting blood drawn, or having an ultrasound, or seeing the doctor or the nurse.

E. was happy as a clam. There were enough new toys at the clinic (including a yellow dump truck) that he could keep himself occupied, and he wasn’t remotely worried about my disappearing for the various procedures since he knew I’d be right back.

It was a typical morning, so we were there for over two hours.

I felt guilty the entire time.

I know other women were refusing to look at E.

I know couples were moving to different seats to be further away from him.

I wanted to put a big sign on his chest that said, “I came from this clinic!”

But we powered on through. Today, his feelings were more important than theirs.

Tomorrow I’m going to have to leave him again to go teach my class (the first of the semester).

Tonight Q. gets back from Australia.

E.’s world is in total chaos right now. He asks me every morning if he is going to school. You can tell that he’s struggling with not understanding what is happening. One of the downsides of having worked so hard to establish such a consistent, predictable routine with him is it makes it harder for all of us to cope when things get crazy. And things have been REALLY crazy these last two weeks.

E. is doing the best he can. He is doing astonishingly well- he would be well within his rights to be melting down almost constantly with all the changes we’ve thrust at him since leaving the U.K.

This morning, he really really needed his Mummy not to leave him behind.

I’m just glad I recognized that.

—

Clinic visit went well. My lining is “beautiful”.

We scheduled the FET for the 19th, when neither of us is teaching, so we won’t be pressed for time if my f/s runs late (which he absolutely will).

Saturday I start the PIO shots (castor oil this time since I reacted so badly to the ethyl oleate back in 2010)

Monday I start a three-day course of antibiotics (Doxycycline) and a four-day course of steroids (Medrol)

Thursday, after the transfer, I start the Fragmin

My Estrace, Prednisone, Metformin and baby Aspirin protocols stay the same. I pushed up quite easily to the full dose of Metformin (three times a day) and haven’t had any really bad side effects, which has been nice.

I’ve paid them.

Looks like we’re really doing this.

Family matters

September was always going to be crazy. We were going to be just back from our four months in the U.K., E. was starting nursery school, Q. and I were starting our academic year, and we were going back to the clinic for a FET. Lots of transitions, lots of new commitments, lots of scheduling and organization to sort out. We were prepared for it to be pretty hectic.

This week it just got so much worse.

Q. had a phone call. His grandfather- his last grandparent- had died, relatively unexpectedly.

We talked about it and looked at the flights and eventually decided that, yes, Q. would make a lightning trip down under for the funeral, just like he did last October when his grandmother died. We went online and bought Q. a ticket (hooray for emergency funds).

That decision meant I was no longer flying by myself this weekend to go to a family wedding, just as we’d originally planned, thinking it would be too much for E. on top of all the other changes. We went online and bought E. a ticket.

Q. is now going to miss his entire first week of the new semester. With his teaching load this means that he’ll be playing catch up for most of the rest of the year.

I’ve lost almost all of the prep time I thought I would have for my own work.

And all I keep thinking, practically every day, is, thank all the gods my sister is here.

My youngest sister just moved back home. She came in on the Labour Day weekend. She’s staying with us for a month or so while she gets herself organized.

We had already discussed that she might be able to make September a bit easier for us, providing another pair of hands around the house, a willing auntie ready and eager to play trains with her nephew.

I don’t know how we would get through the next week or so if she hadn’t been here. And the last week would have been so much more difficult without her.

She’s coming with me to the wedding so I’m not flying with E. by myself (she’d be going anyway, but not necessarily taking the same flights I’m on).

She’s going to put E. to bed on Wednesday night when I have a make up session for duty day training for E.’s nursery school, as Q. is now missing the training he was supposed to go to this weekend and won’t be back in time for the session I need to attend.

She’s going to play with E. and look after him while I go in to the clinic on Thursday morning for my lining check.

She’s happy to look after E. when it’s time for the FET the week after next.

She’s going to watch him when Q. and I have our first general meeting for the nursery school, and she volunteered to make E. dinner and suggested that Q. and I go out for dinner ourselves in the neighbourhood.

She took E. to the park last week so I could get a bit of work done.

She spent the morning with E. when I had to go in to the clinic for my sonohysterosalpingogram, so that Q. could get some work done.

She plays with him every evening when we’re getting dinner ready.

She’s able to give him that extra bit of attention right when he most needs it, when he’s feeling adrift and confused and worried about nursery school (he’s there by himself this afternoon- Q. left at lunch- and we haven’t had a phone call yet, which I think means everything has gone well).

She is worth her weight in GOLD.

It has been hard to be without family in the city for the last seventeen months. Q. and I haven’t been good about finding a babysitter. We weren’t ready- E. was still so little.

It had been on my (endless) list of things to do this fall, but I wasn’t looking forward to the process.

Having family in the city, having someone who loves our son unconditionally, who genuinely wants to spend time with him, who really truly loves him from the bottom of her heart, makes everything SO MUCH EASIER.

We’re not going to take her for granted.

We’re not going to abuse her willingness to hang out with E., to give us some adult-only time.

But the truth of the matter is I’d be pulling my hair out and weeping at the thought of trying to organize next week with Q. overseas if she wasn’t around. The FET would be just too much to manage on top of everything else. I might have had to cancel the cycle.

She’s keeping our heads above water right now.

“Beautiful”

That’s how my f/s described my uterus today.

Given my veteran status in the IF world, I thought I had already experienced all the procedures. But today’s sonohysterosalpingogram was a new one. I gather it’s a replacement for the HSG. They use air and a saline solution to let them visualize the uterus and fallopian tubes. So no exposure to radiation for me, it’s much less uncomfortable, and they can perform the procedure in the clinic rather than requiring a trip to the hospital. Win-win.

I had to go in with a full bladder, and one of the ultrasound techs did the first round of pictures using the abdominal ultrasound. Then I had to empty my bladder and wait, but not for very long (I was in and out of the clinic in under thirty minutes. This must be a new record).  My f/s himself did the transvaginal section of the test. That was not super comfortable, especially when he was inserting the speculum and getting everything in place for the saline solution, but once he actually started looking at things and taking pictures it was fine. He had another doctor shadowing him today, and the poor other doctor was trying to introduce himself and ask if I was ok with having him present, while my f/s was just getting on with things. I told the other doctor I didn’t mind. Seriously. How many people have looked at the reproductive parts of my anatomy now? Shyness or modesty really isn’t an issue.

Anyway, the end result is I have a perfect uterus, so it’s full steam ahead with the FET. I’m going back in on the 12th to check my lining. I was scheduled to go in on the 11th but that was going to make things difficult from a childcare perspective as E. would need to be taken to nursery school that morning, and Q. is making an emergency trip down under next week for a funeral, so he won’t be around. Luckily FETs are super flexible.

I managed to get a fair amount of teaching prep done while waiting to be called for the various parts of the test. I figure you know you’re an IF veteran when you can plan a syllabus in your spare moments between abdominal and transvaginal ultrasounds!

There was a couple there with a not-that-old baby in a stroller. They were getting some sideways looks from the other couples. I was mainly just curious to know what on earth they were doing in the clinic (the baby was much too young for them to be back in there actively trying again, at least in my opinion). On the way down in the elevator a couple of women got on at the fifth floor. One of them was pushing a two month old baby in a stroller. He’d just had his first round of injections, she told us. The other woman ooh’ed and aah’ed at him for a while, and then said, “All the rest of us would like to have one, but we’re past that now.” Then she obviously looked around the elevator a bit more and then added, “Or most of us are, anyway.”

We hit the ground floor and out they went. Two other people had ridden all the way down with me, from the top floor of the building, where the clinic is. They’re both staff at the clinic. One of them gestured for me to go first and gave me a truly sympathetic smile.

It was then that I realized just how much having E. at home is protecting me during this process.

That baby and those comments would have cut me to the bone three years ago. I wouldn’t have been able to look at the baby.

Now, I didn’t care. I actually felt a bit sorry for her, still mired in the newborn phase.

MY son was waiting for me at home.

And I have a beautiful uterus ready to provide a home for his sibling.

First day back

Sure enough, my doctor wasn’t in yesterday. That’s what you get for having to go in on the Sunday of a long weekend.

I got lucky though. The doctor who was looking after my doctor’s patients is really nice. She’s the one who did the transfer for our IVF cycle back in August 2010- the one that produced E. And all told, I was in and out of the clinic in 90 minutes, which is really good going for a Sunday of a long weekend. I was expecting to be in there for much longer.

Once she learned that this was our first cycle back after having had E. she strongly suggested I come in for a sonohysterosalpingogram to make sure there is nothing unusual going on in my uterus- no polyps, scar tissue, etc. She said I could start the FET protocol, and then come in, and if we found anything that would need intervention, I could just stop all my medications and we’d start again once my uterus was given a clean bill of health.

This all made sense, so I’m going back in to the clinic tomorrow. My doctor should be in, so he’ll be the one to do the SSG.

Then we looked at our blastocysts. Our clinic grades them on a scale of 1-3 (1 being the best), and then from A-C (A being the best) for two other factors (I didn’t write down what these were).

We have two. One is graded 1AB, and the other is 1BB.

“You have beautiful blastocysts,” the doctor told me. “I strongly, strongly recommend thawing and transferring them one at a time, unless you are really ok with twins.”

I said we wanted to transfer them one at a time. I actually got quite emotional at this point. I think it was just overwhelming being back in there, and staring at my giant chart, and remembering everything that had happened to get us to this point. I told her we wanted two chances because we didn’t know if we could stand to start all over again. I told her there were so many things that could go wrong, that we wanted two chances to make sure we had the right environment in my uterus for the embryos.

I cried. I wasn’t really expecting that, and it was actually quite annoying, but the clinic just brings out big emotions. And yesterday’s visit did feel like it was a big deal, like we were taking the risk of reopening old wounds.

She made some good points. “You had a long journey to get to that last IVF cycle,” she told me. “But that cycle worked, and you have two beautiful blasts, and you’re so young!”

In terms of reproduction, I’m convinced that only in a fertility clinic is a woman who is thirty-four years old described as young.

Anyway, she wrote up the FET page in my chart, and sent me off to see the nurse. Again, I got lucky. The nurse was my all-time favourite- the old head nurse, who retired two years ago (as she told me today) to look after her twin grandchildren (conceived at my clinic). She still comes in to help out on weekends, which is why I got to see her. I was so glad to be able to give her a hug.

She set me up with all of my medications. Basically, we’re just doing exactly what we did last time, since it worked.

So I am, once again, a walking pharmacy.

Here’s the protocol:
Estrace: 2 tablets, 3x/day
Prednisone: 1 tablet, 1x/day
Baby Aspirin: 1 tablet, 1x/day
Metformin: 1 tablet, 3x/day (I had the exact same conversation with both the doctor and the nurse: “Are you taking Metformin already?” “No.” “What dose did Dr. L. have you on?” “Three pills a day.” “DO NOT start with three pills a day- start with one.” Ah yes. I already knew that one.)

My TSH came back as normal, so I’m keeping the same dose (I take one extra half pill every second day when I’m on birth control pills, stims, or FET protocols, and that seems to work well).

After the SSG, I go back in on the 11th for a lining check. At that stage I’ll start Medrol, and probably the PIO shots too (although we might push those back by a day to make for an easier transfer day). Plus Fragmin will get added to the mix too. Transfer could be anywhere from the 16th to the 19th. I think the 17th makes the most sense, but Q. and I will have to sort that out a bit closer to the time.

The nurse and I discussed my reaction to the PIO shots (when I broke out in full body hives right around the six and a half week mark). “Make sure you get the castor oil ones,” she told me. “If you’ve already had one reaction, you’ll react even faster the second time around.” Apparently they try the ethyl oleate ones first because the castor oil is thicker, and therefore more painful and difficult to inject.

I don’t care. I’ll inject it with a huge smile every day if it means I don’t have to deal with those hives again.

Then all that was left for me to do was pay them a large sum of money (although much less money than if it were a fresh IVF, so I’m not complaining), collect my meds, and head home.

I will admit I went home via a bakery where I bought a truly decadent and not remotely good for me orange scone. Hey, I was about to start Metformin. I needed to eat that processed flour and sugar treat before it would make me sick.

So far I feel fine, other than the fact I’ve got crazy hot flashes again. I remember writing about this once before– that I would overheat as soon as I ate something. It started up again as soon as I took the first round of pills at supper last night. It is a really annoying side effect, especially in late August.

Looks like we’re really doing this.

The deep breath before the plunge

Cycle Day One.

Clinic on Sunday.

My best guess is transfer will be around the 17th.

Let’s do this.

A whisper of a wish

Exactly a week ago, Q., E. and I were in Bath. We ended up there for a couple of reasons: we had two nights to fill once our farm holiday was finished before we flew out of Heathrow; it was a convenient driving distance from the farm’s location; and it seemed like a good idea since we’re both ancient historians. I’d been to Bath once before, when I was studying in the U.K. a decade ago. Q. had only been as a child.

For a whole host of reasons it ended up not being a great day. The drive took longer than expected due to construction and detours; we got lost while walking in Bath upon first arriving because the maps we’d downloaded onto Q’s Kindle made us think the river went in a straight line (it doesn’t); because we got lost, we all became hungry, which meant that Q. was cranky, I was weepy, and E. just shouted “Some yunch! Haf some yunch!” from his vantage point in the Ergo over and over again; and after we’d finally managed to get some lunch, the Roman Baths turned out to be really busy, which meant that Q. didn’t enjoy himself because he had tourists wandering around like cattle, and I sped through it because I’d said I would look after E. so Q. could take his time, since I’d seen it all before. And while E. tried hard, and did find the main bath quite interesting (“Big green baff!”), there is only so much you can expect from a toddler, even (or perhaps especially) one whose mother can translate the tombstones for him.

After deciding to call it a day, and saying farewell to the Great Bath, we entered the passageway that takes you out to the exit (after passing the gift shop, and the tap from which you can try the waters- we all did, even E., and our general consensus was it would have taken some effort to drink more than a sip). This runs along past one area of the ancient spring around which the entire temple complex to the goddess Sulis Minerva grew up.

There was a quiet grotto, with a pool of still water, and a small sign which said that for thousands of years people had made their offerings to the goddess in this spot. It invited us to make our own offering, which would support their research and conservation efforts for a coin horde that had been quite recently discovered.

I dug through my bag and found a twenty pence coin. I gave it to E. “Make a wish,” I told him, “and then throw it in the pool.

E. tossed in his coin. It bounced off the rock and dropped into the pool. There were no ripples.

“Do you have any more change?” asked Q.

I dug through my bag again. “I’ve got a couple of pound coins.”

“I’m not tossing in a pound!” Q., with E. on his back, turned and walked towards where the water ran from a tap and there were little paper cups for tasting.

I waited for a moment, alone in the edge of the darkness, for once no other tourists intruding on my experience.

I tossed the pound coin in with a quick jerk of my wrist. My thoughts came unbidden.

A second child, Sulis, please.

As the coin hit the water, I was surprised to feel the pinpricks of tears in my eyes. I had a vision of other women, waiting here, kneeling here, wishing here. The weight of their longing pressed against my heart. My own coin glittered and fell, came to rest where once votive objects in wood and metal would have been consigned to the waters.

I waited another moment, alone with the goddess and her offerings, before I took a deep breath and stepped back out into the light to find my family.

There is nothing I want more.

Tonight I take my last birth control pill. May the goddess have heard me.

ICLW

Hello ICLW readers!

*looks suddenly bashful*

This is my first ICLW.

I’ve been blogging here for five and a half years.

I don’t really have a good excuse for not joining in earlier. When I first started blogging I very quickly found a bunch of other bloggers in similar situations, so I guess I never sought out more people. And then when I did get pregnant, and when I did safely bring our son into the world, I didn’t really feel comfortable signing up to subject new readers, people who didn’t already know me, to all of my musings and moanings about pregnancy and the transition to parenthood. And then I just got flat-out busy being a mum and the idea of committing to something every day for a week seemed to be all too much.

So what changed?

Well, partly it’s because I’ve realized over this past summer just how important blogging is to my mental health and I’ve vowed to make a bit more time for it.

Partly it’s because many of the women who were my first blogger friends are now no longer blogging, or only posting once in a blue moon. They’ve completed their families, or they’ve moved on from their blog, or they’ve just drifted away. When I had to switch from G.oogle Reader, I realized just how empty my blogroll was getting. So I’m hoping to meet some new friends this time around.

But mostly it’s because we’ve just started the process of trying to add to our family again. I’m just about through my package of birth control pills and should be heading in to the clinic at the end of this month to see our f/s and to get the ball rolling. And so, for the first time in a long time, I feel like the infertile part of me is rising to the surface. I was able to keep her pushed down and hidden for much of the last three years, but the realization that we weren’t going to be one of the lucky couples who get to have a second baby that is conceived in love and not with the finest medical help money can buy brought it all back. And feeling more infertile made me feel more like a part of this community again. I know I’ll always be a part of this community, and I know that my feelings about pregnancy and parenthood are a product of my infertility, but for a while I just wasn’t in an infertile head space, and I didn’t think it was fair to start posting on other people’s blogs, people for whom their infertility was still right front and centre. But time passed, we started thinking about expanding our family, and my infertile self came right back.

So here I am.

I’m Turia. On here my husband goes by Q. Our son is E.- he’s twenty-seven months. I’m Canadian, Q.’s Australian, and E. holds passports for both countries.

E. is an IVF/ICSI baby, the product of a three year struggle to get pregnant.

I’ve got PCOS, hypothyroidism and endometriosis.

Q. is fine.

Infertility wreaked havoc on my life the first time around. It destroyed my self-confidence, my mental and emotional stability, my physical strength, my sense of myself.

I’m a little bit gun-shy of going back to the clinic and opening up old wounds.

But right now my longing for a second child is stronger than my fear.

We’ve got two snowbabies, blastocysts from the same cycle that brought us E.

We’re planning to thaw one out in September and hope it proves to like my uterus as much as its cycle-sibling did.

When I’m not obsessing over the future size of my family I’m a PhD student, probably a year or a bit less away from defending, and currently finding the whole process a giant, soul-destroying slog. Expect rants.

I love to read. That’s an understatement. I’m a love it like the fire of a thousand suns, stay up too late to finish the book you can’t put down, join the public library anywhere you ever live because you can’t go a moment without having access to all those books kind of girl. Even in the depths of preparation for my comprehensive field exams, when I had to read five or six books per week, I still managed to squeeze in the occasional book for fun. It’s a sanity check. Another big sanity check for me is running. I’ve just started again after a three year hiatus. Once I ran half-marathons. Now I’m struggling to manage twenty minutes. But I’ll get there. Expect rants.

Q., E., and I are just back home in Canada from four months in the U.K. where I was working with a renowned professor and trying not to hate my dissertation, and Q. and E. were mainly visiting every playground in the county. I mean we’re literally just back home- we flew in today. Full disclosure- I’m probably on my way to the airport at the moment. I wrote this post early and scheduled it to make sure I wouldn’t miss the start of ICLW. I didn’t schedule any other posts, so as long as I post tomorrow we’ll all know my plane didn’t go down in a fiery ball of doom like I’m probably currently worried it will (I’m not a good flyer). In the next couple of weeks we have to get over our jet lag, get settled back in to our house, reassure our cats that their world hasn’t ended by having us reappear with the toddler, and start getting ready for the new academic year. Q.’s teaching on overload, I’m a course director for a fourth-year course, and E. will be going to nursery school three days a week. This will be the first time in his life he’s been cared for by someone other than his parents. Expect panic from me. And probably rants as well.

And we’re going back to the clinic.

Well, at least things will be interesting, right?