Barren Mare

Not what I ordered but tasty all the same

I'm getting on a plane tomorrow for some more international travel, clutching my carefully measured carry-on bag sans liquids of any type. Hopefully I will arrive parched but intact at the other end.

I had to rootle around a bit to find the post in which I explained about my phobia of being separated for any length of time from my carry-on, but you'll be happy to know I fully intend to pack light and be a gold star luggage rule abiding citizen.  I'm operating on the mindset of "tra la la, it's just stuff" if my suitcase goes missing- though don't quote me on that if it actually does, in fact, disappear. Anyway.  I'll be gone for a bit but given my slack attitude to posting lately, you probably won't even miss me. Oh, and for good measure I might as well thow in an apology for people to whom I owe emails. I am bad, and I grovel for forgiveness for my utter laxity in that department.

One of the things that I have discovered is that if you set out to build a happy albeit childless life, you can actually wind up with a rather full schedule.  People talk about how when they have children, they are always so busy and have no life.  I too am also very busy and have almost too much life. Sometimes it makes me dizzy. 

All those things we put off while we were "trying" are now taking centre stage in demanding our attention. We're travelling a lot, even more than we used to.  I'm sitting on the board of directors of a charity (an obligation which seems to grow a hydra-like number of heads in terms of time commitment). We've pursuing a long held dream of buying a plot of land and building a house in the country. We've thrown ourselves into work, or at least tried to find ways to our make our occupations fulfilling.  Oh, and of course there is the impending arrival of a small and desperate cute puppy. He'll be here quite a bit sooner than originally planned and I am squirming with eagerness to behold his sweet furry face.

In short, life goes on and to my somewhat surprised and vaguely wary delight, it's going on a lot better than I could have anticipated. That may sound trite- of course time is a great healer and all that. But if you had told me a year ago as I sat in the ruins of our IVF attempt on the bathroom floor that I would eventually feel this much better, I honestly don't think I would have believed you.

I remain of the view that I don't know exactly what will happen to us and to our family building in the future. In the short term, the family is going to consist of the two of us and a little four legged companion. After that I can't get a clear picture. However, I am convinced that this peninsula of current contentment is no bad place from which to set sail.  At least I will have some idea of what the landscape holds if I run aground again. 

Fishing for FSH

I had a bit of a minor epiphany yesterday when it came time to phone the GP's office to get my FSH result.  Some of you may recall that I have in times past- ( for example here) -whined about the open-plan arrangements at my office and the difficulties of trying to make or receive assisted reproduction related phone calls from my desk.  Yesterday was typical in that I spent most of the morning waiting for the coast to clear, but every time I went to lift the handset, someone would magically materialise at my elbow. And then they would stand there for a quarter of an hour, discussing something tedious and work-related. Imagine! This happens AT WORK! Damn them.

Heh. Finally after the third or thirteenth attempt, my eye happened upon my handbag lying on the floor by my feet and suddenly it was like a gigantico lightbulb going off in my tiny, pointy head. Eureka!  I could call using my mobile phone!

In case you are rolling your eyes, saying to yourself, "well DUH, Mare. What took you so long," I should point out that it was only recently that I acquired said mobile phone (or cell, if you prefer, which I do but when in Rome...). Previously  I always had one of these tickytacky pay-as-you-go plastic brick thingies. Ugly as hell, but fine in an emergency, or to receive calls; however, also subject to perishingly expensive call rates if used regularly and hence not exactly the right tool for long spells of spelunking into the telephonic abyss.  And as anyone who has even remotely dabbled in the world of fertility treatment will know, frequent expeditions into that abyss are the norm. 

I don't know why for the love of Wensleydale cheese it never before occured to me before now to get a contract phone, where I could gab for hours, send text messages and balance on one leg  while waiting on hold for 20 minutes- without taking out a second mortgage to pay for it. But it didn't. I suppose I am a bit, uh, prim about spending money on things which my inner skinflint convinces me I don't really need. And it was only of late that crappy pay-as-you-go mode became pretty much untenable; plus the phone that I loved and that matched my handbag was only available as a contract. Heh. Are you marveling at the apparent contradiction of frivolity and prim there?  I am.

Anyway, I realised I have a phone, and I can use it. OK, so perhaps not much of an epiphany as far as these things go but it reminded me of the need to continually apply lateral thinking to these situations. Instead of calling from under my desk, I snuck out to the empty photocopy room, hid behind a plant, and rang from there. Oh blissful relative privacy.

Of course the nurse wanted to fob me off with a hasty "normal", but she hadn't reckoned on the might of the tenacious infertile. THE NUMBER.  GIVE ME THE NUMBER. And she did. It was 6.1 which is actually lower than before. Yay!

Yes, dear friends, I know the numbers are not the be-all-end-all and I am wary of placing too much stock in these things. I guess I was looking for more of a possible barometer- I mean, if it had shot up to above a certain level, then the fact of the matter is that there are certain clinics who simply won't even consider treating me.  Whereas now they might.

So the question is... now what?

Just once more

Never fear my friends, when the puppa-lorum makes it way here, I will post pictures.  I was a bit hesitant about discussing the breed in depth, since it is a relatively small community of this type of doggie owners in the UK, some of whom I may have to encounter again, and I was trying to avoid anything that might overtly link to my blog.  Still, I know I will not want to deprive the internets of that much cute and furry deliciousness, so wait & see.

In other news, I went earlier in the week to have my FSH checked.  I had to opt for an appointment with a different GP, since Dr Best Friend was "away"- for how long, I know not.  I suspect she may be some time, since afterwards I registered for the online self-booking appointment thingie, and she was not listed for the whole of the month of August.  It occured to me, for the first time, that I have been remarkably spoilt in having such consistently good treatment from the same GP for the whole of my infertility saga. But there we are.

As it happens, they didn't want to give me a doctor appointment at all, insisting that the practice nurse could do the necessary.  It was only when I explained in one long breathless monologue that this was not exactly routine blood work and oh by the way it had to be done on a certain day of the cycle, which incidentally if we missed this month would be another two or so before I could get in again because we are going to be traveling and really, how mightily inconvenient that would be, so could we just schedule me in with the first available appointment of the day with anybody qualified to wield the needle and be done with it. Ta.

And that is how it came to pass that I found myself in that oh-so-familiar scenario. Waiting room, condensing an explanation of a year's worth of emotional upheaval into a ten minute consultation, baring my flesh, the needle going in, the small sad bruise on my arm afterwards.  Dr Not-Quite-Best-Friend listened patiently, and efficiently did as I asked.  I just want to know the FSH, I said.  It all seems kind of pointless to even spend one more iota of energy contemplating another round of IVF unless I have some inkling of what's shaking in Ovary Land.

As we wrapped it up, She did ask me, "What do you plan to do with this information, once you have it?"

To which I was tempted to say all manner of cheeky things. I dunno, Doctor.  Tattoo it on my abdomen?  Plaster it on a billboard, offer it as a headline: "HORMONES SAY: STILL SORT OF POSSIBLY FERTILE!"  Write it in a sweet scented love note: "Dearest clinic, if nothing else, my FSH is still reasonable. Be mine?"   

Instead, I mumbled something about making another appointment to discuss it further once I had the result. Because that's what happens, isn't it? There's always another appointment, isn't there? Once you get a whiff of a possibility, you're off, like a hound on the trail. Before you know it, you're strapping yourself into the rollercoaster you swore you would never board again. It's like the IVF crack pipe! 

Why is it so damn hard to let it go once and for all?  Why is always just once more, let's think about it just once more?  Maybe, maybe, maybe, just once more.