Inexplicably Missing

I  was heading somewhere, at least I thought I was. Yes, I’m sure.   I had an idea of where I was going. There was a journey I was on. I was heading somewhere. But I have discovered that the trail just petered out and kind of… led to… nowhere. I am nowhere. I can’t see where to go next. Sometimes I think I could go back to the start and try a totally new path. But that’s too far now. I need to figure out a way forward from here. I’m lost. I don’t know where I am. I don’t even know how to get on a path because I don’t even know what the path should look like or where it should head. ---- NB...So we have had a rough few weeks. Facco's father has been moved into a nursing home. We tried our last attempt fertility-wise- a frozen embryo that they said was highly likely to have chromosomal abnormalities -- and well, it didn't work out. Amidst this, I feel I am having somewhat of a mid life career crisis. Overall feeling? Lost... hence m...

I've had a very looping thought headspace of late. And, probably no coincidence, I have had the desire to "bunker down". And I'm going to just look at those phrases for a sec.... Does the word "loopy" - as in "feeling a bit crazy"-  come from the experience of thoughts looping around? My thoughts are going round and round on repeat lately. And it's not a nice repeat. I've lost a lot of confidence in myself, and my inner critic is loud. Then there's the bunkering down phrase. I realised the other day that the term is actually hunkering down. Huh. I have always said bunkering. Maybe it's the influence of unbreakable Kimmy Schmidt?? (love that show). I think it's capturing something about the social isolation and cutting off the world effect of being in a bunker. Facco and I very much "bunker down" when we are trying out fertility stuff. So that's me at the moment - a loopy bunker-er.

Europe was a blast... once every couple of year catch ups with verrrry old friends in England, tear-to- the eye art in Paris, Bike rides through burgundy, the most amazing tomatoes of my life in Lyon, street party craziness and sophisticated eats in Barcelona, soul-soothing architecture in Granada, unexpected beauty in Seville, and delights too many to pinpoint of sunny Lisbon! I was going to write more on how I'm back and how it's been hard to be back. But then, trying to sum up my trip with a thought for each location has brightened my outlook... so I'm going to stop this post here!

It seems rather fitting that this week, Involuntary Childlessness Week, is the week that we are counting down our trip to Europe. We leave on Friday! Yes I think the two: infertility and spontaneous travel, are a bit linked. You know, our fertility dr had asked us where we were going and he offered to give us some contacts for embryo and egg donation clinics in Europe to check out while we were there. But we were like... No. no... this is not going to be that kind of trip. But I am aware that I am still on that overall journey too. I just need a scenic diversion.

I should have taken a photo of the size of this. A whole lot of fridge space has been taken up with packets and packets of hormones for IVF. So every time I'm getting stuff ready for dinner, searching for a snack, or getting a cold bottle of water the bloody IVF reality of life is... just... there... nagging... annoying...  and it takes up space... Space that could otherwise be used for DELICIOUS LIFE GIVING FOOD. So today I had enough. I got my lovely little chiller bags (like the drugs themselves, these cooler bags are in over-supply due to the number of pharmacy visits I've had) and freezer packs (also, in over-supply) and carted the drugs back to my IVF clinic. The nurse had a slightly pitiful look on her face as I handed them over. I didn't engage in conversation as I only had a 10 minute parking space that I had to rush out to, but I can tell you that I definitely thought in my head "... no need to feel worried about me lovely nurse, this time next week...

I'm going to refer to my partner as "facco" here. It is a kind of cheeky phrase we came up with as a way of referring to him being my de facto partner. It's my replacement word for "hubby", a word oft used by the correctly married. Well i think for microblog Monday I will give a little run down of father's day yesterday... I let facco know I'm proud of him for being a good dad to our dog and cats... And we shed some tears about our failed embryos... And we shed more tears...because facco's dad is these days riddled with dementia and is soon to go into a nursing home as he's recently become unsafe to manage for facco's mum... And... I saw my dad, and my perpetual- bachelor brother who has recently become a dad to a cat, and my other brother who is conventionally married with kids (although unconventionally living on an island, that we visited) ... And well,  i guess we all enjoyed and celebrated their dad-i-ness. And I was super hap...

This is a bit off the topic of this blog but I really feel it would be remiss of me not to make some kind of comment on the state of my country at the moment. On Friday we had a change of our prime minister. The guy, Peter, who challenged the PM for leadership is actually a MP in my city and he is a big advocate for putting refugees who try to get to Australia by boat into off-shore detention. It's an unfathomably cruel practice which sadly everyone turns a blind eye to. Coincidentally, these last few weeks children in those same detention centres have been self harming and hunger striking. Fortunately, in the end Peter didn't win the challenge. Some other guy, called Scott did get voted to lead by his party... Scott... who, by the way, no one in the general public until this point even knew of or cared about. But he's now our Prime minister. Oh and just another note, there was a woman in the group of 4, Julie, who was a potential for leadership. She was actually, in my opi...

I have been thinking about my mum a lot lately. This week will mark 4 years since she died. I can’t honestly say that my relationship with my mum was the most straightforward. There have been some very toxic times in my life that are due to our relationship, some of which I am not sure I have fully forgiven and forgotten.  But lately I have found myself leaving the difficult aspects of our relationship to the side, and yearning to talk with mum, to hear her thoughts. What has come to me lately are wonderful memories of how it felt as a child in our relationship. We were incredibly, intensely close. I used to come home from school and absolutely relish talking to her about my day, I swear each day I talked with mum for hours. I’d hang around in the kitchen while she cooked dinner, chatting away. After dinner we’d continue to chat. Together we’d dissect every little thing that was going on in my world. We’d interpret my friends’ behaviours and all the silly bitc...

I was talking to a good friend the other day about something I am doing. It helps me cope but I am honestly not even trying to do this. The thing I am doing is.. I am blocking out the idea that it would be nice, like... Really, really nice, to have a child. To feel that kind of love. To see it reflected back. THAT kind of love. That special, special experience.  NOPE! Not allowing myself to go there. Even writing this, I'm intellectualising the idea and feel nothing. My friend said that it's great that I do that. How helpful.  I'd have to say, I agree. But I also find it a bit odd to be cut off from my own feelings that way... And on the same note...  Just before writing this I scrolled through facebook/instagram seeing everyone's doting baby pics. You know, that super cute "Baby-cracking-massive-smile-right-at-mum" kind of post. I strongly felt the urge to post something somewhere "Hey, just letting all you baby-spamming people out there be aw...

We are about to do something which is a  bit exciting. We are travelling away to Europe for a few weeks. We keep putting things like this on hold. Getting all serious and trying trying trying... We have to live and be spontaneous I think. So bye bye money-sucking IVF that has virtually 0% guarantee of satisfaction . Off we head to money-sucking activities that will be nearly 100% guarantee of satisfaction. That's us in September.

I promise I'm not stagnating. I just happen to be still. Hanging out. Watching. Waiting. Somewhat planning my next move. Somewhat not. The journey has been unexpectedly difficult and I need a breather. It's actually not bad doing this..  it's a bit like a movie-- one of those action packed ones where the heroes are on some kind of difficult quest and just when they are exhausted and starving and wounded and think they are going to die they find a safe (and maybe beautiful) place to rest and restore themselves before the next bit of their journey. Sigh. So many journey analogies to be had in this. We will get there... but not yet. And not even sure where 'there' will be.

The pregnancy blood test was negative. And so far... I'm oddly unaffected. Blunted perhaps. My dad said "if I were you I'd be out howling" (really dad? I don't think I've ever seen him cry. But it's sweet that he shows such empathy). My friends are concerned about how upset I must be. Maybe it will just hit me later... which is definitely a me kind of way to take bad news. Yes, maybe it will hit. But maybe it's just a long accumulation of pain that I've been living with for years and maybe that pain just hasn't really been made any bigger by another 'no'. The situation just is what it is. I'm thinking that possibly the way I'm feeling... a kind of numb acceptance... indicates that it's time to get off the dizzying IVF merry-go-round. I don't have enough hope in the process working for me to keep investing in it. It seems pointless for our situation. And expensive. And draining.  It feels like it has way more potential...

Okay so last night, trying to get that balance of Sunday evening --- relaxation for the end of weekend but accepting a week of work ahead... I decided to: 1) eat cheese. Not just any cheese. Ridiculously good cheese.... époisses ... made by monks in burgundy. It's funky and it's a SOFT centred cheese. 2) drink wine. Not much. Certainly not "getting drunk" or anything near it. Just a small glass... ok maybe 2 small glasses. Mind you it was a DAMN good pinot noir from Tasmania. And it was SO SO good with the cheese and bread. I feel like some people would not dare take the risk of those things, especially after how much effort and expense I've put in to all this getting pregnant process. But you know what, I'm ok with it. I think it is just my insistence on staying "normal" during this extremely weird process and avoiding "Guilting myself out" --- (which--- I am guilty of...) But then I'm also wondering, am I actually just being a re...

This old Australian ad for multigrain bread keeps coming to mind... a little kid is eating their multigrain bread and marvelling at how delicious it is... asking "how do they get the grainy bits so soft?" Frame is then cut to another cute child who says "They hit them with a hammer I expect" original child, unconvinced, says "Maybe an elephant sits on them?" The joke in my family was to be rude and say "MAYBE AN ELEPHANT * SHITS* ON THEM". Indeed, perhaps I have been proverbially shat upon... With genetics, with whatever it is that causes this fertility issue... The description coming from the words of my IVF scientists is that my eggs are "soft, and grainy" So there we have it. After my complicated regime of interesting drug cocktails, and a longer protocol aimed at pulling out the best quality eggs available... seems that... the egg quality didn't get far. We pulled out 10 eggs. 6 were mature. 2 fertilised. Day 5 ther...

So, my Doc is delaying his foot surgery till next week. Since I had already done a week's worth of induced menopause injections with a new drug for this round called decapeptyl, I thought, ok, I'll stick it out. In hindsight the menopausal induction may have contributed to the huge frazzled feelings I mentioned at my last post! I felt bloody awful. Tomorrow I've got Egg pickup. It's been a weird cycle. This doc has us on a serious drug cocktail and a half. I've been taking human growth hormone and menopausal urine injections... My partner's been instructed to "put the balls on ice" for half an hour per day (kid you not) and eat goji berries and drink aloe vera juice. So it's feeling a bit zany. Throwing a lot at it.  I've been doing 4 injections a day of various weird things these last weeks. A colleague who has done some ivf with this doctor warned me "don't be too freaked out by the singing" at egg pickup. That sounds like a...

I called my IVF clinic today to let them know it's day 1 of my period. I've started this long-down reg protocol over the last week or so, taking some Decapeptyl injections and a cocktail of some other stuff. So I had to call up to arrange a day 6 scan.  Anyway, bit of context, on any Day 1 of my period I am typically a frazzled woman. In the last few days I cut a weekend holiday short because of realising I forgot to pay a tax bill and tax form that was due, came home early to organise the paperwork and then realised the paperwork was not actually due, I still had a few more days so didn't really have to cut the holiday short...  I also had been tasked with packing for the holiday and forgot to pack any teeshirts... and my partner's swimwear (for the beach). So my brain feels somewhat fried. Then the fried brain effect has just been upped a bit. Because when I called the clinic today, the nurse there let me know that my doctor (the guy we waited 9 months to get i...

Ok so I cried while watching a nature documentary the other day. A little maternal Birdy is incubating some eggs in her nest, and flies off to get food. While she's gone some other hungry bird comes along and smashes up the eggs to eat the yolks. Mumma bird comes back to a mess. She can tell it's not right but she just staunchly perches back on top of the smashed up eggs to keep incubating, because her drive is so strong. I had to change the channel. It's a reminder to myself that nature is completely indifferent. And that it's only sad because of the meaning I put to it. And that is ok. There's a certain beauty to that sadness. That.. And... It just is what it is.

Recently we saw doctor number three. This is the last one. I'm not going for a 4th opinion. The good thing is that.. at least in our city... he's THE guy to go to for a second or third opinion. That's basically all he does... "Complex cases". So that's what we are. A complex case. huh. I feel... that...  I have come out of that consultation feeling the right way for the situation we are in. We don't seem to have a great chance. But there are still some options for us. We just have to decide which we take. I think what he managed to do was... to actually help us feel in control. Well maybe it's not him, maybe it's just what we've come to at this point of things. Anyway, I am feeling pretty ok. Not in despair that's for sure. What I take away from it is that--- we don't really know for sure if it's a female factor or male factor, or both, and/or a combination of us just "not working together". (He was loathe to use ...

I recently read Norweigan Wood by Haruki Murakami. I was only a few pages in and I found myself feeling sad and getting a bit teary. And the feeling ran surprisingly deep. And the strange thing for me was, it wasn't exactly the words or the narrative that brought up this feeling. It was something about the way the words were put together, the landscape they painted. It felt somehow... so barren. It surprised me how effectively this mood was created, given that his books are translated in to English. Anyway, I am now hooked on Murakami, I read another of his books shortly after I finished Norweigan Wood, and I'm now on my third which is a pretty long and weird one. I feel as though reading his books I will crack open a special riddle eventually. His books carry many symbols that pass on and weave through each of his novels. Perhaps I have cracked one riddle. The other day something occurred to me. So far in my reading, there's a noticeable absence of children or mention ...

Maybe it's because we're getting a new car soon, but I keep thinking of bumper stickers appropriate for people like me who are enjoying their struggle with infertility... 1) The bumper sticker answer to the pram parking situation... So whenever I am having a hard time trying to find a park at the shops, and there are vacant pram parks, I wish so much that I had a bumper sticker to say something along to the lines of: "After xxxx$$$ of failed IVF treatment I have earned my right to use pram parking" 2) My answer to the "My family" cute little stick figure stickers... Maybe they should have a new type of sticker that denotes the lab-cultured embryos... Although if I went this option, I think I would have a pretty full back window... with close to 70 embryos...  3) The "baby on board" sticker --- simple response... "No baby on board"  Well maybe not... but it's one possible route for being less invisible... 

I'm getting over it. We have recently had the results of our 7th IVF round... which are... negative. sigh. I'm not surprised of course. It's starting to feel a bit ridiculous. Plan is to meet with a third doctor, who we have been waiting to see for months, to see what light he would shed. The thing I'm frustrated about is that IVF... it's not treating the problem at all, as far as I can see. I'm not a doctor but it seems to me that there's something up with the fact that our embryos are not hardy. IVF is just trying to maximise numbers, not helping to fix whatever is causing the problem with the embryos. But the thing is that the medical professionals don't actually know what the problem is for us... so IVF is all they've got to offer. I'm feeling a bit silly to continue with it, because who knows how long it could go on for, and who knows if for us, with whatever our problem is, whether it even could work. Well a few questions for the new do...

Old mate fertility specialist likes to use technical language whenever possible. Hence he refers to my oocyte retrieval as "sucking your eggs".  He's all class. It really hasn't been a great round, and my heart is not really in it. While we retrieved 18 eggs and made 8 embryos, they all grew badly and were massively fragmented. Except for one, which was not so fragmented, but still not a blast at day 5. It is inside me now, along with the runner up. So we'll see how it goes though I'm not holding out much hope. I'm not sure if it's really more me, and getting too "serious" about all this.. but I have to say I'm tired of the attitude at my clinic. I don't think I will go back there. It's kind of like the Jetstar airline of fertility clinics, where the staff have a jovial "laid back" attitude to things like safety and professionalism. I would imagine that working in a fertility clinic you might naturally develop a ligh...

For some reason I haven't been able to get something out of my head these last few days.... I attended a hen's party on the weekend for an old friend. I didn't know many of the other women in attendance. At some point there were discussions about children, childbirth, fertility and the like. One woman there was telling the story about how one of her kids was born a few weeks earlier than the due date. Even though this kid is like, 2 years old now I think, she recalled how she was mortified that she had "run out of time to get a wax"... So... she was saying that she was planning to get a brazilian wax prior to the birth... ok, so that was baffling enough to me personally... but this then spawned on a discussion about how awkward some women find it when they find their male obstetrician to be physically attractive and that this increases their self consciousness about the state of their pubic hair... SERIOUSLY?  I really could not believe what I was hear...

This microblog Monday (coming to you on Wednesday) marks one week in to my 7th IVF round. Each time around I am more and more blase about it. It's just this weird needle thing I'm doing to myself each day. If people ask about how I'm doing... I say... I'm doing "ok". But it's not the most straightforward "Ok"... there are some patterns I'm noticing about my coping... - I get a little obsessed with yoga and exercise (this later becomes frustrating when I can't keep practicing handstands, or get too hot... as per doctor's instructions) - I also get a little obsessed with tidying up and keeping things clean and throwing things out - I consider whether or not I should give up coffee... and well... I always decide... nah  - My mind goes in to this weird negativity mode - and starts telling me about all the things wrong in my life or wrong about me, not necessarily related to IVF. In fact, everything else other than IVF.  - I wond...

We started stand up paddle boarding this weekend. We just went out, bought some boards, and gave it a go. No lessons. Just got out there on the water. It was pretty great. The weather was just beautiful, and there were stingrays everywhere. (side note- Personally, I am quite scared of stingrays. I think they are stunning creatures, just so... other-wordly... that they freak me out a bit). The paddling was mindful.. a wonderful meditation to be out there on the water on such a beautiful day. Though I found myself at times rather frustrated with how little power I had, when I was trying to get somewhere. I shifted my weight, I tried engaging my core, I tried different strokes, I tried specific patterns of alternating from left to right. But I felt so underpowered. I decided to just trust. There was only a shore to get to. Even if I just drifted down with the wind, and had very little power, I would eventually reach land. But then yesterday, I was talking about the paddling to someon...