Inexplicably Missing

This Monday is the day after Mother's day. I didn't particularly think about mother's day a great deal yesterday. But I think at a subconscious level it must have been churning away as I have had a big emotional crash last night and today...  and then today I suddenly find myself thinking "what if we did another round of IVF..."  We have a lot going on! This coming weekend, Facco and I are moving out of our house in the suburbs up to a house in the mountaintops, it's about an hour drive out from the city centre & 650m above sea level. It's absolutely beautiful up there in a rainforest-y setting, with extremely cute Pademelon wallabies potentially visiting our yard... We will still be commuting to our same jobs so not all that much will change realistically, just a nice new house with a longer commute.  Over the weekend though, we started to do more packing up, and as we dis-assembled our furniture and took art off the walls, it felt as though we ar...

I believe that in creating a family there is some innate desire, whether it is conscious or not, to both heal some of the wounds of our family of origin experiences and also to re-enact the beautiful parts.  I think each generation tries to do something better and more for their offspring.. whether it be providing a different parenting style, a different emotional climate, different material things, activities, experiences.. I believe that people always hope what they provide will be an improvement on their own childhood. As I grieve about my family that won't be, I find myself often reflecting on my own upbringing and family relationships, and looking as well at the present messy mix of closeness and distance, affection and frustration, within my own family as adults today. Thinking of the limitations of my family...  makes me sad. Maybe more sad that I have no chance to create my own "better" version... But I wonder how much of these thoughts of the past would have co...

I had a dream where I was driving somewhere and then I totally forgot where I was going. I tried to call my friend who I was meant to be meeting with in the dream, except my phone dialled an overseas phone number by mistake. Because of this, the phone sort of stopped working.  I was relying on the phone for navigation, and while it was fussing around trying to dial the number, in my confusion, I had driven into a massive body of water. Really far into it. To my left there was an endless grey wall. To my right, still, lifeless grey water stretching as far as I could see. Above, a vast grey sky. The phone no longer had reception. It seemed that there was no way back and no point going forward or outward as no destination could be seen. I was standing at this point in the water, and the water near the wall was shallow, I looked down at my feet, and saw that there was something underneath and started scratching at it. The surface was soft and flaky. Kind of a rubbery substance. It ...

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.

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...

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.

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... 

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...

This Monday, I am in another state of disbelief... and in asking myself "how did I get here, how did this happen?" one plausible answer seems to be... I am cursed. Here is the run down of events... Looking back, I was in good spirits all week. It was my birthday a few days ago on on the Saturday- the 11th, and I decided to organise a few get togethers - a dinner Friday night with family, and a brunch on my birthday with close friends. And Sunday, I also had a baby shower with a very close old friend who was actually doing some rounds of IVF the same time as me. I felt good about attending this shower, with my recent news of pregnancy. So we were due to have our seven week scan on Wednesday. I was really cross because we had to reschedule it to Friday, the clinic had called to say they had overbooked this week. I was then in a bit of a flap complaining about my fertility doctor and trying to find a new doctor to deliver the baby. I wasn't having much luck there either...

I really can't. I *AM* actually pregnant. I did not believe I was pregnant when the nurse told me that the first test was positive. Nah. It is a low reading. If anything I was annoyed because I really wanted to stop taking all these medications I'm on. I also didn't believe it when the second blood test was positive either. The reading was still low, and I had to go back again for a third test. I only believed it when the doctor said the words to my face. My partner... he just cried. We were overwhelmed. We really believed that this was not possible. We were really expecting some kind of bad news. Of course, I still feel incredibly wary, and still rather in disbelief... but excited, amazed, joyful...

Monday this week was egg harvest time for me. They've pulled out 12 good ones, and I got the news today that they have created 8 little embryos. We will just have to see how these little embys grow now. While the numbers sound good so far, we are cautiously not getting too excited about it since last round we got 9 embryos at this same stage, but by day 5 there was only the one good one, and another one that was barely passable. Well, all we can do is hope! Do your best little guys! grow well!