On resilience

I've been in a pretty dark place.

But it occurs to me that, broken heart or not, shattered dreams or not, swollen-cheeks-and-mascara-stained-pillows or not, the sun will still come up tomorrow and you still have to get your arse out of bed and get on with your life.

And maybe resilience is about continuing on, 'head bloodied but unbowed'?

Invictus, by William Ernest Henley.

Out of the night that covers me,
Black as the Pit from pole to pole,
I thank whatever gods may be
For my unconquerable soul.

In the fell clutch of circumstance
I have not winced nor cried aloud.
Under the bludgeonings of chance
My head is bloody, but unbowed.

Beyond this place of wrath and tears
Looms but the Horror of the shade,
And yet the menace of the years
Finds, and shall find, me unafraid.

It matters not how strait the gate,
How charged with punishments the scroll,
I am the master of my fate: I am the captain of my soul.

--

And bloody hell Sarah. I had no idea you still checked this. Thanks. I love you xx

An important list.

So a good friend has announced that she is expecting her second child.

I have been trying to get pregnant since:

• She met the guy she is now married to
• She married the guy
• She discussed with me the merits of private health insurance for having a baby and then took out said insurance
• Waited out the year-long 'waiting time' for private health insurance before starting to try
• Trying for three months before getting pregnant
• Having a miscarriage
• Wanting to comisserate with me about how hard 'our lot is' with respect to not being able to have a baby
• Getting pregnant and then having a baby
• Looking after baby for 15 months
• Discussing with me that she is coming off the pill
• Announcing today that she is 10 weeks pregnant with second baby
  

Now I sit in bed at 2pm, swollen face, tracksuit pants, snot on my jumper, a half eaten block of chocolate on the floor and a glass of neat vodka.

I have decided to write an honest list of the things that make my life worth living, in the hope that it will make me feel better:

1. My cat, who does a running jump from the yard onto my front fence to greet me when she hears my car come down the street
2. Spooning with my husband every night, although admittedly not at the moment as I have not forgiven him for his antics during an argument last weekend.
3. Expensive red wine in Riedel glasses
4. I would like to say my friends but that's not true at the moment as I can't bear to be around their pregnant bellies or their children, or hear any more pregnancy announcements
5. I would like to say family, but really, don't get me started on my brother (see earlier posts. He is called Narcissus), I hate how my mother looks at my tummy every time I see her to see if it is growing, and, bloody hell, even my grandmother said to me recently that she is thankful that my cousin has six children because it 'makes up for me'
6. Bubble wrap
7. The smell of the ocean
8. Cooking something really good
9. Making someone smile
10. Waking up on a Sunday morning and knowing the day is yours
11. Crispy flatbreat proscuitto, cheese and mushroom toasties from Cibo
12. Dazzling sunsets in the outback
13. Getting up early and making tea in a billy while camping
14. Laughing (not doing much of that lately but I remember it being nice)
15. Freshly washed sheets
16. The movie Dan In Real Life
17. The book The Bronze Horseman
18. Blueberries
19. Hope

Email to my besties Pippa and Trina

Hey my gorgeous friends

Just a quick note to let you know that unfortunately Joey has jumped out of the pouch and I’ve had a miscarriage this week.

I started bleeding heavily on Tuesday and saw my IVF Doc today for a scan. Unfortunately the nurses forgot to tell him that the scan was to diagnose a miscarriage rather than a pregnancy, so he came bounding out of his office asking how the pregnancy was going and if I was enjoying things. I got a bit messy when I explained that much of the pregnancy was down the hall in a hospital toilet.

Anyway, he was actually incredibly sensitive after that and arranged a D&C straight afterwards in the Private Hospital. So I’m home now, being forced to keep my feet up by Cameron who has donned an apron and a nurse’s hat and is busy clucking around me and cooking risotto.

Trina, sorry I won’t be joining you in the bump club at New Years, but I do look forward to meeting You Junior in May.

At least I’ve still got 10 more little Joeys in the freezer and my doctor says that even though I miscarried, the fact that the pregnancy started so well is very encouraging for the future (how’s that for glass-half-full). And it was really nice being pregnant for a joyful seven weeks. Must have been those damn poached eggs. Or, more likely, your dodgy pumpkin soup last week Pip (JOKE!).

Sorry to tell you in an email rather than the phone. But seems that, although I want you both to know, I’m not quite ready for talking yet.

Love you both so, so much. Really, truly. I hope I get to keep you as friends for a very long time.

Xxxxx
Alecia

Why do I do this to myself?

Due date of my period today. After breakfast with my brother and cousin, their pregnant partners and two children, I thought, why not?

Be optimistic - it could be my turn. So bought a pregnancy test.

Of couse it was negative. What a waste of $8.

And now I have to go visit my pregnant friend for lunch, even delivering them a baby present.

What fun. No wonder I dread weekends.

Agony Aunt

It is interesting that I have a number of referrals to this site from Google, with people typing in their questions and subsequently finding me.

I am quite a generous soul, so, clueless Google friends, I will, from time to time, answer your questions for you.

Today's question comes from Mrs Dim, in North America:

Q: How do I announce my pregnancy to my friend, who I know has been trying to get pregnant for some time?

(That was seriously what she typed into the search engine!)

A: Well, Mrs Dim. The answer is simple. You are not really this lady's friend, because if you were, you would have done one of two things:

1. Become infertile yourself, OR, if you were too selfish to manage that, then
2. Hold off becoming pregnant until your friend becomes pregnant, adopts, otherwise comes to a solution which works for her, moves a very long way away (eg, Antarctica), dies, has a sex-change, or all of the above.

THAT be a friend.

I hope I have been of some assistance.

Yours sincerely

Dr Barreness. MBBS, BSc (majoring in Twitter, and Bisted)

Quickie

Sitting on the couch yesterday. Minding my own business. Preggers SIL (Aphrodite) sidles up next to me, flips her blonde hair from her face and surrepticiously whips something from her pocket. She slips it to me. Drug deal stylie.

Takes me a while to figure out what it is.

It is one of those pee-on-a-stick ovulation kits.

"Thought you should try this," Aphrodite breathes in a low voice, from the corner of her mouth. Like a secret agent.

I nod. I walk away. Gutted.

What did she think my reaction would be?

"Oooooh, thank you Aphrodite, you fertility goddess, you. Here I am, cradling three years' infertility. Multiple doctors' appointments. Transvaginal ultrasounds. Blood tests. A fucking laparoscopy. The medical opinion of half a dozen experts,

"All that, and husband and I didn't realise you had to have sex at an appropriate time to get pregnant. Silly husband and I, had just been sitting on the porch, cups of tea in hand, every day, for three years, waiting for a fucking stork.

Dr Unpronounceable-ovich and the IVF clinic

Well, Spineless Barreness did not, in the end, write the amazing and perfectly composed letter to the preggers sister-in-law, like she said she would.

Did not send a letter at all, in fact. Just decided to suck-it-up, pretend nothing-is-up, move on with things.

Shameful. But. Naughty Barreness says, why should I have to go apologising to everyone? People will just have to put up with me.

So, husband and I went to our first IVF clinic appointment last week. Our Doctor is the head of Assisted Reproductive Services at our hospital. He is fortyish, Eastern European. Dr Unpronounceable-ovich. He has a kind face, big eyes, ruddy cheeks, button nose. Mousy, almost. If he was a cartoon character he would have whiskers.

He is the same one who gave an infertility lecture to our med student class eighteen months ago.

At the time of the lecture I was still very much in denial about my infertility. Husband and I had not seen a doctor yet. We just thought that somehow our timing was out, or we weren't trying hard enough.

The lecture was torture. I was a mature-age student, in a class full of early-twenty-something pretty-young-things. The lecture was purely academic to them. Endometriosis this, azoospermia that. My class scribbled notes attentively. I sat stiffly and wrote nothing. Glued. Terrified.

"I must leave you vith some important advice, ladiezz," Dr Unpronounceable-ovich said, summing up his lecture.

"Vomen like you are over-reprezzzented in my clinics. Highly educated, professional vomen. You marry later, zink of children later. Do not delay seeking treatment for infertility. It only gets more difficult to treat."

"Time is of ze essence," he said.

After the lecture, the pretty-young-things began the inevitable babble.

"Just imagine," they began, "how awful" it would be if you found out you were infertile.

"Just terrible. I would, like, totally hate that."

"I don't believe in IVF," another said. "If you can't have kids you shouldn't have kids. Natural selection."

And on it went. I tried to hold it together and hoped no-one would ask me what I think, lest I burst into tears.

It was that day, eighteen months ago, that I finally made an appointment with my GP to discuss my infertility (THAT's another story altogether) and it was nearly another 12 months (thanks to Australian public hospital waiting lists) that I finally had a laparoscopy that diagnosed my endometriosis.

Anyway, back to the clinic appointment last week with Dr Unpronounceable-ovich.

He knows I have a medical background and, as such, talks in un-necessarily complicated medical language so as not to talk down to me. Husband has not the faintest clue what we are talking about. Neither do I.

Dr Unpronounceable-ovich, as far as I can gather, agrees that IVF is the best way forward for me. He does not see the point in any unnecessary hormone treatments or other therapies. But, due to the Christmas break, I have to wait until March for my 'consenting' appointment, until April for my 'signing the consent' appointment, and then some time in June to start treatment.

No wonder they ask you to present early for your infertility. It takes literally YEARS to work through the system.

I thought time was of ze essence?