And I promise not to name it North, Rocket or Pear

When I was little I used to dream about when I was big and what my own family would look like. Having come from a broken family it was mostly all I wanted – all the pieces to fit in the puzzle. Me, the dad and the two, maybe even three kids. I’d dress my Sindy doll up in her best frock and she would proudly drive her babies in her plastic pink car to the shopping village under my bed. She had a little boy named Fred and a little girl named Samantha. Fast forward a dozen or so years (okay so maybe a few more) that dream got almost entirely realised before being ripped away and then years later re-imagined in the most incredible true-life fairytale way and now, as I loom ever closer to the year that spells the end of my thirties there’s only one teeny little piece left to fit.

I can’t help it and I don’t know if it’s because like John Lennon, I’m a dreamer. Or because I’m one helluva Stubborn Scorpian Bitch, or because like that little girl I still believe in fairytales having good happy endings but I can’t help being the constant Fertility Junkie who is waaaay too intimate with her cycle than she’d like to be (and no, I don’t mean the cherry-covered seat of my pink cruiser). Sure we’ve got everything we could ever want and don’t think for one minute I’m not more grateful than Kris Jenner at Kimye’s wedding because I have the most incredibly gorgeously spectacularly wonderful mini human being in my 11 y o but for him, for me and mostly for the totes amazingly brill’ adult human being on the planet, The Vet, I need our own final puzzle piece.

So far I’ve pretty much tried every shit-assing thing that every shit-assing person can suggest on why/how I could get up the knock. Emails ping at me every time I look at my laptop telling me ways of ‘Increasing my fertility by doing cartwheels naked on a beach before sucking on the sweet nectar of a rare African fruit’. It’s my thyroid, they say. It’s my mindset – it needs to be completely free of stress (good, how do you suppose I do that when all I can do is stress over trying to get myself up the knock?!) It’s gluten they tell me, eat a shitload of spinach/kale/wheatgrass for breakfast, lunch and tea. It’s colouring my hair they say…hang on there are limits and not being able to touch up my regrowth is one of life’s necessities this slowly-finding-more-grey-hairs gal ain’t about to give up thank you please. It’s microwaves, cellphones and toxic paint fumes. It’s everything and anything but what they don’t tell you and what I don’t see ping at me when I open my inbox every morning is this: ‘Luck. It pretty much all comes down to a shitload of luck so go out and find yourself a leprechaun’.

We’ve tried trigger injections, we tried steroids, still it just slaps me in the face every single month. I do sincerely wish my cycle and I were not so frenemy-close each month but as it stands I can tell her every move being that she’s about as subtle as a Nikki Minaj bandage dress. Sadly there has been no false hope lighting up my ovaries for quite some time now as this month marks three years since I learned fertility junkie would become a regular part of my vocab. Before that I hadn’t much been exposed to it apart from watching the desperate suffering of a few close friends and a very dear family member. Shit I felt sorry for them alright but I never knew jack about their actual suffering. I had little to no idea exactly how much fertility resembles flies hovering over fresh dog shit…until I myself, skipped not-so-merrily down that sharp fork in the road. Now it’s all I can think about even when I’m not thinking about it.

I’ve lost count of how many chlomid rounds we’ve done and even exactly the number of IVF cycles that have littered our fertile past seem to have all congealed into one. The only thing I do remember is that we had One. One successful attempt and even though that little frosty barely made it past the seven week-mark it is a teeny tiny weeny flicker of hope. Dr Babies has, at one last ditch attempt, put me on Letrizole for this cycle hoping that might have some miracle affect on my little eggie speggles. Let’s all take a moment to quietly wish upon the Fertility Gods for some goodness. To all my faithful fertility fans who keep me pepped up on this shitful battle, big ups to you all your words of wisdom and hope fill my heart. Love n’hugs, Lady MamaG xox