Category: fertility in your 30s

Telling it like it is…

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baby factory? I'll take that one thank you...

baby factory? I’ll take that one thank you…

You could hear a pin drop, the room was so quiet. We were in Dr Babies’ office and had just been told of my many issues leading to my infertility. It was that silent. No words. Just a distinct disbelief. I wanted to ask him to just check again, look over his notes one more time (because of course I’d almost tripped over and fell up the knock with 10 y o). But words failed me. Silent tears trickled out of the side of my eye and I looked down at my hands. I was pissed off as all hell. Angry and downright gutted. Gutted this body I’d taken care of (mostly well, yes yes apart from the drinking, the partying and a little more drinking) could let me down. Worst of the facts was that age was a persistent player in my now unreproductive organs. The cobwebs had long grown over them and deemed them almost all but unuseful.  Our chances, Dr Babies told us, of getting ourselves a lovely jubbly little bundle of loveness were somewhere in the vicinity of 10% on our own and not a whole lot more via IVF.

Now I am one of the fast-approaching-a-decade-that-closely-resembles-forty in denial, who me? who is apparently ‘clogging up the IVF clinics’. Did I choose to be in this position? Was I a career-driven, heartless bitch who put having babies way down the bottom of my to-do list? Did I prefer traveling the far reaches of the Morroccan desert on camelback to starting a family? Was I too busy waiting for Mr Right with my long-sweeping checklist to even see that he was right in front of me? Was I selfish and enjoying my own adult life too much to consider anyone under the age of 20 being able to inhabit it? No. I was none of these. But that’s what some would have you believe. Does someone who is 40 or even 43 have less right to undergo IVF treatment than someone who is in their 20’s or 30’s? Forget what priorities they may or may not have put first, having a baby is one of the most incredible times in a woman’s life. Becoming a mother is a gift that no trip, present, whopping great diamond or even flashy car could ever replicate but that doesn’t mean to say a woman still doesn’t have the right to give it a go because she apparently put babies ‘on hold’.

Some of us have no choice. Maybe we haven’t met our tall dark n’ handsome. Maybe we would really like to fulfill our achievements and kick our goals all the way to the glass ceiling. Or maybe some of us were like me. A widow. A single mother at 31, with a small boy to look out for. I had no idea that some four years later I would meet the most incredible man who filled my life with such joy that I so desperately want to have a part of him and I to share for the rest of our lives. Things are not always what you think they are and it’s so easy to ride side saddle on our high horse looking down at those around us who might be struggling with one of the biggest fears of their lives.

As the time draws close for us to start on our long and winding (though we hope a little less long and winding this time) road through IVF yet again and yes I’m getting scared. Scared as all shit. It’s another year, another round, another series of tests, another ride through the constant waiting but bugger it, what have we got to lose…? That’s a rhetorical question – especially to those in my immediate family who may or may not right now be using words like sanity, mind, shit, hair and just plain normal human being-ness. It’s time to make the appointment with Dr Babies. I’ve done my six weeks of hard labour (gluten free), I’ve taken more vitamins than you could point a sharp stick at. I’ve participated in many (okay not many but definitely a few) jiggly, sweaty gym classes. I’ve gone back to see Mr Needles, I’ve tried to calm myself and keep busy. I’ve worked on my positiveness and being Brady Bunch-happy. I’ve even whispered to the big fella upstairs. Now it’s all up to me, right? No pressure or anything.

It’s been so much more than a ride on the crappy carnival of infertility and if I’m honest I’m not looking forward to revisiting her nasty self. And just a quick word to the wise, there’s some things you just should never say to a woman who is a) hormonally challenged and b) who has tried every goddam thing under the sun and still has nothing to show for it. What I’ve learnt so far is not to take to heart what people genuinely think is okay to ask.

Here’s a brief Q & A to get you up to speed. Do I want your eggs? No thanks I’d prefer my own, we’re not in a supermarket aisle. When do you think you’ll give up? I’m not sure, would you like to give one of your children back? How much has all this cost you? Thanks for asking. A frigging helluva lot, both financially and emotionally…but if you’d like to put your donation in the tin. Do you think it will work this time? Last time I checked I don’t have a crystal ball up my jacksie so my guess is as good as yours. Have you tried this…yes and everything in between. I know it worked for your friend’s sister’s cousin who tried for years but don’t mean it’s gonna work for me. When you give up, is when it’ll work…thanks, how enlightening did you study under the Dalai Lama? And my favourite of all, the bonus prize, the double-whammy, the supersize me with fries, Stop stressing, don’t think about it, just relax…let me just tie a led brick around your ankle and let you walk around with it for a few months, you know just to get the feeling. Don’t think about it though and you won’t even know it’s there.

Yes, fun times here we come. Love to all my fellow babywanters out there – close to forty or otherwise – big hugs, LadyMamaG xox

Ups and downs…

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I almost died today. I actually thought it was all over. Saw stars in my eyes. Went dizzy felt like I was gonna hurl up my non-existent, liquid, gluten-free breakfast. Honest to Goodness, I thought my number was up. I blame it on my girlfriend. She asked me to come to Barre with her. And while I’d like to tell you that involved learning how to perfect a Margherita or the ingredients to a divine peach martini, there was nudda alcohol (even though I really could have done with some) involved in this particular tryst. The result is I can no longer lift my arms above my head without wincing and I now require assistance to be lowered onto the toilet seat. Sorry. But it’s true. The Barre – and it was my second attempt, (in a row) I might add – was not of the suave inner city drinking kind, but instead of the burn your buns and ballet-kick your legs almost above your head without knocking someone out kind. I’ll be posting naked selfies in no time, I thought. Err, wrong. While our sweet and petite instructor gleefully told me to dig down deep into my squat so I could ‘feel the burn’, I’m not sure if the poor girl behind me appreciated my burn so much. I read somewhere Miranda Kerr or Gisele or someone equally as goddess-like swears by it so I said ‘sign me up to the Gisele-butt’ – except I may never return. Well, not until I can take myself to bloody loo at least.

I'll look like this in no time...

I’ll look like this in no time…

Yes ladies and ladsters, welcome to twenny-one-four…where a new LadyMamaG is about to be unveiled before your very eyes. Oh, I haven’t even told you about my new little journey yet have I? Alright, grab the nearest bottle of Pinot and I’ll fill you in. It’s no secret 2013 was not a very nice year to me. It’s also no secret that we’re still not speaking, so much so that I am now refusing to even acknowledge her other than to say she’s behind me, like waaaaaay out yonder behind denim dungarees and spiral perms, behind me. Along with her seven failed IVF attempts and one lost pregnancy. ‘Get out’, I told her. ‘And don’t you be coming back, y’ hear?’

Despite my need to constantly be in the driver’s seat of my own life I have given way to the patron saint of patience (just for a short time, mind) and decided to take a break from all the nasties that have been invading my body like a deranged PacMan for thirteen odd months. Dr Babies suggested that it might be a good idea to take a short holiday from the fun resort that is IVF and opt down the path of holistic remedies to see if they might help.

I’ll spare you the intrepid details to save you from falling into your computer screen asleep but I did enlist the help of a naturopath, and one who goes by the moniker of Baby Maker, no less. When a fertility-challenged, hormone-hyped, possibly mentally-unstable woman reads those words there is no need for formal introductions, you can go straight to first base thanks very much. After our first meeting where she told me there was a slight possibility my tubes are not in fact blocked (funny, a hysteroscopy, laproscopy and the photographic evidence proves otherwise) and also that age be damned, I’m in fact in the most common age of women trying to conceive you don’t need to ask me twice, sign me up and fill me with whatever it takes, I’ll even dance the tango round the Mulberry bush naked if you think that’ll help.

Only problem is, when you tell a fertility-challenged girl that you might just have the answer to all her hopes and dreams she will literally hang on your every word and hold you so true to it that I would look at maybe switching your address should it not work out. Jo-king. But no really when a girl is as desperate as I am and you tell her that you have a much higher chance of conceiving by following her guide, she is going to hold you to it like a marshmallow on a stick.

Here’s what she’s put me on. Some vial tasting liquid that may or may not be the fermented urine of a rare Alpine elk. Approximately fifty-four different types of ‘uterine-health’ herbs that make me sound like a pair of maraccas when I walk there are so many pills jiggling round in my belly and the best part – a gluten free diet. I’m all for things that make you healthy but seriously there is only so much quinoa, wilted kale and sprinkled flax seeds a girl can take, right? Okay I admit there is a slight possibility I may even feel better for it but oh how I long for a nice bloody crusty French roll and a bowl of pasta.

Apparently all these things are going to get my hormones back on track. Perhaps you should ask The Vet, the 10 y o and possibly even the dog (who always remains my biggest fan) and may all argue that Mrs Bitchypants got a whole lot nastier this month.Thanks to the lovely spirit goddess who ended school holidays this week, lov yah guts baby. Apparently I need to open up my spiritual vessel (eyes up here, thanks) to a more positive and healthy and welcoming state. We’ll see how long that lasts without KFC and bread rolls in my life. Love to all the GF sufferers out there…let’s hold hands, LadyMamaGxox

 

 

When are you going to give up…?

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this many more...

this many more…

With soggy wet hair, stepping out of the shower 10 y o scrunched his nose up the way he does when he’s deep in thought, blinking at me through shampoo-redened eyes he asks, ‘why don’t you just get the IVF doctors to fix what’s wrong with you and you can have a baby. Can’t they fix your tubes so they work again?’ Nope, I never thought my 10 y o would know what tubes were either, much less that mine needed to be unblocked before we could have a baby. We’d just been watching Ricky Ponting’s story on ABC. ‘How many times did it take them to have a baby?’ he asks. I tell him they went through seven rounds before falling pregnant with their first daughter. ‘What number are we up to, maybe our seventh one will work,’ he says as if that’s the lucky number for everyone going through IVF. If it worked for a cricket legend, surely it’ll work for us too, right? I tell him we’ve already had our seventh go but that maybe eight will be our lucky number, instead.

‘How many more times will it take?’ he asks. That, Charlie, is the golden ticket. ‘Who knows,’ I reply. ‘If we did then we wouldn’t have to keep trying, buddy. We just have to hope the next one works.’

Then I started to think about how many times I’ve been asked what’s my lucky (or unlucky) number? When will you give up? When will you stop trying? How many goes until you decide enough is enough? What’s your limit? Truth is I don’t have that answer myself. If I did then maybe we wouldn’t be on this shithole journey in the first place.

You can’t put a number or a limit on how many times you’re willing to give it a go, much less than you put a number on how much you want a baby (and if you’re asking, Fertility Gods, that’s a real lot, heaps, like gazbillions). You just have to keep saddling back on up to that horse, grab it by its nasty little reigns and do your best to pull that crazy Mustang into line.

I’m thinking 14 might be my lucky number, well the year at least (nooo not fourteen babies you crazy fool) and that eight, well eight has a nice little ring to it thanks nicely. I’ve gone and signed up (under Dr Babies’ guidance) with a naturopath who has given me a list longer than Julia Roberts’ arm pit hair circa Oscar winning days, of potions and lotions that she promises will get my body back in perfect baby-making shape. Or at the very least, they’ll make my hair shiny and my nails grow (an obvious positive). I’m not wholly convinced by anyone who refers to themselves as a ‘baby maker’ but I figure, do your worst love, the crap this body’s seen in the past year would make a junkie look like a saint.

The ‘Herbs’ she has prescribed me, she admits, taste fairly close to ground up gravel and the amount of little brown bottles I have on my kitchen bench which are certain to aide everything from gut issues to healthy liver, heart and folic acid levels are sure to do me no harm. Well apart from that of my hip pocket. At the very least you may see me sign up to run a marathon very shortly. Or…then again, you may not.

No, I’m not ready to give up. Not just yet. Ask me in another year…Love, as always, Lady MamaGxox

Laters, twenny-one-three…

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a new year, new luck...?

a new year, new luck…?

Dear twenny-one-three, this might hurt a little bit so, like ripping off a week-old band aid, I think it’s best if I come right out and say it: I’m not going to miss you, not one teensy bit. You’ve seemed to lack mostly what I would say is just a mortal thread of common decency. Yes, there have been some wonderful highlights – you’ve seen the decade roll over that was the birth of the 10 y 0, and the greatest day of my life. You’ve seen the first anniversary of the day I married the Most Beautiful Man in the World, and you’ve finally seen the end to open home weekends. But, apart from that, I’ve got a bloody big bone to pick with you because it seems you’ve wanted to throw curve balls at me which ever way I’ve tried to turn. Thirteen has been about as lucky as a black cat crossing in front of you while walking under a ladder, with an umbrella up inside.

As I sit here – in my running shorts that I’m very unlikely to be running in – and try (hard) to think of all the new resolutions I need to make; no more KFC (cravings be damned), actually do my pilates DVD instead of allowing it to gather dust on my bedroom floor, eat nothing but kale, chia seeds, acia berries, quinoa and tofu EVERY night, walk the dog daily and curtail my sailor’s tongue (okay who are we kidding for that last one) I cast my mind back to the days before this year clicked swiftly into the number thirteen that has been about as lucky as Liz Taylor’s wedding vows. Yes, all seven of them.

I’d hardly even heard of Folicle Stimulating Hormone, progesterone, ovulation suppressant and trigger injections, must less known anything about how much they’d become a part of my daily life for the coming year. I’d had two, maybe three general anaesthetics in my lifetime, my thighs didn’t touch at the top and my wardrobe still fit me. I thought testosterone and steroids were for crazy gym junkies whose heads seem like they’re too small for their bodies trying to increase their biceps that one more inch and, here’s the big one, I actually stupidly beligerently believed it would take one go of IVF and I’d be up the knock.

It’s fair to say that twenny-one-three, you’ve been about as kind as Gordon Ramsay in a hot kitchen to this here fertility-challenged thirtysomething…so please please let the new one that arrives tomorrow and takes over from your shift be so much better than you. Laters sista, like a teenager’s training bra you won’t be missed.

Happy and safe New Year my lovely jubblies, love n’ hugs, Lady Mama G xox

Infertility, you win. Again.

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Look out Infertility, I got your number...

Look out Infertility, I got your number…

It’s no secret infertility and I have long been battling this year. She throws up a curve ball at us every month and we dodge it. Or at least we think we do. Then she ups her ammo a bit to wrecking ball proportions and we all know there’s no hiding from them. Specially ones on big fat chains. So it would appear yet again that nasty nasty little biatch has slapped us up with another of her brutal blows. Big. Fat. Negative. No good. Nothing. Nudda. This time it actually hurt.

With each and every loss through our seven cycles of IVF this year (yes that would be se-ven) I’ve jumped back up on the horse’s back and soldiered on. Through seven lots of drugs. Seven lots of steroids. Seven lots of progesterone. Seven lots of blood tests. Seven lots of waiting. Seven phone calls to tell us ‘sorry, it didn’t work this time’. We all have our breaking point and while  I’d like to say to Godmother Fertility that I got her number and I gonna find her and kick her lily white ass into next week, truth be told, I’m not even sure I’ve got the energy. A bit of a slap round the ankles is probably about as much as I can muster right now.

We thought it would work. No we really really did. What with all the testosterone, the melatonin, the steroids, something’s gotta make one of the lil’ embies stick, surely? Well no. No it didn’t. The only thing it appears to have helped with is the mood swings and weight gain – yes, the two of my most very favourite parts of IVF. And two of the things I’m managing to increase quite rapidly on my own thanks.

I was rather looking forward to celebrating our Island chrissie this year with a little bump on board. I even bought a special new bikini for the unveiling of it. And the only thing I really really really wanted was the one thing I clearly can’t have.

Yes I’ll still count my blessings. And yes, life will still go on. It just makes the grief all the more harder when you think you came this close to it actually working. Within a caterpillar’s toenail of having our dream come true and then poof…just as quickly as you thought mid-week, mid-11-day-wait that you were up the knock…your dreams are shattered like a mirror with the reality yet another one didn’t take.

While my heart aches for my family that we, or maybe I have failed yet again, and that a tiny bit of our dream gets chipped away with each loss the most incredible bouquet of all my favourite bright fuschia flowers with tiny diamantes peeking out from their heads handed to me by the one person who makes this all worth while is enough to give me the strength to keep on going. Infertility, you might have got this one but by f*&% am I gonna break you next time. I. Will. Win. Love n’hugs, Lady MamaG xox

 

Once was Fertile…

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the good, the bad and the ugly...infertility

the good, the bad and the ugly…infertility

There’s a picture of us on our wedding day, over nineteen months ago. We are so unbelievably happy. There is nothing that can break how good we feel. At least we think there isn’t. Yet what neither of us know with our smiling faces and twinkling eyes is what lies ahead in our first year of marriage is a ride on one of the most painfully emotional journeys that will test every ounce of our souls. Constantly. We thought we’d be pregnant by the end of the honeymoon. Hell, I thought I’d trip over The Vet and instantly become up the knock. Oh. How. Wrong. I. Was. Because I Once Was Fertile. Hells to the yes I took it for granted. I thought I was born as fertile as a field bunny. Turns out maybe I was in my 20s. Another decade (okay, and a bit) later and it’s taking every little bit of my courage left in the jar just to keep getting out of bed in the morning.

It’s not just the fact my wardrobe seems to have shrunk…along with my (very cherished) Tank Cartier, my equally beloved wedding rings and even any type of shoe that doesn’t resemble an open-toed jandal (sorry, can take the Girl outta Kiwiland). It’s not the fact my once taut belly has turned into mushy tiramisu. It’s not that we’ve spent so many thousands of dollars we could have gone on a round the world trip – and still had money left over to buy a luxury car. It’s not the fact the hormones make my personality switch from lovely to Kathy Bates’ Misery in the blink of an eye. It’s not that my bowels think it’s a funny joke to either withhold everything for days or expel it immediately (sorry for overshare) when there isn’t a loo within cooee. It’s not that I have had more general anesthetics this year alone than Courtney Stodden has for all her surgeries put together. It’s not even that I’m taking every kind of hormone you can think of and then some (and deeply concerned there could be an onset of facial hair growth at any minute). It’s not that my arms look like pin cushions and my belly is full of little blue bruises from where the needles have gone in.

No, the really suckful thing about this ride is that I. Lost. Control. Of. Everything. Long. Ago. My body, my emotions, my ability to be any sort of rational. To be patient or even positive.

Everything about IVF and infertility involves waiting. You wait until you can start your daily hormone injections then you wait 10 days to see how many follicles have grown. Then you wait to see how many of those turn into eggs. Then when you get the eggs out you wait to see how many of those they could inject. Then you wait to see how many of the injected ones make it through the night. Then you wait each day for five days after that for your phone call to tell you how many cells they’ve progressed. Then you wait to see if you’ll have an embryo to implant. Then you wait 11 days to see if that embryo has embedded in your uterus. Then you wait to see if it makes it to your first five week scan and blood test. Then, just to be sure you wait for another week to see if your hormone levels are still increasing. Then you wait until eight weeks to see if it has survived. Then you wait until 12-weeks before you know if there are any genetic defects. Then and only then do you get to finally think you might have a little bit of luck. You. Might. Actually. Have. A. Baby. One day.

This month we are on our seventh cycle of IVF. That’s thirteen long months of mood swings, dimpled thighs, disappointment and dropping more wads of of cash than Squizzy Taylor. Even the strongest Scorpions have their breaking point. I’m just hoping I can find a pocketful more brave to keep me going through this round – which this time is a bit like being in the ring with Mike Tyson. Blindfolded.

I know I’m not alone. There’s girls out there who’ve been on this journey a helluva lot longer than I have. There’s people who’ve had success and there are people who have not. There’s couples who, like us, have come so close they could almost smell the baby powder.

Cross your fingers that the two little embies we have left will make it. To my fellow infertility junkies…love, luck and wonder to y’all. Love n’hugs, Lady MamaG xoxo

 

Take what you can get…

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Lotsabubs: Never have more babies than you have hands...

Lotsabubs: Order the mini van…

Don’t be at all alarmed if my voice drops a peg or two. Or if I start sprouting a few little hairs on my chinnie chin chin. Or even if I develop Arnie-like biceps bulging from my arms.

Because this here Lady MamaG vessel is producing bugger all eggs and even less of those that make it to embie stage, Dr Babies has signed me up to take Testosterone, which has in turn seen me check the mirror every morning for signs of an Adam’s apple appear out of my throat. So far so good. Why the need for man juice? Well, apparently it aids the growth and quantity of eggs. I’m all for whatever means I don’t have to keep going through another year of six anesthetics, three egg collections and six embryo transfers – hells to the yes, where do I sign me up? I lost the ability to care what goes into my body and how it looks long ago. Around the same time my wardrobe stopped fitting me. And the good doc has also been kind enough to prescribe a little Melatonin to help make me less cranky. sleep better, for which the men of my household are extremely grateful.

We’ve decided to sit this month out and give it one last shot for the year in November…which also happens to be my month of birth (all choccies, prezzies and diamonds gratefully accepted) by which time, hopefully my pipes can produce some fighting little embies that are able to make it the whole nine yards this time.

There’s one more change to our next cycle and that’s the decision to pop two lovely little embies in on our next transfer. Now don’t think I haven’t considered this as much as much as Britney before shaving her head. I have so many friends with twins I could actually start a David Koresh-style commune and still have some left over in the neighbouring suburbs. I’ve seen them juggle babies on boobs, change nappies by the green wheelie bin load and buy van-like vehicles just to transport them but I’ve also seen the beautiful gift that is multiple births and while I’m in no dreamland that it would be ‘fun’ to have twins despite The Vet and the 9 y o thinking this would be ‘awesome’ (their word, not mine) I would rather be blessed with two than none at all. It’s something I’ve had to get my head around and when Dr Babies suggested it would be the best option for our next round, after I slapped him in the face (no I didn’t really) I took a moment to think – that would be a nano second – and you know what…? Whatever number that Big Bloke upstairs decides to dole out the little people, I’ll take thanks very much.

When you undertake IVF, you do so knowing there is always a risk of multiple birth because of the drugs, the potential of embryos splitting and a few other factors. I’ve considered this and unlike the muppets on Today Tonight that have decided to sue their fertility doctor because they ended up with triplets and not twins, I know what I’m in for…be that one or two, I’d just be grateful to have any at all and count my bloody blessings.

So cross everything including your nose hairs this might be our final round and we get the little dream we’ve been hoping for…however many that might be… Lov’n’ hugs, LadyMamaG xox

Sometimes it’s just shitful…

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No stork stopping at Lady MamaG's this year...

No stork stopping at Lady MamaG’s this year…

So the end of the LONGEST two weeks of my life is up and nudda. Not one little embryo attached. Bugger. What do you get for all your hoping, praying, wishing that maybe, just maybe you might get lucky this time? Well you get a big fat one line on the POAS (for those who don’t know what that abbreviation is, I’ll spare you the overshare, let’s just say it’s a test). After going through what was our sixth round we came out with just one surviving embie and even that little sausage just didn’t manage to make the distance.

There are so many questions – why, why and mostly WHY being all of them but really, there ain’t no answer… it just is. Didn’t work. Again. But being the tough Scorp that I am, as well as being determined as all hell, stubborn as a forehead pimple and basically not ready to give up, we’re back up on the horse’s back. Well, not right now but after a nice little break of one month where I hope I might be able to have something that’s been absent for the past few months…and that would be a full night’s sleep, thanks very much. Not even the 9 y o kept me awake this much when he was a newborn.

If the nasty infliction that is infertility has taught me one thing, it’s that you can’t give up hope. You can’t chuck it in just because it didn’t work. You can’t ‘put a number on the amount of times you’re going to try’ any more than you can put a number on how much you want a baby (but if  you’re asking that would be the mostest in the world). You can’t feel sorry for yourself and be weighed down in the gallows of pity because there is always someone who has been on this journey longer than you, has suffered more loss than you or is taking it a whole lot tougher than you. As women we can’t help but feel like we’ve let the side down worse than the Wallabies in a test match because that’s what we girls were put on the earth to do…reproduce…and when that natural right is taken away, or at least out of your control you become more obsessed than Kris Kardashian over a new handbag line.

I’m just grateful that on what was yet another of the saddest nights of my life, I could still sneak in to 9 y o’s room and kiss his little golden lashes on eyes long ago closed. That I could climb in bed beside The Most Beautiful Man in the World and know that everything’s going to be alright. Cos it is the people who love you who get you through this shitful ride… Lov n’ hugs, LadyMamaG xox

It’s getting hot in here…

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It won't hurt a bit...

It won’t hurt a bit…

Well butter my toast if I’m not flippin’ over school holidays already. Yes, yes I know I should be grateful that I’ve got a kid at all but it’s not actually mine I’m sick of it’s just other people’s. Case in point: Some little kid pushed in front of me in the line at the video kiosk (seriously how good are those green machines?) the other day and it took all my control not to grab him by his little rat’s tail and give him a good telling off. Respect these days. There’s none of it. I wondered if I shouldn’t have waved my tuckshop lady arm at him and told him I have the potential to turn little rude kids like him into piles of slime with the power of my eyes, but then he’s probably never read The Witches so therefore my rant would be wasted and he would just think I was loopy. Which possibly, I am. Temporarily of course.

This time Dr Babies has ramped up my hormone injections to the same dose I was on last time which did produce more eggs but now we’re just waiting to see how many will grow into tiny little hatchlings. My belly is beginning to resemble something like those kids you see in the Save the Children ads because it’s all puffed up like I’ve swallowed an actual basketball from my egg collection on Monday. Oh fun times. Let’s just say if you’re bored one day and have nothing better to do, don’t go and fill your uterus with a whole lot of fluid and gas. It’s not as fun as you might think. It actually hurts to laugh. Or move, or walk. It’s got bruises from where the injections have gone in and even though I’ve asked The Vet very kindly to do it gently, sometimes I think he forgets I’m not one of his dogs who has the fortune of having thick fur to soften the needle prick. Don’t even get me started on hot flushes that feel as though someone’s plugged an electric blanket into your bum.

I had to stop myself from hyperventilating when Dr Babies told me he was taking his kids on holiday and wouldn’t be here to do both my egg collection and my transfer (how inconsiderate of him to take a day off in a year!) but calmed myself the hell down when I realised there’s bound to come a time when your doctor has to actually have a holiday. I’m not going to lie, I did wonder for a short time about offering to pay for his holiday to be taken at a time after my own treatments.

I decided to watch a video of how they do the egg collection last night and I wouldn’t advise it for Wednesday night viewing. An STD episode of Embarrassing Bodies would make you squirm less but you know what there really are a lot of people in the same boat as us. Infertility is spreading faster than a One Direction infection only it’s much much more emotional – I’m aware those of the female fourteen year-old-variety would disagree but with one in six, them numbers are not great.

So now it’s back to waiting by the phone. I feel a bit like Miley hoping desperately for Liam to take her back. Except I don’t have little horns on my head and have, thankfully kept my undies on and my tongue in my mouth…for this week at least, after another ten days on progesterone I can’t be certain. Lov n’hugs LadyMamaGxox

Hello old self, are you there?

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Least I haven't reached this stage...yet

Mind out where you put that chain, lov, you’ll end up with a nasty yeast infection… Just saying…

Today I thought about doing some pilates. Which is better than yesterday when I didn’t even think about it at all. I still haven’t done it but the very thought of doing it, I believe, has awoken some very very lazy muscles in this here LadyMamaG. The reason I’m telling you about thinking about almost doing pilates is because I want to share with you how much fun it is to not feel like your real self anymore.

This morning I thought it might be a good idea to weigh myself, see what all them lovely lil’ fertility drugs been doing to this here 37 y o body. To my greatest relief the scales had gone flat. Thanks to the Gods who made that happen. It still doesn’t change the fact almost everything, no actually everything don’t fit no more. I used to love getting dressed in the morning. It was like a little fashion magazine shoot going on in my wardrobe every single day. Now I’m quite happy to mooch around the house in my pilates pants (let’s not judge me) until oh, at least before I have to do the school run. Sometimes I might even do the school run while still wearing them. To which 9 y o rather unsubtly reminds me, ‘why are you still wearing that mummy?’ when he jumps in the back seat. Thanks young man for making me feel like Britney post-shaven head. He also likes to ask why I haven’t got any makeup on. Kids are good at honesty, I’ll give ’em that.

So besides the fact I dress to do pilates but don’t actually do it. And that every single thing in my wardrobe no longer even wants to look at me it’s so disgusted, there is the other thing. What have I become? Am I the girl who is happy to let her armpit hair grow a couple of inches (stop screwing up your face, I haven’t reached that stage yet) while still trying to squeeze into a pair of shorts sans-IVF that are two sizes too small and therefore give me two bums? Lucky for you all, I have not assaulted your eyeballs with this visual though summer is just around the corner you’ll be glad to know. Have I become that girl whose vocabulary doesn’t stretch much further past progesterone, gonal-F, orgalutran, prednisolone, progynova and elevit – which besides the fact makes me sound like some really clever person who might be a doctor, when really I’m not – can be mighty boring. Especially to those who may just think I’ve rattled off the cities of some far away country.

Well at least I’m not swinging naked from a giant cement ball. Though if I did look like that, maybe I would…

Countdown is back on until my next round of friendly local neighbourhood needles. Fun times indeed. Lov n’hugs to y’all specially those with foam fingers, LadyMamaGxox