Should I stay or should I go?

( Well, you gotta let me know... Any other Clash fans out there? No? Oh ok, on with the post...)

Back in the doubtful days of September I spent an afternoon musing on all the things that I might pursue once my energies were no longer devoted entirely to counting the length of my cycles and the levels of my hormones and weekly blood draws and transvag probings and the like. Such a struggle, and such an uncertain trajectory; which is why I could do nothing other than speculate at the time, as to what my future might hold. (As an aside too much information alert!: it seems entirely likely that the very day I penned those particular musings was the same that sperm finally decided to meet egg, giving all musings to come an entirely different, more hopeful flavour.)

Well, we're on a different trajectory now, thanks to those two lines, but one I must admit that is no less fraught with worry and fear and uncertainty. There is the ever-present fear that the next u/s will reveal the worst; the uncertainty that comes with the knowledge that we are dealing not with a when, but a very big if... This last week, in particular, has thrown me for a loop as I've been wading through a grief hangover and guilt and thinking a great deal about S. There are so many complicated and confusing emotions that come with the mindfuck that is pregnancy after loss, and when I find the energy and cognitive capacity I'll likely write more about it.

But for now, I am here with a more practical problem.

Long before we knew about the little seedling's imminant mind bending, life altering entry onto the scene, I agreed to do a week of teaching for the students of a dear friend in Italy. The prospect of a pregnancy (or even fertility treatments) seemed, at the time, laughably and distincly unpossible, and so I didn't think twice about saying yes. What could be more lovely than a week catching up with a friend I see far too scarcely, spent in Italy at a university of gastronomy, surrounded by vineyards and experienced guides in all things culinary and viticultural? I know, right? I was in for a treat! (And really, given the mindset to which I was prone in those days, I am sure I would have indulged accordingly in all that such a scenario offers, without the slightest bit of appropriate restraint or respect due the fine wines involved.)

Admittedly, this particular gig has in recent months - what with a new job and new plans and a growing (touchwoodfingerscrossedpleaseplease!) baby - been all but forgotten. I have planned nothing. And then this week I looked at the calendar and remembered.

In theory of course, I can still travel to Italy at the end of January and make good on my word. There is no medical logic advising against it. But H and I both, somehow, have this strong feeling of not wanting to be apart, of having me in another country where I don't speak the language and know almost no one, because, well...just in case. I don't have a better reason for you than that, and don't really want to seriously contemplate what those thoughts represent anyway.

And then I looked at the calendar and did the mental pregnancy maths and also realized that the week falls on almost the exact stage of this pregnancy as when things started to go horribly wrong with S more than three years ago. No matter how much I try to remind myself that this is its own pregnancy,  how much I seek to separate one from the other and to adjust my attitude accordingly, I anticipate that this time in the pregnancy might be a huge trigger for me. I might freak out. I might need to curl up in a ball under the duvet and cry snot-faced tears. Then again, I might not. It's hard to call.

And herein is my dilemma, an admittedly very nice (and unanticipated) one to have.

So, bloggy friends, I am hoping to draw on other perspectives here. What would you do in my shoes? Have you found such anniversaries particularly difficult, or do you think having some distraction would be helpful? And are H and I just being crazy, ultra-cautious neurotics?

What I'm possibly passing on. But then, what I've got.

  
  

Realizing, again

This week while out shopping, one of my favorite Flaming Lips songs, Do You Realize? came over the radio. It's a song that's always held meaning for me, and which brought particular comfort after S died; there is a beautiful and powerful truth in the starkness of the lyrics. A call to live life to the fullest, to fully inhabit every moment you have.  A wonder at the beauty of it all.

Do you realize 
That you have the most beautiful face?
Do you realize 
We're floating in space?
Do you realize 
That happiness makes you cry?
Do you realize 
That everyone you know someday will die?

And instead of saying all of your goodbyes 
Let them know you realize that life goes fast
It's hard to make the good things last
You realize the sun doesn't go down
It's just an illusion caused by the world spinning round

But on this most recent listening, those last two lines somehow caught me in a new way, a way I had never considered before.

the sun doesn't go down/it's just an illusion caused by the world spinning round.

Just as we have to really fiercely live the beautiful and fleeting moments of happiness so intense it can reduce us to tears of bewildered joy, equally the dark moments when we think all sun and all goodness have gone from our lives are momentary too. And yes, there will be moments when that dark seems so deep and impenetrable as to be unending; when in fact, it's just an illusion, a trick of spinning planetary bodies. This too shall pass.

It was a welcome reminder.

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Last month I attended a conference that is one of the largest gatherings of its kind for people in my erstwhile profession. While there, I had the lovely opportunity to catch up with some former colleagues and in one such conversation, received an invitation to do some teaching in Botswana in early 2014. It was an intriguing offer, affirmation of my standing in a profession I no longer inhabit, and more than a little enticing. This was not the first such instance: in a similar encounter last year, I was asked to join full-time a project in China which I had been working on as a consultant for several years.

In a former life, these would have been the kinds of projects - and the kinds of adventures - that I would have jumped at, and I must confess that I was a little wistful in giving my answer that, at least for the time being, these undertakings wouldn't be in the cards for me. The reality is, such work and the travel it necessitates are hugely incompatible with ttc and particularly with infertility treatments. I would be required to take anti-malarials regularly, expose myself to questionable water sources, travel to post-conflict areas where infrastructure is minimal, if not non-existent. Over time, I have become mistrustful enough of my body's reproductive capacities and ability to deal with routine 'risks' like a glass of red wine thoughtlessly sipped during a two week wait, or accidental inhalation of mould or cat litter; throwing those extra (and very real) risks into the mix was not an option.

This whole babymaking rollercoaster has almost been enough to entirely erase from memory the knowledge of how stupid? adventurous my former self was, and what very different rollercoasters I once rode. 

But when I left it behind, I suppose there was always some notion that we'd see where life took us, that I might possibly return to the work in some time, even with children. In reality, my marriage is no impediment to such work because my flexible, travel-loving husband is ready and willing to join me in such far-flung locales, and we envisaged a future in which we could introduce our child to the wonders of the world so loved by two travel-addicted parents. We both view travel as an exciting and vital form of education, and exposure to otherness, learning to negotiate differences of materiality and culture are more than just passionately held ideals for us. The cultures in which we have lived tend to place a high value on children, who are at the centre of community life, and we imagined our child benefitting from that atmosphere too. Learning to pump water from a well, to speak other languages; tasting and seeing and hearing new things; meeting other children and playing with the kind of freedom that is all but impossible in many western countries today. We (naively, foolishly) built an entire future for our little family - complete with sights and sounds and many an adventure - before understanding what sacrifices would have to be made, what challenges we would face, in getting the very part of the equation we thought would be the simplest: the babies. (And it was this approach to life that also made us drawn very early on to the possibility of international adoption; not instead of, but alongside biological children. It's something we'd still like to pursue, at a later date.) 

Fast forward three years - through all the failures and pain and loss and false starts, not to mention the drastic change in living conditions and career paths - and here we are, about to begin IVF. We are oh-so-fortunate to be looked after at a clinic where we can expect two fully funded rounds of IVF, (including as many FETs as would be feasible after retrieval of my crappy eggs). We're so grateful for this chance, and also aware that This. Is. It: The Final Frontier. We'll either manage a healthy pregnancy or we won't. There really isn't any in-between, is there? A year from now, our life could and probably will look so very different than it does now, but we won't know for some time exactly which different we're getting. In any case, we both know we don't want to be doing this for much longer, whatever the outcome. It's hard to draw a line in the sand when it involves something you've worked so hard for, committed so much of yourself to, dreamed of with such intensity; so although we haven't set a hard and fast deadline for ourselves, we both know we're nearing the end of this particular journey. I need a fresh start, to devote my energies to something else for a change. I need the chance to be excited about things that might just work. I owe that to myself and I owe it to my marriage.

So why am I mentioning this in the context of my erratic career trajectory? I guess it's nice, and somehow reassuring, to be reminded of all that's waiting out there for me, for us, when we finally have cause to call it a day, baby or no baby. I'm reaching a place where all the possible what ifs hold not so much fear, but possibility. We have many an adventure still to undertake, whatever our family ends up looking like.

As dark as things may seem right now, there is movement, even if it's imperceptible in this particular moment. Things are happening. And there is so much waiting out there for us. H is close to completing his thesis, and then we won't need to be here anymore. We might finally make the move 'back home', to Canada, or to Austria. Maybe we'll move to that little alpine farm and raise goats, as we've daydreamed about. Maybe we'll find ourselves in more far-flung, less prosaic surroundings altogether. Maybe I'll return to the work for which I once held so much passion, or take up that offer in Botswana. Maybe we'll buy an old jalopy and spend three months driving through the Balkans, like we've always talked about. (Of course, all of these things would be stellar experiences with a tiny, curious and open-minded companion to occupy our time; this would be the best case scenario.) Who knows? The thing is, I think I'm getting to a place where all those possibilities, and even the unknown-ness of it all, can - one day soon - hold as much excitement as trepidation. And even though the world keeps spinning round, and will doubtless continue to throw us for a loop here and there, right now that's an okay place to be.

The long version

I feel a tiny bit like a dickhead since publishing my last post, which I'm aware probably made me sound both ungrateful and capable of finding a complaint about any (potentially wonderful) scenario that life throws at me. Each of your comments gently reminded me though that, despite my own inability to recognize them as such, recent events have been hopeful. Celebration-worthy even. Thank you for feeling excited for me even as I can't seem to muster the energy to do it myself. Thank you for sticking with this dickhead.

As anyone who has been reading for a while will know, I am prone to emotional and physiological oversharing in this space; the ugly as well as the uplifting. Not only did I envision this space from the outset as a record of sorts, one that might help me process and look back on developments as they happened, but I definitely also think that sometimes just the act of getting it out there can limit the corrosive effects of all the negativity rattling around in my brain as a consequence of this crazy train.

So it's in that spirit, as much as for the, erm...entertainment of the interwebs, that I post the following. It was written right in the midst of the chaotic events of the last week of July, when I was juggling all the future possibilities and feeling especially overwhelmed by it all. And then I kind of lost my will and my voice and climbed into that grey track suit and never finished or posted it. Until now.

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It's been one hell of a week, and a lot of stuff has happened since I last found time to update. My head's still spinning, so I apologize in advance for the meandering course I'm sure this post will take. But I still feel I need to write it if for no other reason than to make sense of things myself.

It kind of started late last week, while I was still trying to renegotiate the interview time and felt a bit like my prospective employers were leaving me to do all the flexing. (This was not the best way to start a working relationship; it did not exactly endear me to said employers, but a job's a job, right?) There was a lot of to-ing and fro-ing in emails, me calling the fertility clinic to see how late in the day our appointment could be pushed, checking and re-checking to see how feasible a certain train journey would be against a proposed schedule... It was stressful guys, and with H's contract due to expire in September, and no clear plans on what we'd do next, it felt like a lot was riding on this. On me.

I kind of lost it a bit then and there, broke down and cried about how random and unfair it all was, got in one of the first of what turned out to be a whole series of fights with H for 'not being supportive enough', after which we had slightly resentful, let's-just-do-this sex what a turn on! because, well, we were still just maybe in the 48hr window indicated by my positive OPK and didn't want to screw up a chance because of total emotional exhaustion petty squabbling. (And then thought to ourselves, 'I can't wait for IVF to come along and divorce this whole process entirely from baby-making so that maybe one day we'll have sex again because we just want to', and then felt awful for thinking that.)

And then I got my shit together and got on a train and gave an awesome interview on Monday. Within an hour of leaving the office, I got a call with an offer of the job, which I accepted. I called H to share the good news, and then I went for dinner with my mom. All perfectly lovely and anti-climactic and low key (and I managed to live happily for a whole 24hrs blissfully unaware that this had finally occurred). But I think H was disappointed with the detached way in which I greeted the news.

Now I should probably state for the record here, in my defence, that this has been a protective mechanism (one I'm far from happy with) that has only recently become fully manifest; my increasing callousness toward and detachment from a world full of wonderful things and good news stories. Like the thick skin that develops on your hands and feet over time, through exposure after exposure to painful elements, stinging barbs, intense heat, it's come layer by layer, and only now do I realize how much I have to cut away to get back to the tender heart of my being.

For the last three years, we've had more bad luck than good. It's sometimes hard not to feel like when S died, not just our hope, but all possibility for the future left with him. It's been a constant and continuous uphill climb, and I'm exhausted. In that time, we've lost two more pregnancies and had the rug pulled out from under us more times than I care to itemize. On several occasions, when we thought finally we have some good coming our way! it all turned out to be a big, cruel, cosmic joke. Not just the babies dying (though obviously that's the big one, the one that's left the deepest scars). On other occasions our hopes and plans for a stable home, a good job offer, were ultimately yanked away from us, once because of a stupid immigration technicality and once because H's Crohn's disease unexpectedly landed him in hospital for five scary weeks during which we thought he'd need to have his bowel resected (which in itself was pretty daunting). I don't know if this is because we somehow unwittingly manage to make really bad life choices or the gods have chosen us for target practice because of now unknown transgressions in a past life, or if we just have had a string of really. bad. luck.

But in short (though not really, given the length of this post): I don't trust good stuff anymore. I don't trust that I'm anything more than the butt end of that cruel cosmic joke.  Hence my hesitation with embracing the good, even when it comes, try as I might. Oh, I'm quite ok with celebrating the little moments; you could even say I have a talent for that (which I am aware is an important life skill to cultivate, and helps to explain my resilience). But the big stuff? The stuff that's supposed to lift you up and, before you even realize it, change the direction of your lifecourse? Profound yet commonplace stuff like bringing new life into the world? Nu uh. Truthfully, I think I've stopped being able to believe in those big, life altering events. I don't believe in epiphanies. I think maybe it's all just a slow shuffle, and some days you manage to bring it and make everything feel shiny and promising, while some days all you really can do is shuffle your feet. So this was all stuff I was contemplating, darting through my brain as I made my return journey to the excited arms of my dear husband.

And my strange, ambiguous emotional state was not helped by what turned out to be a horrific journey. For the last forty minutes on the train, me and the entire train car I was riding in were witness to a vitriolic and aggressive domestic altercation courtesy of a couple who were hepped up on who knows what kind of (probably illegal) mood altering substances and didn't care who knew it. Horrific verbal abuse and expletives were hurled from both sides. In. A. Crowded. Train. What was much, much worse, they had two sweet, small boys with them; the younger was about three, and clearly found a defense mechanism in zoning it all out and focussing as hard as his little self could muster on a pull toy he was vrooming up and down the carriage, finding far too early in life his own necessary means of reaching oblivion as his parents clearly had with drugs or alcohol. But the older one, about five I'd say, was clearly totally cognizant of exactly what was going on, and tried to play (what seemed to me, as a feeling of nausea crept in with the realization), his probably customary role of peace-maker, interjecting plaintively, again and again: Please Daddy. To which one or the other parent invariably replied: Shut the f*%$ up! No one intervened, not even the train staff, because I think they were afraid of the parents. (After stepping off the train at my designated stop, I managed to alert some transport police who then boarded the train to investigate).

Frankly, it was harrowing. It was enough that it triggered one of those (admittedly selfish) 'Really? These people can have kids??' reactions and reminded me of the random unfairness of it all. But to be forced to witness the neglect, verbal and emotional abuse of small children like that, their humiliation at the hands of their own parents, was heartbreaking. I mean chest-constricting, painful-to-breath, kind of heartbreak. It effected me profoundly.

So when I stepped off the train to be greeted by my dear husband, whose arms, as it turned out, were not ready to receive me because of the gargantuan bouquet of exotic flowers he carried to bestow on me...Well, I wasn't really all there. I was overwhelmed and exhausted. And really, as I'm learning just now, my inability to receive and acknowledge good news is clearly becoming something of a problem I need to work harder at. I stiffened as I saw the joy on his face, and knew I wouldn't be able to convincingly play along. And yes, (naturally!) I then picked a fight with him. I am a terrible person, I know. Tuesday was not one of my prouder moments.

But the exact source of all this became clarified for me as we prepared for yesterday morning's appointment at the clinic. We were both edgy and hadn't, thanks to my in-progress meltdown, had the time to compose the careful list of what ifs? and what's next? with which we are typically armed for discussion during a doctor's visit. We fully expected, in light of clinical encounters both more and less recent, to have to cajole a bit, to plead our case, stand our ground against lethargic and disinterested medical professionals who would keep telling us that, thanks to our three 'successful' conceptions, we 'just needed to give it more time'.Truly, we were ready for a fight.

So when we entered the exam room and, within minutes of reviewing our fruitless attempts over the last several months, the consultant asked straighforwardly, How do you feel about moving forward with IVF?...

Well, we were flabbergasted. We were totally unprepared. We were clumsy and sputtering and far-too-grateful in our responses. But the long and short of it is this: we'll have some more detailed investigations done in prepartion for our final intake appointment, we'll attend a mandatory information session run by the IVF Unit at the hospital, and after that, my next cycle will be It. In sum, the appointment was great. Helpful, hopeful, informative. Everything we could have wished for.

And yet, I can't quite bring myself to feel happy or excited about this right now either. I know, I know...it's what we've been impatiently waiting months to be told. The best I can explain it is with what I said to H as we walked home from the clinic in a daze, disbelieving of the good fortune that might finally be coming our way:

You come up against a door that you realize, when you try to open it and walk through, has been locked and bolted. But you really, really want to get through that door, there's something you need on the other side, that your sanity and future happiness depend on. So you fling yourself feebly against it and you kick and you bang your fists, growing weak and tired and developing quite a few bruises and scratches in the process. And all of a sudden, just when you're tired and on the verge of giving up altogether, without any warning, the door gives without struggle, and instead of walking through cool, calm and collected, you fall flat on your face, right there on the threshold, with the extertion of its refusal that in the end, never came. You're momentarily shocked and bewildered, sitting there on the threshold.

That's how I felt this morning as we walked home. I want to, but I can't seem to bring myself to believe in good news anymore. Not yet. Actually, we were both so dazed that, despite having piles of work waiting for us at home and office as we now have to troubleshoot quite a big move in the coming weeks, we stopped for a cider at one of the sidewalk cafes that were teeming with life in the midst of an uncharacteristically hot, sunny summer. We sipped our drinks and squinted against the bright, warming, soothing sunlight which has become so unaccustomed to our ghostly white, pasty selves. And held hands, and just kind of stared into space.

I'm still having trouble dealing

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And there, good readerfolk, it ended. That last sentence hanging in the balance just like my befuddled brain, mid-completion, bereft of an ending.

So, fast-forward three odd weeks and I think I'm beginning to process it all. Inevitably, forward we go. I think at heart, at least for now, I'm still not super optimistic about IVF. Right now, I don't feel like I'll ever join that magic, select club who get their healthy pregnancy or happy adoption story and the take home baby that comes with it. I have doubts that IVF will be the magic bullet for us. Maybe (hopefully?) some of that will change as we progress through actual treatments and it becomes more real. Or maybe I still just need more time to process.

I'm still having trouble dealing... 

But yeah, it's getting better. The door has been opened, and though we haven't walked through yet - we're still peering around, trying to get our bearings from the threshold - it's only a matter of time.

In sum: good news and grey track suits

So, after leaving you all hanging with the mother of all scheduling dilemmas (and I just know you've been on tenterhooks waiting for news on both fronts), followed by my long radio silence, it would probably be easy for you to assume everything went disastrously belly up, nothing worked out, and that's why I've been so quiet and sad.

Not so. The short version (and fair warning - I'll get to a longer version at some point): the scheduling conflict got resolved. I went for the interview and got the job. And we're approved and headed for IVF.

Holy shit.

And also, what gives Sadie? Right? But the crux of the problem is, I can't seem to bring myself to care much about any of it.

Needless to say, there are big -- no, huge things in the works. This accounts in part for my absence - things have just been crazy busy in the midst of yet another move, and as I plan for this new role - but does not entirely account for the feelings of apathy I just can't seem to shake lately. I'm still untangling that one, so I guess you could say there's also a lot going on in Sadie Land emotionally and cognitively too. 

I'm struggling to pull myself up yet again from a very low place. The calendar's slow progression into August is partly responsible. August is the month in which we lost two pregnancies, and was the never achieved due date for the third. Not a great month in the annals of my sad reproductive history. 

It's not only the sadness though; that's always a little bit there, and honestly can be a huge source of motivation in my more ass-kicking, energetic moments. Instead, recently I feel like my ability to believe has become ever more compromised. I've been having trouble caring too. Metaphorically, I'm walking around in an over-sized grey track suit, like this, sort of meeting everything in my path with a meh attitude. It's not fun.

I know it doesn't make sense, at the precise moment when many of the things for which I have been lamenting seem to have fallen into place. I'll come back to that; for now all I can say is, it can get really exhausting to always look on the bright side, to stay positive, to find the stuff worth celebrating. I know it's there, but maybe I just needed some time to stop trying so hard. To crash and burn and then rebuild in order to find renewed energy. I dunno.

I am trying though, to rebuild, to tear off that track suit and climb back up again. I want to get back to blogging, because that's been such a source of catharsis and self-insight for me in the past. (Well, for a while there even that was making me feel worse - the happy news would make me feel lonely, and the bad news just made me feel sad, and so I'd go silent.) So I'm reaching up and out again.

I think I'm on my way back. Watch this space.

Bright colours and all, sometimes it's just hard. Source.

If I can't have it all, I'd settle for the chance to pick just one

I just got an offer of an interview for a really excellent, potentially exciting job opportunity. It's with an organization whose work I have long known and admired. I've been hopelessly unemployed a lady of leisure for three months now, which hasn't done wonders for my already battered self esteem: can't make babies, can't make a living either. No one can accuse me of being an over-achiever.

The interview (in a city at the opposite end of the country) has been scheduled in such a way that would necessitate an overnight stay, and  falls the day before our long awaited clinic appointment to discuss plans to move forward with IVF. We've waited three months for this day at the clinic, which is marked with a bright red, excited circle on my calendar, and which looks increasingly like our best shot at a biological child. It certainly can't be rescheduled without us losing our coveted spot on the waiting list. There's no way I can humanly travel for the interview and make it back in time for the clinic appointment.

Seriously, Universe? Why can't something, anything, just be easy for once?

I am going to email the organization and plead my case to see if they can reschedule for the following week, but if they're not amenable, I'm going to have to make a choice. Again. And again, it's not even a choice as to which of these you-can-have-it-all!-or-if-not-you're-pretty-redundant options I want. It's a choice between which feeble attempt to make. (Okay, that's hugely hyperbolic; I actually give good interview, so I'm told, and I suspect I'd have a solid chance at the job. But still, you get the idea...)

We've been waiting months (years, even), for the slightest break in the cloud cover; for something to give already and show us a little cosmic goodwill on the job front, or the baby front, to show us that our dopey, feel-good faith in the universe might just be well founded after all. And now, after treading water for months upon months and flailing about in often fruitless attempts to stay hopeful, when we can juuust barely glimpse a possible ray of sun through that cover....Haha, psyche!

Forget the age-old, at times contentious question of whether it's possible for women to have it all (your advice is laughably moot here, Sheryl Sandberg. Yours too, Anne-Marie Slaughter): I can't even make it to the try-outs.

Yeah, they lied about a lot more than work/life balance and the New Superwoman.

Believe me, I already know I can't have it all. To tell the truth, I don't want it, not really. But still, it would be nice to have at least the illusion of some options.

Does not apply. Source.

Because he'll be amazing

While also gearing up for exams, H is in the midst of marking term papers for his 80+ students this week. It's a not insubstantial task, this pile of paperwork; but somehow he manages to pour limitless stores of commitment, passion, kindness and genuine understanding - not just for the intellectual exercise, but for the young lives behind the often clumsy, sweet, and occasionally unintentionally humorous essays. It is more than just paperwork for him.

Some of these students he has taught since they first entered university. Some he is supervising as they prepare their dissertations, their first substantial pieces of independent research. Some he is helping to prepare for their steps into graduate school and the wider world beyond.

He guides. He invests time and concern. He encourages.

He swells with pride, a little, when they succeed. He cringes with angst when they falter, hoping it doesn't sting too much.

This gentle, patient, loving soul I married.  

Yes, fatherly. It is fatherly guidance and concern and encouragement he pours into these tasks, these students.

I hope they know how lucky they are.

I hope that one day soon, he'll be imparting that fatherly touch not just on his students, but on the tiny life we will grow and nurture and one day set forth into the wide world.

To learn and think and falter and laugh and write clumsy essays of their own.

World's best teacher,  Dad-in-waiting. Source.

When you look at it like that

First off, you guys. You guys. I mean seriously, it's these little nuggets of kindness and encouragement that lift me in such times and all your comments and emails were so appreciated. Thank you. 

I'm not going to lie; the last few days have been exhausting. Between tying up all kinds of loose ends as my job winds down, and my grief hangover, I don't have much physical or emotional energy these days. (This is not helped by another round of will-she-won't-she erratic menstruation antics on the part of my disobedient body). Right now, my Spring ain't looking so Invincible people.

Still, I'm putting one foot in front of the other. I'm slowly trying to catch up on all your blog news, and on my commenting. My brain has been intermittently weighing pros and cons, cons and pros in all of this, trying to figure out where I am for the moment...I'm trying to focus on pretty, shiny objects little things that bring me happiness, and just stay with that. Because that's the thing I know how to do, and what else is there, really?

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It's not just my metaphorical spring which seems to have been deferred. We had snow flurries again last night. No kidding. I'm missing the sun and the close-by beaches of Portugal now more than ever. On the other hand, if H's weather divination has any basis, we're still in for some good things in the remaining three seasons of this year. I'm going to go with that.

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 Yesterday was my last real day of work at my current job. I had to accompany a student to an offsite visit where most of the clients are mental health patients recovering from substance misuse. Within 20 minutes of arriving, I'd had encounters with two men in their 70s. One wanted to know if I'd accepted, really accepted, the Gospels into my life. He followed me around the facility until I explained my confused Catholic/Jewish parentage and my personal views (Holy atheist, Batman!) and that finally stumped him. The other guy  - in his 70s, remember - kept eyeing me and my student with a creepy leer, and tried to ahem...shall we say 'win me' without apparently realizing the coffee he was drinking was ending up in a fine spray on our faces. Yeah, he was hot stuff alright. Fun times. Will I miss this part of the job? For the most part, not so much.

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I'm down and out for another cycle. I was neither hopeful nor despairing this time around (in fact I pretty solidly found other things to think about), and so ends another two week wait, less eventful than many that have come before, and for that I am thankful. Still, after two + years of staking my existential status on where I sit in a monthly, merry-go-round cycle, all this uncertainty that my body is dishing out makes it hard for me to relax into the early part of my cycle. I'm Cycle Day...? 2? 3? -1? I have no clue. It's on and off and this is definitely signalling a less-than-reassuring new chapter. Luckily, the lovely Dr. B was entirely true to his word, and we have an appointment to meet with his colleagues in the sub-fertility clinic in just over two weeks. I'm hoping they'll be able to get to the bottom of all this faffing about that my body is doing. By then all my RPL panel results should be back so we can review those as well. I feel like I'm getting good care at last, and people who listen and follow up.

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Crucially, H and I are making big progress on working through our own ideas on the 'what next'. I hinted previously that we'd approached some more concrete plans in this department. Another long, tear-filled, looking-forward (and ultimately very cathartic) heart-to-heart took place over the weekend, and we finally have some sense of where we're ready to go. At our appointment on the 24th we'll ask about possibilities for IVF. We finally fulfil the criteria for 24 months of active ttc without any positive results (technically the year after S died was spent much more actively on grieving than on making a new baby). We still don't know the wheres or hows or whens, exactly (and there's still all the other uncertainty to deal with). But until quite recently, H had trouble with the idea of any kind of major intervention. He admitted himself that it was a kind of protective denial of the reality of our situation. So this is big. Huge.

And just like that, it looks like we might be boarding the IVF train. Holy shit. Honestly though, I'm hoping it'll give us the feeling of moving in a solid direction. Any direction is better, surely, than spinning our wheels as we have been for so many months now.

So good/bad/good/bad/good/bad. All in all, I think I can work with this. I just need to catch my breath first.

A real mixed bag, sweet and sour. Source.

Eggs and baby chicks and sugar: fertility symbols AND mass consumer delights

In addition to our Monday off, today is technically a bank holiday here in the UK, but there's still no rest for us academic saps the wicked, so today finds me banging away at the keyboard.

(Four day weekend you say? This is pretty much meaningless in our household, since weekends of any kind don't really exist for people in our field, who're likely to be found scrambling to meet our latest deadlines on any given Sunday.)

Anyway, today as I sought ways and means to studiously avoid the overdue article I should be writing puttered about the house, I came across this Easter treat. For the Girls fans among us (we seem to be inexplicably legion): enjoy.

And now if you'll excuse me as I go stuff my face with processed fluorescent coloured sugar in the shape of defenceless baby animals get back to work.

Have a lovely long weekend everyone, however you plan to spend it.

Infertility: Explained

Well, mine at least, and for this cycle anyway. That's right folks, we have a winner in the where the heck did my period go? challenge. My luteinizing hormone (LH) levels were at an underachieving 0.69, well below the normal range. This means I almost certainly didn't even ovulate this cycle.

This also apparently means, since my follicle stimulating hormone (FSH) was within the normal range, that I am now at increased risk of ovarian cysts, since the stimulated follicle, once large enough to do its thing but unable to release an egg, can easily fill with fluid. 

I got the news from my favorite nurse who did nothing to endear herself yesterday, I am afraid. The honeymoon might be over. When I had gone for my Day 21 bloodwork a few weeks back, I was assured that they would review my results and call me back in for Day 3 on the basis of that. In other words, that I'd get a call which could have clarified this whole weird body limbo business and at least put my mind at rest. (Not to mention arranging for the next set of bloodwork, which will now happen only because of my initiative). But no, that never happened. As usual, my 'care' providers filed me away under the we can't figure it out so since it doesn't ensure the omnipotence ego boost we need, we don't care file and forgot about me I had to chase down the result only because I caught site of the abnormalities. If I had the energy to rant, I would.

Instead, right now I feel deflated and hopeless. That nasty cervical polyp, while not a massive health risk, has downed our chances for this last cycle and added to our already weighty load of worry. And now I have worrisome hormone levels to add to the cocktail. So much for the 'unexplained', huh? I fear I came across a little too smug; I fear I was a little too smug in my estimation that what we're really dealing with is the pregnancy loss aspect of things, because all of a sudden, it looks like a very healthy does of infertility indeed. That's what I get for thinking, even for a second, that we might get on top of the game.

And it gets better, because within thirty minutes of leaving the doctors office, my real period started (and oh, what a doozy), almost as if, once the dirty little secret was out, there was no reason to hold back. So yes, depending on how long this lasts my worry about this period threatening our regularly scheduled programming, er, polyp removal procedure, is once again valid.

This was my last cycle, my last chance of grasping at what feels like an ever-receding dream, before my 38th birthday later this month. As much as I try to release myself from expectations, those milestones still matter, and it hurts. And it's scary as all hell. Despite the fact I am awfully puerile much of the time still feel youthful in every other respect, this whole acronym-laden baby making business makes me feel like a wizened crone. In baby-making terms, the hill I've passed over is already receding in the distance.

And the icing on the sh*t cake? I got home to a message that the university is cutting the programme on which I teach, due to 'funding strictures and falling student enrollment'; so even my paltry financial contribution to this household will be gone by the end of the month. Since I work on a kind of on-call basis, they only need to give me two weeks notice.

Seriously Universe, WTF?

What I'm thinking now: Lift duvet. Insert inert self.

Brightly coloured to increase the feelgood factor.

Snakes and Ladders

First off, Happy Year of the Snake! Yesterday was Chinese New Year and so, a second chance for a new start if, like me, you're into that sort of thing. At the moment, we're all about fresh starts, whether that just means putting one foot in front of the other, or more momentous intentions...

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And where are we at the moment? Well, if the two week wait is a kind of torturous dormancy, in which we bestow on ourselves lots of tlc as we patiently, hopefully await the much coveted blossoming of new life, I always see the time from the beginning of my cycle to ovulation as a time of active building up. It's a boot camp for my lady parts, minus the cursing and insults. (No, scratch that. There is definitely cursing and insults). This time around, I am armed with my usual red raspberry leaf tea, evening primrose oil and array of vitamin supplements. Also, my Chinese medicine doctor (the new one, not the horrible acupuncturist), has prescribed a herbal concoction to augment my acupuncture, moxibustion and other treatments. The herbs, which you brew like tea, actually look rather pretty, like a sort of woodsy pot pourri. See?

Once brewed though - which is actually quite a lengthy process - they smell and taste pretty foul, I have to admit (though I'm growing accustomed). I don't even know what's in the stuff; looks like goji berries and tree ears and something similar to galangal root. I'm told this should decrease the damp and heat in my system (which is why my qi is out of balance), and unleash my reproductive potential. Or something like that. I have infinitely more confidence in this doctor than I do in many a medical professional.

The point is that, once again, I'm paying my mind and body attention and trying to keep it healthy in the build up to the Big O.

And we're building up in other ways too, or at least trying to lay some foundations for building work to come. You see, January through March marks the 'high season' of job application rounds for academic posts, as university departments undertake a long process of filling teaching and research positions for autumn. Unlike in other professions, it can take a span of four to five months from when you apply to when you learn if you've got a job or not. H and I both come from academic backgrounds, though I am something of a lapsed academic really. (How my own career path, its jolts and starts and barriers, relate to this tangled mess of infertility warrants a whole other post).

For the past three years, our lives and locations have been determined in large part by the job offers that have come our way. Eighteen months there, ten months here, another twelve months someplace else. The response I invariably get to this is 'Oooh, how exciting!'. I realize it does sound very exciting, and I won't lie - there are moments when I feel so blessed to have had the adventures that have come with this lifestyle. From soaking up the sun and the scent of lemon trees in Portugal, to the cosmopolitan chaos that is Istanbul, to the refined pleasures of London's amazing art galleries and parks, to the profound intellectual stretching of teaching university students in China. We really have seen and done a lot. Also, we've both been lucky to have work, and we know it; the situation for academic employment is universally crappy these days.

But this has also had a huge impact on our efforts at family building, and I think in no small way shaped my grief experience. I mentioned that we have big hopes for 2013, and not just in the baby making department. If we want to sprout some shoots to fill a nursery, then we really do need to put down some roots too. After many years of globe trekking, both alone and then together, it's really what we want.

The problem is getting from here (an exciting international life oriented around work) to there (the happy, 'boring', settled life we both need). H's contract here finishes at the end of the summer. Mine isn't enough to keep us here, and anyway, we hope to relocate someplace more familiar. But there are so many variables to consider in this whole messed up process: job markets, and language skills, immigration rules and provision for fertility treatments...Canada? Austria? Another third country? And that's not even considering the fact that H has his PhD to finish, which will greatly increase his employability, but for which he usually has little time because he needs to a) work or b) seek work. I already hold the qualifications I need to work, but then I'm the one who has to make the greater time commitment, as it were, when it comes to making a baby; which we'd love to hope would be soon. It would be less than ideal if H found himself out of work at precisely the time I was due an extended (unpaid in some countries), maternity leave. Not that I don't realize I'm getting way ahead of myself with that one...

All this is like looking into a crystal ball. Suffice it to say, it's a headache being inside my brain these days.

There's the needing-money-to-live part, yes. But it's more than that. It's emotional (we want to nest, dammit!) and it's logistical. We may never decide to avail ourselves of ART, I don't know yet. We have yet to have it recommended by any doctors we've seen, because technically we're in a grey area; we are able to conceive. (My body just doesn't seem to know what to do with those conceptions once they occur). But the point is, we'd like the option when or if it comes to that (and let's face it folks, staring down 38 in a mere month, the time is now if it's ever). But to even consider that we need more stability.

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H stated an intention last month that although the number 13 is widely held as unlucky, it'll be oh so lucky for us. Apparently, the Year of the Snake is less than auspicious in the Chinese zodiac; certainly nothing like as favoured as the Dragon we've just ushered out. H says we'll buck all the trends. We've always sort of swum against the flow, it's true.

So while we're busy with job applications and baby making efforts and staying healthy and planning ahead, I just have to hope that this structure we're trying to build from the ground up starts to take some shape, to give us some indication of how things will look as we progress through the rest of the year.

Because although I don't even know where that will be yet, I'm feeling the tug towards home.