The blog in which I stand under a raining cartoon cloud

Lately I've been getting a little blue again.

I thought I was okay and past it but I guess you can't reason with grief.

I don't think anything in particular set it off, even though the last week or two, well, life seems to be throwing babies at me. Babies I can't have right now.

Overhearing co-workers laugh about some dope getting knocked up. My friend telling me about her other friend announcing her pregnancy. Attending a baby shower for someone I don't even know well. Going out with my sister and her kid.. and the kid finds my shirt more interesting than me. People giving me huge donation bags of baby stuff for me to help them sort and telling me I can take things if I want. Like.. why? I could take all the bags and it wouldn't do me any good right now (although I did keep a pair of dog themed kid's shoes with floppy dogs ears on them because who could get rid of those??)

If these fit me I would friggin' wear them EVERYWHERE

Recently my husband went out to a sporting event with his close friend Jambo, who has also been through the IVF rigmarole but they did get a son out of it. He ended up talking about the miscarriage to him. They were previously unaware of it because we weren't ready to talk. Hubby didn't get a chance to tell me he'd done this as he got back late but the next night I got a similarly late text from Jambo's wife Messi. She said she'd heard about what happened and was there for me if I needed it.

I was initially angry - I didn't want to tell people for exactly this reason. The pity, the sorrow. The huge, aborted elephant in the room covered in blood, stinking of lost dreams and taking up space, like the onesies I'll never be able to put on that child.

So I didn't reply. I felt bad about it but I didn't know what to say. The rational part of me knows that Messi went through a similar thing and we could talk about it. Hell, she has talked to me about it but it was months after the fact and before I could fully comprehend how she must have felt. Even then - after the birth of her current child - she had tears in her eyes and was emotional about it.

Now, my emotional side knows that I would be the same but worse. I would be a mess and wouldn't even be able to choke out the words I want to say. I have always struggled to convey my personal life to others. I especially struggle if I need to say something of importance - I am for the most part, an emotionless stone person with the empathy level of a sociopath but I turn into the biggest sook ever when it's my turn to emote.

Yew Near, Yew Nou

I will have you know that I was absolutely wrecked on New Years Eve.

No, I don't drink. I'd just come off a few days in a row of work (doing ten or more hours per day) so when I finished work that day and we had to go straight to our mate's party......

I tried to socialise.. I really did. In the end, the crowds, the noise, the horrible cigarette smoke and almost tripping over their dog constantly (If anyone is familiar with Mr. Tiddles from Discworld's Going Postal? Basically an elderly cat so set in it's way that if someone put an obstacle in his path he wouldn't go around it, he would just stop and wait for it to move. At certain times of the day, post office staff had to open the door so Mr. Tiddles could walk through it.) just got to me.

Escaping quietly to the adjacent lounge room inside.. I sat there, looked at memes, designed a dope tattoo flash and ate my meal quietly. I contemplated my life. I thought about the coming year. I longingly thought about sleep. I toyed with the idea of putting my Ipod on even though the stereo seemed to have speakers in every room of the house.

People walked past, occasionally noticing me and asking if I was okay or cracking some joke about how I'd found the good spot.
Everyone there was so nice, and the good thing about being 'the quiet one' is that you can bugger off every now and then and people usually respect that you need your space and leave you alone for a bit. I tried not to be rude, but I was feeling so hollow and lacking in energy that it was very hard not to appear as a total ass face.

An Outstanding Ovary-ation

So the plan was that we had the next cycle off so we could restrategise, maybe sacrifice a few pawns, sack some enemy buildings and.... Wait, what were we talking about?

Oh right, I certainly wasn't revealing my plans for total domination no no no... Make babies not war like I always say!*


Anyway, we were going to have a break, see what we wanted to do and go from there.

All of my internal organs lived in harmony, until the ovary nation attacked.

Seriously, in the last three weeks I've had three periods (or what I think are menses) and it's been frustrating to no end.

Normally I have one, maybe two days of feeling like a monkey is clawing out my feminine bits through a bloody orifice and just feeling lousy in general. (Chocolate DOES help.... Send much!!)

The last two haven't exactly had that appealing simian sensation so I have to wonder what they are. There has been a definite bleed though, each time so no spotting or anything.


I went to a doctor to alert them that my vagina was going on a rampage and he's like you're probably pregnant have you tried peeing on things?

India Uniform India

This cycle we were almost set to go to to egg pick up next week. I had been on a new drug - Menupur and then Orgalutran. However my egg numbers were still pretty low, so my ob/gyn recommended IUI - Inter-uterine insemination. Yesterday I took my trigger shot of Ovidrel, a humongous needle in which the solution inside was actually quite a small amount considering. Today, we were up at the crack on dawn to get down to the fertility centre to deposit some brogurt, which they then tested and sorted out, cleaning it and putting into two tubes. We came back after about an hour to collect this and then ran across the block to see my ob/gyn to actually carry out the procedure.

 This took all of ten minutes, if that. He used a speculum, much like a Pap smear. I won't say it was comfortable but I was too nervous to think about it much, so I only felt a strange cramp like pain when the catheter was inserted. I had been warned about cramping afterwards so I hadn't expected it straight away or during the procedure. It wasn't very bad though, nothing debilitating. I would describe it as period-lite.

That's how we did AIH (artificial insemination by husband) - so if all the sperm deposited directly into my cervix give us a child, a slight discomfort is perfectly fine with me! 

I had to stay prone for a while, which is understandable but annoying because I'd had to drink lots of water prior to the procedure and my bladder was cursing me. Honestly, it wasn't as much or as bad as an ultrasound but when you're nervous... Yeah, it doesn't help. 

So the three of us were sitting there (well, two of us were, I was lying down covering my butt with a sheet.) discussing next steps for either way. 

Telling you now, never thought I'd be this comfortable with general pantslessness outside of the home or even with injecting a million needles but look at me go! 

Sabbatical Piratical

So after basically being a sook for a few days, I've taken some time to get back to basics, or rather I'm pulling myself up by my strange, mismatched pirate themed socks.

That's not to say having emotions is bad.. seeing as how I don't normally have anything in me besides confusing rage, deadly rage, hilarious weird and blank kill-bot it was kinda nice to go through the right emotional spectrums and be human for once.

So yeah, have been getting back to basics - trying to reduce stress, keeping up with the vitamins (I've found a remarkable improvement in my hair and nail quality alone since starting to take all of these vitamins, so that's great) watching what I eat and started a new exercise regime.

Stress has been the biggest concern so far. The last few days I've found myself switching between severely agoraphobic times and then once outside my house - aggressive bouts of confidence.
That.. I don't know what's going on with.

I got my car serviced today and when the service assistant tried to up-sell me additional options I gave him a look. I'm not saying it withered anything, but it was definitely up there because I ended up getting the extras anyway at no charge and the guy nearly apologised to me.