I had three dreams

Right before I woke up this morning (or was rudely awoken by my alarm) I had three dreams that were so vivid, they stayed with me through the whole day, so I thought I’d write them down.

In a nutshell...

Dream 1
I was at a family gathering at my aunt and uncle's house. All the adults were in one room and the children were in another. Strangely (or not perhaps), I was in the room with all the children.

My mum came in to the kids' room and came over to whisper something in my ear but then she jumped back with a really angry look on her face. I asked what was wrong and she said she could smell alcohol on my breath and what on earth did I think I was doing drinking while I was trying to get pregnant.

I tried to tell her I'd just had a tiny sip of my sister's beer but she didn't believe me and left the room, leaving me feeling really upset.

Dream 2
I somehow knew a building in London was going to be blown up by terrorists, and I realised my husband was going to be in the building.

I rushed there as quickly as I could to tell my husband what was going to happen so I could save him.

I found him (he was wearing a 1920s Bugsy Malone gangster outfit for some reason) but I couldn't get my words out or make myself understood and my husband didn't want to leave.

I was petrified he'd be hurt or killed and it would be my fault but I felt completely helpless to do anything.

Dream 3
I was at work in my boss's office, going through a very important presentation I'd prepared on his behalf. There were 3 or 4 other people in the room – including another guy from my team, my brother and Kylie Minogue. Yep, Kylie Minogue.

Everything was going well until my boss asked me if I'd checked the details with someone in the finance dept. I said no because I didn't realise I had to and he went nuts at me, shouting at me in front of the other people (including Kylie Minogue!) and made me feel completed humiliated.

I think the dreams represent pretty well what's going on in my subconscious and occasionally what I can't help feeling - guilt for not giving my parents more grandchildren and for not giving my husband his first child, and less importantly but still there, a massive lack of confidence at work. Weird that they all came together in one series of dreams.

I’m so excited about moving into our new home and that's helped keep my mind occupied over the last week. But I'm still very much aware of being firmly in yet another two week wait. I started the wait feeling optimistic, visualising what should be going on in there, saying positive affirmations as often as possible, thinking this was all about a new start and the right timing.

But today I started to feel a hormone shift. Maybe I’m wrong I don’t know, maybe it’s just work stress or tiredness. But the visualisations have become harder to formulate, the positive affirmations have started to sound like desperate pleas.

I thought I was ready for IVF but I’m not sure I am. I don’t suppose I’ll ever be, and I hope more than anything I don’t have to be.

Until next time.

Juno ☺

The moon must be in Uranus

I was a bit blue at the start of the week, thinking The Husband and I were never going to get out of the rut we’re in. It started to feel like we’d been house hunting and trying to get pregnant forever. Or longer actually.

Even when I got the smiley face on Monday, which usually makes me feel upbeat and excited to have another crack at it, I just couldn’t get there. This time, I couldn’t get the ‘Why bother, it’s probably not going to work anyway’ thoughts out my head.

But then it all turned around on Tuesday.

A few weeks ago we decided to put an end to the excruciating torture of trying to buy a house. Sticking pins up our own arses started to seem like a more attractive proposition. Instead we decided to rent for another year or so. Definitely the best decision we could have made.

We saw a house last weekend that was just perfect for us – warm, cosy, clean, characterful, on a quiet street – everything we wanted, except it was quite a bit over our budget. But we loved it so much, we thought we’d have nothing to lose by putting in a low offer. We didn’t think in a million years it would be accepted but something happened that day...maybe the stars were aligned in the east or the moon was in Uranus or the sun had got its hat on – whatever it was, our luck was in and our offer got accepted! Yay!

It felt like a big old lead weight was released from my body the minute I heard that news. It was just such a big fat massive relief. And I immediately started to think that maybe this is our time, a new start for us. Maybe this is what needed to happen to make my mind and body relax and work together to make a new life grow inside me. Sigh.

I need to go back and see the fertility doc when he’s back from holiday at the beginning of November and talk about timing for IVF – possibly to start this side of Christmas, depending on my cycle.

But if I’m going to let you into a little secret, I’ve decided it would be a hell of a lot simpler (and cheaper) to get pregnant naturally before we get to that point. So that’s what I’m going to do.

What the hell.

Until next time.

Juno ☺

A step nearer

Yesterday’s IVF appointment with the fertility doctor went well. It was my second appointment with him and by the end of this session I have to confess I’d fallen in love with him a little bit. He’s charming and lovely and patient and knows stuff.

The trouble is I have form – I also fell in love with the guy who did my hysteroscopy a few months ago. I might consider it a problem but my husband confessed to having a slight man crush on Hysteroscopy Doc at the time and I feel pretty sure he’ll develop one for IVF Doc too so I think I’ll just go with it.

More importantly perhaps, IVF Doc answered all my questions and gave me more of an idea of the protocol. I was hoping I’d come out of there knowing when we’d start the process and exactly what it would involve for me but he needs The Husband and I to do a few more tests to give him all the facts (bloods, sperm, scan etc). Once he has the results, we’ll go in for a final consult and he’ll go through each stage of the process in detail, how long it will take and the level of drugs I’ll need. And we’ll decide when to start.

I’m still in the ‘this feels so surreal stage’. I’m actually finding it hard to write at the moment because I don’t really know how I feel.

I think there’s part of me that’s filled with horror at voluntarily and in fact personally pumping my body full of drugs, another part that’s apprehensive about the process as a whole, another part that’s excited at the prospect of a happy ending and another part that’s scared shitless it’s going to fail. That I’m going to fail.

I’m trying desperately to keep all these feelings in check and have decided to go all out and book appointments with as many different types of therapists as I can lay my hands on over the next couple of months (complementary and otherwise). I’ll worry about the money later...

I suppose the bottom line is, I feel like I’m a step nearer to having my baby. I hope that’s true.

Until next time.

Juno ☺

Help!

Well, I’ve made my decision – next step will be IVF.

Weighing everything up, it didn’t seem like IUI would be a viable option for me. The specialist told me IVF is three times more likely to work than IUI (35% vs. 12%) and as much as it seems like a huge step to go from trying naturally to IVF, at my age I don’t want to waste any more valuable time.

So I’ve booked an appointment with the fertility specialist on Friday to talk through the process and the timing.

I can’t quite believe it’s got to this stage, it just feels so surreal. I also feel very ignorant about it – I need to do more research but I’d really appreciate any help any of you can give me with the sort of things I should be thinking about and the questions I should ask the specialist on Friday...

If you have any advice/suggestions, please leave them via the comments below.

Thanks so much!

Until next time.

Juno ☺

It could have been amazing

I wrote this blog while I was on holiday last week but didn't have access to the internet so I'm just publishing it now. We had such a lovely time, really switched off and relaxed - just what the doctor ordered. Unfortunately, a combination of taking Cyclogest this month and bad timing meant I had to do a pregnancy test while we were away. Here's what happened...

This morning, the 4th day of my week-long holiday, I peed on a stick.

It could have been amazing timing. Just the two of us in a beautiful peaceful setting - blue skies, sunshine, palm trees, fuschia pink flowers, the endless blue-green sea ... It would have been so romantic and so perfect.

We'd had a fairly stressful few weeks before we came away so I didn't have very high expectations but there's always the faintest whiff of hope.

But there was no purple line in the test window. I scrutinized it, held it up to the light, willed something to appear, checked the instructions four times to make sure I'd done it right. But there was definitely no purple line in the test window.

I spent the next 20 minutes going through the obligatory what-ifs - what if it's a faulty test, what if I didn't pee on it right (but seriously, how can you not pee for 3 seconds on the end of a stick right? If you can get that wrong, you shouldn't be having sex), what if I should have waited another day to test?

This last one is always the most pertinent when I'm taking Cyclogest. I tend not to get my period while I'm on it, which means it's doing its job, but I always wonder if I'd tested a few days later, stayed on the Cyclogest a few days longer...

That's the beauty of this process. We get to beat ourselves up on a monthly basis, convince ourselves if only we'd done something differently, done it more, done it less, done it standing on our heads with a pink wig on, then maybe this month we'd have been pregnant.

But the bottom line is, I'm not pregnant. And I sort of feel numb this time. Usually a BFN hits me like a sledge hammer in the gut. But this time I don't feel very much at all. I'm not sure if it's the desensitizing effect of being on holiday, the result of fifteen consecutive unsuccessful tries or possibly the fact that I'm hurtling faster and more uncontrollably down the slippery slope straight to IVF-ville and I just don't want to acknowledge it right now.

Whatever it is, right or wrong, I hope it stays this way for a while. It's nice not to feel for a change.

Until next time.

Juno ☺