The two week wait - part two

For anyone who only reads my blog and doesn't follow me on Twitter, apologies for the delay in updating this, especially when I have good news to share.

Yes, ivf2 resulted in that magical, long-awaited BFP!

I was ridiculously nervous and had prepared myself for the worst so it was just amazing to see a strong line on the test - I held out until the official test date (OTD) as I wanted to be sure about the result, especially after the chemical pregnancy debacle of the first ivf (I could be, I'm probably not, I think I am, I might be, I'm probably not, oh, I'm definitely not).

I tested every day after the OTD and about 5 days in, feeling a bit more secure, we invited our parents over and told them the good news. There were A LOT of tears. I was worried about getting my parents excited too early but at the same time wanted to give them something positive to think about. I know it's not a cure for what happened with my niece and for the hell we're seeing my brother and his family go through, but it's definitely helped.

Over the following few days, I also told my sister and my best friend, who both knew about the ivf and had a good idea of timing. It was exciting to tell everyone and fantastic to see their reactions but I think once that excitement had calmed down, reality set in and I started to feel really scared about things not working out.

I'm sure it's completely natural when you've waited so long and been through so much to get to this point but I've been petrified of getting to the scan and once again being confronted with an empty uterus. There's further to fall at this point and other people's disappointment to take into account.

The signs so far have all been good but I'm afraid some of them are down to other things. I definitely haven't been constantly searching Google for early pregnancy symptoms (yeah right) but I thought I'd list mine in case it helps anyone else:

- sore boobs (could be down to the Crinone)

- no bleeding/spotting (could be down to the Crinone)

- bloated stomach (probably down to the bucketloads of ivf drugs)

- more tired (could be down to all the events of the last couple of months)

- feeling a bit 'off' or run down (could be coming down with something)

- more hungry (probably down to greed).

I've been trying to reassure myself that my daily home pregnancy tests have been positive and the lines have been strong. The Clear Blue tests moved from 2-3 weeks to 3+ a few days after I started testing and have stayed that way.

Plus The Husband has been very good at reassuring me (Me: the little embabies are still in there aren't they? Him: yes, of course they are. Repeat hourly until baby is born).

And speaking of Crinone - oh my, that stuff is bizarre. All can be quiet for a few days and then suddenly and without warning I'll have an avalanche of lumpy clumpy weird looking gunk falling out. Nice. Still, it's a miniscule price to pay...

So, the scan is tomorrow and I just hope and pray they find one or two little fighters in there.

To be continued...

This is my shit

More than two months have passed since the ivf 1 chemical pregnancy debacle. I was pregnant, then I wasn't pregnant anymore - all within the space of 48 hours.

It's been a tough couple of months since the ivf but it's also been over a year and a half since we starting trying to get pregnant. Like a lot of women in my situation I've questioned so much about myself, my standing as a woman and as a wife. I've felt guilt, responsiblity and shame, and I've lost a lot of confidence, to the point where I've even found it hard to spend time with my closest friends.

I haven't been speaking much about how I feel and I haven't been able to get my thoughts in any sort of order to write about them (until now). I've also had night panics which, apart from being frightening, have affected my sleep and my mood. I can be fine one minute and then lose it completely because I left my phone upstairs or we ran out of milk.

I've put myself under a lot of pressure since the failed cycle, thinking my head had to be straight and clear before we started trying again. That I'd have come to terms with that cycle before I could move on and be properly ready to go again, or I wouldn't be giving myself the best possible chance.

But I think it's been slowly dawning on me recently that that's not the case, that maybe I don't need to 'come to terms' with that cycle - because I probably never will. We went through a process that was tough physically, mentally and emotionally. We chose to do it so we could give ourselves a better chance to get pregnant. But it failed, and no one could give us a cast-iron biological or medical reason why. Just like no one has been able to tell us why we haven't been able to conceive naturally over the last 19 months.

I have always wanted to have children and I still do. I know it sounds weird considering they were only inside me for two weeks but I miss our two little embryos. They were a part of us, we created them – irrespective of the help we got from medical science. I even loved them, right from the moment I got the call to say they’d made it. They were a bunch of cells in a petri dish in a lab across London but I loved them. I keep the scan picture given to us at the transfer in my bedside table drawer and I look at my lost little embryos every morning and every night and I wish they were still here, growing inside me.

I want so much to know how it feels to carry your own child, to bring them into the world, to look after and love them unconditionally. And I want,possibly more than anything else,to make my husband a dad. He has so much compassion inside him, he would do anything for anyone and he’s wiser than anyone I know. I just know he will make an amazing father. I hope I never again have to see the pain in his eyes that I saw when we realised the last ivf was over.

I know a lot of women in this situation think 'it's not fair' and 'why me?'. It's not really in my make up to think that way (I'm more likely to think I deserve it than anything else) but I get why they think it. There is a lot of shit in life and it comes in all different shapes and sizes (no pun intended). This is just my shit. And I think I finally realise that I don't need to understand it, accept it or be happy with it.

But I do have to deal with it, and that's what I'm doing. I now know there's no right or wrong way to deal with it, I just have to do what feels right for me. It hasn't always been pretty but somehow I've made it through these past couple of months and finally I can see a spark of light again. So I feel like maybe I've done something right. And that spark of light has helped me to think about the future, to think about doing another ivf. So I've booked an appointment with our consultant in a few weeks' time to discuss it. It's a start.

So no, I haven't come to terms with this shit and maybe I never will but yes, in my own way, I'm dealing with it.

We were pregnant for a weekend

I thought it was about time I tried to get my thoughts in order. It's been nearly four weeks since ivf #1 failed with a chemical pregnancy.

We were pregnant for a weekend. My first ever BFP. And even though I was spotting and the line was so faint and I just knew it didn't feel right, I wanted to believe it so much that I ignored all the alarm bells.

So we cried happy tears, we got excited, we talked and we planned - the next few weeks, the next nine months, our entire lives.

And the next day, the Monday morning, came the bfn. I've never peed on so many sticks in such a short space of time as I did in those few days.

But the blood test confirmed it. I'd been pregnant but I wasn't any more. At least one of our beautiful embabies, maybe both, had tried really hard to make it but they just weren't strong enough.

Since then I've been mostly numb. I haven't shed many tears. I've been avoiding people close to me. I've been listening to loud music. I've been throwing myself into my job. I've been going through the motions of everyday life.

Sadness, shame, guilt, responsibility, fear, failure, anger, exhaustion are all mixed up together in a big tangled messy heap.

I feel like I'm on the outside looking in. I feel like I don't know how to be.

I know if I'm going to find the mental and physical strength to do this all again some time soon, but more importantly to believe it can work, I need to pick my way through that tangled heap and try to make some sense of it.

I'm working on it.