January blues. + 14 months.

This week I am a bit sad about everything. It is tempting not to want to write anything - much easier to wait until I feel better and then explain the past feelings from a position of superiority.

But of course there are days when I feel sad. No doubt more readily in January, due to seasonal ennui.

Emotions were triggered when a couple we know, who had also been trying for quite a while / seeing doctors etc, told us they were pregnant. Seems mean and pathetic to be upset by that. I can't even explain why. It's not because I mind them conceiving, or am jealous. I don't think, anyway. I think it just makes me feel more isolated and fixed into the identity as the infertile couple.

In any group situation, where most people are parents or children, you feel like the odd one out as part of a childless couple. And, especially as a woman, you feel everyone looks at you with pity. Having strength in numbers helps because the pity is spread around and your state can even be perceived as 'normal'.

They are 13 weeks in, which makes it worse. I think - "ah, I have actually been on my own for quite some time and didn't know it."

But this news is only a trigger. It is very good news and it isn't why I am sad. The sadness is always there at some level, and this just gave it an excuse to bubble up. It will dominate for a little while, I expect.

Is this really hardship?

It's a priority in life for me and Jon to find occupations we enjoy. Looking back on what has been most difficult in life thus far, work-related stress is at the top of the list. More difficult, I think, than infertiility.

This doesn't correlate to others' expectations. Complaining of stress at work is generally dismissed with a "yes but that's part of life for everyone, isn't it?" When you say you can't conceive a child, people act as if the world has caved in.

Why should this be?

Marxist argument: the "machine" forces us to keep the capitalist system going - we must be subservient and endure stress related to consumerism. Work, earn, buy, die. Not producing children threatens the next generation of consumers, so it's acceptable to weep and struggle against that.

Feminist argument: having children is the principal means by which women are tied to the home. Our male-dominated society tells us anything that threatens to give women the freedom to stay in the workplace is wrong and must be wept over. But men cannot feel dismay about the workplace - they have to stay out in the cold in order to keep their women at home in the warm.

Pop-psychology: many people are stressed at work and have chosen to live with it. So, it bothers them when someone else acts as if such stress is unacceptable. Many people have children. So, it is natural they want to endorse that as the 'acceptable' way to live. Parents being sad on behalf of the childless couple are reassuring themselves about their family scenario being the path to happiness.

Those are my only current theories. More may come ; )

I am such a blessed person - I have seen very little adversity. Who knows what else may come? Who knows how I would adjust to childlessness as life goes on, if it were to end up being the permanent way of things?

For now, I find that there is much richness in this situation. Even in the lack of control. Even in the sadness. I have had chance to ask myself important questions - did I ever actually want children, or was it what the world told me I had to do? What is my potential as a non-mother? How do I cope with life not going as I had planned it? What does it mean that our generation has the right to choose contraception, choose fertility treatment, choose, choose, choose?

Stress in the workplace, on the other hand, has not felt rich or life-giving at all. It has felt soul-destroying. Something to endure for a time, but flee from as soon as possible.

Here's to a 2012 where we have the serenity to accept the things we cannot change, the courage to change the things we can, and the wisdom to know the difference. Mwah!

Whose story is it anyway? +13 months

Having told family and some friends about this blog recently, I've been interested in their reactions. I feel bad that several felt guilty: certainly that wasn't the intention.

I expected more embarrassment - we Brits are so stiff-upper-lippy and tend to believe personal information should be kept private. And I can be a bit 'heart on my sleeve'. But there have been no expressions of regret about my putting all this stuff online.

Lots of people read the blog as a reinforcement of what they already think: if they have decided we must feel x, then they focus only on the bits of it that support that theory. (That is the same with most readers of most texts, of course.)

The number of people who see the blog as some sort of lamentation is disproportionate, when it is actually written in a fairly lighthearted way.

All in all, the exercise - in a rather uncomfortable way - makes me see this whole thing as not just my (or our) story, but one owned by many. All of whom need space to work out what it means to them. I accept that, in theory. But I have to fight my dishonourable instinct to yell: "Get your hands off! This is my story! Only I know what it means!"

A year on!

In the end, I got Jon to come with me to IVF Wales, even though the appointment was only to discuss my HSG results (about which I already knew).

Was feeling pathetic after spending the morning watching Juno as part of preparing an alternative Christmas service for church. It is about a 16-year-old who gets pregnant and gives her baby up for adoption to a couple who can't conceive. Not the best choice, on reflection. Needed the moral support of my beloved to face the clinic afterwards.

The visit was all a fuss about nothing, which, again, is what I expected. We sat with the new consultant who spent some time telling us about fertility treatment options. We listened patiently then told her we had been on the waiting list for ICSI for a year. At which point she looked nonplussed and checked our file. Then she said, "Oh, yes, already". Then she told us we may as well have blood tests done while we were there. (We'd already had them, but what the hey). And then she said we'd get the letter about treatment sometime between now and May. Which we already expected.

The one helpful thing she said was in response to our concerns about delays with the waiting list, given the fact we may be moving to another NHS trust area, or possible another country, during next year. She said: "I can't understand why you English people are so honest." (She's not British). "If you move, just don't tell us."

Excellent advice!

One year now since referral. Should be through the first ICSI round by May at the latest.

The uncertainty never really goes.....

I've been full of cold and also had a sickness bug in recent weeks, which is probably what led to my period being two days late. Usually, it's bang on 4 weeks since the last one started, maybe a day early.

Despite knowing that it's as good as impssible for me to get pregnant, my imagination still runs away with me at times like this. And when you discover that, no, this is not some kind of miracle, no your cycle continues without interruption, it's very depressing.

I really struggle to know how to pray on these days of wild imaginings. Do I wish for pregnancy? But then, if I turn out not to be, I feel I've let myself down by voicing the desire. And ashamed of the inevitable bitterness that follows on from the the plea not being upheld. (I don't really believe in the kind of God who makes me pregnant because I've asked, ignoring someone else who hasn't).

It doesn't matter if I voice a desire to God that isn't strictly in keeping with what I believe about him. I know that in my head. But I'm too proud to do it comfortably! I want to pretend that I feel only the things I think are right.

Incidentally, the rigmarole of mess, discomfort and tampax every month becomes so much more annoying when you know you've spent the last 20 years of your life dealing with it FOR NO GOOD REASON WHATSOEVER!

Ho hum.

Waiting Room. + 11 months.

Biggest stress thus far happened this month. Here is what happened:

On October 5, I get a letter saying my appointment for later in the month to discuss my HSG results has been put back to November 23. They always credit such things to 'unforeseen circumstances' which is worse than no explanation, to be honest. So, a couple of days later I call IVF Wales to ask 1) why this is and 2) where we're at with the ICSI waiting list, as we've been on it nearly a year now.

They seem perplexed at this claim, look at some paperwork and tell me that, no, we went on the list in May 2011 so we would get to the 1-year stage next May. And, in fact, the wait is one year to 18 months, so that could mean treatment starts any time between May 2012 and October 2012. My heart sinks into the carpet beneath me. Quietly, I challenge what has been said to me. But I fear Dr X never did put us on that list...... they go away to check, promising to ring back.

I am so upset. Not only do I hang all my sense of stability onto the few certain points in life at the moment - these appointments being crucial examples - but a delay until even May 2012 would leave us totally stuck if we have to move for Jon's work next summer. (The treatment takes a couple of months, I think.) Potentially, we'd have to leave Wales before we'd been seen and therefore go back to square one. It doesn't bear thinking about.

My heart is beating hard when they call back. Thankfully, it's to say they've decided we should be bumped up to position as if we'd been put on the list in November 2010. As we thought. (Except the wait could drag out until May.) What a relief. Makes me realise how much tension there still is beneath the surface of my life, that I react so badly to a thing like this.

Since then, there have been two more letters changing the date of my appointment. As of now, it's likely to happen on November 21. I'll keep you posted!

Continued progress.

We have just spent a lovely weekend with some good friends in Rugby, who have two boys aged 9 months and nearly 3.

Another benefit of this whole shennanigans has been the opportunity it affords to enjoy other people's children. If I had my own, I would (rightly) be very taken up with them and their needs, and view other little ones in relation to mine. But as things are, I unreservedly appreciate the many babies and toddlers born to my friends and family members. Should we fail to conceive in the long run, I suspect the unique relationship we can enter into with others' children will be a real gift. No pride, competition, or vested interest. Just a detached (in the sense of objectivity, not lack of care) affection and concern.

Much better to get stuck into others' family life than to have friends assume you're bored in the company of children, or fail to include you in their family activities because you don't have your own. Bear this in mind, those blessed with children!

I am also really enjoying, in a way I never did before, being childless. Yes, let's go to that festival. Yes, let's spend that money. Yes, let's make sure I'm doing a job I actually want to be doing. Yes, let's stop putting off that thing I want to do. Yes, let's prune from life all that hinders its flourishing. Because, you know, this might be it. So let's enjoy it!

And, strangely, I am appreciating what it would mean to have a child much more than I did before I knew we couldn't grow one. It was just the next thing to be done, before. Now it is a thing that might happen, and if it did, it would be wonderful. I imagine, in an almost sensory way, enjoying a baby. Especially the way their heads smell! Before, I simply stressed about having one at an appropriate time and hoped I'd cope.

It's funny, really. I wouldn't say I've reached the stage where whatever happens, I'm content. But I would  go as far as to say that, whether we manage to get pregnant or not, I can see many reasons why the situation would be advantageous. Or blessed, depending on your viewpoint.