Babies...

Apologies again!

I’ve had a few health issues this past month, plus a work project that I’ve had to focus on, so the blog has gone on the back burner for a while.

I’m not sure if you heard about the storm that happened in South Australia a few weeks back. It was one of the biggest we’ve seen and ended up with the entire state losing power – some areas for more than 24 hours.

Hospitals and other emergency services generally have backup generators, and so do IVF clinics. After all – they have frozen embryos that need to be looked after.

Unfortunately one of the IVF clinics in South Australia lost all power and couldn’t get it back before they lost all of the frozen embryos. All of them.

They have offered free cycles of IVF for all affected clients.

I cried for the clients and the embryos when I heard this news. I was also very angry. I was angry at the loss of the embryos, but also because to most people the offer of another cycle was an acceptable way to make amends.

But, the loss of those embryos, at least to me, is much more than a free cycle could ever compensate for.

When we did our IVF cycles we got to take home photos of our embryos. We have two photos and I’ve kept them. I won’t ever part with them. Because they are our children. Had we lost any embryos in an incident where power failed I would have felt that our children had died – not just that embryos had been lost that can simply be replaced.

Does that sound weird? I would have felt that the clinic was being flippant about the loss of our babies.

What do embryos mean? How early is it in the cycle to say “they are our children”? For me, our embryos were our children – especially given they were as close as we ever got to holding our babies in our arms.

They were never just embryos to me. In those tiny little beings there were already so many things that were set – their eye colour, their hair colour, whether they would have had Kirby’s eyes. Would they have been interested in computers or writing? Would they have loved animals like I do? We’ll never know, but we’ll always wonder.

Our babies...

No doubt the different clients of the clinic would be experiencing so many different emotions and thoughts. For those whom IVF does not work for, will they forever wonder if one of the embryos that was lost could have been the one? I often wonder about an embryo that was not put in me because it was not judged as strong enough – could that have been the one that made it? Again – we’ll never know.

All I can say is that our embryos were the closest to our children that we ever got, and they were a part of Kirby and a part of me. They were more than simply embryos – so much more.

A letter to the clinic...

Back in March I wrote a letter to our IVF clinic about my endometriosis and how I felt about the fact that they didn’t investigate whether I had it or not, and that if they had, and it had been treated, we may well have our child with us right now.

I didn’t post it!

The letter was teaming with anger and name calling…not exactly the most productive way to get the clinic to understand us and our situation. I meant to write that version of the letter exactly as I did as I needed to vent completely before I could write a letter that could actually be sent to the clinic.

I have written that letter now and emailed it to them last week. It’s below for you to read if you wish - just double click on the picture to open it so that you can actually read it!

Oh – and to date – I have heard nothing from the clinic…not even an acknowledgement that they have received the letter and that it will be given to the person to whom it was addressed.

I wait with anticipation as to what they will say…if they reply that is!

Like mud...

The Australian show “Four Corners” covered IVF this week – I’ve yet to watch it as I want to sit down properly and be able to focus on it. But, the following quote was in the synopsis on the Four Corners’ website.

"Embryos are like mud. You keep putting embryos on the wall of the uterus, eventually one will stick." Fertility Doctor

Yeah – you read right. Apparently our precious little embryos were like mud.

Okay – so I know what this doctor was getting at – they put an embryo in and they hope it will stay. But the analogy shows a lack of understanding and compassion as to what we go through. My embryos were real children to me and still are – they weren’t mud.

I actually felt shocked by this comment and began to feel upset as though this doctor was personally attacking my children (our embryos). I wanted to find out which doctor said this and call them and blast them into realising that they were stupid and uncaring and just plain wrong.

But, instead I tried practicing something I learnt recently – I took a few minutes to determine if there was a judgement that I was making that was leading me to be excessively angry. There was – I made the judgement that nobody should ever make comments like this.

The reality is that there will always be comments such as this. I can’t change that.

I also made the judgement that I needed to do something directly about this comment and make that doctor feel as bad as possible. But I don’t.

These realisations took a bit of the heat out of my anger.

Then I was able to think more clearly about if and what I could do about it.

And now I’m writing this entry to say to anyone who reads it – please consider what you say about IVF, our babies, and us, because words can hurt.

That’s all I need to do for now.

The letter...

I went to see my doctor not long after my last blog entry. And my apologies for the time between entries! I’ve a couple of big projects to do and I haven’t been feeling too brilliant – although much better now.

Back to the doctor. She was amazing. I told her how I was feeling and that I wanted to go and see a counsellor. She agreed it would be a really good idea and we worked out who would be best for me to go and see. My doctor also offered to spend time, right there and then, talking about the endometriosis and how I was feeling about it all.

I won’t go into all of it, but she basically validated what I was feeling – which was very important as I now realise. To have someone who doesn’t have a personal link to me (as family and friends do) say that my thoughts and feelings are rational was so comforting – I’m not crazy! At least not on this issue…

My doctor suggested that I write a letter to the IVF clinic that we went to and let it all go. Write exactly what I feel and say exactly what I want to say – let it rip and use all the angry words I want to use without any holding back. And then, if I wanted to later, I could write it in a more appropriate way and actually send it to the IVF clinic manager.

I wrote the letter about a week after seeing my doctor. It was really therapeutic. I started off with my incredibly angry words, and then through the letter ended up claiming myself and my healing back.

I have decided to share the letter with you as it shows the thought process that I went through while writing it – from unbelievable anger at the clinic to claiming my own self again. I have blacked some of the letter out due to the words not being necessarily appropriate!

I will still be writing to the IVF clinic formally and seeing a counsellor, but writing this letter now has been an important and valuable first step in working through these messy emotions.

Guilt...

He’s going to say I have nothing to feel guilty about – but I have been feeling guilty lately.

I’ve been feeling guilty since the surgery and when I found out about the endometriosis.

So, it’s true that I may not have had endo back in 2009/2010 when we were doing IVF, and it’s true that even if I did and it was treated it may not have made any difference to me getting pregnant. It is, however, the closest thing to an explanation as to why we couldn’t get pregnant that we have ever had. All we ever got from the IVF clinic was “unexplained fertility”, which left us wondering if the issue was with me, with Kirby, or with both.

It’s not that either of us would have blamed each other – there is no blame.

Well – I know that I wouldn’t have blamed Kirby, and I know that he wouldn’t have blamed me. So, feeling like I do at the moment doesn’t really make sense – but then how often do feelings and thoughts really make sense?

I feel guilty that it seems I was the one who couldn’t bring a baby into our lives and who couldn’t make Kirby a father. He deserves to be a Dad. He should have had a son or daughter to raise and nurture and discipline and be annoyed at some times and love and have fun times with and create memories with. And I couldn’t give him that.

I keep thinking that I should have known endo was a possibility, and that I should have pushed for more tests and investigations. But, how could I know that endo was a possibility if I didn’t even know what endo was?

I asked Kirby the other night if he would still have married me if he knew that I couldn’t have children. I regretted asking the question as soon as I did. I know the answer – he would have. Asking him that question was unkind.

But I keep ruminating about the unfairness that my inept body cannot give him a child. I guess I’m just going to have to sit with that for a while until it passes by. And I hope it does soon.

It's how I feel...

It’s been just over a week since my day surgery. It went well – except that I ended up staying in hospital overnight as the surgeon had to do a bit more to me than originally anticipated.

It turns out I have endometriosis, so the surgeon cleared that up, my blood pressure dropped, I was in more pain than I certainly anticipated, and I was admitted. Fortunately I only stayed one night and was able to come home. I am so thankful for Ashford Hospital here in South Australia – the best medical care I could have hoped for.

For the first few days I was limited as to what I could do – in other words it was bed or the couch. And the worst was not being able to have my cats on my lap and not being able to pat my dogs or play with them. I’m feeling much better now and slowly being able to do more and more.

At least I’m feeling better physically.

Mentally?

Spiritually?

I’m struggling big time. It changes from day to day – Wednesday was a not so good day, yesterday was a good day, today is a bad day.

It’s not the fact that I’ve had an operation that has forever taken the choice of trying for a baby again away from me (which is something I have accepted). The reason I am struggling is that I have endometriosis and despite going through IVF and seeing a gynaecologist back around that time with symptoms associated with endometriosis (like infertility – duh!) nobody even bothered to investigate it as a possibility.

If they had – if they only had – it might have been addressed and we might have our child here with us right now. I am really struggling to come to terms with this.

I know that there is a possibility that I still wouldn’t have become pregnant, but the fact that further investigation was not done at the time is just beyond my comprehension. Why didn’t they check? I had the fatigue, I had the pain in my abdomen and lower back, I had the painful period cramp, I had had miscarriages, and I damn well couldn’t have a baby. What went wrong? You know I even recall them saying that I didn’t have it as they couldn’t see it on any scans – well guess what – the only way to truly know if someone has it is to do a laparoscopy (like I had last Thursday).

I am so furious. I have tried not to be angry and to “let it go” knowing nothing will change, but that isn’t working so much and I feel like I am being eaten up inside.  Instead I am going to let the anger and grief and whatever other emotions occur have their space, and deal with them instead of trying to bottle them up. I will cry, rage, talk, meditate, just “be” out in nature, play with my dogs, hug my nephew, throw tantrums, consider how blessed I am, tell Kirby I love him, and swear my head off.

But I’m not going to pretend I’m fine.

That would be a lie – because I’m not.

One thing that I know will help me now is to say this to you who are having trouble having a baby – if you even remotely suspect that you have endometriosis, stand up for yourself and demand that it be investigated. And don’t let them put you off by saying your scans don’t show any signs of it – insist on a laparoscopy.

And please, please, please – if you do go through the tests and find you do have endometriosis, and it is treated, and you end up with that miracle in your arms – please let me know. It would help to mend my heart to know that something good might come from sharing my experience with you. And photos too please! Lots of photos!

My love, as always, to all my readers, and thank you for your endless support.

Hair...

I always pictured myself as one day being an old woman who had grown old gracefully and embraced grey hair and wrinkles as part of being a crone.

Now, what I have to share with you today is not really a big deal in terms of serious life problems, but it has brought up for me another of those “Really, life? You’re throwing this at me as well?” moments.

One of the loveliest parts of growing old was that I thought I would have long grey hair which was in a plait down my back, or in a bun on my head, or even free flowing over my shoulders. I even have some of those grey hairs now – although being honest I still hide them under a covering of henna from time to time.

During these past few weeks I went to a dermatologist to have some dodgy looking moles taken off and assessed in case of skin cancer. Fortunately there was nothing to be concerned about. But, in the process of looking at my other moles for any suspicious ones the dermatologist mentioned that my hair was quite thin at the crown of my head. I knew it was thin, but it wasn’t until I came home that night and looked at it with a mirror that I realised just how thin it had become.

The dermatologist did a puncture biopsy of my head and a week later we had the results. I have alopecia, which is a genetic thinning of the hair over time, and another thing which I can’t remember the name of where my hair follicles are dying and I will lose my hair.

The dermatologist was keen for me to go on medication – like three lots of it – to try and stop my hair loss, but I have decided not to go down this path as I am already on five medications for epilepsy, clinical depression, and high blood pressure. I don’t want to add to that mix really and the side effects of the hair loss medication and the monitoring of levels of different things like potassium are fairly full on. Instead I’m going to use scarves and hats, a thing called a topper that would go on the top of my head and blend in with my own hair to create the look of a full head of hair. And eventually I guess I may use a wig.

So, what has this got to do with not having children? Well, it is a reminder that I am getting older, albeit in a way I hadn’t expected. It is true that some women have babies in their forties, but the chances of this are very, very slight through both natural conception and IVF.  And for Kirby and me it is particularly remote.

I have realized that somewhere in deep down I believed I could still change my mind and we could try IVF one more time. We were young. We were still in that “baby bearing” age group.

The reality has hit that this is not so. We are being taken out of the realm where trying IVF one more time is a choice we truly have. The choice is gradually being taken away from us.

Even though we know we won’t ever try IVF again it is still hard to come to terms with. We have not got as much control as we once did, although I guess we never did have that control. Does this sound all mixed up?

I feel like I am entering another stage of having to say “farewell” to our children. I could hold them here, my fingertips could grip theirs and keep them here, but now letting them go completely is on the horizon.

I don’t feel ready to get older. I don’t feel ready to have grey and thinning hair. I don’t feel ready to accept that the choice, that perhaps we never really had in the first place, is being taken away from me, from us.

There is a scar in my heart from not having our children, and this sudden certainty that I am moving beyond child bearing years, is a splinter that has wedged its way into the tissue that lightly covers the wound I have. And I feel like I am bleeding.

Turning 40...

Here’s a very important tip when making a curry. If you are using a hand held blender to make the sauce make sure that the blender is turned off before you try to take one blade off to replace it with the one you need. Otherwise, like me last night, you’ll end up with an interesting cut on your finger which will really, really, really hurt and make you wonder if you are going to spend the night in the emergency department!

Fortunately my finger stopped bleeding quickly and I didn’t need stitches. 

And a positive I can take out of the incident was that Kirby had to finish making dinner!

I think it’s fair to blame my lack of attention to on turning 40 in the past week.  I’m officially over the hill now…so it’s only to be expected…

Of course I’m joking. At times I am just clumsy – I was clumsy in my teens, my twenties, and my thirties.

Turning 40, for me, is a milestone – it is not the end of anything, but is the beginning of something new. I told people before my birthday that it was just a number, but I don’t feel like that anymore. It is more than that – it is a time for changing the basis of my life.

My life was very different to now when I turned thirty. I was living in my lovely one bedroom apartment with my darling girl, Minerva. I was single and wondering whether staying single was a path I should actively pursue. I was in the fifth year of a job as a student advocate – which was a job I adored and I still miss (much of this is to do with the people I worked with). I had my friends and family and I was enjoying life.

But, even though I could see myself staying single I still had that deep desire to meet my life partner and have children of my own. Many of my friends were committing to their partners or getting married and/or having children. The reminder of what I really wanted was all around me.

I had no idea of the mountainous adventure that lay before me in the coming decade. What a ride!

Here’s a quick summary. Ready?

I met Kirby and moved in with him and then we bought an old bungalow together which we planned to renovate. I sold my lovely little apartment. I gained a whole new set of family and friends that came with Kirby. Kirby and I were married. We were blessed with new nieces and nephews (through both family and friends). I lost touch with friends I thought would be life-long and made new friends who I believe will really be life-long. My beloved Nan died. We brought home our gorgeous little Ari (not so little now!) and adopted our funny little Odi. We gave a home to one of my colleague’s cats (Felix). We looked after my sister-in-law’s cat, Frankie, for what was to be a few months, but seven years later she is still living with us. I was made redundant from my advocacy job due to the organization I was working at being closed down. My Dad was seriously ill and nearly died. I tried to run a dog training franchise without much success. I’ve had two or three bouts of serious depression which lasted a couple of months each. I’ve had three or four other jobs all in administrative roles. Kirby and I realized we were having trouble conceiving a child. We lost two babies to very early miscarriage. We tried IVF but the two embryos that were transferred into me died which devastated us. I started working for myself as an editor. We went on a dream holiday to New York. I completed a Masters in Creative Writing. Through some kind of unconscious unfolding we realized we wouldn’t be trying IVF again. I’ve lost touch with family members who I was close to and miss terribly. We moved house to be closer to our nephew, and because we realized our old house and the constant need to repair it wasn’t for us. Our Minerva died after a short illness. I went on a holiday all by myself to Thailand to Boon Lott’s Elephant Sanctuary.

Throughout all of this I have been constantly trying to define my identity and my spiritually. I’ve tried to pick one type of spirituality (or religion) from Buddhism, Hinduism, Yoga, various forms of Paganism, and Christianity. I’ve read numerous books on being happy and on positive thinking. I’ve sat down with pen and paper and tried to draw a path to a life where I would be content and where I would have a constant link to something higher than myself. I tried to get to a place where I would finally have everything about my life sorted out. I thought about myself a lot. I was completely immersed in the self-help movement.

I think much of this trying to define everything has partially been because of being unable to have children. Something so huge that I was sure would be part of Kirby and my lives just didn’t happen and in response I tried to grab hold of the other aspects of my life so they wouldn’t slip away and so that I could find some kind of identity when I realized I wouldn’t  be a mother. I needed a new meaning for my life.

Something has changed recently. I think it started before I went to Thailand but it became clearer while I was in that amazing country. I’ve been spending so much time on myself that I am missing the real life that is all around me. I am missing the people, the experiences, the just being, the emotions, the failures, the success, the chance encounters…it’s true I have seen all of these things but I haven’t been fully immersed in them because I have been afraid that I will be wrong.

It’s utter rubbish really. The whole thing is just crazy. I spent most of my time trying so hard to fit into a mold of what I thought I should be and what I thought my life should be that I ended up twisted and tormented.

When I was in Thailand, especially when I was at the elephant sanctuary, I saw people who had very little but they were happy. Sure they strived to have the necessities of life and they had goals, but they were happy while they were waiting to see what their lives would bring. They didn’t need some book telling them how to work themselves out. They didn’t need some self-help guru harping on about how positive thinking and intent would ensure everything they wanted would come to them. They just got on with it. They worked, they smiled, they wept, they helped each other out, they shared with each other and with me what little they had, and they spent time with their families and friends just being in the open spaces under their home-made homes.

It’s opened my eyes to just how self-centered I was being. I was constantly thinking about what would be in it for me if I did something or shared something. I kept my stuff to myself and worried about whether the curtains we had were okay and whether the house was clean enough to meet other people’s standards (which were imagined standards by me). It just doesn’t make sense to me, anymore, to live like this.

While I’m not going to let our house become a dirty mess, and from time to time I will reflect on what is going on in my life, I won’t be letting these things get in the way of living.

It’s okay to reflect and to read books on improving life, and it is definitely okay to have a connection to that something greater than me, but at some point I have to get on with living. I have to take risks in reaching out to people, I have to let things go, I have to love the people in my life, I have to let people go when they need to, I have to weep and laugh, be angry and be at peace, and let my emotions have a healthy reign on me sometimes. All I have to do is be and love people and animals and life – just the way it all is. I have to let go of controlling everything in my life and taking responsibility for things that are just not in my control, while having passion for those things I choose that I can perhaps do something about.

I have tried hard, in my thirties, to sort myself out.  But, I realize now that nothing in life is ever irrevocably sorted out. And I mean absolutely nothing. At the beginning of my thirties, and especially when I met Kirby, I thought I knew where my life was going.

At the beginning of my forties I have no idea what life has in store for me.  So it’s time to let it go and just see what happens and not be so serious about myself. It really is liberating.

Remembering dates…

Last week I was berating myself because I realized I had mixed up the dates of my three IVF cycles and the due dates of the babies from those cycles if they had been born.

I didn’t think that we had worked out when our baby would be due for the first cycle because the cycle was cancelled. I figured out that the baby from the second cycle would have been due on, or around, the 8^th of April (our wedding anniversary), and that the baby from the last cycle would have been due on, or around, the 14^th of September (my Dad’s birthday).

I was certain about those dates, especially over the past few years. I remembered and even celebrated my children based on those dates. We have photos the two embryos that we created and I had one close by me on the 8^th of April and the other on the 14^th of September.  I reflected on what ages our children would be and what they might be like.

I recently obtained my clinical records from when we did IVF. They were rather confusing to read, but what was clear were the dates of the cycles we did, and they differed from my recollections.

The baby from the first cycle, had the cycle not been cancelled, would have been due around the 8^th of April. The baby from the second cycle would have been due on or around the 5^th of June. I did have the date of the final round of IVF correct and the baby would have been due around my Dad’s birthday.

I was upset at myself last week, but I am not anymore for the following reasons.

Going through IVF is incredibly stressful. It consumes your life. Everything is put into trying to have a baby. There are injections and medications to keep up with, regular appointments with doctors and nurses, and everything has to fit in amongst keeping a regular life. There are massive fluctuations in hormones that are a side effect of the medications. Wave upon wave of emotions such as hope, despair, anger, and excitement can flatten or elate you. It is one of the hardest experiences we have ever gone through. Is it any wonder I might have mixed up the dates? I didn’t have any records until recently and had to rely on my memory. I hadn’t kept a journal for the entire experience as I initially thought I would. At times, when we were doing IVF, I didn’t know what day it was or what I was doing or even how I was feeling.  Much of the time was just a confusing blur.

I can’t berate myself for mixing up the dates during the most stressful time I have had in my life. It is not fair on me to do so.

To me intention is important. If someone says or does something that upsets me or I don’t agree with I will consider what their intention was. If their intention was good hearted then I focus on that rather than the words said or the actions taken. Of course, this is always to a point and sometimes I will let the person concerned know if I am hurt by their words or actions, but mostly I let it go.

My intention has always been to remember our children. I don’t want them to fade away to nothing, but to stay in my memory. I got the dates wrong, but my intention was based on my love for my children. I can’t berate myself for that. I remember them regularly and I have had specific dates during the year that I take extra time to reflect on them and wear my star of remembrance. My kids know that I love them.

Now I know the actual dates of our IVF cycles I can change the dates during the year that I especially reflect upon my children. If there had been a baby created from the first cycle of IVF it would have been due on the 8^th of April, but there was not even a spark of life created. This date has returned to being our wedding anniversary only.

I now have the 5^th of June to reflect on our second cycle and the embryo that was created then. And, the 14^th of September remains as the day for reflection for the embryo from the third cycle.

I have changed the dates, my children know I have kept on loving them and will always love them, and there is no need, and never was, any reason to berate myself. 

Wear a Star Day 2014...

I am feeling quite hurt and angry just at the moment.

I first wrote about “Wear a Star” day over two years ago. I was so thrilled to find a movement which I could be a part of that would give me a way to honour our babies. The day was for people who had lost children, including, I thought, people who were unable to have children.

I bought a beautiful, antique brooch especially for “Wear a Star” day on the 12^th of April that year, 2012. I also wore the brooch the following year, and up until today I had every intention of wearing it this coming Saturday. This post was going to be about "Wear a Star" day and how important it was to me.

My star brooch

I just looked at the Facebook page for “Wear a Star” and I noticed that there was no mention of people who are unable to have children and it is also run by a Christian organization – The R Project. I don’t recall any religious organization being involved in the first “Wear a Star” day, although I might have just missed it in the details. The wording on the Facebook page and the website of “The R Project” is certainly more religious based.

I am sitting here feeling really unsure and confused. I am not overly religious and I don’t hold the same beliefs as the organization behind “Wear a Star” day and that they promote as important to “Wear a Star” day. Therefore, how can I be a part of the day now?

Also, my children only got to the point of being a “bunch of cells” (I hate writing that), but they were the closest I ever got to my children. I was never clinically pregnant, but when I saw those little beings flickering with life on the screen at the IVF clinic, just  before they were transferred into me, I fell in love. Whatever they were to be was already there – hair colour, eye colour, gender, tendencies toward certain interests and hobbies. Would they be messy like me? Would they love computers like Kirby? They were real – they existed.

But they are now no longer worthy of being remembered on “Wear a Star” day. 

That really hurts. I have to think about all of this…

Find Me Somebody to Blame...

A few weeks ago I contacted the IVF clinic we went to between 2007 and 2010 to obtain a copy of my clinical notes as I am having some investigations soon related to another health issue, and I was wondering if the two could be linked.

The clinic sent the notes to me within a week. I had a flick through them and became absolutely furious. The notes were wrong. They recorded that we had four IVF cycles, but we only had three. They also mentioned blood tests that were taken in late July 2009 when I was in New York. There was also no mention of the test that we tried to have to see if my eggs were any good. I couldn’t believe that they had got my notes so wrong, and it made me wonder just what else they had got wrong. Perhaps those zygotes (I hate that word…) that they got rid of because they were poor quality were actually okay.

I was going to contact the clinic and they were going to have some explaining to do, but I decided to leave it for a few days so that I could contact them with a calm state of mind.

A few days later I looked through the notes to get my facts straight – and I came away feeling very bewildered. There were only three cycles mentioned, and I couldn’t find the reference to any blood test being taken at the end of July 2009. I had misread the notes when I first got them.

Every now and then I want someone to explain to me why Kirby and I can’t have a child. I want someone to take responsibility, or I want to find proof that someone made a mistake. I guess it’s like that for everyone who has had something happen in their lives that just doesn’t make sense and doesn’t seem fair.

I realise that even before I started reading the notes I was on the defensive – I wanted to find something that would explain it all. I saw mistakes in the notes that weren’t there because I wanted there to be a reason and this time I almost wanted the clinic to have made a mistake. I wanted to be able to say “There – that’s why it didn’t work and it’s their fault.”

The truth is we will probably never know why we can’t have a child. There was never anything found in all the tests that could explain it.

I know life doesn’t happen the way we think it will for any of us. Nobody is guaranteed anything for trying to be a good person, and good things happen for those who do not appreciate them – my life didn’t come with a guarantee that it would play out I hoped it would.

I know this. And most of the time I accept it and look to the many positives that are in my life and enjoy what I do have. But sometimes I wish there was somebody to blame…somebody to blame so I don’t feel the need to blame myself.

Waiting and waiting...

This life hasn’t given Kirby and me children of our own. At first this was an enormous gaping hole that was too much to bare, but over time we have both found dreams to follow that, while they don’t make up for not having children, do give us a sense of self and a sense of purpose in our lives.

One of my dreams is to be a published author. I want to make a living writing science fiction. I don’t want to write some great literary masterpiece, but I do want to entertain people, and make them think (at least a little bit).

I’ve started writing a novel just recently – well, I actually started it about three years ago, but it’s only recently that I’ve been taking my writing seriously. I’m really enjoying it. I’m getting to know the characters and they are starting to give me ideas about what could happen in the story (some great, and some I wonder what on earth these characters are thinking!), and the story is evolving.

This isn’t the first bigger piece of writing that I have attempted. From July to December last year I wrote a book called “When You Can’t Have Kids”. It covers many of the insights I write about on this blog (in more depth) and talks about a great many more as well – such as how realising you are not going to have children can make you question your marriage, reworking the house so that “that” room is no longer the hoped for child’s room, and creating a life different from the one you imagined.

I sent part of the manuscript of the book to a publisher at the start of the New Year. The deal was that if you sent it in on a Friday they would guarantee to read it and if they wanted to see more they would contact you, but if you didn’t hear anything within three weeks you could assume they weren’t interested – no further correspondence entered into.

I didn’t hear from them.

So, I sent it off to another publisher. With this one I will have to wait for three months, and then if you don’t hear anything you can assume they are not interested – no further correspondence entered into.

It’s fun! Not really, but that is the nature of the publishing world. Publishers tend not give any feedback on manuscripts. It is hard, because when your manuscript isn’t accepted you have no idea why.

So – I’m about half way through the three month wait now, and I must say I’m getting a little bit antsy. I keep wavering in my mind between they will love it to I will hear nothing.

One thing that does bother me while I wait is that books are being published about people who experience infertility. That in itself is not the problem, but it is frustrating when the books are written by celebrities who share their story about how they couldn’t conceive a child, but then had one round of IVF and had a baby. It is great that they had a baby – I am happy for them – but one round of IVF is very different to going through three and then realising you will never have a child.

It sometimes feels as though their stories are more important because they are famous – then again I guess having a big name as an author will sell a book or two.

I just hope that somewhere out there is a publisher who is willing to take a chance on an everyday person’s story, and a story where IVF just didn’t work.

Wish me luck!

Why, Oh Why?

Okay – so adding onto last week as promised. Last week I wrote that there are other reasons, other than the low chance of us becoming pregnant, that have made us decide not to try IVF again. And IVF is really the only way we could expect to get pregnant.

One of the reasons, in all honesty, is the money that it costs to do a round of IVF. It costs thousands of dollars. We could save up for it, but by the time we did I would be just that little bit older (closer to 40), and the risks to any baby we might conceive would have increased significantly. After 40 the risk of having a baby with Down Syndrome is one in 60 compared to one in 1500 at 25 years of age. The risk of complications in pregnancy is also significantly higher. There is a good website that explains it all, so I won’t go into it further here. http://www.babycenter.com.au/pregnancy/antenatalhealth/ageandpregnancy/.

This is something that we do need to take into account, and there is an additional risk to any baby we might conceive due to health issues that I have. I am currently on five different medications for blood pressure, depression and epilepsy. Epilepsy medication in particular has a significant risk of causing harm to a baby – basically I’ve been told not to get pregnant while on it as the risks are so high. I could go off of the medication while trying to get pregnant, but the risk epilepsy has on an unborn child is also significant – talk about a catch 22!

So these are extra reasons why we aren’t going to do another round of IVF – the cost, my age, and the risks of medications and/or conditions on an unborn child.

What If?

The other night I was lying on the couch watching telly when I had an overwhelming urge to tell Kirby that I wanted to try IVF again. It was completely out of the blue – and it felt desperate, like if we didn’t try again I couldn’t move forward in anything.

I pictured my abdomen getting larger over time, our baby when we first met it, watching the baby grow, take its first steps, speak its first words. Everything would be perfect. And, of course, the IVF cycle would work.

I sat with the feeling for a while – enjoying the possibilities of a child in our lives. I thought about Hugo having a cousin here in Australia (he doesn’t have any and we are his only option for having one – all of his cousins are in Africa). They could pretty much grow up together as they would only be about two years apart.

The feelings I was having – the desperation, the longing – soon began to fade a little, and reality drove its way straight into the lounge room. I had a bit of a cry and a hug from Kirby as I realised that it wasn’t going to happen. For many reasons it wasn’t going to happen – some of these being the cost of IVF now, the impact on my health of doing another round, and that time spent with our child would be time spent away from Hugo. This is aside from the fact that the chances of another cycle being successful were extremely low.

I guess I’m realising that the grief and longing never truly go away. That inner need to have a child will probably be there until I die. I will always wonder about it – about what could have been. But, then, isn’t that true of many things in life, both good and bad. I wonder whether we would have bought our house at all if we’d realised we weren’t going to have children, I wonder what my life would have been like if I’d studied environmental science, I wonder where I would be now if I hadn’t met Kirby.

I guess it’s the mind’s way of showing us what could have been, so we can see what is, and in a way the feelings and grief about not having children do make me see, eventually, what we do have. We have Hugo. I’m guessing by now you’re realising just how important he is to me and how much I love that little guy. I wouldn’t swap him for the world.

That old guilty feeling...

I was at the supermarket this evening picking up something for dinner. I was almost done when this kid threw a small tantrum. Apparently he needed to have m&ms for dinner. You know the first thing that popped into my head? I was going to go home to peace and quiet and that sounded pretty good!

Well, did the guilt come along with a great big kick in the side of my head! I mean, how could I think such a thing? Clearly I would have been a horrible mother if kids had come along...

It would be so easy to give guilt free range on my thoughts, and I used to, but I don't do that anymore. There's absolutely no reason why I should feel guilty for enjoying what is. I don't have kids, and if I did I would be looking forward to bathing them, cuddling them, disciplining them, etc. I can't spend my entire life wasting away what I have for what I don't.

One of my friends was reminiscing the other day about the time before kids, when it was just her and her husband, and all the time they had. She wondered what they ever did with their time! She loves those kids, but her time is not really her own anymore.

Mine is. If we want to go away on holidays we don't have to wait for a school break. If I want to go and learn to play the cello, I can organise it without thinking about after school activities. If we want to go see a movie, we don't need to organise a baby sitter (although our dogs and cats might disagree with that - they'd either like to come too or have someone come over and play). If I want to go and see Hugo (my nephew) I can and I can spend one on one time with him (that is just the most precious thing).

Don't get me wrong - if I had kids I wouldn't swap them for all the time and movies and cello lessons in the world. But, the fact is I don't, and I never will. So I figure there's nothing wrong with enjoying the fact that I can come home, relax, eat when and what I want, pursue any hobby I want, and write a blog entry!

If only...

If our first round of IVF had worked we would have been celebrating the second birthday of our child this month. The estimated due date was the 8th April 2009. I remember thinking it was a sign, as that is also our wedding anniversary. I guess not every coincidence is a sign.

There is an acceptance and understanding that women who have miscarraiges have had a great loss - there is an expectation that there will be grief and sadness and a wonder at the child that might have been.

It is unlikely the embryo attached to me, so I guess technically I didn't have a miscarraige. But it hurts the same. Along with this post there is a photo of the embryo that was put inside me. That was our child. It existed, even if just for a few days. That tiny little thing was already a boy or a girl, may have had straight or wavy hair, perhaps they would have had hazel eyes like me, perhaps they would have loved music, or swimming or...

Does it sound strange that I love that little tiny thing? I wonder about it. It was real.

The Decision

Today we took our five year old niece Jess to the zoo. It was a fantastic day - we had icecream, saw the pandas, jumped like kangaroos...then we came back to our house and Jess and us played 'soccer' with our two dogs. We also watched 'Alice in Wonderland'.

It was great - I smiled all day. Especially when she told me that the amount of chocolate topping to put in her milk was about two metres.

When she was picked up by her Mum I felt that familiar heavy heart that I do whenever any of the children in our lives say goodbye and go with their Mum and Dad. We are never going to have that - a child who comes home with us as their Mum and Dad. And it sometimes hurts a lot.

It might be easier to distance ourselves from children and people with children, at least it might seem easier. It wouldn't really be though - we would only be hurting ourselves.

We made a decision not long after we realised that kids weren't going to happen for us, that we would not get to the point where we didn't want to be around children. We both love kids and we love spending time with them. They may not be ours - but they are ours in the sense that we love them and we will always be there for them.

I wouldn't give up the dance Jess did for us in the lounge today for anything...