Just Grow Up

On the surface I appear to be a sane, mature member of society. When I was younger I had a few idiosyncratic habits that, I assumed I would grow out of. With my 33rd birthday fast approaching I realise they are all pretty much intact.

So, possibly as a way to shame myself into growing up, here is my top ten list of immature stuff I still cling on to:

1) Too scared to look in the mirror at night - when I was ten I read a ghost story that lead me to ban myself from horror fiction (a ban still very much in place). I can't remember the whole story other than it was about an antique mirror that would show a person standing behind you when you looked in it. Even now if I need the loo at night I won't let myself look in a mirror.

2) Need musical motivation when tidying - I hate tidying and I get very easily distracted. Put these two characteristics together and you end up living in a pig-sty. When I was forced to tidy my room as a kid the only way I could do it was to put music on and challenge myself; by the end of this song I'll have folded all my clothes; by the end of this tune, I'll have sorted out the pile of books next to my bed without being led astray and finding myself on the bed half-way through chapter two. Even now I need to force myself to finish the washing up before the end of Gloria Gaynor's I Will Survive, otherwise I’ll get distracted by the piece of newspaper I used to wrap the fish bones in.

3) Pretend I am on TV when I put make up on - this is excruciating to share but in the spirit of an open and honest discourse. Sometimes I pretend I am on TV and giving a demonstration on how to put make up on. Occasionally I even do half my face leaving the other half unmade up for a before and after look. Look, I don't wear a lot of make up - I can't be bothered with it, and I'm not very proficient at putting it on, which makes this confession even more risible, but possibly explains why I do it – I do get bored very easily.

4) Scared of the phone - I really hate talking on the phone. The phone is to make arrangements, not for chats. With friends living overseas this is increasingly difficult to avoid but it is hard work not to just hang up once we have both confirmed we are "fine".

5) Squeeze spots - This I thought I'd grow out of because I'd stop getting spots. Apparently not, thanks hormones.

6) Count steps - you know when you are really tired on you way home and you are dragging your feet? Well back in 1984 I discovered if I try and guess how many steps away home was then counted my steps to see how accurate I had been the journey goes much quicker. 25 years later I still use it.

7) Forget about hangovers – We’ve all done it I’m sure. You’re are on your second bottle of rosé and, although you know you are several sheets to the wind you also feel witty, eloquent and are seized with the absolute certainty that you won’t be hung over tomorrow.

You don’t know how you know it, all you know is this time it’ll be ok. Fast forward 12 hours and you’ve sweat pulsing out of every pore, your brain feels like a boulder rattling around a storm-buffed galleon and every time someone says “you must remember when you…” you grab a pillow hold it over your ears and beg them to stop.

I’ve been getting drunk for longer than it is legal and you would have thought, by now I’d have learnt. I had a bit of a hiatus when we were actively trying to get pregnant. I didn’t give up totally but I embraced a modicum of sobriety. But I am sorry to say that six months of coil enforced barreness and I’ve crashed off that wagon several times. And yes, I still believe I might just escape a hangover. And yes, I am still proved to be catastrophically wrong the morning after. On the plus side though, of late I’ve only ever woken to find my husband in bed beside me.

8) Have a shy bladder - I am not one of those women who need a cohort of 3 other girls every time they go to the toilet in a bar. If there is anyone in the next door cubical to me, I cannot go. If I think someone is waiting for me to come out of the toilet, I cannot go. If someone tries to chat whilst I am going about my business my bladder actually ties itself in knots. It is only through intensive training over the last couple of years that I have been able to pee into a cup for the various nurses who just want to double check that I am not pregnant.

9) Separate out chocolate bars - Do you know Twix bars? Chocolate , caramel, biscuit. I eat the chocolate from the sides, then the caramel from the top and finally the biscuit. Boost Bars? The chocolate/caramel exterior before tackling the nougat centre. Cream eggs? With a tongue movement that has made grown men weep I take out the centre before eating the chocolate. I don't even notice I am doing this until I realise people staring aghast at my treat-eating etiquette.

10) Sit at the front of buses - Best seat in the house top left of a double decker. And yeah, if I have to kick small children out of the way to secure it, well that's life. What do you mean do I pretend I'm driving? Well, duh!

Turns out the only thing I grow out of is my clothes.

So I've bared my soul what about you? What do you still do that you thought you'd grow out of?

Lapped

Before I had hoped
To have babies the same age,
Possibly this time?


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My first attempt at haiku. I would thoroughly recommend checking out IF in Tokyo for a true master.

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And for something a little longer, watch me try and put a positive spin on taking a long time to get pregnant at Fertility Authority.

Happy Blogoversary to me

For the first three minutes of its life this blog was called Wombache, then I saw sense.

I started this blog because I felt lonely. I have lots of friends but at the time I only knew of one who was having difficulty conceiving. I wanted to find people going through the same thing as me. I wanted to hear about how they coped. But I couldn't find any. (I know, God knows what search term I was using, infertility bloggers are like pregnant women - they are everywhere as soon as you start looking).

But Wombache? It was just too damn depressing. Yes, the infertility does get me down but who wants to read one long moan? Let’s face it, infertility is fucking shit but it isn’t life threatening and I refuse to let it take over my life.

So I try to write about infertility with a light touch. I try and keep a sense of humour about it. I hope the title reflects this, that and my love of puns.

If I am honest I didn’t expect the blog to last. I had a sneaking suspicion that I was over-reacting and I would get pregnant any day. I thought I’d loose interest as I have with so many other hobbies (knitting, millinery, playing the trumpet). I thought I’d run out of things to write about.

My journey over the past year has been characterised by complete inactivity. I’ve had a few investigations but I haven’t knowingly ovulated since March 2008, and since October I’ve had to be on contraception of one form of the other. I don’t even have the will we/ won’t we of the two week wait to write about. There has been a fair amount of barrel scraping.

So why do I keep going? It is you lot. I started because I couldn’t find anyone going through similar experiences but pretty quickly I got linked in to the whole community of infertile bloggers. There is hope when you read about people who have gone through seven kinds of shit and finally get pregnant. There is support when you have a terrible test result. There are the brilliant comments when you write something that captures the imagination.

I started the blog to write about my feelings, to keep (close) friends up-to-date with the daily machinations of my uterus and to precipitate a pregnancy.

One year on I keep writing this blog because of the comments, feedback and because I feel a real connection with my readers (the majority of whom write blogs that I read).

So thanks guys for continuing to drop by, and hopefully come August things will get a bit more interesting around here.

What about you? Why did you start blogging – and what keeps you going?

(And those of you who notice a few posts from before 25 May 2008 - I added them later whilst I was trying to clear up my side bar and I don't know how to put an undated post in.)

Whatever

Another night, another pregno announcement.

Natch.

Do I care that they weren't even together when we got hitched?

To be honest, not really.

I don't know if it is the booze-anaesthetic or I'm use to it, or what. But I felt almost nothing when she told me. It is totally the whole house buying conversation. Yes, I want a bigger place with a garden but I don't think just because she got the house I can't still have mine. She doesn't by the way, she has a one bed roomed place, but that isn't the point.

It is an analogy.

I'm pished.

And I was pretty fucking fabulous this evening though despite everything. I am considering hiring myself out for anecdote potential alone.

In addition to the pregnancy annoucement I was also, by an unrelated couple, invited to a wedding next year. They are being thoroughly modern about their nuptials. They'll carry on living in their respective towns, living several hours apart until, in their words, "I have a baby".

I will have to slit my wrists if the happy couple give birth before I do.

Considering they are both men.

(Sigh. Watch this space. The race is on).

Future Planning

I spent this morning strategising.

I wish I could show you the power point document that the senior manager delivered but a) I like you too much to enforce a document that turgid on you and b) it would probably be stretching the bounds of my professionalism just a little further than necessary.

The highlights were:

Environmental Changes Affecting Strategy (yes, we are all about the catchy heading here) we had amongst others:

• The Recession
• Local and National Government Changes
• University Enterprise and Research Strategies

And my personal favourite:

• Maternity leave of 2 key staff members

How we laughed at that one. The banter around the table was that contraception should be mandatory. Wondering whether Human Resources would endorse compulsory sterilisation. And apparently no one else is 'allowed' to go on maternity leave. Much, much, fucking hilarity.

We ended the meeting with a request that we forward plan. We need to send our department head a sentence saying where we would like to be by 2012.

I’m not sure ‘at home with at least two children sitting on a healthy redundancy package’ would be acceptable. Which is only slightly more realistic than ‘representing Great Britain at long distance running at the Olympics’. Unfortunately I think she wants something along the lines of ‘increasing turnover with new products and blah, blah, blah’.

I love my job, I really do. And my colleagues (my completely unaware colleagues) are great. But sometimes ...

Mission Completed

We survived The Great Family Get Together.

Within minutes of arriving I clocked everyone consuming booze and relaxed (no, not the mythical 'relaxing makes babies' relaxation, more the ‘fizz of a beer can opening’ relaxing).

During the weekend oldest step-sister complains to her brothers-in-law that her first pregnancy happened almost immediately and she had now been trying for five months without any joy.

Whilst the other boys are desperately clawing at their ears hoping the talking which falls so resoundingly in the "too much information" category will stop, the husband quietly states, "It isn't always easy."

She didn't get it.

Later, she repeated her fears to me.

I couldn't see any point in falsely sympathising or lying, so I told her that we had been trying and failing for two and a half years, since before her daughter was born. I told her we had a couple more months of the coil to endure before we had any hope of intervention. I told her I hoped that she gets pregnant soon, and that I do too.

I didn't want the conversation to be full of one-upmanship. You know the kind: when someone points out a cut and worries it will become a scar the next minute the whole company starts unveiling permanent marks on their inner thighs, stomachs or under hair -lines competing with death-defying tales of trauma and incident.

My motive was not to 'prove' I had it worse. But I am sure she will get pregnant soon and I hope I have managed to pre-empt the over-excited announcement. To enable her to temper it with tact.

I also managed to explain to her why certain comments weren't helpful:

"Several mum's at nursery are in their forties."

I don't doubt that women over forty get pregnant and good on them. Whilst it is great to know that my ovaries aren't going to shrivel up and drop out of my vagina on my 39th birthday I started trying to get pregnant when I was 30. I don't actually find it very heartening that I might have a good ten years of trying, and failing, to get pregnant. If I wanted to have a baby when I was 40 I'd start trying to have a baby in 2015, not 2006.

"I've got a friend who had IVF for eight years and she's got a little baby, Sophie, now."

Back up, just back up. What part of you thinks that finding out someone tried, AND FAILED, IVF for eight fucking years, is in any way a good thing? I know IVF can work if that is what you are wondering, I also hope that if it gets to that it'll take a lot less than 8 years.

And if you are reading this, head in hands, wondering what on earth she could say that wouldn't evoke my wrath the answer is what she ended by saying. That she was sorry to hear about our 'issues', she hoped that it would all be resolved soon, and good luck - of course.

Up today: The Proof is in the Pudding, my latest Fertility Authority post.

Being driven to the edge

Once again we had to make the perilous journey to the outreaches of the M25 to take the dog to kennels for the weekend.

Luckily this journey was significantly less eventful than the last. But it did reaffirm my hatred of driving.

Baby On Board signs.

I mean, really. Why?

Oh, I know the theory. Contrary to popular opinion, it isn't to make other drivers decide not to crash into you on that particular day. It is in case you have a car accident whilst carrying a baby, you don't want the ambulance folk to miss a child crushed in the back whilst the unconscious parents are ferried to hospital. That is why they are a-fixed to the window with suction pads. Easily take on-and-offable depending on the afore-mentioned baby being on board, or not.

What I object to is the people who keep them on whilst their car is without child.

And what I particularly object to is the signs that I saw today - on the same car:

Cheeky Monkey on Board

And

Mummy-to-be on board

After wasting 1.57 minutes trying to decide whether the Mummy-to-be had actually been, and the progeny was the cheeky monkey, or whether there was already one cheeky monkey and she had another on the way, I noticed that the car was being driven by a man. Alone.

Which leads me to conclude:

This guy cannot afford a Ferrari, so the only way he has to prove to the world at large just how much of a man he is, is to proclaim his virility by signage on the rear window of his Citroen Saxo.

Of course all it makes me think is:

Yeah, and I bet neither kids are yours.

So am I:
A) An Acrimonious Asshole
B) Bitter and Barren
C) Irrational and Infertile
D) All of the above?

I need a holiday.

I'll be back next week, in the meantime keep an eye on Fertility Authority - I'm due to have another post published there shortly.

Risk Assesment

Because my job involves that great, unwashed, amorphous mass - The Public - I have to complete risk assessments lest someone should stub their toe and decide to sue.

I find recently that my social gatherings require a similar process prior to events.

The risk assessment goes something like this:

Section A - Identify Hazard

Section B - Risk Controls - For each hazard identified in Section A describe your existing control measures and safe system of work.

Section C - Develop Action Plan

So here we go:

Section A - Identify Hazard
1) Pregnancy Announcement
2) Unexpected bump
3) Intrusive questions
4) Unwanted advice

Section B - Risk Controls
1) Only socialise with single guys (hmmm, I try my dears, I try).
2) Maintain only eye contact with individuals - do not allow sight-line to stray below chin-level
3) Preempt intrusive questions with categorical statements such as "Why would anyone want children?" (keep fingers crossed behind back) and “Ha, I’d have to stay in every night if I had a kid.” (Try and stop the maniacal laughter before it is reduce to over blown sobs)
4) see 3.

This weekend is the great family gathering to celebrate my step-mothers sixtieth.

On the surface the risks are slim.

I know my sisters are ‘safe’.

I will have to try to avoid being left alone with my step-mother. A former nurse and perennially interested in health-based issues, I have given her the bare bones of our situation (oh man, not those bare bones, you really are filthy). But I know given a chance she’ll sidle up to me and ask something along the lines of “And how are things….” The emphasis on things will leave me in no doubt that what she really means is: “So how is your fucked up womb” and the conversation will be a smörgåsbord of (4) Unwanted Advice.

Therefore my Action Plan (Section C). To avert this risk, I will prime my sisters, husband and brothers-in-law to go to red alert should there ever be a time when the step-mother and I are out of the room at the same time.

The other danger area is my step-sisters.

I make an absolute distinction between my sisters and step-sisters. Although the ages of all five of us (me, two full sisters and two steps) spans a mere four years we are not that close across the blood divide.

They both have two and a half year old daughters - one born three days before my wedding, the other less than two months later. Second children can only be a short, energetic, orgasmic, thrust away.

The risk is that they may want to give my step-mother the greatest birthday gift ever. Announcing the impending arrival of the next grandchild.

As gifts go it makes the tickets we bought her to see Cliff Richard and the Shadows pale into comparison.

Peas in a pod

So I'm in a meeting this morning with a young artist.

He is very handsome, creative and charming, but there is something more.

I find myself doing a mental comparison:

Mousy hair - check
Pale skin - the same
Stubble - with the correct proportion of brown and a worrying amount of the ginge
Eyes blue - a little darker but not too far off
Height - right
His lower lip is a bit thinner but definitely a similar shape and the upper is a direct hit
Nose - this is key. The husband has the perfect nose (and no, that isn't a euphemism) this guy's is close enough - isn't too bad, straight, not to big, not too small. Yeah. A good shape I could live with that.

He's as close as damnit to the husband.

What has the world come to when I find myself eying up other men, not as objects of lust but as potential sperm donors even when the husband's ejaculate has passed all its tests.

Have I completely lost the plot? Am I alone in this?

Always line your stomach

"I fucking love you."

Or that should be "Jy fushing ludge vooo."

My nostrils are assalted by stale beer and day old sweat.

He is trying to tell me something else.

"I genuinely have no idea about people you left. You can let people go mental when they have a reliable whatnot of doing whatnot. You meet people and are like, fucking, 'I love you' then you stick fingers in their nose and their ears and you learn to play bass guitar and its all good."

After two weeks of flat out working in preparation for a pitch today the husband went straight to the pub at four after the meeting having not had breakfast or lunch.

After stripping off his suit and dancing around the living room in his shirt, new pants and socks with the dog he is now passed out on the bed. (I have a picture of the former but feel it is maybe not fair to share).

And my stomach hurts from laughing so much.

At you darling, at you. Not with you.

(I fucking love you too though and I wonder, when this pops up on your reader tomorrow morning, if you'll have any recollection of this).

How good is your memory?

Ok. I have some questions for you:

At the age of 7 years, were you thinner, about the same or heavier than other girls of your age?

No?

Try this one:

At what age did you stop growing taller?

Oh, come on, dig deep. Surely you know this:

How many weeks was your mother pregnant with you when you were born?

Now try and answer those questions without ringing your Mum.

I am currently filling out a 45 page questionnaire. On the plus side it is all about me, which is one of my favourite topics, on the minus it is asking me things that I just don't know.

Here's another one:

Please tell us the average amount you drank at different periods of your life: Beer, larger, stout or cider (pints per week) aged 18-24

I was seeing double for most of that period, how the hell can I count that?!

Surprisingly this questionnaire is neither to probe my fertility or to grant me entry into the top echelons civil service. I've joined Breakthrough Breast Cancers Generations study.

Their aim is to sign up 100,000 British women delve into their lifestyle and monitor them over many years to see how genetic and lifestyle factors can affect your chances of developing cancer.

I won't get screened so it doesn't help me with the dilemma that even though my Mum first got breast cancer aged 37 they still won't give me a mammogram before I am 40. But lets be honest, I'm not being totally altruistic, if this helps with the search for the cure I see it as back up life insurance.

Oh, oh! I know the answer to this one:

Was there ever a time as long as a year or more when you tried to get pregnant, but did not?

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For more details on the study, and how to sign up follow this link: Breakthrough Generations

SEX

I thought that might get your attention.

Sex has become a contentious issue. And one that we are all talking about.

Bottoms Off And on the Table recently bemoaned her failing sex drive and the comments show she isn't alone.

One of my first posts was about the pressure we (or rather he) is under to perform like Ron Jeremy, for a few days each month. Whether he feels like it or not.

But now I find a couple of days a month just isn't enough.

A book I am reading at the moment says:

"Couples not using contraception have, on average, about an 18% chance of conceiving normally ... Couples having sex more than twenty times a month have around a 35% chance."

(A Child Against All Odds, Robert Winston, 2007, my review here).

I know that at the moment the issue of whether we do, or don't have sex is immaterial given that I still have three months of the coil to go, but back in the day when I hoped for conception the traditional way, and as soon as possible, I figured out a way to develop an olofactory on-switch for the husband.

For further details read my Fertility Authority post - The Sweet Smell Of Success ...

Just one (or two) things

Do you know what pisses me off?

When someone sends me an email about their pregnancy news, I pull myself together, send a quick congrats email to the sender. Done.

But then you'll get the person who does a 'reply all', followed by someone else who wonders what everyone is up to that night, followed by another suggesting a local hostelry to meet in, followed by another email disagreeing with the choice and suggesting an alternative and so on until you come back from a half-hour meeting to discover your inbox has 84 emails all with the shouty heading "Exciting News!!!!"

To use a high brow literary metaphor, it makes me feel like the Durdsleys in the first Harry Potter when they get engulfed by letters enrolling Harry to Hogwarts. (Although I must stress that, much like the Durdsleys, the fault is entirely with me, rather than the email senders who have no idea what I am going through).

Oh, and another thing.

When you come round to my house with your children, it's brilliant. Thankfully I'm not at the stage where I find hanging out with kids difficult. I love it and it reaffirms my belief that I'll be a great mum.

But, but, but, but. Can you not put dirty nappies in my kitchen bin? I mean really! We have a perfectly decent bin in the bathroom which adequately holds at least four nappies. And you know when you say that because your baby isn't on solids their poo doesn't smell? That is utter, utter crap (literally): it really does, but you are immune to it because it is constantly seeping out onto your clothes so your nose has developed some kind of self-defence off-switch mechanism. Unfortunately when you dump your diapers right next to our kitchen sink my nose hasn't had the training required to find that in any way acceptable.

Remember people: USE THE BATHROOM BIN (or for extra brownie points do what a mate did recently and put them in a nappy bag and take them away with you - that, JW, was awesome).

Whew. What a relief, glad I got that off my chest.

If you've got any rants Fertility Authority are running a just one thing campaign your chance to tell a fertile person just one thing. 'Cause apparently it is National Infertility week.