Thursday 20th September 2012

Today I wanted to show you my new healthy living start to the morning, a mug of green tea and a glass of berocca. Alas I forgot to photograph them as I was busy facetiming with ‘Arnie’ aka my sister Hannah. It was so nice to have her at breakfast with us.

Then I thought ‘I’ll take a pic of my huge skinny cappuccino on my walk with my friend Caroline and her gorgeous ginger munchkin Ellie’ but we had too much fun gossiping. So instead you’ll have to make do with another William picture – back to coffee tomorrow, brownie promise!

Today it struck me how competitive in life we are. Ironically in the infertility community I often find people a) hate feeling judged as inadequate amongst other things b) are busy judging fertiles, I mean how dare they get pregnant without a 5 year battle?!!! and c) playing the passive aggressive ‘my journey has been harder than yours therefore…’ game

Honestly, life can be sucky at times. It is sucky for everyone but at different times and in different ways. We just all need a bit of love, compassion and understanding – even fertiles!!

Thursday 6th September 2012

Drink: strong tea with just a little milk
Soundtrack: grey’s anatomy

We’re approaching what would have been baby #1’s first birthday ish. It has been on my mind quite a lot. Hearing people talk about the first birthday party they are organising is hard, every time I have been thinking ‘that should have been us’. But last night I realised that my language was all off, how it is now – that is how it was meant to be for us. What other people have, it is how it could have been but it isn’t. The glimpse of parenthood that baby gave us has enabled us to be the parents we are, we cherish our little man in a way I don’t think would have been possible if it had been any other way. There is a lot to be grateful for in a weird sort of way.

such beauty in the sky

{source}

A year ago today I had surgery for our miscarriage.  It drew a line under the month of tests and scans, false hope and tears.  That baby gave us BabyH, we wouldn’t be 6 weeks away from meeting ‘it’ if we hadn’t had that miscarriage.  I’m not glad that I miscarried, it still hurts sometimes and I still think of that baby.  But I can accept it now.  I understand that this baby doesn’t replace the baby we lost, we can be happy and sad all at once.  So today I am grateful for the blessings we have and will gaze at the stars with a smile on my face and a tear in my eye.

A look back through 2011

This year has been a strange year, in many ways it has been incredibly difficult emotionally and in other ways it has been incredibly joyful.  One thing I have said a few times is I feel like this year has been necessary inorder for 2012 and beyond to be wonderful.

love Amy x

~~~~~

Here are a few thoughts on different events that have occured and what I have learnt from them:

January – sometimes your world seemingly falls apart and you feel like you are falling through a black hole.  But with the right friends and family around you they will always be there to grab your arm and pull you back up.

February – sometimes just being near the sea with someone you love and who loves you back is more restorative than any amount of therapy, menthols or wine.

Spring and Summer – the grief of miscarriage and infertility are similar but different.  Understanding one doesn’t mean you understand the other.

April – therapy is more like chatting with a wise, impartial friend

May – I am a pretty wise, balanced person ‘for my age’.

June – never underestimate the kindness of a stranger or the impact {positive and negative} that you can have on another person’s life.

July – you don’t need a transformative experience, especially not somebody else’s version.  With time you are evolving and transforming within yourself.  And to be honest – you’re pretty centred as it is, more so than some people your senior so just enjoy the ride.

August – work is 60% people, 40% the role.

September – in a professional setting I am not as delicate as others think.  But sometimes them thinking it works to my advantage.

October – people don’t always have the answers to give you that you need.  Once you stop pointing the finger at yourself and accept they don’t have the magic answer you can let it go.

December – choosing paint colours is hard when it actually comes to it, maybe I have commitment issues hehe?!

” habouring bitterness and anger is like drinking posion
and expecting the other person to suffer “
{Peter Andre 2011}

Miscarriage – humour helped our medical staff be able to concentrate on treating me physically.  I had other people to help me emotionally.

2011 – my non-professional self is very different to my professional self, maybe that is why friendships with colleagues have struggled.  At work I am tough, assertive and confident.  As a person I am more sensitive and unsure of myself than is often realised.

2011 – my relationship with my Mum has changed this year, there is a deeper sense of unspoken understanding and respect.  This year has been made so much easier to endure with her on my team.

Renovations – I can live through pretty difficult situations and remain pretty amazingly calm at a time when I should be super sensitive to sources of stress as long as I have twitter, a to-do list and a bit of beauty in my life.

As 2012 approaches I turn 30 weeks pregnant.  
What might I tell my pre-pregnant self:

1. people around you will all have a sense of ownership of your pregnancy, birth and baby.  This is because they care and because it is their niece/nephew/cousin/grandchild.  Managing their expectations and your own is hard.  Accept you have little control over it, pick your battles and preserve bridges you may need once babyH arrives.

2. enjoy the sense of relief and satisfaction you get from having a wee.  Once you are pregnant you will desperately need a wee but actually only pass about 10ml of fluid and that sense of ‘ahhhhh’ never happens.

3. in pregnancy you lose yourself and find yourself all at the same time.

4. you won’t want to talk pregnancy 24/7 as you thought you would but you will need people there to talk about it 24/7.

5.  whilst you’re no hippy you are going to become intrigued by homebirths, waterbirths, breastfeeding, natal hypnotherapy and cloth nappies – this will freak other people out as they see it as a judgement on their own choices.

6. once biten, twice shy.  You will be worried that you haven’t bonded enough with baby.  But next time you walk through a crowd look at your arms, see the protective hand and elbow that covers bump and know that everything is going to be ok.

living with the fear

In January we had a miscarriage.  We had weekly scans and tests.  My HCG levels continued to rise.  Finally after almost a month, in one final huddle of Doctors, they decided that it really was over.  My body never caught up, the conflict between what my heart was telling me and what my brain was processing broke me.  But once the surgery was over and my heart and brain realigned I could start to heal.

I know people who live with the pain of {in}fertility.  I have not experienced this, only the pain and fear of expected {in}fertility due to PCOS.  I try to understand and to imagine, and although I can get close, I have not been in their shoes.  During my miscarriage and the time immediately after people try to offer words of comfort, try to demonstrate that they know what it is like. But here are my observations.  ‘At least you know you can get pregnant’ is of no consolation.  Just as ‘well there is always adoption or surrogacy’ isn’t of any consolation to a couple undergoing fertility treatment.  I understand that if you have never ‘caught’ then to you someone who has miscarried is a step ahead but that’s not how it works.  When I saw those two thin lines, something within me changed. I was going to be a parent.  A miscarriage didn’t cause that change to be reversed, I’d made the emotional shift to almost-parent but had no baby to show for it.  And who was to say that getting pregnant meant I would get pregnant again or that, if I did, I wouldn’t miscarry again?!  It is of no consolation.

Please believe me that I don’t trivalise the pain of {in}fertility, and I don’t think that the pain of miscarriage is greater, but neither is it less.  They are two similar but different pains, they are not the same thing and experiencing one doesn’t mean you understand the other.

~~~~~

Through this pregnancy I have lived with the fear that again I am an almost-parent…but what if I don’t get to hold my baby.  The fear gripped me so hard that for weeks I lived from day to day.  We didn’t use the P word for days, infact we could barely acknowledge the test result.  After caving and having a private early viability scan I relaxed a little and began to look toward our 12 week scan.  That went well too and I now feel some movement but a few weeks ago I realised how little I had truly bonded with babyH or Probie as we call him.  Eventually we bought a doppler, hearing his heartbeat and move helps. I’m not obsessive about it every night but it has helped me believe that things are going ok and I feel a bit more connected.

And so now as my 20 week scan approaches another fear has crept in.  My brother is severally disabled and we have never really known whether there is a genetic link or not.  No one has said there definitely is – but equally we haven’t been told there definitely isn’t.  As a young adult the idea of having a child who was biologically my own terrified me.  I had no desire to have my own child predomintely because I don’t know what I would do if I found out our child had issues of any type. I have watched the pain of being my brother’s parents, he brings so much to our family but I would be stupid to ignore the way my parents have had to constantly fight the system to ensure he gets what he needs and deserves.  My nucal transluency scan came back as low risk so I know our baby’s risk of Downs syndrome is minimal.  But I am nervous about the other conditions that this scan may identify and the decisions we might have to make.  I know this is a may and might situation – in all probability everything will be fine. However, the ‘what if it’s not?’ question sits heavily on my mind.

~~~~~

Now don’t get me wrong, I understand that rationally the evidence around me indicates a normal, healthy pregnancy without complications.  But that doesn’t make my fears any less genuine.  If I confide in you of the fear, you will probably just tell me “everything will be fine”.  You don’t know everything will be fine, you hope everything will be and so far it has been, so you think it will continue to be.  But unless you can guarantee there is nothing to be cautious about then please don’t say otherwise.  Tragedy helps, we tend to live in a bubble of ignorant bliss that that sort of thing doesn’t happen to us.  It happens to normal, everyday people all the time…but…

getting it down on paper

Today has been a funny day, we had our first appointment at the fertility clinic.  We’ve been sent for the fairly standard array of tests and told to carry on doing what we’re doing.  She was also really interested about Duofertility {our green kit arrived at the end of last week, more to come on that soon, don’t worry!!}

A few weeks ago Jen from Runners Trials announced that after a long journey {accompanied by PCOS and Endo} she is expecting!!  Fingerscrossed her bundle of joy arrives a little early as ‘it’ is due 14th December but all the best babies are borned on the 6th right?!!

Following her announcement she has written several posts, one of which talked about her fears during pregnancy following infertility.  During that post she said about how her husband is a big fan of writing down goals.  A few months ago, whilst on their cruise, Jen decided to write down her goals:

Wow, pretty cool how they are coming along eh?!

Her post made me think about writing down my goals.  So after mulling it over for a few weeks I decided to get them out there, so here they are!

• move to my new job role on 15th August

• complete on our new house on 26th August

• hangout with the rest of the team bangs on the run girls after running* 13.1 miles with Kelly {we have a pact} on 25th September

• get a positive pregnancy test by the end of September

• gas central heating and a full re-wire will have been completed!

• Mark and I will be elbow deep in decorating through Autumn

• we will hear hear our baby’s heartbeat by the end of November

• by July 2012 we will have met our baby and be enjoying life as a three {and two house cats}

*the term running also includes skipping, sitting down in a grump that I can’t do it and regular walk breaks #dontjudge

which colour duofertility to pick?

Temping hasn’t really been working for me, it is inconvenient, can be wildly inaccurate and so far hasn’t really helped show us definitely whether I am ovulating or when my ‘fertile’ days are.  But last year whilst at the Verity conference I briefly spoke to a lady about the DuoFertility system.  I didn’t pursue it for obvious reasons but now that we are ttc again I have been doing some research.

For me this sounds incredible.  Rather with boring you with how it works click here for more information or look at this diagram:

I am pro-choice when it comes to fertility treatments {more to come on that this week} but personally I would prefer to try natural approaches before moving to any medicial treatments.  So I think I am going to order a DuoFertility…the lovely people behind the product have been super generous and given me a code for £50 off {disclosing this because, as always I want to be honest about any freebies/perks}.  Oh and I don’t think I mentioned their money back guarantee, if you aren’t pregnant within 12 months you get a full refund!!  Baby or money back – win win if you ask me!!

So now for the big question, which colour?

a wish gone by

Before I was pregnant my best friend and I used to while away the time over a glass or three of wine imagining how amazing it would be to be pregnant at the same time.  We imagined working through the excitement together, reassuring each other through the scary bits and watching our children hangout together as we sipped Starbucks and talked about the latest sleepless nights and favourite nail polishes.

Back then, it didn’t even occur to me to consider that
1 in 3 pregnancies ends in miscarriage

Ironically we did fall pregnant within about 4 weeks of each other although I didn’t know that at the time.  I have often wondered if my miscarriage was a key contributor as to why our friendship dissolved.  Maybe I was almost a symbol of ‘bad luck’.  Who knows.  But now, when I think about the future and the hope that we will be pregnant again I know that noone close to me has similar dates.  Not because I don’t want to share it, anything but.  I just would hate to have that barrier develop once again if either of us were that ‘1’ in 3.

progress comes in all shapes and sizes

Last week my head was pretty much a black hole.  I was frustrated and felt a lack of control in various areas of my life and just couldn’t snap out of it.  What I thought was going to be a 1 day funk turned more into a 5 day funk {fyi not so cool mental health}.  Sometimes these things happen.

I’m not sure if I mentioned on the blog but if you follow me on twitter you will probably have seen that I had made an appointment to go and talk to the Doctor about our options since ttc isn’t coming to anything at the moment.  I don’t think I am ovulating with any sense of regulatory so pregnancy is a little unlikely to say the least!!  I think this appointment was one of the things stressing me out, my previous experience of Doctors relating to PCOS has been pretty horrendous!  Fortunately although the Doctor was fairly clueless she did agree {without me having to lay it on thick} to refer us to a PCOS/fertility specialist to investigate further.  Maybe growing my moustache for the appointment helped…?! #onlyhalfjoking

On Wednesday I did my first training run for my first ever half-marathon {please note, incase you didn’t believe me before, I can only just run for about 5 minutes at a time currently!!}.  Here is me before and after..

I look pretty pleased with myself in the after picture, I had ran through London, outside where I risked being seen by workmen and colleagues.  Afterwards I did a few stretches and realised I could reach the ball of my foot…so I wondered if I’d be able to touch my toes without thinkings, something I’ve struggled with for years.

And wouldn’t you know I was straight down there!!! 

Seriously, yoga just once a week-ish for the last 2-3 months has made a difference!  I have progressed and I am still growing and changing and improving.  And I can do this.

acupuncture {for PCOS, fertility and other things}

Gosh it feels like a long time since I talked about our ttc journey…I was busy socialising and drinking wine.  Tough life!

And incase you are new to the blog there are a lot of acronyms for all things fertility related, if you want to know what any of them are have a browse through my abbreviation’s page which lists them all.  If I have missed any let me know and I will update the list.

My main {in}fertility issues are:
excessively long cycles…the two natural cycles I had pre-pregnancy we 56 days long!
which means we can pretty safely assume I don’t ovulate with any regularity, showstopper alert
I am overweight and unfit which is made worse by PCOS and makes PCOS worse {that’ll be a vicious cycle right there}

Our game plan is:
to try to tackle the above without using western medicine.  I don’t want to go on metformin and would prefer to take some time to try to get my body ‘behaving’ before going down the fertility assistance route like clomid etc.  It was also important to us to try to not lose ourselves into the battle that fertility can be whatever that ends up meaning.

Ok enough already, you called the post acupuncture for PCOS
but you haven’t mentioned acupuncture yet?!!

I had been having regular reflexology and was a big advocate of it, in fact I even attribute my first pregnancy to it.  But I had a bit of a run in with the lady {don’t ask} I was seeing and so bit the bullet and looked into acupuncture.  Lots of people had recommended acupuncture but my fear of needles had always put me off.  Fortunately over the last few years I have got much better with needles…needs must basically.

So what is acupuncture?
The overall aim of acupuncture is to restore the body’s equilibrium.  The focus is on the individual and not the illness, all symptoms are considered as a collective.  The underlying principle is that illness and pain occur when the body’s vital energy source, qi, cannot flow freely.  Until the 1940s there was no uniform approach which has led to many different forms of acupuncture as the skills were passed down through families.

I have also been receiving electro-acupuncture where a very low frequency electrical current is passed through the points to increase blood flow, relax the muscle tissue and clear stagnant qi.

How did I set up the appointment?
First I researched acupuncturists…it is important you choose the right person – I mean you don’t just want some random sticking needles in you.  Plus I really think that with a lot of these alternative medicines are grounded in the person, not just the technique – so to me aura and all that sort of hippy-esque stuff is important.  The British Acupuncture Council has a great website which includes information about the history of acupuncture, styles of acupuncture and what to expect from your first treatment.

I used their ‘find a practitioner near you’ feature to locate a few different options.  Then I researched those individuals to see who I thought would be a good fit for me.  And that is how I got to Jody Ragg of Well Being Acupuncture.  I chose her because of her location, she is affiliated with Zita West and specialises in acupuncture in fertility.

Does it hurt?

Short answer = No

But you know me, I will always be 100% honest.  I have had one point bruise badly but I bruise easily because of my aspirin and it wasn’t painful at all.  Plus I have on average around 10-15 needles per session and have had about 8 sessions so 1 bruise in all that time is pretty minimal.  My wrists itch a little after having needles in there but I think that is from the heat generated by it being at an energy point.

There have been two occasions when I wasn’t able to tolerate the needle at a specific point, one made ‘sense’ because I had a sinus infection and it was a sinus point but the other occasion was very random as it was in my wrist and the same point on the other wrist was totally fine.  On both occasions Jody was quick to respond when I told her it was sore, as she tells me acupuncture shouldn’t hurt.  I always think you should be reassured by the fact that I normally have the most amazing spaced out nap during it although I didn’t totally relax into the process until 2-3 sessions in.

What ‘results’ have I seen?
The two cycles before I was pregnant were 56 days each.  After the surgery for my miscarriage I had a cycle of 46 days.  I have had one cycle with acupuncture and it was only 36 days long.  36 days people!!!  That was soooooo exciting to me – a cycle should be 25-35 days to ensure ovulation.  My period was also lighter and painless {this coming from the girl who normally doses up on ibuprofen and paracetamol and still gets pain!}  I may have seen more changes if I had been religiously charting but as part of my mission to not get obsessive {plus I was ill for 2-3 weeks with a horrible temperature, have been in different time zones and late nights/late mornings thanks to a boozy girly weekend hehe} I have taken a very relaxed approach to it.

NB: Relaxed does not equal me being ok with my weight being seemingly uncontrolible despite eating healthily and exercising plus despite the shorter cycles I don’t seem to have ovulated again this month {although I’m hopeful this will happen over the next three months as the shorter cycles bed down}.  So I have booked an appointment with my Doctor to discuss everything incase I need other treatments alongside the acupuncture – I really want to stress that my acupuncturist suggested this to me and hasn’t pushed acupuncture as being the only way to do things which I think is great!

How much does it cost?
It isn’t cheap, let me warn you now.  It was £85 for the first appointment and £45 for 45 minutes since then.  The first appointment was really thorough, I had to fill in a questionnaire before hand and we talked through the answers.  It was actually Jody who suggested I try counselling.

~~~~~

I really hope that was useful.  I am really enjoying the acupuncture and
think it is a therapy that I will try to include in my life long-term.
I definitely plan to still have regular treatments once I achieve a pregnancy.

If you are interested in acupuncture specifically for fertility
I would highly recommend the baby making bible by Emma Cannon.
I found it really interesting and informative without being scary or unachievable.