Result

Since deciding to start TTC, I stocked up on pregnancy tests. Buying them to me has always been kind of akin to buy condoms or something, which is stupid. I think they have the connotation for me of some scared teenage girl crying her eyes out in the bathroom at the mall. (a scene I have witnessed many times growing up in rural Maryland where they actually have to ask "Are you related in any way?" when you apply for a marriage certificate)

Having them in your bathroom is a temptation as anyone who's TTC knows. They call to you toward the end of the cycle. "Pee on me! Peeeeeee oooooon meeeeee....." they whisper from the drawer.

So, this morning, expecting AF literally any second, I gave in to the temptation, feeling like a mug.

The result was not quite what I was expecting.

I went out to show Mr. DD.

"This isn't in my head right?" I asked, shoving the thing in his face. (We sometimes forget that not everyone has the same tolerance to our own pee as we do)

"Nope. That's really definitely a plus sign," he replied.

I don't really know what to think at the moment. Mr. Devil Duck put it best. "Right, this doesn't mean we're having a baby, it just means that we've gotten planning permission." I'm trying to forget about the plus sign while at the same time going into battle mode. I'm in the process of writing a letter to my insurance company telling them that I'm going to see a specialist. I need to wait til my father-in-law (who is also my boss) leaves the room so I can make an appointment with Dr. Bow-Tie Guy asap.

Anyone who's experienced pregnancy loss probably understands the myriad of conflicting emotions. Joy and excitement heavily tempered with trepidation and crippling worry. As far as I'm concerned, for my own sanity, until that child is in my arms, I'm still TTC. We're not telling a soul (except all you internet folks, of course) until we have to.

Please, please send me good energy!

Having a Moan

I generally don't like venting on my blog. Especially in the IFsphere where so many other people are going through their own personal hells, but as things are at the moment, it is my one and only outlet, so vent I must.

Mr. Devil Duck's family is close. Very close. So close that his brother still lives at home and all 5 of us work from the family home running two different companies. We live in eachother's pockets. So when, round about December last year, we noticed that all was not right with my mother-in-law, we were all pretty worried. She was exhibiting symptoms that might be consistant with a breakdown or a small stroke. Lapses of attention, concentration and conversational strangeness. We finally made her see a doctor in January.

Round about February , we found out that she was very ill. At first, she was diagnosed with Sporadic CJD, (not the Mad Cow kind) which is pretty much a very, very rare short term death sentence, sending us all into a spiral of complete dispair. I find it interesting that, as humans, the first reaction to bad news is never what you would expect. My first feeling was of overwhelming guilt for every harsh word we'd ever spoken (we get along very well, but we've butted heads occasionally) and for my body's inability to produce a grandchild that she could meet. Strangely enough, my second thought was, "I have no idea how to cook a Sunday roast like she does. I have to learn. RIGHT NOW!" Grief is rarely ever rational.

But it became apparent soon enough that, in fact, the doctors had no IDEA what what wrong with her. Her symptoms didn't really fit the profile of CJD. She went through a battery of tests including 7 MRIs and psychometric testing. We've been told, over the past few months that it IS CJD, that it ISN'T CJD, that it MIGHT be CJD and quite frankly we're all completely exhausted.

As a last attempt to discover the cause of the problem, she went in two weeks ago for a brain biopsy.

People have been drilling holes in their heads as long as we've been people. Early cavemen practiced trephanning as a shamanistic practice and as pain relief, but drilling a hole in your skull obviously comes with a few drawbacks, so we were fairly nervous about the procedure.

She came out of the surgery okay. She was up and walking around the ward the day after the surgery, and while she was suffering with some pretty severe headaches and some confusion, she seemed to be fairly lucid and well.

However, since she's been home, the confusion has trebled. She finds it impossible to understand instructions on the first, second or third go. (like, "you need to go take a shower" or "can you hand me that glass?") Today is worse than it's ever been and has literally been an excercise in frustration for everyone in the house. Mr. DD is super with her, trying to make her laugh and excercising infinite patience with her nonsensical tangents. She's taken to talking almost constantly, which is stressful for everyone, because very little of what she says makes any sense at all, leaving us trying to think of something to answer her with. I don't want to make it sound like we resent her or something, it's just terribly, terribly frustrating to see someone deteriorate this way.

Part of the newfound drive to TTC with a vengance is due to all of this. It will be another 4 weeks yet before we get the results of the biopsy, but we are all bracing ourselves for the worst. I hate trying to start a pregnancy under these particular conditions due to my two previous miscarriages. I feel so strongly that this next pregnancy MUST work, both for my sake AND for my mother-in-law's sake, while she still knows who we are, I'm afraid of my stress levels shooting through the roof and sabotaging the whole thing.

Sorry to dump, but it's been a very bad day.

A Question

Man, the intarweb can be so cool. There's all sorts of new people to meet, pictures of cats to look at and porn to download.

But at other times it totally blows. One of these aformentioned blowing areas regards conflicting information. Could someone please give me a straight answer to the following question:

What is the "first day" of your cycle? Is it the first day of spotting or the first day of "real" bleeding?

I haven't managed to find a consensus on the subject, but as some of you are probably a lot more keenly aware of cycle related stuff, I was hoping that someone out there knows the truth.

Permanant

Late last year when my frustration over my infertility just about got the best of me, I did the only logical thing I could think of. I got a tattoo.

I've got three other pieces of ink on my body, including the one right above it, which says "theatre" in Chinese. (And before anyone implies that it actually says "my mother goes with sailors" or something, I got it from a real gen-u-ine Chinese type person who liked me enough not to let me ink something offensive on myself.)

The red character is "hope". It reminds me to keep doing just that.

Anyone else have any little good baby karma talismans?

Welcome to the World

Many, many congrats to Aliza over at babyfruit on the birth of Noa Grace! A ray of hope for anyone who's suffered recurrent pregnancy loss.

Playing the Waiting Game

I find myself often cursing my insides for being...well...inside. But if they were on the outside, chances are that no one would want to be friends with you except for dogs in the street that have been eyeing up your spleen.

In the monthly "am I/ am I not" waiting game, one can only wish that our bodies were a little bit more communicative. But until such technology develops, I shall simply have to wait.



ps- this is not to say I have any kind of news just yet. just wishful thinking!

Fighting the Inner 10-Year Old

Speaking as a member of the “I’m Had People Poking Around In My Bid’ness More Times Than I Care to Count” club, I’m really fairly nonchalant about going to the doctor and pulling my trousers down. As this is a blog read by other people who have been subjected to multiple cooter-pokings as well, I thought I would share my little dose of medical humor for the day.

I’ll be frank. I’ve had an itchy bum.

While there is little stigma about going to the doctor due to troubles with your ladyplace, there is a certain embarrassment factor about scheduling an appointment with a physician for back passage difficulties. This is silly, of course, as they’re sort of next door neighbours.

Ever since confessing this to Mr. Devil Duck several days ago, I have had to endure some gentle grief from him in the form of little songs about my condition (most notably, “The Itchy Arse Blues”) which is invariably funny to others. But as my discomfort worsened, he encouraged me to head to the GP’s office just to make sure it wasn’t something unpleasant. As we all know ANY itching below the waist, is unpleasant, but some has to be treated while others have to be politely ignored until they decide to piss off.

As someone who has formerly been un-embarassable in the presence of doctors, walking into the surgery this morning, I was fighting off the insane, juvenile urge to laugh, imagining myself going in to see my GP and get the words, “Well, doc, I’ve got an itchy ass,” out of my mouth without having an embolism of some sort.

My doctor helped matters less by calling it an “itchy bottom” which, for some reason, made me have to bite the inside of my cheeks (no, the other cheeks) to keep a childish smirk from creeping onto my face. It turned out to be garden variety dermititis (I'm like, "couldn't I just have it on my hands or arms like everyone else? Does it HAVE to be on my ass?") but with every mention of the words "itchy bottom", I got closer and closer to melt-down.

I really am a very simple creature.

Minding the Monsters

Yanked from a bit of my post on my other blog....

My husband's band played a gig this weekend at a village fete. All of the significant others were in attendance. The Barmaid came with a friend of hers as well as Golden Boy (the Idiot's son with his ex-wife), The Bean (the Goddaughter) and the friend’s daughter, Skye, so we were transformed into a mobile baby sitting service. Fortunately, a bouncy castle was provided by management, which made matters simpler. As adults, trying to navigate a bouncy castle leads to extreme exhaustion, but for those still blessed with extreme youth, it is a place where they can bash their heads against the walls ALL DAY LONG to their heart’s content leaving responsible adults free to drink beer.

This, however, brings me to my miniature 6-point manifesto entitled:








1. Never EVER, accept anything from a small child without looking at it first. It will inevitably be a) something dead, b) something that has been in their mouth or c) something sticky, possibly because it’s been in their mouth. Here is a scenario.

Small, Cute Pudgy-Limbed Child: Here.

Me: Ok.

Child runs off.

Me: This is a partially chewed gummy bear.

I throw it on the ground only to step on it, barefooted, later.

2. Just because a baby has just unleashed their body’s weight in vomit all over their mother does not mean that they don’t have any left that has your name on it when they are handed to you.

3. They listen to you. They really do. If you say “cock sucker” chances are that’s the next thing out of their mouth in school on Monday morning. Luckily, this is a phenomenon that I WITNESSED rather than caused.

4. Want to put sun-block on a 3 year old? Be prepared to sit on them.

5. Why, oh why do children love the road? If there is a road within a square mile of them, they will be drawn to it like cats to crunchy pieces of paper. Whee, look at me! I am running gleefully to my own doom!

6. Feeding of children requires you to follow them around. Apparently, they are unable to ingest any sort of sustenance unless they are on the move. Here is a scenario:

Golden Boy: (running toward the road): Look at that car!

Me: Yeah, that’s cool. Here, have some orange.

Golden Boy: (chewing and running towards a tattooed man at the pub) Why does that man have writing on his arm?

Me: Couldn’t tell you. Here, have some orange.

Golden Boy: (chewing and pointing at The Bean) Leila’s my sister. She’s sleeping.

Me: No kidding? Here, have some orange.

Full Stop

And speaking of the bane of life for those TTC…….blergh, 1st day of my period. A reminder of another month without conceiving, if the damn thing shows up at ALL. So I suppose, hooray for beginning a new, perhaps successful cycle, yuck for cramps and pads. Double yuck for it arriving the day before going to a major rock concert on a hot, sunny day.

My best friend from high school and I used to refer to it as “Ralph”, as in “Ralph’s coming to town this week”. Other people I knew called it “AF” for “Aunt Flo”. My mother in law colourfully referred to it as “having the decorators in.” This phrase, for my husband, at least, conjured up images of that prat from “Changing Rooms” (Changing Wombs! Ha!) with the stupid hair, salmon colored suits and frilly sleeves who fucks up people’s houses with artistic creations manufactured entirely of MDF.

“I’m having the decorators in.” I said once, by way of apology, when he was feeling amorous.

“Have you got Lawrence Llewellyn Bowen down there, then?” he replied.

“Yeah, he’s doing my fanny out in the Gothic style.”

Just for a few laughs, here are some other euphemisms for our least favourite time of the month.

Blog Link

This is a link for my primary blog.

I've decided to keep the two seperate as much as I'm able. My blog here is a much more personal affair that I can be sure isn't going to be read by someone who's going to be massively icked out by the mention of ovaries, periods or other female reproductive organs, fluids or functions. My other blog is for general public consumption. This one is for me, so I won't be linking back the other way. This one is an all-girl slumber party while the other is more like a high school kegger.

Please feel free to come and have a look!

To Suck or Not to Suck

We took this picture of our goddaughter, Leila, last night. She was pretty hungry at the time and just happened to latch onto the closest thing that seemed like the end of a boob.

While sucking on her father's nose is both pointless and unhygenic, it made a rather cute picture.