A New Year ahead

The end of 2013 marks the end of my first full calendar year as a Mum - an arbitrary milestone if ever there was one! It's been a fantastic year watching Baby B grow from a toddling 1 year old to an unbelievably energetic, willful, affectionate, full of personality near 2 year old.

This year also brought a strong desire for another child and our failed FET. And as 2014 approaches, I pretty much feel all over the place about where we go from here. I haven't had strong broody feelings at all since the FET. In some ways my desire for another baby has faded into the background and maybe away altogether. I wonder how on Earth I would manage a toddler and a newborn when I already struggle to keep up with sleep. Baby B sleeps very well, but I need a lot of zzzz's and do not function well without them. The weeks of jetlag we deal with each year never fail to reduce me to a quivering, whimpering wreck. Throw in the odd cold or a bad bout of PMT and I'm often reminded how poorly I cope when tired and emotional!

What if we 'got' a baby that didn't sleep? I have many friends with 2 year olds that never sleep through the night and rarely have since birth. Could I cope?

And yet, the old feelings emerged again today when a friend shared that she is pregnant. She had IVF and has a toddler and is now expecting twins. I don't know if this is an IVF pregnancy, but I know they had frozen embryos. And my stomach still sank when she told me, despite how happy I am for them. But I wonder now if those feelings are not jealousy for my life now, for a pregnancy I wish were mine, but jealousy for a life I still mourn. Jealousy for all the pregnancy announcements I never got to make, for all the unsuccessful months of trying, for the failed IUIs and FET. 

I'm not sure those feelings mean trying to have another baby is the right thing for our family. I'm feeling quite strongly that entering into fresh IVF cycles here in Korea is not on the cards for us. I imagine we will try one more FET with our remaining embryos in China but, right now, that feels like a natural stopping point whatever the outcome. But that too needs some more thought...

Green-eyed monster... now, hang on a minute!

This will probably come across as a weird post to write on Christmas Eve, but I guess it's as good a time as any to have an IF revelation. (But I'll keep it short....)

A good friend here in my new city home gave birth to a beautiful baby girl 1 week ago. Her and her husband also had some fertility treatment to achieve and maintain this pregnancy after TTC and miscarriage. I saw them in the week and am over the moon for them and their new family. They have started a photography project to follow baby girl's early days and post a photo of her online each day.

I was just looking at the latest photos and, guess what, I felt jealous... real, stone-cold jealousy that they get to hold and love this gorgeous little girl. The same jealousy that I've felt so many times over the last few years. And I felt this whilst sitting here, 36 weeks pregnant, with a bonny baby boy kicking and wriggling away inside of me.

Don't get me wrong.. I realised what was going on and I.....well....decided to write this post and am now feeling completely back to normal.  But I guess IF never does really go away, does it?

The dreaded BS..

It's happened and I guess it's a miracle that it's only happening now... I got invited to my first Baby Shower (I feel capital letters are needed here...)

I'm British and we don't really go in for showers (as far as I know, having been out of the country during just about all my friends' pregnancies!). I've also only recently built a good group of girlfriends overseas so I've been able to dodge the bullet... until now.

My friend who guided me through the mysteries of the Chinese fertility clinic is pregnant - I've mentioned her before.. she went through years of IF, several IUIs and then fell naturally and I've been seething with guilty jealousy ever since :(  Of course, we're still friends and I'm finding it easier and easier to spend time with her. But the timing of this shower couldn't be potentially worse. It's at the end of May, just after my birthday and possibly around the end of our 1st IVF cycle.

Sure, if I'm pregnant, it would be great (great doesn't really sum that up,does it!). If not, whether we don't make it to embryo transfer or if we do and get that BFN, it could be horrendous.  I know my friend would understand if I explained (though she's probably struggled through several of these events after negative results herself) but I wasn't planning on telling her the dates of this cycle and possibly not about the cycle at all if I can help it - I've decided to keep as much information to myself as possible, apart from family and a couple of friends.

I guess if I accept now, then that is a hopeful gesture and/or also a commitment to be brave and know that I will just need to get through it. (I could also drop out at the last minute if necessary!).

Looks like I'm asking you all for advice again... :)

Jenny & Julia

Now, before you say it, I am aware that I'm not the first blogger to draw a comparison with chef, cook book author and TV personality, Julia Child. In fact, it was a chance encounter last night with the movie 'Julie & Julia' that was the initial inspiration for this post.  I turned over to the movie just in time for, what I now realise is, a great representation of the conflicted feelings of infertility. Julia gets a letter from her recently-married sister, announcing that she is pregnant. This is a little bit of the dialogue between Julia and her husband (excuse any mistakes):


Julia: Dorothy is pregnant. Paul. Isn't that wonderful?


Paul: Yes


Julia: I'm so happy.


Paul: I know. I know.


But what you also need to know is that Julia is sobbing throughout this scene and Paul is holding her in his arms. I know that these awful, conflicted feelings are ones that we can all identify with. And this got me to thinking about Julia's life and, yes, some parallels with my own. 


Like me, after having and leaving her own career, Julia got married and moved from country to country to be with her husband and support him in his work. Like me, Julia lived in China. Like me, Julia found herself in a foreign country without the children she hoped for. Like me, Julia needed to fill her time - for her, it was cooking and then teaching amongst other things, whilst for me it has been teaching and then training teachers.. at least until I gave up work to have fertility treatment and again, found myself in a foreign country without a child and with lots of time on my hands.


In Julia's time, I guess that there were few options for those who 'failed' to get pregnant - you just waited, hoped and tried to get on with life in the meantime. For Julia, that meant finding something that she loved, in which she felt a sense of accomplishment. And for her, that grew into a wonderful body of work and an amazing legacy. 


And for me? On our move to China, I was lucky to find a fantastic job with an incredible boss who, over time (time which corresponded with our TTC*), helped me develop myself and my position into the closest thing I've ever found to my dream job. And I achieved a lot during my time in that job... for my students, for the teachers I trained, for the organisation and definitely for myself. And yet, once I realised that, here in China, I couldn't do my dream job and have fertility treatment at the same time, I resigned and didn't look back  (see earlier posts for more on this).

I'm not sure what the future will bring and how I will tackle it. For now, this time off work gives me the opportunity to have treatment... surgery and IUI so far, IVF to come.  If I don't get pregnant this year and we stay in China into 2012 and beyond, what will I do then? Go back to work and admit defeat? Stay off work indefinitely in the hope that our miracle will come? It's something I find very hard to contemplate.

During my minor breakdown at Dr F's, a thought flashed clearly into my mind whilst lying on the couch for the acupuncture... Don't look back, look forward. But then I checked myself because, for me, the future is where my mind runs out of control, spiraling down every disastrous 'What if..?' scenario. So rather than looking back or looking forward, I'm now working on staying in the present.  And hopefully, the future will look after itself. And if that future leads to a child plus a publishing deal, a bestselling book and a movie starring Meryl Streep (though hopefully not playing me ), that would be fine too :)


* In case there was any confusion, it was my bloke and I that were TTC, not my boss and I. Though I'd be lying if I said it hadn't cross my mind...he just happens to be gorgeous! But that's another post altogether :)

Stuff we're not supposed to talk about...

Infertility itself could be considered to fall into this category.. maybe not that we're not SUPPOSED to talk about it, maybe more that it's an awkward topic, something that people don't really want to think about unless they have to. I'm sure that anyone who's undergoing fertility treatment has endured the experience of telling a friend, colleague or family member about their situation, hoping for support, understanding and empathy... only to be faced with stricken looks, muttering of platitudes and awkward hand-wringing.. and that's a best-case scenario!

But that's not what this post is really about. It's about the feelings that I've been experiencing during this process. Feelings that I feel guilty about, that make me feel like an evil, selfish, uncaring person. These feelings revolve around pregnancies - other people's, not mine, obviously!  I started the process of TTC so optimistically, presuming that, once off the pill, I'd get pregnant fairly quickly - at least within a year or so. Which is exactly how it should happen and how it does for over 85% of couples (95% get pregnant within 2 years). Which is great, right? Of course it is.. if you're one of those couples. And if you're not?..

Well, I made plans that fitted around our TTC 'schedule'. We moved to China 9 months after our wedding and had 10 more months before our insurance would cover maternity - so we waited. I got a job and started work, presuming that my 1 year contract would be the last I'd sign for a while. My boss had just had a baby so he was overflowing with stories about the little one - it was so exciting! I pictured my bloke in those shoes and couldn't wait!

After 9 months we started TTC. I joined a yoga studio, but thought it wise not to go to Hot Yoga, just in case I got pregnant. I gave up alcohol (well, cut down a lot at least!). And we waited (a theme of today if you saw my earlier post!). I signed another work contract and then another. My boss's wife got pregnant for a second time and they had another baby. And I started dreading the emails from friends back home, the Facebook postings, the phone calls...

Because, and this is what people don't talk about, I don't want to know. I don't want to hear about other people's pregnancies. I don't want to see those pictures of tiny babies in babygros and little hats, sandwiched between grinning, over the moon parents and grandparents. I don't want to hear from friends passing on their news of a 2nd baby, all in the time that we've been TTC.

Of course, I don't let it show. Luckily, most of the news comes via the computer. So I can read, cry and then write a suitably congratulatory email. After a while, my bloke would come home, see my face and know I'd received more 'good' news. And with every sick to the stomach feeling of jealousy, I feel bad.. guilty.. ashamed that I can't be happy for my friends.. happy that they don't have to go through what we're going through. 'Misery loves company' as the saying goes and it's true. I feel relieved when I hear that other people are struggling, that it's taking a long time, that they might need treatment.

I hope that all this doesn't mean I'm a bad person, a sick person. I hope that I just need people to understand what I'm going through, to really understand and not just offer those platitudes that do little to help. I hope that it means that I just don't want to be alone in all this. Because alone is so often how I feel. Rationally, I wouldn't wish this experience on anyone. I want to know that my friends are happy, that they've got the families they dream of and plan for. And I do experience happiness for friends as they announce their happy events, particularly those who have undergone fertility treatment. But that sick feeling and nagging voice 'why can't that be me?' never quite go away. Or, at least, they haven't yet.