Worry worry worry, must be funny, in a sane man's world.

We got the drug protocol through last night - oh my goodness! A drug protocol is basically the list of drugs that I have to take, in what sequence and for how long. Long is the operative word - I actually can't tell you the amount of injections and pills I have to take as every time I add them up I miss some out and then have to start again but we are well over 200. Wow. I printed off all the information and my husband asked if I was printing the Yellow Pages - it certainly felt that way. I told him he had to read it and he went rather pale - he's still on page 2 of The Beano.
There is so much to take in that last night I went to bed totally overwhelmed and terrified - and obviously didn't sleep a wink. Seriously Mum, you are an amazing gardener and an incredibly good cook and a mean crossword fanatic - could you not have passed those skills on to me instead of your incredible ability to worry worry worry all through the night? I can neither garden nor cook but I can definitely whip your Worry Crown straight from your head. My latest fear is that I have calculated the dates wrong (anyone who knows me well will know that this is not an unfounded worry) and my timings will make everything fail. I have sent a very pleading e-mail to Dr UK IVF asking him to work it all out for me and basically take over as I just cannot bear the weight of responsibility. I think he may be regretting taking us on...
So anyway, in between worry which is taking up the vast percentage of my nights and Nocturnal Boy's activities (oh by the way, I think he peaked with his bad behaviour and he has been absolutely adorable since Saturday so we have revised our thinking and we most definitely want another one of him please) I am quite tired. But I have come up with a new take on this and actually think my old sparring partner Mother Nature is doing me a favour. I think she is preparing me for a new-born. I had quite forgotten the depravity that came with sleepless nights, but she has given me the perfect insight over the past few weeks and while I think she could have waited until I was actually pregnant before this little insight, I can see the logic. Tongue is firmly in cheek.
Anyway, tiredness aside, I have in black and white a prescription on my desk waiting to be taken to the Doctors and a bucket load of pills and syringes to pick up, it's really actually, definitely, completely happening!!
I'm nervous about the amount of hormones and steroids that will be coursing through my veins, but more nervous for those around me than myself, bad luck. I am a little less than excited about the intralipid infusion (to lower my immune system) that apparently takes over 2 hours, but I can at least have it at Mum and Dad's while catching up with Neighbours and Home and Away. All in all it could be a lot worse in terms of medical punishment and frankly, if there is a chance it will work, I would do it all ten times over.
Yes, I think its fair to say that while I am single handedly sending myself grey with this ludicrous and totally time wasting worry, I am very very excited and looking forward to the next step. I have a couple of weeks to wait and then I should have a bottom like a pin cushion (makes a change from orange peel), facial hair to rival Brian Blessed and maybe even the voice to match. My husband can't wait...

Sweet Dreams?

I can safely say this week has been probably one of the most up and down in terms of emotional roller coaster. Having had the green light to go ahead with IVF, we were on a major high. It was actually palpable, for an evening my shoulders certainly felt lighter. I went to bed with such high hopes and excitement and a little bit of disbelief that it was actually about to happen. However, that night I had one of the worse nights sleep ever as I tossed and turned worrying about everything and anything. I am not sure how manage to find so much to worry about, but I do. I suppose I replaced the milestone of reaching one hurdle with that of another and all it's pitfalls. So on Wednesday the dreams and worry went something like this: What if they can't find any eggs? What if they can find eggs but they don't implant? What if I die on the operating table as they are harvesting the eggs - that really would make it all rather pointless (yes I realise a ludicrous thought but you try being me and my mind at 4am). Honestly I think I am a nut job at times, why can't I just see things on face value, enjoy the moment and worry about the rest as and when it happens? I suppose this is another layer of my impulsive obsessive nature and also entirely my mothers fault as she has done this night time worrying for years. Anyway the nights sleep was also dramatically reduced by the insistent and thoroughly irritating demands of our son. He is currently in the 'I won't sleep in my bed' phase - which basically means he is up all night, as am I. I am so sleep deprived and fed up of the situation that I have actually told my husband we are completely mad to go ahead with IVF, how could I POSSIBLY cope with number 2 or 3? Because my husband could sleep through the Blitz, he can't quite see the problem. I have explained it to him, several times, I think he got the hint when my eyes started rolling and I resembled a demented horse suffering from colic. As the gangsters would say, 'nuff said.
So here we are now, tired, irritable, me slightly crazed, and generally a bit battered and bruised. We can't even drown our sleep deprived sorrows in booze as we are on the wagon for the foreseeable (for me hopefully for a year or so....). I've been hiking daily to build up the strength to carry a baby and lose the horrible miscarriage weight, eating like a Hollywood actress (slightly bigger portions and I don't think we need to count last nights ribs and chips...small glitch) and generally leading a healthier life. I'm making firm plans for our trip, and this week I should get my drug protocol and we're off. Ooooo it's really scary and more than a lot exciting.
I'm keeping this short as the boys have gone to the supermarket and I want to be firmly in situ, hiding in our bedroom when they get back. I think an hour of catching up on the Archers is definitely what this Nearly Doctor prescribes...

GREEN IS FOR GO!!!

Can't write anymore - am too busy crying.

No news is good news...

...although it would be nice to hear all is well. We have still not heard from Dr UK IVF if the Hysteroscopy was ok, and the waiting is pretty unbearable. It reminds me of the 2 week wait between fertile days and pregnancy tests - trying to keep one's mind off the matter in hand always as the opposite effect or costs a fortune in shopping bills. However I have heard being nervous burns off calories. Every cloud and all that.  Still, trying to be rational and not my usual impatient self, Dr UK IVF has patients to see other than me (strange concept it not being all about me - rather a drag actually - I much prefer it when I am on the radar) and is probably very busy making lots of little test tube babies so I can forgive this momentary lapse in communication. So, the bubbles stay on ice but I may just open the tonic to go with a gin tonight and soothe the nerves.

Turning the corner

As I sit here typing I am reticent about being too positive as from my experience, as soon as we think we are on the way to a positive outcome, something crops up and we come crashing down to earth. However, I have just had the last blood tests back and low and behold they are all clear. Fabulous! To be honest, these were the HIV/Hep A&B, Rubella ones so I knew they would be, but there is something very nerve wracking about waiting for the results of blood tests, however confident you are. These bloods signal the end of the tests and hopefully the start of the treatment.
On a not quite so good note and the potential spanner in the works are the results of the Hysteroscopy, which as a Nearly Doctor I have interpreted, but having learnt my lesson from a few weeks ago when I thought it was game over for us, I am going to exercise caution in my diagnosis. Basically, they did find scarring which is less than ideal, and they also found an Endometrial Polyp which was removed (retained product from the last miscarriage). However, from the little I have learnt so far I think (cautious tone in voice as I type) this can be worked around.
I have sent all the results to Dr UK IVF for his interpretation and shall count down the hours until the working day in the UK starts and he can give us his take on it all, but Dr HK IVF and Gynae think it's all ok.
So there we go. I think we have a little chink of light at the end of the tunnel and without getting too over excited, I am excited! If nothing else, I have no nasty diseases, a fairly clean bill of health, and what stumbling blocks there are in the way appear to be treatable. I saw a little new born baby this morning and for a moment I allowed myself to think that maybe it could be our turn soon, which while a very indulgent thought as there is still so far to go, was nice to be able to do. It seems within the realms of possibilty that we may have a brother or sister for our little man and when I have stopped crying (of COURSE I am crying - this is the best news we've had in months - imagine if Dr UK IVF gives us the green light - I will be a gibbering wreck) I will enjoy this moment. We still have so far to go, our journey is not even half way through, yet this day really is the first when there seems to be a medical reason to be confident (if we gloss over the hysteroscopy results). It's been a long few months and we are totally exhausted by it, and we need to re-charge and get ready for the next steps, but if we do get the go ahead, I think its fair to say there will be a cork popping somewhere in Hong Kong tonight.

Ow.

Yesterday was Hysteroscopy Day. And Sports Day, which was markedly more enjoyable. Having had an extremely bad nights sleep the night before - although bad nights sleep suggests there was sleep, which there was not - with the little man who has croup, I was most certainly ready for a nice drug induced sleep at The Matilda Hotel. Sorry, hospital. Magazine and book packed, I trotted off for what an onlooker might have assumed was a spa date, so ready for relaxation was I. Upon arrival at the afore mentioned hospital which really does resemble a hotel in parts and has a very nice room service menu, I checked in, went through the obligatory ritual embarrassment of being weighed and 'gosh you don't look XX kg's' from a sweet tiny nurse, was told that my notes now required 3 folders which made me a VIP (which has no benefits sadly) and settled into my room. Here I read a magazine uninterrupted which was bliss, put on the regulation uniform for operations (elastic string pants don't look so hot but for those with a little extra around the stomach region, they are extremely comfortable), had a quick chat with the Anaesthetist who said 'Oh hello again. Well you've been here so often I don't really need to explain this to you do I? How was your holiday in Dubai?'' and went down to surgery. My Gynae was late, she always is but I don't mind in the slightest as I lie on the bed, arms stretched out either side on the rests (ready to be strapped down post anaesthetic but not before - it's against the Geneva convention you know) under a nice heated duvet. Life could be a whole lot worse. In comes my Gynae, quick chat about how she went to Uni with Dr UK IVF and what a small world it was, but I didn't get to the end of the story as the nice white medicine that is injected into my arm takes effect and its night night.
At this point what usually happens is that my Gynae performs an ERPC, I wake up a little bit later, have a nice snooze, order a yummy sandwich and a cup of tea, a bit more magazine reading and then home. Yesterday that did not happen. I woke, felt my head pound and my stomach loop the loop and realised that the day was going to go downhill. While having my routine hysteroscopy it looks like there was some 'retained product' that still hadn't departed the mother ship from the last miscarriage, and so was removed. I have no idea how it all went as I haven't spoken to my Gynae today, but judging from how battered and bruised I feel, I would say she had a lot to do. The procedure was longer than normal and I think the vast dose of IV pain relief added to the all round yuk effect - relaxing it wasn't. In the recovery room one of the nurses was barking at me to breath deeply as I was still woozy, which I have to say was greeted with a bark from me asking her what on earth she expected I would be like having just come round from an anaesthetic. I think she got the point and I was wheeled up to my room. No magazines this time, no mouthwatering thoughts of yummy sandwiches, just lots of swallowing to stop the nausea. It's quite disappointing in a way, if one really does have to go through these little procedures, it would be nice to have a little upside, but yesterday that wasn't to be. I even missed American Idol.
Anyway, after another interrupted nights sleep at home from croup boy, I find myself exhausted and on a bit of an anaesthetic downer, which I always get so is no surprise. The Nurse from my Gynae's office called to say that she would find out exactly what had happened in the procedure, as this could affect our plans for treatment. I am pretty worried that it will hold things up, but to be honest I am so tired that there is a great air of 'what will be will be' about me. I smile at the thought that 2 days ago I was excited that this would be the last hurdle before we can go forward, stupid me for not knowing that of COURSE there would be a hiccup, there always is with us. But I am positive. Positively exhausted!

The calm after the storm

It's been a funny couple of weeks. Funny ha ha  and funny strange. After a flurry of activity and emotions, all of a sudden everything calmed down and life became normal again and with it I experienced the funny strange emotions. They are all centred around my son. I am no different from any other Mother in my total obsession with him. I love him so much that it the phrase 'it hurts' rings true, it really DOES hurt. A strange thing really that something so good would hurt but there you go. Anyway, our son is the best thing that has happened to my husband and I and we feel blessed to have him (gosh that sounds so American). He has however spent the past 2 weeks testing our love, his behaviour so bad that a non relative would definitely have put him up for adoption, but we grit our teeth, consult Super Nanny and live to see another day. The 'bad' behaviour has been a sleep issue. He's nearly 3, in a big boys bed and potty trained at night. I think these are pretty amazing landmarks for a toddler and I am immensely proud of him. The night time toilet training he did himself, we had 3 wet beds and he has been dry for nearly a month now. The staying in the big boys bed, well thats a different matter. We have had 2 weeks of what I can only call torture. He puts a new born baby in the shade with his nocturnal activities. One evening I had to put him back to bed 21 times in the space on an hour and a half, I rather lost the will to live. Little did I know that the next hour and a half would see me repeat the action a further 20 times, and I would be up a grand total of 15 times during the night. Unlike a new born who cries, you feed them, they may cry some more but you know that at some point they will go to sleep and if they don't you can be hard as nails and turn the monitor off, this one talks back. Ours talks back in Charlie and Lola (brilliant children's TV show, not so brilliant at 3am) talk, which goes something like, 'I will not ever ever completely not actually go to sleep. Ever.' (foot stamp).  I can honestly say the sleep depravation and frustration took me to new lows and I wondered if we were doing the right thing by trying for another baby? I truly felt as though I was getting the whole mothering thing so dreadfully wrong that to it would be utter madness to go through it again. The long nights reminded me so much of the early months when our little boy was a baby, where I could go for 3 nights with 90 minutes sleep (he had horrendous reflux) and I really did nearly combust. I crashed the car instead which was the slightly more dramatic result of the situation, but apparently I didn't do enough damage to get any serious sympathy. Irritating. I will know for next time that a bent bumper doesn't cut the mustard. Anyway, I have been having little niggling doubts about IVF. Our life has become (pre night time wake ups which we hope are a teeny blip) very very easy. Our son was a dream on the sleep front, sleeping for up to 14 hours some nights (to the envy of my friends but they do concede that having had 15 months of shocking sleep when he arrived, we were due a break!), he is great fun to have around, holidays are relaxing and so much more enjoyable now that he is able to join in on the fun stuff. I suppose what has happened is we have become selfish and we are enjoying where we are now. We are happiest when it's the 3 of us on adventures, cooking, having dinners, playing, being a family and I would be lying if the thought didn't creep into my mind that perhaps this was fate gently suggesting we leave things as they are. Don't upset the apple cart. With the recent challenging behaviour, I have honestly questioned my ability to be a mother to another child. I know that all Mum's have times where they doubt their skills, so I don't think I am unusual in that respect but I suppose it's weird to hear it from someone who is trying everything under the sun to have another baby, but there are times when I am just not sure I am cut out for this. I have never really been very confident in my child rearing - I openly admit that I made a total hash of our son's first few months with my constant desire to be a Gina Ford Mum which backfired horribly. So why on earth do I think it's a good idea to do it again? But this shouldn't be misconstrued as me not wanting a baby, on the contrary, as Lola would say, I really actually desperately ever ever do want a baby, I am just rather scared the baby might not want me!
I think what is happening is that we are getting closer to D-Day as it were, and the nerves are kicking in.  I would give anything to have a newborn baby and cuddle him or her to sleep, to experience that wonderful time again, sleep depravation and all, I'm just beginning to get the terrors that it won't work and so naturally I am going into survival mode which is allowing myself to think that a future just the 3 of us is good and could be sensible. But as we know, I am not great at sensible, and when I have had the terror moments I do tend to feel the teeny bubble of excitement well up again at the thought of another little person in our house. I suppose for us its like being first time parents again, and all the doubts are those that normal parents have only we have a bit more insight into what's coming. I wake up from horrible dreams where I have had to call my husband in Hong Kong and tell him it didn't work, his disappointment really really being too much for me to take. I have little flashes where it's worked and I am pregnant and that is the news I am telling him - its all a bit of a muddle right now to be honest. Fundamentally I AM excited, and I did feel great excitement yesterday when leaving the doctors having done the last round of blood tests, a quick swab test (horrible) and will be having a hysteroscopy on Thursday to make sure that everything is ok internally. Honestly, I can't wait, I will be under General Anaesthetic for an hour which will be the best sleep I have had in weeks! It's all coming together and finally it IS happening. Hopefully in a month I will be starting hormone therapy and perhaps then, when the wheels are in  motion I will truly be able to allow myself to indulge in some serious baby hopes.
The funny ha ha by the way was my friend being told by her OB that 'breastfeeding is for poor people in Calcutta.' It's made me smile all week....