Boob job (the original)

I’ve just joined the PAIL blogroll. This is a group of people blogging about Pregnancy After Infertility and Loss. We’re a motley crew. We feel like we don’t fit anywhere. We’re not infertile anymore. We’re not smug pregnant women, we know how quickly  the good things can disappear. For many of us, the perceived end point (pregnancy), became a starting point of a whole other road we never planned to go down. A road that is not always full of joy and anticipation. It feels cruel. I wrote about this sense of the in between in an earlier post on liminality called the In-Betweeners. We’re mostly terrified, and unsure when we can relax. Some have had incredible losses in their past that can taint the taste of every experience they see in their future. If you click on the PAIL logo to the right of your laptop screen, you’ll get to a list of other fantastic PAIL blogs.

As those of you who’ve been reading this blog know, I was lucky to fall pregnant on our second IVF cycle. And then the fun started. Hub-in-boots and I have been through five haemorrhages, a sub chorionic haematoma, a 1:21 risk of downs (and a later all clear), the loss of an income  and movement (no boxing!) after 7 weeks (so far) of bed rest, gestational diabetes diagnosed at 16 weeks, and finally the magic disappearance of the clot, yesterday. And now, at 40 years old, I’m 17 weeks pregnant.

In an ideal world, we’ll have a baby in 23 weeks. In the real world it may be earlier, for a number of reasons coming out of our past complications. (And while things are now finally looking up and we’re delighted, we are both very conscious it could all still go horribly wrong).

The PAIL bloggers are going to have a monthly topic to post on, and this month it’s breastfeeding.

What do I know about breastfeeding?

I don’t.

I know I want to breastfeed. For all of the medical, bonding, and health of the baby reasons. I also think for people who have been through the infertility party, geez it would be nice to do something normal. How crazy would that be? To do something all the other mothers do? For me, breastfeeding is a symbol of something normal and natural, at the end of a journey (I hate that word, it’s so reality TV) that was not normal or natural, not ever. Imagine the madness of my body making milk, and just kind of doing what it is supposed to do?

Breastfeeding goes hand in hand with my desire to have a natural birth, something I know I need to get past, because my amazing ability to complicate everything pregnancy makes a much hated idea of a C-section a real possibility.

I know breastfeeding can be more complicated than it looks. My boobs hurt like buggery at present. And my normal” titanium tits” that don’t move much and aren’t easily hurt, can now make wearing cotton or silk feel like sandpaper. So I am starting to get the idea that breastfeeding may not be always comfortable. I’ve heard about mastitis, and cabbage leaves in your bra. I even know someone who got it so badly they had to have the boobs surgically drained. Twice. Ouch. And how the hell do I get back into my Couch to 5k running programme if I’m bouncing and leaking?

I’m completely freaked out by the sprinkler effect. I had no idea that it was not one hole in nipple = fluid. Lots of holes and a spray of milk? What am I, a gardener? That’s just plain weird. But, I imagine, logical and effective. I am also a little freaked out by the fact that my boobs are already getting ready for the garden party.  At the risk of too much information, (TMI WARNING!) I feel like someone else’s boobs have been stuck on my chest. I may have to re-title my blog the Godzilla boob and the adventures of the flying saucer nipples. I think they’ve actually got uneven. Lefty is sitting oddly.

I know for some women, breastfeeding is not practical, or just too emotionally / practically stressful to sustain, and I think there must be a balance between the mother’s wellbeing and the desire to feed. Mum’s wellbeing has to win out if there’s a problem. So I really hope to persist and persevere and do it. But I understand sometimes, with breastfeeding, as a stressed out new mum, you have to wave the white flag.

I will probably breastfeed in public places, but the idea freaks me out. I love it when other women do it – there’s nothing so lovely as seeing that natural bond take place. But me?  Yeah just plain weird. Another thing I’ll have to get past. Perhaps part of the problem is with all of our complications, I can’t quite see myself as a mother, just yet. It seems like an elaborate play act at present, like we’re pretending this is happening, but it’s not really real.

In a couple of weeks, when perhaps I am allowed out of the house, I am going to buy a maternity bra, that I can hopefully also use nursing. I am hoping it doesn’t look too much like something my mother would wear. And maybe having this concrete symbol of what’s coming will get my head ready for what’s on its way. And though I’ll have a go with the magic one boob reveal to impress  hub-in-boots with my new skills,  I’ll also try not to flash at the postman.  (I got a $10 tank top from ALDI of all places this week, that doubles as a nursing top. It’s my first boob reveal top. Hilarious. Hub-in-boots was mightily impressed and I believe is starting a secret petition to have all women’s clothes designed in this way).

By way of a non poetic update, the scan yesterday the obstetrician could not find BASTARD, the blood clot. I’m still spotting very very mildly, but there was really no sign of the clot on the scan. The placenta looked fat, healthy, and finally, not bleeding. We’re proceeding with caution, with a proper scan in two weeks (the 19 week one), four more week’s bed rest, cutting down the progesterone, and a whole lot of hail marys. I was in just as much shock with the good news as I was with the bad news. I am of course delighted, but it is hard to process and adjust to this new equilibrium, especially when I am still getting used to the Gestational Diabetes tag and associated monitoring and medicatiions. My head is going a million miles an hour, in a good way. And Gumby may need to be rechristened “Bruiser”, as he’s weighing in at approx 200g and measuring at 18 weeks, when I was 16 weeks and 5 days. Good on you kid. Apparently it can’t be the diabetes yet, he’s just a bruiser.

And I’m totally behind on the March photo challenge with daily photos based on Belle’s Scrambled Eggs blog prompts . But I’ll catch up. Oh and I’ve finished the Twilight books. I’m still watching Gossip Girl (oh how literati am I?). So I’ll have to get the Twilight movies now….

Dear BASTARD (warning: “Poetry”)

Dear bastard

 

I met you at 10 weeks

You buggered up my sleep

You were only 7 mls

You made us freak and weep.

 

I thought you’d just fuck off then

But encores were your game

You fucking woke me up again

You didn’t have a name.

 

11 weeks, you’d put on weight

Though gumby’s heart still beat

At 20 ml I hated you

You swept me off my feet.

 

But in the absence of applause

You thought you’d take a bow

And show up with might, so deep and bright

We thought “well we’re fucked now”

 

12 weeks and you said “fuck it!

This bed rest is a crime!

I’m back you bitch so face it

It’s blood clot party time”

 

And so I named you BASTARD

And I took your name in vain

My attention was diverted

By the placental biopsy game.

 

They said you’d put on weight again

(And it didn’t suit your face)

You stupid 60 ml BASTARD

Give me some mental space.

 

And then you just got tired

You attention seeking whore

And whilst you sometimes threatened

You spot, but bled no more.

 

Today at 16 and a bit weeks

You failed to say cheese

As he tried to take your photo

As he hunted, I said please

 

I said “please, can you fuck off now?”

And someone heard our prayer

There was no freakin sign of you

We looked, you were not there.

 

So BASTARD, no hard feelings

But we’re delighted you have gone

We’re back in bed, you left our head

And Gumby? Carries on.

Going on strike

I refuse to do any more tests. I refuse to hear any more bad news! In fact, I’d like to go on strike from being pregnant.
I’m over it . There’s complicated, and then there’s just stupid. This has crossed the line into stupid.

Just found out I have gestational diabetes. I would now like to use the rest of this post to swear. A. Lot. My pre pregnancy level? 6.3. Last Friday? 11something. I didn’t hear the something as I was swearing at the time.

I have eaten lentils. I’ve eaten quinoa. I’ve eaten vegetable soups. I’ve steamed. I’ve stir fried, or at least lately other people have on my behalf .

Before pregnancy , I’d worked my ASS OFF to get my blood sugar (with insulin resistance for years) to within normal ranges on a GTT. I’d lost more weight. I exercised.

After pregnancy, I immediately spoke to my endocrinologist. I saw my old dietician . We went through a normal week’s eating. I employed every suggestion she made immediately. I walked almost every day, even on holidays, for 5k’s +. I continued to box, up until 8 weeks when holidays and subsequent clotville and bedrest central hit.

I have done EVERYTHING right. I can count the number of “break outs”, diet wise, on ONE hand.

And instead of a well done certificate for being a model pregnancy citizen, I get the urgent appointment with the endo tomorrow. My dietician just rang and said she’d be next stop, that the endo will send me to her to learn to start blood sugar monitoring etc, so I’m to call in there afterwards & pick up supplies for a phone how-to later in the day. Another outing, another doctor, another complication.

I know it probably isn’t a big deal. I know we’ll manage it, and monitor , and avoid gestational diabetes type complications. But I feel ripped off. And I still want to go on a pregnancy strike. Demanding better conditions, better pay, more joy.

Don’t let it rain on my parade

Well it’s mardi gras in Sydney this weekend . In honour of the event i’d like to wear some nipple tassles whilst on bed rest, but i’m sorry to say i won’t be, they’re too bloody sore. (My body seems to be confused , because the book says nipple cripple is supposed to END with 1st trimester, not start now). I’m going to have to wear padded something whilst knitting, if I bump my boob with the knitting needle one more time. And why oh why is it always the left one, huh?

Here’s to all the gay couples hoping to marry out there. Let’s hope at next year’s mardi gras it IS legal, and there’s some weddings with more style & trashy dancing, and a shitload of gay tourists flying out here to marry in a progressive country. I think it would revitalise the institution of marriage, not to mention give the bridal industry a bit of shake up.

Yet again someone has organised for rain on their parade tonight (half of Sydney is in flood as we speak), but I’ve always found sequins look better when they’re wet. And there’s nothing like the mascara on a bedraggled drag queen. Just don’t slip over, girls. At least not til the after party.

BASTARD the clot has chosen to ignore his deadline and is a little worse for yesterday’s few hours out of the house. Nothing major. I’ll give him til Thursday’s ob visit, then he needs to fuck off. Please. Nicely. You would think he’d realise punctuality is important.

Progress update on the knit one, shit one scarf. Three colours, week 16 and counting.

The Knit one shit one scarf is progressing well. We’re into our third colour, and I’m not sure whether it’s going to be a scarf or a nanna blankie now. It may depend on when I run out of wool / attention span . Per episode of gossip girl, I average about half a dropped stitch, so I seem to be on the improve .

I’m ripping through the twilight books as well. Bella is currently still human at the end of book three, she hasn’t bonked anyone, and the vampires and werewolves finally figured out they needed to cooperate, as I’d been telling them since book 2. Jacob needs to wax if he’s ever gonna get the girl. Just ask those attending mardi gras. (A back sack and crack would do him wonders).

Happy Mardi Gras, peeps. Have a margharita for me.

The deadline

Today I am 15 weeks and 3 days. And as far as I know, our little gumby is going along fine. I back at home after another three days at mums, visits from old friends, my mum in law, neighbours, and even a one hour visit to my oldest friend’s birthday bash.

Somehow I’ve managed to not organise any visitors for today, and it’s a long day with hub in boots training until 9pm or so. Bit of an oversight. And it’s hot. I’ve already tried changing rooms to get more air , but it’s boiling in here. Sweaty. I’ve been spoilt at mums with air con on all day.

Physically, the spotting has settled right down, maybe four days ago it gradually ground to an almost halt. Its still there, but nothing like what it was. This has to be a good thing, right?

This coming Saturday is ‘BASTARD’ the clot’s deadline day. 16 weeks. The point at which we are opened up to a whole host of other complications if BASTARD is still there. Complications that the ob would not discuss, ahead of time. I guess that’s what we hear about, next visit, depending on my progress. I guess we have to steel ourselves for that.

I don’t want to get too hopeful, and let’s face it, we’re probably hoping for quiet gradual improvement, not miracle healing ( “ta daaaa! No clot!). I am hopeful because of what I can see happening on the outside. However we have no idea, right now, what’s happening inside. The two do not always coincide.

This week is also significant because we drop down to a single salary, or at least 1.25 salaries. My leave is starting to run out, so what I have left I’m having rationed out, until I can go in maternity leave at 28 weeks. I am nervous of how we will go forward, financially. But I can’t afford to give it too much thought. Naturally work managed to completely ignore my request and stuff up my pay, which sent me into a total flap on Friday night. Sometimes in the calm, going along ok, the flaps are only one mishap away.

In the knitting stakes, I’ve learnt to purl, but I’ve gone backwards a bit. I seem to be getting less capable at knitting overall. So I’m not looking at it this morning. It’s pissing me off!!!

Instead, I am, unbelievably, reading the Twilight series. And loving it! My niece suggested it as light reading, and while I was pretty damn sceptical it is actually well written. I couldn’t even make it through the first Harry potter a few years back, the writing was so bad. But this is pretty good. From Gabriel Garcia Marquez/ Jeffrey eugenides to Twilight with Stephanie Meyer eh?

I’ve also watched one and a half eps of Gossip Girl. Not bad, so far.

It was nice on the weekend at mums when hub-in-boots dropped in on his way home from AFL. We were genuinely glad to see each other . There’s been some moments lately where I’ve hung out all day for 6pm, my end point of keeping tabs on myself, and he’s arrived home, exhausted, looking for all the world like he doesn’t want to be there. It’s not easy to take, on days where he’s my only connection to outside these walls. I understand he has too much on, with work , afl, and then carer being like his third job. I get it. Its exhausting, physically, mentally, emotionally. But it isn’t easy at my end some days, either. I live with the warring anxiety & hope, 24/7. I have physical evidence of it. I am trapped. And sometimes that is so all consuming I can’t spare the energy to even think how it affects others… If I did, I’d just seize up. So it is good when the days at mums break that cycle, reset us, make us glad to be us & glad to be together again.

In one way, Saturday is just another day. In another, it’s a looming deadline, and instead of rushing around to get things done to meet it, I need to lay here. And have no control, and hope.

In the meantime, I get to leave the house Friday , for a glucose tolerance test. Mmm thick lemonade for breakfast. Some girls get all the fun.

Living life on the edge: 20 observations on the perils of bedrest

I  am now at the end of my fifth week of bedrest, and I’m not bored at all. Ok, that’s a lie. But let’s not criticise the boredom, let’s embrace it.

After all,  I’ve only had a chance to be bored in the last two weeks when I:

·     stopped bleeding like a stuck pig  every 2 days,

·     found out our gumby did not have downs,

·    was able to get out of the “run, there’s a tyrannosaurus after you”  level of old-brain anxiety

These are all good developments.

So I’m making a list of living life on the edge items from bedrest. No sarcasm / offence intended. Feel free to add your own in the comments section below.

Living life on the edge #1: it is important to get the balance right between adequate hydration and needing to pee 24/7.

I tend to drink water when I’m bored, or anxious, or feeling ill. Which makes me look 6 months pregnant some days when I’m only 14.5 weeks. It does give me an excuse to get out of bed, but I might drown.

Living life on the edge #2: leaf blowers are the enemy

When you finally decide to cave in and have a nap, someone will arrive with a leaf blower within 30m of your open window. Leaf blowers will come EVERY DAY you are on bed rest. Leaf blowers are a LOT more annoying than old school lawnmowers. And leaf blowers are INEVITABLY operated by fat men who could do with the exercise of sweeping. And often.

Living life on the edge #3: it is not good manners to try and hit the man with the leafblower with a slingshot, and may not be strictly in keeping with the rules of bedrest. You also may not get your “shot” back.

Living life on the edge #4: it is not good manners to tell the man with the leafblower he could do with more exercise, eg by sweeping*

Living life on the edge #5: get some sun

Vitamin D is apparently important for baby’s language development in later life. Plus after four weeks bedrest you end up looking like someone out of a Twilight movie. Which isn’t good if you’re later aiming for a pregnant glow. If you decide to give your belly sun, look out for neighbours, postmen, and men with leafblowers. It can freak em out.

Life on the edge # 6: visitors with cakes

If visitors insist on bringing cakes, put them out of sight very quickly, and wait til hungry hub-in-boots arrives home. Otherwise, invite a lot more visitors of the “non baking non cake buying variety” very soon afterwards and be generous. (If you find yourself making gorging noises ¾ of the way through a prohibited ricotta cannoli without thinking, the last bite probably won’t make much difference). Freezing leftover cake can also slow you down. Sometimes.

 Life on the edge #7: low GI muesli bars and nuts are your friend.

They fit nicely in the bedside drawer when you’re hungry, but trying not to get up. But watch the wrappers and the subsequent ant plague. Ants are not comfortable in your bed. Come to think of it, neither are nuts.

Life on the edge #8: be careful of the placement of your progesterone pessaries in the fridge

People might mistake their foil wrapped goodness  for lollies. Especially children and drunk people. Not pretty. You also can pull end up pulling some pretty scary facial expressions during use, if they end up in the colder section of the fridge where things accidentally freeze.

Life on the edge #9: horizontal makeovers

It is possible to wax your legs, paint your toenails and straighten your hair whilst half lying down. You will spend a lot of time looking at your toes, for now, so it makes you feel better. It can also stop those all day frights when you catch a glimpse of yourself in the mirrored wardrobe or on skype.

Life on the edge #10: husbands  do not understand changing sheets (or towels)

Spell it out to them. Stripping the bed is a hard to ignore sign. Hemorrhaging on them also works, but makes you feel a bit sick and you absolutely rip through the napisan pre wash, so I wouldn’t recommend that as the ideal solution.

Life on the edge #11:  envy

If anyone says “God I’d kill to lay down and watch DVDs for four weeks” there is only one solution: punch them. Hard.

Life on the edge #12: showers are precious

Shower time is exciting time. You get to stand up. Crazy talk. You get to do something normal. This does not mean, however, you can have showers that exceed an hour. That’s cheating.

Life on the edge #13: famous last words

If you utter the words “ I’ll just get up and….” or “I might just…..” you are about to get up, do things you’re not supposed to be doing, and possibly kill your baby (nothing like an idle mind for catastrophising). Set time limits and stick to them. Make lists of what needs to be done, and make friends with someone who lives locally and has an Obsessive Compulsive Disorder around cleaning / tidying.

Life on the edge #14: birds

Birds outside the window are nice to watch. A bird flying in through your verandah door, shitting on the carpet, and then flapping around the house wildly is not, however, conducive to bed rest. If the birds in your neighbourhood are stupid, shut the door*.

Life on the edge #15: washing

If you’re expecting a visitor, put some washing on.   Visitor #1 can hang it out, visitor #2 can  bring it in*. As an aside, if you live in an apartment, it is useful to tell visitor #2 how to recognise your portion of the washing line, or you may end up with one of your neighbour’s underwear. This is not a pleasant experience, but may add to your supplies of cleaning rags and/ or giant nanna undies**.

Life on the edge #16: what can I do / bring?

Many visitors will ask this. Resist the knee jerk reply of “nothing”, and reply “hang out my washing”, “water the plants”, “clean the bathroom because people with a penis can’t clean properly”, “bring a meal”, or “geez I’d kill for a $1 cheeseburger and a max Brenner hot chocolate”. If it turns out in the glucose tolerance test that you’re fucked, perhaps leave out the last option. If your visitor is male, perhaps leave out the penis comment. Lists written in large font  stuck to the wall can provide subtle prompts to visitors.

Life on the edge #17: do you need reading material / DVDS?

The answer is yes. Because even if you have loads and you never watch them, the choice of DVDS and or books gives you an amazing insight into friends and acquaintances that you may otherwise never may have got.” You bought what????” Plus the rip off DVDs they purchased on the black market in China that have typos on the covers are incredibly amusing: “Shakespe in Love”. Finding For Rester (finding Forrester), or my personal favourite:

 

I'm pretty sure this is not a shot from the movie. And that aint Matthew Broderick.

 

Gotta love those blackmarket numbers

 

 

 Re #17: Try to avoid their porn collections where possible. They make for awkward conversation**.

Life on the edge #18: stupid advice

Some people will feel compelled to give you stupid advice or imply that “trying to think positive” will help your situation. Yes, random cramps or bursts of bleeding and wondering 100 times a day is your baby about to die really does make this positive thinking easy.  And obviously, they have double blind peer reviewed studies to prove that positive thinking will make a difference to miscarriage rates. Perhaps you could ask them for academic references. Perhaps people should avoid telling you how you should be feeling.

 Yes, you understand there will be positives to come out of this situation, such as more patience, a mindfulness, and a stronger relationship(s),  but this is something you will experience fractionally, or with hindsight, not right when you’re mopping up blood with towels. To help resist the powerful urge to pull on any Pollyanna self help guru pigtails, it helps to have a mantra to avoid ruining friendships at these moments. “They mean well they mean well they mean well” can help, as can “LA LA LAAAAAA I CAN’T HEAR YOU!” whilst sticking your fingers in your ears can have the same effect. If you are on the phone, holding it in the air whilst giving the receiver the bird is quite effective. Mystery mobile phone drop outs also work. 

And if this has happened whilst I’ve been on the phone to you, I actually really do get poor reception at home…..just ring my bloody home number.

Life on the edge #19: Deliveries

Deliveries of online groceries, flowers gifts and visitors will always arrive in the 15 minute period in any day when you are wet, and naked. This is just a fact.

Life on the edge #20: knitting

Knitting takes a shitload of time. You have a shitload of time. You do the math.

Some people say it is like meditation. Sometimes it is, but sometimes it is like going to the dentist. Perhaps put it down when it gets like a dental visit, don’t go all OCD on your perfectionist ass.

(please note I’ve managed to change colour today. I rock.)

the horizontal pedicure, combined with this week's second and slightly improved knitting attempt

 *this really happened

** this didn’t really happen, but I thought about it. 

Le Scaphandre et le Papillon

Recently, on holidays up my brother’s farm, I saw a film in DVD called “the Diving Bell and the Butterfly” (Le Scaphandre et le Papillon). I had read the book years before, and it touched me deeply, reaffirming for me the power of the written word. I was a little astounded when those mad frenchies decided to make it into a film. I figured as a movie,  it would either be stunning, or an unmitigated disaster.

The book is a short internal monologue, musings on life and consciousness, written by Elle fashion magazine editor, Jean-Dominique Bauby, paralysed from head to toe after a massive stroke, who completed the book over 10 months with his one moving body part, by blinking as the alphabet was read to him over and over and over by a carer.  As I read the book, and realised what has gone into making each word, I understood the levity of stark prose, not overwritten, each word chosen, letter by letter by letter. Not an easy thing to turn into a screenplay

The film was stunning, life affirming in its beauty, with cinematography that spoke of both his internal world and the world he was kept from. Needless to say, we shed tears watching it. And laughed.

(Hell, if you get a BAFTA for best screenplay on a silent film, The Artist I’m guessing the French film industry knows what it’s doing! I later discovered The Diving Bell and the Butterfly also received a best screenplay BAFTA back in 2008).

For me, this week, as frustration has started to rear its head, I think of that man who felt as though his body was physically locked in an old fashioned diving suit, but whose consciousness was like a butterfly, flitting free & high above.

My life has made room for frustration now, and it’s actually a good thing. There is only room for frustration when medically, nothing is happening (touch wood). I have had eight days free of hemorrhages. This is a record since my dramas started. Still spotting old blood, which can still be scary, (so I can’t have that soak in the bath I am busting for), but not bleeding.

Sunny days make it worse, and make it more uncomfortable to lie around. Weekends are harder, with more coming and going and the usual together time marred by my motionless frame. Weekdays have elastic time, where it is often just me, alone, and sometimes I kill hours easily, and other times if I looked more than two days (two hours) ahead at this I’d just wig out.

I’d like to wash the floors. And tidy. And de clutter a few cupboards. I’d like to wander down to the backyard (I did on Sunday; momentuous), or hang out some washing, or cook something . I’d like to run, and box, and swim, and sit in a cafe. I am so tempted…To just do a little bit. So often we run through life wishing for the gift of some time. I have it, and I can’t use it.

Instead I hold fast to my promise to sit still, and I shuffle: Facebook, email, blog, games, books, radio, staring out the window, short visits, phone calls, tv series, a movie, nap, shower, meal. I try to do books/radio/iPhone activities/nap in the morning in bed, and by two ish move to the couch for lunch, sometimes visitors, and a bit of tele til hub-in-boots gets home around 6. Each day is sort of ok, but the weight of accumulated days like this is getting heavy.

Physically, my muscles are becoming uncomfortable and twitchy, my shins have gone weird and angular, my feet hurt from lack of use. I am not as good at seeing the milestones as I was: Skype counselling today, doctor (ob) tomorrow (woohoo leaving the house!), 14 weeks on Saturday. I need their forward momentum.

But weirdly, on my fourth week of bed rest, I want the other two weeks in bed. I am fearful of hearing ‘yeah you’re ok to go back to work’ from the ob tomorrow. Dont get me wrong: I hate bedrest. It sucks. But it has a purpose. And I want gumby to have the best chance possible, conservative treatment, at least to make it to 16 weeks.

I also have clarity of purpose here, at home. There is only one objective: grow gumby. Ok maybe two: 1.grow gumby, 2. absorb clot. I think dealing with this whilst dealing with work would require more resilience than I have just now.

My sleep is a weird in between space, where I don’t get much precious “blank time”. I wrestle with waking up every couple of hours, with dreaming I’m hemorrhaging again, with unnamed terror when I sit bolt upright at the slightest noise. I am not physically tired enough to get proper rest. Emotionally, I seem to be wrestling with more, now that the immediate physical danger has seemingly passed. Having passed the all important first trimester milestone, I seem lost for a strong focal point; hopefully temporarily. The stupid what if game has a bit more power at the moment. At times I run through scenarios in my mind, wondering which I need to be prepared for.

So I feel the need to blog, yet I don’t have much to offer. I could give you dvd reviews after a marathon viewing of “Game of Thrones” a medieval ish drama series filmed in Northern Ireland (took an episode to get into it, then knocked over 10 episodes in two days! Sad!). I watched a Harry Potter yesterday (Harry Potter and the order of the Phoenix). I am not much of a dvd box set watcher, my first ever being Dexter (series 1-5!!!) during IVF down time. I find TV leaves me feeling listless. After conquering Gabriel Garcia Marquez Love in the Time of Cholera and then a fairly quick effort on Jeffrey Eugenides The Virgin Suicides, followed by Hsu-Ming Teo’s rather lovely Love and Vertigo, I seem to have hit the wall, book wise. I may branch out to a Neil Gaiman next. Or possibly something as nasty and throw down as the Twilight series.

I found The Virgin suicides a beautifully constructed novel, perfect in its simplicity of voice and pre-ordained storylines. It was much more readable than his later epic, Middlesex, which is one of the few books I have picked up several times and failed to finish (I will never forget my struggles with Joseph Conrad’s Heart of Darkness whilst at school. It’s one of those rare ones I never went back to). In an ideal world I would use this time to catch up on all the classics I’ve never read; in reality often my head is too busy with pregnancy worries for weighty tomes and self improvement.

As nice as it is to use time, I find that time often uses us.

I am lucky in the sense that I live in an age where this pregnancy could happen at all, and where, as the problems reared their ugly heads, I was able to monitor what was going on, to know Gumby was still kicking. I am lucky I live in an age where we have Skype, and email, and iphones to keep me feeling connected even as I disconnect. I am free to communicate. I can move if I really need to. But I think in my own limited way (though hardly comparable to Jean-Dominique Bauby) I understand the heaviness of feeling like I am stuck in a diving bell, while the world carries on in its noisy way, and the traffic still jams and the people still work, and the mail still gets delivered, and I wait, motionless, in a muted two room world.

Like Jean-Dominque Bauby’s butterfly, at times I can rise above this here and now, and think beyond these walls, and enjoy the sky and the leafy green wall of trees that lies beyond our apartment windows, and sometimes even have the optimism to flit forward to a full term labour and a perfect little Gumby (who, importantly, has no chromosomal issues…we got the full screening results and the all clear yesterday). But sometimes, I can only make 6 o’clock. The optimism and the dread, the yin and the yang, the hoped for growth of Gumby and quiet non eventful disappearance of the clot. A butterfly just went past the window as I typed this…I’m taking it as a good sign.

The In-Betweeners

Liminal spaces, those in between, mark a threshold, a place of transition. Some cultural writers argue that one of the problems we face in modern society is this lack of acknowledgement of the liminal: rites of transition, of initiation.

Yet simple states, like being engaged, acknowledge this liminality. Neither married, nor single.

In our houses, in our hotels, there are spaces that are neither here, nor there. My mother’s house has “the entrance hall” a small area where guests (if they ever used the front door) are welcomed before entering the house proper. Verandahs, particularly the large, Aussie, wraparound variety, are liminal, not inside, not outside. Hotel foyers, places of coming and going, arriving and leaving, these too are liminal.

Liminality can also extend to our consciousness, our in betweenness. Many rituals of older cultures seek to tap into this mental space as a way of achieving higher insights. Liminality is represented in our religions, in the funeral rites, marriage rites, christenings and older ideas of purgatory. They help us deal with and acknowledge these important points of transition.

I have often thought that in education, the liminal space is the place of the highest learning. The point in learning new knowledge, where the “knowing” and”mastery” on the other side are glimpsed, but not yet owned by the student. Where we begin to understand why this new knowledge is important, but have not yet internalised it enough to apply it to new situations. As a teacher, guiding students in the frustrations of this in betweenness and giving them the confidence needed to move towards the knowing, this is one of my most important roles.

Infertility is a liminal space. Perhaps in the past it was not, it was a defined end point. Yet now, for many, It is a holding area, and hopefully, with time and medical help, a place of transition into parenthood. Liminal spaces are important , but almost what gives them meaning is the act of passing through them; and the trouble is, in infertility, many couples can become stuck. The in between is important for its role in transformation. It is not a place in which to dwell. Like an adolescent failing repeatedly to pass an initiation rite in an ancient tribe, being stuck there is a wounding and isolating experience.

For hub-in-boots and I, we have understood and experienced the space of infertility as somewhere we would pass through; either to parenthood or to a life without children. For us, this transition was very quick, a matter of 3-4 months from discovering the problem, to what looked like a kind of resolution. It seems our heads were barely ready for one space before we were thrust into another. We are both do-ers, after all.

Yet from this medical rite of initiation, we have entered, relatively unaware, into another liminal space. Pregnancy is liminal. It is neither childlessness, nor parenthood, the first trimester in particular, where one is not “allowed” to be accepted as reliably pregnant, one is not “supposed” to reveal one’s expectant state to the world at large, and there are no visible signs of what is occurring inside, even as many of the most important changes take place in our bodies and our minds. Later on, we mark the transition, with parenting classes, baby showers, celebrations on birth and christenings. But at the point of biggest transition? Nothing!

The “complicated pregnancy”, as the books call it, is yet another liminal place, even more removed from a knowable place with defined boundaries and outcomes. If I am lying in a casualty ward bleeding, but still with a fetal heartbeat, I am not really pregnant, nor am I a “miscarriage”. I am in a space in between. Even on bedrest, i oscillate in the place i inhabit, I am conscious, often, of this feeling of being not one, but not the other. Slowly, I feel us crossing over the border into really being pregnant.

Unlike births, deaths and marriages, unlike even transitions from child to adulthood, there is nothing, culturally, to mark many of these fertility-infertility-fertility transitions. Or loss-pregnancy-loss-pregnancy-parenthood transitions. Science & medicine brings us possible ways out of previous dead ends, but cultural acknowledgement of these new states has not kept up. There is nothing to mark the change of our state. MAny losses are intangible, and therefore often slip by unacknowledged, unnamed,incomprehensible to those outside the experience, and sometimes incomprehensible even as they are lived.

I am sure there are many other spheres of life where cultural change has not accompanied living changes, I am just aware of our own experiences. But I know this lack of a formal space created can make these situations harder to process, emotionally, and can make it harder to move on from the losses.

I know in counselling Claudia has said to me that it is important to create your own ritual, to acknowledge your wins and your losses. So i drew stupid faces on eggs to mark what was collected, and held photographic eliminations to rival Masterchef. I made space to sit quietly in a church, to think about the embryos that didn’t make it. We celebrated the end of a failed cycle, and we trumpeted our wins loud in clear in person and in blog land.

Tomorrow “we” are having a little BBQ to celebrate hub-in-boots’ 45th birthday, to mark his transition from one year of life to another. I say “we”, because instead of catering and proffering drinks, I’ll be reclining on the couch , in the bed, and if we decide to go crazy, in the backyard. (hub in boots is going to drive me down the steep driveway !). For me, this is also a celebration of the end of the first trimester. A time of transition, an important milestone .

And I can finally say, as we transition yet again:
“WE’RE THIRTEEN WEEKS PREGNANT”.

the glass is 1/3 full

Today is the last day of our first trimester.

We are one third of the way there. Did we ever think we’d get here?

It is hard for me to look back and think about the events that have got us to this point. I think of memories sometimes as snapshots, frozen moments. I don’t think memory really functions so we remember a continuum of events in a logical order. There are some moments that get frozen in the synapses, though, for me mostly static images or a few frames.

I remember as we first looked into IVF, I asked a friend who has been through many many many cycles with his wife, how they did it. He said we didn’t do eight cycles. We did one. Then we did one. Then we did one. I understand that now, because for us, that is how pregnancy has been so far. A day, then another day, a milestone, then another milestone.

So much of now is about looking forward. Often, for us,  it is not very far forward. To look to forty weeks and birth seems a bit presumptuous at this point in time, as I look at the scan of my lovely fat haematoma, BASTARD.  I have, however, found ever since we’ve known the sex of Gumby, the possibility of a baby at the end of this ordeal seems a lot more real, more concrete. I am so very glad of that.

Pre natal classes look forward, but pre natal classes would make me feel stupid just now. I don’t want to be amongst the smug pregnants, the happy glowers, naturally conceived, free of complications and worries. I don’t want to be surrounded by people looking that far forward. Because I know if anyone in that class disappears  at 18 weeks and doesn’t come back because of a horrible tragedy, it’s pretty likely it would be me. I don’t want to be that person. As Claudia the counsellor said to me, we’ve already suffered a loss. The loss of a happy,  worry-free pregnancy. That loss would seem to be writ larger sitting in a room full of other pregnant women. It is a loss I cannot really mourn right now, because each day, I have to do that day, I have to get through. I don’t want it smacked into my forehead like a frying pan. I think right now I would find sitting in those classes too hard, too confronting, until we have a real prognosis, not our current stasis.

But in some ways, I can look forward. Looking forward to 16 weeks, that seems do-able.  Are we comfortable enough to shop online for nursery gear or car seats? Yeah not quite. Can I commit to the first purchase of baby clothes? Nope. But I can feel we’re getting closer to that time. I look forward to being closer to that kind of confidence.

So looking back. What moments brought us here?

• The look on my endocrinologist’s face when we said we’d been trying for 10 months to no avail, changed from the relaxed “ah don’t worry” back in March, to the “yes we need more tests” in September.
• The first visit with the gynaecologist as he handed over hub-in-boots’ results and I felt the bottom drop out of my stomach
• shortly afterwards, the walk back to the carpark at Royal North Shore, sobbing, and having to make the call to tell hub-in-boots about the capital L-O-W written on his report
• the same phone call, two weeks later, on the repeat test
• My vision going black around the edges during the Hy-CO-Sy test.
• the really loud episode of Bold and the Beautiful (talking about paternity suits) in reception as we waited for the first visit to our fertility specialist, while hub in boots ostentatiously read a brochure on “Male factor Infertility”
• The second visit to our fertility specialist, alone, with a huge list of questions, on my 40th birthday
• The first injection, with hub-in-boots coaching , and terrified, beside me
• The first egg collection and its related panic attack
• The first embryo transfer, giggling with relief as we geared up in our caps and gowns and slippers in an air lock room
• Ten days later the beers at the pub after a clinic visit and a failed first cycle, and the moment just a few hours later, sitting at a friend’s bbq when the doctor called, and we decided to start cycle two the very next morning
• The drama leading up to the trigger for the second egg collection, running into people we knew on our way to surgery, and the long marathons of Dexter box sets that weekend in couch recovery. Eating Twisties.
• Being out running my 5k, and receiving the call that all the embryos were still going on day 3
• running into the same people at embryo transfer, who had the same doctor on the same cycle and the appointment for transfer straight after ours
• The mixed feelings as they prepared the transfer and said that out of 12, two other embryos would make the grade to be frozen
• our friends in reception kissing me on the stomach to wish us gumby luck
• The sinking moment a few days later when I got called back to the clinic at no notice, as my progesterone levels had dropped
• The long weekend of ridiculous cramping at the end of the “two week wait”, popping panadol like smarties, watching what I ate, wondering was it another failed cycle
• The moment when I changed my mind, and realised the cramping was different and I felt weird, that this could be it
• The morning in the deli, waiting for the call after our pregnancy test, with me telling hub-in-boots ‘I’ll be surprised if it’s not positive’
• EVERYTHING about the day when we’d received the positive result. SO many great moments. Hub-in-boots’ complete over the top shock.
• Walking into my first ‘post positive test’ baby shop. Stunned. Standing looking at clothes, baths, cots, open mouthed, trying to digest the news.
• The worry before the first scan: is it ectopic? Blighted ovum? Missed miscarriage?
• The sight of the flickering heartbeat at a six weeks ultrasound. The measurement. The miracle. The staff we’d seen so often finally saying Congratulations.
• Finally seeing the hospital where I knew I wanted our baby to be born
• The relief on deciding on an obstetrician
• The moment on holidays when I started spotting and freaking out
• Three weeks later the sleepless night and then the first haemorrhage, and the drive to casualty, and the (TMI warning ) incredibly scary amount of blood
• Laying and sobbing in casualty
• The look on the doctor’s and hub-in-boots open mouthed faces, and then seeing the screen, knowing that Gumby was still alive, and I wasn’t going to get my scotch. Going from horror (about miscarriage, not the scotch) to seeing Gumby move its arms for the first time
• The feeling of being woken from a deep sleep by bleeding a week later with that sinking feeling all over again.
• The suspense just before the ultrasound after two more bleeds, not knowing if Gumby was still alive, then hearing the heartbeat
• Seeing Gumby moving and waving after two MORE bleeds, and hearing the heartbeat, and having my belly shaken to get Gumby to uncross its’ legs, as hub-in-boots sat beside me, legs in the EXACT same position
• Seeing that 1:21 odd of downs, feeling those odds just rip my stomach apart, then staring out the window in disbelief, trying to decide what to do
• Literally having my stomach ripped apart for the CVS test, and the “want to lay down and die” feeling after it. Looking at the ceiling. The clarity of knowing we’d made the right decision.
• Coming out of a deep sleep to receive the phone call with the all clear, and finally being able to call hub-in-boots with good news. : “We’re having a XXXX, and it does not have downs!”. The glass of Grant Burge sparkling that evening.
• All the contact with people who I’d lost touch with, or that I didn’t think would care, that care. All the quietly tucked away stories of difficulties I have heard, that now make me feel less alone in this.
• Waking up today, feeling ok, on the last day of the first trimester, after three blissfully non eventful days (touch wood), willing my way to Saturday and the second trimester. Looking forward to saying”we’re 13 weeks” tomorrow.
• All of the horrible horrible moments, in the midst of which ever-supportive hub-in-boots was still able to make me laugh
• the feeling of having grown a brain, a spinal cord, kidneys, legs and arms, fingers and toes, eyes and ears and a heart.  The hope and warmth that comes as gumby gets bigger and keeps hitting the milestones.

THAT is how we got this far. THAT is the journey we’ve been on to here.  And funnily enough, there’s very little of it I regret, to date. Sure, I wish our path to here had been easier. But this is our story.  All we can do now is hope that this story, that Gumby, continues.

Happy second trimester, hub-in-boots. Thank you for your unbelievable love, care, good humour and support. Happy second trimester, Gumby. I’m glad we’ve got most of your important bits grown now, and you can get on with being a person.  Happy second trimester, family and friends. I’m sorry for all the stress and worry, and thank you for the cooking and cleaning and shopping and worrying and supporting  and visiting that you’ve done on our behalf recently.

Happy second trimester, BASTARD clot. Can you just fuck off and quietly absorb now? Ta.

And….breathe

We still have the clot. I’m still flat on my back, 23/7. Probably for at least another month.

But we don’t have a 1:21 risk of downs. We received the phone call at 4pm. Chromosome 21 is looking beautiful. No three copies here. Just one from me, and one from hub-in-boots. No extras.

And we don’t have the gene mutation that leads to risk of cystic fibrosis.

One week to the full screening results for the rarer genetic issues .

AND we know what we’re having :-).

A baby.
And a glass of champagne.