Squeak

My darling baby is here.

My miracle rainbow baby. He is curled up next to me asleep.

He came into this world not without dramas. ( as if making me wait over 4 years wasn’t enough ) Some hostile antibodies from my body crossed the placenta and proceeded to attack him causing severe anaemia.

He spent 6 nights under phototherapy lights, endured too many blood tests to count and had to be readmitted into hospital for a blood transfusion at 1 month old.

He then had further weekly blood tests for another month but is now happy and healthy.

Every day I thank my lucky stars he is here. The days where  I don’t get a wink of sleep, the days where I’m covered in vomit, the days his squeaky cry is all I seem to hear.

I know women who would give anything to have these experiences.

Infertility is something that changes you. It leaves an invisible mark on your heart.

Its a trauma that doesn’t leave once it is over.

I haven’t forgotten the pain, the hollowness or the constant fight to keep bitterness at bay.

I haven’t forgotten the angry tears, the My whore of a period is here tears, or the embarrassed tears, the our treatments failed again tears, the how are we going to afford more fertility treatment tears or the why the hell can’t it be my turn tears.

I’m one of the lucky ones. I got my miracle, but I haven’t forgotten about my sisters suffering in silence. I haven’t forgotten how it feels.I haven’t forgotten you and I never will. Although I know it feels it, you aren’t walking alone x

The OMG Im PREGNANT post!!!

Ok so its been quite a while between posts.

I canned all my social media for a while, sick of seeing babies, and toddlers and adorable children and beautiful bumps and every article on how to beat infertility.

My brain was ready to explode as well as my heart!

I went on an amazing holiday to Fiji over Christmas and let it all go.

I came home with a parasite in my stomach ( thanks a lot karva! ) and was on some pretty strong medication to get rid of it.

Then a month later it happened. The second line. The line that I have tried to force myself to see on hundreds of tests. The line that I’ve imagined was there and held the test up to the windows and even a torch at one stage for just the faintest hope that there could be a line, that the struggle would finally be over.

A beautiful line clear as day.

Now for most this would be a time of instant joy, and celebration, but when you have faced multiple miscarriages in the past it brings with it an underlying sense of dread, a fear of hoping, a fear of loss.

This was echoed by my husbands response when I told him “I think Im pregnant”, he too has learnt to guard his feelings, “ok when are you seeing the doctor?”

Cue multiple internal ultrasounds. which I understand are a necessity, but really they aren’t small and your heart is in your throat hoping, praying wishing that there be something inside.  Please let there be something you think to yourself, please not just an empty sac, please let there be a foetal pole, please let there be a heartbeat!

For me there was. A moments joy followed by the fear, the crushing, suffocating fear. How do I make this one stay? How can I make it stick? Please let this one stick. I don’t think I can survive another loss.

So I begged my doctor for progesterone. I have during my 4 years + trying to conceive read a lot of blogs and been on a lot of forums that all say progesterone helps. I know there isn’t 100% proven no questions asked proof of this, but I was desperate and I wanted it. My doctor did not think it would do much, but he saw the desperation in my eyes and gave me enough pessaries for one a day for the first 12 weeks. I was so grateful, but would just like to add, pessaries aren’t pretty, they make you feel like total shit and are very messy, but all of us who have been on this road know there is pretty much nothing we wouldn’t do, and hey compared to daily needles in the stomach pessaries are a walk in the park!

So I made it past the 1st trimester. Week 10 was hell! That was the longest I had gotten previously since my miracle miss now 6. The fear let up a little.

I’ve been scared to tell people, scared that the more people that know the more people I would have to tell if things went wrong. I know people all deal with these things differently, but I am the type of person who likes to deal solo. I don’t want peoples sympathy and I don’t want peoples attempts at comfort ( which sounds awful I know as they are only trying to help!)but I don’t want the clichés and the “it wasn’t meant to be” or “your baby is in a better place” I will throat punch you people!

So now I am here, week 22. Still in the 2nd trimester.

I am thrilled, blessed, amazed and excited to be pregnant, but I cant help but still feel the fear.

My time on some online grief and loss boards has shown me that at no time are you safe in pregnancy, babies can be lost at any and all stages of pregnancies.

I am lucky to be pregnant, incredibly lucky. there are some women who never get to see the second line for a first time let alone a 5th. There are some women who try a hell of a lot longer than 4years.

They are amazing, strong and resilient women and I salute them.

For me when struggling with secondary infertility as soon as I knew someone was pregnant they changed to a ‘them.’ ‘Us’ are the people over here struggling and broken inside and ‘them’ over there were the people who had everything. I don’t think I’m a them. I’m somewhere in the middle,. trying to be excited and embrace the miracle but still wearing the physical and emotional scars of being an ‘Us’. Infertility and loss stay with you.  They change you.

Now I’m not going to spout some bullshit about stop trying and it will happen for you. That drove me literally crazy. I wanted to stab people who said that to me. It minimises everything you go through or have gone through. Im also not going to say hang in there it will happen for you. I know the truth that sometimes it doesn’t. I will say this keep fighting, you are stronger than you know and if you decide your done fighting and you cant fight anymore that’s ok too x

 

 

A little judgey

Over New York cheesecake and a latte ( courtesy of San churro ) a friend told me I was a little judgey.

I almost choked on my drink!

I don’t like to think of myself that way. 

As someone who is bigger than most but smaller than some and who has multiple brightly coloured, visible tattoos I know what it is to be judged by others.

I know what it’s like to have people assume they know me or know all about me before I even open my mouth.

I’m no stranger to frowning looks of disapproval, so to hear my friend accuse me of this I was shocked. But I decided to be open to the truth of her statement.

Like many others my miss 5 went back to school this week. The mummy mafia were out in full force.

The glam mums, the sporty mums ( seriously Lorna  Jane everyday!) the I just rolled out of bed and am in my pyjama mums, the I know the name the of every student and teacher at this school and never miss an event mums and the I’m too busy to return your smile mums.

I guess I’m a combination mum, on my work days I’m in a busy rush, on my days off I either oversleep and roll out of bed into the car or I actually have time to get ready and I am a try to be glam mum. Or maybe once a year when I can be bothered I’m a sporty mum. Maybe once every 2 years!

I decided after my friends comment that I would talk to some mothers I had never spoken to.

Enter Rebecca, a lovely mum who has a son in miss 5 class. I didn’t know her last year and to be honest I probably would have been too intimidated to talk to her.

But talk to her I did. I was surprised. She was lovely and funny and chatty. I had judged her assuming that because she looked like a glam mum with the figure of a sporty mum that we would never be friends.

I have unintentionally judged too harshly people who I assumed would have already judged me. Get in first before they can judge me not good enough.

What a revelation!

It took the honesty of a friend to show me I was wrong.

So I am going to continue my goal of judging less. I’m going to try and get to know someone before I assume I know everything about them.

Maybe there will be more Rebecca’s or maybe I will meet a bunch  of arseholes, but either way I’m moving forward and it’s pretty cool I guess life still has some lessons in store for this girl x

Warning rant ahead!

I am sick and tired of plastering a fake smile across my face as I congratulate every fertile person on their offspring.

I’m sick of those couples who look at each other and they are pregnant.

I’m sick of looking after other people’s children while they go and have their second or third child.

Infertility is so freaking unfair.

It’s the worst kind of roller coaster. Anger, depression, sorrow, jealousy, envy, crushing disappointment. Around and around it goes.

The want for another child or even worse, a child is a gaping wound in your heart. It doesn’t heal. Each month as another unsuccessful cycle rolls around and your period rears its ugly head more and more of you bleeds through that crater in your heart.

Some days you don’t even recognise yourself. This jealous, envious person you become. Maybe even the b word! Bitter. My mum told me once I was becoming bitter. She meant well, but note to readers that is not the way to be supportive to someone who is floundering. It just compounds the feelings of failure. So what if you have been trying to conceive for 4 years and you still have empty arms. Slap a smile on your face.

Some days are better than others. But some days are incredibly hard. There is no easy fix. No way to slap a patch over the gaping wound.

Someone asked me once to describe infertility in one word. Anchorless was my answer. someone who has never experienced it can never fully grasp the depths of feelings. You feel adrift at sea barely keeping your head above water. Waves washing you around.

The tears come easily. Pregnancy announcements, birth announcements.

The ugly truth is the first reaction is always bad. Some ugly crying, feeling sorry for myself, the why me questions followed by acceptance, then comes happiness for the person involved.

Another year gone.

Another year without a baby.

Maybe the new year will be better.

Cue foolish hope.

Hope

Trying to choose hope today because I’m having trouble with faith.

I’m lying next to my sleeping neice as I write this. Her mother my sister in law is in hospital giving birth.

I’m happy to spend time with my neice. 

She is a sweet, funny, lively child.

I’m very happy happy they will be meeting their son as we speak.

My other sister in law is having her baby at the end of December. It’s a very exciting time.

For me though it’s also a sad time. Can you be happy for someone at the same time you are so sad for yourself?

You bet!

I have an ache in my heart.  A longing for another child that has turned into a constant dull ache. It never goes. It is always just there.

I see everyone else get their babies.

Why isn’t it my time.

I have some people in my life who are very big on faith. Have faith in God. It will happen in Gods time. God has plans for you that you know nothing about.

I’m having trouble with that. I’m sick of waiting.

I’m trying not to lose hope as well as faith.

I desperately want my family to grow.

My daughter is the only only child in the family. She asks me often when will she get a sibling.

I tell her one day, someday.

I used to have faith that she would have a sibling. It was a certainty.

Now I try for hope because I don’t want to accept the alternative. That there is no hope.

Hope is what happens when faith doesn’t deliver.

My sister is getting married

In a little under 2 weeks one of my sisters is getting married.

I couldn’t be happier for her if I tried.

She is a mix of softness and strength, of serious and fun of smart and silly.

She is older than me by 2 years.

Growing up I always adored her, secretly envied and not so secretly copied her. There were many times I wished I was her.

She was as athletic as she was academic. Good at everything she ever did.

I used to pretend her bedroom was mine. Hers was so much cooler. She had surfing pictures and tiger pictures and marine life posters.
We used to go to the same parties in high school. I loved it when people would ask “Are you Amanda’s sister?”

She was never embarrassed by me, she was never awful to me. She used to drive me to school, and drive me to friends houses.

She has never wanted me to be anyone but who I am. She has never made me feel like I need to change in anyway. She has seen the good in me when I couldn’t see it myself.

She was my maid of honour and cried during her speech at my wedding.

She felt the loss of each of my babies and she cried for them. She even named them and created a beautiful garden for them in her heart.

She has supported me, lifted me up and encouraged me.

She has a sweet relationship with my daughter. She listens to and laughs with her. They dance, and sing and play and cuddle and jump and braid hair.

She gives all of herself to the ones she loves.

She is strong and brave and kind and giving.

She is sunlight.

She is my sister.

Drastic times

Everyone has heard the saying drastic times call for drastic measures.

Well the times they are drastic ( slightly melodramatic maybe )

My body has been messing with me. I’m over a month late and one negative blood test and about 20 home pregnancy tests show the reason is not pregnancy.

This is not the it’s a miracle I’m pregnant post.

This is the my body hates me time to do something about it post.

I’m thinking the cause is stress. I know stress can mess with cycles. I don’t feel more stressed than usual. 

I am moving house and finishing flood repairs on my current home but otherwise it’s just the usual work, family life juggle.

I did a digital test tonight just to be sure because hey the other 20 could be wrong and maybe the blood test was wrong too. But clear blue digital crashed me back to earth. Gotta love the ‘ not pregnant ‘staring back at you. I know clear blue I know!

So I felt stupid/annoyed/defeated.

Next minute hubby asks me about moving a few things to clear a room for a chippie coming in the morning.

I cleared the entire room. I hauled boxes, I dragged furniture and I felt damn good.

Hubby was surprised and gave me a bewildered kiss on the cheek.

It felt good to get my anger out.

I happened across a book I bought months ago about quitting sugar.

I also recently saw online anarticle about how sugar can negatively impact fertility.

I feel like this was a sign. ( maybe a bit of a stretch ) The universe/God whoever you think is in charge is giving me a new direction.

So I signed up for an 8 week quit sugar program.

Why?

I need a distraction. I need a new focus and after 4 years of defeat I need a win. I need to be successful at something.

For a sugar loving, Coke swilling, chocolate munching sweet tooth this is drastic!

Don’t be surprised if my next blog is about how much I miss sugar and the reasons why lettuce will kill you x

Waiting

Ever get tired of waiting.

I feel sometimes like all I ever do is wait.

It drives me crazy.
Maybe it’s just because I’m in a very busy fish and chip shop waiting for my dinner.

Other people come and go. Feels like I’ve been here longer than anyone else.

It also seems like some people walk straight in and out with their orders. Smiles on their faces blissfully unaware of me waiting in the corner.

Not unlike trying to conceive I suppose.

Nice Segway right.

Some people like me have been on this road for a long long time.

Others instant success.

Wham, bam thank you mam here’s your baby.

I wait patiently ( ok not so patiently most of the time ) waiting for my number to be called.

Hoping its sooner rather than later.

Hoping it hasn’t been lost or forgotten.

Hoping that I made the order correctly.

Then finally music to my ears my order is up.

I smile as I hold the warm parcel to my chest.

Does it make me appreciate it more because I had to wait to get it?

Maybe.

How long would I have waited before I left the shop altogether.

Decided enough was enough.

What happens when you wait 4 years and it’s still not your turn? When Your number still hasn’t been called

You keep waiting…….

I’m sorry girls

Our foster carer support worker called us today.

Though our application has not yet been finalised (final stages) she asked me if hubby and I would consider taking on 2 sisters full time. Permanently.

The girls are both much older than the 5 and under age limit we set.

One of the girls has special needs.

When we started this process we decided we should do emergency and respite care first. Try and ease in to becoming foster carers.

This would also give our miss 5 a chance to get used to the idea and the changes in our family.

If we said yes I feel like we would be totally out of our depth and I would hate for us to be yet another failed home. I don’t think miss 5 would cope either.

We said no.

I’ve been unable to get the girls out of my mind since.

The need is so great.

I don’t know why as a society we have so many children in need. I can never understand those that intentionally hurt children. 

Especially as someone with infertility all children to me are a miracle and  a blessing.

I suppose as we travel further down this path we will learn more about these things and we will become desensitised.

I don’t want to. 

How can you ever not be horrified or ever not despair at the number of children needing placement.

There is so much need.

We were not the answer for these girls. I hope and I pray they are found an amazing home with loving, dedicated,  committed carers who can give them everything they didn’t get from their own homes.

I’m sorry girls.

Sorry for everything that has happened in your lives to get you here.

Sorry that we aren’t right for you.

Sorry we said no.

7 years strong

Tomorrow will be my 7 year wedding anniversary.
Reflecting on how lucky I am.
My husband and I have weathered a lot of storms together.
Infertility has been a huge storm in our path.
Unfortunately for some couples it can be an insurmountable hurdle.
Infertility is a nasty thing to go through in so many ways I can see how easily resentment can grow and blame can start.
Luckily for my hubby and me it has tied us even tighter together.
He has held me together when I felt like I was breaking into a million pieces.
He has been with me and cried with me after each of our losses.
I always remember so clearly when we lost our 2nd and were in hospital and I was desperate to leave and trying to rip a drip out of my arm it was his calm and steady hands that took mine and gave me strength.
He was beside me when we told our miracle daughter that our baby had died.
It was he who eased her sorrow and mine.
He has been with me through countless appointments and he has given me countless needles in the stomach during our medicated cycles.
He gives me hope where there is none and courage when I have none.
He has also been willing to go down this fostering path me. Which may sound small but is really a huge ask.
He has never held my inability to give him more children against me.
He is my anchor, my saving grace and a light in my life that shines so brightly.
I am blessed.
7 years strong.