Royal congratulations, indeed.

So, It was announced to the world less than 30 minutes ago and I can no longer count how many 'CONGRATULATIONS' related posts are all over my Facebook. Kate and William are having a baby. How lovely. I honestly wish them all the luck and health in the world, but from a selfish point of view, there goes the positivity of 2013.

It's bad enough seeing friends and family announce pregnancies, but a few days of ignoring Facebook and it's safe again. Not this. This will go on until the thing is born, and then when it's born there will be the royal announcement, the photo graphs, the banners, the fucking bone china commemorative plates. With this pregnancy there is no escaping it. So to say the bulk of our official fertility treatments will begin in 2013, having this go on along side should be fun.

I know, I'm a selfish moaning cow bag, but i'm having one of those weeks. Friday signalled a new member of the family being born and having to dodge the pictures, congratulations and comments flying around from every family member who has an internet presence,  then to just about get through the weekend for this to slap you in the face on a Monday just makes you want to stick the middle finger up at life. What have we actually dont wrong to you, huh??!!

I never realised how upsetting it can be to read comments from family member congratulate someone on the birth of their child when you know it should be you, you should be being congratulated, not sat on the other end of the laptop crying into another glass of wine and cursing the world.

Oh well, I now have another excuse to enjoy an alcoholic drink tonight after I get weighed for fat club. Through one of my support groups I was linked to a few of these images, for all my ladies (you know who you are) we might need thee words of encouragement over the next few months.

My personal favourite

*cough sneeze splutter*

I'm poorly, if you didn't guess from the title. So this gives me ample time to update this little ole blog of mine!

I am so bad at updating this thing, this time I have no proper excuse, just pure laziness. I apologies, to all of my imaginary readers who are, obviously, checking every single day for an update...

Sooooooo I'm in a better mood than I was the last time I posted. Last time I posted was a few days after our latest fertility specialist appointment and I was feeling down, we're now 5 weeks on and I think I am the happiest I've been for the past 3 years in regards to trying to have a family. I don't know why, I think it's because we're on a break so not actively TTC, but I just feel better about the whole thing. I have a smile on my face, I don't check my calendar every single day to see whats going on that day, I haven't bought ovulation or pregnancy tests for three months and we have sex when we want to have sex, FOR FUN! I'm loving it!!!

So what has happened to us over the past 5 weeks? Well we celebrated out first wedding anniversary, which was fabulous. I have to admit a few weeks leading up to our anniversary I felt like our marriage had failed because we were 1 year in, and still no child, I was starting to feel edgy about the whole thing, waiting for the questions about babies and family pressures, but on the day I got my present. It was quite big and I had no idea what it is (this is the first time Martin and I have managed to keep presents a secret...) so I opened it up, and this is what my husband had bought me

Along the bottom is STEPHANIE AND MARTIN 26.10.201!. He's right. He's completely, utterly and astoundingly right (don't tell him though). This now sits in a lovely frame in our hallway, so it's the first thing I see when I walk into the house, and the last thing I see at night as it's by our bedroom door. Since this day, I feel like I've fallen in love with him all over again...which makes me sick in my mouth a little bit. But he's my best friend, and sometimes when I cuddle him I can't get close enough.

Ok, now you've finished throwing up I'll carry on! What else....well I started dieting AGAIN! Argh!! Growing up I NEVER had a problem with my weight, I was always a size 6-8 skinny little thing, could at what I wanted, and completely took it for granted! When I left home for university I was still a skinny size 8 - until a life of alcohol and take away took over!! By the end of my first year of university I was a size 10-12...still not to bad I hear you say, but bad for me. Worse yet by the end of second year I had crept up to a size 14 and gone from 9 stone to 11 stone in two years!! But let me set the scene, during these two years I was drinking excessively around 3-4 nights a week, each of these evenings would be finished off by a take away. For breakfast I would eat cheese on toast from the university canteen with friends, and for lunch it was often a cheap package sandwich with something frozen and student friendly in the evenings. I don't think I knew what an apple was during these years, or a lettuce!

In my third year I joined weigh watchers. Weight Watchers was good, I counted points, I exercised, I went to bed at 8pm most nights because my stomach was eating itself with hunger, in 3 months I'd lost 2 stone and was back down to my svelte 9 stone! Hurrah! It was great, I remember going home to Sheffield after not seeing my parents for 2 months and them being amazed at how different I looked. It was brill, I went on beaches in bikinis and looked good! Then Martin happened...bless him.

We went out for meals a lot (as you do) we spent days in bed eating takeaways and watching films, we lived together, we had to save money, healthy eating went out of the window again, and guess what?! 3 years on I was back up to 11 stone again. Sob. Sooo dieting was in order. Plus loosing weight is never going to hurt with trying to have a baby. This time I didn't want to do Weight Watchers, I couldn't starve myself again, so my best friend Steph (she really is a different person, I've not got MPD) suggested Slimming World. So at the start of October off I popped to my meeting, got the instructions, and honestly didn't think it would work. I couldn't see how!! Heres the rules;

1. You can eat as much pasta, rice and potatoes as you want (Honest!)
2. You can eat as much fruit and vegetables as you want. 
3. You have an Healthy Extra A (milk or cheese) and a Healthy Extra B (bread, cereal, oil) every day, and you MUST eat them. 
4. You can have up to 15 syns a day to get you through. A ginger nut for example is 3.5syns, a Curly Wurly 6 syns... 
5. All of your meals must have 1/3 of the plate 'super free' food - which is just fruit or veg

So my daily food looks something like this ; 

Breakfast - Coffee with milk (HEA) and 2 wheat-a-bix with a banana on top 

Lunch - Jacket Potato with baked beans with a banana and apple. 

Dinner - Spaghetti Bolognese, Shepherds Pie, Lasagne, Rissotto (our current favourite) - all made from scratch with fresh ingredients, nothing out of a jar. 

And the result? well 10 weeks into my diet and I have lost 17pounds! Hurrah! Ok, so the weight loss is much less than it was on weigh watchers, but I'm not hungry, ever! I'm enjoying it! As of yesterday I had lost 10% of my body fat, and am back into 'healthy' BMI, and I still have another stone ish to loose, so my body is honestly the healthiest it's ever been whist TTC. Gotta help right? Martin has also been stuck doing the SW diet by default, as he eats what I eat, and he's also lost about 16lbs! We're both trimmer, both healthier and feel much better. In fact, last week for a treat, we had a naughty KFC after weight in and we honestly felt shit afterwards! Horrid! 

My stomach ulcers have calmed down immensely since dieting, which is great! So there is less of me than there was the last time I updated too, yay!! 

As for TTC - Martin did his second semen analysis a few weeks ago and I have had more CD2 bloods taken, now we just have to wait until our next appointment in January to discuss. I don't mind waiting, I'm enjoying the break too much. I'm hoping we'll have some answers in January, or at least know the next step (please please please IUI!)

Ohhh almost forget, AF was very naughty last month. I have had periods every month since I was 13. Thats 11 years worth of periods, or 132 cycles to be precise. In those 132 cycles I have ALWAYS been as regular as clockwork - I've maybe had 2 cycles when AF has arrived early, but NEVER had a cycle when she's arrived late. My only late period was the miscarriage, which doesn't count. So, imagine my surprise when on November 7th 2012, there is absolutely NO period in sight. Nothing. Not even a slight pain in my general female area. "hmmm odd" I think. There is ZERO chance I'm pregnant, in fact I'm so serious about the break, I have put a ban on all sexual activity around ovulation time, so I can relax and not have the niggle in the back of my mind. November 8th, 9th and 10th pass - still no period. I did do a pregnancy test "just incase", obviously negative! So I'm not 4 days late, and Martin is convinced I'm pregnant, despite me telling him otherwise. 11th, 12th, 13th and 14th of November also pass by period free, I'm now 8 days late and no idea why. Finally 10 DAYS LATE my period decides to arrive. God timing as it's the weekend so I can deal with the pain at home, and it means I can go and have CD2 bloods on the Monday, but still. WTH??! My first ever cycle which got into 40+ days...I'm hoping something shows up in my bloods to explain why?? 

Other news - We're skinter than a skint thing. Martin and I both work 30 miles away, in opposite directions. This means both of us travel 300 miles A WEEK and have to pay for this travel, Marts pays for petrol, I have to pay for a monthly train ticket. Train ticker costs £220 a month, petrol costs £150 then I have £50 on bus fares to get from the train station to work. If you do the maths you will see that that is a shit load of money that we're brining home and not seeing, £430 a month on travel. Our rent is only £525....so we need to move. Or get different jobs - it's kinda killing us financially living like this, we are earning good wages each month, but loosing over £100 a week on travel is killing us money wise and we end up with less money than friends and family who work in much lower paid positions (not being a snob at all, just stating facts!) to the point when we have to budget how much we can afford to spend on food a week! So thats fun...

So thats about it, I'm skinnier, I'm not trying to have a baby until 2013, work is going well, still waiting for my appointment with the cardiologist and FS in January, but was told you only get a letter a month before the appointment. 

One of my very good LTTTC friends has just gone through IVF. I'm so excited, worried, nervous and anxious for her. At this very moment in time I honestly think I would be happier if she gets her BFP than if I get my BFP (refer to my love of the TTC break) but at the same time I can't imagine how much she's going through. If you read this KK - I love you, and am there for you no matter what!!! 

Gosh that was long... 

xxx

2012 is NOT our year.

Hello,

It's been a while since I updated this little diary thing of mine. Life has been pretty hectic, work has gotten really busy since the students have got back, social life is now actually existing as we live closer to friends again and general life has just been keeping me happily floating along.

Few things to update really;

My support network is more of just a 'network' at the minute, and not quite how it used to be. However, I have gained two best friends out of it. Imagine having best friends you've never met. Odd eh? But having spoken to them both daily for around 6 months, I feel like I can talk to them about anything and everything, and honestly can't think of how I would cope without them. Please don't get me wrong, the other woman in the group are brilliant and offer lots of support which I am eternally grateful for, but they seem to go above and beyond the call of duty when it comes to cheering me up. A lot can be said for a simple text every once in a while :)

One is just starting her first IVF cycle and I am so excited for her, genuinely. It's the hardest thing it the world sitting in TTC limbo and hearing about your friends moving on with treatments and making that one final step towards their baby when you're still so far away, but she has dealt with is fantastically and has never pushed the boundaries of information or made me feel uncomfortable, I'm fascinated by her journey and can't wait to find out more details, and love her for the fact that I know I can be as much or as little a part of her IVF as I feel comfortable with. Which must be difficult for her as it's such an exciting time, which just goes to show how much of a true star she is! I really hope this is the final hurdle for her and her OH.

The other is just an angel. One of the nicest people you could ever wish to meet, and always there with helpful advice or something funny to make you smile when you really need it. Herjourney, like all of ours, is different to mine, and I think that helps to have other journeys and points of view to look at. She and her husband just seem to be one of those couples you are so in love they make everyone around them feel a bit sick (like has been said about me and Marts...) in the nicest possible way. I'm so angry that infertility affects the nicest of people, who could offer a good and stable life to a child, yet woman who have nothing of stability, rely on the government for money, drink, smoke do drugs can have 3,4, 10 kids with no problems what so ever. What did we ever do so wrong to the world?

The long awaited FS appointment (Fertility Specialist)

October 15th was out first appointment with our new fertility specialist, and to say I was terrified would be an understatement. But actually we came out of it with mixed feelings, but definitely some positives.

When we first saw the doctor she asked the usual questions "How long have you been trying", "How often do you have sex", "tell me about your periods.." the usual privacy breaking questions, then she looked at our test results.

My day 3 and day 21 bloods that show all of my hormone levels and prove that I'm a normally functioning woman are missing. So she doesn't know what my FSH, LH, progesterone levels or anything are, which causes a bit of a problem when it comes to fertility treatments. Great.

She did have my progesterone levels for when I was one clomid which were 76!! That is amazingly high! A normal progesterone level post ovulation is around 12. So having a result of 76 shows one of two things 1)I ovulated about 3-4 eggs whilst on clomid, causing my levels to go through the roof or 2) I was pregnant. I'm sticking with number 1.

Martin is being sent to do another SA, which is fun! But hopefully, with Sheffield having one of the best fertility labs in the country, we'll get some more answers with that.

Finally the FS noticed in my notes that I was born with a pulmonary stenosis of the heart. This means my vavles don't close properly. Has not caused any problems before. However, it never occured to my old specialist to get this checked out before pumping me full of baby making drugs. This FS thinks that is very silly, and said "I don't want to spend all this time getting you pregnant, without knowing it is safe for you to be pregnant". So lucky for me I get to have an appointment with a cardiologist to have my ticker checked out. hurrah! However, ALL FERTILITY TREATMENTS ARE ON HOLD UNTIL AFTER THE CARDIOLOGISTS. The waiting time for a cardiology appointment is 3 months. So we can't do anything until 2013.

Great. We have waited since April to get this appointment, incompetent doctors and receptionists pushed us back months with the referral, and now we have to wait until NEXT YEAR to get some answers. So in 2012 we have had a total of 2 fertility specialist appointments. Just two. 4 failed rounds of clomid and one due date to get through, and now we are fastly approaching yet another Christmas without a child. Every single year at Christmas we've said "this time next year they'll be three of us" now I'm thinking they'll never be three of us.

Sigh.

Doom, gloom and nothing jolly.

OT

I've just seen that this little blog of ours, which we assumed nobody was reading, and was more of a diary for us to look back on when we do or do not have children, has almost 1000 views.

That is something I just can't really get my head around at the moment. If you do come over and read my rambling, feel free to leave a comment and say hello, would be nice to hear from others.

Steph

Failure

Hola,

Well after my surprise ovulation, I have to report that as of Friday this month was another official failure.

Officially on a TTC break until we've seen the FS, and maybe even for a few months after that. Physically can't do it anymore.

Steph x

Hello,

Scrap the last post. Had tummy pain yesterday, so decided to see what was going on. Did an OPK and this is what I got

Whayhey, I am indeed ovulating! Guessing from the pain I'm feeling at this very moment in time, I'm ovulating now :) Good job we managed some husband and wife time last night.

Operation baby briggs is back on, until September at least.

Love xxxx

Back to square one...

Hola,

Come estas?

I am back again, quite soon for me really looking at the dates. I'm getting better, or bored at work, either one you want to go for will work.

Martin and I are now officially on a TTC break until October 15th. Sob. Well actually no, not sob, a break from it all will do us good. But it's not our choice to have a break!

As you have read, as well as my infertility I like to suffer from a plethora of medical problems and keep doctors busy, so I also have my heart condition and stomach ulcers, as well as slightly arthritic joints. Yay for me!

Anyway, in the midst of my medical drama which I ranted on and on about in my last post, I had to go back to the GP for another problem, stomach ulcers. These things are actually ruining my life, I'm not even being dramatic. Imagine not being able to eat a single thing, or drink water, because everything that goes into your stomach causes agonising pain? But of corse, you can't not eat, so you have to eat small meals, knowing full well it's going to cause you a great deal of pain, and the only way to stop the pain is to throw up the food you've eaten to satisfy the hunger in the first place. Nice eh?

Well it had been a massive 49days since I had last eaten a full meal and kept it down, so I went back to the GP to beg them to give me some sort of drug to stop it (at this stage I just wanted them to cut me open and take it all out!) so the doctor talked to me about my colourful medical files, how was my heart, how was my TTC coming along, what stage was I at etc.... then prescribed me a tablet called domperidone.

Now domperidone was amazing. It worked. I ate a meal, no pain, not even a slight gurgle, I could go out and eat again and not worry about how I was going to throw up in a public toilet!! HURRAH!

3 weeks of domperidone and I had only had a few bad days, this also coincides with my clomid days, so I was like a walking pill box for a while. It was only after taking my last clomid tablet, that I decided to read just HOW domperidone works, this is what I stumbled across...

"...Domperidone increases levels of prolactin in the body, causing amenorrhoea due to lack of ovulation.."

So...I'm shoving clomid down my throat to ovulate some damn good eggs, then I shove domperidone down my throat which is doing everything in its power to stop the clomid doing what its supposed to be doing. So our very last shot of using clomid is now down the pan, and we were left with the difficult decision of 1) Do I stop taking the tablets, hope the clomid works and carry on TTC, but then have the stomach problems or 2) Carry on taking the tablets, hope they sort the stomach out, and take a break from TTC until our next FS appointment on October 15th.

We went with option 2. As Martin bluntly put it to me "with your stomach, are you in any fit state to be pregnant" Answer? No.

But on the bright side, now we can enjoy just being us again, and not have to worry about how fertile I am that particular day, and we also finally have a FS appointment to look forward to. Bring on IVF!

Steph

Shameless self advertising

Hi all (again)

I stumbled across this website while I was reading other infertility blogs (they're hilarious, honestly) and it looks brilliant. 

If you've ever donated to anybody online who's running a charity marathon, or sky dive etc...you'll have seen these before. Instead, these are personal webpages that are set up to allow people to create an area where friends an family can 'donate' money to a certain cause. Whether it be an operation, family holiday, surprise birthday party etc...or as are becoming more popular, IVF. I know, I know, how terrible is it that us infertile cretins dare ask for people to help us PAY to have a child when the worlds population is becoming to high and overcrowding blah blah blah...but we are going to need IVF, its inevitable. We are going to have to pay for IVF (NHS is not great) which means we need to start saving now. All we are asking is that when birthdays and christmas roll around, rather than buy us socks or house things that we'll probably never use, we would really appreciate people putting a few pounds into our IVF savings fund. Simple as that. 

I think it's a brilliant way to get people involved in what your going through and if you want to have a look and try for yourself, heres our page 

Briggs' Baby Fund

Steph x

Happier...I think

Hello,

No, not for THAT reason, I just feel happier with the whole 'not being able to have children' situation. Well no, maybe happy is the completely wrong word to use, in fact it is definitely the completely wrong word to use, maybe more accepting, more patient?? I don't know, but round number three of clomid has officially failed as of this morning, so as the saying goes "the drugs don't work...." and I'm going to add to that and make it "the drugs, timed intercorse, ovulation tests, vitamins and minerals, folic acid, sperm friendly lubricant, soft cups, acupuncture, health diet, fertility supplements and my uterus don't work...." catchy huh?

So last 'blog' I was all positive about our referral to the new fertility specialist, well that was to be short lived. I have quickly found out that where GPs are concerned, if it seems to easy or too good to be true, it definitely is. No offence to any GPs who stumble across this but, why are you so incompetent? Actually, no I apologise, I take that back entirely, if you are a receptionist at a GPs surgery, first, where did you get your medical degree? Secondly, you're a receptionist, your job is to make appointments, pass on queries, and help patients, so why is it that you can do non of the above? Again, I know I'm making a sweeping statement here, but the receptionists at my doctors surgery might as well be monkeys, they would do a better job. Here is why I am so bitter and angry towards them...

As I have already stated we moved house slap bang in the middle of our fertility testing/treatment (not a great idea for anyone thinking about it) and as the invention of the internet and other computer related technologies hasn't reached the medical profession, it takes 8 weeks for medical records to be sent from our old doctor to our new one, so no referral could be make before them. So we waited patiently for 8 weeks in limbo, them 9 weeks after we joined the surgery, I called them (as I was told to) and just said "I'm a new patient, my medical records have arrived, I need a referral to a fertility specialist" and was told "yes Mrs Briggs, no problem, I will pass this on to your doctor, if you don't hear back from us assume everything has gone through". I don't hear back from them. I don't hear anything for 4 weeks. So I ring them up to see whats going on.

'Oh...we have no record that you ever called to request a referral" Great. Thanks, so the receptionist that took all my details, what clinic I wanted to be referred to, phone number and address just what, wrote it down, smirked, screwed it up and threw it in the bin? Thanks. As if we aren't going through enough trying to start a family, we have to face utter idiots like this. So I get put through to the doctors secretary who promises she will speak with the doctor and ring me back the following week. The following week passes and I hear nothing from the secretary, I call the doctors, guess what, nobody has any idea what I'm talking about, again. So it's not been almost 6 weeks since I originally phoned for the referral and I'm still no closer to seeing an actual specialist doctor. The waiting time for an appointment is 18 weeks, we could have been twelve weeks away from an appointment if the receptionist could just do her job!!!

Fast forward to Friday 3rd August, a whole month an a half after I originally called and I receive a voice mail saying "Mrs Briggs, I have spoken to the doctor and she has sent the letter off today" so I get to do the whole 4 week wait thing to see if I hear anything, or if that letter magically disappears as well. Imbeciles.

What about if I needed a referral for something that was more urgent? Extreme case a suspicious lump, or cough or headaches? Would it be acceptable them to sit and wait for 7 weeks before the GP surgery remember you exist and send the paper work off? I don't think so. But because its infertility, the disease that breaks you slowly and nobody really cares about, because "we can just adopt" it doesn't matter.

Urgh, I said I was feeling more positive and after that outburst I want to cry again. Sorry for the information but AF arrived this morning, which means the drugs officially don't work. Statistics show if they haven't worked for 3 months, they're not going to work. Which leaves us with absolutely no hope of conceiving a child in our own home. From here on in our first child will officially be made in a hospital bed, with Mum and Dad not even in the same room. Fan bloody tactic. Its also that little bit harder as August 2012 is our great big 2 year anniversary since we stopped using any form of contraception. Thats right, two years unprotected sex and no baby. Stick that in your pipe and smoke is Sex Education!!

But anyway, I am dealing with it better, because over the past few months I have made some fantastic friends on Facebook, who are also infertile. They go through the same as us every month, when I cry, I know I can send a message to them and I'll soon be smiling, and I am there for them when they have another failed month and we cheer each other on. Its strange, and many people don't understand how you can be so close to people you have never met, but apart from Martin there is no-one in real life I can talk to about this. It's not their fault, they just don't know what to say. My friends usually try and make jokes about it which is absolutely fine by me, but sometimes I need someone there to talk about it seriously to, to cry and sod hysterically when another month rolls around with no baby for us, when you're putting everything you've got and more into it. But these ladies are fantastic, every single one of them, and they have made me see the LTTTC thing in a much better light, and I can cope with it more, because I'm not consumed by overwhelming sadness and despair thinking life is so unfair, because yes, people around us seem to get pregnant looking at a man, but there are people that understand what we're going through, there are people there day and night to talk to, and we're not alone in this journey. So if any of my ladies read this, I love you and thank you for changing my perspective on this very shitty situation.

Steph xxx

Im so rubbish at updating, I know

Aloha,

So its been quite a while since I last updated, for any of you that do check this every so often (hello!) I apologise that you haven't had any mad rambling to read for a while.

So as you know in the past month we have moved house, and I have started a new job, hence why this has kind of gone on the back burner. Well in my last 'blog' i was 10DPO and as there is no happy news blog, you are right to assume that good old mother nature arrived right on time with my monthly gift. Thanks for that. So we are officially into month 29. This month feels good, I don't know why, just does. I love my new job, I love my new house, we're not stressed or tired all the time like we used to be in our old house, our sex life now exists (sorry friends a family) and things just feel good. If you know what I mean. So i'm feeling quite content with how this month will go.

Clomid round 3 has been taken, hot flushes are getting worse with every cycle, particularly at night when I feel like I want to claw my skin off just so I can get cooler! I also changed the days I took clomid this month (naughty naughty!) as 3-7 seems to have higher success rates than 2-6. Something to do with it producing more 'mature' eggs than more eggs in general, so we'll see how this goes. My poor hair is also falling out left right and centre, thanks hormone treatments, so now not only am I infertile, but at this rate i'm going to be a bald infertile as well! I suppose it would save money on shampoo and time straightening my hair...

Anyway as for the TTC at the minute, well I am in my 12-24hours til ovulation window after getting the darkest positive ovulation test ever this morning, and my ovaries are causing me pain so I know I'm about to lay an egg (Or two, or three depending on how good the clomid has worked) so fingers crossed this one is a good 'un! (Or two....twins would be great, saves us having to do all this again when we want a second child).

This might make people feel all funny inside, but it fascinates me. I've spent 2 years now thinking about this magical ovulation moment, but never actually thought about what was going on. This photograph was taken of a woman who was in surgery for a hysterectomy, and when she was opened up the doctor realised she was actively ovulating right there on the table. So off he popped to grab the camera and viola, a real life photograph of the female body in action!

Good thing is that this week, despite being up at 6am every morning for work, we've found plenty of time for 'husband and wife time' so hopefully the egg won't stand a chance against the barrage of swimmers that should be laying in wait for it! Interesting fact, did you know that when sperm is in a womans body, it actually goes to sleep and lays dormant in the uterus, then when an egg is released, the hormones wake the sperm up, and off they swim! Hence why you can get pregnant up to 5 days before you actually ovulate, because they are persistent little buggers! However, thinking about this, maybe our problem is that the sperm don't wake up again, Martin has always been difficult to wake.....

Ok thats enough about sperm and eggs, my lovely husband is now cooking me enchiladas in the kitchen, and then a nice night curled up together in front of crap Sunday TV awaits I think!

I'm baaack!

Hello!

Well i've been away from the internet for a while as last weekend my husband and I moved into our lovely new house, which doesn't yet have internet connection. After 10 days of no internet access I caved and decided to pay £5 for a day of wifi internet to keep me sane while I'm at home on my own. Hurrah!!

So aside from the usual, we have a new home!! yay! I got a new job with a university in Manchester and my husband still works in our home town of Sheffield so we moved half way in between the two, Holmfirth. We're in Last of the summer wine territory!

Isn't it oh so very pretty?? Not that we've had one dry day since we moved in (lovely British Summer) we're still in the process of sorting out the house, but it's getting more homely as we go on. Here's our new abode 

We love love LOVE it here, and cant wait to get properly settled and hopefully have a fresh new start in our new home (we even have a second bedroom for the first time...hopefully it'll bring us some luck eh?)

Well back to normal business, I am now 10 days past ovulation and no sign of a pregnancy this month, so I goes we're onto month number...29 I think, I don't know I've lost count. In good news I think I'm becoming a bit numb to the pain now, when I did the HPT this morning and I was slapped in the face b a BFN, I didn't take it apart, I didn't hold it up to the light, I just pulled a face and threw it in the bin. Waiting for AF to arrive so we can start month number 3 of clomid. I'm going to change my climid days from 2-6 to 3-7 also, as I hear thats more successful so we'll see.

In good news my medical records finally made it from my old doctor down south to my new doctor up north, which means yesterday we were referred to our new fertility specialist to pick up where we left off. So excited! Sheffield fertility centre has a brilliant reputation so I'm hoping we get somewhere with this. So in my calculations it will be around 3 months until we get an appointment (god bless NHS) so we should know what our next steps are by September! I'm hoping they go straight for IUI so we can skip all of these months of 'letting nature take it's corse' because frankly it isn't working! On the upside if we are given IUI on the NHS then we can get rid off all the stress that goes along with ovulation week, and just let the hospital do it for us, hurrah!!

My second piece of news, you have heard me talk about a website I was part of many times in this blog, and it provided me with lots of support during my infertility journey, until recently. There were lots of pregnant woman and mothers coming into the Long Term Trying to Conceive area telling us infertile woman to grow up, stop being so bitter towards pregnant woman blah blah blah and the sad thing is the moderators and admin of the board seemed to agree with them. How dare they?! I'm sorry but I frankly don't care how many children you have or how many times you've been pregnant, YOU DO NOT KNOW WHAT ITS LIKE TO HAVE INFERTILITY as so many of thee pregnant woman do. Bugger off, go and hug your children and feed your babies and leave me to moan and cry and hate the world for not letting me have something that comes so easy to you!

Anyway, me and a few friends I had met on there decided enough was enough, and we made our own support website/forum! We run it, with many of us as moderators (me included) and admin so we can keep an eye on whats going on, who's posting what etc... and although we're a bunch of infertile betties, the website is designed for all kinds of parents. New parents, prospective parents, people trying to get pregnant and people who can't get pregnant.

Please have a look, it's still in its infant and still a new website but once it gets up and running we'll be great. We're very proud of it and hope you'll like it.

Hearts of Mummies

You have to laugh, or you'd cry!

Morning.

So this picture really made me laugh, getting this instead of a big black 'NOT PREGNANT' would make it a bit easier to take I would think. This is what I'm imagine in exactly 14 days from now (extra points to those of you that have read enough to know what day that makes today...)

And this 

Tiny little stitches....

So I'm trying to be positive, to not let infertility beat me. It's a battle we're fighting but we're stronger, we're better and we will beat this.

But sometimes I can't be strong and I just let it win. I had an episode of that this morning.

I logged onto Facebook to receive a message from an old colleague of mine, she was a good friend and I have no bad feelings towards her. It started off as a generic message, "How are you, hope the moves going well etc..." Then there it was. The sentence that I now have the amazing ability to sense coming before I've even heard it. "I'm pregnant" (honestly, the past two family members who have gotten pregnant, I have bet my husband it will happen a good few weeks in advance! Shit magic power though...)

That sentence has the ability to change everything I'm currently feeling or thinking, and I feel like I've been punched in the stomach. I'm jealous, I'm angry and I'm not proud of it. Some of you will be reading this in horror, or what selfish monster I've becomes, those of you with IF will be reading this and nodding your head with everything I'm saying.

I've come to terms with the fact that I will never get a happy surprise, Im never going to become a mum without expecting it. I'm never going to get the chance to surprise my husband with the news he's going to be a Dad (well I suppose we would both be surprised if it ever happened). I'm never going to conceive my child in my own bed. My child will be conceived in a hospital, without any intimate contact from my husband what so ever. No romance, no cuddles or excitement afterwards, just hospital gowns, needles, doctors and stirrups. I've come to terms with that, I don't care. I just want a child, I don't care how. But I will never come to terms with hearing that sentence from many may people while we're trying so hard to achieve the same thing.

It's almost impossible to hold back the tears now.  Me and my husband usually leave as soon as possible and go home and cry. We're both angry. We're both envious and nothing will take that feeling away.

The upside of it, is I truly believe I will be a better Mum because of it. We've had more than enough time to think about if this is what we want. I already know what kind of Mum I want to be, I already know the names of my children and why their nursery will look like. If they ever arrive, I will know to cherish every single moment I have with them, because we longed and tried so hard to make them exist. This is what makes me so angry when I hear or see people moaning about their children. You don't know how lucky you are.

So every time my period arrives, every time I hear that sentence, I develop a new tiny tear in my heart. Its my job then to put it back together with try little stitches and keep going. Anyone who had dealt with this for years is a very strong person, feel free to disagree with me, but you're wrong. We pick up the pieces every month and carry on with life, we suffer the loss of something we love and want so much every month, but carry on. Not many people can say that. So in my heart are 27 little tears, for every month we've failed and every baby that has been born around us, and right in the middle is a big gaping hole for the baby that we lost before we even got the chance to meet.

A month in the life of an infertile couple. Fun!

Hello!!

So I haven't updated our little blog of ours for a while, I have been SO busy marking exam papers and moving house that thankfully, infertility had not been the main thing I think about.

I know that I sound like the most depressive and obsessed woman, and some of you will be reading and thinking "God just stop thinking about it! you're going on and on and it won't help you" etc...

Well no it won't, but thats the harder thing to get people to realise, infertility is something that you HAVE to deal with every single day, not because we like to sit and mope and wallow in self pity, but because it's a medical disease which requires you do something every single day. Just so you get a better idea of what a 'month' in the life of an infertile couple is like, here's our monthly routine..

Cycle Day One - You realise that you've failed to get pregnant for another month. With every month that passes statistically the chances of ever conceiving a child drop. So you have to go through the grieving process and come to terms with another failed month. Just when you thought things were bad enough, you have to deal with the physical pain which is just another reminder of what you haven't got growing inside of you.

Cycle days 2-6 - You've grieved, you've cried, you've been mad at the world, then you have to start taking another months worth of fertility medication (In my case Clomid). Every morning, wake up and pop one of these tiny little white pills that are supposed to be a baby in a tablet, and hope for the best. Then spend the rest of the day dealing with the side effects which are just a constant reminder that you're infertile, and the drugs are making you ill.

Cycle days 6-18 - You can only get pregnancy when you ovulate. Fact. Average woman ovulates anywhere from 12-18 days into her cycle. An egg lives for about 24hours, sperm lives on average for up to 3 days. In order to get pregnant you have to make sure you have sperm in place, ready to meet the egg when it finally pops. No good having sex AFTER you ovulate, or too early, it won't work. In order to find out when you're ovulating you do ovulation predictor kits (OPKs). Just to make it a little bit harder, fertility medications can change dramatically the day in which you ovulate, so you have to test every day from cycle day 6 to 18, in the hope that somewhere along the line it turns positive. A positive ovulation tests tells you you are going to ovulate in the next 12-24hours, so have sex NOW!

For those of you wondering, you don't just get a "yay" or "nay" on OPKs, you have to play mini scientist to decipher the results.

Positive OPK looks like this

A negative OPK looks like this

Not that easy is it??

Cycle Day 10-20 - Ok you've taken the drugs, you've taken the ovulation tests, but obviously you need to make sure that (sorry parents and family) you're having sex in you're fertile 'window'. You might have thought you were following this so far, but now I'm going to throw a spanner in the works. Although an ovulation test tells you when you are going to release an egg, you are fertile for about 5 days leading up to a positive OPK. But, how do you know when these 5 days are, before you've even got a positive?? See the problem. So you pretty much have to make sure you're having sex, whether you like it or not, every other day throughout the whole month, just to be on the safe side. (Just on a side note, infertility takes all of the fun out of sex!)

It doesn't matter how tired you are, how poorly you are, if you have friends and family staying over, how early you have to get up etc...you have to have sex. Final line is, if you don't, you've wasted another month, and that month could have been the month. (see cycle day one)

Cycle day 18-28/35 - A womans 'average' cycle is 28-35 days long, its normal and healthy to fluctuate between the two. After you've tired yourself out forcing your poor partner to have sex a ridiculous number of times, got the positive ovulation test, you would think that you can have a few weeks of rest. WRONG. Then you are in, what us infertile woman like to call 'The dreaded two week wait'. It takes 14 days from an egg being released, to a period starting. This is called a luteal phase. In some cases it can be longer, but often not shorter, as that in itself can lead to infertility.

Anyway I digress, the two week wait is the 14 whole days you have after ovulation of obsessing over 'am i pregnant or not'. A woman will never be more in tune with her body than when she is trying to have a baby. Every cramp, every pinch, every case of indigestion, every headache, case of wind or sore boob is a possible pregnancy symptom. Not only do you have two weeks of this, you also have to now be careful of what you eat, no drinking, no heavy exercise, no junk food, no caffeine...just incase a miracle has happened and you have been successful in joining a sperm with an egg.

Then some months we're really lucky, and our cycles decide to be a little bit longer. So 14 after you ovulate you are waiting for your period to arrive, and it doesn't! Something magical has happened, you're excited, you can't sleep, you wake your husband up at 4am to tell him it hasn't happened, you plan hospital appointments and names and are elated that finally you're not broken anymore and you're going to be a Mum. The you do a test, negative. Confusion sets in, how can it be negative, my period isn't here and I'm always regular? You google. Maybe the fertilised egg implanted late? It takes about 2 days to get enough HCG in your system to show up on a test. Yes that must be it, it didn't implant until late so I can't tell. I'll test again tomorrow. So 15 days after you ovulate, still no period, still excited, still elated, test again, negative. Still holding onto that one desperate hope that its just too early. This carries on for 3 more days, and then it's 18 days after you ovulated, still no period and no positive test. Then on the 19th day, your period decides to arrive, 4 days late. You are now devastated, heart broken and feel like a failure. Then we're straight back to cycle day one.

Cycle day 1-35 - Lets not forget that while all of this is going on, every single morning you have to wake up and take your temperature before you do ANYTHING. Basal body temperature is a good indication of whats going on in you body. It drops before ovulation, rises after, and if your pregnant continues to rise, if not starts dropping again. So as soon as you wake up, before anything else is done that day, you must take your temperature using a basal body thermometer and record it on a chart, once you start moving your temperature fluctuates, so you don't get a true reading. Then you get one of these

And being the trained infertile mertyl I am, I can tell you from that chart exactly when I ovulated, when I had a bad nights sleep, when I ate too much and when I failed to become a mother. 

So there you have it, yes I sound like a broken record, and I know there are people in this world that are much worse of than me, I am extremely thankful for my brilliant family, my wonderful family in law, my fantastic husband and my marvellous friends (I was running out of adjectives then) if we never become parents I will still have them, but infertility is never ending, you can't get away from it, and seen as this is an infertility blog, I will sound like a moany old cow. But I don't want you to pity us, or feel sorry for us, but as this is a disease which we are fighting, which is vastly ignored and treated as a taboo subject, I just want people to understand. 

Aloha,

In case any stumbles across this blog (not sure why or how) while researching infertility/pregnancy or suffering from infertility yourself, if you don't belong to this community, go and have a look.

http://babyandbump.momtastic.com/

Brilliant woman, fantastic support and tons of inspiration. Not just for infertile woman, pregnant woman, woman who have suffered losses, woman with new babies, woman with toddlers or teenagers or even woman who are waiting to try and conceive. Give it a go.

I've decided that not all of my blog ramblings should be all doom and gloom about infertility, as other things so happen in our lives shockingly!

Today is cycle day 3 for me, I have started taking my Clomid again, a bizarre side effect of which I seem to get its awful vivid nightmares. Seriously my sleep is terrible when I'm taking these, and to many ladies they would probably just shrug it off as a side effect, but with being a psychologists, and having studied sleep and dreaming a lot of the past few years, I just can't make any sense of it!??

For those wondering, contrary to popular belief, there is no evidence to suggest we can explain why people dream. We just can't, same as yawning, nobody can explain why its contagious. There are theories about why we dream (brain repair, fixing of neurones, working through lives problems, making sense of the day etc...) but not one solid but of evidence to prove either one right. So why is it when I pump my body full of hormones designed to make me super ovulator, that my dreams are effected?? I feel like I have found my future PhD...

Dreams aside, no other clomid side effects as of yet, Im moody, but that could be down to PMS...I don't appear to have got the hot flashes like last time to fingers crossed it was a 'clomid virgin' type thing!

Today my darling husband is playing on his Xbox, which I keep up to date with my ladies and I have the boys curled up on the bed with me (those are my boys ^) I have some lovely A level Psychology exam papers waiting to be marked but no motivation to mark them, boo.

We move into our beautiful new home next weekend which is exciting, apart from the moving part, as I HATE moving, and then the week after is ovulation week. Joy. I hate it, tests everywhere, tablets everywhere, pillows available at any opportunity, not to mention the paid of ovulating on Clomid. Please, if there is someone out there that deals out the cards in the cosmos, just make these eggs be the good ones, because frankly, I'm fed up!!

 I know this shows how bitter and twisted IF had made me, but mostly baby brag book feels like this! 

This is a pretty good explanation of life at the moment....

Warning: I'm currently as hormonal as they come...

Aloha,

So, on my website today (babyandbump) where I have met a lot of friends who are battling infertility (yes, even though we've never met face to face, I can talk to them more candidly and openly about infertility than I can my real life friends, so to me they are friends) somebody very brave told us we didn't have the right to be bitter about infertility and we should be "bigger people" and be happy for woman. Well, maybe it's my hangover, or the fact that AF is in full swing (google it) or that my Clomid has kicked in, but I felt like actually SCREAMING at the computer screen, but reading the replies from other woman, woman I class as friends, I realised something, I might be infertile, and I hate it with every ounce of my being,  but there is some good to come out of it. Some people are genuinely amazing people.

Martin - My dearest husband, my fantastically supportive and patient husband who I could not do this without (obviously, durr!) For us there is a certain point in every month that is the hardest part of the month, and it can only get better from there, but no matter how much I scream and shout and cry and cry he's always there, sometimes as a counsellor, sometimes as a punchbag, but always there. He would be a fantastic father, there is no doubt about that, and sometimes the hardest part of this infertility malarky is the fact that him being a father hasn't happened yet. With this whole thing being a massive secret for a long time, Martin was the only person who truly understood what it felt like to grieve every month, and have to pick yourself back up and get on with it, fake a smile and act like everything was good when inside you felt like curling up in a ball and bawling. Even though we are battling infertility, I have realised that I still have to be grateful for my brilliant husband. Yes, we don't have a child yet, but there are people out there that do have children, but don't have someone like Martin beside them helping them, don't have a happy relationship, and don't have somebody to look after them and their babies, so even though we're not yet 'mummy and daddy' I am honestly married to my best friend, who I have been in love with since the moment I met, and I suppose it would just be too perfect if we had that, and a baby without any problems eh?

Other infertile woman - Now don't get me wrong, I love my friends and family to death, they mean the absolute world to me. I have two best friends in particular who I couldn't live without, and they know who they are. I mean this in the best possible way, but unless you too, are suffering from infertility, you don't have the faintest idea what its like. I really don't mean that in a horrible or belittling way, it's a bit dramatic but it's like being in a wheelchair, you have no idea whats its like unless you're also in a wheelchair. Anyway, enough with my mental rambling, other infertile woman and truly an inspiration. We have only been dealing with this disease (yes its a disease) for 2 years, but some of the friends I have met have been dealing with this for 5, 10 or even 15 years and are still hopeful and still positive and keep going. I don't know if I'll ever be strong enough to deal with this for that long, and sometimes I feel like a bit of a fraud belonging to an infertility group after 2 years with all of these lovely woman on there, but I'm glad they're there. After all the pain and disappointment they have suffered, they are still so supportive of every other woman who is going through that journey, and even though I'm only a novice compared to them, they take the time to cheer me up, ask how I'm doing, give advice and just listen when I need to speak to somebody who knows. When I see woman who pop out 4 or 5 babies, all to different dads, chain smoking and spending their dole money on cheap cider and pot noodles (I do live in kiveton after all) I just think how much of an injustice is being done, when they can get pregnant and have a family, but the amazing woman I have met through being infertile can't.  Just a side note, but also, don't piss these woman off. The woman who said we were all bitter and needed to be bigger people earlier soon got told where she could shove it, in the most eloquent way possible of course!

So really, even though what we're going through is shitty and it hurts everyday, there has to be a silver lining, and the woman I have met, and my amazing husband are mine.

"....just get over it"

Aloha

So since our big "unveil" of our infertility,  we've decided to keep this blog going as a kind of personal diary of everything that is related to trying to conceive (TTC), that and somewhere that I can rant and rave about things that piss me off when on the outside I'm smiling (i'm so nice to peoples faces) we might never make it public, might only make it public to family and close friends, but what ever happens, we needed somewhere to write everything down so it makes more sense to us. Of anything in the world, I can promise you that you have no idea what infertility feels like, or does to a relationship, until you've experienced it yourselves, and I would not wish it on my worst enemy so sincerely hope you don't have to find out what its like.

On our LONG journey of TTC our first child, suffering one miscarriage and spending around £1000 in pregnancy tests, ovulation tests, lotions, potions, vitamins, prescriptions etc...over the past 2 years, I found a really lovely website dedicated to woman and couples also suffering from infertility, some unexplained like Martin and I, some with physical issues preventing them from becoming pregnant but all of us with a final goal in mind. It might sound silly to other people but it has actually provided us with a lot of support and advice over the past 2 years, and I've made some good friends on there who know what we're going through. Today I went onto the website to see how the weekend had been for some friends of mine, as the jubilee brought many family parties and BBQs, which for someone suffering from infertility can be a worse nightmare to see other people with their children and have to seem happy about it.

Anyway, on there was a new member who had recently fallen out with her infertile friend after becoming pregnant, as she hadn't seem as supportive as she had wanted her to be. Among this post were phrases such as
"Get over yourselves...", "just adopt...", "You don't have the right to be pissed off..." "You are all selfish"  and my personal favourite "...Infertility is not a disease, stop treating it as one, if you want a baby so damn much go and adopt one".

After I'd finished with the voodoo doll and casting spells, I realised that generally people are just so bloody ignorant to infertility because for some reasons it's a taboo subject. I'll admit I don't know anyone who has suffered from fertility problems, but since 1 in 5 couples in the UK do, I probably do, but just don't know about it because 'nobody talks about it...'.

We suffer from unexplained infertility, probably the worst kind, as nobody can give you n explanation, and nothing can be fixed. Unexplained infertility is annoying because at no point in time will a doctor say "this is not going to happen for you" because there no reason it won't, it could take 3 years, 5 years or even 15 years, but theres nothing medically found to be wrong...so this vicious cycle could continue indefinitely...

Unexplained infertility, is not actually "there isn't a problem". Unexplained infertility means in the medical world 'There is a problem, but at the moment the technology doesn't exist to be able to detect what that problem is'. Do you see infertility charities advertising for donations for new tests and technologies? Nope. Do you see support groups advertised in doctors waiting rooms for infertile people? Nope. Do YOU really know what infertility is? The processes a couple goes through, the tests, the procedures, the assisted conception methods such as Clomid, IUI, IVF, ICSI etc...? Probably not. Do YOU understand what actually goes into making a baby? I'll give you a clue, there is a hell of a lot more to it then just having sex (so one night stand and accidental babies simply PISS me off) do you know what TTC, LTTTC, OPK, HPT, CM, SMEP, U/E, IF, BBT, PGST, LH, LP, DPO, EWCM, POAS, FRER, AF, DH, MIL, BFP, BFN and BD mean? Nope. I do, because I suffer from infertility. I need to know what these things mean, I need to know the perfect recipe for making a baby, I need to know what vitamins to take, what days to have sex, what not to eat, what not to do, what time to have sex, to take my temperature EVERY MORNING before I do anything else, to take tablet after tablet at the right time, then wait two weeks to take a pregnancy tests only to know I have to do the same thing all again next month because we've failed. Because thats infertility, thats not being able to do the single, most natural thing our bodies were designed to do.

So please, before you assume a female friend of yours, or a family member must be having babies soon because she's a)married b) getting older c) already has a child who is getting older think before you speak. Maybe they have been trying to have a baby for a very long time, but it's too much of a taboo subject to talk about.

Sometimes its easier to write things down...

Hello all,

Well it's a little bit strange writing this, because I'm not quite sure who will eventually be reading this, but rest assured if you are, it's because we know we've been keeping something from you, and we don't enjoy it, or are doing it to be secretive and horrid, sometimes it's just difficult to try and think of how you are going to put the words together to finally tell people you care about, something you have been hiding for them for almost 2 years. I know we are sounding very cryptic right now, but before you begin reading this (it could be LONG) we need you to know that it was a secret because it was just easier to keep it that way, not because we didn't want you to know.

Its silly that still after plucking up the courage to write this, I still don't even know where to begin, or how to explain our secret to somebody else, so I guess it's just a matter of coming out and saying it, and hoping to explain the rest? Well, over the past 2 years you know that Steph has had numerous hospital and doctors appointments which we always brushed off as being for her stomach problems, but in honesty, that was sometimes a lie.

Over the past 18-20 months we have had doctors appointment after doctors appointment, had our privacy completely shattered, shared things with doctors/nurses/receptionist that we wouldn't even share with our closest friends, and as far as dignity is concerned, that went out of the window long ago, and almost 2 years later we are officially battling infertility. We are broken, something somewhere doesn't work and the most natural things out bodies were designed to do, isn't happening.  We don't know what is wrong, the doctors don't know what is wrong and so far we're not going to get any answers anytime soon. We have had every procedure, blood test and syndrome checked for and so far everything seems "fine". . . (I hate that word...)

I don't know whether that will be a shock/somewhat expected or if people had already guessed (good guessing!) but either way it won't be as much of a shock to you as it is to us, and still is every day. We can only apologise, honestly, for not letting anyone know sooner or sharing it with you, to be completely truthful I think we thought if you don't tell people then it isn't happening and we can ignore it, but as the months (and YEARS) go on, it gets a little bit harder to ignore and it feels like the time when we really need the support of our families to keep us smiling.

Why did we keep it from people? Well you probably already have a million questions going through your mind, and one of them will probably be " 18 months....hang on, they had only been together year" yes we know. We also know that we are both young, and having a baby is probably not on the top of your list of things for us to do, we should have proper jobs first, have a mortgage, throw garden parties, see the world and have a shed or something, but as you know, life doesn't work that way, and sometimes all rationality goes out of the window. To be honest we had enough negativity from people when we got engaged "you've only been together a year" "don't you think you're rushing it  bit" blah blah blah we weren't about to add fuel to the fire! So that was the first reason why we didn't tell people, it's hard enough having to deal with infertility, having to fend off questions such as "are you stupid, how could you afford it?!" or "but you're both far too young!" would only upset us more (so it's easier to write this down because you can say all of those things now without us having to hear it....)

Secondly, we didn't decide to actively start "trying to have a baby" it just sort of got to the point where if it happens it happens, so we weren't preventing it, but we weren't trying so we didn't see the need in telling people until we actually got pregnant, and then we would deal with all of the questions then. However, after 12 months of 'not preventing' you start to realise something, somewhere isn't right, and thats when we started worrying and made out first doctors appointment. Then when you know there is a problem, you can't just say "lets wait a few years" the problem will still be there, and you have to start right back at the beginning and go backwards a year due to our lovely NHS. Then it just becomes a vicious never ending cycle of "lets not tell people, until we know more" then three months go by and its "what about it people don't support us, lets just keep it to ourselves" then another 3 months go by and it gets changed to "..people are going to be upset and angry that our first child will not be conceived naturally, and we kept it a secret" then we get to this stage...where shockingly, IVF in the next year is highly likely, and we've kept it a secret for so long we just don't know where to even begin brining it up. It's not like you can pop round for tea and say "Hows work? Oh by the way we're infertile" We sincerely apologise if we have upset anyone by keeping it a secret, it wasn't personal, just difficult.

So thats the big bombshell now to try and tie up the loose ends. We are been testing for everything going, and negative for all things that usually cause infertility, no ovary problems, no egg problems, no little swimmer problems, no hormone problems, no physical  explanations for why a healthy couple in their early twenties can't add to their family. So on our medical files we have an ominous "UNEXPLAINED INFERTILITY" and you have no idea how frustrating that is!! If we don't know what the problem is, then how can we fix it!? Anyway, while we were on holiday we started out first 'treatment' of fertility drugs, which obviously, so far have not worked. (Just make Steph feel terrible) We have these for 4 months and then it's back to the fertility specialist for the next move. (although with moving house, awkwardly it's going to be more than 4 months because it's going to take an age to be referred to a new fertility specialist!) However, through research we know for couples with unexplained infertility the next stage will be a procedure called IUI, on the NHS you get 2 months free of IUI, then the next step is IVF, and you all know what that is, so if we get that far (which it's looking like we will) IVF will be early to mid 2013.

The last thing we should address is hard for us but "How can they be infertile when they had a miscarriage". When we had our miscarriage we had been 'trying' for 14months, and thought we were finally normal! But horribly they are very common in first pregnancies, and as we had a miscarriage before we saw a heartbeat, it isn't classed as a pregnancy. So medically, we have never successfully conceived, so there is no record of it and we are still classed as infertile. (anyone who has been trying for over 12months without being successful gets that label, were not just being dramatic)

So why tell you know? Being back home means that its harder to hide the heartbreak we go through every month, and theres only so many excuses you can make for not attending family functions when we're wallowing. Secondly, as horrible and selfish as it sounds (and we're not proud of it) it is extremely difficult to hear pregnancy announcements, see babies and be around pregnant woman without just wanting to curl up into a ball and cry (We are happy for these people honestly, but, we should be parents now) and with me (Steph) marrying into what seems to be the most fertile family in existence, I personally find it becoming harder and harder to be around family members with young children and babies, or newly pregnant family members, and I feel truly awful for avoiding them and not giving anyone an explanation, again it's nothing personal, it's just protecting myself.

So I think thats everything, it feels better to let you know, and definitely easier to write it all down, if we were saying this face to face we would have missed out half of the story and probably be in tears, so we hope you understand our unconventional methods. We're sorry if you are angry, thats not what we intended. We just wanted you to know what we are going through, we know its not in an ideal time in our lives, but when is it ever an ideal time to add to the family? If it ever happens, we'll figure it, make it work, but its going to be a long road until we're showing you baby scan pictures.

Finally, we don't mean to be horrible, but we have heard a hundred stories of peoples aunties dog sitters cousin being told she was infertile and then going on to have 12 kids, or people trying for 15 years and then having 3 kids and all sorts of miracles happening, but it doesn't really make us feel any better to hear these stories. And please please PLEASE don't say "just relax...it'll happen when you least expect it" because quickly coming up to two years we haven't expected it for a while, and it still isn't happening, and relaxing isn't a well known medical cure for infertility :op  

We love you all, and will most likely ignore that we've asked you to read this the next time we see you, but if you have any questions please just ask us, we won't be upset, we're a bit tired of ignoring it to be honest. We obviously want to be at every family gathering, but if we make up some pathetic excuse for not being there so we don't have to see young family, its not a personal attack on them, you'd just rather we weren't there than be there and have faces like thunder and never crack a smile! In all honesty it will be easier for us to face people if they know what were going through but Steph is too hormonal to have a constant mindset on the situation (blame the medication!)

Loves, Martin and Steph xxxxxx

p.s. At this point in time, I would like to say that Steph is not 100% on telling her immediate family just yet, firstly its her Dad, and well Dads don't need to hear that their daughters are having sex, and the Whittingham family unit is not so much a family unit anymore, and this would probably cause more drama than it's worth! We will tell them in time, just not yet...

p.p.s. Don't tell Travis and Colin, they will be very upset and think we are trying to replace them...