HUGE catch up post

My resolution to take more photographs seems to have lasted all of 18 days. Heres my big catch up, more for me than anyone else. Gives me something to do to take my mind off moaning. 

Photo 19 - Artwork 

Martin and I, obviously. This is about as artistic as I get.

Photo 20 - Memories 

This photo just makes me laugh. My High School Prom, 2004. Im in the far right in my red prom dress which I loved. 

Photo 21 - What you're reading

Andy Murrays latest book, on kindle. 

Photo 22 - Your breakfast plate

I'm going to leave this one blank, as I've not eaten breakfast for days. 

Photo 23 - Childhood

My brother, me and my Nanan. My guess is around 1992. My nanan is still with us :) 

Photo 24 - Something Funny

What isn't funny about a skateboarding Owl?

Photo 25 - Family Pets 

The boys are back!

Photo 26 - Your Calendar 

I don't have one. Just in my head. 

Photo 27 - Something Red

My hair before I had to be a grown up. Sob. Here we are walking the streets of London before an Avenged Sevenfold gig in 2011.

Photo 28 - Best Friend

Me and my wonderful best friend, also Steph, on my wedding day.

Photo 29 - Self Portrait 

Taken just this morning. Red hair back, hair recently cut and au natural!

I'm a big moany moan bag

All I seem to be doing lately is moaning and moaning and feeling sorry for myself, I HATE it!

The magical practise manager at the GP has been brilliant, and after speaking with her on the phone last week about lack of appointments, she called me on Monday to say she had some good news, she had been chasing up my case with the hospitals and managed to get me an appointment with a gastroenterologist on march 11th! Hurrah! I could have kissed her! It will have still been 3 months since the trouble started, but there is light at the end of the tunnel! Moan? - got the appointment letter through and it is just that, an appointment. No endoscopy or ultrasound to be carried out, I'm grateful for the appointment, but I know full well it will be another 6 weeks for a endoscopy appointment, therefore no diagnosis just yet. Unless I get a magical doctor?!

I would gladly have the majority if my stomach cut out at this present moment in time. I've reached a whole new low of not eating for 4 days because anything I ingest makes me cry in pain. Last night I ate two sweets and that kept me awake until 4am. I love sweets!!! So I've taken the day off today because I'm a physical wreck.

I feel needy and cuddly and need looking after and Martin is obviously at work, so I'm even more pathetic without him here :(

Good news? I had my cardiologist appointment on Monday and officially got the green light for IUI! Finally! So I get to call my FS next Monday and have a consultation over the phone and we should be  on the way to IUI. We did want to start in march, but with my stomach problems it's going to be April now. Sigh. Always something.

To be honest, when we looked at dates my April AF is due on April 26th. It's my Birthday on April 28th and we've booked a weekend away in the Lake District to celebrate. If we did do IuI in March we would find out if it was auccessful or, more likely failed two days before my birthday and the day we leave for our weekend away. I think waiting an extra month will at least give us another month in ignorance before the tears, taking HPTs and emotional breakdowns start.

I'm still plodding on.

NHS still my worst enemy

I love that I have access to free health care, it's something a few countries don't have. I personally, can't imagine having to constantly worry about the financial implications of becoming ill or having an accident. It seems completely outrageous to me that governments even think it's acceptable to expect it's population to pay for things that are often completely out of their control. I mean, lets put a tax on blonde poeple, and make those over 5"6 pay extra insurance??!!

Anyway, although I do love our free health service. I do feel it comes at a cost. A severe cost.

The National Health Service runs a 18 week promise, which means that every patient should have a hospital appointment within 18 weeks of requesting one. That seems fair, but bare in mind that is still 4 months.

My well documented stomach complaints have been ongoing since August 2011 when the trouble first started. I have had one hospital appoints in December 2011 who confirmed 4 stomach ulcers (I even saw pictures!)

As per usual, upon further inspection by my GP on 6th January 2013, it appears the specialist who carried out my endoscopy decided to leave the words 'ulcer' off of my medical records, and instead referred to it as acid reflux. Therefore my GP thinks I'm an idiot making, and after over 12 months of medications not working, requested I see ANOTHER specialist.

I found out this morning, as usual, this referral to the gastroenterology department has disappeared into thin air. So although I have been waiting patiently (albeit in chronic pain) for  the past 8 weeks for an appointment, it has not been made. I have to start from scratch again, and will take another 8-10 weeks for an appointment. (Sound very familiar to my FS referral?!!!)

My last full meal was on December 17th 2012, I have not been able to eat a full meal since then without being in agony. I've been to Accident and Emergency with the pain, still nothing.

I was obviously hoping that I would have had my tummy trouble re-diagnosed an correctly treated before starting IUI, I shouldn't sensibly start until then. After everything we put ourselves through during treatment, I'm not going to spend every evening after treatment throwing up, not sleeping and in pain. It's bound to fail.

So i'm back to square one. IUI on hold indefinitely. Still not eating, still loosing weight, still unhappy.

All sorts of silly things going through my head as ways to get the doctors to listen

Photographs!

With all my negative moaning, I have been useless at keeping my photos up to date! (J, I need to see more Canadian photos too ;))

Heres my big catch up post..

Photo 12 - Your Weakness

Mozzarella. I love this stuff, I would have it on cereal and cake if I could. If we make homemade pizza, I usually need to buy a ball of mozzarella to eat while the pizza is cooking. This and parmigiana. Forget chocolate sauce and honey in the bedroom, I'd rather cover Martin in Mozzarella and eat it off him. 

Photo 13 - Your shoes.

Not the shoes I'm wearing right now, but my absolute favourite pair of beautiful shoes I own. I got married in these shoes (see right photograph) The registrar stopped half way through the vows to compliment me on these shoes. I would wear them every day if I could!!

Photo 14 - Who you love

Duh. My handsome husband/punchbag/chief cuddler/hair stroker/breakfast maker and best friend extraordinaire. 

Photo 15 - In your bag (uh oh) 

My suitcase I call a bag. (I'm grown up enough to run a home and have IUI, but not grown up enough to have a big girl hand bag!) 

In here you can see my essentials, purse, can of dry shampoo and my emergency Zantac for stomach issues during the day. (I may have no cracked it, I'm now on 60mg of my prescribed medication, and 200mg of OTC medication - together it SEEMS to be calming down my tummy!)

Photo 16 - Your Lunch Plate

I dont have a lunch plate at work. I barely have lunch at work. Heres my rations for the day sitting on my desk. As I can no longer drink hot drinks (no coffee, sob!) the Monster energy drink is my replacement for the morning, and my thai curry pot is for lunch. I don't mind though as it's absolutely delicious (And only 300 Kcal!)

Photo 17 - Books 

I'm going to be really bad and skip this one. All of my books are currently in boxes still and I'm not unpacking them purely for a photograph. 

Photo 18 - Technology 

Just our technology cat, checking his emails. 

Called it!!

I'm getting so good at this now.

Over the past 3 years of TTC, I have bet Martin that ___________ is pregnant at least a few weeks before it's been officially announced. Three of his cousins have had babies in this time, I knew they were pregnant weeks before they announced it to family, I've had friends fall pregnant and I've told Martin they are weeks before they're announced it. So it came as no great surprise when my pregnancy spider senses were tingling about the unnamed family member being pregnant, and once again last night I was proved right.

I have however come to realise that there is no pleasing me. Martin family came around for tea and biscuits and a general visit, and I knew something was going to crop up. I half expected his mum to just come out and tell us that said family member was pregnant, I had already pre-warned Martin this would piss me off with the mood I was in yesterday, and I would probably run to the bathroom and sob, making people feel unconformable enough that they would leave. As I keep trying to explain to the horrified friends around me, it's not that I am pissed off that they ARE pregnant, or that people are having babies, I don't expect the world to stop. But when people tell us face to face and know about our situation, what do they expect us to do with this information??!

So when the family arrived, I had already practised my 'give a shit' smile, and had it permanently plastered on my face, when the conversation turned to weddings due to something on the TV. I can handle wedding talk, I've had a wedding after all. We discussed the fact that Martin has some aunties who aren't married but are in long term relationships, and wondered if they ever would get married. MIL started a sentence, which I assume was supposed to end it "..I thought they said they were going to get married" But it actually came out like this....

MIL: "Well when we had the phone call to say _______had some exciting news.....erm...well...erm..."

Queue all family in law looking at each other panicked and distraught, thinking of the next thing to say, this is what was said next

MIL: "..So in the new house, where are you going to put the sofa?"

Right. Yes, you definitely saved that one. *Huge exaggerated eye roll*

So even though the in laws who visited clearly didn't want to say the words "_______ is pregnant" and panicked when they thought it was going to come, it pissed me off. I'm just a woman who is never satisfied.

To me now my life is the elephant in the room. Nobody ever asks us or refers to or talks about our infertility, but everyone awkwardly avoids the topic of pregnancy like I will explode into a billion pieces if I hear the word. (emotionally I do, but on the outside my 'give a shit' face is fault less!)  So pretty much I'm an awkward bitch and no matter how or in when medium of pregnancy the topic is brought up, I will be pissed off with all persons involved.

I did have an uncontrollable sob at the situation, and it's been a while since the last one. Life is so unfair sometimes, said family member who is pregnant with her second, constantly moans about how she's too poor to care for the one she has, and relies on family members to bail them out constantly. Now number two is on the way. Whoopdi-fucking-do.

Oh yeah, and just to make the 'give a shit' smile come back, I figured out her due date will be around the time we finish IUI number 3 (yes yes, if we get that far)

BUT I have my ladies, who mean everything to me (you know who you are) if I didn't have them over the past 9 months (how apt!) I may have just dissolved already.

Is 9am on a Monday too early for alcohol?

Sunday blues

It's a down day today. I don't know why, well I do, but I'm usually so good at shaking off the bad feelings and upset and ignoring it long enough to pain a smile, but today I'm not painting anything.

I'm pretty sure there's another family (in laws) pregnancy announcement coming up, their second nonetheless, and here we are, still stuck in the rut. If I'm right,, and I usually am, they will have managed two children in the time we've been trying to have just one. It's not any of my business, it's their life, their decision, nothing to do with us and our lives what so ever. But sometimes you can't help bit sit back and just think FUCK YOU LIFE. What have we done so wrong, that were getting the shitty end of the stick? We're both educated, we both work damn hard, we run a successful home, and financially comfortable but no... We're still getting slapped in the face with whatever life thinks its playing at.

Something as stupid as my brother in law and his girlfriend buying a house sets me off. It's like every couple around me are making plans for life, friends are buying houses, settling down, planning weddings etc... And it's like we've got so far and now we're just stuck where we are for an indefinite amount of time. I hate being all "look at me, life is so bad, feel sorry for me and pity me" but, yeah!! I guess we were lucky enough to fall in love and be the first couple out of our friends to get married, quite young, at 22. The only downside to this is now we've been told not to pass go and straight to jail, while the people around us as zooming round collecting everything we want.

Photies

Lack of photos is down to my hectic weekend I'm afraid!

Photo 10 -Your dinner plate

Technically not my dinner plate, but this is what I made for dinner last night. Chicken and bacon spicy creole jambalaya. It was delicious. I didn't have a plate to take a photo of as I only ate a few mouthfuls before my stomach pain stopped me from eating. It smelt nice though!

Photo 11 - Gratitude

This is a selection of all the things in my life I am grateful for.

Top - My home. I took this photograph myself whilst in the passenger seat of our car. I love the views we get driving around our villages. I have lived and visited many places in my life, but Yorkshire will always be my favorite place. 

Middle left - Music. Pretty much self explanatory, I've already had my rant about music so I don't need to say anymore!

Middle right - Family. They might drive me mad on a regular basis, but I wouldn't swap them (well maybe a few of them) for the world. 

Bottom left - Friends. I would ALMOST go as far as to say my friends are more important to me than family. I know, what a dreadful thing to say, but my family have a colour history. My friends are there every day and through every event. So maybe my friends are my family? 

Bottom Right - Coffee. I love it so much, which makes it even harder than I can't drink it!! My stomach has now gotten so bad my morning coffee makes me cry with pain, therefore my life is now water, water and more water. 

Life

Is OK. Not great, not bad, but OK. My stomach issues are now ruining my existence more than I ever thought possible. Usually I have pain in the evenings, throw up, go to bed on an empty stomach and wake up fine the next day. For some reason I have now been in pain since Friday afternoon (It's Tuesday morning) and haven't been able to keep anything more than a banana down. Not because food makes me nauseous, but because the only way I can manage the pain is to throw up everything that's in my stomach. The pills aren't working, I've tried taking one at different times, I've tried taking 2, I've even tried taking 3! I've drank bottles and bottles of gaviscon, loaded myself up with pain killers and nothing. The hospital won't do anything for me because I'm not throwing up blood, the GP won't do anything for me because I've been referred to a specialist. The waiting list for the specialist is 18 weeks. I haven't eaten a full meal now for 10 weeks. December 17th was the last meal I ate without pain. It could possibly be another 10 weeks before I get to see the specialist...ARGH!!

Apart from that I suppose I'm OK. I'm panicking about how on earth I'm going to be able to go through IUI with these stomach problems, theres no way I can carry on throwing up everything I eat after the treatment, the strain it puts on my stomach and abdomen is just silly. So if it isn't fixed before treatment I can't throw up, which means coping with the agony the best I can. 

I don't know what to do.