Waiting and donating

I've started to really struggle for opening lines on these entries, can you tell?

Here we are, almost half way through the two week wait, yet again.

Considering it's the 16th 'two week wait', that means we've had thirty two weeks of two week waiting.

There is something charmingly symmetrical about it, almost chess board like.

Anyway, by the middle of next week we'll know if the method of attack worked or not, and we'll know whether we get to arrange the monitoring for the next cycle, or not.

At least, if it doesn't work this time, we have the knowledge that we will have some help or attention for the next cycle, so the 'bounce back' period should be a little quicker.

Shut up, it will.

The next week or so will build up from a state of mild curiosity, to an insane, on the hour every hour following of ET everytime she takes a piss.

I will, in fact, probably spend, 82% of my time from next Monday onwards, standing outside our bathroom door.

Who says this trying to conceive stuff isn't fun?

Someone else in for a hell of a week is poor old Dan, from All that comes with it. As some of you know, starting tomorrow, Dan is part of a group of ten fine chaps who are walking 78 miles in 6 days to raise funds for the Joseph Salmon trust.

You know I'm a miserable bastard and wouldn't promote anything here if I didn't think it was worth it, so trust me, you need to read the Joseph Salmon story here, in his parent's Neil and Rachael's own words. Then go clicky clicky here and give a few quid if you can spare it in support of the guys, who are VERY close to their target. Judging by the state most of the walkers seem to be in, the chances are that one or two of them won't make it home without some sort of intervention from the emergency rescue services.

I really hope both Spencer's and Dan's crews both reach their targets.

Coming all over Dr. Phil

Well Mr Fate was nice enough to give us the 4th of June, but we should have known that he had something up his sleeve for the 5th, the crafty git.

Not enough that I had to get my bloody braces tightened to the point that my hair hurts and eyeballs are bulging, but cycle 14 is finished, and failed.

No frustration, a little disappointment, a lot of sadness.

I'm glad it's over, it's been a particularly lousy one. A bloody hell. Literally.

So let me introduce you all to cycle 15, not the prettiest, but has a lovely personality.

Yet another of the 'No one told me that' moments is how it affects you as a couple.

People talk about how it brings you closer, and it does.
What they don't mention how hurtful you can be in the heat of the moment.

Spiteful, hurtful words, said, and taken, out of context.

People say I have a way with words, can you imagine the result when those words are fueled by anger, frustration, disappointment and sadness?

I can be be a hurtful bastard.

When I say things like "You either want it or you don't", the pillock that I am, I really wonder about how suitable I am for all this.

When I finally prized the baseball bat out of ET's fingers I started to think. Like, proper grown up thinking that adults do.

The thing is, I can't do this on my own in the way I want, and ET can't do this on her own in the way she wants.

We need to be on the same page, we need to know where we both stand, we need to know what we both think, we need to talk and listen and talk and listen and talk and listen some more, until our teeth fall out and our ears bleed.

Like a three legged race sometimes one person is a little behind and lacking in energy, or a little ahead determined to get on, but you both are both tied together and simply have to work together.

Ooooh, I've come over all 'Dr. Phil', (not 'come all over', you filthy minded beast)

Better than Christmas

We have had some wonderfully gonad squeezing moments over the last year when we've found out we are not pregnant.

We've had this particular joy around my birthday, ET's birthday, before going on holiday, and the humdinger of course, back on Christmas day.

Christmas day was a particularly spectacular kick in the guts.

After that point I stopped believing the significance of dates in this great plan of ours.

There would be no breaking the news while visiting family, or at Christmas, or on Paddy's day, or on someone's birthday.

After Christmas I lost all inclination to be genuinely hopeful, and resigned myself to the idea that we would be relying on experts to do the job for us.

Cold and calculating perhaps, but easier to handle at a time when energy was getting low.

So I thought.

This month, cycle 13, saw optimisim sneak back in for the first time in months.

We had the turnaround in semen analysis results which told us we could do it naturally, we had our first session with the specialist which took the pressure off our shoulders slightly, and we got our ugly bumping timing and quality absolutely spot on.

It was game on.

Cycle day 27, 28, and 29 came and went, when 26 or 27 is the norm.

Long time unspoken excitement began to bubble to the surface.

Names were written on scraps of paper to visualise them alongside my surname before being hastily torn up and binned.

Minds allowed themselves to wander to the other side of 'trying to conceive', the side where people are visiting you and shaking your hand and slapping you on the back. The side where the almost overwhelming bubbling excitement I feel from time to time really belongs.

This was it. Finally. Surely.

Cycle day 30 came and went. Still no positive test result. Doubts creep in.

As if on queue, on a sunny Friday of a long weekend, it comes to a dead end.

One spot. Followed by the inevitable.

Christmas had left us staggering dazed around the ring, but cycle 13 has callously kicked our buckling legs from under us.

If my brief teenage phase of reading the classics serves me well, I believe there is a reference in Dante's 'Divine Comedy' to a sign over the gates of hell reading 'Abandon hope all ye who enter here'.

I want that sign painted over the gates of 'trying to conceive' world, as it's the only advice that I can see really helping anyone get through it.

The house is emptier than it was twenty four hours ago, who knew such little hope took up so much space.