#18 .My heart is broke, But I have some glue

04/11/2012

Whilst going through the various webpages where I normally share this blog, I came across something so hateful & bitter, it angered & upset me a lot. I am usually not all that easily offended, but this really hit me. www.facebook.com/story.php?korawalker>ivf

"I find it highly offensive this shit (IVF) is allowed, and encouraged, to proceed when so many kids already exist who need homes, food, and medical care JUST so some mother fucker who is SO SELFISH he wants,and can PAY for, a worthless, "mini me". HOW SELF ABSORBED could a person be to believe HIS DNA is so stellar and superior the world can't do without his offspring?"

Then goes on to say
"I would never force this world on another human and those smart and selfless enough wouldn't either and adopt if they want parenthood so badly. It does effect my life, you people are ruining this planet and it's heart wrenching. Ivf is expensive and it's just a smack in the face to all the other millions of homeless children.You people are ignorant. Infertility is a blessing. Adopt, you selfish moos"

I don't know if this person is trolling & just out to upset people that are already in a delicate frame of mind. or if he/she actually believes the bile they're spewing. I'd really like to meet this person, just to see what makes them tick &/or give them a slap

08/11/2012

I'm currently sat in Rotherham's accident & emergency dept awaiting an Xray to see if I've dislocated my elbow after a fall at work. I'm so clumsy it's unbelievable!
I'm taking this as a good omen. the last time Libby was expecting, we had to come here because little eggburt had to leave us. So now Libby is pregnant again, It's my turn to be here, So Nemo will do just fine. Good logic eh?

09/11/2012

This day has taken so long to come. We have our six week scan & hopefully i'll get to see someone special

10/11/2012

Yesterday didn't quite go to plan. the scan didn't show anything in the womb, but high levels of the pregnancy hormones in the blood. So it's definitely there somewhere, just no idea where. The clinic thought it wise that
Libby should be admitted to hospital straight away, because of the high possibility of an ectopic pregnancy. They want to keep her under observation because of the complications associated with it. If the foetus is in the fallopian tubes. it will have to be terminated. There is a chance things will be ok, but it is very slim.
I don't know what to feel, it swings between anger & misery constantly, I want to cry, but can't

11/11/2012

I'm so frustrated right now, I don't have a clue what is happening, Libby is an emotional wreck, & all the doctors seem to be doing is assume. Another blood test has shown that he the hormone level has doubled again.
The doctor has suggested that the reason for the no show on the scan could be that it's twins & may have been too small to see on the scan, but it's more than most likely ectopic. so a scan has been book for the morning & hopefully if it is twins they should be more visible because of the hormone level being so high. & if it proves to be ectopic, it's looking like a trip into surgery to remove the foetus & he offending tube. On the plus side, if they remove the tube, it's one less thing to go wrong
I know this is a horrible things to say, but I think a miscarriage would have been easier to deal with, purely because is a definite end instead of being (unavoidably) dragged out

12/11/2012

Today we've had to say goodbye to someone so special, so wanted & so much needed. But they'll never get know any of this. We'll never get to meet our little Nemo, Hopefully one day we'll meet, along with Eggburt & we'll have our day in the sun.
Libby was taken into surgery this morning to remove the foetus. Its hit me so fucking hard i can't even begin to make sense of it all. I even wen't to the hospital chapel,  I have no idea what I was expecting, inner peace the voice of god? all I got was angry & more upset. If there there is a god, I want to know why, why now, why us AGAIN???

I very nearly scrapped this whole blog today, I hoped something like this could never happen, but I suppose it's all part of the journey, no matter how much it hurts, & if it helps someone in the long run, then I suppose Ive achieved something

Please don't be offended by this, but I'm not after sympathy of anything like that, I don't handle messages of sorry & stay strong  or positive or whatever too well, I just need to time to get my head round things & hopefully dust myself off & carry on with life

#16 The never ending emotional rollercoaster, This time i'm not complaining

28/10/2012

Coming to terms with our first cycle not working was actually a lot easier than I thought it would be, the fact that we are still so far from the end of this journey has had quite a comforting effect on us both.

This morning we had to do a pregnancy test as directed by the clinic to confirm or deny what we thought was happening. There is almost an element of relief, knowing that there would then be a 'full stop' on this chapter of the story.
So here we go, One line for negative, two for positive. Well there's definitely one line, & after a minute or two, a second line appears, but only very faint. ...so what does that mean? Is it positive, was it positive before but now isn't?
Great! Now I'm just confused, so just bought another supposedly better rest to do in the morning to clear any confusion. Well it had better be a 'better' test, it cost me bloody £8

29/10/2012

6.30am on a Monday, the first day of my week off from work & I'm wide awake (dressed as spiderman... Don't ask) I didn't really sleep much last night, & what little sleep i did get, i think i spent that grinding my teeth because my mouth & teeth are so sore. it's hardly surprising considering the level of mixed emotion we're both experiencing.
Time to get down to business, & it's quite possibly the most nervous yet excited i've ever been.

....And the result is:
...Time to shit my pant in excitement & fear .

How & why we've actually gotten to this stage is beyond me. Less than a week ago we'd near enough given up & now we're 9 months away from potentially being parents.
Really need to call the clinic & find out what happens now.
The wait for the pregnancy hotline to open is far too long, but not stressful, for once i'm on cloud nine.


We're booked in for a scan on November the 9th, (Just over a weeks time) just to make sure the embryo/embryo's haven't settled in the fallopian tubes, because we're at a high risk of it being ectopic.& that could be disastrous.  We also will be having more regular scans than usual because of the miscarriage for suffered a couple of years ago.
But i'm trying not to think of the possible negative's. This is our time to shine, I can feel it

#14 So much to write about & no idea where to start

12/10/2012

We're not having a 13th post, because I don't want any bad luck

It's egg collection day & it's fair to say things are a little on the tense side. It really doesn't help when we Libby get's out of the shower & says "give me a shout at 7.10, 'cause we need to be setting off" Which is a fine plan indeed considering 7.10 was two minutes ago & i'm in the middle of making breakfast & still needing a shower myself. I don't think we've had a single appointment without some element of chaos. But in all honesty I believe we thrive on being disorganised, It's much more fun than that way (In this instance fun is pronounced ARGHHHH SHIT! ) Life would be boring if it was organised.
God knows how we managed it but we made it, mainly thanks to Libby's heavy right foot & it's loving relationship with a car's accelerator pedal.

Libby appears to have been making friends in my absence, which is kinda nice because she's not normally the most outgoing of people & on the plus side it makes it all a bit more 'normal'. Then to take the normality away, I found out this lady has spent a scary amount of money on treatment, more than a fifth of what we paid for our house. Just to clarify, I don't have a problem with the amount of money people spend on treatment, If I could afford it, i'd probably do the same, It just makes me wonder where you would draw the line? I just hope we never get to to such a position, because (to quote Mick Hucknall...yeah, sorry about that) "Money's too tight to mention"

Thankfully we're not sat in the waiting room too long otherwise I'd have probably said something stupid or offended somebody.  We both have our own little task to perform, so no time like the present to get on with it. Libby has drugs to take & I have to get intimate with a plastic cup. 
The last time I was in this situation, My (bad) sense of humour was going into overload, making me want to check in on facebook with something crude, But I was strong & resisted the urge, but this time, no chance, the temptation is too strong. As I was shown to my little room I was quite relieved that it was a new a new leather chair in there after last time, but I still kinda found it disturbing knowing that someone else had sat in it doing the bad thing.
 I was impressed that they had a different selection of 'mens interest magazines in the cupboard, but was instantly put of using them when I found a page stuck together, that's just uncalled for, I suppose I had better use my imagination. I read somewhere on an internet forum that there's a clinic in Nottingham that has a flat screen TV showing porn movies, Surely that has to be a better option than feeling like a 14 year old boy catching a quick look at their dad's secret stash of magazines. which i'm sure has probably happened to almost everyone. Aren't all dad's supposed to keep ancient porn mags under the wardrobe? not that I ever looked
By the time I'd got back to the recovery room Libby was already dosed up on Temazepam & half asleep, in the white hospital dressing gown she was told to wear, Which she wasn't happy, because it hadn't been washed with fabric softener & felt like cardboard. Typical Lib, Bless her

Much to my surprise, I was invited into the egg extraction, something like that doesn't happen in regular hospitals & clinics. Much more to my surprise, I did it, which is a really alien thing for me to do, I'm pretty squeamish for a bloke, & the idea of probes & sharp objects been inserted into someones nether-regions is quite repulsive to me. Luckily for the doctor & nurses, I couldn't actually see what was going on, otherwise they might have been attacked by my breakfast. I was quite happy to stand there & hold Libby's hand & talk nonsense to her, with the help of one of the nurses, about Ninja Turtles & cake. As usual I have to find something amusing in a situation like this, & today it came in the shape of a visiting doctor from Doncaster Royal Infirmary, who was there to be nosey at how other Hospitals do things, but I anyway, he looked like John Coffey from the film The Green Mile (the big black man)
The procedure didn't last long at all really, half hour altogether. & out of the ten usable follicles  they managed to extract nine eggs. To say i'm proud of my lady is an understatement!
So, what better way to end to appointment, than a spot of tea, biscuits & daytime TV while the people who know what they're doing get on with their thing. Lets get off to town for some dinner AND an extravagant purchase ... a new kettle (which needs to be returned 'cause it bloody leeks)
The tickets we had for the concert in Leeds didn't go to waste either, Libby didn't feel upto it, but didn't feels bad enough to need me around, I couldn't leave her alone, so I made our foster child babysit her.
For those who we're asking who I went to see, It was Terrorvision, I assume most of you are scratching your head & wondering 'who?' They had tons of top 40 hits in the 90's & i'll bet you know the most popular & frankly horrible song 'Tequila'

13/10/2012
I'm a bit half asleep this morning, had a massive shock to the system having to work my first saturday in months, 5am should not be allowed, especially after rocking out the night before.
but the phone call from the clinic makes it all worth while. First the bad news, two of the nine eggs weren't mature enough, but the good news is The other seven fertilised successfully, which is awesome.
Considering that we are nowhere near the finishing line, this is quite possibly the happiest i've ever been in my entire life. Thanks to my natural negativity, I never dreamed that we would ever achieve anything like this. These eggs are our lucky seven & I have a good feeling ...I might make a good optimist after all.
Now, it's a case of playing the waiting game for a day or two to see if the cells have multiplied enough to re-implant the eggs into the womb, Hopefully it'll be Monday, but more than most likely it'll be Wednesday.
Time to cross all appendages!

16/10/2012

Sorry this part of the post is going to be quite disjointed, my laptop had died, so i'm having to do it on the blogger mobile phone app, & it's harder to edit stuff using a phone keypad

It's fair to say, the last few days has been a bit of a rollercoaster, I'd pretty much given up on a Monday appointment after sat around waiting for the phone to ring. & when it did, it wasn't particularly the call I wanted, It was work asking me if there was any chance I could work. Because we'd still not had a call from the clinic I decided to earn a few extra pennies. Two minutes after I walked into work, Libby phoned to say the clinic had called & the wanted us at the clinic for 14.30. Bloody typical, considering i was due to finish my shift at 14.15. Thankfully my manager has been amazing throughout this process & let me finish at 12. If you're reading this Teresa, I owe you a huge favour.

Out of the seven fertilised eggs, two are classed as grade nine, which is really good, as they prefer to use eggs grade seven & over. two are borderline usable and the rest are still developing  But in the short space of time of the phone call & us arriving at the clinic, the two borderline embryo's have developed quite significantly, so hopefully the rest will be good enough to freeze for potential future use, We should find the results of that on Wednesday.

These are the two embryo's that are to be implanted, (& for all you science buffs, The one on the left has 8 cells & the right has 9) Weird looking things aren't they. It's even weirder to think that this is what human life starts off as. I was amazed when they asked if we wanted a picture of them. We've been  encouraged to talk to them, which is a little bit odd, but worth a shot, so we've named them Nemo & Dory (From Finding Nemo)
The implantation went by like a flash, It was just a case of using a speculum & a catheter into the uterus to implant the embryos. and thats that, no tea & recuperation today,
Now the hard work is done, it's completely in the hands of nature. Libby has to take it easy, no  heavy lifting, no vigorous exercise, & No sex (BOOOOOO!)
The no sex thing is going to kill me, Libby has a tablet she has to put right at the back of her lady bits & she cant do it, because her fingers aren't long enough to get to the back, so I'm stuck with the task twice a day. It's already proven to put a lot of strain on the trouser area. & I can't so a single thing about it. ARGHHHH!

I can see the next two weeks 'til we find out if its worked or not, being the longest two weeks EVER!
Thankfully I have quite a lot of stuff to be doing with my band(s) to keep me occupied including playing live this weekend, but the downside to that is that I won't let Libby come, because she always helps with the transport & moving stuff around, So I banned her from coming to remove the temptation.
She can sit at home & watch all the terrible soaps shes got on recorded on the sky box, even better for me 'cos then I don't have to endure them.

Im not a believer in a higher power, but prayers are more than welcome.

#12 How do you like your eggs in the morning?

08/10/2012
It really is starting to bother me that i'm not going to be there for Libby's scan again. I feel as though i'm missing important things, especially now things are coming to a head in our first cycle. Even if nothing interesting happened, I'd just like to be there to hold my wife's hand.

So it turns out I have kinda missed out. The scan shows that Libby has 15 ovarian follicles (the cells where the eggs develop) 2 ready, 2 almost ready & the rest just need a little bit more time. Something I did find odd is that the drugs have also stimulated the 'useless' ovary, although I have no idea if they're of any use, We shall see.
Because the follicles are almost ready, Libby can reduce the intake of drugs to avoid overstimulation, but i'm guessing that might mean that I have a little bit of my wifey back
Another scan has been booked for Wednesday, which is our 5th wedding anniversary, so I reckon that's a good omen


10.10.2012

Okay, so that's just odd. In my absence for yet another appointment, Libby got talking to another girl in the waiting room. Out of the blue, she asked if I was called Paul. It turns out she had been reading this blog. Heh small world eh?
I was right in thinking that because today is our wedding anniversary that it was a sign of something good! Because it is indeed good. Todays scan shown that there is 10 good sized follicles, which I understand is a pretty normal number to have. So as you can imagine, it's smiles all round.

When I started writing this blog, I thought that it would take for ages to get to the stage we're now at, but it only feels like yesterday that all this started to take over our lives. This Friday, we're both due at the clinic for Libby's egg collection. Now that we can see something resembling a light at the end of the tunnel, things are starting to feel a lot more real ...like really real ...shit yer pants scary real. Being the kind of person I am, my mind has gone into overdrive with thoughts of 'what if'
The procedure, sounds fairly straightforward, but quite painful at the same time, its an a vaginal ultrasound probe  to see the follicles in the ovaries. A fine needle will then be used to collect the eggs from the follicles. The doctor or nurse will push the needle through the top of the vaginal wall and into each ovarian follicle in turn. to flush out the eggs. What scares me about this is that it's done only with local anesthetic & oxygenWhile this is happening I get shown to the little room to make a semen sample ...Again! for those of you who have been reading this blog from the start, you'll know the score here. And for those who haven't have a look here http://paul-semii-holden.blogspot.co.uk/2012/08/here-we-go.html
In preparation, Libby has to inject two lots of Ovitrelle tonight, one in each leg. But as a bonus, she doesn't have anymore injecting herself after this (unless we have to go through another cycle) It's not the last of the drugs however. There's some tablets to take & a suppository. She looks so relieved at that, apparently putting drugs up your bum is a welcome break from sticking them in your legs with sharp things.
To put a slight dampener on things, Libby has started bleeding slightly, only spots, but it's enough to raise concerns. But just called the clinics emergency number, & the nurse we spoke to didn't seem to think it was an issue. but you can't help but assume the worse

Something that I did find slightly weird is, we've been asked to bring a CD with us to the appointment. I'm assuming it's for relaxation purposes, But is it played while the procedure or is played via personal headphones. What kind of music get you prepared for having probes & sharp things stuck up where you don't really want them putting? And what if you opt for something with a fast tempo or obscenely noisy, imagine that being played in the middle of a delicate procedure. surely thats going to be a distraction for the Doctor & nurses


Months ago, Libby bought us tickets to see one of my favourite bands in Leeds for our anniversary. But when she bought them, she hadn't taken in to consideration that it might clash with our treatment. Well it has, on a major scale. the show is on Friday night. My wife, being the angel she is, still wants me to go without her, & I still really want to go. But at the sametime, I don't want to leave her after what she will have been through during the day. I'm still going to make plans to go because i'm selfish. If everything is alright & I didn't go, I'd be mortified. but I can always cancel the plans on the chance that things aren't right

As I've mentioned before that one of the staff at the clinic is been very 'off' with us, for what i presumed was because it's a private clinic & were not paying, therefore we're inferior, or something to that effect
Well, she appears to have a change of heart, She's been nothing short of brilliant with us recently, even with us phoning her at 21.40 to ask about the bleeding. Miracles do happen ;)

#11 Selfish thoughts

03/10/2012
I don't want to sound self pitying or anything to that effect, but it's such a frustrating set of circumstances we're in. I know things are progressing & we're getting closer to the end of our first cycle (hopefully the only cycle) but it absolutely destroys me seeing Libby struggling with the injections & the side effects that come with them. She started off so well with it, & Considering she's never given herself an injection before, she was quite confident with it & seemed to take it all in her stride, but lately She seems to be getting herself worked up & nervous, making the whole thing into a drama. No matter how much I try to reassure her, it just seems to fall on deaf ears. Then once the drugs kick in, it seems to just knock her out. I know she feels worse than she's letting on because she's stopped baking & decorating cakes, that is one of the things she loves to do most.
I know where trying to do a good thing, & making a life that is our own is what we want so badly, But sometimes I just seem to want the woman I love back, Then I just feel terrible for having these selfish thoughts

04/10/2012
There's been a few times over the course of this process that I've thought the staff at the clinic seem to be looking down their noses at us, one person in particular that seems to think she's the lord god almighty. Everytime we've spoke to her with any concerns she's come across that she doesn't really want to be talking to us.
Today Libby has completely run out of one of the drugs she needs When she phoned up to speak to the nurse, who intern had to speak to the person I'm refering to & Lib' could tell by the tone of her voice in the background how she feels about us. I can't help but feeling it's because we're having funding for the treatment, this woman believes we shouldn't be in her clinic,  we aren't able to pay for this therefore we are inferior. These kind of people make my blood boil!!! Hopefully, I've got the wrong end of the stick here, but I doubt it

05/10/2012
Once again Libby has an appointment at the clinic that i'm not there for. Yet another internal scan.
Thankfully the results are quite positive. The drugs seem to be doing there job.
Libby has 15 follicles in her good ovary, but they're not quite ready for the next drug (Another dose of Ovitrelle) So another scan is booked for Monday (Which, again i can't be there for) We're getting closer to finding out when egg collection will be. Exciting times

#10 Drugs, Drugs & More Drugs

01/10/2012
I haven’t posted anything in what seems like an eternity, but not a lot has been happening, just some (Prescription) drug taking, blood tests & transvaginal scans. Mostly stuff that I haven’t been present for. So this post is basically just a short and sweet update.

As I’ve mention in the previous post that Libby had developed (yet another) ovarian cyst, possibly a side effect of the Suprecur injections. It was suggested that she should inject Ovitrelle to either shrink or break up the cyst. Well it seems to have worked the cyst is still there but it's shrunk enough to no longer be of any concern. & as an added bonus, her oestrogen levels have dropped enough to move onto the next step, even more subcutaneous injections! Next up Menopur to stimulate the growth & development of follicles within the ovary.

This is fun stuff because you get to play chemist. There’s one vial of solution & 4 containing a tablet which is dissolved in the solution. It’s all fun & games…honest 

The side effects of the menopur haven’t been anything too dissimilar to the other injections, Tiredness, nausea, dizziness, a whole lot of water retention, but now with added short term dead leg, like proper dead. I’ve deliberately avoided reading up on the side effects, because I’ve previously got freaked out over nothing, as it’s been nowhere near as bad as I was expecting

The highlight of the scan on Friday (which, annoyingly I couldn’t be there for AGAIN) Other than the shrinking cyst, was that Libby has a odd shaped uterus, now what constitutes as ‘odd shaped’? a rhombus or even a dodecahedron perhaps? Answers on a postcard to the usual address.
From what I can gather, it can’t be too much of an issue, other wise the would have said… right?

But what I don’t get is, Libby has had soooooo many scans (Internal & external) & clinical procedures. So why has this never been mentioned before? Unless it can change at random intervals. I just don’t have a clue, But I’m gonna avoid researching it, or will I? 

#9 Stress

16/09/2012

It's really easy to see why fertility issues causes the meltdown of some relationships, even well before they've got to IVF stage. I've seen it happen quite a few times, & the sad thing is, one of the couple's I'm refering to both now have kids with different partners. When I heard that they had split up, I was quite critical (as usual) sayin that the had no commitment to each other or that they didn't love each other. when in fact it's the stress of it that ripped them apart
I consider my marriage to be as strong as as it can be, especially in the last year or two, things have been better that I could have ever imagined. Not that things were bad before, it's just that occasionally we were prone to taking each other for granted, & I'm not always the easiest of people to live with. But recently there has what seems to be a slight wedge between us, not in any serious kind of way, mainly because Libby is struggling with the side effects of the medication & stresses that come with it, coupled with my general inability to do anything about it. Admittedly I can make cups of tea & constantly say "don't worry, it'll be all right" & to a degree that's OK, but to me OK isn't enough. I want to be able to say it's going to be fine & be 100% sure that what i'm saying is what I mean. & that in turn stresses me out & adds to that wedge between us.

18/09/2012

I don't have much luck when it comes to public transport, Well it strikes again. Thanks to both bus & train, I made it into Sheffield twenty minutes late, giving me 10 minutes to get from one side of the city to the other. Thankfully Libby had borrowed the company car from work & was able to pick me up from the station, It just meant I had to get in it without her pulling up in a no stopping zone. I should work for Mi5 with the daredevil stunt I pulled off. Jumping in a moving car? ...EASY! (admittedly it was moving quite slow, thanks to the traffic lights) We made it to the clinic with only seconds to spare.
Annoyingly it proved to be a pointless journey. Well it always was going to be for me, because I'm surplus to requirements at the moment anyway, but I'm determined to be there as often as humanly possible. The scan that should have been taking place, now wasn't taking place, because a blood test will surfice, Ive travelled over an hour by bus, train & car, to witness something I hate & wasted a holiday day at work...AWESOME!
Taking blood from Libby is like taking blood from a stone, Both are heartless & cold! (Did i say that out aloud?) some nurses can do it with the greatest of ease, but most struggle. it's been known for blood to be extracted from her feet because her veins in her arms & hands are so hard to draw from, Today's nurse is of the struggling king & inflicted quite a bit of pain to take some red stuff. So anyway you'll find me in the waiting room, it's like watching a horror film

19/09/2012

Today is blood test results day AND... It's not good. It turns out the suprecur injections haven't been doing the job of dampening down Libby's hormones, Instead her oestrogen levels are higher than normal. So now she's got to go back tomorrow for the scan she should have had yesterday. Apparently this is quite common, but surely if it's common we should have been told about it before now. I would have preferred to have had this information instead of the biology lessons that were inflicted on us.

20/09/2012

So Libby has had to go the her scan on her own, because I couldn't get the day off work at such short notice
delays, which makes me quite irritable, Because I wanted to be there for my Wife, like a husband should.
It turns out Libby has another ovarian cyst, which is probably causing the hormone level to still be quite high.
Libby has a thing about ovarian cysts, most meds she takes seems to trigger them. So it almost seems quite normal to us. but annoyingly it might drag our treatment out a bit longer

21/09/2012

Libby's had a call from the clinic today regarding the results of the scan. She's been advised to skip the next set of drugs (Menopur) & go straight to the last one (Ovitrelle) because it should shrink  the cyst, & then she can carry on as normal maybe only delaying things by about two weeks ... Fingers crossed

The Ovitrelle needle is quite odd looking, it looks a little like one of those pens with interchangable inks, it's quite a large syringe, but with a smallish needle & a button instead of a plunger.

Like an idiot, I've read up on the side effects again & got myself worked up. So hopefully it's 'worse case scenario' stuff like it was with the Suprecur

<sometime later>
So far we've had nausia, dizziness, aches & pains, tears, hugs, tea & sympathy & for now I now have a comatose wife. She's watching Hollyoaks on TV, but with her eyes closed, (which I find the best way to watch soap opera's & without sound too) but she's not asleep... Honest
I've also plucked up the courage to voice my concerns about the aforementioned 'wedge' between us, but also reassured ourselves that we'll get through it because we know it's there, We know why it's there & we know it'll go away once things calm down
& if it gets too much, we can stop the treatment, because our relationship will always come first. As much as this is important to us, it isn't the be all & end all

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#8 Hopes & Fears

11/09/2012
I want to thank everyone for their kind words of support, it's been a really big help. Even though I haven't done this for sympathy or praise, it's still nice to receive it. I originally did it as a bit of Therapy for myself, getting some things of my chest & maybe help other people who going through similar things, Especially the blokes out there who don't like asking for help or talking about subjects like this, because it is hard

I'm praying that if all this works, that we have a boy, because there's far to many females in this house already & I never get to watch what I want on tv because there's ALWAYS bloody soap opera's on, Even the dogs are higher in the pecking order than me. I'd be safer getting in the chinchilla's cage.
In all honesty, I really don't care if it's a boy or a girl, & wouldn't want to know before it's birth, I wan't to experience all the fun & surprises along the way, I want to be like a little kid at Christmas, But i'm getting ahead of myself, I don't want to get my hopes to high, purely because there's still so much that can go wrong,
We already have a high risk of an ectopic pregnancy, which is far too scary for me to even contemplate. plus there's the other risks that go with having children after the age of 30, like higher risk of Downs syndrome & other disabilities & scariest of all miscarriage, I really think that would be like a hammer blow to us if that happened again.

13/09/2012
Y'know when I started writing this blog, I said 'some of it will make you think I'm a dickhead' Well this is going to be one of those posts, Because the stage we are now at with our treatment, (I keep saying OUR treatment, when in fact I don't have a great deal to do, besides getting acquainted with little plastic pots) things are quite slow moving & not a great deal to write about, so i'm going to air some thoughts & views that will probably put people off me &/or this blog ...Sorry!

It has occurred to me many times that if we hadn't waited til now to start trying for a family things might have been very different & perhaps less complicated, but i'm kinda glad we did. purely for the reason that the current 'younger' generation scares the crap out of me. For example If I look out of my front windows right now (Or at almost any time of the day, except in winter) I see families sat outside their houses smoking & drinking (including a pregnant teenager), shouting & swearing at each other in front of young children, shouting & swearing AT young children. Litter & beer cans all over the place. Kids running all over the road & it's quite a busy road too, It's a miracle no one has been hurt. Children aren't taught respect any more either, We had an incident a week or so ago, where one of the kids from the house opposite threw a piece of wood at our car as we parked up on the street. Libby confronted the mother about it, & all she said was "he's a right little c*nt" with no apology what so ever, then she she threatened to beat the kid when she got hold of him. What has that taught the kid or any other kid that saw it? I dread to think
I know this isn't just happening on my street or even just in Maltby, its almost every village, town & city throughout the country.
So hopefully, by waiting to have kids, they might miss this generation altogether & things might improve, I doubt it, At least it can't get much worse. ...I hope
One though does enter my mind quite a lot is that there should be some form of licence to have kids, like you would for a car, you learn how to be a parent before you can become one. We had to be checked that we didn't have a criminal record & we could provide a safe environment for a baby (See previous blog) before we could start our IVF, so why isn't such a thing applied to people having kids naturally? Although that would be impossible to enforce & probably against a whole load of human rights

14/09/2012
Today I saw quite possibly the most horrifying thing ever. A woman at a cash machine with a little girl & a dog. Not that scary eh? Anyway the dog bolted off across the road, The woman chased after the dog leaving the little girl stood on her own on a relatively busy high street, not many people around but plenty of cars. I told Libby to pull over so I could go after the dog So the woman could stay with the kid, but she carried on running after dog, leaving a child aged 5 or 6 crying her eyes out. I know we do silly things when we panic, but to leave a child on their own to go after a dog is disgraceful. Anything could have happened to her. she could have run out into the road & got hit by a car, kidnapped or anything sinister like that, How did the woman know I wasn't going to do something horrible? luckily I managed to calm the girl down & take her to her mum or whoever she was. Typically, I didn't even get a thank you. WHAT IS WRONG WITH SOCIETY??? I despair, I really do.

15/09/2012
I was recently having a conversation in a group on Facebook about my fears of being a parent. The lady I was speaking to, said her "eldest of three is now 20 years old & it's still quite scary & doesn't really get much easier. Shame there's no instruction book" So I started looking around the internet for 'Good Parenting guides' & was amazed at some of the things that were suggested, things that are common sense. But if it is that easy, why do so many people seem to find it hard work?
I'm not the brightest of people, not by a long shot, but I do pride myself on my common sense approach to life, so hopefully I'll be able to rise to the challenge, & I'm sure it will be challenging. But If we can care for our foster daughter, a hormonal teenage girl (with added baggage) we can just about care for anything.
But maybe there should be a lot more additional help out there for for people that want & need it. Well that's if it's not there already.

#5 A kind of prelude

22/08/12
(If bit's don't make sense in this post, It's because i've had to edit it quite a bit. I got carried away with some personal bits, & it became quite painful for me, so i thought it best to take bits out. Hope you understand)

It's weird to think that only a few years ago, I wasn't particularly bothered about being a dad, I'd always thought 'If i had kids then that's cool, it/they would be loved, But if not, so what'
That all changed in the space of one of the best & also one of the worst weeks of my life back in October 2010.
Libby was due for surgery to get to the bottom of a long running gynaecological issue, but on the morning of the op, the pre-op test shown she was pregnant so the procedure couldn't go ahead, When I got the phone call I was reduced to tears in the middle of our dining room floor which is not a pretty sight I can assure you. I don't think I've ever been as happy in my life as I was at that moment
Sadly this happiness was short lived, a week later I got a call to say Libby was bleeding heavily & was on her was to hospital. part of me didn't want to acknowledge what was really happening. I had a rare streak of optimism & I was determined not to let go of it. It was insanely frustrating waiting around the hospital, I had to wait in the waiting room, without any information. The A&E at Rotherham General is normally quite a colourful place, full of drunks & people who look like the should be on the Jeremy Kyle or Jerry Springer  show, Thankfully it was relatively quite, which is good 'cause I might have killed someone.
After what seemed like an eternity, I was allowed to go through & see Libby, It's air to say she wasn't in a good way. Floods of tear & white as a ghost. & worst of all none the wiser as to what was happening.
Later that evening after being transferred onto the gynea ward of the hospital, the news was broken that Libby was miscarrying. we we're losing our little Eggburt (That was the name we'd given him/her because it was just a yolk sack when we found out about it)
It was incredibly hard for both of us (I assume it's the same for everyone) We'd only had a week to get used to what would been the start of a new future, a future that we really liked the look of. & in a heartbeat it had gone & replaced with a lot of hurt & anguish & millions of unanswered questions. If it hadn't been for the nurses on ward B11, it would have been a lot worse, & they will always be in our hearts

The main advice we got afterwards was that if we wanted a family, we had to get 'back in the saddle' But, after a year of trying, it wasn't happening. We eventually got to the bottom of why, when Libby went back to the hospital to have the op she should have had before this whole saga started.
The op & various internal scans discovered that one ovary was damaged & the other was 'a bit crap', because of how it was damaged, the doctor said it was similar to someone that had had untreated chlamydia,  but both of us have never had any form of S.T.I. so it's kinda unexplained as to why it's like that
They also found Libby had Endometriosis, which they remove whist she was under the anaesthetic

It was a positive sign that one ovary was working even though it wasn't working  as well as it should, but this could be remedied with medication called Clomid
This route was proving to be successful initially, but because it made Libby so ill, it made it vertually impossible to hop on the good foot & do the bad thing. (Which we had to do every other day, it's amazing how hard it is to have sex when it's required on demand, I'd have thought it was ever mans dream to have regular sex, it actuall became a choir) The following months proved to be fruitless, no matter how hard we tried.
After 5 months of the meds another side effect reared it's head, in the shape of a cyst, which made things even harder. Meaning we had to take a break before went for the final month, which again proved fruitless
After another appointment with our consultant, We found out that IVF was the only way forward ...& here we are!