Some old fashioned ways and things tend to be better. Good old fashioned baking and cooking cant really be beat, old fashioned values of the man treating a woman like an actual woman, opening the door for her, taking her to a nice restaurant and not expecting anymore than a peck on the cheek.These days people just buy crappy fast and convenient processed food and some men's idea of a date is meeting a woman at a bar, getting wasted and taking her home for a quick shag on his dirty old sofa. I'm not claiming I'm not guilty of either of these things, (I have spend some time on dirty old sofas doing less than desirable things, then downing a greasy BK Burger), but I think sometimes the old way is better than the new way. Where am I actually going with all of this? well we are having to do it the old fashioned way till our next IVF cycle, and I must say, where baby making is concerned, the old way is just not working for us.
Till our 2nd IVF cycle in April, the old fashioned way it will be. Obviously doing it the old fashioned way hasn't exactly been a rip roaring success, and it's actually unlikely It will be, but another month is always another try, and I've never been one to miss a perfectly good opportunity, however unlikely it may be. This coming week will be the right time to conceive, I will pull out the good old ovulation kits from the cabinet, dust them off and get my groove on. Lately I'm so used to everyone else being in control of my situation, someone else made me ovulate, someone else put gardener guys sperm inside me, and then of course with IVF someone else took out my eggs, made a baby in the lab and put it back inside me. No sex involved, unless you count my gardener guy's ever growing relationship with his hand to produce his sperm sample. Hmmmmm.....Lovely.
So the typical scenario for us when trying to conceive naturally starts with me obsessing about ovulation, telling my husband it's time, trying hard for the couple of days we actually have a slim chance of it working, and then waiting again. Of course all the funny habits will probably resurface again, being me lying on the floor after the deed is done, legs in the air trying to do a head stand to get the little buggers up there. It's just such a bloody carry on. Oh yes trying to have a baby at the start is all fun and games but after a while, mark my words it becomes the most stressful thing you will ever do, then add actual fertility treatments to it and you have yourself a recipe for a shit load of shit basically.
I don't think I'm going to obsess or be crazy this time, I've been there, done that enough, we will just try and see what happens, i think I've turned a bit of a corner and feel ok about waiting till April, and having the acupuncture and Chinese herbs helps, so old fashioned it will be. I know all those stories about people who did failed IVF's then got pregnant naturally and quite frankly anyone who tells stories like that to me is not helping, it's unlikely and those stories are just damn annoying. Speaking of annoying, today for the first time in a very long time I took the little boy I look after to a music group, so it was filled with mums, babies and all the annoying talk that comes out of there annoying mouths, it was all ok, till I sat down on a couch and turned to my side and there were 2 very pregnant ladies having a good old chat about all their pregnancy bullshit. Seriously I think sometimes pregnant woman have some kind of sensor and they spend their days trying to track me down. Really I just wanted to smack them in the face. Fat cows.
Old fashioned ways have come a long way, luckily living in this modern era has opened up a whole new way of doing things, a whole new way of helping people with all sorts of problems. New technology and science is amazing and I'm thankful it is around to help us out, but at the end of the day nothing beats a good old fashioned kiss and cuddle, that is something that is not going to happen in the lab, so I think ill take a few of the old fashioned ways, and mix them in with a few of the new ways and that will be our recipe to make a perfect little baby, that will grow into a man who will open the door for a woman, or a woman who will bake an amazing loaf of bread. The old fashioned way.
* Ps: Could all this sudden surge of advice be a result of my acupuncture and Chinese herbs? has it changed my mind, body and spirit already? Have I turned into an inspirational life giving speaker that people will travel from far and wide to hear? clearly I have no qualifications to be giving such advice, but what the hell, we all should pretend we are someone to be listened too, shouldn't we? just once in our lives.
Chicken is not my friend anymore, simple as that. They cant be trusted, the way they peck around sticking out their creepy little necks, their beady eyes, and that suspicious clucking noise. Chickens are evil.
This evening we had our first acupuncture appointment. We arrived to soothing music, and in we went. We had a consult, the practitioner asked us questions about our conceiving history, our general health and our fertility treatments. After he got all his information we went through to have the acupuncture, I hopped up on the bed on my back and my gardener guy sat on a chair next to me. I had needles in both big toes, in my ankles, 4 in my lower stomach area and 3 in my left ear. I was kindly asked to lower my pants so he could insert the needles, this is when I said to him "its fine, I'm not shy, if you want me to pull them further down it's ok", I think he just didn't want to embarrass me or make me feel uncomfortable, Yeah right, not possible after all I have been through, my vagina is a free for all area! He then got some strange Chinese herbs that were rolled up in a cigar type thing, he lit it and started waving it over my vaginal area, where the needles were. When he brought it in, I was thinking 'am I meant to smoke this'?....... It felt really nice and warm being waved over my toxic vagina. I left with a bottle of Chinese herbal medicine, 2 tablets twice a day, so there you go, more medicine. I am now booked in for a session once a week. We are both feeling really good about it, apparently there had been success stories come out of his clinic, so I really hope we become one of those.
Now back to the chicken issue, listen up if your having problems conceiving. We were told to keep up with our healthy eating, but the main thing is, stay away from chicken!! a big no no. Chicken's have been pumped full of hormones and antibiotics, so we are not to eat it. Only organic chicken and organic eggs. Luckily we have a butcher very close who has great organic chicken. So there goes any McDonald's chicken burgers, any chicken takeaways, chicken sandwiches, having breakfast out because of the eggs. But hey, it's all manageable.
I would say tonight was a success, we are feeling good about this approach, we always hope this will be an amazing cure and work, and bring us our baby,it feels good to have someone different help us, of course we still have to help ourselves, sex is obviously important, we need to have it! with the whole IVF, sex didn't even need to happen, so I better get out some fancy panties and get gardener guy in the mood again.
Next time you eat a juicy chicken burger, a crispy roast chicken, fried chicken nuggets or even just a chicken sandwich, think about what this crappy bird may be doing to your reproductive system, and instead reach for a nice tasty cow. When I was little, I always had a strange love of cows, i never cared for chickens, so there you go......food for thought.
Yesterday at 12.51pm at Christchurch in New Zealand the earth shook violently. A devastating quake struck at the worse possible time, people in the central city were at work, out for lunch, kids were at school. Building's were destroyed, people were trapped (and still are), and worse of all lives were lost.
When something terrible happens to you on a personal level, you tend to think that your life is coming to an end, you are the saddest, most depressed person out there. Then something bigger happens, and you realize the whole world does not revolve around you, and life is hard for many people, bad things happen to other people too and what a shame it is.
Yesterday I watched the news for most of the afternoon, Then my gardener guy came home to tell me someone had crashed into our car and left a scratch. It was pouring with rain, the kids were inside going nuts, my husband was trying to frantically sort out the car situation, I was bleeding alot and had been in alot of pain all day, the news was on with terribly depressing and shocking images, and I think it just became too much stress. All I'll say is at one point I threw the phone across the room, and ran out crying, then later on I threw a pair of kitchen tongs and ran to bathroom crying!. My husband was stressed, I was stressed, Family were ringing me to try and work out if other family members were ok in Christchurch, and I think I just snapped. I think between the IVF failing, the fact that I have a terribly painful period which is probably me bleeding out the embryo, the car, and the horrible earthquake and trying to reach family, I just got to a point where I wasn't coping. I'm clearly still not myself.
Today is a new day for me and the residents of Christchurch, hopefully my period calms down and the pain eases off, hopefully today seems somewhat brighter for Christchurch, hopefully there are some miraculous rescues today, and lives saved.
I guess in my little corner of the earth, my life was shaken with bad news on Saturday, but when you look at the bigger picture, there is alot more terrible situations out there, and I need to be thankful that I'm safe, well, and able to fight another shaky battle, for many unfortunately yesterday was the last battle they fought.
Acupuncture is the new plan. Today I made an appointment at a natural health clinic. So the plan is to do acupuncture once a week, every Thursday night. Our first appointment is this Thursday, and he will also discuss with us about Chinese herbs that will help us too. So we are both very much looking forward to this appointment. I was pleased as it's a good price too, the acupuncture is only $65 per week, and really what else are we spending the money on, nothing.
I feel a little freaked out about acupuncture, its weird isn't it, but I've heard so much amazing feedback about it that its worth a bloody try. I am a wee bit concerned about needles in my face, apart from that I think Ill be fine. Ill take every Thursday night as a time to relax and get in a real good place, both body and mind. Am I morphing into a free loving zen hippy......... not quite, I refuse to go to my appointment's in those weird loose white one size fits all hippy pants, although with the extra weigh gain from all the drugs, this may end up being my only clothing option.
I also expressed my concern about my state of mind, and told the practitioner I wanted to shift the way I think to a much more positive frame of mind, he told me he can definitely help us both out with this too, so that will be just great. Ill walk out of the clinic feeling so relaxed and at peace ill practically be horizontal, carry me out, I'm too chilled to walk.
As for my frame of mind at the moment, well I'm still a bit fragile. This morning when we woke up it dawned on me that it was shitty Monday, I had to work, and I was not pregnant. Smear some shit on toast and slap it in my face! that is what it's like. My gardener guy asked me if I wanted him to stay home with me, without a second though I said "yes, I don't want to be without you". So I got up and got sorted for the boys arrival, when one of the mum's arrived to drop off her little boy, there was a wee situation, a situation i never expected. She asked me how I was feeling then she gave me a hug, and I lost it, I started crying and it took every ounce of strength to get it together, because obviously I didn't want to seem too unprofessional, this is my job, caring for her son. I have no idea where this came from, and I wouldn't have though in a million years that I would just crack like that, yes in front of friends, but not her.... I guess I thought I was a bit more together then I actually am. In between all of this, my gardener guy came racing out into the lounge to see what all the commotion was and quickly helped the situation by talking to them. thank god, I kind of got my shit together. Of course they were lovely about it, but jesus I guess I'm actually not ok at all.
So there you have it, 2 days after a failed IVF and I'm not even near being stable. 4 failed fertility treatments, 2 years of trying to conceive, and what do I have to show for it, a damn big debt, an extra layer of fat, a broken heart, the worlds most viewed vagina ( and I'm not even getting paid for it), and enough tears to sink Noah's ark.
But on the up side, I've inherited some great blogging friends, more support that I could ever have imagined I would get, a new appreciation for my husband and the most coolest of all, a killer pair of boobs! Not even a failed IVF will deflate my determination nor the boobs.
The above picture shows my gardener guy's efforts. He's not called gardener guy for nothing! these are just a small selection of the treats he has been growing for us. Why are you writing about this you may ask? have you given up on baby making and are you turning this into a healthy food blog? Well no........ but this is our new direction. After yesterdays devastating news, we woke up this morning sadder than ever, and that's when I decided something had to change.
To begin with, it's not like we were mega unhealthy people, of course we ate plenty of veges, and generally not terrible eating habits. Although we enjoyed pizza, unhealthy sugary fruit juice, chippies, chocolate. So that's all gone. We went to the supermarket this morning and completely re changed our whole style of shopping. drastically! We brought fruit, all lean meat, salmon, fish, brown bread, nuts, hummus, fruit & veg juice and of course we didn't need to buy veges as we have them all in our own garden. This is pretty huge for us, I have never committed to eating really amazingly healthy, yes I've been through fazes, and really we weren't all that bad to begin with, but I've never felt this strongly as I do with this. I guess after yesterday, I just woke up today thinking I had 2 options, to stay in bed, being sad, going over what if this, what if that, feeling sorry for myself, or get the hell out of bed and do something positive. And something inside of me made me get up, go outside and say to my husband "how do you feel about changing everything", his reply was the best possible answer, "Ill do whatever it takes, Ill do whatever it takes to make you happy". perfect.
Once we got shopping, we both got really into it, and I think this will be great. Not only will it make us both so healthy, and get my body ready for the April IVF, but I think it will really start to improve our state of mind. I'm not one of those really weird kooky health type people that we all snare at, but maybe they aren't so weird after all. I think they have really got something good going on. Fruit, veges and good eating = yes, turning into a creepy, unshaven legs, unshaven under arms, no deodorant wearing naturalist who lies around in the the back garden chanting and drinking spirilina = no. We will find a healthy medium.
We are still beyond upset, we wish today was different, and I wish I didn't have to force myself to get out of bed. But that's the way it is, It cant be changed, I cant let sadness over come me, I cant fall back into a black hole. I need to do things that make me feel better, like this new eating craze, more research on alternative medicine, getting started with acupuncture, continue writing. My life will continue to revolve around getting pregnant, just this time around it will be a much more positive, healthy, happy approach. Any bad vibes, negative energy, cakes and pies should be left at the door please.
This is not good news. I cannot begin to express how heartbroken I am. Me and my Gardener guy are crushed.
We got up early this morning to go and have my blood test, Then we came home and waited. This was the hardest thing ever, we decided to go for a walk on the Petone beach, but that didn't help, we kind of walked round the house aimlessly waiting for that call. I don't think I will ever forget that call. We were both standing outside in the back courtyard, and the phone rang, I hear the same miserable sounding voice from the nurse that I'm so familiar with, "I'm sorry, It's not good news" and that was it...... I couldn't hear anymore, I handed the phone straight over to my husband and he mumbled a few words to her then the call was over. The worse call of our lives, it was meant to be the best call of our lives.
We went inside and sat on the couch together and cried. The more I cried the more I made my gardener guy cry. He held onto me, and after a few minutes of saying nothing, he started to say all the right things. He started to comfort me, to tell me 'we are strong, we can get through this' 'we have each other' 'your so strong we will be ok' 'we can do another round' ' It will happen for us'. Basically anything he could manage to get out he did. He told me he cant bear to see me upset anymore and he will do whatever it takes to stop the sadness.This is when we discussed other natural treatments to do between now and April, (April is when we will do another IVF cycle).
My gardener guy rang his parents, all he could manage to say was "it isn't good news, Ill call you later". That was all he could say, the same thing when he rang my parents. I text a few people that were waiting to hear and that was that. all over. hopes destroyed.
I cried alot, and for a long time, and by no means am I ok as I write this, but I still write this for everyone that wants to know how we are, and cares. I don't feel anything anymore, I don't think I will ever be successful, And I don't think I will ever be the same again, This has made me as tough as stone, I surprise myself how I some how manage to get up and start planning for the future, my determination is something I'm really proud of, and something I never knew I had until infertility.So that's something at least, something ill take away from all this. That has to be good. doesn't it.
Me and my gardener guy discussed alternative medicine, As our minds never stop thinking of ways to make a baby, even when we are destroyed. I have rung and left a message with a Natural Health Centre, someone I know referred me to this place as apparently they deal with infertility. So I'll keep you updated when we hear back, I also plan to start acupuncture. We are both the type of people that need to be doing something, I cant lie around for 2 month's doing nothing, I cant waste the 2 months by going out and getting boozed and having lots fun, and making my body more unhealthy, no way, not when I could be doing something to help with the next IVF. Getting our baby will continue to be my number one priority. It's funny how money suddenly becomes so insignificant, we just don't care anymore, we will pay more money for our 2nd IVF in April, and in the meantime we will pay more money for natural medicine. Money doesn't matter at all.
But for tonight, we plan to get some wine and pizza and curl up at home together. Before we have to face reality and get back to work and the same mundane things.
If you are one of the lucky people that have children, treasure them every single day, they are treasure. They are so special and they should never be taken forgranted. For many of us out there, to get these little treasures is a struggle, We have to dig deep into that treasure chest and hope we get a jewel. The treasure has not being thrown at us, We have had to follow a map, that sometimes leads us down a never ending path, and when we get there, it happens to be the wrong path, so we have to start all over again, right back at the start of the map.We have had to start all over again, we haven't yet got our treasure. We haven't yet struck gold. Will we ever reach the end, I like to think so. There must be a little treasure with our name on it, the question is when will we get it?
