So...here we are!

Right-i-oh then! Here we are!
After spending a good many hours of my current school holidays reading other women's blogs, I decided to give this a go.
A most certainly can not guarantee that I will be an inspiring writer, or that my life will be of any interest whatsoever, to anyone!
I love the concept of blogging - have always been a diary and journal writer - but, not since falling in love with my partner, Rob, have I written one - and that's going back 7 or 8 years now.
Just looking over my writing - I use a lot of dashes, people! Oh, and a lot of brackets (I've only recently become aware of the "style" since being a member of an online forum).
Looking back over my diary writing/ journal writing years - I only ever write when I'm obsessed with something. Obsessed with a friend/ non-friend, obsessed with a boy/ man and now - obsessed with

can


I


say


it?

Having a baby! There! So, here we are! Another blog about a woman's quest for conception. But, it's my story too, and I wanna tell it.
The story starts when boy meets girl and fall head over heels, of course. I was about to turn 30 at the time. I was married previously but had never REALLY wanted to have children with THAT man. This man is different and I am different. Plus, there's the age thing ....

Age, that dark spectre gliding along just behind my right shoulder....just out of peripheral sight. But, if I turn my head right around, it's there staring me in the face. I'm 35.

Being a well educated gal and into doing all the necessary reading and researching to whip myself into a frenzy of worry, I do realise all too well that there are statistics out there about success rates for the 35 and overs. I've chosen to listen to my doctor tell me that "This should work" - hearing it as "This will work" and stick my head in the sand about the rest. I wish I hadn't read so much though.

The journey started with my "going off" the pill in April 2004. That was indeed what it was, too. I was starting to look at that little pill as the evil enemy - it was making me feel sick to take it. So began about 7 ignorant months just waiting to see whether I'd fall pregnant.

I. just.thought.it.would.happen.

Come December 2004/January 2005 - I experience what I'm pretty sure is an early miscarriage or a chemical pregnancy. Around that time I also find a great online forum and join a group of women who are also trying to conceive. A quick learning curve ensued. I learnt about ovulation, I learnt about basal body temperatures, cervical mucous, supplements, timing of intercourse. Well - no wonder I wasn't pregnant!! Again, once I'd gained all of this new knowledge and turned it into skill I just thought it would happen.

It didn't. Instead my cycles decided they'd become long and irregular, just for the fun of it. Off to the GP, armed with charts and a marked calendar. GP is lovely and helpful and said "If nothing by April, come back and I'll refer you".

Enter from the wings, Dr Wong. And, he's fantastic. I don't see him much, but when I do I get told what I need to know, I get to ask questions, have them answered. I get reassurance and very good patient care.

I started clomid after being diagnosed with polycystic ovaries. I don't have the syndrome, just a couple of features that can be ticked off on a list - long cycles, multiple small follicles on an ovary. Bugger. Clomid wasn't too bad - I responded very well whilst on it and most definitely ovulated. I just didn't get pregnant. I also gained about 10 kilos!

It was about this time that I started to get really sensitive to other people's "assvice" (a really great term I've picked up somewhere online - Thank you to the originals "term coiner"). One particular piece of assvice that gives the absolute shits is "Just relax - it will happen". What the...? I am not that bloody tense - My reproductive sytem is not the way it is because I'm tense godammit! And, the pearler that beats them all is from my sister's idiot of a husband - here it is, are you ready for it?? "Just fuck!!" Oh! Really?? Is that what we've been doing wrong all this time? Is that why you have two kids and I have - none?? I don't fuck and you do?? Or - are you trying to say we don't fuck the right way??? What IS it that you are trying to say, exactly?? Moron!

Anyway, I see my specialist during my sixth cycle of clomid and discuss the next step. Things were getting serious, people - Rob even had to come to this appointment. There were about 4 options laid before us.1) Keep trying. 2) Have a lap/dye test (if I have blocked tubes go to option 4, if I don't have blocked tubes, go to option 1, 3 or 5). 3) try IUI. 4) start IVF. I think my age came into it a lot when we made the decision. Option 1 was out of the question. Option 2 was seriously considered but we decided to skip it. Dr Wong didn't recommened unblocking tubes because of increased ectopic risks, and if they weren't blocked it still didn't go anyway towards explaining why we weren't getting pregnant - we're going around in circles here people - and I have always been a straight line kind of gal!

So, here we are! About $7000 worse off, but getting excited about the very real possiblity of being pregant in about a month's time. I've been injecting Lucrin for about 10 days now. I start the Puregon injections tomorrow.

I think that's about enough for a first post, too...