Dear friends,

This blog post is for you whether you are my family, my friends or my on-line friends.

Starting the ‘trying to concieve’ journey three years ago I never thought I would be here now. I always knew that due to my PCOS and blocked tubes it wouldn’t be easy but here we are at the crossroads looking at what road to take.

This past year we have been through so much. I have now had three failed cycles of IVF and feel like we have taken steps backwards rather than forwards. I don’t think we ever thought that all three cycles would fail and we would be sat here wondering what to do. I don’t think anyone can understand just what a cycle of IVF takes out of you and changes you. I think its also difficult to understand what its like when a cycle doesn’t work. I think youv’e been pumped full of so many drugs, had painful and undignified procedures done and put your heart and soul into something and then it all comes crashing down around you when you pee on a stick and that line doesn’t appear.

The miscarriage in August tore me apart. It was too much pain. Taking a pregnancy test and it actually saying ‘pregnant’ was the happiest moment of my life. I walked around for two weeks smiling and knowing I was the luckiest girl in the world and I let myself be happy. Then it was cruelly taken away from me when my six week scan showed my baby had gone. Then having to be scanned week after week to ‘double-check’ my baby wasn’t just hiding was unbearable and having the ERPC was the lowest point of my life. I don’t know how I would ever get through feeling like that ever again. It makes me thankful that this cycle was a flat no.

I havent felt like blogging at all this cycle so to cut it short - we had nine eggs which was fabulous and six fertilised. Unfortunately by day 5 when we went to go for embryo transfer four of the embryos and broken down and died and two had stopped developing, they put them in ‘just in case’ and we got the big fat negative yesterday. I got my period a week ago which is seriously wrong and something we need to bring up with the clinic at the review meeting.

We now need to assess whether the experts think there is any point doing IVF again or if they think we should try something else such as egg donation etc. Then we probably need to look at the surrogacy/adoption route and see where we stand with that.

To my friends, I apologise whole heartedly if anyone has missed me this past year. I know I haven’t been any fun and I know most of you are probably bored to tears with the whole saga (as am I) but I am going through an incredibly painful and difficult time. The charity RESOLVE say that its very difficult for people with children to grasp what this road feels like and I find it really hard trying to convey to people how difficult it is. Especially at 32 when most of my friends have children. I have had friends say that they don’t know how to act or help and so here is a link to a really good article from the AFA:

http://theafa.typepad.com/theafablog/2010/08/how-friends-and-family-can-support-an-infertile-woman.html

I apologise to my friend whose christening I missed yesterday. I have always been proud of the fact that I haven’t given into my infertility and let it beat me. Yesterday I had to do just that. I felt awful and disappointed in myself and may always regret not being there. I just hurt all the time at the moment.

I have also had people in the past year say that I am too vocal about something that is an incredibly private matter. Trust me I get that. But it is such a huge part of my life at the moment - I think I talked about it a lot to try and explain why I might not be much fun.

If we do decide to go ahead with another cycle of IVF it is going to cost us a lot of money and I might not have the money to do all the things I would love to do and I apologise in advance for that. It isnt that I dont love any of you and believe that I will be just as sad missing out on your important life events.

I am not me at the moment and I am not sure who me is anymore. I am going to concentrate on my writing this year and try and make at least one dream come true. Maybe Patrick Dempsey will turn up on my doorstep too :o)

To all of my friends with children - cherish them with everything you have (I know you do). You are luckier than you will ever know and hopefully one day and somehow there will be a little Noah or Matilda in our life to bring some joy back.

xxxx