Strong women

It really hit me today.

Last week I was pregnant.

Last week i was avoiding Caffeine, and meanly leaving all the playgroup lifting and moving to people who weren't pregnant, hoping they weren't thinking I was just being lazy. Last week I was a little bit hopeful and a little bit happy.

This week I'm just my normal barren self again.

And once again I'm reminded I need to remember what I am going through, and give myself a break. When this same thing happened last time it took me months to recover. And this time I had big social and family commitments, as well as the emotional roller-coaster of my sister-in-laws pregnancy to deal with.

I'm so scared of the future. The future to me seems this big black hole of horrible pain. There are so many things I am NOT looking forward to. Most forefront of my mind is the anniversary of Thumpers death. The idea of facing that without a baby in my stomach just makes me shiver and shake.

But despite all this, I am a strong women. I struggle away but I am going through things that are really hard. I am a strong women.

And so are you. So are so many of you my dear readers. You have coped with pregnancies and baby showers and anniversaries and birthdays you dreaded. You have coped with BFNs, AFs and 2ww, and other terrible Infertility acronyms! You have held yourselves together at times and you have fallen apart, but you have been through one of the hardest roads a women has to face, and like me you might even still be on it. But you are doing your best to hope and trust and I admire you so much for that.

Of course, we would all rather have a baby than be strong. But even so, its something we need to celebrate once in a while.

I am a strong women.
And so are you.
love Lady Grey

Only just survived...and a request

Well, the wedding was lovely, and the family dinner to celebrate my sister-in-laws birthday was also pretty good. We arrived late, so we missed most of the baby talk. But I cried all the way home. It's just so very hard.

But I made it through the wedding without crying or falling apart. And Earl coped by deciding that his best mate deserved an awesome wedding day and that he would put his pain and hurt aside and make the wedding about the groom. He is such a special, strong man (Earl I mean, though the Groom is great too). And I think I've discovered a pretty neat trick for coping with my sister-in-laws pregnancy. As I've said previously, I find pregnancies hard, but babies I can handle. So knitting something for my nephew has been wonderfully therapeutic because it makes me think of him as an actual baby, and not as the little bump that is starting to emerge. It's still really hard, but when I have the knitting in my hand, I just feel so much better.

And here is my request.

I feel funny asking this, but I was wondering if everyone who reads this, followers, lurkers, or anyone who just happens on this post, who is a prayer, to pray for me. You see one of the things I am finding so hard at the moment is that my prayers for a baby, my thousands and thousands and thousands of prayers for a baby over the last 5 years have not been answered. And it feels like my prayers don't work.

I know it doesn't really work like that, I know that God loves me and listens and that it is only in my head that I am somehow curst in the prayer department.

But it would be such a comfort to know that there were people, other than me and Earl, who were praying for this next cycle. And as we don't have large numbers of people 'in the non-virtual world' who know about the upcoming cycle- I really would appreciate my IF sisters to be praying. I know many of you pray anyway for me (and I appreciate it so much) but if you could make a special effort in the coming months to remember us regularly in your prayers? I know everyone has a hard road but our road is feeling extra hard at present and it would be such a comfort to know that there were people out there petitioning our heavenly Father on our behalf, that he would finally give us life and not death?

Thanks so much for your encouragement and words. They help so much.
love Lady Grey

BFN

Today was a BFN. So it is all over, just as I thought it might be. I'm pretty sad about it, but i did my falling apart morning yesterday so this morning I'm not going to badly-considering. But I miss my baby so much. I don't know why it has to be so hard. It seems like so many people everywhere are so blessed and my road just gets harder and harder. IT JUST SUCKS!!!!

Earl is taking it really hard. Please pray for us.

So, it begins again. Stim cycle.

Two good positives though.

It seems to me that our embryo wasn't particularly strong, but it still attached. Perhaps it was the accupuncture? And the first embryo from our last stim cycle was Thumper. So maybe accupuncture plus stronger embryo might actually equal baby? That is what I'm praying.

And the other thing is that I was talking to my counsellor and she said at the clinic staff meeting coming up, she's make sure me and my case are on the list to talk about, so that all the clinic doctors can look through my files and perhaps think of some things to tweak to maybe get it right this time.

This weekend is going to be so hard :'(
Where is my baby God?
LG

:'(

Am now getting some pretty heavy bleeding.

So very very very sad.

Seriously, why is my road like this. So very, very hard.

I don't get it.
LG

fsldkjfsldkjflskdjf

I feeling so lost.

Been feeling like vomiting but had the tiniest bit of spotting. Freaking out about the results later today. And I have so much to do today, so much pretending to be happy and perfectly fine, as if my world is not potentially about to be smashed.

Honestly, I don't know how I'm going to get through this day.

And whatever happens, tonight is a bucks party Earl is organising, followed by a wedding where he is the best man, followed by birthday celebrations with his sister which will, rightly, be all about the good news of our nephew, and very baby centric. Where we will have to hold it together and not just be okay but happy.

Sigh.

I asked the nurse who took my bloods, "what shall we aim for?". She smiled and said, "Let's go for 500, why not?".

So that's my aim. 500 beta.

She always manages to make me smile even on days like this.
Small mercies.
LG

Good news on the Nephew Front!

Feeling a little stunned.

My Sister-in-law called me today to tell me that their follow-up scan was completely normal, no abnormality and no spina-bifida. It is the most amazing incredible miracle. We were praying for this but we still didn't quite imagine that it would happen.

And it's her birthday :) I was wondering what to say since I thought it would be insensitive to say Happy Birthday, but it turns out that it is the happiest day you can imagine.

And I have started a little beanie for her precious little one.

But there is a very little sad, quiet part of me that I don't like to admit that is there which is saying...where is my miracle?

Hopefully it's on Thursday.
LG

Some more thoughts on the SSP and next steps

I have now had nearly had 24 hours to process my SSP.

IT is still really hard to know how to think.

In many ways, I feel exactly as I did before the beta. There is a chance that I will have a baby, there is a chance we will not. There is no finality or answers. It is just a continuation of the unknown.

But at the same time it is also very different, because of what it might mean.

The weird cramps and the unusual amount of bloating has a reason behind it. And whatever happens, we have another implantation. My evil killer Uterus has done the right thing once again. Is it the accupunction? It is the weight loss? I don't know what caused it but something has worked.

This little one was always a slight increased risk of a biochemical pregnancy, because the "baby" bit of the embryo was quite a bit smaller than I've seen in previous embryos. But maybe there is a baby still there and growing, it just needs to catch up a bit?

I don't know.

Praying like crazy. Have to wait until Thursday for my next beta, to see if it doubles or increases to the rates they expect.

But I'm still bloated and still haven't bleed, which is much more than I can say from the last time this happened.

Really praying this baby makes it,
LG