1st needle down.. a fair few to go

Well I guess this means its all go. Started my jabs this morning in a mad rush while flat out at work, and true to form it has kicked my ass. The buserelin gives me the most blinding headaches, its just horrid!

Last cycle I tried to make things a bit 'lighter' by naming my sharps bin (he does come with me morning and night wherever I might be going) Stevie, (get it, Stevie Nicks? Nicks as in sharp stab to the tummy? yeah ok, well I thought it was good). This cycle I am embracing my Bad Santa crush and naming him "Binny-Bob". I am a bit strange like that, I personalize everything... my cars, my fave furniture, even some people. Binny-Bob came to work with me today, probably wouldn't have enjoyed my locker.. I might need to empty out some of the dead things from it. Do sharps bins have a sense of smell? well lets just say they do, anything to get my locker cleaned I guess.

Speaking of crazy, I barely slept last night, I kept having these dreams that I had slept in and not done my jab in time and they cancelled my cycle. Because of this I was constantly waking up and checking the time, which is just crazy because my alarm was set for 5.30am so I could get in for my early shift. BAH!

Seriously though, the fact I was in such a rush to do my 1st jab this morning was a good thing, it meant I didn't have time to sit there and think about the cycle and have a freakout about the side effects that I feel oh so many of. I just stabbed and ran, literally.

So, here we go again!

Pregnancy announcement land mines

At the risk of swimming against the tide in the IF river, I have a few different opinions on pregnancy announcements etc. Now don't get me wrong, I totally understand the anger felt by some when a friend announces that they are expecting, but I don't feel it. I feel sadness, and jealousy. These feelings are entirely selfish and introspective, I don't get fuming when a friend announces their pregnancy via a scan photo on facebook. In fact I believe that they should be allowed to announce it however they want, after all isn't it also allowed to be the happiest time of their lives too? I love that my best friend is pregnant, it kills me inside just looking at her, makes part of me die every time, but I AM happy for her, and I do want to be there for her every step of the way, I am not angry that she is up the duff and I''m not. I am sad that it is not me, but I would never want to take it away from her to have it myself. I am not implying that all infertiles would, I am just saying that sometimes we get so wrapped up in out own crap that we stop looking at things constructively.

Us "infertiles" are sometimes labelled (often ourselves) as some of the most bitter people out. I don't know about everyone else but I don't like to wear that on my sleeve. I want to be happy for my friend who has recently had her 5th child, I want to support the friend who just found out she is pregnant and about to become a single mother. At the risk of being drawn and quartered by some IF'ers I also want to be there for my friend who decided that abortion is the best/only option for her. Yes, it makes me sad, and yes, I cry myself to sleep some nights when I go through these things, BUT I am not going to push my friends away because they are having what I can't, regardless of whether they want it or not.

I work in the medical field, I see abused and neglected children all the time, kids being lost in the system and kids that have no future. I wish that more would utilize the adoption process but the fact is you can't force people to do things they don't want to do. The Whangai process here in NZ also reduces the adoption chances with Maori mums being able to give their children to a family member to raise as their own without the extensive legal issues that go along with adoption. Here is some info if you want to read more about whangai. http://famous.adoption.com/famous/tamaiti-whangai.html

One thing that I am not happy to sit back and pretend isn't happening is this latest facebook chain game where women are posting fake pregnancy announcements all in the name of 'breast cancer awareness' WTF?!?! Yeah, I won't go into all the details on why and how they do this but they end up looking like "I am 12 weeks and craving peanut butter" etc. They are pathetic and I have put up a fb status telling the world exactly how I feel about it all. I am also not going to go into details about the ins and outs of cancer treatment and resulting infertility, there have been some brilliant blog posts on this topic already. All I will say is that the whole thing reeks of insensitivity, stupidity, and mob mentality. I can only hope that the rest of my friends are smart enough to figure out that it's extremely lame and in bad taste.

This blog post feels a little heavy, I do try to keep things light but lets face it, nothing about this topic is light, it could be the fact that tomorrow I start Buserelin jabs all over again and am in the dumps about the horrid side effects I'm about to be exposed to. 

Whatever way you look at it we are all in this experience together and yet we all feel it, deal with it, and live through it in different ways. I am 100% in support of you all no matter how you cope with it, and if you want to throw darts at a photo of a preggers mate till you feel better, I will totally sit there and sharpen them for you.

I have a new addiction!

Thy name is Pinterest.

HOW have I not stumbled across this site before?!?!?

I know I am not alone, I have meandered upon a few fellow bloggers and twiffers on there already by pure chance. This seems like the perfect place to find stuff to do on the 2ww we will have coming up in a month. I have already wasted half the day on there today!

This morning I went and had my 1st lot of acupuncture for this round. I really like my acupuncturist, he's so nice. After that I had to go and have some pre IVF bloods done and of course after a few stabs they decided they couldn't find a vein. I did tell them I was usually difficult, and the fact I am pretty dehydrated from being out with an illness for the last few days wouldn't be helping. So in the end they had to do it newborn style (oh the irony) and take it via finger prick and put it into baby blood tubes *sigh*
So now I not only have 2 hands full of holes and bruises, but I also have a purple throbby finger. :(

But things are happening, and as much as I try to put the brakes on to slow it all down its just not going to work. I am getting there with working through my fear of this cycle but there's still a fair way to go yet.

For F*#k's Sake!!

It doesn't rain, it pours.

Last night at work I had the honour of having a drunk patient spit blood in face, and by that I'm talking eye, mouth, the works. So I had to stay late and have blood tests taken and fill in a pile of paperwork.
I have to have Hep b & c screening as well as HIV again in 3 months and then again in 6.
The first thing I thought of was, will this affect my IVF cycle?!?! lol priorities huh.

So I guess I will have to ring the clinic at some stage and at least let them know that I am undergoing screening. but I'm hoping that it won't affect anything with this cycle.

Really struggling to get up the motivation to go back to work tonight

Here we go again

So, Day One..

Yep, its all on again. Today was day one so I have started on the pill for 3 weeks and then bring on the needles. To be honest I don't know if I am ready to this all over again. I am terrified of the whole process. When I called the clinic this morning to let them know it was day one I started shaking as soon as I heard the all too familiar telephone prompts. I think the last cycle was so so daunting and towards the end when it started getting soul destroying, it really took a chunk out of my strength to deal with this stuff properly.

But yesterday I emptied out what last cycle became the 'IVF drawer' in my nightstand so it's all ready to go for this cycle. There is none of the nervous excitement that was there for our last cycle, but I am deep down glad to be getting on with it again... deeeeeeeep down.

So here we are, Day one of our second cycle of IVF.

Cross your fingers, toes, arms and legs. Lets get it on.

To video blog or not to video blog?

So it was suggested to me a few months ago that we should do a video blog. Not something to vent, that's what this place is for. I love my fellow bloggers here and how honest we can all be, the slight anonymity on here makes this possible. No, the video blog was to be more for memories of what we did, as well as a way to show family and friends where we were at or maybe even to help people to understand exactly what it is that we all have to go through with this IVF journey. It's all well and good to try to tell people what is involved but most still cannot grasp it. Not even those closest to us.

So here is my conundrum.... Do I do it? I am such a private person but maybe if there was some humour injected into it we might be able to keep it light? I don't want to whinge and moan I just want to document whats going on. Do I just make it for us and some family and friends or do I go all out and youtube it?

Opinions?.... Please?

People are stupid

No, not all people. But lets face it, the vast majority.

We were talking about the new addition to our family (fur baby, photo's to come) to a friend and her husband and about how she was going to be an inside dog, cos lets face it she's part of the family and we have a nice big house.

Anyway, this guy starts ranting, and I mean literally ranting, on about how he hates people who do that, and why don't these stupid people just have babies instead and dogs are animals that should be outside and if you want a kid just have one and blah blah blah.

Grrr.

The poor Mr. had to stand there and take it while I just walked away. I'm pretty sure in his head he was beating the guy senseless but no one would have known it to look at him.

So I stand by my statement. People are stupid.