Monday 20 October 2008

Another autumn waiting game

I managed to get an appointment on 13 November which, given previous lead times, is not that bad.

I intend to take my mum with me this time. Her support during the HSG was invaluable, and she's just better than hubby at times like this. Mum asks good questions and keeps me calm, whereas hubby sits there like a mute and then fucks off to get his watch fixed afterwards.

The main reason I want her moral support is that I don't want to leave this appointment having achieved nothing. Whether it's a Clomid prescription, a laparoscopy referral or even the number of a sympathetic counsellor, I want something tangible and real to come out of it. And if I get too upset to articulate as much - my throat usually starts aching with the urge to cry the minute I walk through the doors - I want my mum there to voice these thoughts for me.

My bizarre three-week cycle has not resolved itself. I bled for two days last week, then it tapered off again but - this is new - hasn't yet vanished altogether. I now spend my daily trips to the ladies' staring in dismay at what isn't actually period but can only be described as Unpleasantness.

I amused myself a few minutes ago. I was listening to my iTunes library, contemplating writing this blog post, and 'Glorybox' by Portishead came on. It's one of my favourite songs - I always used to think, in the days when I had such thoughts, that it'd be a good song to have sex to - and it contains a sentiment close to my heart at present with the refrain "I just want to be a woman".

Anyway, with this in mind, I suddenly thought: the song should be renamed in my honour. 'Gorybox'.

Tuesday 14 October 2008

Thirtynothing

I'm going to ring the clinic in the morning. I got another period on Sunday, a scant three weeks since the last pathetic short bleed. This one stayed for yesterday but vanished overnight, meaning it's now three full months since I had a proper, five-day clear-out.

I don't know what's the matter with me. It's so horrible going through the days knowing there's something wrong with your body but that nobody in the medical profession a) knows what it is or b) cares, till I'm 30 at least.

My 30th. It's four months away and I'm dreading it. One shouldn't dread one's 30th birthday - or at least, not for any more sinister reason than bidding a nostalgic farewell to one's debauched twenties, and acknowledging a fleeting concern about the onslaught of cellulite and wrinkles.

I just feel like I don't have much to celebrate. I know that's selfish - after all, there are people much worse off than me - but I just feel things haven't worked out the way I'd planned. My life plan says I should have an 18-month-old on my hip as I toast this birthday. I should at least have a bump.

I know I do have things to be thankful for, and that I have achieved stuff in my life. I have my own home and assets ranging from a nice little VW to a decent coffee maker. I have a job I enjoy and find stimulating. I have good friends whose company I love.

But I also have a troubled marriage where a lot of the time I wonder if we have run out of things to talk about. Seven years together is a long time. Hubby actually said, during one of the alarmingly frank and honest conversations we've been having about The State of Us of late, that most "normal" couples have, by this point in proceedings, generally reproduced and thus have something important, engaging and time-consuming on which to focus their combined efforts. We have a dragon tree plant. That's slowly turning brown.

I should state for the record that he didn't say this to be nasty or to upset me. He just said it because he thinks it. And I fully agree with him.

It's odd, watching adverts on TV, how many of them depict what I guess is deemed to be a "standard" life cycle. Ads for banks, for insurance, for any type of product or service with connotations of security and robustness, often feature an archetypal "boy and girl meet, fall in love, get married, have babies, raise babies, collect pensions, die" series of vignettes. It's not even just ads for banks, come to think of it. There's an ad for a fucking chocolate bar that depicts a similar series of events. But what happens if it doesn't work out like that for you? Which products should us thirtynothings buy?

Enough maudlin musing. What else do I have on the eve of my fourth decade? Well, I have an errant body that feels, most of the time, like it's at war with itself. I look haunted. I'm dropping weight at an alarming rate. I weigh right now what I did at 18. I tried my wedding dress on the other day and it hung off me like a sack on a skeleton. At least, I suppose, I'm not going into 30 the wrong side of "plump". At a time like this, perhaps a girl should simply appreciate her pert breasts and flat stomach and shut up her moaning.

So. I shall ring the clinic tomorrow and relate the latest turn of events. I'm considering demanding a laparoscopy. That's about the only diagnostic thing left to do to me now, and I strongly feel we should leave no stone - or indeed, organ - unturned.

One thing's certain. Should I be able, in February, to muster sufficient puff to extinguish all 30 candles, I know what I'll be wishing for.