Saturday 23 May 2009

I got my period on Wednesday morning.

It was due on Monday, and despite my best intentions, I fell into the heartbreak of hope on Tuesday morning when it hadn't appeared, since last month clomiphene made me so 28-day spot-on regular. I lasted all of Tuesday doing the awful thing of praying, actually praying to a deity I'm not sure I believe in, every time I went to the toilet.

The clinic had said to attend for a blood pregnancy test if I hadn't bled by Wednesday. But even while I hoped, all the time I was conscious of having no discernible symptoms, of not "knowing" or feeling anything. Then, walking home from my train on Tuesday evening, I felt a telltale squirt and just thought, No, please no.

I rushed into the house, hurled my laptop and handbag to the ground, charged past a baffled hubby and into the bathroom and there it was. Brown spotting. The indisputable, never-changing precursor to my fucking hellhole period.

I considered trying to pretend nothing had happened, that maybe it was implantation bleeding and nothing to worry about. I didn't even say anything to hubby to explain my dramatic entrance other than that I had been desperate for the toilet. But when I was treated to a more definitive reddish splurge as I was getting ready for bed, I knew the game was up and the cycle was over.

Well, I lost it. I lay on the bathroom floor and sobbed like I have never sobbed in my life. I cried to the point where there is no way of discerning where the tears stop and the phlegm and mucus begin on your face. I cried until my chest ached and my throat burned; until my eyes were piggy and swollen. And then I cried some more.

Eventually staggering into the bedroom, hubby's face just crumpled as he worked out in a glance what was up. I then lay down on the bedroom floor alongside my bed - why, rather than sinking into its comfort I know not - and wept some more, to the point where he considered calling my mum as he didn't know how to calm me.

I'm ashamed to say that's when I got nasty, blaming him for lack of sex since I knew from the clinic that I'd ovulated and had really good hormone levels after day 21. We didn't fight so much as carp, though, and I ultimately fell into an exhausted and miserable slumber.

Next morning the brown stuff had disappeared, but about 10am my period proper descended, all cramps and gore and guns blazing. I was just floored by the cramps this time, perhaps because it was the middle of the day on a workday rather than a weekend when I was dealing with the worst of them, and perhaps because clomiphene equals worse periods. I sat in a meeting at 2pm that day feeling physically sick with pain and almost blacking out when a particularly wrenching one bit.

I called the clinic at 4pm and told them in a shaky, breaking voice what had happened. I had considered a break from the drugs this month since I have a lot of other stuff going on, but they talked me into sticking with it as it's better to do your three clomiphene cycles concurrently and then take next steps from there.

Which is why I currently find myself queasy on day three of the pills, day four of my cycle proper. And I feel like this really is the penalty shootout in my football-match-analogised effort to conceive my baby in my own bed, rather than in stirrups in a clinic.

Hubby and I went out for lunch today in an effort to do something nice amid our despair. We had a nice meal but it took place in a shopping mall which seems to be a magnet for heavily pregnant women and new mums. Hubby started to look bleak when I uttered the sentence "There must be some sort of fertility ley line running through this place, maybe we can get us some of that". A few minutes later, after walking past the third set of identical twins dressed in matching outfits, I couldn't help but articulate that "it's like the fucking Shining in here; what's with all the twins?"

I hate being that woman, but I am, intrinsically, her until this nightmare is over.

After our lunch hubby and I went to the supermarket for our usual weekly shop. He appeared in the canned goods aisle grinning inanely and brandishing, I shit you not, a turkey baster. I had threatened to buy one earlier in the week when I informed him that, come hell or high water, I would be getting sperm into me for four consecutive days around ovulation this time, and that if he couldn't ejaculate it into me himself I would find another way.

He now clearly feels he has a get-out-of-jail-free card for performance anxiety, and while this seems a tad defeatist to me, at least we do have another option this month. The turkey baster is positively slimline compared with some of the equipment I've had to accommodate during the course of this, after all.

There was also something almost funny about the sight of him - a vegetarian, like me - bringing such a bizarre item to our trolley with such aplomb, even though the humour was more of the "has it really come to this?" variety.

3 comments:

admin said...

How come no one told us how difficult it was to get pregnant. Good luck!

Anonymous said...

Oh, dear...
I have no infertility problems, I have problems keeping the diving cells, well, dividing as they should. I have lost another baby, this one had heartbeat for a short moment, and when I let my hopes soar to the skies, a few days later I found out that it died. It measured exactly the same, when it should have been way bigger already.
I intentionally use IT, trying hard to detach myself, although I dreamed about my baby girl...
There are no words to describe this. And I am due to a D&C tomorrow...
To top it all, I talked today to my mother-in-law (a heinous cow) who was with her sister (a bigger and older cow). Of course, it took one "Hello" and another "How are you?" to get to the subject of the day: "Well, arent't you pregnant already? When do you intend to make us an heir? (right, the noble house of Pooplandia needs an heir from me) Have you forgotten how? (WHAT????)"
I swear, I was speechless and this does not happen too often. She could not have chosen another worse moment to ask these bloody questions! I did not tell them anything about the miscarriage, because they would tell my parents, who would truly be floored by such a piece of news, unlike them, naturally.
I was so tempted to tell them that wouldn't they feel like the arses they are if I told them the truth? Or at least that we did all the tests and the doctor warned us about the risks of passing on the strong and dominant chav gene they carry, so we decided against having this baby and get an abortion instead.
Of course, I said nothing. I swallowed it all, dear hubby saved the day by shutting them up and taking me home; and now I am preparing my little luggage for tomorrow: warm socks, ipod, papers, extra pair of undies...
Tomorrow I will be more empty than now and apparently in all sorts of pain there can be. God, we do need a break from all this. Why do you easily give kids to the likes of Jordan and Britney, and for decent, normal people you make it so bloody hard?!! IT IS NOT EFFING FAIR!!
Sorry for venting on your blog. Please trust me that behind my narrow visions of my baby, I am truly rooting for you and your baby. May God grant our wishes!

Aisha said...

I am SO sorry. THinking of you.