Mothering my furry friend

Sorry I haven't posted for a while. It's been a traumatic week, but the good news is my lovely little cat seems to have come through the operation OK.

He's really been through the mill - the vet kept him overnight because he didn't wake up too quickly from the general anaesthetic, and he also needed a drip to support his kidneys. He looks just terrible - shaved neck where they drew blood, shaved paw where the drip was, and a huge, scary, Cat-of-Frankenstein-esque scar on his back, surrounded by skin that's been dyed blue from the surgical antiseptic solution. My poor darling.

I was so relieved to get him back yesterday morning, and spent the day nursing him. I just watched him all day, and cuddled him lots, and hand-fed him his food and his medicines, and made sure he had plenty of warm, cosy places to rest. During my lunch he started crying for attention, so I left it and cuddled him till he fell asleep, and just ate the cold food later on.

I might sound like I'm being martyrish and holier-than-thou, but that's genuinely not my intention - I loved every second of taking care of him as I was so glad he'd come through OK. I don't know what I'd do without him.

Later, my mum said it was my first taste of motherhood. The endless watching - to make sure they're comfortable enough, and warm enough, and fed and watered, and not in danger. And goddamnit, I was good at it. Really good.

My period's on its way - all the signs are here, including ravenous hunger and aching boobs. For the first month in ages I don't have pre-period hope/anxiety that I might be pregnant. The trauma of the last couple of weeks - in fact, of the whole month, including HSG-buildup - has been such that I honestly haven't had time to dwell on where a fertilised egg would be right now, and ooh, was that a symptom?

In any event, hubby and I haven't had a shag since about 14 April, so if I were pregnant it'd be with the next Messiah...

No, the thing to do now is rest, relax, get my period out of the way and then focus on our follow-up appointment at the clinic on 20 May.

Bring it on. I'm ready for my Clomid, Mr deMille!

Some dark nights of the soul

So I'm not doing so well. My period still hasn't come and coping with the will it/won't it stress is becoming increasingly tough.

It's 35 days now. Tomorrow it'll be a week late. I'm really, really scared to do another test. After the last one, I sort of swore off the evils of pregnancy tests as it's just too depressing. I can feel my pee retreating back up my urethra every time I even consider the one remaining in my bathroom.

I'm still so desperately hopeful. This month really feels like a last chance saloon, for so many reasons. It's the last cycle before it's been two years. It's the last cycle before the dreaded HSG. And sometimes I think that it's the last cycle before I totally lose my mind.

Symptom-wise, it's really difficult to tell whether I have anything to hope for or whether it's just pre-menstrual stuff. I've got really sore boobs. They're spiky and sort of prickly when I lie on my tummy. If I lean over when I'm not wearing a bra, they reeeeally ache. And leaping about on Easter Monday doing my Elle McPherson video (yes, my life is THAT tragic) I had to hold them.

Two mornings this week, including this morning, I've woken up utterly convinced that my period has come. It generally comes overnight - I wake up with cramps and then when I go to the loo, there it is. This morning I woke at 6am with dull cramps coming in waves. They weren't as bad as usual but I also felt a sort of wetness, and I was just certain. I was like a dead woman walking heading to the bathroom. But there was nothing there.

It's got to the point that every time I go to the loo, I sit there praying and begging whatever powers exist for it not to have come. Then when I wipe and there's nothing, it's like I've received a stay of execution. I'm sure I sound ridiculously over-dramatic, but that's how I feel.

I've had some bleak nights this week. I've gone through five or six nights of having really vivid dreams. Some are nightmares - hubby and I have been watching the box set DVD of Twin Peaks, and it's pant-wettingly scary. In fact as I sit typing this, in broad daylight, I'm trying not to glance out the door and down the stairwell as I'm pretty sure the evil BOB will be climbing towards me if I do.

Other dreams are just weird. Last night I dreamt that my mum and I were on a weird journey where we had to clamber over all these round hillocks. Not hills or mountains - just these odd grassy knolls that kept appearing in our path. It was hard work but after each hillock we'd arrive at a nice house and be able to rest before having to climb over another one. If any aspiring dream interpreters can shed some light on what in the name of giddy fuck this might mean, I'd be interested to hear it!

My period must be on its way. I mean, it just must be. Right now I've still got the grumbly feeling low in my tummy. I bet it'll come tomorrow.

Why can't I get pregnant? Why? I'm so very, very sick of all this.

Wishing and hoping

As the days count down towards both my 29th birthday and day 28 of this cycle, both of which occur on Tuesday, I find myself in the familiar territory of hoping against all odds that we have conceived this month.

Even though I haven't had a 28-day cycle since I came off the Pill (the best I've managed is 33), it's entrenched in my psyche that day 28 is the day on which it is reasonable to start thinking about pregnancy tests.

I used to be able to set my watch by my period. It would come at 10am on cycle day 28, come rain, shine or, indeed, prospect of sex. That I once had such a reliably regular cycle is the one thing that makes me doubt the fertility clinic's current draft diagnosis of PCOS. I just don't understand how I could have developed the condition and not known anything about it throughout my teens and early twenties - even during the prolonged, erm, periods (sorry) when I wasn't on the Pill.

So even though Tuesday is unlikely to bring my period along with my birthday cards, I can't help but wonder. Despite the cynicism borne of 22 months of disappointment - despite even my own better judgment - I have started symptom spotting. Every pelvic twinge, every grumbling cramp nearly reduces me to tears as I assume it heralds the arrival of my period; meanwhile, every passing moment of nausea, feeling of lethargy or tender ache in my boobs brings with it a stab of fierce, almost painful hope. To hope so hard is physically and emotionally exhausting.

I haven't done a pregnancy test yet. I haven't even bought one. (If I added up how much I've spent on pregnancy tests over the past 22 months, it would approach a monthly mortgage repayment and probably induce heart failure in my frugal husband.)

I have a vague plan of doing a test on the morning of my birthday. I'm fully aware this could spoil the day - it spoiled Christmas Day, which also happened to be cycle day 28. But I'm willing to accept the high probability of starting my 30th year in tears on the loo with a blank-windowed plastic stick in my hand. I'm willing to accept it because of the payoff if things turn out differently.

I'm not even going to try to put into words how wonderful it would be if I got a positive result - all I can see when I try to visualise it is the word JOY written across the sky.