One step up and two steps back

It's been a long time. And I have a lot to tell you. I'm sorry I've been away so long - I have not been able to deal with writing about any of this, for many reasons that are too complicated and dull to go into here.

My health is really suffering from all this now. I've lost over a stone since this time last year, and I just feel really rundown and old a lot of the time. I suspect I'm now caught in a vicious circle where my low body mass index, and general drawn and pinched demeanour, are actually contributing to my fucked up menstrual cycle. How in the name of all that's holy does one break such a circle?

Anyway. The update. Firstly, the appointment at the clinic. It went better than I expected, in that it was much better to go with my mum than with hubby - on whom, more later - but it happened on a day when I was really poorly with a horrid gastric 'flu that had me chucking up in the ladies' outside the clinic reception before I ventured in. I thought I may have to excuse myself to be sick halfway through my consultation, but managed to last until we were on our way out.

We saw the same consultant I saw in January - the one who told me I had PCOS, which was then discounted by the professor we saw in May. And herein lies the first confusion: she reiterated my PCOS. I said I'd been told I didn't have PCOS. She looked perplexed and thumbed through my notes, then said my symptoms in fact WERE consistent with PCOS, and that the ovarian scan she'd conducted herself - an aside which gave me a pleasant reminder that she has stared at the inside of my reproductive system - showed an ovary that was, in layman's terms, screwed up. (She didn't say that. She said it looked polycystic.)

I asked why I didn't have any of the other symptoms of the condition. She said it varied. I asked why my periods had been normal for years and then gone daft at the age of 27. She said these things happen. I started to feel the angry worm crawling up my spine. My mum intervened.

After we'd agreed to disagree, I summarised my reason for requesting a new appointment ahead of the one-year sentence imposed on me by Professor Fuckwit - namely, that I had not had a period since July, and it was now November. Annoyingly, some of the wind was removed from my sails of self-righteous indignation by the fact that I was in fact menstruating as I sat there - and I had to admit as much, but I concluded by saying my period had "done this on purpose because it knew I had the appointment coming up". (She looked worried. Note to self: try to appear more sane in future.)

We went over the dates of the paltry few periods I have had in 2008, and I reiterated my concern that of the five or so there have been, only one - the one I had in Florida, weirdly - has been what I'd consider "normal" based on my previous, pre-Pill history. She made a lot of notes. She then weighed me and had a massive go at me for being underweight, which - quite rightly - she said wouldn't be doing my cycle any favours. I countered by observing that weight GAIN and difficulty losing weight were typical symptoms of PCOS. She looked somewhat abashed and moved on.

I then asked what we do next and said I was not prepared to hang about in limbo until next summer. I pointed out that my 30th - and with it, fertility that will dwindle at an alarming rate - was impending. And then she said the magic words: that I don't have enough periods to give me a decent chance of conceiving naturally, and that she was prepared to prescribe clomiphene.

In order to progress this, I now have to present myself back at the clinic on day two of my next period. They'll give me the drug, which I take for five days, and then I go back for regular blood tests and scans to determine my ovulation pattern, if any. If any because they start you on a low dose and up it depending on how you respond.

She then listed the side effects. Mother of God. In no particular order: depression, irritability (ha! got you beat on that one), spots, nausea, migraines, hot flushes, night sweats, vaginal dryness (and let's face it, after nearly three years of TTC it's hardly Angel Falls in there already), dizziness. Slightly more serious side effects include a 25% chance of twins and a 10% chance of triplets per cycle on the drug. Oh and if you believe the papers, an increased risk of womb, ovarian, breast and stomach cancer. Let's be clear: this drug is no fucking walk in the park.

Because it's not a cakewalk, she then asked about my support network. She explained Professor Prat had last time noted that I "seemed unduly anxious" (let's pause for OUTRAGE at the use of that particular adverb) and was concerned at my ability to cope, although my "record showed I'd dealt well with the HSG".

My mum - sensing, I think, apoplexy on my part - stepped in and smoothly explained that I had a devoted support network in herself, my dad, my stepdad, my grandparents and friends, all of whom know about my plight. She glossed over hubby but that's because my mum is pissed off with him at present - again, of which more later.

Here's the thing. It's currently, as I type, day two of my next period. And I haven't been to the clinic to get my clomiphene.

Partly it's that I'm scared. I'm just a great, big wimp. The side effects are not to be sniffed at - and as much as I want a family, twins are in the "oh my god that would be amazing" camp but triplets are very firmly in the "now, hang on a second" one.

Partly it's timing. It's nearly Christmas; I'm really busy at work, which is good as it gives me a lot to focus on to distract me from babies, but also means I'd struggle with daily migraines and/or any one of the other side effects you care to mention. So part of me thinks, what's one or two more months in the grand scheme of the 30 we've been trying?

But mostly it's because I actually do doubt my support network - and not my family or friends, but hubby. As this has gone on, he has grown more and more distant from me. He refuses - point blank refuses - to discuss his feelings. He wants nothing to do with this blog, which in some respects is a good thing as it's personal and I'm not always complimentary towards him (though I'd argue that when I'm not, it's warranted). But he has equally pooh-poohed the concept of couples' infertility counselling, which I'm keen on, and even of just discussing it between the two of us.

And we're fighting a lot. They're nastier and nastier each time. We had a humdinger a couple of weekends ago which culminated in me throwing him out of the bedroom for saying to me that I would "die alone and childless". Yes, he really did say that.

And we're not having sex. An increasingly insistent voice in my head keeps saying that if we were dutifully doing the bad thing three times a week, I'd be pregnant by now. Once or twice a month does not constitute dedicated TTC, and I actually have started to feel that by implying we ARE having regular sex - or at the very least, by not admitting we're not - is tantamount to lying to the clinic.

And another thing. His sister's pregnant. With her second. This news was hurled rather spitefully at me during the aforementioned fucker of a fight. He's known for a while but apparently there was "never a right time" to tell me. (To which, I am ashamed to say, I responded: "Oh, grow a pair!")

We're meant to be going to see her for a pre-Christmas visit very shortly, and as much of an arse as I know this makes me, I really don't want to go. She's far enough along that she will be starting to show and I just don't want to deal with that, not a few days before my third Christmas of this.

So there you have it. My big update. I've got the prescription I wanted, but am too scared to take it. I don't know whether infertility has damaged my marriage beyond repair. I don't know if there genuinely is something wrong with me or whether our dwindling sex life is to blame.

In short, I'm the very definition of the Bruce Springsteen song 'One Step Up', which I quote here (slightly paraphased in order to assign myself the correct gender) to end this post:

"Woke up this morning, the house was cold,
Checked the furnace, she wasn't burning.
Went out and hopped in my old Ford,
Checked the engine but she ain't turning.
Given each other some hard lessons lately,
But we ain't learning.
Same sad story, that's a fact,
We're one step up and two steps back.

It's the same thing night on night,
Who's wrong, baby who's right?
Another fight and I slam the door on
Another battle in our dirty little war.
When I look at myself I don't see
The girl I wanted to be.
Somewhere along the line I stepped off track,
Going one step up and two steps back."

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'.

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.

A long time coming

My viewing of The Sex Education Show is inducing apoplexy each week.

I knew this would happen. Hubby warned me it would, too. And they haven't even done the programme about fertility yet - that's tomorrow night. So far they've tackled how to spice up a knackered sex life (sadly, I fear it is too late for a doctor on that score for us); how to avoid catching a series of scary rot-inducing diseases (answer: condoms); and how pregnancy affects sex and the body.

The pregnancy episode in particular induced some serious yelling at the TV. It followed an equally annoying programme called Would Like To Meet Again, which follows up couples who were set up on blind dates by the programme makers two years ago. Cue Jack and Jill, or whatever their names are, who're - guess what? - married with two babies. Well, congratubloodylations Jack and frigging Jill, you smug, smug shits.

Then the sex show started, and it was all about pregnancy. Hubby ascertained this, made a small noise somewhere in the back of his throat, and retired upstairs with his book and some body armour.

"Labour can go on for up to four days," said the programme, which went out of its way to depict a near-religious level of awe for the appalling suffering women put themselves through in the name of giving birth. Well, diddums. So far my infertility's gone on for two-and-a-half years. So you'll pardon me if my heart doesn't bleed - another part of me's doing more than enough of that on a monthly basis.

Then there was a bit that explained the changes pregnant women's bodies go through, complete with two exceptionally smug ladies wielding different-sized bumps. The programme discussed the concept of the "mask of pregnancy", whereby a woman's forehead and cheeks can darken. This had in fact happened to one of the women, and I found myself absurdly pleased by the sight of her stupid brown patchy face.

(I realise I am sounding like more of a bitch here than possibly I ever have before, which is saying something, but I'm trying to be honest. I know it's not just me who feels this horrible, impotent rage.)

It got me wondering about what "the mask of infertility" looks like, if there is such a thing. I think there is. I was looking through old photos earlier, trying to locate one of a scary stately home I once visited which one of hubby's colleagues also has a horror story about. I couldn't find it, but I did find lots of snaps of myself as a teenager and student. Some were taken a decade ago, some 12 years ago, so it's reasonable that I should look older now - but what shocked me is how much sadder, and somehow less alive, I look. I really, really miss the girl I used to be before this. I see her only rarely now, and find there are fewer and fewer people who can bring her out.

Anyway, the programme concluded by filming a birth. Our intrepid narrator Anna was present throughout, which involved spending most of a day and night in a maternity ward getting bored or scared by the sound of screaming. At one point, she asks the camera: "Did you ever think waiting for a baby would be such a hoo-hah?"

No. I fucking DIDN'T.

I'd managed to get myself so riled up that I didn't think I'd cry at the moment of birth. But then they played that bloody song, the one that goes "Baby, you've been a long time coming/Such a long, long time/And I can't stop smiling". And that really fucked me up.

After all that, they called the kid Willow. I mean, I ask you.

The perils of breaking my testing routine

By golly, I'm cross about loads of things just now.

In the main, as ever, my rage has to do with my own body. That period I mentioned last time left after just one day, and is yet to return. I feel bloated and "unclean", in that I feel like I've not had a good clear-out for a bit.

I got spectacularly drunk on Friday night, and ended up maudlin and weepy about various things. I also ended up very hungover on Saturday. More hungover - and certainly more sick to my stomach - than I deserved to be for the amount I'd drunk. When I was still hugging the porcelain at 7pm, hubby suggested - as he is wont to do when I display ANY symptom more dramatic than a mild headache - that perhaps I was pregnant.

I dismissed such tomfoolery as the musings of a madman, but it did get me thinking that it was weird to have bleeding at 26 days and then ZIP. So, like a foolish bitch, I bought a test. (Can you sense where this is going?)

Anyway, a horrid experience ensued this morning. I actually watched the progress of the dye across the windows of the test - as I've said before, I tend not to do this, preferring to pee on the test then quickly hide it under a piece of loo roll so I can enjoy what I like to call "the shower of hope". (That's before emerging, reviewing the blank windows, and collapsing onto "the toilet of despair", naturally.)

This morning I didn't. I sat on the loo and stared dolefully at the windows as the dye crept across them. And then nearly swallowed my tongue. Because - it was a ClearBlue test, the kind that forms a blue cross if it's positive - both axes of the cross started to show.

I was honestly nearly sick. Hubby had a day off today and he was still asleep at this point. I started preparing my speech, which I decided was going to begin with the words: "You need to wake up FUCKING FAST!"

For whatever reason - incredulity, I think - I decided to leave it and have the shower, which, going by past experiences, should have been "the shower of joy" but actually felt more like "the shower of bone-melting terror at what I might have done to this potential baby by having so much white wine on Friday night".

But then I got out and looked again. This time I was met with the familiar sight of a totally blank emptiness where the vertical cross should be. Holding it to the light and the weak dawn in the window revealed it to be utterly negative.

I didn't cry. I don't think I'd ever believed the line in the first place. I just disposed of the stick, got dressed and went to work without saying a word to my still sleeping hubby. I did look up false positives on t'interweb and learned that often the line "lights up" as the dye makes its initial progress across the windows. Indeed, it's something I'd probably have experienced before now had I not adopted this silly test-taking routine.

I shall be going back to said routine, though. I can't go through that again.

Abandon hope, all ye who enter here

After just 26 days - the shortest cycle I've ever had - my period descended into my (new, Victoria's Secret) pants on Thursday morning without ANY warning and with the sort of force that would make Niagara Falls resemble a drippy tap.

Cue a horrible few minutes attempting to clear things up in the ladies' at work whilst muttering sentiments along the lines of "you little stupid nasty evil bitch" to my own vagina.

The mess was so bad that I even toyed with the idea of chucking the ruined pants altogether and going through the rest of my day commando. I will now ALWAYS keep a spare pair in my desk drawer. And my bag. And my car. I will become Knicker Lady.

Anyhow, that's another cycle, quite literally, down the toilet. Coming early and without warning is new, too. Usually I get crampy grumbles for at least a day. Mind you, it made up for the lack of early cramps by really wracking me with them later in the day. At one point in the early evening it was so bad that the only comfortable position was on all fours with my head touching the floor and my bum way up in the air, groaning gently. And I wonder why hubby doesn't fancy me anymore.

Earlier in the week, my friend had texted me suggesting I get humping on September 19, as she'd worked out that on that day I'd be exactly the same age as she was the day she conceived her son. I've just replied this morning to explain that my period has put paid to that idea.

I'm thinking of having a tattoo done just above my pubic hair: Abandon hope, all ye who enter here.

Next month marks our two-and-a-half-year TTC anniversary. It's nearly Christmas. I'm nearly 30. To borrow a line from Charlotte in Sex and the City: I'm exhausted. Where's my baby?

Falling out of love with sex

I watched a new documentary tonight on Channel 4. It's all about sex and how little the Great Uneducated British Public know about it.

It's quite lighthearted, presented as it is by a genuinely amusing and likeable journalist named Anna Richardson, but at its core is a worthwhile programme that aims to educate people about sex, warts, hairy bits, odd noises and all.

Two things struck me. The first was how little I care about sex these days. I know I've ranted about this before, but it genuinely is odd how completely my sex drive has disappeared. I'm not repulsed by it, or anything - and of course, I still engage in it regularly in the interests, fruitless though they may be, of attempting to make a baby.

No, I'm just left utterly cold by sex now. It has almost become a procedure similar to those elements of personal grooming that veer towards the clinical - trimming your toenails, maybe, or cleaning out your ears. I do wonder if I'll ever get my mojo back.

OK, the ear-cleaning analogy reminds me that, actually, three things struck me about the show - this is something I've banged on about before so I'll keep it brief: how BLOODY wimpy are men?

One clip featured the intrepid Anna - who also endured a Hollywood bikini wax AND a cringeworthy Tantric sex session with what can only be described as two raddled hippies - going through a smear test in the interest of having a full sexual health check-up. She was bearing up with her customary wit and good grace. Then it showed some weedy bloke having a cotton bud wiped - WIPED, mind you, not RAMMED or INFLATED or EXTENDED or any of the things us girls have to deal with, especially us reproductively challenged girls - round the end of his willy, and wincing like it was some hitherto unimaginable method of torture.

Back to seriousness. The second thing that struck me about the programme was related to the trailer they showed for next week's episode, which featured a brief flash of a woman giving birth and then went on to imply that the programme would cover pregnancy and fertility.

I shall watch this with interest. It seems that in addition to having her inner sanctum probed for evidence of chlamydia or similar, Anna will also be undergoing a fertility MOT to assess her ability to reproduce.

I wonder how sensitively the programme makers - and Anna - will handle this. Thus far the show seems to be aiming predominantly to educate the teenage/youth audience, with some wry in-jokes for us seasoned twenty- and thirtysomethings. If it takes this approach to fertility issues, I'll probably end up severely fucked off - because it will be more focused on telling teens how easy it is to get knocked up than on addressing the heartache of infertility.

I hope I'm wrong, though, and it handles the subject with skill and tact. There'd be nothing wrong with a bit of humour, either, although I'd probably nominate anyone who was able to make me laugh on the subject of my barren womb for a Nobel prize.

People keep telling me I should watch Juno. (The look I usually give in response to this suggestion would curdle marble - and if I know the person well, it's not a Look, it's more a Torrent of Abuse.) Apparently, it's not, as I have previously stated, "about a smug, pregnant eight-year-old". Apparently, it features a remarkable performance by Jennifer Garner, who portrays the infertile woman in line to get Juno's unwanted baby. Apparently, it's funny.

Good luck to it. Well done on all the awards. Good job if it did feature an infertile woman played with sensitivity and dignity.

But there's no way I could watch that film. I know it's meant to be a comedy, but I think I'd rupture a lung crying.