Stef broke his arm the same day I found out I was pregnant. He called me just after 8am from the hospital, woke me up in fact. "My own stupid fault", he said. "My foot slipped off my pedal. I was only going 3k an hour." I told him to call me back when he was ready to be picked up. Then I went back to sleep. I've been lying in bed a lot these past few weeks. I figured it can't hurt.

An hour or so later, I wake up to him standing over me with a cast. With a sling and everything. He looks surprisingly cheerful, considering. His grin has acceptance. You win some, you lose some it said. I look up, eyes glassy from oversleeping. "Hi there lefty", I say as I stretch my two good arms over my head. My dog, Jack, who's curled up next to me, stretches out his back too and groans.

I get up and make us tea. Leaded for Stef, decaf for me. I'm playing it ultra save, which was really hard at first but now my body's used to it. It's been exactly 11 days since my embryo transfer and according to all the chat rooms I've been poring over, a home pregnancy test should be able to detect if I'm knocked up or not. Stef wants to wait for the blood test because it may not be entirely conclusive. I can't wait for two reasons; 1. i'm impulsive. 2. it's my frikkin body we're talking about and I want to know what's going on. But Stef asks me to wait until the end of the week because that way, if it's negative, he'll have the weekend to mourn. I respect his wishes, but wonder if I should do one in secret. It'll be a damned hard secret to keep if it's positive though.

Stef decides he's in too much pain to go back to the office and takes the day off. Around 2pm he gets bored and decides to watch a documentary in the bedroom. I'm in the living on the computer when I jump up and run to the bathroom. "Screw it, I can't wait any longer." I figured I'll tell him regardless of the result, we've got the rest of the day to digest it. Before I can change my mind, it's a free flow onto the stick, the most expensive stick I could buy, in fact. Instantly the thing lights up with two lines. I stare at it, half expecting one of the lines to fade away. But it doesn't, for the first time ever for me, IVF has resulted in a pregnancy.

I catch my breath and walk into the bedroom, the piss stick in my hoodie pocket. Stef looks at me slightly annoyed, then asks we why I'm opening all the blinds, he's still got 45 minutes left of his doc. I sit down next next time him in bed, trying not to burst into song. I don't say anything, just smile and pull the stick out of my pocket and, face down and out it in his hand. He looks at it, shocked. I start to cry.

Round Four

It's been a long time since my last post, almost a year in fact. To be honest, I forgot I had this blog. A lot hasn't changed in my life, but overall it's been a pretty good year. I've floated down the canal du Midi in southern France, driven around the Spanish Pyrenees, been introduced to the amazing Oaxacan coast, revisited Athens and discovered Madrid. My life has not been dull.

And between all those adventures, I have squeezed in two IVF attempts, one which is currently in progress. The last one, back in May, was a total disaster and was cancelled before they could even knock me up with my frozen embryos (aka 'snowbabies' according to some women in IVF chat rooms) . The doctors decided that I should reduce some of the medications that I was taking for my last two IVF cycles. That was a bad decision. I ovulated when I shouldn't have.

So now I'm on my 4th and final IVF session. I will not do it again. I cannot put my life on hold any longer. Money is not the issue, it is about the mental hold that this process has over me. I start this session with few expectations, but happy in the knowledge that whatever the outcome, it'll be my last.

Life continues, just not in me. My little guys decided to not stick around, even though I did promise them chocolate cupcakes for their first birthday. So I'm trying to focus on all the things I don't have to worry about at the moment, like constipation from pre-natal vitamins or remembering to take my hormones, morning afternoon and night. It's also quite nice to not be a miserable bag of hormones and worry whether I might break into tears in the middle of doing my groceries.

I kind of knew that they didn't take. At the start of the transfer I was super excited and was gleeful that this was my time, but after 10 days, I just of kind of knew. No baby dreams, no sore boobs, no nausea, nowt. So it wasn't a total shock when Nurse Maureen called. And even before she even mentioned the test results her tone of voice gave it away. She must have to practice that tone of voice. "Poor nurse", I thought after I hung the phone. Every time she goes to work she has to break people's hearts.

And now back to my regular routine. Off to the gym I go, pumped up a cup of caffeinated coffee.

Feeling Weird

I feel weird. I'm so used to not feeling myself lately that I'm not sure if it's just a new wave of the old weirdness or something completely new. I guess I'll just have to wait and see. Luckily I'm past the halfway mark. Just. I still have 7 more days to go before my Big Blood Test.

I over-analyzed the fuck out of my body last time and told myself I wouldn't to that this time, that I'd graduated from such first-timer naivete, but here I am again scanning IVF forum sites, hungry for as many stories and details as I can absorb. Thank god I've had some teaching to do this week to distract me. It curtails my incessant researching and lets a stomach twang remain but a stomach twang.

From all my reading, I've learned that a lot of women in my predicament will buy home pregnancy tests and starting pissing on them a couple of days after their embryo transfer. Sounds like a big waste of money considering it's rare that you'll have enough of HCG(Human chorionic gonadotropin)in your system to register anything. But it's day 7, almost day 8 for me, a completely different ball game, right?

I think London Drugs might be getting some of my money tomorrow. What can I say, I was never one to leave the presents untouched under the tree on Christmas eve. I always gave them a squeeze.

My First Blog

Here goes. I actually got my husband to set me up years ago, before he was even my husband, but I lamed out and never wrote anything. I guess I was lazy or scared or a combo of the two, but I'm now less afraid of what people think. Unfortunately I'm still lazy though. We'll see how this whole blogging thing unfolds. We'll see if in the past ten years my motivation has changed. Stay tuned.