Stage Left: Enter Period (Crowd Roars)

Well, her friend Spot heralded her entrance last night and today it has just been a lot of dark-brown sludge but the red flow will swiftly follow.

Too much information, I know but combined with the cramping and the back pain, I am counting this as CD1. I have already e-mailed my nemesis (IVF co-ordinator) to let her know.

Of course, I have now realised what my uterus was waiting on and why the big delay in bringing forth the goods.

It is also CD1 for my donor today too.

We could not have synchronised that if we had tried. We have already had one other weird coincidence happen, in that we have the same rare identical blood type. If I believed in signs, I would think it was all serendipitous.

Just wow.

Period Watch..Day 621

Nope, not here yet.

I phoned the clinic, looking for my fave nurse but she was not there. Upshot of the conversation? Wait until Friday. If the bleeding has not started by then, come in for a lookie-loo.

Just great. A speed date with the wandmonkey.

But I will have to change out of my jimjams. Curses.

Spring Forward, Fall Back

I am back!!!

First up, welcome to British Summer Time where the clock went forward by one hour yesterday. I left Edinburgh yesterday in sunshiny 17 degrees (63 degrees for you non-Europeans) and arrived home to rain and 11 degrees (48 degrees) and it has not stopped raining cats and dogs since then. Oh well, it is good for the garden though the flooded garage would probably disagree with me this morning.

Much fun and merriment was had by all this last week or so and I will update more on that later.

The most important thing is that I still do not have my period and it is well over 2 weeks since the last Provera pill. I am not sure if I have a cyst as I have been having sharp pains and cramps. My body seems to always look for the opportunities to fuck me up!!!!

I am having a much-needed week's holiday this week so I am in my jimjams, DVDs at the ready (In her Shoes and My House in Umbria), 2 episodes of Prison Break to catch up on, washing machine whirring and ready to just relax until Friday when we go off again to Loch Lomond. Bliss.

A big shout out to Millie as she has her FET in Cape Town today. Much love and luck to you, my friend.

Hi Ho Hi Ho, Its Off to Work I Go

I have Synarel...I will travel! Although still no sign and no, I am not pregnant. My ovaries are dead, remember. It is just the screwed-up hormones again.

It's another week, another conference!!!

Still in the same place though...sunny Edinburgh. Maybe my swimming cossie will make its appearance this week to celebrate the rites of spring. Although light snow showers are forecast again! I have warned Amy that her thermals will be required but she has pooh-poohed me. We shall see!

The conference runs until Friday and then Mr P and I are having a further few days of jollification in Edinburgh without the bother of work getting in the way. We will be having a trawl round our favourite record and comic shops and restaurants. The highlight of the weekend will be the fragrant and lovely Spoken Word tour of Mr Henry Rollins which is making a stop at the Usher Hall. We last saw him live in Prague 12 years ago but I am sure he can still deliver the goods albeit in a spoken word fashion, not ear-bleeding Black Flag stylee.

Lucky me! I am actually having 2 weekends away over the next fortnight. This one in Edinburgh and then Loch Lomond for the spring holiday of the first weekend in April. Can you believe that I have never been to Loch Lomond or the Trossachs in general? Call myself a Scotsperson! I am sure it will be lovely if it will only stop the snow showers. There is even shopping there too although I am not obsessed with shopping. Just, you know, the new kitchen will need more knick-knacks and loveliness.

As I alluded to in my last post, the kitchen has been ordered and will be delivered in 7 weeks-ish (mid-May). It will either take my mind of the negative result of the DE cycle or give me something else to worry about. Want to place your bets now?

You would think I was made of money the way I am lashing it about lately...kitchens, weekends away, donor egg cycle. Pffft...it is only money, eh? What else is a girl supposed to do with it? Save it for a rainy day?? Hahaha.

Shall I Be Batman Tonight???

Whilst I am still awaiting the onset of the Crimson Tide, my hormones are doing their best to run away with me.

As exciting as this sounds, it means an awful lot of unsettled nights for me. Thankfully the nights spent in the hotel in the past week were not too eventful (as far as I am aware haha!). However, this weekend has seen a couple of doozies in the nocturnal wanderings and derring-dos.

Friday night, not too bad. A small spot of rampaging around the house and woke up to a pile of kitchen catalogues under my pillow. Not too shabby. As I was ordering my kitchen the following day, it is easy to spot what was weighing on my mind.

Last night, whooeee! It will go down in the annals as Most Outstanding Somnambulism for a while and may not be beaten. Time will tell.

First of all, the vivid, vivid dreams. I was fastening a baby into a carseat and kissing their revealed belly and revelling in the soft velvety pudginess and blowing raspberries to the delighted shrieks of the baby. The sensation of the skin against my lips was so, so real. The weirdest thing was that I was talking to the mother of the baby who was sat next to him/her and carrying on this conversation with her at the same time. I was definitely the care-giver though, rather than the mother. Donor eggs, anyone??? Freud would have a field day.

Next, the piece de resistance, as related to me this morning by a disgruntled Mr P. During the night, whilst still pitch dark outside, I sat bolt upright in bed and started talking to him but I was calling him Robin and talking to him in a very careful voice, as if English was not his first language. This was loud enough to startle him out of a very deep sleep.

I cannot remember this, at all. I do not know anyone by the name of Robin, other than the caped crusader's effeminate sidekick. Needless to say, I am feeling a little tired today. Mr P keeps asking me if we are going to the Batmobile? He thinks he is funny.

I managed to pull the energy together to plant 40 pansies in my pots and borders this afternoon. Monday is the vernal equinox where day and night are of the exact same length, marking the official start of spring. This means we are officially moving towards Summer and I decided to celebrate that fact by unleashing my trowel for the first time since last summer.

My poor garden has been sadly neglected since last year as despite my best intentions, the crap IVFs pretty much made me care about nothing else other than watching TV in my jimjams. Then winter descended as if a light had been switched off and it was too dark to care.

The sun shone today briefly and it was warm on my face. The friendly little faces of the pansies nodded and smiled and I let my mind unspool as I sunk my gloved hands into the earth. Simple pleasures.

Treading Slush

I am back from the snowy wastes of Edinburgh. We still have snow lying on the ground at home. My poor crocuses were just starting to come out and now they are squished!

After a tortuous train journey on Sunday through white-out conditions, it would have been nice to be a delegate at the conference and sit around chatting, eating bonbons and not doing much work but alas, I was a facilitator earning my crust. Lots of running about like a headless chicken as a thousand myriad details had to checked then re-checked.

However, at least my hair was nice as I had just been for a cut and colour. I warned the hairdresser on pain of death not to cut very much off it. Repeat after me: I AM GROWING IT!!!!

I had not been there since the start of December as she had gone all Eddie Scissorhands on my not-so crowning glory then and almost ruined my trip to Prague. This time, she must have seen the wild light of Provera running rampant in my eyes and decided she had better heed my words!!

Wise woman. Mr P is still having flashbacks from the weeping and screeching last time. Hard to believe but I have no complaints this time. Hair = good.

The conference itself was hard work with gobby attendees who would not shut up when I gave them the evil eye but there was lots of fun and wine and good food at night with the other facilitators. The Italian restaurant in the Grassmarket and the Mexican restaurant in Cockburn St are probably still struggling to recover from the raids on their wine and tequila stocks, respectively!

The hotel itself was very, very nice. As per usual, I packed my cossie for a possible swim in the hotel pool and it never made its debut out of my suitcase. Oh, the shame. However, it is just as well really, as the last time my legs saw the light of day was a good while ago. I could plait my bikini line.

My only excuse is that it is wintertime and there has been a dearth of wandmonkey appointments so no medical need for upkeep! The rest is just laziness. Maybe next week, I will tackle it. I will be back in Edinburgh on Tuesday for Conference Part 2.

On ART matters, no sign of the Crimson Tide since the last of the Provera. No worries as it can take up to 10 days (I could recite this in my sleep as this is probably the No.1 newbie question on the TTC boards, not that I frequent them ever nowadays!). Once she arrives, I will commence downregging with Synarel on CD2. Fun, fun and more fun.

Finally, to round up, I have chosen the birch kitchen. Yes, I did take a long time to make my mind up and no, I have not made any other decisions yet. Yes, I am a Libran so stand by for more dithering on appliances, worktops, handles, etc.

Finally finally, can you send some IF love to Julianna and Akeeyu as they are both having FETs tomorrow on St Paddy's Day. I would say it was a good day for a frozen green cocktail but I am not Irish so I don't want to jinx anything. Much love and luck to you ladies.

Be Careful What You Wish For!

Snow!!

Snow!!

Buckets and buckets of the stuff and drifting and everything. Just what I wanted.

Just not on the day that I have to travel to Edinburgh for Big Conference Part 1.

Necessitating snow boots, not pointy boots. Aaargh!!!

I will be back mid-week. Be good.

Snowed Under

Oh, but if only it were real snow! No such luck. Whilst all around last week and at the weekend, people were frolicking and digging themselves out of the snow and skiing, no such luck here. We had some but nothing to write home about. Oh, what I would give for a snow day.

I am snowed under at work, in preparation for facilitating at a big departmental conference in Edinburgh next week and the week after. Of course, the highlight of my 2nd week will be the blogQueen on tour, paying us a royal visit. She has lost loads of weight which she has apparently magically transferred to me by blog-osmosis. I am going to sit on her and squash her!

Slight change in my donor cycle dates. Is it really worrying when you have to be the advocate for your own and your donor's treatment? I had to point out to the IVF co-ordinator that she was on BCP and no-one had told her when to stop. The reply was Ooops! Change of plan. She will finish the packet and start sniffing on CD2 of next cycle. This means around 29th March. Baseline U/S around 2 weeks later.

I have started the Provera so look out world! The bitch is back and louder than ever.

The dates still put us in the frame of retrieval towards the end of April so I am not going to stress out about it. I keep telling myself it does not make any difference if there is a slight change of dates.

Ha! I have been waiting for **cough40yearscough** 6 months so a few more days here and there is small beer to me.

Somnambulists of the World, Unite!!

Someone (Jude?) tagged me ages ago about the 5 things that are weird about me. Believe me, 5 things would not begin to cover all of my idiosyncracies but one of my all-time weirdest things is my sleepwalking.

I have done it as long as I can remember, since a wee tot. I can go months sleeping the sleep of the dead then I will have a phase of it. I have grown used to it over the years and take great care not to leave keys in outside doors and no obstacles on the floors in the dark. It is always that I am dreaming that something is happening but my body is actually doing it. My mind propels me.

I fear staying in a hotel room as often you just have to pull the handle to undo a security lock so I prop a chair in front of the door to create enough of an obstacle to deter or wake me up properly.

Only once have I gone out of the house. It was the sub-zero temperature in the middle of winter that actually woke me up. Thankfully I was just outside and had not gone far. This is another reason why I never sleep naked!!

My one recurring dream is that I am in an unknown building and I have to get out. The details vary and the imaginary reasons for having to get out vary but the backbone of the thing remains the same. Often I am also on a quest for something in this house, looking for something in particular or having to hide something. This can make it difficult the next day trying to locate an item that I knew had been left in the kitchen or such but it has now migrated to the hall cupboard. One of my favourite somnambulistic acts as a kid was to fold up all the bedding off my bed and put it all away in the wardrobe. I would then get back on the bare mattress and wake up in the morning shivering. My mother would shriek at me for doing this as if shouting would make it stop.

Now when this happens, Mr P will often get up and guide me back to bed. The best thing is when I am gripped with fear at being in this strange house surrounded by unfamiliar objects and I battle my way to the surface of waking and I wake up to the most loved, familiar face right there beside me. My touchstone in a sea of uncertainty, my soother of anxiety.

I know all the science of sleep and the mind not being able to shut down and the rational reasons for my nocturnal anxieties. I know that it is when things are worrying me or I am feeling unsettled and twitchy. I know rationally it is my anxiety at the upcoming donor IVF cycle that is making me start this again. As long as I have Mr P holding my hand when I wake up, I can get through anything.

My donor starts suppression on March 21st. You were right in that suppression will just be extended to cover the Easter break closedown. The same thing happened to me last year at this time. I remember having a nervous breakdown as I was having to suppress for 3 weeks instead of only 2! It seems like a lifetime ago. She will have her baseline U/S on April 11th and all going to plan will start stims then for 10-12 days. I start Provera this week to kickstart my suppression etc.

It looks like I have going to be a little sleep-disturbed for at least the next 6-7 weeks. Oh well, worse things happen at sea. I have been waiting so long to start this that I am a bit dazed at suddenly seeing the starting gates. I would go without sleep entirely if I could make it over the finish line this time.

Who Mentioned Chocolate Covered Hobnobs????

As if I need any more torture!!! Oh, I know who it was. If you feel up to it, pop on over to the lovely and delicious T at Good Times and send her some "popping out baby vibes". The little stinker is being too stubborn and I am feeling way too impatient. Your blog aunties are waiting, young person.

On the whole other side of the coin, another lady who sorely needs a different kind of IF love right now is Katie, the sausage lover. She has had some very bad news after her 2nd IVF went tits up. Give her some loving the way only the internets can.

I will be back soon with some long awaited donor cycle scheduling news but a lovely hot bath on a cold winter's afternoon is calling me. You would have to bribe me with hobnobs to beat that, haha.

Crumbs!!!

I guess it is just as well that I was not near this event last week or there would have been casualties haha! Mind your elbows, people!