Today Lifeslurper is featuring our very first guest blogger.
It is very fitting that this inaugural occasion should be given to Jodie Flynn; a woman who carries much of my survival through the wretchedness I know as IVF.
Recently Lifeslurper was ‘outed’ by a reader comment left by Jodie. Not that I was keeping secrets. Clearly anyone reading this blog will know there isn’t too much I am prepared to leave out. It was just that I hadn’t quite got to that stage of the story. Okay, it takes me a long time to get to any part of a story. Any short story left in my hands can very quickly become a long story. I wrote a post called Fantasy IVF about all the extras that are required to get through this whole IVF business. I left out the fact that I have a fertility coach in that post thinking that I would quickly get around to revealing my secret IVF weapon. My fertility coach, Jodie Flynn saw the post before I got around to mentioning her and I was outed!
Continue reading Secret Lifeslurper Fertility Weapon
Sometimes it seems convenient to make infertility and the resulting IVF treatments the scapegoat for my problems.
Truth is, I had issues with depression, had lost my career, had gained weight, and had lost track of dreams (not necessarily in that order) before IVF entered the picture.
I can not blame infertility for my woes. However, the temptation is certainly there to associate all that is wrong about my world on the most obvious and recent of culprits. Continue reading A perfect time for IVF?
Last night Wobbles held me as I sobbed uncontrollably.
“Remember I love you!’ It was more emphatic than his normal daily declarations. This one served a more important purpose.
‘Remember I love you!’ His words acting like an invisible lifeline thrown out across the very short distance between us.
Things have been slipping lately. In the two weeks since our fourth IVF cycle died with a whimper, I have felt my mood slipping downward to a well trodden area I’d prefer it not to go. Continue reading Remember I love you!
Post Cycle Anxiety Disorder?
Teddy Lifeslurper wondered if the Crinone brand extensions had been a wise choice.
Is there such a thing as ‘post cycle anxiety disorder?’ If there isn’t already then I have just coined a name for what is probably a common condition.
Five spectacularly unsuccessful IVF cycles down and some strange things have been happening. I feel different to what I did before, and here was me priding myself on my ‘superior’ knowledge of self. I am at a loss to really describe the situation with any clarity.
I have become vague, worse than what usually occurs a few days in on a stimulation cocktail of FSH injections and Synarel nasal spray. I am word searching all the time. I speak and not only the words but the entire topic goes completely from my mind. A mind as empty as my womb. What is happening? I have seriously been wondering if I had some kind of breakdown or if I am heading straight from IVF to Alzheimers.
Sure, I live with depression, but this is something else. I have a sense of panic in most things I do, even the most simple of tasks. Feelings of being overwhelmed when deciding what to cook for dinner, which lane to drive in, and which supermarket register to line up at. Actually, I feel a complete loss at most things these days.
It is easy to blame IVF for everything. I know I do blame IVF for most things. Here at the Lifeslurper Spa Resort it has become a favourite comment; borrowing from the old ‘letters to the editors’ featured in newspapers of yore, before the days of online comments when it was popular to include the line; “…of course, I blames the government” somewhere in the body of the letter. Here we say; “I blames the IVF!” as a response to any event such as when the tea bag supply runs low, or when a light globe blows. It is quite convenient to have a handy scapegoat ready.
Yet something more seems to be amiss. Continue reading Post Cycle Anxiety Disorder?