Lately I have spent far too much time contemplating the ART scrapheap.
Another predictably downbeat appointment with the fertility specialist, more delays and a 45th birthday end date looming large has brought Lifeslurper to even more reflection. I suspect that this time even Wobbles’ unfailing optimism has been brought to heel.
Our baby is floating further out of reach.
Tori Amos once sang; “You think there’s heaven where some screams have gone?” I now wonder if there is a place for all those who have valiantly tried (and failed) IVF. Perhaps What Becomes of the Broken Hearted is a more appropriate lyric?
Continue reading The ART Dung Heap
It was never supposed to happen like this.
Today as my state and country observes a National Day of Mourning for the victims of the fires three weeks ago, I find myself launching head-long into a different kind of grief.
Perhaps it is something about disaster that makes us turn our thoughts to new life? However, here thoughts of a baby predated the fires, along with all of a dealings with fertility clinics. The fires helped me to feel that various daily concerns were petty and unimportant. Yet there is one unshakable truth. Our quest for a baby is an important.
This week has brought a stark reminder of how fraught with difficulty the desire to have a baby is for the aged and fertility challenged.
Continue reading Baby or Highway
Greek mythology tells of a king who was punished by Zeus. Sisyphus was sentenced to an eternity of rolling a huge bolder uphill only to watch it roll down again. The frustrating and repetitive nature of this task resulted in the expression of Sisyphean meaning something that is pointless or unrewarding. We do not need to look to ancient times for such an analogy; we have a perfect equivalent in our own contemporary times. Replace that punished king with an average woman who falls within reproductive age and is considered infertile, and substitute that bolder for IVF procedures and there you have it; a ARThean Challenge. Continue reading Why? Why do we do this?
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?