Archive Page 2
September 23rd, 2008 by admin
Men are a strange lot.
The other night I sat with Wobbles as he read. I was writing down a few plans and started absent mindly scribbling on the inside of the cardboard of my empty anti-depressants packet. As a joke I presented him with my ink doodle that had taken minutes to create. He was instantly enchanted. He looked at it very closely and made some very complementary comments. So I took it back, signing and dating it as if it was some great work of art. Later as we got ready for bed, I noticed Wobbles carefully picking up my prescription box scribble and taking into his study. This man who never picks up after himself and wouldn’t notice three week old milk if it was left to fester on the kitchen table in the summer hear.
What was he doing with it I asked? Wobbles was a bit hesitant to tell me what he was up to. He planned to scan it so he could have a copy and archive the original so to preserve it forever. Such a simple gesture, made completely touching in its honesty.
Continue reading ‘Wobbling along nicely’
September 22nd, 2008 by admin
Somewhere back in our recent IVF past, I think it was after Cycle Two and before Cycle Three. Oh my, how these things become a blur when they begin to multiply! Anyway, we had been in the city for an appointment with our fertility specialist, and somehow it happened that the nurse could see us shortly after our appointment was over, so off we went across this large city hospital to where the action end of the clinic is located. Could we be so fortunate after making five or so of these 8 hour (round trip) travels to the clinic all in a short span of nine or ten days, get away with having to make yet another journey back for what they term the ‘nurse appointment’?
In the nurse’s office we were signing papers, how many embryos did we want transferred, 1 or 2 (the standard for our chain of clinics). As if I was thinking. Only days earlier we had made the long hike to the city, staying in a nearby motel the night before, we had travelled to the clinic’s private hospital that morning having made it with any of those pesky early morning calls to suggest that things had gone awry.
Continue reading ‘Paying through the no$e for a baby’
September 21st, 2008 by admin
It’s that time of the year.
Being a glass half empty kind of a gal, I have to do my best to not view the year as being over by the time we pass June. It is a yearly ritual. Something I blame on too many years spent as a student*, viewing the world and indeed my life in terms of the calendar year. In the latter half of the year I tend to dismiss the months remain as the fag end of the calendar, making my own silent vows to make better use of my time in the New Year.
Since infertility and ART reared its ugly head in my life, I have become rather time obsessed. I am not suggesting that IVF has assisted me in making better use of my time. Sadly, the real result seems to be an acute obsession with passing time that seems to lead to even more time wasting than my old ways.
Continue reading ‘The new life starts here!’
September 19th, 2008 by admin
This infertility malarkey requires us to take a number of rather wide leaps of faith. During an IVF cycle we might find ourselves willingly injecting ourselves with various synthetic hormones and other lovely scientific creations designed to stimulate our bodies into doing all manner of amazing things.
Of course, the honour of doing this only occurs after we have signed our lives away, by acknowledging that the clinic and doctors are not responsible for any future health issues that might be visited upon us or worse still, our future offspring and every generation thereafter, it would seem.
Continue reading ‘Too much to swallow?’
September 18th, 2008 by admin
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?’
September 14th, 2008 by admin
Lifeslurper is having a bad day week month.
There are about eighteen incomplete posts half written for this blog, most of them not worth publishing. Why, that has never stopped me before, I hear you ask.
I feel completely without inspiration and purpose. Twins states I continue to spend most of my existence in. Conditions this blog was supposed to provide some respite from.
The pressures of infertility are becoming too much. Continue reading ‘Piggy in the IVF middle’
September 9th, 2008 by admin
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’
September 8th, 2008 by admin
Well it is now over a month since our latest IVF cycle not so much ended with a bang, but died with a whimper. Wobbles and I are still scratching our heads as to which way to go. We are officially on the clinic’s donor egg top 100 list, languishing somewhere near the end of that number. The marching on of time means we are compelled to keep trying with our own eggs, and hope we turn up a non-‘degenerate’ one or eventually are in receipt of a donated version.
Continue reading ‘Turning to Dorothy the Dinosaur and Thomas the Tank Engine’
September 7th, 2008 by admin
A recent widely circulated report saw claims that Brad Pitt and Angelina Jolie’s twins had been conceived via IVF. The standard unnamed “source” was quoted as saying IVF was used so Jolie “wouldn’t have to deal with the stress of trying to get pregnant.”
A few short (hopefully fictionalized) sentences and a world filled with many many fertile people who are completely ignorant of ART and all it involves, let out a collective “tsk tsk” about the kind of reasons people pursue IVF.
Continue reading ‘Angelina, IVF and me’
September 4th, 2008 by admin
Lifeslurper has been experiencing the birthday blues particularly badly. Prior to IVF never did I fear the clicking over of another year. Signing up for ART at 42 my age was said to make a successful attempt at IVF unlikely. This week I turned 44.
All along advanced age has been suggested as the ultimate handicap to IVF. Yet logic tells me it can’t be. There are many other impediments in this infertility malarkey; they can be physical, emotional or financial to name just a few. I am merely experiencing one limitation (that I am currently aware of) of which there are countless more.
On any given day my fertility clinic peers are years (decades even!) younger. Some are even older. Many have gynaecological diseases, such as endometriosis, or important baby making equipment missing, such as an ovary or a fallopian tube (or two) due to reasons of hereditary or disease. Others have experienced non-gynaecological disease, such as cancer, resulting in their fertility being affected. Women might also be given the label of ‘unexplained infertility’ which can’t be much of a diagnosis at all to those it is directed.
Continue reading ‘The least worst of IVF’
