From here to fertility

Earlier in the week I was listening to a feature on Woman's Hour about infertility and IVF in particular. As woman after woman phoned in with their stories about cycle after cycle, some with tales of repeated failure and others with eventual success. It was a hard listen as it took me back to our journey to becoming parents. 

The day we were told it was unlikely to happen for us and we sat in the corridor and cried for what felt like days. Then wiped our tears and Hubbie went to work and I sat on the train so numb I don't recall where I went and what I did.  

Attending infertility appointments sitting in the same waiting room as pregnant women - feeling like a failure, ashamed, angry and wishing I was anywhere but there.

Turning up for an appointment having left work early to be told there was no consultant there that day and to rearrange. I felt invisible. 

The last appointment we ever went to - we both arrived first thing waited for almost 3 hours as every other woman was seen and finally they told us they'd lost our file. That's how little we mattered. 

Deciding that this was just not for us - if our marriage was going to be all about pills and tests and embryos and waiting and wishing for a maybe. 

The invasive process of being assessed for adoption. Having strangers walk through our home and tell us it wasn't big enough. Answering questions about past relationships, being interviewed by a panel of 13 people who would decide if we were 'suitable' to be parents. 

Waiting. Waiting. Waiting. 

Making peace with the reality of never being parents. In as much as you can do that. 

Falling pregnant with Big Boy. Joy at last. Family finally admitting how much it meant to them too. 

Trying - and failing - to repeat the miracle. 

Miscarriage. 

Going through the adoption merry-go-round all over again. This time with the added consideration of how this would affect our boy. 

Meeting Baby Boy. Knowing immediately that this was our second son. 

Now we feel like a family. Finally. 

That was what the programme reminded me about. It never goes away. 

The road less travelled: for those of us who really had to work at becoming a Mum.

Mothers Day is one of the biggest days of the year for florists and restaurants do pretty well out of it too. We've always made a big deal about it for my Mother and Hubbie's Mum too. Then after we had our son it took a while for me to realise that it was my day now too. I recall how hard it was before then when we were trying for so long and being reminded of what we didn't have was just so painful. A card from the cat is lovely, but the feeling that you will always be congratulating everyone else on their pregnancy and never celebrating your own can become very wearing.

When people know you're trying to conceive it is amazing what they say to be helpful. I was told to try hypnotherapy, acupuncture, reflexology and my personal favourite Shamanic healing. We did actually try yoga, hypnotherapy and reflexology and when I did finally fall pregnant with our son I called him the baby that yoga built.

In trying again I did the same things I had before. Stopped eating rubbish food, cut back on alcohol increased my fitness and made time to look after myself better. The hardest part was trying not to be upset at everyone else becoming pregnant easily while we struggled month after month. A friend suggested trying an ovulation monitoring kit and I was already using an app to track ovulation. When it still didn't happen I figured we were probably just unlucky. Then the lovely folks at Ovusense asked if we'd try their new fertility monitor. It's completely different from the kit I'd used before and is new to the UK. Here is what OvuSense say about the system.

"OvuSense is a new, highly accurate fertility monitor.  OvuSense consists of a personal sensor and a data reader. The sensor is placed in the vagina (similar to a tampon) overnight – the only place where accurate readings of core body temperature can be made.  OvuSense uses patented technology to measure core body temperature every 5 minutes, inside the vagina, while you sleep, providing you a complete picture of your personal cycle. OvuSense predicts ovulation in real time in each cycle, and detects the exact day of ovulation with 99% accuracy.  In just two weeks, OvuSense can tell you when you are going to ovulate, and then calculate the exact day for you with 99% accuracy. Only OvuSense can calculate this much personal information about your cycle with this much accuracy."

It does take some getting used to and the first couple of months the system is getting baseline readings on which to base future predictions. You do get a reading daily and it does say when your fertile window is coming up which is similar to the existing systems I've used before. Where this differs is that you will then get a much more accurate reading telling you when you actually did ovulate and all the information is recorded so that you can compare one month with another.

I found out that I ovulate later than I thought I did and that is really helpful to know. It is also really good for women who have PCOS or unpredictable cycles so they have no way of working out when they are ovulating. If you have an accurate window for ovulation you have a better chance of succeeding in becoming pregnant. The great thing about Ovusense is there is an online support community on Facebook that is a great place to ask questions and to find out more.

The hardest part of trying to conceive for me was the feeling of being alone and not being able to talk to anyone about it. When those around you can just decide to have another baby and it happens for them and you're trying month after month without success it's pretty disheartening. Ovusense answer questions and offer online support as well as sharing success stories from women who have used the system. For a woman who has no idea why she's not conceiving it's a good way to feel a bit more in control of at least part of the process.

I would definitely recommend using the Ovusense fertility monitor as it's really been an eye opener for me. It is not the cheapest fertility monitoring kit, but it's a lot more scientific than anything I've tried before and the data it collects is far more accurate. The online support is a great resource and for anyone trying to conceive it makes what can be a lonely and long road feel less so.

Disclosure: We were sent the Ovusense fertility monitor to review and to give honest opinions.
You can find out more about the product here: www.ovusense.com

Friday I'm in love - with my magical boy

This afternoon I made that error that isn't the end of the world but makes you feel a bit cross when it happens. I was in the queue that looked shortest, but turned out to be a woman who was paying separately for 4 loads of shopping. While I sighed, told my boy for the 15th time to stop climbing onto the shopping trolley and pondered how I'd managed to visit Sainsburys 3 times in two days I spotted a familiar woman at the next till. She wasn't looking over so I had a good look to see if she was who I thought she was. Her hair was blonder and she looked a bit heavier than when I last saw her (we both are), but it was definitely her. We worked in the same office in Wimbledon in 1995 - I used to stop and talk to her on reception on the way to my desk. K was glamorous and I remember her dark bobbed hair and bright red lipstick. She was like a friendlier Magenta Devine.

As I packed my shopping my son kept calling over, "Mummy, Mummy, look over here. Look over here Mummy," as he stood in front of the kiddy vending machines festooned with pictures of Minions, Elsa and assorted other characters. I noticed that K was still there too so decided to wait and talk to her when she had also finished packing. As she did I called over, "K ? We used to work together a while back. It's Swazi." She smiled, but clearly didn't remember me. Well it was 20 years ago so it's hardly surprising really. We pushed our trollies outside the store and stood chatting - all the while my son was climbing onto the side of my trolly and I kept telling him not to.

I asked her how she was and it all flooded back to me. Her husband B and how they were struggling to have a baby. How I went to her house for waxing as part of her training to be a beautician and she told me about their difficulties conceiving and that their Christian faith gave them strength to cope. As we talked today and she told me about the failed IVF and how they eventually accepted they would not have children and they settled on a 'selfish' life. This lovely woman who wasn't in the least bit selfish then and still isn't. As we said goodbye we hugged and my boy gave her a cuddle that she was kind enough to be delighted by. It was a salutary lesson for me.

I've been beating myself up a lot lately for being a rubbish parent. For getting angry, for not being around enough, for not cooking proper meals, well just everything really. Even today I was losing patience with my boy as he tried on school shoes and moaned that he was too tired to put his own shoes back on. I found it all a bit much that he asked me to save his wedges so he could eat them later and when we got back in the car he'd changed his mind so we sat in a car that smelled like fried food. On the ride home he burst into tears as I switched over the radio station so I could listen to the Archers repeat because he wanted to hear his 'favourite song.'* Sigh.

For all that I complain about how bad I am at parenting or how annoying my boy is - or worry that Hubbie sustained a head injury last week and hasn't been quite himself since - I'm grateful that I have both of them. That I have the good fortune to have found a mini packet of love hearts in the car that made my boy so very happy when I said he could eat them. That my lovely neighbour popped round for our weekly cup of tea and a catch up and brought a Tonka fire rescue truck for my boy.

Mostly I'm glad I stopped to talk to K and that I remembered what we had shared. When I knew her me and Hubbie hadn't even met yet. She opened up to me about the pain and heartache of infertility and I had no idea that years later I would be in exactly the same situation in my own marriage. I've thought of her occasionally over the years since and wondered what had happened to her and B. I had no idea I'd ever see her again, with my son, on a day that I felt overwhelmed and underpowered.

The son that for a long time I thought I'd never have. Who I love with a ferocity and a joy that I didn't know was possible. This boy who made K's face light up today when he beamed at her and waved goodbye with a cheery, "Bye, see you later."

It's like he's magic.

*mostly Arctic Monkeys, Jake Bugg or anything else that gets played incessantly on XFM.

Does this husband come with a 10 year warranty ?

Mr & Mrs

When I was a single woman I had a list of things that I was hoping to find in my potential partner. It was things like: good kisser, kind, has own teeth and hair, financially solvent. I also had a list of things to avoid: Obsessed with sports, unkind to animals and children, small-minded. Of course when I met Hubbie I was swept off my feet and fell in love so that fact that he's obsessed with sport was more than made up for by his teeth and hair. I can sense he's giving me a hard stare at this point, so I'll also say he has many other positive qualities, yadda yadda yadda.

Of course there are plenty of things that I didn't know would be important:

• Hubbie always takes the bins out - I can do it, but I don't have to because he does it. 

• He pretends not to watch 'rubbish' like the Great British Bake Off, but ask him who was in it this year and he will name every participant. And he knows all about 'bingate' !!

• Our shared capacity to take on anything that life throws at us, whether it's the drama of infertility or the trials and tribulations of adoption.  

• We don't argue. I do, but Hubbie doesn't so it means any row lasts as long as it takes for me to realise that I'm ranting and he's not participating. Nothing diffuses a situation faster. 

• We want the best for each other. Before I met him I wanted what was best for me, now I want to make Hubbie and our boy happy.   

What I've also realised over the years is that there are subtle things that you just don't consider when you're planning a life with someone. Things you take for granted until they come up in conversation:

A shared love of movies 

Me: Ooh, Shrek* is on. 

Hubbie: hmm

Me: You've watched Shrek haven't you ? 

Hubbie: Erm, no.

Me: (speechless)

*Shrek could also be replaced with: The Godfather, The Blues Brothers, This is Spinal Tap, The Life of Brian...

Interests in common

Me: Did you enjoy the ice skating ?

Hubbie: er, not not really.

Me: Oh, I'm sorry

Hubbie: I've never really enjoyed it

Me: No worries, you were only there because there weren't any penguins to stop the boy falling over :)

Similar tastes in food 

Me: My Mum made the best homemade chips ever.

Hubbie: I never had them
Me: What ? Your Mum never made them for you ?
Hubbie: No, we always had oven chips.
Me: That is actual child neglect. I have to talk to her about this.

A passion for politics 

Me: I just don't get why you watch Question Time
Hubbie: It's amusing isn't it ?
Me: Not really, hearing people shouting isn't that amusing is it ?
Hubbie: Oh, I don't know. At least they're all in one room.
Me: A very noisy room.

A shared vision of the future 

Me: When we've retired I'd like to travel the world
Hubbie: I'd like to travel to every station on the London Underground
Me: (sigh)

Just as well we don't argue isn't it ?

The Seven Year Stitch

Hubbie and I present a radio show together that we joke is the only time we actually talk to each other. While that's not strictly true it has reminded us how much we enjoy each other's company. Today he made me laugh so much I had to turn my mic down and let him carry on introducing my song. It was a ridiculous comment about a horse called Hoof Hearted and it had me in stitches and crying with laughter, silly I know.

We've been married for seven years this year - having both had starter marriages as practice - which in celebrity marriage terms is a lifetime. I always forget the date we got married, but I remember birthdays and other celebration days so I don't feel too bad. In fact we kid around that we have reversed the traditional roles as he irons his own shirts and I refuse to read instructions. It works for us.

In our early dating days we went on holiday to California and took a road trip from San Francisco to Las Vegas (via Los Angeles). We spent 24 hours a day together and a lot of time in a car driving. Well he drove, I mostly handed him sweets and pointed at the ocean. At no point did we argue or fall out and we always managed to agree on where to eat and what to do with a minimum of fuss. I put this down to him being easy going more than any positive qualities on my part.

When we were told it was unlikely that we would be able to have a baby we sat and cried for what felt like hours on chairs in the fertility clinic feeling bereft and empty. Every day after that I would phone him at work with some new plan I'd concocted to enable us to have the family we so desperately wanted. One day I called him while I was sitting under a dryer at the hairdressers to tell him I wanted to adopt one of the 11 million abandoned baby girls from India that I'd just read about. He said "Ok."

I asked him if we could go ahead and adopt in this country and he said "yes." We were assessed and verbally prodded and poked for months until we were approved by a panel of 13 strangers as suitable to be parents. Then we waited, and waited, and waited a bit more. It occurred to me that we had given up trying to get pregnant and it had to be worth a try. I suggested that in addition to all the dietary changes we'd made and the weight loss and the yoga we should also try acupuncture or reflexology. He is terrified of needles, but he said "Yes."

On a plane to India I watched Juno and cried and cried and cried. Then he watched it and he cried too. We watched Gavin & Stacey struggle to have a family and cried and cried and cried. We tried to get used to the idea that we would neither adopt, nor have a baby of our own. We went on holiday and remembered why we were together in the first place. Then on the day that I found out I was pregnant he responded joyfully "My balls work !"

As I type this Hubbie is out watching My Bloody Valentine with a friend. He loves their music, I don't. On Sunday I will be taking a flying lesson that he bought me as a present - I am terrified, but you have to love the thought. The other day he told me I looked hot in my skinny jeans - unprompted !

So for all the times that Hubbie has said, "yes" or "ok" or "if you like" to make me happy I am posting this as I know it will make him happy.

So where *do* babies come from ?

A holiday might help ?

I've learned a lot of new terminology since becoming a parent. My least favourite right now is secondary infertility which sounds rotten however you look at it. I do, of course, appreciate that having my beloved son is a wonderful gift and am very grateful that we have him in our lives. I guess I just hoped that when we tried to have another baby it wouldn't be quite as fraught as the first time, nor take as long. So imagine how much fun it is to find out that we aren't in the subset that fall pregnant again really easily the second time. Instead we're finding it's startlingly similar to how it was the first time. This time with added guilt as craving another baby makes me feel I'm devaluing my son in some way. I also realise that it's nothing like it was when we genuinely believed that we wouldn't be able to have a child at all. For anyone who is in that situation what I'm struggling with right now must seem a bit 'princessy.'

In the first instance we were able to dodge enquiries about babymaking with the usual 'we want to spend some time just the two of us before we start a family.' or 'I'm concentrating on my career right now.' After a few years had passed though I was reduced to a terse 'we can't have children' in response to any polite enquiry from a stranger who didn't really need to know the details of my life.

The enquiries from family were more difficult. Telling my own Mother that it wasn't about not having enough money for IVF, we'd genuinely prefer to adopt was a repetitive conversation that only really ended when we did in fact find out we were expecting a baby. Whether this can be attributed to a miracle or tenacity I still don't know.

Of course now the questions are, 'will you have any more ?' or 'when do you think you'll have another baby ?' Both of which cause a ripple of panic as I haven't yet worked out a response that isn't tinged with bitterness or tears. Telling people that you're trying and it's making you feel like a failure doesn't seem to be enough to head off an awkward personal conversation.

Then there are the stupid things people say when they find out it's not happening for you.

"My pregnancy was a mistake." In all the years I've been married (and the ones before) I didn't make a mistake that resulted in a baby - this one baffles me. How exactly do you fall pregnant by mistake ? I used to know a woman who would fall pregnant when she suspected her relationship was skittering into the buffers and I'm sure she used this line on the boyfriends/husbands concerned.

"We fell pregnant on our honeymoon. It's funny really as we were hoping to go back for our first anniversary, but of course we'll have to get a passport for the baby now." How unbearably smug are the newlyweds who score the honeymoon baby ? I cannot stand this one, it's up there with always winning the best raffle prize or getting a strike every time they go bowling.

Lorean

"Have you tried acupunture / shamanistic healing / traditional chinese medicine /  Zita West / co-enzyme Q10 / agnus castus my friend swears it worked for her." I've tried everything - yes even the stupid stuff - and if you suggest another crazy ass idea I'll probably try that too. I'm desperate for something, anything to work. According to one holistic therapist it's about me being honest about wanting another child. Of course I'd never considered that what I think is pain, anguish and desperate sadness might just be indifference and indecision about having a baby. Silly me.

"Oh we just fell pregnant as soon as we started trying. We didn't think it would happen that fast." So why did you start trying then ? This is the person who tells you how easy it was for them to get pregnant every time they tried and is a special from of torture that makes me wonder if they also go up to people who are selling the Big Issue to boast about how big their house is and that they're considering a second property.

Closely followed by the couple who decide to have another child and lo and behold a month later she's pregnant and tells you that she's never had any problems falling pregnant and proceeds to tell you exactly how she does it. For me this is like the person who complains that they just have to eat or the weight just falls off them. If I don't walk away at this point there is a risk that prolonged contact could result in a serious assault.

I have no idea what it was that tipped the balance for us last time - maybe it was the fact that we were in the adoption process, maybe it was one of the holistic therapies we tried, maybe it was the three holidays in a row that we took, maybe it was the champagne that we decided it was ok to drink at New Year. Or maybe it was just the right time for us.

Whatever it was I suspect it's going to be like Back to the Future and however much we try and repeat it something will be different. The main difference - of course - is that we have our wonderful son already.

That's a pretty great point to start from.