+

Well, that temping thing apparently works, although as we well know, this is only the start of the fun and games. I'm going to be more proactive this time around though and get a quantatitive HCG done this week hopefully. I'm also hoping to get an early scan at the EPU before Xmas so that I might have an idea how it's looking before I go away for the holidays. What I really want to avoid is being in limbo over Christmas, as there's nothing worse than having to act as if you're pregnant when you're on a hiding to nothing.

Temper temper

In my pursuit of another wee babe, I have become a "temper". It's one of the more extreme addictions of the infertility realm, and some ladies do it for years, becoming truly intimate with the variations of their cycles. I reckon if something has addictive properties, count me in.

Basically, you monitor your basal body temperature each morning at the same time before any activity. Literally, you aren't even supposed to roll over and reach for the thermometer if it's possible to magically teleport it into your mouth (or other suitable orifice, but ew, I am so not going there even if it is "more accurate") After ovulation, your temperature rises by approx 0.4 of a degree or thereabouts, and you know that you are officially on the 2ww. It's useful for checking that you are ovulating (which hasn't so far been a problem for me) and once you get an idea of your cycle, you can time intercourse for maximum chance of conception - so romantic. There are even computer programs that help you work it all out, which does give you the marvellous opportunity to say "computer says no" when you hubby rolls amorously towards you of an evening!

Apart from the temping (which you are supposed to supplement with obsessive checking of your cervical mucous (again, eeew!) there are other ways to monitor fertility signs. I tried the saliva ovulation microscope - which also tells you if you are pregnant as the ferns that you see when you're ovulating just never go away - that's how I got M. And one month I tried ovulation prediction kits... but I am cheap and they cost £19 or so EACH MONTH - gasp - so that hasn't lasted, because it didn't work!

I spend all this time monitoring, though, and actually - touch wood and all - getting pregnant has not tended to be the problem for me, I managed it three times in 6 months before M stuck, but I suppose I feel as though I have a bit of cotrol over that. Once I get pregnant, there doesn't seem to be a lot I can do to stop miscarrying - who knows what utter miracle kept M in there despite her losing an entire week dates wise in the first 8 weeks?

Well, yes, I am obsessed. There's no doubt about it. RIght, time to enter the data on the computer program, and on CD4 computer very definitely says no!

Ups and downs...

A long time without a post, yes. We've been busy, but really I'm feeling incredibly in limbo because I want to be pregnant again, and so far, I'm not. I had a short cycle after the miscarriage, and have just got my period after a longer than usual cycle, with all the attendant "am i, aren't I?" drama. I'm ashamed to say I cried this time. I didn't even cry about the last miscarriage, but I felt so down on Sunday night after we tried so hard this month that i couldn't help a little weep.

Part of me feels guilty. I have a wonderful daughter and husband, and life could be a lot worse, but I am not good with dealing with disruptions to my plans. I should know by now that the best laid plans oft go awry, but I would dearly like for Millie to have a brother or sister, without a vast age gap. And then part of me wonders whether to be content with what I have. However, I think I'll always want to keep trying, and so in that case, it's waiting for the optimum time once again, and then back on the job.

What's incredibly dispiriting is that even if I do get pregnant, the chances are high that I'll miscarry again. But I've got to get pregnant to find that out...

All of this is attendant with not freaking E out too much. It's not fair to demand that he performs "right now because it's the key moment and if you don't then I'll be so upset" so I have to play it down rather, or the pressure will be too much for him. Argh, infertility, even secondary infertility when you've been blessed with a wonderful child, is a BITCH!

Still, on the plus side, a payrise today, and one not to be sniffed at.

We were sailing..

Cor those cruise ships are brilliant. An utterly excellent holiday on MV Aurora and who'd have thought their facilities for children would be so good. M had an absolutely marvellous time, and so did we. More food than we could eat and a decent amount of plonk to wash it down. Rotterdam wasn't really up to all that much, but perfectly pleasant and the on-water boat museum was lovely. Bruges was as delightful as I remembered, and not as hectic as the last tour that I did with my sister last time we cruised with Mum and Dad. On that occasion we were dragged from our beds at 0630 with hangovers and frogmarched around the city - who'd have thought that the average speed of a little old lady was so fast!

Speaking of hangovers I have been mortally afflicted today buy what I call "double jeopardy" which is the combination of a girl's night out and the arrival of the painters (to put it euphemistically). I wasn't expecting any internal renovation at this stage post-m/c, but in general it is welcome as it means things are getting back to normal?? Dare I hope? Anyway, the counting and bedroom action can now commence, and I must keep taking the tablets!

The girl's night out was excellent though. Much fun had, although yet another of my friends has been visited by the miscarriage fairy - grrrr! Can't she find another beat?

Hols

To get away from the general picture of misery I am painting here I'm pleased to say that we are off on a mini-cruise on Sunday. Mum and Dad are treating us to celebrate Dad's "sort of" retirement so we're all heading off to Rotterdam and Zeebrugge courtesy of P&O's Aurora. It should be good fun and if it works out well with Millie I may be able to persuade Ed that it's worthwhile in future.

My 38 weeks pregnant friend is getting impatient to meet her little baby, a feeling I well remember, and I had about 4 weeks still to wait! Hopefully Emma will not have such a long wait before she's cuddling her little one and trying to work out which way up the babygrows go.

Well, work is finished for the week, so time to chill out and watch some rubbish telly.

Onwards and upwards

In my world, once a miscarriage has happened, the only thing to do is start trying again. As soon as possible. My doctor is not convinced there is an underlying problem, so it's back to the bump'n'grindstone. However, my good friend Mel suggested that I consult with a friend's Mum who is a very senior midwife, to see whether she had any theories given my history... and she did. She believes that I have a clotting disorder called antiphospholipid syndrome, or Hughes syndrome, which is preventing enough blood getting to the baby once it embeds, so although we had seen a heartbeat early on on a couple of occasions, the embyro was effectively being starved of blood, hence the early miscarriages.

I looked at the information that my friend's mum sent over and thought that yes, there might be something in it. I had come across the syndrome in my own researches, but it's hard to self diagnose really. Dr G told me I could try taking a baby aspirin per day if ti would make me feel like I was doing something, so I have been doing.

Anyway, the fertility fairies have struck at work again: one lady who was told she could never have children went to the doctor's feeling under the weather, only to be told that she was four months gone, while another who only started ten weeks ago has just announced that she is 14 weeks or so. So I was feeling a little bit down and decided to look more closely at this possible problem. I went on the Hughes syndrome website http://www.hughes-syndrome.org/ and immediately I was struck by the fact that one of the symptoms - classic migraines with aura throughout teens that disappear and recur in the thirties - fits me to a tee. There are a couple of others, such as poor circulation, and of course the early miscarriages, that also apply, but it is the migraine one that has got me thinking, yes, this is it. The treatment is fairly simple - a baby aspirin per day to thin the blood. They do use heparin as well, but you can only get that if you are officially diagnosed, and as the diagnosis takes 6-8 weeks at least and can be inconclusive, I'd prefer to keep going with the aspirin and hope to get pregnant, at which point I'll lay the evidence before Dr G and ask him to monitor me as if I have it.

This syndrome has implications for my future health also, so I'll have to get tested at some stage, but apparently it is fairly easily managed with the aspirin.

So fingers and everything else crossed for a good result next time.

Phew, done and dusted

... it's been a while since my last post, but I'm pleased to report that the nastiness is mostly over with. Things finally started kicking off last Wednesday, and proceeded with alacrity to a state where even an experienced m/c'er like me felt that a trip to the hospital might be in order. Seriously, the amount of washing that was being generated was untrue, even with the giant knicker-mattresses. It was like being a young girl again coping with your first periods. Sigh. Luckily my good friend Mel was around to give me good warning of when a chagne of wardrobe would be needed, and hubby can always be relied on to stop me from wadering around the shops with a crimson tide in evidence.

So, all done, as my daughter would say. And moving on to try for pg #5, this time with added baby aspirin, you never know, it might work.

We've just spent a lovely week on the IOW with my parents and sister, plus visit from Mel too. We went to the church fete in the village I grew up in and ran into our playschool teacher Mrs Bull. At 30 years old Mel and I are still scared of her, a truly formidable woman!

In two weeks we are heading off for a four day cruise on the Aurora out of Southampton. I am really looking forward to it.

Still waiting...

Yes, still waiting to m/c properly. It's the "life is on hold" of it all that gets me. I couldn't be less pregnant if I tried. I am the complete opposite of pregnant. There is no potential at the moment and nothing I can do about it but wait. I suppose I should be grateful that I "tend" to m/c naturally and fairly painlessly - certainly most women have probably had period pains worse than what I'll get, but it's a small comfort. A bit of drama would at least make me feel more worthy of wallowing in gloom. Things are beginning to happen though, so I must just be patient, and keep a "padwatch" going - soaking more than a pad an hour and it's off to casualty for me - unlikely though!

I do tend to approach life with a "there are lots of people with bigger problems than yours" sort of perspective, and there have been many occasions over the last few weeks when I have realised that this suffering is nothing compared to that which I know about. From the close to home - the death on Sunday morning of our vicar's father, to tragedies such as the Twin Cities bridge, and the ever-enduring agony of the McCann family. I haven't felt able to cry this time, as I have so many wonderful people in my life, not least E and M, and it would seem cheap.

When I'm with my family I am fine, but when I am at work I could curl up sometimes. I know (hope?) this agony is only temporary. Soon we will be able to move on, and we have managed it once. I know that for me, a successful pregnancy cancels out the agony of trying and failing, even though it is necessarily an excruciatingly anxious time. It is not like that for everyone, and I don't believe that my experiences of early miscarriage can compare with some of the awful tragedies that mothers suffer in the pursuit of a baby.

But! There's always some good news, and this week's good news is that my brother-in-law and his girlfiriend are getting married! They have been together longer than E and me, so about time! They are coming down on Thursday and we are going out for a meal to celebrate. What with that, a V1rgin Vie party on Wednesday and another trip to the Island on Friday, things are looking up.

Weddings, Baptisms and other less happy events

Well, in the grand tradition of the (in)fertility blogger (unless you're a really good one like Julie http://www.alittlepregnant.com/ or Julia http://julia.typepad.com/ ) a long silence usually means bad news. Actually that's not strictly true; sometimes it means that you've had the long awaited baby and are using blogging time to catch up on sleep. Anyway, in this case it's the former. The bean measured only 6 weeks or so, and two subsequent blood tests showed falling HCG levels, so all over bar the shouting really. Unfortunately the "shouting" has not yet begun, so I am effectively waiting to miscarry. It will add another dimension of terror to furture pregnancies, as before I could relax as long as there wasn't any bleeding , whereas now I'm 9 or so weeks in with no bleeding, but I know it's all wrong. The waiting is hard to bear, as I like to move on as quickly as possible, and I'm in limbo at the moment. I'm seeing Dr G on Monday, and will be asking him what the options are. I'm not really keen to have a D&C, especially as it's unlikely he'll send any results for testing anyway, but I'm not sure what the alternatives are.

At least I'm not blithely skipping along to the 12 week scan thinking everything is fine, that would have been awful.

In better news, although all rather overshadowed by my own misery. Our friends Jenny and James tied the knot last Saturday, so congratulations Mr and Mrs W.

Also, our good friends had all three of their children baptised last Sunday. We had a lovely barbecue afterwards and the sun even deigned to shine.

This weekend we've had visitors in the form of Michael and Kirsten, who are expecting their first baby. It was lovely and nostalgic re-living all of the excitement of first being pregnant. Little M had a joint birthday party to attend and then today we've been doing odd jobs, punctuated with a bit of a shopping spree and lunch at Pizza Express, mmmm.

Slacker

See, I started all enthusiastic and then "poof" gone! Well, I've been busy, and lazy, getting worked up about work and then going on holiday in a desperate attempt to relax on behalf of... well, more on that later...

Work saw the unholy juxtaposition of a major conference/survey announcement/fight with the market leader over false advertising. The boss actually told me to "unleash hell" in a very Gladiator stylee, but seeing as I'm so genteel, I simply unleashed PC Pro, trustedreviews.com and the channel magazines. Still, I officially provoked "no comment" with my actions, so can't complain.

Then it was off to the merry old Isle of Wight to give my parents some quality granddaughter time. Can I just officially BLESS MY MUM who got up every morning to give M her breakfast, thus leaving E and me to enjoy the unique wonder of a nice lie in. Grandad did sterling work also, and Great Grandnana kept little M entertained and only freaked her out once when setting her hair in green and blue rollers!

While we were down on the IOW we had a visit from a friend who lives in Sydney. It was great to see Helen Melon again and find out that she hasn't changed a bit.

The reason for the vain attempts at relaxation is the continued absence - so far - of a girl's worst friend. Now this would have some ladies whooping with glee and rushing out to buy the latest Bugaboo designer pram. However, in this household, such tidings are greeted with typical Northern gloom and a fatalistic attitude that reckons "things'll get worse before they get better". Such is my pessimism surrounding all things reproductive that two friends who I mentioned it to had to remind themselves to say "congratulations", such was my dour presentation of the news.

This would be pregnancy number 4 you see, which doesn't exactly tally with the one little treasure of a darling who has just woken up for a wail upstairs. The other two were early miscarriages, which mean that I refuse to get excited about anything until at least 10 weeks. Even seeing a hearbeat isn't good enough for me, as we had that with #2 and it still fizzled out.

By this stage with M I'd already had spotting, two blood tests and two ultrasounds, and it worked out fine. With the ones that went wrong, I had no spotting until about 8 weeks, and then it all went wrong. I am in the latter camnp at the moment, so on Thursday morning it's off to Dr G to beg a ride on his lovely ultrasound machine where, if there is anything to see at 7.5 weeks, we should see it. If it measures wrong, we are scr3wed. Ho hum. Unfortunately despite my attempts to stay emotionally detached from it, its pretty hard, and as I said to a friend just after I had M, you don't know how much you wanted a baby until it is taken away from you.

My fabulous friend Liz, who has sufered the joy of 2 m/cs herself, has a great way of looking at it though: If I had had either of the other two babies, little M wouldn't be here (I kept trying to conceive very quickly after the m/cs) and she is the light of my life right now.

Poor little M though, had to have her MMR and PCV injections yesterday. She did cry, but just for a couple of minutes. She seems OK but just has a little red area on one of her arms.

Well I'll update with news post Thursday.

Birthdays and winkies

A great weekend followed by a hectic week. Friday - my birthday - saw a trip to work for a meeting that couldn't wait, and then I spent the afteroon with Mum, Dad and M choosing a new sewing machine. Got a lovely Pfaff model which I tried out making a pair of trousers last night - it sews like a dream.

Friday night Ed and I headed out to Mari e Monti for dinner. It was delicious and we had a lovely surprise as friends had arranged a bottle of wine for us. We went to the new microbrewery after that and drank some very fruity lager. Bumped into a friend who is hoping to ski for the British Paralympic Team - go James go!

Saturday Mum and Dad set off for Sheffield and Ed, me, M and friend Sarah drove down to Brighton for Jen's hen do. We said farewell to Ed and M and joined the hen crew. Lunch at a Morrocan bar was followed by a recording session where Jen laid down the Shoop shoop song and Girls just wanna have fun with us all on backing vocals. What a top idea for a hen do! The evening was spent in the company of the Adonis Cabaret - need I say more. Check out the 23/6/07 pictures on www.adoniscabaret.co.uk

Sunday morning dawned relatively clearheaded for me - I think I had reached my beer limit after Wednesday's excesses. Sarah wasn't feeling so good though!

This week has been manic, with preparations for a seminar and the dreaded ring round to do. Unfortunately there seems to be a rash of holidays at the moment - or maybe I'm just not persuasive enough... the paranoia of the PR bunny... but I've got a couple attending, and a few pre-briefings etc.

Being in house, but not having an agency, does rather mean you have to do everything, from identifying the story, drafting all collateral, setting up briefings, arranging a venue, briefing the spokespeople and occasionally BEING the spokesperson - which I only tend to do over email actually, as I can't think on my feet fast enough! It has its benefits, as I reckon we can react faster than those working through agencies, but 3.5 days per week is not a lot of time each week to do this, plus all the internal comms stuff.

Oh well, holiday week after next. Marvellous.

Hats, hangovers and turning 30

It's funny how free booze seems to turn even the most sensible of us into teenagers. I was invited to Ascot with the boss and a colleague by our esteemed partners at the football club. We were treated to full hospitality and as much champagne as we could put away. Not terribly sensible of me to drink quite so much of it though... The boss is fairly easygoing, and advised my slightly nervous new colleague that the only rules on a corporate social are not to shag anyone you shouldn't, and don't drink so much you throw up. Hmm, I'd say overall a 50% success rate for me then, although I didn't disgrace myself in public, but the joy of having a hangover the same day as the drinking is one I'll be trying not to repeat in a hurry.

Still, my hat was marvellous, and although I didn't win on the geegees, I still had a lovely day. The Queen and her party looked well, and we were sitting near Dennis Wise in our marquee, much to the scorn of our football colleague.

A visit to a friend with a new baby today offered me the opportunity to pass on some of the knowledge I've gleaned in the past 14 months as mother to M. It was amazing to think that just a short time ago I had so much to learn. I was glad to be able help C. out and have a good old cuddle with her little boy.

Mind you, for all my worldly wisdom about newborns, I'm still learning every day when it comes to little M. On Tuesday I learned not to give her the keys to play with and then shut the car door. She promptly hit the central lock button and we coudln' get her to hit the "open" button on the key fob. An hour later with our neighbours searching fruitlessly for the spare keys in our sideboard and E. banging on the door to the nearby fire station to no avail, and there was nothing for it but to call 999. The girls from the nursery (where I'd just picked her up from) did a sterling job trying to keep Millie distracted, but she was rather distressed and couldn't understand why we weren't getting into the car. We did try to call the AA, but they put us in a queue, so 999 it was. They turned up after just a few minutes and it was decided to break the front passenger window. Just as they were about to do it Millie picked up the keys and started playing with them again. Cue all the firemen, nursery girls and us cajoling her to hit the unlock button, but to no avail. Smashed window it was. The little sweetheart was wet through when I get hold of her, but no harm done and she was right as rain in no time. We were very lucky actually, as ten minutes after we got the cars home the biggest thunderstorm I've ever seen/heard struck, and M would have been terrified, and us soaking wet, if we'd been any later.

Birthday tomorrow, although spoiled slightly by having to go into work for a meeting. But apart from that I'm looking forward to a nice day with Mum and Dad and then a meal out with E. in the evening.

Row the boat

A weekend of regattas for us then as we met friends to celebrate a 30th birthday in Marlow. The bad weather just about held off, and our canny friends had had the foresight to nab a picnic spot under a large tree in any case. The most amusing spectacle was observing the boys in blue gleefully confiscating booze from underage lads and pouring it away onto the grass in front of them... ah fond memories of misspent youth! Most people seemed to have had less trouble accessing the fruits of the vine, however, and it looked as though it was only going to get messier as the evening wore on.

We had the opportunity for a bit of vicarious excitement as Ed's cousin, who lives in Bisham, had been to England football captain John Terry's wedding on Friday. We heard all about it and saw the menu cards and order of service - it all sounded very romantic.

Church this morning was enlivened somewhat by the entrance, just before communion, of a rather interesting gentleman,who immediately started kissing a young chap who had come to our church for the first time. On being dissuaded from this, he then made a beeline for poor Marion, who had to endure his close (and I do mean close) attention for the rest of the service. Luckily Marion bore the situation very stoicly and managed to wrest the chalice from the chap's grasp as I was serving it. It's not the first time that we've been joined by some of Reading's less fortunate citizens - a couple of homeless chaps joined for the communion and th tea afterwards a few months ago - but it's always a tricky one. Christian duty means that of course we should welcome all through the doors of the church, and with a congregation as small as ours we need all the support we can get, but I don't think it really extends to allowing people to come in a nd snog us! Anyway, in the end the chap had his cup of tea and talk with the vicar, and then headed off, leaving a rather relieved Marion slightly higher on the ladder to sainthood!!

At lunchtime we took a trip down the Thames on the Caversham Princess to check out our future Thames-side mansion. There was a regatta on here too and we had a good view of the rowers coming down the course.

Got that Sunday feeling now, work again tomorrow. I'll be spending the next couple of weeks trying to garner interest in a major press conference that we are holding on the environment, with a little recreation in the form of a trip to Ascot with the lovely chaps at Reading FC on Wednesday.

Flexible

The joys of flexible working mean that I finish at lunchtime on a Thursday, signing off with a wing and a prayer that any journalists desperate for news of printers and copiers can hold on to their hats until Monday. Actually, that's not strictly true, I've got a shiny MDA that gives me access to emails, so if there is a global document imaging crisis I'm unlikely to miss it... It hasn't happened yet though. Mostly I get lots of Response Source enquiries, which, given that I effectively have only one client, are relevant about one time in 50. It's quite interesting reading what the writers are working on though, and occasionally sparks off the odd creative idea.

Response Source requests range from the terse, to the longwinded, to the downright fluffy, and it does vary depending on sector. I had to smile though the other day when one came through from a lady writing on a women's magazine who "can't wait to hear your stories" and signed off with a "x". Kisses at the bottom of Reponse Source requests... what a lot of love she must have to share! ... and I thought PRs were supposed to be the insincere ones!

First post

You know you're getting older when technology starts to pass you by. As someone working in the technology PR industry this is a bit of a worry. I was quite happy with the concept of blogs: online musings that can be incredibly compelling, or downright dull. As with everything in life, it just depends on your point of view.

Now, however, we're into the scary world of web 2.0, Flickr, Facebook, Youtube - and I'm showing my naivete by describing them as scary. I've probably been in-house for too long. In an agency, you're necessarily exposed to the bleeding edge of technology, as those with the newest ideas are generally the most in need of publicity for them. However, in the somewhat more cosy in-house world - in a printer/MFP company to boot - things move a little more slowly, and I've found myself slipping further behind.

So, a toe in the water... my own blog.

But what on earth to write about? Work? Home? Family? Cats?

And how to write it? Do I want others to read this, in which case I need to generate some compelling content, or should it be a personal journal, written simply for my own edification?

To the last question I think the answer is clear. You don't post your thoughts to an international community unless you're expecting at least some folk out there to read them, even if it's only those generous chaps offering enhancements that I'm not really in need of...

So, I'm going to write about whatever takes my fancy, which could be anything from PR, to kayaking, to pregnancy, to football, and see what happens. I'm most interested to see whether any real life acquaintances will happen across this blog without me telling them about it. If you do, leave a comment.