Pictures

I have finally sussed out how to upload a couple of pics - I have been messing around on photoshop, because it's fun - these 2 are me - the top one was taken on the second evening of my hen weekend, 2 years ago, and actually the day I started spotting with my 3rd miscarriage - but I kept smiling, as you see.

The second one is a bit more recent - R's 40th birthday meal, taken by the friend who was his best man at our wedding.

Hope you like them anyway.

Unusually for me . . .

Throwing caution to the wind - here is a post I DIDN'T write earlier. Mostly I fiddle about writing something in Word before translating it into an entry, but this one is spontaneous, mostly because I am stuck here writing this at work (at 6.15pm) and I just want to go home.

Feeling awfully odd.
We had a visit from 2 women from Social Services last Tuesday. They stayed about 2 hours and we talked about adoption. None of it was really surprising or new - they needed to suss us out a little and explain a few of the basics - children up for adoption are

1. Emotionally abused, sometimes sexually abused
2. likely to have been sent back and forth from foster carers to birth parents until finally the decision is reached that birth parents cannot hack it
3. History of neglect
4. Will have difficult behaviours
5. Often idolise birth parents
6. etc etc etc

None of this was a surprise to me - there is plenty of reading material that has already told me all of this. Then there were questions for us. And some indication of what we will have to go through in terms of a process. About 9 visits, each lasting 'at least 3 hours'. They told us about another couple who had halted the whole process 'just to have a break'. We were told 'you will learn things about each other you never knew' etc etc etc.

It has become a given that I will stop working if we can adopt. At the meeting I was entirely up for that. I do believe that bringing up a child is important enough that I should stop work. But . . . I don't know, it seemed that I would HAVE to if we wanted to stand a chance.

Part of it (and I know there are really good reasons for this) but PART of the issue is the knowledge that if you are a woman who can produce a baby of your own, heaven and earth have to be moved before the baby is taken away.

If you are a woman who is unable to produce a baby you have to learn to move heaven and earth, and I am so afraid to fail at this too.

I KNOW they set you up to believe the worst - they don't want people who aren't sure / can't cope / don't understand the implications. I know I COULD do this. I could be a good mother to a needy child. But I don't think I will enjoy the process of proving it.

But we passed the initial hurdle, jumped through the first hoop, and we have a letter now inviting us to a prospective adopters' course on 4 consecutive Saturdays in November.

I am really wondering if I should do it.

A little venom

A little venom is directed today at the highly regarded Dr. Gi.llian Lo.ck.woo.d, who 'appeared' today on Radio 4's today programme to irritate the f**k out of me.
She is, in fact, the Dr who first 'treated' me once the NHS had said I was beyond their help.
Now she putting on record that women who consider it important that at some time in their lives to have child(ren) should FREEZE their eggs in their EARLY 30's.

It is SO-O-O-O-O difficult to get pregnant once you are over about 36, and EVEN if you are clever enough to manage to do that, the risk of miscarriage is S-O-O-O-O-O high because (and this is what made me want to KILL HER) 'the eggs are quite simply beyond their sell-by date'.

It isn't that I don't want younger women to be aware that eggs get older, and so on, or to not have babies later in life simply because they didn't have that information, but PLEASE - is there anyone out there that doesn't find this sort of CRASS remark either (a) depressing, (b) pressurising or (c) plain insulting?

Or is it just me?

I missed you. I'm back.

Yes, I am back. I am sorry for the long break. I did miss you, and have been checking on some of you a little . . .

Actually I have been having a strange old time, and wondered for a while if this blogging was really doing me any good, but I miss you all, and just because I may never be pregnant again . . . but I am getting ahead of myself.

A quick update – the holiday was FULL OF SNOW which actually eventually drove us off our planned route, which was a shame but we did lots of good stuff anyway. I also, unfortunately, managed to get the worst cold that I can remember having in YEARS, but I think, strangely, it allowed other members of the group to use me as an excuse to bail out of the high altitude stuff with 2 feet of snow on the ground. Glaciers are pretty dangerous when you can’t see the crevasses which lie under a layer of soft snow . . .

Anyway, that was the holiday. R and I are going away to Brittany for a long weekend at the end of this month to have a relaxing break, as the 2 weeks in Austria really couldn’t be described as relaxing. Oh, and the middle finger of my left hand is still very swollen nearly 4 weeks after hurting it when I fell off some rocks. (Fortunately I was roped to R and another when it happened, and fortunately I didn’t land on my head. The finger injury seemed a small price to pay, but is still painful. I will go and see a doctor eventually, I promise).

Then there has been a bit of a saga with this supposed pelvic infection. I have had all sorts of tests and swabs and smears (ugh!) but they have all shown up clear. Now my doctor thinks maybe it IS digestive after all. I am frustrated and angry, and have also been very upset by my GP’s insinuation that my physical symptoms (lower abdominal pain) are almost certainly due to ‘my pumping myself full of drugs’. I wonder if he would have had the same attitude if I had managed to keep the baby? Why are people so smug? He doesn’t even mean it, but every time I drag myself back to see my GP I seem to end up in tears again. It is wearing me out.

And so, worn out, I find I have little energy to put into writing this stuff down. I thought maybe a break would do me good – and actually, if I am honest, I think it does help me to stop obsessing so much – get on with today instead of spending my time thinking of what nearly was, what might have been.

And then I think . . . can I write a blog about recurring miscarriages when I don’t really believe I will get pregnant again. How can I get pregnant? What would be the point? Since the weight of medical opinion appears to believe that I am just too old. . . well, I didn’t get any younger since the last m/c, and I really don’t think I am about to. It makes me angry and sad, but I think they have worn me down. I am just too old. Bad eggs, bad body, bad me. Or not good enough.

And I am stuck a bit in a little world where going forward and say, adopting, is fraught with difficulties and new questions – I need to be confident and stable to face the prospect of social services inquisitions . . .

One day I will be confident and stable.

Ha!

More soon - I promise!