I can stop holding my breath

Thank you for the  comments on my last post, I really do appreciate all of your support 🙂

I have good news. I spoke to our friend’s partner this morning – he was on his way back to the hospital. Thankfully, it looks as though she is going to be OK. She was out of bed and walking a little this morning, and they’re just waiting for a bed to become available on the ward so that she can be moved from intensive care. They’ll be doing an assessment next week to determine what treatment she’ll need. I’m so relieved… It must have been terrifying for her family.

I also have more good news…at work on Friday I did my normal routine of taking my phone out of my bag and taking it off silent, putting it in my pocket. I was doing this partly so that I would be immediately aware of any updates on our friend, but also because it has become my little ritual, hoping for a phone call about my surgery. Well, what do you know, it actually rang! The words ‘private number’ made my heart race a little bit, and I recognised the voice of the lady from the booking department straight away, as I’ve rung up about three times during this almost six month wait. She said she had two dates available – the first was a very last minute 3rd October! Monday! I said I would love to have that one but it’s not really fair to my work colleague, to drop everything at such short notice, and so I’ve got 26th October. I’VE GOT A DATE!!! AT LAST!!! It arrived in writing this morning 🙂

I’m feeling motivated to improve my health before surgery. This time I have a huge advantage in that I’m not ill like I was last time, prior to the operation. I’m well, and I want to do all I can to be ready. I can now see what is hopefully the ‘beginning’ of the process, and it feels a lot more tangible compared to the aimless waiting. There are a few things like yoga and meditation that I’ve been wanting to try, so this will be the incentive I’ve been lacking. I am (but trying not to be) a little bit excited!

Oh yes and it’s day 20 today 🙂

 

 

 

 

 

 

it’s all I think about

The last week or so has been hard. I didn’t manage to stay sober. I emailed Belle and said I couldn’t do the 100 days at the moment. I have too much on my mind. It seems like infertility is all I think about these days.

I wonder about starting a different blog about infertility specifically, but I haven’t decided yet. I will need to be sober again, so I’m going to continue this blog anyway…

We saw my consultant the other week. He said I had the worst case of endometriosis he has seen in his career. That was a shock – especially because I didn’t think I had any symptoms. Anyway, neither of my fallopian tubes are functional. Also, because my husband has children from a previous marriage, the NHS will not fund any IVF treatment. I had previously thought that if his operation had worked, that we would have been eligible for IVF on the NHS because of my condition. However, the reversal didn’t work anyway, so I guess that’s a moot point now.

Then this week, we went to see Mr W’s surgeon, who explained to us that his operation failed due to complications further up the tubes – not because they failed to join properly. He also scared the living daylights out of me in terms of the success rates of IVF in relation to age. I’m about to start the GNRH Analogue treatment, which will ‘shut down’ my reproductive system temporarily, in order to slow down the endometriosis. I’m told that this treatment does improve the chances of success with IVF, so that’s good. But I’ve been worrying about possible further surgery that I may need before IVF. I think the tubes need to be removed if they are damaged, plus I have a fibroid of around 2cm. Will I be able to have these procedures on the NHS?? I have requested an appointment with my consultant to ask if I can be put on a waiting list now for these procedures (if at all?!) as I know it will involve waiting. And I want to be ready to start IVF as soon as possible after the hormone treatment finishes.

God, I sound like a crazy woman, I know. I mean, we haven’t even got any money sorted out for any treatment. My sister says she’s sure that my parents will help us out. But we haven’t had the conversation yet. I was telling Mr W’s stepmum where we were up to with everything on the phone the other night, and I could just hear the disapproval in her voice. ‘oooohhh, that’s very expensive, isn’t it?’ she said. I’m probably jumping to conclusions but it feels as though she thinks we shouldn’t even try IVF, and that I should just deal with the fact that me and Mr W are infertile.

I think I’m using wine at the moment to try to shut down all these crazy thoughts. I know that’s destructive and not the answer. Hopefully soon I will be able to gather myself back together and try sobriety again.