Round the corner and down the lane

We've had the first appointment with the IVF doc and now I'm the awed owner of a script for birth control and Synarel and we start our down reg cycle on CD5 (should be around the 8th June unless we're exceedingly lucky and pregnant).

The doc was very nice, and agreed I could start the down reg cycle before we've gone through the whole admitting process (nurse, counsellor and accounts on the 22nd) as we've already been through all the diagnostic schtick with a private FS and have decided to move on with it. I shouldn't have to start sniffing the synarel until the 24th, so we can chat with the nurse about the protocol on the 22nd so we'll be in track for a July egg pickup and emby transfer.

I can't believe we're doing it

Lamb Shank Soup

Oh My Golly. This stuff is delicious and delectable and delightful and seriously good winter comfort food.


Lamb Shank Soup - serves 4

3 frenched lamb shanks (don't both buying the unfrenched ones, the fat is a biatch to trim off)
2 big carrots - diced
1 big brown onion - diced chunky
a teaspoon of crushed garlic
5 sticks of celery and their leaves - diced chunky, leaves chopped smallish
3 bay leaves
a sprig of fresh rosemary or a shake of dried (go easy on this one)
1 litre of vegetable stock (have some more on hand for later, maybe another litre, I used stock powder)
2 handfuls of small pasta shells
olive oil

1. Brown the shanks off in a fry pan in some olive oil for a few minutes, don't be really fussy about it, just brown what bits touch the pan easily.
2. In a big pot you can use to stew it all on the stove (I used a 6 litre casserole pan) gently fry the onion, garlic, celery and carrot. Shove over to one side or pop it in another dish.
   
3. Put shanks on bottom of the big pot, cover with the carrot mix and pour enough stock to almost cover the shanks.
   
4. Add bay leaves and rosemary and bring to a gentle boil.
5. Put stove on simmer and leave it all alone for 45mins and then come back and stir, ladle liquid over the sticky-up bits of the shanks. Go away again.
6. Come back after total cooking time equals 1.5hrs and, using a sharp knife and tongs, take out each shank and chop the juicy, falling-off-the-bone-anyway-meat off the bones and return to the soup. Top up with at least a cup of vege stock (make it hot before you add to pot).
   
7. Go away again for another 45 mins.
8. Turn the heat up to med-low and add pasta in pot with another cup of vege stock. Cook til the pasta is aldente. This will take about 12-15mins and you will need to stay close to ensure non-pot-stickage.
9. Serve with crusty bread if you feel like it. It's a meal in itself.

We are going to be eating this a lot! Next time, I think I'll double the ingredients, add less liquid and cook it in the slow cooker.

On other news, our appointment with the FS to get the IVF ball rolling is tomorrow. Am nervy and my footsies is freezing.

I have been plodding away at my lit review, slowly but surely - I did find an excellent procrastination hack which I have been using. To my great delight it works!

And I found this site which is just weird www.aliensandchildren.org

And they're off - well, soon anyway.

I wasn't pregnant. I was devastated. We decided to make an appointment and go to the IVF info night on May 20th.

But, on Monday 11th I made 7 IVF related appointments and had a pelvic u/s done by 1pm.

1. Appointment with GP to get referral to MIVF and to a u/s place for an appointment with a dildo-cam.

2. The dildo cam was not as big as I was afraid of, the gorgeous gay ultrasonographer let me see the screen and explained everything he saw - yet again nothing wrong with my girlie bits.

3. We're booked into the info night.

4. We have an appointment with the IVF doc for the 29th May

5. 6. & 7. Appointments with counselling, the accounts dept and the IVF nurse for the 22nd June. Set to go.

I'm due to start a natural cycle at the end of June and the nurse I spoke to seemed to think that we'd use that CD1 as the beginning of the first IVF cycle. So ... we are officially going to get some help to conceive. Assisted conception here we come. Until the end of the year when the government has decided (probably rightfully) to cap most of the funding for IVF cycles.

We're going to cross our fingers and hope to God that we get pregnant before January 2010 'cause there's no way in hell that we can afford IVF without government subsidies.

In the meantime I am on placement for my research collecting data. Still working and also writing my literature review. I met up with a friend the other day and we have made a study pact to write 1000 words a week each for the next 5 weeks so we get our lit reviews out of the way by mid-June. Must ... go ... write.

Wish me luck!

It is May

Yes it is. Our self-imposed deadline has arrived and, surprise surprise, I'm pretty sure I'm not pregnant.

I'm due today or tomorrow and at midday today they was a speck of blood in my CM (yes, I am obsessed enough to be checking at odd times). So I figure that we're out this month. This month my Mum called me about 4 days after I ovulated and asked if I was pregnant. Apparently, right about the time that potential sperm and egg would have been meeting up, she had thought to herself that I was pregnant. She got all psyched up by the idea that she was having a psychic moment and, awfully, so did I. So I have spent this last 10 days being quite hopeful and expectant. And now I'm not. Now I'm waiting for my period to show me that I am definitely not pregnant. Stupidly, a little voice inside me is saying "maybe that speck of blood is old and is a sign of implantation, maybe you are pregnant" but there's a much louder voice shouting at the little voice to "shut-up and stop with the pointless hope".

So that makes 17 tries at making a baby together without so much as a chemical pregnancy to get excited about. Not even an evaporation line, nothing. There has been no meet-up between egg and sperm whatsoever at all inside me. And that is a most sucky situation.

The Big Guy said we should give it until May and then go along to the IVF information night, but now that it's May I am scared of that. It's so much money and doesn't even work for so many people. I just have no idea what the 'right' thing is to do. And I wish I did, I wish I had some certainty. Right now all I feel like doing is curling up into a miserable little ball and crying. I don't want to be studying any more, I don't want to be working, I don't want to be awake and hurting and worrying and wishing and spending every month on that stupid emotional roller-coaster. I've had enough of ranging from hopeful to hopeless month after month.

But the thing is, I always thought I would have more than 1 child. (When I wasn't worried about being infertile, that is.) When I was a young teenager and I plotted and planned my family, I was going to have 4 children. As I got older I thought I'd have 2. Now I have 1 child and my body doesn't think it's finished with babies yet.

Is this an illusion? Is it just a biological drive, my ticking clock talking? Or is it fate/destiny whatever you want to call it.

I love my husband and I want to have his baby. I want the experience of parenting with someone I adore, with someone who will actually be interested in the baby we produce. I want to have a baby and not have my relationship fall apart at the same time. I want to have the Big Guy's baby and be happy with him and our blended family. I want a child that is ours.

Is that really so much to ask?

What do you think, please tell me, should we give IVF a go? We've got the moola. I'm just not sure if IVF is a sensible thing to do with it.