Is the TDAP Vaccine safe?

October 22, 2016October 22, 201612 Comments

PC Diary @ 28W 1D

Is the TDAP Vaccine safe? This is a question I asked myself AFTER I had the vaccine when it was offered to me at my 28 week appointment. How unlike me to not look into it before hand!!!?!

I was given a bundle of information at my first OB appointment – it all went into a folder and I occasionally check through it to see what is coming up next in my pregnancy. It is pretty handy! But for some reason I didn’t bother reading the info about the TDAP Vaccine. Why? Well I thought, I’ve had it before so – blah. whatever.

What is the TDAP vaccine? It’s a combination vaccine to protect against Tetanus, Diptheria and Whooping cough (Pertussis). Well that is where I made my first mistake. In 2007 I had a Tetanus, Diptheria and POLIO vaccine. Not Pertussis. Silly Ps. Anyway that is irrelevant because that needs a booster every ten years or so if you are travelling to some countries, so it was about due. But actually here the issue is the Pertussis part – whooping cough. This is the part that pediatricians are most worried about. Babies can’t get vaccinated and start building protection against whooping cough until they are two months old. So to reduce this gap the mummy gets the vaccine during the third trimester of her pregnancy as there is some evidence that immunity may be passed on to baby. They also ask for dads, grandparents, caretakers etc visiting the baby in the early 2 months to also have the TDAP vaccine – to create a safety bubble around the baby. It all makes sense.

So when I was offered the vaccine I said – sure, yes! And signed my life away to receive it. I also said yes to getting the flu vaccine too. I have never had a flu vaccine before but thought as I am responsible for the baby I’m carrying I should probably get that too. So I had one injection in each arm. They were painless. In fact, anything compared to Progesterone in oil injections seems easy! The nurse asked which arm I would like my TDAP in because it can get a bit sore. So I asked for that one in my left arm.

Several hours later my arm started to ache as the nurse warned me. The arm with my flu shot also was sore a little bit, so sleeping was proving problematic. I like sleeping on my side so I struggled to get comfortable and had the worst night’s sleep EVER. Half way through the night I woke up in extreme pain, I was crying. My left arm had gone practically numb and the rest of my body ached like I had run a marathon. The next time I woke up (an hour later or so) the whole of my left side of my body was numb and tingly. What the ??!! I was exhausted and couldn’t face going into work. I was achey and shivery. I took a warm Epsom salt bath and a couple of paracetamol (acetaminophen) -the first time this pregnancy I have needed any drugs! The internet suggested Ibuprofen, but we know that is not recommended so I stuck with the paracetamol. After the bath I fell asleep for an hour and woke up feeling much much better. the drugs, sleep and heat must have worked! So I decided to take myself off to work because I had a lot to do and didn’t want to fall behind. Honestly, it wasn’t a great day at work, I would have done better working from home, but Chris was already working from home so that wouldn’t have worked out.

I came home from work feeling like crap. I wondered if this was normal. So I decided to read the info about the TDAP vaccine. Oh yeh – this can happen to 1 in 10 people who take it. WHAAAT?! So I then looked into it more online to see how people were fighting these side effects. Then I discovered the articles about TDAP in pregnant women. Seriously, googling this stuff had me FREAKED out. I came across websites dedicated to the dangers of TDAP in pregnant women. That the CDC was citing one trial on 48 women in 2013. Even I know that is statistically a pile of CRAP especially as this is about the effects on the unborn baby, not the woman. The recommendation for women to have this vaccine in their third trimester has only been around since 2012.

Headlines like: “TDAP vaccine pushed on pregnant women despite fetal risks” and “Is your unborn baby part of a vaccine experiment?” are some of the first to come up on google results.

So I started to freak out at my lack of due diligence. I had no clue when taking the vaccine how long it had been recommended for or what the evidence was. I asked Chris – did I just do something naively? Was this something new? Was I part of an experiment?

But after some more searching, I discovered that a lot of these stories are old and pre-date some much bigger studies that have been done over the past two years and recently published in 2015 and 2016. You have to look hard to find these, I guess because of google’s algorithms with popularity the hype stories and anti-vaccine pages come up first. Which is disappointing. Here are two recent studies that show that the vaccine is safe, with much more confidence than the CDC had in 2013.

Pertussis vaccination in pregnancy is safe, study finds and Infant outcomes after exposure to TDAP vaccine in pregnancy: an observational study.

Admittedly, scientists do say if the baby is exposed to whooping cough early on, there is a good chance the baby will still get whooping cough, but evidence indicates that if mummy had her vaccine in the third trimester the symptoms will be less severe or life threatening. So something to be aware of.

I only discovered all of this because I had a side effect to the vaccination, otherwise I wouldn’t have questioned it or thought otherwise! I’m pro-vaccinations. The only vaccination I ever turned down was anthrax, just before I deployed to Iraq. Why? Because even the Army nurse said I wouldn’t bother if I were you. Chris and I both want our children to be vaccinated as our pediatrician recommends, but perhaps I will be a bit smarter about reading up on what is actually being given to my baby – just so I can have an informed debate on the whole vaccination thing with people who don’t vaccinate their kids.

Natural Conception after Adoption and Assisted Reproduction Treatment

October 5, 2016October 5, 201620 Comments

Today at work I was putting together a presentation on “What is correlation?” (I know, my work is full of excitement and such geekery 😎 ), and I came across an interesting example of ‘illusory correlation’ from the infertility world that I thought I would share with you all. I was about using it as an example in my presentation.

Have you ever heard someone say

“Adoption increases the chance of an infertile couple getting pregnant naturally?”

Many people have heard or say this, and many can tell you a story of someone they know/know of that this happened to. The rationale behind this can be hypothesised as:

Once the pressure is off and the couple is less anxious, it will happen naturally.

But how true is that?

Apparently it turns out there is NO empirical evidence to support such a hypothesis. Research (from Resolve) has shown that the percentage of women who become pregnant without adopting is no different to the percentage of women who become pregnant without adopting. What this means is that, while a small percentage of people who were having difficulty getting pregnant do not get pregnant after adopting a child, these are likely the same people who would have gotten pregnant after having difficulty, even without the adoption. It has nothing to do with the adoption.

So why do so many people believe this myth? Because many people can tell you of a story of someone they know that this happened to. But the thing is, most people can only tell you ONE story. And they don’t tell you all the stories they know about the infertile couples that adopted a child and didn’t get pregnant naturally afterward. The examples of where it did happen are salient to them, perhaps because they remember thinking to themselves “This couple is going to have two babies within a few months of age of each other!” What happens when something is salient – or when it produces a vivid memory – is that people tend to overemphasize the likelihood of its occurrence. And they give it a lot of attention.

This is known as vividness bias.

The vividness bias is supported by what’s often referred to as an illusory correlation – the impression that two variables are related when in fact they are not. In this example, because of one or two very salient or vivid examples, many people believe that there is a relationship between adoption and getting pregnant, when in reality, there is not.

(Extracted from: Intentional Interruption: Breaking Down Learning Barriers to Transform By Steven Katz and Lisa Ain Dack)

Similar to the case made for getting pregnant naturally after adoption, you may have heard a similar argument for couples who stop assisted reproduction and get pregnant naturally afterwards. There is research that was published in 2012 that found that 17% of women who became pregnant, and gave birth, from IVF treatment, became pregnant again naturally (NB….within 6 years!). For those women who were unsuccessful with IVF, 24% became pregnant naturally after stopping infertility treatment.

Other recent research has found that 16% of infertile women conceive naturally after stopping treatment (within 13 years!). And by the way, let us not forget that a fertile couple’s chance of conception is 20-24% for every menstrual cycle! So that 16% statistic still SUCKS. In addition, the original cause of a woman’s infertility made a difference as to the chance of achieving a successful natural pregnancy after IVF – if the infertility was due to uterine, cervical or ovarian problems, endometriosis or infertility in their male partners, the women had a significantly greater chance of achieving a successful natural pregnancy after stopping IVF. However in comparison, if the couple’s infertility was ‘unexplained’ or the problem was with tubal pathology, her chances of a natural pregnancy decreased 😦

So there are many illusory correlations out there in the infertility world. And now you know how to respond to people that say to you:

“ohhh you will get pregnant naturally after adopting/stopping treatment, that happened to my friend/friend of friend”

you can reply

“……the evidence is contrary, my dear, and you are suffering from vividness bias”

It’s a whole lot politer, and factual, than – “F*#$ you”.

Entering the third trimester

October 5, 2016October 5, 20166 Comments

PC Diary @27w2d

I am not quite there yet, but almost! The third timester is just down the road. How do I feel about this? Is there a word such as excitified? (excited-terrified)

Life is good. Pregnancy is obviously not a picnic, but I knew that would be the case! The second trimester has been good to me. I have had energy despite rarely being able to sleep longer than 3 hours at a time (somewhere between 2-5 times a night I get up to pee). Rocky moves around a lot, she is a big kicker and I love every single one she makes.

My weight hasn’t sky rocketed and so far I have gained a total of about 7.5lbs. Which is kind of strange looking at me and my growing bump I can’t understand why I am not much heavier. I am falling behind on the ‘ideal’ weight gain. At my last scan at 24 weeks Rocky was measuring in the 50 something percentile, so it wasn’t a concern then. Now I am hoping she hasn’t fallen behind. I am being very conscious over ensuring I am eating enough! that is what the doctor said is the most important thing. Below is my weight tracker. My weight gain (in blue) isn’t falling into the cone of ‘expected weight gain’ (the grey area) and hasn’t for a while. The good news is that I am steadily and slowly gaining weight.

At my last 24 week appointment my iron levels were too low (well this was expected because I told them already I was slightly anemic before getting pregnant!); so I am taking more iron, hopefully that will work because at my 28 week appointment next week I will be doing a complete anemia panel which will hopefully pinpoint more about the anemia. Yey please take some more of my blood!

Braxton hicks contractions have been plaguing me since about 16 weeks. I get a few every hour, but I am used to them now. Sometimes at work it can get a bit awkward if I am in the middle of a meeting and I am sitting down, I have to get up and move around to release the contraction otherwise it will hurt. It’s kind of funny sometimes watching and feeling my uterus go hard into weird position, sometimes off to one side…and then my belly softens after it the contraction released.

My only real ailment to have a little complaint about right now is that my lower back has been very sore (thankfully I have an amazing husband to massage it – we even looked at videos to make sure we were massaging it right!) and when I walk for more than 5 minutes something is clicking in my lower back/hips which causes a little bit of pain :-s But really, these are all liveable things at the moment.

In general I have no complaints, just happy to be making it into the third trimester with little issues so far. Whoop whoop!!! After next week, my OB appointments become more frequent – every 2 weeks :-s yikes, this pregnancy is getting real!

Baby clothing that says NO to gender stereotypes?

September 29, 201617 Comments

I like pink. I like purple. I like flowers. I like ribbons. I like make up. I like baking. What am I? I am a girl.

I like blue. I like green. I like dinosaurs. I like building stuff. I like space. What am I? I am a GIRL.

What will my baby like? I don’t know yet. And to begin with, she doesn’t get to choose what she wears…I do. (And Chris of course too :-)) So why do I feel that when I go shopping for baby clothes and decor that I am constantly feeling the pressure into buying stuff for my baby that fits some kind of gender stereotype?

Now as a reminder, I live in Virginia, USA. Technically I live in a city, so there are plenty of shops to buy baby related items in. We have all the big department stores and big name brands available. We also have a handful of boutique shops. But I don’t live in a city like DC, New York or Boston where there are a multitude of options. Where I live I feel like there is little choice except for pink and purple (for girls) or blue and green (for boys)…occasionally we will find grey, brown and yellow gender neutral clothing or items. But they are usually soooo dull (QED old navy’s unisex page)

BTW – we still haven’t bought anything specifically for Rocky yet!!! I have been looking…but haven’t committed. Basically I consider it my reconnaissance mission. I will buy something eventually, but I’m still not really ready for clothing. We have bought things for Rocky’s nursery however, so we have spent time looking at baby decor. I set up a pinterest board a while ago and have been adding things as I find them. I had a vision – Chris had a vision too…so we have worked together on figuring out what we both want. This process made me realise that many of the ‘high street shops’ separate out girls & boys kids decor. I often found myself in the boys section where the cool animals were! (BTW – why are owls always dressed up in pink??!!! Can’t boys like owls too?!)

So what did I do about it? I looked on the web of course…here are a few useful places to look:

Huff’s 12 kids clothing lines that break the gender stereotypes: http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2015/04/07/kids-clothing-lines-break-gender-stereotypes_n_6925592.html

Baby Gap and H&M aren’t too bad: http://www.gap.com/products/baby-clothes.jsp http://www.hm.com/us/products/kids/newborn

Interesting Gender Neutral Parenting Article: http://www.parents.com/parenting/gender-neutral-parenting/

Gender EQUAL clothes with a kickstarter campaign: https://www.kickstarter.com/projects/mitzaccessories/mitz-apparel-gender-equal-clothing-for-babies-and

By the way – yes you will see Rocky in pink and flowers…but also many other colours and objects! I am also not yet of a fully formed opinion about gender neutral parenting. So I will revisit this topic some time again in the future I have no doubt!

Add in your thoughts and ideas for places to shop into the comments below!!!

4 weeks of needless worrying?

September 13, 20164 Comments

Pudding Club Diary @ 24 Weeks 2 Days

Today I went for my follow up ultrasound after Rocky’s bowel appeared to be ‘echogenic’ at our 20 week scan, and again it had shown up as ‘echogenic’ at the echo cardiogram at 22 weeks. It was a relatively quick scan, Rocky was moving around a lot as usual, but the technician was able to get all the measurements needed quickly. Rocky is on track for her growth and now weighs a grand total of 1lb 6oz! At 20 weeks she was just 11oz. Hew bowel was still echogenic but the technician said she didn’t think it was very bright. And yes, Rocky is still a girl! The technician showed us her lady parts, but I said I believe you if you say so, to me it looked like a blob of grey nothing much on the screen!!!

After the ultrasound I took the lovely glucose challenge test. This test provides an indicator of Gestational Diabetes. This test is apparently slightly different to how the UK does it. I did not need to fast for this test. I was given a small bottle of very sweet liquid to drink; as I was reaching the end of the bottle the drink was making me feel slightly sick. Bleugh. The drink itself didn’t taste bad (I had the orange flavour – I could choose between orange and fruit punch!). 1 hour later I had my blood drawn which will be sent off to see what my glucose levels are at. When the phlebotomist took my blood she noticed I was looking a bit different – the drink had made me feel a bit light headed! She asked if I had eaten something (which I had) and offered me a snack before I left! Depending on the results of this blood test will depend on whether I need to take the next type test which is the glucose tolerance test which requires fasting and testing over three hours. Apparently that is what is ordinarily tested in the UK first? I think my OB told me this because she used to live and work in Ireland and knows we are Brit expats.

Meanwhile, whilst waiting the hour to finish the glucose challenge test we met with the OB and she told us everything was looking wonderful with Rocky. Phew! We went over some housekeeping matters, such as completing a pre-registration form for the hospital, pediatricians and birthing classes. I also had to sign a form that said we would not video record any part of the birth. Well I wasn’t really planning on doing that anyway!!! Then she told us that even the echogenic bowel wasn’t looking bright anymore. For some reason she decided to tell us that after we left 4 weeks ago she looked at the scan again a second time and thought perhaps it wasn’t as bright as she first thought. And now she tells us!! Could have saved us 4 weeks of worry! Sigh…..well, better to be safe than sorry I guess! But really???!!!?

Let’s hope the good news continues with the results of my glucose challenge test in a few days! Fingers crossed!

PC Diary: Planning for Rocky’s arrival

August 10, 2016August 10, 201611 Comments

The Pudding Club Diary @ 19w2d (08 Aug 2016)

I’ve either had my head buried in the sand in denial that this is a viable pregnancy, or I am using the excuse of a house move to have done very little for preparing for Rocky’s arrival in 20 weeks time. I think it is probably a combination of both.

Today it’s 137 sleeps to Christmas, and Christmas means Rocky will be making her appearance into the big wide scary world. 137 sleeps sounds like aaaaaages away – it is, unless you have 136 days to fit in preparing for the arrival of a newborn baby. And even worse when you are someone like me who needs to be informed as much as possible about different options! I would rather go to several shops (online or physically) before making my decision. And I (we) still have a lot of decisions to make in preparation for Rocky’s arrival! Here are some of the major things we need to decide on (some of which we have already done -phew!)

Picking an OBGYN or midwife (I didn’t have an OBGYN before). Things we considered: distance to home and work, hospitals they work with, insurance coverage (in-network), experience offered, reviews from friends, reviews online. I found that it’s a chicken and egg scenario. You need to pick an OBGYN quite early in your pregnancy so you can start your prenatal care, but that also means picking which hospital or birthing centre you want to go with (although of course you can change your healthcare provider through your pregnancy easily if you change your mind). So then I needed to think about where I wanted to give birth. We decided that a hospital is our preference as first timers, we felt more comfortable choosing this birthing experience. Again, we asked our friends for recommendations, looked at location, insurance coverage and reviews online. With that decision made, choosing my OBGYN was much easier.

Deciding which prenatal tests to have. I already wrote a blog post about this one. But this took time to research…our family history being one of the key factors in our decision. Followed by what was covered by our insurance. I liked that our doctor left this completely up to us.

Choosing a child care provider. Chris and I have talked about this one waaaaay before we started to trying for a baby, because this is fundamentally something I felt we should be on the same page on! For example, if Chris had strong expectations that I would quit work for a few years to look after baby, we would have problems. Now that we live in the US on a Visa that is dependent on my job our options are actually quite limited. We even discussed Chris taking time out of work and being a stay-at-home dad. Ultimately, we decided that we both wanted to continue to work and believe our child will be well cared for in the care of someone else during the week as they grow up. Choosing that person is tough! Our first preference was to hire an Au Pair. The idea of having an extended member of our family living with us who is culturally different to us is something we are very comfortable with, whilst also supporting the Au pair’s education. Unfortunately, we are not able to sponsor an Au pair on our visas as we are considered legal aliens here in the US. So that left us with the choice of a nanny or day care (nursery). Because Chris and I work hours that are not consistent a nanny was just too expensive for the amount of time we would need one for. So that left us with the day care option.

How did we choose day care? So this one we were told DO THIS EARLY!!!! There are waiting lists for the best ones! Especially if we wanted to use a day care on base. So the week that we closed on our new house we started our hunt for day care. We asked friends, but no one could help us with advice on day care near where our new house was. But we did get advice on first checking out the state’s department of social services child care portal to see child care providers and their registration status. Virginia has a very handy portal that provides a search facility based on zip code, with links to all inspection reports. We started here and narrowed our search down on this. Then we looked at location. Close to home was the most important criteria. We found three that were three within 3-7 minutes drive from us that we liked and so arranged visits. Once we saw all three it was easy to rule out one – as soon as we walked in we wanted to walk out, we immediately turned to each other and wondered if it was rude to do that! The other two we would have been quite happy with, in the end we chose between those two based on the teachers in the nursery. Their passion put them slightly above the rest. So put our deposit down to hold our spot for March/April 2017.

Baby moon. Some would say not a vital part of preparing for Rocky’s arrival! But for us it was, especially as we feel like we need a holiday after buying a house that needed doing up! We have worked very hard and still have some work to do. Planning for the baby moon is not quite so simple. Our criteria was limited. No travel to Zika affected areas. No flying more than 4 hours. Relaxing, but not boring (we are not sit on beach for a week type of people!). Originally the earliest we could get away was going to be October hence limitations on travel, but fortunately one of my work trips was cancelled in August. So the other week we booked a last minute cruise from Boston to Montreal. Everyday the cruise ship stops some where new along the north west coast of US and Canada, so it was perfect for us. I managed to pay for our flights using air miles and hotels using credit card points! So all that money spent on IVF bills and miles traveled for work finally pay off 🙂 BTW – if you are planning a baby moon on a cruise there are limitations on when you can go…the liner we are going with states that you cannot be more than 24 weeks pregnant, and you also need a letter from the doctor before you cruise to confirm your due date and that you are in good health. Just as well August became came free, any later and we wouldn’t have been able to cruise!

So that is really as far as we have got….and there is so much more we need to decide on – it looks like a short list, but even if we tackled one item off this list each week that would be a miracle:

Pediatrician
Doula
Nursery decoration and furniture
Classes for childbirth, nursing and infant care
Maternity leave
Baby shower – I have still yet to decide on this one. I am erring towards a welcome party instead after Rocky arrives.
Our ‘Layette’….did you know that was a word? I didn’t until I read my pregnancy book – this is a traditional word for all baby stuff that parents ‘lay up’ before baby arrival. Although I do like the advice the book offers that ‘the stores will still be open after your baby arrives’. We aim to get most things except for crib, car seat and breast pump second hand. Other things we will need are nappies/diapers, bottles, clothes, change table, bassinet or side sleeper, diaper bags (one for Chris, one for me!), monitor, carrier/sling, stroller/pushchair.

You may be surprised to hear that we have yet to go shopping for our ‘layette’…the only thing we have bought was after our day trip to ikea (a 4 hour drive away!) where we bought crib, mattress, and sheets and some storage units – that was only because we had gone there for other things for our new house and thought we should buy the basics. But they are all in boxes still. After our 20 week scan next week, we can go shopping!

With only 20 weeks left, 4 of those I will be travelling for work, 1 of those we are baby-mooning it, 2 weeks Chris is travelling for work and each of those weeks eats into two weekends either side oh and I am starting my Executive Development Programme too – aghhhhhhhhhhhhhhh!!!

And BREATHE Dani…..just breathe….!!!

I’m sure there is something else important I am missing from this list???!!!!!

THAT moment

July 22, 201620 Comments

The Pudding Club Diary @ 16w3d

Chris and I had THAT moment last night. THAT moment when you realise you have the summit in sight, when the pain, tears and anxiety were ALL worth it. And we haven’t even met our little one yet.

As I was getting undressed for bed I pointed out my ‘bump’ and it’s definition. Chris went to put his hands to it. I let him…which is not a usual occurrence because if you are a follower you will know my personal issues with my stomach and understand that I still struggle with this. But I also know I have to let Chris feel the little one too. The day before, I lay in bed before work just staring at my naked tummy for about 20 minutes watching little Rocky squirming around in there. I still haven’t really felt Rocky move, but I definitely have seen him/her moving in the past week or so. That evening as Chris reached out to my tummy – he exclaimed…”I can feel Rocky!!”. We looked at each other, and we were both teary eyed in that moment. It was a moving moment. Silently we knew what this meant. It was real. It wasn’t on some computer screen…it was physically real, in our hands. Our baby is alive and wriggling.

So amazing 🙂

Food, glorious food!

June 17, 201614 Comments

Let’s talk about something that I enjoy very much in life – food!! My relationship with food has changed so far in this pregnancy.

Morning Sickness. You may recall in the past I wrote about my worries of suffering from severe morning sickness, also known as hyperemesis gravidarum. I have suffered from this before, but this time….it’s barely been a problem!!! So far, I have only suffered from nausea, but if I keep eating little things throughout the day, it isn’t that bad at all. I’ve tried all the gingery things out there and honestly, they don’t really work, ginger ale is the best, but if I have an empty tummy then I still feel sick. Chris even bought several different types of ginger snaps/biscuits for me to try!!!

Aversions. I do have some extreme aversions though…

anything really herby, particularly herby tomato sauces
Lettuce (although I try to eat it, but often end up gagging!
Soft tomatoes
Strong smelling meat and fish
Anything garlicky or oniony

There is currently something in our fridge at the moment that makes me feel like puking, but I can’t figure it out, so I hold my breathe when I open the door!!!

Cravings. The past couple of weeks I have been having a bowl of cereal as soon as I get home from work because I am usually starving by that point! But I think that mostly it’s the milk in the cereal I crave. Yesterday I needed chicken wings!!! There was an hour wait for a table or 15-20 min wait for take out at our local restaurant. I was so hungry I said we had to go to the next restaurant along even though their wings isn’t as good!! I have also eaten a lot of Cheetos recently…(for my UK readers, these are kind of like giant wotsits!), this is not my healthiest habit! So far that is it for the cravings. Nothing obscure and nothing I’ve desperately wanted.

Fluids. I’m still drinking my usual cuppa tea in the morning- I’ve yet to be put off a cup of England’s finest brew! In addition to tea at breakfast I’ve added as part of my extra 300 calories a day a glass of calcium and Vit D fortified Orange Juice. On my way to work and throughout the morning I’ve been drinking one bottle of Vitamin Water zero – that’s a bit of a treat really because they aren’t cheap!! But they contain electrolytes and extra vitamins depending on which flavour I drink. I take a can of ginger ale to work and slowly sip on in the afternoon to help reduce the queasiness. I also add a few drops of Mio fit to my water to make that go down easier!!

My Bowels. I can’t talk about all this food without mentioning my poor bowels. My diet hasn’t changed that much, but My 3-5 poos a day has reduced to 1-2, and on the odd occasion none! This is apparently as a result of the pregnancy hormone slowing this down in the body. I can also feel pretty much all my bowel movements- and they are very painful on occasion. They have even woken me up at night. The doctor said that with my IBS there was no knowing what would happen to my symptoms. I’ve also had some very weird colored poos (thank you google for alleviating any of my fears!!!) But overall I am just very grateful not to have constipation!

Living in the moment

May 28, 201613 Comments

I should be living in the moment, but I am not. I think about the past, I think about the future. First let me say that I am very grateful that we have this chance, that I am finally pregnant. I know there are many women who want to be in my position. I have been where you are. But it is not easy, so bear with me whilst I explain.

The past should stay in the past, but I can’t help but question why we went through everything that we did to make our baby rocky (I wonder why anyone should have to go through that, and for some even more). We still don’t know the cause of our infertility, and this is difficult for me to deal with. Why did it work this time? Out of 25 embryos we made, 1 decided to implant itself in the correct place. 1 survived. 1 made it. But why didn’t the other 24 make it? Just because I am pregnant, doesn’t mean I have closure on my infertility, why my body doesn’t want to do what it is meant to do. I was on the edge of losing hope of any medical resolution. We treated the symptoms, but we didn’t treat the cause. We are still unexplained.

And all of this is in the past…right? But then there is the future on my mind. What if this baby dies inside me? What if this baby is still born? What if all this medical intervention has created a baby that cannot survive, that never had a chance or is severely damaged in some way? What if we go through all this and get to the end with nothing in our arms, nothing to put to bed and kiss every night, but left with a heart of love, broken into a million pieces.

The future is still an infertile one for me. I do not have confidence that we figured out how to resolve our infertility. I believe what has happened was a result of simply try, try again and we got lucky. Luck was on our side? This is really hard to deal with because, I may never be this lucky again.

It is hard at times to live in the present right now. I mostly do, but the past and the future sneak into my mind occasionally. When I catch myself doing this, I remember the things I have learned in yoga and meditation. I bring myself back to the present.

At least you know you can get pregnant

February 11, 201615 Comments

I think I’m quite a tough lady when it comes to receiving mis-informed and unintentionally hurtful infertility advice from the more fertile. I experience it frequently because I am open about our infertility journey. I forgive them because I know they don’t understand infertility as a disease and they only mean the best for me. And I also know they couldn’t possibly truly understand how I feel because it has never happened to them. Similarly like to people who have suffered from other diseases such as anorexia or depression or cancer, I don’t know what it is like or how it feels…I would never offer my uninformed opinion about treatment options or ways to overcome the symptoms of these diseases. I won’t offer consolation that attempts to make them feel better about their disease. Rather, I will offer my ear and my hand.

So why is infertility any different to any of these other diseases in how we talk to other people about them? Why do so many bloggers end up writing about this struggle? Is lack of education really the cause of this? May be other disease sufferers experience similar unhelpful comments too. I really don’t know.

Have you seen that film about depression where friends and family offer their advice about depression, but the recipient of the advice is portrayed as a cancer sufferer? The point of the video is that you wouldn’t say these things to someone who has cancer, so why would you say these things to people who have depression? I think it is a great educational video (it’s at the end of this blog post if you want to see it). Ultimately, I think there needs to be a film in a similar light about infertility. I know there has been outrage on some forums of comparing infertility to cancer. I understand that it is outrageous because people generally won’t die from infertility. Comparing depression to cancer may also outrage many people as well…but depression can lead to suicide, it can kill too, but it is not a well understood. So what is my point? My point is that there are helpful things you can say to someone with infertility, and then there are unhelpful, even hurtful, things you can say to someone with infertility.

I have written about things that hurt, what to say, what not to say to someone with infertility many times before (ignorance is bliss, a voice of the child free family, Grow some thicker skin, you are so lucky you don’t have kids, Understanding: #YouAreNotAlone, Reblog from Que Milagro: Pardon Me While I burst into flames). Today’s post adds to this list. Today I am writing about one particular comment I have received multiple times since our loss from IVF cycle 1 from both fertile and infertile people:

“At least you know you can get pregnant”

I’m just going to put it out there straight away. There is nothing consoling about this.

I get that there are many women who have never seen those two pink lines, me being one of them until our fist IVF cycle. So I understand how hard it is to get negative after negative 25 times in a row. But being pregnant and losing a pregnancy is not consoling, knowing that I ‘did get pregnant’. I didn’t stay pregnant. Maybe they would say “But it’s one step in the right direction”, yes perhaps, but it was then like ten steps back after our loss.

Would you say this to someone after they lost their baby during childbirth? No. Would you say this to someone who lost their baby in their third trimester? I doubt it. Would you say this to someone who has suffered from recurrent pregnancy loss and miscarried 6 times? Definitely not. Would you say it to someone with secondary infertility? For goodness sake, NO. So why does this need to ever be said at all? It makes absolutely no sense at all and simply reminds me that we simply FAILED.

I am due to have my first beta test on Friday and in some ways, I am afraid of a positive than a negative. Don’t get me wrong, I WANT A POSITIVE MORE THAN ANYTHING. But I am afraid of when the positive comes, I know that even if this is my one successful pregnancy, my journey through the first trimester is going to be a psychological challenge. If we ended up in a similar position to last time with a slow rising beta levels, pregnancy of unknown location suspected ectopic, yes it will be easier knowing the process the second time around, but it will be bloody damn hard to go through it all again. And that is why I cannot accept the statement “At least you know you can get pregnant” as consoling.