Needles vs Skin: Place your bets now …

July 29, 20157 Comments

Some of you may have read my previous post about skin – it’s tougher than you think. In it I described the first night of injections for our IVF and I think you’ll agree it was a huge success…

…ok, perhaps not so much of a huge success, the drugs ending up inside Dani is a success but the number of attempts to get the needle through the skin left some room for improvement.

Day 1 re-cap: Injections – 2 : Holes in skin 5. Not a strong performance, some rookie errors leaving me someway off par

Day 2 summary: Injections – 2 : Holes in skin – 2 … nailed it! The success rate could be attributed to a greater degree of confidence after achieving such success on day 1, or it could be that I launched the hypodermic towards Dani’s stomach with so much force that it almost went in up to my elbow. I feel like I’m getting the hang of this drug administration stuff, there wasn’t any need for me to have a lie down this time, no wooziness and no tears for either of us. I feel that I’m on the way to reclaiming my manliness

Day 3 summary: Injections 2 : Holes in skin 3 – oh dear. A slight backward step here, the first attempt bounced, yes really, it bounced off her stomach, but worry not, I got it on the rebound. The double shot made me a little nervous on the second injection but afterwards Dani patted me on the head whilst saying ‘well done’ so I know it went well. I also wonder if she thinks I am a dog, It gives me something to ponder as she scratches behind my ears ….

Day 4 summary: Injections 2 : Holes in skin 2. A strong performance, regaining a little of the lost ground from the day 3 slips. Manliness may have taken another backward step as I did get a bit nervous on the second injection

Day 5 summary (today): New injection day, 1 in the morning and 2 in the evening, a 50% increase in number of jabs per day and a greater opportunity for the stats to go against me. Being a new drug day we thought we’d try a new position, Dani leaning up against the counter and me kneeling in front of her, this gives me more room to wield the needle and get a good swing with my arm :o) (What it really gives us is a bit more light to see by, the truth isn’t very exciting, sorry)

Final result Injections – 3 : holes in skin – 3, another stellar performance by Dani, she took the needles like a pro. The morning jab went OK but the drugs seem to burn after they’re inside her and that didn’t give a good start for the evening drugs as there was some nervousness about the pain from the Menopur., Fortunately the kneeling seems to make it steadier when I draw the needle out so less pain from the injections and only discomfort from the drugs. There was no real need to lie down this time but we did it anyway as it’s just a nice thing to do.

So the running stats to date:

Injections 11
Holes in skin 15

Not the best of records, and although it pains me to say it, I have to recognise that I’ll never close the gap. The only way to close the gap is to give two injections in the same hole, not something we will be attempting at any point (pun intended – thank you!). The 4 hole difference in my stats will forever be there, a record of my ineptitude and an indicator that a career as a nurse might not be a good option for me. The best I can hope for is that Dani forgives me for being so rubbish with the needles and that the gap between # injections and # holes doesn’t widen any further.

5 days to go. Would anyone care to bet what the final stats will be … ?

IVF DIARY VOL I: 28 JULY 2015

July 29, 20152 Comments

Medication(s) administered and dosage(s). 3 injections: (AM) Cetrotide 0.25mg, (PM) Gonal-F 300iu and Menopur 75iu.

Cetrotide – is this evil in disguise? Maybe. The injection did not hurt going in, I could barely feel it compared to the other two injections, but my goodness it stung afterwards. It was like a wasp had crawled into my stomach and couldn’t get out.

Medical procedures undertaken. Nil.

How do I feel today? Having used half of my menopur medication stockpile I am kind of excited by this this fact!!

Tuesday night is games night in our household. This evening we learned that we should perhaps never play games ever again whilst on these drugs. Chris beat me at risk – well I conceded after 10 minutes of play. Then he beat me at cribbage. Seriously Chris, you were supposed to let me win at least one game :_-( Oh and I also scared the cat out of his skin when I jokingly screamed at Chris after I lost at risk “I’M HORMONAL – YOU ARE NOT SUPPOSED TO BEAT ME” (perhaps the neighbours think I am mad now too). I have also lost my voice from shouting; it serves me right really!!!!

What are my symptoms? OH TODAY HAS SUCKED. After the cetrotide injection, I got into work and immediately wanted to go home and curl up in bed. My colleagues were telling me to go home when they saw me. However, I still have this project to finish, so I made myself a hot water bottle and managed to make it through the morning. The pain was from the injections, I felt like I had done 1000 sit ups, my muscles ached, and my skin was sensitive to touch – when my work pass touched my stomach I winced. I thought I was going to have to go home at lunch, but suddenly my stomach felt a whole lot better after 1pm so I stayed and felt quite chirpy for the rest of the afternoon.

How does Chris feel today? He is going to write his own blog post tonight. Bless him, he still gets nervous with the injections.

Any results? NA.

What’s next? Tomorrow I have another monitoring appointment. We are half way through the stimulation part of the IVF cycle now! (Hopefully). I am not looking forward to the next cetrotide injection in the morning 😦

My mum is flying in from the UK tomorrow to stay for three weeks so I will be picking her up from the airport!

Weight. Apparently I weigh less than yesterday….not sure how that is possible when I look down at my stomach.

Waist. Oh my waist is still a little pot bellied bloated.

Boobs. NSTR

Hours of Sunshine 🙂 Only 1/2hr of sunshine whilst I tidied up the garden this evening.

*Notes. I take First Response Reproductive Health multi vitamin gummies (pre-natal) and CoQ10 200mg gummies daily. NSTR = Nothing Significant To Report.

Skin – It’s tougher than you think

July 25, 2015July 25, 201510 Comments

Today was injection day number 1 and the number of injections required was 2.
2 injections means 2 holes in the skin.
The number of holes in skin for today = 5
It wasn’t the best of starts to the injection schedule

So today Dani and I started the injections for IVF. We have previously done 3 injections for IUI and so have had a limited amount of practice. The nurse took us through all the steps for mixing the drugs and it seemed fairly straight forward. So when it came time to do the first injection Dani pinched an area of her tummy and I moved in, needle in hand.

3 … 2 … 1 … jab

We do a count down so Dani knows when the needle goes in, only, on this occasion the needle did not go in.

(Chris) “erm ….. it wont go in”

(Dani) “What do you mean it wont go in?”

(Chris) “I mean the needle wont go in.”

(Dani) “What…”

(Chris) “I didn’t inject you. The needle wont go through your skin.”

… pause …

(Dani) “WHAT…?!?”

At this point I had started to worry that I’d somehow blunted the needle whilst extracting the drugs from the vial. I was also worried that that I was wasting some VERY expensive drugs by not getting them inside her.

Two more attempts and the needle still didn’t go through Dani’s skin. I was getting really worried at this point, the needle was making tiny pricks that bled but wouldn’t go all the way through the skin. Each time I tried to do the injection I knew it was hurting Dani, small spots of blood formed on her stomach. This was the lowest point of the entire process for me, I’m not sure how Dani kept so calm, she is perhaps even more scared of needles as I am. Dani is AMAZING!

We looked at the instructions again and decided we’d done everything right with the mixing and the syringe filling, it appears that I just needed to push harder. So with 3 holes in her tummy already we pinched the skin again and I prepared to inject harder.

In reality I probably didn’t have to push very hard but in the moment it felt like I was trying to jab the needle through her entire body. I used the ‘dart’ method, holding the syringe like a dart and jabbing it hard at the skin. This time the needle went in smoothly all the way to the ‘stopper’, the drugs were injected and the needle came out smoothly without a single drop of blood.

We disposed of the needle, tidied the mess and then we both went to lie down for a minute. I was feeling light headed and a little sick … how daft is that? Dani is the one being stabbed and having reasonable quantities of drugs pushed into her body and yet I’m the one lying down feeling woozy. I really cannot say how much I admire and love her, she is going through so much and yet still finds a way to comfort me. What an amazing girl.

After a couple of minutes snuggled together, skeptically examining the collection of puncture marks on her tummy from the first injection, we prepared for the second injection. This time things went much better. I prepped the syringe and Dani lay propped up in bed, a patch of tummy swabbed and ready. On the count of three I launched the syringe towards her with such force the skin stood no chance, parting under the extreme pressure of the assault Dani’s tummy had no choice but to accept the drugs. 10 seconds in and out and it was all over.

2 injections, 5 holes in the skin. Not a good ratio considering we have 70(ish) more injections to go, but I’m confident we’ll get better at this – hopefully by tomorrow!

IVF DIARY VOL I: 22 – 24 JULY 2015

July 25, 2015July 25, 20155 Comments

Medication(s) administered and dosage(s). 2 injections: Gonal-F 300 iu and Menopur 75 iu

Medical procedures undertaken. Baseline ultrasound and blood test.

How do I feel today? I think every emotion under the sun has run through me!

We knew we had to deal with the financials today, but wasn’t sure what to expect so I turned up with cheque book and credit card in hand!!! Well it was all much quicker than anticipated, my insurance company has provided a letter promising to pay everything….yes everything including the ICSI! (well, everything except for the 10% co-pay of course). I signed something saying that I would be responsible for the $14,000 bill if my insurance decided not to cover it for any reason. So in the end, we didn’t need to pay anything upfront and we expect to see a bill of our $1,400 co-pay in 1-2 months time. That’s great because it gives us more time to save some more and helps me feel a little more relaxed about things.

Chris surprised me with a big Zippy hug after he had stabbed me with the needles this evening. Hiding in Zippy’s mouth was a bar of cadbury’s chocolate! Awww it was a nice perk me up. Of course I only had 3 squares as my weekly treat!

Zippy!!! What’s in your mouth?

What are my symptoms? Just period pains. I am actually quite surprised how heavy my period is considering I had only a 14 day cycle!

How does Chris feel today? Chris is currently writing his own separate post today about his experience this evening after he stabbed me…4 times…..with 2 needles. You are going to want to read this! Let’s just say there were some comedic moments.

Any results? The way I get all my results is rather handy. I call a secure answer phone service after 4pm the day of my monitoring appointment and the nurse leaves a message with all instructions for dosages and the date/time of my next appointment. I can call the nurse any time I like if I have questions. I like it this way because I won’t have to worry about missing a call. I actually didn’t get any info about my blood test results today. But I do have an app on my phone that tracks all my results, but it updates late in the evening, so I will be a bit behind in reporting blood test results. My ultrasound went well – my ovaries are ‘quiet’ as the doctor explained as she wants them to be. I have several follicles between 5-6mm in size in each ovary ready to be stimulated. For my next diary entry I’m going to figure out a nice visual way to track my follicle growth and numbers over time.

What’s next? My next monitoring appointment is Monday morning, until then I keep going with the 2 injections a day of gonal-f 300 iu and menopur 75 iu.

Weight. NSTR.

Waist. NSTR

Boobs. NSTR

Hours of Sunshine 🙂 We decided to get to the doctor’s nice and early this morning so we wouldn’t get caught in rush hour traffic, so we had breakfast outside starbucks, playing crib and basking in the glorious sunshine.

*Notes. I take First Response Reproductive Health multi vitamin gummies (pre-natal) and CoQ10 200mg gummies daily. NSTR = Nothing Significant To Report.

IVF DIARY VOL I: 17 – 21 JULY 2015

July 22, 2015July 22, 2015Leave a comment

Medication(s) administered and dosage(s). Nil (the quiet before the storm??!)

Medical procedures undertaken. Nil

How do I feel today? Woohoo!! I took my last birth control pill yesterday, so I’m feeling excited!

I am on week 7 of my sugar and simple carbs ban. I’ve done pretty well and have allowed myself just one small treat each week which has kept me motivated (although last night we did have white pasta :-s whoops). I even bought dunkin donuts for everyone at work today and I had not one bite of them! Wow, I was drooling over their delicious smell. I have struggled over the last week or so with sugar cravings. I’ve never had cravings like this…it got to the point that I even imagined there was a tiny piece of chocolate in the sink when in fact it was just a piece of cat food. I was hallucinating about all things super sugary, in particular Krispy Kreme donuts. I was literally salivating over the cookies at my work cafe and imagining the way that they would crisp and crunch in my mouth, with the chocolate chips still slightly melted as they just came out of the oven. Was it the Birth Control Pills that did this to me? Or my addiction to sugar. I really can’t quite tell.

Work is a bit stressful as I am trying to fit a lot in so I can take time off required for the IVF appointments, plus a bunch of other factors that are out of my hands are probably contributing to the stress. I probably have piled a lot of that stress on myself, but I can’t help but be a perfectionist; sometimes I have to stop and ask myself – is anybody going to die if I don’t do this work? When I answer with no, then I remind myself to step away.

What are my symptoms? The spotting finally stopped just as it was time to stop the birth control pills. I took just 13 pills in all, and the nurse told me to stop take my last on yesterday in preparation for my first day of stimulation injectibles scheduled for this Friday 24th Jul. I am not sure if I will get a period over the next few days, so I shall await with a pad/tampon to hand just in case :-s

How does Chris feel today? Chris feels like work has distracted him from the build up to our upcoming IVF. It worries him a little bit because he thinks he might not be paying close enough attention to his true feelings. But he did tell me that he is excited to be starting, but nervous all at the same time, particularly at the notion of stabbing me with the needles. (Yep, you and me both hon ;-p !!)

Any results? Nil

What’s next? Our first appointment with the clinic to start the IVF cycle is scheduled for Friday morning, we have been told to anticipate spending about 3 hours there to get a baseline ultrasound, blood tests, fill out paper work, pay them lots of money – I hope they take my credit card (thinking of all the extra points!!!).

Weight. Overall, the Birth Control Pills did not cause me to put on weight. After tracking for 18 days straight (first time I have ever done this) I can see that I have a bit of up and down cycles as I eat more at the weekends and less during the week. But looking at my rolling average, I have not put on weight. Yippeee! But I have a good baseline set of measurements now prior to stimulation to closely monitor the effects.

Waist. NSTR

Boobs. NSTR

Hours of Sunshine 🙂 I got in several hours of sunshine this weekend, just before we had a huuuuge storm that crapped the hell out of me…the lightening, thunder and winds were extreme, I wasn’t sure we were about to face a tornado. Our neighbour’s tree fell down on their house and the neighbourhood flooded, fortunately this is the reason we all have raised houses.

My stats to date

*Notes. I take First Response Reproductive Health multi vitamin gummies (pre-natal) and CoQ10 200mg gummies daily. NSTR = Nothing Significant To Report.

It can be all a little bit confusing

July 20, 20155 Comments

Infertility treatment IS pretty darn confusing. And I’ve spent 100s of hours researching it. It’s confusing because there is no one single way to treat infertility. If they had figured out a magic pill to get you pregnant we would all be taking it. Unfortunately, there isn’t that one pill. There are many causes of infertility and so treatment is specific to the couple being treated. The journey each one of us take to the great pudding club will be unique. And it can be confusing with all that medical jargon, drugs (brands and generic versions), procedures, timings…and to make things worse, it will probably be different each time we have another try to make a little one.

We have been asked many questions by friends and family about our infertility, and I am so glad they do ask – firstly, it shows that they care, and secondly, it helps spread awareness of infertility (did you know that 1 in 10 couples are infertile?). So to this end, I have put together a page on my site that introduces some of the important terms we talk about a lot, all in one place.

(My new page: What does it all mean?)

I have also updated the ‘about me’ page to include a timeline of what we have tried so far. We will be using these pages as a place to direct family and friends for a bit of background as we start our first IVF cycle and tell a few more people what we are going through.

My dear friends, I just wanted you to know how grateful I am that you are here with us and support us along the way. Thank you for understanding and thank you for providing us with words of strength and comfort X

IVF DIARY VOL I: 10 – 16 JULY 2015

July 17, 2015July 17, 20153 Comments

Medication(s) administered and dosage(s). Ovulation Control Pill (OCP) Reclipsen 0.15MG-30MCG x 1

Medical procedures undertaken. Nil

How do I feel today? Fed up of spotting! I haven’t felt ‘hormonal’ the last week like I thought potentially the birth control pills might do. Overall feeling not too bad.

What are my symptoms? The first few days after I started the birth control pills I got a bit bloated and a bit constipated…which for someone with Irritable Bowel Syndrome (The diarrhea type) one would think it would make a nice change from going to poo three times a day! Fortunately, things have got back to normal in that arena. My boobs are a little tender and have stayed the same size since my period started (a bit bigger). Then there is the extra bleeding also, my period lasted a couple of days longer than my normal 2-3 days…and I have been spotting since then, so wearing a panty liner is a must right now.

How does Chris feel today? Chris is still very busy at work at the moment 😦 He is trying to get as much done in prep for the when we start ‘stimming’ (aka injecting the drugs) so he can focus on us. (Aww bless him, he’s a sweetie) We did have that big discussion about how many embryos to transfer and what our decision will be. It made for an interesting dinner table conversation! We weighed up the pros and cons, but he did say that ultimately he would stick with whatever I decided because it is my body and health that would be at risk. So we haven’t completely ruled out transferring two just yet.

Any results? NA

What’s next? Just four more days of birth control pills. I’m looking forward to not hearing my ‘alien’ alarm on my phone that reminds me to take them at the same time every day.

Weight. Funny story and probably too much information – Now, I have been weighing myself as soon as I wake up to make it a fair comparison. One morning, after weighing myself I went downstairs, started to prepare breakfast when I realised I needed to go to the toilet (at last hooray!!). And as I mentioned earlier, having been constipated for a while, I did an enormous poo….so much so that in the interest of science, afterwards, I dashed back upstairs to weigh myself again. Can you believe it? I weighed EXACTLY the same 127.2lbs….and I got on and off I three times to be sure it wasn’t stuck. So now I just don’t trust those scales!!

Waist. NSTR

Boobs. NSTR

Hours of Sunshine 🙂 Seriously, still not enough….the weather has not been great recently, but last night whilst I played softball I soaked up the evening sun and it was glorious. I hope this weekend brings us some better weather!

*Notes. I take First Response Reproductive Health multi vitamin gummies (pre-natal) and CoQ10 200mg gummies daily. NSTR = Nothing Significant To Report.

The pain of unexplained infertility

July 13, 2015July 13, 20153 Comments

Unexplained infertility eats away at you, month by month, day by day, hour by hour. The pain grows exponentially, as the odds of a successful pregnancy diminish.

At first, you thank your lucky stars (or your god), that there is nothing seriously wrong with you or your husband. You both passed all the fertility tests with flying colours. Your Reproductive Endocrinologist should be giving out gold stars each time you brave another fertility test because your stats are great and you are top of the class.

But you are defined as infertile, and yet at the same time, they cannot find any medical reason as to why you are unable to conceive. This is not through any fault of the doctors; learning to accept this fact is difficult. Beginning to understand the wonders of conception and how many stars have to be in line for a baby to be born makes it a little easier to swallow. But that doesn’t make it any less bitter.

You beat yourself up over the seemingly small things…

Should I have just had that glass of wine?
Am I too fat? Am I too skinny?
I forgot to take my pre-natal multivitamin – will my eggs mature this month?
Will that cup of coffee harm my little bean?
Did I exercise too hard? Should I exercise more?

The ambiguity of it all drags on you, it weighs heavy on your heart. You can’t help but believe it must be something you are doing wrong. Even with the strength of your friends and family around you holding your hands, it feels like the road is getting darker, narrower and scary as hell.

You can’t move on, you can’t stop, because you might just be at the false summit and your success story is just around the corner. You don’t know how long your journey will be…the blisters are beginning to burn and you just can’t figure out why it’s happening. Giving up is not an option.

You cannot lie, although your friends will give you kind encouraging words and strong hands to keep you going up that mountain, there are no words that can ever compensate for why this is happening. God’s will…or….it is meant to be….just does not compute or make sense. The pain will continue to grow, you will cry, you will question yourself….but you will keep swimming.

“Just keep swimming. Just keep swimming. Just keep swimming, swimming, swimming. What do we do? We swim, swim.” (Dora, Finding Nemo 2003)

Last chance saloon…well kind of

June 18, 2015June 18, 2015Leave a comment

Last chance for natural conception

Today it dawned on me that as a result of my last cycle being shorter than expected, I am probably going to be away for a work conference right at peak ovulation time. DOH. This is going to be our last chance to conceive naturally before we start IVF. (Yes I still have hope that we can beat the odds!) Soooo, what’s a girl to do? I’m thinking an ice box and turkey baster will be required. Wait. That’s NOT natural!

I can just hope that I ovulate later than expected or have another short cycle!

OR Chis will just have to drive 4 hrs to DC and stay with me for one night and then get up super early and drive 4 hrs back before work. Ummmm, do you think I will be able to convince him to do it?? I’m pretty sure he will be not be down for that.

Love you honey!!!

Oh well. It will be what it will be. Nature is unpredictable anyway.

Lost blood work frustrations

When I first had all my infertility testing back in December last year, my doctor gave me TWO orders for blood work. The first order was to test my cycle day 3 hormone, FSH LH etc. The second order was to test for baddies that can affect the health of a pregnancy, such as HIV, Hep B & C, syphilis, in addition to having an immunity to Rubella and Chicken Pox (I’ve had these jabs, so I hope I have immunity!!) which are all a legal pre-screening requirement for IVF. I received my results for Day 3 tests, but never saw my results for HIV etc. I just assumed all was good, and never thought anything more of it until…..I met my IVF nurse the other month.

After much hunting, it turns out they never drew blood for my second order. I KNOW I gave them that second order, so I am really annoyed. It was only last month I received the bill for this blood work back in December, so I had no clue they never did the tests. The bill I received for $500 I thought would have covered all these tests. But it turns out it costs over $1000 for both orders of blood work!! So, frustratingly, the nurse had to send me a new order which took almost a week to get to me in the post (I forget how snail snail mail is here, I should have just picked it up from the office).

This time I went directly to the lab who does the analysis rather than to hospital to have my blood drawn.

Now, you would have thought that going straight to the specialists who take blood day in day out would be good at it. But oh no. Not this one. After one vial of blood was collected with the needle still in my army, the nurse was like… “Come on….where did it go? Why is nothing coming out? Hmmm…” as he wiggled the needle and I tried very hard not to shout out ‘OWWWWWWW THAT FRICKING HURTS!!’ Thankfully after what seemed like forever “Oh!! There’s the vein!”. But I won’t be totally mean about this nurse. He was entertaining, and did immediately recognise my accent and asked where in the UK I was from. I congratulated him on his talent for recognising a British accent and we talked about how surprising it is how many people have no clue where I am from. He even understood what I meant when I said “Cheers” as I left. So I’ll let him off the hook.

So after all that, let’s hope I do have immunity to rubella, otherwise I am going to have to wait ANOTHER cycle to start IVF. Now that will make me pretty mad 😐

“You are so lucky you don’t have kids”

June 16, 2015June 16, 201512 Comments

Oh I have been itching to blog about this for a few days, but we have been out road tripping on a short break to Savannah, Georgia. We drove just over 1000 miles round trip and saw some wonderful things. But I will tell you a short story that really got my goat.

Our first night in Charleston, South Carolina we found ourselves a small smokehouse joint for dinner. We managed to find a relaxed type bar that had a short menu of BBQ meat, meat, oh and more meat. We ordered loaded duck fat fries and a typical Southern BBQ platter, and we were not disappointed. We were just about to roll ourselves out of the bar, when Chris bumped into another Brit, a man in his 50s. Oh not just any Brit, but a Brit who also lives where we live – 400 miles away! What were the chances of that? After the Brit introduced himself, we quickly noticed how drunk he was. He asked us many questions – where we were from, what we were doing, what did we do for a living, where we were from (wait – we already answered this one – but he was drunk so ….). He looked us over and asked if we had children. No, we both politely replied. “Oh you are lucky” he winked at us. Not cool. He then wanted us to meet his wife. So we went through the Spanish inquisition again…I was beginning to get a little annoyed at this stage. It’s nice to talk with other Brits about living in the US, but clearly it is not nice to talk to a drunk Brit, it can get a bit embarrassing when they shout across the bar all the annoying things about living in America. The Brit asked us once again if we had children, because he obviously had forgotten how ‘lucky’ we are. So once again we said we did not have children, and once again he proceeded to tell us that we were lucky. At least he was consistent in his ideas about having children. After another 5 minutes of this we attempted to make our escape….but they wanted to have dinner with us! Oh no. Just as we made our excuses, he started talking about how lucky we were to not have children again, and if he were us, we should not have them. So it was definitely time to leave.

As we left we both commented on how rude it was to say such a thing: ‘You are so lucky you don’t have kids’, especially to us, going through what we are going through right now. Even if we were not going through this, in my opinion it would still be a rude thing to say. Of course everyone is entitled to a different opinion. But the manner in which the opinion was conveyed was just plain rude.

Little did he know that later that evening I would be crying as my period started once again (unexpectedly – a very short 23 day cycle) and so no, I didn’t feel lucky in any shape or form and just felt like crap.

Reflecting upon this situation, looking past my anger at the rudeness of the Brit’s statement “You are so lucky you don’t have kids”, I just felt sad. Sad that this man would say such a thing to strangers not once, but three times, unprompted. Parenting is not easy, but I hope whatever issues he has had with his children in the past he can remember the good things about being a parent, the reward, the challenge, the sacrifice, the love and I hope the future holds something a little more positive for him.