#notpregnantjustfat

🎜🎝Just Gotta Ride it!🎝🎝 Full disclosure I was...and still very much am, a HAUOGE Boyzone fan (don't judge me!), so I can't hear them words without hearing the Ronan Keating - 'Life is a Rollercoaster ' song merrily playing in my head. Anywho, moving swiftly on from my teenage crushes, the sentiment is there, life really is  a rollercoaster and no one know that better than those of us on the infertility track. Just last week I realised how seriously down and stressed I have been for months, but only when I started to feel better, as I finally had some movement on my own journey.  As many of you will know, back in November I was finally  referred for testing, as was my husband. He got his appointment soon after in January (gold stars all around for his swimmers FYI), and I thought that I would follow shortly after that as I was brought in for a pre-op assessment for a laparoscopy, hysteroscopy, D&C and dye test also in January. Unfortunately every time...

I am currently in the limbo stage of the month - the 2WW (two week wait for those of you who are unfamiliar) has passed and following multiple BFNs (big fat negative) I am now patiently awaiting my period and all of the pain and disappointment that goes along with that. I have been on this journey for close to 2 1/2 years now and I look back and can't believe how naive I was at the start. I used to actually patiently wait for my period to come each month until I learned that you can buy tests that allow you to check results up to six days before your period is due. Six days might not sound like a long time, it's not even a full week, a six day holiday would go by in the blink of an eye. Not when you're TTC (trying to conceive).  Time passes at a snails rate whilst waiting to test for pregnancy; you try to put it to the back of your mind but it consumes you until the day finally comes and you wake up like a child on Christmas morning, rush to the bathroom knowing that ...

"She's got Brazilian leather boots on the pedal of her German car  Listen to the Beatles singing back in the USSR  Yeah she's goin' around the world tonight  But she ain't leavin' here  She's just going to meet her boyfriend down at the street fair It's a french kiss, Italian ice  Spanish moss in the moonlight  Just another American Saturday night"  - Brad Paisley - 'American Saturday Night' Full disclosure, I am a HUGE country & western fan. I was raised on Garth Brooks, Johnny Cash and Patsy Cline (thank you Daddy) and it is a love that has never left me. I think it's the detail and the stories that capture me most of all. The lyrics from 'American Saturday Night' by Brad Paisley (😍) highlight the irony of the 'All American' life as it incorporates elements from so many other nations and races. Now don't get me wrong, I absolutely love the multi-cultural side of life and the fact that th...

I've previously written about how infertility is a LOT of waiting and perpetuating cycles. When you're going round in constant circles, it had be hard not to get dizzy and feel like you're spiralling, or trapped. Unfortunately, sometimes you are. The main trapping for me is the financial trap. My work brings me a LOT of stress and you are always told to 'relax to conceive' however I have bills to pay and if we are to save up for private IVF treatment then we need two incomes. Furthermore, if I were to move jobs now and then got pregnant, I wouldn't be eligible for maternity pay and would end up being skint, which is not what I want life to be with a beautiful new baby. So I stay. Sometimes I don't know if I am doing right for doing wrong or vice versa. I worry that the stress is hampering my chances of pregnancy, but isn't any job going to bring me stress? Also, if I were to just give up work, it would put so much pressure on my Husband that it c...

Have you ever stepped in dog shit? Like, right outside your house first thing in the morning but you don't even have a dog? You do your best to clean it off, wipe it in the grass or step in a puddle, or if you're a fabulously organised morning person you go home and clean said shoe(s) properly or even put on another pair before you set off on your commute. If you're not on the ball and don't have time to go home and change, then you'll carry on and hope that you got it all off, but you'll probably spend the rest of the day with the smell caught in your nose, wondering if it's just you who can smell it or if everyone else around you is smelling it too and is looking at you sideways in disgust. It will hang over your whole day like a dark cloud, until you make it home and either scrub the offending shoe(s) or (if they were cheap enough) chuck them straight in the wheely bin and sit down, exhale and think to yourself 'Thank FUCK that day is over.' ...

Good afternoon everyone and HAPPY NEW YEAR! Sorry I know I'm a bit late on that, but as you will be aware I have been very quiet on here for a while.  My last update was just after our first appointment at the private fertility clinic and before my gynae appointment about suspected endometriosis. I'll start at the fertility clinic. We drove the hour and a half up there and were seen very quickly after arriving (no NHS waiting lists here). The Doctor brought us into his very nice office and went through the results of both of our tests. Both were very positive and thus he informed us we were in the 'unexplained infertility' category. He went through A LOT of forms and told us to take them home and read them (back to time is money people). He also very quickly mentioned my risk of OHSS due to my results, although if I hadn't done my own research prior to the appointment, I fear this may have gone over my head and I definitely wouldn't be aware of what a real r...

Tessa Broad's book 'Dear You - A Letter to My Unborn Children' is the eloquently written memoir of a very brave woman, who has pushed her own personal insecurities to the side to give a face - and more importantly a voice - to the anonymous masses of infertile men and women out there. The book is a letter written to Tessa's 'imaginary'  children  (over the years, I don't doubt that the love Tessa has nurtured for these children is anything but imaginary), the ones who she never got to meet due to a cruel combination of nature and circumstance. I have to admit that I only finished reading this book a few days ago, which is a long time since I first started reading it. That is absolutely not a reflection of the book's content, how it was written or anything else of the sort, quite the contrary in fact. Tessa has really poured her heart and soul into this memoir, which is why I describe her as brave - I believe that to be true of anyone who puts pe...