A Photo Every Hour - Saturday 16th December

Behind again with blog posts and photo an hour... What on earth does the year think its doing going by so fast? Anyway, hope you all had a lovely Christmas and are planning a fab New Year :-)

December's festive photo an hour date fell on Saturday 16th - we were off to the theatre and to see Father Christmas!


Here's what the day looked like...


9am - It was a hat-wearing sort of day apparently.

10am - Putting pen to paper on the sacred Christmas issue of the Radio Times.

11am - Sorting out Christmas presents.

12pm - On our way out to Bristol to the theatre.

1pm - A sunny Bristol sky!

2pm - Waiting for our lift home after a brilliant performance of 'Ice Ice Baby' (Bristol Old Vic's Christmas show for under 3's)

3pm - Trying to find orange coloured decorations for our rainbow-themed Christmas tree!

4pm - On our way to find Father Christmas.

5pm - Taking Lily back to the fertility clinic where she was created to drop off a Christmas present and also visit their Santa's Grotto (where our consultant was playing the big man!)

6pm - Home for a cup of tea via the shops where we managed to pick up some 30p dairy-free custard doughnuts! #win

7pm - Nursery rhymes before (what we hoped was) bedtime...

8pm onwards there were no pics as someone didn't want to play ball going to sleep! All my photos would've been of a darkened room with a toddler stumbling round trying to find toys to play with...


Anyway 12 lovely people joined in this month:
Amy from Fluffy Owl's Adventures joined in on Instagram
Bev from Confuzzledom joined in on Twitter and on her blog
Cheryl from A Monster Mummy joined in on Twitter
Hazel from World of Joy joined in on Instagram and Twitter
Jane from Is That You Darling joined in on Instagram
Laura joined in on Instagram
Liz from Distract Me Now Please joined in on Instagram
Lyndsay from Our Girl in Zurich joined in on Twitter and on her blog
Naomi from What Naomi Did Next joined in on Twitter and Instagram
Rebecca from Writing, Fatshion, Me joined in on Instagram
Susie from  Secondhand Susie joined in on Instagram
And of course, myself here on this post, plus on Instagram and Twitter :-)

Give me a shout if I've missed you from the list and I'll add you on!


The first photo an hour date for 2018 will be Saturday 20th January.

If you've always wondered about joining in but never actually taken the plunge, Jane's put together a handy blog post all about it - why not try something new for 2018!

Also, check out what I was up to in...

December 2016

December 2015

December 2014

December 2013

Finding Our (Little) Feet

So, umm, well, hello - it's been a while, two months in fact since the last blog post round these 'ere parts.

You may have already spotted it on Twitter or Instagram but this is what's been occupying mine and Andrew's life over the last month.

Our little one - Lily Cerys Langley - arrived on 26th January 2016, one week after her estimated due date...and four years and one month since we first started trying for a baby. The labour wasn't particularly straightforward but the birth was completely standard, even at one point leaving the midwives amazed (but that's a whole story for another post).

The last month has been spent knee-deep in nappies and dirty washing whilst learning all about tongue tie and combination feeding. Occasionally there's a little bit of playtime thrown in too.

Today she's one month old. On the one hand it seems hard to believe it was that long ago but on the other hand it seems to have flown by rather fast! I have a worrying feeling two, three, six, twelve and all the rest of the months will come around equally quickly.

 

 

National Fertility Awareness Week - We Are #1in6

It's National Fertility Awareness Week this week and this year the campaign is all about the 1 in 6 statistic.

1 in 6 couples will struggle to become parents. That could be for any number of reasons with infertility and miscarriage being two of the most common (and also two things people don't like talking about). It's very rare for a couple to have a "perfect" conception or a "perfect" pregnancy yet society assumes it's dead easy for all of that to happen.

We were (and until January next year I suppose, still are) the 1 in 6. This shot was taken at a family wedding in September 2012: 10 months after we'd started trying; 3 months after we found out we had both female factor infertility (Polycystic Ovary Syndrome) and male factor infertility (low sperm count); 4 months before our GP would refer us to the local fertility clinic to start more (invasive) investigations and another 2 years and 8 months til we'd see a positive pregnancy test.


Our tale's not unusual though; we're just one of the hundreds and thousands of couples out there who have a slightly longer and more winding journey to becoming a parent. This excellent video, 'Expecting Life' by fertility specialist Emma Cannon (whose book, 'The Baby Making Bible' is well worth a read - I borrowed it from the library back in 2012) highlights just a few more...




Since becoming pregnant though, I don't know how to describe myself: am I still classed as infertile? Post-infertile? Technically-pregnant-but-unable-to-conceive-again?

I feel as if I need to tell everyone I meet that this bump in front of them wasn't easy to achieve, that we didn't just decide one day to make a baby, jump into bed and then wham-bam-thank-you-mam, it happened. Someone did actually say to me at work (when I'd started showing and people knew), "was it planned?" Well, apart from the fact that's a rather personal question to ask, it did at least give me the chance to fill them in on the whole back story (which I don't think they were expecting to hear). And I've lost count of the amount of people who tell me about their friends who had IVF only to go on and conceive naturally as the IVF treatment "reset" their body - to which I always reply, "well it might reset mine but it's unlikely to have reset Andrew's!".

Weirdly though (and you all know how much I like research and information), I can't find any books written from a perspective of being pregnant after having been through that struggle. There's a few odd chapters or paragraphs in generic pregnancy books but nothing that decent - which is surprising considering the amount of people who don't have that easy pain-free journey. I guess there must be lots of people who worry throughout their pregnancy but there also seems to be lots of people who go out and buy baby things with wild abandon the moment they see those two lines on a stick. I still don't feel completely reassured myself; each day that passes is a little bit easier but at the back of my mind is still the fact that if anything happens, we can't just try again like a "normal" couple.

Perhaps I should write a book - there's clearly a gap in the market!
 

 

As a brief disclosure, I was asked if I could include the video in my post by the lady working with Emma Cannon but I had already planned on writing all about the #1in6 campaign anyway. I didn't receive any gifts or compensation and all words, pictures and opinions are my own.

PR/Disclosure Policy

This Summer at the Duckpond

Questions, questions...

How have I managed to do no blogging whatsoever over the summer?
How am I already over halfway through this (still fairly unbelievable) pregnancy?
And the eternal blogger cliché - how is it already September?

Answers on a postcard please.



So that was summer 2015. I honestly had no idea back in May at the start of the summer that by the autumn I'd be well into the second trimester and expecting a Findus in January. I mean, we'd started the treatment for our frozen embryo transfer at the end of March but it didn't even cross our minds that it might actually work.

We still managed to get up to a lot of stuff though, even if at times I had to take things a bit more slowly.



Findus went to his/her first Glastonbury festival (I was 10 weeks and 5 days); I did two shifts working down there and then went in on the Sunday evening to see Paul Weller and The Who. I did feel a bit tired during Paul Weller's set so I had a doze while he was playing - I'm sure it looked perfectly fine down there at Pilton!

Oh yeah, and did I mention we met Lionel Richie? (rather than being chauffeured back to the helipad (which is along the lane we work on) he decided he wanted to walk and "enjoy the English countryside")


Me, Andrew, my parents and brother spent a lot of the summer Shaun-hunting in Bristol. Following on from the 'Gromit Unleashed' trail back in 2013, this year it was our woolly friend who descended on the place for the 'Shaun in the City' trail. There were 70 Shauns in total and we managed to spot 59 of them - a fairly respectable number methinks considering my condition! (oh yeah, that's being wheeled out as an excuse from now til January...)

Me and Andrew had our usual trip to Edinburgh for the Fringe Festival at the beginning of August. Back at the start of 2015 we decided to go for the whole week which in the end, proved to be a very good decision indeed as we could spread out the number of shows and I wouldn't get so tired. We still (somehow) managed to pack in 28 of them though, including a live recording of Radio 4's 'Just a Minute' at the BBC Potterrow tent and a blogger meet up with some truly lovely ladies - Denise, Gwen, Alex and Elise (who is an absolute darling and had knitted Findus some gorgeous little booties!). We did well for celebrity spotting in the street too - not including the ones we saw in shows, we also walked past Nina Conti; Rory McGrath; Josh Widdicombe, James Acaster, Mickey Flanagan and Ivo Graham (who were all going to see Jon Ronson at the Assembly Rooms - who was fab); Rob Beckett; Matthew Crosby; Janey Godley; and spot of the week - Richard Osman.

And a Findus update...
Well, he/she is still alive. Despite being a fairly positive person for the rest of my life, I can't help but worry about this little one. I clearly have no trust in my own body. We had our 20 week scan last week (at 19 weeks and 1 day) - it was 8am in the morning and this baby is obviously not a morning person as it spent most of the scan curled up in a cosy little ball asleep. The sonographer was lovely and got me to do some kind of belly dancing move to try and wake the baby up - all you got then was it shuffling round for about 10 seconds and then going back to sleep. It did a perfect impression of someone who really didn't want to be woken up that early! Long story short, we have to go back on 18th September for another scan so they can complete all the necessary checks (and hopefully find out whether it's a boy or a girl!).



Hope you've all had good summers!

This...

Random picture of some nice ducklings at work

This...is why I've been such a crappy blogger, blog reader and especially blog commenter over the last couple of months.

This...is why I had a week or so of feeling (and being) pretty darn sick back in May (and couldn't complete BEDM).

And this...is part of (but not the only) reason why we bought ourselves a new car.


This is Findus*.

Travel back in time to 1st May 2014 and I was having an egg collection operation as part of our second IVF (ICSI) treatment. They collected 10 eggs on that occasion and 8 of them fertilised overnight. By the 6th May 2014, two of the little embryos were looking really good; one of them was transferred to me there and then (which sadly wasn't successful); the other plunged into a freezer at -196°C to be stored ready for us to use at a later date.

That later date was originally September and I started taking the medication in August last year. The transfer date was all set for 19th September and then what did I do on 18th September? Fell off my own doorstep and spectacularly fractured my ankle, that's what.

Fast forward 6 months from September (the length of time the orthopaedic consultant specified I had to wait for everything to heal) and I started taking the medication again in March.

Exactly 1 year to the day, on 1st May 2015 that frozen embryo was defrosted and transferred. Two weeks later, for the first time in 3 and half years, we actually saw those two little lines on a pregnancy test.



Today is 12 weeks and 4 days and in theory (keeping everything it's possible to cross, crossed) Findus should be joining us in January.

At the moment, it's about 25% excitement, 25% disbelief and 50% 'oh-my-god-I-can't-get-too-excited-because-I'll-jinx-it-but-what-if-I-don't-believe-in-it-surely-that'll-jinx-it-too?' thoughts. We've had three scans so far - two early ones at the fertility clinic and one normal 12 week one at the local hospital (which strangely, was done at 10 weeks and 5 days). All the medical people seem to have a hundred times more confidence than I do; what's going through my mind all the time is "my body hasn't worked properly for the last 3 and half years so what on earth makes everyone think it's going to work now?"

I'm hoping all those thoughts are fairly normal though.

*Obviously we're not going to put 'Findus' on the birth certificate but we did think it was rather appropriate for a little one who spent a year in the freezer.

Mothering Sunday and Infertility

I try to ignore Mother's Day. I don't have that great a relationship with my own mother and it's the fourth one that's passed since we started trying to start our own family.  Both on Mother's Day and Father's Day, the best course of action is to avoid Faceache all day long. If you do log on, all you get is a constant stream of photos and status updates reminding you how defective you are. I know people don't mean it and all they're doing is celebrating their own happiness, it's just that when you're living with infertility, that's kind of how it seems.  

 

 

A lot of publicity seems to focus on the physical characteristics, the fact that you're not a "real mother" unless you've given carried a baby for 9 months and given birth. I don't believe it's that at all though, it's far more to do with the love, support and care you give to your children all their life.

 

Families come in all shapes and sizes and the word "mother" can mean a thousand different things: step mothers, mothers of adopted children, mothers who've used surrogates and hundreds of different types in-between. And that's without even mentioning the amount of mothers who've the heart-breaking agony of losing a child, a baby or a pregnancy. They may not have a hand to hold but they are still mothers.

 

And then there's us. The infertiles. The ones who'd dearly love to become a mother but haven't yet managed it. In 3 years and 3 months I've never seen that magical second line on a pregnancy test yet (with the help of some very talented embryologists) me and Andrew have managed to create 14 little embryos. One is still frozen (affectionately called "Findus"), eleven of them didn't survive past 5 days after conception and the other two have been transferred inside me only to stop growing and die sometime during that dreaded two week wait. Does the fact that we created life make me a mother? You certainly feel like one from the moment the clinic calls you to say how many fertilised right through to the result two weeks later. As far as the generic view from society is though, I haven't given birth therefore I couldn't possibly be a mother.  
 

 

We've looked into adoption and it might be something we do in the future. However it's not the same as having your own and it's definitely not a quick and easy process. The Catch 22 is the amount of criteria you have to meet before you'll even be accepted as potential adoptees. I know of one couple who spent a significant amount of money trying IVF, then after they'd come to terms with not having their own, started researching adoption only to be told they wouldn't be eligible - they didn't have enough savings as they'd spent them on fertility treatment.  The sticking point for me and Andrew is that adoption agencies usually insist on you having experience with children, which of course is quite hard to get if you don't have your own or have any relatives with children. Oh the irony of that. Because of course, each and every first time parent has already had the training course on "how to look after children" and naturally, all of them have a bulging bank account.

 
 

Another big issue in the UK is the fertility fairness funding can of worms. The NICE clinical guidelines recommend three cycles of treatment for women under 40. The reality is that only a handful of local authorities in England offer that, and even then there's usually a long list of criteria you have to meet. The problem comes when each local area decides on their own policy. We get one cycle free in our area. If I lived 5 miles to the west, we'd be offered two cycles free (plus any subsequent frozen cycles). If I lived 20 miles to the east, I'd be offered three. In order to get the NHS funded cycle in our local area some of the things you have to meet include being: over 23; under 40; under 30 on your BMI; never had any previous treatment; a non-smoker and trying for at least 2 years (or 1 if there's a known cause of infertility). I don't necessarily think the NHS should pay for lots of free cycles (I agree, there's often far more important things to spend the money on) but whatever the ruling is - it should be the same in every area. If we all get three - excellent. If we all get two or one - excellent. And if we all get nothing - well, that'd be pretty crappy but at least it would be fair. Interestingly the World Health Organisation class infertility as a disease yet it's probably the only "disease" which provokes such strong reactions in people with regard to NHS funding.  

 
 

I suppose as well, there's always going to be an argument for saying that it's some form of natural selection and if that's what nature intended then so be it. But if it really is a case of survival of the fittest, then there's an awful lot of people who've "survived" who should be a lot more appreciative of their success. I'm not saying everyone takes it for granted, there's a lot of people out there who are incredibly grateful and to them, fair play. Maybe it's just my Facebook news feed but unfortunately it seems there's a large amount who do take it for granted. Fertility is a privilege and one that a lot of us forget we have.

 

 

I don't want to sound bitter (although I'm aware I probably do) and this probably isn't really going anywhere so trying to put a bit more of a positive spin on it, here's a few of the most supportive and helpful resources I've found for infertility over the last few years:

 

• Nuts in May's 'Letter in Green Biro' - one infertile lady's response to Mariella Frostrup's "helpful" agony aunt advice to a reader who couldn't have children. This will make you both cry and punch the air in support.  

• The fertility privilege and why we shouldn't take it for granted.  

• The infertility thread on Money Saving Expert's forum, which has the catchy title of 'The Trials and Tribulations of Trying to Conceive When It's Just Not Happening 12 m+' - the nicest most supportive group of ladies you’ll find on this planet.  

• The Fertility Friends forum - heaps of advice and tips for all stages of your journey. 

• Womb 4 Improvement blog - she's a very funny lady and has lots of advice about everything to do with infertility and treatment.  

• The Barren Blog - no longer updated (as she had a lovely happy ending back in 2010) but still worth a read.  

• TheOneHandMan - infertility and adoption from a man's perspective.  

• Wannabe Dad - one man's journey through ICSI.  

• Infertility Network UK - worth following them on Twitter and Facebook and their site has lots of factsheets but their forum's usually a bit dead.  

• The Fertility Podcast - exactly what it says on the tin, advice and interviews from women who've been there and got the t-shirt.  

• Chelenic’s YouTube channel - you'll have to scroll back a bit in time (she's now mum to twins) but she filmed everything, all the drugs, injections and emotions throughout the whole journey.  

• This IVF due date calculator - very detailed and filled with dates 

• Pinterest is great for morale - I have an IVF board on there with pictures and jokes.

 

And the best advice I can give you...
Any IVF or infertility story on the internet - don't read the comments. Just don't. Especially if it's the Daily Mail. There's a lot of "outraged and ill-informed of Tunbridge Wells" type people out there.
And they are not worth your time.
 

That Was The Year Duck...

So in the age-old tradition (you know, the one I started on 'ere last year) of rounding up the previous year, 2014 was the year Duck...

 

 

January

 

...shared the blog love with some excellent ones to watch in 2014

...met up with Lily and SJ for a blogger beauty-themed day out in Bristol

...managed to stay afloat amidst all the Somerset flooding

...jumped on the ubiquitous 100 Happy Days bandwagon

...bought far too many dresses from Joe Browns

 

 

February

...spent most of the month travelling to and from Bristol Royal Infirmary to visit Andrew's dad who ruptured his oesophagus in January

...shared an A-Z of Books

...dug out her school leaving book from 1999 to see what people thought of her

...looked back at 1998 and compared it to 2014

...met some ducks down at Poole Park



March

...defended Spam to the world
...raised awareness of Down's Syndrome Awareness Week
...felt very old having a day out at a garden centre
...celebrated her first blog birthday by listing why she's a bad blogger
...revealed that her first round of IVF treatment wasn't successful and shared what it was like to go through it



April

...told everyone which comedians they should go and see
...did a photo an hour challenge on Easter Saturday
...visited Cob Records in Porthmadog in celebration of Record Store Day
...defended the humble breadmaker
...completed the 100 Happy Days challenge (and discovered that happiness mostly revolves around food)



May

...shared what she'd do if she won the lottery
...did her first room tour (around the kitchen)
...explained why Andrew was wearing face paint the first night she met him
...told a tale of a small girl in a big city
...completed Rosalilium's Blog Every Day in May challenge for 2014



June

...started an A-Z of Me series
...met lots of lovely girlies at the South West Blog Social in Exeter
...got 4 and half hours sleep over one weekend working at Glastonbury Festival
...met the awesome lady that is Katie (from Hook Line and Sink Her) on a photo an hour challenge day
...shared the news that her second round of IVF treatment didn't succeed and started an Up Adventure Book



July

...pulled off a surprise 70th birthday party for her mother-in-law
...had an excellent day in the sun in Weymouth
...spent the day playing an 1896 fairground organ on a photo an hour challenge day
...visited the Dig for Victory show
...signed up to be an organ donor during National Transplant Week



August

...saw heaps and heaps of shows at Edinburgh Fringe Festival
...got sand in her eyes at Weston Super Mare Sand Sculpture Festival
...wandered round the Mid Somerset Show spotting lots of sheep, ducks and cheese
...stomped through lots of mud at Great Dorset Steam Fair
...watched Andrew help fix vehicles and rides at Carter's Steam Fair



September

...fell in love with Kneehigh Theatre's latest show
...spent a sunny weekend in Cornwall
...pulled off a mystery tour for father-in-law's 74th birthday on a photo an hour challenge day
...visited some trains and ate some cake at Didcot Railway Centre
...fell off her doorstep and broke her ankle in spectacular fashion resulting in two broken bones, dislocation, four days in hospital, a operation, 3 and half months off work, three screws and a metal plate.



October

...judged a Carnival procession whilst her ankle was in plaster
...learnt to knit by making some decorations for her crutches
...knitted a scarf
...visited the West Somerset Railway in her wheelchair and discovered the most amazing hot chocolate
...had her plaster cast removed and made a start towards learning to walk again



November

...celebrated a fairground wedding with Paul Daniels as the evening entertainment
...met David Mitchell
...had an epic road trip to Maidenhead, Bristol and Weston Super Mare
...reminisced over the 1990s
...explained the difference between carousels and gallopers



December

...knitted herself an advent calendar
...celebrated her in-law's 50th wedding anniversary
...turned 32 with a trip to London
...revisited her 32 Before 32 list and realised she hadn't done too badly after all
...and finally, got rid of her crutches and went back to just her own two flippers!



Here's to a slightly less eventful 2015, a year which hopefully won't feature hospitals quite so much - at least, not in any bad way!
 

July Happiness

Five things which made me smile this month...

 

 

1. Actually managing to pull off a surprise 70th birthday party for the mother in law - complete with a vintage vehicle display, fairground organ, 120 guests and a hog roast - and she had no idea!

 

 

 

2. A lovely day out in Weymouth with Andrew.

 

 

 

3. Discovering how awesome Grillstock is! There'll be a proper blog post about it next week. :-)

 

 

 

4. Spending a day playing our friend's 1896 fairground organ at a steam rally in Somerset. I don't know why I like it really, it's just really good fun feeding books of music through the organ!

 

 

 

5. Ringing up our fertility clinic to book in for our next bit of IVF treatment. Even though the actual embryo transfer bit won't be til the end of September you have to get started with drugs and tests about 6-8 weeks before. My next thing is the delightfully named endometrial scratch (which, if you know what your endometrium is, the procedure is exactly what it says on the tin!)

 

 

 

 

What little things made you happy this month?

June Happiness

Five things which made me smile this month...

 

 

1. Meeting lots of fabulous bloggers at the South West Blog Social and meeting Katie for lunch out at Farringtons Farm Shop.

 

 

 

2. The lovely comments left on our 'Up Advenuture Book' blog post.
 

 

 

3. Buying heaps of tickets for theatre and comedy shows at the Edinburgh Fringe Festival.
 

 

 

4. Glastonbury Festival!

 

 

 

5. A BBQ with both families in our back garden
(luckily we managed to schedule it just before the rain arrived for Pilton!).

 

 

 

 

What little things made you happy this month?
 

Our Up Adventure Book

"What doesn’t kill you makes you stronger"
 

That’s the cliche, isn’t it?
(as immortalised by Kelly Clarkson and then brilliantly ripped off by the awesome Frisky and Mannish).

 

So yup, if you hadn't already guessed, second round of IVF treatment – an “excellent response” according to the doctors – but still no second little line, still not pregnant, still no baby.

 

I guess that makes me even stronger than before, right?

 

 In reality though...

Do I feel like a failure sometimes? Of course.

Are we going to give up? I don’t effing think so! Not just yet anyway.

 (in case anyone wondered about adoption, it is something we’ve talked about (and might still do) and I thoroughly admire anyone who’s taken that road. It’s a difficult decision, there’s a helluva lot of investigations, problems, red tape and paperwork involved quite apart from the things you have to come to terms with personally – I just don’t think me or Andrew are ready to take that path yet).

 

 

Our second round of treatment left us with one positive thing though – in our little sanctuary of a fertility clinic, we have a teensy tiny microscopic little embryo that’s been cryogenically preserved at -196°C. Once you’ve had one embryo transferred back into you, if there’s any leftover that are absolutely tip-top quality, the clinic will freeze them so you can use them at a later date. The procedure for a ‘frozen embryo transfer’ is a lot less hassle, still with medication (but no needles, yay!) and about £4000 cheaper than a complete cycle starting from scratch.

So we’ve decided to give that route a go after the summer – we can both have a bit of a break, we’ve got a lot of things on over the next few months and I expect my hormones are probably shot to pieces after all the drugs anyway.

 

Of course, there’s always a chance that won’t work either and at some point you have to face reality. That takes some getting used to, the idea that you might be elderly and sat round the dinner table at Christmas just staring at each other. We haven’t got (or have any chance of) any nieces or nephews so it really would be just the two of us. Even if we went down the adoption route, there’s no guarantee we’d be approved or even have a child matched to us so a life without any little feet is something we may well have to think about.

 

You know the Disney film Up? (Of course you do, you’re all bloggers or blog-readers). We can’t watch the first 30 minutes without shedding a tear and there’s been many a time I’ve felt like Ellie in that scene with the doctor at the hospital. The one thing they do have though, is their 'Adventure Book' with all the wild and wonderful things they’d like to do.
 

We thought we’d put together something similar. I have a notebook I’ve been hoarding since the age of 15, just waiting to do something magical with and if we were going to let our imagination run wild, there’s a load of things we could include.
 

 

I need to sit down and take some time to cut and paste and colour in all our ideas but we’ve made a start gathering some things from magazines, leaflets and various places.

 

Maybe I won’t even need to finish it.

It’s just a silly harmless idea really - but it kinda helps.