Rant of the year

I don't normally rant but, boy oh boy,
today is the day!

I talked to my (female) boss today about taking a personal leave (sick) day or two for the embryo transfer and perhaps the day after too, so that I can rest and give it a good chance to work this time (I also suggested 1 sick day and 1 work from home day as an option). I now have 3 personal (sick) leave days accrued as I've not taken anything since our last IVF surgery in Jan.

To give you some background my boss is a 40 year old single woman workaholic with very little life outside work who's favourite thing is to 'take work home for bed-time reading' and who has extremely high expectations of me and my team of 5 ladies who work for her as account managers.

To my request for personal leave she said 'that's fine but I just have to be mindful that the company is being quite lenient and that an embryo transfer would not necessarily class as sick/personal leave'

Can you believe the audacity?!

I then said in an even voice 'well on every occasion the hospital and ivf specialist have offered to write me a sick note and I just haven't asked for one before, as I didn't think it would be required - but I'd be happy to get one this time?'

That shut her up pretty quickly.

Does she think that I f-ing WANT this shit in my life?!!!!!! Like I am taking personal/sick leave because I feel like it or because I want to 'bunk off' work?! Does she realise that I did not CHOOSE to have these issues with conceiving a child. That I have not chosen to be an infertility statistic!?

If only she knew how hard this all was!?

Does she even realise how important it is that I rest after the transfer as much as possible!? It's like she has no clue about any of this even though I've told her rest is so important and that this is costing us $1000s and that we don't get many shots at it so we have to make every appointment, every test, every transfer count.

She makes my fracking blood boil!

I kind of wish I'd never told her about the IVF or anything in the first place - That I'd never had the respect to be honest with her. That way, she wouldn't think that she has the right to personally decide what constitutes a sick day or not!

Yes. I don't have many personal leave days available - it doesn't take much when you are going through infertility to use 10 days annual personal leave up (a full laparoscopy, suspected early miscarriage, full IVF drug cycle with egg collection and a heavy bout of flu plus the odd tummy bug in between) and that's 10 days gone. I was even told by the nurse to take a full week's leave for the lap last April but didn't, and only took 3 days in the end.

If I end up going into annual/unpaid leave in the next 6 months because I end up having a miscarriage or require another egg collection surgery then so be it! That's my business anyway.

I work damned hard for my company and do a great job. The least she could do is take the time to think (or do some research) before she decides that an embryo transfer doesn't class as a personal leave day!

Rant over!!!!!

Ps: I'd love to find out how everyone else copes with juggling time of work for ART treatments and/or horrid, bitchy bosses!?

Finding the courage to continue on this journey

Hi everyone

It's been so nice catching up on your blogs this week :-) We arrived back from New Zealand a week ago.

It was a beautiful holiday - a real chance for B and I to reconnect with each other again after what has been a pretty full-on 6 months. We camper-vanned the southern part of the South Island doing lots of spectacular day hikes up mountains and to see amazing waterfalls, drinking lovely Sauv blanc, eating yummy food and spending time with special friends.

My batteries were completely flat before I left but now I feel re-charged!

How could, immersing oneself in a place like the below, possibly NOT do that?!

B took the above photo on one of our many walks.

As for the high risk of DVT (after my gene mutation diagnosis last month), I wore my flight stockings and took low dose aspirin daily both before, during and after the holiday (about 14 days in total). Coincidentally, this perfectly tied in with my ovulation and luteal phase, so, as you can guess, I felt hopeful that maybe taking the aspirin (combined with our glorious and relaxing holiday) would somehow give us a miracle natural conception this month. Alas, my pd started yesterday.

But it's ok. I'm getting quite used to it now, after all this time.

The other reason I am ok, is because I went walking yesterday morning and saw the most amazing sunrise - I was feeling a bit down about yet another month without any luck falling pregnant (can I say here that we are now 2 months away from the 2.5 year TTC mark).

Here is how the sunrise started:

I was walking along and something about this particular sunrise really got my attention. There were these amazing sun-rays radiating out from behind the clouds. It was like someone was trying to send me a message. As I walked and soaked up this amazing sight, I felt better and better. I thought about everything that we have, everything that we are so grateful for. My spirit kept lifting and lifting.

And then, about 20 minutes later, the sun literally burst out from behind the clouds and covered me in warm, startlingly bright light (it felt amazing as it was around 12 degrees outside so quite chilly!). At that moment, what I can only describe as a voice (as I don't ever remember hearing anything like this before) said to me, loud and clear: "your turn is coming"

At that moment, my whole body broke out in goose bumps and my eyes literally welled up with tears. I even looked around me to see if there were any other walkers or joggers who had noticed me, but luckily I was all alone on the path. It was also too bright and I was too overwhelmed to take another photo at that point - :-) !

Needless to say, I've felt a deep sense of calm ever since.

I can now walk into this next phase of our journey with courage and a warm and open heart, as well as the reassurance of this very special message.

I am so grateful for this.

I hope you all have a lovely weekend. :-)
B

Off to New Zealand

Thank you so much for your words encouragement and support on my last post :-)

I am off to New Zealand for 10 days.

I don't think I've ever needed a holiday more in my life.

I think I'm suffering from work stress and infertility 'burn out'.

I'm sure I'll also look top notch in my sexy flight socks! Ha ha.

Lots of hugs to you all,
B

Always, always trust your gut instinct...

Just wanted to share the news with you all.

B and I went to the doc this morning.

Not the best of news but at least we know what the issue is and I can get treatment.

My gut feel was right!!!

I have a genetic blood disorder that puts me at a very high risk (to be precise a 3 times greater risk) of deep vein thrombosis – clotting. I have the Prothrombin G20210A Gene Mutation. The doctor said I am high risk to fly and need to wear flight socks and take aspirin any time I fly (and make sure I walk around as much as possible through the flight). He said that he has seen many cases of young women flying and then simply dropping dead suddenly due to this condition.

It is also a very real possibility that it has been affecting our ability to conceive so he will be able to treat me for this during our next frozen embryo cycle. The treatment will be a special type of aspirin daily from embryo transfer until 12 weeks pregnancy!!!!!!

It’s a bit of a shock (even though it was what I suspected) and I must say, I just feel so lucky that nothing bad has happened to me so far especially with all the flying I do (and have done) over the years for both work and holidays!

Not only could this piece of info be the key to us conceiving, it could literally save my life.

I won't even begin to get onto the subject of why the freaking hell doctors don't test for this sort of thing as standard!

Interestingly my paternal grandmother has the same thing. Our FS confirmed that it definitely runs in families.

We are very relieved to say that all the other blood tests were clear.

As always, thanks again for all your love and support through this. Here's hoping that our long-held dream of becoming parents will become a reality soon.

Blood test results tomorrow - eek!

I've been a bit scarce for a while as I've been travelling so much!

I was up in Sydney and Newcastle for a work trip and for B's birthday celebrations and then flew to Noosa in Queensland for a 4 day company conference. I am knackered!


It's so good to be home - it was delightful to get back to a sparkling clean house, clean laundry and bed linen as well as a fridge full of food and a roast chicken in the oven. Bless my DH.


Here is a pic of one of my sunrise walks on the beach in Noosa - the only free time I had was at 5.30am in the morning for my solo beach walks - the rest was just conference, conference, conference... aargh!

That said, I caught up on all your blogs today - it was so nice to catch up on everyone's news!

B and I are off to the doctor tomorrow for my blood test results (testing for possible immunologic implantation dysfunction).

The tests cost a lot of money (as with everything infertility related!) but hopefully the results will be able to shed some light on things, even if it's just to say that I am 'all good', and we were just one of the many unlucky ones who didn't find success on their first IVF transfer. If there is an issue, I can get some treatment. Treatment means more money, but what is money compared to the precious-ness of holding your own child?

And maybe we will soon be able to fulfill our long held dream of seeing those two beautiful lines on a darned pee stick!