Now that it’s February I’m very firmly of the opinion that I’ll never be able to keep a diary going for longer than a week, nor write posts any more often than every 6 weeks or so. The only thing I have to say in my defense is that I’ve been having a pretty rough time of it lately with a pickle of a hiccup at work (putting it very mildy indeed – I was screaming inside in sheer terror for the 11 straight hours that I was at my desk on Monday before last) and that general malaise that sets in around this time of year when it’s clear that the resolutions – diary keeping, sensible diet, exercising etc – are dead, gone and buried under a mountain of naughty treaty treat biccies and apathy induced take aways. Still our local chinese, the Jade Garden, does make the best chicken balls (stop sniggering in the back!) such that friend willingly brave the M25 and A1M to travel to visit it, and us so they claim.
Today, however, I find myself not engaged in working like a maniac, but sitting surrounded by beads yet again, wondering what to make next.� My other option is to go and do house work but I really don’t wanna!
I did call the clinic though to ask about when we’d hear back about when we’d be able to start treatment – or rather I would and Jon would have to ferry me about.� Having shelled out a grand to reserve sperm just over a month ago we are naturally keen to know if they are actually doing anything. It seems they have just received a new shipment – the mind and imagination boggles – and we might hear in a week or so if any of it matches.
Those of you who follow the state of fertility treatment in the UK will probably know that due to a change in the law so that sperm donors’ identities can be made know to their offspring when they reach a certain age, the number of donors has since dropped. This means that sperm now has to be imported – and ours could be Danish.
Since both my husband and I have no qualms in telling in our children – should we be lucky – how they came about I am hopeful that this will curb any teenage� miffs that cause them to run off to find their biological father and generally be a nuisance to them.� Not that I particularly want to wear our difficulties as a badge of honour. But I don’t think that pretending that our attempts to have children are without their difficulties and impositions. Looking back on the rather lax sex education that I got when I was 12, which was in Ireland and at a National (Catholic) School, and again by way of biology class in Secondary School I feel that an awful lot was left out. Of course no one likes the idea of teenage pregnancy – apart from those that you near about in the news who race their sisters to childbirth and council flats – but trying to tell teenages not to have sex is a sure fire way of getting their interest. Getting them to use protection is far more important but not only as a means of preventing children – because it isn’t necessarily that easy – but to prevent disease.
Looking back on things I get rather annoyed at the ‘don’t do it because you’ll get pregnant’. They never address what you should do once you are married or in a statble relationship where both partners want to have a family. You never learn how long should you try for before approaching your GP. That you should demand that the male partner is tested at the same time that you have to endure all kinds of uncomfortable proceedures. My feeling is that the male should be tested first – getting him to pop into a cup to test that there is any viable sperm in the first place is a lot easier than having to have daily scans, your tubes checked for blockages, etc. Also if you are in the UK, find out what treatment the NHS will and won’t do. For us in Befordshire, we can not be treated as the major problem is with my husband. Male infertility is harder to treat: so probably, in an effort to preserve their success rates, we’ve had no choice but to go private. The one thing to be said for this though is that it does mean that you wouldn’t have to sit in an NHS waiting room with a young woman who is clearly much younger than you and obviously ill-prepared nor as keen to have a child as you are who has just found out that she is pregnant while you are waiting to go in to be told yet again that they don’t know what the problem is and tell you rudely when you take this news tearfully but quietly that ‘Life isn’t fair and you should learn to deal with it’
And so ends a calmer rant than usual.
I’m going to sign off now and make myself another completely fake Latte but enjoy it roundly. Hopefully I’ll post again before another 6 weeks is up!
