Getting Amani

I am a little teapot

2007-02-04T16:53:00.000-08:00

Once of the many charming effects of PCOS is the tendency to gain weight especially in the 'trunk area' as one of my many i'm-infertile-how-about-you? books quotes. 'Trunk area'..heh... makes me feel like an elephant...which I guess is appropriate in the circumstances. I used to be quite slim in my teens, until I hit my mid-20s. Of course, the amount of chocolate I ate didn't help either but I'm still blaming the PCOS for my enlarged trunk area. Makes finding new clothes a pain though. Obviously I can't fit into the slim waisted tops but the bigger blouses are just too big since apart from the trunk area (i can't seem to stop saying it...trunk area trunk area trunk area...maybe this is why I can't get a child, I am still so bloody immature despite being in my 30s), the rest of me isn't so enlarged, so the big sized tops usually end up giving me the poncho look. But I guess fashion shouldn't be my main concern right now...But I wish people would just stop asking me how many months along I am!

Adoption?

2006-12-06T23:25:00.000-08:00

I cry everytime I watch the Hallmark specials on adoption. It's one option I've considered. But my fear is of course that I won't be able to love another person's child as my own. And later, what if I do get pregnant? Will I be able to hide the fact that I somehow have a more special bond with my biological child? Is my heart big enough to love my adopted child as if he or she came from me?

It's a big decision to make. Perhaps, even bigger than the decision to get pregnant. And I feel hesitant.

But then I think, there's so many unfortunate abandoned children out there that need a home. And I have a home to give.

I guess I'm just afraid that I may not be able to give the love that this poor child rightly deserves. And a loveless home may be even worse than no home at all.

taking a break

2006-10-31T19:37:00.000-08:00

I stopped going to my doctor. I was tired of trying. I was tired of getting kicked in the stomach each time I discovered I wasn't pregnant - yet again. I was tired of hoping.

There were so many flowers in my garden now. My neighbours admired them. I spent all of my free time sitting on the ground with my faithful gardening companion next to me. I would dig in the ground to replant something and Munchy would be right there literally sticking his nose into it, looking up at me as if to ask "Are you sure this is a good spot?" Other times he would just race around the lawn, chasing after grasshoppers, catching them and bringing back his 'trophy' to me. I know some people might find this a bit sad but I took to calling myself Mummy when I spoke to him (great - now I'm both sad AND crazy). He was my white furry baby who nestled against my toes as we watched TV together. It was a different kind of love but it was good. I began to feel a bit better. I think part of the bitterness of failing to get pregnant was that I had pented up in me all this love and nurturing that I wanted to give to a child and taking care of Munchy allowed me to release this love.

sex = lima beans/broccoli

2006-08-17T19:55:00.000-07:00

there's nothing quite like having to have sex to turn off the hotness of sex. it's like having to finish your vegetables when you were a kid before you can have dessert.

before, it was "honey, you're sexy/i'm horny. let's do it".

now, it's "honey, i don't care how tired you are, it's the 14th day, i'm supposedly ovulating, just do me, then you can watch tv later". Rrrrow!

baby NOT on board

2006-08-17T19:50:00.000-07:00

I officially hate the "Baby on Board" sign that people stick to the back of their cars. It's a smug little yellow poster mocking me "I have a baby on board and you don't".

I have turned into a bitter bitter bitter woman.

the day munchy came to stay

2006-08-17T18:55:00.000-07:00

I went away for work one weekend. When I came back on Sunday night, my husband stood in the doorway, grinning, looking very proud of himself. "Surprise!" he cried out. I went inside the house. Okay, no party there. Then I saw him, cowering under the staircase, poor thing. He was white all over with pink ears and the sweetest pink nose that in the months to come would nestle against me and heal me. He came from an animal shelter and his name was Munchy and I loved him from the moment he came to me and rubbed his furry head against my leg.

playing mother earth

2006-08-17T18:38:00.000-07:00

I threw myself into gardening. I had never so much as held a spade before in my life but here I was trudging up and down plant nurseries, buying gardening-for-idiots books and magazines, learning about soil acidity and whatnot and getting up at 6am on a Saturday morning to dig around in the garden until lunch. I couldn't grow a baby so by hell, i'm going to try and grow the biggest garden in the neighbourhood. I was like a man who has to get the biggest car to compensate for his shortcomings.

hiding beneath a rock

2006-08-10T18:23:00.000-07:00

I started to avoid family gatherings, friends' weddings, friends' children's birthday parties. Any event that reminded me or that had the potential of having stupid people come up to me to remind me about the fact that I didn't have a baby yet.

because i just love to torture myself

2006-08-10T18:20:00.000-07:00

In between all the lovely fertility treatments and the zapping of my ovaries, just to add more drama because there just wasn't enough frustration and heartache, I would buy a self-pregnancy kit during my lunch hour and lock myself up in the bathroom. I'd take a deep breath, remind myself that the more likely reason that I was late was not because I was pregnant but because I was never that regular anyway and to not expect the second blue line to appear. But deep down, I knew I was lying to myself. I was an eternal optimist. Despite my attempt to tell myself to be realistic, I was almost convinced that THIS time that sodding second blue line would appear, even though it never had the many many previous times I had tortured myself with it. It was the same episode each time, I'd take the test, wait the longest 2 minutes of my life, look at the kit and burst into tears that there was only one blue line mocking me. It's amazing how a little plastic strip can have the potential to just rip your heart out.

this is so not a balinese massage

2006-08-01T00:16:00.000-07:00

In addition to the medical treatments, I tried other ways to get pregnant. I started taking honey because it was supposed to promote fertility and because a friend of a friend of a friend once heard about a woman who was barren but who started taking honey and almost immediately got pregnant. After more than 3 years of trying, I was already grasping at straws.

Another friend called, she had been trying to get pregnant for a year. A whole bloody year!! I stopped myself from screaming down the phone. Anyway, she had wonderful news, she said, she was pregnant! And all this after going for a massage. Being a smart woman, she quickly gave me the name and number of this special masseuse and said goodbye so that I could break down properly at her pregnancy news. I know this was selfish of me. I wanted to be happy for her. But I had become more selfish and self-involved at my continuing failure to conceive.

Anyway, back to the massage. I love massages. And this one claims to be able to get me pregnant. What more could I ask for?

What could I have asked for??? Painkillers, that's what! I had to see the masseuse 3 nights in a row in order for it to work. She kneaded and kneaded my abdomen, claiming to push my womb into an optimum position for baby-making. The first night was bearable but by the third night, I was already in tears with pain. My whole abdomen/womb area felt bruised and battered. But I had to go the long haul. I had to do this properly and bear it if it had the potential to give me what I wanted most of all, a baby. And if I was willing to bear childbirth, then what is a little massage, painful though it was. As I said, I was grasping at straws.

sometimes i am just too bloody stupid

2006-07-31T21:28:00.000-07:00

I stay overnight at the hospital after the laser surgery. A doctor comes to check up on me. It isn't my own doctor. She didn't even bother come to see or check on me at all actually. Whatever, I thought, longing to go home. The doctor who checks me tells me to return in 6 months if I'm still not pregnant.

6 months of trying.

Still no baby.

I come back to see my doctor. As usual I wait for hours and hours and only get to see her for 10 minutes, tops. She tells me I should have come to see her earlier. I said - the doctor who checked me said to only come back in 6 months. And if I had to see her earlier, why didn't she call me then? Oh well, she said, different doctors have different approaches. That was her lame excuse. So basically, the laser surgery had been a waste of time. She wanted me to take Clomid within the month after the operation - something which she didn't tell me before.

And here's where I get pissed at myself when I think back on this. Instead of changing doctors at this point, I STILL go back to her the next month for another appointment. Sometimes I am just too bloody stupid.

But thank God, this time, divine intervention led to my doctor being sick on that day and me being attended to by a substitute doctor from another clinic. This substitute doctor looked at my chart and immediately told me, "You have Polycystic Ovarian Syndrome. I'm going to prescribe to you the same medicine as a person with Type 2 diabetes - It's a pill called Metformin. I want you to take it with Clomid".

Finally, finally, a proper diagnosis of PCOS, something my actual doctor never gave and she never ever mentioned metformin, just kept yapping on about how I should start saving up for IVF.

zzzzzap!

2006-07-31T21:26:00.000-07:00

So I go ahead with the laser surgery.

It's a simple operation, I read. I change into the charming hospital gown with the standard modesty-challenged ribbonned back, took off my watch and earrings and contact lens and laid on the bed, staring at the ceiling with my blurried vision, waiting to be wheeled into the operating theatre.

A nurse enters the room and wheels me out. We pass by the cold hospital hallways. I look up at the squares of flourescent light passing above me. I turn my head and see the curious faces of strangers, probably wondering what I have. But when we get to the operating theatre, my doctor is still in surgery with a patient. So instead of wheeling me back to the room, the nurse parks me at a little corner at the end of the theatre. I can't see the operation because there's a curtain blocking my view but BOY can I hear it.

I hear my doctor's voice as she barks orders to the nurses. I later hear her pick up the phone to talk to the patient's husband - " I need your consent to remove your wife's womb. I told her already that she should remove it. The cyst is too big. She's already 40, it's unlikely she'll be having another baby, she's bleeding too much already. Her womb needs to be removed, okay? Okay?" And with that, she ends the call and proceeds to remove the poor lady's womb.

God, I didn't need to hear THAT. And I forgot to leave my husband with the very important message of whatever happens, make sure they don't take out my womb! I think about getting up and going to find him. But how am I going to that? I could barely see without my lens, I was wearing this ridiculous hospital gown. I couldn't very well walk around the hospital, groping about with my hands in the air , shouting "Honey? honey?", mooning everyone in sight and hope to remain inconspicuous. So instead I lay there on the bed thinking, OhmyGodOhmyGodOhmyGod.

Later, the anaesthetist comes. I count back from ten and I'm out. I thought I would gradually fall asleep but instead it was more like having a light switched off. Instant blankness. And almost as quickly as I was switched off, they switched me on again. "Mrs N, Mrs N," a nurse shook me awake. I opened my eyes groggily. I had expected to feel rested after being gassed but it felt like only a second had passed. I saw my husband standing behind the nurse, with my handbag slung on his shoulder. That made me smile.

my eggs are anorexic

2006-04-25T18:16:00.000-07:00

It was time to bite the bullet and go for tests to see what the problem was.

It wasn't him.

It was me. The doctor said my eggs were too small, they were only 1/3 of the size they should be. Go figure. Of all the parts of my body that was too small, it just had to be my eggs, not my butt or my belly or my chin.

She stuck a plastic tube shaped thing inside me - it had a camera on the end and she swivelled the damn thing around inside me to show me what underachievers my eggs were. "See there," she pointed to the screen, "your eggs are only 6mm in diameter, it should at least be 18mm". She turned the tube thing to the right to show the other side of my ovaries. By this time, my eyes were already watering with the pain from all the swivelling going on, that I just blindly nodded at the screen. It was just all blobs of black and white to me. She showed me pockets of shadows which were allegedly my eggs. Really? Didin't look particularly eggy to me. How could those dark patches claim to be my eggs? Shouldn't they at least resemble something circular. But by the third time of me saying "Where? I'm not sure I see it", I could see she was getting irritated.

She prescribed Clomid, the standard fertility pill.

I took it.

Still no baby.

At the next appointment, she swivelled the damn camera tube again, round and round, to the left then to the right. God, it stings. This time I can't see even the screen through my tears of pain. She tells me childbirth is going to be a lot more painful. Gee thanks. That makes me feel ever so much better. "Your eggs are still too small". She prescribed another round of Clomid.

I took it.

Still no baby.

A third appointment, same result, same prescribed medication.

Still no baby.

This time the doctor tells me I should go for a laser surgery to blast my ovaries. Don't I sort of need my ovaries to get pregnant? I ask. She tells me it will jumpstart my ovaries, so to speak, into making bigger normal sized eggs. And, she happily tells me, if that doesn't work, you'll have to go for IVF or if that fails, you'll just have to adopt.

Very flippant. Just like that.

But stupidly, instead of changing to a doctor with at least better manners, I stick with her. I am a sucker for inertia and I hate all doctors anyway. Who's to say the next one would be better.

an even worse question

2006-04-19T19:13:00.000-07:00

an even worse question to get asked than 'are you pregnant yet?' is "when are you due?"

Aaargh!!!!!

the most effective way to shut such a nosy insensitive person is to answer bluntly "i'm not pregnant, i'm just fat" and watch them squirm as they try to take their foot out of their mouth and back track to give a response to that. that's if they're actually really nice underneath all that nosy idiocity. if they're not, then you could get the classic case of one moronic twit who asked me when my due date was and when i said i wasn't pregnant, was unperturbed and instead rubbed even more salt into my wound by saying "you're not? really? are you sure? you look really pregnant" yes, you stupid wankeress, i'm quite sure, now why don't you just jump up into your own ass and die. The memory of that incident still burns me up. Stupid idiotic woman.

first anniversary

2006-04-19T19:07:00.000-07:00

a year passed. no baby. Okay, i thought, though with less enthusiasm than before. I'm glad I had a carefree first year of marriage but ideally, i would like to move on to become a mommy now. how hard could it be? millions of sperm make their way to one egg - surely the odds must be that at least one of these millions is bound to make the hit. how hard can it be to get pregnant? plus, the question from countless number of people about whether we were pregnant or not was already starting to get annoying and downright intrusive. enough already with THAT question! ask me about anything else, my job, my hobbies, my take on the latest celebrity gossip, other than the tedious unoriginal 'is there anything in your belly' wink*wink.

questions little old ladies just have to ask

2006-04-19T19:00:00.000-07:00

Of course, towards the end of the year we were married, we got asked the inevitable question that aunts and other old ladies seem genetically programmed to raise - are we pregnant yet?

The first couple of times, it was easy to give a little smile and answer politely "no, not yet". It was still easy to continue smiling politely at what came out next from these old ladies' mouths about how we shouldn't wait too long before having a child.

It had only been 6 months since we got married. I was happy not to have to face the responsibilities of being a mother. And in my happiness, I could grin and bear these tedious question and sermon sessions.

too much cake can be a bad thing

2006-04-19T18:48:00.000-07:00

The months went by and I didn't get pregnant. Great, I thought. I can have my cake and eat it too - I can have sex without having to fiddle around with contraceptives, which let's face it, either invades you on a medical level (pill, IUD) or on a romantic level (nothing like having to stop for a moment to put on a condom/diaphragm to kill the mood a little) but without having to deal with the 'burden' of impending motherhood. I could stay out late with friends, something I was never able to do before I got married because my parents were a lot stricter than my husband, I could splurge on massages and spa sessions without having to worry too much about having to save up for a little one's college fund, I could sleep in the entire Saturday if I wanted too, peacefully eat cookies while reading in bed. All in all, life was pretty blissful.

Be careful what you wish for

2006-04-17T23:40:00.000-07:00

I got married in July 2000. I was 25. We decided to throw caution to the wind and not use any contraception. If we made a baby that night or on the nights after that, then it was just meant to be. But in a quiet moment as I was unpacking, I thought to myself, how nice it would be if we didn't become parents straight away.