Fertile challenged, anyone?

I think I am actually still in a little shock at the moment.

I mean, I can think and write quite sensibly today about work and home and general day-to-day nothingness, but then I have to think about my fertility. And everything swims a little bit. And I get a bit dazed and weepy... and can't quite get my head around things.

Y'see, not only am I trying to become the next top Criminologist in the country (never mind the next Nigella Lawson) but I'm also trying to become a parent. I'd love to have a baby. I dream about children, always thought it was just one of those things that would happen, eventually, and it would all fall together easily.

But life's not like that. For some of us.

From when we got married and said, let's throw away the pill and get down to the fun of babymaking... to now, 18 months later and what have I got to show for it? Countless failed cycles and then today's news.

I'm racing ahead again.

Time to think rationally and start at the beginning.
I have endometriosis. It's mild. It's not conception-threatening, or so I thought. It's uncomfortable, it's painful, but I can cope with it.
We tried to conceive for about eight months before I started getting quite "stressed". I started to wonder if something was really wrong. All around me people were planning and getting pregnant or accidentally falling pregnant and babies were being born left, right and centre. I went to christenings. They weren't easy but we did our bit.

I eventually went to the doctor and said I want to investigate this further.

Now, there are plenty of people out there, so so many, who have suffered with infertility for years and years and years, and I am a relative newcomer with only 16 cycles under my belt, but the shock when it hits is just horrendous. Suddenly, the thing you should be able to do without even thinking about it, the thing you've been using birth control to avoid for all of your twenties and some of your thirties, that THING is just not possible. And I don't know for how long. I don't know if it will ever be possible, or to what lengths I might have to go to to achieve it.

So, the gynie meets us both and (practically) laughs at us: Trying for 13 months, ha! In the old days when women didn't read the internet or educate themselves, they'd be trying for at least two years before we'd even consider seeing them..
That kind of approach. Now, he was a nice man but I think he was expecting us to fall out of his clinic and fall pregnant within hours of our first visit - you know the drill, once you start investigations you suddenly conceive "naturally"

Well, it doesn't happen to everyone. And it didn't to us.

So we fastforward another three months and I had a horrible procedure called a "hsg" done (I won't spell the whole thing, most people wouldn't know what it was if you pronounced its "full" name). A radiographer basically inserts die into your cervix and this should show up on an xray and show two working, functioning tubes and a healthy womb.

Shit. Fuck. Shite.

Only one tube showed up. Only one. My lovely left tube, which has always caused me the most endo pain and I thought was the problem area all along, is working a bloody treat. It looked beautiful on the xray - I kid you not!
But the right one... couldn't quite make it out. Didn't seem to be working. No working tube, no egg to reach it's warm home. No baby nine months later.

Now I KNOW you only need one tube to work to make a baby, but I THINK I've just found out I've half the chance of most "normal" women.

Is it going to take twice as long?
Is this just the beginning?
Am I now - officially - "infertile". I guess not, I have one working tube.

So maybe I am now - officially - Fertile-challenged.

And I still don't think it's sunk in yet....

Crime might pay a wee bit ...

Hurray!
I have finally managed to put my foot in the door, no - make that toe in the door! - of the crime world! I started the new year feeling miserable and thinking I would never get a job in this area and I decided I was just going to apply for all and sundry that came along...

So, three job applications and one phd submission later.. two of the three jobs want to interview me and the phd people loved my idea! (Or at least, I thought they did, more on that later!)

Before I even had time to go along for interviews though, another possible job came along... I was offered an opportunity to work one day per week as a research assistant at the university where I teach (also once a week, for a very small fee!). I ummed and ahhhed and decided to only go along to one of the two interviews, after which I decided I'd much rather be an RA than a Database Manager so I pulled out of the application process for job number 2.

That left me with an eight month RA position, once a week... and a possible interest in my phd.

My phd proposal is based upon the dissertation I wrote for my Masters degree. It centres around a comparative study of experiences of crime and victimisation. It's not something I'm HUGELY passionate about, but I did think it would be a really interesting option and would be a worthwhile piece of research ...

So a university comes along and says, yes, we love your proposal and would like to put it forward for our Vice Chancellors award. Are you interested?
Me: Yes
Them: Mind if we tweak it a little first?
Me: Depends what area is being tweaked!
Fastforward to a telephone conversation with one of the lecturers who "really likes" my idea but suggests "How about an ethnographic study of one school"...
Me: Umm, yes. OK.

48 hours later...

Me: Umm, actually no.

I really really really would LOVE to do a phd, but I really want to do it in an area I'M interested in. An ethnographic study of school children's opinions of crime just made me want to cringe. I just don't think it would engage me or interest me enough for THREE whole years....
I wanted to do a comparative study. There are so few out there.
Maybe I am aiming too high. But ultimately, I don't want to do an ethnographic study.

So I pulled out.

Then I thought, oh god, what have I done? What if this is my one opportunity to do a phd and I've turned it down (although of course the funding was not guaranteed, I would have had to be shortlisted, etc, etc)??

Hubby was very supportive. And encouraging. And sensible:
It would've meant me moving to another city - or driving 2 hours one-way two to three days per week if I'd got it. It would've been in an area I wasn't enthralled with. It wouldn't have been RIGHT. For me.

So I took hubby's comments on board and here I go again....

Still working part-time as an RA, at least for the next eight months... and still teaching one afternoon per week, for the next three months...

And of course still a secretary...

But we're getting there... slowly.. but getting there

GG