Friday, 21 September 2012

Bumps To Baby Part One

A word of warning. This blog post could be a tad tedious until you get to the twist at the end. Which most of you already know anyway. So, I apologise for boring you.  Then again, it is what I do best.  Boring people, that is. It's a gift I have. The ability to be a crashing, heaving bore.  We shouldn't waste our gifts, presumably, so here goes. Brace yourself.

There came a time after Micky Blue Eyes and I were married for a year or so, when I fervently desired to become Up The Duffian.  This was in spite of an overwhelming, irrational fear of childbirth.  Actually, let me re-think that. It's not entirely irrational to be afraid of growing another human being inside you, then having to push said human being out your,..erm, va jay jay.  That shit hurts. Like hell.  The idea of that kind of, sort of, um... actually totally FREAKED ME OUT.

Professor type dude
So, consequently it was somehow rather ironic when it seemed as if it wasn't going to happen after all.  My girly bits were not co-operating and doing what they were supposed to. Apparently this was due to some pesky thing called PCOS or Polycystic Ovary Syndrome.

This led to me having to see some Professor type fertility dude,  and being jabbed with drugs.  Not the fun kind that might make you happy, the crappy kind that make you moody, bloated and basically like you have a permanent case of feral PMS.  It may have been worth it had it worked. It didn't. I was pumped full of drugs and still not in the pudding club.

By this time we were several years into trying and beginning to become extremely despondent and disillusioned with the whole bumps to baby  thing.  We decided to take a break from the treatment.

Then, one Saturday shortly thereafter, we were having a lazy day at home. I started experiencing stomach pains. Figuring it must be something I ate, I put up with it.  The pain intensified and before long I was doubled over agony.  The pain was excruciating, I had never experienced anything like it.

Then came the projectile vomiting. I was Linda Blair in the Exorcist, only scarier.   I was only able to lay there while pain gripped my insides with brutal ferocity, in between bouts of hideous, projectile vomiting.
Linda Blair in the Exorcist.  I was scarier. Eeeek!

"I can take you to the hospital." Mick would say.
"Noooo!" I wailed idiotically and writhed in agony. Unbelievably, I survived the night. I was certain I was going to die.  I visited the nearby medical centre, where they told me I just had a gastro bug and sent me home.  Where I proceeded to remain in agony for another two days, before my Mum took me to her doctor who ordered me straight to hospital.  They suspected my appendix were in trouble and never connected it to the fertility drugs

Emergency surgery revealed I has a massive blood filled cyst. The surgeon seemed quite shocked saying he'd never seen anything like it. This (the agony/projectile vomiting/blood filled cyst thing) was actually a wonderful side effect to the fertility drugs called Ovarian Hyperstimulation.  I didn't learn until later that this condition is also potentially fatal. So I hadn't been exxaggerating to think I might die.

 To cut a long story short I went back to the Professor dude only to discover I now had endometriosis as well as PCOS and in his professional opinion I would never be able to have a baby without IVF. 

"It's your only chance." he informed us, expressionless. Micky Blue Eyes and I sat there dumbfounded.  No doubt he had to deliver the same news to equally dumbfounded, distraught couples every day, so it was nothing new for the Professor dude. It was a punch in the guts for us though.

My only chance of a baby was through IVF which involved me taking drugs which would more than likely cause this potentially fatal Hyperstimulation thing again.  I would have to consider risking my own life for the sake of creating a new one. Heavy stuff.  Devastating actually. 

We really believed it was never meant to happen.  But, as you probably know, it did. With a surprising twist...

Stay tuned for the details.