If you’ve read any of my previous blog posts, you might remember that our last round of IVF gave us one little embryo good enough to freeze. A little bundle of cells that embodied so much hope and emotion, preserved cryogenically until we felt ready to try again. That precious embryo - lovingly dubbed “Frosty”... Continue Reading →
Dear Clearblue, I've been purchasing your products for years. I've used your ovulation kits to track my cycle, relied on your pregnancy tests for a clear result after fertility treatment and stared down at the words "not pregnant" more times than I care to admit. And I feel the need to tell you this: Those... Continue Reading →
Inexplicably, I somehow didn't update my blog with any of our IVF round 2 shenanigans. Very strange given that I so readily broadcast the most mundane updates of my reproductive system all over Instagram at every possible opportunity.... But for anyone who hasn't already been inundated with the aforementioned, a quick recap of how it... Continue Reading →
All over the internet, the same questions crop up time and time again under posts about IVF and fertility treatment. Below, I attempt to answer some of the clangers that those of us going through fertility treatment get asked on a regular basis... (Note: these are my own answers and are therefore based on my... Continue Reading →
Excuse me while I rant... A while ago, in the midst of what would become several months of experimenting with fertility treatment, our two cats decided to devour the decaying, fly-ridden carcass of a frog they'd found outside. It made them ill - a "coming out of both ends" kind of ill which lasted for... Continue Reading →
Our first IVF cycle begins in January and despite the fact that it’s taken 812 days and 29 sad, unfertilized eggs to get to this point, I’m still in a state of total disbelief that we’re here. But we are here and this is happening. [For any fans of The Office (US version) – that... Continue Reading →
“When are you going to have a baby?” Shortly after getting married, I started being asked this at an alarming frequency – not by my friends and family but, almost exclusively, by people who weren’t particularly close to me (distant relatives, nosey neighbours, Barbara from accounts etc.) It’s an incredibly invasive, potentially triggering and not... Continue Reading →
At the beginning of 2018, with over a year’s worth of very decidedly unsafe sex under my belt and shortly after learning that my husband and I were working with “sub-optimal” (read: lazy) sperm, I started writing a journal…of sorts. At this point, nobody knew of our desire - let alone our struggle - to... Continue Reading →
Paying for private fertility treatment is a luxury (and I use that word lightly) that not everyone can afford. On the flip side, access to free fertility treatment on the NHS is a luxury that not everyone can take advantage of. The “postcode lottery” in the UK means that, essentially, the street you live on... Continue Reading →
As featured on Scary Mommy. Fertility doctors don’t “beat around the bush” and this expression, so apt and so full of innuendo, is the most perfect way to describe every single conversation we’ve had regarding our fertility. I’ve become so accustomed to speaking openly about this sort of stuff that my sense of normal conversational... Continue Reading →