Peaceful and positive

Went for scan yesterday and at first I didn't want to look at the monitor. When the FS said, "oh that is a disadvantage", I almost fell off the bed with disbelief. So I looked. I had to. And there on the RHS were three small follies - 13-14mm each. WTF? And then moving over to the LHS, 2 huge follies at 20-22mm already, were smiling at us saying "woohoo, we are ready!" How does that happen? How do these little follies change their minds so radically for no apparent reason and decide to grow on a whim while some just lag behind? So FS decided on the spot to give me the trigger shot that night and to move to ER on Wednesday so as not to potentially lose the two front-runners. He added that he was concerned they would become post-mature...oh great.

So there I sat outside the scan room waiting for meds, and my ole fave FS walks past and asks me "How are you doing?". And what do I do?...Promptly burst into tears and spluttered out "There are only twoooooooo...". He must have regretted asking me that question - but don't men know not to ask that by now and FS's especially - you are just asking for an emotional outburst if things are not that great!!! Anyway, as I choked on my tears, he says to me "Camilla, you have been pregnant before. We only need one".

Only one.

The fear closed in and negativity covered me in a hard shell so quickly that I almost wrote the entire cycle off there and then. I have been here before and I know the ending.

Later that evening I met with one of my intuition course friends and after a great chat, I realised that I simply cannot give into the darkness. She gave me Louise Hay's CD "How to heal your life" which is an extension from the book with all the top metaphysical authors speaking about how to change your life through chosing to change, be positive, live with affirmations etc. I realised that I cannot give up before I have even started, fear or no fear. I will acknowledge the fear and then move into the light. Anything is perfectly possible. Right now. If I don't truly believe this how can I create it?

So, I am back in a positive space and I plan to stay here no matter what.

Because all you need is one.

First scan and follie time again

Went for first scan on Thursday, CD8, day 6 of stimming...

Seem to be about 6 follies on RHS and about 3 follies on LHS but only one is 14mm and the rest are all still small - to be expected I think. Really hope that I don't land up stimming again for 15 days!!!

Last time on CD10, day 9 of stims, I had 3 follies on the LHS and 5 follies on the RHS all about 11mm only. By CD13, three had grown to 15mm, 13mm and 12mm so stims continued. On CD16, there seemed to be 5 follies in the lead only at 18mm, 16mm,15mm,14mm and 11mm...and we went to retrieval getting only 4 mature eggs. One fertilised on its own, 3 were ICSI'd. Only 1 of these carried on growing but didn't make it and on day 5 it had stopped growing and ET was cancelled. I am really hoping to have better results this time. Hoping hoping hoping.

Here's a comparison on stims and cycle - will fill in as I go to keep track:

July:
CD2 - 3 x Femara tabs
CD3 - 3 x Femara tabs / 4 amps Menopur
CD4 - 3 x Femara tabs / 3 amps Menopur
CD5 - 3 x Femara tabs
CD6 - 3 x Fenara tabs / 4 amps Menopur & Scan
CD7 - 2 amps Menopur / 1 amps Fostimon
CD8 - 2 amps Menopur / 1 amps Cetrotide
CD9 - 2 amps Menopur / 1 amps Cetrotide
CD10 - 2 amps Menopur / 1 amps Fostimon & 4 day Cetrotide & Scan
CD11 - 2 amps Menopur / 1 amps Fostimon
CD12 - 2 amps Menopur
CD13 - 2 amps Menopur & Scan
CD14 - 2 amps Menopur / 1 x Cetrotide
CD15 - 2 amps Menopur / 1 x Cetrotide
CD16 - 2 amps Menopur / 1 x Cetrotide & Scan & Trigger in the pm
CD17 - No meds
CD18 - Aspiration = 4 eggs
CD19 - One fertilised, rescue ICSI on 3
CD20 - One stopped, 1 out of 3 fertilised
CD 21 - The 1 embie stopped
CD22 - The 1 embie started again
CD23 - The 1 embie stopped again and ET cancelled

October:
CD2 - No stims & Scan
CD3 - 2 amps Menopur / 150 Gonal F
CD4 - 2 amps Menopur / 150 Gonal F
CD5 - 2 amps Menopur
CD6 - 2 amps Menopur
CD7 - 2 amps Menopur
CD8 - 2 amps Menopur & Scan
CD9 - 2 amps Menopur / 3 day Cetrotide
CD10 - 2 amps Menopur
CD11 - 2 amps Menopur
CD12 - Scan - 2x 13mm follies on RHS and 2x 20-22mm follies, 1 x16mm on LHS!!! / 2 Menopur & Trigger shot at 11pm
CD13 - No meds
CD14 - Aspiration = 3 Eggs (!!!???)
CD15 - One egg fertilised. Waiting to see if immature one matures & fertilises
CD16 - Immature egg fertilised. First egg divided.
CD17 - First egg only a 5 cell on day 3 (should be 8 cell). Second egg stopped.
CD18 - First egg still only 5 cell :(. Second egg started diving again and is now a 4 cell...
CD19 - Going in at 11am and praying there is something to transfer

My ovaries have been twinging much more than last time and I feel really bloated. But am also feeling more detached than last time - maybe for my protection, maybe I am just feeling veteran!

Next scan is on Monday which will be CD12 and day 10 of stims, to see how things are progressing. Peace and love to my follies!

We are getting a new kitten!!!!! Yes, another bengal. She is a marble patterned bengal and is only 6 weeks old, so we have to wait a few weeks before we can fetch her. Her name is Persia Halo. I will post a pic soon.

Consolation prize? Time will tell.
PS: Added later....this is feeling like deja-vu damnit

Neroli is in heaven

Our tortoise, Neroli, is in heaven. Well, her idea of heaven that is. Our flourishing veggie garden above. Filled with sprouting lettuces, spinach, carrots, baby marrows and other irresistible greens. And she is allowed to roam free along the furrows and dips between the beds of tortoise treasure.

She is only 10cm big however. So damage to the crops is minimal. We are not worried. Neroli is an angulate tortoise and who knows how she found her way into our garden, but for now we will leave her in paradise.

I inspected some of the patty pan plants earlier and see that their flowers are full of strange looking bugs with long back legs. Having chosen to go completely organic, we have not yet resorted to home-remedies for natural ways to curb manic insects intent on demolishing our future pickings. Not even the odd beer-trap. If we do, we will have to keep Neroli in mind as falling into a beer trap would not be pleasant for a little tortoise.

I am also avoiding the beer trap again.

Yes, I am cycling...day 1 today on stims for IVF # 3. We have a new gadget to inject FSH with - a fancy Gonal F Pen. Took some figuring out though and DH had to stab me 3 times before the dosage was actually successful. The first time, we hadn't pulled up the pen's clicker thingy. The second time, we didn't click in enough for the proper amount. The last time, to get it right. LOL.

I admit I am not feeling as heightened a sense of excitement or positive power as the last time. Maybe better. I don't think I want any expectations this time. While I am an enthusiastic participant who would love for everything just to fall into place perfectly, what will be will be. It is just so.

No dwelling on the what if's and but what's.

A peaceful approach. A quietly committed amble.

And hopefully not down the garden path...

Asia is 1 years old!

Little Asia Sky Lightning Claw, our Foundation 1 Bengal kitten turned one years old in September! He is now a full-on teen in kitten years and what a character!

He doesn't shower with us anymore but he still only drinks water from a running tap! He has eeked his way into all of our hearts either loved madly or loved partly or hated completely depending on which relationship we are talking about. By us and Savannah, our Alsation cross Ridgeback/Irish Wolfhound, he is loved madly. By his elderly aunty cats, it is the two latters.

Playing with Aunty Savannah...Grrr looks like Sav is going to eat Asia...but they are just playing!

Tallulah, the eldest, our 14 year old tabby abhors him and hisses aggressively whenever he comes near. She then makes the fatal mistake of running away which he cannot resist and inevitably he then springs on her from the rear, which results in a whole lot of growling and hissing and spitting. Mmm, definitely no love lost there. Which is sad really as all he wants is a little love in return.

Tallulah's daughter, Pye, our 13 year old tabby, has made a kind of pact with him. She hates him when he leap attacks her but when he is calm, he is welcome. Here is a picture of the two of them during a rare peace pact, showing an unusual display of acceptance and affection. This does not happen often though as usually he is in full play mode launching mock attacks whenever he sees either of his "aunties". We are thinking about getting another Bengal and calling her Persia...if one is such a little handful, two will be a riot!

News of the moment is that he has a pet rat which I have nicknamed "Ratatouille" after the movie version. He brought the rat inside but instead of killing it, he plays with it now and then - usually at 3am.

This is one clever rat as all of our traps have so far failed. So, for now we are cursed with a rat in the kitchen....fabulous!

I'm bringing hope back

The sunset in Namutoni, Etosha, the evening before my ruptured ectopic in 2006

Hope is a small word big with possibility. A slippery little word when things look so hopeless yet a defining word when you catch a glimmer of potential.

Mum went for her scan last week to see if the chemo was working. Quite prepared for the worst, she was overwhelmed with the good news that it was indeed working! The original scanned tumour has in fact shrunk. Small cell lung cancer does usually respond well to chemo, but it is one thing to know that and another to be on the good side of statistics! What wonderful news for mum who was so determined to be brave and confront scary results. To have hope restored is a wonderful boost we all need in the face of adversity and especially during the most intense battle of your life.

As for me, IVF #3 is on the cards for October if all goes well. Now in the hands of my FS and the divine timing of the universe, I am a willing participant and a hopeful one. Hopeful that we will finally be blessed with a text book cycle and well of course, a positive result. Hopeful that the mindbody shift with the realisations of late will have laid a pathway my destiny can recognise. And if not, then hopeful that the little word "hope" will hang on until we need the power of possibility again.

A battle against death and a battle for new life.
I'm bringing hope back.

How I came to be...

This is baby me with my mother and pet budgie Coobie - Knorhoek, Sir Lowries Pass, 1973.

Mum had just turned 24 in January, 5 days before I was born.

She had met my father while working at the Cape Times, where as an outside rep, he used to sit at a desk close to hers in the same office. Mum would take messages for him when he was out. She remembers thinking he was very posh in her view at the time and he made his attraction for her quite obvious. My older sister was born when mum was 20 and as a single mother, she was just making ends meet, living in a small flat in Wynberg. She developed a serious eye infection and was booked off work for a month with her eyes bandaged up, making caring for my older sister, a toddler at the time ridiculously challenging. It was just after my sister had fallen carrying a glass, severing the artery in her hand, that he had called...to find out how she was.

Mum needed help, and he offered it. He moved in and one thing led to another as it does, from the divan to her bed. It was with overwhelming relief, that she agreed to move into his flat in Moullie Point. He arranged a new cheap Toyota for her and made sure the bills were paid. Comforted and safe, cared for and adored. She knew that the deep care she felt for him was not love. It's just that living with a man was not quite the done thing in those days and the enticing sense of security with the continual nagging from her caustic mother lulled her into aggreeing to marry.

He never did admit to being thirty years older than she was, or to having 2 girls both older than she was. Until much later. But she felt comfortable and safe so she stayed with him. They married on 11 March 1972 and I was born on 29 January 1973. They had moved to Knorhoek in Sir Lowries Pass and I was born in the same room as my sister had been at Vincent Pallotti Hospital in Pinelands. My mother was wearing a green paisley printed cotton top when I was born, which I keep to this day. From the first minute he saw me, Mum says Dad was besotted.

But she just wasn't in love with him and he started being distrustful and suffocating her independance. Not a great idea with a freedom-loving Aquarian. I think about how he must have felt. She was beautiful and young, a free spirit with so much pain still unprocessed, and yet so strong. How he must have cherished the idea of having her. He would have known she didn't love him, growing angry and jealous imagining losing her to another's arms. Claustrophobic love stifled the care she felt for him and suburbia closed in.

A holiday in Plett offered space and clarity. Visiting her brother on his farm, she felt a sense of place, family and support and so she began to contemplate her escape.

My mum insisted they move to Plett and a flat in a block called Dolphins Court became our new home. Dad commuted to Cape Town. The bird flew the coop, Plett the perfect playground for freedom and flaunting it. She grew strong enough and he pushed her to the edge. Apparently went she told me they were getting divorced and she asked me if I knew what that meant, I said quite confidently that yes I did - it was the same as wors. I was 5 when they divorced.

At the time of the divorce, we lived on a smallholding called Holt Hill. My mother, my sister, my new baby sister and the gardner Cornelius. I remember such good times with our cousins who lived at Cloud Nine further up the road. What heaven for young children. We ran wild through fields and forest. Picking fruit off the peach tree and eating peas from their pods. Building forts in the pine forests and make-believe towns from sticks and clay. Swimming in the muddy dams and riding Tanglefoot the horse. Molly and Folly the donkeys and Polly and Jasper, the labradors. Collecting pansy shells on the beach in the morning light. Peanut butter and jam sandwiches and secret tins of condensed milk. Giggles and tears and sun and sadness.

Here I am at 5, on a swing on our farm, Holt Hill.


As I sit here thinking about this, I consider how different my mother's memories are to mine.

How oblivious and yet aware we are as children, so forgiving and innocent. How honest and new. What do we remember? What memories do we hide away?

Cammy remembers the wonderful memories most.

Spring it on!

Spring has sprung.
Well it has in my garden.
Butterflies are flitting, sunbirds are trilling and bulbs are blooming.

We have started a vegetable garden at last and rows and rows of promising shoots have burst out of the soil on the way to becoming vegetables and herbs. It is so thrilling to watch them grow as day-by-day they get stronger and taller. Of course it would help if Neroli, our tortoise didn't keep chewing the shoots! Next step: An earthworm farm, a solar geyser and a rain water tank. I want some Bantam chickens too but DH says probably not a good idea with our little leopard kitty and the new veggie dream. Mmm, maybe we should wait for our smallholding before doing chickens.

I am excited that Summer will soon be back. Not for the wind but for the warm afternoons and lazy mornings soaking up the sun on the weekends. And for the swimming and less clothes and soft air.

Time has softened the disappointment of my cancelled cycle. My intuition teacher sent me a message she received from her guides for me about a mind-body connection that I am aware of but had just never acknowledged in relation to not conceiving. Perhaps acknowledging this now will effect a shift and a healing so that my body can relax into the next cycle without cellular sabotage. I do hope so.

It is as simple as the fact that I have assumed responsibility for people I am not responsible for - this is depleting my energy and it is time to let this go - I am only responsible for myself. Thinking about this - how marvellous to release that burden of responsibility that I have committed to and indulge in being free and un-bound until I do have a baby which will wrap me up so tightly in responsibility, I may balk at it. I may enjoy this space, as soon as I get my head around how to release myself from this self-imposed duty. Then I too need to forgive all the irresponsibility and restricted maternal nurturing impacting on my perception of motherhood as well as releasing the fear of losing my DH and being left alone with a child and no father....mmmm a bit of work to do!

I have also decided to hand over responsibility to my FS in whom I now place all my trust - he can call the shots. I am not going to try control the process anymore. At our POA meeting, he emphasised that he has great hope for us as we have conceived naturally twice, only problem being that the embryo implanted in the wrong spot - he truly believes we can again, we just need to find a good embryo.

As I am a poor responder to stims, this may take more cycles than the average. So we will try again, on his command and advice. I went for an antral follie scan at the beginning of this cycle which is near its end and as soon as AF arrives, I must go in for a day 1, 2 or 3 antral follie scan, and if good he may say let's go for it again. Only problem is, after arriving at this perspective, I realised September will not work as I am away in Joburg during the period we would need to do scan monitoring...so maybe October....

Have been watching the programme "A child against all odds" on BBC Knowledge. The producers cleverly put two stories in each episode - one that is successful and one that isn't. Fear is never far away that you will be the one that fails, but if you don't have hope, what do you have? I really want to be positive but sometimes I am just not - that's the armour I suppose.

And putting it into perspective. Let's talk about hope and how hard it is to hang onto hope when you have terminal cancer and you know you are dying. My mum has to deal with this everyday. How difficult it must be when you wake up feeling like your usual self but you always have the thoughts in the back of your mind, I do not have long, I am dying, tomorrow may be different...

I pray for peace for my mother, for release for myself and for a long hot Summer of many memories we can cherish forever...