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The Childless Mother

Dealing with infertility and finding happiness

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Well it’s nearly another New Year.

As Christmas disappears for another year, my thoughts turn to the new shinny year ahead. So much promise and unknown adventures. But I am hesitant.

I’m not one to make resolutions. I’ve never really understood needing to wait to do something at the start of a new year. I think if changes can be made, there is no time like the present, not waiting for Jan 1st.

It’s not always been the case of cause. I pinned so many of my hopes on “this will be our year!” To only be left bitterly disappointed as another year ended childless. I suppose in a way I’m tainted.

As I imagine the new year, I don’t imagine me cradling our new baby, not like I once did. I don’t get a warm fuzzy feeling of the promise of the year ahead. I get a feeling of almost desperate certainty that 2019 will not end with our baby finally arriving, but instead another year of trying to find a way to accept this.

I have had a lot of big changes to my life this year, leaving a career of 15 years and starting my own business, trying to fight to get to the IVF weight I just never seem to be able to reach. With this year being added to a number of difficult ones, loosing my cousin and loosing another baby, I do sometimes wonder how I can find a smile.

It’s true to say I’m not the same Sharron that I was four years ago. Like my family, I’m broken. I’m broken from the grief of loosing Gavin, something I never believed would happen until it did. I hate cancer for that. I’m broken from the missing heart beats from the pregnancies that couldn’t survive in my body. I’m broken the loss of the dream, of being a family with children. The effort of trying. The complete and utter despair that comes from trying for all these years. I could be lost in this grief and never smile again, but somehow we do.

Here’s the thing, it’s a cheesy meme waiting to be posted that we don’t know how strong we have to be until that’s all that’s left. Focusing on the good in our lives. My wonderful husband, my mum, our families. Our nieces and nephew. All reasons to smile. Some days it takes tremendous strength to be “OK” but I think that’s sometimes what makes us warriors. I do often feel like I’m at war, with my body mainly. My anger, my sorrow, my fear are of cause all part of what we deal with, but my love, my sense of fun, my need to find my smile in the worst moments is bigger. It wins.

Is it fake? Sometimes. Show me anyone on this journey that hasn’t had to fake a smile here or there. Not just on this journey but in general. But a lot of the time it’s not. I’m fighting every day to find the positive in this. Not just New Years. Every day, Every bloody day!!

0

The DUFF, weight loss for ivf and PCOS

Loosing weight for me is so desperately frustrating. I have all these reasons I should be doing it. Mainly because we want IVF but everything just seems like it’s gone to pot since my car accident in March.

I have always felt like the DUFF in my circle of friend. I don’t say that for cry’s of “no your not!!” It’s just the facts. I have carried a lot of insecurities over the years for the way I look and I spend a lot of time judging what is wrong with my appearance. I can honestly say I have never felt beautiful, no matter how many times my mum or husband tell me I am. They have to right?

What pisses me off is that I am a strong woman. I have faced some of the worst human experiences and am still standing. I have put a brave face on and worked through loosing my pregnancies and continued to try. I have dealt with the knowledge that I would probably never be a mother even though it’s a dream I have had from being a child.

I carried on the day before Gavin my cousin died after spending a night with him, the same night he was told he was going to die. My hearts never been so broken watching him struggle with that information. I loved him so much and cancer ripped him from us. I continued to breath after he actually died even though it hurt to even do that. My grief screams silently everyday. Mostly no one would know. I continue on.

I have it in me to fight. So why do I find it so hard to fight for myself? For my self esteem. Why do we look for the faults? It’s so easy to do that. I know I need to continue with the weight loss but equally I know that I need to find acceptance no matter my size. Find a way to feel like I look good, to ooze confidence. I am beginning to realise no amount of weight loss will do that for me. I have to do that for myself from the inside.

Beauty is in the eye of the beholder, so they say. So I might not have a skinny arse, tiny waist but does that mean I am less than? Why does that make us feel so bad that we don’t always make that standard of beauty around us.

I have been struggling to keep motivated since the accident. I have since changed my job I’m doing more physical work now which means my appetite is insane so it’s been easy to eat off plan.

Things are finally settling down into a routine after a couple of months setting my company up. It’s going so well, actually smashing my targets but I’m worried I’m taking my eye off the weight loss plan.

I want to do it. I need to do it. I’m getting angry at myself for giving in to bad food choices and justifying them because I’m doing so much physical activity. I run much longer ….. my joggers are still as tight. Argghhhg!!!! 😂😂😂.

I need to get a grip!!

Tomorrow is a new day ….. oh my goodness wish me luck. AGAIN 🙈🙈🙈.

0

The Last Stone Blogs: from zero to hero …. or not.

I have never been a fan of exercise. I don’t get the enjoyment that many do, the exception perhaps is jogging. I do not mind this so much.

So now imagine if you will the most sedentary person ever, desk job, drives everywhere, has a gym membership for no reason at all because she never goes. This is me. I had a desk job that I loved, I sold advertising space. I get such a buzz from the chase of a sale and closing that deal is awesome. Since loosing Gavin my cousin however it’s become almost impossible to find that passion. I have plodded to say the least. I needed a change.

It has taken a serious car accident for me to take a good look at my life. To see why I was feeling so desperately unhappy and sadly I concluded this job that I loved was perhaps it. For various reasons I won’t bore you with but I knew I had to change.

We made the decision for me to go into business myself. With the help of my husband who has worked in the blind industry for over 15 years, I have picked up a thing or two. I love interior design. I love to create beautiful spaces it seemed only natural to take my artist skills and put them into our business. To make money for us rather than a large company.

I have gone from a slow moving desk job to a physical manual labour role. As part of our business we fit blinds for commercial outlets. Which means I have to work on building sites regularly. I do this as a labourer. It’s a drastic but welcome change!!

These changes to our life mean we have to question the choice of continuing to try for children right now. Financially it would be crazy now we are down to one wage effectively until my business builds. My brain tells me that’s the sensible choice. My heart does not agree and I am struggling with letting that go right now.

The increase in activity and new routine means I am having a hard time sticking to plan. Finding the balance will be hard and so for the moment I am just looking to protect the loss I have so far. I need to look at nutrition and the best food to fuel my body to cope with the physical work I will now need to do as well as build strength. That will have an impact on my losses.

I will continue to weigh in of cause but I need to accept it might not show me what I want for a little while at least.

Starting a business is terrifying. I don’t know if it will work. I do know I will work harder than anymore to make it stand a good chance. It’s already off to an amazing start.

I just now need to figure out how to go from zero to hero for fitness. Wish me luck. 😂😂😂😂

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The Last Stone Blogs : 13 years trying to be a mother.

There is something kind of hopeless, sitting in a doctors office and being told they won’t help you anymore.

Back in 2010, we had a follow up appointment after the last of the Chlomid (a drug that stimulates your ovaries and helps ovulation) hadn’t worked, or should I say it had a little but we sadly lost the pregnancy early on.

I have spoken many times of the desperate ache to be a mother, that feeling of being slightly incomplete. That something is missing. It’s always with you no matter what the outside world may think. So when I was told that my weight would stop any further treatment, I felt like I was at rock bottom looking up at a mountain. They handed me a sheet of GI pointed foods and told me to eat from the bottom end of the scale and then sent me away.

I remember smiling and telling my husband I would do it. I would get the weight off. But in side ….. my heart was breaking.

Unless you have been in my shoes, unless you know the complete desperation of wanting something so bad but feeling like it just would be impossible. You can’t know. Especially when the nurses were telling me,

“You need to loose this weight but it’s going to seem impossible because you have PCOS”

Thanks for that. If I didn’t already feel like I had a mountain to climb that just made it worse. How could I ever do this?

For those reading who aren’t the person needing to loose weight. You need to know. YES it’s a great incentive, YES ITS A great reason but knowing that only makes the pressure so much worse. Especially when you try so hard and the weight doesn’t move.

I already felt like a failure as a woman. I couldn’t do the one thing that should be easy, that some people are trying to prevent. That I have actually been trying to prevent until meeting my now husband. Adding my weight to the problem I just felt so low, so useless. Also the issue of it actually being so difficult with having PCOS I just felt lost.

Then I felt angry, WHY ME? WHY US?? Why is it I have to do all of this when I see beautiful big women pregnant around me. Is it not enough that we have been through what we already have. It’s the first time in my life, I wanted to give up!! I needed a break. I needed to not feel like I was letting everyone down.

A couple of years passed but the ache for children didn’t go. I knew it was time. I started with small changes at first. More water, less processed foods. The weight to my surprise started to go.

I was 20st 13lbs the first time I stepped on the scales in Derby Hospital. Within a couple of years I was three stone down.

We decided to move areas, back to my home town in the North East of England, a fresh start. So my weight loss was put on the back burner. We went on some amazing holidays. I love to travel.

Then came more heartbreak when I lost my cousin in 2016. We had often talked about loosing weight when he was better. So when he was taken from us I felt like I needed to do it for both of us. It took a little while to get there but in 2017 I went back to Slimming World after a beach holiday where I just felt huge.

I was 18st 7.5lbs less than the fertility doc weight but still bad. Even sitting in my first class I had already thought about probably failing. It was half hearted because I didn’t trust myself. But I was wrong. I underrated how strong I could be. In my first week I lost 11lbs!! I simply followed the plan.

I wish I had the magic wand to share with you why it’s worked this time. The truth is I really wanted it, I didn’t look too far ahead and just took it meal by meal to start with. One of the biggest changes this time is that I am kind to myself. If I have a slip, as I still do all the time, I get back on plan from my next meal. I don’t wait. I just get right back up!! Keep going. Keep fighting!!

I’m 61lbs down now, I am into the last stone to hit that IVF weight. That miserable woman sat in that doctors office in 2010 wouldn’t ever believe this. I owe it to her to keep going.

I am going to diary the last stone however long that takes. I hope that it helps others out there no matter where you are on your journey.

Be kind to yourself. Plan and prepare for your weeks ahead I do a meal plan each week which I will share over the blogs coming up. But mainly. NEVER GIVE UP FIGHTING.

2

PCOS Girl vs Her Weight Loss Mountain.

About six years into our journey to becoming parents, I knew my weight would be a problem. It might even prevent us from being able to move forward with treatment.

When the Chlomid didn’t work and the other options were drying up. I had to face the fact it was time that I did something.

For years my weight had acted as a comforter, a layer of protection against the hurt I was feeling. With each baby lost, ripped from my body I took comfort in what I always had, food. As I did this layer upon layer went onto my body, like a physical badge of the pain I was feeling.

As I have written before, I was always a chubby kid. I was teased for it when I was young and in truth I did learn to toughen up about it. One day on my way back from college, I was probably 17 and not wearing very flattering jeans when a young boy asked if I would like his seat in my condition. He thought I was pregnant. I was so embarrassed I took the seat and thanked him. How do I tell someone. “No I’m just fat.” 🤷🏻‍♀️🤷🏻‍♀️

I then met my now husband and our happiness turned to contentment and with that came eating, a lot of eating. The weight crept up and up but I didn’t see it. It was only standing in the fertility doctors office on those scales that would dictate what treatment I could have, as I stood there and the nurse told me I weighed iover 20st. I wanted the ground to swallow me whole.

The doctor then told me to get any further treatment. I would need to be below 30 bmi that’s 13st 3lbs for me. It felt like a mountain. When he added that it would prove to be difficult with the severity of my PCOS, I just felt like he told me I would almost certainly fail and that little voice that is often there telling me I can’t do something. Well she all out laughed at the idea of me trying to diet.

I made a good start but as promised it got difficult. Very difficult. I started to convince myself that it just wasn’t meant to be. I would find myself finding comfort in food and on went the cycle. On and on and on.

I wish I could bottle what’s been different this time. I would share it for free with anyone that needs it. I still remember the suffocating desperation, the urge to lose the weight but feeling like I couldn’t do it. My food cravings would always get the better of me. I could never imagine living without certain foods and if I tried I would think none stop of all the things I couldn’t have.

I heard so many times,

“Well if you really want it you will loose the weight”

The fact is if my body worked as others did that’s true but it’s soul destroying to give it your all, to deny yourself things you love to achieve that goal and then to lose nothing or even gain. The eyes in group on you like “she must be cheating!” I wasn’t.

I gave up frustrated. Resigned myself to the fact that I couldn’t get the weight off. That no one wanted to help me.

In May 2017 my husband and I went on another amazing holiday to New York (my favourite place) and then on to Dominican Republic (I also love it there). I felt frumpy and unattractive. I hated being by the pool. I decided when I got back….enough was enough. It was time to change.

I went to see my doctor and let it all out. I cried so much that I was hiccuping by the end of the appointment. She was the first doctor that really listened. I felt she was with me and really wanted to help, she herself had lost weight recently and she understood how hard it was for me. She also offered me Olistat. I knew about the drug and it’s side effects …. google them they aren’t pleasant. But I was desperate. The drug stopped my body absorbing some of the fats in the food.

With prescription in hand and a renewed motivation I stepped into my Slimming World class, it’s not the first or even second time I had joined and even a small bit of me thought;

“Oh here we go again!” 🙄🙄

The first week I lost 11lbs. I was amazed. I followed the plan perfectly. Trusted in it and it provided a truly awesome loss. That motivated me into the second week and on. Between the plan and the tablets I have lost 49.5lbs and 24lbs away from my ivf goal. I had lost all hope of ever getting here, it made me feel so terribly guilty and sad that it was me standing in my own way. Now I feel hope again.

I don’t have a magic wand, the tablets aren’t miracle workers you can still gain but I feel they have me at a even chance like anyone else now. It’s still hard, so hard on days when I still want to comfort eat.

The amazing thing for me is that as time is going on, food is becoming less important. Where before I would be thinking about food most of my day, now I just think about what will take the hunger away quickly and what will help towards my next weeks loss.

Do I still have bad meals/ days. OF CAUSE!! I’m still that chubby girl inside and I still love food. The biggest change for me this time is that I forgive and forget the slips right away, from the next meal. I don’t let it drag on or punish myself by trying to skip meals, that ultimately would lead to more bad choices because I was so hungry.

I’m a little kinder to myself now. It’s ok not to be perfect and I try to not compare myself to other people.

I guess there are a lot of weight loss stories out there much more inspirational than mine, but I wanted to share this. To talk to the person out there crippled by grief, desperate for a family but feeling like they will never loose the weight they need to.

You can do it. Take small steps. Take it one meal at a time. Be kind to yourself. Find support either a group or maybe even some friends that may want to loose some with you.

If you have PCOS and probably find yourself explaining this when the scales don’t reflect the hard work you are putting in. I understand that. It might not show this week but it will show eventually don’t loose hope. Keep fighting.

I hope soon I will be writing a post at target. Ready to start the scary chapter that is IVF. The question mark that has loomed over us for years. Will it work. Part of me thinks I was scared to loose the weight because if it doesn’t work than that is the last of my hope gone. That prospect is heartbreaking.

For now however I will remain focused and keep fighting every day to get there. I feel like we are warriors and I say that a lot. What we go through and then still function, it takes strength. I feel that even more so since battling every day to loose this weight. I imagine every day I kick its arse….. in the hopes one day soon, I will have achieved my dream. It will all be worth it then.

2

It’s OK not to be OK….

***IF YOU ARE LOOKING FOR A SUNSHINE MOTIVATIONAL BLOG … perhaps skip this one 😁😁***

Christmas was a little tough. I’m struggling. Mentally I struggle a little anyway over such a family focused moment in time, because of cause I do wonder what it would be like if our babies had made it. But this time it was the other side to infertility that spoilt it for me. The physical side effects, and the last two months it’s been the worst! No break from the pain.

I am so tired of brave facing it.

I am on the whole a glass half full sort of person but recently my glass is most definitely empty.

I personally have never suffered from depression. I have a few people in my life that do, so I don’t feel embarrassed to share that I am struggling. It’s important to talk about, I my case I turn to what’s always helped me process things, my writing (however bad it is lol).

How do you pick yourself up when you are so low that even getting up and getting dressed is a struggle? The pain I’m in at the moment is constant and I am so fed up with it that it IS effecting me mental health. I would be happy if I could live in a bubble of Netflix, a good book and my duvet! I can’t obviously.

I’m not sharing this with you guys so that I get the “ahh poor you’s” I don’t need that, but because I know that I’m not alone and I feel like I need to let it out. There are so many off us suffering through the side effects of having these long term fertility issues and I know a lot of you like me find themselves having to justify and explain how bad it is and why you are struggling, that it’s more than just a normal monthly. Those social events missed or going out doing anything. The guilt of letting people down again. But now, I am more than just feeling guilty. I’m actually angry.

I just feel pissed off that not only is it preventing me from giving my husband a family, but it effects every area of my life!! I never know how I will be able to cope with going out, shopping, meals, traveling, etc because of the pain or if I can leave the bathroom floor!! I always have to check dates and hope for the best.

The pain this time started mid November and it’s still going thanks to some complications that I won’t bore you with and a lovely new cyst!!

This weekend for example I spent on the couch because anytime I stood up right I had incredible shooting pains from the tops of my legs to my jaw, every time I moved it had to be a calculated cautious one, timidly feeling how bad the pain was going to be when I did straighten up to then just get to the toilet or kitchen etc.

There are so many horrible and worse illnesses out there I know and when I am feeling moany I try to give myself a shake and then generally feel guilty for being a wuss.

Some times it’s easier to get back up and continue at 100% effort. Other times I just can’t and the pain is relentless, for the last two months especially there has not been a day passed that I haven’t had to stop what I am doing hold my breath and try not to cry out in pain. I so fucking sick of it. The last two months have been bad but this isn’t the first bad stint, ever since my very first AF (Aunt Flow) at 10 years old the pain some months has floored me.

Currently I’m at “well I’m awake and dressed what more do you want” level of effort. 🤷🏻‍♀️🤷🏻‍♀️

What makes this worse for me is that I continue regularly to go thru this pain, a regular cycle that should have brought us a baby and still my arms are empty and feels like it’s punishing me further by making them so hard to deal with. The crushing disappointment of another failed month followed by terrible pain and sickness. It makes me so resentful I could scream!!

After all these years we are so close to the final phase of treatment. I have 27lbs to loose to have IVF. But I have never felt so fed up with it all. I’m slowing rolling back round to the “why us” way of thinking. WHY US?! Why do we have to go thru this. Isn’t 13 years enough already of this!?

Yes. I realise this is like a blog tantrum. And no I do not care. 😁

If anyone needs me I am under the covers with chocolate ….. oh no wait…. I have to work and I’m loosing weight….. FML!!

3

The Hoops We Have to Jump Through…..

Once upon a time there was a prince and princess. They fell in love and married in a wedding that would have made cinders jealous. Soon after they decided they wanted a baby, soon after that the test turned positive and so began the fairytale. Or maybe the next part that Disney doesn’t tell, the part about sleepless nights and dirty nappies but most of all the unconditional love felt by those parents.

In this version of family. All the parents had to do was fall in love, the rest happened naturally, quickly and without one single test or hick up.

For couples dealing with infertility this is pretty much the furthest version of their story. Sure it starts with falling in love, maybe even marriage and then waiting and waiting and fear and worry until we get to tests and more tests and heart break. It still doesn’t end.

For me to be deemed good enough to be a mother and for my husband to be a father we have to jump through hoops. First of all it’s a intrusive line of questioning about how often we have sex, how we have sex and if there are any issues when we do.

We had to fight to get an appointment to even be tested because of our age. 13 years later this makes me chuckle, ironically. How many doctors said we were young and it would happen in time.

We were able to receive one line of treatment that in the doctors words

“Wasn’t too expensive to try”

But then came the list of things that we had to not be doing or be doing in order to get further treatment.

My weight. I was six stone over the bmi they would accept. If we had smoked. It would have been no. If we had drank too frequently it would have been no. If we had sex less than a couple of times a week we would have been turned away until we had done that for a period of time even though it was proven that my ovulation wasn’t fully functional.

I am still so angry at these hoops. I am loosing the weight now, have never smoked and don’t drink. Boring huh? But it’s taken me so much time to loose this weight the longer it takes the angrier I get.

I know the collation between a healthy pregnancy and being within the healthy weight range. I understand that of cause. But it still pisses me off that we have to be judged by these standards as to if we would be good parents or not when simply having the natural function to do so qualifies everyone else to have a child no problem. To be forced into these tick boxes for someone to decide this huge thing for us based on a one size fits all approach. One size doesn’t fit all.

I know many women that would be over the bmi to have treatment. They have gone on to have healthy beautiful children and here’s the shocker. They are good parents 😱😱😱. Imagine that.

I don’t let the rage out very often now. Believe it or not I am in a good place but at the moment I am fighting to stay on track with my weight loss. Again I am battling my demons, demons we all have in various forms. But I wonder sometimes….. why is it fair I am judged on mine. Why does this get to be the deciding factor for me being a mother? That thought. That truth allows the rage to seep out.

If I had a penny for every time someone has basically asked;

“Well if you wanted a child you wouldn’t you just loose the weight?”

To have to go into how PCOS effects my body and it end up sounding like an excuse. For people to understand just how hard I have to fight as many others like me, to loose even one pound on those scales. If they knew that, they would never say such things to me.

I know a question we all ask while on this journey is “Why us?” Why do we have to be the one couple in eight? Why can we not have just had the Disney version of marriage and family.

It’s cruel to give a couple the instinct to want to have a family, a yearning that’s deep within you. To not allow it to happen. It’s even crueller to dangle the treatment and help but to make it difficult to achieve it. Making one of the hoops something that’s a symptom of the illness you have.

One woman’s rage wont change it. The criteria is what it is and I am getting there, I have three stone left to go. It doesn’t stop me from feeling that anger. Anger as those hoops we must jump through to get our baby.

0

When Did Hope Die? 

We have been on this journey for so long now, had so much disappointment and heartbreak somewhere along the way I lost something I thought I never would …. I lost all hope. Along with that, I lost the dream of being a mother. 
I’m not sure when this happened, perhaps it slipped away a little at a time. Perhaps is was ripped out in buckets with every silent heartbeat on a scan monitor or with the negative pregnancy test sitting in my lap, anointed with freshly fallen tears. Perhaps that’s where my hope disappeared, slowly down tear tracks etched into my cheeks over 12 years. I don’t know. 

All I know is this last couple of weeks, as the weight has slowly started to fall off, I have felt a flutter that has been missing. My hope was returning. 

Once I realised this is what I was feeling, I was crushed to know just how lost I had been before now. It upset me to think that I had given up on our dream. I had written myself off as a failure, I had convinced myself I couldn’t do this. 

One of the most gut wrenching, heartbreaking things to get your head around when you have fertility issues is that it’s you. You are the reason why.  You are defective. You can not perform the one task that should be so natural for a woman to do.  You, you ….. YOU! Even with that knowledge I thought I was strong. I thought we had shouldered more than most could bare and retained our sanity. 

While it’s true we have shouldered a lot. Cried more tears in the twelve years trying for a child than I could count. I do feel like I have lost a part of me in the process. I was an optimist. I was so sure that even with my PCOS we would get pregnant that every failed pregnancy we lost, every negative test that followed I believed it was taking us closer to what we wanted. That no world could be so cruel to allow us not to get our dream. 

Twelve long years, slowly but surely that hope died in me. I didn’t mourn it all at once, or acknowledge it at all really. I didn’t even notice it was gone until I felt a glimmer come back. 

I’m 36. The window is closing. Perhaps that is why the motivation is staying with me this time. I need to loose the weight to get treatment and it always felt like a mountain. Now I am 25.5lbs down with another 42lb plus to go, but I actually feel like I can do this! 

The more I feel confident that I can lose the weight. The more that the hope I had lost seems to return. 

Will we ever realise our dream to be parents. I don’t know. But the fact I have finally found the confidence to keep going, to take control of something for once! That makes me hopeful. 

If anyone is reading this with PCOS over weight and wondering how you could possible find the grit to try and loose weight. Give yourself a break, take it one meal at a time and most of all forgive the slips. 

I am not a natural gym bunny 🐰 or healthy eater but learning to forgive my slips and getting back to it the next meal has been something that’s new and it’s keeping me on track. Am I perfect!? Hell No! But I want it so badly. I am not thinking so far in the future I am planning one week at a time. Hoping that I can stay strong. We can all do that. 

Wish me luck xoxo

0

Life’s little curve balls 

On this very long road to parenthood we have experienced many ups and downs. Life’s throws things at you and you have to decide on many occasions if you are sinking or swimming. 

There are many moments that I have wanted to simply shut myself from the world and sink. Allow the darkness to take me. Sounds dramatic, and those who know me would likely agree I am a dramatic person. For this fertility journey I would disagree. No one has seen the many hours of waiting for ovulation tests, followed by weeks of waiting only to have your dreams repeatedly crushed with another negative test. 

Sat on the bath side, test on the sink, not touching it like that would effect the outcome if you accidentally knock it the wrong way! Watching the flashing timer or the line creeping up the window of the test, waiting……. hoping …….. then NEGATIVE!! 

To start with I would console myself with, well it’s early days, keep trying. As the years passed those moments got harder and harder and would often result in a total meltdown on the bathroom floor. 

When those tests were positive, in those beautiful rare occasions. My excitement was short lived replaced with fear and then the inevitable loss. 

Some may ask why we continue to put ourself through this. Anyone that would ask this has clearly never felt the desperate urge to have a child you just can’t seem to keep. 

I feel like we are batting back curve balls all the time and one of the biggest battles for me is my weight. Repeatedly doctors would say loosing weight is what needs to happen to progress now, apparently there is no help left for chunky monkeys! 

Having PCOS those who know, will understand just how hard it is to shift this weight, leading to anger, resentment and eventually desperation as the weight clings on. 

At the end of May I decided to give it one more go, we had decided that we would pay for the treatment needed, but even privately I needed to loose some weight. 

I stepped into my first Slimming world class after the bank holiday weekend at the end of May. Not really sure if I could do it after so many failed attempts before. I went home, worked out what I would eat for the week and thought I will give it 12 weeks. If it doesn’t work then I will go back to the docs! 

Week one I lost 11lbs! We had weigh in six last night and I have now lost 22lbs! I have no idea what is different now but I will keep going as long as it will let me. 

So the treatment looks closer now. Sadly my husband was in a motorbike accident a couple of weeks ago, broken his shoulder and he’s a self employed blind fitter. Out of the window goes the paying privately for treatment! We could have a melt down and think we just aren’t meant to be parents!

No! 

We won’t. 

What I am now aiming for is to get below that BMI that seemed impossible to get to not so long ago! We have a new challenge, we have had so many over our relationship. We are a team. I know we will make it through this curve ball just like we always have. 

Life can’t be planned out. Things change. Some of those life plans can be hard to let go of. But if we spend time hanging on too hard to the dream that we just can’t achieve that’s out of our hands, we will miss the wonderful things happening around us now – This minute. 

I hope more than anything that we manage to get our family. One day. Until then, war paint on and keep fighting. 

I might be a drama queen 👸🏼 but I am also a frickin warrior too!! I bare the battle scars of a childless mothers heart break. Only those who walk this road with me truly knows how that feels. We are pretty awesome 👏🏻❤️❤️

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