Autumn/Winter 2013

Waiting, waiting, waiting. I have peed on a stick for the hundredth time and the time has come to look at the results. I look at the stick and at the all important windows. I think I'm going to be sick. There's a line and another. I have more than one line. I look again. There's a line in the test window to say it has been taken correctly and in the results window there are two lines. TWO BLOODY LINES!!!

It has took six years, two operations and a round of Clomid but I am pregnant. ME! PREGNANT!!!! The woman that is barren! The woman that has endometriosis!! I'M PREGNANT!!!! I hear the cleaners approaching and fight the urge to shout from the roof tops and do a little dance in the cubicle instead!

Summer/Autumn 2013 - The Clomid commences

We are on our way to breakfast and the phone call comes sooner than expected. As soon as we've eaten we head back to the hospital to collect the prescription. When I pick it up they wish me luck and book me in for a scan for around the time I am due to ovulate so they can check if I've ovulated or not. I wait for over an hour at the pharmacy and while I wait I let those that need to know or have wanted to know that I'm starting treatment. There's a lot of excited people, good lucks, well wishes and fingers crossed.

When we get home I read the packet and the advice notes cover to cover. It warns of hot flushes, emotions and cramping amongst other things. I take the first one and give myself a 'come on, you can do this'. The first couple of days are fine but on the last day of the tablets and the couple that follow it I am somewhat in a state. By the Monday I am tripping over words, having hot flushes and dizzy spells, my head is pounding and I feel so sick I'm worried about how I going to get on at work. I also have a commitment with the other Brownie leaders and I really don't want to let people down. I get out of bed and try and pull myself together. It doesn't go well. I am tripping wet with sweat and feel like I'm going to pass out. Close to tears, I phone work and let them know I won't be in and I drop Brown Owl a text too. By the time I ring my husband and my Mum I am crying like a baby. Mum arrives soon after and I have another shower to try and cool down and she settles me in front of the TV, like the old days with a blanket (as I'm now freezing) and a Disney film. I'm back at work the next day and things settle down.

Summer 2013 - Part 3 - So close

So here I am. In the hospital standing on the scales of doom. The nurse tells me again to stand still and I try not to roll my eyes. She also looks at the height measure attached to the scales and I'm tempted to stand on my tiptoes but I'd probably wobble and fall over. If only I'd carried on with ballet! God, if I did it now I'd look like the hippo from Fantasia! I try my best to keep still and the nurse leaves me on the scales and wanders round to her desk and taps on her calculator whilst looking at BMI charts.

'Well, you're BMI is now around 30.05.'

It needs to be below 30. I won't lie but for some reason I wanted to punch her. It was perhaps my hormones but I felt, and do still feel a little, that she was slightly smug when she said it. I'm sure it was just me or that she had got sick of the sight of me. I perhaps deserved the look she gave me. I mean it's me that can't stop eating cake, not her. I don't think she's ever seen a cake!

Summer 2013 - Part 2 - You just need a big poo

After my last visit to the hospital I feel I'm nearing the finish line. Yes, I have a couple of pound hurdles to go but the target is realistic and I'm not a million miles away from it. I battle to get the last few pounds off before my next weight appointment.

I walk into the hospital so sure I have finally done it. With my husband at my side I am sure I have. My scales say I have. I must have. Bad news. I haven't. It's a different nurse to before. I have met her previously and I know this one isn't as friendly and doesn't look like she has seen a cream cake or bar of chocolate EVER! I had hoped it was the one from last time but sadly it's not. She works out my BMI and it is around 30.1. It has to be below 30 for NHS treatment. As she did last year, she points out that I do now meet the requirements for private treatment if I'm willing to pay! I am gutted and I'm sure my husband is too. He somehow remains upbeat and I make an appointment to return in a couple of weeks.

Summer 2013

So having been probed and flushed I really have to get my finger out of my backside and get down to my target weight! After my latest operation one of the nurses suggests I book in for regular weight checks so I keep on track and hopefully stop myself cheating too often. I do as I'm told and find myself going to be weighed every few weeks.

My husband, close friends and work colleagues are very supportive, as are some of my family. Unfortunately, I feel some people in my life aren't as supportive as they could or should be and the sly comments about me always dieting and falling off the wagon can be heard, loud and clear. I'm well aware of my dieting mistakes over the last few years and I'm the one that has to live with them. I'm the one that has it on my conscience that I have not lost the weight, not made myself a mother or made my husband a father. I battled on regardless ignoring them the best I can.

Spring 2013

So at my appointment in February the consultant said he was pleased with my weight loss but was concerned with my pale 'English rose complexion' and that my endo may have got worse again. He decided the best away forward was for another lap and dye. 

I waited and waited for the appointment and after some pushing from my husband, friends and colleagues, I phoned the hospital to see what was happening. Greeted by a not so friendly secretary I was told that the consultant hadn't marked part of the notes correctly so she had sent my file to be put away and hadn't passed it over to the treatment centre to be scheduled. She said she would do it over the next few days and I should call the treatment centre the following week, which I did. When I called they'd just had my file and said it had been marked as urgent and they could fit me in the following week as there had been a cancellation. This took me a bit by surprise so I spoke to my husband, my Mum and my boss, who all encouraged me to take the date and move forward and that's exactly what I did. The following day I went for my pre-op and bloods.