Re-focussing

Over the past few weeks I’ve been getting bogged down in worrying how other people are dealing with dealing with me! It’s so ridiculous when I think of it. I know people want to be supportive and I’m glad they are. But now I have to stop worrying how they are coping with it as they are responsible for their own thoughts and emotions, and I don’t have the extra energy to give to make sure they’re ok. I need to spend that energy making sure I’m ok so I can get serious about making this baby thing happen. Decision made – I’m now shifting all my attention onto that.

I went to the obstetrician for my check-up today and he was surprised to see things were happening so slowly. I am in day 13 of my cycle and before the miscarriage, I would have ovulated between days 12 and 14. From my last visit, the two dominant follicles have become one and that one is maturing at a snail’s pace.

It’s interesting to know the science behind all the mechanics but apparently the follicle needs to be at least 1.8cm to ovulate and preferably larger. So my lucky follicle will grow .2cm a day so we expect ovulation on Friday which will be day 16 of my cycle.

The obstetrician said “You normally have long cycles don’t you,” and I had to tell him that no, in fact my cycles were 34 days, 31 days and 29 days between coming off the pill and falling pregnant. They were pretty much spot on average. So I’m assuming that, just like coming off the pill, I’ll have to wait for my cycle to come back to normal.

To make sure we’re getting our timing right, we’ll be back for another scan on Friday. Getting these scans makes for a long start to the day – we drive the 20 mins to the hospital, see the doctor for about 10 to 15 minutes, drive the 10 minutes to the train station, wait for the train, then catch the train into work. Today, my appointment was 9:15am and I made it to work at 10:30am.

I’m lucky that I can just tell work I have an appointment and I turn up whenever I want to. Mind you, it might become a bit more difficult if this becomes more regular but I’m thankful for the current flexibility I have. There are so many things that can get you down about the baby process if you let it – the time it takes to have sex, the aches and pains you suffer, frustration you feel and the ongoing pains of just being a woman, but I try not to worry about it, lament about it or complain about it. I think of each element as an investment in making a baby happen.

Given we are choosing to do all of this, I don’t see the point in complaining about it. Sometimes it gets the better of me and I have a little whiney thought, but I put it out of my head quickly, reminding myself that babies don’t come easy – it’s my new mantra!

All my focus is being where we have to be when we have to be there, having sex when we have to and sending prayers to the baby gods for healthy sperm, healthy eggs and healthy cell division. I am working on accepting every aspect of the process as another thing we will face on our journey to become parents. As Dan Rather said “If all difficulties were known at the outset of a long journey, most of us would never start out at all.” I’m just pretending I don’t know what the difficulties are!