Let’s talk about PPD

Having recently come out of the other side of post partum depression, I would like to share my experience; for myself (should I have any children in the future and suffer again) and for other mothers who have it/may get it.

I would like to start at the very beginning of my story. From a very early age, I always showed interest in children and becoming a mother. When adults would ask me what I wanted to be, before I answered with any career, I would tell them my desire to be a mother.

Which is why, at the very young age of sixteen, when I was diagnosed with a plethora of ‘women’s health’ problems that I won’t bore you with the details of, I was shattered to find out my ticking clock would stop ticking much earlier than most of my peers. In fact, my ticking clock may stop ticking before my 50 year old mother’s.

After having this confirmed at 18, and again at 20, I decided that I wanted a baby, no matter the costs- literally, and emotionally. I didn’t have a boyfriend, and I’m not the type of person to go out and have a one night stand (think of the STI’s I could’ve caught if it didn’t work the first, second or third time- no thanks!), so that left me with few options.

One option was to undergo fertility treatment from a clinic using donor sperm. I researched this thoroughly, and I came to the decision some months later that this was the route that I would be taking to conceive. I would be doing so as a single person, with only a part time job (as I am primarily a student), who was still living with her parents. Luckily, I had saved a substantial amount of money over the years from working, which meant I wouldn’t have to apply for a loan or borrow money from anyone, which was one less problem to think about.

Of course, because I lived with my parents, despite me being 20 years old, I had to ask my mothers permission to do this. It simply wouldn’t be fair to willingly bring a child into a home where they weren’t welcomed.

My mum took the news pretty harshly at first. She didn’t want me having a baby so young- especially since I was still a student without a career under my belt. She wanted me to wait until I graduated and had at least started my career. The problem was, she didn’t understand fully that if I didn’t do it now, I may never have the chance to do it again. That I may run out of time before I would be able to complete what she wants me to. I had been given an approximate age as to when I would be able to conceive, and that age was 25, based on the decline in my egg reserve over the years. Which mesnt- by the time I started treatment, I would only had 4 short years of fertility left (maybe less, maybe more). After explaining it to her and giving her time to think it through, she gave me permission.

Let me state here, publicly, that my mum was so supportive since that day. She offered me the spare room to make into a nursery. The spare room that was previously her study/sewing room. She gave it up without a second glance. She let me re-design the whole room, and even paid for it to be done.

So then the process started. My doctor recommended me trying IUI’s first before I moved into IVF, as I was ‘young’ and ‘it should work very quickly and on the first try’. It did work the first time, but unfortunately I miscarried very early on.

Finally, after three IUI’s, one miscarriage, two rounds of IVF, and upwards of $25,000 later, I became pregnant with a beautiful little girl.

I had an extremely easy pregnancy, in terms that I only had mild nausea a few times, I didn’t develop any health concerns during the duration, and every time I had an ultrasound or check, the baby appeared to be healthy! Sure, I had a few months of on and off bleeding where I wasn’t sure if I was going to miscarry or not, but everything worked out.

Through this process, I idealised what having a baby would be like. I thought so much about the instant, unconditional love everyone talks about. I thought about dressing her in cute little clothes, taking way too many pictures, the first milestones, playing with her, naming her, watching her grow up. I almost sort of blocked out all the ‘negative’ stuff that comes along with having a baby.

Lots of people told me ‘sleep now, you won’t be getting any sleep once the baby comes’, but I thought that you surely must get sleep. We are human beings after all, and we literally go crazy if we can’t sleep. I thought they were exaggerating.

I think my problems started once I went into labour. I had a plan set out for labour and delivery and everything following, but it didn’t go anywhere close to the way I planned it. 

I wanted a natural birth, but got an epidural. I wanted to do skin to skin for hours, but was rushed to surgery and couldn’t see my baby for four hours. I wanted to breastfeed, but due to my milk never coming in, I couldn’t.

But now I’m getting ahead of myself. The birth. I had tried so many things not to tear during delivery, and despite my efforts, I had a third degree tear. Even with an epidural, I felt it rip. 

Then my baby was placed on my chest. Now, don’t get me wrong here, I was over the moon that she was alive, breathing and healthy, but I remember looking at her and thinking ‘okay, where is this overwhelming sense of love?’. In fact, my first thought after seeing her was ‘what do I do with her now?’.

I remember being taken off to surgery wondering when I would feel it- this unconditional love. Would it just hit me? Maybe it was gradual? Maybe I would feel it when I got back to my room and saw her again?

But as my surgery progressed, so did my anxiety. I didn’t feel like I loved her. I didn’t dislike her. I didn’t feel resentment towards her. I didn’t really feel anything at that point. I felt numb, like I was incapable of emotion.

Looking back, this is where I should have thought ‘okay, this is a problem’. But instead, I ignored the feeling. I put it down to the exhausting experience I just went through- birth -and maybe all the anaesthesia in my body.

But when I got back to my room, that’s when everything really got worse. I knew my hospital didn’t let anyone stay overnight except the birth mother and baby, but that changed nothing. Now that I had gone through everything, even with the knowledge of who could stay, I wanted my mum to stay. I wanted to beg the nurse to let her stay overnight with me. I didn’t want to be alone with this baby. 

I remember feeling numb in my arms from the epidural, and at first, I couldn’t hold her because my arms weren’t cooperating with me. Then, once I started getting feeling back in my arms, I pretended that I still couldn’t feel them because I didn’t want to take my baby.

If I took my baby, it would mean my mum would have to leave, and I didn’t want that.

I have never admitted that to anyone except my Psycholgist. Now, I realise it is nothing to be ashamed of and those feelings I was experiencing were my hormones rebelling and my mind not coping.

Eventually, I had to take her. It was 3 in the morning, I hadn’t slept for nearly 24 hours at that point, and I felt so many things.

I felt numb, but I felt overwhelmed. I felt anxiety, and I felt dread. Then I felt numb again.

I remember looking into my daughters eyes and thinking ‘I don’t love her. I don’t’. But at that point I wasn’t concerned, obviously I would learn to love her, or maybe other mothers lied about this immediate overwhelming love? I remember not knowing what to do, and once the nurse left my room, I remember crying and crying. I cried because I felt like the world was closing in on me. I was sore and tired and I had this baby who now relied on me for absolutely everything, and I didn’t even love her.

I’ll tell you something though, even when you are going through something like this, it is so god damn easy to cover it up. A nurse walked in on me crying and asked what was wrong. I told her I wasn’t sure and she said ‘you must be feeling so grateful to have your baby girl! That must be it!’. She didn’t enquire more into what I was feeling, so I just smiled and repeated what she said, ‘that must be it!’. And I hid my feelings from everyone from then. I often wonder what would have happened if the nurse had have pushed me for my true feelings, or if I had have been open about them from the start.

Scarlett (my daughter) decided not to sleep that night. At all. 

Let me add here, when you have a hormone imbalance, or a mental illness such as post partum depression, sleep tends to be a necessity and often helps to ease your mind. Often people with a mental illness require more sleep, in fact. With me, sleep makes me less anxious, and just makes me feel more human.

Problem being, if you have post partum  depression, what is the one thing that you don’t get a lot of? Sleep. Because to have PPD, you also have a baby.

So, with that in mind, as I was approaching the 30th hour of being awake, I was starting to really lose my shit. I felt overwhelmed, I felt like I was in danger and I needed to leave, I felt like I needed to go far far away and just escape.

Then my mum came and I think I nearly cried out of happiness. One thing I knew was that I was not going to stay another night at the hospital.

So, after them trying to guilt me into staying and me refusing, they let me go home. Just before I left the hospital, I used the bathroom and had my first panic attack that I have had in a long time. Again, something I have admitted to no one except my psychologist.

On the way home from the hospital, I remember feeling nervous. I remember not knowing what to do and feeling disconnected from my baby. I looked over at her in her car seat and stated facts In my head. I told myself that I am lucky to have her because if I didn’t have her now, I may have never got her. I remember thinking she had my eyes, but not my nose. I remember thinking that she looks terrible in hats, but so cute in her onesie. And I remember telling myself that everything was about to change. That this person relied on me and I had to do better, be better, for her.

All the while, I felt disconnected from the situation. I felt like I was watching what was happening through a TV screen, rather than actually experiencing it.

Fast forward two weeks and I am living my own little version of hell. Things got worse every day, and I kept my emotions bottled up because I didn’t want to admit that I was struggling. I didn’t want to think that I wasn’t cut out for this, something so basic as looking after a baby. 

Everything seemed to go wrong once we got home too. It seemed she never slept. The night we got home my mum took her for a little while so I could sleep and recover a little from my experience, especially since I only managed to sleep about an hour at the hospital. I was approaching nearly 36 hours of no sleep (or I should say very little sleep) and I was starting to think I was dying. Everything hurt. I couldn’t string a sentence together. My mind felt muddled. I felt physically ill from the lack of sleep, which only increased my anxiety levels. But yet, I also didn’t feel emotion anymore. I felt like I was physically, emotiknally, and spiritually shutting down. My personality ceased to exist as far as I was concerned.

Thank god for my mum, because once I got Scarlett from her at 2am, Scarlett didn’t sleep the whole night. Again. I tried her in a bassinet next to my bed, no luck. I tried a swing, no luck. I tried her mamaroo. That worked for a little bit, then she realised it wasn’t what she wanted and continued to scream. So against all the prior warning I got, I put her in bed with me. That earned me a lot of judgement from my mummy friends and my non-mummy friends. Which led to guilt.

I felt guilty over every little thing. 

I still felt like I didn’t love her, and I felt so incredibly guilty over that. I saw my mum connect with my daughter on such an emotional level, and here I was, her mother, and I couldn’t even tell her I loved her because I legitimately wasn’t sure if I did. Every single time I gave my baby formula, I wanted to cry because the guilt was eating at me. Not only was my mind not cooperating with this experience after my body so blatantly refused to cooperate with conceiving, now it was also not producing food for my baby. Yet another issue with my body- as if I didn’t have enough problems with it already! 

Every time she wasn’t sleeping and I wanted her to sleep, I felt guilty because I wished that she would just shut up or sleep, so that I could sleep more. Every time she cried I felt guilty because I wasn’t making her happy and I felt like she should be happy.

Guilt was a huge emotion that weighed down on me.

Other emotions that took over was the feeling of dread. I felt like something bad was coming. I felt like it was the calm before the storm, and if what I was currently feeling turned out to be the calm part, I knew I couldn’t handle the storm part. I felt overwhelmed. I felt like I wasn’t cut out to be a mother. I felt like I had made a huge mistake. I felt like the universe made me ‘infertile’ for a reason, and that reason was because I wasn’t meant to do this. That I wasn’t physically or mentally capable of handling a baby.

And I felt so guilty. I felt guilty that I went through IVF, managed to become pregnant and be blessed with a healthy baby (which some people don’t get blessed with), and was now regretting my decision. I felt guilty that I was regretting my daughter- someone who I wished for and thought about every single day.

I felt guilty that I was relying on my mum so much because I wasn’t confident in anything I did. 

I also felt incredibly disconnected from Scarlett. Out of everything, looking back, this was the most disturbing part of the experience for me. I felt disconnected from her completely, which was such a contrast to how I felt about her when I was pregnant. I was absolutely love sick over her when she was a mere ‘idea’ or ‘fetus’. It seemed once she became a real person, that love just dissapeared. 

I don’t think I kissed her until she was about four weeks old because I just felt like she wasn’t mine to kiss. Honestly, if someone had have told me that she wasn’t my daughter, I would have believed them. The disconnect made me not want to be around her. I used to wish she would stay asleep an extra hour so I didn’t have to deal with her. When she was crying, I wished that my mum would offer to take her. I felt disconnected, overwhelmed, unhappy, and teary constantly.

I felt like I lost myself too. I was an avid reader before I gave birth, constantly reading. But at two weeks post partum, I hadn’t even touched a book. I would have killed to have enough free time to read. And there was two opportunities where I was able to- Scarlett had just been fed and went to sleep in her bassinet so I was actually able to walk away from her, but once I sat down to read, I just had no interest. I didn’t know who I was anymore. Before I gave birth, I wanted a baby so bad and I loved reading, and now, I couldn’t believe that I had ‘made the biggest mistake of my life’ and hated the idea of reading.

Now, luckily for me I never had thoughts of harming her or myself. My daughter was never the problem for me. Even though I guess you could say she ’caused’ the way I was feeling (in the fact that I birthed her, not that it was her fault), the negative emotions were directed at myself, never her. I felt guilty because I wasn’t doing right by her and I wasn’t handling the situation. I felt she deserved better than me.

Throughout this however, I made sure to pretend like everything was okay. When people would ask how I am going or how the baby is, I would give them a big smile and say ‘everything is going great! Thanks for asking!’, when on the inside I wanted to tell them how I wasn’t coping. How I knew something wasn’t right and that everyday it got a little worse.

And I cried constantly. Over everything. TV ads. Movies. Books (even though I didn’t get much of a chance to read in the end, which caused more crying because I didn’t WANT to read!!). Something my cat did. Facebook posts. Absolutely everything would send me into a fit of tears that were so, so hard to stop. 

I avoided seeing friends. I didn’t want anyone in my space to see me suffering. I wanted to hide from the world, not see people. Which is why during this time, I pushed away all my friends. I let them come one time each at the beginning, and told them after 15 minutes that I was really tired and they needed to leave. I didn’t want to socialise, I wanted to sleep and feel better. I did not want to have to face the possible judgment they could have forced upon me.

Because I wanted to pretend everything was alright, I made sure to cry alone. I pretended to need to go to the toilet more, or make a quick trip to my bedroom to ‘put my phone on charge’. I remember my mum would offer to take Scarlett so I could go and take a nap, and often, I wouldn’t sleep. The three or four hours I would be in there, I would just cry over absolutely everything.

I was so sad. I was so angry. Why couldn’t I just suck it up and be a mother? Why did I have to be such a screw up? Why didn’t this come naturally to me like it does so many other woman?

After two and a half weeks of living in misery, I decided I needed help. I was in my bedroom crying, and normally I could pull myself together and stop. I would tell myself I needed to end the crying or I would get caught. But this day, I couldn’t stop. My chest was heaving. I felt like I was drowning in misery and it was all consuming. At this point, I was an emotional wreck. I still felt like I didn’t love her, but I was so emotionally messed up that I wasn’t even sure what love felt like anymore. 

I honestly could not pinpoint emotion. I had no idea if I still loved my mum, or my dad, or even my cat! Before I did, but now? No idea.

So after not being able to stop crying, I made my way out to my mum who was baking in the kitchen. She looked at me and straight away dropped what she was doing to come over to me and ask what was wrong. I explained that I think something is wrong with me. I told her that I think I need to see a doctor because I can’t handle these feelings and I’m scared what will happen if I leave them to simmer any longer.

She said she knew that something was wrong. She told me that she could tell in my demeanour, and from several conversations we had had that I wasn’t my usual self. She said she was monitoring me and if she thought I was getting any worse, she was going to personally suggest I go see a doctor.

So that’s what I did. I saw a doctor the next day who referred me to a Psychologist. I saw him once a week for 11 weeks before I felt like I could handle it on my own from there.

Now Scarlett is 1 day shy of being 4 months old and things are so much better. 

The psychologist let me in on several facts about post partum depression. It’s so much more common than I thought. It’s not your fault that you develop it. Some people, unfortunately, are more prone to it than others and the only way to get rid of it is therapy, time, acceptance, support, and sometimes medication (which I luckily avoided).

My Psychologist and I went over and over my feelings. He was very supportive and assured me that everything I was feeling was scary, but normal and common in mothers with post partum depression.

Let me add that although it took me 11 weeks to feel I didn’t need to see him anymore, there were times throughout that period where I felt like I could stop seeing him. Several times I almost called to cancel my appointments, but decided against it. Luckily, because another thing with post partum depression- introducing, mood swings. 

One minute you might feel really good. Like, better than you have felt in a really long time, then as little as five minutes later, you will be walking to your room trying to contain your tears and fighting back loud sobs. Some days are better than others and some weeks make you want to crawl in a hole and never come out- but that’s all a part of PPD.

Unfortunately for me, I am very stubborn by nature and only sought out help once I was in a really bad place. And all things considered, I was extremely lucky. I had help in that of my mum and dad- especially my mum. I also never had suicidal thoughts like many other mums get. So in retrospect, I was lucky that I didn’t get it worse. For those mums that do/have had it worse, I am so, so sorry. Know one thing though, if you seek help, you will get through it.

I now know without a shadow of a doubt that I love Scarlett. It took me nearly three months to know for sure that I loved her, and my questioning my feelings for her stemmed from my hormone imbalance, from the PPD and from me being overwhelmed, but I got there in the end. Now I couldn’t imagine life without her and would never think of her as a mistake or ‘the worst mistake of my life’. She is quickly turning into my favourite person and I am so incredibly lucky to have her in my life. I am back to reading and enjoy it on a daily basis (even if I’m up until 2am reading, lol!). I enjoy socialising again now, and often find myself taking Scarlett to meet my friends.

Things are better. Trust me when I say this, it does get better. A little better at 6 weeks, then a little more than that at 3 months. Then better every day after that. 

If you’re anything like me, when I was going through the worst of the PPD, time moved so slowly. I wished for her to be older and to get through all the really hard things. Thing is, once you get better and come out the other side of PPD, you will wish that time slows down. It goes so quickly, if you blink you will miss it.

I know from first hand experience it may not seem that way, but it’s true. PPD leads women to a dark place. For me, I wasn’t sure I would ever come out from it. I wasn’t sure if I would get emotion back, I wasn’t sure if I would ever love my baby, and I wasn’t sure that I would ever be the same person I was before.

I’m not the same person, I am someone better. Because I have lived through this milestone. I pushed through and worked really hard to overcome it. I have learned and gained a new experience (one I hope I never face again and wouldn’t wish upon anyone), but I also know that I am stronger for it. I know that if I do go through it again, I will be able to come through it like I did this time. 

There is no shame in admitting you are having a hard time coping. There is no shame in seeking help. There is no shame in asking for help. There is no shame in admitting your feelings, because I guarantee you, you are not the first person to feel that way. 

I am speaking up. I had post partum depression. I am not ashamed to admit it. I hope my story will help at least one person fight through their struggle. You are not alone. 

I’m struggling.

Ive been feeling really overwhelmed with everything. I’ve been feeling anxious, I cry over absolutely nothing, and I feel like I can’t do this.

I don’t know how to explain it, all I know is, I’m pretty sure this is the start of post pardum depression. I love Scarlett, I do, but I feel so overwhelmed by everything. 

I sit back and think ‘if I can’t handle this now, how am I going to parent her when she’s older?’. 

I have always said I don’t function well on no sleep. Problem being, I have been getting adequate sleep. My mum has been an angel, she will come and get Scarlett when she gets up in the morning and let’s me sleep until I need to. I get about 4 hours of interrupted sleep with Scarlett overnight, then after my mum takes her, I get about another 4 of uninterrupted sleep. Which means I am getting around 8 hours. So I can’t even blame these feelings on lack of sleep.

I feel detached. I love Scarlett, but I don’t feel the ‘overwhelming love’ that I have heard people talk about. I feel like I am a baby sitter and her real mum is going to come and get her soon. I know this isn’t normal.

And I am scared. Absolutely terrified. I feel numb, but then sometimes I feel so incredibly sad that I cry for an hour and I can’t stop it. I don’t even know why I’m sad. I have no reason. I have a perfectly healthy daughter who is thriving, I have lots of help in my mum, and I’m sleeping. So why do I feel this way?

I hate feeling this way. I feel worse when she’s awake and grumpy because I don’t know what she wants. Sometimes she will be crying and she has already been fed, burped, changed, and not showing signs of tiredness, and I get so overwhelmed. I don’t know what she wants and that makes me frustrated. 

Not frustrated at her, more like frustrated at myself. Frustrated that I’m her mum and I don’t act like it and I don’t feel like it, plus I don’t know what she wants. 

I’ll also get frustrated during the night. The last 5 nights Scarlett has gotten into the habit of waking up to eat, eating, then staying awake for another two hours after that. But not a happy two hours, she cries, and grunts like she has wind or needs to poo, but never does. Eventually she gets herself so worked up that she won’t sleep, and the cycle starts again.

I would never hurt her, and like I said, it’s not like I get frustrated at her, it’s more directed at myself for not knowing what she wants.

I keep saying ‘it will get better’, or ‘once she sleeps through the night or she can talk and tell me what she wants, it will be fine’, problem being, I don’t know if it’s healthy for me to wait that long. 

Over the last week I’ve noticed myself declining. I feel so ashamed and embarrassed over the fact that I’m writing this post. I’m sitting here bawling my eyes out while my mum is holding Scarlett because I’m pretty sure I have post pardum depression.

I just don’t understand how I could develop this. I wanted Scarlett so much. I went through IVF and so much to get her. And now I feel like I can’t handle it. I feel like things will never get better, and logically, I know it’s not true, but that’s how I feel and I can’t stop it. I feel like I’m not cut out to be a parent and that absolutely devastates me because I wanted this so much.

I’ve made an appointment with the doctor for tomorrow. Hopefully she can help me or at least advise me on what to do.

I don’t know what the treatment is for this sort of thing. Medication? Therapy? I don’t know. And how long do these things take to stop? All I know is I want it to stop now because I hate feeling this way. 

Talk soon. X

Updates!

So last time I posted on here I shared the story about how my brother was having a baby and never told me about it.

Some new information has surfaced since then. Two days after I decided to message him and say congratulations. I apologised if I came off as rude, but it was simply shock and a whole world of hurt for not being told or included. I said that I know he would have his reasons but since I don’t know them and he isn’t willing to share them, that I can only assume that he didn’t want to tell me for the simple fact of my reaction or to he purposely hurtful. I told him I was super happy for him anyway. That I am so excited that my baby girl is going to have a cousin to grow up with who is so close in age. I told him that I’m always here for him- if he needs to talk or if he needs any help, that I am more than happy to do everything I can. I asked him if he would keep me more included in things since this is my niece or nephew and I would love to have a relationship with them and their mother.

The reply I got back was a bit strange, but cleared a lot of things up. So I don’t misquote, let me copy and paste the message. ‘Nuh lol Chantelle the baby isn’t actually mine. It’s hers and one of her friends. It wasn’t planned and we are together so it’s mine.’. 

So I replied with ‘I suspected something like that, and I don’t expect you to tell me the whole story. There is obviously more to it, otherwise you wouldn’t have stepped up, but I don’t expect the story. I am quite proud of you in fact. It takes someone who is mature and responsible to step up and take care of someone else’s baby and claim it as your own. I think it’s a very honourable thing to do. But either way, a huge congratulations is still in order. You’re going to be a dad! So how is all of this going to work? Are you going to move up there with her? Is she moving down here? Are you going to commute?’.

He replies ‘thanks. I’ll probably move up there for a year and if I can convince her to move down here, we will after a year.’.

I say ‘oh, cool. What about gender of the baby? Do we know? Or are we waiting for a surprise?’

He says ‘we are waiting until birth’.

We continue our conversation from there taking about mostly non-baby related things, like work and whatnot.

I’m glad he finally decided to talk to me. I’m glad everything got cleared up and now at least I know the truth. I’m still a bit upset he didn’t come to me originally. I don’t expect him to come to me first, but maybe second or third would have been nice, not last. Either way, I’m glad I’m in the loop now. And the fact it biologically isn’t his probably explains why he waited so long to tell me. I would like to believe that if he had’ve known from the beginning, he would have revealed earlier.

In other news! Scarlett is doing good! I was at a friends house the other day and we were talking about how we are renovating her nursery right now. I am still calling her ‘baby darl’ to everyone because I want to keep her name a secret until birth. Anyway, we were talking and they asked me if I had chosen her name. I told them that yes, I had, but I’m keeping it a secret until birth.

They begged and begged me to tell them what it was and I refused to say. You see, these friends, they are a couple. The female is absolutely supportive in anything I do, but the male is highly opinionated. I would have no issues telling the female, but the male would give his opinion and I just don’t want it. Plus, I can’t tell her without telling him, or she would tell him!

Anyway, the female friend says ‘can I guess?’. I say ‘you can, doesn’t mean I’m going to say yes or no’. And what is the first name she says? Scarlett. 

I just laughed and said ‘why would you say that?’ And she said it was because it was one of the names that I kept coming back to. I just laughed it off and said nothing. Then the male says ‘oh I hope its not Scarlett’. I ask why, and he replies ‘Scarlett makes me think of a “white trash teen brides” name. I can’t think of anyone upper class with the name Scarlett. No one will take her seriously!’.

I’m not sure where he got that from, but okay. Now, normally this is the part where I would complain because someone shamed the name I have chosen for my daughter, however, it was a very educational experience. I don’t know if it was because I’ve finally settled on her name or become comfortable with it, but when he said those things, I didn’t second guess my choice, I didn’t defend the name, I just accepted that not everyone will like her name and that’s their issue. I love her name and I hope she loves her name. That’s all that matters. Other people’s opinions just don’t come into play anymore. And that was enlightening!

In other news, my cat turned 8 yesterday. The day before I brought him into my work so we could do his first ‘senior health check up’ which included a thorough examination, an eye exam and a blood test.

I got the call today from one of the vets I work with for the blood results. The bloods show that his kidneys aren’t functioning properly. We have to confirm this with a urine sample, but if it is confirmed, it means he will have chronic kidney disease. 

Since he’s not showing any symptoms so far, it means we have caught it in the very very early stages, and if we start treatment now, it means he could live for another 5-8 years. Which is great, because a lot of cats die before they are 16. It will be a long road of medication, money and monitoring absolutely every aspect of his life, but he is so worth it. He’s my little cat.

It’s really weird how attached you become to animals. When I got the phone call today, I cried and cried and cried. Hours of non stop crying. It was exhausting (and likely made worse by pregnancy hormones!). But all I could think about was the fact that this is what will likely kill him. If this is confirmed, this is what he will die from. And I just couldn’t handle that. He is like my child. Every single day I wake up with him sleeping at my feet. As soon as he realises I’m awake, he gives me a meow, almost as if to say ‘good morning’ then gets up, rubs his head to my face, and lays on my chest. Unless I move him, he doesn’t move. He follows me around the house. He has conversations with me (more like, I speak and he meows). I feed him. I give him water, I change his litter, I wipe his fur when he accidentally poops on himself, I clean his vomit when he throws up a hairball, I build his scratching posts, I take him to the vets, I pay for his medical bills, I get him groomed so he’s comfortable, I don’t make my bed so he can easily get under the covers, I let him claw my curtains because he likes the texture. I picked him. Out of all the other cats I could have picked, I picked him. I just could not handle the thought of this little cat, my cat, not being here anymore. I can’t imagine the day where I have to wake up and not have him there with me. 

And honestly? I just don’t think I could handle losing him right now. He’s like my son. My fluffy, snuggly son. I need for him to meet my daughter. I want her to remember him and love him. I want for him to be healthy and happy. 

I guess everyone knows their pets are going to die someday, but not this soon. 5 years seems like a long time, but it’s not. It’s such a short amount of time. And it goes so quickly. 

So I’m keeping my fingers crossed that when I am able to get a urine sample to the vet, hopefully tomorrow, that the results will be fine and he won’t have something like CKD. I don’t know if knowing is better than not knowing. I don’t know if I can handle knowing what will kill him. I don’t know if I can handle having a countdown either. I feel like I would get to five years and start to freak out. I want him for as long as possible, but I want him happy and not in pain for the rest of his life, and that may come even sooner than 5 years. 

I guess right now I’m stressing over nothing. It hasn’t been confirmed yet so I can’t freak out until it has been confirmed. I’m thankful for a lot of things if he has it though, for example, that we caught it early. Thank god for that.

(P.S I know my posts have been super depressing lately, so im sorry about that! I don’t mean to be such a Debbie downer, I guess I’ve just had a series of unfortunate events occur and since I don’t have much else going on in my life, they are huge issues to me! Sorry again.)

Talk soon! X

This is why you shouldn’t test early.

Took another test this morning after an 8 hour hold and its lighter than yesterday afternoons line.

Completely devastated.

Transfer #2

Today I had my second transfer.

The day started out pretty good actually. I woke up to a thunder storm going on (I know that may sound strange to most people but my favourite weather is rain and thunder). It was at this point the morning took a turn for the worse.

Of the four people who know about my transfer in real life, I was expecting to at least hear from a few of them wishing me luck or something like that. Maybe it’s just me, but I’m the type of person who wishes my friends luck for exams, texts them happy birthday AND posts on facebook, and I guess wish them luck for any other important things (like job interviews, first days at university, and anything they are nervous about). I would consider ivf a pretty big deal, but not one of them wished me luck today. Yes, that includes my mum. In fact, I walked out, told her I was leaving and she said ‘can you pick up milk on the way home?’.

Gee, thanks mum. I appreciate your support. And my friends. I don’t even know. I feel like I’m constantly there for them, and yet they can’t even send a simple text message saying ‘good luck Chantelle’. It’s not hard. Takes all of 5 seconds. I guess this got me down so the whole drive to my clinic I was moping. Immature, I know. But whatevs.

I get to my clinic half an hour early (I think people must have taken time off of work because of the storms) so I decided I would just go in and wait. It turned out to be not that much of a big wait because within 15 minutes the embryologist called me into the room to discuss my embryos.

So after chatting with her for about half an hour, this is the condensed version of what she explained to me. Out of the embryos I had:

1.) I have one that is at the extended blastocyst stage. It’s not hatching out of its shell yet (which is normal for day 5 embryos; this usually happens on day 6) but looks pretty good. They graded it a 4AB. The inner cell mass has a lot of defined cells, this will eventually become the baby and looks exactly as it should. The outside of the embryo (which will be the placenta) looks good to me, but apparently it has undefined cells, so that’s why they graded it a B. This is the one they implanted and is the best one out of all the embryos I have. I’ll insert a photo at the end of this post.

2.) I have another extended blastocyst but it’s not of very good quality. They didn’t tell me but I’m pretty sure the paperwork said 4CC. She told me that it’s not suitable to freezing so they are leaving it for a few days to see if it improves, otherwise they are discarding it.

3.) I have an early blastocyst which they are going to grow more to see how it is. If it’s of good quality they will freeze it, otherwise they will discard it

4.) I have one morula, which is a little behind. They are going to grow it to. They can grow it to day 7 and if it’s a blastocyst and of good quality, they’ll freeze it.

5.) I have a 4 cell embryo which is very behind at this point (about 3 days), so it’s likely it won’t grow much more, but they are still going to grow it just in case (I’m not holding out hope for this one!)

6.) I also have a uneven 5 cell embryo, which is again quite behind and not good quality. But they are going to grow them all some more and see what happens, but again, not holding out hope.

The actual transfer was smooth and hurt, but it was okay overall. My doctor told me on the way out that she’s crossing her fingers for me. She told me that because it wasn’t a perfect embryo she’s unsure if this would work, but for me to stay hopeful because of this doesn’t work, I can go another round of ivf. I guess that was the last thing I wanted to hear, especially since at this point none of my embryos are viable for freezing. All of it made me a little bit upset because I was thinking, shit, I’m not sure I can do it again.

Of course, the drive home let me stew with my emotions and I sort of fell apart.

Cue all positive thoughts figuratively and literally flying out the window.

I’m terrified to google it now. I thought a 4AB embryo was good! But once my doctor said that… I’m questioning everything. It probably doesn’t help that I seem to be in a super sucky mood today and that is probably making matters worse. Maybe i took it the wrong way, I don’t know, but I don’t know how many ways you can interpret that.

I have my reflexologist appointment tonight, hopefully she can give me some answers.

Here’s my embryo. The one I hope becomes my future son or daughter. Keeping my fingers crossed!

Talk soon! X

Feeling better & possible progress?

So after my last (completely depressing!) post, I’m feeling much better. My Australian followers and friends will know that I actually posted it at about 4am. I woke up that morning at about 2:30am and couldn’t seem to get back to sleep. Obviously when you are tossing and turning you have no other distractions from your thoughts, so I was just simmering in sadness.

The reality is that yes, all those things I said were true. Sometimes I do feel like I have no support, that this journey is hopeless and that I’m never going to have a child. The fact is, I don’t know what the future holds. Who knows, I might try another two cycles of IVF, have them fail, then meet the guy of my dreams the next day. I don’t know what the universe has in store for me, so I may as well not get down about it and just go with the flow. The extra stress isn’t helping me, that’s for sure.

Don’t get me wrong, I was pretty much in tears writing the post, then I had a really, really good cry after I put my phone down. Sometimes you just have to let it out. My mum came in at about 6am asking what was wrong. I tried to explain it but she didn’t really understand and just told me I was being silly. That just made me cry harder. BUT! After I finished crying, I felt infinitely better. Like a weight was lifted.

I think it was a build up of a lot of things. I have been questioning what I want to do with my life. My number one priority right now is to have a child. Then my priority will be to raise it. I plan on taking a year off of Uni in order to be with him/her for the first year, then go back and finish my studies at Uni. Then go work. Problem being, I’m just not sure being a nurse will push me to leave my child each day and WANT to go out and work. I know that sounds ridiculous, but the only way I can see myself being comfortable leaving my child with a carer (granted, the carer is my mum, but still..) is if I’m going to a job that I’m absolutely in love with. Yes, I enjoy nursing, but I have a passion for midwifery. Problem being that most of the courses for midwifery are double degrees in nursing/midwifery and super hard to get accepted into. Plus, it’s hard to break into the midwifery career circle once you have your degree. At least if you have the back up of nursing, you can fall back and work in a maternity ward or something until you can find a job. Problem is… It’s so much more work. More time. And in the end, I’m going to want to work as a midwife, not a nurse. My mum has given me the stern talking about it. She is adamant that if I’m going to transfer courses, I should be transferring into a double degree because I won’t be able to get a job in midwifery. I really don’t know what to do. I see the logic in doing both, and considering it’s only an extra year, it probably would be worth it. But in the long run, it’s so much more than that. I would have to graduate, and do a graduate year in nursing, then do a graduate year in midwifery before I could even get a proper job. That’s 6 years!! Considering I’ve already been studying for 3, it just seems like too long. I just want to be happy, and I know it’s my life, but my mums judgement has a bigger influence on my life than I would like. I’m just confused really.

But! Back on track with baby making business. Something really weird happened yesterday that was a tad gross. If you don’t want to read about tmi business, I suggest you stop reading now.

Well, for those of you that have ever used crinone gel, you know how you put it up there, then maybe a few hours later, or the next day, it will come out on the toilet paper in a thick, drier glue sort of consistency? Well, I haven’t used crinone for well over a month. Yesterday morning I woke up and seemed to be somewhat itchy down there. I didn’t think much of it, I thought maybe I was getting an infection or something and I would have to monitor it closely. Well, I got up, showered, went to the toilet and everything was fine. A few hours later the itch was getting worse (thank god I was at home studying for the day, I couldn’t imagine how uncomfortable I would have been if I was out!), to the point where I was about to call the doctor to make an appointment to get it checked out. I decided to go to the toilet one last time before I rang and when I wiped, it was like a small chunk of blood stained crinone came out. Probably no bigger than a 5 cent piece, and if was mixed with what looked like old, brown blood, but it freaked me out. Could that really have been stuck in there all month? Oddly enough, after that toilet visit, the itching stopped completely! I have no idea what to make out of this experience. I was excited because I thought good old aunt flow was on her way but nope, nothing since then!

Talk soon! X

I think it’s over…

So I just went to the bathroom and (I know, tmi…) there was some brown spotting/discharge on the toilet roll. This usually happens the day before/a few days before my period starts.

From my research, it’s too late for implantation bleeding. Which only leaves one thing, aunt flow is making a visit to town! Because I am a glutton for punishment and I like bitter disappointment, I decided to pee on a stick. Want to guess the results? Yeahp, it was negative.

If the spotting continues I’m going to call my clinic tomorrow so I can arrange to do something. I feel like if I’m getting my period, then I should go in for my blood test earlier, so I can get confirmation that it’s negative which means I can stop my progesterone and start the next cycle of IVF.

I’ll admit that I’m disappointed, it’s not anyone’s fault… I guess I keep wondering if I did something wrong? I know in my head that it probably had nothing to do with me.. That if it didn’t implant it means that there would have been something wrong with the embryo, but it still makes it hard.

It’s completely irrational and I know I sound ridiculous… But I feel like I’ve lost a child. I’m not dismissing anyone’s feelings and I know that no matter what the situation is, when you lose a child, it’s hard. But that was my child. I saw it when it was just a follicle in my ovaries. I saw it when it was just an immature egg. I saw it when it had 4 cells and when it was transferred into my uterus. I met that embryo. And now I know that it probably didn’t survive. I don’t know. I know how crazy I sound, but it was my embryo, it had potential to be my baby. And it’s sad that it’s not a possibility anymore.

Talk soon! X

Bah-bowwww

Like I planned yesterday, this morning I tested. It started out as a great morning! My uncle woke me up to a Maccas breakfast treat (score!) and even had freshly squeezed orange juice waiting for me. Then I went to ‘have a shower’ which actually is code for ‘pee on a couple of sticks, distract myself while brushing my teeth, obsessively look at them at random intervals and THEN have a shower’.

So that’s exactly what I did. Before I jumped in I didn’t see a line, then once I got out, I double checked, no second line on either the First response (FRER) or my internet cheapie (that is supposed to be accurate to 10iu of HCG).

I’m a little bit upset, but I know that technically I’m only 10dpo (days past ovulation) so it still may be too early. I’m holding onto that fact because it would be really lovely if the universe gave me a break once in a while and let this cycle work so I don’t have to do another IVF cycle. PLEASE UNIVERSE, I’m at the point of begging- yeahp, I’m desperate.

So the next test I’ll b taking will be Wednesday. That will make me 12dp2dt and should give me an accurate result. If it’s negative Wednesday, I’ll know this cycle didn’t work.

Talk soon! X

Egg retrieval day!

This is going to be a super long post because today was hugely eventful and I have so much to fill you all in on!

So as you probably know, I had to be at the Avenue hospital by 8:30am. Tayla picked me up at 7am and before we fully went on our journey, she stopped so she could grab a morning coffee! Tayla knew approximately where to go so we just drove for a while, until I decided to get the map up on my phone to give us directions.

Anyone who has an iPhone and the google maps app should know NEVER to trust it with directions. I have been burned many times in the past because the iPhone just stuffs up and takes you the long way, or to a completely different destination. How many ‘the Avenue hospitals’ are in Melbourne? From my knowledge, only one. According to my IPhone? There are two!

Well we are driving along… Before we finally arrive in the city! Tayla is sitting there telling me that she is SURE we have gone too far and that we are headed the wrong way. I just kept telling her ‘calm your farm Tay, we are following the map‘. Well, that was another silly decision on my part, because when I check where this hospital is, it turns out it is not the right ‘the avenue hospital’. Thankfully though, we got Tayla’s phone out, plugged the address in there and it took us to the right place.

I had already called them letting them know I may be late, which they were fine about, so when we arrived right on 8:30 and couldn’t find a park, Tayla dropped me off at reception in search for a car park.

As soon as I got in the hospital I went to the reception desk to check in. The lady behind the counter said that a nurse would be right with me, but I could be waiting up to half an hour. This was fine with me as I was still waiting for Tay to return. After sitting down for not even 30 seconds, someone calls my name.

I follow this guy into a room and I pay for the hospital fees and sign all the consent forms. He was actually a little rude- hardly spoke to me, told me to ‘just sign here and no where else’ and had an overall irritating demeanour.

never mind

I thought

he won’t spoil your big day!

He then tells me to head upstairs to the ‘day surgery’ ward where I will be taken to a bed to wait. After finding out that Tayla is still looking for a park, I head up to the second desk where I hand over my paperwork and take a seat. Maybe 5 minutes later a nurse comes out with a big smile on her face and tells me to come on through. We go into this other room where she takes my OBs, gives me my hospital bands and tells me that a bed isn’t available yet and she will grab me when one is ready. So I head back into the waiting room to wait for my bed and tayla.

Tayla shows up (after scoring a 12 hour park!! Woo!) and shortly after we are off to get a bed for me. As we walk into the clinical area, the nurses are all lovely and smiling at us. Tayla takes a seat on the chair and I sit on the bed. The nurse tells me to get undressed then change into a gown and a dressing gown. Since tayla was already sitting down, I just told her to close her eyes while I changed. It wasn’t until later that tayla pointed out that the nurses/doctors probably assume that we are lesbians, based on the fact that she was in the room while I changed. This certainly gave us a good giggle and I’m sure made Tayla a little uncomfortable. Just so you guys can see my sexy get-up, here are a few super flattering photos plus photos of the room!

At this point I’m still in high spirits, but absolutely shitting myself with nerves. I am visited by a few people before I went in, the embryologist who explains that once the eggs are taken out, they will take them back to the lab to perform ICSI on them, then someone will call me tomorrow to let me know how many fertilised. She explains that the aim is to get them to ‘day 5’ embryos, although as a general rule, only 1 in 4 make it to day 5. Since I was expecting 11 eggs, this didn’t worry me too much.

The anaesthesiologist comes in next and he seems a little arrogant. One of the first things he comments on is ‘how young I am’. I seriously felt like making a rude comment back to him, but I refrained myself.

My doctor came in next. She explained that we were expecting 11 eggs and she is hopeful everything will go okay. She wanted to know If I had any questions (I didn’t) and told me they would come get me very soon.

Sure enough, about 10 minutes later a nurse came in to take me to the operating room. I had to walk from my bed into the room. When I got in there, I seen a bed with stirrups attached with leg braces on each side. I look up and just my luck, there is a fucking smoking hot young doctor there, and all I kept thinking was

holy fuck, this guy is going to see my vagina for all the wrong reasons!!

So I lay down on the bed, but I don’t put my feet in the stirrups. The doctor hasn’t told me to put them in so I don’t bother with it.

The anaesthesiologist comes to my hand and starts feeling for a vein. He soon finds one and says ‘okay you will feel a sharp sting soon’ and I was like ‘excellent!’. He looked up at me and was like ‘excellent?’ And I’m like ‘honestly, once you go through this you get used to needles so a little IV in my hand doesn’t bother me’. He says ‘I guess not!’ And puts the needle in.

While he’s doing that, I have a nurse doing another set of OBs while Mr Mega hot doctor is standing by my head, watching the anaesthesiologist. The anaesthesiologist tells me he is giving me a drug to ‘settle my nerves’, and soon everything starts to feel light and happy. I wasn’t asleep, but I felt like I was floating. Then he says ‘okay, I’m going to give you the medicine to make you fall asleep now’. I feel him attach something to my hand then he starts walking away. I look over and just see a drip connected to me, so I say ‘did you put it in already?’ And he replies ‘it’s going in now’. I was absolutely oblivious to the fact that the ‘drip’ in my hand is actually the anaesthetic, so I start to say ‘no it’s not!’, but all I remember getting out is ‘no itsssssssss’ then It was black.

I remember having a really pleasant dream. I don’t remember what I was about, but I remember that I was enjoying it. I was disturbed from my dream by someone repeatedly saying my name.

Chantelle. Chantelle? Chantelle!

Then I was awake. At first I didn’t open my eyes and I remember thinking that I was having some pretty bad cramping in my pelvic region. A nurse then asked if I was in pain, in which I described how I was feeling. I opened my eyes and saw that I was in a room similar looking to what I was in with Tayla, so I asked the nurse where she was. She told me I was still in the recovery area and I can see tayla soon. Again, I’m sure the nurses all assumed tayla and I were together 😀
Then it hits me why I’m here and I excitedly ask ‘how many did they get?’, to which she looks at me, grabs my hand as if to be reassuring and says ‘four’.

Four? Four. No, that can’t be right. Four? What happened to 11? No. Seriously. Four?!

I asked her to repeat the number, asking her if she actually said fourteen, but nope, she repeated four and told me (in a very nice voice actually) that four was much better than none. Well holy shit, I lose it. Literally started bawling my eyes out. I don’t know how many nurses asked me if I was okay, but every time I just nodded my head and said thank you.

Suddenly, it seemed really funny to me that here I was, just out of surgery and bawling my eyes out, so I started to laugh. I wish I had a camera with me so I could have recorded the nurses expression. I’m sure she was thinking

this looney tune has lost it!

But then I start crying again and all is right in the world. When the nurse comes to take me back to the original room (where tayla still is) the recovery room nurse goes through all my vitals. The recovery room nurse says ‘she’s also a bit…’ And she obviously paused because she has had a blank for the word she wanted to use, so I get my chance and say ‘bipolar?’. Yes, I literally said that. Both nurses burst out laughing and one pats me on the head. LITERALLY pats me on the head.

Soon we are heading back in to the room with tayla. Now I didn’t know this at the time (Tayla informed me in the way home), but when the nurses wheeled me in and for about 5 minutes afterwards, I had stuck my bottom lip out in a pouty face. Yes, apparently in my post-anaesthetic state I was a pouty three year old child. Then once I finished pouting, I started crying again. This stopped just before my doctor came in and told me that everything else went smoothly, other than only having 4 eggs. Obviously that set me off crying again. And I cried until she left.

The nurses had given me some pain relief and the cramping had started to ease up- thank god! But I still felt groggy and upset. All I could think about where people who got like, 15 eggs and ended up with 1. For me to only have 4 eggs, I may end up with none. For all those days of injections, for all the bloody injections I stuck myself with, to only end up with 4 eggs? Wow. Talk about total body failure. For once, JUST ONCE I would like for my body to actually function normally. I’m not expecting it to be an over achiever, but NORMAL would be nice. It’s like, the doctor says I can’t have kids, I try IUI’s, don’t work. I try IVF, first I don’t respond to the meds, then it only produces 4 eggs. My body doesn’t cooperate with ANYTHING I want it to do. Ever. Just once I would like it to.

The embryologists voice was also stuck in my head at that point.

only 1 in 5 embryos make it to day 5

So to put it plainly, I was a wreck. I couldn’t shake the feeling that this cycle wasn’t going to work and that I would have to go through it all again- which honestly only upset me more.

So after recovering for a little bit, they sent me on my good old way home with some Endone (Super strong pain relief!) in my pocket!

Now I’m at home resting. Still in a little bit of pain but accompanied by my boy (yes, Crunchii) and a movie. I’m expecting a call from the embryologist tomorrow to let me know how many fertilised (if any fertilised!), but until then, I plan on drinking my isotonic sports drinks, sleeping, and getting high off my super strong pain meds. Let’s hope tomorrow brings some really good news- I could sure use some!

Talk soon! X

What now?

I had my appointment today and It went as I expected it to go. My doctor told me that considering the three IUI’s didn’t work, that the only option now would be to move into IVF. She said my chances of conceiving via IUI (which is a hell of a lot cheaper than IVF!!) is now at 2% per cycle, however with IVF, they would be anywhere between 40-50%. It’s huge jump in statistics, but it’s also a huge jump in money. Basically, for my 3 IUI’s, I’ve spent just over $6,000. For IVF, they are quoting me a total of $9,500 per cycle, then donor sperm on top of that. I do get back a little portion of that money, about $2,000. So basically, with my savings, I’ll have enough money to pay for one round of IVF, and one frozen embryo transfer if that doesn’t work.

It’s such a hard concept to realise how much money I am actually spending on this. Glida, I know how concerned you are over the money situation, but I’ve got it covered- thanks for caring though.

The way I see it, if I have to go through IVF at my age to conceive a child, there is no way known it is ever going to happen naturally. I’m only going to lose more eggs as I get older, and they will become worse in quality, and I will lose my chance to have my own biological child. This is something I’ve always wanted. A child, a family. And I know by doing this it means I’ll skip out on a lot of things. My friends may decide that I’m not worth the trouble- none of them have kids so why would they want to hang with someone who is the sole provider for a child? I’m giving up freedom, probably several future jobs, I’m sacrificing a year of Uni, I’m forcing Linda and red to put up with a child in their house. I know what I’m getting myself into. Thing is, it will all be so worth it when I get to hold my little baby in my arms.

I have the most supportive family and I know each and every one of you will help me out if I needed you to. So thanks in advance, by the way.

It’s not even a choice anymore. I’ll do what it takes. I’m going to get a credit card, so if the first IVF cycle doesn’t work, and neither do the frozen embryo transfers (if there are any left to freeze!), I can do another cycle and put it on credit.

I’m going to stop at 2 cycles though. If it doesn’t happen after that, I’m going to take a break, pay off my debt, then save for another round. I may not be able to do another round for another year or so, but that is what I’m going to try.

I’m so hoping it works the first time though. Honestly, I’ll be devastated if it doesn’t. All the money and stress and emotional turmoil, it really does a number on you.

Never mind, onwards and upwards!

Talk soon! X