Tag: fertility struggle

No one to send to school

It is the first Monday in September. 

On social media there are photos of children in their clean and ironed school uniforms. They are standing still for the first photo of the new school year. There are remarks about how time has flown and how much has changed in one year. 

I’ve never noticed it before but today was unreal. Photo after photo. And then there’s me excited to be travelling again soon. It made me feel like travel is our baby. That with others around me chatter revolves around children and babies and with us it is what country or city is next. Is travel a distraction? Is that all it has ever been?

That may sound dramatic but when you start feeling like something is missing in your life you ultimately look back at choices to see if things could have been different. The truth is that no, travel, although an escape in my late teens/early twenties, is one of the greatest joys in my life today. It makes me strong, confident and the best version of myself. I am grateful to be able to still go out into the world as much as we do now and to have Mr W with me. 

Today I started feeling really guilty about the time I have spent travelling instead of finding a way to deal with my fertility issues. Hey guess what, if you had a baby six years ago, you’d be sending a child off to school today. Guilt. Guilt. Guilt. But again, you question everything in your life when you are feeling particularly sad. What could I have done differently? Nothing. 

And that’s the truth. 

I hope when the day comes that I’ll show my child the picture of me in my uniform and tell them about my school days. I hope to take the picture of them on the doorstep as they take the leap into their scholastic life. One day I hope to share that photo with the people around me who have waited just as long as me to see it. 

For now I have no one to send to school. So I take the joy in the things I do have instead of those I don’t. I want to be mentally healthy for the baby I will one day hold in my arms. 

Because they care

Today I donned a blue dress. I’m not a fan of blue but it was a special occasion. 

A baby shower for my cousin. She is having a little boy. 

Hence the blue.  

The balloons were hung with care. The sandwich platters laid out just so. The sun even made an appearance. Do I like baby showers? Yes. Do I find them difficult? Also yes. 

It’s a reason to eat party food, which are just little bite sized morsels of foods of your own choosing, get together with loved ones and a chance to celebrate the future. Someone in your life is happy and therefore sharing that happiness is only natural. 

Today was no different. There was chatter and laughter. Quizzes and games. The games had us guessing the weight, name and arrival date of the baby boy. Even though when the event was announced I had been apprehensive about going, I didn’t feel anxious or upset by being there. By having time to prepare over the last few months, my feelings of insecurity around our own fertility was put on the backburner and I sat for hours with family enjoying the time together. 

As people slowly drifted out of the door to travel home, Mr W and I sat with my cousin’s wife and thier baby while the gazebos came down and the empty plates were tidied away. Baby Grace is 5 months old and so far I’ve managed to avoid the cuddles. It has to be said she is the smiliest baby with the most adorable chubby cheeks and so my trepidation about cuddles has nothing to do with her. I’m just very aware of being around baby’s and how it can affect my mental health. Nothing like a baby being in your arms to remind you that you don’t have one of your own. And then, she was in my arms. I didn’t crumble but by now my poker face is my real face. I’m getting pretty good at it. 

After everyone but us had left we stayed behind to chat. My Aunt got upset and said she wondered how on earth I had coped. Despite my insistence that I was fine she got really upset on behalf and it took a while to calm her down. In all honesty I hadn’t really felt sad until that moment. Like I said before, the time to mentally prepare for the day had helped a great amount. I was not however prepared to help someone who was sad for me. 

It is a difficult path to tread when struggling with fertility. If you keep it close to your chest you end up feeling alone. There is also the odd occasion when and if someone asks what the situation is that you’ll both feel awkward for needing to discuss it. Alternatively if you do tell those around you what’s going on, you open up the can of proverbial worms which can wriggle around at any moment. They should feel comfortable to ask how things are going whenever they want to. Unfortunately it can catch you at a time when you are quite happy ignoring the situation. It then brings the whole issue to the forefront out of the blue. 

So what’s the happy medium? How do we tell people so they are in the know and yet not have to talk about it when it’s the right time for them? There is now how. You can’t control it. You can perhaps ask to talk about it another time. But what if it’s a reaction like I had today, the sadness of tears. It almost feels strange to sit there consoling someone who is sad for yourself. I’ve thought about it a lot. Would I rather no one know? No, been there done that. Would I rather talk about it all the time? No. I need space from this reality from time to time. 

So what is the answer?    

Ultimately I don’t think there is one. I think as honest as we have been about our struggle is just how honest we have to be about our feelings when approached to talk about it. If today was a day I needed to ignore my feelings then so be it. If someone else gets upset I need to understand that too. If I need to scream I will. If we aren’t in the place to talk it is okay to say so. It all comes back to being honest and open. It’s the only way to be kind to ourselves. We told others to share a part of ourselves that is hurting. They ask because they care. 

Photo by Dave Watson
Please check out his work on https://www.instagram.com/davewatson_uk/ or at https://davewatson1980.picfair.com

A day in the life of…anxious nerd edition

This will be short and sweet. I need sleep. Like… a lot of sleep. 

Tomorrow is my HSG scan and having never had one before I am slightly nervous. HSG scans are done to detect any problems in the womb or fallopian tubes. Primarily it is a box to be ticked for the NHS while we stroll through the winding maze of fertility help. The procedure will start with a dye being injected into my cervix and then an x-ray will be taken of my uterus to rule out any problems that blood tests and other scans cannot detect. There is a chance I’ll be in mild discomfort throughout and possibilities of cramping after. Oh what fun!

Ultimately these tests are there to rule out anything else that may be causing my fertility problems, but it is also another uncomfortable box to tick, another hoop to jump through for paperwork that treats us like a number instead of people. I wish this whole ‘journey’ was easier. I wish I didn’t have to be naked from the waist down in front of another stranger. So far, I’ve had three external exams and three not so external exams. That’s three women who have seen parts of me I’d rather lock away from the world. Mr W can’t even be in the room with me this time, due to the x-ray machine, and that means this anxious lady is going to cry. Whether it hurts or not is not why I’ll cry, it will be the feeling of shame, embarrassment and, dare I say, violation. I feel violated every single time. Yes I give my permission, but damn it feels so invasive. It also makes me feel turned inside out, like they’re turning me out like a bag trying to find a problem. I just feel like a vessel that is broken. 

Christ, that turned down a path I didn’t realise existed. Maybe I did realise. But maybe, jumping through these hoops while riding this rollercoaster of emotions feels futile sometimes. It is so hard to work out whether you are actually cared about by the doctor sitting in front of you or whether he actually thinks you need these tests. Is he just going through the motions? I very nearly had a 4th scan in 2021 down to an admin error. A completely unnecessary scan that was meant for someone else. If I hadn’t questioned it I would have had it without reason. It wouldn’t have made any sense on my file and the only thing it would have done is chip away at my remaining dignity. 

I am well aware that there are other procedures out there that are more invasive and are thrust upon people more than 3 times in their life. I am also very aware that after the two years of being mucked around by the NHS I have very little faith in their processes. So this journey we are on has, so far, left my mental health beaten up by an unexpected battle to get here today. Having a scan that I may or may not need. It is not lost on me that the scan may show something I, we, the previous doctor has been unaware of. I am prepared to accept further complications. What I wasn’t prepared for was the doctor saying that it wouldn’t do any harm having a HSG, just cos. I’ll tell you what buddy, let’s use this speculum on you and see what’s going on down there, just cos.  

Tonight we continued our very long tour through our DVDs. (Yes we still own dvds.) They are, obviously, hey it’s me, arranged in alphabetical order and once they were unpacked onto the beautiful shelving Mr W made all those years ago, we made a pact to watch every single film in order. We are now in our sixth year of watching said movies and are only just finishing the ‘P’s’. It was the turn of one of my movies tonight and although a favourite of mine at age 14, I could not stop myself from enjoying it even now. Mr W sat in silence as I smiled and laughed my way through. It was definitely not his cup of tea and yet he didn’t mock me. He did wince when I told him there was a sequel that I unfortunately do not own. Woe is life. 

It crossed my mind as I brushed my teeth and came up to bed. When I sat on my very grown up bed, in our grown up home, that we pay for with our grown up money, the fear I have for tomorrow comes from a place inside where the child who laughed at that movie still lingers. She wants to stamp her foot and tell the doctors off for putting women through the tests just to tick some boxes. She wants to shout out her name and make it clear she’s not a number. She just wants to be a kid again when things were easy. 

This anxious nerd just wants to be on a real rollercoaster and get lost in a maze because it’s fun. I want to feel and know that everything will be okay again. That I won’t get lost down the rabbit hole of poor mental health because this battle took everything away without giving anything back. 

Drowning in prayers

Because there is no life without the wave. That was it. That’s all. Everything. A greatness that had engulfed her but not suffocated her in its depths, but pushed her to the surface with grace and adoration. Two working together to keep one another flowing. Their time together seemingly short but lasting a lifetime. Relying on each other for their strength and power. The hidden depths don’t frighten her and its power over her is forgotten in that brief but unending moment. Crashing her against the rocks unforgiving and endlessly painful the wave beats her. Its power once overlooked is the death of them both. She would have drowned in the idea, yet ‘the wave’ casts her aside with the other debris. The wave will keep coming back, and she playing in the surf mournfully remembers the time she had wanted to join its deafening silence, the crashing stillness. When it does come back she allows the ice cold thought to embrace her soul again before being thrown against the shore. She knows no other way than this. She could move to calmer waters but hears the call of waves breaking and knows…. only too well…. she will eventually drown in salty tears.

Photo by Dave Watson
Please check out his work on https://www.instagram.com/davewatson_uk/ or at https://davewatson1980.picfair.com

Through the fire and the rain

Well we survived.

Our first fertility appointment is done. There were some expected moments. Weight, BMI etc. Other unexpected moments, like the explaining of certain things with diagrams and having read my history which the last guy didn’t bother doing. I’m having a procedure which I was not expecting but am taking it as another ruling out of any unseen problems. There were two moments that upset me. Or maybe, angered me, I’m not sure.  The Doctor asked me a question and while I was talking his mobile phone rang and he answered it. I continued talking to the nurse and when the Doctor had told the person on the phone he would call back later, he asked me to repeat what I’d said. No! How about you not take a personal call while your patient is in the room, talking and answering your question. But no obviously I didn’t say that, I just repeated myself. All he had to do was say, sorry excuse me one moment, answer the phone, tell them he would call them back. But he said nothing of the sort. To be honest, it is things like that I don’t accept from anyone so me feeling anxious and nervous about the appointment didn’t add to it. It’s just plain rude. I’m a person. Not a number on a sheet. ANYWAY! The other was when I asked for weight loss advice and he said I don’t know. Nice and blunt. Thanks buddy. So I’ve taken to the internet again and will call my GP because trying for 20 years has got me nowhere. 

But ya know what, I’d fed up with having all the research in the world and it still does not get me anywhere with the NHS. They have their criteria and I can either like it or lump it. I’m not a naturally rebellious person but it does feel like the criteria is old and unbefitting of the fertility problems people face. Especially those with PCOS. The thing is, I can sit, stand, stomp my foot screaming and shouting the actual facts of PCOS and it won’t make a difference. I’m one voice. The government does not care. The top dogs in the NHS who govern fertility funding do not care. And I’ve reached the point that its time to jump through their hoops. I have no fight left in me. I have to prepare for the fight of losing a substantial amount of weight if I ever have a chance of getting help. It may happen naturally if I lose weight. Who knows. There’s a chance. But if I dont fall naturally I still fit their stupid criteria and have a chance of ovulation and hormone drugs. Some would liken it to blackmail. We’ll do ‘this’ if you do ‘that’. It’s sad when you really think about it. Because PCOS isn’t caused by weight. If they treated the causes, treated what I’m deficient in I could be a happy, healthy curvy mum. Rather than unhappy, unhealthy, skinny tick on the criteria. 

Jumping through the hoop is the only way. Time to bite the bullet and play their game. 

And I’m coming to peace with it. It was driving home today in the rain when I looked in the mirror and saw the most beautiful colours in the sun setting sky. On the mirror were droplets from the weather, but in the mirror were the reds and purples that glowed between the rain clouds. I often look to the sky for guidance and a sense of calming. It’s my place of perspective. 

The sky tonight was no different. It told me that though the rain may be hard and make you want to turn back, scream or shout, wondering if you can carry on, it can also mean that something beautiful is waiting on the other side. That giving it time, to be cold and rough and tough to face, rain can also be what’s needed to make a better tomorrow. So I’m taking solace in the rain and the sunset tonight. Sometimes the journey will experience hard times, rain does that. Sometimes it’ll make things blurry and shift the focus. But it’s not forever. The appointment was hard, the journey seems harder but at least I’m on my journey now, with Mr W, and it’s on the way to something beautiful.

Pink hair do care

Tomorrow is a big day. 

Our first appointment with the fertility clinic after a 14 month wait. It’s been a long wait and after a rollercoaster of a week in terms of cancellations and getting a last minute appointment for tomorrow, I’m in a bit of shock. I feel sick with anxiety. I feel I already know what’s coming. I’ll be offered the tests I have already had and I’ll be told to lose weight. Doctors petrify me at the best of times but when it comes to my weight I’m really sensitive and know I’ll sit there like a child being told off. I almost feel the need to impress this Doctor to be treated like a human. It’s true, I’ve spoken to other people who are overweight recently and they feel like second rate humans because of their size. I used to think it was all in my head. 

Today I had a baby shower to go to. After yesterday’s 30+ degrees of hot weather and a rough night’s sleep I knew I needed to feel good about myself so I could relax and put on my happy face. Baby showers aren’t the hardest thing to deal with when you are struggling with your own fertility, usually it’s the baby announcements, but I can’t estimate how I’ll feel on the day. So getting ready today I wanted to wear something to keep cool but also not feel like this huge beast. I love a new pair of trousers I bought recently, but they are wide legged and therefore make me look bigger. Not good for confidence at all! They are so lightweight that I put them on and said to the mirror, you deserve to feel cooler like everyone else. I went to the wardrobe to get a cardigan and realised it was my go to ‘cover-up’. Not because the temperature may have changed during the day, but because it covered my arms, back, bum and body. I use it to hide away. I closed the cupboard door and left the house before I could change my mind. No safety cardigan in sight. I deserve to be cool on a hot day!

I also reasoned that having recently dyed my hair pink the focus would be on that and not on my chubby arms. Ironically, I did have a brief thought that this day was going to be about the mummy-to-be and no one would pay me a bit of attention! It’s funny, I’ve had pink hair for two weeks and as I’ve been out and about I get a few looks and I automatically think they’re staring at me for my weight. Or something else. It’s only when I catch my hair swishing around my face that I remember its pink. I forget all about it. Does it make me uglier? Prettier? I have had to remind myself recently that what I wear and how I look is the least interesting thing about me. It’s a mantra I’m really trying to live by. 

‘The way you look is the least interesting thing about you.’ 

A recent,  little quote I have acquired from the ‘Go Love Yourself’ podcast by the lovely Laura Adlington and Lauren Smith. If you need a boost, a different perspective on weight, appearance and everything in between, I highly recommend it! 

Go Love Yourself

As much as I’ve fought for this appointment I am so nervous and going back to my pink hair I’m actually wondering if it is going to work against me. These are the worries that plague my mind. Is this why I couldn’t sleep last night? Or was it really the incredible heat and hayfever symptoms? Maybe I won’t sleep tonight instead. The rain has taken away the pollen and the temperature has more than halved since this morning. So there’s only my anxieties left. Yay! What if they see me, my hair and write me off before even talking? I feel as if this will be an interview. That I’ll have ticks and crosses against my name. I have to remind myself over and over that I deserve the same as everyone else. 

Why should I regret the hair? It has been a shake up and a bit of fun. Something to mix things up a bit. Life has been a bit static recently for sure. My hayfever does prevent me from getting a full night’s sleep and therein lies the problem I believe. My anxiety gets a lot worse when I’m tired. And then I can’t sleep because I’m anxious. Hello, vicious circle! 

Isn’t this a fun post? 

As we are home now and my appointment is in 13 hours I feel my stomach tying itself in knots and my need to keep busy is ridiculously strong. I knew that keeping busy today would help. However going to a baby shower when you yourself are going to a fertility appointment isn’t the easiest thing to deal with. Usually, as I said, baby showers aren’t too hard to deal with. I think it’s because you have time to prepare. You know when the baby announcement is made, like the birth, a baby shower is part and parcel. I just think today caught me right in the heart. It reminded me of our journey and I did have to excuse myself for a quick cry in the toilets. These kinds of things just remind me of what we don’t have. 

Tomorrow is the first step of a journey that will be difficult. I’ve already been told that. One thing I’m glad of is Mr W. He has my back. He’s my fighter. He picks me up when I fall. He tells me to wear the trousers I love. To ditch the cardigan. And to dye my hair the colours of the rainbow if I need to. Because no matter what I wear or how I look. I am me. And that will always be enough. 

Pcos and Me

This is a highly personal piece today. It’s a part of my life every single day. There is no ‘cure’, but there are ways of handling it to make it easier. The amount of information out there is absolutely overwhelming so if you suspect or have PCOS please don’t think I’m the oracle or that my research is all there is to know. There will also be opinions that have been built upon emotionally because of years of discrimination and sheer lack of help and awareness. I’m here to discuss my relationship with this condition and try and try to work through some of my issues of embarrassment I have when talking about it and  hopefully, also giving you the absolute promise that you are not alone.

My pcos symptoms started in my mid teens. I had my first period at age 13 and then nada. Nothing. It didn’t happen again for over 6 years. To be fair at that point, I didn’t know about the condition and I wasn’t educated enough to think there was a problem. I simply thought that periods took a while to get going. In school, our sex education lessons saw us separated into groups of boys and girls and taught the ‘important’ things about our changing bodies. The boys were led to a different classroom, where undoubtedly condoms were thrown at them and they were told to be safe. I’d like to point out here that my disdain for the ‘lesson’, yes you’ll notice the disdain with the amount of apostrophes I’m using, comes with my learnings over the years about my condition. In the girls class, we were given a magazine about what it meant to be a teenager and it came with a tampax. How about that! And that was it, nothing about being safe during sex, and absolutely no information about irregular periods. I appreciate that talking about fertility at such a young age may be inappropriate but it is an education I feel needs some major attention. Because where these conditions can cause infertility, they also come with a vast range of physical and mental health implications too. It’s also important to point out that life is not a fairytale, getting pregnant is not always easy, marrying the prince, living in the dream castle and getting pregnant on your wedding night isn’t always the case. If you’re anything like me, you’ll marry your prince after living together for four years and fall asleep on your wedding night. Romantic! As important it is to tell children the lesson of being safe during sex, because you may catch something or indeed fall pregnant, it’s so damn important to tell them that there is another range of stories. The couple that struggle with infertility. The couple that sadly had a miscarriage. The couple who had children young. And the couple who did not want children! There is not just one narrative. So this needs to be taught or at the very least discussed. 

It’s been twenty or so years since that enlightening experience, and where then I would have wondered why endometriosis or Polycystic Ovarian Syndrome, among other fertility and debilitating conditions, was important to learn about, I’m now a 34 year old woman teaching myself about it all. I suppose moving forward after this piece it would be prudent to ask some teens about the sex education they are receiving, or better yet, the teachers who have to give it. I dare say they are working from a guideline set out by some high seated council that knows best! Anger unfortunately will spill out from time to time. This is your warning. 

Daily symptoms of this condition are so surprising that at first most of them seem like a joke. However after countless medical texts, research pieces and noticing the patterns within groups of likewise women, the actual list of symptoms is enormous! When it comes to myself, I have all of them bar one or two. It’s only through my self education that I’ve found symptoms I wouldn’t have thought were out of the norm for everybody to be honest. But hey, ho, they are all part and parcel of this condition. Which in a way, makes me more accepting of the symptom as a whole. One of these for example is anxiety.

Ah the ‘A’ word. It has been brought into the glaring spotlight for the past 3-4 years and it’s creating awareness where once there was none. In my eyes, there are two forms of anxiety. There is the dread of going to a party and wondering what to wear/eat/drink, the feeling of shyness you know will creep onto your being as you are presented with a room full of people and there’s definitely nervousness such as when you read a piece of news. Covid-19 has reached the UK for instance. This type of anxiety comes and goes with the occasions that are making us anxious. It’s something everyone can feel at any time. And in most cases you live without it more than living with it.

And then there’s the other type. The complete saturation of anxiety into your whole being. The utter lack of sleep when analysing something minor. Maybe text that hasn’t been returned from a friend. Last year I had a full on meltdown because a friend hadn’t replied to my messages and I thought I had done something wrong! The heart racing and yet immobilising fear of new situations; answering the door to a stranger, talking on the phone, starting a new job. There have unfortunately been times when I’ve let the doorbell ring, or the phone go unanswered because I’m panicking on the other side. And quite surprisingly, I have avoided job interviews too. When you live with anxiety, you develop around it so fully that you don’t initially recognise it as anything, you fully believe it’s just how everyone is. Everyone at some point in their lives has surely travelled for 90minutes on the train to university only to turn around at the lecture room door because people will turn to look at you when you walk in, right? It seems when looking back, I’ve been struggling with anxiety for a long, long time. At the time it just felt like I was a nervous girl. 

Anxiety is a big symptom in the world of Pcos, how it affects people mentally is absolutely draining. Pile on the other symptoms which will make your anxiety worse and you’ve got a condition that needs more attention from the government and healthcare institutions. Some of the biggest symptoms I deal with are:

Weight gain – I’ve always been the bigger girl. At age 14 I was a size 14/16 and was very aware of it. Now I’m bigger and yes I’m still aware. In the beginning I was conscious of the fact that I had pcos because I was bigger. And in the most recent of years I have discovered that it is simply not the case. Weight gain is a symptom of PCOS not the cause. I’ve started owning the fact that my weight is partially not my fault. I’m not going to sit here and tell you I eat a lettuce leaf smoothie everyday, because I don’t. But what I do know is that exercise and the things I eat aren’t as simple as ‘get up and move, whilst digesting a tiny salad’. My body is in a constant state of fat storage behaviour because of my insulin resistant cells. My body’s cells are at war with my brain. It’s a difficult feeling to process when someone glances at your stomach and must think you are a lazy cow, when you aren’t choosing to be this way. 

Inflammation – so my body is also in a hyper alert inflamed state. So I’m more likely to suffer from IBS and stress. Apart from the physical side effects, the stress is on my cells which doesn’t help them when they’re already not functioning the way they need to be. Fun! Which is why, when I’m told to ‘relax’ I find it hard not to implode there and then. 

Hirsutism – that means hairy. I have hair growing everywhere on my body. Everyone does. But mine is thicker, darker and not bloody wanted. It makes me feel unattractive, self-conscious and it’s the hardest outward effect of this condition that I deal with. At times it stops me being loving with my husband. I feel like a man and it’s very difficult to live with. I often try to turn a situation around when you say ‘you suffer’ because more often than not, if you can find a way to come to terms with something, you can say you ‘live’ with something and in a way it stops controlling you and your quality of life. But for me, living in this hairy body is disgusting and I suffer its physical and mental effects everyday. It’s a physical reminder that I’m different. There have been a lot of times where I’m talking to someone and they’ll notice my face is different, and it’s unfortunate that I see their eyes move from my eyes to my chin. It’s not their fault, 

Infertility- I’m going to do another blog shortly on what PCOS has meant for me and my fertility journey (see journey, not struggle) because it’s just huge. Look out for it soon. But let’s just say, it’s fucking hard! Capital F!

Ance – I had horrific spots at school, I was bullied badly over this, even by ‘friends’ and at the time it was believed to be part of puberty. But I believe that as my puberty never really began properly because of the jumble of hormones my body was coping with vs the normal puberty struggles, I had spots competing in the hormone olympics. I’ll have the occasional pimple now and again, but nothing like back then. 

Hair loss – oh yes,how can I lose hair on my head if it’s everywhere else on my body. Don’t even start! My cousin first noticed some of the hair at the back of my head was shorter than the rest back in 2011. We blamed the amount of times I had bleached my hair and as it was at the back it didn’t bother me. A few years ago I started reading about hair loss and PCOS. It causes bald spots and thinning of the hair. Now my hair was so thick and curly when I was young that it regularly became knotty and matted. Nowadays, I estimate I’ve lost 50% of my hair due to thinning and the short bit at the back is still there. As a girl who suffers with her weight and facial appearance, my hair is my security blanket. Another physical reminder, that not all is as it should or indeed could be. 

Insomnia – well this one shocked me, it goes hand in hand with the theory of people living with PCOS having no energy. I’ve had insomnia since I started at secondary school. I would regularly not sleep or manage a few hours a night. Ultimately this came down to the stress I was experiencing at school but it also turns out to be a major symptom of the condition. It is said to go hand in hand with anxiety. It wasn’t until Mr W and I bought this house that I found myself sleeping better and permitting myself the time to nap if I needed it. I started listening to my body when it needed sleep. Before that I would muddle on through and had learned that being tired was just a natural thing that everyone felt. WRONG! PCOS also drains your energy from your body, so no matter if you’ve had no sleep, 3/5/10/14 hours sleep, you will, or at least I do, feel tired. The last couple of years have been better, and it’s only when I’ve had a severe anxiety attack, that I find I can’t sleep. But as I become more accustomed to what’s going on and recognising the signs, I can calmly go about my day knowing it won’t last forever. 

So there you have it, a day in the life of me! A lot of how I feel about the above is determined by my mental state. It’s my anxiety levels that will control my mental health. And a lot of the symptoms will cause me to feel anxious and my anxiousness will cause my internal symptoms to flare up and back to the beginning we go. So yes, I’m living within a vicious circle BUT somehow knowing there isn’t a cure but it can be managed makes me realise that there’s only so much I can do. 

Over the next two or three blogs I’ll be detailing my struggles with fertility, the NHS help I’ve gotten so far and the steps I’m taking to make my condition more manageable and in turn make my life just that bit better. 

I want to say now, that I have an amazing husband, beautiful friends and family, most of whom have not made me feel like a freak in any way nor stopped me talking when I’ve discovered new things about this condition. The wonderful power of research and owning your condition means you can take control and I believe that’s the first step on a very difficult and winding road. You are not alone.