I Heart Melbourne.

Ahhh, Melbourne. Not Melbourne Florida, but Melbourne Australia. This blog entry is my love-letter to my home town.

What's not to love? Her teeming, grimy, grey streets, streaked by the latest grafitti-artists' obscene efforts. They go up more quickly than they can be removed. My absolute favorite thing to do in Melbourne? And I promise you that this is quite possibly the lamest thing you have ever read on the WWW, and that includes you perezhilton obsessives.

As much as I hate PT in Melbourne, with the over-priced tickets, broken machines, cancelled, filthy trains, urine-soaked stations and Bracksie's Neo-Nazi ticket inspectors (I kid you not, my brother had his jacket ripped by a flotilla of these arseholes), this is my favorite thing to do in Melbourne, of all time.

Ok, so you ride a train, doesn't matter which line. The ones I'm most familiar with are the Alamein line (childhood), Belgrave/Lilydale lines (adolescence) and the .....I can't even remember, my station as a 30-something was Heidelberg....... Upwey? Epping? That's how often I used PT as an adult.

Anyhoo, the idea is, you get the train into the city, and sit next to a window. It's more effective if you can get a bunch of seats on your own. Once you get to the inner-city stations, like from Westgarth onwards.........you stare into people's backyards. That's it! No, I'm not some random psycho, stalking out the lives of my inner-city brethren. I just love, love, love those crammed- together, tiny, ancient old terraces, with their mini-yards and character seeping from every window frame and narrow, cobbled laneway. I can't explain the feeling that washes over me during this experience, warm, nostalgic, kind of like one of those dreams you have that make you feel 5 again, but happy-5, not sad, tantrumming-5.

You just don't get that anywhere else.



This blog entry is dedicated to those girls in Melbourne, you know who you are. I won't name you or even give you cutesy little Sex and the City-type descriptions, but you're all going through this hell of Infertility and I want you to know that even though we've only met once, I think of your struggles often.

One day, Melbourne, I'll be back for good.

That's me in the spotlight, I'm losing my religion....

Okay, so old Michael Stipe wasn't actually singing about religion because, as any good REM fan knows, the religious iconography in the video had nothing to do with the actual song but was one of those creative-artistic type things bound to attract interest/controversy.

The expression is a southern US idiom for being at your wit's end, or in my case, at my fucking wit's end.

Significantly, however, the continuing story of my Infertility (yeah, it deserves a capital letter, because like the song's meaning, it's also become an obsession) has made me consider the metaphysical more often than I have since those dark, depressing teenage years, you know, the ones where I agonised over the meaning of life while everyone else was getting smashed, laid etc. It does suck to be deep in a shallow world.

I'm not sure what the religious make of their Infertility. I find it difficult to reconcile any of this with anything that makes sense. I have no wish to offend those with religion, I envy you and I know that I'm in the minority in not being able to believe in a higher power.

What Infertility does to my belief system is that it gives me a sort of lite-Hinduism/Buddhism in which I wonder what the fuck I've done in another life to deserve this. I must have been one awful, child-murdering criminal to be going through this now.

Because I wouldn't wish yesterday's ultrasound on anyone, yet the news was not unexpected in the least, and it certainly hasn't been the first time I've seen that empty, barren sac on the screen, mocking me and making me look the other way before the tears well up. Could it be any more symbolic of the struggles we go through?

Some of my loyal readers (all 3 of you, lol) have wondered why I haven't blogged for a few weeks. I will admit to some false hope, despite all indications to the contrary from my FC, that I had a lazy little late implanter on my hands, who had finally latched onto mama and was now making my HCG double every 2 days or so, as it was meant to. Would we turn up to that scan yesterday, all past traumas forgotten, to be greeted by the sight of a little 7 week mini-us on the screen, allowing us to put this hell behind us? Why on earth would we get that lucky?

But that was just a dream
Try, cry, why try?
That was just a dream
Just a dream, just a dream
Dream

Waiting for the great leap forward.....

or as Cher would say in Clueless, (or was it Ty or Dionne?) can't wait till I'm riding that crimson wave!

There's a lot of waiting involved in long-term TTC. Ironically, when things go wrong, it's the only time you're willing the Red Enigma to visit. (Look! Down below! It's a HPT, it's a BFP, NO! It's the Red Enigma!)

I'm now CD39 and still no sign. Irritatingly enough, I took a HPT out of interest to see if anything was happening today, and of course, unlike last week when I actually wanted one, I obtained a BFP. So clearly my body thinks it's hilarious to fuck with me in this way.

An Infertility Friend's Production of......

Mez's Body's Revenge. (starring Mez and Mez's body....perhaps the same thing)

Mez's reproductive organs: lets fuck with this bitch some more....maybe raise her HCG a little, drag things on, you know the drill. (Cue manic laughter)

Ok, at this point I know what you're thinking. Why is this crazy woman constantly referring to herself in the third person? Isn't that the 3rd sign of madness, behind talking to yourself and playing air-keyboards to Flock of Seagulls on your Ipod while on the treadmill? (that would be check, and check)

I guess it's part of the disassociation of yourself from your body while on IVF. (yeah, that sounds good, disassociation) Sometimes the only way to cope is to switch off. I know it's old amongst those of us going through this particular form of Chinese water torture, but truly, once you embark upon this journey, your body is no longer your own. I've been gently scolded by nurses for walking to my ET without holding my gown together. Dude, some guy is gonna be putting a catheter into my cervix, inches north of my labia, both minora AND majora. The time for dignity has passed!

Funnily enough, I was one of those shy, retiring petals who put off having their first pap smear for years and years....oh the shame of a Dr seeing my privates! Ha ha ha.

I must say, however, on the extremely unlikely, improbable and downright impossible chance that this pregnancy does not miscarry, I will carry the guilt of the past week with me to my grave. After the official 2WW, I've reacquainted myself with many dear friends, including Brandy (lime and soda), sushi, soft cheese and prawns.

Whaddya gonna do?

Riddle me this: What's worse than a BFN?

Answer: a BFP with fuck-all HCG, which means essentially waiting to miscarry so the whole cycle can start again.

I do NOT want to have any more non-viable pregnancies! (are you listening, oh god of all the atheists?) I do NOT want to be sitting here now, on CD36, no sign of AF, puffed up with excess progesterone and fluid, waiting for my *huge* HCG of 41 to drop so I can get on with this bullshit again.

I do NOT want to have on my life score card any more than 4 losses.....now it's just getting ridiculous. I feel enough of a freak as it is, with my perfect hormones, DH's perfect SA, perfect fucking freezer full of grade A blasts with no baby in sight.

ENOUGH I SAY!

Right. Now that Angry Mez has had her say, cut to Rational Mez for the insight of the day.

These IVF pregnancy losses are actually much easier than the natural ones, the ones before I had a specialist, or even a GP, thought I was pregnant for ages, started spotting then ended up at the Women's Hospital once the cramps were too painful. I like my miscarriages like my men, predictable, reliable, right on time!!

The good thing is, (my rule of thumb as a life-long pessimist is to always at least try to look for the silver lining) If your HCG is below the reasonable low end on your beta day and doesn't rise much in follow up tests, you pretty much know the drill. In the interests of marking down some of this scintillating banter for posterity, may I present, An Infertilityfriend's Production of:


The Phone Call from the Fertility Clinic. (starring nurse and Mez - cue low-level, suspenseful, Hitchcockian music)

Nurse: um, hi Mez, well, the test is showing some pregnancy hormone but, um, I'm afraid it's very low....(spoken in sheepish, apologetic monotone)

Mez: Yeah, I know, I suspected a chemical due to feeling absolutely exhausted, no AF and 6 negative HPTs. (spoken confidently, in fact, almost too upbeat!)

Nurse: um, yes, it looks that way....can you come in in 2 days for a follow up?

Mez: why the hell not? It's a date! :)

Ok, that last comment was sarcastic.

Waiting, waiting, waiting.........

To P (OAS) or Not to P (OAS), that is the question....

Or, how many lame literary puns can I come up with?

Well, there comes a time in every cycle, for me around 10 DPO, when the HPT battle of the mind begins. Do I or don't I? Is it better to know early so I can go open that bottle of Rose without guilt, or to hold out a bit longer? And what about false negatives? Why do that to myself? What if there's a late implantation? Yada Yada Yada.

This time I held out till 12 DPO, and even then only caved because my FC rang to move my BT from 31/12 to 2/1. I just had to know! And as has happened for about 24 other cycles now, only that red, raw, first control line emerged, to taunt me with my barrenness. So I did what I had to do.

This involved curling up into the foetal position on the couch with my recent shipment from Amazon.co.uk, the Charles II mini-series. Four hours of period drama and comfort eating maintained my sanity for another day.

Although the irony of this particular mini-series didn't escape me. Poor old Catherine of Braganza, miscarrying constantly and robbing England of an heir, while old Charlie was porking and impregnating everything that moved. I pictured myself as old Catherine (not only because of who was playing Charles....Hottie Alert!), roaming around Whitehall, surrounded by all the royal bastards. Sounds like just about every function I attend these days, barren old Mez and the fertility brigade, with their precocious Coopers and Spencers and Tylers (the surname-firstname kids, as I like to call them) trying to attract my attention. When did kids get so confident?

But I digress. Peeing on a stick is really only fun for the fertile. It hands them their little prize after their huge 2 week wait. The rest of us live to Pee another day.