Happy birthday to me!

Today I'm turning 38! Outpouring of love and good wishes from family and friends...oh wait...what about my husband? He FORGOT! For the second year in a row.... I didn't even get mad, bought myself a cake, candles, pizza for dinner and just plain celebrated! I gave Mike all day, but nope...totally forgot! Anyway, he enjoyed the pizza and cake.

And no more bleeding/spotting, so even if it's just today I'm delighted I got a break for my birthday.

One other great thing today. As part of our Ectopic Pregnancy Charity and given the fact I'm a college lecturer, I had contacted the coordinator of the midwifery course and offered to give a couple of lectures on the topic, mainly discussing my experience and the emotional aspect. They were thrilled and we arranged for today. The class was fantastic, they are final year students, they were so so interested and learnt a lot. You see, EP are of course treated in their lecture course, but very briefly and as part of early pregnancy complications (so about 15 mins in total). Students get the textbook signs and symptoms of EP which we know all to well don't always apply, so for them today was a real eye-opening experience. I felt so good. And you know, it's 3 years almost to the day since I resolved my last ectopic pregnancy. Another reason to celebrate.

Continued thanks for your support and love, you are amazing.

Call for stories on Ectopic Pregnancies

Hi girls,

as some of you know, I have set up a new blog for Ectopic Pregnancy Ireland.

http://ectopicpregnancyireland.blogspot.com/

I have started a project where I'm featuring stories of ladies who have gone through the same. If you have the time, please have a look at it and if you or someone you know may want to participate, please share the word. While this was born as an Irish support group, we know the web is so powerful it can reach very remote areas of the Globe and we are already getting readers from the US as well as main Europe and even Africa! We are so so excited about it.

Please help us getting visibility, if you have been through an ectopic you know the feeling of loneliness. We want to make sure this will never be the case again. Anything you can do to talk about that blog will be greatly appreciated.

If you feel like writing your story for the project just follow the same format as the stories already reported and email it to me or to the official address and I'll let you know when they go live. If you have blogged about it I'll link your blog to the post and put it in our blogroll.

Thank you so much!

Twitter and Modern Family

Oh boy...isn't Twitter addictive?? Very much so! Funnily enough I have the impression than when celebs tweet (ok....ok... you got me...I only really mean ONE celeb ah!) it's as if they actually talk to me! Somehow it makes them more like "normal" people. I had a very nice conversation with The Ultimate Vet Hero who's now become a very good friend, she is from Cali and definitely much more into showbiz than me and she said how strange it is to imagine that actors are in fact real people, with friends and things to do. Granted their friends are likely to be other celebrities, but sure they must have also non-celeb friends from their pre-celeb life right?

Anyway, I decided to use Twitter also for Ectopic Pregancy Ireland. It has been a great success, all the Irish radio stations I have contacted have retweeted my message and this has generated a nice cascade of retweets! Hopefully we'll be able to reach out even further!

I'm still not very skilled with Twitter, just know the basics, but for now that's all I need!

Thank you for all your suggestions on what to watch while waiting for new episodes of HIMYM. To get another Neil Patrick Harris fix I had a look at Doogie Howser MD. It was never aired in Italy so it was new to me. Well. I watched the first episode (in fact the first few mins) and no no no no, he's way too young there!! Cute maybe, but not my style! Never liked younger guys, may never be a cougar LOL! So I skipped to the last episode of the show....mmhh still not transitioned from cute to hot... and still too young!

I'll just have to wait I suppose! On this topic, my friend Valery pointed me in the direction of another blogger who very recently had posted on her blog about "Secret Celebrity Boyfriend" I truly recommend the post as it's hilarious and made me think I want to do a similar one soon!

In the quest for another sit-com, I had watched a good few episodes of The Big Bang Theory, but it's not so much my cup of tea, so I started watching Modern Family and I love it!! Took a while to get used to the hand-held shooting style which generally I don't like, but now I'm on a binge!

Finally a quick update on the attic. We have cleared the area (put away all the boxes into storage space under the roof) and we are ready to put the floor down. If it wasn't for the fact that we noticed the underfloor is extremely uneven in one position...so meeting with the architect and builder this week...

Ectopic Pregnancy Ireland: The Launch

We did it!!!

The evening went great, we had a doctor and a midwife from two different Dublin hospitals giving talks and both put a lot of effort into it. Several people came to the event (from as far as the west of Ireland) it felt amazing. I got all emotional when J did the opening speech....she talked about how we got together and how far we have come. She read a message written on our Facebook page by a girl who had seen the interview I mentioned in my last post and said it had saved her life a week later. The project has already saved a life. One of the ladies who came to the event had an ectopic herself but she also is a nurse in hospital in Galway and said she would love for one of us to go over there and talk to the them to raise awareness. I'd love to do it.

If you have time, have a look at our FB page, we have posted pics of the evening (Mike was the official photographer) and I would be ever grateful if you could leave a brief message, we need it to increase visibility.

The next step is to raise money through the Dublin mini-marathon. I did not participate last year (I was pregnant) and I'm totally out of shape this year, but I think I may have two people who could be running it for me.

And yesterday my article was published at My Destination Family as I was asked a few month back to write about the person who supported me the most through this infertility journey. With no esitation I chose Mike.

Back

We are back! As I sat on the plane, holding Oliver, I felt the urge to "reassure" the guy sitting next to me that on the way over Oliver slept all the time. No one likes sitting beside a child on a plane. I certainly didn't and now I'm at the receiving end of the look that says "oh my God please please please move along ...no no no no no....damn...just my luck...". Thankfully he was once again the perfect baby.

Another thing is back. My period! 30 days after the last bleed. Good old body is still working as if it mattered. It feels good though to be back to normal. I hope this will help loosing the weight. I'm not progressing at all in that sense, I still have the same 7-8 kg to shift. I walk, I eat next to nothing, thyroid functioning fine...I wonder if this is the new me forever.

Next week I'll start yoga again.

This Thursday there is a big big big event. The official launch of Ectopic Pregnancy Ireland. I cannot believe I have been of so little help right when the charity needed it most. The girls have organised everything, it's going to be great. A few weeks ago two of them went on national Tv for a short interview and raising awareness. Since then our FB page got may more hits and we have been able to reach out to several women. I am so excited and so proud of what we (mostly they!) have done. I'll post about it at the end of the week.

Patches results and more on the Project

We just got a call from the Ultimate Vet Hero and Patches suffers of SEVERE hypothyroidism!! We understood that normal values would be between 10 and 40, where 10 is already quite borderline of course and little Patches has 3!!! the Vet was so happy she found what was wrong and so are we. We really hope that the cure will kick in soon, the dose we had him on since last week is way too low, poor kitten! No wonder he's always cold and sleepy! Now he has this other symptom which he developed in the last week or so; when he eats, any time he swallows, he gags too. Nothing comes out, it's as if he's something stuck in his throat, but that would also be very strange. Another mystery illness I think. The Dude on the other hand is doing really well, getting more and more similar to a dog in his behaviour, so cute! Thanks for all your good wishes and for remembering the Dude too!

I wanted to update also on the Ectopic Pregnancy Ireland Project. After a series of emails which escalated to quite strong tones, it calmed down and we agreed to disagree. We also blamed a bit of the misunderstanding on emails which are subjected to interpretation of course, so I'm still on board and very happy to contribute to it. We'll try to have more frequent meetings where things can be said face to face and clarified immediately rather than creating anxiety for all of us involved. I'll have a dedicated page on the project once we have a few more items together.

Thanks as always for your support!

Seventeen and counting!

Elvis today becomes an onion! Yes, the ticker was giving this from yesterday, just can figure out how to tune it, ah well.

So I gained another kilo this week, that makes it +7.5! Ahh what can I do, the OB may say something to me about it on wednesday...

Again I feel well, with a bit of stretching and exercise and the magic pillow between the legs, my back ache is minimal! I have new interesting things appearing every now and again though, such as a blocked right ear and stuffy nose, plus a touch of heart-burn occasionally. And feeling blessed for all of it. I also had to buy new bras. I had bought a good few when I realised my standard bras didn't fit me anymore, spending a small fortune may I add, without realising that that was only the first step up! You fooled me once....

Now I am more convinced that sometimes the belly-bubbles are not in fact bubbles but Elvis! Still very very minimal though, we can hear more movements with the doppler.

No news yet on Patches blood results, hopefully monday, but he is well so hopefully the treatment is the right one.

And there has been some drama in the last couple of days between me and the girls on the Ectopic Pregnancy Ireland project. I basically disagree with most of the decisions made which in my eyes are just causing a major delay in getting the website up and running, an online forum working, and leaflets out to the public. I'm thinking of stepping down, I'm sure I can give my time to other charities where I feel more in line with the way of thinking. Real pity to be honest, but sure you cannot get on with everyone I suppose.

It's a peach!

13 weeks today! Officially entering the second trimester wohooo! Elvis is the size of peach, nice!

Not much to update a part from the fact that I've put on two more kilos...but I feel well, still tired though but the headaches are easing a bit which is great. I went to my acupuncturist on Friday for a session and felt better since. I will pot my belly pictures starting from 14 weeks, I think I've quite a belly already...I suppose the fact that I got back to loving chocolate and jams doesn't help!

Ectopic Pregnancy Ireland: I met the girls on Saturday morning, we made a lot of progress, the website is almost ready, hopefully it'll be on line this week. I'll do some work on the leaflet before it goes to print as I didn't really like the style. I will put everything in a dedicated page on my blog once we are ready. Launching still hoped to be in September but we need a patron first so if we can't find it it may be October. And you know the way every charity has something to hand out, like a pin, a ribbon or something else...the girls did a lot of research on those, me personally I don't like them, I won't wear it anyhow so I didn't have a strong opinion. Then D. said that on one occasion, they handed out small bulbs to be planted...I loved that idea so much! So simple and yet so effective. In the end we are going for pens (instead of pins!) and bulbs. Ongoing is the set up of a support phone line, I'm researching the best deal among the Irish providers.

That's all for now!

A little freak out

All day I got myself convinced this is another ectopic pregnancy. I know all of you who had one know what I'm talking about...

Having no tubes, if it is ectopic, it has to be located either in the stump of the tubes or in the narrowing of the uterus towards the tubes (cornual). The possibility is something like 1 in 2500-5000 pregnancies. But a lot more dangerous than a normal ectopic. And you know the way I am excellent at falling on the wrong side of the stats.

But lets back up. I have twinges on my right side. Sometime on the left but definitely more on the right. That's what's freaking me out. I started thinking that at 4w2d I wouldn't really have ectopic pregnancy symptoms, the size of the pregnancy is too small. And yet...the little bee in my brain kept buzzing. I even checked out the location of the hospital on the island we are going on holiday to. Just in case.

Then I started searching the literature for information on these other type of ectopic. The more I was reading the more the twinges. Than I tried to exactly localize the twinges. Of course it's impossible. It does feel like is towards the ovary but sure with no tubes that's one sure place where the embryo is not! So what the heck is it? It was a FET, can't be that the ovary is enlarged, I was suppressed until embryo transfer...

I did nothing all day but worrying. Can you imagine? I'm going to go insane. Where's all my Zen gone? Every pregnancy I had ended up in theatre so that's for me is what is normal my friends. I don't know what twinges are normal in a pregnancy. You may say that my beta are good hence unlikely to be ectopic. Yeah...maybe. But I had perfect beta the last time and all it meant was that the pregnancy in my right tube was viable (and I may have had another embryo implanting too).

Then I got an email from one of the girls in the Ectopic Pregnancy Ireland group to organise the next meeting, and I replied straight away to all of them pouring out my heart and fears. It turns out all of them who had a normal pregnancy after an ectopic had the fear it was again ectopic because of the one side-twinges! I have to tell you I feel a lot better. That is until I will worry again of course.

I keep repeating myself "one step at the time" but I never made it past 7 weeks so those steps are running out fast. Anyway, I bought 2 more FRER and I'll do one tomorrow morning before going in for beta, at least I'll have somewhat of an idea which way the numbers will be going! And on thursday no matter what, we are off on holidays. Let's hope we'll be able to enjoy them!

Sniffing away

Ahh the old sniffer! I've started this morning with the Suprecur (same as Superfact) and I'm absolutely dreading the headaches that will come...Anyway, only 4 more pills!!! adn I hope to God that when AF will show up and finish it'll be the end of the spotting...honestly....it's soo so frustrating...I can't even imagine how people on the pill as birth control (rather than preparation for IVF!) with spotting can cope...

On other news, today is my blog-anniversary! I have seen this mentioned in other blogs and I was expecting like a big pop-up message when I opened the blog, but nope, not such a thing! I just checked when I posted my first post and realised it was a year ago today. Wow...

And today we had the first AGM of Ectopic Pregnancy Ireland. Amazing girls have worked so hard to put it together, there is a website in preparation, should be ready around June-July, the big launch of the association is being planned for September, leaflets are ready to be printed and we have a FB page! We plan to activate a phone-support line to which we'll answer in rotation and we'll have forum on our website too. Fund raising is obviously the big thing which we are not too sure how to tackle efficiently, but the first thing will be running the mini-marathon in Dublin on the 7th of June! the girls think we can get T-shirt ready with the logo and a few friends will go and wear them. Wow. This is happening. We will raise awareness. One of the girls was saying how ignorant people are on the subject...soon after she had her ectopic pregnancy, she was having a manicure and said to the girl that she recently had an ectopic pregnancy and the reaction was "Ohhh!! Congratulations!!" Can you believe it?? We definitely have to do something!

Ectopic Pregnancy Ireland

Oh girls, I had to share this with you!!

The charity association is about to take off!

We got our official registration number and are now officially a registered charity!!

The 6 of us who put this together (well, I have joined late, so not much credit to me!) will meet officially on Thursday to review all our material, work on a website and a phone help-line. Ideally we will launch the support group after the Summer! Wohoooo this is so exciting, of course brings along sad memories, but the knowledge that it may be of help to so many other women is so powerful.

And we have our first donation already :o) it's mine as a thank you gesture to my friend Michele for sending me her fertility Buddha. She suggested it!

I will keep you posted and I can't wait to be able to post the link to the website on my blog!