I've been trying to raise the subject of what family building, if any, we do next.
I'd quite like to provide the Boy with a sibling. I think we've got a good chance of treatment working again.
However, I thought that last time. And I don't think I've got it in me to do another five cycles over two years.
I'd also be a bit more cautious about the number of embryos transferred, and with one at a time you have less chance of a sticky embie than two.
Another baby would be lovely, it's just weighing up the cost, the pain, and the chance of having to do repeat cycles. Given the odds, I think we'd be have to be prepared to do at least two.
I also wouldn't rule out adopting. I think if we'd tried to adopt before we would have been told to wait until we were properly over the IVF failures and losses.
The main fear I have with adoption is that we could be setting the Boy up to have a sibling who never comes to terms with the loss of his birth family, no matter how hard we try to make him or her feel welcome. And/or, if it was an adoption with some form of contact, that it would be potentially allowing people into the Boy's life, even on a peripheral basis, that we wouldn't particularly want him having any sort of contact with. Closed adoptions with very young children are rare.
I would try and talk this over with my husband, but I think he just thinks it's too soon after everything else - although, I'd rather know what we're aiming for.
Overall, though, I'm in a much happier place about thinking about #2 then I was when going through IVF #5. By the end of treatment I'd conditioned myself not to get my hopes up to the point I had trouble accepting I was actually pregnant. I also think I kept up treatment out of sheer bloodymindedness; it partly became about beating IF, as if IF is some sort of dragon that shrinks every time an infertile gets pregnant.
Another one would be nice. But I count my blessings already.
Monday, 11 February 2013
Thursday, 7 February 2013
Future shock
I read somewhere, ages ago, that IVF would become more and more common in the future. And that someday, scientists would reach the "Holy Grail" - technology that would mean a near-as-dammit-to-certain chance that every embryo transferred would lead to a live birth.
I guess, in that case, IVF might become a choice for fertile couples too. Why go through all the mess and uncertainty of trying to concieve normally when you could just pick a month and then plan around it accordingly (you already get those annoying couples who wonder if they should only try for a summer baby...).
And, following from that, voluntary infertility might become a choice too. Rather than worry about an unexpected pregnancy, you could just voluntarily get your tubes cut, then do a round of IVF when you were good and ready for it. You could even freeze eggs during your late teens or early 20s in order to do this.
It doesn't sound so bad, does it?
And yet, and yet...
Totalitarian governments have a long history for interfering with women's reproductive systems, from sterilisation in China to the banning of contraception and abortion in Caucescu's Romania. Where there's a power to choose, there's potentially a power to control.
Even in democratic governments, if a majority chose the IF-and-IVF route, it might get to a critical mass point where it became an appealling issue to legislate on. The Daily Mail would love it - it would be an almost automatic barrier to fecklessness, as it would almost certainly be a more time-consuming way to reproduce than the traditional way. The Jeremy Kyle show would run out of contestants.
You might agree with that, but I think the idea that choice would be removed, either through social convention or by law, is a frightening one
Then there's the other biggie, the one that religious groups are always up in arms over. How far would an IF-and-IVF system take us to "designer babies"? I'm guessing that if it would be possible to screen for embryos with a 99% chance of success, it would also be possible to screen for a whole range of other things.
I don't think it would mean an entire kindergarten of children modelled after that year's X-Factor winners but more than embryos that were likely to result in children ending up with long term, life limiting conditions not being allowed to be born.
Or that these children would only effectively be allowed to be born to families with the wherewithal to look after them, who chose to use high-risk embryos. Because why would anyone agree to pay into a common health insurance system or even a fundraising scheme, that covers enormously expensive medical care bills that could easily have been avoided? How many people would care that the parents might have had to choose between a risky embryo or no biological child? Where would you draw the line over the right to choose?
You start off thinking that more choice and better technology is almost always a good thing. IVF becoming a certainty rather than a 30% chance would help millions worldwide - particularly people who can't afford to gamble thousands.
But how far could it go to change society, and where to the changes stop being a benefit and start being something far more sinister?
I guess, in that case, IVF might become a choice for fertile couples too. Why go through all the mess and uncertainty of trying to concieve normally when you could just pick a month and then plan around it accordingly (you already get those annoying couples who wonder if they should only try for a summer baby...).
And, following from that, voluntary infertility might become a choice too. Rather than worry about an unexpected pregnancy, you could just voluntarily get your tubes cut, then do a round of IVF when you were good and ready for it. You could even freeze eggs during your late teens or early 20s in order to do this.
It doesn't sound so bad, does it?
And yet, and yet...
Totalitarian governments have a long history for interfering with women's reproductive systems, from sterilisation in China to the banning of contraception and abortion in Caucescu's Romania. Where there's a power to choose, there's potentially a power to control.
Even in democratic governments, if a majority chose the IF-and-IVF route, it might get to a critical mass point where it became an appealling issue to legislate on. The Daily Mail would love it - it would be an almost automatic barrier to fecklessness, as it would almost certainly be a more time-consuming way to reproduce than the traditional way. The Jeremy Kyle show would run out of contestants.
You might agree with that, but I think the idea that choice would be removed, either through social convention or by law, is a frightening one
Then there's the other biggie, the one that religious groups are always up in arms over. How far would an IF-and-IVF system take us to "designer babies"? I'm guessing that if it would be possible to screen for embryos with a 99% chance of success, it would also be possible to screen for a whole range of other things.
I don't think it would mean an entire kindergarten of children modelled after that year's X-Factor winners but more than embryos that were likely to result in children ending up with long term, life limiting conditions not being allowed to be born.
Or that these children would only effectively be allowed to be born to families with the wherewithal to look after them, who chose to use high-risk embryos. Because why would anyone agree to pay into a common health insurance system or even a fundraising scheme, that covers enormously expensive medical care bills that could easily have been avoided? How many people would care that the parents might have had to choose between a risky embryo or no biological child? Where would you draw the line over the right to choose?
You start off thinking that more choice and better technology is almost always a good thing. IVF becoming a certainty rather than a 30% chance would help millions worldwide - particularly people who can't afford to gamble thousands.
But how far could it go to change society, and where to the changes stop being a benefit and start being something far more sinister?
Sunday, 3 February 2013
A big ask
The NHS has, generally, been pretty good in emergencies. I'm grateful for treatment that's available without a charge at the point of need. But it's internal bureaucracy sometimes means I'm slightly frustrated.
I've got a reminder for my cervical smear test. The joy.
The thing that's slightly off-putting is that I know, when I go, I'm going to have to go through a questionnaire about my fertility history with a nurse. There's a question where you're meant to write down the number of pregnancies and the number of children you have, and just a small space next to each question.
Once, when I did this during the IF years, I ended up absolutely bawling my eyes out. It was not my finest hour. But I just found it enormously upsetting to have to explain the situation I found myself in, all the agony that spilled out from those two little spaces.
I've moved beyond this now, and just find it all a bit tiresome. My abbreviated fertility history would fill at least a page of A4 if I include IVFs, ectopics, drug regimes and all the rest. It fills pages and pages and pages in my detailed notes.
They don't need me to go through it all again, but I know they're going to ask. Because the NHS has no bureaucratic procedure for recognising someone is infertile and has no facility for sneaking in a pregnancy when they're not looking.
And then there's the "what contraception are you using?" I got asked this by every nurse, doctor, community midwife and health visitor I met in the Boy's early days, until about the 8th one finally wrote something in my notes to stop the constant quizzing. I'd tried to pre-empt this by writing in my birth plan that there was no point asking; in fact, it was one of the few reason I'd bothered with a birth plan (I asked a midwife if there was any point in them and was told they were considered a "very valuable document". I didn't really believe her, which was just as well or I'd have been in for a rude shock).
I was actually finding it quite amusing by the end - perhaps I am slightly twisted, but I was enjoying watching the surprise and squirming embarrassment when I matter-of-factly explained why it is impossible for me to get pregnant naturally.
Maybe the nurse who does the questionnaire will be the same one as the last time, and remember me. Maybe I should tell her my method of contraception is spending all my money on wine and avoiding fertility clinics. Or maybe I should just change my name to "Mrs No Fallopian Tubes And Read My File Before Asking About Previous Pregnancies" on my notes, so everyone gets the message.
I've got a reminder for my cervical smear test. The joy.
The thing that's slightly off-putting is that I know, when I go, I'm going to have to go through a questionnaire about my fertility history with a nurse. There's a question where you're meant to write down the number of pregnancies and the number of children you have, and just a small space next to each question.
Once, when I did this during the IF years, I ended up absolutely bawling my eyes out. It was not my finest hour. But I just found it enormously upsetting to have to explain the situation I found myself in, all the agony that spilled out from those two little spaces.
I've moved beyond this now, and just find it all a bit tiresome. My abbreviated fertility history would fill at least a page of A4 if I include IVFs, ectopics, drug regimes and all the rest. It fills pages and pages and pages in my detailed notes.
They don't need me to go through it all again, but I know they're going to ask. Because the NHS has no bureaucratic procedure for recognising someone is infertile and has no facility for sneaking in a pregnancy when they're not looking.
And then there's the "what contraception are you using?" I got asked this by every nurse, doctor, community midwife and health visitor I met in the Boy's early days, until about the 8th one finally wrote something in my notes to stop the constant quizzing. I'd tried to pre-empt this by writing in my birth plan that there was no point asking; in fact, it was one of the few reason I'd bothered with a birth plan (I asked a midwife if there was any point in them and was told they were considered a "very valuable document". I didn't really believe her, which was just as well or I'd have been in for a rude shock).
I was actually finding it quite amusing by the end - perhaps I am slightly twisted, but I was enjoying watching the surprise and squirming embarrassment when I matter-of-factly explained why it is impossible for me to get pregnant naturally.
Maybe the nurse who does the questionnaire will be the same one as the last time, and remember me. Maybe I should tell her my method of contraception is spending all my money on wine and avoiding fertility clinics. Or maybe I should just change my name to "Mrs No Fallopian Tubes And Read My File Before Asking About Previous Pregnancies" on my notes, so everyone gets the message.
Thursday, 31 January 2013
We'll always have Paris
My first holiday with the Boy was to Paris. Not Paris in the springtime, but Paris in the winter.
The winter was still far less cold than here, mind.
We walked through the Jardin des Tuileres, I had a crepe and mulled wine along the way. The mulled wine lady was quite nice about my rusty French. The lady selling the crepes was quite fierce about my pronounciation - which was absolutely fair in my book.
We finished our crepes and went to gawp at the Arc d'Triomph, and its unique traffic management system, where a man pretended to find a ring in the ground in front of us and tried to give it to us. 'Bonne chance', he said. Nae luck for him though; I shook my head and kept feeding the Boy a jar of salmon baby food.
(Interestingly, you can't get baby food with fish in it here - although the French stuff smelled very fishy, enough so that it made me feel a bit queasy at times).
We had problems finding a baby change; we ended up having to do a nappy change as quickly as possible on a bench, outside a stall selling Christmas trees. It seemed quiet when we started, but as soon as the Boy's nappy was off, suddenly the whole of Paris seemed to descend. Put us down as ignorant tourists - there must be a better way that we didn't work out.
And then we walked back along the Grandes Boulevardes, stopping off at the Grand Food Halles and a lovely wine bar on the way, before retiring to our apartment to eat the day's haul, via a baker, where we bough quiche Provencal and a baguette.
On our second day there, the Sunday, barely anything was open. We walked down to the Seine and looked up and down the bank. My husband had the most abortive attempt ever at speaking French, to the chap in the ticket office for the Bateaubus. He skipped 'bonjour' and muttered something about 'billets', and the ticket assistant gave him a basilisk stare until he reverted to English and ceased his assault on the French language.
Then, soaking up the Sunday atmosphere, we walked past Notre Damme and got on the boat, sailed up the Seine, and disembarked at the Eiffel Tower.
I must admit, things where you stand in queues are not my thing. I derived far more amusement from the reaction of other people in the queue to the Boy eating a pain-au-chocolate; "Tres bien!", "Ah, mom-mom-mom", than I did from getting herded around for hours (to be honest, I always find stuff like the local supermarkets and pubs more interesting than big, set piece monuments). But hey, the view was nice.
Then it was the Jardin du Luxembourg - beautiful and busy on a cold, clear day, and then a croque monsieur at a cafe near the Sorbonne. The Boy stayed asleep and let us eat in peace. I could remember all my politeness words by this point and even managed a tiny bit of banter with the waiter.
And then back to the flat, for a Lebanese takeaway and some more wine.
Tres bien, you might say.
The winter was still far less cold than here, mind.
We walked through the Jardin des Tuileres, I had a crepe and mulled wine along the way. The mulled wine lady was quite nice about my rusty French. The lady selling the crepes was quite fierce about my pronounciation - which was absolutely fair in my book.
We finished our crepes and went to gawp at the Arc d'Triomph, and its unique traffic management system, where a man pretended to find a ring in the ground in front of us and tried to give it to us. 'Bonne chance', he said. Nae luck for him though; I shook my head and kept feeding the Boy a jar of salmon baby food.
(Interestingly, you can't get baby food with fish in it here - although the French stuff smelled very fishy, enough so that it made me feel a bit queasy at times).
We had problems finding a baby change; we ended up having to do a nappy change as quickly as possible on a bench, outside a stall selling Christmas trees. It seemed quiet when we started, but as soon as the Boy's nappy was off, suddenly the whole of Paris seemed to descend. Put us down as ignorant tourists - there must be a better way that we didn't work out.
And then we walked back along the Grandes Boulevardes, stopping off at the Grand Food Halles and a lovely wine bar on the way, before retiring to our apartment to eat the day's haul, via a baker, where we bough quiche Provencal and a baguette.
On our second day there, the Sunday, barely anything was open. We walked down to the Seine and looked up and down the bank. My husband had the most abortive attempt ever at speaking French, to the chap in the ticket office for the Bateaubus. He skipped 'bonjour' and muttered something about 'billets', and the ticket assistant gave him a basilisk stare until he reverted to English and ceased his assault on the French language.
Then, soaking up the Sunday atmosphere, we walked past Notre Damme and got on the boat, sailed up the Seine, and disembarked at the Eiffel Tower.
I must admit, things where you stand in queues are not my thing. I derived far more amusement from the reaction of other people in the queue to the Boy eating a pain-au-chocolate; "Tres bien!", "Ah, mom-mom-mom", than I did from getting herded around for hours (to be honest, I always find stuff like the local supermarkets and pubs more interesting than big, set piece monuments). But hey, the view was nice.
Then it was the Jardin du Luxembourg - beautiful and busy on a cold, clear day, and then a croque monsieur at a cafe near the Sorbonne. The Boy stayed asleep and let us eat in peace. I could remember all my politeness words by this point and even managed a tiny bit of banter with the waiter.
And then back to the flat, for a Lebanese takeaway and some more wine.
Tres bien, you might say.
Tuesday, 29 January 2013
The fun stuff
It's been ages since I've blogged. I've been busy - nothing momentous, but enough that I haven't had a chance to sit down and write.
Part of the reason I haven't is that this started out being a post-IF blog, and a lot of the things I've been up to are just general post baby things.
But, it is really good, getting to do things I spent several years feeling that I never would.
Food. This is the best one. The Boy is now big enough to manage finger food. Which means he can, with a little adaptation, eat whatever we're eating, at the same time. This is infinitely better than the days when I was making separate purees of everything, then trying to feed him the puree and eat at the same time - he'd get bored and start screaming.
Our philosophy is to let him try everything, unless it's salty. As an additional benefit, this means we are consuming much less salt.
Spaghetti is much more enjoyable when eaten with your fingers, with no concept of mess. Roasted vegetables and halloumi are great. Tonight's big discovery was falafels - he got two, freshy fried. He dropped a small handful of one by mistake, and then howled until he got offered the second. He gobbled it down.
He particularly enjoys focaccia - he doesn't appear to be able to chew it properly, he just gums it enthusiastically for improbable lengths of time. Which is great if we're eating out for lunch as it keeps him quiet, yet involved with the meal.
Gratifyingly, he likes stuff that Western culture doesn't expect babies to eat - which is great because we both hate bland food. He loves garlic (particularly picked garlic), and olives. Goats' cheese and marmalade crostini was a big hit. He's not so keen on the mild curries I make, but will eat some. Although he swiped an illicit prawn in chilli batter off my plate and ate that enthusiastically. Texture seems to matter more than flavour.
Having said that, we had a meal which was fish fingers and chips. It was meant to be for the Boy's benefit, but my husband and I are now enthusiastically talking about a repeat.
Sometimes, the Boy's food preferences are slightly frustrating. He's always offered vegetables, but often chucks them away. Tonight's cucumber and tomato were abandoned very quickly. I have no way of combatting this apart from to keep encouraging him to try them - but he seems hard-wired to want crunchy carbohydrates instead. I had read that babies love smoked salmon but he has no interest in it (the cat, on the other hand...).
He also has a marked preference for certain things, and quickly rejects foodstuff that isn't what he wants to eat right now. A hot cross bun was swiftly mashed and discarded, but he was delighted to when it was replaced with crackerbread. He loves crackerbread, and we often use it as a vehicle for getting him to eat mushed up stews.
He also - and I am slightly ashamed to admit this - absolutely loves prawn crackers. We went out for a Chinese and gave him one to keep quiet. He sucked it into mush and wanted more. He rarely gets these because they're not exactly healthy, but I figure the odd one won't do him any harm.
The tendency to shred and chuck food is also a challenge. It's more that I don't want him to grow up thinking this is ok, but I haven't figured out how to get him not to do it, apart from saying "no" and giving him something else - although, similarly, I don't want him to just start mashing everything in the hope of getting prawn crackers.
The downside is that he is now so into eating his own food that he's less and less keen on being spoon fed purees, and I think he actually eats more when he deigns to let one of us feed him. The one great exception to this is jelly - which he always finds space for.
So, yeah, it's been fun. The tiny baby days were much harder work; still not as bad as IF, although some days and nights went on forever. But things have started to open up a little bit more, and the five year struggle seems both faraway and more than worthwhile.
Part of the reason I haven't is that this started out being a post-IF blog, and a lot of the things I've been up to are just general post baby things.
But, it is really good, getting to do things I spent several years feeling that I never would.
Food. This is the best one. The Boy is now big enough to manage finger food. Which means he can, with a little adaptation, eat whatever we're eating, at the same time. This is infinitely better than the days when I was making separate purees of everything, then trying to feed him the puree and eat at the same time - he'd get bored and start screaming.
Our philosophy is to let him try everything, unless it's salty. As an additional benefit, this means we are consuming much less salt.
Spaghetti is much more enjoyable when eaten with your fingers, with no concept of mess. Roasted vegetables and halloumi are great. Tonight's big discovery was falafels - he got two, freshy fried. He dropped a small handful of one by mistake, and then howled until he got offered the second. He gobbled it down.
He particularly enjoys focaccia - he doesn't appear to be able to chew it properly, he just gums it enthusiastically for improbable lengths of time. Which is great if we're eating out for lunch as it keeps him quiet, yet involved with the meal.
Gratifyingly, he likes stuff that Western culture doesn't expect babies to eat - which is great because we both hate bland food. He loves garlic (particularly picked garlic), and olives. Goats' cheese and marmalade crostini was a big hit. He's not so keen on the mild curries I make, but will eat some. Although he swiped an illicit prawn in chilli batter off my plate and ate that enthusiastically. Texture seems to matter more than flavour.
Having said that, we had a meal which was fish fingers and chips. It was meant to be for the Boy's benefit, but my husband and I are now enthusiastically talking about a repeat.
Sometimes, the Boy's food preferences are slightly frustrating. He's always offered vegetables, but often chucks them away. Tonight's cucumber and tomato were abandoned very quickly. I have no way of combatting this apart from to keep encouraging him to try them - but he seems hard-wired to want crunchy carbohydrates instead. I had read that babies love smoked salmon but he has no interest in it (the cat, on the other hand...).
He also has a marked preference for certain things, and quickly rejects foodstuff that isn't what he wants to eat right now. A hot cross bun was swiftly mashed and discarded, but he was delighted to when it was replaced with crackerbread. He loves crackerbread, and we often use it as a vehicle for getting him to eat mushed up stews.
He also - and I am slightly ashamed to admit this - absolutely loves prawn crackers. We went out for a Chinese and gave him one to keep quiet. He sucked it into mush and wanted more. He rarely gets these because they're not exactly healthy, but I figure the odd one won't do him any harm.
The tendency to shred and chuck food is also a challenge. It's more that I don't want him to grow up thinking this is ok, but I haven't figured out how to get him not to do it, apart from saying "no" and giving him something else - although, similarly, I don't want him to just start mashing everything in the hope of getting prawn crackers.
The downside is that he is now so into eating his own food that he's less and less keen on being spoon fed purees, and I think he actually eats more when he deigns to let one of us feed him. The one great exception to this is jelly - which he always finds space for.
So, yeah, it's been fun. The tiny baby days were much harder work; still not as bad as IF, although some days and nights went on forever. But things have started to open up a little bit more, and the five year struggle seems both faraway and more than worthwhile.
Sunday, 16 December 2012
Never again
I read something on Facebook about a shooting, and I must admit, I thought "Oh, not another one". From a distance, it's possible to become somewhat hardened to mass shootings in the US.
Then I saw a news headline about what happened in Newton and felt sick to my stomach. It's not a parent thing, it's a human thing - because what person wouldn't feel appalled and upset?
It's incomprehensible. I can understand the sort of twisted logic that might prompt a bullied high school student to lash back at his peers in the worst possible way - still inexusable and horrific though it is. A grown man slaughtering children is just beyond any understanding.
Yet it's the second time it's happened in the comparatively short number of years I've been on Earth. The mass murder at Dunblane happened when I was a teenager. You have to wonder what sort of planet has produced not just one, but two, entities of evil like Hamilton in less than 20 years.
After Dunblane, school security became massively tighter here. Parents who'd previously been lax about uniform demanded it be enforced, heavy doors were fitted at the entrances to school buildings. Gun law also massively tightened up and is becoming tighter still; there's no "right to bear arms" culture here, and many in the shooting lobby agreed that, if it prevented another school massacre, it was worth it (and these measures have been very effective).
But that's for people in the US to think about, another day. Right now all my thoughts are with those poor children, their teachers and their families. I wish I could think of something I could do to make a difference, but really, there is nothing and no-one that can heal those wounds right now.
Then I saw a news headline about what happened in Newton and felt sick to my stomach. It's not a parent thing, it's a human thing - because what person wouldn't feel appalled and upset?
It's incomprehensible. I can understand the sort of twisted logic that might prompt a bullied high school student to lash back at his peers in the worst possible way - still inexusable and horrific though it is. A grown man slaughtering children is just beyond any understanding.
Yet it's the second time it's happened in the comparatively short number of years I've been on Earth. The mass murder at Dunblane happened when I was a teenager. You have to wonder what sort of planet has produced not just one, but two, entities of evil like Hamilton in less than 20 years.
After Dunblane, school security became massively tighter here. Parents who'd previously been lax about uniform demanded it be enforced, heavy doors were fitted at the entrances to school buildings. Gun law also massively tightened up and is becoming tighter still; there's no "right to bear arms" culture here, and many in the shooting lobby agreed that, if it prevented another school massacre, it was worth it (and these measures have been very effective).
But that's for people in the US to think about, another day. Right now all my thoughts are with those poor children, their teachers and their families. I wish I could think of something I could do to make a difference, but really, there is nothing and no-one that can heal those wounds right now.
Tuesday, 4 December 2012
Royally irritated
I thought I'd stop feeling that old flash of pain at someone's pregnancy announcement, and I mostly have. But for some reason, news that Kate and Wills are expecting is irksome.
I guess there are multiple reasons, some to do with infertility, some to do with the whole OTT madness.
The recent indicent where a royal fan gave Prince William a babygrow was absolutely cringe-inducing. Who does that? She might as well have handed over an ovulation tester and some folic acid, and perhaps some condoms with a pin stuck through the middle. But I bet the woman in question is all very smug about it now. Which is annoying.
Then there's the media coverage. As far as we know, this is an early pregnancy announcement. But the BBC have gone into full gush mode. I read yesterday on their website that the baby will grow up to be the head of the Church of England, the British Armed Forces, the monarch of however many Commonwealth countries, and much more besides.
But it's an embryo, for Christ's sake. It hasn't even been born yet. And aside from me feeling a bit superstitious about going overboard with early congratulations, there's no guarantees that, by the time whoever is currently baking is ready to take on the throne, that there will still be a Commonwealth, that the British monarch will still be the head of the C of E, and all the rest. I mean, the wee one's grandad still hasn't had his shot at being the head honcho yet, and during the next few decades some of the Commonwealth might reasonably decide to be republics, and there might not even be a UK as we know it.
Embryo might marry an American divorcee, renounce all royal ties and hang about fascist dictators - these things are not unknown. Or he or she might even convert to Catholicism, which, if I remember rightly, would rule him or her out of the whole kinging or queening business.
And there's the endless chat on Facebook. Loads of people on my feed apparently think it's very funny a woman got admitted to hospital with severe morning sickness.
So, I hope the baby arrives safely. It must be crap being that ill when you're pregnant, and having to press release the news in case someone sees you in hospital and leaks it, rather than telling people in your own time.
I also sincerely hope that we're not going to get daily news bulletins about how the pregnancy is progressing. And I feel a bit sorry for all the women out there who are going through IF and dreading getting someone's pregnancy rubbed in their face in the most out there way imaginable.
I guess there are multiple reasons, some to do with infertility, some to do with the whole OTT madness.
The recent indicent where a royal fan gave Prince William a babygrow was absolutely cringe-inducing. Who does that? She might as well have handed over an ovulation tester and some folic acid, and perhaps some condoms with a pin stuck through the middle. But I bet the woman in question is all very smug about it now. Which is annoying.
Then there's the media coverage. As far as we know, this is an early pregnancy announcement. But the BBC have gone into full gush mode. I read yesterday on their website that the baby will grow up to be the head of the Church of England, the British Armed Forces, the monarch of however many Commonwealth countries, and much more besides.
But it's an embryo, for Christ's sake. It hasn't even been born yet. And aside from me feeling a bit superstitious about going overboard with early congratulations, there's no guarantees that, by the time whoever is currently baking is ready to take on the throne, that there will still be a Commonwealth, that the British monarch will still be the head of the C of E, and all the rest. I mean, the wee one's grandad still hasn't had his shot at being the head honcho yet, and during the next few decades some of the Commonwealth might reasonably decide to be republics, and there might not even be a UK as we know it.
Embryo might marry an American divorcee, renounce all royal ties and hang about fascist dictators - these things are not unknown. Or he or she might even convert to Catholicism, which, if I remember rightly, would rule him or her out of the whole kinging or queening business.
And there's the endless chat on Facebook. Loads of people on my feed apparently think it's very funny a woman got admitted to hospital with severe morning sickness.
So, I hope the baby arrives safely. It must be crap being that ill when you're pregnant, and having to press release the news in case someone sees you in hospital and leaks it, rather than telling people in your own time.
I also sincerely hope that we're not going to get daily news bulletins about how the pregnancy is progressing. And I feel a bit sorry for all the women out there who are going through IF and dreading getting someone's pregnancy rubbed in their face in the most out there way imaginable.
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