2011.

When I had lost bub number 2, I couldn't understand the grief nor pain. Afterall, I had gone through and experienced deaths of my mother at a young age and my grandparents who brought me up. All who are no longer around. So, surely, I would know how to better manage death.

Well, I didn't.

Soon, friends stopped asking if I was ok or how I was feeling about it. I guess everybody's busy with their own lives and cuz it's just such a sensitive topic, people would rather avoid it.

But I was hurting.

BAD.

This was how I felt.

Like I've been ramped over and just as I thought I was ok to stand up and face the world, I felt like I was fucking ramped all over again.

The grief beast was insatiable and he would wrap his bat-like wings around my neck so tight, especially at night that I couldn't breathe. I cried for hours and cried myself to sleep. People say, You have to be happy for your son who is alive; you have to think of yourself and try to live life; you have to be grateful for what you have. I DO. I REALLY DO. I DO THINK OF ALL THAT WAS SAID. But on days when the beast wins, I find myself back to those final heartbreaking moments when they took my baby away on the cold operating table. The beast always reminds me of what I had lost. A lifelong of dreams with my child.

During the first few months, it was hard. I couldn't really talk to strangers. I didn't really feel like meeting anybody because I had grown to loathe words/comments like, MISCARRIAGES ARE COMMON; YOU CAN HAVE ANOTHER CHILD; EVERYTHING HAPPENS FOR A REASON. I wanted to scream, ASK ME HOW I FEEL TODAY, GODAMMNIT!! ASK ME!

Slowly I decided that I couldn't hibernate for long. Because I have T. While the grief beast is still there and as I reflect my 2011 today, I am filled with a myriad of bittersweet moments. Whilst I had lost one child earlier this year, I have another growing in me. When I lost my baby earlier this year, I lost a dream and I lost my light of beautiful memories of how I would hold him/her in my arms when he/she was born in September this year...or how I'd give feel his/her rosy cheeks and give grateful tender kisses...or how I'd witness and hold his/her hand as he/she takes his/her first steps..or how I'd hold him/her hand on his/her first day of school..all the little things that I would never take for granted.

Today, especially, I feel sad again, just when I thought I was over the pain. But it's not a suffocating pain. It's more like, I wish you were here. And as I am typing this, I feel gentle kicks from my belly and am reminded that my darling angel is watching over his/her sibling growing in me and watching over us.

Mummy has never forgotten you. Although I never did get to meet you in person, I hope someday when I do, I'm sure I'll be able to recognise your face and stroke your sweet cheeks, kiss your hair and whisper, I LOVE YOU. ALWAYS HAVE AND ALWAYS WILL.

This song is for my baby whom I lost earlier this year, to T and to my miracle due in March 2012. I love the lyrics:
I was here I lived,
I loved I was here I did,
I've done, everything that I wanted
And it was more than I thought it would be
I will leave my mark so everyone will know I was here

Infertility Humour?

Well, it's NO laughing matter if you're an infertile.

However, I read this on an ivf forum and thought I'd share:

It’s GREAT to be an Infertile Because…

So what if your uterus’ isn’t behaving! Who cares if your husband’s sperm has more tails than a dog! It doesn’t matter if you’re tubes have no idea how to fallop! Don’t feel sorry for us! There are lots of positive aspects to being an infertile such as….

(1) No awkward sex talk to your future children! Explaining the birds and the bees to our children will be fun! “Little Tommy, when a mommy and a daddy love each other they drive to a fertility clinic and 4 years later, you are conceived with a lot of love and a little test tube.”

(2) By the time you are pregnant, your friends are already finished having kids. You can borrow all their baby stuff (even if they are stained with poop and vomit).

(3) During IVF or IUI, your partner doesn’t even have to be present during conception! Just send him a quick text once it’s done. “Honey, we did it! How was it for you?”

(4) When you go to sleep at night, you still get to sleep through the night.

(5) You get to cry about infertility in random places. Why go to a boring old grocery store if you’re just going to shop. Yawn. Boring. Having a emotional breakdown in the tampon aisle, now that’s interesting!

(6) Your friends all offer to let you have their bratty kids. Great! So don’t be surprised and call the police when you take them. You had a verbal agreement.

(7) When you’re quintuplets arrive, you might get your own television show called IVF Mama Plus Five!

(8) You get to have surgery to help improve your fertility…. The positive side? The hospital offers these delicious pudding cups for lunch! Lip-smacking!

(9) Your friend have stretch marks, sagging breasts and wrinkles. You only have weight gain and acne due to fertility medication.

(10) Whoever said infertility was awful obviously never met your hot fertility doctor! He can inseminate you anytime!

I had to chuckle a bit at number 8. I remember I had my lap done and I was in no mood to eat. Then, the nurse brought me this sandwich which I swear was the most "delicious" cold ham and cheese sandwich I've ever had.

have a drunken christmas

Infertiles don't like *hate* Christmas for the following reasons:

1) another year gone of no baby
2) another year gone of bruises from their daily injections
3) another year gone of f*%$# with no baby
4) millions of questions being asked from fertile couples at family/friend Xmas dinners - so, when's the baby coming? you guys don't want to have kids? you guys not planning on having kids? what's the delay?
5) hate the shopping malls when everybody's so festive and happy with kids running amok in shopping centres, and taking family pictures with Santa

It's not a joyful time for infertiles.

Happy Drunken Christmas.

when my heart finds christmas

tomorrow's our wedding anniversary.

Been married for 6 years, together for 12 years.

We played this song, When my heart finds Christmas by Harry Connick Jr on our wedding day. Brings back such memories and I love this part of the song:

My heart told me once before
To find my dream and search no more
And when my heart finds christmas
I hope it finds you too

My dream was to find a man who loves me and takes me for my smelly breath, hairy armpits, Diana Ross's mane and to have a baby together with him.

We'be been together through a heartwrenching disease of infertility together and he stood by me. And despite my sadness and fear that I was the problem and was terribly petrified when I couldn't bear him a child, he told me that the problem wasn't mine. He said that the problem was ours and that we would find a way, somehow to find a resolution together.

I love him.

the journey.

Recently, I was thinking about our journey. The journey that coloured our lives with just shades of black and grey and nothing in between. And how it changed us totally, individually and as a couple.

I didn't think that building a family together would have been this hard. I wish I had a doctor who took me/us seriously when we first sought for help. After being married a year, we decided that we were ready for kids. And I remember we were feeling christmassy cuz it was a month before X'mas. And I remember the first time I saw a negative on my pee stick. It wasn't a big deal. Hey, after all, my friends told me that it took them "a while" to get pregnant - 3months, 6months, some a year.

Ok, so we waited..and waited..and waited.

The wait became a year and nothing. We went to see a fertility specialist in Singapore. A top fertility specialist, mind you WHO DID NOT TAKE US SERIOUSLY BECAUSE OF OUR AGE! He said that we were young. We had just turned 30. He did a few random tests. It was the first time I realised that my pubic private parts were no longer going to be private. My privates became for all to see and though I'd cringe at any male doctor or a group of nurses and doctors who gathered together whilst I laid on the cold operating table for them to see - mah privates were no longer my privates. Anyway, long story short, doctor said go home and have more sex.

So we did. We listened to every advice from friends:
1) Relaxed - lovemaking no longer felt romantic. It was at the back of our minds all the time: THIS TIME IT BETTER WORK.
2) Performed circus acts - I stood on my bloody head so that his sperm would travel better to my eggs. And every act, I was certain, hey I'm gonna have a baby.
3) Changed to boxers - I made hubs change to boxers.
4) Drank poison juice - We went to a Chinese sinseh in Singapore and she "accused" poor babes of being the problem when he wasn't. She made us drink dark murky water which we call it poison juice. It tasted so horrible that having chocolates thereafter didn't do the trick. We spent $2,800 on that freaking juice!
5) Went for holidays - yep, went for holidays, "relaxed" to have sex so a baby could be conceived. Nup, nothing happened.
6) Horny goat wheat - babes went to the pharmacy to ask for horny goat wheat one day and came home like a happy boy who had just found a car toy in the park! He was so sweet to exclaim that he bravely asked the lady pharmacist for it. He said he was going to give me a baby. His sperm would shoot the living daylights out of me. Yep, sure.
7) Changed our diets - yep, we went all organic (bloody expensive!) and ate loads of steamed vegetables. Can't complain. We lost weight.
8) Timed sex - ever had timed sex? Well, we did. I had used the ovulation kits (damned expensive again) almost every month and did the whole temperature thing and I'd call babes from work to say that we were going to have sex that night. Very romantic, indeed.
9) Pictures of babies - I had pictures of babies everywhere so that somehow I'd get pregnant
10) Being poked - we did acupuncture every week for 8months for both of us. Each session was $90 per person. Ouch, indeed.

And then we moved to Perth. Saw a fertility specialist who said she worked once a week cuz she's a working mum. What luck. At that rate, I'd get my menopause faster. Needless to say, our next appointment was 3months later. Ridiculous. We went for further invasive testings, but it was one of the tests that showed what we never knew.

I have endometriosis.

I didn't understand it. I didn't know what to think of it. We were both lost but yet relieved there was an answer. We moved to Melbourne and bless my fertility specialist heart who took us seriously and told me that I need to go for an operation to have it removed. And so I did.

Looking back, I'd wish that I'd known or that somebody would have picked up what was going on in my body earlier. I wouldn't have gone round such a rollercoaster ride or through countries-from Singapore to Australia and then via different states - Perth/Melbourne before we were taken seriously. We were 30 years old when we sought for help and because "normally" at 30, you are still considered fertile.

Although now, I do not get questioned about when I'm going to try for a kid or be a subject of ridicule of our fertility, it does still make me sad that people did mock or made fun of our unfortunate situation. And that there are so many infertile couples out there who do get the same treatment from people who just aren't educated about infertility. Babes best friend said this to babes in front of a group of blokes, Well, I don't know about your sperm, but mine will shoot any girl to become pregnant. And everybody laughed. I didn't find it funny. In the past, I was really quiet when people made jokes like that. But because I was the problem, I felt it necessary to stand up for babes and I said, The problem is not his sperm. The problem lies with me. And then, there was an awkward silence. Once too, a friend said to me if I wanted to borrow her husband's sperm. :( To which I said, I want my husband's child. Not yours. She laughed it off. Really, what was the joke about?

I know there are others who are going through or have gone through a much tougher journey that us. And I know that it can't be easy especially when the yearning for a child is just so deep. There were times when I'd look at my friends' kids and I'd think I want one like that. I want to experience it all. I want to be a mother.I want to feel like a woman who is capable of giving my husband his child. I want to feel normal. I didn't want to feel angry all the time, jealous all the time, sad all the time, worried all the time, didn't want to swear like sailor all the time - the profanity that came out of my mouth was shocking (tho I still swear sometimes! ha!). I just wanted to be a mum.

So, if you know somebody who is going through infertility, or you are going through infertility, here's a campaign that's going on at Redbook which perhaps will give you an insight on the road less travelled:



I love Sherri Shepard:


This video had me bawling big time:


I feel their pain:


I followed Pamela T's blog from 2007 and through her writing, I have found lots of strength and didn't feel so isolated:


And this is the video that I will always remember of Pamela T:
Click here

So why do I still keep talking about infertility and when I ever stop talking about it?

I don't know. I feel like I sound like a broken record here, just talking about it here over and over again. It was just such an experience and journey that will forever be imprinted in my heart forever. The tears do not flow as easy as before but sometimes when I do remember what we went through, there is a slight tug and I look at my son and I feel forever grateful that he has chosen us to be his parents in his life. I know that usually it's a typical Asian thing to just keep your emotions and sweep it under the carpet or simply just bottle it up and move on. But I feel that by writing about it, maybe in time I'll forgive the journey of pain and frustration but doubt I'll ever forget it.

i'll never forget..you.

i'm pregnant again.

i'm 14.5 weeks pregnant.

it's a gift from God, for I found out 2 weeks before my 36th birthday. To be honest, I never thought that i'd be pregnant again so fast, for I had never fallen pregnant this quickly. In the past, with T, it took us a long, painful journey of 3.5years and then with number 2, we waited for some time too.

with this pregnancy, i've been a bit detached. apart from taking a picture of a pee stick that says I'M PREGNANT, i haven't taken any belly pictures. I haven't planned to buy any baby stuff. I haven't done anything. There isn't much excitement, just fear and hoping, praying that we'll reach the finish line - safe and sound.

i still think of the baby i lost. though the pain may not be as raw and the tears do flow occasionally, i do sometimes think about what could have been. baby 2 would have been a month old today. And my heart does a tug and i think the pain will never go away.. but I am trying to learn to deal with it like a chronic back pain.

In my heart, I will always have 3 children. And some day, when my time comes, I'll see baby number 2 in heaven and tell him/her, that I have never forgotten you and that I always think of you and .... something I wish I could have always told you in person, that I love you, very very very much.







For a mother never forgets her child and will always love him/her unconditionally.


ps. if you're on my fb, pls no mention on fb. we don't intend to say a word until baby is born.

Goodnight, my angel.

I've been feeling a little (very) emotional lately.

Friday, 16 September would have been my due date.

There could have been a baby, waiting for us.

I shan't say anymore but let the lyrics of this song show how I feel.