Spreading myself too thin

I am at that stage in my academic career where, if someone asks me to do something, I am scared to turn it down, just in case I am never asked again. The result is that this semester I have taken on Too Much Teaching.

The module I teach in the Shit Hot Critical Theory Department was so over-subscribed that this year they asked me to teach it twice over, to two separate groups of students. It is also running as an MA option, which means that I have had to organise further classes solely for graduate students: every week, I tie myself up in knots trying to explain complicated bits of psychoanalytic theory to them. I am also doing some further teaching at another institution altogether, supervising undergraduate dissertations.

I seem to be pursued from all angles by anxious students wanting to ask me questions: every time I check my email, I find my inbox full of communications all marked 'urgent query re: essay'; at the end of every class, there is inevitably a small delegation of people waiting to talk to me. This morning one of them even followed me into the toilet: 'Are you in there, Ms Heathen?' came a voice from outside the cubicle. 'Can I ask you a quick question about my essay?'

Mr H is still working away from home during the week. Because I do not wish what little time we have together at the weekends to be entirely taken up by domestic chores, I try to cram both housework and teaching preparation into the week, while my marriage is inevitably condensed into the weekends. There seems very little time left over for myself.

Somewhere along the lines, something has had to give. And that something appears to have been my own writing - both here on my blog, but also within my PhD.

I was supposed to submit my dissertation by the end of this month. I am not going to be in a position to meet this deadline, and so am going to have to apply for (yet another) extension. I have gone through this whole process several times already - firstly after my miscarriage and latterly when I was undergoing IVF. These extensions have to be formally approved by a special committee of senior academics: somewhere in the remote recesses of the University, there sits a body of men (and somehow I always imagine them as elderly men) who are by now intimately acquainted with the vicissitudes of my reproductive system. This time, however, I have a more immovable deadline than the one imposed by the University: somehow or other, the dissertation has to be finished before my due date of 18 April next year.

With every passing day, my list of unread items in Google Reader grows ever longer. My blogging friends have been such an incredible source of support to me over the past twelve months or so, and I feel simply horrible about the fact that I am finding it increasingly difficult to find the time to repay that support - to sit and wait with those who are undergoing treatments of whatever kind, to try to empathise with those who are trying to find a path through the labyrinth of adoption, or even simply to nod in agreement with those who voice the frustration and pain inherent in living with infertility.

Night after night, I lie awake, my mind racing with all that I have to do the following day. Often, I compose blog posts in my head, posts which then never make it beyond the draft stage. I started this blog because I wanted to try to make some kind of sense of my struggle with infertility and pregnancy loss. As I continued to write, I realised that what was also important was to feel part of a broader community of women. Those twin aims have not diminished. Of course, it would be perfectly easy for me to publish a series of posts in which I confess that, at the weekend, I gave into a craving for Brie and have been racked with guilt ever since, or in which I tell you about how I finally cracked and bought a pair of maternity jeans, which constantly threaten to fall down whenever I wear them. But I don't want this blog to turn into a laundry list of common pregnancy symptoms. The blogs which I most admire - and the one which I myself aspire to write - are those which offer a degree of reflection on ART, infertility, loss and life post-treatment: whether that life includes children or not. Thoughts on these issues continue to swirl round and round in my mind... it's just that I have too much going on in other areas of my life to begin to process them in any meaningful manner.

Bear with me until term finishes in three weeks' time....

Jetsetting

Don't worry - I haven't turned into one of those bloggers who finally gets that elusive BFP, promptly forgets that they were ever infertile and then skips off into the sunset to decorate the nursery...

Mr H is stuck out in Madrid on a three-week assignment at the moment. Because of flight times, he cannot make it home at the weekends. This week is reading week for my students, which meant that I did not have classes to teach, and so I decided to fly out to see him. Coincidentally, last weekend also marked our fourth wedding anniversary.

We had a wonderful few days together. Although infertility and pregnancy loss have taken us to some pretty dark places, and have at times stretched our relationship almost to breaking point, we weathered that storm. After eight years together, we are still going strong and, perhaps just as importantly, we still actually like each other - I know that it's a bit of a cliche, but he really is my best friend as well as my lover.

While in Madrid, I also threw caution to the wind and ate a wide variety of cured meats. I also consumed a large and very bloody steak, which I washed down with half a glass of red wine. I cannot help but feel that much of the dietary advice aimed at pregnant women may be culturally specific - I can't really imagine that French women are warned of the potentially dire consequences of consuming Brie, or of not cooking their steak all the way through. One of Mr H's Italian colleagues did, however, inform me that there is an old superstition in Italy that, if you eat too many raspberries while pregnant, you will give birth to a bright pink baby! Given my fanatical belief in the anti-ageing properties of blueberries, Mr H is now worried that our baby may emerge looking a bit like Violet Beauregarde!

Another year older...

Last week one of my students asked to speak to me after class. She had various questions she wanted to ask with regard to assessment, but also wanted to say how much she was enjoying the course. 'I'm just so interested in all these women artists,' she exclaimed. I suggested that, if the module had whetted her appetite that much, she could always think about applying for a Masters.

'Oh, I couldn't possibly,' she replied, 'I'm far too old for that type of thing. I'm practically twenty-three, you know.'

I said something to the effect that these things were all relative. 'It could be worse,' I pointed out, 'I'm practically thirty-seven.'

Her jaw dropped in what appeared to be perfectly genuine amazement. 'You're never,' she exclaimed, 'I don't believe it for one minute.'

But, in spite of my student's disbelief (or possibly her shameless attempt at flattery), I will indeed be thirty-seven on Friday. I have now reached the age where, as Dr Abrupt once pointed out to me, my fertility begins to decline ever more sharply (in order to reinforce his point, he very helpfully drew a rudimentary graph on the back of my notes.)

Mr H is working in London this week, and so tomorrow I am going down to join him. I am to have a night in a fancy hotel, a birthday dinner at a Michelin starred restaurant and also intend to take in the Rothko retrospective at Tate Modern. We are then going up to Shropshire to stay with my father and stepmother for the weekend: I can only hope that they are more excited about our news than Mr H's mother - when Mr H told her that I was pregnant, she said very triumphantly, 'I knew it. I always said that all Ms Heathen needed to do was to relax!'

An irrational thought

What if there's been a mistake? What if I'm not really pregnant?

The other night, I had a dream in which someone from the hospital called me to explain that there had been a mix-up with my records. They were terribly sorry, but I wasn't actually pregnant after all: they had accidentally confused me with someone else of the same name. She was expecting a baby, I was not.

There are some dreams whose meaning is so obvious that they do not require psychoanalytic interrogation. Even though I have had three scans, even though I have seen with my own eyes the visible evidence of my pregnancy, even though I have had three separate letters from three separate doctors confirming that pregnancy, I still find it hard to believe. Somehow it still feels as though the rug may be pulled from under my feet at any moment.

I am now a little over thirteen weeks' pregnant. Despite all my anxieties that something would go wrong, I seem to have made it safely into the second trimester. The sickness has all but gone, and the crippling fatigue appears to be lifting.

But somehow the lack of symptoms makes it all the more difficult to believe that everything is still OK. While I was battling wave after wave of nausea, I could at least reassure myself that that was a sign that all was still well. Now I simply have to try and put my faith in the fact that, deep within my body, this invisible and mysterious process is continuing.

A difficult decision

On the weekend when we discovered that our second attempt at IVF had gone really disastrously wrong, we were desperate to find some respite from the hell we were experiencing. We hit on the plan to drive out into the Yorkshire Dales, and to have Sunday lunch at a pub we know that serves excellent food. As we drove into the village where the pub is, we spotted a man walking a Welsh terrier. To most people this would not be cause for undue excitement, but I am absolutely crazy about Welsh terriers: every year, I sit through the whole of the television coverage of Crufts, just in the hope of catching a glimpse of black and tan, bearded gorgeousness (picture above, for those who may be unaware of just how adorable Welshies are).

By the time we had parked the car, the Welshie had caught up with us. And so I did a very bold thing: I went up to the owner, and told him how much we liked his dog, and commented on how unusual it was to see a Welsh terrier (they are not a terribly common breed). He replied that it was even more unusual to meet someone who actually knew what type of dog she was: most people tended to assume that she was an Airedale puppy. 'Oh, I like Airedales,' I remarked, 'but I much prefer Welshies.' 'Me too!', the Welsh Terrier Man exclaimed. By now, we had clearly bonded, and so he told me all about his dog: how her name was Jenny, how her beard wasn't normally that colour, but she'd been eating beetroot that morning, and how she was Very Good With Children. Then he asked me if I would mind very much looking after Jenny for a couple of minutes, while he popped into the village hall to deliver some leaflets.

And so, for a brief moment, I got to live out my fantasy of owning a Welsh terrier. Jenny stayed with me trustingly, and I got to see her being Good With Children.

When the Welsh Terrier Man returned from dropping off his leaflets, he mentioned that they were thinking of breeding from Jenny later in the year, and would we perhaps be interested in taking a puppy? We said that we certainly were, and gave him our email address.

Since then, Mr H has attempted to buoy me up with thoughts of Welshie puppies. I, on the other hand, have tried not to dwell too much on the idea. I presumed that the Welsh Terrier Man would have got home and promptly forgotten about or lost the piece of paper with my email address on it.

But then, a few weeks ago, we received an email from the Welsh Terrier Man saying that Jenny had had a litter of five puppies, and asking whether we were still interested in taking one.

Mr H has been all for the idea of a puppy. But Mr H spends at least three weeks out of every four working away from home. He was down in London last week, and is in the Hague this week. He then has another fortnight's work in London, before heading out to Madrid for three weeks. Were we to take one of the puppies, that puppy would therefore be primarily my responsibility.

My heart has been saying, 'puppy, puppy, puppy, yes, yes, yes.' I have dreamt of owning a Welsh terrier for years and years, and now I have the opportunity to buy one that has been that has been reared in a home environment, rather than by a professional breeder. I have met the mother, who is a family pet rather than a show dog, and am confident that she has a beautiful temperament. Were I not pregnant, the decision would have been made in a flash.

But I am three months' pregnant, and so our circumstances may well change radically in another six months' time. As I mentioned above, Mr H works away from home a lot, and so I will be flying solo for much of the time. In all honesty, I'm not sure how I would find the time and energy to walk a dog twice a day while also caring for a new-born baby by myself. It doesn't seem fair to make the commitment to having a dog knowing that I may subsequently not be able to honour that commitment. It would break my heart if we finished up having to re-home our beloved Welshie because we could no longer cope with him.

And so I have just taken a deep breath and rung the Welsh Terrier Man to explain the situation, and to tell him that we will not be able to take a puppy after all.

Please tell me that I have made the right decision!

12w2d

Yesterday's scan revealed that the baby had grown to 64mm and that its heart rate was 162bpm. The nasal bone, stomach, bladder and brain were all clearly visible and, in the words of the consultant obstetrician who performed the scan, I therefore appear to be carrying a 'perfectly normal and healthy baby'.

The nuchal translucency was measured at 1.5mm. When combined with the results of my blood work, this gives us a 1 in 3,428 risk of having a child with Down's, and a 1 in 6,147 risk of Edward's or Patau's. I cannot even begin to convey how much of a relief these results are. Given my ovarian reserve issues, I have been worried that I may well be at increased risk either of another miscarriage, or of significant chromosomal abnormality.

But yesterday, as I listened to the heart beat, and watched my baby kick its legs and wave its arms, I allowed myself for the first time to fall in love with it just a little bit.

Emma's Diary

Emma's Diary is a free publication, routinely given out to all UK women at their first ante-natal appointment, and seemingly designed primarily to hook them as potentially lucrative consumers of all things baby related. Among the numerous adverts for haemorrhoid cream, breast pumps and nappies, it contains factual articles on topics such as maternity rights and benefits, and exercise during pregnancy, as well as a week-by-week guide to pregnancy, written from the perspective of the fictional Emma.

By the end of Week 6, Emma has told all her family and friends that she is going to have a baby. In Week 9, she goes shopping with her mother for baby clothes. In Week 10, she has an argument with her husband over baby names: he likes Beth or Chloe, while Emma is convinced she is having a boy, and wants to call him Lewis or Cameron.

I find it difficult to relate to Emma's experience of pregnancy. Reading Emma's Diary, I feel as though I have been transported into a strange, parallel universe, where infertility and, in particular, miscarriage, simply do not exist. Is this publication simply describing what you are 'supposed' to feel during the first trimester? And why can't I too share in these unconditional feelings of joy and anticipation?

I feel guilty that I cannot whip myself up into a similar state of excitement. Measuring my own more complicated emotions against the fictional Emma's, I feel inadequate. If I haven't told everyone I know, and if I haven't as much as looked at a romper suit or thought about names, does that mean that I'm not happy enough to be pregnant? Am I in some way failing to 'bond' with my baby?

I am, of course, unbelievably thankful to have made it this far: every day of this pregnancy has felt like a blessing to me. But I cannot escape the feeling that the rug may be pulled from under my feet at any moment. For some reason, I find it very hard to believe unconditionally in a happy ending.

Tomorrow, I go for my nuchal translucency scan (I am having this done at the Fancy Private Hospital where I had my hysteroscopy, as it is not covered by the NHS). Where Emma would no doubt be looking forward to seeing her baby on the ultrasound, I have been playing every possible worst case scenario over and over in my mind. What if the foetus has stopped growing? What if its heart is no longer beating? What if the scan reveals that we are at high risk of having a child with a significant disability?