I feel like I need to write a January update as quite a lot has happened in the last couple of months. The good news is that for those of you who don't know, Olivier came home in early December. He'd been gone three months and has now been back for over two and I am so happy about this, as is Isabelle and, by all accounts Olivier himself. He had obviously done a lot of thinking as he came back expressing a 'volonté', a willingness or even desire to try for another baby. He misses being a father and can't imagine himself without children. This is fantastic news! He has been very sweet too in making sure that I know he came home because he loves me and not just because he wants to be a father again. He has said time and again that if it's not possible, then so be it. God, I love him.
So onto the whole baby thing. If you have been following my blog you know not to even question this decision as one of 'trying to replace William'. If you have lost a child, or experienced grief at all I suspect, you know you can never, ever replace a lost one. But William represented a bond between us all and he was also Olivier's only child. We are forced into precipitating these discussions due to my age. I am 44 years old, nearly 45 and, believe me, the nearly counts. Every month counts now. I am at the twilight of my fertility, in fact closer to midnight than dusk. You want raw statistics? My chances of conceiving are 0 to 5% (both naturally and with IVF so that's off the list). Then to actually carry a baby to term...
But as someone who sees things very much in black and white and who is also pretty dynamic, I needed concrete facts, evidence of my current fertility situation. Is it worth trying or should we give up? I have finally found a gynaecologist (this is who deals with baby-planning in France, rather than an obstetrician etc) who understands our need to have a baby, is very knowledgeable and is willing to help us. In fact, when I first went to see him and explained my situation, he immediately offered me the LH (Luteinising Hormone) fertility test, which, combined with the FSH (Follicle Stimulating Hormone) test, gives an older woman a pretty good idea of whether they are still fertile and if so, how long they have left. This is the test the so called 'specialist' gynaecologist in Montpellier told me didn't exist!
I get the results for these tests on Friday, at which point he will also check my ovulation. Friday is a big day. I am excited but nervous. My last check was in July when my FSH was fine and my ovulations really good. But a lot can happen in 6 months at my age.. I am under no illusion that he could say forget it. If all the news is negative there is one option left to us if I want to carry my own baby - egg donation in Spain (although this wouldn't technically be 'my' baby genetically, of course). Obviously we'd prefer not to have to go down this route if possible, but we're not ruling it out either. We'll cross that conversational bridge of decision if and when we get there.
As for life since Olivier has been home. Well, sometimes it's been tougher for us both. We are a constant reminder to each other of what we've lost. When it was just Izzy and me here, it was so different, it was almost like we could pretend that it had always just been the two of us. With the three of us here, William's absence is tangible. That empty place at the kitchen table looms at us. However we try and spread three chairs, they never cover enough of the diameter of the round table to fill it. But things are improving. At first, one of us would break down at the table at least once or twice a week but now we have melancholy, staring-into-space moments but are able to much more easily hold back the tears.
Christmas was subdued. We had our little tree. Izzy had her Christmas. As usual, Izzy kept us going. Bless her. Over the Christmas holidays the hardest times were when she wasn't here to keep us occupied. We planned Christmas carefully. Christmas Eve Olivier's family came over to eat which was really lovely. Izzy and I had made our own crackers with loo-roll insides and eBay-ordered snaps from the UK (although you can't order crackers to be sent by post due to the fact they are explosives! Weird.) which they loved. We somehow didn't feel we had the right to snap crackers UNLESS we had made them ourselves. It's hard to explain, but it's all to do with the validation of fun. It cannot be flippant, it has to be earned or validated...
Christmas morning was hard. Fortunately Izzy came into us with her stocking, so we didn't have to get up and only go into one bedroom. Then it was the hustle and bustle of the morning and before we knew it, it was time to drop her at her dad's for the week and we were off to very good friends of ours (two couples and their late-teen, grown-up children) for lunch with them. The day was actually really good fun (see? I can say that with much less guilt now - progress) - we were out of the house, somewhere we'd never had Christmas before, in someone else's Christmas in fact - all these things helped us step outside of the potentially sad day that it could have been. We were occupied with charades and Who Am I? all afternoon and then suddenly it was time to head off home. Boxing Day was spent at Olivier's dad's house so that day was filled (my first time back there). It was the next day that was hard. Suddenly an empty house, nothing to do.
We bumbled along until the Saturday night, when good friends of ours got married. We managed the apéritifs and then got to the reception ok but there were so many little children there, being tired and needy as it was getting late, and being cuddled by their mummies, including one on our table with a little boy, that I couldn't bear it and couldn't stop crying so we had to come home. Too soon for a wedding I think.
I should add in here that due to the fact that Olivier had come home, and we were intending to try for a baby, my psychiatrist had decided to use this moment of happiness to wean me off the pills. Let me tell you; it didn't work. By New Year's Eve I was a wreck. I almost physically felt my wall of protection crumbling. We went away for NYE - drove up into the Pyrenees, thinking that we didn't want to be sitting at home on our own, staring at each other or the box and thinking about what might have been. So we drove up to a little village near Font Romeu and booked a long French NYE dinner in a lovely restaurant in Font Romeu itself. Which we subsequently had to cancel because I was just too upset and didn't think I could sit through a meal in public.
It was odd because I wasn't prepared to feel so bloody sad on NYE. I had this gut-wrenchingly sad feeling that I was leaving William in 2012; that by entering a year that he'd never lived in I was somehow leaving him behind. Being completely off the pills by this point I am sure did not help. I think it was too soon and completely the wrong time to come off them.
When we got back home I called my psychiatrist and he was very good, suggesting I went back on the pills at a lower dose (my dose wasn't very high anyway thank goodness) and then we'd discuss coming off them again when we know where I am with my fertility. There's no point coming off the pills too early and being depressed if there is no chance of becoming pregnant. So first things first.
After that, of course, came William's birthday on the 11th January. It would have been his third. We were prepared mentally, although it was of course (how could it not be?) a very sad day. After school we all went up to the cemetery to 'see' him. Izzy took some arts and crafts bits she'd made for him, I took him a birthday card. I hadn't planned to, I just thought I would at the last minute. I opened it when we got there and left it propped on the tomb, amongst all the lovely plants and white flowers growing in pots there. Later on that evening, at dusk, we lit lanterns in the garden. Several of my friends also lit candles for William for his birthday and I thank them for that. I didn't ask them to do that, they just did and I think that is totally wonderful.
Then, on 19th January, it was Izzy's birthday and that hit me with such an unexpected force that I was quite stunned with the physicality of the sense of loss of William that day. It suddenly hit me that we'd never do all the things we were doing with Izzy, with William. I just wasn't prepared so the emotions battered their way through my wall and hounded me all day.
I'd like to say that's a brief resumé of how we've spent the last two months, but it's by no means brief! To summarise: we are back together as a family and working on keeping it that way which is something I never thought would happen and I am so happy it did. We still miss our baby boy more than ever. Some moments are harder than others. I've come to realise that PMT changes me and throws me back several steps too, which is what it felt like when I came off the pills. Incidentally, yesterday I halved my dose to 5mg - next step zero. If by some miracle I'm fertile, and the doc says ok yes, well your fertile moment will be at precisely 14.27pm next Wednesday, and there is any chance whatsoever of conceiving, then I want to be off these bloody chemicals.
What we are hoping against hope for is that I am fertile, I can and DO become pregnant and that happy pregnancy hormones take the place of the happy pills. Roll on Friday.
