Guilt

I've been feeling a lot of guilt recently for being so upset about what I don't have in my life because I do have an awful lot. I've got a wonderful husband who I love very much, I have a gorgeous, healthy, intelligent son, we own our own home, which is filled with nice things, I have a degree, a job and a great family, so really, what right do I have to be so miserable about life to be signed off work? I know a lot of people who don't have what I have, and I feel like they must look at me and wonder how I dare complain about my lot.

When I was young and thought about my life, I always saw it as being filled with children. I thought that when I found Mr Right, we'd be able to have children to share our love with. So the fact that I have a husband and a child, doesn't take away from the fact that my plans feel incomplete. I went through pregnancy and birth and raising a child, but not with him. I want him to feel the joy of recognising your own expression in your baby's face. Maybe I'm asking too much and I should just be grateful for what I do have, but perhaps it's harder to be that much closer to your happy ending, only to fall at the last hurdle.

Or maybe I should stop worrying about it and accept that something will upset you if it does and there's nothing you can do about it. As much as you should focus on the positives in your life, sometimes it's hard to do when they don't add up to the result you once wanted. You just have to learn to live with it eventually. Hopefully it won't come to that though.

Financial Advice

Well, that wasn't as scary as I thought. Of course that could be because we haven't got any answers yet. He's taken all of our details down and will get back to me next week with some options, if there are any available to us.

Now it's just a waiting game once again to see if we can have children together. If not, I really don't know what I'll do. Cry a lot I expect.

Scared

I've got the financial advisor coming to see me in about an hour and a half and I'm really nervous. Here I was thinking that I was being sensible and finding solutions to help me out of my depression, but what if he can't provide a solution? What if he looks at our finances and says absolutely no way can we possibly find the money? That means that we have explored every avenue and we definitely won't be able to have IVF. That's hardly going to make me feel any better is it?

Signed off

I went to see my doctor to get some help losing weight. Not pills or surgery or anything radical, I can do radical on my own with my crazy diets. No, I just wanted support, a bit of guidance, perhaps even some counselling to get to the root of my eating issues.

At first she sent me for blood tests to find out why I was overweight. I tried to tell her that it was because I eat too much, but she wanted to rule out all the things I've longed to use as an excuse over the years, like a hormone imbalance or a thyroid problem. Unsurprisingly, everything came back normal.

She tried to give me pills, but I told her I wasn't really interested in doing that. She then suggested a dietitian. Been there, done it, ended up telling the dietician her job. As a serial dieter from a young age, I'm pretty confident in saying that I don't know about diet and nutrition, isn't worth knowing. I know what I'm supposed to eat, I just don't want to eat it.

I said that what I'd really like was some counselling to address, not only the weight issue, but also the fertility problems and the stress I'm feeling at work. She told me that there is a 4 - 6 month waiting list for NHS counselling. Good one, NHS, another ridiculous hold up in my plan. Bearing in mind, I have little over 18 months now before I'm too old for an egg donation scheme.

By this time, I'd collapsed into tears again. My poor doctor, I think she sees it coming when I walk in the door. She asked me once again if I was depressed. I hate that term. I can't bring myself to let it apply to me. So of course I denied it. She then asked me if I felt it would do me good to have a couple of weeks off work. I told her that there was no way because I'm needed far too much and I've got too much to do. I think this clinched it for her and she wouldn't let me leave without a sick note.

So now I'm at the end of my first week off, most of which was spent on a holiday we already had booked. I feel like a complete fraud. I don't feel ill. I'm not even that sad at the moment. Of course I have the odd down moment and even a little cry now and then, but mostly, I'm completely normal. I think it's going to take a lot more than a couple of weeks of sitting around to make me 'get over' all the stuff I have going on. However, I'm noticing the stress seeping out of my skin in the form of cold sores, spots and the worst eczema I've had in years. I've also developed a cold and I'm still waking up in the night in sweats, so there is stress there, even if I can't feel it all the time.

It's clear that the NHS can't help me. I therefore need to try and get around all this stuff myself. I've got a week left of my time off and I'm going to make it count. I've found a free counselling service, so I'm going to get myself booked up with them. Hopefully it will help to get the root of my eating issues and address my current fertility related sadness. In the meantime though, I know I'm going to have to start on the weight problem on my own. Smaller portions and walking to the station instead of getting the bus, now that the weather is improving, should help.

I'm also going to do what one of my friends has been nagging me about for ages and go and see a financial advisor, to see what our options are with regards to raising some money. Frankly, money is extremely tight at the moment, so if we can free up a bit of cash for IVF as well as cutting our monthly expenditure, it will really reduce my stress levels. I'm not holding my breath that there's anything they can do to help though.

If I can get some sort of result out of all this, my two weeks off work will have been well spent. At least I would have put the time towards resolving my problems. My body certainly seems to be using the time to let the stress escape me in very unattractive ways, like the cold sore on my lip and the giant zit just below it - nice!

So watch this space, you know, the big, gaping, baby-shaped one in both my uterus and my life. (sorry - I couldn't leave a post without some over-dramatic self-pity)