The end.

This post is exactly what is says in the title.

I've been kinda putting it off for a while but now feels like to time to confirm everything.

This journey has been long and unpredictable and completely heart breaking. We've experienced the euphoria of being pregnant and the utter devastation of losing our baby and along the way we've spoken to some people who have been incredibly supportive and encouraging.

Unfortunately we haven't achieved our dream of starting our family. We've exhausted every option for a sperm donor within 75 miles of us and still can't afford treatment without saving for a while but even then, there are no guarantees.

The thing that i don't think anyone takes fully on board when you start trying to get pregnant is that there are no guarantees. You can't wish yourself pregnant and no matter how much you want it and how hard you try, you could end up never having a baby.

We don't like the idea of going for treatment just because if it doesn't work, there is so much more we could have done with the thousands of pounds it'll cost. If we could guarantee that it'd work then we'd jump at the first chance of doing it.

The honest truth for our situation right now is that we have stopped trying. We're not looking for a donor and we're not planning on trying again anytime soon. We're not saying never but we are saying not now or in the foreseeable future.

There are other routes to parenthood and we are exploring them openly but i won't be blogging about them on here.

Thank you to everyone who has been there to support us both, we honestly appreciate it more than we can say.

For anyone that is still trying, good luck with your journey, i hope that it proves to be more fruitful for you than it has for us. Please don't let it take over you, it's hard enough as it is and if you're not careful, it can consume you. I know of women that are almost 50 who have been trying for more than 20 years who are still trying to get pregnant and they have missed out on so much because of it. It doesn't work for everyone but from the bottom of my heart, i honestly hope it does for you.

I'll be keeping this blog live for a while but then i'll be taking it down.

Thank you to everyone for reading! Especially those of you in Russia right now x

Sorry!! Here's a new update...

I'm getting more and more pre occupied with stuff going on outside of the internet recently, sorry i haven't updated in AGES!

Since i last blogged, we got our hospital appointment which was for December 16th. We were both so happy and so relieved to see that it had come through and we finally were going to get some answers.

It came round VERY quickly which was even better for us.

We spoke to the doctors and nurses who basically concluded that we have been trying for a very long time. The doctor was shocked that it had taken this long for us to get a referral to get things checked out.

They wanted to do an internal scan to check overall womb & ovarian health and a HyCoSy. They want my wife to lose a little weight before the HyCoSy is done (because once that is done we could potentially start treatment and they won't allow her to have treatment unless her BMI is 35 or less) but offered to do the internal one that day and we agreed to it.

We also got the results within 5 minutes of the scan and there is nothing wrong whatsoever. Her ovaries are in great condition, the uterine lining was 12.5mm thick (on CD18) which we're told is perfect. The only minor thing is that she has a retroverted uterus.

We've been doing some reading up on this and although it shouldn't cause any issues with overall fertility, some people have said that they have struggled to conceive then found that they have the same issue. The overall consensus is that when you're 'doing the deed', make sure she's on her front rather than on her back as there seem to be a lot of success stories coming from people that have tried that way.

This made us feel a little more positive in the 'maybe the swimmers just haven't been up to an uphill fight' sort of way but so far, we've yet to test the theory....

D4 apologised about November, he didn't offer us an explanation but he was apologetic. The following month came and we gave him all of the information we had available and he was up for everything. The day came, he was in regular contact with us, even texting to say he was on the train.

I went to collect him from the station, i didn't get there until 17:40 and as his train was due in at 17:30, i thought he might be waiting for me. He was no where to be seen. I text him, my wife, she text him. Nothing.

It got to 17:50 before we heard anything and all the text said was, "Sorry something came up i have anxiety problem i can't." I was absolutely furious!!!

The anxiety problem doesn't bother me at all, if he had made us aware of it, we wouldn't have been meeting him at a very busy train station, we would have met him off the train. Anything to make it feel easier for him.

The fact that he decided after he arrived (we can only assume) that he couldn't do it was the biggest kick in the teeth possible. Needless to say, we sacked him.

We decided to text D1, he's always said that he would help out if he could if we ever got stuck and he did, he's such a gent! Unfortunately it didn't take but he did offer to step in (again where he could) whilst we were searching for D5.

Since then, it's been Christmas and New Year and i've had my Gran in hospital for 2 months so things have been a little hectic around here but we have been talking to some guys in the hope that one of them will turn out to be a normal dude who genuinely just wants to give us his spunk in exchange for his travel expenses being reimbursed.

We got talking to a guy a couple of weeks ago who really seemed to fit that bill well. We hit it off on the phone and started planning when he would be coming round.

We emailed him just to ask a couple of extra questions and to check that he would bring photo ID with him so that we could see that his STI results were his. At this point he completely freaks on us and accuses us of being journalists who just want to make a quick quid on a story. We tried to explain that we have to be sure, it's only right that we know the written health of the donor matches the donor in question but he wouldn't have any of it.

He then started going on about a couple that tried to trap him by saying they were civil partnered when they weren't a few months ago and it turned out they were going to go after him for money and stuff and what we were asking for just sounded way too dodgy for him to trust it.

Seriously, what the fuck (and that's swearing!!) is wrong with guys?!

So, to conclude. There are very few genuine donors out there. Treatment costs way more than we can afford right now and we're no closer to having our own baby now than we were when we first started.

News

I realise that it's been a long time since I gave you all an update. There's no news in regards to being pregnant, sorry if I got anyone excited.

The main news is about our referral, we went to the doctors in August and she referred us and explained that we should get our appointment through within a few weeks with the date being about 4 months from there which suited us fine.

We've since been asked for the day 3 and day 21 bloods to be re done. We did those and waited for our appointment letter. A couple of weeks later we get a letter, this time it's asking for my wife to have a chlamydia test.

By the time this letter arrived it had been 2 full months and our appointment still hadn't been made. To say I was pissed off is an understatement.

I decided to get on the phone to the fertility clinic to see if there's any other tests they need us to do before they make the appointment. I spoke to a woman at nurture fertility who was really helpful and explained what the process would entail from here. Basically, we'll go for testing to make sure her tubes are clear first then it would be on to make sure egg quality and womb health is there.

This was great for me to actually get some information which I then relayed back to my wife. The worrying thing about the conversation was the realistic waiting times for the tests on the NHS.

We're still as much as 4 months away from having the initial consultation and to top that off, the wait for the first test (to check her tubes are clear) is 18 weeks. That makes a 34 week wait to find out if her tubes are clear regardless of any other tests or treatments that are required after that. All in all, we're pretty upset about it.

Since then we've been focusing on trying to make it work before the appointment, first attempt being tonight. That was until our donor text us 20 minutes before we were meant to be picking us up saying that something urgent had come up and he couldn't make it tonight, or tomorrow. That now means that we're out for another month and it stinks of the same routine we've had time and time again before a donor has quit on us.

We text him to ask if he's still in it with us or if he's changed his mind and have yet to hear anything back. We know nothing for certain but we may well be on the search for D5.

Update...

As you guys all know, we've been at this a while now and things have just not been going to plan.

Two weeks ago we decided to go back to see my wife's doctor to get referred for more tests etc. She had no problem doing it at all, we completely updated her on where things are with us not currently having a donor. We also told her that we're trying to get that situation sorted and we all had a laugh about it.

From her letter going out, it takes 3-4 weeks to get the appointment letter then around 3 months for the actual appointment. That puts us somewhere near Christmas which is about where we thought we'd be.

Since then, we've been talking to a couple of guys. One seemed to be really lovely, quite outgoing and generally what we're looking for. The other guy was incredibly shy and only 20 which initially made us nervous.

Outgoing guy was great to talk to on the phone and we all suggested that the following weekend would be a really good to meet up. He said that he wasn't 100% sure which day would be best for him but would text us to arrange with 48 hours. That time came and went. We emailed and text him over a few days and didn't hear back until a week later.

This worried us for all the same reasons that we've had issues before. We pretty much gave up with him after that.

Shy guy is actually awesome. We spoke to him and got the impression that he's got his head screwed on (a big bonus with him being so young) and is generally looking to help. We arranged to meet on Saturday last week after i had finished work. In the end, that didn't work out as he had something come up. This worried us yet again because it felt like he might be getting cold feet.

On Sunday he text asking if we were still up for getting together for a chat. Huge sigh of relief from the both of us. We got it all sorted and he came over to the city where we live and we went for a drink in Starbucks.

First impressions, he is beyond shy! My wife is a very shy sort of person but he eclipsed her. After a little while, he opened up a little more and he's lovely. He'd already gone to the clinic to get tested (without us having to ask) and was awaiting the results.

We're both really pleased with him, we left on good terms and discussed things on the way home. Both of us really like him, the only thing we were waiting for was his results.

They came though last night, he's all healthy! We decided that we're both really happy to go ahead and asked him if he is too, he said he is.

We're going to sort out the awkward stuff this weekend, you know, the "do you need any encouragement material?" the shoot and leave thing (more difficult because he doesn't drive).

Fingers crossed though, D4 is our lucky charm! We're hoping that his stuff is even more awesome than we've had before because of his age.

Time will tell!

Out of the blue

We're in a bit of shock at the minute.

On Monday evening D3 emailed us saying that he thinks we need more than one donation each time and thats not something he's able to do. He then goes on to say that he doesn't know of anyone that could help us then wishes us luck and best wishes.

We emailed him back asking if this meant that he didn't want to be our donor anymore or what because we're confused. On Tuesday morning we got a reply from him confirming that he didn't want to be our donor anymore.

We are completely shocked. He said that if he agrees to be our donor then he makes a lifelong commitment to donating to us and supporting us throughout. No where in that statement did he say, "so long as it happens in the first 3 attempts."

We really thought we'd found a really good guy who was in this with us until it worked. So shocked and feel completely let down by him and (even though this is about to sound completely melodramatic) life. There, i said it. Life is being a bit of a bitch when it comes to us trying to have a family.

So, it's now back to trawling through the websites trying to find the one guy who lives close enough who isn't a freak.

Ugh.

18 months on...

All of a sudden, I'm losing hope. Even with the new donor with super sperm, I just don't feel like it's ever going to work. 

No one tells you just what it means when they say that it can take years to conceive and no one explains the emotional toll it takes on you on, it's gut wrenching!

I just don't understand why it's not working, we're timing it perfectly, we're doing everything right before, during and after insemination. My wife is healthy. We're doing absolutely everything we possibly can and yet it still doesn't work & stick. We're pretty convinced that we've had as many as 3 chemical pregnancies on top of the miscarriage and that's starting to worry me. If conception is happening but something isn't working after that, how the hell do we improve things to make it work??

We could go for treatment but we really can't afford the thousands of pounds that it would cost and then the chances of it working are no greater than doing what we currently are. There's very limited access to stuff on the NHS too which is fair but we don't meet the criteria for it.

We sat up last night talking about it all, my wife is blaming herself for everything. That really upsets me because it's just not her fault, she's been so wonderful throughout this whole process and so strong. I couldn't be more proud of her through all of this.

The thought that it may never happen for us is going through my mind more and more at the minute, I know that it's only because we've had another disappointment but no matter how many times people tell us that we're meant to be parents and no matter how much we want it, that doesn't and won't ever make it happen.

Giving up really isn't an option for either of us but finding the strength to go on is near impossible to find at the minute.

Confusion

Last month ended in disappointment after we started getting our hopes up because we thought my wife was having implantation bleeding after starting to spot 4 days before her expected period which confused the crap out of us because she's never spotted that early before.

Now we're 5 days before her expected period and 11dpo and she's spotting again. More confusion, more questions, more stress.

Do not know what to think, half of me is hoping for the best, the other half is trying not to be too disappointed.


This bloody process is torture!!