Another year rolls around

Tomorrow its my 43rd birthday. I've got a lot to be thankful for. I've got my beautiful Zoe and LH, we've got a lovely house and I've got a job I really love that also allows me to still have lots of time with Zoe.

Life couldn't be better really. But despite all that, I'm still feeling down. Its not the ageing thing - I've been, and still am, happy in my 40's. Its this IVF stuff that's getting me down.

I'm slowly but surely becoming reconciled to not having any more children and I'm mostly ok with it. But being stuck in the middle of this process is what is wearing me down. At the moment, we are just completely stalled waiting for my cycle to start so we can do the endometrial investigative cycle. I just want to be through all this and out the other side so we can move on. Its been so long now and I'm a bit weary from it all.

I do keep reminding myself of how lucky we are to have actually succeeded in having a baby through IVF and in the grand scheme of things, two years of it really isn't much. Lots of couples spend far more years of their lives caught up in IVF and some don't succeed at all.

But I feel like life is in on hold in a sort of a way until we reach the endpoint of IVF, whatever that might be.

I've also been thinking about how things might be different next time around. It would be great to have a 'normal' pregnancy, whatever that is, without the scary complications. It would be great to have a normal birth without a caesarian and it would be great to be able to breastfeed normally without issues of milk production and wayward placentas. And it would be really good to have a baby that wasn't premature.

Not much of a wish list, is it? (not!). I realise all this is probably a pipe dream because in reality most births and pregnancies aren't completely normal. I have to admit that I'm still a bit scarred by the first weeks of Zoe's life. The weight gain issues and breastfeeding were incredibly tough and I just have this real desire to do it all again without the troubles. But first I need to be pregnant again and that's just getting more and more unlikely by the day.

I'm going to make a concerted effort to enjoy my birthday tomorrow and not wallow in feeling sorry for myself. I really am very lucky.