So on the other hand, hurrah for surging, because it means I'm flying off to Sydney on Sunday to see MD and get an endometrial biopsy and... some other tests*... done, and then I can move on to what I hope will be an actual treatment cycle. My sister asked whether I want someone down there with me. Apparently they have offered to buy my mother a one-way ticket. Of course, they are joking, and we will all be fine.

The Travelling Book, meanwhile, is winging in the opposite direction, to Thalia. If you haven't heard of the travelling book, or even if you have and have already signed up for it but not received it yet and want to make sure you're still on the list**, check it out on Beagle's blog over here.

Then there's So Close, which is going to Vee and, by extension, Max. I've decided to split the parcels to keep things moving along, share the love more widely, and give myself a little extra time.

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What!! You're Pregnant Again!! Bite Me!! A Review

This booked was published in 2004. I wonder where the author, Sandra Zacchino, is now, and what she's doing, and whether she knows we're passing her book around the world and relating to her words. Because the thing is, it starts with a funny title, and some snarky language, but then there's Chapter Seven: Pages From My Journal. The next twenty pages take us from her initial pregnancy in 1999, through her loss, and to the years of secondary infertility on the other side. "Today I got my period." "Got fucking period." "Got my period as usual, that is about the only reliable thing in my life." "Today was horrible." "I got my fucking period today." Over and over, until your heart just breaks. And then, in Chapter Eight, I found this:

"I refuse to torture myself in every possible way in order to get there."

And I wanted to reach through the page and talk to her, because I didn't understand. Oh, I understand people who choose not to pursue fertility treatments in favour of living childfree or taking another path to parenthood. I can understand moving on, or sticking with low-tech treatments. But I can't understand why she battled all those years on her own, getting the same result, feeling the same hurt at the end of each cycle, asking the same questions, getting the same non-answers, passing up on the same options. I can understand her not wanting to "torture herself", but she is, and she does, and it's so hard to read.

I wanted to reach out and say, please make a decision you can be happy with - no matter how things turn out. Make a decision you can look back on without regret, knowing you tried what was right for you. Just don't keep passively riding the rollercoaster with your eyes shut, screaming, hoping someone will make it stop until eventually, they do. I can't imagine a worse torture than that.


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*I feel like I should know what they are, but I don't.

**Because I, er, seem to have lost the list, so you might want to double-check you're still on it. Really - if you want the book, please drop round and make sure you're on the list, even if you've done so previously.