New balls please! The BESH are hanging out the cunt bunting for Wombledon and saddling up for the Tour de France!

Did I mention there was a baby there as well? This was the baby born when my first pg was due, the baby won't take a bottle so husband and baby followed us round Go Ape (the only bit of the weekend she came to) just in case he wanted feeding....

It was totally hideous. Never want to go through a weekend like that again.

Holy cow, that's quite a mothers meeting! Hope you've managed to get through it (and the hangover) barking

Update: 8 bumps here. I didn't clock the two 13/14 week bumps last night .

Ok, so I clearly look like an idiot, but I am out in the middle of almost nowhere and my phone didn't show any of your posts when I posted last night! Glad all was good fankle, good luck keeping the menkul at bay. How much Blue?!?!

Hen thing got worse. SIX bumps, all being stroked. Lots of baby talk from those who have kids already, all of a similar age. After running away and moping for a while I returned and carried on drinking. And drinking. . Went to bed at 2.30 and feel like I've lain awake since. I must have had some sleep though, perhaps I was just dreaming that I was awake..... Supposed to be going to Go Ape in a couple of hours. I suspect I'm going to be very hungover, tired and grumpy.......

Jeez barking, that sounds like one shitty night out.

How did it go fankle?
Blue I know exactly what you mean.

I need beaucoup poisson slaps. At a hen weekend. I shit you not you can't move for bumps, they're all over the fucking place. I'm getting very drunk and talking to the hen's mother. I reckon she's the only one not bumped or constantly checking on baby at home......

Yay for fankle woo-hoo

(And yes that kid owes me pocket money!)

Thanks for the positive scan vibes ladies. It was all fine and Fanklet was facing the right way to have its heart and stomach measured. Now I really have to try to keep the menkul at bay

Eeesh Blue that's a fucking liberty! Think you should dock your future child's pocket money until you make that £100 back.

Loving your romantic, loved up posts Blue and Erica. It's true, there are pros and cons to both situations... I'm unsure how MG and I will cope as a couple although I'm confident we'll figure it out. You just don't know how having a baby will affect your relationship. There have probably been many times when our sprogged up friends have envied our lives...and I'd bet the same goes for you.

Yeah I'm very smitten with Mr Blue att the moment and my babied up friends don't get time for that.

The bloody LAS kit has an additional £100 customs charge added to it!! That surely can't be right?!!! I really don't want to spend that extra cash but I also feel like I might have to.

When I finally do get diffed this kid owes me some money ...

Blue - I feel exactly the same! Specially when I stay up until very late, drinking red wine and putting the world to rights with Mr Erica or on lazy Sunday afternoons.

But it's like everything right? Marriage/living together is very hard sometimes but I am still very glad that Mr Erica is in my life, even if I want to kill him sometimes.

Fankle Thinking of you! Lots of endo-lap-buddy positive vibes going your way!

Thinking of you for tomorrow fankle

You know, my best friends with kids are having the most horrific time recently. It feels so strange to say this and here of all places, but sometimes I really don't envy them at all. I do want to be a mum and I will make the sacrifices but when I'm drinking gin, or totally absorbed in Mr Blue or whizzing round on exciting holidays or lying in bed reading the paper til the afternoon, I sometimes realise how hard the other side have it too ... Just thinking my forbidden thoughts aloud

21 weeks fankle?! wow! Hope Friday is more revealing .

effin you made me laugh out loud (just can't bring myself to use the abbreviation, just can't do it) with the stress and guilt comment. That's me all over! I'm so comparatively relaxed now compared to the last intense year of ttc since the first mc that you start wondering.... then you remind yourself that stress is unhelpful so you should stop thinking about it, then you get stressed about potentially being stressed and if you weren't in a massive ball of stress by that point the whole situation would be hysterical....

I had a horrible kick in the stomach moment at work today. So far, working in a very young office with mainly 18-25 year olds, babies are very much not on the agenda. I managed to escape one discussion where the early 20 somethings were laughing about how they always wanted children young but now there were so many things they wanted to do first. Cue someone else laughing about how their 'wombs were withering away!' in mock horror. Ha fucking ha.
Anyway, today one of the blokes (who started the same time as me) started talking about his pregnant wife . The whole table starts baby talk and he tells them about the scans. If there's one thing guaranteed to tip me over the edge it's talk of scans .
So my lovely, safe, baby-talk free office is not so much anymore.

At least he doesn't have a bump .

Anyway, in the spirit of not ttc/having a baby, I've been out on my mountain bike this evening and I'm now having a lovely relaxing bath .

Very difficult to know what to think about the test results Erica, but I think not finding an untreatable problem is certainly good news. It's so difficult not knowing and not being in control and not having the opportunity to 'fix' something. Aspirin and heparin are blood thinners aren't they - often used for clotting issues? There's a great thread about RMC on the MC board where there's lots of info about different tests, with some only available at certain clinics. I'm not going down the testing route just yet, but am scoping it out for future reference.

I don't think 'gentle', 'if it happens, it happens' ttc is possible for us any more. Too much knowledge and too much heartache to be breezy about it now.

Although I had a massive hormonal crash last week, my pg tests are still positive, so I am taking the opportunity to live a totally unclean and very boozy life with no ttc. Off to a local music and beer fest next weekend. When AF finally arrives I'll start to be healthy again. It is indeed rather relaxing and makes me realise how stressed I've been [cue guilt about stress being the problem in the first place]

Good luck for Friday Fankle and enjoy your holibobs.

I'm still smarting over an insensitive friend I had to stay this weekend. She doesn't want kids, and when she asked if I was going to, I told her we'd been trying and I'd had a couple of mc's - she responded with 'oh, better change the subject, I'm sure these things happen for a reason' I know she was just flustered but really, how can you be expected to respond to that. I'd decided I shouldn't brush it all under the carpet but perhaps some people just can't be trusted.

Gin and it for you all.

Oh Fankle! Does the menkul ever end? I hope they invent heavy-pregnancy-friendly tranquillisers if I ever get diffed again.

My friend also got really para about not feeling the baby much around week 20-22 and it was all fine. Cutest 6 month old ever!

Best of luck for Friday!

Just caught up with you all - sorry to hear of the continued cra cra and frustration...and the Facebook announcements (precisely why I cannot bring myself to share our news there) and horrendous smug challenges...and being overtaken by friends in the diffment race (how utterly depressing)...yuk.

But I'm pleased to hear about the positive rmc results for Erica, the return of normal cycles for Rain (and the revelation that is the Mooncup...I must try), the start of exciting times for Chezza and the Bodyform-esque ads for ttc free life and womanly zen-ness by Barking and Fab

I'm waiting for my second anomaly scan on Friday afternoon. The first one was a bit of an anti climax as Fanklet was very still, facing the wrong way and generally shy and uncooperative. They told me I need to go back so they can have another go at looking at the heart and stomach. I'm slightly menkul as haven't felt much, if any, movement and practically every book and website says you should feel movement around 20 weeks. I'm over 21 weeks now. Roll on Friday. And roll on holidays next week- off to sun self on a Greek island.

Madness, stress & frustration pretty much sums it up Erica, that's exactly what I mean. As we've shown zero ability to make it happen naturally, it really would be back to 'throw everything at it' again, there's no gentle option. Not sure I'm ready for the craziness again just yet.
I also want time to really get stuck into the new job before I head back on that road of queuing at the assisted conception unit at 7.30 every morning to get my scan & bloods done before work.

Thanks Blue and Barking- I know, it's mental. I actually wanted something to be wrong so we could 'right' it. But as you say, Barking, at least they didn't find anything they couldn't treat either.

Oh well. Back to the start I guess. The gyno proposed a combination of meds if/when I get pregnant again: cyclogest, aspirin, heparin injections and prednisolone. I am very doubtful of trying medicines when they haven't found a cause for the rmc but on the other hand, we may as well give it a go before we try IVF, which would be the next step and also a sort of gamble since on paper, there seems to be no reason for us to need it.

I inserted my mooncup while in the shower the first few times and it really helped!

Barking I love your plan. It takes a lot of courage to take oneself out of the TTC madness and say 'ok, the next few months are going to be about ME and not the would-be baby'. We are a bit undecided on that front, I think Mr Erica and I need some long chats before we decide how/when to take up TTC again. I don't think I can handle the madness, stress and frustration of the last 3 years but I am not sure I can do 'gentle' TTC either.

Keep us updated chez, I'm ttc vicariously through you right now!

Erica I think I'd be the same. No problem is good, easier to feel confident next time who am I kidding? but an easily fixable problem would give more reassurance that it will be different next time because you can do something different next time . Still, it's definitely better than finding a problem that they can't easily fix, so I shall raise a gin to that .

Blue I am doing so well right now at living my childfree and not ttcing life to the full that I think even if we get the chance to ttc again before Christmas I'm going to wait until January. New year, new start and all that. And it means I can book a road biking holiday for a winter sun Christmas holiday . I cycled 97km yesterday, with some pretty big hills for my tired legs!! I'm really reluctant to go back to living my life around ttc every hour of every day with another round of iui and tablets and diet and moderate exercise etc. Until I can get my head in a more positive place and believe that there is actually a chance of a happy ending and therefore the pain will be worth it I just can't face it. But I still hate pg women (got a hen do this coming weekend with at least 4 pg women attending - I actually emailed the bridesmaid (who I've never met) and asked her for the sake of my sanity to not have me sharing a bedroom with a pg woman) and I still want to be in their club more than anything . Bit of a catch 22!

Ah jeez, Erica it's really shitty that all this stuff takes us to a place where we would actually feel better if someone tells us something is wrong.

I don't know how to feel on your behalf either

I also took the general advice of living life remembering that I don't have a kid which has involved lots of gin and planning an luxurious and child un-friendly holiday

I couldn't fit the moon cup in when I tried it! Although I'm sure it's still in a draw somewhere

LAS won't start til October (awaiting delivery and am not taking it on the September holiday) but will keep you updated

Evening hags!

Blue very curious about the LAS - keep us updated!

Feel better after last week's 'every-fucking-one is pregnant but me WAAAAAAHHHHHHHHH' tantrum. Following Vixens advice, I made the most of an 'all day in bed hangover Sunday' yesterday, which was awesome.

I got my RMC results today - everything came back normal. I don't know how I feel. On the one hand, it's good news, right? On the other hand, it is difficult to accept that, after three years of TTC and 2mcs and 1 cp (or 3 mcs really, what's the difference?), it's all down to bad luck and that there is nothing we can do differently next time (if there is one) to improve our chances of things working out.

The gyno said that he doesn't think is necessary to test Mr Erica's sperm for now... Mmhh... been reading on that and apparently chromosomal/genetic problems in semen start showing on quantity and mobility tests (he's been tested four times and all came back fine) so the problem is unlikely to lie there. But I don't know. Maybe I should have been pushier about that.

Really weird mood around the house...

• Downs Cherrys gin - thanks, dude!

Alrightee hags, just popping in from over le pond for a quick check-in.

Yay for Ginge, well laid that girl!

I don't have much cause for a moon cup these days but agree they are a most useful bit of kit if you can get around grossing out the husband with your storage and cleaning options love the idea of you rollerskating around town Fab as carefree as they come.

Hope you're having a good jollie-bags Rain.

So far so good on the hormonal front at the moment Unless everyone's just plain avoiding me. Paranoid. The most disappointing symptoms to date are boob shrinkage and slightly more haggard looking skin. Meh. But it's the sleep that's sacrosanct, especially in this environment so I'm not complaining. Long may it continue.

Gin and fish to all.

Hmm, sounds like they're well worth a try. I'd always struggled to work out how you deal with it in public toilets, but you're making it all sound fairly faff free!

Hi Bugs, nice to hear of some BESH success stories - hope you have a comfortable last few weeks.

Moon cups are great - once I got over the first couple of panicked 'I can't get the fucking thing out of me' moments. Ditto the not having to carry around loads of tampax etc is brilliant. If I had the energy i could actually go rollerblading without fear etc..