30s TTC: The BESH Palace - where the bar never closes, booze is free, the humour is black and babydust is strictly for snorting through a rolled up 20.

[PollyPoo]

Welcome BESHies to the new palais. Plz to come fill it up plz.

For your delight and delectation I have dragged across the bar and the pit. Along with Mitchell (of course) to grant your every wish (but you will probably have to fight Scorps for him first... good luck with that).

I have even brought the Kylie infused absinthe. Now, who will join me in a Blackhole?

Muse luvva (and have a quick squeeze on the sly while I'm at it): did you then have periods, like actual seeming periods, whilst diffed? I'm awful sorry to ask because a) I feel ignorant and b) I would rather eat my own fingers than ask anything sad-making. Only I thought it was all urban legend is all. And my period this time was a bit lighter than normal and my gums will not stop bleeding. (If you listen ver-y carefully you can actually hear me grasping at straws).

Scrumpy that this is babyfail 10 gives me a serious case of the .

Talking of them furriners: I've just watched Brotherhood of the Wolf. Anyone seen it? It's bonkers as conkers, I'm telling you. Bogglingly so. Plus, I just saw Monica Belluci's bare bottom...

I did have periods heads. first time with the miscarriage I came on early, then got spotting a week later. I decided to POAS in a moment of madness and got a positive, followed by much angst. Second time period was on time but again with the spotting a week later. Knew what it was without POAS but had it confirmed, that was the ectopic.

Does make me wonder if the first one was also ectopic but resolved itself. Would explain the bleed. I also am almost 100% convinced it happened several times while I had the coil. Got period then spotted week later. I am never having a non-hormonal coil again.

And they were very definite periods, not just little spotting. Honest 'get the mooncup out' bleeds. In retrospect they were a bit lighter than my normal period. But only because my normal periods are heavy. These were more like the periods I got while on the pill.

What on earth were you doing up at that hour, Musical? I trust you are now having a lie-in with croissants and posh coffee on a tray.

Thanks for that. It's all so complicated and, in your case, so awful. Am I right in thinking you have one month left before the SWI begins??

Morning BESHies. I've had a vey busy week and I have to work this avo, joy. But I need some help or violence... there is obviously something Very Wrong with me.

I should be 2woofling, but instead, I am thinking how I'm not sure I really want another baybee. WTF?! I've spent nearly two years longing and craving another child so much it gave me a physical pain in my chest. So what is happening to me? I am not even sure I want to win the clomid next month. In which case why am I going through all this TCM/acupuncture business?

I have also spent the last 18 months bullying convincing TG that we must move to cornwall or else I will DIE. I miss it so much and just have not settled here at all, despite living here for over 5 years. I think I have finally convinced him (or rather the bastard NHS employers who have now reneged their promise of payrise after a year of pissing around have convinced him) that it is the Right Thing To Do. I am now quite excited and planning on starting my own business and envisaging days on the beach with my mates and their children. But a new baybee does not feature in this daydream... in fact it makes it rather awkward. At the same time, I don't want Boo to be an only child.

What is going on? Have my hormonal urges suddenly dried up along with my decrepit eggs? Do I just need a good frozen fish slap? What the fuck is WRONG with me?

Does anyone else have months where it all seems like a bad idea? And does the menkulness come back again when the droid arrives or what?

I was up late having been boozing heads. Am now doing all hen stuff. I can start trying again in late May. Although droid dates mean it'll more likely be June.

poohsticks I have no idea, I don't think it's crazy to have changing views. Especially when you're looking at interventions and stuff. It does make it all a lit scarier.

WinniethePoo, I honestly think our brains & bodies can only take so much stressing over one thing before we go into some sort of self-preservation shut-down mode. I think you're probably exhausted (consciously and subconsciously if you see what I mean) by having been driven so much by one thing for so long.

The thing is, we're so keen on controlling our bodies and our fertility that I think we almost expect ourselves to have made a kind of fully-budgeted business proposal one way or the other and never swerve from it, but it hardly works like that, does it?! The fact is, you can't control your state of mind all the time, and you might have a coupla months when other preoccupations take over the baybee thing. Hell, that might even be a good thing! And if you do make it to Cornwall then who knows how diffular changes might fit in, innit? You mightn't be able to immediately conjure up how a new one would fit in with your daydreaming at the moment, but since when has the future ever looked like we thought it would?

For what it's worth I have had a coupla weeks of the wibbles, for various reasons. I never had a proper youth (long story) and suddenly got this stomach-churning realisation that having a baby really would mean that all the stuff I never got to do (largely to do with BOYS) wouldn't be on the cards. And I really hate myself for it. But it's there.

Um. All that was a bit worthy and not sure of it helped, so have this instead

Fanks Muse and Head. I've still no idea what the answer is, or even the question really, but maybe having something to focus on other than baybee-related menkulling is a good thing. I think one of the reasons I want to move back to Cornwall is that I am absolutely fucking pig-sick of putting my life on hold for the last two years... 'Oh no, I couldn't possibly take that intriguing and well-paid job, for I will be up the duff imminently and that wouldn't be fair on you'. 'Oh, lets not start a new business now - best to wait until after the baybee arrives' etc etc.

In short, I am sick of waiting for something that might never happen.

Polly that all sounds like entirely normal uncertainness. I wonder whether there's some sort of subconscious protection thing going on, kind of like if you don't want it after all then it doesn't matter if it doesn't happen. But that could equally be me spouting utter nonsense.

The plans for Cornwall sound really exciting, and great to have something else to be thinking about other than ttc. If I were you I'd keep going with the TCM and so on (and the trying to win Clomid) and give it time to see whether it's just a blip. I guess that's probably what you were thinking anyway.

In the meantime have a headbutt. And gin, as that is the answer to everything.

Polly I feel a lot like that ATM. I spend my days either supressing a howl that we haven't managed to get updiffed with No.2 or staring with horror into the middle distance at the thought that we might have done!

I think no-one can live in an extended period of wanting something so badly, putting everything on hold for it, moving heaven and earth around it, spending money, time, resources on it, etc, all the time. Sometimes our minds just need life to look a bit easier. It doesn't mean it won't happen, or that you won't want it if it does. It just means no-one can live on this fraught emotional plane 24/7.

I think you should go for what you want, in every area of your life where you CAN make it happen - like moving, startn business, etc. If you do get pg, there's always ways to make stuff work, and if you don't, then at least the rest of your life hasn't been completely hijacked, do you know what I mean? I started this degree when my son was 4 months old. It seemed like madness at the time. Right now actually it still does! And I did wonder about waiting until I'd had all my kids. But I'm 2 out of 5 years into it now. We're still not pg again. I want to qualify before I'm bloody old enough to retire!! If I get pg again we'll make it work somehow. But life goes on. It has to. It's your mental HEALTH making you feel like this, not a lack of it. Go for it.

Sorry, me again. It just occurred to me that what you're feeling is what pretty much every woman feels when they're thinking of getting pg but aren't yet - I know I felt it before I got pg 1st time around and I feel it again now, that fear of having your life completely displaced and taken over.

It's a normal fear. It's just that most women don't have to feel it month after month after month like we're all having to.

So we're not crazy. We're just having to sit in the hard phase longer than they did.

Bitches

polly I had exactly the same wobbles last month before I won Clomid. Took it for the first time this month. And am still wobbling. I honestly feel my head & my body are 2 separate entities. My head saying "don't you DARE take that Clomid" at the same time my hand is reaching for it. I feel kind of removed from the decision making - oddness.

On the plus side of Clomid I'm saving heaps on energy bills thanks to the hot flushes. cho thanks for confirming these are entirely normal! Thought I was going to spontaneously combust at one point.

So we've started the SWI for this month, as mentioned the first when I'm Clomid-ed up to the eyeballs. So have just had soft cheese & pate for lunch, followed by a boozy party tonight. Just in case, ya'know?

Anyhoo, must venture outside to enjoy the sunshine. Am currently tucked up in the junk room study with the blinds closed chomping away on said pate & being a techi-twat.

Laters, x

PollTax, am wearing my Freudian Slippers, so am perfectly qualified to pronounce on your feelings

When we feel such a deep urge for something, be it a baybee or a house move, or new job, or all sorts of stuff, this is because we're craving something on a very deep scale. And just like people drink or overeat or whatever to fill up a 'hole' inside them to avoid looking at and dealing with what they need to address, so too can we feel urges for something that are actually masking what we really want (prolly cos the thing we think we want are more obvious or 'acceptable' or more easily attainable, etc.). Or we could be focussing all our desire on one goal, when we really want several things and all that seems too big, so we lump all our craving into one 'subject' and focus on that. Still with me?

At heart, all strong cravings and desires and wishes point to an innate dissatisfaction deep within the 'soul' (or whatever you want to call it). The question is identifying its true nature. There are so many ways to look at your conflict: is your desire for a 2nd child true? Do you truly want one but it's also masking your desire for other things as well, such as living in Cornwall? Do you want both Cornwall and Baby no. 2? And, more importantly, are you now fixating on Cornwall as something to distract you from the pain and worries of not winning no. 2 yet (which might actually still be your true desire)? As Cass so astutely puts it, the mind can't keep on wanting something so much indefinitely without looking for something else to either distract from the pain or refocus on so at least it feels it's going to get something fulfilled.

I think you probably want both, but feel too selfish to justify getting both to yourself, or maybe getting both seems too big to pull off/you aren't that lucky, etc. You CAN have both, you know. And whilst it'd be annoying adjusting to a new therapist, there are plenty of TCM and alternative peeps in Kernow. Hell, you can't walk around St Ives without falling over crystals and witches and dreamcatchers (bitterness over Ex always making us go on holiday there)!

I have such a massive physical urge for a baybee that I know it's real. But I also know that it's totally amplified by dissatisfaction within me about others things and wishing and desiring other things, like wanting to make changes (or, rather, have someone or something make me change, which pg would do), and wanting to fit in (am a loner and was badly bullied at school, and then have been ill and therefore isolated since I was 21, so really want to be part of the Mum 'club') and also getting older and questioning my identity and wanting a new one, which being someone's mother would create. The issue is so bastard complicated. Or at least it does for over-thinkers like me!

I say dare to dream! Go for both! Perhaps moving to Cornwall and feeling you're 'home' could be the last part of the TTC jigsaw puzzle for you. I do believe strongly that emotions affect our health and making big changes in one area of your life could create big ones on others.

Says me, who's so scared of change that I cried for days over getting slightly-too-short layers in my hair!

PS The above was written in a brief interval in droid-agony. Can't believe am now in babyfail double figures (not wishing to be tactless to anyone who went past that far too long ago) Am filling out online personal details thingy for my acupuncture appointment on Tues. Everything about my menstrual and gynae history (apart from my crappy luteal phase), test results and my family history would suggest I was made to be a non-stop baby-machine, as would TYF's family history for him, so is making me freaked-out and miserable.

Droid has arrived. Another 8 day luteal phase. Here was me hoping that that might at least have lengthened, but no, my body is not playing.

Pol, that is odd. Because I too run an own business in Cornwall

Gin, are you there?

Oh Foxarina. I'm so sorry, pal. I really am.

Sorry you're having a rough time too, KnivesandScorps. Oh dear. If it weren't for the imminence of Dr Who I'd be desperate.

I also am realising what an utter bunch of cock symptom spotting is. I had a full proper period last cycle and yet currently have a list of symptoms as long as my arm. Never going to pay the slightest attention to anything but a double line ever ever.

Yes Ginny, you doin' all right?

Yes, where is my darling Gin? Think you're due for a smooch, moy loverrrrr

Oh and BTW, BUMFLAKES to the droid and crappy LP, Octopus I quite literally feel your pain.

Thanks. TH unfortunately doesn't appear to have correlated droid-arrival and me being an emotional wreck and so is just annoying me. I think I need to drag him away from the computer and make him be sympathetic (or at least plan a holiday which is what we were supposed to be spending the evening doing....)

Yes my pretties,am around...am lurking I guess. Got a bit of a low going on again. Moocher keeps getting this fluey thing,has only been 'well' for about 2 days in past month. And now has major conjunctivitis. And I have caught this round of fluey thing so feel ghastly. And was up at 5am reassuring him that it was ok that his eyes wouldn't open,and that I would fix it...And am having to give him ab eye drops 4 times a day which is a bit like going unarmed into combat....

Oo sorry am as usual a poor advert for parenthood.

I appear to be taking this month off. Would be about right time now,but I just feel too ill,and I can't deal with it all this month anyway. I feel ya poops, an questioning everything right now,to the point where I can barely post. For me,it's that I WANT it for a zillion reasons,but I truly question my ability to cope.

Was there a reason why anyone wanted me btw? Or just checking I'm still alive (which is appreciated,is nice...)

oh I am just all today. Scan of doom date is precisely 10 days away which may not be helping. And I did just have another mc I spose but have mostly been pretending that didn't happen. Because I am a mature and emotionally stable adult

have booked Barcelona tho. And a very fucking nice hotel. For lots of S W no I whatsover.

Ps sorry oc is so fucking hard. And Aries hope your day is getting better? And everyone else,I do care am just all wrapped up in angst and snot at the mo.

Was just checking you were ok. Which clearly you're not . Poor dab, as they say in the Valleys.