30s TTC: Club BESHicana, drinks are free and we're hungry like the WOOFL! The MSDP continues...

[Scorpette]

Come on in, collect the Grolsch bottle tops for your DM shoes at the door

We're going all-out 80s for the continuation of the Mass Summer Diffment Project: John Hughes films playing back-to-back and on BESH FM, DJ ChoCho will be playing our all-time 80s faves, from New Romantics to Synth to Goth to Hair Metal to Pop and back again (no Fields of The Nephilim, mind). Our bartenders and waiters are Ducky from Pretty in Pink, Ralph Macchio (the Karate Kid) and Corey Haim (back from the dead especially for us) and unlike most of the real 80s, we actually get to booze!

Here's hoping the authentic 80s vibe will trick our bodies into thinking we've got the ovaries of teenagers!

(Not to mention tricking them into being super skinny and able to eat whatever we want and staying that way!)

There's plenty of Babycham and Ice Magic to pour over ice-cream in the Pit and Metal Mickey will bring them to the wretched at the click of a finger.

So whaddya waiting for? Slip on the ra-ra skirts, slap on the blue eyeliner and let's get winning those baybeez! Last one in the pool's a psycho hose beast!

Oh Salty, what a dreadful limbo state to still be in. Please do tell me to bog the hell off, but at what I thought was a 8.5 week scan my BOC measured 7.6 weeks - and it's been fine. I couldn't have got my dates wrong either, shag-wise as we were away for the SWI bit then didn't do it after we got home. I do so hope this is the case for you but I now that doesn't really help today when you just wanted to know one way or the other. Is there any chance of a private scan before your trip?

Don't bog off gimlet - it is good to know that other people have had similar experiences.

I might see if I can have a scan at the end of next week by just getting midwife to refer to the EPU. At least I'd know then. I think I might chew my own arm off if I have to wait longer.

Mr salty just rang from work to see how it went - bless him he said 'well a week and bit won't make much difference in the long run'...I said I would explain when he got home.

This is just horrible - I feel so utterly, completely helpless and out of control.

I'm so sorry that it wasn't better news salty . I don't know whether to try and be hopeful or not so I'm just going to sit and hold your hand for a bit.

My dog is the rubbish one, she just bogs off. Whereas my cats will come running at the first sound of either tears or an argument and stalk me until they are allowed to climb up and cuddle.

Sorry for running in and out in a nano second but I just wanted to wrap my wobbly bingo wings around you Salty

salty big smooches to you. Not sure what to advise but to hang around here and at least have some virtual company for a while. I agree about not being away on the residential, not sure I could handle that whilst going through this.

My cats are quite good when they know I'm upset. They will come and sit down for a big cuddle which is sometimes quite nice (and quite annoying at others!).

scorpiony yes please to the towel whip . Need some good old fashioned violence to keep my spirits up.

Right, I MUST do some ironing (yes I know, just call me Nigella). Am putting the laptop down for a while. Back later.

How you doing Saltster ?

Bit shit Cass....but the love in the Palais is helping.

I just want to know one way or the other.

I will stop indulging the menkul soon....

You are allowed the menkul saltshaker.

My dissertation if going really badly. Just BTW.

Musician I like your recruiting techniques on teh otha fred. Request for no babydust did make the lady sound quite BESHly.

Am so sorry salty. it is a very very hard time and I understand being desperate to know.

I would either get midwife or gp to refer you to epu next week...or turn up there,before 9am yourself. They will see you. If you say you had scan week before upstairs and now you're in a total state....

Am in brizzle too so I know this. In fact I have the epu number at home if you want it,you could ring 'em on mon. Clinic is from 9-11am mon-fri.

I think waiting a few days/week to give boc a chance is a good idea but you will go bonkers if you don't go next week.

Sorry, this isn't much help. I really hope it is all ok but you are right,you need to know as soon as you can know. It's vile having no idea if you should be hoping or not.

Big love xx

Thanks ginsling it was the EPU I went to today.

I think I will call midwife and get her to tell them I'm coming back on Friday morning. Hopefully BOC will have done its thang.

In meantime I plan on eating lots of sticky things by way of encouragement..like iced buns or honey on toast...

I agree with all that gin said. The not knowing is awful. I hope you get answers soon.

FairyonnaTree I thought she sounded potentially BESHly and we do need some new blood. Anyone who despises babydust deserves a chance.

Oh salty I'm sorry the news was confusing & conflicting, & didn't give the reassurance you needed. Candles ahoy & positive thoughts your way, x

salts I'm sorry that you and the BOC are having such a hard time. Take care of yourself. The sticky foods plan sounds like a Good Thing.

Hope everyone else is doing ok?

Re: the not-destined to get pregnant. I was pretty convinced that it wasn't going to happen for us...

oof lots to catch up on in a day..

salts so sorry to hear your scan was inconclusive. think you should see it that way and DEFO push for another one before you go away. personally i would go raving mad if i had to wait til end of july (i am NOT good at waiting for things) dont know what else to say hun.

as to the rest of you esp aries and "MTF" about not being deserving/destined or even capable of being a parent, feels like you are plucking the thoughts from my head. lyra will catch up on your earlier thread after i;ve put the tea on!

sneaks is pretty much a dog trapped in a cats body, wont leave u alone and if either of us is feeling poorly or upset he'll just come sit near you and purr. bless him. anyone got mousing issues at the mo? yesterday was 2nd he brought in in 2 days. we are so proud he can stil manage it at his age, bless

Oh Salty Am sending the hugest hugs your way. I think, like others have said, that you should focus on what the sonographer told you - he/she was looking at the actual BOC and saying it looked normal and that it would be too early to detect a heartbeat. That is actually Good News. The MW will have been thinking about your emotions, etc., as that is all she could help with at the time and might just have been over-solicitous, which could be misconstrued as her believing it's a mc. Try to go with the cold, hard facts - the sonographer said things looked normal.

It's both shit and ridiculous that EPUs close at the weekends, but go make a fuss of yourself on Monday morning. I can't believe they want you to wait so long to be scanned again with this nightmare looming over you.

The candle is being re-lit

PS, I hope the rest of you avoided the PURE EVIL that is the Grauniad's G2 section today: C**ping Special, AAAAAAAAAAARRRRRGH! I literally threw it away from me, vile manifestation of Satan that it is (possible hyperbole).

Hey Scorpilicious she did say it was normal, but normal for 5ish weeks not 7+

I'd need to wait a week anyway to see any progression. Although in other circumstances I agree, it is both shit AND ridiculous!

Blimey, did the c**ping section leave any burns on your poor hand?

Salty really sorry to hear all is not clear, and I shall join you in hoping it is the better outcome.

I have soaked the wounds in holy water

Sorry I misread the bit about normal for 5ish wks, not 7. But as others have pointed out, their scans didn't tally with the right weeks and everything was okay. I just want everything to be fine for you, gaaaaaaaaah, you're so brave

chuck that evil section my way :D lavender is good for burns you know.

having just read the WInnie/Lyra thread a few things rang true and not others. (massive lol at the 'i had you cos a lady on the internet dared me too') I almost started a similar thread (before i found this one) titled 'am i being totally selfish in TTC at 38' i am not too worried about the process of pregnancy, having kids etc but my fears are as follows:

1. I am 38, hence the chance of something being wrong with the baby or my pregnancy or the birth is greatly enhanced (or so everyone seems to bang on about) plus when they are my age i will be nearly 80 (worst case scenario dh left to bring up disabled baby on his own, ffs salad)

1. when i met the DH i was adamant i didnt want children. not sure why but I think its because i had been planning to have them in my mid 20's with my ex, when we went thru a pretty harsh passive agressive on both sides split i realise how if we had kids it would have been 1,000 times worse. DH was of the same mind. Then i started to change my mind but DH being still late 20's and hadn't (not sure he ever would if it wernt for me badgering him. so I had to convince him that we should stop trying to avoid it but promised we wouldn't take any extraordinary measures and 'leave it up to fate'. Fast forward 3 yrs and i have started the process of FC, made him jizz in a cup and have just bought my first bath of pee sticks. I am SUCH a lying cow and feel in some why a duped him. What if he hates being ada and leaves me or it changes our currently loving relationship beyond repair?

1. the world is a screwed up place socially politically environmentally and now economically - how can it be right to inflict its fuckedupness on another human being (this was always my reasoning when i said i didnt want kids in my late 20's, early 30's)

1. i am the principle earner and if i have a kid i want to look after it for as long as poss. I know this sounds a bit shallow but i am worried about the financial repercussions of me not working and being able to provide for our child, or being forced to go back to work prematurely.

1. My dad has some mental health issues and i am totally para that they are latent in me - at some point i will flip out and inflict my fuckedupness on poor DC and DH.

Sorry for this totally self absorbed post. I know no one asked and you guys esp, twinkes and salty probably all have far better things to think about than my bleating but there it is.

ps - apologies for lax attitude to punctuation in the above post. Oven is beeping at me and I did warn you!

SaladDays, I think your fears will echo with many BESHes. Here are some points from my experience/knowledge to counteract your fears:

As I always bang on about, my Gran was nearly 41 when she had Mum. My Mum is fabulous and virtually normal. Gran died when she was 83 and Granddad at 90, so she had them for a long time and me and my Bro adored them.

On the flipside, TYF's Gran adopted her wodowed husband's child and their first child together, when she was about 25, had Down's Syndrome. She went on to have another 8 kids, inc. 2 when she was over 40 and they had no problems (this is debatable from my POV ), so age is not the only factor in such matters.

You are allowed to change and grow in a relationship; in fact, you'd be weird and sad if you didn't. You haven't lied to your partner or tricked him - things change, people change, situations change. The only way TTC could fuck everything up is if you stop communicating. It has brought me and TYF closer together and I really understand the depth of his love for me in a way I didn't fully appreciate before.

Mental health is not necessarily hereditary. Also, people with no family history of it can develop it. And if it's anything like Schizophrenia (you don't need to reveal to us, if it doesn't feel right) then once you're past 28, it's incredibly, incredibly unlikely that you'll develop it (my Mum is retired counsellor/therapist, so I know a bit about these fings). I'm prone to Clinical Depression (hence my babyfail freakouts for the last year!), which runs in the family, but am not letting that put me off wanting to become a Mum. Witnessing family members get the blues didn't ruin my childhood and I still love and respect them totally.

I hope some of this helps. The irony is, of course, that it's the amount of thought and worry you're putting into wanting to be a good wife and mother that makes you suitable for motherhood. Do you think the chav-slag teens I see backhanding their kids on the bus and feeding their babies diet coke put a second's thought into getting knocked up? It'll take longer for us than them, but by billy-o, we'll be far better Mums.

And that goes for ALL of us

Thanks for your kind words and reassurance scorples of course in my lucid moments i know what you are saying is true. those are the dark of the night fears really. Most of the time i don't let them in. But i guess its all brought to the surface by recent ramped up attention to the TTC shizzle, and generally thinking too much. Maybe I am trying to convince myself there are good reasons for me to be thankful if it doesnt happen for me. (glass half full you say? pah)

Dads problems are more OCD and anxiety/depression based, and i do see signs of them in myself sometimes. One of the reasons I changed my career path a few years ago is because I knew i wasn't handling stress too well. I am just hoping (and i really do think) that baby stress will be a totally diff kettle of fish. I also sometimes think it might be stress that has caused the babyfail as so far there doesnt seem to be anything medical. Just got word from mum, that dads taken a turn for the worse again after being ok for quite a few months so thats all a bit raw too.

Big up Granscorps, she sounds like a ledge. I do come from quite a long lived family so i spose i shouldn't worry about that aspect of it too much.

To be honest i should just HTFU and get on with it.

Pee sticks arrived today so that should be interesting. Has anyone else used these?

Wot, wot, wot did the Grauniad Speciale say? I am not in Bighty, feed me annoying news!!

SaladSpinner everything wot Pette said plus the fact that the annoying RL people around me are in their 40's getting updiffed first time they try! Agh. Lovely, healthy, children, may I say. As ScorPet said once upon a time, women used to have baybees later, it was just their 12th kid or summat.

On the cash front? Can the man bear the brunt of childcare? Or is he still reluctant?

As for the screwed up world, haven't figured it out myself yet ... worth a discussion.

I am still menkuling about wot Arial said: having children out of competitivness. Sad, but may be true in my case. I really need to think about that one. Or is that what Lyra post is about? Tried to find it but could not. Did I make any sense? Kinda running to go out...

I managed to tell Mr Salty everything that happened without crying even once. I am DHB, no?

One response he gave was 'well couldn't that just be an anomaly?'

sorry for briefness and lack of attention to anyone else's posts, esp saladcream who seems like a most insightful lady, but cannot string coherent sentences together any more.