Infertility Sucks!

Infertility has always been my worst enemy, but when it also hits someone close to me, it really really really bugs me. I wrote a couple of blogs ago about my buttcheek who got pregnant via IVF and had a miscarriage last week at 7 weeks. When I saw her last week, I basically told her things to prepare her for the miscarriage, for example the cramps, the bleeding and the tissue that she will see coming out of her body. And yesterday she texted me saying that the tissue came out. I can imagine how depressed she seeing technically her baby coming out.

She said she broke down a couple of times yesterday. Sigh...I wish I could do more for her. I wish I could do more for infertiles everywhere. If I were a billionaire, I would hire the best fertility doctors to come up with a foolproof method to make a baby with medical assistance. But alas, I'm no billionaire and nobody can  guarantee that medically assisted conception is a foolproof method for a take home baby. It is all to Him.


Doesn't stop me from wishing though. At least for the billionaire bit...

The Good, The Bad & The Ugly

So many things happened last weekend that I don't know where to start. So I thought of doing a "The Good, The Bad & The Ugly" kinda post. Here's a lowdown on what happened last weekend...

The Good


1. Took my parents out for a seafood lunch at Kang Guan Restaurant in Carey Island on Saturday. It's our amily's go to restaurant for good seafood. It took us 1 1/2 hours to get there, but the food is so good, distance be damned. The funny thing is we discovered that there was a highway from Kajang to Klang so we took the highway on our way back home, and it took us only half an hour! (banging head against the wall LOL) The total bill came up to RM129 (USD40) which is darn cheap considering we ordered five different dishes.

Clockwise from top left: Claypot tofu, stir fried sweet potato leaves, steamed garoupa and chili crab. We also had crayfish in dried chili but the photo mysteriously disappeared from my phone :( Everything was yum!!!

The mangrove trees lining the river bed

The view from our table

2. Finally sent my fabrics for my Eid baju kurung to the tailor. Lucky for us the tailor knows us quite well, so she accepted our last minute request. Yay!

3. Went hiking again.

4. Went to BookXcess and got a couple of books and three audiobooks for less than RM187.50 (USD27). Yay!

5. Made dinner last night and DH polished off everything.

6. Went to the wedding of an ex-colleague daughter. It was really good seeing old friends, catching up on the latest news and having a big laugh the entire time.

Wait. Could it be? I actually look thinner (that's me on the right by the way :P)

The Bad


1. Went hiking again. We only  managed to get to the first tier of the hill. 10 minutes into the hike, we were already huffing and puffing and ready to collapse LOL. I think what made us finish the entire trail last weekend was the fact that we didn't know where we going so no matter what happened, we had to get to the finish line.

2. Found out too late that there was a marathon going on in the city. I would have registered if I had known. Boo.

The Ugly.


1. Found out on Friday that my buttcheek's embryo stopped beating. She was 7 weeks pregnant.  I went over to her mom's house which is 10 minutes away from where I was staying. She cried and I cried with her. I was sad for her coz I know the pain of losing your baby. I feel bad for giving her the "What To Expect" book, but she told me not to. One thing I can say is that she is one strong woman. Sure she was devastated but she accepted that this was not meant to be and I really admire her for that.

So that's my weekend round up. What did you do last weekend? :P

Huff & Puff

This will be me at approximately 9.00 a.m. tomorrow LOL. God give me strength

Picture taken from Hello Giggles

Wordless Wednesday. Sort Of.

I was going to post this photo yesterday for Wordless Wednesday but was crazy busy. Anyway, how cool is this kid? :D I saw this on AirAsia's in flight magazine when DH and I were on our way for a vacation in Sabah last year :)

Of Green Ogre and Jason Mraz

So something that never ever happened to me actually happened last week. I won a contest! And not just any contest. It's the Shrek The Musical contest where the price was four tickets to the show in KL. Hip hip hooray! I remember DH and I were at a coffee shop one weekend for breakfast and I was flipping the newspaper and saw the article on Shrek The Musical, and at the bottom was a column on the contest. I answered all the questions (the answers were all in the article) and thought nothing about it and then last Thursday i got an e-mail saying that I won the tickets!

The show was on Tuesday and I brought DH, my mom and dad along. I was actually waiting for my internal client to give me Jason Mraz tickets for his show, also last night, but I didn't hear a peep from him so I figured why waste perfectly good tickets (worth RM390 each by the way).

Pretty decent seats seats too!

I was riveted during the entire show. The cast was great. The music was great. The acting was great. The script was great. My favourite character would probably have to be Lord Farquaad. He was hilarious! What surprised me was how similar the voices of the characters in the musical with the actors in the movie. Donkey really sounded like Eddie Murphy! All in all everything was great and we had a really good time.

The stage from where we were sitting

Mama enjoyed it too and I thought she would. But Baba really surprised me. He's not the kind of guy who watches animated movies and I highly doubt that he has Shrek at the movies but I could tell that he was really into the whole thing.

Me & Mama

The next day hitz.fm was all abuzz with updates from the Jason Mraz concert on Tuesday night. I must say that I was a wee bit disappointed that I didn't get to go. I was looking forward to going actually, since my colleague told me that she would try her hardest to get me a couple of tickets, but alas, it wasn't meant to be. Anyway, if you haven't checked out Jason Mraz's latest album "Love Is A Four Letter Word", please do. You can thank me later.

I also started reading A Discovery of Witches by Deborah Harkness. I saw this book at my favourite bookstore and picked it up. I usually go for bestsellers but for some reason I was intrigued with this one. Apparently it's about a Harvard Professor who is actually a witch but does not want to have anything to do with sorcery. Oh and there's an "enigmatic" vampire thrown in there somewhere. Please don't make him sparkly. Shudder. I'm only up to page 15 and so far we have a good relationship, but we'll see how it pans out. Has anyone read this book? What do you think?

Much love,

Heigh-ho!

So on Saturday morning DH and I woke up early for Fajr and our morning walk. We decided to be adventurous and attempted to walk across Bukit Indah (where we stay) to Taman TAR, the next neighborhood which is 2.8 km away (according to Google Maps). I didn't enjoy the walk much because of the heavy traffic to get to Taman TAR from our house but as soon as we reached Taman TAR I began to have fun. I like that there are not many vehicles there, and it's much quieter than where we stay.

As we were walking DH saw a path that appears to be a hiking trail and we decided to check it out. Very brave decision considering we only started walking last weekend. Anyway, we followed the trail and found a small creek. Pretty cool eh?

How awesome is this?

We met a guy who told us that the trail could actually lead us back to our home. And DH like a kid was so excited to follow the trail that I didn't have the heart to tell him no. So we walked, and I almost died. We had to hike up the hill for goodness sake!

This is the trail that almost led me to my death (kidding!)

We got to the first tier on the hill and guess what we found? A lake!! I didn't know this place existed and I've been living in Ampang almost my entire life! The view was gorgeous although the lake with its greenish blue water kinda creeped me out a bit. Wonder if there are crocodiles in there. Or snakes. Yikes! There were a couple of people there as well. There was even a lady who tried to sell us insurance. What the???

The beautiful albeit creepy lake

Hello morning sun!

Since we were already halfway up the hill we decided to continue on, brave souls that we were. We met some interesting people up the hill, including a couple of guys who seemed to be a pro at this. They didn't even seem to break a sweat!! By this time I was thirsty as hell. Since we didn't plan on going hiking, we didn't bring any bottled water. Thank God there was a stream and I managed to get a couple of scoopfuls of water. We then continued on to the top of the hill before descending to the foot, which took us around 30 minutes. And the guys we met on the hill was right. We ended up practically behind our house! I was so happy to hear the sounds of vehicles that I wanted to jump off a cliff straight down to the foot of the hill. And then I remembered DH was standing next to me haha. The whole hiking expedition took us 2 1/2 hours to complete (gasp!). By far it was the craziest thing DH and I have ever done throughout or marriage (other than our two IVF cycles). DH was amazed that I didn't complain one bit during our hike. I once told him that my family and I used to go camping and hiking all the time when I was a kid and he didn't believe me. Now he does LOL. 

My tormentor

I'm still sore all over but I think I've lost some weight. Could be because of our walks or the post-natal pills that my mom insisted on me taking to get my body back in shape. So we decided to make this our weekly activity. We're going again this Saturday, and this time I'm bringing at least one litre of bottled water :P


In an unrelated news, one of my BBC friends gave birth this morning (local time). Hooray!! Congrats Kristy! And welcome to the world Adam Alastair and Nathaniel Desmond! :)


Much love,

Bittersweet

So last night me and DH (DH and I?) had dinner with my BFF and her family who would be performing their umrah in Mecca this morning. I always have a grand time with them, whom I consider my second family. There is no shortage of laughter when I'm around them. As I heard stories of their trip, it made me long to perform my own umrah with DH. DH and I have actually talked about this and we initially planned to go end of this year, but then I heard my BFF's sister's FIL (confusing much?) telling us that the Saudi govt will close off umrah for major renovation works from Hajj this year to Hajj next year.

Oh dear. One of the decisions that we had to make after the m/c was when do we start IVF #3, and we thought that if we could go for umrah end of this year then IVF #3 will start right after that. But now that we can't even go until end of next year, we're back to square one. Do we start IVF #3 first and then perform our umrah? What happens if I do get pregnant, then what do we do? Leave the baby? Granted we shouldn't be thinking that far ahead, knowing our history of "failed successful" IVFs. It looks like we have some thinking to do, although I'm leaning towards doing IVF #3 first. One year seems like such a long time to wait for our next cycle to start, don't you think?

Anyway, one of my buttcheeks who's pregnant via her first IVF is scheduled for her u/s today. I can't help but feel depressed although I'm also so happy for her. Can you be happy and depressed at the same time? I'm praying that the u/s will go smoothly for her and her DH, but at the same time I feel like a part of me is dying inside. Remember my post "Disconnected"? Now I feel disconnected more than ever. I want to reach out for her and tell her that I wish her all the luck in the world, but it's killing me softly. Great. Now I sound like Roberta Flack. I think I'm officially losing it.

I already feel guilty about being jealous of her pregnancy and I admitted it to her. I know that she understands how I feel and I know that it's not right. She is my buttcheek after all.

I sent her a present last week. I bought her the What To Expect When You're Expecting online and had it delivered to her home as a surprise. It's the least I can do to show her my support. As I'm writing this, I can already feel tears welling up (damn it!). My dearest friend, if you're reading this, know that I love you with all my heart. That will never ever change. I will always be your buttcheek and twinnie and although I may not always say it, I wish you all the luck in the world with your pregnancy. Nothing would make me happier than seeing you with a baby in your arms. I may not always be there for you physically, but I'm with you in spirit, praying for you from afar.

Great. Now I'm crying. Goodbye.

Disconnected

I don't know if it's a normal phase for a "miscarrier" to go through, but sometimes I feel disconnected from the people that I were close to before the miscarriage. I think this stems from my disappointment that the people who I love and trust let me down so bad during this cycle that I now view our friendship differently. It also could be that they have kids or are pregnant that I feel that I'm the odd one out. Maybe the fault also lies with me.

I was invited to join my close friends for lunch this Saturday and I declined, telling them I'm not ready to face them and that I might cry when I look at their faces. While all this is true, what I didn't tell them is that I already feel disconnected. All of a sudden, I feel like we don't have anything in common anymore. I'm afraid that if I do go out with them, I will be the silent one with nothing to say, while the rest talk about what's going on in their lives, their kids and their pregnancies. I feel like I don't belong anymore. Maybe this is my sadness and disappointment talking, but it is what it is.

I love my friends, I really do but maybe being disconnected is what I need to put things into perspective. I need to focus on me, DH and our journey towards having our own baby. I need to focus on what's important in my own life. I need to be selfish. After all that I have been through, I think I have the right to, don't I?

Do I really belong?

Run Like The Wind Bullseye!

So I did something crazy yesterday. It's something I've been wanting to do for a long time, but I needed a partner to do this with, and I don't think DH is up to it. Luckily for me, one of my BFFs (also known as my sister from different parents) is an outdoor freak and she mentioned about this thing that I've-been-wanting-to-do-for-a-long-time and asked me if I was interested. So what did I done do? I signed up for a marathon! Yeehaa!!! It will be held at Penang on the Penang Bridge (the marathon is called the Penang Bridge Marathon for obvious reasons) and we signed up for the 10km run.

Perfect timing too since I just bought my running shoes last week. Oh and I've started my weekend walks with DH last weekend. We walked around our housing area three times, and I almost died hahaha. But we had fun doing it. It gave us something to do together every weekend. We talked about a lot of things while we walked, one of them being our next IVF plan of course. And on our way back home, we stopped by our local mamak restaurant and had teh tarik (pulled tea) and tosai for breakfast hahaha. Next weekend we plan to walk all the way to the next neighbourhood (Taman TAR). I'll update on that if I don't pass out and never wake up hahah.

Anyway, back to my marathon story. It's gonna be held in September and DH agreed that we could go. We're gonna spend two nights in Penang. I'll be bunking with my BFF the first night since the venue of the marathon is a walking distance away from the hotel that she booked (poor DH will be spending the night alone, and the next night me and DH are staying at Hard Rock Hotel Penang yay!!

Can't wait for September to come. I highly doubt that me and my BFF will win any prizes, but it sounds like a fun thing to do with a friend. DH is confident that we will place 15th, from the back. Gee, thanks for the vote of confidence LOL!

Till next time! Much love,

Quote of the Day

Ever tried. Ever failed. No matter what. Try again. Fail again. Fail better ~ Samuel Becket

Taken from You, Me & Charlie

Lovestrong

Working in a telco, and especially in a division which serves the whole company has its perks.  I knew Christina Perri was coming to KL and would be performing on Thursday night, and my colleague had been trying to get tickets since the Blue Telco is one of the official sponsors of the show. But, as it turned out my colleague suddenly fell sick and have been "out of commission" since Monday, and so I thought "there goes my chance of getting free tickets".

And then on Wednesday I got a call from one of my internal users asking me if I wanted to go. He said he had two complimentary tickets to the show, so hell yeah I wanna go! Funny thing is, I've only done one agreement with this particular user, so it came as a surprise when he called me up. Must remember to name him as one of my performance reviewers end of this year :P

Since one of my buttcheeks just got pregnant via IVF (yay!) I couldn't bring her along to the show so DH volunteered to go with me. I was afraid that he wouldn't enjoy the show as much since he doesn't really know Christina Perri's songs, but surprisingly he did!

So on Thursday I collected the tickets and after work DH picked me up and we drove to one of the parking lots near KL Live where she was to perform. We figured that walking a short distance to KL Live was better than sitting in traffic for an hour if we were to park our car at KL Live itself. It would have been a better idea if I was wearing my Fit Flops instead of my 2" heels LOL.

Yay!

When we got to KL Live we bumped into a friend who worked with one of the medias covering the show, and he pulled out two VIP tickets from his pocket and asked us if we wanted them, since he already had his media pass. What luck! 

We quickly made our way to the VIP entrance, and thank God we took the VIP tickets. Because KL Live was a pretty small venue, there were no seats and all the tickets were free standing tickets, but luckily for us the VIP section had seats! Plus there weren't that many people in the VIP section. Yay!!

Now on to the performance. My gosh, I have to say Christina Perri has pipes! She sang most of her songs from her Lovestrong album plus a couple from her upcoming album. Her songs are great, especially the more popular Jar of Hearts, Arms and of course A Thousand Years, but her voice is outstanding! Even DH was surprised that she sounded so good on stage. The music was great too, especially the drums. I'm a little bit in love with her drummer, by the way. Must google him in a bit :D All in all, it was a really fun night. Thank you Nik for the tickets, although we didn't use them in the end. Times like these make me feel good about the work I'm doing with my often times difficult internal clients. 

Here are some pictures from last night.

'Twas really a night to remember. Now if only I can get Jason Mraz tickets for his show on the 19th. Oh Niiiiiiikkkkkk...:D

15 Days Later...

It's been 15 days since my miscarriage. I've been thinking about it a lot these past couple of days, what I've learned and how it has changed me. A little part of me has changed, for the better or for worse, I don't know yet. Change or no change, here are some of the things I've learned from this experience:

1. I'm much stronger than I give myself credit for. Sometimes I need to remind myself of this.

2. Life goes on. Babies will be born. People get pregnant and they will want to share their pregnancy and baby stories. I must learn not to be selfish and try to accept this while at the same time refrain from blowing their heads off with my imaginary shotgun.

3. I may not always be able to depend on people whom I thought I could count on. I learned this the hard way.

4.  Must not tell people about our next IVF plan, except for close family and selected friends. See No. 4 above.

5. Laughter really is the best medicine.

6. The pain over the loss will not go away overnight. I need time to heal, and I will heal.

7. It's okay to be sad and angry with infertility. It motivates me to try again and never give up.

8. Learning about other people's experiences, their trials and tribulations as well as their successes is key to my infertile sanity. I am not alone in this.

9. The best support can sometimes come from the most unexpected source. A BBC friend who lives thousands of miles away and whom I've never met said this to me, "I hate that you are going through this again - it's so unfair!" For some reason, this comforted me. I wanna hug her, but I can't.

10. I'm grateful every day that I'm married to DH.

"I may not be there yet, but I am closer than I was yesterday." ~ Anon

Today Was A Good Day

I'm beginning to realize one thing. When life gets you down, there's nothing like family time to pick you back up again. Nothing like it I swear. This weekend we went to stay at my parents' place. It's my first time coming home after the m/c, and I gotta tell you, it's really good to be with your mom when life sucks. As usual mom made a fuss and cooked up a storm for lunch yesterday. I think there were five different kinds of dishes on the table and DH and I ate till there was nothing left on our plates.

And then last night DH and I went to the movies to watch Snow White and the Huntsman. We haven't been to the movies for so long since I got pregnant and it was good to be out with him on a movie date. Plus Snow White is a pretty cool movie. What made it cool was the evil queen Ravenna played by the gorgeous Charlize Theron and the Huntsman played by Chris "Thor" Hemsworth (yummy!) I didn't care too much for Kristen Stewart. I don't think the girl can act to save her life and she seems to have mistaken a smile for a smirk. Seriously, is it so hard to smile?! Can you tell I'm not a fan? :P But go watch it guys!

Today for lunch I took DH, mom and dad to a Chinese Restaurant at Equatorial for a dim sum lunch treat. The food was quite good (although the buffet menu is pretty limited) but we did stuff ourselves with egg tarts, chicken feet, prawn dumplings, chicken and yam dumplings and even had room for chilled longan for dessert. Dad is not a big fan of dim sum but he did pick out a few things that he really liked. Next month I promised to take them for seafood at Carey Island before we start fasting month. Mom has been talking about wanting to eat good seafood and dad really loves the place, so it's a date with the family! :)

Here are some photos from our dim sum lunch :)

Chicken feet in spicy bean sauce

Can't remember what this is called, but it was yummy!

Me & mum

Oh hello dad!

Me & DH

Oh and I also bought myself a pair of running shoes. I figured that it's about time I get myself in shape. The last time I was really in shape was in high school when I played volleyball for the school. So next weekend I'm gonna drag DH out of bed and go for a walk/jog around the neighborhood. Super excited!

Do you like? :D (please ignore my hairy legs and focus on the shoes :P)

What's In A Dream?

Last night I dreamt about snails. It was pretty creepy. They were everywhere, on the floor, on the walls, even on the ceiling. For some reason I cried in my sleep and DH had to wake me up. I've been having quite a few dreams lately where I cried and DH had to wake me. A couple of weeks ago I posted about dreams and how I've been having them every night since the ET. My buttcheek told me that it's a pregnancy symptom, but now I"m not so sure.

DH asked me what I was dreaming about and I told him. He asked me if I had dreams about animals before and I said I did. (Remember the goat dream?) He thought about this for a bit and then turned to me and said, "I think 'something' is bothering you." Cue the Twilight Zone theme song.

Come to think of it, it's not so far-fetched. It could be why I can't seem to keep my babies for more than 6 weeks. DH thinks that there's probably "something" that's eating my babies. Creepy huh?

So, we're gonna go see an Ustaz, we don't know yet who, before we start IVF #3, just to rule out the possibility of "something" bothering me, and if there really is "something" bothering me, then we're gonna get help to get rid of it. Hopefully this will help us somewhat in our baby journey. Will post more about this when we've seen the Ustaz.

On another note, today has been a good day. I feel much better. I checked in my BBC board last night. Even though I miscarried, I love seeing how my BBC friends' pregnancies are progressing. It gives me hope. I was reading the posts and as I was reading a post for me, I felt tears welling up. What a friend wrote about my miscarriage moved me to tears. She also suffered multiple losses before going on to have  a successful pregnancy. She's now 20 weeks along. Besides DH, my BBC friends are the only ones who know what it's like to be in my position. Princess, if you're reading this, you are awesome and I'm glad I have you to lean on during this difficult time. You're my inspiration. The same goes for all my other BBC friends. I think without them (and DH) I'd just crumble and die. Okay, I'm being a melodramatic here LOL. But it's true.

I also think being at the office really helps. (Sometimes) I love my job and I know I'm good at it and vetting and preparing contracts keep my mind from wandering. It's reassuring to know that even after a month of absence and despite my miscarriage, I still can do my work well. One of my internal clients, Zai, took me and my two colleagues out for lunch this afternoon at Alexis. It was a really good lunch and Zai who previously worked as a Sales Director at one of the hotels in KL kept us laughing with her stories about the hotel guests that she encountered at her old job. It's been a long time since I've laughed so hard, I swear my jaw hurt. It was really good not to think about this whole baby, IVF and miscarriage issues, if only for two hours.

Later in the evening I went out with DH on a date to KLCC. We didn't do much. I bought some stuff at Marks & Spencer. I wanted to get a pair of running shoes but the store didn't have the pair that I wanted in my size. Boo. I thought it'd be a good idea to get myself in shape before we start with the new IVF cycle. Oh well, I'll try again next week.

We're going back to my parents house this weekend. I promised my parents that I would take them out for lunch, so that's another thing to look forward to. Will write more soon.


Much love,