About me / why am I blogging?

It's hard to objectively biographise oneself when you know that it's both strangers, Internet acquaintances and even people in your real life that will be reading this. Where to start, how much to include? 

My name is Amanda, and I'm an addict. It might not be the traditional form of gambling, but month after month now, for this entire year, and part of the last - I've been throwing thousands of dollars into the wind, on a hope. And I'm not ready to stop. It's an all or nothing game, no prizes for second place - and there are many people out there playing in the hopes of the ultimate history, a happy healthy baby.

I'm talking about IVF - that seemingly glamorous thing celebrities do to start families well after their childbearing years are over. 

I'm 30 (I was 26 when we first started down the Assisted Reproduction road), so in this game I'm still considered young. My wonderful husband is 36. All the problems in the reproductive area are mine. 

To add some time pressure to an already shitty situation, in 2012 after a dodgy smear, I was given 12 months to have kids before having a hysterectomy. The cone biopsy that found the adenocarcinoma also caused severe stenosis to my cervix - like Gandalf holding slamming his staff into the bridge "none shall pass" without considerable force. 

Prior to 2012, we had 5 miscarriages at various stages of pregnancy. Since the ultimatum was issued, we have never conceived naturally, so I headed into this part of the journey believing that IVF would work. It was just a mechanical obstruction after all. 

5 failed cycles down the track, and I would love to have that optimism back. At the end of April, I see the professor for my cancer check, and I am filled with dread that this will be the appointment where he says "time is up". 

I don't fear the hysterectomy and pelvic lymph node disessection, nor do I fear the probable chemo and radio that will follow it. I do fear the very end of the road in having our own children. 

Like a true addict, I'm not going to stop. 

I'm writing this blog to share the good and the bad, in all it's glory and gore, because I know when I started this journey I would have loved a resource that could tell me what was next, all in one place.

I'm also writing this as a means to keeping people updated. Sometimes I just don't want to talk about it, or just don't feel like answering a questioning eyebrow when I refuse an alcoholic drink. People generally do not know what to say, or how to react. It feels awful being the person who imparts bad news, and having the other party just look stricken and lost.

Finally, I'm writing for me. When I wrote the first post yesterday, there was something very healing in laying it all out there. On a whim, I decided to put it out there - to share it on facebook. Family and select friends were aware of our journey, and in the past month I had begun to tell a few people at work. I was astounded by the comments, messages and shares one simple brain-dump generated, and I've decided on a whole, this is a much healthier habitual activity during IVF than say, my home pregnancy test addiction.

Some posts will be personal, some will be purely information and all will invariably contain a degree of my black sense of humor.

I hope that at the very least, it's useful to someone out there.

-Amanda