Acupuncture for IVF

We received our information pack from the hospital on Monday containing lots of consent forms and information about pregnancy. Don’t drink, eat healthy and take your folic acid, check, check, check! As if I wouldn’t be doing that anyway when wanting a baby. The pack contained a DVD that is compulsory to watch before my first appointment and I can’t find the words to describe the DVD, I felt a bit traumatised like watching a sex scene on a film when your dad is in the room or being twelve at high school and being shown male and female genitals. It started with the basics of making a baby which was quite amusing however I didn’t want to look at Dave in case I burst out laughing. The IVF process was very informative with images and videos.

One thing that was mentioned both on the DVD and in the pack was acupuncture and funnily enough I had only spoke to a friend at the weekend who had also said that she’d tried acupuncture after her first few attempts had failed, whether it was the acupuncture or not, the next attempt was successful for her. Obviously I am willing to try anything to help aid a successful IVF try.

I had my first acupuncture session yesterday with a lovely Chinese doctor based in Chester, he understood my needs and did basic checks like blood pressure and pulse as well as noting down my food habits and menstrual cycle. I was extremely nervous lying on the bed as I am normally nervous in new environments anyway but the thought of lying on a narrow bed with having needles put in me made me spasm like mad. I just couldn’t relax and it was really annoying me as I didn’t even feel the needles, the more I thought about my feet, the more they twitched! In the end I told Dave to hold my feet as tight as he could as they were beginning to hurt and contorting in ways they shouldn’t. For my first session we decided six needles was enough two in my feet, two in my legs and two in my tum! The idea of acupuncture is meant to strengthen the quality of the eggs I have and to be honest even if it is a psychological thing I think it’s good to have your mind in a positive place.

I came away from the session feeling extremely relaxed and slightly dopey it was a really nice feeling and I have decided to go back each week before my treatment starts. I may even carry on with it after treatment purely as a relaxation, stress reliever session. I will continue to post pictures each week and you never know, by the end of it I could look like Pinhead from Hellraiser.

Our First IVF Appointment Confirmed

Finally after four weeks of ringing the hospital twice a week to try and hurry our appointments along we have got our first date for IVF, albeit being the first blood test, but there seems to be a light at the end of the tunnel. It was that moment when Dave was driving and we missed the call we had been waiting for and then we couldn’t get through for a while when ringing back. My heart was racing and my palms were sweaty, I couldn’t think straight, then when she confirmed the first date, the seventh of October, we smiled and knew this was fate, Dave’s Birthday, the day we got engaged and the day we got the keys to our first house together. This has to be a lucky omen!

The sun was shining and we were stuck in traffic, but we didn’t care, the feeling that this is actually happening is amazing, I couldn’t stop screaming in my girly high pitched squeal.

We are now waiting for our information pack and letters confirming the dates. As I am an impatient person Dave joked not to think about if they have sent the pack yet, what class of stamp did they put on it, if the postman remembers to put it in the post box, if the nurse has sent it, these are all the silly things I think about when waiting for something so important.

I am going to try and start recording things now, so everyone can see the real me and I can express my emotions when it happens.  Hope you enjoy reading this little update.

Our IVF Journey

The main reason for starting this blog really is to document our baby journey. As you will hopefully gather as I add more blogs I am a completely open book and I want to share as much of my life as possible in order to help and inspire others. Most of my life so far, I have been told many a time that I am the first to do things and the most trivial of things have been a learning curve for others such as doing art at university and achieving my green belt in Judo.

I mentioned Dave in my previous blog, when we made our relationship official after about a year we decided we would like to start trying for children. We both have similar and strong opinions on relationships and bringing up a family, we knew we would make good parents together. Marriage is for life unless there is serious betrayal and most differences along the way should be worked through by communicating properly and openly. We have a completely open and trusting relationship and believe that if one person chooses to cheat there must be a reason behind this and the relationship must have been broken anyway. We often laugh about how strange we must be in comparison to other couples we know, because of how open and trusting we are of each other.

Anyway back to the baby, I had been on the Depo contraceptive injection for the duration of our time together and when we decided to start trying for a baby we knew that it was likely that I wouldn’t conceive for at least twelve months because of the drug being still in my system. Being as impatient as I am this was annoying, but what could we do? Coming off the injection there was always the hope that it would happen sooner as I had read that people had conceived straight away. It took at least ten months for my cycle to return back to normal and twelve months to the day I returned back to the doctors demanding answers as to why I wasn’t pregnant and when it would happen, obviously the answer was just keep trying.

When we moved to Wrexham we thought that moving in together would help to conceive as we would be together all the time with less stress of living apart. Every month we would pray that I wouldn’t come on and when I did my heart sank. Events that followed, we would think, this would be our time, like Christmas, birthdays and then finally when we got married. We were excited at the thought of having a honeymoon baby and joked about calling a baby Mickey or Minnie as we went to Disney Florida, still no baby. Everyone kept telling us to not think about it and it would happen, but how could you not when you want it so bad.

After our Honeymoon we decided we needed to investigate further, I had blood tests at my doctors that were coming back normal and Dave had the relevant male tests that after a few hiccups with contaminations from the lab came back normal too. This was beginning to get very frustrating as it was not happening naturally and we were now thinking if there was something wrong with one of us, at least we could get treated and then get pregnant. We wanted answers.

Two years on we still had no baby and if someone had told me that at the beginning, I would have been devastated but time flies. But enough was enough now and we really wanted our family to become larger we decided to go to a private doctor.

Finding our private doctor has been a blessing. A semi-retired gentleman with a friendly face, as soon as he shook my hand I instantly felt like a weight had been lifted for the first time I felt like a normal woman trying for a baby. He never spoke to me or treated me any different than any other patient despite my wheelchair. We repeated the tests that we had already done and they came back normal as we expected. I then completed an additional blood test which the NHS don’t offer and we were under no impression that it would come back anything other than normal, so much so that he said that I don’t really need the results until I went in for an internal Uterus scan.

Returning for the scan we first sat down and then he hit me with the bomb. The blood test had come back low. The rest of the consultation was a bit of a blur as I felt like I had been hit by a truck and I even felt numb during the Uterus scan. Dave explained to me that the doctor had said, basically for my age my egg count each month should be between fifteen and thirty and mine was at six meaning that the likelihood of conceiving naturally was very slim and IVF would be our best option. I had been lucky that my whole life, my disability had never effected my health or organs and it was unfortunate that now we were trying for a baby we had discovered that it was likely that because the blood had rushed to my brain at birth for much needed oxygen, it had gone from my ovaries which had killed the majority of my eggs. I later understood that a female body is extremely clever and that girls are born with x amount of eggs, a percentage of which die before puberty and when you reach puberty your body knows when you will reach the menopause, so therefore distributes between fifteen and thirty eggs per month. Only one of these eggs is fertilised if it is met by sperm on ovulation. I am no doctor but this is how I interpret the explanation.

Dave has always been extremely supportive and understanding of this, more than me in many ways. I felt like a part of me had gone and this made me feel more disabled than I had ever felt before, the one thing that me and Dave were dreaming of was now more difficult. I should have expected it really as I never do things quietly or by halves and yet again, the doctor was saying that although it was likely that it was the reason above it couldn’t definitively be explained why. Telling my mum was hard and she cried for days as it brought back memories of my birth and although it was a big blow I think we all appreciated how lucky I had been health wise and how fortunate we both are to have the option of IVF treatment. It was bitter sweet.

From receiving the news in March 2015 and Dave having to lose a stone in weight, we decided to enjoy our already booked holiday to Japan in August just gone and focus solely on having a baby upon our return. Now we have been referred to Liverpool Womens Hospital, we are now waiting for the funding team to give us our first appointment and it is all go from here. As mentioned, there is little knowledge and support for disabled individuals going through IVF, there are people worse than me and not as bad as me, but no one exactly the same, so I am going to document each stage both through blogging and video. Right now we are very positive that our first IVF treatment will be successful as my uterus and womb are fine, I have eggs and I have age on my side.  It can be a very lonely time building up to treatment as people who have never gone through it don’t really understand but I think so far. I’m not going to lie, I am scared and apprehensive about the whole process but as a couple we have felt closer and stronger and one hundred and ten percent ready for this.

Watch this belly…

Jarvis Cocker Aged 1

Today our cocker spaniel is one year old although we didn’t get him until November I can’t believe we have had him, or should I say survived a whole year. I have had Matilda, my Jack Russell from a puppy and she is now five and has always been as good as gold, in some ways she saved my life. I was on my own when I bought her at a time when I was feeling really down and lonely. My mum made a flippant comment one day “why don’t you get a dog”, so I did. She gave me someone to love an ear to listen to me and a furry shoulder to cry on. She relied on me for food and water and didn’t judge me. I can never be sure whether I have just been lucky with her or whether she adapted to me being in a wheelchair. She will always be my baby girl.

We have both always been dog lovers and due to the fact the baby thing wasn’t happening for us and a friend’s dog having puppies and posting cute pictures of them on Facebook, we decided this could be a good option for us. I persuaded Dave to take me to see the pup’s for ‘just a look’ despite the fact I had the deposit in my purse quote “just in case”. Obviously we both fell in love straight away, who doesn’t love a puppy! Matilda has always been so easy, there were a couple of reasons why we shouldn’t get another dog, but they were quickly outweighed by a cute puppy.

I found Matilda really easy to train and I did it all by myself kneeling on the floor to pick up her poo and forcing her to go for a wee every hour on the paper was exhausting but she was quick to learn so having two of us around this time, surely it wouldn’t be too difficult.

WRONG!!!!!! Jarvis Jock Sellman and boy has that name been used a lot, granted we haven’t had much of a problem with toilet training, he was quick to realise that he goes on the mat but the cheeky spaniel in him has kept us on our toes. He is extremely intelligent, even when he is naughty. We now have no photographs or ornaments left around the house as they have all been chewed. At the beginning I didn’t feel the same bond with Jarvis as I did with Matilda, there wasn’t that need there and although he quickly learnt clever tricks, he didn’t seem to be willing to accept cuddles and kisses.

The night that changed this was horrendous. Dave and I had been to my Nan’s in Liverpool and had left Jarvis for the first time. We had forgotten to tell my carer to shut the kitchen door and when arriving home we were greeted by empty after eight packets all over the floor and Matilda with a look that said ‘it wasn’t me’. We panicked and Dave quickly rang the emergency vet as everyone knows chocolate is poisonous to dogs. Rushing him to the vet with me holding him in blankets, I was petrified at what they were going to say, I thought he would be OK and they would give us some tablets and send him home, but no, they kept him in overnight. My legs turned to jelly and I burst into tears, I felt like such a bad owner, nothing ever like this had happened with Matilda, leaving him there was the hardest thing in the world and I made Dave call every hour throughout the night to check he was ok.

Once we had arrived home without him, we realised that he had somehow managed to open a kitchen cupboard door and get his paws onto a tiny shelf that you can barely fit a fist into and got the whole box of after eight’s. This made me bond with Jarvis and the love I felt was now unconditional.

He has always been awake at five thirty in the morning to which Dave normally gets up with him. I have now got my way and turned him into a soppy, kissy, loving dog, he loves kisses with his mum and wraps his big teddy bear paws round my neck when he wants a cuddle. I think secretly even Matilda loves him now and we have caught them a few times cuddling up when we are not in the room and I think he has changed my relationship with Matilda as she is not as needy for cuddles now. Jarvis has always been eager to please and I am proud of myself for teaching him how to sit, lie down, give paw, dance, roll over and turn round whilst Matilda sits there gormlessly wanting a treat for giving me a kiss.

Jarvis has settled in well and fits in well with our lifestyle, he is such a cute little puppy dog and we wouldn’t change a thing about him, well maybe the five thirty start to the day, it would be nice to have a lie in now and again so here’s to the next year of fun and laughter with Jarvi J and Matilda May.

Happy Birthday Jarvis!

My Life -4 Minutes

What could you do in 4 minutes? Boil an egg, make a coffee, get changed at a push maybe, well I would like to tell you about my four minutes.

Born just four minutes late for reasons that cannot be explained, I was left with Athetoid Cerebral Palsy, the future was kind of an experiment for my mum and dad as no one had any answers as to what effects the lack of oxygen to my brain within that four minutes had. I was diagnosed at eighteen months when my walking failed to develop and I went to a lovely little nursery school at two and a half years of age. Ellery Park School was full of happy memories, the school predominantly focused on physiotherapy as well as teaching the basics of the curriculum to suit the needs of all the disabled children. There, everybody was the same, it was all about what colour wheelchair you had or what pattern you had on your plastic foot splints, the time here was filled with happiness and love and my friends for life were made even though our lives would take very different directions.

My mum and dad split when I was five years old, was this because of the pressures of having a disabled child? I will never know! They both loved me unconditionally and had different roles in my upbringing, both equally as important. My mum was always a hundred miles an hour with a different activity planned each night as well as having tea ready as soon as we were home from school and homework round the tea table, I didn’t really have time to think about my disability but looking back, the activities were all planned appropriately from dancing to Sunday school, I loved them all. I was always Daddy’s little princess, we spent lots of time together especially on a Sunday, which was his only day off work, when we would spend hours in the swimming baths until my fingers looked like prunes and breakfast in Sainsbury’s café was a real treat but really it was because he couldn’t cook!

High School proved to be more difficult, my parents decided that the academic route would be more beneficial for me to lead a normal life as an adult. This is when I had a reality check about my disability going from a small class of eight to a class of thirty was a real eye opener and having a support worker by my side for the first time I obviously stood out from the rest. Still wearing my splints to keep my feet straight just wasn’t cool no matter what colour they were, however I loved discovering new things from real lessons such as English and Maths and being praised for academic things rather than how I held something felt really good. I made a small selection of friends who stuck by me throughout my school life however I was never going to be the cool kid but I guess I got by and ended up coming out with nine GCSE’s all A to C.

Approaching sixteen I started to become more interested in girly things and again this made me feel very different, trying on high heels, I remember I was like Bambi on Ice and knowing this would never change was hard to swallow.

After school we decided as a family that I would move to an independent living collage three hours away from home, this seemed to be the opposite of High School. This collage was for disabled adults and through High School I had ditched the splints for the latest shoes and made my wheelchair as plain as possible, not to stand out, however back in the disabled environment, once again I didn’t fit in for being too “normal”. I lasted one academic year and then decided that this type of environment was not for me and I felt trapped and confused. I didn’t know what world I should be living in, should I be a disabled person conforming to the disabled views and looks all because of four minutes, or should I be myself and be as close to the person I would have been if I had been born four minutes earlier? I was heavily impacted by the love and bonds through primary school however I had the knowledge of those independent people from high school, so I decided to be a normal person who just happened to have Cerebral Palsy.

The next seven years was spent in a bungalow rented from a local housing association, some could say once again I was forced to conform to the disabled world but I felt in order to conform to the mainstream I had to adapt my life and face that I did have a disability! I made the bungalow my own. The first eighteen months were spent with a boyfriend that I had met when I left school, but that is a whole different blog. After I had gained the courage to kick him out I spent the next five years living my life, moulding myself into who I am today, I attended university in Liverpool and got myself there every day via two busses which was hard as I suffered with anxiety due to my relationship, however having some close friends from home I partied hard, very hard, and loved life. A year into my freedom I met Dave online, we instantly hit it off, but for me it was all too soon for a heavy relationship and I guess I played hard to get, keeping him in the friends zone so I could carry on enjoying myself. For the first time in my life I was in control of me and I feel in these years I found my personal identity.

With Dave being in the friend zone for nearly a year, we decided to make things official and put the label on it. I was now in a relationship again but it didn’t feel like a brand new loved up thing as we already knew each other really well. He had seen my worst bits and knew what my disability entails, there was no awkwardness like having to tell him I couldn’t feed myself or helping me fasten my bra, it just felt right, natural and still feeling in control of my life, I knew that I was ready for this long term.

Upon leaving University, my disability once again became apparent, I was unlucky to finish my degree in our worst recession, finding a job was almost impossible and having a disability made me paranoid but instead of conforming and trying to fit the mainstream mould as I had always done, I decided to use my passion and disability knowledge to create my own business. I now educate and train organisations on how to accommodate and treat a disabled person, encouraging employers not to overlook a disabled applicant and generally trying to big up how great disabled people are. With maturing in age, having a strong relationship with Dave, who is now my husband and gaining experience through my business, once again I feel like my identity is now complete.

For the majority of my life so far, I have always felt it was really important to conform to the mainstream and live a normal life, not letting my disability define me or get in the way. With the events that have shaped my life I have realised that I am not disabled, I am not normal, I am Emma Sellman, I am unique, I am good at and love my job, I am the happiest I have ever been in my life and I am comfortable with who I am and what I am. I own high heels even though I still don’t wear them, the enjoyment of buying them is enough for me. My confidence earns me more respect now, both professionally and personally because I show that I am not trying to be something I am not. I now get lovely messages off people I used to go to school with who would never talk to me then saying how much I inspire them to achieve their goals.

The four minutes clearly changed my life, at various time I would have said they changed it for the worse, however looking at what I am achieving and the opportunities I am creating for myself and for others, those four minutes have major positives, which I will share with the followers of this blog.