Inspired by Stavvers

Inspired by Stavvers (https://stavvers.wordpress.com/2011/08/31/dear-nadine-dorries/), here is my own letter to Nadine Dorries:

Dear Nadine,

By now I hope you have read a few of the letters people have been writing to you about their uteruses.  The ones I have seen have been by people generally happy with, if a little disinterested in their wombs, so I though I might liven up your day by telling you about mine; my uterus and I are currently in the midst of a long standing argument.

You see, I would love to have children.  Not some day in the future, right now.  But for the last two and a half years that I have been trying to conceive, my uterus has been refusing to cooperate.  It ovulates (maybe my ovaries are on my side), it mensturates with reasonable regularity (although we are aruging about that too), and it has even managed to become pregnant twice!  Unfortunately both pregnancies have ended in miscarriage.  Not that my uterus told me!  That's right, I continued along being pregnant, even though the embryo/fetus was no longer viable.

That is how I ended up in day surgery having a procedure that is remarkably similar to an early abortion (the primary difference being that there was no possibility of my pregnancy resulting in a live birth).  I remember lying in my bed, waiting for the surgeon, and thinking "at least I can access this service with the minumum of fuss.  How terrible it must be to be trying to access the same procedure for an abortion, and having all the bureaucracy against you".

During the process of losing my much wanted pregnancies, I never lost my conviction about a woman's right to choose, nor in our ability to make such decisions for ourselves.  I really don't understand why you think we can't.

My experiences have been quite traumatic.  There are a selection of counselling services that were available to me (NHS and private), however I have decided for myself not to use them.  I would hate to have had them forced upon me.  There is nothing fundamemtal about me (not even that I am a woman) that renders me unable to make rational decisions about my own physical and mental health.  I am sure that this is equally true of women seeking abortions.

Abortion is not easy.  Pregnancy is not easy.  Once women find themselves in the difficult situation of being pregnant in an unplanned manner, why would you want to make things harder for them by increasing the red tape?  If you were really concerned about women, shouldn't your focus be on providing better access to sex education and contraceptives, thereby reducing the likelilhood of women ending up unexpectedly pregnant in the first place?

While you ponder that, I'm going back to arguing with my uterus; it has just decided to menstruate again!

Your sincerly,
Emelyn

2/9/11 ETA : In response to Quiet Riot Girl's letter I have added another post.  My use of woman in this letter was not meant to be exclusive.  Please don't take it that way.

Another day, another blog

As you may guess, this isn't my primary blog, and Emelyn Thomas isn't my real name.  This is the name I use when I want to talk about my journey towards becoming a mother.  It hasn't been an easy jouney so far, and the longer it gets, the more I want to say.  So now the time has come to create a blog. Hopefully there are not too many other people on this path with me, but if by sharing my experiences I can make it a little easier for someone, or help someone to understand what I (or some one else) am (is) going through, the this will be worth it.

To summarise my journer so far:

• I had my implanon removed in January 2009
• My menstrual cycle became regular again in May 2009
• I became pregnant in December 2009
• I had an EPRC at 10 weeks 4 days in February 2010.  The pregnancy had stopped developing at about 7 weeks
• I became pregnant again in September 2010
• I miscarried in November 2010 at 11 weeks 3 days
• I'm still getting my hopes up every month (or so), but no luck this year

The reason I don't feel I can use my real name when talking about my journey to motherhood is that I work in a very male dominated industry and (particularly in light of the continuing economic troubles) I suspect that my job would be in jeopardy if they found out I was looking at having children.

If you are interested, I published an article over at the wonderful f-word in February:
(http://www.thefword.org.uk/features/2011/02/breaking_the_si)

Thanks for stopping by!
Emelyn