Farewell tour

At the moment I seem to be on an endless farewell tour of friends and family. It's quite a painful process, saying goodbye each time, not knowing when I'll see them again. It all seems so very final. At the weekend I'm going to be visiting (and saying goodbye to) two of my closest friends, and that's going to be extremely hard. I also have another close friend who lives in Italy, and I don't think I'm going to have time to see her before I go. I just don't seem to have the time to do everything I have to do before the off.

My mum came to visit at the weekend and we blitzed the house, redecorating bits and bobs, taking stuff to the tip and giving it a marathon clean and tidy. She left with a car stuffed with our things, but there still seems to be a lot left behind! I've got to get into sorting paper in a serious way. Brilliant. On the plus side, my colleagues are loving my free giveaway of books, clothes and perfume!

My husband is now settled in our new apartment, which seems very nice. It has two bedrooms and two bathrooms, and is in a compound with a great gym, cafe, restaurants and several swimming pools. It'll be all the better when I've shipped out some of our personal belongings so that it becomes "ours". He's also started his type rating, which is very hard work, but at least it's keeping him busy.

Hopefully it's less than a month now until I'll be out there with him. I can't wait, although the next month of endless goodbyes will be horribly sad, and I know that I'll miss everyone terribly when I've left. Bittersweet, indeed.

My body sort of works

I'm celebrating a little feat of wonder today. My broken hormones have managed a small miracle. For the first time in about 11 years of being on the pill, and five months after coming off it, I'm having what seems to be a period all on my own.

This won't seem like a reason to celebrate for most people (in fact, the very opposite for some!) but for me it's a sign that things are starting to work "normally" again, so it's great news. Now I'll have to see what happens next month...

A tearful goodbye

I saw my husband off at Heathrow this morning. It was a moment we'd both been dreading, and true to form, I wept rather embarrassingly as we said goodbye at security. He was pretty miserable too. I know, of course, that it's not as though I'm not going to see him again, but it felt pretty gut wrenching anyhow. It's going to be a very hard, very long month.

When I get home tonight I'm going to be confronted by a total and utter mess. We've been having our bathroom replaced, so there's dust and mess everywhere, and my husband has managed to create piles of stuff all over the house! I certainly have a massive job ahead of me clearing out the house and getting everything ready for letting.

In the short term, though: I've had a sausage sandwich, I've reapplied my make-up, and I'm going to have dinner with a friend. I'll survive...

But I miss him like hell.

Round one of fertility treatment - over and out

I'm beginning to feel depressed about the whole infertility journey. I know we're pretty much at the beginning (many people try for years) but I just feel like it's never going to work.

A blood test I had done last week showed that I didn't ovulate on Clomid. This will probably mean that I will have to go on twice the dose next cycle (nice). As it stands, I just don't cycle at all. Somehow my body's got so confused that all the normal signals that should be being sent around about hormone levels just aren't getting through. Damn and blast being on the pill for years. I think that must have had something to do with it, although my PCOS (Polycystic Ovarian Syndrome) is obviously playing a part too.

I just can't imagine a future where my husband and I can't have a family. It just seems so unfair. He would be such a wonderful father, and I desperately want to give him the opportunity to be a daddy.

Sometimes I just can't see the light at the end of the tunnel.