How to book your second fresh IVF/ICSI treatment cycle in 15 easy steps

Step 1
Tell the doctor at your appointment in September that you'd like to begin your next round of treatment in February. Be told this will be fine, just call J. to book it.

Step 2
Follow doctor's advice and call the number to book treatment.

Step 3
Be told to call back in early December.

Step 4
Call back on December the 1st. Be told you need to wait until your period starts. Try to explain that it's imminent, that you know it's due at the weekend and can tell them your current average cycle length. Be told you need to wait until your period starts.

Step 5
Your period starts (two days later, as scheduled). It's now a weekend. Call back and leave a message.

Step 6
Receive voicemail on Monday telling you someone will call to book an appointment the next day.

Step 7
Receive voicemail on Tuesday telling you to call a different number between 8am and 4pm.

Step 8
Call new number repeatedly between 8am and 4pm. Message at the other end alternates between telling you the person you are trying to reach is on the phone and ringing out so going to voicemail. Give up. Leave a message and decide to resume the game of phone tag the next day.

Step 9
At 7:13pm that night, while you're on another call away from your mobile, receive a voicemail from S. saying something along the lines of 'if Cathy still wants to speak to [them] to call back tomorrow' (like we've changed our minds about the whole process by this point!).

Step 10
Phone back on Wednesday. Get voicemail. Clearly state who you are, why you are phoning (again) and times when you will be available through the day on the number you are giving them.

Step 11
Wait and watch as those times pass without a phone call.

Step 12
Have a day off on Thursday so begin calling at 8am. Make plan to call every hour, on the hour, through the day.

Step 13
Whilst you (and phone) are in a signal blackspot, receive a voicemail from a nurse. Message explains that you've been calling the wrong number (see Step 7) all week. Gives you new number to call.

Step 14
Call new number. It goes to voicemail.

Step 15
Phone rings whilst you are in the middle of something. Toss notebook, pens, lap table aside in your scramble to get the phone before they ring off. Breathlessly answer the call. Panic when they ask you what protocol you were on because no one told you that you'd need to know this. Hazard a guess and hope it's the right one. Give them your dates for your cycle and when your next period is due (which you realise afterwards might not be one hundred percent correct because you didn't have your notes with you at the time). Get a date in January for an appointment, along with an instruction to pick up some medication some time that you don't know when you're supposed to take it. Decide you don't really care whether you've got it all right because at least you have an appointment.

Thank goodness we've finally got an appointment.

I like to think that this whole thing is a screening process for the treatment. If you are able to get through the myriad phone calls and voicemail messages, then you've passed and you're eligible for treatment.

I think I've passed the test. Let's hope we pass the next one too!

Currently...

Enjoying...
... the fact that I've got a Sunday in the middle of the week this week.

I booked the day off work tomorrow because we had something on which was cancelled. Mr Click called me at work this afternoon so I could cancel the holiday if I wanted to.

I may have laughed down the phone at him.

Well, I'm running out of days to use up my holiday hours and they're not transferable to next year so I decided against cancelling the holiday in favour of having a lie-in and getting caught up on some bits and pieces I want to get done.

Feeling...
... like knitting again.

I've kind of been off knitting for a while. I've picked up and set down more projects than I care to think about recently. I'll get them all picked up and finished in the new year but nothing's really been capturing me much.

I guess it's because Bertie Bloomer was such a big project and he turned out so well that nothing else is comparing to him in the same sort of scale.

But on Sunday I stayed home to work on Mr Click's anniversary present (which I can't mention here right now because he mustn't see it til our anniversary on Christmas Eve). When I'd finished I decided to go onto a project from my knitting magazine which had captured my imagination.

It's actually designed to be a little hat which sits on top of a regular headband for Christmas, but I've been looking for fun ways to decorate my phone headset at work for ages. I was thinking about knitting some little horns and animal ears to sew on, perhaps rotating through them each month. Well this just seemed too perfect to turn down:

I was going to make an excuse here about my messy hair, since I'd not brushed it or anything before taking this picture, but let's face it, this is pretty much how I look most of the time!

It's also just balanced on my head here. I took it to work and before I clocked in, spend a while attaching to to the headset. It took a while to get it on properly, so I'm not looking forward to trying to get it off because I don't want to run the bottom of it. This'll be coming out again next year.

I'm also pretty pleased that everyone at work just accepts how quirky I am now. No one bats an eyelid when they walk in and see me wearing a headset with a Santa hat perched on the top of it. That's what belonging feels like, hehe.

Trying...
... to get in touch with the hospital.

There's a blog point in this sometime but suffice to say, I called back last Thursday to try and schedule treatment for February and I've been chasing my tail since then. Thank goodness for holidays since I'm planning on spending most of the day phoning the hospital tomorrow.

I'll let you know how that works out!

Books 3 & 4 of 2016: Phantasmagoria and Other Poems by Lewis Carroll & Goddess Be The Woman You Want To Be by Elisabeth Wilson

On the 18th of February this year, I was sitting in a rather chilly Buchanan Bus Station, waiting for nearly 11pm to strike so that I could get on the bus that was going to take me all the way down to Bristol, where I would change and head on to Cardiff.

As with my upcoming repeat version of this journey, except this time it'll involve air travel instead of motorways, I took my Kindle. There's something nice about knowing you've got thousands of books at your disposal, without having to pay for three of four extra suitcases on your journey.

I'd finished reading if... and scrolled to the very end of my 'Recent Books' list to select my next bit of reading material. I feel like I should add here, this is my current method for selecting what to read. I've had a Kindle since 2012 now and there are a huge number of free books I've downloaded but never gotten around to reading, all the while I'm downloading more and more books. To address this problem, I simply select the ones which have been hanging around on my Kindle the longest. It seems fairest, like they're in some sort of waiting list.

This method presented me with a nice short, 66-page read, Phantasmagoria and Other Poems by Lewis Carroll.

I was glad when this came up as the next one to read because I was selecting it to kill some time while I waited for my coach. I didn't want anything that I was going to get too engrossed in, nothing worse than rushing for your bus. I also didn't want anything too long. I wanted something which I could dip into if it did take me longer to read, not anything which was going to become a chore to read during downtime while I was at my Mum's.

It was freezing cold in the bus station and this definitely helped keep my mind off of it for about an hour. All of the poems were familiar to me as I've got them in my Jabberwocky poetry book. I think that's the complete collection of Carroll's poems. Personally I find them a lot easier to read on the page than on the screen. As is often the case with Kindle books, particularly the free ones, the formatting can go a little screwy at times.

I helpfully made a note in my book journal about two of the poems, but didn't include the titles so I'm not sure which ones they were. One was about a ghost, which I believe is 'Phantasmagoria' itself. The other one was about how to write a poem which some Googling has informed me is called 'Poeta Fit, Non Nascitur'. Thanks, Google.

This did make for a nice quick read, as I said, it's only 66 pages. It helped that I was familiar with the poems as well, though there were some, like the riddle and acrostic poems which I felt were lost on me. I know I've complained about that before though.

I used the same method to select my next book, this time at Bristol Bus Station as I prepared for the final leg of my journey.

It's broken down into a variety of different topics on things like relationships, work, finances, and home life. Most begin with a quiz, your answers to which determine what sort of a person you are or your thoughts and feelings on a subject, from there you're given a page to go to in order to find out how to fix things or improve yourself. Kind of like a self-help choose your own adventure book.

I fully expected to find this book kind of funny and kooky. I've always avoided self-help books for that very reason. I was sure I wouldn't be able to take it seriously and it would be an amusing little read for me while I was away. In actual fact, I found it quite interesting and I did genuinely enjoy it.

I liked the way that it was organised with the quizzes to find out your 'type' then tips to help you develop. Of course, I did the quizzes but then I just read all of the suggestions anyway. Some of the advise was quite similar and so I think it could be applied to more than one 'type' of person anyway. I think it's the sort of book I could dip back into again and make some notes on in my Bullet Journal.

One complaint I had with the quizzes was that they weren't very consistent. I kind of felt like they'd been compiled from women's magazines or something. Some you had to count the number of each letter that you scored, some you got points for each answer you selected, some were true or false. Not really a problem in itself, except that it didn't tell you which sort you were doing until the end, so there was a bit of flipping back and forth at those bits.

It probably would've worked better in print copy than Kindle version as well because the ideas weren't grouped together. So you'd do a quiz and then one outcome was at the front of the book, one was right after the quiz, one was somewhere near the end. It meant a lot of jumping around and you couldn't really read it from beginning to end because it jumped around so much.

I can't say that I've really changed anything as a result of reading this book, but it's the sort of book I might revisit in the future.

The Bullet Journal Tag

Someone shared a link to Happy Hollife's Bullet Journal Tag on the Bullet Journal Junkies Facebook Group the other day. I spotted it, enjoyed reading it and thought that since she'd tagged everyone who read it, that I should get in on the action too.

1. How long have you been bullet journalling?

Since January the 1st this year. That was my official first day. I learned about it on the 30th of December, bought a notebook the very next day and drew up my first few pages. I've been doing it for almost a whole year now.

2. What makes the bullet journal system right for you?

The fact that it's so flexible. It can be anything I want it to be.

I've tried using regular diaries in the past. Back at Uni I used a week to view one which frustrated me even then. Sometimes I'd have four or five things all on the same day and not enough room for them all, then during the summer I'd have virtually nothing on so it just felt like wasted pages. I tried using a page per day one for a while several year back, but I didn't like having blank pages; it seemed like a waste somehow.

Each time I draw up my pages, I get to decide how I want to lay them out. I've modified my monthly overviews multiple times to find something that works for me. I switched to weekly pages during November so I could spend less time on my bullet journal during the month and this month I'm finally using a monthly overview, weeklies and dailies (the latter primarily for journalling and reflections). If I'd changed that much in a regular diary I'd be onto my fourth of fifth one for the year so far!

3. What notebook do you use and why?

I started out using the bullet journal philosophy of 'use what you have to hand'. I liked the layouts using grids and dots so could see how that would be practical but didn't have a notebook to spare so I picked up a Gorjuss spiral bound project book. This was good because it had lines, grids and blank paper in it so I got a feel for what I wanted.

It made it easier to decide that I wanted to go ahead with getting a Leuchtturm 1917 when the time came for a new book. I spent a lot of time comparing notebooks online and Leuchtturms are what a fair number of BuJo enthusiasts use. At the time I'd been using a mini Moleskine notebook as a walking journal and I wasn't happy with the paper quality in that, so went with the Leuchtturm.

Currently it's a dotted anthracite grey Leuchtturm (one of the things I love about these notebooks is the sheer variety of colours), A5 size, which I got from The Pen & Paper Shop in Cardiff when I was there in February. I christened it Gandalf the Grey but didn't begin it until May.

I'm sold on the quality of it. The paper is nice, you get a bit of ghosting but no bleed-through with Staedtler Fineliners; the dots offer guidance without being too obtrusive, I've learned to line up regularly used pages relatively quickly based on how many dots there are for each section. Plus there's a pocket at the back, page markers (two, one of which is usually on my current page, whereas the second marks either the page I'm working on or often my tracking page).

I've got just about enough pages left to see me through to the end of the year, and the book I'll be starting in January will be a Leuchtturm too. This time Navy Blue. Any suggestions for a name for that one?

4. What's your go-to pen?

I use Staedtler Triplus Fineliners. I bought a pack of the 30 back in January (before that I was using a pack of Stabilo Fineliners, but they had a tendency to bleed through on the notebook I was using at the time, and they felt scratchier than the Staedtler version).

My set came with one black, which wore down pretty quickly since I was using it for everything. When I was in Cardiff picking up my notebook I grabbed another two single blacks and I've grabbed another two since then, anticipating that I would get through them very quickly. As it happens I think I just bashed the first one with the lid or something when I put it on because while the two I picked up in Cardiff have worn down a little, they're still usable. I've still got two spares for when I need to swap them out.

I use different colour schemes for each month (or each double page at the moment) so I think that helps with making sure the nibs don't wear down too quickly.

5. What's your bullet journal style?

It depends on my mood and what I've got going on. I'd love to say I'm one of those minimalist bullet journallers but I'm not. I love adding different colours, I love mixing up styles and I love pinning different font styles on Pinterest to try out on my spreads.

I spent most of November keeping it relatively simple because I knew NaNo was going to be my main creative outlet. With that out the way and the build up to Christmas, I'm using oodles of washi tape and lots of stickers too!

6. What's your favourite spread to set up each month?

Probably my beginning and end of the month pages. Each month ends with a review where I use a traffic light system to highlight the good, the bad and the stuff in between. Whenever I record something bad I try to come up with a positive to it or something I can do better next time. I've never really done that outside of work and study before and it's interesting to look at how things make me feel, or what I identify as being areas for improvement. That's not to say I act on them all, but I feel like it's a valuable exercise.

And my month overview pages since I've started getting a little more creative with them since October. It's when I do my month overview that I select my theme colours for the month ahead (except for this month where the theme is All. Of. The. Washi. Tape!) and also get some sort of idea of the kind of layouts I'll be needing, collections I'll want to make, things I need to plan for, etc.

It's kind of like a reboot each month. Sometimes it's nice to have a fresh start and I get twelve in a year!

7. Where do you get inspiration from?

I see lots of ideas from Bullet Journal social media (Facebook, Instagram, Pinterest), but an awful lot of the time it's just a question of trying out different ideas or combinations of ideas until I find something which works for me.

The good thing about Bullet Journalling is that people who share their ideas don't mind if people take inspiration from them. Sometimes you have to copy something from someone else until you find a way to adapt it to something a little more unique; then you share that and hopefully you'll help someone else find a thing that works for you.

I've been pretty open about sharing my FET tracker which I made back in May, because it worked really well for me so whenever someone posts for help with tracking medication or illness or trying to conceive, I share it. Several people have said they've used or adapted the idea and perhaps one of them will share something someday which I can adapt for my own uses.

It's a wonderfully generous community.

8. What's your bullet journal routine?

Weekdays always end with my bullet journal. I'll fill in my trackers for the day, check off anything I've done, migrate any tasks which need doing and update my list for the next day. Usually I'll check with Mr Click in case there's anything he wants me to add to the list as well.

Then I write up my reflection of the day. This can be anything from a couple of lines to full on paragraphs of information about how I've felt, places we've been, things I've done, etc. If need be, I'll draw up the next day or if it's all ready to go I'll work on some more pages; I like to try and get as far ahead of myself as possible. This is usually done in bed while we're watching TV (currently it's a couple of episodes of Scrubs).

On a morning, after we've walked Tara I'll sit in my chair with a drink and scan over the upcoming day. I might make changes or additions to my list and check off some stuff on my trackers. I carry on checking in through the day, usually in my breaks at work.

Weekends are a slightly different routine. Sometimes I'll spend time as we watch a film in bed working on it. Other times, I'll dip in through the day. I'm more regimented during the week.

9. What's the page you're most proud of?

I'm pretty damn proud of my Jack Skellington picture on my October overview because I spent a long time getting that right (and haven't been inspired to try anything like that since). I'm also pleased with how my Christmas Film list turned out, and the aforementioned FET calendar. The former because of the lettering and the latter because it worked really well, without having fancy lettering or pretty pictures and I plan to crack it out again during our coming cycle.

10. What's your number one tip for beginners?

Focus on finding what works for you before you worry about making it pretty! Yes, it's nice to have something that's Instagram or Pinterest-worthy, but at the end of the day, you don't want to spend more time making it look pretty than you do using it.

I'm a fine one to talk, what with my washi tape and stickers and coloured pens, but that's because I know what works for me now. In the beginning I copied what I saw other people doing and it stressed me out when I made a mistake. It was so tempting to throw in the towel because I wasn't creating a perfect book, until I realised that it's a book for day to day life and day to day life is messy and sometimes you just have to accept that.

And maybe draw things in using pencil first!

If you bullet journal, feel free to tag yourself in the comments and share a link back to your own post here too.

Silent Sunday: Winch

Some More Thoughts On Fantastic Beasts and Where to Find Them

Last night we went out to the cinema for another viewing of Fantastic Beasts and Where to Find Them. Yup, seen it twice in less than two weeks. I don't think I've done that since The Lord of the Rings films!

My local cinema seats about ninety people and there's only one screen. Since it was upgraded the seats are a lot comfier, there are cupholders in the arms now, and we do get films a lot sooner after they come out than in the past. We like to support them because if people don't, we simply wouldn't have a cinema any more. So many small islands and towns don't have one any more.

Even though we'd already seen it, I was perfectly happy to go back and watch it again.

Once again, if you choose to read past this point, you will be spoiled.

Don't read on if you've not seen it yet. Instead, enjoy this Niffler gif:

gif from here.

I will admit that I spent the whole film remembering 'this is where it rained on it', 'this is where I smelled pastries', 'this is where we got violently shaken around' and half expecting it to happen again. Then again, I'm glad we saw the 4DX version first because it allowed me to get immersed in the film, whereas this time I was able to watch the background and take in all the little extra bits.

Like the fact that there is so much attention to detail in the backgrounds. I guess I've seen the Harry Potter films so many times that I just take it for granted that there's stuff in the background, like little Easter Eggs for people who are familiar with the books.

There's plenty in Fantastic Beasts as well.

I noticed a couple of signs in Tina's department. One said 'you don't have to be magic to work here, actually, you do', which someone has helpfully turned into a mug:

There's another one as well which says 'Do not obstruct the path of memorandum', referring to the cute little origami mice running around the place (instead of the paper aeroplanes used by the British Ministry of Magic). One of those little mice takes a peak into the suitcase when Graves shows up to examine just what Tina's complaining about at the start. I missed that last time but it's a neat little touch.

It's worth paying attention around Jacob too. In his room he's got a book which you can see shortly after he's been bitten with a title about the Urban Jungle, pretty fitting considering what he finds himself in shortly afterwards. I also enjoyed watching the cover of the book he's reading at Tina and Queenie's because the cat wanders around all over the place:

I also need to find up with some way of passing messages to my husband in the cinema without speaking because during the interrogation scene between Graves and Newt I spotted something in Graves's pocket which crops up shortly afterwards.

I can't actually find a picture showing it, but in his pocket on the left hand side, you can just make out the Deathly Hallows pendant that he gives to Credence a short time later. I spotted it and kept squeezing Mr Click's arm, wanting him to notice it too, but I had no way of getting my message across to him.

My favourite part of the film will always be when Newt first takes Jacob into the suitcase. I think if I had a suitcase like that, I would just move in permanently. Think of all the labradors and rats I could fit in there!

There is something just so magical about it. I love the way that the different bits of it are sort of sectioned off. I love that there are creatures in there which don't even get an explanation. I hope that we get to see more of them in the future.

I'm curious about how they're going to address the whole wand lore issue, since Grindelwald was defeated which means technically his wand's allegiance should pass to someone else. And I think that person should be Tina. Newt incapacitated him with his Swooping Evil, but then it was Tina who disarmed him. I wonder if that's going to give him a reason to go after her when he inevitably escapes, because otherwise things are going to get very complicated with who really has ownership of the Elder Wand.

Normally things like that would worry me, but J.K. Rowling is pretty good at tidying up things like that, so I'm just waiting to find out how it's going to work.

I just wish it wasn't going to be so long until the next film!

It's Beginning To Look A Lot Like Christmas...

Is it just me or has December both snuck up us and has been anticipated for weeks now? It feels like both a shock and a case of thank goodness, it's finally here!

I also feel at a little bit of a loose end, since I've done all the Christmas shopping and stuff that normally I'd be starting to panic about by now. I am so unbelievably organised. I'm even checked in for boarding flights which don't leave for almost a month!

We did get our decorations up this evening. Well, most of them. I'll give you a proper tour later on in the week, for now you can enjoy this single non-blurry shot of my Christmas tree:

We spent a good bit of time decorating the tree and arranging our smaller decorations. We've still got the paperchains to go up (some of those things are about three years old now so I might need to do some repairs before they do). That's planned for Saturday.

This is actually one of the latest days for getting our decorations up in recent years. In the past, because of having other things on, we've put them up at the weekend before the start of December. We're pros at it now!

Do you decorate for Christmas? What decorations are your favourites and when do they go up?