Mini adventures

by Bex

As much as I worry about publishing very personal posts, after I do, I tend to feel some kind of relief.  Although I wonder if people want to read about my depressing moments and I'm concerned about seeming like an attention seeker, in the end it boils down to the fact that this is my blog, my wee space in a very large blogosphere and if people don't like it, they don't have to read it.  I write first and foremost for me.  I've been lucky in that whenever I do post anything like this, I have only received love and support.

Anyway, after publishing everything I've been bottling up for the last couple of weeks, I started to feel brighter and Nik had just finished another run of nights.  While I was feeling so down (unfortunately I have a bad habit of dwelling on more bad stuff when I'm sad) I worked out that in the last 40 days (basically since my birthday) Nik has spent 28 of those either working nights, evenings or away on a course and we've had just 2 weekends together out of the last 5.  Normally I can cope with this quite well, I have plenty of things to keep me busy, blogging and crafting for example or seeing friends when they're not busy.  But when we're also dealing with all of this on top it becomes more difficult.  Things should settle down when the new job starts but obviously that doesn't help much in the meantime.

What does help is being able to have little adventures together, be they just nice evenings out in Glasgow or weekends away when we can.  We really want to book a holiday but until Nik's interview is out of the way and we have his rota for the next few weeks we can't make any plans yet.  Friday night really helped though.  We decided to go out for dinner and Nik had heard of yet another new burger place which opened in Glasgow recently, Jacker de Viande.  He'd read a review somewhere, in which the writer thought this was the best of the new bunch, so we decided to check it out for ourselves!  There'll be a proper review coming soon but we loved it!

We then headed out for more cocktails in Grill on the Corner (I wanted another one of those Elderflower Martinis!) and The Living Room.  We were having so much fun I said I didn't want to go home.  Then I thought, why don't we be spontaneous and just not go home?  I suggested we just check into a local hotel and extend our evening of escape for even longer.  Why not, we have no responsibilities - the fish can survive a night alone and it might feel like a mini holiday if we just stayed away from home for a night.  So we did!

I sampled the Elderflower Gin and After Eight Martinis!

I tweeted and Nik searched online for deals and he managed to find a great one for Grand Central Hotel, our wedding hotel!  He found a deal which included breakfast so we could have a nice lazy morning in the hotel.  It was great, it was so exciting to just go and check into a hotel at midnight with no luggage (even if that may cause some amusement/speculation to the hotel staff!).  They asked us if we had stayed there before and we explained it was our wedding hotel and we'd been back for Valentine's day before too.  No free upgrade this time though ;) but our room was lovely and as we prepared to head down to the bar for some Prosecco to take back to our room (we didn't want to pay the room service charge) there was a knock at the door and room service had brought us two glasses of pink fizz to welcome us back to the hotel!  So lovely!

The best thing was the feeling of escape from normal life, even just for one night.  Crisp, white sheets on a big, comfy bed with chocolates and fizz then a lazy morning watching TV in bed (we don't have a TV in our bedroom at home) and bacon and eggs followed by pancakes with numerous cups of tea.  Check out wasn't until 12 so we got back in bed after breakfast and stayed until the very last moment before hopping on a train home.  It was just what we needed.  I can't wait to book a proper break away.

I did miss my toothbrush though, I was relieved to get home and brush my teeth the next day!  ;)

Since the weekend, I've been sleeping a bit better too and that definitely helps with the coping!  I went to my GP today (Monday) and she was wonderful.  Talking to her about it helped as well and she was very sympathetic and supportive.  She looked up my MRI results for me to try to put my mind at rest and although I still need to wait for the specialist appointment next week to find out the next plan, I now know that my cervix is S-shaped with no other abnormalities and not some crazy corkscrew or other impossible passage (which I had in my head) and the GP seemed positive that they might try the operation to straighten it out again.  She is also sorting out a referral for counselling for me and although she said through psychiatry it may take up to a year, she's going to try a different path first to see if I can be seen by someone to get some support a bit sooner as we have so much going on and she agreed I would benefit from talking to a professional.  She also offered some advice regarding anxiety and work, etc. so I'm feeling a bit more in control of that now which helps when so much of the rest of life is currently out of my control.

We've also booked our flights to Bristol on Thursday (although we're still waiting to see if they've managed to get cover for Nik's whole weekend at work so we don't know whether we're coming back Sat or Sun yet!) and I am planning more fun weekends with friends.  I just need some little things to look forward to to keep reminding me of other good things in life.  It's all too easy to become consumed in this vicious IVF world of limbo with no control - what feels like waiting forever while getting no-where, especially in our case when we've come up against so many brick walls at every stage.  I'm grateful that I have so many people to help pull me out of it when I get stuck there.

So basically, thanks again for all the support during my meltdown last week and know that I am on the mend mentally.  (Although no promises about any future meltdowns I'm afraid!  There's still a lot to get through!)  It's amazing how much getting some better sleep and other little things can make everything seem more positive after feeling like I was in such a deep dark hole.

xxx