IVF Journey: 17w2d pregnant

This is my IVF diary. My husband and I have been trying to have a baby for four years now, and have a diagnosis of 'unexplained infertility'. We have finally reached the top of the waiting list for IVF - a form of assisted conception. I'm blogging about what happens as it happens, as a kind of therapy for me and as an awareness raising exercise of what IVF is all about.

Now I’m starting to become more active again, I’m occasionally going on the bus. I don’t drive and Edinburgh has a fantastic public transport system and I used to think nothing of going on the bus several times per day. But going on the bus is a bit more of an ordeal at the moment. Three reasons why.

Reason one: Motion sickness. On my current combination of anti nausea drugs I don’t get much nausea in a day except when I move about a lot or go in a moving vehicle. So a bus is bad for this, especially if it is crowded or the windows are steamed up. Any journey can make me feel a bit blah and I sometimes have to sit in the bus stop to recover when I get off.

Reason two: I need to sit down, I’m still nauseous and a bit weak. But although I’m 17 weeks pregnant I’m still in all my normal clothes and don’t have an obvious bump. So far I’ve always got a seat, but I’ve been on loads of buses that have filled up after I got on them and other people have had to stand. I am now becoming desperately paranoid that I’ll *not* give up a seat for a standing older person, and everyone will give me the evils. Consequently I’ve not even considered venturing into the priority front seats yet.

Reason three: As I’m told is normal in pregnancy I can smell everything. Everything. Sometimes this is OK – ‘clean’ smells are quite nice, as are some flowery smells and even perfume if they are not too strong. But unpleasant smells are magnified and overpowering, and can bring on the nausea. The bus is an incubator for smells, and you can’t really choose who sits next to you. The smell of cigarettes, alcohol and garlic are frequently experienced and very unpleasant, even when the person has tried to mask them with spearmint (a smell I have always hated). Most of the Edinburgh buses smell of crisps, that’s an interesting observation I’d never noticed before. Last week I had the fortune to sit next to a child that smelled both of urine and faeces. Nice. Sometimes if it gets really bad I sniff an item of my own clothing that smells of fabric softener such as a cardigan sleeve, or even my own hand if it smells of soap. That helps a bit.