What they don't tell you at school...

Cast your mind back a decade or two when you were sitting in your cold, sterile Biology lab listening to your teacher drone on about the ins and outs of contraception and putting a condom on a banana.  Remember that?  Were you also left with a vision that if you merely sat next to a boy without protection you might indeed become pregnant?  That certainly was my resounding memory.  How ironic then, 15 or so years later I find myself in the position that getting pregnant just isn't that easy.  Nobody told me that you only have a few fertile days each month and even then the end result isn't always a baby.  No one told me that there is a higher chance of miscarrying the pregnancy than I am comfortable with.  There was no mention of other 'outside factors' that would make even getting to the trying to conceive stage a mountain to climb.  But then again, being diagnosed with Rheumatoid Arthritis age 16 was never in my life plan.  

Only in the last year has it dawned on me that maybe A and I won't be able to have a family, not due to infertility (although that of course could be a possibility too) but because I am just not well enough to be pregnant and look after a baby.  This hurts. 

I decided to start this blog, with encouragement from friends and my husband, to fill a gap in the blogging world.  Once we decided that having a family was something we felt ready to embark on, I scoured the internet and bookshops looking for information on people's experiences of having a baby whilst having Rheumatoid Arthritis.  I found just one book...in Australia...so I had it shipped over and devoured it in two sittings.  The wealth of information and encouragement that sprang from the pages made me even more determined to write this blog even if it only serves to encourage one person going through the same experiences I am going through right now.  

I hope that you are able to join me on this uncertain journey,

Love L x