February 2018 - myrealfairy.com

6 tips on how to support a friend through IVF with donor eggs

If a friend of yours has confided in you they’re planning to have fertility treatment, show them they can count on you from the start. The sheer fact that they told you about their plans for IVF with donor eggs is big news. This means she trusts you. Let your friend know you appreciate the trust.

If you’ve never dealt with infertility or are new to the concept of IVF with donor eggs, supporting an infertile person may seem tricky at first. Here’s what you can do.

Take it seriously

Don’t minimize the problem saying that “everything will be OK, you just need to relax and have treatment.” Infertility and egg donation are a big deal. IVF with donor eggs is highly successful treatment, however, the decision to have it needs to be well-thought-out and not hurried. Sit down together and have a look at the egg donation reviews online or egg donor profiles, if your friend is happy to do so. If she prefers to do it with her partner, you should respect her decision.

Ask them if they need anything from you

If you aren’t sure how you can get involved, simply ask. It’s better to voice your doubts than say something unnecessary. Ask them what you can do to help, if they want to talk about it and offer your time to just sit down, have a cuppa and listen. Just be there for her. However, don’t limit your conversations to IVF topics. Remember – you are still her friend. If you can, go out together and have some fun. If you prefer to stay in, have a girls’ night at home and prepare chocolate dessert.

Be kind and understanding

Kindness doesn’t cost anything. Be sensitive to the challenges your friend is currently facing. All in all, very few things are as painful and heart-breaking as the inability to conceive and carry your own child. It is a delicate topic – just give your friend a huge dose of love and care in this difficult moment in her life.

Don’t complain about your own children or pregnancy

If you have children or are currently pregnant, bear in mind that your friend would probably love to have sleepless nights or even a pregnancy heartburn if that meant she could easily become a parent. Try to save your kids and pregnancy updates for your other friends.

Back her up in all her decisions

Show your friend you support her no matter what decisions she makes. You can be sure that she and her partner have already spent countless days and nights discussing their options. If they plan to travel abroad to a more reliable clinic with better success rates, show her you are with her along the way. If she needs someone to look after her dog or cat, offer help. Such small gestures sometimes count more than the big.

Get Involved in advocacy

And, finally, spread awareness about IVF with donor eggs. Did you know that most advocacy efforts come from infertile couples and friends/family? What can you do? It is not a time-consuming commitment. Even advocating on a small scale helps. Overheard somebody speaking about test-tube designer babies or picky parents who choose their baby’s sex or eye colour? Speak up and refute the myths. In most countries gender-selection (family-planning) is legally banned and, in reality, infertile couples don’t care about the sex of their baby. They just want to become parents.

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Collaboration Post

London in the Wintertime

I love the winter and it was great to be in London recently with the London Eye sparkling in the winter sunshine.

London in the Wintertime

The day was hectic with work and a lot of rushing around and pre-speech nerves then the buzz of the presentation being over. To whiz over the bridge afterwards and to catch this view made me feel really happy and thankful.

I would’ve loved the time to walk along the Southbank but that will be for another day.

One of the many benefits and joys of having my blog is I can share this glimpses with you.

I’d love to see some of your favourite photos. You can always tag me in on Instagram as I’d love to visit and you can find me on Instagram at myrealfairyblog

For now I will leave you with this view. Even the reflection of the taxi window adds to the essence of the photo for me.

I’d love your thoughts 💭

Mainy

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For some more stunning scenery pictures have a look at my trip to Stourhead National Trust site.

Our home and building tales.

Since buying our home over three years ago now we’ve done lots of different renovations to the house. It’s been a great journey where I have learnt so many new skills and found out about an odd assortment of new terms that I wouldn’t normally of come across. It’s taken up lots and lots of time and of course the inevitable large chunk of our savings. The best part about our house was that it was one of those rare houses that needed doing up. When I viewed the house the agent even started by saying ‘oh you probably won’t like this one but I’ll show it to you anyway’. She wanted to show me something that needed loads of work and then another one which was the finished article and that you could just move into without doing a thing.

As soon as I saw my little house, as run down, smelly and in need of alot of tender loving care, I knew it was the one for me. I often hear people say that they know they loved a house as soon as they walked into it and this was exactly how I felt with this one.

The garden was huge in comparison with what we had been used to and the bigger the boys were getting, the more space they needed.

There was room for improvement and on the back of the house there was a rickety old lean-to that was being held up by cobwebs and not much else! There were old doors on the back and steps down into the lean-to. The ground floor was all pretty dark.

Our idea was to have this knocked down and build a conservatory on the back to massively increase the family space on the ground floor.

Our home and building tales. — Concrete floor poured and the plaster is up.

When we were planning to have the conservatory built there were so many different options when it came to areas like what type of roof we should have, should we go for our French doors or bi-fold doors, should we go for under floor heating or double radiators. The list seemed endless but we learnt so much from that process that we feel far better prepared for our next big project.

One of the key things I learnt was to be prepared! Prepare to invest in my property, prepare myself by researching products and prepare to have a certain amount of upheaval for the family while work is being carried out. No pain no gain!

There have been ways to reduce the cost of a lot of our items and that was by looking around to see the best deal we could get. I was so surprised by the difference in quotes from the sales people who came around.

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The patient part of our partnership has to be my other half, he has the patience to take in all of the little details whereas I tend to rush in and get over excited by the first good idea.

Our final design was great and had all of the elements we had on our wish list apart from one which was under floor heating! My other half still has to wear his slippers and if we had to do it all again and change anything then it would probably would be that.

We are moving on to looking at the loft next and moving upwards to converting it. I’ve started a pinterest board on it if you want to have a look at some of the ideas, also I would love some recommendations or ideas. If you have some I would love to hear from you.

Have you started any renovations recently or have experiences you’d like to share?