so much to say so little time

There's so much I want to tell you all. But all I can say is this...

I dreamed up these little angels for our Christmas party table toppers. Then I made 6 of them and I adore them.

We hosted a Christmas party for 34 family members for our Great Big Family Christmas.  We have an enormous backyard but every time we hold a backyard function it rains. This time, thunderstorms were predicted.  So on Saturday when tBG and I were erecting the first of three wall-less marquees I convinced him that we would be wise to play table tetris indoors and see if we could have the party inside.  We moved the furniture into our bedroom and had seating for 36 people in our dining room and lounge room.

I went overboard on the Christmassyness of the decorating and I loved it.

That's my desk over on the right, when I'm blogging, that's where I sit :)

 Everyone had a lovely time at the party, it's so nice that we all get along so beautifully - such a blessing. And it rained cats and dogs - so praise be that we managed to fit everyone and everything inside.

We're off to Italy in 2 sleeps. Backpacks packed, waterproof hiking boots purchased and broken in, 16 kg spare luggage allowance to buy lots of pressies and bring them home. Praying that Fiumicino airport doesn't get closed and that no more of Pompeii collapses.

For the next little while I'll be off enjoying our we-didn't-manage-to-have-a-baby-so-we'll-have-a-fucking-great-holiday-instead jaunt. I hope you all have good Christmases and that 2011 fulfils all your deepest desires.

Merry Christmas and Happy New Year to everyone!

Her birthday

Today was one of my mother-in-laws' birthday. I have had the pleasure of three mother-in-laws, all of whom I love. My ex has a lovely mother with whom we happily lived for a while. Then there's the Big Guy's mothers. His Mum, who is a kind mother-in-law and his second mother (step-mama), a most excellent mother-in-law.

Today should have been her birthday, she should have turned 64. Will you still need me, will you still feed me when I'm 64. Instead we've spent the last three days planning her funeral.



On Sunday morning we got the phone-call. As everyone knows, calls at 7:30am on Sundays are always bad news. And it was. We got to the hospital by 8:30am and then we waited. And waited. And prayed. And soothed. And loved. And finally at 5pm, I kissed her warm forehead and asked her not to be dead.

:(

I don't talk much about our step-families. That's plural because tBG's parents divorced when he was a teen and they both remarried.  Each of tBG's step-parents had teen children of their own and both tBG's Mum and Dad managed to extend their families and open their hearts to their step-children and blend quite beautifully. So when tBG and I got together, there was no question of us not blending happily and well, of course we would and so we have. All family occasions are big blended affairs and everyone gets along so well - even the Xs (mostly).

My MIL was an open-hearted woman, a wise and kind woman, a generous and practical woman. She was down-to-earth and funny and always up for a drink or a laugh. She cared adoringly for tBGs father when he died slowly of motor neurone disease in 2007 and she'd not healed from that loss yet (none of us have). There were 16 people in the hospital loving her when she died, all of us torn and devastated and disbelieving. How can she be dead? Why does death come unexpectedly? Why the fuck does it have to happen at all? Funeral is on Friday. The Great Big Extended Family Christmas is happening at our house in 3 weeks and there will be a huge hole where she should be.

Books and places

Jenn's post today was a simple one about her day reading. But reading it brought up so many memories for me. Jenn's been reading LM Montgomery's Emily of New Moon and I remembered my childhood desire to visit Prince Edward Island and see where Anne (and Emily and Rilla and all the rest) lived.  To tread the ground my fictional friends trod on, see their sights, feel a snatch of their lives.  I had a list as a kid, of character's places I wanted to go to.
- Prince Edward Island (because of Anne)
- the Hudson Valley and the Catskills (because of Trixie Belden)
- the Lake District (because of Swallows and Amazons)
- Berlin (because of Emil and the Detectives)
- Sweden (because of Emil and the Soup Tureen)
- the Norwegian countryside (because of Mrs Pepperpot)
- the forests of Finland (because of Finn Family Moomintroll)

When I got older, I expanded my character's-places list to include TV and film friends.

- Crabapple Cove in Maine (because of Hawkeye Pierce)
- Monte Carlo (because of Herbie goes to Monte Carlo)
- Rome (because of La Dolce Vita)

One of those dreams is coming true in 5 weeks. Italia, sto arrivando!


Editing to add: if you don't already read Allie at Hyperbole and a Half, today is a perfect day to start - I LOLed so hard I cried while reading her latest post :D

Bugbears about grief

Elizabeth Kubler-Ross was wrong.


That's it, that's my bugbear and I'm so incredibly sick of reading/hearing/talking to people who truly believe that there are predictable patterned stages to grief and that acceptance is the final stage.

Shut the fuck up people.

But sorry if I've just been rude to you, I don't mean to be rude per se.

The final stage to my grief is just plain coping. Resilience sure, but never acceptance.  Why the freaking hell did secondary infertility happen to me and why the freaking hell haven't I gotten pregnant yet.  There is NO acceptance in my heart or body.  I want a baby with my husband, I can't have a baby with my husband and I will never, as long as I live, accept that.  I will, however, cope.

I will also attempt to trick the universe.

See Universe, see! I have "gotten on with my life" ... I have "given up" ... I am "relaxed" and I am even drinking beer I'm so relaxed, which is helping me to relax EVEN more! So what do you think of that eh? How's about you come along now and foil my careful coping plans with a surprise miracle pregnancy.

Anyhoo, Mind Hacks agrees with me and so does the research.

"Evidence-based Findings

1. Not all people experience grief in the same way
2. Some grieving people do not report feeling distressed or depressed
3. Some people experience high levels of distress for the rest of their lives without pathology
4. Repressive coping may promote resilience in some people
5. Resilience, growth, and/or positive emotions may be associated with loss"

10%

200 applicants for the Masters.

50 interviews for 20 positions.

I got one.

Yay!

And...

Eeeeeek. It's going to be a lot of work.


In other good news at my house, work wants to make me a research fellow, which means more money for less work. And paid leave.

Most awesome.  In fact it's beyond awesome, it's beyawsome.

It's beer o'clock at our house

I have developed a fondness for beer! Who would have thought it? Not me, because vino has been my drink of choice for about 10 years now, but I've started getting ill from it - I think it's the acidity, but whatevs, I'm lovin' the beer. Especially this beer, it's soooo yummy.

OK. Update time for teh crazy shemozzle of teh Ph.D in crazy.

So, you'll all be pleased to know that the admissions officer for the Mas.ters and the post-grad research admissions officer have been communicating. Because of moi!!! You see, the website that bosses potential students around and corrals them into the appropriate online/hardcopy applications wuz WRONG. And no one knew this 'til poor ol' me applied for the WRONG thing in the WRONG form because the CAPTAIN-WRONGY-PANTS webpage told me too. (Possibly that's enough virtual shouting.)

I submitted my spiffy application for the Ph.D/Mas.ters combo just like the page told me too, with exactly the right eligibility requirements it told me I needed. But the day after the applications had closed (for every post-grad course across my state!) the AO emailed me to tell me that I wasn't able to apply for it, I needed to apply for a standard Mas.ters first, get straight As and then apply for PhD candidature at the end of first year. Oh, and no scholarship for the Mas.ters because it's coursework, not research. I couldn't understand how I had missed the vital eligibility requirement stating that I had to start a Masters first until I went to the webpage to check and found that I'd read it right the first time - according to it I just needed first-class honours to apply. Which I had, so howdy doody to that. I got back in touch with the AO and explained my findings and he said "Ooooh, it's a new course, I'll have to check that out!" Which he did, but his reply was still the same. Masters first, webpage WRONGO.

I could keep relating the back-and-forth exchanges, which involve a couple of prissy women with too much power and cats-bum mouths, but I'll stop there because of the boring awfulness of those exchanges and the result is what matters.

I have applied for the Masters course (late, but that's ok, they're letting me do that because of their wrongnosity). My potential Ph.D supervisor said he'll just pay me the cash he would have used as a top-up scholarship so at least I'll get $20,000 for first year. After which if I excel (eeeeek, I'm sick of excelling, the pressure is unbearable and a B is not a bad mark in the real world) I can apply to change over to the Ph.D, get the proper moola and sally forth. He also said that he's the one who decides whether the topic is suitable because he's the supervisor and he says it is, so there. He also said he'll get the Dean of the Faculty onside so it'll probably be fine.

So it's turned out to not be all terrible awfulness. Just kinda messy and shemozzley, but finalised for now.

And as for my Mama, her appointment with the GYN specialist is on the 1st December and she'll get a plan of action there. Her abdominal/low back pains are possibly colon-related (colitis or diverticulitis maybe) so she's off for a colonoscopy Friday week. I hope they figure it out because she's sick of the pain and sick of feeling crap.  Thanks for the kind thoughts.

In other news we have a chickeh who lays soft-shelled eggs (Sparkles we think). They're usually broken when I go to check the egg box, but today there was an intact one.  They're very weird to look at, they feel so very strange and we can't figure out how the chickeh manages to squeeze them out with breaking them on the way down the vent.

Good egg- - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - Bad egg

no bloody PhD for me

Stupid university website with its misleading course information.

Stupid Psych Association with their stringent and dumb requirements for exact PhD topics that have to fit right in with Masters' groups.

Stupid no scholarship for first Masters year.

Stupid everything.

Siete tutti così gentili

Yes you are.

I've been needing inspiration and confidence and support with this crazy Ph.D idea. And I got some from you guys - thanks so much.

So, yes, I'm applying. The app has to be in by the end of the week and I'm almost finished writing it. I've been reading articles and talking to peeps and getting excellent references done for me. I'll get accepted for the Ph.D program no problems, but what I need to be able to do it is the scholarship. Which is not a big amount in itself ... but ... the reason I'm even applying is because this guy came to work the other day and asked us (me) to run a big online survey for him. The he mentioned that he was thinking of supplementing a Ph.D scholarship to make it more attractive to a Ph.D student - his top-up would make the Ph.D worth $40,000 a year to do. He offered it to me and I scoffed and refused it immediately.

However, I went home and realised that maybe I can do a Masters/PhD combo for $160,000 over 4 years.  That actually sounds like a pretty good deal!  I have to do another two years study minimum (Masters) to get registered and practice as a psych. And all I was going to do was wait til I'd recovered from the horrors of the honours thesis I just handed in in March. But would I ever really be ready? Nope. I don't think so. Who the hell wants to write a fucking thesis anyway.  Be it 16,000 words (Mas.ters) or 80,000 (Mas.ters/Ph.D combo) (that's $2/word!).

So. I never managed to have a baby but I'm going to see if I can be a sooper-dooper academic and birth a book instead.

On the craptacular side of life, my Mum has just been diagnosed with a CIN III cervical dysplasia.  The awfullest kind to find on your annual pap smear. She didn't even go for an annual smear though. She's been spotting and having discharge and pain in her uterus and lower back for a couple of months and that's what prompted her to go get checked out. As you might recall, faithful readers, my Mum was done and dusted with periods when she was 41 - which was 18 years ago.  So bleeding and period pains are terribly fucking weird things for her to be getting.

Even worse for her, she was raped about 30 years ago and she has serious issues with pap smears and pretty much any and all vaginal exams. So of all the places in her body to have a problem that requires invasive treatment, this is the worst. She'd prefer brain cancer to this.

As far as I'm concerned, prayers are just kind thoughts, so go on and think kind thoughts for my Mama. I love her and I don't want her to have cancer or for me to be an orphan. She's my only family. Here's a quicky-piccie of her so you can concentrate on it and send healing-hippy-vibes her way please.

PhD of crazy

Calling all academics - tell me I can manage a PhD. M'kay? I'm applying and I'm freakin' out.

RIP Lou - fly free

Sad news in the bloggy IF world, Louise (evil stepmonster) died in August of the cancer that took her by surprise early this year.

Her lovely husband came in to tell us long-time stalkers and cheerers-on-ers, which was a kind and thoughtful thing to do. What a dreadful awful terrible time for him and them all.

If you can, go send the family some love.

YayBoo for me too

Maddy did it and so am I.

*~Yay~* We went to the Royal Show. 
I love the Show and I have great memories of the Shows of my youth.  Like the time my Mum and I went to the Royal Easter Show when I was very small.  At the end of the day it was raining and awful and so Mum left me with a policeman at the Police Portable Van while she went to get the car. I have an abiding memory of sitting on a bench in front of a big policeman while eating a drippy chocolate paddlepop and seeing dark grey stormy skies out the van window.

More memories, riding the Hurricane with my Mum and us both laughing hysterically as we were whirled and thrown up and down with our tummies flying. Going on the Loop de Loop which flipped us up upside down. At the peak of the ride all the stuff in Mum's pockets emptied out and fell to the ground below while we giggled together. (She got her stuff back once we were on the ground.) Mum is great fun to ride with.

The year I got a stack of Showbags with lollies and chocolates and our dog ate them all, I was devastated.  The following year, I got Showbags again and we locked my Bags in the Ping-Pong room, on the ping-pong table with my cousin's Bags. That bloody dog leaped onto the wall outside the room and squeezed himself through the very narrow opening in the awning window and ate all MY bags but left my cousin's alone.  Even more tears that year.

This year we had a ball at the Show, my Mum accompanied us and we spent some happy times laughing on rides together.  She can't go on any high rides any more because she's developed old-person-vertigo (she's not that old, 59). Now she feels sick if rides go up and down, but if they go round and round she's fine. So we rode the crazy spinning rides together and took turns taking the kids on rides and tBG and I went on the extreme rides. Like this one.

That's us under the empty orange chairs at the top right

We saw prize-wining bulls and prize-winning roosters and prize-winning scones, muffins, quilts and shoes. We ate hot dogs, lollies, chocolate and fairy floss balls bigger than our heads.

L-R (back) tMG, my Marmie, tPP, (at front) tLG

All in all a great day out.

*Boo* R.I.P Ivy
 She was fine at 11am, dead on her side by 1pm.  Poor Ivy, the Unknown Chickeh. I never really got much of a sense of her personality, except I did think she was a quiet chickeh. She would stretch her head up high and make a quiet, breathy attempt at a cackle. But her poos were fine (blerk, it's amazing how much a poo can tell you about henhealth look at your own risk) and she was eating, drinking and getting along well.

Bizarrely, we found her after I'd invited our Crazy Neighbour over to view the birds.  I was all "Oh they're doing great" and "we love the hens" and "they're in such good shape" and then ... there's Ivy lying down with her eyes shut. I thought maybe she was just lying down like she was having a dust bath.  So I walked over saying "Maybe she's having a dirt-bath, hahaha, they look so dead when they're doing that, I'm sure she'll jump up and run away" but she didn't.  She was dead and Crazy Neighbour must have thought I was the delusional crazy one, because she kept saying "Oh, she's dead. She's definitely dead."

So passeth the first bird.  And when informed, the children were saddened but immediately asked when we would get another, because they are resilient little persons.

Dirt bathing

No webcam available chickeh-stalkers, but will pictures do? I have pictures aplenty.

Chickehs in the dirt

Now you can see why I thought Sparkles was in trouble in the dirt - she and Ivy look DEAD

You can see poor Sparkles' plucked/pecked neck in this shot and Ivy's beautiful multicoloured plumage on the back of her head.

Chickehs on the run.

:)
I has chickeh love.

Art imitates Life

Or is it Life imitates Art??

Either way I have Chickens imitating IF.

4 chickens, 13 days, 8 eggs.

If we gave my chickens AMH tests they'd fail as badly as I did.

Why oh why did I get chickens who are peri-menopausal? I have traded desperately wishing for eggs from me for desperately wishing for eggs from chickens.

Do you think if I gave them wheatgrass shots or Royal Jelly then they'd do better? What about CoQ10 or yoga?


Maybe they just need to relax.  Maybe I do.

Getting-the-Chickehs ...
I saw a animals alert thing on Faceblerk that led me to a page when some ladies were organising a chicken rescue from a big battery farm.  When battery chickens reach 78 weeks old (past peak lay) the farmers kill them. This particular farmer was killing 52,000 hens and offered the chicken-rescue ladies as many chooks as they could find homes for.  They thought they'd rehome a couple of hundred but they ended up with orders from fellow chicken-lover-animal-rescue-types for over 16,000 chickens. They whole rescue went belly-up after the battery farmer was reported to the DPI (Department of Primary Industries).  The DPI wanted to investigate the rescue, which meant they needed to shut down the battery and the farmer did not want to shut down (loss of livelihood) so he withdrew his offer.

The whole thing fell apart the day we were supposed to go collect our chickens. Lots of people were very disappointed. Lots of people had built coops and gotten organised to house poor old sad badly-treated battery chooks ... us included. But what I learnt was that most battery farms sell their old chickens - they put them on the sale shelf at a crazy-low price and give them a chance to live. So we went to Wagner's Poultry in Coldstream and bought ourselves some old $3 chickehs.  Past peak lay but still laying ... apparently.

So there's one question answered - fellow chook lovers, you too can rescue old chickehs.

Maddy, the chickens will not have chicks because we can't have a rooster.  We live in the city and though the council is hen-friendly, they've banned roosters due to the evil-early-morning-noise they make.  So no bebe-chickehs for us. Even though I would love a little Peeper following me around.

Andie, Maddy and Jenn - the gumboots are from Bunnings.  Imagine that - hardware wonderland sells rockin' gumboots. Not online though. I does love me a trip to Bunnings.

The chickens are definitely great entertainment. I pop my boots on morning and night to go tend to my ladies and sometimes just to watch them at their chicken-business.  They have distinct personalities and I am doing my best to train them to come when they are called and to be hand-happy.

• Henrietta is the tamest - I call "Henny-Henny-Henny" and she'll come and peck at whatever tidbit I have in my hand, though sometimes she does like to try to eat my fingertips instead of the treats. 
• Sparkles is pecked on by the others, she's the scrappiest of the four, but also seems to be the cleverest.  She discovered dust-baths on day 5 much to my horror. I went down to visit them and found her lying on her side in the dirt, ruffling up her feathers and totally covered in dirt.  The other chickens were standing around sort of watching her.  I though she was having a fit or something and went to pick her up whereupon she growled at me (yes, growled!!! it was very LOL-worthy) and pecked my hand. Anyway I quickly ran inside and Dr-Googled "chicken rolling in dirt" and found that dirt is how chickens clean themselves! They get completely covered in it and shake shake shake and get clean. Somehow.
• Ivy is a scaredy-cat, she gets very flustered when I come near her and freaks out completely if she's in the coop and I stick my arm in to top up the feed or something.  She just can't cope with humanity.
• Kakashi is funny, she clucks around following Henrietta and basically copycats everything Henny does.  She is interested in me, but tends to keep a safe distance. She does come running if there's scratch grain in the offing though.

I am an animal rescuer from way back.  When I was 13 I (with the help of a friend) liberated the mice in our science experiment when we found out they were going to be gassed the following day.  We had mice as a Mendelian inheritance experiment, breeding them to see what coloured furs we would get and I loved my mice. So I was horrified to discover that death was their reward. K and I snuck into the science teacher's office and stole the lab key late one afternoon and liberated our mice. We weren't terribly organised about it so she ended up with 3 or 4 and I took 2.   We got in so much trouble at school. There were meetings with parents and demands for mice returns but although K caved and gave her mice back I refused and kept them.  They lived for 18 months in a cage in my bedroom and my step-father named them Dim and Sim. Which was really a terrible set of names. Mum and my SF stood behind me and backed up my right to save the mice which was totally cool of them. I got a series of afternoons detentions and a series of Saturday detentions as a punishment and it was worth it 'cause my mice were awesome and fun and worth saving.  All life is worth saving.

*smiles*

Chick-chick-chickeee

We can has chickens. Rescue chickens too! I've always wanted chooks and when I heard you could buy ex-battery chickens and save them from slaughter I decided to bite the bullet and chicken us up. In 24 hrs we've already gathered 3 eggs. Hooray for rescuing poor battery chickens and hooray for having enough room in our yard for a coop and hooray for our landlord saying we could do it and hooray for our girls.

Henrietta - she's boss chickeh

Ivy - ?

Kakashi - apparently she's a manga-chickeh

Sparkles - she laid an egg in the car on the way home!

Smudge is very interested in the chicken coop

Happy chickehs

A girl has to have red gumboots to tend to her chickehs

Living here

I've been doing my best not to think about infertility or babies or assisted conception.  For too long I swallowed myself up in all the things this world had to offer and now that I've been spat out the wrong end of the IVF-machine I've taken some time to process everything solo.

3 things that have been helping me process

1. Copious amounts of wine. Lovely, delicious, soul-numbing wine. I'm pretty sure I'm not an alcoholic but I'm sure as hell using wine as a crutch.
 
2. I bought my Mum a puppy. Best baby I ever spent money obtaining. The day we got money back from the last failed cycle, I went shopping with her.  She'd been depressed, suicidal, feeling alone and terribly affected by the Cham.pix she took to help her give up smoking.  So while she was taking to steps to ensure she would have less chance of dying from a smoking-related illness she jumped into psychotic death risk with the Cham.pix. She lives alone and since my Grandfather died she'd been travelling up to Sydney every weekend or so, and spending all the holidays there, with her mother. (Who is a cold, crotchety, emotion-sucking grump. Kind of. Mostly she's that way to my Mum and I. Old history. Anyway, is this the longest telling of "why we got a dog" you've ever read or what?) Shortly before my Grandfather died her dog died too. So, no dog at home, no loving father to love and be loved by, spending far too much time away from us and her friends to look after Granny + Cham.pix = head in the gas oven feelings. And she didn't want a new dog.  She said she couldn't bear it. But this one night, this one night we went to the store where she bought her last dog (I hate pet-stores and would never purchase an animal myself from one, but this was her thing and we were only looking anyway) and there was this scruffy little puppy leading her brothers around their big cage in a merry dance.  She had a long strip of paper in her mouth and she was running around madly with 3 or 4 brothers chasing her. Every once in a while she'd look over her shoulder to ensure her pursuers were still on track and then she tossed her tiny head and sped forward. Clever. And so for the next hour I worked at my Mum and convinced her that the dog was perfect and that I would pay and that the dog would make all the difference.  And she has.  For both of us. Who knew I needed puppy-love too?
   
   
   
   
   
   
   
3.  Super Mario Galaxy 2.  I love this game. I've never really gotten into computer gaming. In fact after the highs of Pac-Man, Elite star force and some text-based game I used to play back in 1985 I steered clear.  But 3 years ago we got Super Mario Galaxy 1 for Christmas and I was hooked. I played it nightly with my darling - swapping turns star-catching for each other until we'd defeated the evil Bowser and rescued Princess Peach. And last month I bought number 2 and we're getting to do it all over again.  I love the Mario fantasy worlds, I love the escapism and I love the feeling of reward I get after I get a star.  I love the sparkly twinkles everywhere you look, I love the innocuous non-evilness of the bad guys, I love the little twists and turns and changes in direction and perspective.  The game is controllable, achievable and distracting. Perfect.
   
   
   
   
   
   
   

Cheers!

Crazy lady

I'm having a moment. I don't think I have any stories, tryings, hopings or wishings except akshully I do have all of the above and I wish I didn't. Crazy-lady is crazy.

How can I turn off my brain?? I just don't know.  What I do know is that if you google "sore breasts, nausea and burping" then the interwebs thinks you are baking a bun. Except I know that most likely I am not, but my heart hopes I am wrong and so I have been having an endless, unsatisfying argument with myself that goes a little something like this.

"Maybe I could get pregnant."

"Just stop it."

"You never know, stranger things have happened - like that girl with no external genitalia who gave her boyfriend head and then got stabbed and then had a c-section to deliver a healthy baby boy."

"Shut-up."

"But my boobs are sore and today I'm nauseous."

"Yes and your period is due tomorrow or the next day so your progesterone levels are high and you know that both Mum and the Perfect Princess were queasy yesterday - it's a bug".

"But, maybe..."

"But nothing.  Just shut the fuck up already!"

I'm a crazy woman, honest-to-god, some of these conversations have occurred aloud because somehow I muct figure I can get through to myself better if I talk aloud.

In other crazy-lady news I'm thinking of starting my Masters next year. I've had all my plans smashed into tiny pieces and I've been feeling a bit lost without plans for the future.  I'm worried that if I don't get a move-on and finish doing something with this psych major then I'll never have a proper career. And if I can't have a baby then I better have a fucking good career instead.  Problem being that I am scarred from this last year of writing and IVFing and grieving and so I'm quite put off writing. In my investigations I've discovered that possibly the easiest way for me to get certified (short of more talk-aloud conversations in public accompanied by nudity and knives) is to do a Masters of Psychology (Developmental and Educational).  It's still a shitload of writing all up but the thesis is only 9000-16000 words instead of 60,000. Which sounds vaguely doable.

I shall continue pondering and talking to myself.


By the way - I caved and gazed at a negative pee-stick just now (late at night on CD13) for the first time in 7 months - I'd broken that darn habit. Fucking stupid sore boobs and sicky-tummy.

?

I have to re-frame my focus and I'm not sure how.

FCFU

Yes siree.

I am indeed.

Goodbye assisted conception - you drained our savings for NOTHING.

When I did my 'current status' sidebar tally, I thought to myself "what the fuck were you thinking Pundy? You are a super-freak and a moron all at the same time." In all my time in the blogosphere and trawling through Dr Google I have never come across anyone as poor at egg-making yet try-try-trying as me. Super-dooper-freak.

So Sunday was pretty fucking awful as you can imagine. All that sunshine, lollipops, rainbows and blah blah blah turned dark in an instant. In the time it took to hear my phone ring once and see a number I didn't recognise which meant it was a doctor calling right before we were about to leave the house (literally right before) to tell us not to bother. Luckily I'd just taken two val.ium and a pana.diene forte (my back had seized, fibromyalgia sucks balls).

So I listened.

"Oh No."

"No, that's it's for us, I don't want to make another appointment, Dr McB told us not to bother this time anyway."

"No , I don't want an appointment with the counsellor."

"Thanks. Bye."

And I trotted back to bed, downcast and numbnumbnumb and lay in bed and sniffed my Special Blanket (yes I have a blankie, I don't care how lame that is, I had a pretty fucking traumatic childhood, adolescence and early twenties, the blankie helps me feel safe.  If you're lucky sometime I'll take a picture and show you the awesomeness of Special Blankie.)

The Big Guy, my darling, my sweet, my everlastingly wonderful and gorgeous husband, followed me back to bed, curled up behind me and stroked my back quietly 'til I fell back to sleep. Four hours later I woke up crying and then I went and collected my 7 year old son from his fuckwit of a father.


THINGS THAT DON'T SUCK

• The Little Guy. He rocks. I got to experience being pregnant and it was wonderful. I hope all of you out there that have never had this, do get it.  It's amazing to grow a person. If I didn't have him I would honestly be suicidal. All my life I was afraid of infertility and desperate to be pregnant. Thank God he happened.
• My husband - he is amazing. I really do not have the words to express his spectacular awesomeness. And if I had to choose between having a baby and having that man, I would choose him every time. Every single time. Even if I didn't have the Little Guy. He is my match, my yang, my fit, my best, my love. Without him, I would founder. And to endure 5 incredibly fucked up IVF cycles with him beside me has been astounding.  He has never let me down. Ever.
• On Monday, I found out that I now have a Bachelor of Behavioural Neuroscience with first-class Psychology Honours. I grieved for my beautiful Gramps and did IVF all through that fucking research project year and I still excelled. Yay me.
• Wine, Val.ium, Cod.eine and Fen.tanyl. And chocolate and Osso Bucco and Three Cheese Risotto.

THINGS THAT SUCK

• I did not get pregnant. No baby for me.
• We wasted a lot of money.
• I took a drug that made my already thin hair fall out in clumps and gave me neck-ne and back-ne, thanks for nothing DHEA.
• I proved my desperation to a heap of random medical professionals.
• I cried buckets and made my eyes sore and my eyelashes thin out.
• I'm still in faint-chance-limbo.  I still ovulate, tBG has sperm, until I stop having periods there will always be a tiny hope that we could achieve pregnancy. So I get to spend the rest of peri-menopause ever-so-slightly-stupidly-hopeful. That's surely a level of hell.
• I will never get to have a family that has a Mum and a Dad and a Child and they all stay together. I didn't have that as a child, my child does not have that and now, I will never ever have that. The Big Guy was my chance. I will be by his side as I die ('cause I better fucking die first, I couldn't bear it the other way round) and so if we had had a child together, a child of our own, I would have gotten to experience that togetherness, that FAMILY. And maybe healed some of my own screwed-up-child-self-who-lives-inside-and-cries-for-her-Daddy.
• I don't get to see what wonderful person tBG and I would have made. Where is that dark-haired, clever little baby?

* Editing to add (FCFU = First Class Fucked Up) and I don't usually swear quite so much.

no PUPO pour moi

18 June - one egg retrieved -sadness
19 June - one embryo created - hope
20 June - transfer cancelled, abnormal fertilisation - despair.

One

Egg retrieval a few hours ago.

Two follicles but Just One Egg.

Beside me as I sat waiting to get taken into theatre:

• Lady A, in for a pick-up with 20 follicles
• Lady B, in for a termination

Life isn't fair.

I woke up from the anaesthetic, looked at the circled 1 written on my hand and burst into tears. Then I cried for the next hour and a half. The nurses were very kind and let the Big Guy, my rock, come in after a while when it was obvious that I wasn't going to stop crying any time soon.

Someone will call me tomorrow between 1-3pm to let me know whether we're going for a transfer on Sunday. I hope, with all my sad little heart, that they say we have an embryo to transfer and then that I don't get a call on Sunday morning cancelling it.

Low expectations = no tears

I went with a churning gut and sat for far too long waiting for the scan. It's a public holiday here and they had a problem with the doctors so I waited for over an hour - which did great things for my controlled-anxiety!

Mad Hatter's Energy Man told her to be in the present so I have been doing my best to be here too. My head provided me with the perfect (repeating) soundtrack, so for the past few days I've been listening to this



and this



My freefall scan resulted in two follicles - both on the left. (Nighty-nighty little righty. I think it's gone to sleep for good now.) I am the proud owner of a 15mm and a 12mm and have been asked to return on Wednesday to check on their progress, with a view to triggering on Wednesday for a Friday pickup. And no tears leaving this scan which is a pleasant eventuality!

Please, Universe, let one of these eggs be the magic egg.

Cupcakes and scan

Oh cupcakes how I love thee. And so does modernhaus who recently thrilled me with a link to Ming's delicious cupcakes and cookies.  Get a load of that foodporn gals. If that doesn't get your salivary glands going then pshaw, what on earth would?

Soooo...guess what I've been doing lately (besides shooting up loads of expensive and unfun drugs)?? Yup - baking cupcakes, though not Ming's 'cause I only saw hers today. 

I baked these Blueberry and Lemon Coconut cupcakes ...

and then I iced them with lemon icing ...

... and soon I'm going to have a cup of decaffeinated tea and eat some!

Blueberry and Lemon Coconut cupcakes (for substitutions and americano understandingses go search at OChef)

• 125g butter, soft
• 3/4 cup caster sugar
• 2 tsp finel grated lemon rind
• 2 extra large eggses
• 1 cup self-raising flour, sifted
• 1/2 desiccated coconut
• 1/2 cup sour cream
• a couple of handfuls of frozen or fresh blueberries

1. Preheat oven to 180C (350F) or a bit lower if fan-forced.
2. Beat butter and sugar 'til light and fluffy.
3. Beat in lemon rind and eggs, one at a time, beating between additions.
4. Fold in flour and coconut alternately with the sour cream.
5. Spoon mix into paper-lined 12 cup regular muffin tray.
6. Poke about 4 blueberries into each cupcake. (You can put half the mix in, then poke a couple of berries in, then put the other half of the mix over the top and poke more berries in if you feel like it.)
7. Bake for 20 mins, then remove to a rack and cool.

Ice with Lemon Icing - which has to be the easiest icing ever.

Sift a cup of icing sugar into a bowl and drizzle enough lemon juice over to make a sticky icing, not too stiff and not too runny. Then spread it over the cooled cupcakes. Drool.

Thank you back of the frozen blueberry packet, I thought that recipe looked delicious and I was right!

Tomorrow is CD8 and I go for a scan in the morning to see if my ovaries have woken up after 5 days of stimming. I'd like a couple of good follicles and a couple of good eggs (followed by good embryo/s, a healthy pregnancy and a live lovely birth) please Universe.

Four important walls

This post is inspired by, and dedicated to Eden and her Gimme Shelter post and linky-business. Go head over there and join the sharing circle.

I was born in Sydney and after my Mum and Dad split up when I was 1.5 my grandparents used to take me for weekends at a time so Mum could study. So every weekend of my young childhood and then every school holidays after that until I was 17 was spent at this house in W.hale B.each.

I loved this place, every nook and cranny of it.  I loved the smell of the walls and the feel of the sandstone pillars. I loved the sound of the surf down the road, the salty tang to the air and the magnificent gardens my grandfather built so lovingly.

I walked up and down those stairs for years. Finding eggs the Bunny had left for me. Playing with my Little People and my new red patent leather shoes with the little bow on the front. Skipping up with a towel over my shoulder ready to trek down the street to the beach. Imagining I was a princess in my secret garden, waiting for the prince to find me. Being chased by monsters all over and around.

I sat out on that balcony more times than I can remember. Eating prawns and chips with salty, lemony fingers and listening to my Gramps tell me how delicious the heads were (yuk!). Late at night watching the lightning roll in across the sea, flashing pink and white through the big dark sky. Dandling my various cousins on my knee playing This Little Piggie on countless little toes. Posing for smiling happy family photos in groups and pairs and just by myself.

This beach is as much a part of that house as the gardens and the balcony. I learnt to jump over waves and read the surf. My Gramps tossed me over waves I couldn't jump while my mother and aunts and Granny sunbathed on the sand. He taught me to watch for rips and smell the rain coming on that beach and  I left my footprints there forever. Forever doesn't last long on a beach. I wish, so bad, that I could go back and visit those days. Stay in that house again with my extended family, eat Gramps' spaghetti and play bridge and listen to the grown-ups talking politics and religion and gossip.

Ahimè!

Ma no, io non sono una leggenda metropolitana! 

Addio sette mila, quattrocento, ottantacinque dollari ... numero IVF cinque, qui veniamo!


  
Help

CD27 and other news

This month I have felt lots of cramping down low in my sweet chariot. And so naturally I've wondered whether I could be so lucky as to be magically, wonderfully, urban-legend-ly knocked up in this cycle before the final IVF. Who knows, I gave up on my PingOAS obsession months ago when I finally realised that it was doing me no good to see the screamingly white space where my lines SHOULD have been every month. So no pee-sticks for me. I'm due by Sunday, in which case I'll be starting the last round of jabs on Monday-ish.

OhMyGod!!! I'll be injecting again within days. I'm battling hopelessness at present. I have to keep reminding myself that it is possible, I haven't stopped ovulating yet. However, if my odds were those of a horse in a race, there's no way I'd back it unless it was running in the Melbourne Cup. And then I'd cheer a lot and yell encouraging words at the horse while I watched it race on TV at the pub. 'Cause that's what you do on Melbourne Cup Day if you're not at Flemington.

I'm liking the metaphor here...let's see if there's more metaphorical fuel* to be drawn from this

It is a race built on dreams, on hard luck and triumph. It is a race which is also survived by tragedy.

That's the race I'm in. Mine's a race against time and I really want to be a winner.


In other news, I've never really given two hoots about Schapelle Corby or her punishment for what I consider to be an incredibly stupid crime. She was convicted of smuggling 4.2kg of dope into, INTO, Bali in 2004. Again, I say ... INTO Bali! She maintained she was innocent, and there are multiple explanations that were raised regarding crooked baggage handlers and drug-smuggling syndicates. Suffice it to say, I haven't cared too much about it. As far as I was concerned, she got the same sort of trial as she would have had here and she'd have been convicted here too. But for less time, because in Indonesia she got a 20 year sentence. Locked up at 26, she'll be released somewhere round 47. The other day I was in the supermarket and I saw this headline

And while I stood in line I read the article, which is of course complete fluff and elaboration. But it hit me then. Not only is Schapelle denied her liberty for 20 years, she's denied her fertility too. Her chance to have babies and thus to have grandchildren.

I don't think that's fair. That 20 year sentence is a substantially different punishment for man than for a woman. Now, years after her incarceration began, I feel terribly, terribly sorry for Schapelle and, for that matter, any woman who is incarcerated for a long prison term. A man at 47 can go on to have a family, a woman generally can't. Isn't it bad enough to be locked up, isn't that punitive enough? And why isn't this an issue? I know that here in Australia, you have to do something fairly heinous (homicide, sexual assault, injurious acts) to get put away from such a long time - all your fertile years. Poor woman - I'd be fighting that sentence too. And I'd get knocked up in prison if it were possible. Which it apparently is, according to the stories about Hotel K as the jail is known.

And then there's this - Bolivia woman 'sold new-born baby for $140'. I'm torn over this one. I know the moral ground ... no baby-selling, it leads to bad bad things. But in this case? She couldn't afford to keep the baby and had sold it to an infertile lady. God knows what will happen to that little one, I actually hope that the lady who bought the baby gets to keep it. There's gotta be some breaks for infertiles, surely.


*Can you even have metaphorical fuel?

Rainbow cake

I have to make this cake.  I don't know if I can manage it, but I'll have to try sometime because I love the look of it.

Hostore

Greetings ladies.

You may be wondering about the title of this post.

• Is it an Italian dialect greeting?
• Is it a strange new food?
• Is it the store you go to buy hos from?

Surely C's the right answer, right??


It's none of the above - it was my google verification word when I left a birthday message on Keiko's blog. And it tugged at me, like those darned not-words do.

Often I get a fantasmagorical verification word and I want to sign off my comment with it.  But then I stop myself and think, "but they'll think I'm weird if I sign off a comment with hostore, even if I do find it terribly funny". Why do I care whether you guys think I'm weird?

Misfits wrote about friendships recently and so did Bunny and they got me thinking about what these IF friendships mean to me and how much I appreciate belonging to a Glum Club (with moments of Glee when one of us gets to escape).

I do, I do, I do. I appreciate the you-ness of you all so very very much. So maybe I will start signing off my comments with my verification words - just because of the me-ness of me.  Or maybe just the excellent ones. We'll see.

About this club though. Maddy wrote recently that 25 of her blog sisters had gotten pregnant since she started blogging in June 09. I started blogging 8 months earlier and have through all my IFtime belonged to a forum of TTCers. At last count 39 women I started trying with are pregnant or have had their babies in the forum alone. In bloggy-IF-land out here there's at least the 25 Maddy counted plus a few more from the 8 months prior to her count. That's a shitload of escapees. 64 at minimum. Maddy takes it as a sign of hope - it can happen she says and she's totally correct.

But I'm torn at present.

I greet the pregnancy announcements with such joy - true joy, especially when they've struggled hard. And I congratulate and compliment along with everyone else when babies are birthed safely and displayed proudly. Both in the outerworld and in cyberspace. I'm so appreciative of all the new little persons being created and born. I want each and every one of you to get pregnant and produce your squalling, kicking, cooing bundles. I want to snuggle and cuddle your bundles of love and occasionally I'm lucky enough to do so when someone close to me has a baby (like SIL#1 and SIL#2 and Friend#1 and Friend#2).

It's just that I wonder if I'm picking a scab. Maybe I'd feel better about my failure if I wasn't confronted with so much success it at every turn. I just don't know. I'm pondering.

It's my birthday and I'll cry if I want to

So there.

The Big Guy was very kind to me this morning. I turned 38 and woke up cross and cranky and weepy.  Chronologically my body is 38, mentally I'm about 28 and my reproductive system is about 48. Aarrgghh. This is the third birthday I've spent TTC and it's going to be the last one. I'm over it. I'm over beating my head against the brick wall of my prematurely aging ovaries.

The clinic has agreed to do a cycle for us irrespective of my FSH level - so when my period arrives I'll get busy jabbing. We'll do a flare cycle and hope to God it works.

Da da daaaaaa

Just because I love it.

Fuck you FSH

My period arrived on Mothers Day.

Day 2 FSH = 14.1

Clinic will only let me do IVF if my CD2 FSH level is below 12. We weren't aiming for a cycle this month anyway, just tracking it to see the fluctuation-that-wasn't.

FuckFuckFuckFuckFUCK.

I am now the unhappy owner of sore eyes (crying), old ovaries (genetics) and a request for a bone density test marked 'indicator - premature menopause'.

And I have realised that I am jealous of other infertile couples.  A green hierarchy of jealousy which I shall now expose because it's festering inside me and this is what my blog is for after all ... de-fester-ifying my head.

First place goes to those women under 30 who are experiencing ovulation problems (anovulation, PCOS whatever) - seemingly easily fixed by clomid or, if need be, a quickie trip through IUI or IVF. At least there's young healthy eggs in there somewhere.

Couples with male infertility place in the middle, even those who have almost totally crapped out sperm, because it only takes one and 1% of 10,000 is still an awful fucking lot when the embryologist is looking for one to ICSIfy.

And bringing up the rear are those women who have tubal problems but fine ovaries. IVF is a must, but if there's eggs there then you're in business.

*Sigh* How fucking sad am I.

Back to the fun-park

Well, well, well. Wednesday's doctor's appointment resulted in a non-teary departure from his office, a situation which surprised me no end.

He says that reproductive hormones fluctuate and he recommends trying again! As long as my day 2 FSH is below 12...of course. We looked at going with his clinic but in the end he said he would only do the same type of cycle as our old clinic anyway, neither of them believe in oestrogen priming cycles due to the lack of rigorous scientific evidence, so it's to be another flare. He did say that this time next year would be no good with the downhill path I'm on. We compared costs and we're going back through the original clinic and we'll have another go on the IVF roller-coaster.

Because I do so love roller-coasters, the faster and bigger the ups and downs the better. At least the IVF roller-coaster has some ups - unlike my body's natural roller-coaster which is now permanently set on steeply-down.

We in Australia need Child Protection Order checks and Police Record checks to proceed with IVF as of the new legislation introduced this year.  Last year we got the police checks done, so we just had to post off the child protection checks and wait for processing. Potentially, I'll be jabbing myself by the end of May -0 as long as that FSH level is under 12. I'll check it when my period comes in early may just to see what's happening.

Anyhoo, in other good news the Big Guy's sperm appears to be in the normal range now, so he said to keep trying naturally too - maybe there's one good egg left in me to naturally snag one of the millions of normally shaped sperm TBG produces. TBG stopped riding his bike after the SA that showed 92% abnormal forms, and he started taking Menevit and slow-release vitamin C. Maybe those things helped, maybe it was random, whatever, his junk is normal junk now and I am pleased about that.  So is he - he kinda puffed out a bit when the doc told us and later said (only half-jokingly) that he feels more manly. I, of course, feel less womanly because it's so darn obvious that we're not pregnant because of me. All me. And I know it's not a blame game - from him or anyone else outside my head. But inside my head - I'm playing the blame-game and I'm the loser.
 
As for the new legislation, there's been a lot of furore over here. Lots of "it's not fair"s and "fertile couples don't have to get checks before they leave the hospital with their baby". Personally, I don't care and I think that it's the least of the "it's not fairs". I understand the purpose - I believe it's to avoid litigation sometime in the future when a child conceived through ART grows up and reveals that they were abused by a parent and seeks to sue the clinic that facilitated their conception. If the clinic hadn't jumped through some hoops to suggest that they vetted out the paedophiles and child-beaters, then they'd be liable. It cost us about $64 to get the checks and really, anyone with a clean record ought not be disturbed. It's just not that big of a deal - they are the sort of checks one has to get done for all sorts of employment/volunteer work anyway. Rant over and sorry if I offended anyone who's offended by the checks.

And wait - there's more good news!!!

We're going to Italy from 23 Dec to 8 Jan to start 2011 fresh and exciting :) I'm thrilled to be going and TBG is such a sweetheart for suggesting it, I was feeling awfully plan-less, direction-less and miserable - this really helps! Christmas in Rome, New Years in ...? Visit some family, see where my grandfather came from, walk the stones that ancient people walked. I can't wait to get lost in all the history. And if I'm 7 months pregnant then all the better!

*insert hysterical laughter here*

Well the last of the test are back and I'm completely weirded out.

Inhibin B: normal reference range = 100-250 ng/L;  <10 = post-menopausal
 
Guess who has an Inhibin B level less than 10?? Me! Amazing, I am still having perfectly regular periods, and ovulating, but my result on this test suggests that I am done and dusted with periods and fertility.

What The Fuck is going on in there????

Doctor's appointment next Wednesday. I wonder what his take will be.


Here is a virtual bunch of flowers for all you lovely, lovely ladies who have shared my incredulity, horror and disbelief with me. You have showered me with love and kindness and for that I am eternally grateful.

DHEA - for the FAIL.

Oh ladies I'm so sad

Latest FSH results - 14.3 (menopausal)
latest AMH results - 1.9 (menopausal)

I don't want to believe those results ... I want them to be someone else's, some 50 year old lady's - not mine

I'm not sure what we will do now - not sure if it's worth going forward, with a CD3 FSH of 14.3 I'm not even sure that the doc will even do a cycle with me I have to make another appointment but from the looks of it, I'm a DHEA failure.

Thank you so much for all your supportive, horrified comments. I am drowning here and it's a comfort to know that you're out there thinking kindly of me.

A couple of friends who have struggled with infertility have both told me to ignore the blood test results and to keep trying and trying, not to give up.  But oh I'm not sure if that's the right thing to do, it's so much money to try and try again!  I'm not even 38 yet and this is all so incredibly unfair. What would you do? What will I do? What will the doctor say now?

Abandon Hope All Ye Who Enter Here

First set of blood tests reveal that my FSH level is now 14 point something.

Aaarrrggggghhhh!!!!

Doc said that the only thing the DHEA would do for sure was lower my FSH (which was actually fine at 7.4). Instead it's doubled. This is not at all good and naturally the doctor's office is closed and so I can't see/speak to anyone. I've been in tears since I opened the mail and saw those shocking results (I get copies sent to me). My free testosterone and DHEA-S levels are also stupidly elevated and I'm thinking I should stop taking the DHEA. ButvI'll wait and see how disastrous my AMH and Inhibin-b levels are, talk to the doc and then decide.

Taking DHEA was NOT supposed to make my situation worse, but so far that seems to be exactly what it has done.

Disbelief

Are any of you still incredulous? I know that after 26 months of TTC, lots of crappy blood tests, 28 BFNs and 4 IVF stim cycles I should be over the incredulity of it all, but I'm not.

I find myself thinking "surely we're not infertile" and "how on earth is it possible that we haven't had a baby" and "wtf?" and "I just can't believe it". 'Cause I can't. I wonder when I will believe it.

It's sort of funny, kind of like a murderer has snuck into my bedroom and is strangling me and yet I'm still wondering, "What? How can he have gotten in, surely it's not possible!" Or like I'm hypothermic in the icy cold ocean watching the Titanic be swallowed by the sea and I'm thinking "Hang on, I'm supposed to be in my berth, surely the ship can't be sinking!" Or like I'm crunching a sweet apple thinking "I'm supposed to be eating a banana - why doesn't this taste like a banana?" Ha! Stoopid disbelieving brain.

I'm downing my DHEA like a good girl and am waiting patiently for the blood tests now, because today is CD3 and I went and got jabbed. I will be interested to see if the DHEA has done anything to my hormone levels. Also, and confoundingly, I'm interested to see whether getting the tests done at the pathology lab will make a difference, given that both inhibin-B and AMH are supposed to be spun immediately and then put on ice (neither of which have happened at my GPs).

And in the end, the results of these blood tests don't actually change anything anyway. If I can get my act into gear then we'll probably start the new cycle soon. That is, if I can get in to see the mandatory counsellor before my luteal phase starts. Which, when I type it and look at the dates, seems unlikely. So, then, I think we'll be cycling in June.

What...ever.

P.S. Still not finished with the damned illness either. I officially hate coughing.

Sickie-bear

I got ill on March 23rd. But my deadline wasn't til the 31st and I still had work to do, so I didn't stop and rest like I should have.

I got bronchitis on March 27th. But still with the needing to work...not enough rest. Then on about the 2nd it seemed like the bronchitis was clearing up, but I started getting sinus-y and last night I awoke at 4am with a throat like razor blades and a hot hot body. Not good hot. Bad hot.

So today, I'm completely brochitis-y again, every muscle and joint in my body is killing me and I'm coughing up phlegm like a 90 year old smoker. I swear a truck hit me.

And so we went to two doctors today. One gave me steroids for the wheeze and antibiotics for the lungs and the other gave me hope.

He said a few things and, as is my wont, here's the list.

1) DHEA is of no proven benefit but it can't hurt.

2) Growth Hormone is promising, but only one clinic in Adelaide is doing the clinical trial and we're both not there and not in it.

3) My egg numbers suck and he would never expect to get even 5 or 6 out of me, but the ones I have make embryos so all is not lost.

4) He didn't recommend quitting, said he'd be happy to go ahead with us.

He's so great, I have waaaaaay more confidence in him than in the docs at our last clinic, even though he says they're just as good. So we'll give IVF another chance to fuck with us and maybe delight us. Probably mid-May, the way my cycles are going.

He wrote me a path request for hormone checks at day 2/3 of my next cycle (which should be Thursday week) and he wrote a request for TBG to have another SA done. I want that done so I can let go of the hope, every damn month, that maybe we've hit the jackpot naturally.

I'm so scared heading towards this new cycle now. I half-thought that he would just say give up, but my age is apparently in my favour even if my AMH & Inhibin-B aren't.

But so scared. Early January, after the Christmas Fiasco BFN, I was severely depressed and hurting so badly after my six months of IVF Horror. I had to put that away and finish that stupid Honours project. Now that's done and I'm terrified to be letting myself in for that world of pain again.

Please Universe, please let it work this time.

Hoppy Easter!

I hope everyone has a very Happy Easter!

I am having a weird Easter this year.  No Little Guy (he's with his Dad 200 kms away) and no Mama (she's with her Mum and the rest of her family 2000kms away). So it's the Big Guy, his two kids and all the rest of TBG's family for Easter for me.  And that feels wrong and weird and completely un-Easter-ish. We're going for a picnic in the park - all the family TBG's Mum could muster including one of the SILs and her new baby. I love the SIL and I love the new boy and I will endeavour to steal as much baby love as I can.

But oh!

They started TTCing just after us, had a miscarriage and finally got pregnant. So I don't feel anything but love towards this new boy and his parents.  But for myself, there's jealousy and sadness and wistful longings.

Dr's appointment for us on Tuesday the 6th. I wonder what his recommendations will be...

Courage doesn’t always roar. Sometimes courage is the quiet voice at the end of the day saying, “I will try again tomorrow.”
Mary Anne Radmacher

Thanks to Coco's boss's daily inspirational and to Coco for passing this along ... I really like it.

The Eagle has Landed

Hi there bloggedy-friends!

How nice to see you again, whatcho bin doin'?

...

Great! That's just great.

Me?

Oh, you know ... HANDING IN MY THESIS!!!! That kind of thing.

Yes, I has handed the fat fooker in and I say fat in the truest sense of the wordy word. 161 pages of written evidence that I thought too hard about EEGs and depression. Whilst depressed. How's that for a mindfuck.

The Big Guy bought my some pretty roses and took me out for delicious dinner and now here I am ... all free and stuff.
 
So now I say to the Universe - now I am done with the thesis shite can I puh-leeze get pregnant. I shall be far far more relaxed now. Surely that will help. And, Universe, if you were trying to keep me on the path to psychology by not letting me have a baby and stop doing Honours, then you've done a sterling job.  Really, a cracker of a job stopping pregnancy and keeping me finishing my studies.

But it's ok now, Universe, I can have a baby now, it won't be interrupting anything.

'K?

Rawhide!

 

Writin' writin' writin'
Writin' writin' writin'
Writin' writin' writin'
Hon-ours!

Keep those words a'rollin'
Though the fingers' swollen
Keep those hands a'typin'
Hon-ours!

Through sun and shade and weather
hell bent for leather
Wishin' it was all over now
All the things I'm missin',
Good vittles, love, and kissin',
Are waiting for me to finish writin'


Write 'em on, fix 'em up
Write 'em up, fix 'em on
Move along, do 'em up
Hon-ours!


Count 'em out, write 'em in,
Write 'em in, count 'em out,
Count 'em out, write 'em in
Honours!


Keep movin', movin', movin'
Though there's nothin' provin'
Keep them fingers movin'
Hon-ours!


Don't try to understand 'em
Just write, count and stand 'em
Soon we'll be living high and wide.
My hearts calculatin'
My true love will be waitin',
Be waitin' at the end of my write.


Write 'em on, fix 'em up
Write 'em up, fix 'em on
Move along, do 'em up
Hon-ours!


Count 'em out, write 'em in,
Write 'em in, cut 'em out,
Count 'em out, write 'em in
Honours!


You get the picture?

Thanks for the feedback and the tips peeps...

• Mon, I've tried the grog, just gave me a hangover and a sore back. Double-awful. And a baby with JS's face - ewww. Please God that baby MurLem is as gorgeous as you!

• Allie - the toilet dream! I have that one too!!! And sometimes I've gone into a loo and thought the walls were solid only to look up and realise they're gone! And I'm on the toilet with people all around!!!! There aren't enough exclamation marks in the world for that feeling. Unfortunately a doona's not enough padding for Princess-and-the-Pea-me - BTDT.

• WiseGuy - we do take our own bedding, but can't fit a whole mattress in the car/roof-pod. I wish we could!

• lovecomesfirst and JB - I googled the cost of a high density foam single underlay - wowzers! Even on ebay I'm looking at at least more than one hundred bucks.

• babysmiling - Will investigate the eggshell stuff further, though I'd love a latex topper I can't justify spending the moola on one for a week a year (we stay there when skiing too), so maybe the eggcrate foam is cheaper.

• SIF - that is a crazy awful dream! Hope you don't have that one again.

• Eden - I love your Ms Dream Analyser self and your positive thoughts. Strangely, I dreamed he died again last night. The ALP were trying to kill him and I woke up crying in bed beside him. I think I'm very afraid of losing him. (And yes, ALP = Australian Labor Party, WTF is going on in my head???)