Honest and scrap and Happy New Year

My blog is honest - that's one of my failings actually. Unflinching honesty. Only popular if you are really sure that your arse doesn't look big in those jeans or if you don't care too much if I tell you the truth. (Apparently very few of you wanted to know about bad 70s movies. But hey, I is what I is. Oh, also, I'm worried that I offended people with that last post so I'm very sorry if that happened, it wasn't my intention.)

And my blog is scrap. Just like all those bits of material I will do something with one day, just like that half-broken chest-of-drawers that still kind of works that I haven't thrown out yet. It's here, it's bitty, it's pieces of my life and my feelings. Sometimes more, sometimes less. Always a patchwork of the overflow.

Thus (who gets to use that word in real life, I love thus, it's a most excellent word), thus Allie thought that I deserved this award. Thanks Allie, if there'd been an awards night I would have been sloppily dressed with my hair all over the place, stumbling drunkenly up to the stage to blushingly accept it. I has completely embraced the "drunk Christmas" part of failed IVF cycle #4.

The rules are that I should share 10 honest facts with you and pass on the award to 7 of my bloggy peeps.

But I don't have it in me tonight to write more right now so I shall nominate my gals in my New Years wishes below and when I am less ruled by awfulness and crapola I will write 10 speshul things. Here's a cartoon from the talented Lawrence Yang at http://blowatlife.blogspot.com/

Here's hoping 2010 brings several of us our babies or healthy pregnancies, and brings joy and peace to us all!

2009 can just fuck off

So there.

The Big Guy says that title is a bit naughty.

I say, who the fuck cares ... I'm not pregnant, my thesis isn't finished and my doctor told me to give up trying to conceive. And my grandfather died. 2009 can go and jump in a lake.

I've been blog-surfing tonight, as you do, when you've managed to follow yet another person who's knocked up the moment you sign up for their blog (congratulations Veronica) and you're looking for new reading material. Preferably non-fertility related reading material thankyouverymuch. So I jumped around through blog lists 'til I landed here and I liked her stuff.

I made TBG find De66ieD0esD@ll@s for me the other day. I wanted to finally see what had made the boys of my youth talk so furtively and what Debbie had actually done. All these years, I'd thought Debbie did an entire football team - the Cowboys - but it turns out that Debbie barely did anyone. Eventually, at the very end, she did her boss ("I eat my Weeties!" says he).  What I discovered whilst fast-forwarding through most of the movie was that 70's women had boobs in all shapes and sizes, everyone had pubic hair and in that movie lies one of the funniest lines in movie history.

One of Debbie's friends works in a library and her boyfriend has not had any action from her for a while so he convinces her to perform an act on him in the stacks at the library. Shortly after beginning, she gags a little and ever-so-smoothly the boyfriend says "Don't choke baby... stay alive." I laughed and laughed and laughed. It is completely worth watching the movie just to see bad-70's-p.orn-guy being so caring.

Now TBG just has to say "...don't choke baby" and I'm in fits of giggles all over again.

BFN

As if it could be anything else.

Go see Avatar in 3D

If people only read my title then I will have written enough.

Oh my god. Avatar was phantasmagorical. A feast for my eyes and a journey for my soul. A glimpse of a future and of another world like nothing I've ever seen before. I've only ever seen worlds like this inside my own imagination whilst reading fabulous books (Grass, Ender's Game, The Dragonriders of Pern). By the way, do go and read those books if you haven't already.

The story was relatively simplistic, but the telling - oh the telling was wonderful. The story, in the end is just a vehicle and it does a great job of carrying the imagery forward for us. What the movie should be seen for is it's extraordinarily complex three-dimensional effects. We left the theatre, the Big Guy and I, wishing we could be Na'vi - bounding through the trees, flying on Ikran, listening to the Tree of Souls. We wanted to go back in to the theatre and see it again immediately just to examine the rest of the screen instead of always being focussed on the main thread in any scene.

Awesome, in the truest sense of the word.

Christmas Hope

We has it.

The other day I went shopping for an ornament to give as a gift to a sweet friend of mine and I found three Christmas words - Peace, Joy and Hope.  I bought Joy for my friend and, even though we have way too many ornaments already, I bought Hope for us. Which was surprisingly similar to what happened when Eileen and her DH went shopping. I hung Hope on our tree and I've spent far too long gazing at it wondering if I will show it to our baby next Christmas and say "that's your first Christmas ornament - just especially for you" ... or if I will be unpacking it next Christmas wistfully and sadly instead.

I wonder if all of us in the IF community have Hope strung up on our trees. If not the word itself, then the feeling - wrapped around the Christmas tree and all muddled up with Christmas Spirit. The hope that this will be the last Christmas without that family member we're trying for.

This time I have told everyone, and I mean everyone, about our embryo transfer and our testing date. I want all the positive thoughts, prayers, sticky vibes and good wishes we can get. I hope it helps.

Today I am 4dp2dt and I have been a bit crampy since Sunday. I think it's because of the Pregnyl-induced progesterone rise I must be having. If all is going well then Twinkle and Blobby (or at least one of them) have/has successfully hatched and are/is preparing to implant into my uterine lining.

Show and Tell - T & B

My Show and Tell for this week is these two little miracles. Twinkle and the oh-so-aptly-named Blobby. My transfer went ahead at 10:30am this morning after two days of agonising anxiety.

Twinkle is a lovely looking 4-cell. Blobby, a 'grotty looking' 3-cell.  But Dr Mac did say that he knows of lots of grotty embryos that turned into healthy babies.

The Big Guy and I are amazed that we made it this far and we are praying with all we've got that the blood test on Christmas Eve reveals a healthy looking beta.

More weird numbers from me ... This was my 4th stim cycle, my 3rd pickup, 2nd transfer and ... I want 1 baby who would be tBG's and my 1st biological child, but my 2nd, his 3rd and our 4th altogether. 4-3-2-1-2-3-4.


Go check out what the rest of the gang are showing over at Mel's.

3

Dr Mac found 3 eggs!!!!! He kindly wrote it on my hand so when I woke up in recovery I knew immediately and I didn't spend all my recovery time crying.

3.

Amazing.

Today is 09-12-09 - all numbers are divisible by three.
The pick-up was done on the third floor.
The Big Guy bought me 3 different lovely chocolates.

This is my 3rd pick-up.

Maybe 3 will be lucky for me. Dare I hope so?

Tomorrow the nurse will call me and tell me if we have a transfer time for Friday. More waiting, more good thoughts and prayers needed please.

Thank you all so much for your love and support.


PS. this is post number one hundred and ... three.