Absence.

You may have noticed I've been absent. Then again, maybe you haven't. Well here's your update: I've been absent. Not only absent from my blog, but I feel like I've been sort of absent from my life.

Things keep moving on around me, and I feel like I am standing still.

Everyone around me is pregnant (or so it feels. I am up to 8 pregnant friends now). If they aren't pregnant, they are trying. And here we sit, out of options. No more trying for us. Some days I can hardly bear it.

It feels like this immense failure has brought back some of the deep rooted sadness that losing my boy gifted me. I feel like I have been living with it lying dormant, just under my skin, and this current state of failure has brought it back out. Like a blanket it settles over me and I can't shake it off. I am close to tears most moments of most days. I feel like I am only now realising that I also lost two (three?) babies this year as well. I didn't let myself feel it before now because I was still moving. I was going forward, I was thinking "Right. Next step! Let's get going, time's a-wasting". But now there is no moving forward. There is no next step.

And I am a little over a week from the date I should have been giving birth to my first little lost one of 2010. A week. I would have had a baby by Christmas. It barely seems possible.

ICLW rolls around again

Well well it's ICLW again already!

For the first time in awhile I am not mid-IVF this ICLW. I should be, but my clinic are a bunch of raving incompetents.....I digress.

A brief rundown of who I am as a blogger would say:
My name is Suzy.
I have three babies - two boys on earth, one boy in the stars. He was stillborn at term in February 2008 and my heart aches for him every day.
I am now TTC again via IVF/ICSI and have had two consecutive miscarriages at 7 weeks.
I am starting to think that it will never happen for us and that we are just going through the motions.
I watch too much TV.
I recently had a major health scare as my specialists believed I had large brain tumours.
Turns out I don't. Thanks for scaring 10 years off my life though.
I love all three of my children fiercely.
I'm a wannabe perfect housewife who has an aversion to cleaning.
I love my camera and wish I had more time to perfect my art.


That's me. In a nutshell. Welcome. Kick off your shoes in the hallway (everyone else here does) and make yourself at home.

My readers kick ass!

Wow, thank you so much for all your supportive comments on my last entry. I wasn't sure how it would be received but I had to say it!

Now I am no gay rights activist by any means. I live in as traditional a family as you can imagine. We have quite traditional roles and we stick to ourselves. We are private people and I am certainly not attending rallies and protests every week. But I would really like the government to wake up and smell the coffee. Because the majority of citizens either want gay marriage approved, or dont care either way. There are very few people who are actively AGAINST it.

I too grew up in a Catholic household. My partner's family is Baptist. This fact causes more dissention in the ranks than the fact that we are gay!! lol.

But as one of you wrote in your comment, if you dont like gay marriage, DON'T HAVE ONE. That's pretty much my belief. First these people are scared of "the gays" and don't want us coming onto them. But they don't want us to be able to marry, an institution based on faithfulness. Surely the more of us who are married, the less likely we are to hit on you (or in the lesbian case...hit on your wife ;)

Anyway, I'm back on my soapbox again *steps down*

Don't even get me started on the political happenings of the day, I am exhausted from talking about it all morning.

Our first female Prime Minister should be a massive celebration, a victory. Instead our PM was shanghai'd by his own party and forced out. Shameful behaviour. Hope you enjoy it while it lasts because rumour is an election is around the corner (literally by August) and you just aren't instilling a lot of trust. For shame Julia, for shame.

And that's enough of THAT.

On the IVF front, exciting news there for us as planning is underway for our next cycle :)
I couldn't be more excited...our doc is willing to talk about getting things moving in the pre cycle preparation even though I'm not at zero yet, I am so close that he doesnt see a need to wait. I could NOT be happier about that.

Plus I am getting new skates on saturday (hopefully) and going skating with some of my favourite girls (and a few derby stars too :) :) SO things are looking up.

Now I must go make my MIL some chicken noodle soup to take down to her tonight as she is very unwell and FIL is away working again for the next 3 weeks.

Have a kickass night, you are all awesome (thanks again for the love)

Suzy Home-renovator

I've been reading back through past blogs (both this one and old blogs) trying to recapture how I felt and what I used to write about (what? not everything is babyloss/IF related? you're KIDDING me?? What else would I write about?) I am not quite there yet but am going to try to post daily about something other than IVF because hey, boring.


Good news this week in our corner of the world is the final sale of one of our reno properties :) BIG yay for that. It is a big load off my mind and while we didn't get the best best best price for it, we did get $40k more than the bank valuation, and cleared enough to pay out all our debts. So YAY for that! Now if we can get reno house #2 sold (has to hit the market first) then we will really be laughing all the way to the bank and be able to jump right into renovating #3 where we are currently living...

I have to say I am very proud of us. If you had seen this place before we go to it...it was ugly. And it smelt funky. And had holes in doors etc. Just a mess. Now look at it!!









It really makes me realise that we can do this. We are so capable, and I think we are getting really close to the point where we can throw in the towel at our annoyingly mundane jobs and take on renovations as a full time job :)


And finally, because I just. can't. not. talk. IVF....good news/bad news on that front...good news is we got nearly $6k back from our last cycle which means we can definitely go ahead again! Bad news is that I'm STILL not at zero which means waiting...and waiting...and blood tests...and more waiting...to see when we can go ahead again. The longer we wait, the bigger the age gap will be and that is bugging the crap out of me because that is the main reason we decided to do this - to have kids close together. Already we are 6 months past where we wanted to be...and every week that goes by I mourn the idea of having children who are really close together. Hercules would have been born at the perfect time.

Reflections and Good News

Look at me posting twice in one day.

That last entry was hard for me to write and I had to hit publish straight away before I lost my nerve and deleted the whole thing. But the fact is I have memory problems and the more I have written down the better, for me to go back and look at.

After calming down and talking to Mim about everything, I can see things more clearly. My meltdown's over his behaviour come generally because of silly little things - tonight it was because we were told that he was making kids cry at after school care because he was playing handball and basically being a little Franco (dictator) about "his" rules because it was his ball and he was being over the top bossy. And when one of the carers confronted him about it apparently he lost his shit and started yelling at her, which I will. not. tolerate. I raised him better than that, to have more respect than that.

But after some quiet reflection tonight, I know three things.
(1) I have a tendency to over react
(2) I was a bossy ass kid too who had few friends until I grew up a bit in high school
(3) He is not a "bad" kid, and I need to remember it could be worse and this too shall pass.

He actually reminds me of a mixture of me as a child and my childhood best friend. My best friend was universally disliked by all the teachers for being a smartass and disruptive, but he has turned out ok in the most part. I was quiet and teachers loved me but other kids, not so much, because I was so bossy.

I have decided to take a step back and not go mental every time he does something. He is an 8 year old boy after all. I need to just focus on loving him and helping him where I can, and letting go and letting God in other respects. He is on a limited diet to help control his behaviour, and I think its time to take him to the naturopath to see if theres something more we can do.

He is a lovely big brother and generally a good boy and I love him. I just hope he outgrows this stage! I just need to keep repeating my mantra - I love my family, I can do this! Look at them, they are worth it!

On a happy baby note - I have a scan on Thursday to check that everything's where it should be and whatnot. Three more sleeps...I am bloated as all get out and definitely feeling pregnant so fingers crossed it's all good news.

Speaking of good news - I am celebrating twice as hard for my very good friend who has just got her BFP after almost 3 years of trying! Now if my other bestie would get her BFP (due to test next week) it will be like winning a trifecta - I can't imagine anything better than going through it all with two of my most special friends - 3 IVF BFPs can you imagine anything better?

If you didn't laugh, you'd cry...

So after deciding to be more positive, I found myself faced with two awful days where nothing went right! I have to say, to my credit, that I didn't let any of it affect me too badly (though I did a fair amount of sulking on Thursday night!)

Thursday started well, with playgroup in the morning (I love my playgroup friends) but sucked a little because I had to leave early to go for an u/s and bloods. Lets not delve too deeply into the u/s ... safe to say it wasn't the highlight of my day. Saying "ew" should be just about enough to cover it!
Then I went to get bloods done, and I made sure they booked it for the clinic where I know the phlebotomist is really good at drawing my blood (I have notoriously difficult veins which often ends in 20cm bruises up and down my arms). I was happy to see her there and happily chatted with her (what I could understand...her english isnt quite up there yet) while I waited. She asked, in a conspiratorial voice "this IVF...is it very expensive?" I laughed and said "Yes. VERY" and left it at that.

I was feeling ok at this point. Until she stuck me. And it hurt. But I was determined to have a good day so I walked out smiling. Until I pulled off the tape (which caused a reaction and made my arm bright red...NEVER happened before) and discovered a giant bruise. Great. So now I look like a junkie...

Was going to get the train home as Monster was asleep in his stroller and I could get him on and off without him waking...but no, trains weren't running. So in and out of the stroller it was, with him waking and therefore only having a ten minute sleep all day.
Went in to pick up my contact lenses, and they had ordered the wrong prescription. I was currently wearing two left lenses from different sets and pretty desperate, so I took the wrong prescription and threatened that they better check the prescription next time so I'm not going all the way in there for nothing!

Got home, all pumped to finally get some housework achieved...and discovered my mum's dog who we are babysitting while she's in Singapore, had found some sort of hideous sticky grass seeds and rolled around in them and was matted up literally to her eyeballs. Her floppy ears were so matted they were sticking out at 90 degree angles to her head! I just wanted to cry. But instead I sat down and tried to comb them out. IMPOSSIBLE. Have you ever had to call an emergency dog groomer? Who knew there even was such a thing?

What, your dog groomer doesnt drive around in a giant blue dog??

I called and he was there within the hour. I was so relieved I could cry! He got as much out as he could then had to shave her ears off :( I was feeling like I just wanted the day over by this point but was trying to stay upbeat. Then the lovely groomer turned around, brought her in and said "no charge". I could have kissed him. I was so grateful I tried to give him something, but he refused. I tell you what, my faith in mankind was restored by that gesture, and I felt like it was my reward for not letting everything get me down! I did have a bit of a sook in the evening though, and my angelic wife went out and bought me chinese honey chicken and that pretty much made everything better!

Friday I had to work and lets just say within ten minutes of arriving, our server crashed and three computers crapped out and died. The day didnt really improve too much from there. But I kept on keeping on, and then today (Saturday) had the most wonderful day with some friends...and I feel like "i can actually do this" it's not too overwhelming right now, and the more positivity I have, the better I am feeling.

And I can do with all the positivity I can get right now leading up to this, our one and only shot at another baby! Speaking of which I better sign off and go shoot my wife up with some drugs ;) Go.na.lF and Or.galu.tran that is...