counting chickens

Brrr it is so cold here right now. I'm under a blanket in front of the heater and I'm still cold!!

Things seem to still be ticking along well *touch wood* no bleeding so I'm ahead of last time at least. Things still feel like they are different this time - Lou agrees, and so does my soul sister...but we all know that could mean everything or it could mean nothing.

Just recovering now from the long weekend we had (thanks Queenie) with a busy day on Sunday and a renovating day on Monday. I'm starting to feel so overwhelmed with how much needs to be done to this house before we put it on the market! Of course this ends up with me doing absolutely nothing because I dont know which of the 10,000 things to do first!

I was packing up all of Manny's little baby things into crates to store, and was thinking "Oh I really hope we have a house with a nursery by the time I need any of this again" then I realised...that might be only 6 months from now :-o! I am certainly not counting my chickens, but every now and then it hits me that this might actually be it....

I still have the hpt next to my bed. I still pull it out and stare at it at least twice a day with a stupid grin on my face.

That's wierd, right?

Chicken Image from digitalproductionme.com

something feels different

and I'm not sure why. I don't know whether it's because the last miscarriage was a while ago now, because we're not dealing with the increased risk of miscarriage that comes with IVF anyway, because we know I have succesfully conceived and carried two genetically healthy babies before or what it is, but we both feel like this one is different.

I really hope our feelings are on the money because I know we will both be even more heartbroken (if that's possible) if this ends badly. Lou has literally, and I mean literally had her fingers crossed since I flew out two weeks ago. It makes her look very awkward. But she refuses to uncross them. I never realised just how superstitious she is!

It feels different physically too. Every other pregnancy for me has started with very, very early nausea (before even testing). None this time round, all I am is extremely hungry and extremely tired. Who knows what this means, if anything!

All I know is that we are praying with everything in us that this is it.

{EDIT}

Just got my first beta back - 330 :)

Was hoping for super off the charts high but its higher than the miscarriages were so fingers are still crossed! I'm guessing about two weeks till first scan.

Hurdle #1 - BFP (10dpo extremely faint - 12dpo strong line)
Hurdle #2 - Beta (16dpo - Beta HCG 330)
Hurdle #3 - Ultrasound (6 weeks)
Hurdle #4 - Usual miscarriage point (7 weeks)
Hurdle #5 - Nuchal screening to check if baby has trisomies (12 weeks)
Hurdle #6 - Anomaly scan - check for trisomy markers (18 weeks)
Hurdle #7 - Make it to 36 weeks without losing my mind/the baby.

thanks...but..

Thanks for the congratulations lovelies. We are choosing to believe that it is possible that this will end with a baby, but we also have so many more hurdles to pass first.



For most people,




=








For us, a + does not = baby.



For us,








=











and











A whole lot of waiting and hurdles to overcome repeated ad nauseum.

Hurdle #1 - BFP (achieved. Yay!)
Hurdle #2 - Beta (Friday)
Hurdle #3 - Ultrasound (6 weeks)
Hurdle #4 - Usual miscarriage point (7 weeks)
Hurdle #5 - Nuchal screening to check if baby has trisomies (12 weeks)
Hurdle #6 - Anomaly scan - check for trisomy markers (18 weeks)
Hurdle #7 - Make it to 36 weeks without losing my mind/the baby.

So, if you know me irl - secret squirrel, k?




We will likely announce it after hurdle #5 if we make it that far. I don't feel the need to hide it as far as I did with Manny (26 weeks!) but we certainly aren't counting our chickens yet.

Question of the Day

How long do you suppose is normal to spend staring at two small pink lines?

So far I've spent about three hours.

saving my life in small ways

Today was not a good day.

It started much like any other. Then I received phone call after phone call from my office.
Cue hours of frantic online work to resolve problems (on my day off mind you). Of course my internet connection chose that time to crap out and die on me. AND of course I dropped my laptop off at a repairer just yesterday so I had to use the desktop - meaning no moving around to try and get better connection (I use mobile internet).

Like always I tried not to let it bother me...ran off to get Rocket from school and figured I would go to the mall to the shopfront of my ISP and check whether my contract expired yet (I assumed it had) and I was going to change to another provider, get myself back online, STAT.

But of course I am NOT out of contract (6 months to go!?!), but have I tried to call "customer care"? Of course not you fool, if I dont have coverage through your shitty *cough*vodafone*cough* network, how are customer "care" going to help?

But being the obedient little thing I am, I call them. Promptly get through to a, lets say, non-Australian call centre (you all know where this is going). I could barely understand every second word, but caught the gist of it as "you called the wrong part of the centre I will transfer you". I said "ok please transfer me" but the person just kept. on. saying. "I need to transfer you"
me "yes, do it"
him "I need to transfer you because you need tech support"
me "so transfer me already"
him "because you have come through to account service I need transfer you"
me "FFS dude TRANSFER ME ALREADY"
him "okay please hold"


I am not a patient person.


I was irritated enough by this point.

Then I had another person I couldn't understand, who got increasingly pissy at me when I would say "I do not understand you. Please slow down and speak clearly" eventually she did slow down, I still couldn't understand her.

Eventually I get it. Apparently the modem they sent me was the wrong one for my area. Do I still have my old one? Oh you mean the one you told me to dispose of? Um no actually!

After twenty infuriating and pointless minutes, I hung up. Frustrated as all get out.

Had to go to the grocery store. Oh joy that should improve my mood *sarcasm*. Wait, I know, I'll call into the pharmacy and pick up another box of HPTs (seeing as I wasted my last one on this morning's 9dpi obvious BFN result...)

Sold out.

Say what?

Oh of course because I live in an area where girls "fall" at the drop of a hat I suppose they go through them like nobody's business. Am thinking pretty nasty thoughts at this point. Why even bother, it's going to be negative anyway. Doom doom gloom etc.

So I stomp into the grocery store. Glance at the magazine rack. First cover I see? Ben Cousins is having a baby. Second cover? Miracle Quins (born to a lesbian couple after IUI) headline?"It's a piece of cake!" The straw that broke the camels back. I'm pretty sure if I were in a cartoon steam would be pouring out my ears and my head would possibly have spun off its axis.

You know what happened then?


A song came on the radio and was blasted through the store. I couldn't believe it. What was it?






Eye of the Motherfucking Tiger, yo.



I couldn't help it, I burst out laughing. Bad mood over. Thank God for you, Becky Sherrick Harks. Blogging saves my life in small ways every day, I swear it.




Painting by Lucie Bilodeau

Right Where I Am: Three Years, Three Months

This post is in response to Angie's project, Right Where I Am. I apologise for the rambled stream of consciousness that follows...the truth is I dont really know how I feel 3 years out from the best and worst period of my life.


Sometimes it seems like a lifetime ago. Most of the time it feels like it happened to someone else. All of the time I feel like I am a different person to before.

My life now is divided into two parts. Before and After. The truth is, I can barely remember what life was like before. What was it like to live life in ignorant bliss? What was it like to not know how it felt to bury your child?

And recently all I have been thinking is: if Star had never died, Manny would never have lived. My baby's death is so closely linked with my other baby's life, the two can never be separated. This thought has been going around in my head for over a week now. The greatest joy in my life, could not have existed without the greatest sadness in my life. It hurts my brain just to think about it.

I do remember the early days. I have written about them before. About how liberating it was, the freedom to grieve openly. The freedom to hole myself up in my home and ignore the world. The freedom to lie on the floor and scream and sob at the top of my lungs regardless of who might hear me. I miss being able to be so raw - so openly bereaved.

As time marched on, and particularly after Manny's birth, the expectation was that everything was "better" now. I remember 8 months out, on the 27th of the month, my mother asked me what was wrong. I told her the 27th is a hard day for me. Her response was "what, every month!?!" I was dumbfounded. My own mother expected I should be "over it" after only 8 months.

Now, over three years out, I cry less. I think of him frequently, but I do not cry. I talk about him all the time, but I do not cry. I pull out his photos and stare at him, but I do not cry.

Some nights, late at night when everyone else is in bed, I think of him and cry. But the tears are no longer racking my body with sobs. They are silent tears that simply fall from my eyes of their own accord and soak my pillow.

Three years out, my eldest has weaved his baby brother into the fabric of his life. Every now and then he mentions his name in passing...and it reminds me. He was here. He left his footprint on this earth. He wasn't just a part of me, he is a part of our family.

We do not cry for him anymore. But we love him with every beat of our hearts.

Seriously??

Today can go die in a hole.

Aside from the absolute shittiness already reported (see below), we got home to find a little kitty that I've seen in our backyard a few times, crying in the bushes. I grabbed a towel and picked him up in case he bit me - it was dark and I couldn't see what was wrong with him to start. I took him into the light, and saw his tail was stripped down to the skin and bone, and got scared and stopped looking. We rushed him to the vet (who luckily is open until 7pm) and there I saw the extent of the damage, one of his legs was just exposed bone and he was not in good shape. As he was a stray without a microchip, and he was in so much pain, the most humane thing was to have him put to sleep. I watched them take him down the back and walked out on the verge of sobbing, simply holding myself together for the boys.

Only to get into the car for MIL to tell us that her cancer is back, and it has spread.

Seriously, today can fuck off.

(and I can't even go cry in bed because MIL is still here being all perky and rah!rah!fightthecancer! so I have to pretend to be an optimist when we know I am NOT, instead of curling up and pretend today never happened)