Heartwarming/Heartbreaking

My Sweet Boy
Manny's latest obsession is finding Starbaby's photo album, and flicking through it. He exclaims every time he sees his face, and then kisses it loudly. We are teaching him to say Star's name and he has shortened it to the cutest nickname and he just says his name over and over and kisses his face in the photos. It warms my heart so much but breaks it at the same time.


I often have tears rolling down my face as he caresses the photos and kisses them. I never thought I could feel such deep emotions from a simple act of a 1 year old, but there you go. He never ceases to amaze me.

The time is now.

have been trying to write an entry for days but can't seem to.
last week a friend of ours died of a heart attack, aged only 45.
he left behind two children, friends of my son, aged only 7 and 11.

Things like that really make you re-evaluate your life and look at what is really important. Nobody ever looks back on their life and says "gee I wish I spent more time at the office". Money means nothing when you are dead.

So the only words I have today are these:

If there is something you have wanted to do, but have been putting it off for "the right time", that time is now. Take a risk, jump in headfirst. Because you never know what tomorrow holds.

Why Suzy is in too much debt. And isn't blogging.

Argh I feel like I don't have time for any of the things that I enjoy at the moment! Blogging has taken a very definite backseat for now.

Did you know that Go.og.le Re.ad.er stops counting at 1000+ new posts?
I logged in and felt like it was mocking me. "You have ... you know what, you have too many damn posts to read. You are never going to catch up. So I am not even going to bother counting them. Let's just say you have TOO MANY NEW POSTS"

I'm at a crossroads at the moment, trying to balance work/life/kids/play/me time (HA!) and trying to work out how to fit everything in. I was almost at the point of leaving my job (I lay in bed this morning composing my letter of resignation actually!) but I just don't think I can give up the steady income right now.

It probably doesn't help our financial situation that I went and bought another house on Saturday! I could NOT resist it was in a great little spot and it is a little 2 bedroom cottage, last decorated circa 1950 and it is CUTE! I just love it. Plan on doing a few small improvements then renting it out (hopefully to friends who are looking in the area).

Unfortunately though, that, coupled with paying for another round of IVF, means that pretty much every cent we made off the sale of our last property, is GONE :(

We had planned on using that money to pay off a large portion of our debts...but instead it's all gone *POOF* within days of receiving it! Unfortunately too, because our car was written off, we still have to buy a car. My in-laws have lent us the money to do so, but it means that we do actually have to pay it off by the end of the year.

With all the debts we have, even with the great profit we are likely to make on our second renovation house which is about to hit the market...we are only going to have about half what I expected to put towards the renovations on our CURRENT house!

Boo hoo woe is me. Anyone who thinks they can make an easy million off property is dreaming. I actually thought we would be further ahead by now. But we are getting there. It's just taking WAAAY longer than I expected....

But I am blessed. We were lucky enough to have parents who loaned us all the money for our first house and we've built it from there. We are fortunate to be in the situation we are in, but we have worked very, very hard and done without a lot to be in this position. I can't wait to see how it all plays out - my friends joke and call me a mini mogul..that would be nice, to have an empire, wouldn't it? We'll see...

Limbo is only acceptable if you are on a cruise ship

Ugh limbo land.

So, I got my new contract yesterday, including my "pay rise". It was insulting to say the least. They have introduced a lovely little restraint of trade inclusion (sneaky snacks) which I will NOT be signing off on, and the "pay rise" that I was teased with is INSULTING. I sat back quietly for FOUR YEARS not asking for anything, and accepting when I was told our wages would freeze. They offered 4% increase PLUS I can no longer be paid for overtime as our average overtime was included in my payrise. Are you kidding me here? So I am expected to work longer hours for approximately $14 a week after tax. Oh and that includes my "pay rise".

I went in and very quietly and politely exploded all over them. They are now reviewing it and I have to wait two weeks to find out what they are going to do about it. Dammit.

I was all fired up last night - to go in this morning and ask for them to stop insulting me, and if they said "no, that's what you are getting" I was handing in my resignation there and then.

But now I have to wait in limbo for two weeks. Shittiest two week wait ever. Why does my life revolve around two week increments? HONESTLY. Cut me a break here.

I was actually getting excited, Lou and I talked about it last night and we could survive with me not working. I would be working from home and doing the odd jobs I used to do when I was at uni. I was excited...thinking of my life as a SAHM full time.

The worst part is that I was just waiting to get my contract, because as soon as I got it I was going to drop down to two days a week, because my household and family are suffering with me working 3 days a week. But I can't even do that now as I have to stick at it while they review me. And if, by some miracle, they do give me a higher wage increase...then how do I turn around and drop my hours after fighting them to treat me like a loyal employee? Oh the dilemma.

So I'm in limbo land yet and the two week wait again, and we aren't even ttc at the moment!

roller skates and houses and pay rises...oh my!

Hello once again my pretties.

Once again I attempted Iron Commenter status and once again fell woefully short. Can you please all stop having such interesting blogs? I get caught up reading each and every one and never make it through the whole list. I am going to continue to wade through them all over the next few weeks though, who says ICLW can only last one week?

Those of you I did manage to visit, I hope you made your way over here too and I hope to see you again soon!

Well on the home front, Monster is living up to his nickname at the moment and being a mixture of completely adorable and completely infuriating. He is scary smart (too much like his brother...uh oh) and is constantly trying to figure out how things work. He responds to instructions really well and talks in full sentences. Now we just need to get him to speak in English (or Spanish) so that we can understand him ;)

Latest discoveries include how to turn the TV on and off, adjust the volume and change channel (why he loves channel 6? no idea. ps. there is no channel 6, it's just snow....).

He adores my roller skates and when he isnt trying to climb into them, he is pushing them across the floor making zoom zoom noises. It took him all of about 30 seconds to locate my new (on loan for now) skates and get into them and try to skate across the floor!

Speaking of skating...I managed to get out on Saturday for 3. whole. hours. ALONE *gasp* something I havent managed in almost a year and a half! It was fabulous, except I ended up with my lil buddy (a friend of Monster's from playgroup) attached to me for a lot of the time so I felt like I was still parenting! He is the same age as my Starbaby and also the cutest 2 year old around, so I love spending time with him.

It was good to be back on skates (albeit briefly, as we are in fact gearing up for IVF #2). I only took one somewhat heavy fall which has resulted in a rather pretty 2 toned bruise :)

Other than that my weekend was fairly non eventful - just a lot of moving furniture and emptying out the house we just sold. This now means of course that our double garage is FULL to the ceiling with furniture and boxes of STUFF to sort through and get rid of. Looks like a massive garage sale is in my future *le sigh* I hate garage sales. Love going to them, hate holding them.

No news on the baby front as yet, I am on BCP until 2nd July, then we wait for Lou's CD1 when we commence the fabulousness of shots and various pills and potions. Depending on when her cycle starts, she could well be in surgery on her birthday! Poor darling. Oh well, at least we will be in a fun city, perhaps we can make a small vacation of it, stay in a nicer hotel, order room service with our pretend non existent money ;)

In happy news (and it is very welcome as we are facing another $11k IVF payment soon) I believe I am finally, after 4 years on a wage freeze, getting a payrise! They have told me my pay is increasing but are torturing me by not telling me how much until we receive our official contracts. Please cross your fingers for a decent rise...if it's only a few dollars I will cry!

awkward silences

It's been over two years now since my son's heart stopped beating and my world was torn open. It has become such a part of my every day life that I barely recognise how horrific an occurence stillbirth is, and that not everyone has come to the acceptance of it that I have.

At playgroup the other day someone asked quite innocently of another mum who her OB was, we started discussing it. I mentioned that we went through a different hospital than them because we wanted a specific OB - the head of obstetrics at the major public hospital in our city. I rambled on abut how great he was, how he was the one who delivered the autopsy results to us and he gave us scans at every appt with Monster because of my anxiety.

**crickets**

The room was silent. AWKWARD. Then I realised what I had said. No one commented on it, as they all know my story by now (well, except for one new mum who I am sure was sitting there thinking "WTF is this woman talking about???") and it dawned on me that while I feel completely comfortable discussing his death, to them it is a scary unknown. I can imagine how I would have reacted had I been sitting in their position only 3 years ago.

I remember when I was pregnant with our Starbaby we watched a tv show that followed a bunch of couples through pregnancy and birth. One of these couples were pregnant after a stillbirth. We were horrified. Both that "that" really happens, and by the fact that she was pregnant so soon afterwards. "How would you live with that!?!" we asked "I cannot even begin to imagine that!" we said.

Only a few months later we were in the hospital delivery our little man, and a few months later we were back there, pregnant with Monster.

These things just keep happening, me rambling on and then looking up to see the horrified expressions on people faces...I refuse to censor myself, but I am frequently surprised when I catch myself mentioning it so casually. People must think I am so callous, but the fact is, I have made my peace with it. I don't believe it ever could have happened any other way, and this was always meant to happen.

But I had a dream the other morning that they discovered his trisomy earlier and we managed to get him out alive. That he lived for a few months. I dreamt of a party we threw him, how beautiful it was to have all our friends and family there to meet him, to see how amazing he was. I woke up smiling. I wish every day that we had managed to have just a few days with him. It's my only regret about the entire story...

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)