Thank you dear hearts, for your warm wishes and kind words. And a big thank you especially to those who suggested the Zofran, I feel a million times better. Of course, it could be because LN7 (lucky number 7) has died and not from the Zofran but lets hope it is the pill and not the dead baby thing.
My children's first school pics, taken by the very talented Renee Frouws. Aren't they just gorgeous. They get that from their mother.
So, about 4 weeks ago, on CD29 on my cycle, I got odd
twitching in my nether regions and knowing how absolutely (ir)regular my cycle
is, I immediately knew that this meant that I was either (a) about to get my
period, (b) about to ovulate, (c) pregnant or (d) had once again indulged in
too much dried fruit.
When nothing much happened the next day (except for
the dried fruit bit), I forgot about it.
Fast forward to about two weeks later and I start
getting more odd sensations, this time in the digestive system. Having learnt my lesson last time, I knew it
couldn’t be the dried fruit, so I chalked it up to a bug. The bug made me feel extremely tired, a
little pukey and a bit of an upset tummy. Eventually, after a rather delicious lunch of chardonnay and a gorgonzola,
winter rocket, roast butternut and pancetta salad, I suddenly found myself
feeling extraordinarily ‘unwell’.
That night I went to bed at 8pm and I lay there,
mentally counting on my fingers and toes and worked out that I was on
CD47. Nothing too alarming as my
previous cycle had been 50 days and I tend towards anything between a 35 day
cycle and a 110 day cycle.
And then I thought ‘what if’. What if I could be pregnant? The thought made me instantly more
nauseous. THAT’S IT! I said to myself, I
am going to pee on a stick tomorrow and then I am going to have that mirena fitted
IMMEDIATELY. I really don’t want more
children, I am perfectly happy with what I have, thankyouverymuch.
So, next morning, I climb over 2 little bodies and pee
on the stick. Look down – farking stick
is broken as the pee is not climbing up the window. Put stick down, wipe,
flush, wash hands and pick stick up. Two
BRIGHT lines. Oh my fucking fuck.
I tell Marko and his loving response is “you fucking
asshole”. I said “it is YOUR fault, you
are the one who wanted to have sex”, to which he replied with unnecessary
emphasis, “EVERYONE HAS SEX!!”
So, I went for a beta that day. 7781. Which means absolutely nothing (besides me being pregnant) as I have no
idea when I conceived. Next beta
11871. So, it is going up. I appear to be around 6 weeks. First scan last Thursday, one sac (praise the
lord) and 1x beating heart (115bpm). Both
sac and fetal pole measuring at 6w.
Well. I am
pregnant. I am in shock. I am also an
extremely fucking slow learner because it is the THIRD time I have been pregnant
in the last year and a half and do you think maybe I can actually get pregnant
by having sex?? DUH.
But because I thought I was further and because this
is my SEVENTH pregnancy with only ONE successful outcome, you’ll have forgiven
me if I was a little gun shy. So I waited for a second scan (today) before
sharing the news with anyone.
Scan today showed 1x appropriately growing thingy. The
embryo thingy that might maybe just could actually result in a baby.
The news has been met with varying reactions from “you
are SUCH as asshole” (my sister, yes folks, the lordy one actually used the
word ‘asshole’,) to “how did that happen” (I have no idea myself) to
“oh, well, um. Ok. Well, good luck” (the
most common reaction). Once bitten,
7 times shy, the lack of jubilation is understandable.
Unfortunately, there isn’t much celebrating on this
side either as I have been so, so, SO sick with all day nausea, headaches
etc. It is RELENTLESS. Honestly, I’ve been pregnant with quads and
with twins, and this is far worse than that. I have been feeling completely
depressed about it. Which is why I
haven’t been posting as well. I have been too sick to do anything. The doctor first prescribed one medication
which did nothing, and I am going to try another one today. I hope it helps because I am absolutely
useless. My poor kids keep asking me
what is wrong and why I am so sick.
So, that is my news. I feel very strange. Not at all
excited, and quite detached. It is
probably a defence mechanism, and it is also probably due to that fact that I
feel so sick. It is really just such a
shock. I know that sounds stupid, but I
had expected to get pregnant, maybe. I hadn’t ever considered the possibility
that being pregnant could end up in having another child.
It is still a loooong way to go, and my track record
isn’t exactly stellar, but for now, I appear to be knocked up, once again. Who would have guessed.
PS if any former or current infertiles hate me for
this, I understand. I hate myself for it too. It is pathetic and childish and
frankly, quite embarrassing.
I can’t believe I am
going to be 40 next month. I am not
feeling sad about it, more incredulous than anything else. FORTY! How on earth did that happen? What happened to the last 20 years? I am sure I was 20 years old just last week or the week before.
It feels weird to be
turning 40. It feels like a watershed
year, but in a good way. It is actually
quite liberating to let go of some of the angst of conformity of my twenties,
and even my thirties.
In fact, as I get
older, I find myself getting more and more comfortable with my inner oddness,
which is not necessarily a good thing. Last
weekend I went to the shop in my stripey PJ pants, a stripey sweater and
sneakers with stripes. I looked like an
escaped convict, and I didn’t care. Who
says you have to dress up or even coordinate your stripes? You are going to get milk and bread, not give
a presentation on world peace.
My mother was
horrified. She said she thinks it is time for her to intervene. The previous weekend I arrived at her house
in navy blue shorts, an old T shirt, olive green sandals and socks, looking
remarkably like a German tourist.
I know I should care
more about what people think, but I just don’t. What I wear or how I look shouldn’t matter, it is what is on the inside
that matters. What matters is that I am
the best mother I can be for my kids, that I run a successful business, that I am
in a good marriage, that I help others. That I am good and kind and caring. That I wash my bits and don’t smell. Wearing fancy clothes or make up is so meaningless, so unimportant in
the grander scheme of things.
I just don’t get the
whole ‘dressing up’ thing. I think I am
bordering on eccentric, really. Oh well,
can’t be perfect in EVERYTHING.
(My sister is
seriously concerned for my daughter, who seems to be following in her mother’s
footsteps)
My mom and I are
having a combined 40th and 60th party next month, how
cool is that. Can you believe my mom is
only 20 years older than I am. When my mom was my age, she had a twenty year
old child, the mind boggles. I can not
imagine having a child at 20. And again
at 22. And 26. And 32. My mom is Super Woman!
On that note, best I be off. Sorry I’ve been MIA this week, I have a lot going on right now. But I do love you and miss you terribly. Smooches xxxxxxxx
My mom and I
Hello darling hearts, I am so terribly sorry I've been MIA. Been feeling completely revolting, blah blah. All very tiresome.
While I am busy feeling sorry for myself, please could you put your Mommy Assvice hats on and help a dear reader:
I just spoke to my dad now, he is stressing that my brother bought a motorbike for himself. My dad is 59 years old and my brother a grown, married man. I guess you never stop worrying about your kids. (Luckily *I* never give my parents any grey hairs; me being the angelic, well behaved sibling!)
Speaking about parenting, I am VERY excited to announce that I am going to be blogging over at the brand, spanking new Parent24 portal. If you are a 
parent and you aren't yet blogging, get your worrying ass over to Parent24 blogs and start one up. It's easy, safe, cosy and hugely fun! Check out my Parent24 blog here.
The
Flanders and the Analtyns are spending a week together on holiday at the end of
the year. It should be fun.
The
Analtyns (us) are very anal (hence the name). The Flanders (my sister's family) not so much.
A while
back my sister was thinking about buying a holiday home, and for approximately
0,5 seconds she considered whether we (her family and mine) should invest in
one together. ‘It should be fun, you can go one weekend, we can go the next’. She soon came to her senses and realized it would
be an unmitigated DISASTER.
If Marko
and I had a holiday home, it will be spotless. The furniture would be in excellent condition, the place would be spick
and span when we left. Everything would
be in its place, replenished and ready for the next holiday.
If Mel
and Gary had to have a holiday home, it would be full of hard wearing
furniture, probably looking a bit worse for wear. It would be comfy, slightly chaotic, and
wonderfully inviting. If you aren’t an
Analtyn.
It would
never, ever work. It wouldn’t be worth
risking our relationship to have a joint holiday home. My husband would drive me INSANE. If you think I am uptight, you should see
him. Ok, so our house isn’t exactly like
a museum and our kids aren’t what you would describe as the quiet, bookish
types, but Marko is very meticulous about his stuff. He is the type of guy you WANT to buy a used
car from, he looks after his stuff really, really well.
I can
just imagine us getting there for our weekend and finding a mark on the couch,
or no firewood left, or some miniscule scrape or dent somewhere. Not that the Flanders are messy, it is just
that they aren’t on the same level of analness as us. There are very few people in the world who
are.
No
thanks, a week away together is probably just about as much as I can handle.
(Rereading
this, it sounds like I am saying the Flanders are messy, and that is not
true. It is just that my husband is SO
anal, that I know he would be moaning to me all the time about things not being
perfect and I would be stuck in the middle. NO THANKS!)
My family
has a love / hate relationship with computers. I love computers, they hate them. Or more specifically, they hate how much time I spend on the ‘puter’. Ok, so maybe I am a little addicted.
I know
technology can be dangerous, and I also know that too many children are
spending way too much time in front of the (TV/computer) screen, but as with
everything else in life, it is all about moderation. A word that is as familiar to me as my long
lost cousin’s aunt’s husband’s second wife’s neighbour.
When do
you think kids are old enough to start messing around on the ‘puter? My feeling is it is never too early to start
grooming the next Bill Gates.
You see what I mean!!! I leave you alone for a minute and you are at it again! Fighting among yourselves about politics, tsk
tsk. Would you like me to speak about
religion next??? Huh?? Actually, now
that I think about it, the religion thing came up a number of times in the
‘conversation’ about politics. Had no
idea religion / which church they belong to / what their preacher said was such
a big issue. I thought all the lordy
folk would just be happy that the prospective leaders were lordy at all, but
apparently you get lordy and then you get lordy.
Anyway, moving on.the world America. Me!!
You know how those meme things go around the blog
world, right? ‘10 things you didn’t know
about me’, Well, I could never complete
one of those things because there isn’t any thing you DON’T know about
me!!! You’ve seen my breasts, for
goodness sake! But then I thought there
is something you don’t know about me. Something so odd that I’ve been to embarrassed to tell you before. But it’s time. We need something drastic to distract you
from the woes of Mccain and Palin vs Obama and that other chap whose name is
hardly ever mentioned.
So here it is: I eat the same thing, every single day. The Same Meal, Every Single Day.
Every morning, I have low fat muesli with fat free
milk. Every day. For lunch, I have avo with sweet chilli sauce
on soya and linseed bread*, toasted. Every day. And for supper, I have
a salad with lettuce, roast veg, feta or gorgonzola cheese, smoked chicken,
peppadews, olives, corn etc. The
ingredients may vary a little, but I have a salad every single night for
supper. Except on Saturday nights, then
Marko and I have sushi for supper. But
otherwise it’s the salad. Every night.
I snack on all sorts of other shit during the day,
which is why I carry the extra roll around the middle despite the low fat muesli
and fat free milk etc. But the point is,
I eat the same thing at every meal.
Is that odd? It
is odd, isn’t it? I can’t help it! I don’t
want to eat anything else! Nothing else
tastes as nice as muesli, the avo-on-toast and the salad. If I don’t eat the salad, I get withdrawals.
So anyway, no point to this post, except for you to
feel better about yourself and your political woes, because no matter how bad
things might seem, there is always comfort in the fact that thank GOODNESS you
aren’t as odd as that Tertia woman!
Now excuse me while I go shop for some more salad
ingredients.
* There are times, if I am feeling in a particularly adventurous
mood, that I will swap the linseed bread for health bread.
PS if you are wondering whether this ‘same dish at
every meal’ extends to my sex life, the answer is a definite NO! But because my husband has forbidden me to
talk about our sex life on my blog, I’ll have to leave it there.
Apparently, as humans we are programmed to respond to
a baby’s cry. The sound of a baby crying
invokes a physical reaction within ourselves, to varying degrees between
individuals. It makes you feel
physically uncomfortable, it can make you (usually the mother of the crying
baby) feel anxious, hyper alert, distressed. There are very few people who find the sound of a crying baby melodic
and relaxing. This is all part of our
biological makeup as human babies are dependant on adults for their survival
and the only way a baby knows how to communicate is by crying. So nature has literally designed us in a way
that we are forced to take care of our young.
When my kids were little, I had that part of my primal
self turned on super high alert. Part
due to post natal depression, part due to post traumatic stress after IF and
the loss of Ben, and part due to the fact that I am an anxious person anyway,
my receptors were turned on Super High. It was not a nice time. Every
time my children cried, I had an extreme physical reaction, it actually felt
physically painful inside. It felt like some had rushed in and grabbed in my heart
in a vice and turned it hard. Very
tough.
But as time has gone by, that extreme reaction has
lessoned. I suppose as the kids become
more verbal, I feel confident that I don’t need to overreact. I know now that they can tell me if they are
cold, hot, sore, sick etc. Plus now they
are old enough to be full of shit, so some of that crying is FAKE! Sneaky little shits.
But it is amazing how that instinct, that deep inside
stuff remains. I see it at night. I will be asleep, snoring with mouth hanging
open beautifully a slumber thanks to my glass of Chardonnay and half a
sleeping pill, and my kids just go ‘ah’ in the night and my eyes snap open, my
breathing stops and my heart beats faster. I lie there, in a state of absolute readiness, waiting to hear if the
‘ah’ is followed up by a serious cry or not. If it was just a brief bad dream, or talking in their sleep, I go back
to sleep, but if it something more serious, I get up. Even in my sleep, I have that instinct turned
on.
Marko- not so much.
On Friday night, someone (MARKO!!!) forgot to put
Adam’s nappy on, so he woke up in the middle of the night crying because he was
sopping wet. I got up, stripped the linen, put on clean sheets, undressed him,
put on new PJ’s, a nappy, gave him a kiss and a hug and went back to sleep. I
got up later for a bad dream (Kate).
On Saturday night, Kate woke up crying because she had
a sore tummy. I got up, took her to the
loo to make a poo, gave her some medicine, lay with her for half an hour and
went back to sleep. I think I woke up
later for a bad dream as well. Last
night was a disaster as Adam woke up coughing, Kate had a bad dream and one
other incident that I can’t even remember.
Marko wakes up in the morning and says “how was the
night?” (Meaning, how did you sleep, how
were the kids?) This despite the fact
that the man sleeps 20 cm away from me (where oh where is my king size bed),
in a room only a few meters away from his children’s room. Clearly that instinct thing is not as
switched on for him as it is for me.
How was the night? Clearly not as good for me as it was for you, my darling.
Men – annoying little fuckers. Can’t live with them, can’t kill them either.
Let me start this off by saying that the political
situation in South Africa is hardly a shining beacon of political nirvana. We’ve just had our existing president yanked
from under our noses, ‘recalled’ and replaced by temporary one (who appears to be quite sensible, thank goodness) until April, at
which time he will be replaced by the leader of the ruling party, a man
of exemplary moral fibre. Husband
and lover to at least four ‘official’ wives and several girlfriends, father to at least
18 children, he has been implicated in several fraud cases, knowingly slept
with a HIV positive woman two years ago without protection, showering afterwards to
prevent infection. So, take this from
where it comes….
After months of resistance, on Friday night I
eventually succumbed to the hype of American politics and wasted a good hour
and a half trawling various blog posts and video clips about your presidential
hopefuls and their running mates.
American politics has always fascinated me. Actually, to this day, I still can’t
understand how there can be only two (major) parties who apparently represent
an either / or view on a variety of enormously diverse topics. I am fascinated how if you are a Republican,
or a Democrat, it means you are for or against a check list of issues as
diverse as abortion, debt relief, foreign policy, etc etc. How can one political party represent so much
of who you are? How is that even
possible? As I said, I don't quite get how it works there.
But I think therein lies part of my answer – here in
South Africa, if you vote ANC, you are not an ‘ANC’ian’. If you vote DA, you
are not a ‘Democratic Ally’. You vote for a political party; but that vote does
not become part of how you identify yourself. In America, you are a Democrat. Or you are a Republican. It is
how you identify yourself, and especially at a time like this. If being one or the other is part of how you
identify yourself, then I suppose I can understand some of the passion.
Because, boy oh boy, has there been passion. I watch in amazement at how passionately you
defend your political identity, and to be honest, I watch in horror at how
polarized some of you have become. Such
strong feelings, such vitriol. Very
black and white, if I am to be right, you must be wrong. Either / or.
I think if I was American, I would probably vote
Democrat because from the little I know, they seem to represent the majority of
my views. But I have to say that after reading various blog posts, I actually felt
sorry for that Palin woman. She is being
attacked so viciously. Look, I must say, she doesn’t look like
the sharpest tool in the shed, but wow – so much hatred and nastiness directed
towards the poor woman. I'd hate to be her right now. She is on a hiding to nothing.
You know how it looks to me? It looks to me as if the people who are
supporting Obama are doing so with an almost heroic worship. From reading blogs, twitter etc, I get the
sense that his supporters are practically swooning with excitement. I get the feeling as if I am in a stadium,
watching the fans swoon as their pop idol comes on stage. Not passing judgement on whether he deserves the swooning or not, just saying how it looks to me. And the poor Republicans. They seem desperate to defend their leaders,
old McCain and Palin. Looking for good,
desperate to defend their choice. Much less swooning seems to be going on there. But on
both sides defensive and aggressive. Attacking. Frenzied feeding,
always searching for weakness. Attack
and destroy. Fascinating stuff.
Anyway, there is no point to this post really. It just has been interesting to watch from
the distant outside. I hope which ever
way it works out, it works out best for you, for your country, and of course
for the rest of the world.
Isn't democracy a wonderful thing!
