HeLLo & WeLCoME tO ThE pARty!

Take me to my happy place please.

Today I have drifted from that amazing mother with as much energy as my three kids combined, to snapping in an instant like a rubber band cut free from the bounds of sanity! 

I have tinkered and crafted with ease and saintly patience, only to be transformed 30 minutes later into a 300 year old ice-cold poltergeist from the crypt because I have found a half eaten apple and a jam crust smashed into the already destroyed carpet (so who really gives a fuck anyway?); apparently my other personality does!

Being a parent to toddlers is like becoming bipolar and Mary Poppins simultaneously. 

To say I am not effected psychologically would be a total lie. Of course I'm taking anti-depressants. Who the fuck isn't? Postnatal depression? - yeah sure! Why not. Let's blame that; or just the pressures of being a mum, wife, manager, carer, accountant, and emotional-dumping-ground. 

I take the meds to make it easier for me to sift through the bullshit that doesn't need a reaction and the times when I am within my well deserved right to react like a mad woman, but instead just act mildly pissed off while stabbing voodoo dolls in my minds eye instead.

My mother has bipolar and schizophrenia which for me and my brother meant we lived life on the razors edge. I remember mum being super fantastic and then feral when we were kids - the difference was, our behaviour didn't necessarily determine her behaviour. 

I take my drugs with pride and determination to do a better job at raising my kids, being in a meaningful partnership, independent career woman and just generally "fucking awesome" at life! 

I won't take them forever, but who cares if I did? What does it matter? They make my life what I wish it to be at this time - amazing, challenging, fulfilling, exciting, funny, and most importantly...happy! Mostly. 

So if you are reading this and you still think that people who take "Happy Pills" are just cop-outs or taking the easy road - then move on out of my life and make way for the free-spirited people I am interested in meeting. The interesting ones, with life stories worth listening to. 

Hello! And welcome to the party!  

bABieS & cAFE's

They look so cute and innocent but they don't want you to relax at a café. 

Nope not going to happen.

1. You choose a nice quiet table away from other patrons.
2. You quickly place your order feeling more confident now that you are here. Just coffee to begin with. You don't want to get ahead of yourself.
3. You return to the table and the baby - he's eye balling you, but he's quiet and "Adorably cute!" according to every one who peers nosily into the stroller.
4. Your coffee arrives and all is well. You look into the stroller and baby is happily amusing himself with a toy dangling from the rim of the visor.
5. You go for broke and grab a menu. You skipped breakfast just getting the other two kids out the door with packed lunches for day-care on time, so you are starving.
6. As you order your 'All-Day-Breakfast' meal the baby shrieks out to you with glee. It's loud but happy. You look around, no one seems to have noticed much and an elderly couple next to you grin knowingly.
7. Baby wants out! NOw!
8. You take baby out of the pram restraints and place him on your knee and bounce while waving your keys nervously in front of you. The keys are thrown a dozen times.
9. Then a fork.
10. Then your mobile device which you are still paying off in monthly instalments. You carelessly decide to remove the mobile device before it gets broken. WRONG MOVE!
11. Wailing! Like a siren. It's loud. It could be louder though. You give back the mobile. You don't really love that mobile as much as your sanity anyway.
12. The meal hasn't arrived because it's only been 1 minute since you ordered it. You look to the kitchen desperately.
13. The elderly couple next to you leave, giving you a little grin and nod on their way past, while saying too cheerfully that "You'll miss them at this age soon enough", followed by "They grow up way too fast". Your only allies just left the building, even if they are irritatingly predictable.
14. Baby wants down! NOw!
15. Baby squirms and wriggles right off your lap with a snake-like manoeuvre while whining. You let him down with your mobile.
16. Baby crawls straight to the large adjacent table and gets stuck under the chairs and legs. Starts crying. You get up and rescue him and apologise to the women in business suits for interrupting their meeting.
17. With baby back wriggling on your lap you smell the stench of Satan in your nostrils. How? Why?
18. You locate the one toilet in the building and discover that the café owners must hate families because not only is there no change table here, but also no room to swing a cat. You will have to change baby in the stroller.
19. Your meal has arrived. Baby grabs out at the plate and nearly successfully pulls it over. You are impressed by your own reflexes.
20. The smell. Baby is squirming uncomfortably and getting more fussy. You need to change the nappy.
21. You take a breath and dump the baby back into the stroller and without looking around you stealthily change that putrid diaper faster than light speed. Triple tied off in a perfumed blue poop bag. Baby is impressed and goes back to happily playing with the dangle toy.
22. You remember you have sanitizer in your handbag and as you wash your hands you look around more confidently but there is a few people now looking your way in disgust. Fuck them.
23. You tuck into your "big breakfast" and as the first mouthful goes down you spy from the corner of your eye your mobile device come hurtling out of the stroller and crack on the concrete floor. Fuck it.
24. A few more mouthfuls and a sip of coffee and you notice junior is projectile vomiting all over himself. For fucks sake!
25. You throw a bib in the general direction of your child's face and start muttering expletives under your breath.
26. You clean up the baby and use the sanitizer again, less confident this time. You don't make eye contact with anyone.
27. You finish with one more bite-full just to feel like the money wasn't completely wasted which it was. And you flee the scene like a crazed women with anxiety issues - which you are, now!
 

AbUsiVe cO-SleEPeR

                     

My name is Cherry and I am living in an abusive relationship

                    ...with my 10 and a half month old daughter (lets call her 'tiny mistress')

On a daily basis I am...

- slapped and punched in the face

- often have my eyes poked

- my mouth is hooked

- my hair is pulled and ripped

- I have food spat in my face

- and I'm too traumatised to tell you about my nipples now that tiny mistress has 5 teeth!

- I have to cook, clean up after, scrub her back and wipe up faeces

- I'm expected to be a mind reader  

- and subjected to yelling and screaming if I don't do exactly what tiny mistress wants

- I'm being coersed into co-sleeping bahaviours that go beyond my belief system

- I'm tormented with sleep deprevation which is nearing it's 11th month!

- I am constently walking on egg shells, especially during 'Nap' times

- Tiny mistress controls where I go, who I see and how long I can do the grocery shopping for

- Tiny mistress must know where I am at all times and gets very pissed off when I am not there immediately upon her waking

- Tiny mistress is suspicious of 'daycare' and is secretly investigating my whereabouts 

- And tiny mistress often plays me off with her devoted Daddy to make it appear that I am the one to be in question

Right now, I nervously tap away at my keyboard, the sun isn't up yet and I have to be careful not to make any loud noises that might disturb the sleeping tiny mistress who is again curled up in my bed after another night of extreme violence; both physically and emotionally. 

I'm planning to leave her one day, when she's 18+ and ready to move out of my bed for good. 

               

GoINg bAcK to WOrk!

Who would have thought that trying to go back to work after having just one baby would be so mentally challenging.

The issue is that I am now 'one adult, one child'...and as inflexible as hell.

We are now 9 and a half months into parenthood and I have returned to work, about 3 and a half months ago actually...and the above statement still stands true. 

I am now casual doing approximately half of the hours I was doing before and still I struggle. 

It is very difficult to maintain a work/life balance when you have a baby to consider. 

The much needed break is what it's all about, the illusion of freedom once again, the adult activities and conversations even if it's just about the weather and how good this decaf coffee tastes while I'm sipping it without having to sway it in and out of the reach of tiny octopus tentacles which have whip like acuracy. It is a guilty pleasure to return to work. 

You know what I love the most...getting to go grocery shopping on my own. Without a shrill, shrieking child at the wheel of your cart you can shop with confidence and at your own free pace. Take all day if you like. No rushed panic stricken frenzied shopping that belongs only on reality TV shows where the winner is racing against the clock. This might be fine if you already have a pantry half full of the things you need...but not fine when you are shopping for essentials and every missed item is a blow to your 'New Super Mum' persona. Every missed item is a personal slap in the face and screams for you to stay focused and do better next time.

TBH I can see why some women just throw their careers in at this stage, get their child rearing out of the way and then hope their career can be salvaged later on. It's a bit sad when you're still paying off a hefty student loan though. 

sOmEThiNg oTHer tHAn BAbiEs

Guilty! - like I just used the last slice of bread to make a fascinator for the cat!  

I always vowed that I would not be like 'others' who had just had a baby and suddenly either disappeared off the face of the earth, or persistently talked only about their baby to the point where I wished they would. 

I now of course have had to eat my words, along with "My baby will not be needing a pacifier/bottle/formula" and "I will be able to let my baby cry it out" and "I won't be co-sleeping with my baby just because she won't go to sleep in her crib".

I have become like every new mother out there, obsessed and devoted; my Facebook page a shrine to my 'delicious' baby. 

I blame the sleeplessness.

... Party until 6 am, then get up at 7am, work for 18 hours with a tiny human being attached to your breast and then repeat over the next 144 hrs and you'll be getting close to the lack of sleep you are going to experience in the first week of a new baby. I'm guessing that over the next 2-36 months you will learn to let go of sleep all together. I have. 

So just short of becoming a crazed insomniac, you'll also find yourself being a paranoid git, worrying that your baby may be unwell, unhappy, under-developed, distressed, too hot, too cold or starving, and your natural instincts over-ride any rational conversation regarding anything but your baby. Parenthood creates 'baby blinkers' to make sure that you are never invited to a social gathering ever again.

So I'm going to have a day of 'baby silence' in remembrance to the life I used to have. Lest I forget.

And it turns out that you can't put them back in and/or take them back to the fertility clinic; not that I've given any thought to that or anything *Wink!

bE CaRefUL WHaT yOU WisH fOr

Written some months ago...

So we still want to be parents. And we are still waiting to become parents. 
I can say that we have been successful with our second IVF round, just how successful is yet to be determined. 
I have not felt up to blogging while going through the process of IVF as it is draining and a pain in the butt to say the least. Only other people who have gone through IVF will understand and sorry to those who try to understand but will never be able to; it's just the way it is. 
For those who say that IVF is 'a journey' I say...what kind of holidays are you taking these days?! One that involves a multitude of drugs, which are not only taken orally and subcutaneously, but also vaginally (as if there's not enough going on with your vagina with IVF without having to feed it hormones as well). Then there's the procedures which involve probes, K-Y jelly and 15 inch needles - who would sign up for that? 
It's no holiday, that much is certain. To do it all twice is just insane. But we desperately want to have a baby so we keep doing what the Fertility Doctors tell us to do. 
After so much waiting, grieving, frustration and discomfort I can report that my sense of humour has suffered as a result. My sarcasm is my life-line. 
I felt I should try to blog again, despite the laziness that I so obviously feel. I could be best described as being on Auto-Pilot and apparently nobody put in a default blogging setting. 
Mum has spent the last 3 months in a modern day asylum, better described as a Rehab for the mentally ill and where ECT is the programme of choice. Mum's doing really well now and is looking forward to getting back to the Gold Coast. I wish there was more I could do for her, so that she could be there for me. I miss being on the Gold Coast myself but I still can't say I miss being so close to manic Donna. I do miss her however, bizarre as it often seems.
There is so much happening on the 'funny farm' that I can't be arsed going into it all. I'll try to blog more often in the near future and back track some of the more hilariously depressing situations that my husband and I have endured in the past year or so. Get you all up to date so to speak. 
Until then, keep your fingers crossed for us - we only need to make it to the end of March, get through the ordeal of labour and birth, and then try to survive the next 60 years forking out for educations and technology devices. Sounds easy enough... What's the catch?! 
     

iVF bABy bLUeS; pARt 2

1 cycle.

1 blastocyst.

1 chance.

1 positive blood test.

1 baby on the way!

So much has happened, it would be unfair to try to squeeze it all into one blog. Instead let's just cut straight to the good stuff...We're going to have a baby! Finally.

Everyday I send happy vibes to our little embryo who is obviously a quiet achiever because I certainly don't feel pregnant...yet.

All we wish for is a highly successful and handsome child who can afford to jet set his adoring parents around the world in their retirement; and also that he/she is healthy with 8 fingers, 2 thumbs and 10 toes. No pressure.

I am happy. Justin is happy; although he did make the comment under his breath.."You've got what you wanted, now be quiet". So I am happy and being quiet.

More waiting now (it never really ends), to see if we can get through the 1st trimester, then the 2nd and then finally the grand finale...the arrival. Wish us luck.

  ~ Update: Unfortunately on the 12/12/12 we found out that our beautiful little embryo, who had yet to experience a heart beating, was no longer viable. This has been soul destroying for me and devastatingly frustrating for Justin who has to pick up my shattered pieces yet again. 
   ~ IVF cycle 2 should begin in May 2013. More waiting. 
    

iVf baBY BLueS

Justin and I arrived in New Zealand on the 31st March 2010. We enrolled with a GP and began to investigate our fertility in greater depth; following on from our Aussie GP's investigations. I have had to document my cycle and temperature every day, I often make up the temperatures as I can't always be bothered. 

A routine laparoscopy uncovered some obvious damage to my fallopian tubes and a follow-up hysterosalpingiogram confirmed that due to severe scaring both my fallopian tubes were rendered completely useless. Follicles (eggs) unable to unite with sperm; end of story. 

We finally made it on to the IVF waiting list in 2011 and began waiting. 

Our first official IVF appointment was scheduled for the first day of my period in August 2012, and this month has been seared into the back of my head ever since it was organised earlier this year. 

I came back from 4 months in Aussie working two midwifery contracts and started getting excited about our first appointment. I have a volume of paperwork detailing my cycles and daily temperatures. 

I hadn't received a reminder phone call and so I decided to give the clinic in Palmerston North a call to see if there was anything else we needed to bring with us. I was told that there 'was no appointment for the next day' and that 'although the Dr would be in the clinic he wasn't actually seeing any clients', so there must have been some confusion. It turns out that the clinic had tried to call me on my NZ mobile while I was in Australia and my phone was not in use. They were aware I was in Australia and they had our home number but if they did ring this they didn't leave a message and couldn't leave a message due to privacy anyway. Justin would have been out on the farm all day everyday. Because they decided they couldn't get in contact with me they pushed our appointment date back to December. 

Apart from feeling like crying, I also felt bad for Justin because he had painstakingly organised to have the day off work and have a relaxing day in Palmy. 

The receptionist advised that I should ring the Fertility Associates in Wellington and see what they could do for us. 

I explained my dilemma to the big wigs in the capital city of New Zealand and they were sympathetic and offered us an appointment for the same day as the original appointment but we would have to go to Wellington instead of Palmerston. We agreed. Petrol money was the least of our concerns. 

So after having our bloods taken we drove to Wellington the next day and had lunch with Justin's brother before making our way to the Fertility Associates building.

Justin had to give his first official on-the-spot sample. This was a really flash building (let's face it, there's a lot of money exchanging hands in the pursuit of happy families) and so this was a bit daunting and a lot scary for Justin. 

My first mistake was that I presumed we would be waiting for at least 10 or 15 mins, and that they really only needed Justin for this sample anyway; so I opportunistically went to the toilet. When I came back, Justin was wringing his hands together and said "Come on, they're waiting for us! Why did you have to go to the toilet?!"...I was like, "Well what do they need me for anyway?"

So we went in through the doors and a slightly embarrassed looking technician went through the rules of the game and gave Justin a sample pot and then ushered us both into a private room and told us as a parting gesture to make sure we locked the door behind us. 

I was instantly confused. Is this how it is now days. This doesn't seem right at all. Justin and I just looked at each other and I started chuckling nervously. Justin however looked as though his whole world was about to end, and I read his expression as "Well why the fuck are you in here?"...I just shrugged with amusement. 

The room was a cosy 3 by 2 with a sophisticated couch, bedside table and a closed in toilet off to the left. 

Justin surveyed the room with down cast eyes and a look that suggested Armageddon was coming. I was still grinning and wondering what part I was going to have to play, if any. 

The bedside table housed 4 very used adult magazines. Two were soft porn with fake girls and their fake bits, the other two were for homosexual men. Justin turned pale. I was really beginning to feel sorry for him now. So I tried to make him feel better; I said "Come on, you're good at this. This is your forte. You'll be right. Stop being a sook!" He grabbed the soft porn and went into the toilet and shut the door. 

I was just sitting there, feeling awkward, listening to the pages of the magazine being frustratingly flicked through (clearly not having a great effect). 

I took the time to research the world of homosexual men and was interested to discover that their magazines were actually not soft porn. I was impressed. 

After 15 long, painful minutes, Justin emerged and spat at me "I can't do this!" 

I looked at him. 

Panic washed over me. We have already been in here for at least 20 minutes already (what's the norm here? Will we be weird if this isn't done and dusted within an acceptable time frame? Am I actually going to have to help out? And what does that mean exactly?). So much to think about. This was so unfair. When I have to have internal ultrasounds and pap smears Justin doesn't even have to hold my hand - why the fack was this happening to me? So I did what any decent wife would do in this situation...

I said "Oh stop being so ridiculous and get on with it! You are going to make us look like idiots. What's the problem? You are able to wank every other day of the week and then some, and now you get cold feet". 

He just looked at me with a look that said he was about to flee the scene. I am a nurse. I recognised the flight or fight response, Justin was like a deer caught in the headlights. I could tell he was losing the will to live. 

So I tried to take control. Or at least I pretended to do so. I thought, how hard can this be for a married couple who have been intimately involved for over 12 years. We aren't exactly into public sexing but this was legal, expected even. 

So I said "Sit down you big baby you and I'll help you out then if I have to"...I'm sure there's a fertility book out there that would explain to wives how to have more tact in these moments but clearly I haven't read that book, so Justin was just going to have to suffer through this a bit more. 

I shook out the draw-sheet which was purposefully left folded at the end of the couch and told Justin to sit down. He was looking green now. This was so freaking ridiculous. I was going to have to do everything if we were going to ever get pregnant. I could hardly contain my frustration. 

I kneeled down, placed my hands on Justin's knees, looked up into his woeful, pitiful face and then I burst out laughing. I'm sure that people waiting down the corridor would have heard me. I couldn't help it I swear. Maybe it was nerves. Maybe it was just such a stupid situation to find ourselves in. Why was I even there?!

I apologised to Justin as best as I could while still laughing uncontrollably. Surely he would see the funny side and have a laugh too and then we would make sweet, sweet love and produce a fine and magnificent sample of the highest grade. But Justin didn't see the funny side and he said "Why are you even here?!"

This just made it even funnier to me and I was a lost cause now. I had to leave. Justin was happy to close and lock the door behind me as I walked shamefully back to the waiting room alone and laughing like an idiot. I had to just hope that the fertility associate staff had seen it all before and nothing surprised them. Maybe they bet money on this kind of thing happening it was so common; who knows, they never let on if they do (very professional). 

I was feeling rather guilty and stifled back my smirking when Justin finally emerged back into the waiting room. I was in trouble, that was certain. 

We went for a stroll and looked at rugs while we waited for our Dr's appointment and to get all our results back. 

Justin got a gold star for his big effort. Clap, Clap. 

The Dr even told him to "put the results on the fridge if he liked they were so good", I just sneered. Another feather in Justin's cap. 

My results were not so good, I didn't get any gold stars and I wasn't expected to put my useless hormone results on the fridge. In fact my reproductive organs got an 'F' for fail. As punishment I had to strip off right there and then and have an impromptu internal ultrasound with the dreaded 'probe' device which is so not my favourite piece of medical equipment anymore (if it ever was). I mean, Justin got his own room, all the time in the world and a Gold Fucking Star! So unfair. 

And here's where it got even more bizarre. The Dr handed me the probe and said "Go ahead and put this in yourself". I'm thinking...what now I've got to do your job for you as well. Men! Lazy sons of bitches. 

Well this was all very annoying indeed. For anyone who hasn't had to do this before (and I'm expecting I'm setting a new precedent - so beware ladies), believe me when I say there is no way you can look graceful when you attempt this. I couldn't hold it there with any amount of steel strength kegle pumping pelvic floor muscles and so I was forced to contort into a pretzel until that bastard of a man that called himself a new age Dr returned from behind the thin curtain. He looked at me like he was now suddenly realising that I was mentally handicapped and would begin giving me slow instructions to make it easier from now on. 

The Dr has a rummage and a look around at my uterus and ovaries and invites Justin in for a look also. It's just one big freak sideshow of useless reproductive organs and underneath the shame of it all is me, wishing i was back making fun of Justin struggling to have a private wank with me in the room. Nothing seems funny now. 

I am quizzed about my weight, and my cycles. All below average grade scores of course. I used to be a straight A student, this is so humiliating. My ego gets battered and bruised some more and then we part ways with the big wig fertility Dr; and then we make our way to another pathology unit so I can have more blood taken (this time costing $92 for the privilege). 

We drive the 3 and a half hours home, just talking about trivial shit that we find both debatable and chat worthy. 

We have survived our first IVF appointment and later we would find out that our 'first cycle' has now begun. 

   

SuRpRiSe! NiGhT sHiFt

It's 10 past four in the morning and my eyes feel a little bug eyed. Not feeling too bad considering the day I had yesterday madly entertaining and having my ears talked completely off. The worrisome thing will be the hour long drive home at 7am while I have the radio blasting and the frosty air streaming through an open window to wake myself up.
I must also remember to get petrol before I head back out to wherever the hell it is I live. I still haven't exactly decided on the title of the area in which we live - it's kind of between many places. Perhaps it might be best if I pick up a 'V' at the servo while I'm fueling up.
The shift has been pleasant enough with mild interruptions to the chit chat natter I have been sharing with a fellow RN. No sleep was achieved this shift, and with the buzzers going off every hour or so I'd say I wouldn't have gotten any anyway. Them's the breaks.
A baby is stirring now and my ears are super tuned in to whether it is a hungry cry, a dirty/wet nappy cry or just a pick me up cry...And now it's all quiet on the home front again...for now.
Well I must away and do some more notes and make another espresso coffee deluxe with a sledgehammer twist. I won't have any trouble falling asleep when I get home that's for sure. I have been awake for just over 22hrs and I still have another 4 and a half to go. I know I can make it. Yes I can! Yes I can! ZZZZzzzzzz