All quiet on the Western (Australia) front

All will be a bit quiet now here in toaster land. We are heading west on Sunday for two blissful weeks without kid swaping and with lots of swimming and resting. Thomas' big requests is that we eat our breakfast together at the table with the milk in a jug (he stayed with his Granny last week) and we have promised that that will be no problem.

I have never been to WA (none of us have) but I admit that I am ignoring all indicators that it is a place with things like internet and mobile coverage and telling all and sundry that we will be OUT OF RANGE for days at a time. It is going to be JUST US, and no interruptions.

We have mapped out our trip and start at Cervantes, followed by Geraldton (which I am sorry I just can't be bothered linking too) and then will whip up to Ningaloo reef (ditto) and then make our way slowly back to Perth for our last two nights in a swanky (two bedroom) apartment.

Last night we downloaded the full details of the donor and he sounds and looks nice. (Isn't that handy) and I dreamt of young Olive (as in no bigger than an olive but making a big impact already) last night. By the time we get back it will be week 14 (YAY! YAY! YAY!)

It will also be time to tell my mother (not so YAY).

But right now it is time to go on holidays

JUST THREE MORE SLEEPS

It is in capitals for a reason! Just three more sleeps until we go on our holiday ... three more sleeps until we jump on that plane for WA.

Two more sleeps until my boy comes home from his Dad's and then I don't have to share for 27 sleeps (while his Dad jets about overseas having a honeymoon!).

Hoo-bloody-ray!

Just two more sleeps, just three more sleeps

We came third ...

The excellent thing about my new job (and it is in fact the best thing about my new job) is that I am close to Thomas’ school. Which meant that today (School Carnival Day) I was able to take an early lunch and pop down to the carnival and enter into the parent and child race. Thank the goddess – we came third. I say that not because I am really all that competitive but my child is and I did want to do a decent showing for his sake. I admit I did make sure I wasn’t in the race with Gary (Dad) and Lily (child) who are completely lovely people but I knew would beat me by a mile. I figure I am good a strategy! I also got to watch Thomas and a mate win in the pairs race (they hold hands – so cute). He already had a couple of third place ribbons when I got there.

But the best bit? Seeing Thomas walk up to a little girl who hadn’t got any ‘place’ ribbons (she did have four ‘I ran in the race’ versions) and, without prompting handover one of his third place ones with a "here you go Belle – have one of mine." Her tears stopped and I told him I was more proud of that than anything.

14 weeks of crossed fingers update: 11 weeks today and off the blood thinner after a trip to the ante-natal clinic who said it wasn’t necessary.

All sorts of magic

10 weeks on Wednesday.

Isn't that amazing. Time moves so strangely during these waiting times. 5 weeks feels a long time ago - but at the same time that magical 14 weeks is drawing so close.

Last night Thomas and I went to Quadworts - which is held here at my workplace once a year. An old sandstone University with a quadrangle it is the perfect location for an outdoor movie viewing of the latest Harry P*tter. In fact it looked very very very like Hogw*rts at 6:30pm with the lights all off and Thomas is convinced that I do in fact work at Hogw*rts - my value has just increased incredibly in my 7 year old's eyes! It was a lovely evening with about 8 other families from school. Kids dressed up as Harry and co. University students teaching them spells and how to train Hipp*griffs. It was magic and maddness and exactly why I like living in this part of Sydney.

It is just a wee bit stressful

Gaye is now 7 1/2 weeks along. Which means the little one is around 1 cm now. Last week we went to the blerky IVF clinic and had a scan which showed a then 6.6mm blob with its little heart beating.

There is only one

It's little heart was beating

It is due on 18 April

We are booked in to the birth centre for a tour in just two weeks.

Gaye is experiencing (and it has to be said celebrating) nausea and tiredness at a great rate and her body already looks different to me. It is completely beyond me how someone could possibly be pregnant and not know they are pregnant or at least notice the changes in their body.

Last night Gaye was worried she was spotting - all is well this morning- so I went out and bought two huge tombs today on pregnancy (mine are all in storage somewhere and at this rate of house buying we may never get them out) to compliment the funny and enjoyable 'up the duff' whenever she gets worried. And we do worry. It is just a little bit stressful (despite the assurance from Dr Blerk at the IVF clinic that the 6 1/2 week scan was the right size and the heartbeat was strong and this means a 95% chance (where does she get that stat I wonder?) that all will be okay from now on.

It is just another period of waiting really (a bit happier waiting but waiting none-the-less) and we all know that waiting really is stressful

Wombats, parachutes Aliens and beer

There are four words you don’t usually find in one sentence.

We spent this last weekend at my folk’s house. My folks live in Canberra, which with a 7 year old is about a 31/2-hour drive. There was much excitement on the way down in the car – which there always is on the way to Canberra because we are going to see Thomas’s cousins Ann and Denis who Thomas loves beyond compare.

This time on the trip down we saw a plane filled with jumpers doing their thing out of a plane. It looked completely amazing as about a dozen parachutes flew in the air at sunset. Thomas madly trying to capture them on his new mobile phone (it is my old one and it isn’t connected to a service!).

Once we got there my very excited parents who had found that morning a wombat in their yard greeted us. This is not a common occurrence in Australia regardless of what Steve Irwin would have you believe, and in fact none of the adults could ever recall seeing a live wombat outside an animal farm or zoo before (dead ones beside the road are common).

When Mum rang and said they had found a wombat I thought it would be small but it was huge probably half a metre long and about 40 cms wide. Thomas was put on Wombat duty and kept going outside to check on him (we were all convinced the wombat had come to die as it was very old and mangy looking) every 15 minutes. He wandered off during the night (yes Mum and Dad had rung the wildlife people they said to leave him be) sometime – no doubt in the direction of the nearby reserve, which would be quieter, and without a very excited 7-year-old boy checking on him every 15 mins.

On Saturday night Gaye and I were about to head out to dinner while Thomas was put to bed by his grandparents when a neighbour rang to say “there seems to be an alien ship above the city” which needless to say brought us all out to the front garden to have a look. After looking around aimlessly at stars for sometime we gave up – only to have Thomas point out a large object with flashing lights on the horizon. The flashing lights were on the top and bottom, blue and red in colour and binoculars did not help establish what the thing could be. We sat out there looking at it for sometime – with Gaye singing songs from War of the Worlds.

It turned out to be a blimp (or limp as Thomas told his Dad last night).

We spent Sunday morning with my Dad cooking him a Father’s Day breakfast and giving him gifts (a tea towel with all of the kids from Thomas’ school on it and a Dixie Chicks CD) before driving home to Sydney and preparing cheesecake for Thomas’ Dad and his partner to come around after work and have desert for Father’s Day. Thomas present to his Dad this year was a fabulous card that said ‘ My Dad is as tall as an elephant, faster than the speed of light, as wonderful as a fairy, faster than Ms B (his teacher), cooler than a rock star by Thomas” and some beer which we had specially labelled with "Thomas’ Dad is the soccer coach" and a picture of Thomas at soccer.

“News” on Wednesday is going to consistent of Thomas showing photos from the weekend on a powerpoint display (News is way different in 2005 than in was in 1975!) but he has asked me if I can stay cause he just doesn’t think anyone will believe his weekend!

12 things from this moment that I don't want to forget about Thomas

1. After a slow start he is really getting the hang of reading and enjoying it we are off at his request to by a ‘long’ book for him to read this afternoon.
2. He still loves to play for extended periods in the bath, with a high pitched voice playing out his characters which are largely made up of about 20 rubber turtles and dinosaurs of different sizes.
3. He still occasionally uses the term ‘elso’ his own combination word of also and else.
4. He thinks that we all live to 100 and often tells me how many years to go.
5. on the same vein that means that Gaye will die first, me second and him third
6. He told me this morning that girls only have until they are 45 until they can’t have babies so I have 8 more years.
7. We still count (and celebrate) the number of nights in a row without wetting the bed.
8. He is loving art classes after school and the ones he is having in class with last year’s teacher Miss Emma. This morning she told me she loves his art because it is expressive and vibrant..
9. He has lost or misplaced about 8 hats in the last two years at school
10. He continues to be obsessed about playing soccer but is really looking forward to his circus classes.
11. Although he can talk all day and night he is pretty cagey most of the time on the phone.
12. In a couple of months we are taking a holiday for two weeks to Western Australia. None of us have been before and we have hired a campervan to travel from Perth up the coast. He likes the idea of the dolphins and the camping but mostly he loves that he will be sitting in the front seat between us.

It is completely amazing

that after 12 attempts at this Gaye finds herself finally pregnant. I feel overwhelmed and stunned and well amazed. Mostly I just feel glad that she has got this far and kept on keeping on and that it seems it is infact possible that Thomas and I are going to be lucky enough to share this with her.

TTC update

She rang the clinic and they have sent her up the road to get a blood test so we will know tommorrow

Challenge pass the parcel

Thomas is down the snow this week... he is learning to ski. This is his second ski trip to the snow (he and I did a snow ball type trip a couple of years ago) last year he didn't really want to go into ski school (so he wasn't made to) and he wasn't that keen this year either. But we talked it up heaps and in a stroke of brillance on my part (!) changed our language about it and called it ski training (like soccer training) and yesterday on arrival he was so keen to go skiing that he got booked into an extra class. Which he moved up a grade from at the end of (he is a sporty type of kid, it doesn't get that from me!)

He sounded so happy on the phone telling me all about how to go up hills and how to stop and something about a very fast V. It was lovely. I miss him desperately when he is away, but I am trying to get past the sense of enduring it and instead enjoy it for what it is worth. It is much easier when he sounds happy and content.

It is a long drive to the snow (about 6 hours) which they broke up by stopping at a grandparents house on the way down there. So I invented a game for him. It is called challenge pass the parcel. Basically, I bought him a story CD (fabulous travel thing) and wrapped it in layers of paper and in-between each layer was a challenge. I did a word find with all sorts of snow words in one layer, unscramble words in another, snow sums in another. Apparently he loved it. I can tell I will be making a bulk kit before we go on our campervan holiday in October.

There is another one waiting for his trip home on Sunday....

Two and half week wait???

Today is the day Gaye was meant to have her blood test. ‘Cept yesterday morning she decided she had her period. She had like one spot of blood and decided it had come (if often starts like that and then comes in full force the next day). She had bought a pregnancy test the day before (even thou the clinic had said that you could get false + ) and decided that if the test was negative she wouldn’t bother going to the clinic.

So this morning she did the test – it was negative for during the required timeframe but then when we walked back out from the bedroom half an hour later that pesky second line was actually there.

But by that time it was too late to go to the clinic before work and we are going away for the weekend and her period still isn’t here. Between IVF and IUI this is Gaye’s 12th go at this whole conceiving thing and I understand her process.

But … now she has managed to extend our two-week wait by three days!

And then there were 4

Two were transferred into Gaye today at lunch time.

One is in the freezer and one might just make it to get frozen tommorrow.

And there it is ....

keep growing now

This morning the news is good.

Gaye's bleed seems to be settling down all by itself and although she is a bit sore she is in good spirits and slept well through the night.

All 11 little embryos are growing, with 6 looking really good. We are taking them to blastocyst so have to wait until Monday to know for sure.

We go to the doctor again today around 12 who will advise us on if we should go ahead with this cycle or freeze those that get to blastocyst.

16, 14, a trip to the hospital and 11

By late yesterday we had heard that 14 had been deemed okay for insemination.

I went and told Gaye as she lay in the bath with pretty rough post-op cramps and pain in her belly. We spent the afternoon watching Brokeback Mountain and the day went on, the pain got worse and at 7:00pm I rang the clinic to get some advice. They said she should keep doing what we were doing (heat packs, Panadol, fluids) but if the pain got unbearable we should go to the hospital.

I made her eat one of Thomas' glucosey iceblocks, and she tried to watch another dvd. The pain continued to get worse and worse and 10pm found us driving down the highway to the not-so near hospital (because we had done the procedure next door and that is what the clinic told us to do) with Gaye crying and moaning in pain.

We negotiated the thing that is the NSW Health System and we spent most of the night in an emergency with her on morphine and them trying to work out if she would need surgery to repair a tear that had obviously occurred during the retrieval. It was awful to see her in such pain.

This morning it all seems to be improving - we found out that 11 little eggs have taken to being inseminated. Yay! And it seems like Gaye’s tear will repair itself. She is still in reasonable amount of pain but at home now.

We will find out tomorrow if we should continue with the cycle or freeze the little ones, but hopefully her system should be OK and the wee ones (we call them the kids in boarding school) will hopefully grow into lovely blastocysts to implant on Monday or freeze for next month.

Eggs collection

16 eggs! Two more than predicted on the scan. Gaye is dozing in the next room on the lounge post general. Wish those little eggs well on the next part of their journey.

Wednesday, D-Day, The Day (well the one before all the other Days to come!)

That is tomorrow, that is the day, the day those eggs (there is 8 on one side and 6 on the other) come out to meet their donor sperm from some nice software engineer from another place in the world. We go in to the hospital at 7:30 in the morning, we will be home in the afternoon and by tomorrow night we will know if these little eggs will live to be inseminated successfully. (Gaye’s eggs haven’t got that that far before).

It has all come on much earlier than expected and Gaye has had to ‘fess up at work to get the day off as she was meant to be flying interstate with her boss for a meeting tonight and staying all day tomorrow. So now most people in our lives know (which is completely against plan A of keeping it to ourselves but there you go).

I don’t know how to be (scared, excited, hopeful, worried) so I am trying to be calm and supportive and sensible!

is that a big tooth or a little one

Our lovely boy is just one of those kids. One of those kids who have accidents. He is INTO things and brave with his body so accidents seem to 'just happen' He had a fall when he was very small and at childcare and ended up having two general's to deal with the sewing of the wound up and has a scar on the bridge of his nose still. I am a bit of stickler for wearing helmets and the like when on bikes and scooters. I like shoes on feet when you playing with these items also! But really it doesn't matter that much how careful you are - there is always the teeth to get damaged!

Last year there was a horrible incident at school where a soccer was being played and Thomas had his school hat on which has a string that goes under your chin (it is an Australian thing the hat with the string I think) and was sucking it and another child pulled on the string while they were in the game and one of Thomas' teeth was pulled out. It wasn't loose (ouch!) but it was a baby one. Yesterday I got a call from my Mum to say he had been on the three wheeled scooter that I left at their place and he had fallen off. This time he has chipped a front tooth and it is a big one! A grown up one - one that will be there for the rest of his life (with any luck!).

Gawd! He is only 7 and he already has a chipped tooth.

in sickness and in health

Thomas has headed off on a two-sleep stay away with his Dad at his Grandfather’s. He does this once or twice a year. His Dad’s family lives in the same city as mine and while he is down there, plays with his cousins (my niece and nephew) who he loves loves loves are always in the plan.

He was excited this morning to be heading off. And although I always feel weird that he is 3 hours drive away from me – it is easy to get carried along with his excitement. Thou I miss him terribly when he is away – I know he has fun and that it is great that he has lots of people in his life who love him and who are part of his life and who he is.

He loves the ritual off it as he does with all of his Grandparents – he has spent lots of time with them all as he has grown up and has clear expectations of events ‘xx will have chocolate icecream in the fridge’ ‘we will collect shells with yy’ ‘zz and I will go out on the boat and fish’ ‘we will walk the dog” etc etc. These are things he can count on.

I realised this week how much we have talked about and framed his life in ritual – including telling him how many ‘sleeps’ he will be somewhere or one of us will.

Gaye has been a regular traveller in his life going away for work or last year on a holiday with her mum and nephew.

He was really upset when we took her to the airport on Sunday to fly down to see her Dad. Some of this was due to the fact that he had been expecting to go away too, some of it was because she was obviously worried about her Dad – he is old and aware enough to know that sickness can be scary or sad or worrying – but mostly it seemed to me he was upset because we couldn’t tell him exactly how many sleeps she would be away for.

When we woke on Sunday morning the phone rang and I asked him to bring it straight to us – I explained that Gaye’s dad was sick with a heart problem ‘a bit like Grandpa had’, he lay his head down on my chest and said ‘oh no, will he be alright? Will he die?’ I said that it seemed like it would be okay and that he might have to have an operation like Grandpa. And we went over what had happened with Grandpa and how his ‘heart was broken but the drs fixed it’ and that “Grandpa is as young as a teenager now, but he gets a bit tired’

I told him that when someone’s dad was sick it was nice to tell the person that you were sorry that they were sick.

A bit later when I was having a shower he lay on the bed with Gaye and told her he was ‘very sorry her dad was sick and not to worry because they would give him the heart operation and then he could have a another one if that didn’t work and then he could have the cancer operation’

He was cheery enough when Gaye got out of the car, but got very teary after she left (fortunately she saw us sitting in the car and talking and came back and had another cuddle with him and they both had a little cry together which offcourse meant I got teary too) and later he talked to me about how he didn’t like her being away.

I reminded him that he was going away this week to Canberra and so would be away for two sleeps himself and that Gaye would be back by the weekend or we would go down to see her – but he assured me this was completely different!

Later we picked up her 16 year old nephew (Lee) from the plane and brought him home for dinner before putting him on another plane and I was really touched with how he tried to comfort Lee – telling him that his grandfather had had the operation and was now really good but a bit tired and putting on a funny dvd to make him happy.

Over the weekend we have had lots of conversations about Gaye’s Dad – he has drawn him a picture of a golf course with him getting a good shot on it – and when he will get better and the like. I have been able to tell him exactly when she will get home and assure him we will visit her Dad soon. It has been more than interesting and pretty heart-warming to see him process it all.

timing

It is so weird timing of things. Gaye started on the lucrin last week and was booked in for Monday to have the scan and blood test.

We were meant to spend the weekend with her folks who live in Victoria and take them, her visiting nephew and Thomas to Philip Island to see the penguins come out of the water at sunset.

Gaye had the week of work to get started on finishing her Masters and spend some of the school holidays with Thomas.

Late last week Gaye caught some bug and couldn't be very far from the loo so a flight was out of the question. We put off our trip by a week and planned to meet her nephew as he flew north back to his folks and bring him home for dinner between flights.

On Saturday night Gaye's mum rang and said her Dad had a heart attack and after flustering around and ringing clinics and worrying about her Dad in the end Gaye flew to Melbourne on Sunday, she is having her scan there and will be back on Friday to start the next phase of drugs. Her Dad had surgery yesterday and had one of those shunt thingos put in and seems to be in amazingly good form and going home tomorrow.

In the middle of this we had brunch with my gorgeous sister Lou, who turned 35 this weekend and whose partner broke up with her ‘6 weeks and 6 days’ before hand.

All of this has made me think of timing and how little control we have over things really.

If we had gone down as planned this weekend – would we have spotted her Dad’s illness earlier (he has been hiding his pain) and made him get help or would we have been half way to Philip Island and things made much worse by a long trip to the hospital. Understandably Gaye was upset and worried about her Dad. And said a number of times that she wasn’t ready yet to lose him.

My sister has been waiting for her fella to be ‘ready’ to settle and have kids, she loves him dearly and wanted to give him time – but had definitely set a timeframe in her head a number of years ago (when previously single) that if she was single/childless at 35 she was just going to try and do it on her own. She thought/hoped that they were working towards that aim and instead finds herself at 35 single and heartbroken (but I must say also strong, amazing and resilient).

Gaye and I have “waited” for all sorts of reasons before “trying” for a baby together. And now we are trying and we are in a good place together to do that, but it occurs to me that this is indeed our future – young child/ren who need us close by and parents who are ageing and also need us to support and care for them.

One of the ‘timing’ issues we talk about is my mother. Coming out to my mother was undertaken at the ‘right time’ (turned out not to be so right but there you go), putting pressure on her to accept our relationship was undertaken after ‘time’ for her to get used to things. And we have talked about if if if we are lucky enough for Gaye to have a baby when we would tell her (early give her lots of time? Later give her little time?). But I think this weekend I have realised that no time is going to be the right time for her.

I talked to my folks about Gaye’s Dad – and my Dad was gorgeous and concerned for her. But my mother continued down her path of resistance or denial or whatever it is and ‘hmmed’ and ‘how awfuled’ on the phone and then moved the conversation on. Today she has sent me an email asking about cooking tips – without even asking how Gaye’s Dad is and I am outraged but also a bit defeated.

No amount of time I think will make much difference to her – and I think I am just like her – cause I do wonder how much time it will take to make a difference to the disappointment I feel in her. Sometimes I miss her so much.

Really there is no right time perhaps, but it is weird - timing.

whipped

I have blogged often before about Thomas having a competitive nature - wanting to win at soccer and just about everything else. He has really started to learn in the last few months about losing in a graceful manner - of having fun with the game or competition and accepting the outcome and if the situation calls for it learning from it.

One of the ways we have been working on this is by playing lots of board and card games with him. Sometimes he wins/sometimes we win. To start with there would be tears and calls of unfairness whenever he lost but he has learnt to take it on board pretty much now and simply calls for a re-match. He does however continue to revel in his wins.

This week he played a bit of Monopoly with my folks. My folks were here to care for him during the school holidays for a day at my request. This was definitely part of my action plan of being as 'normal' as possible with my Mum and apart from the fact that it is all a bit strained it did go pretty well this weekend.

We only bought Monopoly (for some reason Thomas calls it Monocoly) about a month ago (I was trying to escape the endless games of Uno!). It is a good game (aside from the whole capitalist thing I guess!) it has counting and money and there is a lot to read - cards and squares.

To start with, ofcourse, we took it pretty easy on him - giving him extra chances and not enforcing all the rules. But over the month, Thomas has got really really good at Monopoly. He will play with whoever comes over or is willing and for hours if given the opportunity. (I would worry about the whole capitalist thing except it was just the same with Uno!) He often plays with my sister Aunty Lou - who is a very regular visitor to our home and a constant in Thomas' life.

Anyway, one day when Lou and I were playing with him we were telling him about how we used to play as kids as how our Dad used to 'whip the pants off us' all the time and how we would cry - as soon as he got a hotel on Mayfair it was all over. Thomas was thrilled at this story - he loves to hear about when we were unreasonable or naughty as children. He kept on talking about how the next time Papa came he was going to play him too.

Papa came up last month - but there wasn't much time for a game. But this weekend both my parents were here and he played them individually and together. He was completely thrilled to 'whip' Papa and has been declaring himself the best player in the family. My folks admitted in the first round they had 'given' him a real go - however from then on they played their best and he still beat them. (Apparently he was down to $1 and all mortgaged up at one point in the game but completely held is cool). He was beating his Dad fair and square when I met them for lunch yesterday too - so perhaps his strategies are pretty comprehensive.

Some of my lovely memories are playing board games and card games with my family. On camping trips and at home on winter weekends. As an adult I can see why - the whole family stops to play a game, which in itself is fun, and plays together.

And I find myself here at work - looking forward to tonight’s after dinner game myself!