Sensible Things To Do After A Failed FET

The first time I ever got drunk was in the local Woolworths car park at about 8.30 on a Saturday evening. I was 15 and meant to be at my friend’s house watching videos, instead we were knocking back a bottle of port and singing The Cure’s Love Cats.
Also dancing.

I used to cringe at this memory until I met someone who told me they got spectacularly drunk for the first time on a bottle of Brandavino at the age of 13 and the next morning caught the bus into the city. Quite soon after his journey began, he decided that vacating the bus immediately was a matter of great urgency. He rang the bell, the bus stopped, he got off the bus and vomited like a geyser by the side of the road. When he finished, he turned to find the bus, full of patient Saturday morning passengers, waiting for him. After a slightly awkward pause he wiped his mouth, got back on the bus, returned to his seat and continued on his way.

I ended up marrying him.

Losing our last chance embryo was almost shockingly upsetting, considering the yes but, no but sensations I had been experiencing leading all the way up to the transfer. Even so, receiving the news necessitated a certain response. That afternoon I ate a large meal of Not Recommended For Ladies Up The Duff sushi and followed that up with a Not Recommended For Ladies Attempting Or Achieving Up The Duffness latte and during the evening I enjoyed a Severely Frowned Upon glass of wine for the first time in what seemed years but was in fact a few fraught weeks.

The following day I had another latte but this time requested a double shot of espresso. That night C and I drank a bottle of champagne and two bottles of wine with our live in-in laws. I also ate some soft cheese and a piece of smoked salmon.

Following this trajectory I believe I shall be snorting coffee straight from the grinder and washing down my crack cocaine and raw meat fritters with a good slug of goon in the Woolies car park, by this weekend.

Because I am no longer a teenager and this is not the eighties I shall not be singing and dancing to Love Cats. It’s possible though that I may quietly hum the chorus.

Letter To A 21 Month Only Child

Darling Tricky,

This month has seen you start to realize that actually the whole world doesn’t belong to you, despite what your grandparents in Newcastle have led you to believe. You have started to identify for instance that different towels belong to different people, there is a Daddy Towel which hangs next to a Tricky Towel and high up on the back of the door is a Mummy Towel.



This process of identification extends to pillows, glasses of water and various bodily discharges, hence Mummy Wee Wee and Daddy Fart. Words have flown thick and fast this month, you have shouted for sandwich, biscuit, gingerbread, porridge, vegetables, underpants and a puppy and when we try to distract you with a glass of water say, or perhaps a hilarious Daddy Fart, you cut us off with a contemptuous No Way.


This is thanks to childcare of course, No Way being the signature tune of fellow attendee, Jack. Jack only stayed a few weeks after you started but it was long enough to pass on both words and attitude. Tiring though it is to have you constantly exclaiming No Way at a bowl of wholesome mashed root vegetables, or to having your feet cruelly introduced to a pair thick warm socks, I give thanks that it wasn’t Bite Me Mother Fucker or something equally distasteful.

In positive developments at childcare though, we have finally moved from Don’t Leave Me, Oh God Where Are You Going Please Don’t Leave Me This Woman Is The Devil And These Children Are Her Imps to the almost as heartbreaking Bye Bye Daddy and the happily climbing into his carer’s arms, because apparently the Devil gives good cuddle. The devil also encourages crafts and provides you with a hot lunch so who are we to complain. At any moment I can look up and see some of your special craft activities blu-tacked to our loungeroom wall: your blue handprints, your large orange paint blob. And of course, it goes without saying, I will keep these works of art for the rest of my life.


You experienced Easter this last month and although you were sick with some viral ghastliness at the time you got to join in on an Easter Egg hunt with your cousins. They very sweetly found eggs on your behalf and dropped them in your pile and despite the ruthless bargaining, and take no prisoners hunting that went on between themselves, you were positively showered with eggs.
But because I am Pure Evil and decided that you were too sick to eat Easter eggs just at that moment we avoided clueing you in to the concept that those brightly wrapped jewel like objects were actually edible. Instead you smiled at them, played with them, rolled them about the floor and then collected them up happily and put them back into their paper bag. You are a bit obsessed with marbles at the moment and I’m sure you just thought these were retarded marbles with one fat and one pointy end. However, I am not a complete tyrant (unlike you), when you were feeling a bit better you had an easter egg for the first time in your life and it blew your tiny brain. It was like the first time you ate ice cream and your mouth just kept opening and closing like a goldfish. You didn’t even pause to demand “More” like you normally do, you just let your demented gobbling goldfish mouth do the work. When you were finished I explained that what you had just eaten was chocolate. More chocklit, you said immediately.



This past month has seen some very lovely family time, you, your daddy and me, always involving cuddles, often in your cowboy tent or on the Big Bed. Our bedtime routine sees you selecting some well thumbed titles from the bedside shelves; Owl Babies perhaps or Gorilla or Big Fish, where the main character is the chief fish of a small pond and, as you like to firmly clarify; HE WAS HAHPEE.


After stories there are more cuddles. And several expeditions over the pillows to turn the bedside lamp off, no on, no off again. Perhaps a round of Rockabye Your Bear. And then requests for More Books. These are usually denied because it’s now past your bedtime and your father is desperate for the sweet sweet relief of alcohol. We zip you into your sleeping bag, kiss you all over, pop you into bed and back out of the room, muttering to ourselves as we do that you are once again proven to be The Most Delightful Boy In The World.

You are a delightful little boy, quick to laugh, adventurous, and, as I think about your various falls- off stairs and over your own feet, pretty hardy. You get whingy sometimes, you cling to me sometimes, you have temper tantrums when you’re hungry sometimes, and you have shouting spates when you’ve just woken up but you are, despite all this, a great kid. We see the best of ourselves in you and sometimes the worst too but beyond the bits of us are the uniquely special bits of you and they’re beautiful.

This was the month where we tried to make another baby, not another you, no, but another like you. A potential little brother or sister. It didn’t work. That tiny soccerball bunch of cells never did expand like the embryologist told us it would. The sadness currently in both your father and I feels so deep and complex, woven tightly with the memories of all the fear and despair that seemed to haunt us before we finally found you.

It's like we’re failing to provide you with something that was fundamental to the making of both your father and I…a sibling. Three brothers in your father’s case. Three sisters in mine. I don’t know how long it will take for that guilt and that sorrow to dissipate. But I do know that amongst all that sadness is a great deal of joy . You are our son, our baby, our beautiful, grumpy, funny, singing, book loving boy. You may be an only child, but you won’t be a lonely child. You have so many people who care about you. You may not have brothers and sisters but you live with three cousins who fall over themselves to pick you up and hug you even when you call them by each other’s names. You have aunties and uncles and grandparents on opposite sides of the country who adore you. And always you have us, Vanessa and Christopher, your mummy and daddy, who love love love you with all of their hearts.

Because you, you our darling boy, you make us hahpee.



Your very own
OvaGirl
xxxxxx

What A A Milne said...

John had great big waterproof boots on,

John had a great big waterproof hat.

John had a great big waterproof mackintosh

"And that," said John "is that."

Negative.

Confusion

Here are things I did in preparation for my last round of ART:

*went on strict no fat, no chilli, no red meat, no sugar diet as urged by the Chinese Fertility Goddess

*gave up coffee and alcohol completely
*had six months of chinese herbs and acupuncture
*surrounded myself in fertility dolls, gew gaws, holy water, symbolic pictures and lucky charms
*once IVF rollercoaster began in earnest was accompanied by my husband to every appointment.
*worried a lot

Here are things I did in preparation for this round:

*cut down on coffee and alcohol (although after the transfer I cut it out completely)
*tried to eat more vegetables
*had three acupuncture sessions with the Chinese Fertility Goddess

*replaced the whole boiling up herbs into Horrid Tea routine with a neat little jar of granules - two teaspoons in hot water morning and night. Still ghastly but so much easier to manage.
*Went to bloodtests and Dildo-Cam dates alone. (although C came to transfer)
*worried slightly less.

I have no conclusions to draw from any of this except that in the old days we didn't have a mortgage or a childcare bill. Also this time I have been alternatively more tired (and desperately wanted coffee) or more stressed (and desperately wanted alcohol). Also, at our old flat we seemed to have a lot more shelf space for all those bags of twigs and panda paws, not to mention the boxes of thinly sliced deer antler (yum).

At my last acupuncture session with the Chinese Fertility Goddess we had a quick whispered discussion about this as she inserted the needles.
I don't seem to be so wound up about it this time, I told her.
She nodded, you have a baby now, she said, it's different.
But it's not just that, I said, I'm so tired, I wonder sometimes how I could make it all work, if I did get pregnant.

This set the CFG off on a spate of concerned tutting and head nodding. In China, she said, they know your body is completely changed when you have a baby, it takes years to recover fully. Years.
Great, I muttered.
That is why the aunties come round, look after you, grandmother, mother, everyone helping, cleaning, cooking. Here, I worry, where is the support? Where are the aunties?

Of course Tricky and I had aunties akimbo when he was born. Aunty K and Aunty N were support people at his birth and Aunty N went on to do much of that helping, cleaning, cooking stuff that the CFG was talking about. Aunty AJ came over from New Zealand to do the same.

So it can't be the fear of lack of support.

I think I'm worrying about not worrying enough, or something stupid like that.

I worry that my body really has changed, really isn't up to another pregnancy, that my abdominal muscle separated belly, all papery skin and wobbly flab is a poor, second-rate sort of vessel to carry a child.

I worry that as worthless as I feel I am right now, this is it, this is my chance and yet that chance is so slim, so small, so fragile it could float right out from under me on the strength of a sigh.

I worry that I'm not strong enough, not grateful enough, not needy enough...

I worry that C isn't in the same headspace as me, that before, with all the needles he had to inject and the appointments we attended that he knew exactly where we were at, what cycle day it was, how hormonal I seemed compared to the previous 12 hours, he was a rock, a steadying, calming island in an ocean of turmoil. This time, busy with work and Tricky and more work, he seems only half with me, we're sitting side by side in the FET carriage just like last time but he seems distracted, like he's juggling his Cheese-On-A-Stick* with his Southpark Showbag** in one hand and trying to text a friend with the other.

This looks like a big hill we're going up now, I say nervously as the carriage rattles ominously. Mmm says C, can you hold the Cheese for a second, I keep dripping sauce on the Send button.

As a result we've managed to have at least three "heated discussions" in the past 24 hours.
Apparantly I'm being negative. Funny that.

Yesterday morning I did something that I determined last time I would not do. No matter what.

I peed on a stick and it was negative too.

As a direct result, in a very short space of time I have experienced shock, relief, sadness, optimism, denial and grief. Oh and guilt too, because I'm a lapsed Catholic and an Oldest Child and guilt is my birthright.

And then I lay down and read Ballet Shoes for a short time, it being my current Reliving My Literary Past Therapy.

See, you think you've got infertility sussed, you think you understand the nature of the stress behind it, the pain, the depths of sadness and uncertainty. But she's cunning! She's a mystery wrapped in riddle wrapped in an enigma! And also a chameleon! With rapidly changing coloured skin depending on whether she sits on a pumpkin or a potato! Or a turd.

I don't know really how I feel at this point.

My brain is custard.

Best just to go with "tired." This seems to sum up everything right now.

* and ** completely unfair analogy, C hated both the junk food and the showbags at the Show.

5 days past transfer

Tricky is 21 months now and that means a nice little letter with accompanying pictures, but with all the shrieking and gargling and steaming up the walls round here just recently, I got nothin'.
For now.

We have briefly decamped to Newcastle to visit with Aphwah (his grandmother) and Poppy(his grandfather) and Jimmy (their dog) because Tricky was shrieking their names out in the middle of the night in between tortured gasps and snot ridden snores and also because we wanted to steam someone else's room up for a change. Two nights of vapouriser and three nights of antibiotics have worked their steamy antibiotic ju ju on our child and apart from a slightly raspy voice and a taste for human flesh, there seems little other effect. Except for sleep. Last night he slept from 7 at night till 7 in the morning without a peep and it was magnificent. All that anxiety from watching his distress and feeling him sink his teeth into my shoulder has pretty much dissipated.

Today we went to see a kids show that I co-wrote with my ex-husband TWENTY YEARS AGO (for fuck's sake). It contains garbage monsters, a lost little girl and a foul mouthed seagull and features a strong recycling message. Tricky was excited about seeing the garba monsas but when they emerged from their piles of rubbish at the start of the show his lip was quivering and he uttered a few thin cat like wails. It was touch and go as to whether or not we bailed but he gritted his tiny teeth (including recently appearing molars and incisors) and soon settled down.

It was funny to see something I had written so long ago and from another part of my life, even though I had rewritten some of it last year for production. And it was nice to see Tricky watch something I had written, even though he spent at least the same amount of time eating banana bread and then scouring his seat for crumbs.

Today I am 5 days past the transfer. Next Saturday is my pregnancy test. I'm still chugging back the horrid tea and popping the progesterone pessaries. I'll try and see the Chinese Fertility Goddess when I get back to Sydney tomorrow. Last time, the time it worked, I remember getting waves of gentle nausea very early on, before the test. I felt slightly carsick or hungover.
This time I just feel tired. And constipated. And relieved that Tricky is getting better.

What I don't feel is anxious. It's like, this time round, I just don't have the time or the emotional energy for that shit.
This is going to work, or it won't.

Truly Madly Deeply Going Out Of Our Tiny Minds

Tricky, C and I have just spent the last 48 hours in Hell and it seems like we'll be making a weekend of it.

Tricky has never ever been so sick.

A runny nose during the week led to a "difficult" night of throat rasping old man type snoring and general off colour-ness. We went to the local after hours medical centre to be told he had a virus and apart from giving Panadol and keep up fluids, not much more to be done.

That night was hidious. The snot that was boiling away in his head was stopping him breathe. He would fall asleep then a few minutes later stop breathing and wake in a fright. This meant we were waking every five minutes or so too. We brought him into our bed but it didn't help. Instead, with all his usual writhing and kicking there was no sleep at all. Back and forth he went from the Big Bed to Tricky's Bed and amidst that was all the snoring and gargling and death rattling.

I was trying not to lift him, not to get up and down, stay in bed for at least half an hour after shoving in the progesterone pessary...all that Two Week Wait, easy does it, stay relaxed stuff, horribly aware of the cargo I was carrying. But finally, at the lowest point of the night when he started crying yet again, I snapped. As I launched myself out of bed, half asleep, I shouted Lie Down! I'm coming as fast again and so is your Embryonic Sibling!

I started stroking his back and he sank back down to sleep, gargling and rattling away. I felt like a complete arsehole. The next time he woke C took him out of the room and told me to go back to bed. The two of them "slept", I use the term loosely, in Tricky's cowboy tent which is set up in our loungeroom. It was quite comfy, C cheerfully told me later and nice and warm.

By the next morning Tricky was starting to look like a little crack baby, lethargic, eyes rolling back, could barely stay awake, mother becoming weepy and hysterical. Off to our regular doctor, Dr Jabs, who peered into his mouth and recoiled a little. Strep throat.Very nasty. Antibiotics.

When we spoke to Dr Jabs again, later in the day, he warned me about dehydration. The lethargy can be a sign of dehydration, was he drinking lots? Because otherwise he would need to go to hospital and go onto a drip. We had stocked up on iceblocks and various jelly crystal flavours, but, most unusually for a child who can hear a freezer door open from two floors down and shriek for icecream, we were finding it hard to get Tricky to have more than one. No he didn't want water, he didn't want jelly, he didn't want milk. By this stage I was getting ready to be hospitalised myself. Thankfully after holding us to ransom and demanding three Milk Arrowroot biscuits, he started drinking and made up his fluids again.

At around 1 last night it was C's turn to drop his bundle. We realised that Tricky was sitting up in his bed, half asleep, because it was easier for him to breathe. Inevitably he would have a few gargly breaths through his nose before the snot resettled and blocked off his air passage, then there would be silence for a moment, then a sort of shuddering choke as he tried to breathe through his mouth. This would usually wake him, or alternatively he would drift off to sleep and fall backwards or sideways with a crash in the bars of his cot.

C got out of bed, thinking, as one does, that it would be good to put him in the car because he would be sitting upright, he could go to sleep and C would just...sit in the car. Then we thought it might be better to but him in his stroller. Again he would be sitting upright, he could sleep and no one need risk their life driving about in a near-comatose state. Except...where were the car keys? Twenty minutes of increasingly frustrated storming about. I was standing holding Tricky who was screaming for his father and furious with me for keeping him from him. He let out a roar and suddenly sank his teeth into my shoulder. It was so painful and so obviously deliberate that I burst into tears. Finally the keys were found. In the car ignition. It was raining when we got back from the doctor's and we had sat in the car for several minutes before venturing in. As C dragged the stroller in and up the stairs at 1.30 in the morning, I was thankful that the rest of the family, Naughty Nephews and parents, were still away on holidays.

The rest of the night was a combination of stroller, holding Tricky upright on the couch, and lying in the tent. C and I took turns, having a couple of hours sleep before taking over from the other. It was the longest night of our parenting life. It was the sort of night where, in the morning, you say to your partner: Good Work, which means thankyou and I love you so much and look how much better he seems this morning and how the fuck will we get through another of those?

Tricky's been on antibiotics for nearly 24 hours now and I hope they really are as quick as Dr Jabs suggested they would be. In between the Dr visits, we've been dosing Tricky up on baby Panadol and some ghastly blue syrup that's meant to reduce his snot. These, and the antibiotics, are forced into his mouth using a variety of droppers. I've also been using saline drops and a thing I call a snot sucker to try and lighten the load. Every time we try and do this he cries miserably. It's horrible and it makes me feel horrible to see him this way. I keep thinking about that film Truly Madly Deeply where Alan Rickman's character Jamie is a ghost and died because of strep throat. "If only he'd had a wee suck of a Strepsil"... one of the other characters observes mornfully.

At some point during the night, as I was walking Tricky about the room, or perhaps crawling into his cowboy tent with him wailing in my ear, or just holding him, my precious beautiful baby, and stroking him and listening to him breathe, I remembered the 2WW thing again.

It's very hard not to feel like the universe is telling me something.

Truly.

Stranger Than Fiction

Squirty Up The Clacker Day dawned bright and early.

The House Of Groovy Love informed me late on Monday afternoon that I was scheduled for 8.45am which sucked for two reasons; firstly the Chinese Fertility Goddess wouldn't be open before 9.30 and I was hoping for a pre-transfer pinning and secondly Tricky wasn't due to start childcare till 8.30.

Luckily for us Tricky's carer was happy to take him half an hour early but the acupuncture would be post transfer only. This is apparently the one that actually matters and I had that session with the CFG the day before, but I am a Cancerian Creature Of Habit and since that was the routine last time which ended up in Tricky...well.... what can I say?

It was wierd beyond belief being back in the stirrups. Things felt, well...abnormal.

It had started with the strange Alice In Wonderland like rabbit hole that passed as a parking station, just opposite the House Of Groovy Love. Having squeezed into the bowels of the place we got into a lift fully expecting it to take us up to the street we had just driven off. Instead we found ourselves on the street behind. It took us at least a full minute of staring about before we realised which way we needed to walk.

Dr Lovely Accent was all smiles and warm hands, the fertility sisters were all caring words and pop your undies in your pockets and the embryologist had the most enormous eyelashes I have ever seen outside of a drag queen, but even so it all felt odd and discombobulating.

Last time our whole world revolved around what went in and out my lala.

Normality was spending every waking hour of every day devoted to mindful babymaking. We were on strict strict diets, both of us, no alcohol, coffee, sugar, fats, chilli... we drank Horrid Teas and we had regular acupuncture. This time, it seemed to have caught us up unawares. Somewhere in between the work and the child and the broken sleep I made some phone calls, had some blood tests, dated the Dildo-Cam and now we were about to have this tiny cluster of cells, like a soccer ball, the embryologist explained, her enormous eyelashes fanning the air as she spoke, inserted into the jam sandwich that was my uterus. She was telling me all about percentages of intactness and compressions and outer shells but all I could think about was what mascara she used.

And anyway, the good news is, said Dr Lovely Accent, no doubt clocking my bunny in the headlights stare, the embryo survived.

C and I nodded and smiled and followed him into the room, whispering to ourselves as we did.

Are you feeling alright? Dr Lovely Accent asked and I said yes, yes...but see this feels so wierd...and I tried to explain the strange non-normality of it all. He laughed and offered to give me a few more bloodtests if it would help. I climbed up onto the little seat and scooted into position, C sat beside me. The embryologist showed us our progeny up on the big screen and I felt my eyes prickle with tears. And that felt wierd too.

And then in went the speculum (thankfully not the plastic variety) and in popped Dildo-Cam for a bit of a look see, and a great wash of emotion swirled in my guts. Oh yes, my body was saying, it's this again, this having to be poked and have things stuck up you and swished about just so that you can have a chance at pregnancy. I was aware of what was happening but I was also aware of the pain I felt, not just for me, a general amorphous pain of infertility; why does this have to happen? The embryologist brought over the catheter and syringe with its tiny cargo awash in a saline sea. I reached out for C's hand. It seemed important that there was at least some sort of physical connection with my husband taking place while our last chance embryo was squirted up my clacker.

At that point C, nervous, also feeling the wierdness of the situation, said Is it good for you darling? and I began to laugh. It was one of those high pitched hysterical giggles heee heee heee... not advisable when one has a tube through the cervix. Dr Lovely Accent paused considerately to let me stop. I mustered all my strength, thought Stern Thoughts and managed to both repress the giggles and relax. I guess that means it must have been said Dr Lovely Accent suddenly and I laughed again.

I'm so sorry said C, it just popped out.

But maybe that laugh at the end was good, a quick Dildo-Cam check confirmed that the embryo was in a great position and we were good to go.

Except, unexpectedly, as we were leaving I thought I saw Dr Lovely Accent nick past us in sneakers and a pair of green satin running shorts. Surely not, said C, but as we stepped out of the House Of Groovy Love, sure enough, there was Dr Lovely Accent, shorts and all, not jogging exactly but certainly walking very fast as one might do if one was about to jog after one finished one's mobile phone call.

Within an hour we were back with the Chinese Fertility Goddess. Scarily there were at least four women waiting to go ahead of me, all lined up on the stairs. Eventually they moved themselves up into the acupuncture rooms. The CFG herself was in a consulting room with another patient. She had told me to knock on the door when I arrived but I didn't think that felt right. Instead I sat on a chair outside the office and waited. And waited. Finally I knocked on the door, apologetically. The CFG leapt up when she saw me, bustled me into a room, stuck me with pins and wrapped me in a blanket.

An hour later when I came out, there was a woman sitting in the chair outside my room and she was reading my book. I goggled at her and she waved it at me. It's great, she said. Congratulations. And good luck. Thanks I said smoothly, as if I was entirely used to seeing strangers reading my book in the corridor outside my acupuncture room, good luck to you too.

Twenty four hours, two cups of Horrid Tea, one pessary and a handful of forbidden chocolate later, I feel vaguely hopeful, generally apprehensive, reasonably worried and slightly excited.

Completely normal, I expect.

I just can't see it making the home reader list

As I write this I am sipping at a mug of "tea" which is simultaneously disgusting and soothing. It tastes like the black scum that gathers in the tiles under the shower screen, with a nice little lemony aftertaste.

Earlier this evening C and I prepared a hearty and warming soup for dinner. This entailed lots of ginger, lots of garlic and an organic chicken with its arse packed full of "herbs". These herbs looked like a selection of half dried berries, some form of dessicated peel, some twig type vegetation, a large turd and the ubquitous shavings of old foam surfboard.

These two incidents are indeed related.

Me, and the Chinese Fertility Goddess are on again.

This morning, after a brief spate of school girl like giggling on both sides, it was as if no time at all had passed since my last visit. Except it had of course, I had a beautiful toddler to prove it and then there was the...

Your book! You wrote a book!

Yes, I said, I did. Um...have you seen it?

I got your book! I bought it! Not finish reading it yet. My daughter reads it, she loves it, she laughs, says you are such a funny lady.

Mmm, yes, I said. Thankyou.

And, the Chinese Fertility Goddess giggled again, so many women come in to see me and they have your book! And they say...this Chinese Fertility Goddess, I think this might be you!

And it is, I say.

We laugh about this and she hugs me and I show her a picture of Tricky I have bought specially for her and also the copy of the book that I will sign for her. I tell her about living in The Country last year and the new tv writing gig and I refrain from asking her how many celebrities she's knocked up since I was there last.

She rushes me into the acupuncture room, so many needles, so little time.

I'm glad your daughter is enjoying the book, I say.

Yes yes, the Chinese Fertility Goddess pauses to wrap a blanket carefully around my legs.
My daughter is seven. You think it's ok for her to read?

Um...

I rack my brains to recall all the completely inappropriate bits for seven year olds. Several immediately come to mind.

There's a little bit of swearing, I say.

She looks at me... there's sex isn't there?

Yyyyes, I say...but I guess she knows what it is you do...?

The CFG nods and waves this aside and briskly finishes tucking me in. You rest now, sleep. Later make chicken soup with my soup herbs, drink H tea. Tomorrow, after transfer, you come back, come straight upstairs, I do acupuncture then you go home. And for two weeks, you rest. No cleaning. None. Leave it. Tell C I say: You Are Not To Clean.

Ok, I shrug.

And with that she bustles out the door. And I smile.

It's good to be back.

All Being Well: Lots More Prodding

News Flash to braindead parents at Daylight Savings changeover….feeding your child an hour earlier (ie at their pre-DS eating time) ACTUALLY WORKS.

Tricky was a dream, nay a cherub, nay a fully fledged angel of the lord with floaty frock and feathers. Having been a screaming, back arching, food throwing monster of the deep the day before, he was suddenly a miniature Noel Coward, all witty repartee and delightful table manners. The booster seat is at the ready but we’re holding off for the moment.

My youngest sister K is pregnant. Almost 12 weeks in fact. She was one of those I’m going off the pill now, whoopsie! women. She would be one of those women I couldn’t help hating except that she’s my baby sister and she also spent most of this trimester with her head in a bucket. She told us, her family, when she was about three weeks and when I started to speak all that All Being Well stuff she hushed me and said: I started saying that but now I’ve stopped because I believe it will all be well and I want to just enjoy the pregnancy.

I was stunned at her blind optimism but also jealous and then also kind of proud of her attitude, because, why shouldn’t a healthy young woman believe that her pregnancy will end happily? Isn’t that one of the things IF steals from you? Faith? Optimism? Belief in a happy ending?

I hushed up and instead packed a bag of books for her. I’ve got a great one that AJ sent me about Spiritual Midwifery, I told her and also a couple of books about nutrition in pregnancy. Yes, yes, she said, bring all that. But what I really need is a book of baby names.

I hugged her.

Other news: The House Of Groovy Love rang to let me know that All Being Well, the transfer will happen on Tuesday! This Tuesday! As in the 15th!! Because my girly insides are giddy and impatient like unbroken colts before Almanzo Wilder lays his strong experienced hands upon them and have thusly jumped the estrogen fence. Big Fatty Dominant Follicle had grown to the size of a small helicopter by the last date with the Dildo-Cam which sort of hinted gently that the surge was in sight.

My Whockety! It all seems to have crept up so soon. I have rung and made an appointment to see the Chinese Fertility Goddess on Monday for acupuncture, which will be weird because I haven’t seen her since my last transfer over two years ago. I didn’t even send her one of those thankyou cards with a picture of my baby on it because…well I don’t know, it was all too much, the whole sending out pictures with my baby on it. I was so sore I could barely sit down for weeks and so constipated the last thing on my mind was a little letter writing so of course now I’m stricken with worry that she’ll think I’m rude and obnoxious and don’t deserve to have a second baby. In the highly unlikely event that she will actually be as lovely and sweet and as positive as I remember her being, I shall also see her on Squirty Up The Clacker Day for post transfer needles.

Tonight, I start on those silver bullets of waxy progesterone goodness: the pessaries. They’re small, they’re handmade, they’re individually wrapped in silver paper and stored in a lovely old fashioned dark glass jar. I could only love them more if they were tiny dark chocolate truffles but then I wouldn’t be sliding them up my hoohah and waving my legs in the air for an hour.

Everyone's a critic

Tricky is having some whopping great dinner tanties of late.

Last night for instance. We had the whole screaming, arching, fling your bowl off the highchair extravaganza.

When I took him out of the high chair to attempt to calm him down he shouted angrily that he wanted to sit in the big chair, which meant on my lap perched on a stool, and plucking small pieces of food from my plate. Some of these were hot! and so I had to blow on them first.

When I tried to slide him back into the high chair there was more screaming arching flinging, mix and repeat ad nauseum or until Mummy's small intestine dives up through her throat and hogties her windpipe in a mercy killing attempt.

We think it's the daylight savings; dinner is effectively an hour later and he's never been good at waiting for food. C's the same when his blood sugar levels drop, except he doesn't demand to sit on my lap (now if it it had been in our courting days...) and of course there's the three day a week childcare business and his resulting desparate need for attention, and almost definitely just our crap parenting style in general.

It's not going down well with my early morning dashes across the city to get bled and dildocammed in our attempts to defrost the last of the famous five. This morning I was back again, for both delights, only this time the capricious Sydney traffic decreed I should be ten minutes early and actually have time to mooch about on the street and wish I'd remembered to bring my latest literary adventure "The Long Winter" (Laura Ingalls, also doing battle with various frozen items, such as the livestock, the water pump and her hoity toity blind sister Mary).

So tonight we're dining early, ala pensioner hour, and hopefully food will actually make its
proper journey down his gullet, instead of across the floor.

And I won't be following through on those muttered threats last night to send him back to the freezer he came from.

Reuniting Cause It Feels Soooo Gooooood

Dear Dildo-Cam!


Well hello!
Look at you!
No you!
You with your tight fitting condom cover and your Helpful Assistant with her tousled hair and tra la la accent.
You with your big screen and your floral modesty sheets!

You know when I turned up to see you today, I didn’t know really what to expect. It’s been over two years, two long years, since our last encounter. This being my first day back on the job so to speak I wanted to make a good impression, but then, people in hell want iced water.

Last night I lay tossing and turning, worrying myself sick over the best and most direct route to the House Of Groovy Love.

I’m not a great driver Dildo-Cam, I’m a very average navigator and I’m a worse parker. Put these three things together and you may as well just call me shithouse, but I console myself with my myriad of other skills. Recalling obscure songs from my childhood for instance. Not too many people can pluck the university song of their visiting American third grade teacher off the top of their heads, yet nearly everyone can execute a reverse park, even if it is on the other side of the road on a one way street and it’s raining. Yet sadly it’s this second, more common, skill that seems to hold so much more value in our car crazy society.

But I digress! It was 40 minutes into my early morning 15 minute journey and I had only managed to park the car! I ran, breathless into the lifts, forgetting of course which floor I needed, only to realize that a lift full of women with anxious faces at 7 in the morning was only ever going to get out at one floor.

The newly spacious and smartened up House Of Groovy Love has many changes!

Instead of the typical “waiting room” configuration of chairs, to cushion the butts of we the infertile, and direct our anxious gazes at anywhere else but each other’s faces, there is now a multiple “circle the wagons” type approach. This makes avoiding eye contact that much more difficult but cherry picking magazines a breeze.

Some things stay the same!

I forgot that when you arrive at the House Of Groovy Love, the very first thing to do, before saying hi to the door bitch or taking off your coat or picking your wagon is to Write Down Your Name and then tick Bloods U/S or BOTH.

Hovering, even digging in your bag for a pen, is enough time for someone else to nip in and scribble down their name before yours and then opening your mouth to take a breath and say “whoa now, missy, settle back there,” means five more folk with firmly pressed lips and biros outstretched will duck in under your elbow and scribble their names down and suddenly a three minute bloodletting stretches out to a twenty minute wait and a close reading of why a minimally decorated room should be painted with eggshell or weak weak latte rather than white. (Makes it look like a gallery).

However, this didn’t happen to me because this is my Second Time Around and so, despite a momentary lapse of brain, I was one of the loathsome nippers. Yes, me, who drove around and around the Sydney cbd and its teeth grindingly hideous one way streets like a lumbering half blind elephant was suddenly Penelope Pitstop at the front desk.

Blood test? Jolly! I remember that big pillow they give you to cuddle, and the garish arm bands! I remember the tiny prick and the bit of cotton wool that gets taped to your arm, effectively in my case, hopelessly ineffective in the girl after me who was awash with blood by the time we caught up in the Ultrasound Lounge!

Your Helpful Assistant demurely ducked out of the room saying she’d “leave me to change” and I had to call her back because I had forgotten what to take off.
Completely blank! Nerves, or what!

She suggested… Undies! Yes, and trousers too, and then I was able to remember Shoes all by myself, but was that all? Strange, when I think back to that moment I didn’t have a lot more to remove, my top, but no bra because I didn’t want to disturb Tricky by scavenging around the bedroom, and a poncho.

Perhaps subconsciously I just wanted to wear the poncho for our reunion. Helpful Assistant kindly set me straight. She offered me the chance to handle you myself Dildo-Cam, but this made me laugh merrily and so she shoved you in herself and told me to concentrate on my breathing.

And very soon I was able to see my ovaries again! Unpredictable, unreliable funny old things that they are! One had a Big Fat follicle and two smaller hangers on! The other had five miniscule useless excuses for follicles! Oh the joys of seeing things in your body that no one should ever need to see! And all due to you Dildo-Cam. You!

A few hours later, Butterfly from the House Of Groovy Love rang to tell me that Dr Lovely Accent had decreed another blood test on the morrow. Perhaps due to global warming I seem to be a little high on the estrogen. Big Fatty in the left ovary has some ‘splainin’ to do.

Anyway. After the stressful night, drive, park and dash, I must say that the chance to lie down and put my feet up while you popped on the Barry White and we got reacquainted was probably the most pleasant part of the journey so far. If only he had that album of childhood melodies down...

Minnesota, hats off to thee….

Let’s hope it continues that way hey?


Love, in a platonic fashion

OvaGirl
xxx

Mother's Day

Friday the 4th of April was the anniversary of my mother's death.

14 years ago.
The year I left my then husband. The year I met my now husband.
A lifetime ago.

In previous years I have marked the occasion with a special dinner with my sisters, or an hour meditating under a tree in the botanic gardens. This year I chose to do something different and had a huge fight with C because he stayed out til 3 in the morning the night before celebrating a co-worker's award.

While C slunk off back to bed with his hangover, I took our child to the museum (his first time) and looked at dinosaurs. Then I decided to join the museum which meant my entry fee was refunded. At first I asked for just a Single membership but when they took me to the membership office, none of the right people were about so I was asked to drop in later.

And if you don't get the time to do that, said the friendly staff member, just think of this as a free trip to the museum. It seemed a very nice and generous thing to do which made me feel a teeny bit better about the way the day had gone.

This also gave me time to reflect a little, and to play magnetic fishing with Tricky in the Under-Fives section, and peruse many tiny thin bones and skeletons in the over fives section. I was able to send sad text messages to my sisters re the day, and a slightly terse text message to C re the day (I knew he had forgotten).

Before going home I went back to the membership office. And when they asked me what sort of membership I thought that C would love to come back to the museum with both of us and so I said Family. Which meant I must have forgiven him, somewhere between the fossilized shells and the green tea in the cafe.

They took my details and siphoned off my credit card and gave Tricky a plastic T-Rex head, featuring a mouth that opens to reveal many many teeth, on a sort of handle thing.

Sadly he was unable to operate it but he was able to hold up the head and nibble thoughtfully at the brows.

It was that sort of day.

Third Week. Day Two.

Yesterday, it was C's turn to take Tricky in to homecare while I walked the Naughty Nephews over to their school. When I met C in the laneway outside the carer's house he was wiping the tears from under his sunglasses.


We scurried away together, feeling awful; he looked at me with a pleading look, C said in a trembling voice. I knew what he meant. It was the third week of pleading looks and accusing stares and screaming tomato and while the first week was ok, the second week (while C was away) had been, well, trying.


He stops pretty quickly, I assured him. If we'd waited at the gate we would have heard.


We got in the car, both feeling odd, as if we were fourteen again and truanting school or something.


We were scurrying because we were going to see a play at the Opera House, a play that started at 10 am. It was about two kids and a baby whose mother leaves them in their car at a supermarket carpark. At the end of the play I turned to the director who had invited us and grabbed her hand. That was amazing I said. At least that was what I meant to say. Instead I said That was ammmaaaahooooaa and bawled my eyes out. She hugged me. I think she thought that was quite a good review. Even for me, it was fairly impressive weeping.


Later C and I continued the wierd truanting feeling by having lunch together at a cafe where prams would be difficult and baked beans and banana bread were absent from the menu. It was an odd sensation, liberating yet missing something. He'll be having his hot lunch now, we said to each other over the chilli linguini. And later...I bet he's having his nap now.


At home I dug through the papers that had lain untouched for the past 28 days. I rang the phone number and a friendly voice chimed at the other end... House Of Groovy Love (not the clinic's actual name) Rainbow speaking (not the fertility sister's actual name), how can I help you?


Hi I said. It's day 2 and I want to activate my Frozen Embryo Cycle.

Okay, she said happily. Then you'll be coming in next tuesday for your blood test and ultra sound. I felt slightly dizzy writing these words into my diary.

What day will the transfer happen, I said...just, you know, if All Goes Well and it actually does happen.

Ah, she said. Probably on the following Friday.

I wrote this in too. The wierd feelings continued.


That play today, I said to C as I sipped at my decaf. I had a pretty strong reaction to it. I mean I thought it was good but, you know, it's been a long time since I did that in a theatre.


It's because we're parents, he said.


Friday. April 18th.


If All Goes Well.

One bright morning

Last week the unthinkable happened.

Fifteen minutes before it was time to take Tricky to homecare he insisted on me picking him up so he could rest his head upon my shoulder. Three seconds later he threw up his porridge and milk all over my back.

I turned him around and he continued to vomit in great Exorcist like streams over both of us. We were far enough away from the couch and the desks and it seemed pointless to move anywhere until he was finished so I just watched as he sprayed the floor, my jeans and Spot Goes To The Park with fragrant white chunks.

That left me with ten minutes to completely change both of us, brush his teeth and sponge the vomit off the floor. I felt slightly nostalgic as I swapped away with the paper towels. Tricky's not a big spewer as a toddler so I couldn't help but think back to those early breastfeeding days of "possetting" and too much jiggling in the air.

Sadly, Spot was stuffed.

Tricky seemed quite cheerful and even complained of being hungry once he was finished, which was a relief because my big fear was that he would otherwise be deemed too sick for homecare. I didn’t feel brave enough to lie to his carer and anyway there was a slight acrid smell hanging around his little body, probably because when I took off his tee shirt I inadvertently rubbed vomit through his hair. I tried to comb it out as best I could and then I put his hat over the top. By the time she took it off, I reasoned, I would be long gone.

As we prepared to rush out the door I realised I could still smell vomit, was it in my hair too? After all, he had been resting his head on my shoulder when he started.

No, my hair seemed fine. Not washed or in any way groomed of course but adequate for dropping off baby and also Naughty Nephews at school opposite. I know not what possessed me but some sixth sense made me feel the back of my neck which is when I discovered the semi hardened oat and sour milk crust. Thus I was able to happily walk the nephews through their school, secure in the knowledge that other parents wouldn't think I had misplaced my facepack.

As it turned out, Tricky was fine, the carer was unphased and even gave him food throughout the day which all stayed down.

And because I suspected the place would stink of spew when I got home and put me off having breakfast, I took myself to a cafe instead and had some very nice mushrooms and spinach on toast. For some reason though, I couldn't bring myself to eat the parmesan cheese.

Quite a good morning really.

Letter To A 20 Month Old Adventurer

My darling Tricky

This month’s Big Event is the entrance of childcare.

It happened on the day you turned 20 months. This coincided with the entrance of the new job and the exit of my last vestiges of sanity. Prior to this moment I had become the archetypal feminist cartoon cliché: trying to conduct phone calls to script producers with you hanging like a dead weight from my trouser legs. Or sitting down to type only to have your chubby hands creeping over the laptop keys and attempting to activate Hooray For Fish or Wigglemania.
Sitting on the couch to research, say, the advent of terrorism in South East Asia or the firing range of the crossbow (again with the crossbow) became an exercise in negotiation: one chapter on Jema*h Islamiah for a spirited rendition of Green Eggs And H*m, three news articles on various arrow related homicides for every Mr Man book we own.

(That’s Mr Bump, Mr Happy, Mr Sneeze, Mr Tickle, Mr Grumpy and Mr Ask Your Sodding Father. )

But then, like a feather on the breath of God, an ad for a vacancy in a home childcare place came up, via your Aunty N and her multitude of child related contacts, and so we called, we visited, we loved the mature, maternal calming energy of the carer, AND THEN WE LEFT YOU.

It wasn’t intentional, we hadn’t planned to start the childcare thing right then and there. But you were playing so happily with the spiral ball tower and climbing on the moulded plastic slide with the rounded edges and the soft faux-grass landing pad and then the carer, R , casually mentioned that we could start that very day if we wanted to and I started to say no no, we’ll start tomorrow but the words disappeared from my mouth and I just gulped and said ok.

Your father and I kissed you goodbye and you seemed almost annoyed that we disturbed your intense posting of balls into spiral towers. You didn’t even look at us, just presented your face to be kissed and got back to it. Bye bye we said. See you soon. Then we walked out of the gate and I took two steps and dissolved into tears (but silent tears because I didn’t want you to hear me cry). And I wept all the way to the car and all the way to the café where C took me (who was also sad but, you know, not in a waterfall of snot and tears kind of way) and then I saw that the chocolate croissants were very fine looking indeed and so I stopped crying and just felt sad inside.

Your waking hours are coming unstuck and I think this is as a direct result of the change in your life, regular 6.30 starts have become horrifying 5.30 ones, but as my friend H with her poor sleep addled two and a half year old said grimly to me: Welcome to my world.

Can I tell you, without a hint of exaggeration, that you are becoming a million times more adorable as each day goes by. Your little grins, your chitter chat in the back of the car, your grave attempts to sing along with the Wiggles, your current deep love for bellybuttons. Anybody’s. Any time.

Your father has taken you to the beach several afternoons and brings you home wrapped in a hooded towel looking like some sort of druid, albeit a tiny one who worships dolphins and also rockpools but abhors clumps of seaweed as the mark of evil.

And your cuddles are real cuddles, and your kisses are wet slops on our cheeks with the accompanying mah! sound and your smiles, especially when you run towards us crying Mummy or Daddy with your arms open wide, make our hearts nearly burst with joy.

That first day at your new childcare went beautifully and when we picked you up in the afternoon you were so happy to see us.

And then the next morning your father took you back to R’s and you were happy once again to play with the spiral ball tower but only if you could see your father out of the corner of your eye. And when he’d finished chatting to R and all the other parents and said “alright Tricky, it’s time for me to go,” you dropped the ball and grabbed his hand and said brightly to R: “Bye bye.”

“Oh dear,” said your father. “No, I’m saying bye bye and you’re staying here.”

Bye bye Daddy. Hello Screaming Tomato.

C could hear you scream almost back to the car. I am very glad that at that moment I was at home tippy tapping on the computer and I suspect that right then and there may have been C’s snot and tear moment.

When he got home he rang R to see how you were and lo, you were fine. R gave you half a banana and the tears stopped at once. She noted that you “respond well to food.” Just like your mother.

And the third day shone bright and fair and your father took you to R’s again and your screams followed him back down the street and again half a banana did the trick and so begins this new phase of life.

It’s scary and confronting and exhilarating and that’s just for your parents. For you, there is a whole new world, away from us, one that can only be described or reported to us, one that we won’t share.

And as time goes on, that world will get bigger, with kindy and school and friends. And puberty and adulthood.

And the world that was once all our world, you, me, your father; our solid little world of three, of milk and sleep and songs and stories, will shrink and become smaller and smaller and eventually be gone. And while I'm excited about everything else, that realisation makes me sad inside.

And no pastries or half bananas can change that.


love love love

Your very own
OvaGirl
xxxxxx

all this and more

Sydney is particularly beautiful at the change of season and, despite climate change and still cheering government change and not forgetting the spare change I gave to the man with no fingers playing a harmonica in the middle of the footpath, this morning was no exception.

I am in a strange place right now; Tricky getting older and more independent and, well, tricky (but in a good way) and last week the getting of a new job (or jobette as I think of them because being a feckless artiste one rarely gets a proper long term job) and somewhere floating in the back of my mind a wee frozen speck of life waiting for C and I to give the word for the Great Defrosting.

Dr Lovely Accent said that when I was ready I should just call the House Of Groovy IVF Love and activate my cycle. In my mind I envisage a posse of sleeper fertility sisters, syringes poised, reclining in a semi darkened room waiting for the red light to flash. But the truth is, I could have activated them on that day. Instead I told Dr Lovely Accent that it was too soon, that I’d have to wait and check my diary etc and then we could decide. I expect he thought I was a dickhead but he said that was fine and to let him know.

Check my diary? For god’s sake. Why not order hair colour and shoe size while I was at it.

The thing is, it’s not the diary that’s ill prepared for this, it’s me. I want to have another baby and I want that frozen embryo to be it but at the same time I’m only now starting to feel like my body has come back to me, my mind is firming up again. We sleep more. Tricky wakes anytime from 6am (and, very rarely, earlier) and it’s all go from then but he’s usually asleep from 7.30 pm. It’s working. There’s a system. And now I’m about to go and fuck with the system. But this year I turn 40. And if frozen embryo turns up its frozen cells that will be toes and we go for another egg retrieval then… well...time’s ticking. Is all's I'm saying.

One of the outcomes of this jobette is that some sort of consistent childcare for Tricky has become imperative. At the moment we get by with a sort of half and half approach, both C and I are working from home at the moment (but C will be back working in the country after Easter) and we’ve been able to juggle meetings, reports, scripts and budgets around Tricky’s needs. But it’s not going to be enough. And apparently quality childcare isn’t sitting your toddler in front of the spare laptop to watch endless reruns of Hairy McClary on dvd. Who then, and where and how much?

So, all this and more swirling through my mind when we took Tricky out this morning, both of us because C’s just rooted his back and can’t pick Tricky up at the moment. We grabbed a couple of coffees (yes, even me, evil temptation that is caffeine) and pastries and strolled to an inner-city park so that Tricky could expend some energy on the swings and slides.

We had to make do with the swings, at least for a while, because a couple of junkies-in-love were entwined below the slippery dip, shooting up and scratching at each other’s back. This made me cross at first but then I thought, well, if I wanted to shoot up smack maybe I’d sit there too. It was a very pleasant spot with the trees gently swaying and the traffic humming past. Even the pigeons were an attractive white or speckly colour, not the usual rat grey. As I pushed Tricky I watched them, junkies not pigeons, hoping they would go soon. Both guy and girl were wearing neat white socks and tennis shoes, I noticed.

The script producer rang at this moment so I swapped with C and he took over swing pushing and junkie watching and I discussed crossbow homicides and Final Draft. Another toddler, and mother, appeared while I was talking. They had no problem climbing onto the slide above the junkies.

They must be from around here, I thought.

As I finished the call, both toddlers were now stomping and laughing on the slides and ramps. Quite calmly the junkies-in-love gathered together their bits and bobs in a bit of newspaper and meandered out from under the slide.

We should just check they haven’t left a needle under there, the other mother said quietly and I bent and looked under – all clean.

I straightened up and watched the junkies drifting down the lane, the guy stopping to drop his newspaper and contents neatly in a bin.

And Tricky laughed and C held his back and groaned a little and I wondered how long it would take to install Final Draft and the Other Mother talked about her local childcare centre and time ticked on.

And somewhere in the city a speck of frozen life lay waiting.

And it was still a beautiful morning.

But I love him

What is this?

C is staring at something in his hand.

It’s the box the baby Panadol comes in, I say.

On the front of the box is a picture of a small child, a toddler in fact, dressed in an echidna costume, curled up asleep. This is just one of a number of products they make featuring pictures of children dressed as native Australian animals. Cute? You could roast them on an Aussie bbq with a couple of prawns and have them all on toast.

C looks carefully at the box again, deeply concerned.

Why I say, what do you think it is?

It’s…well it’s obviously a child, he says. But it looks like it’s been… wrapped in the body of some sort of dead animal.

Does it now? I ask, fascinated, as ever, at the inner workings of my husband's mind. What sort of animal?

Well, he says… it could be… an echidna.
Mmm…. I say.
But, also, I think it could be the body of a pig.

It’s ok, I say. It is an echidna.

We have a little laugh and then I say: I can’t believe you thought it was a pig.

Yeah, right, he says. And then, seriously: But why is a child wrapped in the body of an echidna?

Three Little Pricks

Tricky had his final two vaccinations the other day.

I'd like to say it all went smoothly and calmly, but then I'd also like to say there's peace all over the world and global warming has been reversed.

IT WAS TWO HOURS OF HELL.

Hell with extra screaming. Screaming like I have never heard before. I am talking way beyond Screaming Tomato. Screaming Tomato only applied when he couldn't actually thrash his Ridiculously Heavy Body from side to side or fling himself backwards out of my arms and certainly not when he could stiffen himself into a concrete garden gnome making it impossible to strap him into his straitjacket, I mean stroller.

AND ALL THIS HAPPENED IN THE WAITING ROOM.

We weren't even in Dr Jab's room yet. But with those high decibel shrieks and that alarming convulsive thrashing over the carpet we were hustled in very quickly. And not surprisingly the actual injections made no difference to the quality of the screaming. They continued. As did the thrashing and garden gnome impressions.

And of course the reception staff couldn't wait to throw us out onto the street.

So now there's me lugging an enormous baby bag, my handbag, a completely useless stroller and an insanely screaming toddler who's almost frothing at the mouth by this stage. I couldn't even put him down to load all the bags into the stroller.

As I stood there helplessly on the footpath, cursing C for having brought Tricky home late from the beach therefore he went down late for his nap therefore he was wrenched from his sleep early to make the doctor's appointment therefore he had transformed into evil monster baby and I had lost at least ten years off my life expectancy, a vision suddenly appeared before me.

She was thin. She was beautiful. She too had known the horrors of trying to manhandle an unwieldy toddler. Elizabeth Hurley gazed at me with her sympathetic come-hither eyes and brandished her Magnum.

Yes, I thought to myself. What else will shut him up and cool him down at the same time?

I pushed past the Liz cutout and into the seven 11, snatched up a little tub of vanilla icecream and paid with shaking hands.

Do you have a spoon? I asked the man behind the counter. He frowned a little but eventually managed to come up with a paddlepop stick.

Through all this Tricky kept screaming and thrashing and finally it was all I could do to sink to the linoleum in front of the ready made ham sandwiches and start shovelling the ice cream in. And miraculously it worked but only while the icecream was in his mouth. If I dared to stop and say, gather my bags together, or move the stroller out of the way of the English backpackers humming and ha-ing over which ham sandwich they should buy, then the screaming would start again.

At one point I thought to myself that the only other person I knew who had spent as much time on the floor as this was my friend George who went down to his local seven 11 to get some milk and ended up in an armed robbery.

The other prick of the week was yesterday when I went in to have a blood test for... well for all that shit you have to have when you're going to start IVF again.

Yes...we've got the fairy floss, we bought the Cheese On A Stick, we're clutching our tickets in our hot little hands. Back on the Great Big Fertility Ride we go.

It's not the same of course, different doctors for starters. We're going with Dr Lovely Accent who did the successful transfer that led to Tricky. And, at this point anyway, it looks like we won't be using the Chinese Fertility Goddess with her myriad of ghastly teas, because well basically we can't afford her. But I am off the coffee. And the wine. Almost.

We're starting with a frozen cycle, the last of our Famous Five who's been in the deep freeze for over two years. No drugs for this cycle just the usual dates with the dildocam and blood tests akimbo.

And if that fails, well we'll see.

Back on the floor of the seven 11, finally, the tub was empty, Tricky had gone for several minutes without shrieking and the red shine to his face had begun to subside.

Now was the part I feared, the sliding him back into the stroller. The English backpackers had stopped to watch, the man behind the counter had stopped to watch, and Tricky was sucking the last vestiges of icecream from his stick. Quickly I picked him up and threw him into the stroller, strapping him in even as he opened his mouth to roar.

Too late buddy, I said grimly as I loaded the bags on behind, you're in.

And off we strolled home, him shouting and kicking the whole way.

Number two? Bring it on.

Exciting parent/child tug of war now with recognisable word!

Domestic incident reported at House of OvaGirl, 1400 hours. Perpetrator is a small brown toddler with extremely cute nose. Incident took the form of an argument between SBT and mother. Mother’s statement follows:

"We had such a good morning, he ate biscuits, toast and avocado and he picked up handfuls of pebbles and threw them onto the courtyard where other customers were eating. And then he played with Claudia on the swings and with George on the slippery dip. And then we came home and he had a sleep and when he woke up the trouble started.

I asked if he wanted his lunch and he seemed agreeable to the idea and then I suggested he might like a sandwich and he said Beans.

I said no, not beans, we had baked beans yesterday and I think it would be best to have a sandwich, or if not possibly some scrambled eggs.

He said Beans, again, immediately, and I felt, well to be honest, threatened. It wasn’t what he said, it was the tone he used. So I just said Sandwich, you know, to call his bluff, and he said straightaway Beans! and this time there was definitely a threatening tone and I got annoyed and I said Sandwich! just that bit louder and he yelled BEANS!

And now he sort of stamped his feet and I said Sandwich!

And he shouted BEANS about three times, BEANS BEANS BEANS and then he rolled about on the floor and screamed and his face turned red and I said calmly that he better watch out because if the wind changes his face would stay like that and he just screamed BEEEEEEEEEEEEEAAAAAANS! BEEEEEEEEEAAAAAAANNS!

No I didn’t respond to this, I don’t think it’s helpful. I mean, I'm the adult here, not him, I'm the one with the control in this situation. I just let him scream away and very calmly and firmly got his lunch ready.

And I think all that rolling and shouting really worked up an appetite because he sat properly in his chair and ate quite nicely and obviously enjoyed his baked beans very much."

Granny A and Granny P

Tricky and I have scooted up to Newcastle. We are hanging out at my parents' place for a few days while C is in Adelaide. Tricky is of course delighted with the huge doses of Aphwa ('granny' in Burmese) that he is getting each day. Poor Poppy, his grandfather, and I are but second class citizens beside her fabulousness. Honestly though, I do feel Tricky's Great Love is getting a bit out of hand when I, his mother, am in the middle of reading him a story and the sound of Aphwah's key in the door has him launch himself from my lap. He stops only to to snatch the book from my hand and carry it out like an offering, along with a huge smarmy smile, whilst calling Apwa Readdis Readdis... as if he has been starved of all entertainment and made to amuse himself all day with a chairleg and two rubber bands. (Although actually I reckon we could get a good half hour out of those rubber bands.)

But in the meantime, another Granny, the marvellous Granny P of Rockpool In My Kitchen, who is also Penelope Farmer author of Charlotte Sometimes and many other wonderful books for kids and grownups, has written a review of my book Legs Up & Laughing.
You can read it here.