‘How much do you really want this…like how much of you wants this to happen?’ That’s what some chick dared tread very boldly on shaky ground to ask me the other day. Well I don’t know, you know the stuff that goes in your gob and fills up your lungs, what’s it called again…air, yep, that’s it. Well think about how much you need that and you should have your answer. Or thereabouts. What the fuck? Is she kidding?! Is she actually the holly-mother-of-god bloody well kidding? How much do I want this…I don’t think it’s possible to ask a more fuckass question, nope it really isn’t.

How much do I want to be sitting here in a day hospital with a harpoon-sized needle hanging from my arm feeding me shitty synthetic soy intralipds for the next four hours. For the fourtneeth time. Not all that much thank you please.  And I dear say, neither do the other five women in for the exact same reason as me, all of us hooked up to IV’s, liquid dripping through our veins like something out of Mad Max’s breeding programme.

How much do I want this….

Okay so let’s go right back to the beginning. Long ago, oh so long ago, I met this super good-looking, super-kind, super-smart and super-funny rooster and I thought, ‘yep, I’ll keep him for myself’. Childbirth, or even my reproductive system couldn’t have been further from my mind at that very point…though I may have secretly suspected he would breed some very high quality genetics. Back then, my eggs might’ve been a darn sight healthier than they are now and my body as a whole, less unaffected by the fourteen hundred-odd needles full of hormones among other things, invading it over the coming years.

After what can only be described as the most. incredible. day. ever. (sorry Kimmy, but my day shit all over yours and I’m still with my bloke) that was our joining of souls a couple of years later, followed by the ceremonious binning of my birth control stash the very next day…it was game the fuck on, sista. Hello ovaries in there, time to wake up from your long-term slumber and do your best. Strap on your rollerblades and spit out eggs like torpedoes, girls.

Hello, hello, wake up give me some of that good shit i know you’ve got in there. You’ve done it before and hit the jackpot. You can so do it again. Get in now and we’ll throw in a set of steak knives absolutely free. But yeah, nah. Ovaries, womb and general girlie bits decided around this time to turn on me like a disgruntled Bachelor contestant and have continued to do so for the past sixty months…ain’t nobody getting a rose in here.

Which is why I’m sitting in an orange vinyl chair, tears streaming down my cheeks, waiting for the last 100ml to slowly drip through, cold as fuck and desperate for a pee but holding on so I don’t have to wheel my drip into the loo with me and awkwardly park myself on the throne one-handed, careful not to step on the plastic cord and rip out the canula that’s taped to my inner arm. Because yes I want this. Yes, I’m willing to go through hell and back trying everything womanly possible and then some. Dr Babies made a brief appearance to insert my needle (thank the fucking lord cos my veins have all but collapsed) before telling me he’ll see me in the morning. ‘Yep, here’s to hoping these lil fighters are the ones,’ I tell him and very likely, myself too.

Five years ago I married the man I wanted to be in mine and the 13 y o’s lives forever. His heart – generous and kind to a fault, his compassion and empathy to want to help and to heal all he encounters, his ability to keep going day-after-day when he’s more worn out than a brothel’s washer and still be by my side with a hug and a smile, is absolutely every reason why I keep coming back for more. Every fucking reason.

my boys…right back at the start

But me too. I want it. The 13 y o wants it. Even the gorgeous golden supermutt wants it.

And sometimes I’m not as strong as I want to be. But fuck it you go back for more and more and more and more until you get what it is you’ve been hoping for all this time. So we’re putting two in…if we get so lucky as to have two lil’ frosties safely come out of the fridge and hatch their way into the petrie dish that is, they’ll both go in.

Eleven days from tomorrow.

This time next year, there is nothing I want more than to be holding a teeny little human, our baby. More than the air in my lungs. More than all the tea in China. More than every single thought that’s occupied my headspace since that day five years ago. How much, you say? More than everything and then a bit more…lov’n’hugs, Lady MamaG xox