Author: Lady Mama G

Sometimes water doesn’t fall from a duck’s back…

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a tortured soul...understanding Charlotte's Web

a tortured soul…understanding Charlotte’s Web

Sometimes it sticks like shit to a blanket and hurts like hell. The death of my fellow Kiwi, media personality, model, judge and most importantly online bullying advocate, Charlotte Dawson sent shivers down my spine 0n Saturday. I’d met her (but very briefly) years ago when I was still in the land of sheep n’ L & P and then editing a teenage magazine. Charlotte was working on a story with our sister mag and had come in for Friday night drinks with the girls. I didn’t know much about her past life in Oz – the scandals and all that had followed her home. I just thought she had nice hair, a big smile and one of those voices that instantly commands attention, husky sexy and loud. That was before the birth of my son. A lifetime ago. The next time I saw her was at a lunch here on the GC for the launch of her second book and biography Air Kiss & Tell. She was still gorgeous, glamorous and yep, pretty brash but I like that in a girl.

She signed my book to our book club (yes, we really do have one) and if I’m honest I read the first few pages and shelved it. On Saturday, I found that book and finished it. I felt I owed it to her. Don’t let the first chapter about some stupid blow up doll going missing put you off, this is actually a bloody good read. It’s an insight into the woman who not only battled demons later in life but why she became the woman she was.

Her biological parents were a couple of young teens from Hawera in the North Island who bumped uglies and ended up pregnant in the ’60s and if you’re watching Love Child, you’ll know it wasn’t a good time for unwanted pregnancies to unwed, young mothers. She was adopted into a lovely family who already had two daughters of their own. Her adopted father, an orthopeadic surgeon, died when she was one. In her book she doesn’t hold back. Nothing’s off limits. Not the sexual abuse she suffered as a young child at the hands of a neighbour from church. Not leaving one of Auckland’s most prestigious girls’ schools because it wasn’t for her. Not aborting the unborn baby to her husband Olympic swimmer Scott Miller because it clashed with his hopes for the Sydney 2000 Olympics. Not the time she got caught up in a scandalous sex tape fiasco in NZ. Not the harrowing, constant and vindictive abuse she suffered in the media of her homeland where she’d returned to try and rebuild her life after the breakdown of her marriage. Not the public humiliation she suffered when her boyfriend at the time was arrested for white collar crime (and later acquitted) and then dumped her. In her memoir, there’s page after page of things that make your heart hurt. A woman who was constantly searching for something perhaps she didn’t even know what it was herself. Poignantly in one of the last chapters she says she had hoped to ‘feel cherished, loved and respected by just one more man’ before she died.

To blame the pathetic and vitriolic beasts who constantly berated and belittled her about her looks, her personality and her lovelife on an almost daily basis is to give them the credit they so clearly wanted. I refuse. Perhaps she shouldn’t have given in to those who loved to prey on her vulnerability calling her ugly, pathetic, evil. Telling her to go and hang herself. To take her life. How people – and it was mostly other women – can be so vitriolic so filthy and hurtful towards our own species is so utterly bewildering. Last weekend wasn’t the first time she had tried to take her life. It had happened before – she’d taken pills, mixed alcohol. But this time, she wanted to get back at those who had hurt her. The depression Charlotte suffered at the hands of those who attacked her, who had hurt her in the past was so deep felt that not even she was able to switch it off.

She never had children – partly because she never found a man she felt she wanted to procreate with and also because medically she wasn’t able to. Her mum suffered dementia and died some years ago and all she has left are her two sisters and their families who it appears from her book, she adored wholeheartedly.

When I was very young, we lost someone in our family to depression. They took their own life in a similar way to that in which Charlotte did. I guess it was a little bit of anger mixed in with a lot of confusion and mostly sadness that no one wanted them anymore. I never got to know that person but I believe they would have been an incredible influence in my life, with so much to give, share and pass on through a generation different from their own.

If you can get your hands on a copy, do yourself a favour and read her book. Understand the life she led. The pain she felt. The woman she really was.

Rest your weary heart, Ms D. I’m sorry you felt it was the only way out. Love n’hugs, LadyMamaG xox

 

Telling it like it is…

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baby factory? I'll take that one thank you...

baby factory? I’ll take that one thank you…

You could hear a pin drop, the room was so quiet. We were in Dr Babies’ office and had just been told of my many issues leading to my infertility. It was that silent. No words. Just a distinct disbelief. I wanted to ask him to just check again, look over his notes one more time (because of course I’d almost tripped over and fell up the knock with 10 y o). But words failed me. Silent tears trickled out of the side of my eye and I looked down at my hands. I was pissed off as all hell. Angry and downright gutted. Gutted this body I’d taken care of (mostly well, yes yes apart from the drinking, the partying and a little more drinking) could let me down. Worst of the facts was that age was a persistent player in my now unreproductive organs. The cobwebs had long grown over them and deemed them almost all but unuseful.  Our chances, Dr Babies told us, of getting ourselves a lovely jubbly little bundle of loveness were somewhere in the vicinity of 10% on our own and not a whole lot more via IVF.

Now I am one of the fast-approaching-a-decade-that-closely-resembles-forty in denial, who me? who is apparently ‘clogging up the IVF clinics’. Did I choose to be in this position? Was I a career-driven, heartless bitch who put having babies way down the bottom of my to-do list? Did I prefer traveling the far reaches of the Morroccan desert on camelback to starting a family? Was I too busy waiting for Mr Right with my long-sweeping checklist to even see that he was right in front of me? Was I selfish and enjoying my own adult life too much to consider anyone under the age of 20 being able to inhabit it? No. I was none of these. But that’s what some would have you believe. Does someone who is 40 or even 43 have less right to undergo IVF treatment than someone who is in their 20’s or 30’s? Forget what priorities they may or may not have put first, having a baby is one of the most incredible times in a woman’s life. Becoming a mother is a gift that no trip, present, whopping great diamond or even flashy car could ever replicate but that doesn’t mean to say a woman still doesn’t have the right to give it a go because she apparently put babies ‘on hold’.

Some of us have no choice. Maybe we haven’t met our tall dark n’ handsome. Maybe we would really like to fulfill our achievements and kick our goals all the way to the glass ceiling. Or maybe some of us were like me. A widow. A single mother at 31, with a small boy to look out for. I had no idea that some four years later I would meet the most incredible man who filled my life with such joy that I so desperately want to have a part of him and I to share for the rest of our lives. Things are not always what you think they are and it’s so easy to ride side saddle on our high horse looking down at those around us who might be struggling with one of the biggest fears of their lives.

As the time draws close for us to start on our long and winding (though we hope a little less long and winding this time) road through IVF yet again and yes I’m getting scared. Scared as all shit. It’s another year, another round, another series of tests, another ride through the constant waiting but bugger it, what have we got to lose…? That’s a rhetorical question – especially to those in my immediate family who may or may not right now be using words like sanity, mind, shit, hair and just plain normal human being-ness. It’s time to make the appointment with Dr Babies. I’ve done my six weeks of hard labour (gluten free), I’ve taken more vitamins than you could point a sharp stick at. I’ve participated in many (okay not many but definitely a few) jiggly, sweaty gym classes. I’ve gone back to see Mr Needles, I’ve tried to calm myself and keep busy. I’ve worked on my positiveness and being Brady Bunch-happy. I’ve even whispered to the big fella upstairs. Now it’s all up to me, right? No pressure or anything.

It’s been so much more than a ride on the crappy carnival of infertility and if I’m honest I’m not looking forward to revisiting her nasty self. And just a quick word to the wise, there’s some things you just should never say to a woman who is a) hormonally challenged and b) who has tried every goddam thing under the sun and still has nothing to show for it. What I’ve learnt so far is not to take to heart what people genuinely think is okay to ask.

Here’s a brief Q & A to get you up to speed. Do I want your eggs? No thanks I’d prefer my own, we’re not in a supermarket aisle. When do you think you’ll give up? I’m not sure, would you like to give one of your children back? How much has all this cost you? Thanks for asking. A frigging helluva lot, both financially and emotionally…but if you’d like to put your donation in the tin. Do you think it will work this time? Last time I checked I don’t have a crystal ball up my jacksie so my guess is as good as yours. Have you tried this…yes and everything in between. I know it worked for your friend’s sister’s cousin who tried for years but don’t mean it’s gonna work for me. When you give up, is when it’ll work…thanks, how enlightening did you study under the Dalai Lama? And my favourite of all, the bonus prize, the double-whammy, the supersize me with fries, Stop stressing, don’t think about it, just relax…let me just tie a led brick around your ankle and let you walk around with it for a few months, you know just to get the feeling. Don’t think about it though and you won’t even know it’s there.

Yes, fun times here we come. Love to all my fellow babywanters out there – close to forty or otherwise – big hugs, LadyMamaG xox

Ups and downs…

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I almost died today. I actually thought it was all over. Saw stars in my eyes. Went dizzy felt like I was gonna hurl up my non-existent, liquid, gluten-free breakfast. Honest to Goodness, I thought my number was up. I blame it on my girlfriend. She asked me to come to Barre with her. And while I’d like to tell you that involved learning how to perfect a Margherita or the ingredients to a divine peach martini, there was nudda alcohol (even though I really could have done with some) involved in this particular tryst. The result is I can no longer lift my arms above my head without wincing and I now require assistance to be lowered onto the toilet seat. Sorry. But it’s true. The Barre – and it was my second attempt, (in a row) I might add – was not of the suave inner city drinking kind, but instead of the burn your buns and ballet-kick your legs almost above your head without knocking someone out kind. I’ll be posting naked selfies in no time, I thought. Err, wrong. While our sweet and petite instructor gleefully told me to dig down deep into my squat so I could ‘feel the burn’, I’m not sure if the poor girl behind me appreciated my burn so much. I read somewhere Miranda Kerr or Gisele or someone equally as goddess-like swears by it so I said ‘sign me up to the Gisele-butt’ – except I may never return. Well, not until I can take myself to bloody loo at least.

I'll look like this in no time...

I’ll look like this in no time…

Yes ladies and ladsters, welcome to twenny-one-four…where a new LadyMamaG is about to be unveiled before your very eyes. Oh, I haven’t even told you about my new little journey yet have I? Alright, grab the nearest bottle of Pinot and I’ll fill you in. It’s no secret 2013 was not a very nice year to me. It’s also no secret that we’re still not speaking, so much so that I am now refusing to even acknowledge her other than to say she’s behind me, like waaaaaay out yonder behind denim dungarees and spiral perms, behind me. Along with her seven failed IVF attempts and one lost pregnancy. ‘Get out’, I told her. ‘And don’t you be coming back, y’ hear?’

Despite my need to constantly be in the driver’s seat of my own life I have given way to the patron saint of patience (just for a short time, mind) and decided to take a break from all the nasties that have been invading my body like a deranged PacMan for thirteen odd months. Dr Babies suggested that it might be a good idea to take a short holiday from the fun resort that is IVF and opt down the path of holistic remedies to see if they might help.

I’ll spare you the intrepid details to save you from falling into your computer screen asleep but I did enlist the help of a naturopath, and one who goes by the moniker of Baby Maker, no less. When a fertility-challenged, hormone-hyped, possibly mentally-unstable woman reads those words there is no need for formal introductions, you can go straight to first base thanks very much. After our first meeting where she told me there was a slight possibility my tubes are not in fact blocked (funny, a hysteroscopy, laproscopy and the photographic evidence proves otherwise) and also that age be damned, I’m in fact in the most common age of women trying to conceive you don’t need to ask me twice, sign me up and fill me with whatever it takes, I’ll even dance the tango round the Mulberry bush naked if you think that’ll help.

Only problem is, when you tell a fertility-challenged girl that you might just have the answer to all her hopes and dreams she will literally hang on your every word and hold you so true to it that I would look at maybe switching your address should it not work out. Jo-king. But no really when a girl is as desperate as I am and you tell her that you have a much higher chance of conceiving by following her guide, she is going to hold you to it like a marshmallow on a stick.

Here’s what she’s put me on. Some vial tasting liquid that may or may not be the fermented urine of a rare Alpine elk. Approximately fifty-four different types of ‘uterine-health’ herbs that make me sound like a pair of maraccas when I walk there are so many pills jiggling round in my belly and the best part – a gluten free diet. I’m all for things that make you healthy but seriously there is only so much quinoa, wilted kale and sprinkled flax seeds a girl can take, right? Okay I admit there is a slight possibility I may even feel better for it but oh how I long for a nice bloody crusty French roll and a bowl of pasta.

Apparently all these things are going to get my hormones back on track. Perhaps you should ask The Vet, the 10 y o and possibly even the dog (who always remains my biggest fan) and may all argue that Mrs Bitchypants got a whole lot nastier this month.Thanks to the lovely spirit goddess who ended school holidays this week, lov yah guts baby. Apparently I need to open up my spiritual vessel (eyes up here, thanks) to a more positive and healthy and welcoming state. We’ll see how long that lasts without KFC and bread rolls in my life. Love to all the GF sufferers out there…let’s hold hands, LadyMamaGxox

 

 

Living on a hope and a prayer…

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The legend within...hoping for a miracle...

The legend within…hoping for a miracle…

Sometimes even the things we wish for the hardest, no matter how much we burst our heart hoping, praying and willing for things to change, get better, heal or right themselves there is just no fixing them. When the world learned of F1 legend Michael Schumacher’s accident on a ski field, a fierce fear swept through the air. He had hit his head, the most fragile, breakable and often unfixable part of the human body.

He was put into an induced medical coma where, with his family still by his side, he lays today. Unchanged. On his website, his wife says ‘he’s a fighter’. She is keeping vigil beside his bed. Praying for his condition to change. They want him to wake up. They want him to get up and walk out. They want their husband, brother, son, father to open his eyes, smile at them perhaps. For things to go back to how they were a month ago. They want it to be undone, to unravel time back to that day on the mountain and for it to somehow change.

Maybe she is daily telling him, whispering in his ear to keep fighting. To try and wake up. Maybe she is looking for a miracle, in her deepest depths of despair. Maybe she thinks that if she stays beside him so he can hear her, feel her, smell her even, that it will help. Familiarity. Surroundings. Love. Hope. They are all you’re left to offer.

I don’t know him or his wife. I’m just another fan like millions of others around the world. But I know some of his wife’s pain. It is all too familiar. There is nothing greater than a grief that rips control from your very grip, that sees you faced with decisions that are so far beyond you, the fear of loss the fear of never. When all you can do is sit and watch as the constant whir of electronic machines tell you what you don’t want to know. Remind you that they, not you are in control. The ugliest reality of all is the unknown. Like his family, his friends and his fans, I will keep on hoping they can find a way out of this tragedy. Love n’hugs, LadyMamaGxox

 

When are you going to give up…?

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this many more...

this many more…

With soggy wet hair, stepping out of the shower 10 y o scrunched his nose up the way he does when he’s deep in thought, blinking at me through shampoo-redened eyes he asks, ‘why don’t you just get the IVF doctors to fix what’s wrong with you and you can have a baby. Can’t they fix your tubes so they work again?’ Nope, I never thought my 10 y o would know what tubes were either, much less that mine needed to be unblocked before we could have a baby. We’d just been watching Ricky Ponting’s story on ABC. ‘How many times did it take them to have a baby?’ he asks. I tell him they went through seven rounds before falling pregnant with their first daughter. ‘What number are we up to, maybe our seventh one will work,’ he says as if that’s the lucky number for everyone going through IVF. If it worked for a cricket legend, surely it’ll work for us too, right? I tell him we’ve already had our seventh go but that maybe eight will be our lucky number, instead.

‘How many more times will it take?’ he asks. That, Charlie, is the golden ticket. ‘Who knows,’ I reply. ‘If we did then we wouldn’t have to keep trying, buddy. We just have to hope the next one works.’

Then I started to think about how many times I’ve been asked what’s my lucky (or unlucky) number? When will you give up? When will you stop trying? How many goes until you decide enough is enough? What’s your limit? Truth is I don’t have that answer myself. If I did then maybe we wouldn’t be on this shithole journey in the first place.

You can’t put a number or a limit on how many times you’re willing to give it a go, much less than you put a number on how much you want a baby (and if you’re asking, Fertility Gods, that’s a real lot, heaps, like gazbillions). You just have to keep saddling back on up to that horse, grab it by its nasty little reigns and do your best to pull that crazy Mustang into line.

I’m thinking 14 might be my lucky number, well the year at least (nooo not fourteen babies you crazy fool) and that eight, well eight has a nice little ring to it thanks nicely. I’ve gone and signed up (under Dr Babies’ guidance) with a naturopath who has given me a list longer than Julia Roberts’ arm pit hair circa Oscar winning days, of potions and lotions that she promises will get my body back in perfect baby-making shape. Or at the very least, they’ll make my hair shiny and my nails grow (an obvious positive). I’m not wholly convinced by anyone who refers to themselves as a ‘baby maker’ but I figure, do your worst love, the crap this body’s seen in the past year would make a junkie look like a saint.

The ‘Herbs’ she has prescribed me, she admits, taste fairly close to ground up gravel and the amount of little brown bottles I have on my kitchen bench which are certain to aide everything from gut issues to healthy liver, heart and folic acid levels are sure to do me no harm. Well apart from that of my hip pocket. At the very least you may see me sign up to run a marathon very shortly. Or…then again, you may not.

No, I’m not ready to give up. Not just yet. Ask me in another year…Love, as always, Lady MamaGxox

Laters, twenny-one-three…

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a new year, new luck...?

a new year, new luck…?

Dear twenny-one-three, this might hurt a little bit so, like ripping off a week-old band aid, I think it’s best if I come right out and say it: I’m not going to miss you, not one teensy bit. You’ve seemed to lack mostly what I would say is just a mortal thread of common decency. Yes, there have been some wonderful highlights – you’ve seen the decade roll over that was the birth of the 10 y 0, and the greatest day of my life. You’ve seen the first anniversary of the day I married the Most Beautiful Man in the World, and you’ve finally seen the end to open home weekends. But, apart from that, I’ve got a bloody big bone to pick with you because it seems you’ve wanted to throw curve balls at me which ever way I’ve tried to turn. Thirteen has been about as lucky as a black cat crossing in front of you while walking under a ladder, with an umbrella up inside.

As I sit here – in my running shorts that I’m very unlikely to be running in – and try (hard) to think of all the new resolutions I need to make; no more KFC (cravings be damned), actually do my pilates DVD instead of allowing it to gather dust on my bedroom floor, eat nothing but kale, chia seeds, acia berries, quinoa and tofu EVERY night, walk the dog daily and curtail my sailor’s tongue (okay who are we kidding for that last one) I cast my mind back to the days before this year clicked swiftly into the number thirteen that has been about as lucky as Liz Taylor’s wedding vows. Yes, all seven of them.

I’d hardly even heard of Folicle Stimulating Hormone, progesterone, ovulation suppressant and trigger injections, must less known anything about how much they’d become a part of my daily life for the coming year. I’d had two, maybe three general anaesthetics in my lifetime, my thighs didn’t touch at the top and my wardrobe still fit me. I thought testosterone and steroids were for crazy gym junkies whose heads seem like they’re too small for their bodies trying to increase their biceps that one more inch and, here’s the big one, I actually stupidly beligerently believed it would take one go of IVF and I’d be up the knock.

It’s fair to say that twenny-one-three, you’ve been about as kind as Gordon Ramsay in a hot kitchen to this here fertility-challenged thirtysomething…so please please let the new one that arrives tomorrow and takes over from your shift be so much better than you. Laters sista, like a teenager’s training bra you won’t be missed.

Happy and safe New Year my lovely jubblies, love n’ hugs, Lady Mama G xox

A mummy to her boy….

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my happy lil' vegemite...

my happy lil’ vegemite…

It was a hot and muggy morning on December 15, 2003. With little wind and zero tolerance having hefted a rather large belly (along with 20-odd other kilo’s) around for the best part of nine months, I’d done everything I possibly could – including cleaning the windows on my hands and knees, drinking castor oil backwards and lying on my back with my feet in the air. Nothing worked, he was going to come when he was good and ready. Turns out 10 y o decided at 530am that Monday morning, he was ready to come into the world. There was very little time for mucking about. After sitting in the bath for 10 minutes, I told my private in-home doctor who was staying with us at the time (and also happens to be one of my besties) we’d better start making a move to the hospital, a 10-minute (save from traffic) trip from our home.

My late husband enjoyed a lead foot moment from time-to-time, god bless him and this was one of those times. He thought the baby might ‘pop on out’ at any moment so ambery-red toned lights were not going to get in his way. I wasn’t in the mood to tell him nothing was ever going to just ‘pop on out’. Well, not with the size of 10 y o’s head at least.

Once we arrived at Greenlane National Women’s Hospital and I got acquainted with the bed, the pethadine and a much needed epidural (that I waited far too long to accept, I might add) I’d barely had enough time to get my birth plan in place and hang my shakra crystals in the windows before little Peanut decided he wanted to make an entrance.

‘If you don’t get him out in this push, we’ll have to cut him out’ the doctor tells me. There were two things I was scared of before I entered that hospital – one was the epidural needle (those buggers are big) and the other was a c-section. I wasn’t having my belly cut open for no person. It seems 10 y o was in such a hurry to arrive, he’d gone and got the cord tied around his neck on his way out. Turns out that’s not very helpful. There was every chance he could have got into big trouble. That was the first time I ever tasted true fear. The next would be two and three-quarter years later when his daddy was taken from us.

At bang on 9.30am (he still likes to sleep in) 10 y o came hurtling into this world with a hiss and a roar. All 8 pounds three ounces of milky blonde hair, olive skin and the most beautiful long lashes with fine blonde tips. His very first milestone. Birth. Love doesn’t even begin to describe it. He was perfect. Soft, sweet and cuddly, he hardly made a sound. When you watch a father hold his baby son for the first time there is the most incredible warmth that starts in your heart and then goes around filling your entire body like sunshine. He was ours and he was perfect.

I could swear it happened only yesterday. But then I blink and a whole decade has flown by without even giving me time to fasten my seat belt.

Oh little Peanut (a moniker affixed to you in-utero) how you have made an imprint on our hearts. From the first moment you smiled at us and then never stopped, your hearty little giggle that made everyone smile to your first steps taken only hours after your first birthday. From finally cutting your first tooth – which took forever to come up, to strapping on your Wiggles backpack for your first day of kindy. From the first painting you made us (with beautiful bright ‘presents’) to learning to ride your little orange two-wheel bike all by yourself. From your first day of school – in a bag that almost came down to your ankles, tiny pins hanging out from t00-big-for you shorts and a hat that we could only see you underneath when you tilted your head back to laugh. From your first soccer game to your first school concert. From the first time you told me you loved me to wishing on the brightest star in the big night sky that was your daddy shining down on you. From when you learnt to write your name to when you squealed with excitement that you could ‘tie your shoes all by my own self’. From when your tiny little hands held my face and told me to ‘please stop being sad, mummy’ when your own head didn’t understand what happened to us, to when you held my hand in the taxi on the way to our wedding. From your own rendition of Gang’em Style to wearing your nude coloured skins on their own. From your first school award to topping your best in subjects you love. From the time you held my hand and told me I was brave, kissing my head to the biggest and bestest hugs you are still not afraid to give. Every. Single. Moment since 9.30am on Monday, December 15, 2003 has been the best moment ever.

Big 10 y o boy, I love that you’re cheeky and charming at the same time. I love that you’re not afraid to sing, dance or leap up in the air. I love that you’re happy to still be a kid. I love that your imagination sees you believe in the greatest of dreams. I love that your heart is so big and your mind is so kind. I love that you’re generous even though there’s only you. I love that you love The Vet so much that you always put him first. I love that when you smile, it takes up your whole entire face. I love those times when you tell me I’m beautiful and the best mummy in the world, not even winning lotto could beat. I love that you still let me dress you and fix your hair. I love that you’re strong even though you’ve been through a loss that’s so much bigger than you. I love that you’re honest and say things even when you probably shouldn’t. I love that you’re so very clever and witty yet humble enough too. But most of all, do you know what…? I love that you picked me to be your mummy.

You were my greatest gift ever. Thank you my baby boy. Love n’ hugs, Lady MamaGxox

flynnmama

 

Infertility, you win. Again.

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Look out Infertility, I got your number...

Look out Infertility, I got your number…

It’s no secret infertility and I have long been battling this year. She throws up a curve ball at us every month and we dodge it. Or at least we think we do. Then she ups her ammo a bit to wrecking ball proportions and we all know there’s no hiding from them. Specially ones on big fat chains. So it would appear yet again that nasty nasty little biatch has slapped us up with another of her brutal blows. Big. Fat. Negative. No good. Nothing. Nudda. This time it actually hurt.

With each and every loss through our seven cycles of IVF this year (yes that would be se-ven) I’ve jumped back up on the horse’s back and soldiered on. Through seven lots of drugs. Seven lots of steroids. Seven lots of progesterone. Seven lots of blood tests. Seven lots of waiting. Seven phone calls to tell us ‘sorry, it didn’t work this time’. We all have our breaking point and while  I’d like to say to Godmother Fertility that I got her number and I gonna find her and kick her lily white ass into next week, truth be told, I’m not even sure I’ve got the energy. A bit of a slap round the ankles is probably about as much as I can muster right now.

We thought it would work. No we really really did. What with all the testosterone, the melatonin, the steroids, something’s gotta make one of the lil’ embies stick, surely? Well no. No it didn’t. The only thing it appears to have helped with is the mood swings and weight gain – yes, the two of my most very favourite parts of IVF. And two of the things I’m managing to increase quite rapidly on my own thanks.

I was rather looking forward to celebrating our Island chrissie this year with a little bump on board. I even bought a special new bikini for the unveiling of it. And the only thing I really really really wanted was the one thing I clearly can’t have.

Yes I’ll still count my blessings. And yes, life will still go on. It just makes the grief all the more harder when you think you came this close to it actually working. Within a caterpillar’s toenail of having our dream come true and then poof…just as quickly as you thought mid-week, mid-11-day-wait that you were up the knock…your dreams are shattered like a mirror with the reality yet another one didn’t take.

While my heart aches for my family that we, or maybe I have failed yet again, and that a tiny bit of our dream gets chipped away with each loss the most incredible bouquet of all my favourite bright fuschia flowers with tiny diamantes peeking out from their heads handed to me by the one person who makes this all worth while is enough to give me the strength to keep on going. Infertility, you might have got this one but by f*&% am I gonna break you next time. I. Will. Win. Love n’hugs, Lady MamaG xox

 

Once was Fertile…

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the good, the bad and the ugly...infertility

the good, the bad and the ugly…infertility

There’s a picture of us on our wedding day, over nineteen months ago. We are so unbelievably happy. There is nothing that can break how good we feel. At least we think there isn’t. Yet what neither of us know with our smiling faces and twinkling eyes is what lies ahead in our first year of marriage is a ride on one of the most painfully emotional journeys that will test every ounce of our souls. Constantly. We thought we’d be pregnant by the end of the honeymoon. Hell, I thought I’d trip over The Vet and instantly become up the knock. Oh. How. Wrong. I. Was. Because I Once Was Fertile. Hells to the yes I took it for granted. I thought I was born as fertile as a field bunny. Turns out maybe I was in my 20s. Another decade (okay, and a bit) later and it’s taking every little bit of my courage left in the jar just to keep getting out of bed in the morning.

It’s not just the fact my wardrobe seems to have shrunk…along with my (very cherished) Tank Cartier, my equally beloved wedding rings and even any type of shoe that doesn’t resemble an open-toed jandal (sorry, can take the Girl outta Kiwiland). It’s not the fact my once taut belly has turned into mushy tiramisu. It’s not that we’ve spent so many thousands of dollars we could have gone on a round the world trip – and still had money left over to buy a luxury car. It’s not the fact the hormones make my personality switch from lovely to Kathy Bates’ Misery in the blink of an eye. It’s not that my bowels think it’s a funny joke to either withhold everything for days or expel it immediately (sorry for overshare) when there isn’t a loo within cooee. It’s not that I have had more general anesthetics this year alone than Courtney Stodden has for all her surgeries put together. It’s not even that I’m taking every kind of hormone you can think of and then some (and deeply concerned there could be an onset of facial hair growth at any minute). It’s not that my arms look like pin cushions and my belly is full of little blue bruises from where the needles have gone in.

No, the really suckful thing about this ride is that I. Lost. Control. Of. Everything. Long. Ago. My body, my emotions, my ability to be any sort of rational. To be patient or even positive.

Everything about IVF and infertility involves waiting. You wait until you can start your daily hormone injections then you wait 10 days to see how many follicles have grown. Then you wait to see how many of those turn into eggs. Then when you get the eggs out you wait to see how many of those they could inject. Then you wait to see how many of the injected ones make it through the night. Then you wait each day for five days after that for your phone call to tell you how many cells they’ve progressed. Then you wait to see if you’ll have an embryo to implant. Then you wait 11 days to see if that embryo has embedded in your uterus. Then you wait to see if it makes it to your first five week scan and blood test. Then, just to be sure you wait for another week to see if your hormone levels are still increasing. Then you wait until eight weeks to see if it has survived. Then you wait until 12-weeks before you know if there are any genetic defects. Then and only then do you get to finally think you might have a little bit of luck. You. Might. Actually. Have. A. Baby. One day.

This month we are on our seventh cycle of IVF. That’s thirteen long months of mood swings, dimpled thighs, disappointment and dropping more wads of of cash than Squizzy Taylor. Even the strongest Scorpions have their breaking point. I’m just hoping I can find a pocketful more brave to keep me going through this round – which this time is a bit like being in the ring with Mike Tyson. Blindfolded.

I know I’m not alone. There’s girls out there who’ve been on this journey a helluva lot longer than I have. There’s people who’ve had success and there are people who have not. There’s couples who, like us, have come so close they could almost smell the baby powder.

Cross your fingers that the two little embies we have left will make it. To my fellow infertility junkies…love, luck and wonder to y’all. Love n’hugs, Lady MamaG xoxo

 

Gender Bender: Girls play with dolls and wear pink…right?

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'80s dolls...Sindy v Barbie

’80s dolls…Sindy v Barbie

Over my morning cup of cider vinegar and honey the other morning I started reading a newspaper column by a woman who was banging on about boys toys and girls toys. She said, as a kid she never played with dolls and hated pink. I’m not sure what it meant for her as an adult but I’m afraid to say, what you play with and the colour of your clothing has absolutely jack to do with what you had when you were little. It probably encourages the opposite.

Take me for example. I was fortunate to have a very blunt, very boyish bowl cut until I was 10 or 12, by then I was old enough to decide for myself and for some strange reason informed the hairdresser I wanted a permed mullet. I know those two words shouldn’t be used in the same sentence but the ’80s were not a kind fashion decade. To anyone.

When I was a baby, in what could be considered child cruelty, my mother dressed me in my brother’s hand-me-down blue t-shirts and romper suits, to which people would comment she had a ‘very handsome baby boy’. I wasn’t impressed. Then or now. I was a fat, bald and ugly baby but that’s beside the point, you don’t put a baby girl in blue. End of. I was never ever dressed in pink. Not even a slight shade of fuchsia instead my mother bought  me denim dungarees, stripey skivvies and t-shirts – which complemented the bowl cut rather nicely, I’m assuming.

Barbie and her big boobs were not welcome in my house. Apparently they weren’t realistic. Neither was her tiny waist. Instead I had to make do with my flat-chested Sindy doll who did have an unusually large head for her body (clearly that was a tolerable design fault) as well as Daisy, who I think may have been Barbie’s flat-chested, fuzzy-haired younger sister. I also liked playing with my brother’s Action Man in his little blue plastic undies. Trying to keep me from Barbie and her boobs, and her pink everything didn’t work one bit. I spent my late teens stuffing my bras full of padding and wearing chicken fillets to boost my almost non-existent bust. As well as wearing anything and everything pink I could get my hands on. My hair’s been at least past my shoulders for the better part of my ’20s and ’30s and thanks to the wonders of modern ingenuity, a decent bust can be afforded by a good bra with a pair of built-in gel pads.

And as a mum myself, I was never one of those who wouldn’t let my son play with dolls and as most of his friends in his toddler years consisted of girls, he was often seen pushing a doll’s pram and floating around the house in dress ups. When he would stay over at friends’ houses, it wasn’t unusual for him to wear their daughter’s pink pyjamas without so much as a hiccup of protest. He’s even happy to wear the pink t-shirts I insist on buying him, because I think they bring out the blue in his eyes. But like his Daddy, he’s certainly a bloke’s bloke. Hard-wired from birth.

A child is only going to want what it can’t have – be that Barbie and her big boobs, Action Man or Tonka trucks. Get over it already…Love n’hugs, Lady MamaGxox