I don’t do early. It’s really not my thing. I’m part nocturnal you see, like to make the most out of my slumber which is why when my alarm went off at 6.18 this morning you’ll forgive me for not bouncing out of bed with a Taylor Swift-like spring in my step. It was Saturday. ‘Nuff said. 

The purpose for this ridiculously rude interruption to my body’s time clock was 11 y o’s soccer match which also happened to be over the boarder and might well have been Calcutta it was that damn far away.

I don’t function that well when I’m forced to interrupt my snooze so you’d be well advised to resist communication until such time as my body clock can awaken (usually around 8-9am) and this is for your own safety. 

You’ll never see flitty shots of me in my runners and a side of green juice accompanied by the words ‘fresh start’ come up in my Insta feed, unless of course it’s at the other end world and day is actually night…what? You know, you get my drift, time zones that’s the only thing they’re good for. Tricking you into sleeping at different times of the day. 

Once we arrived at said destination, like so far out of my post code I almost needed a passport to get there, and possibly because I had a zillion hours to kill before the game my grumps got the better of me. I take a moment to reflect on what Gigi Hadid would do at a time like this, apart from take a selfie, she would love that shit. And so I did. 

After his game ended (no they didn’t win; biased ref apparently) We climbed the crest of the hill to see the beach. Let’s say the Med has nothing on this view. Kill’a. 

When’s the last time we did this? Too long. We made handprints in the sand and let the salt from the waves fill our lungs. We sat and talked about all kinds of things we’d do if we could be invisible. We made sand cookies and watched surfers. Dogs came up and shook their sand all over us. We giggled.  My boy’s blonde locks flopping over his eyes. A little bit of peace. A little bit of serenity. A little bit of ‘us time’. 

Busy lives and shit to do mean we don’t always stop and look at how lucky we are. We walked back towards the car and 11 y o entwined his arms around me. I love that he loves me. He stopped to read about the women who went to war and have a memorial attributed to them along the path to the water. I love his empathy. He kicked a stone out of the way for me. I love his kindness. 

There’s something about the open ocean, the sunshine tickling at its waves that gives you a sense of inner peace. Of happy. 

Maybe I have done good. He’s a picture of kindness, of humour, of sensitive heart and loving nature. 

Maybe getting up at an atrocious hour isn’t so bad after all and we can be thankful for all the good in our world. 

I love our little talks…

Lov n’hugs, Lady MamaG xox

It sure ain’t easy to get yourself up the knock. Specially when you’re numerically-challenged – both in the age sense and that of your medical egg count. This won’t come as any huge surprise to my fellow infertilee’s out there who are rolling their eyes right now and thinking ‘hmff, she calls herself a writer’.

I’ll say it again. It sure ain’t easy trying to get yourself a lil embryo to grow its tiny being inside your belly. But some might have us think a little different. And I’ll buy into any damn thing that tells me there’s a teeny eeny incy fragment of a chance…if I try this. Which is why a fluro yellow headline caught my beady little eye on the supermarket shelf the other day. ‘Star pregnant at 44’. Now there’s someone who blanked the odds, I thought. Took them square in the guts and tackled them to the ground harder than a 1990s Jonah Lomu three-step.

Michelle Bridges is one of those people – who’s battled the odds, not physically tackled anyone (that I’m aware of) but she’s leapt over any hurdles and landed herself naturally pregnant…yes at 44. Shit I’m happy for her, I’ve stopped short of posting a pair of hand-knitted booties to her home but yep, it’s swell.

Buuuuut Michelle, oh dear love, let me give you the heads up before the rest of the entire infertile community start to bring down your Twitter account with their bile-filled hatred…the absolute LAST thing you must do when you beat the odds and get yourself all naturally up the duff is to publicly 1. Act Smug and 2. Tell everyone it’s because of your ‘super healthy fit lifestyle’.

Sure we’re sensitive. Hells yes, we react like the atom bomb when pushed. And perhaps we could be a little edgy but listen up, lovie: How’s about instead of preaching that you so easily fell pregnant because of your supersonic diet and your ability to run 10km a day before squatting your way through a morning cup of tea, that you stick to what you know – which is helping people get fit and lose a body size.

I’ve no doubt your success is wholly attributed to your ability to push people beyond their limits to make them realise their weight dream goal but in the words of fine Yoda, fertility specialist you be not, dear girl.

It isn’t just a case of super diets and navy-seal type training regimes. Ask any specialist and they’ll tell you – some women can be majorly obese and still fall pregnant. Others might have a BMI of 2 (if there is such a thing), run every day and still not have the ability to hold onto their embryo.

Some of us have very real fertility issues that simply cannot be fixed with a brain-frying run followed by a quinoa salad, or by cutting out our weekly KFC-binge fest. I’m sure you didn’t intend to tie those of us fertility-challenged’ undies all up in a tizzy but by shit, you have.

Congrats on your baby news. You were one of the lucky ones. How about not making the rest of us feel like a bucket of shit…love n’ hugs Lady MamaG xox

About a year ago, maybe a bit less, I was at the hairdresser waiting for the pile of tinfoil on my head to process and was flicking through one of the Aussie glossies, might have been Elle or Harper’s, can’t remember which, doesn’t matter. I started reading this incredible story of a courageous young woman in her very early twenties, she had a three-year-old son and she had been battling an aggressive form of brain cancer for years. One of those things you read and think, shit there really is some cruelty in this world.

By the time I finished the article, I was swallowing hard and had to use the black towel around my neck to wipe my mascara off my cheeks. Something that stuck was in the last line where she said ‘I don’t want people’s pity, I just want to help others’. Shivers up the spine sort of stuff. Here’s this young woman with a tiny boy, who doesn’t even know if she will live to see him grow up and she’s completely selfless, poured all her energy into trying to live a healthier life in order to possibly survive and ‘heal herself through nourishment’.

There were beautiful pictures of her and her boy – you couldn’t help but feel like total shit for what they’d both been through and what their uncertain future may hold. It resonated with me not so much for the holistic healing aspect – but more for her courageous plight in wanting to create some sort of hope for other people. It also struck a chord because I know what it’s like to raise a child without one of their loving parents in their lives. I wanted to reach out and give her and her little boy a bloody tight virtual bear hug. Wish her love and strength to survive.

In the article she spoke of her journey in healing herself from the inside out with the power of healthy living, healthy eating, healthy mindset. Like I said, the last quote of the story where she seemed to be utterly selfless got me. She had me and hundreds of thousands of others.

I never got on her website. I never looked up her blog. I never bought her cookbook. But I knew who she was when I saw the news reports unfold. I heard it on the radio and thought surely not, it couldn’t be that same girl I’d read about. Her story was so real.

This woman, a young mother, with a little boy who looked up to her, had lied. The whole lot. Total pile of massive steaming horse shit. No tumours. No healing. No illness.

On Sunday, Belle Gibson, author of The Whole Pantry – not that I even want to give her one last plug but for those who don’t know who this Mistress of Bullcrap is – will unveil her ‘Tell all Tale’ on why she fooled us all. Apparently she thinks people should forgive her for coming out about the truth behind the fact she wasn’t sick. She didn’t have any sort of brain tumour, or other hideous cancers for that matter. She didn’t heal herself through holistic means. She didn’t even grow up under the pitying circumstances she’d have us believe in the countless media portrayals. Every last bit of it a whopping great lie.

Sorry Belle, but you don’t get to lie about dying and then have people forgive you. Dying is no game. I’m guessing you know nothing of losing a parent, a child, a friend, a wife, a husband…because surely to bloody god, you would never expose your little boy to this if you did. I wonder when your son grows up how he will feel about having had to live in your shadow watching you pretend you’re sick, very sick. And if you told him your lie as well to build your walls of deceit even higher…? I have watched a small boy lose someone he loved and it is the most excruciating thing you can ever do as a parent. To lie about being sick, to lie to the entire world for your own benefit but to tell this lie when you have a child who looks up to you is just unforgivable, girl. Big big shame on you.

To anyone out there battling this disease, a tiny flutter of hope to you…

I won’t be watching you soap box on why you felt you had to cheat people out of hundreds of thousands of dollars. And deceived them with a belief you could heal yourself. I have no interest in the six-page article you appeared in in the AWW. I don’t agree that you’ve been paid a chunk of money to tell as you call it ‘your side of the story’ – there is no your side. The whole thing was about you and only you.

So if I refuse to watch your twenty-minute slot tomorrow night, so too should the rest of Australia because unfortunately while we’d love to bash the media for paying you, it wouldn’t happen in the first place unless we didn’t have any interest. Satelite lost over here. I’m glad your boy no longer has to worry that his mummy might die any time soon. Unlike the many many unlucky ones who you have sold your idealogy and lied to. Lov n’hugs, Lady MamaG xox

My sister offered. My best friend I’ve known since I was seven offered. A colleague offered. Hell, I think maybe a girl in my local shop might’ve even offered. 

Their gestures come from love and generosity. Heart and kindness. Pity and helplessness. They want to give me their eggs. Not a carton of freshly laid organic hen’s offerings but those of the fertile human kind. They’ve seen my plight. They’ve heard the yearning and disappointment in my voice when each painful egg extraction brings only seven follicles of which three or four measly little eggs survive. They know how much our hearts break and our souls struggle to keep up with the battle. 

And it would be great to have the eggs of a fit and spritely 30 y o uterus that hasn’t decided to shut up shop. Whose eggs are so good they might even split in two. Yes it’s probably one of the most incredible things one woman can do for another…just not me. 

Why? Not because I think my genes are so shit hot that I must go forth and multiply to create more me in the world. Not because I worry that the kind-hearted donor might one day change her mind and want her egg-turned-baby back. 

No, the reason is this. I have the most incredibly amazeballs kid who lights up my life. He has equal parts me and his daddy. He does things that remind me of me when I was a kid and has mannerisms that constantly remind me how great his dad was. Equal parts me, equal parts him. Ours. 

We don’t want a kid just because I want to be up the knock. We want a baby that Is Equal parts The Vet, equal parts me. There are far too many unwanted kids in the world today and it would be downright selfish of me to demand someone else’s eggs just to satisfy our needs. 

No, instead if all else fails, if our last round is not the one to bring our dreams to life, if we give up the battle to bring our baby into the world…the only option and the most socially responsible one for me is to help give a better life to one of those thousands of unwanted kids coming into the world in hospitals without two loving parents who desperately want them in their lives. Lov n hugs Lady Mama G xxo 

Before I’d met Him, I didn’t know all that much about vets or the work they do. Back then, like everyone else, I saw the happy side to the life of a vet. I thought it was pretty much all fluffy kittens and wagging puppy dog tails.

My relationship with vets spanned the life of my cat – and when he died I cried for two days solid and then my dog – who miraculously recovered from ingesting my toddler’s plastic toy and went on to live another three years. I didn’t think much about the work that they did. I paid my bill. I took my dog home. Maybe I thought vets earned a pretty good crust. Interestingly, the average electrician earns a better hourly rate. I knew it took a fair bit of discipline to graduate as a vet, let alone one with first class honours.

Now I’m married to one, I see the other side of The Vet. I see the man behind the scrubs. I see the dedication, love and absolute passion for a job that so often is rewarding but at times can also be destroying. I see a man who is rarely home in time for dinner and even less of the time gets to watch the 11 y o at soccer practice. I see a man who never gets lunch because his consults are more important. I see the countless hours he pours into his research for answers and cures. I see a man who even though he smiles to the outside world, at night lets me inside his head too. I hear the stories of four-hour long surgeries, of pet’s lives hanging in the balance, of owners crippled by their grief. I look into his eyes and see a tiny piece of his soul die every time he can’t save a pet’s life. I see a man who also carries the loss of each and every of them on his own shoulders. I see a man who wears that pain and grief of families as they say their final goodbyes. I see the man who has to be the one to give the final dose. I see a man who works tirelessly. And rarely sleeps well. I hear him take calls in the middle of the night. I see him so often give up his Saturday nights, his Sundays – our time – and almost every evening.

And I also see the people who worship him like Elvis. Who bake him cakes. Who send him cards. Who bring him aged whiskey. I listen as they talk of the man they adore almost as much as I do. Gush about ‘their vet’, who’s not only hot but also happens to have the kindest heart in the world. I see them beam when he gets down on the floor to greet their dog, all the while letting it lick his face…and he doesn’t mind a bit.

I see the man behind the scrubs…and I’m so proud I think sometimes my heart might actually burst. He has what so few people lack, the kindest softest most loving nature of almost any human I know. He is The Vet…and my world is so much greater because he’s in it. Lov n’hugs, Lady MamaG xox

No baby, just a Jedi mind trick instead…

It seems my new friend Letrozole and I are not getting on as well as I thought we would. Shame on her. Just one month into our first meeting and already I’m completely pissed off. Why? Well, like a Jedi Knight, Letrozole has managed to play some ridiculously pitiful mind games on me. I took her five tiny white pills at the start of last month just as I was told…with the hope it would make my ovaries spring up into action and suck up those eggies like Jordan Belfort on a bender. If she’d stuck to the deal, we’d all be happy right now but instead I found myself days overdue, the heady highs of ‘Am I?’ ‘Could I be?’ fast making their way up to the front of the queue of my headspace.

Being as it is that my cycle has been more like clockwork than Big Ben, when on day 28 there was no sign of my usual someone-is-trying-to-stab-me-through-my-uterus’ cramps who like to visit me so frequently, my stupid and very vulnerable heart started to giggle with glee. Give it one more day I ask myself patiently. You need to wait. You’ve had no ‘pregnancy’ tweeks, and there were those Kym Richards outbursts last week…just cool it.

The next day and still nothing. But it’s mother’s day, my heart tells me. This could be a sign. I decide to give it a miss and not do any testing that morning. I think I’m doing fine and even feel a little bit of what I initially think is morning sickness (which turns out to be sea sickness, turns out it’s not a good idea to be under the galley of a boat when a big wave hits). I decline a glass of champers because I’m pretty sure I feel a bit of new pregnancy butterflies. My contrite heart will tell me anything when it’s trying to make me believe it.

I make it to the afternoon when I suddenly give in and break the sound barrier trying to get to the supermarket for a POAS (that’s pee on a stick test for those not up with fertility speak). I can’t even wait until I get home, so flee to the public toilets for the special event. What a charming thought that you get to tell your kid you discovered you were carrying it in a loo cubicle amongst everyone else’s pee on the floor – but I’m not even thinking about that I just Have. To. Know. Now.

Holding the POAS in my hand I promise God I’ll give up everything, anything even my brand new Isabel Marants if this works. I breathe in deep…close my eyes…willing it to paint two pretty pink lines…but of course it doesn’t. Stupid. Ass. Mind. Games. No second line. I can’t believe I actually fell for it, must’ve got me at a weak moment… Love n’hugs Lady MamaG xox

So Kylie Jenner’s finally fessed up that her pout ain’t what her mama gave her…collective gasps from people all over I suspect. Sorry luv but you don’t go from having a fairly slim smile to one that looks like it’s been stung by fifty bees overnight. There’s no blaming that one on ‘I’m a late bloomer’ I’m pretty sure lips don’t fall under the puberty umbrella.

life sized Bratz doll, Kylie Jenner

It’s this puffed up pout which has spawned gazillions of girls to take up something apparently ingenius called  the Kylie Jenner Challenge and attempt her ‘I’m just really good at using lipliner’ puckers. The Challenge – which wasn’t actually started or even endorsed by Ky herself – saw a bunch of young girls sucking on the end of bottles or shot glasses and trying everything under the sun to look like their fave Kardashian idol. The result? Instead of a perfectly plump set of matte smackers, most of these girls ended up with blisters, cuts, welts and general discomfort (not to mention looking like a duck’s butt) some even ending up in the medical centre.

Little Miss Jenner had said she wasn’t comfortable discussing her ‘light lip fillers’ usage with the media right now and instead preferred to let people believe it just magically appeared on her face.

before her ‘light fillers’ and looking like a normal teen

My issue here is Kylie Jenner is just 17 and apparently lip fillers are not all she’s dabbled in (surgeons have reportedly said she’s had a boob job and a nose job as well) all before she’s even 20? I mean really WTF? I don’t have a teenage daughter  but if I did, I sure as shit wouldn’t want her idolising this little life-sized Bratz doll.

To any kids, blokes, partners, grandads or anyone else who might be in the firing line if you forget…IT IS SUNDAY…! (and you’re welcome). Really, there is no way you could ever not notice…well not unless you don’t go anywhere near a shopping mall, a supermarket, a newsagent, listen to the radio, read facebook, watch tele or basically just breathe, there’s little to no chance of ‘oops, sorry I forgot’ followed by a mercy dash to the servo for the lonely wilting bunch of flowers in the bottom of the bucket that look as though they could’ve been run over by the back of your ute.

It’s my eleventh one this year, which I’m pretty sure is the equivalent of like a diamond anniversary or something…so I’ll be sure to expect something supa dupa…but equally as treasured have been the handmade cards, the clay photo frames, the jewelery box (at least that’s what I think it was) the hand drawn portrait of me – complete with dark regrowth. The carefully curated breakfasts-in-bed of vegemite salada crackers and fanta, and all the pretty smelling pink hand creams I’ve collected over this past decade-and-a-bit.

I’m clinging like shit to a blanket to the last year I have left before my baby is really not my baby anymore. He will be a teen. Holy smokes Batman where did that time go? Wasn’t he just eating vegemite soldiers with a spiderman glove on one hand…? Now he’s got his own instagram account filled with female followers and is bugging me for his own phone – despite me sounding like my own mother telling him we had to use public phone boxes when I was a kid. His dumbfounded expression followed by ‘what’s a phone box mum?’ didn’t much help matters…no it isn’t a cellphone inside your lunchbox! I rest my case. Soon he won’t want to give me those little boy hugs where he wraps his arms round my neck and squeezes the bejesus out of me. Shit I’ll probably be lucky to get a grunted hello.

It won’t be long before girls start catching his eye and I won’t be the number one love of his life. In just a few short years he’ll be exposed to alcohol, drugs and sex and each one will come with it a consequence – a broken heart, the wrong decision, a lifelong mistake. All I can hope, all any mum can hope, is that my years of constant nagging (and threats he’ll end up a rubbish collector) will one day pay off and there will be no mistakes, least no life-threatening ones.

Kamakaze off the couch…floor wins

Motherhood doesn’t end the day your kid-turned-adult-overnight walks out your front door for good. It never ends. Like finding the exit at Ikea, you keep being a mum forever and ever. The only thing that changes are the lines in your face getting deeper. The hairs on your head going greyer. You swap sleepless night feeds and constant shoving your hand in the bassinet to check his chest is still rising, to watching him take his first tumble and need his head stitching up – twice. You watch him wobble as he nervously masters the art of two wheels, next thing you’re waving goodbye on his first day of school and can hardly see him for the big schoolbag almost tipping him over. You cheer on as eleven tiny kids chase a soccer ball and each other in every direction, then suddenly he needs to wear something called ‘skins’ under his shorts and is coming home with a blood nose and a busted ankle.

The steps just seem to get steeper as the years wear on. With each passing phase of boyhood comes its own challenges, its own big fat pile of mumaphobes and any thoughts you might have entertained in your make-believe-land that your worries will get smaller as your kid gets bigger are about as real as Kylie Jenner’s pout. Suddenly your kid grows up so quickly you feel like the kid out of Poltergeist, it comes at you from nowhere.

The only sage advice is never wish away the years…once they’re gone you can’t get them back. Happy Mother’s Day to all the mums whose hair is going greyer-by-the-minute, who have just started their own journey, whose journey finished long ago, or whose journey is yet to begin… Love n’hugs, LadyMamaG xox

I haven’t listened to Tracy Chapman for years, well not since I was still perming my hair and dungarees were my staple wardrobe item, at least. This tribute she did on David Letterman brought her beautiful soul-lifting voice back into my heart…shout out to The Vet…cos you always do…Stand By Me…Lady MamaG xox