Casper…the not so welcome friendly ghost baby

I wish I could tell you there were not 10 thousand loads of washing sitting on my laundry bench waiting to be folded. I also wish I could tell you there is not dog hair all over my (black) lounge room carpet. I’d love to tell you that there is not a load of (clean) dishes still in the back dishwasher waiting to be unpacked. But alas, people, this 30 Mama is all out of her compulsive cleaning disorder and the need to tidy up after myself, my two-year-old (did I mention heavily malting) golden retriever, my 8 y 0 son who likes to wear things for an hour and then chuck them in the washing pile rather than fold them and my ever-hard-working husband – the latter, both of which seem to have contributed to a rather large portion of the 18 loads of washing on my laundry floor I mean bench.

I’ve decided that rather than be chained to my laundry I will hide out in here on my computer until it does itself – or I find an app that can do it for me, or even better still…invent an app that will make me tonnes of money so I won’t have to do it ever again. After this is done then I’m off to catch a few rays while the glorious sun is beating out of the bright blue sky. Such melancholy.

Well it would be if it were not for the fact I am: No.1 a Scorpian (for those of you who regularly drink here, you will know this fact) No.2 a Control Freakazoid who hates mess and No.3 someone who really really really wants a cleaner. I have toyed with the idea of hiring one on the sly so The Vet doesn’t know but that would be a) mean because you should never lie to your spouse and b) completely and utterly ridiculous seeing as it is that I don’t have a job, or a newborn, or a small business, or even a nation to run and then the guilt would get to me so much that there would be pretty much no use whatsoever to have the cleaner who I do most of the cleaning for before she comes anyway.

So aside from mountains of laundry wreaking havoc with my stress levels there is also the fact that Casper the friendly little ghost baby is back inhabiting my womb again. He’s always hanging around week two or three of every month, you know just to drop by and tickle my uterus with cramps so I think it could be an actual small person or peanut instead of Casper who is really beginning to yank my chain right now. Casper, let’s get this straight, if you are not indeed a real baby then why do you tease and torment me in such a way that every time I get a slight tickle, sore wams, or increase in hormonal nuttiness that make me believe you’re not a ghost but an actual real live tiny person?

Before you started annoying me I was actually considering Casper as one of my names, now you’ve just totally ruined everything and I’ve had to resort back to Waterman or Albert, my other two favourite names – you’ve become THAT bloody annoying.

But not all hope is lost, there is still the ever all-warm-inside feeling I get from the 8 y o who constantly declares ‘when the baby comes’ rather than ‘if’. He’s all over it like Lilo at a bachelor party every day coming up with new names. None of them feature Casper but he has expressed his like for Cody, Tennyson (after a cartoon character, so very 2012 don’t you know) and shows constant distaste for his mum’s choice in baby names though none such as much as when he used my bathroom the other night. ‘What’s this?’ he asked, holding up my basal thermometer (yes, tucked safely in its plastic case) in his little paw. ‘Oh that’s for taking mummy’s temperature’ I told him. He wasn’t convinced because the only one he’s seen is the type that goes in your ear and is shaped completely different to the one in his hand. ‘Well it’s for measuring your inside temperature’ I tell him. ‘But where does it go?’ he keeps pushing. ‘Well it goes in mummy’s private parts’  I tell him reluctantly. You know that look you get when you really wish someone hadn’t just told you something and you want to hit delete on your mind but can’t? Well, I’m pretty sure that’s where 8 y o was about that point. That’ll teach him to be Mr Nosey Parker then won’t it!

Till next time…keep your ovaries happy, mamas!

Love n hugs, Lady Mama G xox

flamingos…a little less menacing than plovers

It’s funny how when you want things the most, they don’t happen but yet at the worst time possible they do. When my 8 y o was born (obviously he wasn’t eight when he was born but he was a bonny 8pd 3oz), we were in the process of moving house, moving jobs and moving countries. Faarrrrk it was shitballs. Excellent planning there by us. I can’t tell you how abso-darn-lutely it was the worst time ever to have a baby. I literally had a six-week old strapped to my chest and a mountain of suitcases. Fun times.

Looking back now I think I ought to have won me one of those Australian of the Year awards (ignore the small issue that I’m not Australian) because by hell I was living right up the top of stress street for the first six weeks of my baby’s life. I’m surprised I survived. I’m surprised he even survived and wasn’t left on the doorstep of the nearest orphanage with a note saying ‘have me’ and a week’s supply of formula tucked under his blanket.

I was talking about this with a girlfriend the other day (not giving my child to an orphanage, but having babies at inopportune times). She had been trying for over eight months to get pregnant and then, once she booked a four-week trip to the States (plus a whole lotta shopping and drinking) with her hubby whaddaya know it…she’s up the knock. It could be true what they say, when you least expect (or want) a baby, it will come. They have a funny little habit of interrupting your life those selfish little people. But while it might have worked for my stunning (did I mention younger) and perhaps considerably more fertile bodied friend, I’m not so convinced it will work for me because it IS ALL I CAN THINK ABOUT.

As I write this I am in great danger of being dive-bombed by an overprotective plover bird who is squawking mercilessly at my window as her tiny fluffy babies wobble over the lawn on their spindly legs. I tried to tell the mum I don’t want her babies, I’m actually after having one of my own but she won’t have it. She is actually trying to kill me by pecking. Through the window. 8 y o thinks it’s a wonderful lesson in nature. ‘I think we should leave our whole lawn for them,’ he says generously. ‘And if they want to swim in our pool, we should let them’. Thanks son that’s especially considerate of you when you are not the one who has to clean the pool of bird poop. ‘When will we have one of our own babies?’ he asks. Well, I reply, maybe when we plan an overseas trip or a move to outer-Mongolia. My words are lost on him of course because he can’t quite understand what traveling or moving to a country whose name he can’t even pronounce have to do with babies.

Maybe I need to think about planning a big ol’ trip to the US with lots of drinking, partying and shopping for expensive clothes that can only fit a non-pregnant girl. Or maybe I need to sell up, move jobs, home and country…

If you’ve got your own badly timed addition, feel free to share with the group, we won’t tell anyone…

Hugs, Lady MamaG xo

Promise, doesn’t hurt a bit…

I’m back at The Lovely Lady Doctor’s office and this time she wants to take some tests – ‘pre pregnancy screening’ she calls them. Just the usual: HIV, Hepatitis and all kinds of other delightful diseases as well as iron levels, and vitamin deficiencies. Charming. Not only can I not seem to successfully grow a little person in my tummy but it might be because I have unknowingly contracted some mosquito-infected disease too.

Oh and while we’re at it, she says, we’d better do a pap smear. It’s my lucky day! There ain’t no getting past this Sergeant Major…who seems to have uncovered it’s been well and truly over three years (I know, I know, slap my chops) since a speculum last saw the insides of my lady parts. She tells me I need to come back in another three weeks, once my results come through. “Uhh couldn’t we get them sooner, like maybe rush them through since this is sort of urgent?” I plead, convinced I am in my own state of emergency. I’m not sure she understands just how much I hate waiting.

I think of explaining to her that not only am I Scorpian, and we Scorpians don’t believe in waiting, but I’m also a 36-about-to-be-37 impatient Scorpian who really really wants a baby. Like now.

Lady Doctor doesn’t seem all that enthused by my impatience and goes right ahead and books an appointment for three weeks’ time. ‘Right. So I guess I’ll see you in a couple of weeks then, who knows what might’ve happened by then,’ I smile at her. She looks at me weirdly and is probably glad to see the back of this deranged hormonally-crazy girl.

When we next meet, I am hopeful. “Your tests all appear normal,” she starts. “Your iron is low” (note to self: stop in and buy the biggest steak outside of Texas on the way home). “But your vitamin D is up,” she counters. Yes! A win. Knew my tan was good for something! “So,” she says, looking over her specs at me again (so reminds me of my third-form English teacher) “Now you just need to relax and let nature take its course…so to speak…” I did think I would have to physically remove the eyeballs of the next person who said those words but seeing as Lovely Lady Doctor is here to help, I stop short and simply nod. “There is one other thing you can try…have you had acupuncture before?” she asks. “Nope,” I reply, possibly a little too eagerly and at more octaves than is appropriate inside a doctor’s room. “I know of a good acupuncturist who might be able to assist.” Well book the lim-ou-sine…I’ll be your little Voodoo if it means one of my lil’ egglings might hatch.

When I first meet Mr Needles he starts with a list of questions – some I believe to be completely irrelevant to the inner workings of my reproductive system but as he is the trained professional, I play along with his game. Turns out he knows his stuff and upon reading my body language (or my mind) decides I need to be ’emotionally cleaned out before my body can conceive’. He concludes that I am internally cold…which doesn’t mean I’m Cruella De Ville and collect spotty puppies but rather that I always have cold feet and explains my constant need to have too-hot-to-sit-in baths.

For anyone who is a needle-virgin, acupuncture does not hurt. Not one little pinprick (trust me, my needle phobia stretches well past the normal fear limit of a sane human being) and works on certain pressure points in your body, manipulating or releasing the muscles with needles. I particularly like that I don’t have a six-month wait to see Mr Needles.

Once question time is over, he asks me to lie up on the bed and begins placing tiny needles into my pressure points. He also runs a cord that spans from my hands to my feet to ‘bypass my inners and get my system working properly again’ of which he lights each end. There’s a slight warming sensation and then I lie there for about fifteen minutes.

After our little prickling session, he hands me some Chinese herbal tablets that I must take (by the handfuls) every day. I will need to see Mr Needles for a six-course duration, by which time he hopes everything will be in perfect working order once again. That makes two of us.
Wish me luck, my little munchkins! Hugs, Lady Mama G x