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

And I promise not to name it North, Rocket or Pear

When I was little I used to dream about when I was big and what my own family would look like. Having come from a broken family it was mostly all I wanted – all the pieces to fit in the puzzle. Me, the dad and the two, maybe even three kids. I’d dress my Sindy doll up in her best frock and she would proudly drive her babies in her plastic pink car to the shopping village under my bed. She had a little boy named Fred and a little girl named Samantha. Fast forward a dozen or so years (okay so maybe a few more) that dream got almost entirely realised before being ripped away and then years later re-imagined in the most incredible true-life fairytale way and now, as I loom ever closer to the year that spells the end of my thirties there’s only one teeny little piece left to fit.

I can’t help it and I don’t know if it’s because like John Lennon, I’m a dreamer. Or because I’m one helluva Stubborn Scorpian Bitch, or because like that little girl I still believe in fairytales having good happy endings but I can’t help being the constant Fertility Junkie who is waaaay too intimate with her cycle than she’d like to be (and no, I don’t mean the cherry-covered seat of my pink cruiser). Sure we’ve got everything we could ever want and don’t think for one minute I’m not more grateful than Kris Jenner at Kimye’s wedding because I have the most incredibly gorgeously spectacularly wonderful mini human being in my 11 y o but for him, for me and mostly for the totes amazingly brill’ adult human being on the planet, The Vet, I need our own final puzzle piece.

So far I’ve pretty much tried every shit-assing thing that every shit-assing person can suggest on why/how I could get up the knock. Emails ping at me every time I look at my laptop telling me ways of ‘Increasing my fertility by doing cartwheels naked on a beach before sucking on the sweet nectar of a rare African fruit’. It’s my thyroid, they say. It’s my mindset – it needs to be completely free of stress (good, how do you suppose I do that when all I can do is stress over trying to get myself up the knock?!) It’s gluten they tell me, eat a shitload of spinach/kale/wheatgrass for breakfast, lunch and tea. It’s colouring my hair they say…hang on there are limits and not being able to touch up my regrowth is one of life’s necessities this slowly-finding-more-grey-hairs gal ain’t about to give up thank you please. It’s microwaves, cellphones and toxic paint fumes. It’s everything and anything but what they don’t tell you and what I don’t see ping at me when I open my inbox every morning is this: ‘Luck. It pretty much all comes down to a shitload of luck so go out and find yourself a leprechaun’.

We’ve tried trigger injections, we tried steroids, still it just slaps me in the face every single month. I do sincerely wish my cycle and I were not so frenemy-close each month but as it stands I can tell her every move being that she’s about as subtle as a Nikki Minaj bandage dress. Sadly there has been no false hope lighting up my ovaries for quite some time now as this month marks three years since I learned fertility junkie would become a regular part of my vocab. Before that I hadn’t much been exposed to it apart from watching the desperate suffering of a few close friends and a very dear family member. Shit I felt sorry for them alright but I never knew jack about their actual suffering. I had little to no idea exactly how much fertility resembles flies hovering over fresh dog shit…until I myself, skipped not-so-merrily down that sharp fork in the road. Now it’s all I can think about even when I’m not thinking about it.

I’ve lost count of how many chlomid rounds we’ve done and even exactly the number of IVF cycles that have littered our fertile past seem to have all congealed into one. The only thing I do remember is that we had One. One successful attempt and even though that little frosty barely made it past the seven week-mark it is a teeny tiny weeny flicker of hope. Dr Babies has, at one last ditch attempt, put me on Letrizole for this cycle hoping that might have some miracle affect on my little eggie speggles. Let’s all take a moment to quietly wish upon the Fertility Gods for some goodness. To all my faithful fertility fans who keep me pepped up on this shitful battle, big ups to you all your words of wisdom and hope fill my heart. Love n’hugs, Lady MamaG xox

Happy face

Two months is waaaaay too long to keep a secret and seriously, there have been so many moments in the past eight weeks or so where I nearly almost probably did put my foot in it. Luckily for me, the 11 y o was oblivious. Up until about an hour ago, he thought we were going to tuck into his fave St Kilda churros in Melbourne. At dinner time I told him to sit up at the bench.

Guess what…? I asked. We’re not going to Melbourne. His face dropped. I think he thought we weren’t going anywhere so for a moment there he might have even chucked me a boy’s version of the stink eye. I handed him his little travel wallet and said, nope, not Melbourne…we’re going to…Disneyland!

He pretty much flipped out like Kanye at the Grammy’s except waaaay more graceful like. He looked at The Vet and he looked at me. He looked back at the vet as if to double check I wasn’t making it up. ‘No…! What? Disneyland, really…is this a dream…am I dreaming?’ There were firecrackers going off in his little heart like the fourth of July. I’m pretty sure I might have even seen one or two actual stars twinkle out of his eyes. And yes, Mama had to choke back a few tears. I spose there’s not too many times in life where you get to lay a surprise on your kid as big as this and hells to the yes it was worth it. He asked again, ‘Are you sure I’m not dreaming…?’ No buddy, this ain’t no dream this be real true life.

He’s off to pack his backpack for the biggest and bestest holiday of his life. His words. While mama is still caught between two or three pairs of fawn coloured ankle boots…and deciphering how many pairs of jeans I will actually need…(so far it’s seven). Come on, it’s LA, you never know who might brush past you on the sidewalk. If my luggage comes in at oversize, I may just have to stow away a few pairs of boots in 11 y o’s suitcase which seems well-proportionally light to make room for all his mama’s shopping. Look out LA, here comes de Lady MamaG! xox

My lil’ Mr Incredible…

Me? I’m a shocker with surprises….I am abso-freaking-lutely shittingly useless. I get all too excited and from time-to-time might accidentally let something slip (because if I hold in too much I may just wee myself) which is why it may come as some surprise to you that I’ve managed to keep this one for a whole two months. Quiet fairy clap for me, please. I’ll share it with you but be sure to keep your trap shut until Thursday morning at around 11.30am. Before I tell you the surprise though, I need to fill you in on a bit of background.

When 11 y o was about three or four, I can’t remember exactly because some parts of those years are all but a blur…but he wouldn’t have been much more than three and a half because we hadn’t long lost his Daddy. He came into my room one night, carrying his trusty Big Ted under his arm he climbs up over the side of the bed and is whimpering. I miss my daddy, why did he have to leave us? I want him to come baaaack,’ he’s crying into my ear. It wasn’t unusual for him to wake up in the night like that but he’d got himself so worked up that it took me a bit to get him calm again. I held him tight and told him ‘One day very soon, mummy’s going to take you to the happiest place on earth…it’s so magical that it can take away all your hurt and all your sad. It will make your heart feel all warm again.’

The tears were soon forgotten but the promise was sealed. For years after that night I would tell him one day we’ll go there, one day all your happiness will come back into your heart. There has been pain and heartache in his short life and I’ve spent the past eight years trying to heal that sadness, make him better, fill the hole left behind, give him enough love of two parents.

And once The Vet came into our lives, the big grey clouds were gone…there’s been nothing but sunshine ever since. How the 11 y o has grown into an even more incredible being than before. The Vet is the one, and the only one who could fill all our dreams, take us to the happiest place on earth. Heal our hearts, our sad, our fear. There isn’t enough space in the interwebby for me to bang on about how flippin’ great he is. How he has rebuilt our lives like a kit of lego. How kind, loving, nuturing and gentle, yet ever respectful he is of us both…it’s the biggest reason I keep going back again and again for nine, ten even, rounds of fertility shit because the world just needs more people like The Vet in it.

The small person thinks we’re going to Melbourne this week on a 12-day holiday. He was like the Carpenters at a folk festival. ‘Can The Vet come for some of the time…?’ he asked. When I told him we were all going for the whole time I think his head almost rolled off his shoulders, his grin be so big!

Wednesday night I get to finally share our secret, I got him a little navy blue travel wallet with the words ‘never stop exploring’ on it. Inside is a vintage Disneyland ticket, an Alcatraz ticket and one for Universal Studios.

And you know what…? He still thinks we’re going to Melbourne…

It’s taken me nearly eight years to come true on that promise I made him all that time ago but in three more sleeps we are going to the happiest place on earth. A place where he can, we all can be kids, be happy, fill our hearts with the warmest feelings like midday sunshine and firecrackers all at once. Heal our bodies and our souls. I can’t wait to see his face… Love n’hugs, Lady MamaG xox