If you ask someone who’s been through it, they’ll tell you that IVF is (mostly) a pretty shitful experience. You get loaded up with hormones, have to inject yourself daily (with said dreaded hormones) get to feel puffy, gain weight, go all kind of crazy arse aggro on your family and that’s before you get to go through the horrible awful wait (that is the countdown to 11 days when you can take a pregnancy blood test).

If you know me, you’ll know I love needles (and self injecting) about as much as I love kicking my toe on a supermarket shopping trolley wheel…I freaking hate that sharp pain that goes with it when all you can do to stop yourself from crying/screaming/hitting something is to let out a nice big swearword to dull the pain.

So, for most people IVF is not a pleasant experience. Except for the friend who told me, ‘don’t listen to people when they tell you it’s horrible, don’t listen to people when they tell you it’s scary, awful or painful…my IVF experience was wonderful and this is your journey, and yours alone. Let it be a beautiful one’. You know what, it was like she was Mr Miyagi telling the Karate Kid to find his ‘inner peace’. Those words were the best advice I could have ever got because every girl’s experience is different from the next. Not every woman has pain, or swelling, or vomiting or mood swings or sore needle sites.

But hold on to your white undies my little Beliebers because it’s not all rosey tinted glasses up here in IVF land. I am scared as a cornered Christmas turkey. I am worried it won’t take and it does sting a bit when those sharp little needles puncture your skin like a crack junkie (though I suspect their needles are slightly thicker and hurt a bit more). There are lots of blood tests (can we quit it with the needles already?!) scans and waiting…all of which I’m not fond of either.

I’d be lying if I didn’t say I’m freaking the hell out. I’d also be telling little fibbies if I didn’t say there are the odd side effects but I figure if I tell all my friends, family and pretty much everyone I know that I could basically take out their eyeballs with my bare fingernails at any given moment, I think we should all be pretty safe.

Love and hugs, Lady Mama Gxox

Nine years ago, at 9.30am on a warm and sticky Monday morning, you made your (rather hasty) entry into this world and that was the very first day you melted our hearts. From the first moment the first person in the world held you, he promised nothing and no one would ever hurt you…he said hello my little man with a smile of father’s pride and we both thought nothing could ever beat this moment.

And then there was the first time you looked up at us and smiled…and we melted all over again. Then when you mumbled your first word (even though it wasn’t mama) I thought my heart was so big it was going to burst. The moment you took your first steps, the pride inside our hearts was like you were the first baby to ever walk in the world.

Then it was the first time you learnt to ride your bike on your own, wobbling down the road with your little legs pedaling as fast as they could to keep up momentum, little squeals of glee as you realised you got it, you got it, you’re actually riding on your own! And even though he wasn’t there beside you pushing you along, he was there beside you all the way. You wished upon that star every night and it twinkled right back down at you, watching over your every step.

Your first day of school…in a hat falling down over your eyes, your spindly little legs hanging out beneath too-big-for-you shorts and a schoolbag that almost touched the ground…how could my baby have grown so big so quick?

Then suddenly, the day you gave your mummy away, you grew up into a big boy…almost like it was overnight. Your legs seemed longer and you stood taller. There was something different about you. An inner smile. An inner peace. You held my hand when the wedding car man forgot to pick us up and you told me ‘it’s going to be okay, mummy’ and all of a sudden it was you making everything alright for me. On the happiest day of our lives, my heart was so big when you walked me down the aisle and we three became one.

Nine years. So much has happened my baby boy. So many smiles, so many tears, so many falls but so many rises.

Thank you for bringing me the best 10 years of my life, little peanut.

Love, your Lady MamaG xox

Nine years ago in one week, I was in a hospital in Auckland’s Greenlane giving birth the greatest thing that’s ever happened to me, my son. But a few thousand kilometres away, Denise Morcombe was busy combing the bush of her home and the surrounding area for her son. She was waiting for him to come bounding back through her doorway, a hundred miles an hour, telling her of the adventures he’d had. She was looking through every crowd in every shopping centre, in every school, in every car, on every bus for her beautiful sparkly-eyed missing boy, Daniel.

Unfortunately today, she laid that beautiful boy to rest. She never got the chance to see him turn 21, to watch him grow into a young man…or to have children of his own. She never got to see him fulfill his dream of one day becoming a vet. She never got to see him go to his high school prom, bring home his first girlfriend or even watch on anxiously the first time he learnt to drive a car.

For the Morcombe family there are many holes in the lives of his parents and his brothers who are left behind. There is a gaping chasm of ‘what if’s’, ‘maybes’ and ‘one days’ that they’ll never be able to share.

Their son and brother was tragically taken in the most horrific – yet completely normal – of circumstances. It was broad daylight, a busy highway, an area he knew but still, his life was ever so tragically cut short.

What his parents have done for the Sunshine Coast community, for the Queensland State and for the wider nation is nothing short of extraordinary. They have never once given up their crusade, not only to find their son, but to fight for his justice and to keep a reminder in the parents and children of our society of the most important factor in life…safety.

They are incredibly brave, courageous, selfless and tenacious humanitarians who have made it their life ambition to see some positive out of the most horrific of circumstances for which they faced. If you do one thing tonight, let it be to say a prayer for the beautiful almost 14-year-old boy they lost and the never-ending crusade for which they have never stopped fighting.

God bless your beautiful spirit Daniel, may it soar so high…

Love n hugs, Lady Mama G xox

What happens when you hit a bump in the road (mind the pun)? What happens when things don’t go the way you hoped they would? What happens with the stuff you can’t control? Well when you’re a 37 y o control-freak Scorpian, you totally lose your shit, that’s what.

When I first felt a twinkle in my tummy 10 years ago I thought I had the motherhood thing down pat. First go and it was a goal, can’t be much to this fertility gig…it’s a bloody cinch. I was completely complacent. Yes well you know what mother nature likes to do with those who are smug? She smacks them in the face with fertility issues like a cold barramundi.

I’ve seen many of my close friends and family battle with their own fertility issues. I’ve lent a consoling ear and shed a tear for them on their horrific and emotional ride. Not for once ever stopping to think that one day I myself would be swimming up that fertility river in a paddle-less canoe heading straight towards the rapids of the unknown.

Yep it’s fair to say Lady Mama G hasn’t had the best few weeks. There have been some good bits and some pretty shitty bits too. The good – well I’m still breathing. Another good bit is I have the handsomest and most precious 8 y o son and a delicious husband who make me complete. The bad bits are I have finally (after months of attempting to physically harm my GP) been to see a specialist. Don’t even get me started on why you have to wait so long or I’ll be forced to use profanities that would make a sailor blush.

So I finally get to meet who, for now we’ll call Dr Babies, because I sure hope that’s what he’ll bring this little elf for Christmas. He’s a specialist and is known to be the best in town. He also has more letters after his name than the entire alphabet so I figure if anyone’s going to get my little egglings to hatch, he’s the man for the job (oh, and The Vet of course).

After doing a couple of tests he comes back with what I’ve long suspected… my eggs have shriveled to something resembling a cross between a caper berry and a currant and I seem to have the egg count of a 50-year-old. They’ve pretty much packed up their bags and moved town. No goodbye note, just shot through. Not such great news when you need those little eggs to hatch. His other good news was that he suspects I have endo. Four days and a few holes in my belly later, I get to wait till Monday to find out any more good news.

I know there are like a gazilion women who have endometriosis and it’s completely curable. I also know there are women way worse off than me but it’s the fact I can’t control this ride that I don’t like. I need things in order. I need things done my way.

But mean ol’ Mama Nature, she got different plans…seems I might be getting a little more acquainted with the IVF needle…and we all know how Lady Mama G feels about needles.

Suddenly side-splitting labour seems like the easy part…

Love n hugs, Lady MamaG xox

I have become an expert at phantom pregnancies. It seems all my five-hundred-and-sixty-two fertily phone aps I’ve added to my phone are not helping with my slight insane addiction concern with bearing a small person in my uterus. I check in with my one little favourite at least fourteen times a day, just to make sure it hasn’t changed…and strangely enough it doesn’t seem to differ from what it was the last time I checked. Two hours ago.

Yes, a more sane person wouldn’t have the same need to check, recheck and one-more-time-check to see if there are any slight rises in basal temperatures. But, since I am no sane person, I’ll settle with the dozen or so times it takes before I actually register there has no change, will be no change and it’s quite likely I am becoming more delusional the more time I spend looking at the stupid little blue screen, waiting for it to change.

See, there’s the problem. Ten years ago there were no apps. There weren’t even iphones. The only time you could check your computer was in your home and even then it was dial up and by the time it connected, you’d forgotten what you wanted to research anyway. There is such a thing as being too informed. There’s also such a thing as becoming too addicted to iphone fertility apps. What? Me?

Sometimes I feel like all the new mums and their newborns in the world seem to swarm on me the moment I set foot inside a cafe, shopping mall or go to the supermarket. They’re everywhere with their cute little squished up faces, all snuggled into their tiny cuddly blankets. It’s like they’re taunting me. Only they’re not, of course. But hormones will get the better of you and make you think cray cray things. Like the time I was having lunch with some of the girls and saw a brand spanking newbie all snuggled in its carrier. It took every ounce of my will power not to go and snatch that little thing up for a snuggle. Except the mother would probably think I was a deranged baby snatcher and have me arrested. ‘They’re probably sleep deprived anyway and would love a little break’. I say to the girls with just a hint of seriousness. Thing is, I’m not actually joking. I would give my left knee cap to have a baby right now. I am The Most Clucky Girl since Nadia Suleman, Octomum. Except I really don’t want eight babies. Well not at once anyway.

I’ve also taken up a new hobby which excited my hubby no end. It’s watching every single episode of One Born Every Minute that my little eyelids can take. You know the one, a documentary filmed in a maternity hospital where they show all the new bambinos coming into the world. It’s even better than finding out Hanson has reformed. But I’m not sure my husband shares my enthusiasm for these shows and is possibly beginning to regret his decision to ask me to be his wife – especially when I settle in beside him on the couch with my choccie bar and cup of tea as though we’re about to watch an action flick.

He rolls his eyes and quite likely mutters inside his brain that he married a baby-crazed maniac. But don’t feel sorry for him, the fun is just starting. I’d happily watch back-to-back episodes all day long. Watching teeny tiny little scrunched up munchkins come into the world…what? There’s no graphic bits…well, not real graphic ones anyway. They blur out the lady parts. Though I have noticed he does go a little quiet and squirms a lot when the birthing bits come on. Best he gets all the exposure he can… there is nothing quite more frightening than a pregnant woman during labour. Oh, fun times ahead.

Hugs, Lady Mama Gxx

If there’s one thing that drives us fertility-challenged girls more crazy than conceiving itself, it’s being told to ‘relax’. And if you’re not careful, you could find yourself in the firing line of a rather sharp object heading towards your head the next time you tell someone to ‘stop thinking about it’. Not safe words to be said to a woman of extrodinarily high hormone levels. For one: You don’t actually know if it will happen, and telling her to just ‘stop thinking about it’ is a bit like putting yourself inside a shark cage with an open door, and saying nothing can get you. Thirdly, if guys you work out how many times guys think about sex every day – multiply that by a hundred and you’ll be somewhere in the ballpark of how much it consumes our crazy little heads. I have reached the stage where if someone told me to eat nothing but fish heads for a week because that would guarantee conceiving, then hell yeah, I’d be loading them into my car boot my the bucketload. But it’s quite possible the next person who tells me ‘it’ll happen’ may just find the toe of a four inch stiletto rammed firmly into their rectum.

This is pretty much how my life goes now that getting pregnant is making me crazier than Britney in a head shaving binge my passtime. I haven’t long been on the fertility runaway train but it’s holding on tighter than Muhammad Ali in a title fight, it’s been long enough and I already want to get the hell off at the next frigging stop.

And so it is that once again, I find myself emotionally acquainted with my bathroom floor. There’s an empty pink and silver foil wrapper scattered at my feet and I feel like a pregnancy test junkie…waiting, anxiously, for the little pee stick to turn pink through its viewing window. I haven’t been this excited about peeing since I once got stuck in a line at a concert after skulling my beer and was bursting so badly I thought my bladder would self-implode.

I ought to point out here, I am textbook symptomatic. I suffer evil bouts of morning sickness at the slightest hint of a small person inhabiting my womb. I am just slightly more hormonally-insane and desperate with each passing baby-less day and now, whenever either one of my mammaries feels sensitive, or if I feel the teensiest bit queasy, I’m absolutely certain they are signs. If I feel hungry…I decide yep, definitely with child. If I crave chocolate – oh, for sure I’m knocked up. Don’t feel like running for six k’s today? You can bet your grant auntie’s ruby ring I’ve got a bun in the oven.

At this point in time, my belly is feeling slightly more rounded and I feel more nauseous than a hangover after a night on French martinis. Well, almost. And no, it’s not due to the half kg of camembert and French bread I downed earlier…my chest feels as though it’s made of china and could break on touching (and by that I mean don’t come within a tiger’s whisker of my top half or I will be forced to bite your arm off). So off I go to the pharmacy in pursuit of a Test. Yes, one of thooose tests. Oh but how many freaking pregnancy tests do they sell?! Of course I do what any normal hormone-riddled woman would do. I buy all five of them.

‘Never can be too certain,’ I smile at the girl who serves me as she shifts slightly uncomfortably on her feet and scans the barcode of each pink box before depositing the collection into a non-transparent paper bag. She smiles – one of those false ‘I’m not sure if you’re credibly sane’ lip creases – and sends me on my way.

Good. At least no one will see I’ve purchased enough pregnancy tests to keep a Malaysian baby racquet going for a month. I shove my stash under my arm and make for the exit, feeling a little like a K-Middy trying to avoid the paps. Except I’m not Royal. And I’m not as skinny as her. And I’ve got blonde hair.

I take out my first test. Says it’s 99% accurate which at this stage, I’m happy to accept. Setting the little plastic test up on the bench (yes, on top of some toilet paper, in case you were concerned) and wait for the window to do its thing as the traces of pee climb their hike toward their uncovering destination.

Utterly hormonal, impatient and a little bit (okay a frickin lot) anxious before taking said test and awaiting its result is almost as nerve wracking as your first virginal shag. The test says you must wait three minutes before it’s reading can be accurate, but it’s pretty clear to see that there is only one measly little bloody pink line.

The Scorpian in me says it’s too early to tell. The control freak in me decides it could be a faulty test. I thank myself for purchasing another four tests as backup. Very good Girl Guide, always be prepared (not that I ever was a girl guide but I still think I would have made a good one). This one says you’ll get better results if you test first thing in the morning.

So, the following day, with all my fingers, toes and nostrils crossed I get busy with my second test. I wait for the window to slowly develop… a sudden rush of excitement and then it dissipates faster than a drunk 19-year-old’s knickers.

Shitballs, I’m back to square one. Only one scummy little prick of a line. This is going to be one veeery long process. Waiting is crap. Especially when you have the well-adjusted patience of a four-year-old.

Now I have a whole entire month to go…I should have been born in a different star sign…

Hugs, Lady Mama Gxx

 

To anyone over the age of 21, 37 might as well be 67 or even 90 for that fact. Old, like, real old. Olden days old. Older than vintage, even. How did I go from deciding which Louboutin heels to buy to anxiously, desperately waiting for my pee to dry on a stick? It’s almost the same euphoric high as waiting to see how much you sold something for on ebay. Almost the same high as your wedding day and a close second to hearing Madonna is doing a live concert at your local pub. Okay, so maybe that last one was a bit far fetched but still, here I am awaiting the most exciting thing in my life since picking out my engagement ring (or should that have been the night I was proposed to?) Anywho, you get my drift. So here I wait. For two months I have consumed horse tranquiliser-sized tablets from my little pink box that promises my baby will be healthy and free from defects. Okay, so it doesn’t promise but it does profess to reduce the risks so as it was, I gulped those puppies down like a Xanax junkie on a daily basis, readying my long-unused womb for its impending visit of a little person. The last time I did this I was in my twenties. That’s over an entire decade ago, if you’re asking. I was what most might call in their ‘prime years of reproduction’. It took me just one month to conceive and for the next nine months I endured constant morning sickness, a completely unnecessary amount of weight gain and lots of my hair fell out. Not to mention that bloody pigmentation I swear had never even hinted at surfacing until my hormones decided to party like its 1999 inside my poor unsuspecting body. My weight gain was mostly due to consuming what could only be described as illegal quantities of chocolate in my bid to produce a calm and contented baby – or at least that’s the theory I subscribed to. (Look it up, they seriously do say eating chocolate can create a calm baby – okay so only limited amounts but I was going for a super calm baby so a kg a day would do it). And while it most certainly did produce a calm and contented (did I mention most beautiful baby in the world) it turns out vast quantities of chocolate might be good for your unborn baby, your post-preggy belly, hips and tuckshop lady arms, not so much. After 26 (yesss, really) heavy baby-induced kilograms suddenly wafted onto my unsuspecting frame, it seems those copious amounts of yummy brown stuff don’t go so well with skinny jeans. Neither do carb binges or double-decker ham and cheese toasties. Pilates, rocket and parmesan on the other hand, work a treat. Just ask Gisele, Miranda and Alessandra. So yes, the first time around I was ‘young’. Twenty-whole-seven. A good age. I didn’t plan on having a gap wider than Jess Hart’s teeth between my children, it just turned out that way. Unforseen circumstances you might say. I have had to eat a bloody good hunk of humble pie as I was indeed one of those women who – before I found myself unsuspectingly flung into this late motherhood gig – would always snigger at mums who ‘put their career first’ or simply didn’t want kids until later in life. Selfish I think were my words. Ah how karma can swing her ugly little head around and bitch slap you with an open palm. But more about that later, ‘cos you’re gonna need a good cup of tea and a bickie for that part of the story. Now I am one of those women – almost a decade on. Forgive me Fertility Father, for I have sinned. Mercilessly. It has been over 10 years since my last conception and I fear there’s so much to confess. But please, if you do just one thing, one good thing, Fertility God, just let me have another chance, and I promise I’ll be good. Great even.

This is the first installment…you’ll have to wait to see what the next chapter unveils…oh, it’s like waiting for the next Twilight installment, eh…? Okay, so it’s not but I bet you’ll tune in anyways. For now, sayonara. LadyMamaG x

Welcome one and all. If you’ve been following my previous blog, readmylippie.com, then you’ll know me pretty well. If you haven’t been, shame on you and give yourself a little flick on the ear. If you want to know more about me, you’ll find that at the ‘About Me’ section, funnily enough. 30SomethingMama is my frank account with the asshole that is fertility and the fact it is rather strangling me with its noose as I constantly ponder drive myself nuttier than Kathy Bates in Misery trying to awaken my ovaries from their coma-inducing slumber and produce a healthy bouncing bambino – preferably by the name of Hugo or Evie. Tune in – daily if you wish – and I promise I’ll attempt to keep you entertained…or at the very least keep your mind off your own fertility battles (if indeed that is what you’re suffering) if it’s anxiety issues, PND, shopping addictions or skin irritations, I might be able to help out the odd time too…Hope you like it. If you don’t then you probably don’t like Scorpions much. Or Loub’s. Or turkish delight tim tams. Totes kiddos, enjoy. Lady Mama G x