We don’t have much time left

We had our ‘ex-neighbours soon to be near-by neighbours again’ come over this morning with their 4 month old son and some paperwork for their mortgage that needed witnessing. They were running on baby time so Lawyer’s normal Saturday morning sleep-in was cancelled so we could quickly vac the house, bake some scones and be awake and coherent for when they turned up at 9am.

After they were gone it left me feeling awake and energised, and ready to do loads of things around the house. For some reason I started on the bookshelf. Two hours later I had bought in 5 boxes of books that had been stored in the garage since we moved here 18 months ago, and 3 boxes of books had been pulled off the shelves to donate to charity.

My parents dropped by and mentioned they would be going by their local church and could drop Lawyer’s old clothes into the St Vinnies bin. Bye bye big clothes.

By 3pm today we had donated 4 bags of clothing and 3 boxes of books and got them out of our lives. It felt good.

And I’m not talking about the good karma you get for giving your unwanted things to charity. It felt good to get that much clutter and unwanted goods out of our house. But it did make me realise, that two hoarding pack-rats like us have 4 months to get the house cleaned, unpack everything from when we moved, unpack/throw-out all our childhood clutter, reduce what we don’t want, and basically try and organise things.

I’m assuming when nesting kicks in that I’ll probably wish I could drag in men with the word crew on their shirts and TV cameras and get a whole house make-over done, or at least turn the guest room/wool room/junk room into something that could sleep a baby, but it is going to be so much easier to do it if we have a lot less junk in the house to organise. Which is why I’m wanting to do the big clean now rather than when I’m 8 months fat and pregnant sitting in the middle of the room directing Lawyer to clean while balling my eyes out about how I want it all to be perfect and it’s too late to rip up the carpet and paint the walls…

So far we’ve thrown out of our lives 4 bags of clothes, 3 boxes of books… and I’m about to throw out an A4 box of old letters, junk mail, uni notes and random papers into the recycling bin. I’m keeping tally and hopefully will see the difference.

 

Nothing really important to say, so I’ll steal someone elses words

Work has been crap, and busy, and stressful and making me want to lock the door to keep the world out. And then the phone rings!

My brain is dead from the nasty week, so I’ll share this blog post a friend sent to me.

http://skepchick.org/blog/2010/02/what-pregnant-women-wont-tell-you-ever/

So remind me again, why the f*** do I want to do this again? And where the h*ll am I getting these romantic ideas about pregnancy?

 

TCC to-do

I found this TCC to-do list online after surfing through links from a friends blog. http://community.thebump.com/cs/ks/blogs/ttc/archive/2007/07/05/q-ttc-to-do.aspx

Q: With doctors, finances and everything else, there’s so much to think about! What exactly do I need to do when I’m TTC to prepare for pregnancy and a baby?

Getting pregnant
[ ] Kick the pill (or any type of birth control) oh yeah, those mood altering drugs my GP had me on for a month that caused me to turn into a homicidal maniac when Lawyer left a sock on the floor. Not an issue.
[ ] Figure out when you’re ovulating signed up to Fertility Friend and PreConceptions and temping dutifully
[ ] Learn to record cervical mucus texture see above
[ ] Read up on conception and ovulation basics have copy of What to Expect when You’re Expecting on the bedside table
[ ] Potential daddies — stayout of Jacuzzis sorry D…
[ ] Consider charting basal body temperature the thermometer is next to the above mentioned book on the bedside table, ready for early morning temp taking
[ ] Potential daddies — trade in the briefs for boxers how do you phrase that question to your donor? I really don’t want to know about D’s underwear.
[ ] Think about an ovulation predictor kit Sitting in the bathroom cupboard. Went out and bought one when we thought we might try. Will start up again the month before the ‘goods’ arrive
[ ] Have sex! already doing… oh wait. That’s heterosexual sex they mean
[ ] Lose the lube we kept losing it, now we buy it in a glow in the dark tube
[ ] Find the right position here’s some good ideas (I love that they use drawing mannequins to illustrate it)
[ ] Spice it up in the bedroom chilli sauce on the privates?

Diet & fitness
[ ] Work on getting any weight problems under control Lawyer is up to 30kg overall! I’m working on my crappy stomach muscles.
[ ] If either of you smoke, quit Erk! Never even contemplated it
[ ] Get on prenatal vitamins Trying to work out which ones are the best, but I plan to start on them in April.
[ ] Balance out your diet Lawyer’s diet is dragging me into the healthiness.
[ ] Get moving Re-signed with our local Fernwood gym for another 12 months. Now to use it!
[ ] Start weaning yourself off alcohol may have to start drinking alcohol in order to wean myself off it.
[ ] Begin limiting the lattes awww… not my coffee
[ ] Scale back on extreme exercise This doesn’t really match well with 3 questions ago
[ ] Decrease your stress Well if I can’t quit my job yet I may have to take up yoga to deal with this one
[ ] Get plenty of sleep Trying to build a good routine. At the moment getting to bed before midnight is the aim.
[ ] Potential daddies — avoid cottonseed oils Hmm… okay.

Doctors, tests & checkups
[ ] Interview OB/GYNS Well I’m not going back to the last one I had. Didn’t like her. Must go shopping for a new one.
[ ] Schedule a preconception checkup Got the paperwork for immunisation blood test check-up
[ ] Make a list of preconception checkup questions Will make sure we have that ready when we see the MIVF doc in a month
[ ] Discuss your (and your partner’s) medical history with the doc And that is why we’re using IVF
[ ] Get immunized I should be up to date, but the blood test will show that.
[ ] Visit the dentist She’s talking about putting a crown on a tooth. It’s going to be expensive and I’m procrastinating about it.
[ ] Talk to your doc about genetic testing It was all in the paperwork D and I filled in. There were no alarm bells for any potential problems. Will discuss with GP what tests can be done and when.

Money & Home
[ ] Talk it out — make sure you and your partner are on the same baby-making page We have plans, and spreadsheets and coloured budgets. Still saving like crazy at the moment. Hopefully we’ll be able to cover the costs of IVF.
[ ] Check your home for harsh chemicals and asbestos The dog is helping us find all the dangerous chemicals, and eating them- such as the snail bait! We’re also painting now so I’m not inhaling paint fumes while pregnant.
[ ] Check out your health insurance upped our coverage back in October
[ ] If you’re self-employed, apply for private disability got a job with paid maternity leave
[ ] Plan a baby budget Heard their expensive little things

 

Twins

Congratulations to Puffer and Chicken on their two little fishes born on the 21st. http://pufferandthebabyfish.blogspot.com/2010/01/our-twin-boys-are-here.html

 

Adding to the Blog Roll

I’ve been having a bit of a clean-out of dormant blogs in my blog roll (I figure 6 months of silence is enough) and adding people who have stumbled across this. So if you’ve commented or I happen to check who’s visited in the last two days and you’re there, then I’ll probably add you too.

Kinda cool to see how many people are reading my random dribblings after only 8 months of blogging, and how many blogs we’re listed in too.

Life otherwise has just been plodding along. We’ve had a couple of days of high heat again, which makes me remember that we have to get a ceiling fan installed in the bedroom before next summer. The pedastool fan works for us now, but won’t next summer. And then it cools down again and I’m grateful that we were too lazy to swap blankets and take the doona off the bed.

Australia Day is coming up, so I’m hoping for some beach time again. Lawyer looks fantastic is her bathers, and I finally have a pair that hold my boobs up, so I’m hoping that we get to try them out regularly.

But the last week we’ve been hooked on the PC game Transport Tycoon. The original DOS version (well, I got the patch so XP would play it). We start up the games around 9pm and suddenly it’s midnight  and we’re wondering why we feel so tired in the morning.

 

Time to Start Preparing

Well the ticker on the side is saying we’ve got less than 4 months to go until the second round of STI testing is done, the swimmers are released from the deep freeze and we make that trip over to Melbourne to start IVF.

In 5 months I could be pregnant!

So before I say bye-bye to my pre-baby body I’ve realised I better leave it in pretty good condition to start with. My aim (if not a deluded, wishful thinking one) is to start pregnancy with a trim stomach, strong stomach muscles, about 5 less kilos than I am currently, no caffeine addiction and no nanna jowls. (my nanna has these saggy cheeks that make her look so much older. She would disown me in a second if mum would let me come out to her.)

My new mantra for the last few days has been, if I eat this how will it affect me when we start trying for children. So far it has helped me say no to all the chocolate in the fridge (I only ate 4 pieces), a packet of two-minute noodles, deep fried samosas when we went for Indian take out, and having 4 brewed coffees in one day.

So far it’s working on me. I even enthusiastically went back to the gym, did a killer amount of crunches and went for a run (paid for the run afterwards though- damned dodgy knees).

Now to look into those pre-pregnancy vitamins. We want to be able to provide the very best start we can for our kids. Plus it makes me feel like we’re doing something more than just waiting and killing time.

 

Good News

Congrats to the gals over at Gayby Rabies who have just had twins confirmed. Although not the original suspected triplets, it’s still a fantastic outcome. Keep that heartrate beating strong!

Their news of possibly ending up with triplets from IVF got me worried. What if it happens to us? Instant medium sized family but woah! the stretch marks!

 

Our Year in Pictures

Loved this idea from other blogs so much I just had to copy.

January- spent the day together at the Mt Compass Cup, where they have cow races. The rules- catch cow, get jockey on cow, get cow to move. Repeat until cow makes it over the line with jockey riding.

February- We grew over 700 trees for a farmer in Cleve through Trees 4 Life

March- Roller Derby season gets ready to take off, and Team Zebra prepare. Lawyer aka Dee Injuria is second from the right in horizontal stripes

April- We got legally married in New Zealand

May- Tony came to live with us

June- Lawyer won 1 month with a personal trainer and dietician at our local gym which kick started her weight-loss. On the left was taken Dec '06 at her largest, and right was Nov '09 and 30kg lighter.

July- Our 6 year anniversary of the day we met

August- My best friend since I was 4 had her son

September- after years of living in a rental place we finally made a start on the chicken pen and yard, and I dug over the lawn to create a vegie patch.

October- I started a new job where this is the view from my floor.

November- To Melbourne with our donor for sperm collection

December- cherry picking for Christmas. After 4 years doing this I think it is now a Christmas tradition that will carry on when we have children.

On my birthday taking a dip at the beach

Looking back we did achieve a lot this year. It wasn’t just spent waiting.

 

Christmas, Birthday & New Year

One of these reasons is why we’re not here!

Actually I think we survived the end of year Trio pretty unscathed.

Christmas was a relatively BS free experience. Normally there is all sorts of family issues going on, sniping at people, my uncle p*ssing people off, and aunty offending all, and my cousin’s kids being so hyperactive that even a whole bottle of Ritalin wouldn’t calm them. This year we just avoided most of them, especially all of them at once.

We had my parents and sisters over at our place for Christmas lunch. It felt very… umm… grown up to be the ones hosting this year. With family 8 hours apart we have to make the decision early with whose family we’ll be spending Christmas with. We normally just tag along to our parents, letting them do the hosting and we bring a plate of something, and a vegie loaf of some kind. This year we did it ourselves, and it was fantastic. We both commented on how much it made us feel like a family, and that we were both independent grown adults, not kids playing house.

On the 30th is my Birthday. 28 this year- for all 48 hours of it! Having a post-Christmas birthday is the reason that we will not be TTC in April or May. I do not want to have a Christmas baby. It sucks that everyone is so busy that they normally forget, or they are still on holidays, and don’t want to do anything on my birthday because New Years Eve is the night after and they are planning a big one.
But Lawyer planned a day of spoiling for me. She got up when I did (even on holidays I get up at 7.30 but she sleeps in until 10) and cooked me breakfast- scrambled eggs and a coffee. YUM!
Because of the forecast heat that day plans had to be shuffled around, so we made the trip down to the beach early in the morning rather than evening. It’s been ages since I’ve been, even though its only a 30 minute drive across the city. Felt so good to go bobbing in the water and letting the waves carry me. Afterwards we went into the city to try out an organic vegan cafe that so many friends have raved about. It lived up to its reputation. I had a tangy tofu salad while Lawyer had the burger.
Then it was on to birthday gift shopping.  The photo shows my gifts from Lawyer- 3 sets of interchangeable circular needle tips, two circular cables, a set of double-pointed sock needles, and two packs of veeeeery nice tea. Exactly what I wanted, and one of the teas taste like Rocky Road chocolate.
Dinner was with my family at a newly opening Afghani restaurant run by the family of a girl I went to school with. The flavours and the spices were fantastic and both my dad and my youngest sister grabbed a menu so they could work their way through the menu next time they came back. It’s good that we’ve found a restaurant that my family likes and has a good range of vegetarian food. WIN!

New year was a quiet, but very late event. A friend of Lawyer’s was staying with us after he planned to visit our city and then the friend he was meant to be staying with changed his mind. And one of the girls from Roller Derby also wanted a quiet evening and was happy to join us. So it was a few drinks, nibbles, home-made pizza and video games. I won the first round of Buzz but bombed out on round 2 when my one beer hit. I am such a Cadbury!
Lawyer’s friend went to bed at 1am, Lawyer napped on my lap for a bit and then went to bed around 2.30-3am. The Derby girl finally sobered up enough to drive home at 4.15am, and I fell into bed not long after.

So this whole holiday break has been a good one. We both go back to work tomorrow and start wondering where our time off went to, and why none of the things we had planned to do to our house got done.

 

They Stole OUR Name*

I swear I wasn’t going to be one of those crazy mothers who got all uppity about rights over baby names. I don’t think anyone can claim rights to a name and guilt people into not using it. But there is that part of me that is really, really annoyed.

My cousin in pregnant with their first child. They are uber organised. The caesarean is already booked in (6th of May), they know they are having a girl, and they have picked a name and are telling everyone.

Problem is the name is very, very similar to one we had fallen in love with*. Admittedly we had only just fallen in love with it and we have at least 18 months before we can use it. So they probably had it picked first, but it’s really disappointing that we’ll be marking it off our list.

I know we probably could still use it, but there is every chance that our kid will be the next cousin on that side of the family, and with little chance of our kids having cousins to grow up with, my cousin’s kids (is that second or third cousins) will be their closest age relatives.

I’m still hoping that she comes out of her cesarean drugs and changes her mind.
But hopefully not to any of these: http://thingsboganslike.wordpress.com/a-bogue-by-any-other-name/

* No, we will not share until we’re certain we won’t use it. Feeling possessive about it now.