Don't have kids? Apparently, you're an idiot.

I recently saw many of my friends post the following article on their facebook page. I couldn't open it to even read it for a week or two. The title alone made me too angry.



Why? Because the title is already implying that people without children are stupid and do not know better, and that motherhood is an exclusive club.

Bull. Shit.

Smug crap. It still to this day, raises my hackles. Yes, I am a mother, but I never, ever ever forget, that some can't. Some struggle. Some don't need this kinda stuff thrown about as a joke. Some just don't WANT to. Sure, motherhood can be hard work, but do we need to imply anyone who doesn't give it due credit is a moron? We're not heroes. We're not martyrs. Motherhood is NOT an exclusive club, and people who do not have children are not stupid or worthy of the eyeroll implied in this article. Their opinions on topics involving children are just as valid as those with children. Please, don't make a huge mistake and forget that.

Creme de la Creme of 2009

The amazing Stirrup Queen has again compiled the awesome Creme de la Creme list for the year.

"So what is the Creme de la Creme list if this is your first time here? It was started as a response to the many blogging awards that are given out each winter. I expanded the idea of presenting “the best” to include a post from every blog in the ALI (adoption/loss/infertility) world*. Every blogger has a personal best that deserves recognition. As editor of the list, I create the small blurbs after the title which serve as a doorway to the post. I hope they will help you find what you are seeking to read as well as show definitively the diversity of experience and emotion within the ALI community."

Find the list and some of the most amazing, inspirational, heartbreaking, blog entries from 2009 in the ALI world... you name it, you can find it HERE. I hear #16 is especially awesome (shortcut). ;-)

Happy 1st Birthday, baby girl.

6 years ago, I started trying to conceive you, my second child. My RJ.

5 years ago, I had a dream. I was talking to a 5 or 6 year old girl in my kitchen, she was my daughter. She was telling me not to give up trying to conceive her, because if I did she would never exist, and that just could not be allowed to happen. She was so cute, fair honey brown hair, blue eyes... I assured her I'd hang on. I had renewed hope. It was you.

4 years ago, I was wilting. I was scared and I was hurting. I was angry. Infertility is soul crushing.

3 years ago I had given up. I accepted you were but a dream. I killed the dream and it broke my heart. I felt I had let you down, but I had nothing left to give anymore. Then hope whispered try again. Courage came.

2 years ago, I failed IVF #1. It hurt. I threw myself into Christmas. I denied the terrifying fear that you would never come, yet again.

12 months ago tomorrow, you came hurtling into the world in the back of an ambulance. Drama queen! Life has been dramatic since. Yet you are an utter delight. You are like sunshine, or bubbles. My heart swells every time I even look at you. That squished up face when you smile your cheesiest grin, melts me instantly. Your :-O face cracks me up endlessly. You're daring and brave, and feisty and funny. So much personality. Your blue eyes are full of emotion, your hair is fair honey brown - you already resemble that child from my dream. You are utterly amazing. I am so freaking proud you're mine. Your adoration and love for your big brother is outweighed only by his for you.

I get teary thinking about how close I was to quitting on getting you. 5 goddamn years Janey girl! I am so incredibly bloody glad I stuck at it. So glad I was a determined, stubborn, bitter, angry, pain in the arse, because it got me you. I can't imagine life without you now. You're all I dreamed of and more. And my love for you is immeasurable. You're perfect.

You were so worth that wait. Worth every tear, every heartache, every pain, every hell. You. Were. Worth. It. ALL.

Your very first birthday, I hope it delights you. I have so many wishes for you my beewee. I hope you dream big. I hope you love hard. I hope you take risks. I hope you believe in the wonder that is you.

Happy Birthday, baby girl. I luboo.

My baby girl is turning One...

In ten days, my little RJ is turning one! It is cliched to talk about time flying, but what a year, it certainly has passed in the blink of an eye.

My dramatic birth story, which I have been thinking about this week, can be read here. So dramatic, so very RJ. The world MUST stop for her, always. She is spoiled rotten by her big brother, too. He dotes on her endlessly and is always indulging her. It is a pattern I see continuing in years to come. She adores him back - the way she says Finn is to make a pffffff sound with her lips. Shes trying to get the F right! And now she is at an age where they can interact, honestly, it makes my heart skip when I see them playing together and laughing at one another, there is nothing like it on this earth. Just gorgeous.

Her latest trick of furniture cruising is doing my head in, because she gets up, and can't work out how to get back down so stands and whinges endlessly. Really hoping that trick is learned ASAP. Argh!

The year has passed so fast, between the masters, a newborn and cancer, it was like blinking. Part of me feels really guilty that I missed a lot of her year mentally, I was not as focused on it as I was on Finn's because I was under a lot of stress. I am still heartbroken I only fed for 4 months, when my goal was longer than I had Finn (10m). I am sad that whilst I still enjoyed it and cherished small moments, it was not as I envisaged. And when I had longed for this for 6 years, through infertility hell and back, I feel a little ripped.

Perspective lands heavily, though, and I am grateful that Mum is healthy again (another all clear from the oncologist yesterday!) and that I HAVE my baby girl at all. That is truly all that matters, and I will enjoy her second year completely.

I was thinking about the 5 years we tried to conceive her, the 12 months we gave up altogether, the dream of her as a 5 year old, that had inspired me before that, the invasive treatments of IUI and IVF, the heartbreak, the soul destroying hell that is infertility. The determination. And here she is. Finally. As I write this, she is standing next to me (sobbing because she again doesn't know how to get back down!) but she is gorgeous. I am told she is like me, I call her the new improved version. She is utterly beautiful. The biggest eyes, of the deepest blue - so blue they sometimes appear violet - that melt me completely. Her hair, swept to the side with a clip is getting fairer all the time. She is tiny, but boy has she packed a personality into that vessel! Feisty and she lets you know what she does and does not want with no room for doubt (sounding familiar?) She knows "cuddle" and gives them generously. Ditto those slobbery, open-mouthed, baby kisses. She says Dadda, tucker, mama and Fffffff. Her world is summed up in those 4 words!

She is everything I dreamed of and more. My beautiful Rory-Jane, keep up that feisty, and keep up the cuddles to balance it! I promise to make the next year a special one for all of us. Bringing the happy. I love you, baby girl. Happy (early) Birthday!

Infertility Revisited (again).

I was reminded again this morning, about the frustration people dealing with infertility face, and how misunderstood that grief is. When I was grieving my own infertility, at about the point that we decided to stop trying treatment and accept that we would have no more, I was so incredibly angry, so bitter, and you know what? I stand by it. It was hell and no one but those in it understood it, and it can be the loneliest feeling in the world. Most people I have come across with infertility issues, handle it with far more grace than I did, but do they feel the same as I did? Are they a seething mass of anger, and sadness underneath and simply handle it better? Are they better at projecting that outward, coping facade? Or was I really over the top in my emotional state? The end part of our journey is over at My Face Tube but there were 4 years leading up that last one, and it was the 2 prior that I was at my lowest and was often told I was angry, bitter and frankly, a bitch.

Funnily, it was the most liberating and freeing thing to do, was to be a bitch and to be okay with it within myself. Yes I am sarcastic, snarky, and with little tolerance for stupidity. But, I am okay with that. If you are not, see you later, thank you for stopping by. It is one of the silver linings of that whole period, that ability to accept and love about myself, that which others found so awful. I also made some of the most loyal, understanding and supportive friends anyone can make.

Someone wondered today, would they return to 'normal' when the infertility hell was over. Having waged that war, and eventually won it, I think no. Well, not the same normal as before, anyway. For me, it certainly eased, the wounds heal, but they leave scars, and they change you as a person. They change the people you surround yourself with, and they change you. It reminds me that there is a story to tell here. There is a voice that needs to be heard. There is normalising that needs to be done. The emotions of infertility are very often ugly, and confronting, especially to the smug variety of fertiles, but they aren't wrong.

They just are. And that's okay.

It is a story I am determined to tell.

Infertility Flashback of a good kind

You know whats REALLY nice? I had some visits to this blog this week via Lost & Found. 6 months (almost) on from my IVF babe being born, and they still keep an eye on my blog and mentioned my masters completion. It would be easy to slide me out under the door now that I am no longer IVFing, or dealing with that hell any longer, but they don't.

That made my day. For my infertility blog reading mates who have not heard of it , Lost and Found is the most amazing thing in the internet world of infertility. Seriously. It is a HUGE blogroll of every kind of diagnosis and treatment regime imaginable, of every post/pre/during infert everything all sorted in pretty categories so that you can easily find people in your same boat. Not only that, they have people assigned to go about clicking on every blog in every category to ensure tabs are kept on where you are at and that at low points, or high points, of points of any mention - a link goes into a daily newsletter that gets sent out to everyone subsribed and they come cheer you up, congratulate or commiserate with you... it is fan freaking tastic. You are NEVER alone with that hell EVER again. Kick arse.

ETA my links dont look clickable, L&F is here: http://lostandfoundandconnectionsabound.blogspot.com/ that is clickable!

38 weeks 4 days

I know this is a very self indulgent post, but indulge me if you will!

I wanted to get some things out of my very overwhelmed brain and try to gain some fresh perspective and maybe even a sense of calm and readiness for the week(s) ahead.

Today, one year ago, we failed our first IVF cycle and my period came. It was, I felt, the start of the REAL end for us. I was sure that if 2 embryos in wouldn't take, and we had struggled to even get those - that we were in real trouble.

This journey started January 1st 2004. Finn was 5 months old and we realised that since he had taken 2 years and clomid to conceive, we would likely have problems again, and we wanted a close age gap, so we started trying naturally. When Finn was 10 months old, we were able to start clomid again as he had weaned. But, it was slow, with a bad Dr who made us jump through all the hoops again the long way, despite our history. Eventually, we recommenced clomid and I stubbornly stayed on it well passed the time I ought to have stopped because I was refusing to believe it wouldn't work when it had the first time eventually. At the end of 2004, I had this dream:

(I dreamed there was a little girl who was about 5 and she was telling me not to give up, that I had to keep going or she'd never exist. She was my daughter, and her name was Olivia (not even a name we had considered). I told her not to worry, and promised I'd keep trying, and knew I had to now because otherwise she wouldn't be! And that just wasn't possible!)

- which at the time felt REALLY prophetic. Over time, I gave up on it, which hurt a lot.

Meanwhile, we had moved away and to Melbourne so a new doctor had to be found. We then started IUI treatment, and this was now 18 months of trying. We did 2 IUIs, both failed, one on Christmas eve of 2005 - a hard christmas for both J and I.

We wanted to try again but I was struggling badly with the emotion of treatment and having to drag a 2 year old Finn along to all the appointments and have him see me cry all the time with disappointment and frustration. The clinic was across the city and everything was difficult.

We decided we had had enough. Too much had gone to SO much trouble and effort for a child that it seemed would never exist, when the one we had was missing out on having all of us. So we made the excrutiating decision to end treatment and accept the end of our family.

The guilt, depression and horror of the next 18 months was beyond description. Honestly, it was literally the worst grief and pain I have ever felt. I was in a very dark and terrifying place. I lashed out at the world all the time and th ache was out of this world. I felt like I had killed that "Olivia" from my dream, that even though she had pleaded with me not to give up on her, I had, and as a result, she would now never exist. I had guilt for that, guilt at depriving Finn of a sibling, and anger the depths of which scared me. It was hell, pure hell.

After a while, i found some light, and started to find new things to fill my life. Writing, study, and rediscovering ME for ME. In September of 2007, our nephew was born which prompted an out of the blue discussion between J and I. Up until then, we had stopped speaking about it (aside from the times he would find me off having a cry over it sometimes when I discovered a reminder of my longing like Finns ultrasound photo or something).

Out of nowhere, we decided to return to treatment and this time, we refused to be stuffed around. Within a week we had an appointment at Melbourne IVF with a new fertility specialist, who immediately recommended we head directly to IVF and start immediately. It was a whirlwind, and we were excited to be back again, if not extremely scared... We felt IVF had to overcome all our issues and although taken aback to discover we would also be needing ICSI, hopeful for our chances.

First cycle we got 11 eggs, but only 2 embryos of low and average quality. Our second cycle we understimmed and had to be cancelled. We didn;t even get to retrieval and I was devastated. What had we gone back to? How difficult was this going to be, this was supposed to be the solution! I didn't expect it to be so hard, I must admit. And I didn;t realise until I endured it, how bloody hard an IVF cycle is to go through. I thought I knew, given all my years in the infertility world, but it was far harder. Our 3rd cycle we had 22 eggs retrieved and my mild/average OHSS was painful and took me a good 2 weeks to recover from. From those 22 eggs, we again only ended up with TWO embryos. I was crushed. I was so shocked and scared of going through more fresh cycles. It was so hard for us to even get TWO! We had to risk OHSS and go hard just to get two! Because of the OHSS the doctors wanted us to freeze all or only return ONE embryo when I had really wanted both. I had to decide on the spot and cried the whole transfer of one above average (not excellent) quality embryo was put in, the average frozen for later use.

I was certain it didn't work but insisted on a better progesterone support just in case... Maybe that was the key for me. Whatever the case, at 10DPO I got a positive test. I had tried to wait until 11 days, but mid morning I was a mess and just had to be put out of my misery again. So, I tested. I was shaking like a leaf and called Michelle to scream at her that it was positive. Both of us were shocked I think!!!

I had 4 of my best friends in on it from that first test, Megs who arrived early the next morning with decent brand tests and helped me check them and watched with me as a second line appeared. Amy and Emma who would inspect photos of 453 wee tests via email and tell me I was not hallucinating.. The poor girls have put up with SOO many TMI emails these past months!!!

The shock of the positive bloods, the 6 week scan that showed that fluttering heartbeat... I was terrified for the first 19 weeks. I couldnt relax and enjoy it at all. I spent the whole time petrified. At 19 weeks when we had the scan and discovered a "95% likely" girl, was the same day that I started getting daily, definite movements and I was able to relax and start to enjoy it - and to shop!

To hear no so many times, to be told FAIL FAIL FAIL NEGATIVE NEGATIVE BLOOD BLOOD so so so many times over 4 years, to try to adjust to success is really difficult. I still have trouble believing shes in there.

Freakily, Megan pointed out that between me having that dream, where she was 5 years old, and her being born is almost EXACTLY 5 years. The age in the dream. So everyone was convinced it would be a girl! We didn't go with Olivia though, because I had tied too much pain and emotion to it over the years, and I think she understands that :)

I have just under 2 weeks until she is due to be born. I cannot believe that I made it. That after SO much, we are truly almost there. Shes almost in my arms. I cant stop crying writing this! Healing! We fought so hard, and so determinedly and we bloody did it. Our babe is almost here, our family is almost complete. Finn is beside himself and always wants to chat about her, what will she look like, when will she come, what will she be like... Hes so excited about being a big brother. Seeing that side of him, that I always wanted for him, is priceless. Seeing J doing this nesting thing this weekend (LOL) and being excited makes me get tears... And feeling her move, cherishing these last moments of pregnancy and knowing this is likely the last time I will be here, feeling this miracle... its overwhelming. Its amazing.

We've almost made it.

Hormones

Oh dear. Am sitting here and the full realization of the end of infertility treatment has hit me, the hell that was the last 4 years is finished. I never have to do that again. I am free. I can't stop these body wracking sobs of relief.

Pregnancy after Infertility

I am currently during my latest pregnancy freak out, so bear with me. By freak out, what I mean is, worrying something will go wrong or has gone wrong undetected etc... It seems to happen after I start to get too close to believing it is real and enjoying it. Suddenly I find myself worrying and being scared and playing AC/DC through headphones to my stomach, even though I am not a fan, just because its loud, to get baby moving... And I have figured out why it is so. It may be obvious to everyone else, but it took a while to filter through the fear... Its that whole "this is too good to be true, something must be about to go wrong" thing. "This doesn't happen to us" etc.

I feel like its all a game. It doesn't feel real, its still are we are we not... even though I am almost 17 weeks now. It just feels like its all this maybe fun silliness, not real. When will that click over? Will it? I found myself in the midst of worrying last night (even though I had felt movements) hugging Finn, fighting back tears and thinking "I always have you kiddo" thoughts, which is what I used to do with negative tests and the like... I should be past that now, I shouldn't be thinking that way anymore. Am worried that the baby will arrive and I will be hit by this big scary unprepared for the reality shock and get PND or something. Was talking to J about it, and he is confident at some point in the next 23 weeks it will click, and I will believe it and so on. I hope so. Its still so scary, I wanted to enjoy it and instead I find myself either worrying, or wishing it away (eg I will feel better at the 6 week scan.. the 12w scan... when I get movements.. when the movement is more defined... past 26 weeks... etc etc). Need a big slap perhaps? Its just not the exciting and wonderful experience I sort of naively expected. I love it, but I spend most of it utterly terrified - and thats not fun! Need to just suck it up and get over it and force myself to be more positive.

I am pregnant

Yes indeedy I am. Up the duff, well and truly. IVF #3 was a success, though it really did not appear that would happen. I had no faith in the cycle working at all. The details are all over at My Face Tube, but in summary: Took ages to get the follicles growing, looked for a while as though the cycle may again be cancelled which was scary. Managed to get to egg retrieval, and many follicles joined the race at the end and 20 eggs were retrieved. I woke from anaesthetic feeling really crappy. They made me stay a lot longer than usual for observation but I conned them into letting me go eventually. I was bedridden for the better part of a week, aside from faking my way through transfer 2 days past the pick up. Transfer was devastating. I found out that from 20 eggs, we only had TWO embryos. They leaned heavily on me to only transfer one or nil, when I had felt I needed two in to have a real chance. The danger was that my hyperstimulation could become life endangering to me or babies should both embryos implant, because I felt so damn sore and sick I decided to go with head over heart and just had one embryo transferred, the other frozen for later use. I cried through transfer with disappointment. The retrieval had been so painful and to only have 2 and face the possibility of another stim cycle so soon was awful. A week later I was able to move around as normal, and was enduring the wait to find out if it had worked or not, but was assuming not.

At 10 days past retrieval, I caved and did a test mid morning. To my shock a second line appeared immediately, though faint (as it ought to be that early!) I was shaking, showing Josh, and he too could see it. Many more tests later and the same result. The next few days were surreal. blood tests confirmed we were pregnant, very much so. At 6 weks (4 weeks after I first found out), we had a scan and saw a tiny blob with a flickering heart beat. How on earth did this happen?! This doesn't happen to us, we fail here! My Doctor was stoked for us, which was lovely, and the next 6 weeks were awful. I was scared the whole time, full of fear, waiting for it to all go wrong. It didn't.

At 12 weeks, we had another scan, and there was our baby, legs kicking, arms waving, healthy and perfectly formed. 2 weeks later and I am just over 14 weeks pregnant, and to be honest, it still doesn't feel real. I am still finding to hard to connect. Four years of training myself to expect failure and negatives where conception is concerned is hard to change. It is really hard to adjust to the idea of potential success. I still have vague morning sickness, though improved from the horror it was at 7 weeks or so! Got a bump that feels like lying on a ball when I lay on my tummy. So far, it has all mimicked Finns pregnancy closely.

The downside is not being in Warrnambool anymore, where it was all straight forward and simple and great. Here, the care has been crap. I am booked in at the royal womens in the city, and I hate it. I wish I had gotten a private obstetrician but I am so clueless about things here being new to the area still - and having never expected to fall pregnant I never wanted to research it and tempt fate. Going to fight to do shared care with a GP here though if I can get my glucose test to go well...

So thats the update. Apologies in advance if this blog becomes the baby show a bit. Will try to still have some semblance of a normal life... but I never did before so why now!? Anyhoo... Till next time. :)

The post IVF dream-scape

Not that I am being negative, but I am beginning to think about life after IVF, this could be whether it is successful or not. I feel that having plans and dreams in the works will help when that time comes, particularly should it not be successful.

So, things I want to further pursue when I have my own time, money and resources back again:

* More writing, independent of uni deadlines - pure self motivation and determination!

* Consideration of still more post grad study (librarianship)

* Travel, starting within Australia, then heading abroad

* Return to Italian lessons

* Invest in good cameras both digital and film

* Create my own dark room and develop my own stuff - a lost art!


It is certainly a very rich life to envisage, an exciting one at that. I don't feel like giving up on the IVF at all, I am coping well and quite happy to see out our commitment of this year, but after that, I think I will be ready to move on and put all that behind us for good.

Its a sad addiction...

I know, I know. I now have 4 blogs. Its a worry, I am thinking of seeking out a blogger rehab, I am a likely patient.

I wanted to keep the infertility/IVF stuff separate to this blog, which is my main one, my little-bit-of-everything-mish-mash-jumble-of-life one. And so, myfacetube was born. Myfacetube the name, is a play on my space, facebook, you tube... combined would make a MINT, right? Just a bit of silly, for a more serious topic.

Then, the other day, I was looking at the photos Finn was taking and thinking what a cool perspective it is to see the world through a childs eyes quite literally. So I made a photo blog for his stuff: The Apple Reporter, based on a character he plays whose origins I am still to work out! (Hence the funny pic of him on that blog as the infamous apple reporter!)

Today I was browsing random blogs, as you do, and discovered the world of foodie blogs. Some that look only at restaurants etc. but I'd feel awkward going out for a meal and photographing it from every angle before, during and after eating (plus I'd always forget, plus we rarely eat out!) But I loved the cooking at home ones, and decided I might have a go at that too. Why not?! And so I added Eats at our Digs. Although, am yet to post in it, so we'll see if I actually do!

I heart blogging!

Umming and Ahhing

Every now and then, I spend some time reevaluating the decision we made to have no more kids. It was not much of a fair decision, given that to do so involves a lot of treatment, a lot of stress for all 3 of us, a lot of money and a lot of travelling.

Mostly, I am happy with the decision to just make the most of our boy, and give him everything. Every now and then, doubt creeps in. It might be someone else's baby or pregnancy announcement, it might be looking at his baby photos, or something else that makes me wonder if I do want another.

J does not, but would support me if it was what I wanted to do. I think that perhaps many people when they complete their families - infertility aside - may have doubts. How am I to know this is not normal and unrelated to infertility?

I talked it over with a good friend which helped me work through all the thoughts and really get to the heart of it all properly which was good (thanks Em xx) and again I came back to the same conclusion. This was the right decision for us.

I have gone too far forward with this decision now to go back, and I like it here. I like where I am with uni and writing and I like that I can see travel and opportunities for Finn and for J and I. I may look back across the fence to the green grass at times, but if I stop and look around properly, I can definitely see it is just as green over here.

I want to curl up and cry and cry

Infertility stuff. When people don't get it they can be cruel and they can be arrogant.

It still hurts, theres so much pain, so much frustration. I want to get people and slap them and MAKE them understand. I know it takes a stretch to 'get it' but fuck sake. I admire people who can express grief that is pretty (thats Megs for that word, thats it exactly) - good for them. I can't, its not a conscious decision, its just how it erupts, and because of that - I am shunned and attacked and ignored because people get defensive at my anger.

People, in general, are mostly selfish and superficial I have decided. What keeps me sane is the other infert girls, and the bunch of women - not infertile - but who GET IT and who accept me flaws and all, and love me anyway. I love those women, they won't ever know just how much they saved this one little person... I wish I could thank them properly, because without them... I just don't know.

International Infertility Film Festival.

Written 3 April 2007

http://infertilityfilmfestival.blogspot.com/


Some amazing stuff. Very emotional. Please support these entries, and in fact, infertility in general.

Closing the door on negativity

Written 12 January 2007

Okay, so, the last 12 months I spent grieving my infertility, and inability to give my son a sibling. Lots of anger, lots of bitterness, lots of pain. Almost exactly 12 months after deciding to stop treatment, something just changed in my head.

I don't know what it was, nothing I can pinpoint, but suddenly I just knew that it was done. It wont ever be a clean break, I am sure I will always have moments - I will always be infertile. But I feel positive. I feel excited, and I feel hopeful, and those feelings feel like strangers almost!

I was able to grieve and be accepted in that grief, even though it was not a conventional loss, and I think that is what enabled me to find this peace. I am excited about the opportunities we will provide our son with, and I am excited about the things that are in my life right now.

I feel like I have to let go of the negative to make room for the positives that I know will come. I can feel them waiting, and so I feel like I am closing the door on it all. Its a bit scary, it has sort of defined who I am for so long. I feel like I am closing the door on the girls I still support with their infertility stuff too, but I am not. I just need to take a step back, and get some balance.

I feel like I am on the verge of big happiness, and I can choose to stay where its comfortable, in what I know, in whats familiar, even though mostly negative in its very nature. Or I can step off the cliff and find out what might catch me.

I think I am ready to jump.

A year older, and the year ahead!

Written: 20 November 2006

It was my birthday last Thursday. Remember when that was a good thing?! I have begun the final year of my twenties, and I am clinging onto them for dear life. 30 next year, means I really am an adult, and there no escaping it. I am convinced I am still about 19. Somehow, ten years have passed and it has me beat how I missed them. They've been bloody good years though! J and I have been together for most of them, and still, I am sure it was only yesterday I fell in love with him at uni! And of course, the world was turned upside down in that time when our gorgeous boy arrived in the world. Youth is one thing, but I'd be old forever to have my little boy (if only I could keep him at this beautiful, 'mama is my world' age!)

So what of the next year? Someone asked this on a website I use and it was a good thing to consider. Bit early for resolutions (that I dont think I have ever kept anyway), but good to set some goals.

I applied to do a postgrad qualification so I am hoping I am accepted. I have been studying tourism, and I have enjoyed it, but I dont think it will fit with what I want the next few years of my life to be. Its all about long hours and shift work and rotating rosters. Thats fine when my boy, F, is a little older, but in his early school years, I dont want to be too far away. I could always return if I wanted to anyway.

So I thought I would dig out my so far useless Bach Arts degree and get a postgrad in teaching, and teach secondary for a while. Its the other job that has always held appeal for me. I could get the Grad Dip in Education next year and be ready to teach, but all I could teach would be philosophy, psychology and social ed/sociology. So I decided, I have 2 years before I want to go back to work fulltime, so I will spend next year getting a post grad in literary studies so I can add english to my potential classes. Admittedly, there is also an element in there of doing literature for the sheer pleasure of it. NERD!

Since F will be at kindergarten 3 mornings a week, I can study full time (have managed a half load the last 18 months with him home fulltime). I am going to need something to fill that time. I am dreading him going!

He has started last week doing 2hours a week to get him used to it for the 3 mornings next year. He LOVED it. I know he is so ready and will thrive, so I am happy, but of course, the part of me letting go for the first real time is sad. I feel like its the beginning of the end of my job as a full time mother... it is. But thats not entirely bad... just a wee bit sad. Its gone so fast and I have adored every second.

Which makes me think about the whole should we have more children thing again... Will make a decision in the next few months about returning to fertility treatment. Have had 12 months off now, and had decided that was it and was struggling to accept that. Then I realised I dont have to say its definitely over, I can always change my mind! It sounds simple but it was liberating. So, I'll decide... one day...

Speaking of infertility, next year a weekend away is being planned with the small group of women who have been like my support group through infertility. All 7 of us face fertility "challenges" (HA!) and have become like family, and we are scattered across Australia, so we have marked the long weekend in March as one we will spend together, drinking, eating and being merry! (Unless of course, theyre all up the duff, which would mean I'd drink alone for the 7 of us! Woot!)

Also want another holiday with my boys next year, and to spend more time with my beautiful little niece. I just feel like its going to be a good year.