baybeasts

ever since we first embarked on this family adventure, i have thought a lot about the details of how i want all this to play out. (insert standard disclaimer about life being unpredictable and things changing blah blah blah.) i find dreaming about it all totally irresistible. for example, i have thought long and hard, and have very passionate feelings about:

and so on and so on (really, the list could go on forever).

that’s not so strange, i think.

what is strange, is how reluctant i am to tell most people about the kinds of conclusions i am reaching as i consider these things. i am more reluctant to come out about my beliefs and desires about parenting than i am to out myself as a lesbian.

of course, i’ve talked endlessly with bean about these things, and for the most part we agree. lucky.

i hope that, as with coming out as a dyke, i become more certain over time about the fundamental validity of my choices. yeah.

ps [edit] this ps had a list of the specifics of the kinds of things i am talking about. but on reflection, i have decided to take this list down. there are several reasons for this. one is that i don’t want to offend anyone. the things we want to do are not intended to be judgements of the choices that other people make - just things that feel right for us (even though in many cases they go against traditional expectations and ideas about parenting). another is that it is a list in progress - how i feel today is different to how i felt a year ago, and will undoubtedly be vastly different to how i feel once we have a couple of real live little people to deal with! the most important reason, though, is because the content of what i am talking about is beside the point. the point, because i don’t think i was clear enough, is that i feel sad that i don’t feel like i can talk openly about my ideas about parenting without fearing negative judgements. this is not a reflection on any of my friends and family - rather, it is a reflection on the profoundly rigid and highly charged field that parenting and family occupies in contemporary western culture. so there. yeah.

I have been sniffing menopause for about a week now, and am very pleasantly surprised. None of the scary symptoms seem to have happened yet. Well… maybe a hot flush or two (oh wait… that could be all the cups of tea). I have an annoying cold, but as the catcher of all things lurking, I can happily say that it’s got nothing on pneumonia, so there.

I took my last contraceptive pill today. The sniffing will continue almost until egg pick-up. We are getting closer to the real action. I’ll have a scan (dildocam) on the 1st of March to check that the suppression part of the cycle has worked nicely, and then I’ll be starting stimulation. woohoo!! oh… that means needles.

Anyway… I’m feeling pretty chipper, and also much less worried about The Change of Life.

i received some amusing and lovely emails today. this from k about our spud baby:

We’d be honored to babysit little Tatum anytime you two want a break. We have a lovely pot of oil she could swim in, or a nice warm oven to play in if she wants to. We could also give her a facial with some sour cream and maybe some avocado as well- very good for the complexion I hear.

this from bean’s grandmother, who is talking about a picnic she went on with the probus club (that is, a whole group of 80 year olds):

then [we] had a fun game where you pass a weighted piece of string down a lady’s dress and down a man’s shirt all along the line and then the first player has to pull it all back again. Caused a lot of laughs.

this exchange with my very own cold-ridden bean:

sorenson: poor sick lucky bean
bean: i sound like a chinese lolly

and this also from bean, after i moaned about this not being a funny blog, because i am a serious boring git:

and you are anything but a boring writer !!!!
I first fell in love with you through your writing - i love it, it’s my favourite writing ever! AND I love your handwriting!
i was very lucky that you are as wonderful a person as your writing suggested.

aren’t i lucky to have such sweetness and humour in my life?

we went to the beach on the weekend. this is the first time i have been to the beach all summer, and it was spectacular.

i have sore calves, from walking on sand and launching myself and a boogy board onto the waves, and sunburn where e. missed the edges on my back, and eyes that remember what a horizon looks like (they forget when they stare at a computer all day), and a mind that has stretched to hold the enormous expanse of sky and beach and colour and form and sheer beauty of the world.

every time i am somewhere beautiful like that i wonder why i don’t get myself out of the city and live there. It recharges me somehow, makes me feel real again. i am sure i would be a better person if i lived amongst such glory. am i dreaming?

O pill… It’s been a very long time
Large breasts and nausea, old friends come to visit
At least my old
enemy thrush is mercifully absent

Soon a ‘headache and hot flush’ nasal
spray
will make me moody and un-sexy
Sorenson is afeared,
but appreciates the fullness
of
breast

8 weeks of drugs, but no party…

i keep trying to think of things to blog about, but i haven’t got my head into that blogging mode yet - you know, the one where you save up stuff that happens in day to day life in a little compartment in your mind neatly labelled ‘cool blog ideas’, ready to be rifled when you find yourself in front of the computer with a few minutes free.

i think it’s also that this is primarily a blog about infertility - all the crazy mixed up events and feelings. and at the moment, we are just waiting, waiting, waiting…sometimes it seems that we have always been waiting, and we always will be waiting - so much so that the idea of a real live baby seems like a distant dream…

just a quick update - we are full steam ahead with ivf. what a relief! it’s such a strange position to be in - relieved that we are now able to spend loads of money on what is by all accounts a rather stressful procedure. but relieved we are, and oh, so hopeful (as are all ivf newbies) that we will be the lucky ones who cope well with all the drugs and get pregnant first time. please, nobody burst our bubble. it’s nice to feel hopeful again…

i think it’s probably stubbie’s turn to post. i just haven’t been able to think of anything really exciting, funny or interesting to write about. so i’ll do a list (how i love a list!) of the things that have been preoccupying me the last week or so.