New Life

My goodness life has changed. It has been a LONG time since I wrote here. Not because I didn’t want to. Life just got very crazy and my focus shifted drastically during this time.

Health journey wise I lost 48kgs and travelled overseas and was living my very best life. Every kg I lost was hard worked for. There were many reasons I wanted to undertake this health journey. One of these was to give us the very best chance of having a child. We had 4 embryos frozen and the plan was to wait until we felt my body was in the best shape (and we had saved enough) and then go back in for IVF again.

Well….. long story short… we found out last October that I was pregnant… suprise!!!

Much joy, worry, excitement, fear, etc. ensued. What can I say after 8 years of infertility and then being pregnant in the middle of a pandemic I was a barrel of emotions hahaha.

Little Miss C came into the world in May and she is perfect. I couldn’t believe it. So many joyful tears you guys. We had some initial issues with feeding which is a story I will save for another day, but generally she has just been a joy. She surprises us everyday and I still can’t believe how lucky we are.

I have missed writing here and now as I continue on my life journey as a Mum, wife, health and knowledge seeker I really wanted to get back here.

Can’t wait to share and to catch up with you all!!!

2016 in review

Well the new year is here. I had high hopes for 2016. In truth many wonderful things happened and were achieved in 2016.I feel that the good things are often overshadowed by the fact that I failed to get the thing I wanted the most, a baby. 2 failed transfers, much heartache and being filled with hormones which rival a sorority house whose cycles have synced on the day before AF hits left me a little jaded. I have decided to remind myself of some of the good things that happened in 2016 to get some perspective.

• Hubby and I finally achieved our goal of our own home, whilst getting there was a long road (3 years since purchasing the land long and 9 years of saving long) it is totally worth it because we are both totally in LOVE with our home (I’ll post more on the house another day with pics).
• My youngest nephew Coda was born.
• Hubby and I have gotten even better with our communication. It’s the kind of open and honest relationship I have always dreamed of having. Whilst he is generally the suffer in silence type, he is opening up a lot more now which I love.
• I celebrated 1 year in my role as Reference & Information Services Librarian in January (it will be 2 years tomorrow). Honestly I can’t believe I have only been here that long. It feels like forever and I have done so much in this role.
• I was asked to act up in the Branch & Customer Services Coordinator role for the last quarter of the year. It was so challenging and I loved it. I really enjoyed all the work with the programming and promotions. If they ever develop a role for that here I will totally apply 🙂
• I have developed a close group of friends at work. I am not someone who makes close friends easily and I decided last year to put myself out there more and got great results. The result is a group of friends I can count on, sound off ideas on, have lunch and sometimes dinner with, go for walks after work and to the gym with, go to the movies with, we even went bowling. This awesome group of people has made a huge difference to my work and home life and I have such a great time with them!
  I feel very fortunate to have met people like this in my workplace.
• Hubby and I have learned a lot about DIY (seriously LOVE YouTube!!!). We have done basically all of our landscaping ourselves (Hubby much more than me), we have installed our own washing line and even learned how to lay bricks and built our own brick mailbox. The mailbox isn’t the most professional job, but it is the mailbox that love built and was a great bonding experience and we did much better than Homer did with that BBQ.
  
• I quit smoking! Something I have been wanting to do for the longest time. February  15, 2017 will mark one year since I have quit. Sometimes (rarely now) in times of stress or emotional upset (like 2 failed IVF transfers) I kind of want to reach for a smoke, but I have been so good. VERY proud of this accomplishment. I did put on weight after quitting because instead of smoking I would eat. To be honest I let myself do this because I truly feel that was the right choice for me. Now that I have been successful in quitting smoking I have turned my attention back to my food. I have yet to conquer emotional eating, I am SO bad for this!

 

So there is a lot of really good things that happened this year. Often it is hard to think about them when something that is so all consuming is constantly at the forefront of your mind. I could choose to give in to it, or I could combat it another way. Yes IVF transfers failed for us twice one of which was a PGS tested perfect lil man embryo, Yes I REALLY got my hopes up on the lil man transfer, Yes my FS doesn’t seem to be the most open and communicative. So Hubby and I have done a tonne of research over the past couple of months and put some things into action which I will talk about in another post coming soon 🙂

Losing my habit

Many moons ago I was studying for my higher school certificate (HSC for the Aussies, final school exams that give you your marks to get into University for everyone else 🙂 ), I had always had issues with exam anxiety. It wasn’t that I didn’t study or didn’t try, I just got in there and somehow convinced myself things were trick questions or they wanted more than what was on there or had blanks. It was a bad time. My grandmother was also very ill and going through cancer treatments.

One day I went to visit my grandmother with my Mum and the doctor chose that day to tell us that she would not be getting better. I blocked up all my reactions and when we left the hospital I kept striding towards the car until my Mum yelled for me to stop. I sat down on a short wall and started crying. My Mum had her cigarettes sitting next to her and I just took one and lit it. That was the day I first started smoking.

I was a pretty considerate smoker I believe. I stood away from people and crowds when smoking. I held the cigarette away from myself and blew the smoke away from myself to reduce the amount the smell stuck to me. I would also eat a mint, wash my hands and give a spritz of perfume after a smoke and like any decent person I binned my butts.

Because my hubby, siblings and mother smoke I have always found it very difficult to quit or cut down. I would also use smoking as an appetite suppressant and didn’t feel I could quit and lose weight at the same time and because I was always trying to lose weight I never really quit.

I always thought I would quit when I got pregnant. For many years of trying I didn’t think of quitting. Then when we found out how much IVF was going to cost us I decided I didn’t want anything risking it not working and I just completely quit on February 15 this year. One day I smoked the next day I just stopped, that evening I was sitting at a table whilst my Mum and Hubby enjoyed a smoke and a cuppa together and it was hard, but I didn’t smoke.

I have now not smoked for 155 days.

I am so very proud of myself. It was not easy. It was in fact very hard to break a habit I had for over a decade. I feel I am healthier for it. I used to always get bronchitis in winter, I have not (touch wood) had anything awful so far this winter (although I also had the flu vaccine for the first time this year). Whilst all my colleagues have been falling around me I have marched on with sometimes mild flu symptoms. I have been an asthma sufferer for years and since quitting I have not had one attack. Not one use of my inhaler. That is incredible to me.

Between quitting smoking and the IVF meds I did put on about 8kgs (my IVF doctor was not pleased) and my eating was just out of control because I was using food to fill the smoking hole. Last week I signed up with weight watchers to help get my eating back on track. In the first week I lost 2.4kgs so I feel like this was definitely a good move.

I knew going in that quitting smoking would be a long road. I was prepared to put on weight and wait for my body to get used to being without cigarettes before attempting to lose it and now I am ready to build a new lifestyle that does not include smoking.

It was a massive part of my life. My husband who generally succeeds at everything he does lasted half a day. I am not mad at him for this because I know how difficult it is. I believe in him and know he will get there.

I have had difficulty because I used to use a smoke as a time of stress relief. Suddenly removing that from my life I believe had a bigger impact than the cravings. To deal I replaced it with watching Netflix and eating chocolate basically everyday. As a chocoholic I must admit I loved this, but my fat jeans did not. They no longer fit 😦 It also did not solve the problem because I was avoiding de-stressing by submerging myself in another world. It was all still there when I turned the TV off at night.

After our fresh transfer for IVF failed I went into a dark hole. I knew I needed to make changes to help my mental health and help me heal from this devastating result. So we took a break from IVF to allow my body to balance out all the hormones and we vowed to stop having timed intercourse for a couple of months (anyone who has had to do this knows what it does to your relationship and we have been trying to conceive for 4.5 years now) and I decided to make some changes.

So what has this loss of habit brought me?:

I no longer have asthma symptoms, I can breathe easier, I don’t get sick as often and if I do I get over it pretty quickly.

My decision to change my lifestyle began 155 days ago when I quit smoking. I knew I was in for a long journey, but so far it has totally been worth it. I have been going to Pilates for 3 weeks and love it. Yesterday I added in some treadmill work before Pilates which my body was not used to, but was very good to me. Pilates has also helped my headspace. I plan to increase the number of times I do it a week because I feel that this could provide me with the de-stress I have been craving. Long soaks in the bath have also helped with this and finding ways to spoil myself a little that has nothing to do with food or smoking has helped with the de-stress too.

The combination of quitting smoking and having a break from IVF has hubby and I connecting like newlyweds, we are coming up on 9 years together and 5 years married and I can with confidence say that our relationship is everything  have always hoped for in a marriage.

Whilst I put on weight initially I am now losing it slowly in a healthy way and filling my body with awesome nutrition to support the beautiful embryo we have frozen just waiting for transfer.

Making the decision to lose this habit has had many positive impacts in my life. It was one of the bigger challenges I have faced in life and I am proud of myself for overcoming it.

 

Response to the discover topic The Things We Leave Behind

 

 

Transfer day

Well, good news. Embie is on board. Procedure went well. When we got in there the embryo had actually started hatching which was really cool to see. The first transfer attempt the embryo actually stuck to the catheter. The second attempt it went in. The doc and scientist said it was a sticky and stubborn embryo. I bet they say that to all the girls.

We also got a sibling to PGD test and freeze. Unfortunately the others didn’t develop the way they would like.

So I guess that means that I am currently PUPO haha waited a long time to use that term lol.

The procedure was Wednesday abs today’s Friday. I apologise for the lack of update, but I have had some net issues and I woke up with a flu like virus Thursday.

The virus is freaking me out. I am worried it could affect the bubs.

I have had some cramping today which I am hoping are signs of implantation. Fingers are crossed.

I had a dream yesterday that we had a perfect little man. However Channing Tatum was in it too so I doubt it is prophetic by any means ☺

We get the blood test on the 23rd May. So many things crossed, many prayers said. Don’t honestly know if I will make it all the way before peeing on a stick haha. Do any of us though? ☺

Long time, no blog.

There has been a LOT going on lately and my head is very full of all the ‘adulting’ I have had to be doing which hasn’t left much time for me to sort through the things that have been happening.

Most important of all is the fact that we very unexpectedly lost my uncle a couple of weeks ago. He was very fit, he did have diabetes, but it was controlled by insulin and diet. Initial results (which my cousin received the night of his funeral) indicate a heart attack. He hadn’t even retired yet. The whole thing was way too sad and I cannot write too much about it because to be honest I haven’t dealt with my feelings about it yet. Everything during that time became about supporting my cousins and their kids and supporting my Mum and Dad and just getting done what had to be done. My Uncle was not a blood relative, he married my Mum’s sister, but he was best friends with my Dad from a very young age (apparently they pretty much lived in each others pockets from the age of 12 or 13) and my Dad met my Mum because of my Uncle. I would literally not exist if it were not for this man.

He was a wonderful person, he always made time for you and even after he moved interstate (if you were to drive it would take 20 hours) he would call often. He always reminded me of Robin Williams, a soulful person who was quick to smile, always had time for others, quite compassionate, true family man, worked too hard, loved deeply and had sparkly blue eyes. I still need to make time to feel my grief for him. I have certainly had my moments, the funeral was one of the hardest moments of my adult life. Though my family are somewhat spaced around the place now (Russia, Western Australia, Far North Queensland, Sydney, etc.) so we do not see each other as often as we would like we have true love for one another. When a member of a family like ours passes away, the funeral is a truly heavy thing. It is like thick grief soup. In saying that the wake was a celebration of his life, we ate, DRANK, shed some tears, laughed, hugged, shared stories and loved.

Other things that have been keeping me busy lately include house stuff, fertility stuff, work stuff, healthy living stuff, preparing to move and some other family stuff. I shall save these for another day though because I feel like my Uncle Peter deserves his own post. Love you Petie!

In the wake of his passing I have been thinking about how friends and family are such a vital part of our life and have been making an effort to get in touch with people I haven’t seen for awhile just to say, “hey, how you doing?”. I’d like to suggest you all contact one person today that you haven’t talked to in awhile. It might be two weeks, it might be two years, it cannot hurt to just send a quick text and say, “hey, just checking in. How you doing?

 

 

Forgotten

This song that once sounded so loudly within,

has turned to quiet in this mounting din,

It whispers so softly now I can’t hear the words,

just the remnants of a firey soul now usurped.

Its throne in tatters in an empty hall,

memories echoing in the walls,

of laughter and gaiety and songs well sung,

one soul marching to the beat of its drum.

But as the battle waged on and the soldiers left home,

the king was left in silence forgotten, alone.

Slowly neglect began to take its toll,

first song, then laughter, then finally all.

This once proud place that was called home,

now lays empty, a deserted throne.

Through battles untold it remained untorn,

yet no longer will it weather loves malevolent storm.

– Cat Thomas, 2014

Another year…

Well another year has passed me by, this morning I woke up “older”.

I find myself reflecting on what I have achieved since I turned 30 last year and at first I was disappointed because Husby and I were expecting me to be all knocked up with swollen ankles by now and that has not happened. I don’t know why I thought this was the year, I guess you just always fill yourself with hope as much as you try not to, but I must say I prefer hope to despair 🙂

So in order to keep myself positive today I am going to concentrate on achievements and things to be grateful for (also as you all know, I love lists). I have also been listening to my favourite happy song:

• T and I have managed to save enough money to build our own house, we are lucky enough that my parents have allowed us to live with them until the house is being built so we can uber save 🙂 Whilst building has been delayed 2.5 months at this stage which means we won’t be in before Christmas, but it does mean we have saved a lot more money which is great – hey this silver lining thing works a treat 🙂
• I have 2 perfect nephews and 2 perfect nieces who love spending time with their Aunty – even when she is not spoiling them 🙂 Ahh being the favourite Aunt is such a burden.
• I am working as a Librarian, my chosen vocation – there are a lot of us out there not so lucky.
• I got a new car this year, and not just new for me… brand spanking new! I have never done this before and T and I have worked hard to get to a place where we could afford to do this.
• T and my parents don’t mind me singing my ass off all over the house at random times. Apparently my outbursts have been likened to an episode of Glee, personally I think it is completely normal when my mother tells my nephew that “A is for Apple, B is for Banana” to break into singing “ABC” by the Jackson 5

Oh… right *sheepish grin* *sings quietly* shake it, shake it baby *shimmying shoulders*

All in all, new house, new car, new job, great family, great marriage… guess I am doing pretty well really 🙂

My curly haired Adonis

Warning: Some people might find this post uncomfortable to read because it is about lady parts 🙂

The other day I reached a new level of love and appreciation for my Husby, during the day I had a very slight itch in my nether regions, but it died off and so I never thought about stopping on the way home to consult a Pharmacist.

It’s very cold here at the moment and due to the fact it was a chilly 2 degrees outside I put the electric blanket on 30 minutes before we went to bed so it would be toasty warm for us. Now I am not sure why the delicious warms aggravated the situation [and I don’t care why it happened as long as it never happens again], but for some reason it did and all of a sudden I was in significant pain and itching like crazy. I have had thrush before, but this was like the Hulk version – seriously, bad (but not green, I must emphasise that NOTHING was green!

Completely mean, but DEFINITELY NOT GREEN!

I tried to manage it on my own with some Googling (yes the web doctor thinks I have cancer) and an ice pack – yes an ice pack… in 2 degree weather. What was I thinking? I’ll tell you what I was thinking, I was hoping with all my being that my twinkle cave would get frostbite and fall off. The ice calmed the itching slightly, but the pain was still horrible.

Queue my superhero checking out my lady flower to give his expert opinion of “I think it looks normal”, my response of, “trust me this is not normal, it has to be Hulk thrush or something”. He asked if I had a cream or medication for it, I replied sarcastically that of course I kept a stash of beaver cream for exactly this situation (I feel quite bad about this now, but at the time I had little patience). He calmly started Googling, I tried telling him I had already done that and tried everything, he ignored me which just added to my muffin pain fuelled rage, “What are you doing? Please tell me you are not playing a fucking game right now!” he shook his head no. So I ignored him for a bit and just lay there clutching an ice pack to my crotch feeling ridiculous, in pain, exposed (well obviously) and vulnerable.

Then I realised Husby was getting dressed, “what are you doing?? Where are you going?”

“I found a 24 hour chemist” he replied (at this point it was 12.30am), “I am going to go get some stuff to help”

“Wha…what?” I stuttered, “Where is it?”

“It’s about a 35 minute drive, I’ll be as quick as I can” he went to walk out of the room.

“Wait” I said, “Really? Are you seriously going to go to a pharmacy 30 minutes away at 1am and buy me vagina medicine?” he shrugged and replied,

“Sure, why not? That’s how I roll” he laughed and walked out the door.

I was left mystified as I realised I had the best Husby ever created, many of my girlfriends Husbands won’t even buy tampons at the supermarket and here is my curly haired Adonis off into the dark of night seeking a cure for my punaani’s ills. He came back an hour later triumphantly clutching antihistamines and thrush cream, I am not sure what the antihistamines were for, but they knocked me out for a couple of hours which was nice and the cream felt like when you put aloe vera onto sun burn…. I could almost hear the sizzle as my map of Tasmania cooled.

Best. Husband. Ever. 

Achievement Hunter Let’s Plays – Hilarity for all

In response to The Daily Posts – Roaring Laughter, the first thing I could think of was the Let’s Play videos that Husby and I watch together.

I am somewhat addicted to watching the Achievement Hunter Let’s Play channel. I enjoy playing games, but in no way should I be considered a gamer, regardless of this I LOVE watching this channel. Why? Well because I am pretty much guaranteed an awesome belly chortle at some point during the video. These guys are very talented, somewhat professional 😉 and totally hilarious!

Source: http://halo.wikia.com/wiki/Achievement_Hunter

My most recent favourite was the Jeopardy videos, yes there are two and I chuckled and snorted my way through both of them. Two different groups played the game each time (other team members were in the background), I don’t want to spoiler the parts I laughed so hard I cried at, but the one in the first video had to do with the Panda question and the second videos tears also related back to the Panda question in the first video. 

Here’s Part 1

Here’s Part 2

 

Sir Nicholas Winton – the true Saint Nick!

Part of the reason I started this blog was to share; share things I knew, things I tried, things I have learned and things I think and feel. Nice and broad isn’t it, pretty much gives me a license to write whatever… oooh the glee.

When I was in High School we learnt about the Holocaust… a LOT, please don’t get me wrong I think that the Holocaust was one of the most disgusting and depraved things humans have ever done to other humans and I do believe it is important that youth are taught about it. If they do not learn of our horrific failures in our past, how can they learn from our mistakes to hopefully prevent this ever happening again? What I didn’t value about the curriculum was the fact that we learnt about it for over a semester for 3 years running and for the most part we were shown horrific videos and images that are scarred into me until this day. I am not ashamed to say that I cried during some of these videos, they were that awful. I think it is important that we were shown these images so that we have no doubt of the terror of that time, but we didn’t need to see it multiple times. I would have liked to learn a lot more about some of the people that did whatever they could to help in a time where so many people needed it.

One of these people is Sir Nicholas Winton, if you have never heard of him it is time you did. Nicholas was 29 when he organised the rescue of 669 Czech children from Nazi-occupied Czechoslovakia during the 9 months before war broke out in 1939. Those children have grown up and had children of their own and now have grandchildren and great grandchildren, approximately 6000 people in the world today owe their lives to this man, giving the gift of so many lives perhaps he is the real Saint Nick.

 

Nicholas was living in Britain at the time and when a friend told him of the problems there he travelled to Prague for a two week holiday. He set up a small office there to meet with people that wanted to get their children to safety. Nicholas wrote for help to many countries, but only Great Britain responded offering assistance, even with their promise of aid the action was painstakingly slow and Winton and his colleagues were running out of time. To save the children they forged documents such as visas, this increased the risk they were taking, but at that point they felt there was no other choice.

8 trains full of children successfully made it to Great Britain where families were waiting to care for them. A ninth train with 250 children on it did not make it out of Prague, the children were on the train, but war was declared and transportation was suspended.

Winton is very humble and thus for many years not many people knew what this amazing man had accomplished against all odds. One day Winton’s wife found a scrapbook in their attic, it had the name of every child he had rescued, who their parents are and the families they had been placed with. 80 of these children were found to still be living in Britain, they were brought together in 1988 during an episode of the BBC program That’s Life. Winton had no idea that the audience was full of the people he had saved and describes it as one of the most emotional experiences of his life.

Sir Nicholas Winton has recently celebrated his 105^th birthday! Congratulations Saint Nick, I hope you have many years of joy ahead of you.

His daughter Barbara Winton has written Nicholas’ story in a book called “If it’s Not Impossible… The life of Sir Nicholas Winton”, I personally cannot wait to get my hands on it and I urge you all to check it out too.