Turmoil.

The Infertility Doc sez “IVF”.  That’s it. The definitive and final answer.

In the wee small hours of the morning, when the whole wide world is fast asleep.

I get up and wander through the house, picking things up and looking at them distractedly and then putting them back somewhere else.

The brochure from the IVF Clinic is on the kitchen counter.

I lie awake and dream about the girl and never ever think of counting sheep.

I am reading all the brochures, over and over again. It’s 3am. My child is asleep in my bed, warm and smelling of sweet dreams. Her arm is over my pillow. She sighs and turns over and whimpers – a bad dream? What on earth can a 2 year old find bad enough to upset her sleep?

A lot of money. A lot of money.

I have one child.

We are not rich.

I am not sure I am strong enough to deal with the disappointment.

When the whole wide world has learnt its lesson.

Am I strong enough to deal with giving up?

I read the words again. Read the chances of success for a woman in my age bracket. Just over 16%

 “Severe emotional side effects”. No fucking kidding.

Can I be a good mother to the child I have and go through this?

Can I be a mother at all if I don’t go through this?

The angst has been eating away at me for months. I thought I’d made my peace, but this has uncovered things I thought I’d laid to rest.

What will it take for me to move on?

Can I get closure any other way?

Visions of other babies, my babies past and future drift into my head.

You’d be hers, if only she would call.

I sit at the kitchen table, and look out into the garden. It’s dark and the wind is blowing and nowhere in the world is lonelier than where I am right now.

In the wee small hours of the morning, that’s the time you miss her most of all.

(words and music D. Mann/B. Hillarid - recorded on Feb 17, 1955 - Frank Sinatra)

Infertility.

I have an appointment with the Infertility Doc today. I am nervous as a cat about it.

I have decided to cancel this appointment half a dozen times in the past month – chiefly due to my marital woes, but also, to be honest, because a big part of me, does not want to know.

What I have is called ‘secondary infertility’ and is commoner than what people think. There’s a reason a lot of couples only ever have one child – they can’t have another. It’s not necessarily wanting to preserve a lush lifestyle or spoil one child rotten. It’s not necessarily because having one child put them off having another.

You’d think having had one child, getting pregnant again would be straightforward. Just insert the right bits at the right time and go. But it’s not that easy apparently. A lot of things go wrong; the female body is a wondrously balanced thing.

Sometimes they never find out why, you just have to keep trying and hope that one-day, your body will get with the program. This can take years.

Women like me, who’ve had one child late in life, don’t have the luxury of a 4 or 5-year age gap between kids. I am old. Old enough that a 5-year gap puts me in the premenopausal bracket. When things stop working for good.

So if you are like me, you panic. You get some tests done, they come back fine. Then you wonder.

Now I am older, and wiser about this, if not much else. And much sadder.

So, for me, today I will either be told that there is a good chance someone can do something for me, or that I may in fact have missed my chance. I will have to make decisions on tests that may possibly definitely tell me that there is little hope.

There may be a lot of reckoning to do.

Funny – the things that go through your head at a time like this.

You berate the abortion you had at 24, and the two miscarriages you had when you quite possibly didn’t take the whole pregnancy gig for the gift that is was. Smoking, drinking and carrying on like nothing had changed. I was younger then of course.

What if the child I aborted at 24 was the only other child I was ever meant to have? Would I do things differently if I could go back?

Yes, yes I would. Despite the lack of money, the horrendously abusive boyfriend, and the nervous breakdown – I would keep my baby.  I would somehow have made it through. I know better now.

But if I’d kept that child, would that mean that my beloved Mouse wouldn’t have come to be? Because I couldn’t bear that.

Funny, indeed, the things that go through your head at a time like this.

Is it any wonder I am scared?

More tomorrow, I think. I can’t concentrate.

Men.

It’s occurred to me as I scanned over the past month or so of entries that I have not been all that complimentary about our testosterone-laden buddies. I don’t want to give the impression that I have any axe to grind with men, cos I don’t.

(Yes, I am a feminist, and I say it proudly. If men were women, they’d be feminists too. It’s sad that some women aren’t feminists, but perhaps that is because they have fallen victim to slick marketing tactics and the old ‘divide and conquer’ ploy. Perhaps they figure that women don’t have anything more to gain. We do - but that’s another topic for later.)

Back to men. I love men.

Being.

I adore the way they think in terms of solutions to problems rather than the process of determining if you have a problem. They are less interested in how you got there, then what you are going to do now you are. Don‘t bother them with the angst or the handwringing.

Friends.

They can have close friends who don’t have a clue what is happening in their lives. These are the fishing buddies, the golf buddies, the rugby buddies or the camping buddies. I do not know how this is possible, but it seems to happen a lot, so it has to be a guy thing. A woman’s closest friend has not only heard the childbirth horror but also actually seen the episiotomy scar.

Doing.

I love the way men cannot seem to do more than one thing at a time. Multitasking is not something most men of my acquaintance do well. Must wash car. Must go to hardware store. Must finish painting. 1-2-3. That’s how it works. If it was me – it would look like this: 1 (oh fuck)…. Must wash car oh no I need to go to the hardware store to get some wood so I’ll drive there now and that reminds me I need to set up the easel so I can finish the painting but should I get the car washed on the way home? 1–1.5–2–3–1–2-1 – etc… 

Wearing.

I love the way men can throw on a pair of shorts and a t-shirt, and they look ‘finished’. Women need a pair of shoes or a good pair of earrings to look pulled together – men can wear a frayed piece of leather around a wrist. I like men who experiment with how they look. I love sideburns, 4-day-old stubble (not that designer stuff) and goatees and moustaches and every piece of facial hair a man can grow. I love men with earrings, men with ties and suits, men with grungy rock t-shirts and men wearing board shorts. Men in tuxedos always look fantastic – even if they think they look stupid. (Well unless it’s a baby blue tuxedo with wide lapels). I love men in wet suits and I adore surfies. My life would complete if my daughter dated a surfie just so I can hang around the beach with her, offering to fetch them both burgers from the milk bar and stealing perves at his ass, shoulders, lunchbox and thighs.

Music.

I love men who can dance, and men who can’t, though if I am ever lucky enough to have a son, I will teach him to dance. Men who love to dance, get laid more often, I am positive. Maybe I should do a study. Maybe I will. I love men who play air guitar and men who bob their heads up and down to ‘Enter the Sandman’. In other words, I love men who love music – men who want me to hear ‘just one song’ and think that by listening to it, I will KNOW…something. Not sure what, but something deep and important.

Kids.

I love the way men who like kids, really really like them. I love the way men who don’t like kids – tend to love something else like a kid, say their stereo equipment or their motorcycle or their dog. I think it’s okay not to like kids – not everyone does. I didn’t.

Emotions.

I love men who cry. I don’t love men who cry all the time, cos really that’s my job lately – but I love men who get overwhelmed by something and let it all twist in the wind for someone else to see. I like stoic men, men who show emotion by a clenched jaw muscle.

Hard Time.

I love the stink of a man who’s been working hard physically – the smell of sweat and soap and testosterone. I love hard stubby calloused hands; I love soft long fingered hands whose only hard work is turning the page of a book. I like long debates and loud arguments with men – they help me dig my heels in and ground myself so I can square.

Mine.

I love the fact that I cannot stereotype the men I know and love as friends and lovers. They are straight, gay, bookish, petrol heads that cook, hammer things loudly, dress like a magazine and think beer tshirts are the height of fashion. They like tittie and cootch mags, gourmet mags, The New Yorker and National Geographic. They hang out round the barbie with a tinnie, or elbow me out of the way to show me the best way to blacken shrimp. They have made me so mad I’ve thrown rocks through their windows and called up Talk Radio, and made me so happy that I actually married (twice).

I can’t make statements that apply to them all – it doesn’t work like that. But I love men. It’s all good stuff somehow, sometimes even the bad.

Mexican Radio

I feel a hot wind on my shoulder 

And the touch of a world that is older

Turn the switch and check the number 

Leave it on when in bed I slumber

I hear the rhythms of the music 

I buy the product and never use it

I hear the talking of the dj 

Can't understand just what does he say?

I'm on a mexican radio 

I'm on a mexican radio

I dial it in and tune the station 

They talk about the u.s. inflation

I understand just a little 

No comprende--it's a riddle

I'm on a mexican radio 

I'm on a mexican radio...

I wish I was in Tijuana 

Eating barbequed iguana

I'd take requests on the telephone 

I'm on a wavelength far from home

I feel a hot wind on my shoulder 

I dial it in from south of the border

I hear the talking of the dj 

Can't understand just what does he say?

 Radio  radio...

Catharsis.

Ah, I feel much better.

I needed to do that blog below. It’s been brewing for a while now. I hate being used to hurt my friends. Feel free to comment on my uncontrollable rage and venom. I can take it.

So how was your Valentines Day?

Mine was quiet, since my hub has been living in a caravan at the back of someone else’s yard for the past week or so. Yeah, I threw him out. We were making each other very unhappy. But he is coming back on Sunday and I am not sure how I feel about it. I want the marriage to work, but I don’t want to keep beating my head against a wall until it’s bloody. So I spent last week all on my own, being a single mum.

Single Mothers.

So…Yesterday I took Mouse to the library for storytime. (Okay, I figured it would wear her out and then I’d get a nice long stretch of ‘me time’ later). It didn’t work – she was bouncing off the walls.

Hey, single motherhood is T.O.U.G.H. How do you do it?

As much as my hub has been a complete dick lately – he still has managed to give Mousey a bath at least once a week, and he was taking her out for a couple of hours on the weekend. (Okay, he called it ‘babysitting’ but I needed this, badly. I wasn’t about to debate semantics with a man who needs that much explanation of fatherhood.)

I like to see junk movies with lots of violence and guns or movies where there are a lot of uncomfortable costumes where the women have 12 inch waists and big hats. I like to read. Books without pictures, even. I really do. Without Sesame Street songs going off in the background. Without having to change Elmo’s nappy 20 times or hold a sippy cup.  I like to paint big messy canvases. I prefer not to be painting my child at the same time. I like to watch mindless crappy cop or legal or medical dramas on TV. I like to have conversations that aren’t centred around kids – you know, politics, religion, civil rights, the state of the world today and why they can’t make chocolate that actually helps you lose weight. (it’s a conspiracy…) I like to order things in restaurants that don’t require me to first ask if a toddler will think it’s stinky-food. This is stuff with olives, or anchovies.

Without time to remember who you were before a child, how do you not get lost? This is what scares me. To be so far down in the hole of mummydom that I never ever climb back out and look around and see what else is going on. How is that good for either of us? She will grow up eventually. After all, that is my job - to bring her into this world totally dependent and then spend my time ensuring that she gets independent enough to leave me.

I love my kid. She helps define me, but she doesn’t define me completely.  I love my kid so much it hurts. But she is not me.

I don’t know how a single mother finds the time to remember this. I am in awe of you all.

 Hey LOSERS.

Cut it out.

Stop using my diary as a means to read hers.

I know you are doing it, and she knows you are doing it. We have proof.

And guess what?

We are laughing at you. You are pathetic.

A grown man who is still so obsessed with his ex-wife that he stalks her all over the Net.

Don’t you have a life? If my husband spent as much time obsessively trying to find out stuff about his ex-wife as you seem to, I really wonder what the motivation was. You are completely loopy. We all think so. Do you need someone to actually explain the meaning of the word ‘divorce’ to you, or WHAT?

And hey, you – current wife! I know you’ve been here too. You are even more pathetic, because you are aiding and abetting this obsession. Don’t you have any pride at ALL???

You both need professional help.

 So fuck off and don’t come here again, or I’ll ban your IP addresses and don’t think I won’t.

Losers. You make me want to retch.

(and to everyone else – sorry, but this has really got me steaming. Isn’t this just plain SAD? More later, I promise. And if anyone wants this person's name - just email me, he gave up his right to privacy when he used me.)

Barf.

Yes BARF. BARF about Valentines Day. BARF about being hard sold the notion that a bunch of red roses and candy once a year is all that’s required.

That real love can be summed up in one grand (or not so grand) gesture.

That men and women are so pathetic that they think that this stuff actually matters.

How dumb am I supposed to be?

Let me tell you, if anyone actually thinks that their feelings for me are easily summed up in a greeting card, then I am not angry…. just very very disappointed.

If anyone thinks that roses will sweep me off my feet – fugeddaboudit.

This is what will sweep me off my feet.

This is what will get you LAID:

• 
  
  I want you to love me when my hair is flattened to my head from a deep snoring sleep.


• 
  
  I want you to love the fact that I want to wear pig slippers and my jammies at 3pm on a Saturday afternoon. Okay, love that I even OWN pig slippers. At my age.


• 
  
  I want you to love the fact that despite being sleep deprived from mummydom, I set the alarm for 4am so I can get up and watch Major League Baseball live. And I am cranky all day.


• 
  
  I want you to love the fact that I actually give a shit about what’s under the hood of our car, but then don’t care enough to get in your way or second-guess you unless you ask.


• 
  
  I want you to love me when my tits sag and my stomach pooches. Hey, I am a mum. But I am still hot stuff between the sheets – you know it.


• 
  
  I want you to love the fact that I can drink anyone under the table. Any time, any place, name your poison.


• 
  
  I want you to love the fact that since I had a child, I stopped doing this.


• 
  
  I want you to love me for my terrific sense of direction. I never get lost. Not even when I don’t speak the language.


• 
  
  I want you to love the way I can bullshit myself and anyone else who’s with me out of a jam. Or out of jail. It’s a challenge.


• 
  
  I want you to love the fact that I am smart smart smart and not afraid to show it. I do not suffer fools or patronising idiots lightly.


• 
  
  I want you to love that I can’t bake, cos I cannot be bothered to follow instructions.


• 
  
  I want you to love me when I ignore people telling me I am beautiful because I haven’t been beautiful since I was 25, and that’s okay – there’s more to life than looks.


• 
  
  I want you to love me when all I want to do on a Friday night is roll a joint and turn the music up loud enough to disturb the Mouse. And I do not care.


• 
  
  I want you to love the fact that I tell the truth. Except when I need to lie, and then I lie WELL.

So keep the flowers, keep the fatuous card and shove the chocolates, cos it doesn’t work on this fine soul.

Just wipe the drool off my chin, the sleep from the corners of my eyes and tell me that you love me just the way I am.

Now I want to know what you want to be loved for. Go on; make it a Valentines Day gift to yourself.

Self Esteem.

I have a dear friend who seems to think she is shit.

I don’t know why, because I happen to think she is the funniest, wisest and kindest woman on the planet – but then perhaps that is the nature of self-esteem problems. You don't see what other people see.

Why do women who stay home with their kids feel like they are nothing? Why do their men not raise them high to the sky and parade them through the town, saying, “Hosanna, look upon this woman and tremble – this woman is raising my future”?

Why is it that when we look at ourselves, all we see are our flaws and our ugly bits, instead of the bits that other people see – the good bits? It’s like a reverse of the mirror in Snow White – instead of asking who is the fairest, we ask who is the most hideous, who is the one with the fattest thighs, the biggest ass, the largest nose or the saggiest tits?

I know it is hard. When you are at home having endless conversations about the big red engine or the brown cow, and you seem to function as a 24/7 milk truck – it’s hard to remember who you actually are.

I am not advocating dolling yourself up and becoming artificial. I am not buying into beauty magazines, or The Surrendered Wife or the notion that men are so superficial they only require a firm ass to fall in love all over again. I think that is crap.

What I am trying to say is somehow, us mothers, have got to start loving ourselves. Because if we don’t love us, who will?

And where do we begin? By believing what our friends tell us. By refusing to accept that a nasty comment on a bad day is the truth and by looking at ourselves, honestly and with clarity.

By looking at who is around us, who relies on us, who would be desperate if we were gone.

By not telling ourselves constantly that we aren’t good enough, or thin enough or smart enough. We are good enough dammit!.

By looking who listens to what we have to say, and who gives a shit about what we think. And if these people are people we like and admire, then why the fuck don’t we see ourselves reflected in their eyes?

It’s time to break that mirror.

We didn’t lose what we were when we became mothers. We are bright, funny, smart, kind, warm, passionate women. Not everything that is beautiful comes in a size 8 package and is under 25.

It's okay to feel sometimes like it does. And that it actually matters. As long as you realise that it doesn't matter to those who really and truly love you.

And hey friend, this was for you. I think you are one in a million.