2010 New Year Resolution; 2009 Motherhood Year

I resolve to have a brilliant 2010. I remember reading a quote from someone (probably someone famous) who said that they always try to make the new year better than the last. Well, 2010 doesn't have to work hard to top 2009.

Cowboy is looking at 2009 as a 'bad luck year', but I can't totally agree. Despite the rollercoaster ride with the very steep slopes, is wasn't all bad. Anyone who reads my blog (or can read the side panel) knows of the bad stuff that we experienced this year, so I thought I'd stick to the good stuff; 2009 was my Motherhood year.

In 2009 I committed myself to motherhood. Although I have been a Mother since 2007, it wasn't until I quit my career (after returning part time when Champ was 11 months) that I feel like I really started to savour everything about motherhood. I had always loved Champ; this year I discovered how much I love motherhood too.

I have savoured Champ everyday, marvelling at how he is growing up into such a sensitive, adventurous, intelligent little guy who loves nothing more than making people laugh (and ice-cream). He is the best bits of my life all rolled up and I could not be more honoured to be his mother.

I am looking forward to 2010 as a year where Champ and I will continue to laugh together each day. I am desperately looking forward to 2010 as a year Cowboy and I can make him a big brother.

I hope that all your 2010 dreams come true and that this time next year we will all be looking back on 2010 as possibly the best of our lives.

Happy New Year everyone!

Too cute

Champ: (Pointing to one picture of Captain Feathersword) Look, Captain Feathersword!
Mummy: Yeah, that is a silhouette of Captain Feathersword, a silhouette.
Champ: Oh, yeah. (Points to another picture of Captain Feathersword) This one dry.

Geddit? Silhouette - wet. This one is dry. Oh he cracks me up! Another day while we were outside planting lettuce seeds:

Mummy: We are planting lettuce for us to eat.
Champ: Oh wow. Go now?
Mummy: Where are we going?
Champ: Letter-box... (grabs seed container) letterbox?

Geddit? This one took me a while...lettuce sounds like letters to him.

The kid is a born comedian, he just doesn't know it yet.

Hope

So here we are at the 28th December. Turtledove's due date.

When I lost Turtledove I had images of this Christmas being full of pain and sad reminders. It wasn't. I did remember each day during the Christmas period that I 'should' have been heavily pregnant, but as they say, time heals all wounds and the effect wasn't as devastating as I had imagined.

I still long for that baby. I still ache to give Champ as baby brother or sister. But I am not debilitated by the pain of our loss. I am hopeful that one day soon we will deliver a healthy baby and some of those old hurts will heal some more.

Cowboy and I did all we could this month to make that dream a reality. I ovulated Christmas day as predicted, so now we are settled in to the 2 week wait and are hopeful.

I know that a positive pregnancy test next week will not give me the same joy it once would have. What that test will give me will be hope.

I am so ready, and want this with all of my being.

Sleep; Baby Dancing; Christmas

I can't sleep. My mind just keeps turning. I am very excited to be TTC again. Could pregnancy insomnia have kicked in before I am even pregnant?

I am not even due to ovulate until Christmas day/Boxing Day. Our plan had been to do a few months of the Sheattle's method (for a girl), despite the reduced chance of getting pregnant by not trying during my most fertile days. So we have been actively trying for the past week and last night was supposed to be the last night for this cycle.

However we discussed it last night and decided to give it one last go Christmas Day. I guess we figure that we just want to add to our family with a healthy baby; boy or girl.

So, here's to a Christmas baby.

Merry Christmas everyone!

Ready Again

I have just been enjoying a cup of tea and reading my latest book during Champ's daytime nap. The main character in the novel has had her heart broken by love many months ago and has now met someone new that she fancies. Her best friend is trying to warn her against him because she can not stand to see this girl's heart being broken again. The main character firms her jaw and decides 'I don't care. I'm ready again. For everything this time.'.

That is exactly how I feel this cycle. I think that part of our decision to wait to TTC until our results were back from the tests after our miscarriages was due to me not being ready to try again.

But now I feel ready again.

I have analysed and analysed everything from by behaviour during my last two pregnancies, what I ate and my general health to the products I use in my house and on my body and any other miscarriage threats I could potentially be exposed to. I think that the time has come to simply try again. I need to trust that my body ended those pregnancies because all was not right and to hope and pray with everything that I have that our next pregnancy will bring us a healthy child.

I am sure that I will spend quite some time worrying throughout my next pregnancy and my heart will be 100% wanting everything to succeed. But I think I will have to trust my body and simply throw myself into it again.

Come what may.

I don't care. I'm ready again. For everything this time.

Two years!

Two years ago today my life changed forever. Well, I guess it all started 9 or so months before then, but I didn't realise quite how different my new life would be until 5.57 a.m. on 15th December 2007 when my heart flip flopped and I knew I was had fallen into the sort of love that is impossible to reverse.

I didn't realise Champ was a boy until 20 minutes after he was born when Cowboy and I had finally stopped exclaiming over his every little feature and a nurse asked if we had had a boy or a girl. As I snuck a look under the cloth which had materialised to cover us both, I told Cowboy that Champ was a boy. The look in his eyes is one I'll never forget. Good thing too, because he was out of that room in a flash to tell our family that we had a little boy! He was also clearly besotted.

I knew I would love my child, but I didn't realise it would be like falling in love. He is in my every thought and action. He is firmly entwined in my life and always will be.

The other day while watching some TV show, the son challenged the Dad to a show down over the mother's affections. Cowboy commented dryly 'We all know who'll win that challenge, hey son?'. He occasionally makes comments to the effect that I love Champ more than him. I try in actions and in words to show Cowboy that I love him just as much (albeit quite differently) as Champ.

But maybe that is the difference. With Champ I don't have to try to show him. Motherly love is just hard not to show. In every moment there are looks, cuddles and an awareness of each other that is not found in any other relationship. The umbilical cord may have been cut two years ago, but there is a very strong one that I never fail to feel the strong presence of.

The last two years have changed me as a person. Despite the daily trials and tribulations of being the mother of a two year old, I never fail to acknowledge just how lucky I am to be Champ's Mummy, mostly because I get to kiss him any time I like.

Grumpy

I don't know how I can still manage to be grumpy at this time of year. I have Champ singing 'Jingle Bells', exclaiming at 'Christmas' he spots everywhere and a nicely full social life. But still Grumpy Mummy keeps popping up her ugly head. I have a couple of theories as to why.

It could be because we have finally been given the all clear to TTC and our Christmas babydancing can't come quick enough. I have had really quite mild PMT lately, even Cowboy mentioned to me last month that he hasn't seen my usual pre menstrual grumpiness of late. But this month it is back with avengance. Hopefully for the last time in over 10 months.

Another reason could be that my Turtledove due date is fast approaching. Turtledove was to be a Christmas baby (28th December) and often the sight of all the Christmas decorations act as a reminder of what may have been.

Either way, I hope this grumpiness clears soon. I've calculated the 15/12 as my expected CD1 (Champ's birthday, so it should be easy to remember this cycle) and if it doesn't go away then, there is always the 'trying' part of the cycle to look forward to and by the Turtledove's due date will have passed. Another milestone moment and hopefully another pregnancy started.

So go away Scrooge, you are not invited to our Christmas.

The Hidden Costs of Children

Sometimes when those cost of having children surveys come out I think they underestimate all the costs. For example:

• Do they consider the cost of never getting to sit on the toilet in private?
• Or have a shower in peace?
• Or the cost of finally having that shower in peace only to find that the silence was due to your toddler pouring your new, expensive, barely used cuticle oil down the sink?
• Do they consider the cost to your sanity of hearing 'Mummy cuddle?' 87 times per hour?
• Or the guilt associated with feeling stressed by your most beloved wanting lots of cuddles?
• Guilt in general has got to rank pretty highly in the hidden costs of having children, but is it quantified?
• Do they consider the costs to society of having zombified parents roaming the street surviving on less than optimal sleep when their child has but a sniffle through the night?
• Then you'd have to add the extra dollop of guilt from being put out because your (almost, but not quite) sick child wants to cuddle at 4 a.m. and only Mummy's arms and Mummy's 'angelic' rendition of Brahm's Lullaby will soothe.
• I haven't even touched on the tedium of play time, the worry over eating habits and discipline routines or the obsession over every little thing your child is/does/doesn't do.

Today I am spent. Can you tell I am having a bad Mummy day? Hopefully we'll return to our regularly scheduled program soon.

The verdict

I didn't realise how nervous I was about the results of my pregnancy loss tests until I was actually in the waiting room yesterday. I had been telling people all week that I don't know what is better, to hear that there is something (very easily fixable) wrong and we will do this, this and this to fix you asap, or to hear that there is nothing wrong so we can't help you. Then when I was sitting trying to read a book with trembling hands and thoughts zooming at a million miles, waiting for the professor to call my name, I had sudden clarity: it is so much better to hear that there is nothing wrong. Silly to think otherwise, really.

Luckily, after a pretty short wait and a brief reading of my results (which felt like an eternity), the professor said in his quiet, deliberate, monotone way 'The tests show that there is no medical reason to expect that you will not have the family that you desire, sooner rather than later.'.

That means everything is ok, right?

After quite a few more drill-down-to-specifics kinda questions from me he came just a tad short of saying 'just go home and make a baby, lady'. He said that my antibody and hormone levels were 'normal' and whilst he can not tell me that he is 100% confident that our next conception will result in a real live baby, we are entering in to it with the same odds as the rest of the population (approx 3:4).

Good news, right? Then why did I not stop crying for a long time once I made it to the privacy of my car?

I realised that these tests for me were as much a snapshot into what to expect in the future as they were an insight into our recent pregnancy losses. So I cried for Turtledove who was to be born in the next fortnight. And I cried for Muscles who we were so hopeful for. I cried with relief because the results did not say that that my body had actually caused a healthy baby to be miscarried. And I cried because chances are they were just not perfect enough to be born.

Our bodies are amazing the way they know that this potential child is just not healthy enough for this world. But I still cried, because as genetically imperfect as they were, I would have loved them anyway. I would have.

Happy 100!

Welcome to my 100th post!

At different at different stages this year I may have stopped to think about what I would use my 100th post for:

For a few weeks of the year I may have thought I would use it to say that I am in my final month of pregnancy (with Turtledove) and that I can not wait to not be pregnant and to hold this baby in my arms.

Then later in the year I thought I might use my 100th post to announce that I am entering my third trimester (with Muscles) and am enjoying slowing down and savouring my time as Mummy to just one child.

Once again, of course my plans were squashed and I thought I may use my 100th post to announce the results of my specialist tests which are due this Friday.

But, nah. I decided why wait. I'll use my 100th post to talk about the fun things in life: wees and poos. You see, toilet training has begun in the Lemoncake household. I am about to join the ranks of parents whose every waking moment is centred around the potty. Although Champ has been ready for the potty for some time I bidded my time until summer. Guess what? It's December 1st. We are saying bye-bye to nappies and hello to the world of potties, adorable jocks and loads of accidents, spills and tears.

I'll let you know how we go. So far we have had great success (lots of 'hits' in the potty) and lots of extra washing (lots of 'misses' in front of the tv/toys/something more interesting than bladder movements).