Milk

Overcast, but promising sun.

I looked down last night in bed to discover that I was leaking MILK! After checking with Dr Google that this is within the bounds of normal for 4ish months pregnant, (it is), I feel ridiculously proud! Hollie says it's just one more sign of being 'one big bundle of hormones'. Whatever the reason, I'm so happy to be leaking, not vomiting. This has been the best week in the last 3 months. I've spent three days at the farm with Joey and Helen making garden beds, got sunned at a picnic with Cath who is 6 weeks ahead of me in her pregnancy and slept through the night for the first time since the nausea started. I can't wait to go home to clean and fuss and garden and relax in the last few days before school starts again. 

Recovery...?

Windy and grey, but not cold.

I'm in an armchair at Joey and Helen's place. The school holidays are finally here and at 14 weeks, I think, hope, that the morning sickness is easing. 

The last eight weeks have been some of the hardest I've ever had. I have certainly never felt so sick for so long before, and the confusion and anxiety over why the vomiting is so bad, how simple nausea can be so utterly miserable and defeating, what to do about work when I can't go more than half an hour without needing to lie down or retch uselessly again. Being so nauseous feels like being squeezed by something all over - it's so oppressive and all encompassing. 

In addition, at week 8 I bled dramatically- a huge gush that couldn't seem like anything but miscarriage. Except that it wasn't and two (long, long) days later we got to see the little creature wriggle on screen at the hospital. I felt tremendous relief, not because it was still alive but because it meant all the sickness hadn't been for nothing. At the same time I was disappointed in no small way, a miscarriage would have meant the nausea would stop - a measure I guess of how sick and beaten I felt, given that this baby is so wanted, so planned, so longed for.

Right now the little creature is 9cm long and kicking, sucking, swallowing, rolling over, waving and smiling away in there. We saw it again at 13 weeks and it has utterly changed my feeling about the pregnancy. I feel like that's my BABY in there now. I like to know that even though I can't feel it yet, it can feel me. 

Success

Rainy and fresh.

Superstition has kept me from writing anything at all for the last two months. I've been flattered that people have asked if I'll update the blog eventually, but not enough that it felt like a good idea to actually put these words in print...

I'm PREGNANT. First shot miracle. One fuck wonder. 

That'll do for today. I'm 10 weeks, so sick with morning sickness, and PREGNANT.

Xox

Ten things about insemination

Dark. Cosy in bed.

I am judgemental about people who write  blogs with posts that are called things like 7 things I should have done before having a baby or top 3 reasons why we love cloth nappies, because all those dot points seem to say they can only think in bite sized pieces rather than some kind of sequential, coherant whole.

I can't seem to think in any kind of sequential, coherent whole. Bite sized pieces it is.

1. Last night we tried to get pregnant for the first time. We are trying three consecutive days, so tonight will be the second. It was a hugely much bigger deal - emotionally- than I think any of us expected.

2. I won't speak for the others, but what I found hard was the intensity of gratitude I felt. And accompanying fear that it's  too much to ask of them. I find it so hard to handle the idea that Joey and Helen are doing this incredible thing for us, for me, and there is nothing I can do or say to even express how grateful I am. Helen asked if I meant that I feel I need to repay it somehow, or if it is the discomfort of indebtedness. But it's not that. It's really just the overwhelmingness of gratitude. Who would have known that it could be such a difficult feeling.

3. Hollie said, just accept the hugeness of the generosity. You'll give it back to the world, in your own way. I was surprised by that, coming from her, but comforted too. 

4. I said I wouldn't speak for the others' feelings, but I think we all got a pretty big dose of Shit Got Real! It seemed silly, given how much preparation had gone into this. You'd think we'd have been prepared, but we weren't. Hollie (lawyer) made us laugh by worrying about how incredibly unregulated and "off the grid" the process is...

5. The process. I washed three jars, different sizes. All with lids. I had no idea what would be most appropriate! Then we went for a walk, after working out that they would message when we should come home, and that the jar would get tucked somewhere warm. We walked. I freaked out. We got a bit hysterical about how no one knew that we were wandering the streets waiting to get a message telling us that we had sperm waiting for us in a jar. I did that thing with the corner of a park bench to get the top off a ginger beer bottle that needed a bottle opener. Drank ginger beer. Picked lavender.

Then we got the message and so we walked home, took the jar from Joey on the stairs. We all hugged. I thought about how the family from school who lives in the flat below us had no idea what their kid's teacher was getting up to in the stairwell. Helen and Joey went to get icecream. Things felt momentous. Got it in the syringe and the syringe in the right place, and... Well now we just wait and see!

6. The funniest thing - actually from earlier in the day. I had to get a syringe, a medicine one with no needle (obviously), but when I went to the chemist, the ones there seemed way too big. So stupidly I asked if they had any smaller ones and predictably they asked what for. Oh God. I mumbled something about giving the cat antibiotics but having lost the little medicine syringe and left as quickly as I could. But it gave me an idea. Hollie and I may have made a baby, using a nice little syringe that I got from the vet.

7. All the straight women in my life had warned us about the weird/gross factor of sperm. I didn't think it was weird or gross. I was too busy feeling grateful. 

8. After the insemination we did the crossword in bed. We did quite well. It was very soothing. I felt like Hollie and I were really in this whole thing together - I'd been worrying about this part of everything, given how it really shows up how we really can't make a baby with just the two of us. But it felt like we made a baby with the two of us. 

9. Helen and Joey came home and we all had tea in the living room. The cat saw Helen was still jittery and chose to sit on her and go nuts purring and headbutting. I loved everyone so much. 

10. We went to bed. I didn't sleep, but I felt happy. In the middle of the night I got up and peed on all three brands of Ovulation Prediction Kits to see if we'd got the timing right. All three said yes. I went to sleep.

X

Bed

Overcast and mild. Still in bed at midday!!

Hollie is under the weather and has the day off. We've spent it in bed so far... such a luxury. Watching ABC family drama and talking about how our family tree will look. Working out the plan for this evening (the sperm logistics!) and talking about worries. Talking about what we are looking forward to. Sorting out Christmas plans. The cat thinks all his Christmases have come today, with both of us still in bed for hugs.

This time together feels really important. We might make a baby together tonight.

Fingers crossed!!!

How much gratitude?

Sunny Melbourne day! I spent the morning building a chicken pen at school in the warmest of autumn sun.

I got this message this morning: "Soooo, we are just planning July - when are you fertile?"

How much gratitude can you possibly feel? The newspaper is full of disasters, school has been a week of struggle and sadness, but that message makes me feel like the sun shone just for me today.

Six Weeks

Clear sky, cold night.

It's Week 6 at school - exactly half way through the term. It seems to have gone very fast this time. It's also six weeks until we give the baby-making a first go...

Six weeks!

I have all sorts of amazing opportunities lining up at work at the moment, with the potential that the school will take on the management of the Kinder that shares our school building, and that I'll be able to upgrade my qualifications to include being able to teach the really little kids (at the moment I'm only trained for P-6) and oversee the Kinder. I am a bit overwhelmed by how well it would all line up... Good part time work, staying in the school but not necessarily having to teach all the time, potentially being able to work from home a little. It's a job that should suit being at home with a baby very well. Now I just need to actually get pregnant...

Potentially in SIX WEEKS!

Overwhelmed

Perfect Canberra blue autumn day.

I spent the day with Joey and Helen building their first garden bed today. Six weeks ago they moved into Joey's childhood home - a bush block with wombats, echidnas and roos, a dam, a wealth of trees and logs, hills, slopes, rocks and sticks, and a big old house cluttered with books, pots, tins, paintings, prints, photos, instruments, toys, shelves, cloth and drawers. The verandas have boxes and boxes of tools and bottling jars, newspaper and pottery, there's a swing set, a fallen down cubby, surfboards by the dam, rusty bikes, a Beetle filled with kids books, a windmill in pieces, a potters wheel, a giant ants nest. They are in the thick of making sense of the wonder and jumble of it all, getting the solar power, the generator and the pump for the dam all working, and getting the first garden built felt like a big achievement for the settling in effort!

While we dug and made edges, we also talked all day, off and on, about the baby collective. Helen is so eloquent when she talks about why she thinks that it is a wonderful thing for us to all be doing together. I didn't know before today that she'd thought about it from so many angles, and with such generosity towards all of the different perspectives. She makes me feel safe, and overtaken by such a sense of trust and love and overwhelming good fortune instead of the usual worry and fuss. And it is overwhelming - there is so much love and goodwill being extended for a child who doesn't even exist yet, and in every hidey-hole, magical bit of junk and little animal track into the tall grass all I can see is the joy of summer holidays together here and that feels like such a richness it is completely unbelievable too.

Mid-cycle happy

The weather is hot and oppressive feeling. One of my lovely boys at school told me that there was going to be a thunderstorm tonight, he seemed very excited about it. We were watching the ants together, swarming the handball squares in that funny thunderstorm way.

I am pretty much bang in the middle of my cycle and, as usual, feeling ridiculously pleased with myself and amazed at how effortless and robust the hormonal shifts and balances are that happen each month. I am so excited every time to see all the signs of fertility magically unfolding and coming together - it makes me think of acrobatics, or dance, that same sense of swooping glorious timing. I remember feeling exactly the same way when I got my period properly after I started eating again at 18, so pleased to find that my body knew what it was doing despite everything I'd put myself through. What a cool thing to have, this magic cycle happily playing out in my body as I just go about my week!

This would be a good cycle to get pregnant in, if we were trying yet... Ovulation on a weekend is far more convenient than midweek for the 7 hour trip we're going to be doing each time!

New Year

New Year's Day, Woodford Folk Festival. Hot in the sun, with a glorious breeze and just the tiniest shower as the sun set.

Today I walked up the hill with Joey and Helen to watch the sun rise. Most people were still pretty messy from the night before, and I think a lot had seen the night right through to sunrise, but being Woodford it was sweet and special. Even though we all know the sun does it every morning, it felt momentous when it stained the whole sky pink and then broke up above the horizon and through the clouds. It felt momentous for me because this is the year I'd like to try to make a baby. A baby with Hollie. And Joey. And Helen. The Baby Collective! Happy, happy New Year!