The news and my dream.

Recently I saw the good doctor on the news. He had attended some sort of IVF seminar and was the spokesperson for the news. The report was highlighting the fact that obesity and smoking are the main reasons that women become infertile. I'm sure the good Dr.B suggested many other contributing factors for infertility but I know how our local news station enjoys scare mongering and laying blame. Sadly, it does nothing to communicate the fact that infertility is a disease that so many women simply have no control over.

Anyway, what I enjoyed about this snippet of news was seeing the good Dr.B himself! Oh how I have missed him! I never thought I would say that...but I do. Such a gentle, wise person...the giver of life to my child...the provider of peace and happiness in my soul. I just happened to be holding baby girl as Dr.B came on the T.V so I pointed him out to her. I said to my girl "look...here's the man who helped to make you". She ogled him with her curious baby eyes and then jerkily turned her face to mine and grinned. I felt glad that she liked him too.

That night I had a very long and drawn out dream which featured the good Dr.B throughout. He was a singer in a band, quite the rock star. Action Man and I had gone to see him at an outdoor concert. Afterwards we went up to him to say hello. He may of recognised us, it was hard to tell. Perhaps he was just being polite. We thanked him for the baby.

Then she woke up and so did I.

Baby Girl is 5 months. She can sit but not roll. She can dribble a lot. She 'talks' a lot and is beginning to tell is in no uncertain terms what she does not like (jumpers being pulled over her head, pumpkin, loosing her dummy at night, lying on her tummy). She seems to like sitting, being carried, socialising, her Granny, her parents, banana, apple, boob, the cats furry long tail, bath time, the buggy and cuddles.

Blessed

Baby Girl looks wonderful.
We have finally found a suitable treatment for her eczema from a clever skin specialist. We were utterly amazed to see it clear overnight. She now has perfectly normal looking baby skin.
Baby girl has also had a sticky eye for her entire life and this week it stopped being sticky, just like that! So no more green ooze. Yah!
Baby girl has also finally got the hang of sucking and has become a most efficient feeder taking a mere 15 minutes to get the job done. I know this doesn't compare with many babes who can complete a feed in 5 minutes! Up until this week BG has taken 40 minutes to an hour so 15 minutes is dam fine!
I feel so blessed every day to have her in my life.
Everyday there are a hundred smiles. The look of love and delight when she first sees us is at times too much to bear.
I want to bottle every moment because it all passes by so quickly.
My heart melts every time I see her with her doting Dad.
Action man laughs at the amount of photos I take. I don't think a day has gone by where she hasn't been filmed!
On the 31st of July it was a year since her conception in a petri dish. A year, wow. This time last year I was beside myself with frustration and sadness. I had begun to think about facing up to a life without children and I was desperately trying to work out what I was supposed to do with myself in this life. I was the lowest I had ever felt. Everything around me seemed to be in shades of grey. My friend had just lost a baby at 20 weeks gestation. Life seemed very cruel. I didn't know how I was going to get the energy and the hope together to do one more cycle.
But I did and oh how my life has changed.
I hope so much for other women who are struggling to create their family. I really do. The struggle and pain is worth it, honestly :)

...and here's some pictures

35 weeks
nine days old

a family portrait..Action Man, Baby Girl and Betty

my sleeping beauty

cute as a button (must remember to fold ear into hat!!)

Life With Baby Girl

I must apologise for not keeping this blog up. I have been overtaken and fully enveloped by love, feeding issues, smiles, washing, dirty nappies, little milestones, chatting with other new mums, catching up on sleep and jobs, playing, tears mine and hers, developing stacks of photos, showing off my lovely love at any opportunity, laughter, feeding and more feeding, reading about babies and learning about sleep. Baby Girl is the love of my life. What a journey...wow!
BG is now 14 weeks old. She sleeps through some nights and wakes once on others. She has 3 to 4 fairly short naps a day (which is a huge improvement from the none she was having prior to 10 weeks!). She is generous with smiles and can almost roll over. I am amazed at her sheer determination to practise this skill after every feed. If we don't put her down she squirms and complains until we do then proceeds to throw her body weight to the side for 15 minutes or so. I think she will get it in the next few days. BG is a very happy baby now that she is contented with her feeds.
At my new mothers group the other day we discussed the gains and losses of becoming a mother. It was great to discuss the negatives as well as the positives because they are there, as with any new experience.
I feel the need to make a list.
Gains
*a beautiful person to love and watch grow and develop,
*pride in being such an important influence in a human's life,
*renewed friendships with friends who have been mothers for a while and whom I felt at odds with when I struggled to get to where I am now.
*A busy social life and new friends! Heaps of them. Through pre- natal groups and new mums groups and friends of friends. With this comes a great sense of belonging and sisterhood as we share what only new mums can share. This is something I longed for and it is as fantastic as I thought!
*A refreshed relationship with my mum and my MIL. Also a different relationship has emerged with the men in my life such as my BIL and FIL who are always calling in for an update and a cuddle from BG.
*The never ending delight of watching BG with her Dad. I see Action Man as a proud, involved, loving dad and he is just as I always imagined him to be.
*A whole heap of new skills such as being able to rock the pram with my foot whilst chopping vegies for dinner! Also a new set of neurosis! Is she putting on enough weight? What can I do about her eczema? Why do her farts stink so bad?
*My overall confidence in myself.
*A heightened sensitivity towards all the little babies who abandoned or treated badly. Tears come easily when these sad stories are reported.
Losses
*Things to talk about to friends without children. BG is a 24 hr preoccupation and so I struggle to think of things which are interesting to offer. Speaking from experience there is a limit to the amount of baby talk that can be tolerated.
*Time for myself, to look after my appearance and my fitness. A sense of time as I knew it prior to BG. All of a sudden my day is broken into compartments of BG awake and BG asleep. When BG is asleep I race around like a lunatic doing housework!
*The feeling that I'm not good enough because of infertility. Well that's a tough one really. I haven't lost it entirely but it's lessened. It is truly amazing how often people ask when we are going to have a second child. I certainly know better than to plan and anyway we are more than happy with our girl. It's still a shock that we have her at all!

Anyway, it's going great. Motherhood is harder than I expected but it's as wonderful as I had imagined!

A little girl in our world.

Right I have started this post 3 times but each time I do not finish it because my baby needs me...MY BABY!!!!
Woo hoo!!
Our little girl arrived on the 5th of April. She is perfect in every way and has the good looks of her Daddy. Baby girl was 7 lbs 3 oz and 49 cm long. She weighs a little bit less than that now as she struggled to feed enough but we are almost back to the birth weight.
I am going to make this post quick and then write a more detailed one later when I have another pocket of time.
Here are a few quick things I have learnt about being a mum:
*The smell of your own baby is irresistible.
*The love you have for your baby and your partner after having a baby is large large large!
*Nothing and no one can prepare you for having a baby. Ditto for sleep deprivation.
*It doesn't matter for how long you want a baby or for what you put your self through to create one...all first time mums are equal. None of us know what we are doing!!!!
*No amount of reading will help you to feel confident about making the right decisions regarding your baby!
*People are soooooooo generous when you have a baby...food, presents, cards, visits. It's a very special time.
*Lots of things are not as important as they used to be and you quickly have to start caring for your own needs LAST!!! But personally I have never felt more at peace!

Anyway... all is going well. I must go as baby girl is getting impatient!

I just feel like writing this

2006 is gone and as it passed us by Action Man and I had a moment. On new years eve, awaiting the count down while listening to Michael Franti at the Falls Festival, Action man took me in his arms and hugged me so tight. He said the stuff of dreams for me...that we have finally reached a point where everything looks like it might be great, that he can't believe that 2006 is nearly over and he is hugging me with a big belly and that he feels like he finally has his Betty back. A.M hasn't called me Betty for ages. It was the nickname he gave me when I learned to snowboard about 8 years ago. A female boarder was called a shred betty in those days. He called me Betty because he was proud of me for learnig something which I initially found scary and hard. Betty stuck and for a while many of our friends were used to my nickname. In the last few years Betty has slipped away for Action Man and he had to deal with some different parts of my personality that had never been revealed in the days of Bettydom.
I'm pleased to agree with A.M. I think Betty is back as well. She doesn't seem as stressed, little things don't get to her like they did, she is not so worried about the future and is able to go with the flow again. Betty isn't angry with her body any more and she feels so much better about her self worth, it's unbelievable.
Thankyou unborn baby of ours. You are not born yet but already you have bought so much to our lives.

Too Roo for now

Something is stopping me from blogging and I can't quite put my finger on what it is.
It could be because my blog was read by someone I know and I feel that I can't write from the heart anymore. I'm having more trouble than I thought getting over it.
It might just be because I don't feel the need to blog anymore.
I'm not really sure.
Not a lot of people swing by anyway so I hope I am not letting too many people down.
I just thought I'd let you know that everythig is going really well. I have just had the morphology scan and everthing is great. We chose not to find out the sex of our baby. It was lovely to see babe flicking all over the place. My tummy is getting nice and round and tight. I'm not as tired but I wish I could get rid of this back pain.
I still haven't bought anything for the babe but lots of things keep coming my way which is handy.
I can't forget the difficult road I have been on. Although I am enjoying every minute of being pregnant I am struggling to let go of the pain and the resentment I feel towards having had a couple of very sad, difficult years. I feel like I still have a lot of work to do emotionally but I am starting to change.
I'm not sure that I'll write much for a while. I don't really know where I am going with this blog anymore.
I do keep reading your blogs though and I am always thinking of the progress of my bloggy sisters.
Take care.
Betty.

Steep Learning Curves

This post is posted days after I wrote it because there was a bloggy problem!

I am watching the Aria awards and Youth Group are singing 'Forever Young' which always brings tears to my eyes because B and T played it at the service for their little son. Also it's just one of those songs that evokes emotion.

Here are some things no-one told me about being pregnant.
1) When your skin stretches it gets really really really itchy.
2) as do boobs. Itchy boobs are not nice. I have some big scratches on mine. Not from rampant sex but from scratching in the night!
3) That stretching stomach muscles can hurt like hell when just carrying out simple tasks like turning over in bed.
4) That chocolate can give you heart burn :(

Or maybe they just happen to me. Some how I doubt it!
I went to a sale of baby good items in a church hall on the weekend. I went with my friend and her baby girl. It was full of 2nd hand baby furniture, clothing, maternity wear and accessories. The hall was chock-a-block full of pregnant women and women with prams, kids and little babies. I saw one man!
It was an infertile woman's nightmare. I went weak at the knees at the sight of it all. I couldn't believe I was there.
I saw Action Man's nasty, ugly old cousins and they stared at my belly in disbelief. I think we may have forgotten to tell them. Whoops.
I bought some very nice, cheap maternity items but I'm not ready to purchase anything else. Another friend I saw there talked me into buying this travel bottle sterilizer thing for $5. I did because she told me it was invaluable. I dunno, it just looks like a lunch box. I don't know what anything is for. There is so much stuff, SURELY I don't need it! My friend also tried to talk me into buying this huge baby bag with a compartment for everything. I just can't imagine ever needing to take that much stuff anywhere with me. My friends laughed a knowing, wicked laugh to each other.
It was all a bit overwhelming I have to say. It was also a big moment for me! Fancy me being in that kind of environment without wanting to dissolve into tears and run from the room.

I read a couple of blogs tonight and some of the girls are having a really rough time. I just wish this didn't have to happen to people. Struggling to have a baby does horrible things to our confidence and our belief in ourselves as valuable people.....I wish I had a magic wand. If I did I would wave it like crazy.