Lie back and think of...strawberries??

Well, now the longest wait of my life... (apart from the wait in 2005 for my then-fiance to join me in England and for us to get married!!)

The wait now is to see if the drugs, injections and unpleasant pokey-bits associated with the IVF were worth it, and the two tiny bundles of cells floating around inside me are going to hang on and become our children...

It all went fine, although I managed to get a bit of an infection, which meant the day of embryo transfer (when the requirement is for a very full bladder) involved me curled up on the floor of the hospital room, wailing and clutching my stomach and trying not to disgrace myself by throwing up all over the nice smart machines... My stand-in acupuncturist stood by helplessly, having had the whip out the needles before I passed out.

So typical! Having spent the past two months having organic tea, eating and drinking all fertility-related concoctions and mediating about perfect little babies, with images of myself floating on a little cloud of acupuncture and aromatherapy-induced bliss, I instead grabbed and downed a cocktail of antibiotics, pain killers, codeine, and would have reached for anything alcoholic if I wasn't already in enough trouble.

I felt stupid - and of course, the "kind" doctors and nurses didn't do all that much to help that feeling - the doctor commented to me "well, you weren't like this when you came in two hours ago". No s..t, buddy - I didn't have a bladder like a water-filled balloon and a fear of someone shoving something very uncomfortable into the very part of me that hurt like hell...

Anyway...

...full of drugs and feeling sick and sore and internally screaming "THIS IS NOT HOW IT'S SUPPOSED TO BE!", I was told to lie back and concentrate on the picture on the ceiling - I know what you're imagining... a sea scape, with beautiful waves, amazing wildlife, soft sand? No? OK, then a gorgeous rolling landscape, with wild flowers and trees, and... I promise, you won't even come close.

Three strawberries, blown up to the size of footballs.

Really.

Strawberries.

I lay there, holding my husband's hand, staring at these huge red strawberries, thinking that they were probably meant to represent exactly how my ovaries looked and felt at that precise moment. Where were the friggin' dolphins and beautiful fish?? Maybe just one flower???

Then it happened, you know, one of "Those Moments". The ones that hit you in the middle of stress and crisis and makes your breath stick your throat...

As they put the two embryos back into me, the nurse said I might see a flash of light. I saw two, but not flashes of light, that didn't do what I saw justice - I saw two tiny glowing lights, almost joined but quite separate - I saw two stars. They twinkled in the darkness of the scan screen and somewhere inside me I felt those two tiny lives, sparkling and twirling, and showing my husband and I that they were real, and THERE. Our babies. Two tiny, sparkling lives, two hopes for Alex and I and the love we share.

So, now we wait. The infection has subsided almost completely, I am back at work today with two secret stars inside me that a handful of colleagues and friends know about. I try to picture happy things, and calm thoughts and know that really, whether you believe in positive thoughts, or God or anything, my husband and I, with a lot of medical intervention, have done all we mere mortals can do.

Our two little stars must now decide if they're strong enough to make it to the next stage.

All my dreams are that they do, with the knowledge they cannot be more wanted or hoped for...

Two Stars.. Two lives. Two dreams.

Eggs and Nick - Anticipation and Sadness

Tomorrow is the big day! I am due to go into hospital at 8am, and at some point they will poke around in my ovaries, hopefully pull out a few eggs (sorry, how big did you say the needle is??), and try to make some babies! I only want one, how hard can that be!!???? Actually the whole process, natural or IVF, is close to a miracle in my mind. Miracles are pretty hard...

Then, my long-suffering husband, who will agree to anything right now in my hormonal state, will indulgently whisk me off to the acupuncturist, who will attempt to "calm my energies and tune up my chi" or something, and then... we wait.. and see if any of the eggs will fertilise and can be put back on Thursday...

I feel six months pregnant already, my stomach is swollen up like a balloon, and I can hardly sit down without wincing. Nice! Part of me wants it all over, and part of me wants it not to start! I guess, like most things, the anticipation will be worse than the actual event.. Won't it??

So, today, 12th February, is a day of anticipation, and also sadness.

One of my closest friends died two years ago today from lung cancer. He was only 51. He had a wonderful wife, Jane, and two fantastic kids, Hannah and George. Hannah had to cope with a haemangioma on her face when she was born, (a big birthmark, that had to be removed with lazer surgery). As if that weren't enough, George was born with major bowel problems, and has just endured his 11th operation, age 7. Jane lost her father to cancer three days before her husband. Makes you wonder just how much pain one family can endure. Then I think about my husband and his family's story... amazing how much some people have to deal with.

Nick was always adamant that he "felt" I would have another child (he was very spiritual), we often talked about it. He had a certainty about things that was totally overwhelming. The only time he ever got that wrong was in his certainty that he would beat the cancer. We all believed that too, he had a way of knowing - so it came as a terrible shock to us when we lost him. Hannah was a bridesmaid at our wedding, and George was an usher, and they were so brave, having lost their Daddy just 10 weeks before. Jane has been an amazingly strong Mum, and they have come through this as such a close family.

So, a day of mixed feelings.

Excitement and trepidation about the procedure tomorrow, and the thought that in just a few days, I might be pregnant. Sadness that this date carries, for all of us who knew and loved Nick. A hope for new life, whilst remembering those we have lost. My husband and his family have had more than their fair share of loss in their lives, a pain my husband and his sister bear with remarkable courage.

The poem at the end of this post was read out at Nick's remembrance service, and I think it's beautiful, regardless of whether you have faith in God or not.

Nick - you were sure of life-after-death. You had absolute faith in the fact that you would pass over into a different place, and we would feel and know you are still here with us. Then you will somehow feel our thoughts today, know how much we all miss your gentle humour, strength and compassion for others.

Dance the skies safely, dear friend, and I hope you were right about the baby...

"Oh! I have slipped the surly bonds of Earth

And danced the skies on laughter-silvered wings;

Sunward I've climbed and joined the tumbling mirth of sun-split clouds,

--and done a hundred things you have not dreamed of

wheeled and soared and swung

High in the sunlit silence.

Hov'ring there, I've chased the shouting wind along, and flung

My eager craft through footless falls of air...

Up, up the long, delirious, burning blue

I've topped the wind-swept heights with easy grace

Where never lark, nor eer eagle flew--

And, while with silent lifting mind I've trod

The high, untrespassed sanctity of space,

Put out my hand and touched the face of God."

Snow, Sledges and Magic

A funny thing happened yesterday.

Snow! Lots of it!

We went to bed to a normal landscape, and woke up to a snowscape of beautiful and magical proportions.

School was shut! Work was shut! - thank Goodness I brought home the laptop...

So, as my intrepid husband set off to try and battle into London with a flask of coffee and a blanket (he failed), my son, two dogs and I set off into the dreamy white of this snowy day.

Word had spread. Villagers had phoned their friends and family, and, in the way only a small village can do, the party was on! Everyone was meeting at the Scout Hut around 9.30am. We got there later, about 9.45, and the sight as we walked down towards the sloping field was amazing. Probably 100+ people, screams of excitement, whoops of joy, laughter, shouts - all ringing around the dip. Everyone was there - and what a microcosm of family life. Everyone was borrowing sledges, the kids had already worked out their own systems, with most of them sharing with the kids who hadn't found their sledge or, unlike us, didn't have well-prepared Grandparents ready to produce a sledge and sit-on slidey things for moments like this.

The adults were having as much fun as the kids. The men started getting competitive (funny, that?) and before long were into the serious business of standing on the sledges and trying to "snow board" down the hill. You know what men are like - this is serious stuff!! (Rich and Steve, you know who you are!). We chatted, and drank coffee, and stamped our feet until eventually, when our toes were so numb we'd lost all feeling, and out stomachs were telling us lunch was near, we began the march home, dropping off various kids and families along the way.

What a feeling of "belonging".

At one point, my neighbour (and close friend) and I were standing sipping coffee (hers, of course, I am never that well organised), when she smiled. She has just moved here from London, got married two months ago, and has two lovely daughters aged 9 and 6. She works really hard, as a Head of English for a secondary school, and has been very frazzled lately.

"why the smile?" I said.

"I had just said to my husband that something had to give. I am so tired, and the work I'm doing for school is intense. I just felt I couldn't go on at this pace much longer. Then nature stepped in, and here we are, school shut, a day off, everyone having fun - what an unexpected gift".

Funny how often that happens.

Years ago(!), aged about 20, I bought my first house, and money was exceptionally tight. I was working three jobs to keep the place going, and there was just one bill too many. I woke up one morning, at my wit's end, to find a £10 note on my doormat. I found out years later who it was from - a friend, knowing I was struggling, and knowing I'd refuse it if they offered, had put it through the letterbox, knowing I couldn't return it if I didn't know who'd sent it.

It covered the bill I had, and I made it through.

Sometimes things happen for a reason, and "life" or "nature" or "friends" have a wonderful way of stepping in just when you truly need them.

A lot of people probably viewed the snow yesterday as a problem - I was lucky to have the flexibility to work from home, and lucky that I could be there for my son with his school shut. But even though other working parents were stressed by the lack of control over circumstances, they stepped off the rollercoaster for a few hours yesterday, and were kids again. I'll post some pictures when I've downloaded them. If you could have heard the screams of laughter, and shouts of play and joy echoing round that slope, you'd know how lucky we all felt.

It's snowing now, big fat flakes, outside my office window... staff are asking if it's time to go home early...maybe the rollercoaster will stop again soon...

Make sure you step off the rollercoaster sometimes when life gives you the chance - you'll be surprised how great it feels!

If there were just 100 people in the world...

On Sunday night, my husband, son and I were sitting down to dinner. We were asking my son, who is 7, how many people, as a %, did he think there were in the world lucky enough to sit down to the sort of meal we were having? He said 75%! We got into discussing all sorts of ways we're privileged, and I thought it would interesting to find out some facts...

If we could shrink the earth's population to a village of precisely 100 people, with all the existing human ratios remaining the same, there would be:

57 Asians

21 Europeans

14 from the Western Hemisphere, both north and south

8 Africans

52 would be female 48 would be male

70 would be non-white 30 would be white

70 would be non-Christian 30 would be Christian

6 people would possess 59% of the entire world's wealth and all 6 would be from the United States.

80 would live in substandard housing

70 would be unable to read

50 would suffer from malnutrition

1 would have a college education

1 would own a computer

• If you woke up this morning with more health than illness... you are more blessed than the million who will not survive this week.


• If you have never experienced the danger of battle, the loneliness of imprisonment, the agony of torture, or the pangs of starvation ... you are ahead of 500 million people in the world.


• If you can attend a church meeting without fear of harassment, arrest, torture, or death ... you are more blessed than three billion people in the world.


• If you have food in the refrigerator, clothes on your back, a roof overhead and a place to sleep ... you are richer than 75% of this world.


• If you have money in the bank, in your wallet, and spare change in a dish someplace ... you are among the top 8% of the world's wealthy.

Kinda makes you think, huh? Talk about "challenges"...

Fossils, Love and Friendship

I grew up in a small village in Oxfordshire, which turns out to be the place where the first dinosaur was discovered. In the whole world!

When I was growing up, my mother, who is an amazing woman, and I spent hours and hours outdoors, walking and exploring the countryside. I developed a life-long love of nature and the natural world. I thought every kid was growing up in a place where you could trawl across newly-ploughed fields and pick up handfulls of amazing fossilised corals, shells, marine molluscs and small creatures dating from millions of years ago... not to mention Roman pottery, as the village is near a Roman villa, and on one of the most famous Roman roads in England.

When my son was small, I moved back to this village, and unsurprisingly, he found the same delight and excitement in finding these treasures. We have now initiated my husband and his daughter in the art, as well as many of his schoolfriends and his next-door-neighbours and my son has built up a fabulous collection of fossils in his bedroom. I imagine them one day sitting on a dusty shelf in his university room, surrounded by dirty clothes and beer cans - but maybe still reminding him of happy times combing the fields with his old Mum and Step dad!

When thinking about this the other day, I realised how often in life you could use this analogy. How often are we living in a place which we take completely for granted? How often are we sitting on treasure, that may not be exciting to anyone but us? As a child, I thought everyone grew up like this. It was a shock to find out, much later, how lucky I was. My son doesn't yet realise it. He thinks every kid grows up with fossils, love and friendship.

Anyway, this post got serious, must be the hormone injections. Far from the effects so far being the terrible mood swings everyone warned me about, I have found a strangely unfamiliar sense of peace! Typical that I'd do this all the wrong way around! Regardless of whether it works or not please, PLEASE can it work...), I am considering buying these hormones on the internet and injecting forever! !

So, wherever you are in the world, I hope you can look out of your window, or walk up your street, and feel some sense of belonging, and contentment in the place you have chosen to be your home. I cannot wish you fossils - I now know we're not all that lucky - but I do wish you love and friendship!

1 down, 11 to go...

This is a photo of one of my dogs, Findlay - I adopted him from the Animal Charity I work for and this was taken at lunchtime today on our walk. Not a bad way to spend lunch, out in the fresh air and January sunshine with your two dogs (and usually about 10 others!). Fin has stolen both my other dog's (Tig)sticks and was taunting her with them. He's a horror sometimes.

The injections?? yeah, well, OK, OK, so it wasn't that bad. Yes, I feel a bit silly for hyping it up in my own mind - like lots of things in life, the anticipation was far worse than the actual event!

It MIGHT have been made better by my husband turning up with flowers (and some of my favourites, too!!) and making me dinner from ingredients he had gone out and bought in his lunch time..!! I know! ("would the real Husband please stand up")... Joking aside, it made for a wonderful evening, and definitely helped. The glass of wine may have contributed too...

So, as I'm a "weekday" blogger, nothing more to add till Monday... To the two people reading this (oh, one of you stopped?), thanks for your support, and we'll see what happens next... in the meantime, I have more dog walks and flowers to admire...

Injections and a Public Apology

Today is the day!

the IVF Injections start tonight... I am not looking forward to it, but I would have to be a particularly strange human being to feel anything but trepidation. My father is diabetic, and reminds me constantly how often he has to do it. I know it's not the biggest deal in the world, but it's MY big deal!! My husband asked if I needed him to do the actual needle bit. (For those of you who know my husband, you will know what this means...) I never thought another person asking if they could stick a needle in you was a sign of love until now...

On to other things. Did you catch up with the news about Silvio Burlusconi, the 70-year old former Prime Minister of Italy?

"Dear Editor," began a letter published Wednesday on the front page of La Repubblica, the newspaper that Silvio Berlusconi hates most. The scalding letter demanded a public apology from Berlusconi — and it was signed by his wife!

It turns out that that Burlusconi attended an awards ceremony last week and was overly friendly with two young and beautiful guests. "If I weren't already married, I would marry you right now," he reportedly told one. And another: "With you I would go anywhere."

"These are statements I consider damaging to my dignity," wrote Veronica Berlusconi, 50, who has been with Berlusconi for 27 years. She said his remarks could not be "reduced to jokes."

"To my husband and to the public man, I therefore ask for a public apology, not having received one privately. In the course of our relationship I have sought to avoid conjugal conflict even when his behaviour has created reasons for it. This line of conduct has one sole limit, my dignity as a woman, and for the example I have to give to our children who are different in ages and sex. Today, for my daughters who are already adults, the example of a woman capable of defending her dignity in her relationships with men assumes a particular importance. The defence of my dignity as a woman will also help my son never to forget respect for women, so that he can have a healthy and balanced relationship with them."

Then in the early evening, Berlusconi wrote his own public letter:

"Your dignity does not matter: I will guard it like a precious material in my heart even when thoughtless jokes come out of my mouth," he wrote. "But marriage proposals, no, believe me, I have never made one to anyone. "Forgive me, however, I beg of you, and take this public testimony of private pride that submits to your anger as an act of love. One among many. A huge kiss. Silvio."

so, what do you think?? A huge victory for women's rights? A win-win for them both?? But does his "humble"apology atone for his past actions? My husband and I were discussing this last night, and thought it was an interesting debate - I am glad to say my husband thought Ms Burlusconi's actions were terrific - imagine forcing your husband into such a public apology! Result!!

so, to women's (especially wives') rights and injections - bring it on!!