Baby Shower Blues....

I have been away from ICLW for a couple of months and it is great to be back in amongst it. Sorry all, I am not doing an ICLW post this month but welcome aboard and I hope that you stay and read a few posts to see where this blog is at. Sorry, this was not my ideal ICLW post but I really need to get this out.

**Disclaimer: Firstly, I just want to let you know that I am extremely grateful to be in the position of being able to plan a baby shower. I know I am having a whinge but I want you to know that I absolutely realise that there are many of you out there who are at various stages of TTC and running the gauntlet of friends and families baby showers - with your hearts yearning to have your own. My heart is with you gals as I do understand the difficult situation a baby shower is for the IF woman. I am begging you to forgive the self indulgence of the following vent.

Now, I need to have a bit of a vent because being an IF survivor, the baby shower has been very fraught for me over the years. I cannot count how many I have gone to and sobbed all the way home or felt physically sick trying to make myself get ready to go. So, when I found out that I was pregnant, after awhile I started to dream about my own shower and how lovely it would be. To be the one who was having the shower, who was having the baby, who was cooing over tiny little clothes and preparing for a baby to enter my life. It is a beautiful dream.

A couple of months ago, my Aunty very kindly asked if she could throw the baby shower for me and considering the situation that my mum is in at the moment, I thought that this would be a really good thing. After awhile (making sure that everything was going well) I picked out a date and left it at that.

In the meantime, I realised that there was a little issue with my friends. It seems that assimilation back into my group of friends was going to be harder than I thought and why did I need to assimiliate? Of course because of the journey through IF - as my journey progressed, I withdrew further and further into myself - I found it very hard to be in any social situations. The upshot being that because I didn't go to many gatherings last year, I was left off the list of invitees. Very disappointing and certainly of my own making. I have spoken about this before that I thought that once I was pregnant, I would go back to being myself. This was not really the case. I continued to worry all through the pregnancy and I still found it hard to be in social groups, though I did catch up with quite a few friends one on one.

The fact that I was being left off the list of invitees to any social gathering made me throw a bit of a childish tantrum - "I'm not having a baby shower" - mainly because deep down I was afraid that noone would come. I also must mention here - I am not a giver of parties, I have never been, I really don't like them and I do find them stressful, I find I am good with people one on one but a group scares the hell out of me basically. Anyway, I got over that and then last week, I started to think about the guest list. I realised that if I invited children to the shower it would be 26 adults and 28 children coming. Now, call me a selfish, diva, princess but I did not want my baby shower to be a children's party. This guest list was gotten to by thinking - if I ask this person, then this one has to be invited and even though I am not close to this person, I will invite them so that I won't hurt this person - in itself, just getting the list together was an arduous task because I don't want to hurt or offend anyone.

My Aunt had told me that her best friend was coming (I have met this woman about twice) and my MIL is inviting her best friend and I knew my mum would want to invite a couple of her friends. My aunt had said that her best friend wanted to do the invitations for me and honestly, I am not an invitation person, I was just going to send around an email. It seemed to me that more and more, the shower was becoming less about me and more about everyone else.

I discussed my dilemma with my bestie last week end and after a couple of hours of tossing the situation around with all sorts of different options, we hit on a plan of having 2 events, one at my Aunt's place with only close family (including my two nieces and my 3 nephews if my sister wanted to bring the boys) and then go to a cafe with my girlfriends on another day. It wasn't a perfect solution but I felt bad about asking people not to bring their kids.

I then had lunch with my older sister during the week. She has 3 boys and I thought she would be able to give some good advice about how offended people would be if I asked them not to bring their kids. She was excellent and provided wonderful advice. She basically said that 'it's my party and I can ask who the hell I want to'. That made me feel better, better that is until last night.

I went to the footy with my Aunty as usual last night and I was telling her the whole story about how I didn't want it to become a kids party and she was agreeing and everything (I am sure a lot because she didn't really want her house over run with kids), she also seemed a bit put out when I told that there would be about 28 people coming, to which I said no worries because Mum had said that she would have it if there were any problems. Now that was all fine but then she told me she had invited her son's fiance and two granddaughters and honestly I was floored. Mainly because this would mean that I am telling all of my friends and some family not to bring kids but there will be kids there which I think is not fair to them. It also means that I am being unfair to my aunt on the other side of the family and now have to invite my cousin's wife so as not to hurt my aunt. Honestly, I could have screamed (and poor old JourneyMan got vented on a treat when I got home - he has been extremely supportive in this and has not tried to make me feel guilty about inviting or not inviting anyone on his side of the family - he just let me choose).

The fact of the matter is now the shower has the gloss taken off it. It just does not seem to be about me anymore and the intimate, fun shower that I had imagined now will be filled with people who I barely know and me worrying that people are resenting me for being inconsistent on my invitation policy. I don't necessarily think that everything should be about me but I thought that this was one thing that pretty much should be. Now I don't even know for what purpose I would even be having it. My original purpose was just to celebrate quietly becoming a mum but at last count there are more than 30 people coming so it is certainly not intimate anymore. I am tasked with getting all the snail mail addresses of people and honestly, I can't be bothered, I feel like I have enough on my plate at the moment. I never wanted it to be a big deal, just an afternoon tea chatting with my mates.

Now I wonder if I cancel the shower altogether, would I regret it? Or should I just deal with the situation, grit my teeth and endure what the shower has become? I seem to change my mind in every minute. I barely slept last night and I am absolutely exhausted today. I know that there are so many other hardships in the world, I know that many of you girls are going through horrors that I cannot even imagine and I realise that this is not a huge problem. It is just annoying and disappointing because my dream of what my shower was supposed to be is not to be. In a fit of venting last night I said to JourneyMan that I might take my bestie out to a cafe for lunch and call it the baby shower. Maybe that's what I will do.

Out of the time warp!

Gosh, I cannot believe how quick this week has gone - consider me out of the time warp!! I realised I hadn't even posted an ICLW introductory post - gee, too late now - sorry gang! I have been trying to comment up a storm though and I have been finding some really wonderful blogs, I love ICLW!!

This is just a quick post to let you know that I am still around and going strong. I had been really good this week, almost no nausea and then I had a day of throwing up - it was wierd!! I am better again now though, thank goodness. The tiredness is still hanging around though - I am hoping to kick that soon.

JourneyMan went into the hospital one night this week for a sleep study, I am sure that he has sleep apnea - it is very scary at night. Then I am off tonight to the coast for a work conference and won't be back until tomorrow night. I originally wasn't going to go but now I am really looking forward to it.

Well, I had better get moving!!

We're Back and things are heating up!!

Hello ICLW's - sorry but this is not a welcome post though you can find a bit more info about me here.

Well we got back from Perth at 4am this morning and I am a little weary I can tell you! We had a wonderful trip though the much lauded Perth beach weather deserted us and it was a pretty chilly. We only got to swim once and that was yesterday. The rest of the time the wind was absolutely bitter!

We left on Wednesday afternoon on a very hot day in Melbourne and arrived in Perth after a 4 and a half hour flight (and 3 hour time change) tired but excited. It was very cold when we got off the plane and we realised that we didn't really bring clothes that were appropriate for the cooler weather - doh! On Thursday, JourneyMan and I spent most of the day catching up on sleep and reading which was nice and then went to JourneyMan's cousin's house for his birthday BBQ. Thankfully, JourneyCousin lent me a warm jumper for the rest of the trip. It was a fun night getting to know some new people!

On Friday, JourneyMan and I spent the day touring around Perth - we went to Fremantle which is an old colonial area of Perth where the docks are - it was really nice there. On Friday night, JourneyMan's brother and his girlfriend also flew in from Melbourne so there was plenty of company for the trip. JourneyMan went out on Friday night with his cousin and brother and a host of other people - I stayed in the room for some rest, I am not a huge party animal at the best of times but as you know, I am trying to be as relaxed as possible in the lead up to the cycle.

On Saturday, we finally ventured to the beach but it was still too cold so we quickly hot footed it out of there and had a nice lunch before going to the party on Saturday night. It was a fab night - alot of fun though not too late, thankfully! Yesterday we did some more exploring of the city and then had lunch at JourneyMan's aunt's house before we dropped JourneyMan's brother and girlfriend off at the airport. We had a few hours to kill to our flight so we decided to see a movie before checking in to our flight. We learnt some valuable lessons last night. Firstly, make sure that the movie does not go for an obsene amount of time before deciding to see it. We saw 2012 and had to leave the movie early or we would have missed checking in to our flight. Secondly, it is probably not a good idea to see an action movie, leave at the climax and only leave yourself barely enough time to check in before the flight closes. We ran out of the movie before it finished, had to fill up the rental car with petrol before putting it back and had to read the drop off instructions for the rental car en route. We got to the flight check in 5 minutes before they closed the flight and we felt like we were in our own action movie!! It took us awhile to relax after that experience I tell you!

Now it is 16 days until we go to Thailand - wow, things are really starting to move fast now! Of course, my contrary period decided to come early (yesterday) and so when I let the clinic know, they have made some changes to the cycle. I have started to take the progynova today and then egg pick up for the donor will now be on the 12th of December and the transfer will be on the 17th. It is getting really exciting. I have to say that I spent alot of time thinking about the cycle in Perth, I am very, very hopeful.

Now, I am a bit nervous about what has happened at work while I have been away but we will see what happens when I get in there tomorrow!

ICLW - Welcome!

Wow, it really snuck up on me this month! I wanted to make sure that I had an introductory post to welcome you aboard but hadn’t had a chance – so here I go. I noticed last month, some people did some nifty things to introduce themselves, here are the top 10 things to know about me:

1. Big things seem to happen to us in July! JourneyMan is my husband, we were married in July 2007. JourneyDog is our Shitzu cross miniature poodle (who is called The JourneyDog that is Woolly) who we got as a puppy in July 2008. July 2009 was when we had our last cancelled IVF cycle and then we decided that we would pursue donor eggs in Thailand.

2. I have just booked our flights to Thailand, we leave on 10 December and return on 24 December. We will be having one fresh donor egg cycle while we are in Thailand. We are going to stay at the same hotel in Bangkok that we stayed in for 4 days on our honeymoon.

3. This blog came about when some of the people closest to me told me that ‘I should get over it and stop letting it run my life’ and that I was ‘becoming bitter and twisted’. At the time, I felt like I didn’t have anywhere to turn to vent my feelings (apart from my bestie and honestly, I didn’t want to load the poor girl up with anymore venting, she has been fabulous!!). It has been invaluable for me to explore my feelings and I have found it an extremely cathartic experience. Also a very supporting one – I have felt a great warm hug from the blogosphere.

4. JourneyMan and I originally started IVF because he had had a vasectomy a couple of years before he met me. On the IVF journey though, we have found that I have one kidney, a unicornuate uterus and I am a low responder to the drugs. I now have an entourage of doctors that I consult with – GP, Fertility Specialist in Melbourne, Fertility Specialist in Bangkok, Haematologist, Bariatric Surgeon and Bariatric fill doctor (another story).

5. JourneyMan would like to me to mention that I am incapable of remembering band or song names, though I usually know every lyric of the song. I also have an amazing memory for spoken conversations but am crap visually so never notice what anyone is wearing or if they look different in any way. I would like to mention that JourneyMan knows ridiculous amounts of trivia, so much so that they banned the afternoon quiz at his work because he always won but cannot argue his way out of a paper bag.

6. Mostly I am a glass if half full type of person, though you wouldn’t guess that from reading my blog (lots of venting / whinging going on) but I do like to prepare myself for any eventuality. I always like to have a contingency plan for anything that I am doing and although we haven’t come up with the next step for our journey – we have options: 1. Import remaining embryos into Australia and do FET’s or 2. Surrogacy. We will decide closer to the time what we will do next.

7. I am a recovering alcoholic. I had stopped drinking 4 years before I met JourneyMan so he never saw me when I was under the influence – thank goodness. My life has changed exponentially since that time and I am proud of the changes that I have made in my llife.

8. I have travelled extensively in my life and it is one of my life goals to see the seven natural wonders of the world. I have seen four – Great Barrier Reef, the Grand Canyon, Mount Everest and Victoria Falls. JourneyMan has only been outside of Australia twice – to Thailand both times and on his first trip (with his mates) he confessed that he didn’t eat Thai food at all. On the honeymoon, he remember a Thai guy from our hotel in Koh Samui who he played soccer with on his previous trip (4 years prior!) – he has an excellent memory for faces.

9. I love reading and my favourites books are still The Lord of the Rings (yes, a bit geeky I know) and To Kill A Mockingbird but I love anything – thrillers, chic lit, biographies – I am not a snob, I will read anything. JourneyMan’s favourite author is Lee Child – I am sure that he thinks that he is Jack Reacher (main character of Lee Child novels) but he doesn’t have any military history or any of the other features of Reacher. His other favourite authors are Matthew Riley and John Grisham.

10. Our relationship is strong, we have a great bond that is mostly based in laughter – we are pretty goofy and we absolutely delight in making each other laugh.

Well that is it – will be back in the next couple of days to talk about the break between IVF #4 and #5.

Cheers,

JourneyGirl