Tuesday 26 August 2008

Science for Mummies

1. Newtons Law - for every action there is an equal and opposite reaction. For mummies this means that every developmental step has a DARK side. Ooooh, yippee, he's walking already. Oh holymotherofgodandallthebiggysaintpeople he's walked right out onto the road.

2. Magnetism - this works in two ways: the first that a baby/toddler will be irresistably attracted to anything dangerous - if it's there, they'll find it. The second is magnetism from dirt - your child will suck it onto themselves. This last one grows in strength according to how recently you have changed them into that 'darling little outfit'.

3. Gravity - especially strong around toddlers, what goes up, or actually is even pretty happy level, will come down in the hands of toddlers. This is especially true of breakable items r messy things (then revert to rule 2.).

4. Thermodynamics - a young child will increase their ability to kick off covers in a directly proportional measurement according to how cold it is - and conversely, will manage to wrap themselves up in every scrap of their bedding, toys and mattress if they try really hard, as the weather gets warmer.

5. Energy can't be destroyed. No, it can't. Honestly. Trust me. It may be temporarily delayed, but then only to appear in a different form shortly afterwards. Usually centering around the magnetism rule.

6. Matter can be destroyed. Very easily. And quickly.

7. Nature hates a vacuum. So do young children (not only the vacuum cleaner as in my little eccentrics) Toddlers don't long tolerate a vacuum very well either. And will usually fill it according to the other laws.

8. The speed of sound. Actually the speed of silence and just how much can be accomplished by little hands in that silence. Beware quiet.

9. Babies and toddlers are secretly nocturnal creatures and it would do us good to adapt to their natural tendencies - dark doesn't mean sleep.

10. The law of infinity - They will take you to your limits - and past them. The biggest of these is just how much you can love another being. It just keeps on growing. And growing.....

Sunday 24 August 2008

Who KNOWS what you'll get on here tonight. Don't ask me.

I quite often have some buring issue that I just HAVE to share with my blogosphere friends but tonight....I dunno. Burble time.

We had a fab day. Fab in the ordinary sense of having the family together. Not something that happens to often with police-officer-Stay-Late-DH. Nothing mind-blowingly extraordinary went on.

We did yesterday's grocery shop. With no queues (Hey - Legoland - check Tesco out - no queues!!) We had a gloriously huge sunday lunch at an odd little pub in the village.

I say odd, not because it didn't have a roof, or you had to join an arcane relgious sect to enter, but odd in the British way of oddness.

This pub has 'gone under New Management'. And flaunted this change into a 'dining experience' in all our local publications (ok The Stotfold monthly 'we have a bring and buy' magazine, the 'buy your trotters from Skudder's butchers' magazine...you must know the type) so we thought, yes, let's give it a go.

So we go into the tiniest bar in existence. There was no childrens room - the whole place was a children's room due to its size. No family friendly drinkies, just big peoples juice in big glasses. A giant stags head on one wall (virtually taking up the wall) (The pub is called The Stag so we should have expected it) which matched the flatscreen in the opposite corner perfectly. Such a nice touch.

In to lunch. Guided in (please don't think I am being uncharitable but...) by...I have to say it...an anorexic (literally) biker-chick-boy-I-don't-know. Wearing a baseball hat. She had the charisma of plasticine and the smile of...oh, wait. That's right. She didn't smile. (Frowning uses more calories) That was the last of any waitress we saw. We did eat, because it was a 'carvery' - in this case it meant a giant chef trapped behind a teeny counter sporting a buffalo-sized piece of beef and some chickens. And vegetables.

The food was stunning - plenty of it and well-cooked. But it left us with a soft-sad giggle at just how 'wrong' these places sometimes get it.

For some reason, in England, we take great pride in not taking great pride. It's kind of a 'oh, I am bored now, let's just leave it like it is'. There doesn't seem to be that 'finish', that 'attention to detail'. We like doing things half-assed. Let's spend millions on re-vamping something then staff it with 14-year old cheap couldn't-give-a-shit-what-day-is-it-gimme-my-minimum-wage 14 year olds. We employ the most unimaginative, unskilled drones to decorate our 'adventure' parks, who think 3 plastic tigers will give an aura of 'jungle world' to visitors. Our Ghost Trains have dodgy painted figures and models that don't scare my kids plunked awkwardly along a part-decorated line with 4 bits of string to dangle on you in the not-even-complete darkness.

We like doing it not quite good enough. Which is exactly where this pub hit. They've really got it with the food, it was superb, and could be a real money-mine, especially with all the new yuppy housing going up locally (of which, yes, we've bought into some environment-spoiling too). But no. We wont think it through. We'll just add food onto what was going anyway. It'll be fab.

So, anyway (You did have good warning I could whinge!) after lunch everyone collapsed with huge bellies (waitress excepted). Later a trip to the park followed by a visit to Old McDonalds (the girls think it's called that) and bath, books, bed.

Things that made me laugh:

DH in the spinny-inertia-play thing at the park. I am used to the girls saying 'STOP STOP STOOOOOOP IT NOW' when it gets going, but DH, legs a-dangling. Let's just say my reactions delayed a little.

Florence bursting her balloon from Old McDonalds (junk food and unpredicable toys - super). She insisted on banging it on the one thistle that keeps on growing in the garden and BANG.

Alice bursting her ballon on the exact same thistle 5 minutes later.

Unconnected to any of this, please check the labels. I am thoroughly enjoying the strange searches on Google that bring people here, and am now experimenting. The most bizarre and banal words will give you a page 1 Google placement.

Saturday 23 August 2008

Legoqueue

Today I had a bright idea.

Says me to DH 'I know, why don't we take advantage of the one good day's weather this long weekend, bin the grocery shop, bin the new carseat hunt, and go to Legoland'

Without any deeper thinking. That maybe, just maybe, the rest of the country was tihnking the same thing. And maybe, just maybe the M25 would be an exercise in staring into the car of the people in the next lane, starting to smile, point at each other's kids, exchange addresses/phone numbers, and arrange to meet up on the way back.

We eventually got there. Probably about 2 hours later than anticipated. And with me desperate for an alernative phrase to 'no, we're almost there, please stop dismantling your seats/toys/each other'.

I am not saying it was overcrowded. But Legoland is in Windsor (Hi Queen) and I think we parked in Devon. Alice insisted in going in the emergency pushchair so that was fun, pushing her weight over hill and under dale, or whatever it is.

And we get in there. Well, we could have been anywhere. HOW many people. One ride. That's all we managed. One ride. Oh, and when I say 'we', I mean Alice and DH - Florence, after almost 25 minutes queuing announced she needed changing and so I went and QUEUED at the nearest babychanging. Excellent.

Luckily, the day being so dragged out and extended, the girls weren't really aware that they hadn't actually got out of it what we intended and stumbled gladly into their carseats for the very quiet (sleeping) journey back.

And we didn't meet our traffic jam buddies again. ;-)

Friday 22 August 2008

Spiders

I was mocked today. Mocked to within an inch of my life.

I hate hate hate hate hate detest really don't like spiders. They appall me. My shoulders are shivering even typing about the beasts.

So, at coffee this afternoon, at work, the conversation moved to spiders (no, I have no idea how, especially bearing in mind the previous topics - paedophiles, easy-on-the-eye police officers...and...I forget) I voiced my opinion of them and shared a couple of facts (having conkers around the edges of the room is meant to deter them).

The next fact not only horrifies me but bloody annoys me. The UK house spider (all 6 of its varieties - not bird eating spider size, granted but enough to make my insides recoil when one skitters across the floor....or worse...sits looking at you, and you catch it out of the corner of your eye) - come into the house to DO IT. I wont use any other word to describe it as having way too much knowledge of what certain groups of people do to search on google I dont want one of those words and toddlers in the same blog.

Yes, they come in for THAT. The CHEEK of it. Not only are they utterly unwanted (oh go on, give me all the baloney of how they eat flies etc - if they were so bloody useful, come in during the summer when we might have the odd fly, not sodding autumn when it's getting colder and not a fly to be flown) but they have the NECK to frolic in my home (do spiders have necks? not for long in my house, I assure you. Or thoraxes. or legs that work). I don't wish to watch anyone up to shenanigans, least of all revolting spiders.

So - to all of you hideous spiders lurking wherever - Bugger off to Spider Speed Dating, Spider Romance Night.

It ain't happening in my house. And to those of you who mocked (you know who you are) just think of what they're doing the next time one sashays across YOUR lounge, waving its spider g-string.

The prosecution rests, Milord.

Thursday 21 August 2008

Well, yes

You had the excuses yesterday - now here's Bunny.

Oh, my online friends, it's been a surreal couple of weeks...I have Georgia on my mind.

We're kinda at overload with it - can't truly see what is to stop the russians doing exactly as they want. DH's family are safe so far, anything else is out of our hands. I have been doing a lot of praying and just hope there's a peaceful final resolution to this. I want to have faith, but I have doubts, and hope there's a 'plan'.

What else has kept me from doing what I love?

4 sodding HEEEEYUUUGE essays that I finally scraped up the discipline to sit down and do them the last 3 nights. Self-development - is there a module on making yourself get on with things you know will make you feel crap every night you put it off.

Now, after having a 3-night marathon on them I am so tired my eyes are bleeding, too tired even to feel that little glow you have when you've got the work out of the way.
The horrid thing is, because I didn't get onto these assignments when I should (not slapping myself too hard, am only a week late) I now have to skip right onto the next workbook...and you guessed it - yeah the NEXT essays. Why do I do it to myself?!

Studying has been my life. I literally have never stopped. And now it's out of control. I am pretty much decided ramping down the career is the next plan, to be around for schoolt-times, homework and lively little girls growing up, but still I pile into getting more qualified.

Does it keep my brain alive? Well, yes - to a point. But I seem to be able to only pour in one direction at a time - when my work is up to date, I blog. And love it. When the studying cranks up my creative brain goes blleleeeuuauahhhfhfhhggh and I literally have nothing.

I like having somewhere to be 'myself', to reflect, ramble and rant. I like having so much of me left at the end of the day that I can burn off neurons on here. But I like learning too.

So, I guess, until the learning bug burns out I am stuck with all-nighters on late essays - I may not look like I am still at college, but part of me still acts like it!

Wednesday 20 August 2008

I'm here

I promise I will be back playing very soon - like tomorrow, start of 'ICOM' week.

DH's parents are ok so far, thank you all of you for your lovely messages.

I have been busy with a big investigation, and also catching up on some essay-writing (boooo) but looking forward to some more blobbity blog blog.

Kisses

Friday 15 August 2008

Now this is good

Click here

Thursday 14 August 2008

Tales from the far side

I may be one miserable son of a gun, ever poised to leap upon the potential negative in any given situation, but I am also very good at stepping back and seeing the bizarre humour in them too. Well, I think so, in fact, I make myself laugh myself silly. And that's good, right?!

So....yes, it has been a horrendously tense week for us. DH has been watching the news in utter disbelief as the situation grows ever more worrying. DH is seeing streets he's walked down, buildings he recognised and what's heartbreaking, he looks out for faces of the dead/injured he might know. We've been talking to his parents daily and have put in some very fragile contingency plans should things really get horrific (or more so)

But....before you close this and tihnk 'nooooo, seen enough of this on TV, thanks, don't want depressing in my blog-time' - well, we have had a couple of moments...

On Monday I came home from work early, having read about the Russians knocking out a telecoms tower, panicking that our link with DH's parents was broken, and that maybe the russians were heading into Tbilisi.

We decided me needed to try to do something concrete, and look into how we could try to get DHs parents over here. So, thus starts the round of phone calls. Ironically, Georgia is just so far off anyone's radar that no emergency numbers have been supplied and so you trawl through various call waiting options, gaily pressing '1 if you wish to track your application', '2 if you wish to start a new application', '3 if you wish to appeal a refusal', '5,6,7.....' '23 if you just like listening to automated messages'. No joy at any turn.

I finally decide to call the British Embassy in Georgia. To get a 'we're closed' answerphone message (with the implied 'there is a WAR on, old chap' However they do give a couple of numbers for 'distressed UK citizens' Yep, thats me.

The phone system in Georgia isn't the best. Actually, none of the infrastructure is the best. Everything is very unpredictable and sporadic. I eventually get through to a voice. Speaking Georgian - which is so vastly different from russian (they're not getting the capital 'r').

Me (in russian) Do you speak English?

Her (in russian) No

Me: (in russian) Do you speak russian?

Her (in russian, by now thinking she has got Dullard United on the phone) Yes, a little

At this point I realised what an utterly pointless question I had asked as my spoken russian is so rusty as to be virtually useless. I did manage to limp out enough to establish that I needed to try another number, but was mentally berating myself for even trying. Poor woman.

Later on DH tries the Georgian Embassy here. They answer the phone in Georgian. And what do I hear....

Him (in English) Do you speak English?

Other (obviously a yes)

Him: Sorry, my Georgian is a little rusty

We're not doing well. Later on when he was speaking to his Mum and Dad I had to remind him of words in russian several times as he had forgotten!

Oh, the joys of a multi-ethnic family!

Sunday 10 August 2008

A little distracted

Forgive me, friends.

DH is from Georgia and I don't suppose anyone has been able to avoid hearing what's going on there.

Please pray the conflict is halted immediately and have his family in your prayers.


Once I work through the oddness of thinking about family in a war zone I will be back on, promise...

xxx

Friday 8 August 2008

DIY and career changes

DH had an idea. DH decided the door colour on our house (new build a year ago) wasn't to our liking (agreed) and it needed changing NOW. DH went and chose paint - a sedate navy blue.

And then it all went horrifically wrong. Why oh why oh why oh WHY didn't I remember. Remember the bouncy laminate floor. Rememeber the falling blinds. Remember the 'blackout' blinds that were more like 'blind spot' blinds as he cut them too small. Remember the wobbly brush painting I made good in the lounge.

It is horrendous. Started bad, next coat went spiralling downhill. Bumpy, loads of drips. A 5 year old with some random ideas of painting would have probably achieved a similar effect. I am not even at angry, it is so beyond belief my brain is still in denial and hasn't caught up. There's a crazy screaming 'MY FRONT DOOR' rant caged somewhere distantly in my head but so far the sheer absurdity of it is preventing this coming out.

Sharing this with some colleagues today caused much hilarity (yeah, not your bloody front door is it, ho ho ho) and of course there's always one with PERFECT HUSBAND (yes, you Sian, I know you're reading this!) and she related what her DH had managed the day previous with 3 kids in tow. Then she went onto mention how he has said he'd be quite happy to stay home with the kids permanantly if she could earn them £50K...

It got us all thinking. Our solution is:

Form a dominatrix team. No vile messy stuff, just basic getting housework done and yelling out any frustrations/PMT. Lots of volunteers immediately, one a male (?!).

We think we have it all covered (I will only put their working names to protect them):

Some Slut (her words not ours) - she will be in the black shiny stuff and pointy boots. Oddly enough, this wont require any company outlay as she already has the costume.

Bunty - will be in an upper class riding get-up, with riding crop (also has the kit)

Strict Schoolteacher (with a very strong Geordie accent) - not sure her current uniform goes for that one, and can see why she'd probably not wear it)

Rachel - the male. Costumes weren't mentioned as we didn't really expect his eager interest, and never got past our mouths dropping open.

Gretel - business manager. Spookily had an immediate and very fast reply to our idle wonderings at what to charge 'Definitely no less than £120 per hour'. Is blonde, delicious german accent and also possesses leiderhosen. It's always the quiet ones,

Me - I suggested my old Air Force dress uniform. People got a bit confused with my connection with Russian and decided I would presumably be dressed as Stalin. Ican see the discipline angle, but not sure I need a Trans-Siberian railway through the garden.

I just want my front door done nicely.

Thursday 7 August 2008

I was tagged!!!

Rules:


Answer each question with one word and tag four other people:

. Where is your cell phone? Briefcase

2. Your significant other? M

3. Your hair? Brown/grey!

4. Your mother? Confusing

5. Your father? more confusing

6. Your favorite thing? Clean sheets

7. Your dream last night? dunno

8. Your favorite drink? fat coke

9. Your dream/goal? sleep

10. The room you're in? living room

11. Your hobby? blogging

12. Your fear? family illness

13. Where do you want to be in 6 years? retired

14. What you're not? laid-back

15. Muffins? CHOCOLATE!

16. One of your wish list items? less anxiety

17. Where you grew up? Devon

18. The last thing you did? confessed

19. What are you wearing? trackies

20. Favorite Gadget? laptop

21. Your pet? cat

22. Your computer? Compaq

23. Your mood? nervy

24. Missing someone? Faggy

25. Your car? VW Golf

26. Something you are not wearing? Hat!

27. Favorite Store? Vertbaudet

28. Like someone? Linds

29. Your favorite color? green

30. When is the last time you laughed? today

31. Last time you cried? day before holiday

OK, one word is hard to keep to...


I tag: Linds , Ronda , Keep , and Bobby

Thank you rm for tagging me, and you;ve saved me from my DH/DIY/Utter disaster blog until tomorrow!!! xxx

Tuesday 5 August 2008

Infertility is for life, not just for Christmas

I am in the clearly enviable position of being a mother to 2 beautiful girls.

One of them didn't even require a herd of highly paid medical professionals. Well, not at the start, anyway.

So, isn't it strange how those few years of infertility out of my nearly 41 years on this earth are the ones I define myself by.

It comes out at me daily, still, from many quarters...when people comment about how close together I had my children, and nudge, nudge, wink, wink - have you realised what caused it now?! Er, well, actually THAT didn't cause it. Or not in any lasting sense. THAT bore no relation to the conception of our first child. We weren't even present for that conception. It happened about 40 miles away from our house, DH was at work and I think I was at home soothing large, throbbing ovaries.

Or in an idle conversation with workmates over lunch, when others talk of planning babies. Yes, we planned....and planned, and planned our little selves silly. But in terms of timing - Hell no! I mean, we didn't start the IVF thinking 'hmmmm...if we start on this date, the due date will be .... and that'll be lovely, in between ours and Christmas'. No thoughts like that whatsoever. I mean, we didn't actually expect it to work, or stay around if it did. So there wasn't even a ghost of thinking due dates. Even if that had been in our minds, anyone who's done IVF knows that there are so many hurdles before you get to the whole embryo/womb/2 weeks of madness part that even if you did go in with some vague notion of picking a starsign, you couldn't guarantee even being in with a chance of hitting it.

And little baby number 2 - planning?! after that little wrinkle, tear and angst inducing ride? Pardon me, but no, I didn't think of protection - would you?! I must admit to bizarrely feeling like some careless teen, going to ante-natal appointments with a burgeoning bump and a teeny just starting to crawl.

During one of these conversations I stepped outside myself, and was astounded at how far I have come. I honestly never imagined it would be possible to have these gossipy, lighthearted chats about what MY kids are doing. My kids, the ones I had genuinely got to the stage of not daring to hope for any longer.

I remember dreading going into work, hearing about yet another new pregnancy. Especially if it came bang on top of another failed month. I dreaded old friends or relatives phoning and would know instantly that they had 'news' for me. My mum had to gently break the news that my bro's girlfriend was 'whooops' pregnant with number 2, my DH spoke to his sister, and even the muffling effect of the words 'when is it due' in Russian were still another little knife into my heart.

And now I am in that 'other' gang. The one I was so, so desperate to join. And you know, I still feel so much empathy for those still wading through that swamp of hope/disappointment/hope/longing/frustration/hope...it keeps cropping up, doesn't it? that 'hope' thing. I really believe that's the human spirit. It makes infertility all the harder sometimes though, because the hope is what you have to crash down from every time it doesn't work.

This blog is for anyone who's been there or is still there. Be gentle to yourselves, it is hard enough without beating yourself with the stick that hits you from outside daily.

Sunday 3 August 2008

Hack hack splutter haaack

I have a summer cold, oh joy, oh me.

As this song goes...woke up this morning, feeling (crap) knew something dah di dah CRAAAAP.

Bunged up nose, tight chest which has the exciting promise of being a super DH-bugging cough and general blahness. With a nice side-order of that 'Colitis/Schmolitis' tummy pain flooring me in the shower, watched with interest by 2 random toddlers taking it in turns to ask 'why you on floor, Mummy'.

What did we do today? Well, OBVIOUSLY I walked around like a dying duck in a thunderstorm. Florence started potty training, which at the moment seems to consist of 47 visits to the loo, choice of toddler seat, knickers down, selecting a book, back off, knickers on....

Number 48 is a POST wee visit. So we get the wet floor/clothes...but no loo request!

Yeah, don't I just love it. And no cheating allowed, oh no, Florence keeps me on the straight and narrow and resists any gentle suggestions for a nappy, just for a little while.

Well, she resists, when she's not eating cat biscuits, that is. Yes, she came upstairs to me with a brown, crumby mouth and announced no, she wasn't eating her chocolate (high fibre...sssshhh) cheerios but cat biscuits. Frankly, I am beyond worrying. Alice had cat food when she was younger. Twice. I am kinda with Florence, at least trying the biscuits...cat food, that's just dirty.

Alice shockingly picked a coordinated outfit today. You're probably picking up on the slightly laissez-faire attitude from today. Admittedly, the outfit was probably more suited to a Royal Garden Party, or toddler Oscars, but colourwise she had it going on!

Well, do excuse me. I am off to sit in my own cloud of germs before retiring to leak snot onto my pillow.

Saturday 2 August 2008

To borrow from another blogger...

(Just this once, I promise)

I confess: I obsess about my health. I am seriously one of those 'little pain, gonna die' people...or is it 'little pain, gonna milk me some sympathy'?

Over the years I NEVER go to the doctor with something trivial. Or rather, in my head it isn't trivial. Sometimes they even pay attention, and I might get an investigation out of it. But more often it's 'muscular/virus/muscular/get out of my office you hypocondriac'

Now, before anyone calls out the Munchausens Not-by-proxy men in white coats, let me add this one caveat: In the UK Health Service the above is pretty much the diagnosis to EVERYONE, regardless, unless you actually present with the limb hanging off, or have a severe case of rigor mortis.

Our diagnosis logrithms go something like this, I imagine

Patient presents with chest pain ----->

Laugh heartily and ask him if he's tried rennies

Patient's lips go blue and starts gasping for breath ----->

Laugh heartily and josh with patient there's no need to run to surgery

Patient collapses on floor unconcious ------>

Remind patient that there's only a 10-minute slot allowed

Patient's heart stops ----->

Ask patient if there's heart trouble in the family

You see, we go from the least serious, to the worst. Our doctors work on the 'most-unlikely theory' - if it isn't the most common thing (virus/muscles) then it'll keep going awhile..eventually you'll refer.

As you can imagine, this DOES lead to lots of delayed diagnosis, or mistaken. Anyone who's been through the infertility minefield here in the UK has their own horror story to tell, and this isn't the exception - this is the norm.

Everything's minimised, dismissed and ignored.

Which obviously creates a bit of a trust issue.

Which brings me back to my original point. What IF. OK, Ok, yes, obviously none of the things I have worried about (well, apart from the 'no, it HASN'T gone with my period, or the last 3 periods, breast lump....or 'wow, this headache just wont quit at 32w pregnant with flashing lights in eyes...or 'isn't 4% kinda low for sperm morphology') have turned out to be much.

But you hear so much, not just urban legend, real people you talk to, every day.

So, when I go to the doc with a pain I recognise as ovarian from some light dalliance with IVF, OHSS and a corpus luteum cyst in Florence's pregnancy, I really feel a little patronised and ignored when I am told 'colitis' - Pardon me, but by age almost-41 I KNOW what a crampy bowel feels like, thank you. I am also missing all the other colitis symptoms.

Then to confound it again, he puts me on antibiotics....for what?? I know you can't 'cure' colitis. For a potential bowel abscess he says. So...you've lost me doc - you're giving me antibioitics for something that according to you isn't there? Oh, and then you say 'please make sure you do double dose tonight to get some on-board'. He did say come back next week if the pain hasn't gone (presumably colitis, which I read is a chronic condition can disappear over a weekend with ethromycin) and he'll organise some tests...hopefully not telescope up your bum....WHAT???? WTF? This is bloody ovary pain...ugh!

My theories on his diagnosis

1. The cramps I have felt all my life when suffering a runny bum were a figment of my imagination and this is actually what it feels like.

2. It was Friday and even he would admit there's no tests to be had over a weekend.

3. He forgot women had ovaries (I have sympathy, I frequently forget we have a Health Service)

4. He did it for a bet. Perhaps it was 'Colitis Friday' and the GPs had a book going on who could give that diagnosis to the most patients.

5. He isn't a doctor, but is actually on work experience from the Job Centre, and had only got to Co in his dictionary....cy for cyst comes a little later on.

6. I looked like crap so he didn't fancy any monkey-delving to root around for a cyst.

7. He thought I was a man.

8. He had a fight with the Gyn at the local hospital and all his referrals get binned, so he just invents a diagnosis to avoid the rejection.

9. He was on his last week after winning the lottery and was having some fun.

10. There's a 5 visits/same problem rule before you actually investigate.

So, anyone who has had an ovarian cyst OR bloody colitis:

Does the pain feel like bad stitch
Does it make you feel sick and a bit ill on and off
Does it feel like a constant dull ache when it isn't ripping you in half

Answers on a postcard.

Friday 1 August 2008

Today stuff

...fab work day with my cunning plan for my development lesson working out. Always nice when your idea of where people should be going comes into their own heads without obvious prompting. There's going to be a lot of happy trainee detectives out there!

...definitely not so fab when an intended accolade is interpreted as an insult...did I write it wrong, is the person just looking for negatives, am I over-analysing, should I be pre-editing more? Should I hang onto what was in my head when I wrote, or take the hit (and blame) from what they read?

...Fab when you make/consolidate a new friendship. After several attempts on both sides, am making a link with a neighbour. Good signs are red wine, yeast infections and spiders (some of topics of convo last night)

Not so fab when a hurty pain that's been hanging around really REALLY gets going and you feel a dreaded trip to an NHS doc might be in order, and you go to said doc and as expected it was a pat on the head and some antibiotics. Sigh.

FAB FAB FAB when a gorgeous mate tells you she's pregnant after her 11th IVF. I AM SO HAPPY FOR HER. About 4 IVFs ago she lost twin boys, Ben and Sam, at 18w. I can't tell you just how ecstatic I am for her and her husband, honestly.


Fab fab fab Florence did a weee wee on the loo tonight

Hideous just how emotional my girls get about the whole loo thing when they're learning. Alice only got the poo on the loo thing by me bodily grabbing her when I saw 'POO FACE'

Sad...work drains SO much of my energy. I read over a fair few of my old blogs last night, and they even made me laugh (for someone who admittedly only needs an odd pic or phrase for a giggle....) My blogs were so much more creative and DAMN FUNNY when I was off with the girls...

So, do I feel happier mocking myself and my family? workmates - can I mock? please? it's in the interestes of an entertaining blog, come on...right now, I don't really have any lady stuff going on to share, and make you squeal at my discomfort...

I could historically talk about Mr Pokey, the medically certified dildo, which is allowed in IVF, not only that, is often adminstered by females, duraglyde provided, as well as condom...

or perhaps the joys working around ovulation brings?

Or why men don't get 'we're done TTC, I find sleep attractive, please lower your expectations...and THAT'

Or maybe IVF pregnancy, what not to read

IVF pregnancy, what I wish I had read

Pregnancy - it could be you too

Miscarriage - the Best end to friendships

'You're only as good as the last beta/U/S' or My life in 10 scary months'

How to make everyone happy?

Too dogged to blog?