Anticipating

I'm meeting some friends next week and I'm a bit worried actually. I'm having my PMS and I don't really know exactly when my period will start, so I hope that my hormones won't be too crazy during the D-day.

The thing that makes me a bit worried is the fact that one of the friends is currently preggy. She got married "rather late" and she was worried her eggs would be too old already, but to her surprise she got preggy in 6 months. However, when she tried to have a second one, she experienced several RPLs and she had actually thought that her family wouldn't grow any bigger. She's 41 y.o. and by the time this second baby is born, she'll be almost 42. 

My concern is my own focus shift and its subsequent effects. I've managed to shift the focus from the "hole" (or crushed dream) in our reality pretty well so far, but I haven't been around any friend who's pregnant either, so that must've helped. Some friends of mine are pregnant, but they're far far away from me, so I count that as a whole different thing, but with this particular friend I'll still be meeting her every now and then.

I don't really want to feel that crushing grief anymore. Grief in itself is OK, but grief followed by all the other stuff that makes me feel like I have hidden bombs in many different places inside me that are ready to crush me into little pieces...that's what worries me. It's TOUGH WORK to collect all the tiny pieces of myself and start healing all over again...

But anyway, I'm trying to hold on to the mantra "Be kind to myself, be kind to myself, be kind to myself"...We shall see what happens then when the time comes. So I'm crossing my own fingers!!! May heaven help me!!!

Que sera sera...whatever will be, will be...


Update: I actually feel MUCH better now after writing this post here. :-D Giving a voice to your thoughts is really cathartic! :-D

Random Thoughts...Hmmmhhh...

1. Had a Skype convo with Mom today and again she "mentioned in passing" about this woman who had told her about some kind of herbs that had helped some other people to get preggy. I think many people know that we haven't had kids, so they volunteered in telling her things that they had heard may work. I have no trouble with that.

But today I finally told my Mom again that it was OK for us not to have kids and that we were becoming older and older anyway and she said she understood. I hope that would stop her from telling this kind of story to me anymore. :-)


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2. Speaking of IF, lately I've been wondering about a cousin of mine who's never had kids. She's much older than me (at least 15 years older) and I can't imagine how it must have been like for her and hubby during those days - before she finally reached menopause. It must've taken a lot of patience to handle all the well-meaning words of other people. At least I'm SO far away from all the nosy Indo people, but she's always lived there all her life. 

And I'm also wondering about another couple that I know (again a much older couple) that have never had kids. From what the guy's mother had told my Mom, it seemed as though they kept on trying to have a child, but now I don't know anymore if it's more HER wish rather than their wishes. 


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3. I feel REALLY THANKFUL for having experienced IF when I found out how much it's helped me connect with another friend of mine who's struggling with her little boy. How much she's misunderstood, unsupported, judged and how often other people offer "unsolicited assvice" to her. How much those unsolicited words can sting like hell when given at the wrong time...

It's interesting how much connection we can feel despite the obvious contrast between us. :-)

That's why today I am CELEBRATING my infertility because even if the only purpose of this is to be able to connect with her and be able to make her feel not alone, then it's WORTH IT!!! :-D 

I'm an IF SURVIVOR and I'm gonna use this experience as best as I can!!! That's my promise to myself! 

Back from Holiday

We've just got back from our holiday in Keszthely, Hungary. Lots of wonderful memories, though there were a bit of frustrating parts, too, but never mind that he he...

Just want to write down a lovely short convo with hubby just now. 

Me: "Dang, honey, you're rich! Look at all these coins!" (Some Hungarian and Euro coins were scattered on his computer table)
R2: "Of course I'm rich. I have you." (grinning like a madman with his 3D glasses on 'coz he's playing a 3D computer game - actually I love it when he puts on those 3D glasses 'coz it makes him look like an MI agent or something ha hahhh...)

Anyway, I am happy to inform that nobody asked about kids at all to us during our holiday, but that was also probably because the people in Keszthely preferred speaking more German than English. That was one source of the bits of frustration that I felt. Maybe that means I'm a spoilt traveller ha ha ha ha ha...ahem...

We also had fun going up on an air balloon ride. I don't think hubby even thought about going on such a ride before I mentioned it to him. This is one of the lifelong dreams that I have on my dream list that I wrote down years and years ago. I'm not really that ambitious about fulfilling all those things on the list, though, but it's just that while browsing about Keszthely on the net, I found the air balloon ride possibility in Balaton area, so I said to hubby that even though it was rather pricey, we'd better try it! :-D

It wasn't what I had expected, but it made me understand more that dreams can be different from reality/the experience. Dreams are made of all the sweet, tasty, nicely-smelling, soft-as-a-cotton-ball, gorgeous idealism in my head without knowing what it's really all about. It may be sweet, but there may be a slight tangy taste as well. Or it may be nicely-smelling, but it's a bit rough on the touch. It may even be bitter with a slight sweet taste only and mostly rough and not smelling like anything at all. It sure opened up my view, though.

I didn't think it would be THAT tough to prepare for an air balloon ride nor would it be that tough to land. After the balloon was almost ready for take off, the wind suddenly changed direction and the people preparing for the ride had to really act quickly to turn it all around and they had to do it all over again - they had to deflate the balloon in order to reposition it and then inflate it again before we were finally ready to take off.

The take off itself went very quickly and excellently, though. It didn't feel like anything at all. I have motion and sea sickness, so I was a bit afraid that I'd feel dizzy or something, but I didn't feel it at all. In fact, the take off was MUCH better than a plane's take off. The only difference was that we both felt HOT!!! The heat of the burners above us was rather uncomfortable, though it got better once we got high enough and the air temperature dropped down. The burners were also so noisy, so it was hard to talk.

But we could see a gorgeous sunset that took place slowly from high up there as well as the bird-eye-view around the area. Despite the heat, the rather tight space in the basket that made it impossible to move around too much and the noisy burners (and a rather rough landing which I'd tell soon), it was worth it. After taking plenty of pics and videos (I had to hold on to my camera so tightly for fear that it would drop down ha ha...), we looked into each other's eyes and we both had that certain look that said, "Hey, it's kinda cool up here. I'm SO glad we can experience this together! Marvellous view!" :-D

Anyway, the wind picked up when we were preparing for landing, so the pilot told us to hold on with both hands to the ropes that were conveniently hung around the basket. The pilot became so very busy then because he had to use the walkie-talkie to tell the others where his location was so that they could prepare themselves down there as well as checking the wind speed and then he had to pull one of the ropes connected to the balloon so that we didn't graze on a tree that we almost ran into. Apparently by pulling the rope, the balloon then swerved a little bit to the left side of the tree. Phew!

Then we heard a low thud when we landed on a 45 degree angle and then one guy grabbed on to the basket to get it back straight up whereas the other had to grab onto one of the other rope so that the wind didn't blow the balloon back up. Then after securing the basket and the balloon, the pilot told R2 to get out of the basket, then he himself get out of there after a while and finally in the end I was told to get out of the basket. Then they had to pack everything before we could leave. Phew! Quite an adventure! :-D

Anyway, here are some photos that I took...

The process of inflating the balloon. This was before the wind toppled it over to the other side (diagonally across it).

The noisy burners.

The view of Balaton lake. On the left side of the photo you can see one of the dangling ropes that the pilot can pull if needed to "steer" the balloon (I think):

The gorgeous sunset...it took a while before it finally went down, so we had plenty of time to enjoy it:

The landing place. The pilot wanted to land on a grassy field, but alas the wind blew us to this place instead.

No More Hope Infusion, Please!

How can you stop people who knew you were trying to have kids before to stop infusing you with hope? With success stories? With random pregnancy miracle stories? 

Because even though we've told some people that we've surrendered to life without kids, every now and then they still try to infuse us with hope by telling those kinds of stories. GAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAHHHHH!!!

And I'm not even having PMS now, but I'm REALLY TRULY bothered with it. I talked about it with hubby and he shook his head in disbelief. Then we started talking about different responses that would just shut people up. What would that be?

To new people that we meet along the way, I thought of saying this, "My eggs are rotten, so the doctors say I can't have kids." 

Hubby said, "Nah, just tell them that your hubby has no balls." LOL LOL LOL!!!

Then he suggested saying, "Just tell them we don't want kids." 

Yeah, next time I'll do that, but what about those people who knew we wanted kids so badly at one point in time? They're the ones that have trouble erasing the dream image of us with kids, even though we've buried that dream already and we've moved on. I find it FRUSTRATING that it's SO hard to make them understand that we DO NOT want to dig up the grave of our dream and live with an empty casket in our household. 


glitter-graphics.com OK, enough ranting for today...

P.S. Just heard that a friend is pregnant again with her second child after several RPLs, so I'm HAPPY for her 'coz she's not that young anymore (41 y.o.), but on the other hand I feel frustrated 'coz this kind of story can be used "against me" - like if that happens for her at that age, then it can happen to me, too. Ugh. 

Family Gathering

We had some relatives staying at our place the other day and I had to feed 9 people. It was the first time I had ever cooked for 9 people. Well, I didn't really have to cook much, though. Just salmon soup and then we provided some snacks and ice-cream and late at night I just baked some french fries in the oven. Pretty simple, because we had lunch at MIL's already (reindeer, salad, bread, cheese, milk). At first the plan was to grill outside at our place but nobody seemed keen to do so 'coz the temperature was rather cool. Only about 14-15'C and the wind was rather cool, esp. after the sun had gone down, the temperature dropped to 9'C during the night.

We played Uno until 2.30 am and it was FUN FUN FUN...One of the nicest parts is that we were all grown ups. Well, there's a couple who're still pretty young, but they're already 20 years old (nephew and fiancee), but still it's nice to be surrounded by people who've either done with populating the world or not ready enough to do so 'coz they've just started life at the university.

One SIL doesn't want another child. She's got a teenage daughter and the other one has never had one (and she's probably too old to have one now). BIL married her last year. So there's no talk about baby or raising kids or anything of that sort. No distraction whatsoever because of a small child wanting attention or being cranky due to fatigue or whatever reason. 

No arguing, either. It was just an enjoyable family day with lots of laughter (my cheeks felt sore after a while!!!). :-D

The Shipping News Quote

Headline: Deadly Storm Takes House, Leaves Excellent View.

The movie "The Shipping News" and the above quote reminded me of my IF journey...from all the brokenness and the chaos after we were thrown into IF pool, we've survived. In times it felt as though we were drowning in the huge (unexpected) waves and stormy gusts of wind, but in due time the storms die down and we can see things more clearly...

The only constant is change and the storm doesn't last forever...:-D Thank GOD for His grace and peace... 

"For the time will come when you will say, 'Blessed are the barren women, the wombs that never bore and the breasts that never nursed!' - Luke 23:29

A Smooth Wedding?

Found this video clip by accident the other day and I just want to bring smiles to your faces today, 'coz it made me laugh so much he he he...