'So Close' - The Book

I have followed Tertia Albertyn’s blog, So Close (link to the right), for more than two years. I can’t remember how I came across her, but I am so glad that I did. She is a funny, courageous, amazing woman. She has been through more heartache and heartbreak than anyone should have to endure …more than most could endure …in her fight to have a child.

She has now written 'So Close' the book, and although it's not available outside South Africa yet (as far as I know), I was able to order it online from Kalahari. I've added a link straight to Kalahari and the book on the right.

Her story is one you should read if infertility has touched your life in any way ...whether you have experienced/are experiencing it yourself, or a friend or family member is struggling with it. What an infertile suffers is impossible to understand unless you have lived it, but this book is a little window that lets you see into the shattered heart of an infertile, the desperation and hopelessness, and will give you an idea. Hopefully, it will give you an appreciation.

Tertia endured so many fertility treatments, including 9 IVF cycles (9 !!!) before she and her husband, Marko, welcomed their gorgeous twins, Adam and Kate into the world.

Tertia's book takes you through her journey in a way that should change you forever.

She takes you through every step, and down into the darkest, darkest days following the birth of her and Marko's beautiful first son, Ben, who was born too early at 25 weeks 4 days. After the bravest fight, at just 10 days old, Ben died in Tertia's arms.

This book has given me the courage to face what comes next for us, and has reminded me that everything I feel is ok. She is one of the bravest people I 'know'.

Thank you T.

What to do with a clever cat

At the moment, there is a serious parent/child battle of wills going on in my household. It’s requiring some thought and cunning on my part to gain the upper hand, and most of the time, I’m losing.

I am also getting a lot of disdainful ‘Do you really think you’re smarter than I am?’ looks from my cat.

The problem is this – Jazz has decided that she prefers dog biscuits to cat biscuits. For ages I kept finding these little piles of bicky ‘sawdust’ in the dogs bowls, and couldn’t work it out …until one day I caught the little villain. It really did look very funny, and extremely cute, with this little cat munching out of the dogs' bowls, crunching up biscuits she couldn't even fit into her mouth …but now she won’t eat her cat biscuits for love nor money.

I phoned Jansens to see whether the whole dog vs cat biscuit thing would be that much of a problem (thinking I could maybe just leave the cat to eat dog biscuits until she got bored, and put herself back onto cat biscuits ...presuming of course that she would get bored), and apparently it is. Crap. Once the guy on the other end of the phone had actually processed that my cat will only eat dog biscuits (she's not just getting on the dog biscuits every now and again for a laugh, or to torment the puppies), he told me that dog biscuits lack an ingredient (Thiamine? Something starting with ‘T’ anyway) that cat biscuits have, and that cats need, to help the kitties break them down.

Of course, this wouldn’t be an issue if the dogs would just guts their biscuits like most normal dogs … (We’re establishing a bit of a theme here aren’t we? But I swear the animals were all unbalanced when we got them!!) ...or if they wouldn't just sit there politely watching the cat and waiting for her to finish before taking their biscuits back over for themselves!

So, I launched my attack.

Firstly, I changed her food to Iams - the same brand and flavour as the dog biscuits as I thought they might taste pretty much the same. That worked well ...for a few days.

I then tried mixing her bickies with wet food …and she just looked at me as if to say "I am not stupid. Get these damn biscuits out of my wet food".

I tried putting cat biscuits in the dogs bowls, which she did fall for. Once.

I then I thought I’d struck gold. I sprinkled a few Whiskas bickies over the top of her Iams (She looooves Whiskas, but she’s not allowed them because they make her throw up), and she made seriously short work of her bickies for about 2 weeks. But then, when we arrived home on Sunday, we found that all the Whiskas bickies had been carefully picked off the top of her bowl, and the bicky sawdust was back in the dogs bowls (I’d forgotten to empty what was left in the bowls before we went away on Saturday morning).

So, I've realised that I really need to start at the source of the problem. How does one teach one's cat, that she is a cat not a dog ...?

Still, I suppose they did tell me at the pet store* when I got her that she had heaps of personality. I can't say I wasn't warned ...

* Yes, all 3 of our animals are pet store babies. Although you probably think we should have gotten animals from the SPCA, each of Jazz, Jack and Jess have been ‘rescued’ in their own right.

Jazz – Jazzy was 5 months old when we got her. The pet store we got her from was affiliated with ‘The Lonely Meow’ and Jazz was part of a rescue. She was too big for many people to want as a kitten (being close to her full size), and so had sat around in the pet store without too many prospects, until I brought her home. She more than likely would have been put down had we not been able to give her a home.

Jess – Jess was an older baby as well, so had gotten too big at the pet store for many people to be interested in her as a pup. For whatever reason, when the rest of the litter she came into the pet store with found homes, she didn’t, and she’d outlasted two further litters of puppies as well, all without finding a home. Also, by the time we got her, she’d been in the pet store too long, and had developed some seriously bad habits (especially nipping and biting - this was from being in a cage, and jumping up to get people's attention, and to get to hands that were dangled over the side of the pen for some lovin').

Jack – We came across in a pet store down the line and he was the tiniest little pup you’ve ever seen (taken away from his mum too early). He couldn’t walk, and couldn’t even lap properly …and he was in a cage by himself at the back of a dirty, smelly, pet store with no food or water, and the cage lining was covered in wee and diarrhea. It turned out once we had him home, and took him to the vet, he was also very sick with a nasty parasite in his gut. Those people had been shut down twice by the SPCA, and have since been shut down again, hopefully permanently!

Did I tell you ...?

I've got my handbag! Woppee!! (Check it out by clicking the Moochi link, then look under 'collection', and 'accessories'. It's the Alley Bag).

It gets better too! Do you know what the best thing about it is? It didn't cost a thing! Well, pretty much anyway. Do you want to know how I managed to make my handbag appear, and $359.99 disappear?

1. I got given 3 months free access under my mobile phone plan last week (thank you Vodafone!) - $60 towards the bag (amount left to justify - $300).

2. I've just racked up another loyalty credit at the store I bought the bag from (they do a 'spend $500, get a $50 credit' thing) - $50 towards the bag (amount left to justify - $250).

3. I have a birthday coming up - you know ...this year sometime ...and Al always gives me $100* towards something. This year, that 'something' is the bag - $100.00 towards the bag (amount left to justify - $150). (And with a bit of luck, by the time my birthday actually rolls around, he'll have forgotten about his donation** and I'll be able to con him out of something else! Magic!)

4. I decided I could live without one of the tops on my winter clothing wish list (which has been fully budgeted for) - $110 towards the bag (amount left to justify - $40)

5. I actually told Al that the bag was $350, because somehow that seemed so much better than $359.99 - $10.00 towards the bag (amount left to justify - $30).

6. When you think about it, what can you buy for $10 these days anyway? Exactly. Nothing much at all (Ok ...this one is stretching it a bit, but when you look at it in the context of the rest of the spending justification ...well, it pales in comparison doesn't it? It's hardly worth worrying about!) - another $10.00 towards the bag (amount left to justify - $20).

7. I usually buy my lunch once a week, mostly on a Friday when I've given up on being good for the week, and I'm far too bleary eyed by Friday to organise a packed lunch anyway. I can handle not giving in to my bleary-eyedness until Saturday for a couple of weeks - $20.00 towards the bag (amount left to justify - $0 !! )

See? Just like that, the bag didn't cost a thing!

And if you're very concerned about poor Al and his wallet in all of this ...? Don't be. Seriously. I have a shopping list of sorts for big purchases and spends this year. For example, we are re-doing our bathroom next month, and we are going to buy a new dining suite this year. We're practising living off his incomce, and mine is being dedicated towards the big stuff - it's like living off a single income with training wheels. It doesn't matter too much if I cock it up initially. So far it's going OK though ...which is kind of surprising considering half of this partnership of ours is ...well, me!

Anywaayyyyy ...I was going somewhere with that ...

One thing Al really really wants, being an enormous coffee lover, proud home barista, and complete snob (he seriously is ...we were sitting in a cafe at the weekend, and Al takes a sip of his coffee, considers the whole flavour, texture, aroma thing and says 'this is almost as good as one of mine' !!! Snob!), is a new coffee machine ...and guess how many Moochi handbags it takes to pay for the new coffee machine ...?

You don't want to know, and I'm not telling ...but he's not as hard done by as you might think :-)



* This started about 5 years ago when he sent me out for my birthday to get my hair done and and gave me an open budget. Suffice it to say, I got the works, and looked great ...but I've never been allowed an open budget for anything every again. Woops.

** AND that I've just given the blimin game away here. Damn it! ...Maybe he doesn't read the footnotes. Do you think there's a snowball's chance?

Thank goodness for coffee!

I must have looked a bit rough as I stumbled through the door of Luscious this morning gasping "Coffee …! Large …! …and please, please, please hurry!" because the coffee girl was already making it by the time I got to the counter, and the yummy cakes girl was poised over the cabinet with tongs in hand ready to give me my heart’s desire before I hit the floor, face first. I went for the orange blossom cake because she was standing right in front of it, thus cutting down to a minimum the time it would take for the sugar to get to me.

My baby brother’s engagement party was Saturday night (yes, the baby brother who sent his girlfriend a text message saying that he was going to ask her to marry him, and did he have to have a shower first?). Sounds simple enough? …You’d think, but no.

Disaster 1: Al works at Air NZ and couldn’t get leave for Friday night, meaning that he’d be working until 6-6.30am Saturday morning, and the party was in Palmerston North on Saturday night. (His shifts are 6 on, 3 off, 10pm to 6.30am. The shift pattern alone makes it a ’mare trying to make special occasions work …Air NZ’s policy of making leave as hard as possible to get makes it even more interesting).

Disaster 2: We were going to fly (subload flights) and couldn’t. Because Al was working Friday night, the plan was that we’d fly down at sparrow’s fart Saturday morning – he’d finish work at 6-6.30am and we’d jump on the 7am flight. Ha! Hahahaha!! He has the ability to look at the flight loadings (to check the likelihood of there being spare seats for us), and did so throughout the week …only to watch them dwindle rapidly. All of them. All day Saturday. Chocka. By Friday night the planes for Saturday weren’t just full, the seats were oversold (although, much to our teeth-clenched delight, had we been flying Friday night, there were were seats available up the wazoo!). There was no way we were going to be flying. It turns out that not only was it orientation weekend at Massey University, there was a Kapahaka (sp?) festival on as well. Crap.

So we drove it. Al on absolutely no sleep, and me on not very much sleep (courtesy of a first class dose of the heebie jeebies from watching ‘Supernatural’ before I went to bed Friday night). From Auckland to Palmerston North and back again in one weekend. With an engagement party in between. And it was worth every ounce of effort it took to get there.

We had a hilarious night – the highlight of which I’d have to say was one of my brother’s best mates, fondly known as ‘White Nut’, burning his arse on the BBQ. I don’t know what he thought was going to happen when he sat on a BBQ (wedging his butt between the sausages and steaks) that we'd been cooking stuff on for a good hour, but the entertainment value was right up there for everyone else (...and in case you’re wondering? I did ask where the nickname came from, and no I’m not going to repeat it …I’m still a bit traumatised from the …errr…demonstration side of the explanation! ...Needless to say that when I was introduced to ‘Sawn Off’, I just stuck my hand out and said that it was nice to meet him). And these people are invited to the wedding. I’ll be taking popcorn.

I am immensely happy to be welcoming Lou into the family. She is beyond fantastic. I remember a couple of years ago, she complained to my little brother that they weren’t spending any time together (he is a builder, and works hard), and do you know what he said? "I’ve got to build a fence at the weekend ...you can come and dig the post holes." (Yes, he did!) One of the things I love about my little brother is that he honestly doesn’t see how this might have gotten him killed and buried in one of said post holes. And, what I really love about my SIL-to-be is that she went out and dug the post holes!

Oh, and we’re going wedding dress shopping. Just her and I. Wicked.

Oh, and kiddies?

I'm going away this weekend, so the next post will be Monday.

Have a fab weekend xoxo

The happy post (dealing with it)

A lot of people, friends, acquaintances and cyber-pals, say that they admire my attitude and strength in dealing with my infertility. I don't feel particularly strong, but I do want to hold onto my good humour as much as I possibly can. Although it can be hard sometimes, it really is worth not giving in to the bad stuff ...for myself, my husband and my family.

Giving myself things to look forward to from day to day, week to week, and month to month, has made a huge difference ...and even when things are perfectly fine, as they are most days, I still treat myself every day. It's my 'Happy Credits' system!! (Or ...you know ...a good way to write off my lack of self control ...)

My indulgent treat of the moment (well, aside from the handbag, a couple of new tops, the pants and super cool looking hoodie I've ordered off the winter preview at Moochi, the .....oh. No, no, no ...That's everything. Honest! No shoes. Not even half a shoe. Ahem. Moving on ....) is stopping off on my way to work and picking up a large cappuccino. There is a café in Onehunga called Luscious that I pass every day, and they make a really good cappuccino. I love parking and then wandering down to the café (I always park down the street a bit so I can do the ceremonial wander), ordering my drink and then sitting and looking at all the yummy things in the cabinets, planning what I’m going to try the next time I need a bit more than just my cappuccino (next time it’s a lemon meringue slice ...last time it was apple rhubarb pie). About once a week I’ll grab a little bag of biscotti or mini melting moments too, for the days when Al makes my coffee for me before I leave for work.* Yum! It’s really naughty and indulgent, and therefore very, very enjoyable to have a cappuccino and a biscotti or a mini melting moment at 7.30 in the morning! (I know …I’m completely disgusting). But, it’s something good and cheerful, and it’s a little thing that makes me smile. Plus, I'd rather destroy a lovely bicky at 7.30am, than swallow a couple of Citalopram** ...and it works for me.

I tend to bring out the big guns for the end of a cycle though, I have to admit. Getting through the end of a cycle can be tough. You suffer through that infernal two week wait (TWW) after ovulation, hoping that this time a miracle will happen …then your period arrives, and that means it’s over. Again. Even when it’s inevitable and you know it's coming, you still feel a sense of loss. It’s the loss of hope.

So, I plan something in particular to look forward to each month for when my period is due. It's a really good distraction. Usually it’s getting my eyebrows and eyelashes 'done’, or maybe getting a haircut (handing over $100 at Tony & Guy for a cut is just the start ….praying that Al doesn’t get to the VISA bill before I do is the distraction bit!), buying a book or a pampery product ...or both!!…things like that. I’m not entirely sure that the bikini wax of a couple of months ago was the best idea I’ve ever had …but it did distract me!**

It was also particuarly convenient late last year when the Auckland U2 concert fitted in nicely with the end of a cycle ...and I could therefore pay a criminally inflated price for my tickets on Trademe guilt free in the name of Happy Credits.

This month, I’ve booked a pedicure. It’s extremely frivolous, I know, but this cycle is a significant one. Once this cycle ends, things are going to change and it all gets very, very serious. It’s going to stop being about achieving our miracle on our own, and it’s going to start being about assisted reproduction ...drugs or injections or both, scans and monitoring, and hard medical science. So, I’m getting a pedicure. Obviously, after I've had my beloved bikini wax.



* In case you're wondering why I don't make it myself ...In a well planned move on my part, I haven't quite learned how to use the machine (that we've owned for about 2 years) yet ;-)

** Anti-depressant meds.

***In relation to bikini waxes …if I can offer just a wee piece of advice? If you have your first ever bikini wax, and spend the entire duration of said wax jumping off the bed and muttering (ok, ok …fine …yelling) the worst swear words you know, and then the beauty therapist says (as you’re in the process of paying for the extreme pain you just endured) "Do you want to book a repeat appointment?" and you say "Not on your damned life you evil, evil, pain inflicting wench" and she says "Why don’t we just pencil it in, in case you change your mind?" and you seem to forget completely how to form the words ‘No’, ‘Bugger off’ and 'Over my dead body' ...you will end up back on that bed, having another bikini wax.

Free to a good home - 1x Husband

OK, so at the start of every season, I turf everything out of my wardrobe, take a good look at what I have, what I need to replace or want to update, or what I haven't worn for a year that I can recycle. And then I make a list of wants and needs and run it past Al. I try to be good, but ....well. Ahem. So, he's pretty well used to me not sticking to the list, and he hardly ever tells me off. Usually he just raises his eyebrows if I've amassed about 10 black cardi's (sp?) or something that all look the same to him ...then he gets sat down, and I explain to him in intricate detail why they are completely different, and then after about an hour of forced examination of the cardi's (again, sp?) he's too terified to say another word and quietly retreats to the couch.

I managed to behave myself very well this summer and just added a few items to last year's stuff (and even got most of the new stuff on sale!). It helps a lot that I started a new job in the second half of last year which is based in the middle of an industrial zone and far far away (in terms of lunch hour amusement) from Newmarket where I used to work. Al was beside himself with joy initially at the thought of my being removed from the shopping district during the working week ...until he realised that I'd built up such a good relationship with one of my favourite stores, that they'd courier stuff to me to play with! Poor boy :-) But, like I said, I did behave myself. Sort of.

I've also been good about my winter list. I made it a couple of weeks ago, found a couple of things to recycle, planned what I wanted and had the list approved. I even found a couple of things in the summer sales (for layering) which I can knock off my list. Wooppee!

Anyway! As a result of said good behaviour over summer, and good behaviour so far for winter, I'm sort of on good behaviour credit at the moment. Soooo ...when I saw the most gorgeous handbag in my favourite store's winter preview I fell madly and completely in love, and ordered one (which Al knew about ...he sort of assumed that the endless badgering was leading up to something. I work on the theory that if I badger him endlessly about something, by the time it eventuates (eg. I buy the item in question), he's so relieved that the badgering is over, he doesn't care what it costs! Usually.). The only problem with the handbag was that it hadn't been priced when I ordered it.

Yesterday, the price was released! Eek!

The 'releasing the information to the husband' conversation went like this:



Him "How's your day been?"

Me "Today has been a bad day. A very bad day."

Him "Why's that?"

Me "My handbag has just been priced..." (Obviously, there are real tragedies in my world ...none of this orphans starving in Africa or whatever crap for me!)

Him "Yeah? How much?"

Me "Heaps"

Him "That's not telling me how much. How much?"

Me "$350.00"

Him [Not sounding particularly surprised or shocked] "Oh. OK."

Me [Sounding particularly surprised and shocked] "What? What? You don't sound shocked ...You should be shocked!"

Him "Well, you've bought handbags for more than a couple of hundred before ..."

Me "Yeah ...but ..."

Him "Sooooo ....this sexual favours thing ....."

Oh for goodness sake!!