One of Those Days

You know how sometimes you just have a really rubbish day? One of those days where nothing particularly awful or tragic happens but so many little bad things happen that by the end of the day you just feel totally devoid of joy and let down by the universe. Well, I had one of those days today.

It started at 3 this morning. I am still full of this flu and overnight it got worse. I'd struggled to get to sleep in the first place so I'd only had 2 hours when I woke up. I tried in vain to get back to sleep but the flu kept finding new ways to keep me awake. First I got hot and sweaty, then I got cold and shivery, then my throat hurt so badly I started to think I maybe had tonsillitis instead and ran back and forth to the bathroom five time to check my tonsils for any suspicious behaviour. Then I started coughing, over and over again.

I was struggling not to wake up my DH. I tried everything to stop coughing. In the end I stood in the bathroom for 20 minutes, re-checking my tonsils and reading the label on the shampoo bottle several times until the coughing died down. I tried one more time to get some sleep but as soon as I laid down the coughing started. This was the point at which I admitted defeat, got up, got dressed and spent an hour messing about online before I had to get ready for work.

I felt like death warmed up but it was the last day of term and I didn't want to miss out on the fun. Unfortunately the 'fun' turned out to be spending 3 hours stamping and numbering books. It was about the least fun way to spend the last day of term that I could imagine.

From there on in, everything just went wrong. There was no milk for my coffee, the photocopier jammed, a box tried to bite back as I was carrying it to the cupboard and the canteen served up the worst food concoctions I'd ever seen.

And then AF came.

8DPO. I felt my spirits just drop to the ground as I wiped and found blood. I didn't even get to POAS this month. I really didn't feel anything this month and I wasn't expecting a BFP, but I didn't even get to see a BFN. Despite myself I'd had thoughts about having wonderful news for Easter and how special this weekend could be. Now all I have to look forward to is trying to cope with an uninvited aunt at the same time as my in-laws are down for a visit.

I set off home with cramps starting and the term coming to an end. It started raining just as I left the building. It was the only way a rubbish day could have ended, really.

Oh, and on the way home I got to see a BFN after all - BFN being three of the letters on the numberplate of a car that drove past me. It was the final irony in a day I couldn't wait to see the back of.

Fighting Tooth & Nail

I seem to have spent the whole week so far cutting toenails. First I had to cut the guinea pigs' claws, and then trim the toenails of both of my girls. I am still trying to decide which were the most badly behaved - the furry or non-furry members of the family.

It's probably one of the things I dislike most in the world. It's not as though anyone particularly likes cutting toenails, whoever they belong to, but I always know that when it comes to trimming anything that belongs to my girls or piggies that I'm going to have a battle on my hands.

The guinea pigs fight dirty. They are very good at wriggling out of my grasp in any way they possibly can. They contort their little furry bodies in an attempt to exploit any weakness in my grasp, try to give me a warning nip on the finger and glare. Oh boy, can they glare! Over the years I have become better at holding them firmly but gently so they can't get away or sink their teeth into one of my digits but they are far superior to me in terms of brainpower so they always win in a battle over brawn.

I was possibly stupid to take on the girls' toenails in the same week that I'd already faced the wrath of the furry members of the family. But since Natasha had already pulled one of her socks off (with her teeth - ewwwww!) I thought I would take my opportunity.

I have never seen my poor daughter cry and scream as much as I did while I trimmed her little toenails - and that was before I even cut a single nail! I felt like I had brought implements of torture into her sphere of knowledge. I have never seen my usually chirpy, good-natured little girl in such despair! I felt like the worst mother in the world as I told her repeatedly things she almost certainly didn't care about regarding the prevention of ingrowing toenails. By the time I'd finished I don't know which of us was the sweatiest, most stressed or more tearful.

Setting her free once more to go and eradicate the memory of the toenail trimming exercise from her mind by way of an upside-down book about rabbits I wondered how I was ever going to convince Angelica to let me do the same to her after she'd just witnessed me putting her beloved little sis through seven shades of torture.

I didn't have to wonder for long as I glanced around to find Angelica on the bed beside me, one sock off and a foot held in my direction.

"Angelica's turn!" she prompted.

I sat there in stunned silence for a moment. This was certainly unexpected. I guess she really wants to do everything her sister does. Of course, it didn't help that she let me cut two nails before emphatically swapping legs and saying "And the other one!" and not letting me go back to the first for several minutes, but it was progress.

On reflection, the non-furry members of the family behaved better in the nail-cutting stakes.

I think it'll be a while before I face Amber and the others with the claw clippers again.

Safety Advice on Behalf of Angelica

Angelica has reached the age where she is learning new words every day and stringing them together, too. She's also picking up concepts and applying them to other situations. Ever since she turned 3 it was as though she grew up tremendously overnight and became a young lady.

Recently though she has turned into more of a mumsy figure than anything. I need to constantly remind her that I am the parent and if anyone is going to dish out the advice it's me.

For example, last night I made homemade pizza for everyone. I'd settled the girls down with theirs and then went back in the kitchen to grab mine. As I came back I heard her saying wisely,

"Be careful, Natasha, it's hot."

I glanced at her, impressed by her grasp of health and safety.

"Yes," I agreed, "It is hot."

I sat down and began to cut into my pizza (yes, I am one of those sad cases who uses a knife and fork!) but felt a concerned hand on my arm.

"Mum?" Angelica began.

"Yes, sweetheart?"

"Be careful. It's hot."

I sighed.

"Thank you for the warning," I said.

"Thank you, Angelica," Angelica prompted, not believing my thanks had been sincere.

"Thank you, Angelica," I repeated.

That's not the only incident either. Today when the girls were bouncing on the bed Angelica was sure to give an occasional cry of, "Please calm down, Natasha! Don't hurt yourself! and "Be careful! Look what you're doing!""

Which was all very well until Angelica eventually climbed down from the bed and tripped right over her sister's feet.

I think Angelica really needs to stop playing Mum for a while... or at least, if she is going to dish out advice then she should take it too!

A Visit From The Flu

Dear Immune System,

When are you going to give me a break?

Signed,

Me.


Seriously, if there was a worse time to come down with flu then I seriously can't think of it. It's bad enough to get sick at all, but falling on the weekend when my husband is away was rotten luck. Add to that my little darlings missing their daddy and behaving like a couple of little grouchy, mini-ogres, refusing to sleep and grumbling around the place and the fact that this is one week I can't afford to be ill and you pretty much have the ultimate Worst Time To Come Down With Flu package.

I had a rotten throat and a cough all day yesterday but by the time it got to evening I'd broken out in sweats and shivers too. Suddenly every limb hurt and my head felt like it was going to explode. I tucked myself up in bed and spent the night tossing and turning with fevers.

I had to resort to the one thing I really hate this morning and sit my girls in front of the TV. Well, I say 'sit'. They also had a race in the hallway, climbed all over the couch and spent twenty minutes bouncing on the bed in unison. That certainly aided my rest and recuperation as I'm sure you can imagine. There's nothing like two exuberant toddlers crashing down on your aching legs with the force of a ten-ton weight!

I am so done with this coughing. I managed to wake Natasha in the middle of her nap and now I am going to have a crabby, grumpy little girl for the rest of the day!

A Break from the Usual

Routine? What's that?!

If you'd seen us this morning you'd have thought I'd never even heard of such a thing.

As a rule, our day is highly structured. It's not that we have particularly strong views as a family about keeping a ridged routine but that we have a very complicated working pattern. My husband works from home full-time as a writer while I juggle some freelance work with a job I do outside the home. It's literally like running a never-ending relay race, constantly passing batons back and forth.

I get up in the morning and head to work before anyone else is awake, I get home in the afternoon and the childcare baton is passed to me while the work baton is passed to my DH. Then I spend the rest of the day looking after the girls and the household and trying to keep everyone out of my DH's way so he can concentrate until the girls are safely tucked up in bed and either I get on with my freelance work or we abandon our work for the night and relax with a horror movie and a nice hot drink.

A normal Sunday would involve waking up, getting the girls their breakfasts, getting breakfast for my DH and I and then chilling on JM for an hour while the girls watch their shows and my DH does some work. Then it's hair, teeth and washing for myself and the girls before a trip to the shops, getting back in time to do lunch for everyone, including the furry members of the household, and finally getting the girls down for a nap just after one. It's a bit like a military operation. Even just getting ready to go out is like a production line of coats, hats and shoes!

This morning everything went kaput. For a start, the clocks went forward last night so we lost an hour of sleep. Add to that the fact that when I woke up I started coughing and spluttering with a raw, scratchy throat, I wasn't in the best frame of mind to face the usual routine. Aside from anything else we were way behind - the girls didn't know the clocks had gone forward so I did at least get a little lay in but that knocked the whole morning off.

Just this once, I conceded. Without my DH here, quietly working in the corner, I decided it was a day for vegging out and throwing the schedule out of the window. We watched TV. We made lots more dens and tunnels. We sat munching toast in bed. We laughed and played and enjoyed the morning.

I still feel pretty rubbish but I'm sure I'd be feeling a lot worse if I'd launched into the usual Sunday stuff. Don't get me wrong, routines are great when you hit upon the right one and goodness knows we wouldn't function without one - but even mummies need a day off sometimes, and today was mine!

I Can't See My Floor

When my DH is away, I realised today, I become a bone-fide slob. It's not my fault, to be honest. It's the two insanely busy children who need 101 things going on at once to entertain them. My husband works from home so when I am not at work I am busy trying to keep them out of his way so he can concentrate. When he is visiting his family we just let loose.

Right now we have a pop-up goal post and a tunnel filling up half the floor, plus a duvet, a blanket, a pillow and Angelica's blankie, all strewn across the place. Somewhere amongst the mess that had been a kind of den an hour ago I can see toys, some underwear one of them took from the washing basket and a cushion from the couch. I can also see two girls with big smiles and flushed cheeks, throwing themselves around the place.

I am not a prissy mother. I spent most of my childhood being petrified of making a mess and never being able to spread my toys out across the floor. I used to be much tidier in myself, too. Then I had children and realised there is a time for being tidy and a time for letting your kids be kids.

Yes, it would make my life easier if the girls' favourite game was Let's Put The Toys Away or if I didn't have to navigate my way through a mountain of cuddly toys to get to the kitchen but that's never going to happen. I save myself so much stress and energy by not fretting about everything being in its place and letting fun take pride of place in this household. As long as my girls are happy and safe then I am happy too.

So if you dropped by for a visit you might have to step over some building blocks or put up with Natasha rolling around in a strange yellow tunnel, or maybe even see piles of stuff on counters and cabinets, but I'm not going to apologise it. I'm a mother - this is the one time I get to keep a kind of messy household and be proud of it!

Living with a bunch of Furballs

Guinea Pigs are the ideal pets for small children. They are small enough to keep in a cage but large enough that you can cuddle and pet them without either a) squashing them or b) find them running up your sleeve. We have always had guinea pigs so our girls are growing up knowing that you need to be gentle with animals and how to treat them well.

There's just one problem with this. The guinea pigs rule the house.

There is a genuine pecking order in this place. Right at the top of the tree are the guinea pigs. They have the rest of us at their beck and call. You move, they squeak. You blink, they squeak. You dare to breathe, they squeak. Every action you make is interpreted as upcoming food by the three greedy furballs in this place.

As if we didn't already spoil the guinea pigs enough our girls adore them and dote on them. You'll hear a random squeak and glance around to see Angelica dishing out hay or you'll spot Edgar coercing the girls into tickling him on the head by looking all cute and pressing his head against the bars.

Last year I took a series of pictures of the little furballs exercising their hypnotic power over Angelica and making her believe they are sweet and innocent instead of the cunning, scheming creatures they are!



OK, this is Rolo - She looks like she's wearing a superhero mask but really she's as devious as anything!



This is Amber - the world's biggest pompom!



And this is Edgar - a gentleman and no mistake!

With a household like this is it any wonder my DH and I are right at the bottom of the pecking order?!

In the 2WW again

I have fallen out with my CBEFM big time.

After refusing to acknowledge my increasing fertility despite my OPKs getting darker for a few days and then telling me I was ovulating when I already knew that, thank you very much, I turned on my monitor this morning to find it didn't even want to let me POAS! The cheek of it! It was so sure I still had peak fertility that it just showed off its stupid egg symbol without even giving me a chance. Hmpf.

Well, I thought that was a waste of a perfectly good opportunity to pee on something so I took an OPK instead, which was still positive. I seem to get very long surges. I'll get positive OPKs for about 3 or 4 days sometimes, even after I have already ovulated. That's caused me some confusing cycles. I'm pretty sure yesterday was my O day, my CM has dried up and the nasty O pain subsided.

Now I need to remember to add progesterone to my arsenal of TTC pills, potions and paraphernalia. I have such a terrible memory that I am paranoid about forgetting it. It's like checking your alarm clock eighteen times to make sure it's on when you have to get up extra-early in the morning. I keep jumping up and thinking, "Progesterone!!" I am so paranoid about forgetting it.

Anyone want to bet how many times I'm going to wake up in the night, panicking about whether I've forgotten it or not?!

My Endo and I

I remember the waiting room. I don't remember what the specialist's room looked like. I do remember that I was still sore from the laparoscopy some four weeks later, which surprised me.

I remember staring at the poster in the waiting room. It had a rose wrapped around a word, with thorns sticking out at all angles to represent what life was like for the women affected by it.

The word was 'Endometriosis'.


I remember having my first period. I was a late bloomer, 14 before I started. I didn't have any pain at first, but right from my first one I knew there was something wrong because of the amount of blood I lost. I woke up in a pool of the stuff, and I'd been wearing the thickest kind I could get. I remember my mother chastising me. I remember stuffing my underwear with toilet paper the next night, and the night after that, and the month after that, and every month from them on, to catch the excess.

I remember a year and a half of very heavy but relatively pain-free periods. I guess I had regular period pain. I'd take a paracetamol and that would be it. I don't even remember what that was like now, but I do know I feel stupid for ever complaining about it now.

I remember the day in July 1996 when the pain started. It was a beautiful day, I'd finished my exams and I had a long, hot summer ahead. I was walking down the road when suddenly the pain started. It came from nowhere and pretty soon I was doubled over. I somehow got home and spent the day curled up on the couch. The following month, the same thing happened. From then on, the first day of my period would see me out of commission. By the time I was 19 I was spending three, four days in bed. I couldn't move. The pain was unbearable every month.

I started going to the doctor, trying one thing after another but nothing helped and the pain increased. There was one fleeting moment in January at the turn of the millennium when I considered taking a drastic solution. I am horrified to even remember it now, but pain can make you desperate. I ended up begging my doctor to refer me to a specialist and I went onto a waiting list.

The so-called 'specialist' literally agreed to do a lap to 'shut me up'. He was a fearsome fellow who clearly thought the pain was all in my head, and told me so in no uncertain terms. After the operation, as I came around from the anaesthetic, I just remember hearing the word 'endometriosis' and crying hysterically. It hadn't been in my head after all and I finally had a diagnosis.

In the weeks that followed, the reality began to sink in. It truly hit me waiting in that waiting room, staring at the poster with my label covered in thorns. As though a poster designed for a primary school, various terms connected with the condition were dotted around it. 'Pain', 'Infertility' and 'Hopelessness' were three of the cheerful phrases that greeted me. Very tactful. Hmpf.

I don't remember what the specialist's office looked like, but I remember his voice. I remember staring at my feet while he told me about the condition of my reproductive organs, the fact my womb was stuck to my rectum, the 'complicated cyst' that had twisted and damaged my right tube, the areas of endo they had removed. Finally, the life sentence given to a 20 year old who had met her future husband just four months earlier of infertility.

It's the memory of that day that makes me forever grateful and thankful to have my two girls. I will never, ever stop counting my blessings that I was able to have my children. It's also the memory of that day that keeps my feet on the ground that I might not be so lucky again.

Endometriosis had a huge impact on my life. Even so, it will never become my life.

Ostrich Eggs

I think I have ostrich eggs.

There is no way human eggs should be able to cause this much pain. I remember reading in a book when I was about to enter puberty that a human egg was about the size of a full stop. Well, mine seem to be about a billion times bigger than that by the pain one of the blighters is causing me tonight.

I've noticed that ovulation has become more dramatic every month over the last year or so. It's got to the point know where I swear my ovaries put on a full charity telethon event or tapdance spectacular. I have had painful ovulation for a long time but these days it's about as bad as when AF is in town.

I knew today was not going to be good when I POAS last night and got the darkest, angriest looking line I have EVER seen on an OPK. I swear it was so dark I heard it give an evil cackle as my ovary considered propelling the egg out with the power of a slingshot.

I also have been having a battle with my CBEFM. The first cycle I used it I found it awesome. It was like an intelligent being that knew my cycle better than I did. It predicted several days of high fertility and two peak days and let me know when to BD. The following month it kind of slacked off a bit and gave me a day or two of high fertility and a peak day it hardly put any effort into thinking about.

Well, this month it has been slacking big-time. I think it fell asleep on CD6 and woke up this morning. After having dark OPKs for a couple of days and low fertility on my CBEFM, the monitor jolted itself awake with a loud snore, rubbed its sleepy eyes and realised that I was already ovulating.

The peak reading with the little picture of the eggy wasn't really the warning you expect from a fertility monitor when you are already doubled over with O pain and are drowning in EWCM.

I have told it that unless it bucks up its ideas we are SOOOOOOOOO over, man.

TTC Ramblings

I think I now have enough supplements to open a shop.

I think I just about have everything covered. I've got the soy isoflavones and agnus castus to help bring ovulation forward, the cod liver oil to help my CM, the B6 to help lengthen my LP, the bromelaine to help assist implantation, the folic acid because, well, that's obvious, and the B12 which I've actually forgotten why I am taking now but I'm sure it has to do with hormones somewhere.

So why am I not pregnant? Scratch that, why do I not even have an egg breaking down the door and waiting to launch itself onto an unsuspecting womb? I thought I was about to O a few days ago from the migraines, EWCM and positive OPKs but it was a total fake-out. I'm taking it as a personal insult because now I have to go through more O pain and headaches when I actually end up ovulating. I swear the eggs are laughing at me. I can practically hear them.

I did have an issue when I first bought some agnus castus. I couldn't quite remember what they were called so I ended up asking for Angus Cactus. The woman in the shop probably thought I wanted to speak to some prickly kind of guy. I felt like a total idiot, but then that's not an unusual situation for me, especially where TTC is concerned.

Just last week I caused a scene in the local chemist where FRERs were 2-for-1. If there's one thing I will stand up for, it's my peestick rights. They had been on offer for a couple of weeks and the deal had apparently expired on the day I went to stock up. The shop had left the label on the shelf though so when I went to pay for them and they rang up at twice the price I was fuming. My determination to receive the discounted peesticks I had been promised sent the shop assistant scurrying back to the HPT counter, leaving me at the head of a growing, angry queue who couldn't understand why the girl at the front of them wanted that many HPTs anyway.

An apologetic shop assistant returned with the shelf label and a discount for my purchase. The rest of the queue breathed a sigh of relief as I gathered my FRERs and left with my head held high. I am not normally good at standing up for myself, but when it comes to HPTs I know my rights!

One Thumping Head - Check!

My body has decided to set up a sequence of warning signs before an egg decides to make an appearance these days. Unfortunately the main one is a head that thumps like the Samba band from last night's concert. When the migraine started kicking in around lunchtime yesterday I had two thoughts:

1) Yippee, I think I'm about to O!

and...

2) Oh no, not today! Of all days, not when fifty students are going to come marching past me with drums!

I just about battled it with Migralieve and caffeine, but today it came back with a vengeance. In the end I had to give in and laying down for a few hours helped a lot.

What stupid piece of DNA decided headaches and hormones should go hand in hand? It's hard to make a baby when every time you ovulate you could genuinely say,

"Not tonight, dear - I have a headache..."

Your Vocabulary as a Mother

When you become a mother, several things happen overnight. First of all, you lose the ability to put yourself first. Someone else is always your top priority from that moment on. Secondly, you learn what it means to truly worry. Not worry about whether you're on time or whether you can afford the bills this month or about whether you look stupid in your new haircut, but about whether your child is breathing or full or whether he or she has all his fingers and toes at any given moment.

Then something else happens. It's called the Mother Vocabulary. It starts with the introduction of phrases you never thought you'd hear yourself say, like "My nipples are really leaking today," and, "Never mind, it's only a little spew." Then it starts to include, "That is very naughty behaviour," and "I am very disappointed in you." Ouch - you seriously know you are a mother at that point!

But then there are the words. The little gems that your offspring pronounce wrong in such a cute way that you can't help but repeat them back, and end up ingrained in your subconscious as the real word for certain things. Before you know it, everyone in the household is pronouncing it the same way.

Orange had been A-onge for the last year. Guinea Pigs have been called A-gicks for almost as long, Lately Butterflies have become Tutterwhys, and have to be said along with a little flapping motion.

Every family should produce their own special dictionary, I think. No wonder language changes so much over time!

Things Not To Say To Someone Who Is TTC

I have been thinking about this a lot lately. It's very hard to know exactly what to say to someone who is TTC because trying to have a baby is not a one-size-fits-all experience. It can be so easy to say the wrong thing to someone when you're TTC and so easy to be hurt by someone's words when you're the one who's trying to have a baby. Likewise, it's so easy to put your foot in it when you are talking to someone else who is trying to have a baby, even when your situations might seem quite similar from the outside.

The problem is that it is so hard not to slip into clichés when someone is having a hard time having a baby. And although you mean well, saying the wrong thing to an emotionally charged woman can have explosive results. The best thing to do is just to listen, give hugs and send good thoughts for the next cycle because let's face it, everyone likes hugs and good thoughts!

Here are some things that I try hard not to say to anyone on the AIP board - and that I hope no one says to me!

1) (To someone starting TTC) "Oh, good luck! It took 3 and a half long years to conceive our son..." - That's not going to instil hope or confidence in anyone!

2) (To someone who has been TTC for a long time) "Oh, really? I fell on my first try/was taking the pill when I got pregnant!" - Good for you, not very helpful for me!

3) "Why don't you try NTNP and forget about TTC for a while?" - Because it's not that easy to go backwards when you've been trying and know your body inside out! Quick, hide that EWCM! Deny the O pains at all costs! Be gone, BBT!

4) "Why don't you stop charting and worrying about when you ovulate?" - Uh, because I'm TTC and I need to have sex when I ovulate, duh!

5) "Stop trying to make a baby and start having sex for fun!" - for one thing, unfortunately sex isn't fun for everyone, and for another, whoever said baby-making sex wasn't fun?!

6) "You should be thankful for the children you have been blessed with." This really irks me. As someone who was diagnosed with Endo at 20 I count my blessings every day. I never stop feeling thankful for being a mother. I just long for the chance to be a mother to another child too.

7) "When are you going to give up?" - Nothing like having faith that it's gonna happen...

8) "Just relax and it'll happen!" - Relaxing does not always make a baby! Yeah, I just leaned back, got comfy and a baby popped out...

9) "You want to try having sex every day from AF until you O." - You want to try having chronic fatigue syndrome and attempt to do it more than two nights in a row?!

10) and the most annoying of them all... "Maybe this just wasn't your month." Yeah, I know that! The mega cramps, bleeding and negative pregnancy tests gave that away!

Yeah, maybe when you are TTC you should be able to get some kind of filter installed to stop you being oversensitive to things you hear.

Food and the Family

Yesterday was Mother's Day, and we had a wonderful day. We all went out for a meal at our favourite Italian restaurant and as usual the girls behaved better than my husband and myself. Our eldest was the only one who didn't eat a good meal. She picked at a few chips but the plate of spaghetti went uneaten, as did her share of the pizza which her sister polished off.

You see, my eldest is what most people would label a fussy eater. I am very aware not to call her that. I don't want her to be pigeonholed as something that can cause her misery for years to come.

You see, I was a 'fussy eater'. Or at least so I was told all through my life. Even now I have turned 30 I can still see my parents rolling their eyes every time I say we've gone out for a meal as they ask, "And did you find anything to eat?"

Food was an absolute misery, all through my childhood. My mum would pile my plate high with things I couldn't, rather than wouldn't eat. There's a difference between things you would prefer not to eat but can and things you absolutely cannot eat. For example, I would prefer not to eat sprouts, but I can eat them. Garden peas, on the other hand, I absolutely cannot eat or I'll gag and heave.

Because my mum served up a large amount of things that I absolutely couldn't eat, I got stuck with the label of 'fussy eater'. And once you have been given that label you start to believe it. So you will go out somewhere and want to try something but then your parents remind you, "Oh, you won't like that. You're a fussy eater. Better stick to the chips." Or you'll be in the supermarket, watching your parents piling the trolley full of foods you hate when out the corner of your eye you spot something you'd like to try, so you pick it up and ask politely. "Oh no, I'm not wasting my money on that. You're a fussy eater. You won't like it."

Over the years you start to believe it, so you lose your confidence to try new foods. You feel increasingly like your presence at mealtimes is a bother. It gives you a kind of fear about food that is very difficult to shake.

I believed that I was a fussy eater all my life, until I met my husband. I was terrified that I would bring my 'fussy eater' status into our relationship and had visions of cooking two meals every day for the rest of our lives - a 'normal' meal for him and a 'fussy meal' for me.

Well, guess what? It turns out I was never a fussy eater in the first place.

I just liked different foods to my parents.

I love rice and pasta, cooking a stir fry or casserole, making home-made pies, frying foods in a dry pan instead of in half a packet of lard, creating new recipes and seeing what works.

I love all the foods that my parents hate. So the foods I love were never cooked in my home when I was a child and I never had the opportunity to show my love for those dishes instead of my hatred for fishcakes, mashed potato and garden peas.

I know my eldest will find more foods she likes. That's why it's important to try her with things that we wouldn't normally eat as a family. Who knows, she might like the fishcakes, mashed potato and garden peas that I never did. But if not, that's OK. She knows what she likes and we know what she can eat but would prefer not to as well as the things she absolutely cannot eat.

She's not a fussy eater - she's human!

The Evils of the Blue Dye Bandits

What's that saying.... fool me once shame on you; fool me twice, shame on me. Yeah, I think that's the one.

Thie week I was let down big-time by a false positive (I can't bear to call it an evap - it was thick and blue) on a blue dye test. I can't begin to put into words the elation I felt when I saw the line come up, thick and strong, nor how dark and empty I felt when all other tests proved negative.

The worst part? I should have known better. I did know better. I have given the same warning time and again about blue dye tests to others, and I have spent years avoiding the evil blue dye. The only reason I had started using them again in the last couple of months was I'd grown tired of the same tests, cycle after cycle, and wanted some variety.

How come I was so wary in the first place? I wasn't always as HPT-savvy as I am now. Back in the days when we were trying to conceive our first I had limited experience of how pregnancy tests worked and which were the best kinds. I knew about evap lines and never read a test after the 10 minute mark, but beyond that I wasn't very clued-up on such things.

I liked blue dye tests. I liked them because blue had been my favourite colour since childhood. Had I been a girly-girl I may never have experienced the gutting disappointment of my first blue dye evap as I might have plumped for a FRER instead.

I'd been off the pill for a few months and my cycles were pretty long, irregular and bizarre as my body struggled to get back to normal. I didn't know very much about ovulation or telling when I had Oed yet, so when I was late for my period I thought I would test. I wasn't the POAS addict that I am today, although I think the compulsion was always just bubbling under the surface. Never the less, when I had tested three times in a week with cheapies and found only BFNs I wondered if I should try a better test.

Now I had tried Clearblue before. Remember my favourite colour? The chance to pee on something that could turn blue was one I couldn't resist. So when i went to pick out a better test I went straight for a Clearblue easy. The next morning I excitedly scurried to the bathroom and took the test. As soon as the dye passed across I could see something forming. A lump appeared in my throat and my heart felt like it stopped beating for a moment before coming back hard and fast with twice as many beats per minute as usual. A thin, dark and clearly blue line had formed in the test window. Beside it, the control line was appearing. A plus, and a line. It was the most beautiful sight I had ever seen.

For the rest of the day I was walking on air. I kept it to myself, like the most wonderful secret only I had the privilege of knowing about. I didn't want to tell my husband until I had tested again to see the line get darker. By the following day I was anxious to watch another line form before my eyes and hurried to the bathroom as soon as I woke.

When I took the other test, I thought it had to be faulty. there was not even a hint of a line there. Not a whisper. Nothing. I waited for three minutes and looked again. Five minutes. Ten whole minutes. This time the lump that rose in my throat was of extreme sadness, confusion and emptiness. Nothing but a minus sign and a control line stared back at ne.

I was devastated. My joy had come crashing down. What had happened? the line had been so dark the day before, if I was miscarrying then surely I would have still seen a faint line. I spent the rest of that day googling 'Clearblue false positive' and my eyes practically spun in my head from the number of people reporting the same thing. Blue dye tests, it seemed, were not the reliable tests we'd been led to believe.

On that day I learned more about pregnancy tests than I ever thought possible. I read and read, all about the kinds of errors, tests, sensitivities and time limits that you can face when you take a test. I read about the history of HPTs, found out more about how to track ovulation and discovered about the brand new digital tests that had reached the market.

But more than anything I learned not to trust blue dye tests.

It turned out that I hadn't even ovulated when I received the false positive. And in the months that followed I became better acquainted with my cycle and eventually conceived my eldest daughter.

This week I revisited the sadness attached to a false result from a trusted brand. It's a lesson in why forgiveness is not always the best policy. That is one brand I will never be using again.

Attack of the Cough

My girls have had a nasty cough/temperature-related virus for the last few days and last night Natasha had it so bad that we revisited her baby days with a very sleepless night. She went down as normal in the evening, but woke up at half past eleven crying. She soon settled again but as soon as I started creeping out the door I heard a violent cough and a nasty noise. I didn't need to put the lights on to realise the coughing has led to a projectile phlegm incident.

When the same thing happened immediately after changing her clothes it was pretty obvious someone wouldn't be able to lay down that night - which meant neither would I. Confining my DH down the hall for the night, Natasha and I remained propped up in bed through the early hours together. It reminded me of those nights when she was a baby and she would want to breastfeed half the night when a growth spurt was in progress.

Somewhere around half past four we both drifted to sleep for an hour but when I woke my arm was completely dead from her weight and trying to slip it out from underneath her resulted in two things: An angry Natasha and the ouch-my-hand-is-coming-back-to-life dance from me.

I had some temperatures during the night as well so I think I am the final victim of the virus in this household. Roll on summer with fewer bugs, better immune systems and less sleepless nights!

The business of peeing on sticks

We are TTC #3. So far, this has not been an easy task. Losses, LP defect, endometriosis and stinking rotten evaps have caused 17 months of disappointment.

When you have been TTC for a long time you sometimes lose sight of believing you will ever see a BFP, or at least one that sticks. Some of us, myself being a case in point, start looking for distractions through the cycle to sidetrack us from the ultimate goal. I know I'm not the only one who has become very wrapped up in the addiction of peeing on sticks.

Today is the day that has started coming around every cycle. First there's CD1, with the agony of endo. Then there's CD3 where the disappointment really sets in. CD 4 brings a lot of tears and frustration. Then, somewhere around Cd5-7, the let's-spend-a-fortune-on-things-I-will-eventually-pee-on phase begins.

I am something of an HPT Connoisseur these days. I like to search for new tests, great tests, fancy tests... I am so bored of the same peesticks sitting in my bathroom month after month. Last month I found about 15 different brands to try, which was pretty much a record for me! This month I am feeling more conservative and looking for trusted brands rather than new ones.

Maybe one day I will lose the urge to waste my money on things I will eventually pee on. But let's face it: I don't smoke, I rarely drink... I always thought I needed a vice, and if it's something that has the ability to change colour at the presence of HCG then so much the better!

Happy Birthday to my Big Girl

My big baby is three years old today. It's a concept I am finding hard to believe. It doesn't seem like 3 whole years could possibly have passed since a 24-hour labour ended with an emergency c-section and this alert, curious little girl was laid by my side, all wrapped up in a towel.

I remember the moment she was born. She gave one cry that I could hear, and then she just.... looked. As they laid her next to me her eyes were alert and scanning the room, wanting to see everything, wanting to know where she was and what was there. She didn't cry or whimper, she wasn't frightened or daunted by the major task of being born. She just wanted to start the business of exploring the world.

Her birth was a traumatic experience for me, as was the hospital stay for the next 2 days. I should have been in hospital for 4 days after a c-section but I am extremely phobic of anything medical and they finally agreed to let me out after two. I have blocked out a lof of that time, but one thing I do remember is that every nurse and midwife who checked her over commented on how alert and curious she was.

It's a trait she has never lost. Now three years old, she has to examine everything. She has to explore everything. She has to experience everything.

It's a trait I hope she never loses. It's a wonderful way to be.

Happy birthday, Angelica!

Crayon

I thought bath crayons were going to be a good idea. My eldest has had them before and loved them so much she'd worn them out. So a new pack were duly bought this morning and escorted home under the watchful eye of my girls.

This afternoon arrived, and with it came bath time. By the end of it I was under no illusion about two things: Number one, my eldest sure does know her colours and number two, bath crayons were not a good idea.


"Mum?"

"Yes?"

"Yellow."

(showing me her yellow crayon)

"Yes, yellow."

(Angrily) "YELLOW!!!!!!"

"Yes, I know, it's yellow!"

(Showing me the crayon in a slightly more violent manner)

"YELLLLLLLLLLOWWWWWWWW!"

On closer inspection, the end was slightly blunt from where she had been drawing.

"I'm afraid that's what happens to crayons."

"YEEEEELLLLLLOOOOOOWWWWWWWWWWWW!!!!!!!"

By this point my ears were throbbing so I took the crayon and sculpted the end into a slightly more pointed shape with my fingernail. It didn't seem much different to me but seemed to appease her. She turned away and scribbled on the bath for a while longer, until suddenly,

"Black."

I took a deep breath before I looked. There in her hand was a slightly blunt black crayon.

"I'm not sharpening them all!" I warned her.

"BLACK!"

"Sweetheart, it's a crayon! You remember what happened to your old ones. They go blunt after a while!"

"BLLLLAAAAAAAACCCCCKK!"

I tried the distraction technique. I took away the black crayon and handed her a red one.

"Oooh, look at the lovely red crayon!" I said as sincerely as possible.

She glanced between me and the crayon, sure I was up to something but prepared to give me the benefit of the doubt. She turned away and went back to her drawing while I tried to tidy up some of the surfaces in the bathroom. When I heard an angry voice cry, "BLUE!"

I was expecting another blunt crayon emergency but when I looked around I found that a substantial amount of her body had turned into a big blue scribble and her little sister was gripping the offending crayon and sketching up a masterpiece.

So now I have a smurf for a daughter and the crayons have been confiscated until such times as I'm feeling more energetic to deal with the aftermath.