Barren Mare

Unplugged

This is our last weekend in the flat, and along with everything else, our internet connection is being turned off on Monday.  I'll still be able to send and receive emails from the office but the evil firewall bars me from all things blogworld- that is, reading of and posting to. So while I am looking into various solutions until we get into the new house, apologies if updates from this end are slightly patchier than usual for a bit.

In the meantime, may your days be filled with less of this:

 

and more of this:

Lament of the firewalker

The slow process of decanting ourselves to the rental flat is becoming smoother now.  We've sort of gotten into a rhythm- come home from work, pack a few boxes, chuck everything into the back of our tiny car, grab the puppy, move boxes to flat, walk the puppy in nearby park, come home, collapse.  I'm feeling more relaxed now that we have, for example, a bed, a couple of chairs and a working TV. So thank you for bearing with me during all the stress! weeping! gnashing of teeth!

Before I get on to the next topic (a pregnancy-related ailment which is causing me a considerable amount of discomfort and sleepless nights), I feel I must preface it by a wee tangent on one of the thorniest of issues: that being, "Infertiles Fortunate Enough to Get Pregnant but Who Now Seem to Be Complaining about Pregnancy".  It does seem such a potential minefield- and I for one never predicted that I'd be in a position of tapdancing around certain subjects. But here we are.

You see, the thing is, when you are in the throes of infertility, there is a whole lot of plea-bargaining with the universe that goes on. In many respects, it very much resembles the classic Kubler-Ross stages of grief.  Whomever you choose to cry out to in your hour of need may of course depend on your personal religious/spirtual inclinations; in my case, it was usually a desperate call to some amorphous, unnamed higher power that might be able to help. 

As in, "please [insert deity of choice here], please, I'll do anything.  Anything, anything to have a child. Please let this be the month. Please let the IVF work. I'll be good as gold if I get pregnant, I will walk with a skip in my step, I will stop making snide remarks about the size of my sister-in-law's ass, I will be nicer to my colleagues, I will give more money to charity, I will do more recycling and help save the planet. I will get down on my knees every day in eternal gratitude, PLEASE.  I WILL DO ANYTHING. I WILL WALK OVER HOT COALS, IF YOU ASK ME TO."

Those hot coals, though?  Hot. Really damn burny hot, as it happens.  Aiiieeee!  Scorchio. Foot flambe.

So, you find yourself pregnant, but with badly scalded soles. What then?  You're no less grateful, and you wouldn't take back your firewalk, so happy are you to be on the other side; however, your fried tootsies are now in undeniable agony. And last you checked, you're still only mortal. Pain still hurts, notwithstanding that ultimately it takes you where you want to be.   

Anyway. Enter the complaining; or at least what could easily be perceived to be complaining.  It's not, I hope you understand, whining in the traditional sense, but more the fact that despite the gratefulness of having achieved mission impossible, I still can't help but let out a little yip of discomfort now and then. 

In my case, the problem is not in my feet, but in my left hand and wrist. At first I thought the pain was the result of sleeping on it "funny", since I've been trying to adjust to reclining on my left side at night, and my arms often seemed to end up under me. In the daytime, it seemed to improve. But then it went on, night after night, becoming worse and worse. To the point where I now wake up in agony every single night about 1am and cannot get back to sleep. I toss and turn and grizzle for hours, until falling into an exhausted stupour about four, only to be awoken all too soon by the blaring of the dreaded alarm clock.  Frankly, it sucks.

Finally, after consulting Dr. Google, I realised I am experiencing carpal tunnel syndrome.  No idea why it's only in the left hand, but that in itself is enough. Apparently it's meant to go away or improve after pregnancy; however, the prospect of another 16 weeks of this much discomfort is not exactly encouraging.   Plus, it's interfering with my knitting, damnit!

A remedy, I discovered last night during one of my wee hours surfing sessions on the internet, is to take vitamin B6 supplements. I trotted myself over to the chemist today to stock up, and am hoping it works. If not, I guess I'll have to look into a wrist brace or somesuch. Or does anyone else have any suggestions?  The pain is one thing, but the sleep deprivation is... well... let's just say that like many people, I really don't function at my best when I don't get enough zzzzs.  I mean, I know there are plenty of sleepless nights ahead, but I was kind of hoping that the reason for keeping me up at night would be a lot cuter and cuddlier.   

Locked out

The moving house saga is already off to a rocky start. I apologise in advance if hearing about it is, well, kind of tedious. I realise in the big scheme of things it's a fairly minor irritant. But it makes me feel bit better to share this small tale of woe- and since I can't do my usual and reach for a large glass of wine to soothe the stress levels which are beginning to escalate out of control, blogging will have to be the next best thing.

OK. We signed the lease on the rental flat and picked up the keys on Wednesday- but because E. was extremely tied up with work and away on business on Thursday, we didn't get around to go over to let ourselves in until last night. I was especially chomping at the bit for E. to see the place, since he was away when I arranged to rent it.

Actually, that reminds me- I didn't tell you about the renting escapade, which in itself was a bit of a saga. You see, when I first starting looking for a flat to rent in this particular development, there were about twenty places available. The letting agency, in answer to my uber-organised advance enquiries, told me to check back "closer to the time", since it was too early to line up anything- but they assured me there would be plenty to choose from.

Then when I recently telephoned to check on availability, I was advised that there were  was only one flat for rent. One!  Only! One! Left! I was slightly freaked out to discover that the formerly abundant availability had, in the space of a month, seemingly dried up. I was ready to take it sight unseen, since we had been in a couple of the show flats previously, back when we were looking to buy, and pretty much knew exactly what the place would be like.  Alas, no. The agency absolutely insisted I had to view it before they would let me go ahead

Oh, and E. was out of the country for two whole weeks on business. Oh, and there were two other people who were interested, including a woman who was coming all the way from Spain to look at it. Oh, and they were all coming tomorrow to see it, so if I wanted it, I better come then too.

So what happens if we all want it, I asked?  Ah, well, they told me, the person with the fastest car who can get to the office quickest to hand over a cheque secures the flat. The office being on the absolute other side of town and a nightmare to get to- especially by say, public transport- my only option since I was presently without a car.

Doom, I thought. Dooooom.   

Anyway, to cut a not-very interesting story short, I ended up getting to the viewing a bit early and shown around, whereupon after the most cursory of inspections, I threw myself at the agent's feet begging to be allowed to rent it and pleading that he drive me up to the rental office in his car immediately so I could fork over vast sums of cash there and then. Maybe it was my not-so-subtle emphasis of my pregnant bump, or just the fact he wanted to close the deal, but he took pity on me and did as I asked. And I got it. I admit, I felt a teeny bit guilty when I saw the Spanish lady, who was standing patiently outside waiting to view it when we came out- but ruthlessness prevailed.

So. There we were last night, with two sets of  keys to our shiny new rental flat in our keen little paws, standing outside the main door to the block of flats, with Little Guy in tow.  Both of us were tired after a long week, and we were having a little snappy exchange about something or other- and I couldn't seem to get the door open. Distracted, I finally thrust the keys at E. and told him to do it. 

And he couldn't get the door open either. Hmm. What gives?  I tried again.  Nope. We tried all the keys on the key chain and nothing worked.  We went around to the door on the other side of the building. No joy. Door wouldn't budge. 

Problem. We had a van booked for Sunday to move a pile of essential gubbins- and the rental office is not open on weekends. Cue minor hysteria on my part. I lay awake most of last night, counting the shadows on the wall and trying to figure why the hell the keys would not work.

Much frantic phoning around this morning ensued- we tried the development sales office, figuring since they were two months behind schedule with having our HOUSE ready, they might be able to assist us with gaining access to the rental flat in the block next door. Nope, the flats having all been sold, they no longer had any keys.  Hey, why didn't we just phone a locksmith to the lock changed, the bright spark at the sales office suggested perkily. 

Um, because it's a communal main door to the block, and the other residents might not be so keen on that?  Yeah. Oh.

Finally, finally, finally, I got through to the rental office owner on his mobile phone.  He was, shall we say, less than thrilled that I was phoning him at 11am on a Saturday.  I explained the situation. I acknowledged it was unfortunate that we had been unable to discover the problem until last night, after the office had closed, but the bottom line is, we couldn't get in. And you know what he said?  Wait for it.

He said, coldly, "Well, what do you want me to do about it?"

At which point I felt myself about to go into near nuclear meltdown.  ARRRRRGGGGH.  Somehow, I held it together enough to say, albeit with a certain amount of outraged spitting and fury, "Well. For starter's, I would like for you to arrange a set of keys that actually enable us to gain access to the flat we are renting through your agency. Do you think that would be too much to ask?  Since otherwise we will have to cancel our moving van, at considerable cost and inconvience to ourselves, and lose an entire weekend, which in my micro-managed moving battle plan, DOES NOT WORK." 

Upshot: he eventually made some calls, and somebody from the office came down in the afternoon to unenthusiastically let us in. Cause of the problem?  It turns out they had failed to give us the main door keys. 

Happily, the flat is very nice, and should work out fine for the two months or so we'll be there.  And I gave myself a firm talking-to this afternoon that for the sake of our unborn child, I simply MUST chill out about everything and stop running around like a loon, bug-eyed with stress.   But honestly.  It really is a trying time.

A roof over our heads

End of June.  That's when they say we'll be able to move into our new house. It was, as you may recall to be "sometime in May", but then the sales office phoned us this weekend, and announced another month delay.

Yes, they do know I'm pregnant- I already tried to wheedle my way in on that card- but clearly, they do not give a monkey's. As to just how pregnant - well, for those of you following along at home, with any luck, I will in fact be something like 33 weeks along by then. I'm guessing that humphfing large boxes of our endless crap around is not going to be high on my list of preferred activities. Just a hunch.

We've taken a lease on a flat for six months, so we do have somewhere to sleep in the interim. Unfortunately, staying where we are is not an option, since the nice people buying it sort of want to live in it themselves. As far as rental flats go, I guess it's all right- it's small- but sunny, and has the big advantage of being literally next door to the unfinished house. Which means my parents will have somewhere close by to stay when they arrive in August, other than camped out amongst unpacked boxes- which is all good.

The only downside is that it's an unfurnished rental- so we have to cherrypick everything that we need, move it to the rental, and then all the other stuff is going into containerised storage for the time being.  We have a two week gap between taking on the rental and moving out of here to achieve all this.

It may not seem like such a big deal, but I feel incredible agitated about it. Given that we have two households' worth of belongings stored in both this flat ayd two different garages, it presents something of an entertaining logistical puzzIe. I find myself lying awake at night running lists in my head, with a chain of thought going something like this:

"OK, we ultimately want the bedframe that is currently in garage 1 to go into the master bedroom of the new house, but since it's already disassembled, it would make sense to move it down the rental, and then move it across later, even if it means putting it together and taking it apart again. Or is that stupid?  Should we just move the bed we are presently sleeping on, even though that means we will  have to take it apart and move it down to the gararge, so it can go in the rental van next week- then put it back together- and then have to use the too-small double bed from the spare room until we're into the rental flat full time? Oh, fuckity."

And so on.

I'm also paranoid that we'll inadvertently send key items into storage (such as, say, the ironing board) and then have to buy another one. Again, perhaps not a big deal, but we already have two full sets of everything (having never really cleared out properly during the combining of our household crap)- and I think it would drive me over the edge to know I was wasting money on a third item, all because of a little bad planning.

Thus, I find myself wanting to run around the place putting yellow stickie labels onto things- FOR RENTAL FLAT- DO NOT PUT INTO STORAGE- like a crazy person. Which I will do as soon as I remember to bring labels home from work.  See, I've become a tad absent-minded of late (for example, today I went to work without my pass, my phone and my wallet.)  Hormones aside, I'm still not sleeping very well and I think it is beginning to take its toll . As for E., well, bless him. He can't keep track of his man- crap at the best of times, so relying on him to sort it all out would be sheer folly.

Plus, I have no idea what we're going to do about internet access over the next couple of months.  Normally, I would cope, but somehow, this does not seem the ideal time to be asked to maintain radio silence.

Clearly the makings of a racehorse

The 20 week (well, 22 weeks in my case) anatomy scan went really well.  Everything looked as it should, all healthy, normal and growing on target, which is a big relief. 

Interestingly, given that neither E. or I are tall, it seems the Apocryphetus has particularly long legs, measuring about six days ahead of the rest of the body.  All the better to jab me in the side with, evidently. Maybe there is a career in supermodelling in the future?

Either way, we already think our little girl is completely beautiful.

Shhhheaster weekend

It's been oh -so- quiet here over the long holiday weekend.  No work today,  E. isn't back from his business trip until tomorrow, and Little Guy is away having a wee holiday with E.'s parents on the island.  I felt quite guilty initially sending LG off- surely I should be able to cope with one small (albeit bouncy) puppy on my own in E.'s absence?  But then I realised that this was probably the last opportunity I would have (at least for the foreseeable future) for some time on my own.

And truthfully?  It's been rather blissful- sleeping as late as I want, rolling around the house in my jimjams, opening my closet to pull out a pair of socks without having to wrestle items of clothing from tiny, thieving jaws.  Gorging on the internet and DVDs, reading an entire book from start to finish, knittingknittingknitting (the bootie is finally completed and I'm adding a little scarf to the set).  Also as it turns out, Little Guy has been having an absolute ball, at least according to the regular emails and photo evidence from the grandparents.  Endless romps in the sunshine with his doggie buddies on the beach and in the woods and the garden.  I fear he's actually going to be miserable when he gets back to boring old home.

The one thing I have not done this weekend is buy anything, either for myself or for the little traveller within. What I really, really need is a pair of shoes for work. And I do mean need, rather than want.  In a fit of purging back when we put the flat on the market, I cleaned out the closet and binned an entire bag of nasty, old, knackered and no longer fit for wear shoes. Leaving me with two pairs of black Mary Jane-esque flats which are falling apart, one pair of goes-with-everything black heels which likewise now falling apart, and a couple of pairs of knee high boots, which I would generally wear all the time, except my legs seems to have chunked out somewhat and I can't get them zipped up over my calves. I've held back from going out to buy new shoes because people keep telling me my feet are going to expand even further, and I will end up stretching (read: ruining) my footgear. 

What to do?  Several folks at work have suggested sandally type things, or at least a shoe with an open back, but I confess, I really am not keen on that.  I like my feet to be, um, encased, wherever possible. I may just go ahead and buy a cheap pair of whatevers to tide me over until my tootsies are able to fit once more into the glass slipper. I suppose at the rate we are going, in a couple of months I am not really going to be able to see my feet anyway, so it won't matter too much what my shoes look like.

Ultrasound on Thursday.  I really am a-gog with anticipation. And of course I'll be sharing if it's a boy pony or a girl pony- after all, it's YOU, the Internets- keeper of all secrets, factoids, trivia and assorted paraphenalia.

Halfway and a bit

Things are ticking along here- I'm nearly 21 weeks, which of course for those of you following along at home means halfway and a bit. I suppose you could say my mental state about the pregnancy equals my physical state- I'm sort of halfway to believing that this might actually work out, might actually be OK- but still slightly too freaked out by the idea that there is going to be a real, live baby at the end of it to really buy anything. I have not yet purchased even one tiny onesie or fleecy blanket or darling baby bauble.

I am however, doing lots and lots of knitting. Because somehow knitting seems safe. On the scale of jinxies, the knitting of tiny hats and booties doesn't seem to count. Doesn't seem to cause concern that I will somehow by my actions call down the wrath of the vengeful gods.  But that's probably because as a relative beginner, I still pretty much suck at knitting, and said gods are too busy laughing themselves stupid over my latest yarn related fandango.

Like yesterday. I spent almost the entire day knitting up the second of a pair of baby booties.  And then as I was heading for the homestretch (and the toe decreases), I got distracted by something interesting on television, and promptly skipped over to the other side of the pattern page, thus decreasing way too soon.  Leaving the bootie looking rather, um, pointy at the end.  It would be fine if I was giving birth to a Keebler elf, but not so much for a human baby. I fiddled with it for a bit, but it could not be saved. I was actually too tired at that point to care that I had to rip out the whole damn thing. Which I did, then threw it the jumbled up ball of yarn in the knitting bag before stumbling off to bed.

Then I woke up in the middle of the night.  This is a very common occurence at the moment- my lower back begins to aches quite a bit, even with vast bolsters of pillows around me, and I can't get back to sleep until I have a little walk, stretch, some warm milk and a snack of fruit. (Or a cookie or two, who am I kidding?) But last night, even after all that, I could not settle. My mind kept straying back to the lost bootie. It was, I eventually decided, really bugging the crap out of me that I was going to have to come home from work the next day without some knitting ready to take up; that in fact, I was going to have to start the whole blasted thing over again. So I actually ended up getting out of bed, digging out the double pointed needles and casting on. It was only after re-establishing a couple of rows that I could lay my weary head back down. 

So, yes, perhaps knitting is psychologically safe in some ways, but is obviously driving me nuts in others. You can't win.

Anyway, apart from the odd night achy, I feel great, and I am hoping I will feel more reassured still after our next scan- we're doing the 20 week ultrasound at 22 weeks, since E. is away on business just now and the clinic said that was a better time anyway. I am very much looking forward to it- it feels like quite a long time since we had a little peep into the secret life of the Apocryphetus. And let's hope s/he doesn't have his/her legs crossed, because as one who could never wait to open her Christmas presents, I would really like to know if I should be investing in some blue or pink yarn.*

[*Editor's note: Now, Soper, do not get too excited. I am speaking metaphorically. Even if it is a girl, you know how I feel about pink.]