Monday, June 30, 2008

Try Three


So this week is the start of my third time round the mulberry bush....
Life and time move forward... sometimes it touches me, sometimes it punches me in the guts, sometimes it tickles me gently, sometimes it barely brushes past on its path....
But whether I am engaged with it or not - still it travels forward...

Tuesday, June 24, 2008

Karma

We create our realities...
So today I was talking with a friend about Karma.... we were talking about the way it works... To me karma is all about perspective - the way that our perspective of our experiences, our interpretation of them, completely shapes our emotional experience of the world, people and our lives. In a simple sense Karma is a law of cause and effect... what we do now we will experience the results of in the future... like the law of gravity in which the world spinning simply causes objects to be attracted towards its surface... so too karma it is not a punishing or rewarding power - it is simply cause and effect.
On some levels this is interpreted literally - if I murder someone so I will be murdered in a future life.... If I steal I will be stolen from... but to me it makes more sense on a more subtle level. The way I understand Karma is that everything we experience is a product of our perception. There are no independently good or bad experiences in life - "pleasant" or "unpleasant" are products of our mind.
So when we inflict harm, or when we act out of pride, anger, attachment to our own pleasure over others... we shape the nature of our mind to be sensitised to negative thinking, to unpleasant experiences and perceptions. Thus whatever happens to us in the future tends to be interpreted more negatively. And because we are interpreting the world more negatively, so we are more unhappy. So someone is rude to us in a shop - and we interpret this very negatively and get angry and have a horrible day and we come home and say "boy, the world was mean to me today... I must have bad karma"
However if we have been practising kindness towards others, overcoming angry thoughts and realising that it is through caring for others that we find true happiness... well... what ever happens to us in the future becomes opportunity for kindness, and thus opportunity for happiness... So someone is rude to us in a shop and we interpret this as a chance to be kind to someone who must be having a hard day... so we smile at them... give them a kind comment... walk away feeling happy...and at the end of the day we come home and say "wow, what a great day I had today... I must have lots of good karma"
But of course what happened to us was identical in each scenario... we just saw it from a different perspective because of the nature of the mind we had created in the past, through our past experiences...
This is how I understand Karma.
Its so hard, but so important, to keep remembering that the way we see a situation is completely a product of our own interpretation.... it looks real, it feels real, it tastes real.... but it only exists for us....
One person's love is another person's weakness
One person's anger is another person's fear
One person's attack is another person's gesture of peace
One person's empathy is another person's pity
One person's truth is another person's misunderstanding
No-one is right
No-one is wrong
None of it exists beyond perception.

Thursday, June 19, 2008

Officially not up the duff this time


So I knew I didn't feel it... and today was the day for the official test... ah the lonely blue line, all by its self in the little box... the world didn't shake, no miracle befell me....

Not pregnant this time...

Try three in 2 weeks :-)

Tuesday, June 17, 2008

For Smiles...

On days when we need smiles....

One of these might do the trick :-)

The joy of pepsi...

The Joy of Bohemian Rhapsody in the worlds most annoying singers voices

The Joy of a talking monkey with breasts...

inspiring words and images #3007

The minature world...

Its great to remind ourselves of just how fortunate we are.

Even when I have a really bad day... when I feel like I am falling backwards into darkness... I can still appreciate the awesome level of privilege present in my life...

Thanks blue eyes

Monday, June 16, 2008

puppy delusions

My dog thinks she is pregnant...

Not me...

My dog.

This week I had my poor lovely puppy desexed... finally I gave up the dream that we would have adorable little fluff balls to love and that she would know the joys of motherhood... Her last "season" seemed really uncomfortable so I decided it was time... It felt somehow horridly hypocritical to be sending her in for the chop in an area so terribly vitally important to me...but it had to be done... so no point in being squeemish. And it seems I was just in time! My poor wee pooch had some terrible oochy conditions in her private nether bits and was rather unwell "down there"...

SO all was well that ended well until her dog-danged pituitary gland decided to get in on the act and chuck a wobbly... give me a sudden massive hormonal change will you?? (she pouted)...well... I think we must be pregnant then!! So my poor virginal puppy's body is so naive... easily convinced, she has gone along for the ride - a ride with no destination yet the driver plows headlessly on... and she is an emotional wreck!! If I am anything like she is now when I really am pregnant I will give my nearest and dearest permission to run for the hills! (not really... if you do I WILL hunt you down!!)

AND ... to add injury to insult - the treatment of choice is starvation!! Apparently we must convince her body that there is not enough food around to support the pregnancy that she doesn't really have. So she is up the duff, should be eating for 8.... and naught but a wee sniff of a breakfast is waved momentarily before her tongue each morning...

Poor girl... Its a dog's life....

Ah the irony of it all

Balance Progress


Hmm so lets see...
If I blog about my progress towards inner harmony and outer balance perhaps it will keep me motivated and skipping forward on the pathway to creating the "happy place" for my wee babe to be...
Lets see...

1. Optimal eating... um... I made a great risotto tonight... mostly not too bad, although the delectible delights of a wee chocolate fix or two are getting the better of me in the last few days- but I blame hormones and they will be on a swing in a different direction in a day or two... still... I have eated relatively healthily....not sure my protein and iron intakes have been sufficient... nor have I had enough fresh fruit.... hmmm maybe not so good after all..... room for improvement....
2. Minimised toxins.... are there toxins in chocolate ??? hmm one delightful glass of 9th island pinot noir...but I am sure the enjoyment value and corresponding positive impact on my state of mind outweighed the negative toxins... hmmm and coffee doesn't count I am sure....
3. Appropriate supplimentation... now where did I put my vitamins ?? dear me...
4. Balanced exercise .... um ... did yoga once this week. Can't walk my poor puppy after her surgery this week - so it hardly seems fair to go out running without her... that would be just mean... hmmmm
5. Optimised Mind/Body Relationship (Trust) ... well in this area I have improved...have managed to emerge from my fog of fear and start to find a sense of equilibrium again. I know its a cycle and not gone forever... but at least its less debilitating today. What do I fear? Well, being too old, too late, too barren, too alone, too poor, too stuck, too any anything really... It seems that somewhere, often, I have made life decisions that led me here to this point... 36 and childless... and consequently I have lost a lot of trust in my own capacity to make wise decisions.... I know that I have done incredible things and had wonderful adventures... but somehow I never imagined that this would be the outcome.... But... I now begin to try to rebuild a sense of trust in my own capacity to create my dreams....

So lots of room for improvement...
Stay tuned...

Now if I can just convince myself to limit the number of projects I busy myself with... now that will be REAL progress :-) Oh - am illustrating a children's book, a "where did I come from" for donor babies.... well I couldn't say "no" to that one! ("Grrrrr" says twinkle blue eyes... I bet mum will say something rather similar!)

:-)

Thursday, June 12, 2008

Trust




So I attempt to refocus...


Today I received my regular email newsletter from the lovely fertility tips service I am subscribed to. It reiterated the importance of the mind body connection and positive thought and self talk...


Stacy reminded readers of the five step plan to optimising fertility:
1) Optimal eating
2) Minimised toxins (eliminating voluntary toxins, in tobacco, excess alcohol, etc)
3) Appropriate supplementation (vitamins, minerals, herbs, etc)
4) Balanced exercise
5) Optimised Mind/body relationship (Trust)

Trust is such a huge thing... So my task is to find a way to move through fear and find a place of trust in myself, trust in my body that I can do this, trust in the world to support me.

Oh and the other 4 points as well :-)


Hmmmm

Wednesday, June 11, 2008

Feelings

What are feelings?
Are they, as I learned in psychology 101, a product of our thinking... rationality spawning sensation as a bi-product of the firing of synapses... does this mean that they are some sort of biological brain pollution?
or are feelings a free wheeling entity... chemical or metaphysical... spinning their own paths separate to the journey of the intellect?
You would think that after a long career devoted to the exploration of feelings that I might have some sort of idea of this... but not so...
My head wants to claim responsibility...to assert that there are hidden thoughts, beliefs, hopes and fears that stimulate the production of the oozy tar of feelings... Yet my heart rebels in puffs of odd shaped clouds of feelings... nebulous, transient, and resembling recognisable forms only when the mind imposes them upon the misshapen canvas.

Tuesday, June 10, 2008

Meaning...

What does it mean to have a meaningful life?

When/What is "enough"?

Facing Fear

So today I had an appointment with a very interesting man.
He is a meditator, chinese herbalist, accupunturist, counsellor and GP. And boy does he know how to push buttons.
I went to see him to talk about feeling tired and stressed and run down, and to get some advice on re-focussing my energy on positive fertility and preparing myself physically and mentally for becoming pregnant.
I cried...
Lots....
How easy it is to escape into the mind when the heart is heavy. Retreating to my head has been the way I have been coping with the constant fear in my heart... Mostly I fear not being able to bring a child into my womb and life. At the same time I fear having a child and the awesome change and responsibility that brings, however that fear seems easier to sit with. I feel paralysed by fear that I will get stuck on a merry-go-round of failed attempts rather than being on a journey to a destination.
In my head I know I am fighting the odds.
In my heart I am full of fear.
Dr C said that the process of becoming pregnant is a dialogue between me and a future child who is deciding if the time is right to come to me. All I could think was "oh no - I can't talk to them, what if they say No!?"
When I moved back from Fiji I was focussed, grounded... this time was supposed to be all about creating a happy, fertile, strong place for a child to be conceived.
Instead I fill my head to avoid the fear in my heart... My body aches with the tension I carry... I am so tired everyday... I am engaged in a constant battle to distract myself from the one thing I want to be thinking about yet can't bear to think about.

This morning I was lying in bed, mentally preparing for the day, and I found myself thinking "oh I hope I am not pregnant... I have too much to do". A second later I realised what I had said in my mind, and I was shocked and horrified at myself! And deeply saddened. It shows how far north my priorities have shifted while I wasn't paying attention. I was trying so hard not to be consumed by it all that I have lost focus.

The positive thing is that I now see this more clearly and am determined to refocus.
My body and my heart are the most important things right now... I can't think a baby into being... but I can redirect my energy into creating a happy place inside me.

Friday, June 6, 2008

Dreaming

So I had a wonderful dream...

I sat up working until after midnight... stressing about not living up to expectations... and finally crawled into bed, cold, flat spirited, frustrated at my crashing computer eating my hard won words...

And I had a dream.

I was stressed, too much to do preparing for the visit of His Holiness the Dalai Lama. I needed to write a sign on a glass window...and I found myself writing "pain"... in exasperation I started wiping it off... Then I looked around and a large group of people had gathered. It was Lama Zopa Rinpoche (a very high Tibetan Lama) and His Holiness the Dalai Lama. Lama Zopa started picking me up like a child and throwing me into the air. I seemed weightless and each time HH the Dalai Lama would catch me. Eventually HH put me down carefully, stared intently into my face, and said
"Stop trying to improve yourself, you are perfect just the way you are"

brutal truths...

This article sums up many of my thoughts on the challenge of my generation. I am surrounded by 3o somethings, most in their mid to late 30's, who were, like me, brought up to think we could do anything... sure we can have any career we want, live the lifestyle we choose, be as fussy as we like about our partners, explore and reap life's richness... and what a rude shock we get when we suddenly realise that there is one thing we cannot have - life long fertility...

Babies out
Janet Albrechtsen June 04, 2008
THE strategic silences of feminism are having profound effects on society. For all the brilliant choices ushered in for women - the freedom to forge ahead with careers, to stay single, if that was their wish, not to be tied down by family and babies, if that was their choice - feminism failed women by refusing to inform them that their new-found choices came at a price.
By failing to remind women about their biology and their declining fertility, feminism deliberately ignored the innate desire of most women to have a child. The silence continues. It is there in the classroom where, like previous generations of young girls, the present generation is still not taught that fertility cannot be taken for granted.
Fortunately, there are moves to fill in the silence about infertility. If it happens, it may allow young women to make more fully informed choices about work and babies, avoiding the sorrow that afflicted many of their childless forerunners.
Unlike women in the 1950s and '60s, the liberated generation of women that followed in the '70s and '80s had the world at their feet. Yet feminism's mantra of choice made little room for women who chose to eschew careers for babies.
Indeed, if we are honest, feminism never had much time for babies. Having babies meant leaving the workplace, opting out of the career track, at least for a time. With its unwavering focus on encouraging women to make great strides in the professions, making their presence felt in the boardroom, the courtroom and parliament, the feminist movement deliberately ignored motherhood as a legitimate choice for women.
The cost of feminism's silence about fertility is etched in the faces of those women who pursued dazzling careers and carefree singledom but ended up childless. Women such as ABC presenter Virginia Haussegger, who a few years ago openly wrote about the price she paid for listening to the feminist mothers, who encouraged us to reach for the sky but failed to tell us the truth about our biological clock. Said Haussegger: "Here we are, supposedly 'having it all' as we edge 40; excellent education; good qualifications, great jobs. It's a nice caffe-latte kind of life, really." But something was missing. "I am childless and I am angry. Angry that I was so foolish to take the word of my feminist mothers as gospel. Angry that I was daft enough to believe female fulfilment came with a leather briefcase."
The cost of feminism's silence about infertility is engraved in the experiences of those who, having delayed motherhood and unable to conceive, underwent in-vitro fertilisation at a great physical and emotional cost. Women such as Jodi Panayotov, who described how her mental anguish at not becoming pregnant had her rifling through her rubbish bin to check whether the second line on her discarded pregnancy test had appeared in the hour since she threw it there, along with dozens of others. "If I thought IVF would be the answer to both my reproductive issues and my mental issues, I was mistaken. Yes, it produced a baby. But it took ages to recover from the emotional toll."
Infertility affects one in six Australian couples. While the causes are many, a woman's age is a critical factor. By age 26, a woman's rate of infertility doubles from one in 10 to one in five. By her mid-30s, a woman has a 15 per cent of becoming pregnant each month. By her early 40s, it falls to 5 per cent. Add in miscarriage rates of 25 per cent for women aged 35 to 39, and 50 per cent for women aged 40 to 44, and the rate of chromosomal abnormalities, which increases from a risk of one in 600 for a 20-year-old woman to one in 39 for a 42-year-old woman, and one realises that female fertility is not a given.
Of course, with male infertility accounting for 40 per cent of cases, there is a need for both sexes to understand fertility. Unfortunately, there is a profound gap between perception and reality. A study by the Fertility Society of Australia in 2006 found that 57 per cent of women in their 30s and 43 per cent of women in their 40s believed they would be able to conceive without any problems. The survey of 1200 women and 1200 men found that 40 per cent of childless men and women in their 30s were still saying they were not ready to have a child. While choosing to marry later and have babies even later may fit the career choices of young men and women, the report concluded that "a real tragedy could occur if these people reach their late 30s and decide they have changed their minds and do want children, only to find that it is biologically too late for them".
The FSA recommended an education program informing young people about their fertility. Last week, a similar plea was made in Britain by new Human Fertilisation and Embryology Authority head Lisa Jardine.
It is a message echoed by Candice Reed and Rebecca Featherstone, two young women who call themselves "IVF-lings". Reed, a journalist in New Zealand, was Australia's first IVF baby, born in 1980. Featherstone, a Sydney agent for media personalities, was conceived in Bourne Hall, Cambridge, where Louise Brown, the world's first IVF baby, was born. In the next few weeks, Reed and Featherstone will be sending letters to state education and health ministers across Australia asking that schoolchildren be taught about fertility and IVF.
Featherstone told The Australian students were not receiving enough information. "The only things I was taught at school were about sexual education, condoms and STDs, that sort of stuff. I never learned anything about infertility or how many people go through IVF. I was never taught how a woman's fertility decreases."
Ask a schoolteacher. Nothing has changed.
Featherstone says it's critical that young girls learn about their biology. "They may hold off having babies and do the career thing. And then they're like: 'Oh no, I'm 35 and I'll have to do IVF.' She says IVF should not be treated lightly as a fallback position for the next generation of career women. "It's not something nice to go through."
With studies showing that mothers in their late 30s and 40s who have baby girls are perhaps compromising their daughters' ability to have children, the trickle-down consequences of infertility will be profound and many of them yet unknown. One thing is clear. For all of feminism's focus on women's choices, its failure to treat motherhood as a legitimate choice did women no favours.

Stressed

So I have tried to be stoic... to put things in perspective... Sure I am "busy" "overloaded" "got too much to do in too little time"... but that can also be described as "making the most of life's rich opportunities"... ""grasping the moment and filling it"... and blah blah blah

But now as I sit here working at midnight, having been unable to sleep... I can't find pretty words to "reframe" my state of mind... I am just stressed... too much to do, too little time... is it possible??

I have been in this state many times in the past and somehow always managed to pull something together...

But its not fun.

Who's idea was it to have 3 jobs and be applying for a big promotion, renovate a house, start a new family, look after an old family of dear friends and my puppy, have a social life and try and get pregnant all at once??

Oh yeah... rich opportunities and all that...

Well something has to go... so I hereby announce to the world that my social life is, as of now, "On Hold"... I have pulled out of the African Choir, with great sadness.... and I am seriously considering not going back to Uni next semester...

Yeah... there seems a rather slim chance that my poor body will be a warm, nurturing, peaceful place to embrace a baby... not this month.

Ah well...

Thursday, June 5, 2008

The waiting game : to play or not to play...

So I wait again...
Practice makes perfect and my patience is improving. I have not yet had any urges to do an early pregnancy test... well... only one but it passed quickly :-)
This morning I woke up nauseous... "Oh No!" gasped twinkle blue eyes... I swear I was not thinking about it... Perhaps I am indeed, as TBE suggested, allergic to the precious wee swimmers... Never mind, a wee bit of tummy turning is a mere freckle on the fabulous beauty of this process...

Today I spoke to a very dear friend. She is happy and facing wonderful new adventures... but she had just heard that a friend of hers was dying. When faced with the mortality of a loved one some people knuckle down and become more conservative, grip onto the known and familiar, avoid risks... others throw caution to the wind and make the most of the moment... It remains to be seen how my friend will react. For me however it was a precious reminder to do today what you think you want to do tomorrow. I complain about being so busy, I complain about being tired, of never having enough time to do anything properly (according to my surprisingly perfectionist personality)...but at the end of the day I know that I am grabbing the richness of opportunity and making the most of it. I jump when I have the chance, I take a risk when I believe in the potential, I trust my ability to survive almost any experience...

I have never experienced a seriously life threatening illness or situation, and I touch wood in hope that I won't for a long time yet (we all have to die eventually) but I try to remind myself daily that this life is not forever... I only have this moment, not even this day for sure... so let me be in each moment the person I most want to be. We all have our priorities - the things that we look to for a sense of accomplishment in our lives. For some it is a home, for others a sense of power in life, for others a sense of security... For me it is about connections with people... I feel that my life is a success when I have warm and positive connectivity with people I cherish.

So thank you my dear ones for contributing to making this moment in my life feel so rich and abundant... may we have many more moments to enjoy :-)

Tuesday, June 3, 2008

Try Two

Here we go round the mulberry tree, the mulberry tree... only they ain't mulberries kids...
With remarkably little fanfare compared to last time... Try Two is now commenced...

Its quite fascinating how quickly the bizarre can become normal, how easily the extremely odd becomes routine... Already it feels like "that thing I do once a month"... and apart from the challenge of fleeing the city in fog and rain and Hideous traffic... its all rather smooth and simple this time round...

Not so the process of trying to buy syringe barrels for the doing of the deed... my heavens.... All of the sunshine coast is, I feel, now convinced that I am some sort of really odd drug addict as a result of my pounding the pavements in search of a 1 or 2 ml syringe barrel. Now I look fairly conservative I would say... mature... (even though I gleefully chuckled when asked for ID at the club last weekend!) so its particularly obvious when the poor pharmacy assistants suddenly choke when I ask for syringes. There is the rapid but never-the-less clearly discernible widening of the eyes in shock... and the automatic brain response "oh no, one of THEM"... I stumble over myself to add "...the barrels without the needles" to my request and there is a sudden release of oxygen into their brains...followed by a clouding over as they wonder "why would she want that??" A couple of times the question slipped from their lips before they could stop it... and was met with careful avoidance...
Turkey basters are starting to look more attractive! After the 5th pharmacy I finally found one that cheerfully gave me a large handful of 3ml syringes...with the needles... Oi vey....

Sunday, June 1, 2008

Disco Divas

So I have been feeling rather stressed and overwhelmed by having too much to do and not enough time to do it in... well, compounded by not enough self discipline and organisational diligence :-)

I've been lying awake at night... which is really not the done thing when one is supposed to be hatching happy little eggs...

So I went out dancing with ma gals...
Surrounded by bosom babes, I unleashed my inner dancing diva and shook my little boody...


And now I feel sooo much better :-) Productively compromised of course as I yawn my way through this grey sunday... but grounded in my body rather than spiralling through head miles...

Ah its good to dips one's toes into the world of youth and vigour for a time... to step outside of being a "grown up" for a wee moment... to tickle a sense of abandon and jiggle about for the sheer fun of it... and now somehow coming back through the looking glass into my responsible life feels much more ok... Like coming home after a beach holiday... still a bit salty and sunburned but home feels all cozy and welcoming... so too my life of balancing commitments feels like an arm chair I now return to, sleepy and a bit seedy, after my foray into foreign lands :-)

Ah its the rainbow of life's variety that makes each colour individually shine brighter...