Here we go up the duff together… duff together…duff together….

So a couple of people have commented on my openness in deciding to put the process of my journey towards pregnancy on my blog. So I thought I would explain… in case, heaven forbid, anyone should think it is pure self indulgence 
I have lots of reasons…
- Firstly…. Its exciting…. I want to share with my dear ones the journey towards finally achieving a dream that I have bored you all silly with for years….
And lets face it – I am not an exotic aid worker any more – I am living in suburban Brisbane now…(well, I will be once I actually move in and unpack…) Apart from this adventure my answers to the old “what are you up to…?” question might get a bit snoozy from here for a while.
- Secondly…. If this works I’m gonna need and want you, my nearest and dearest, as extended family. As you know, I’m a bit short on the usual forms of support, but my heart swells to know that you who take the time to read this are walking with me along the way… and I hope you will be there to celebrate and share with me in getting to know the new little person whose life is the result of this journey. With you around I am sure he/she will feel as loved and supported by you all as I have…
- Thirdly … if this does not work I’m gonna need and want you… my nearest and dearest….to hold my hand. If I can’t get pregnant, or if I do get pregnant and the child doesn’t survive (a real risk and everyday occurrence)…well, its gonna be a rough time and it will really help me to know that my loved ones have walked the path alongside me and know what is going on.
- On a practical level – there is so much information swimming around, options to explore, ideas and choices… putting it on my blog helps me clarify things in my head and saves me telling the same story over and over in phone calls and emails…. I’m getting sick of my own voice talking about it incessantly…already!
- And finally, some of you out there are thinking of taking a similar journey… some are starting to think about steps… some are just thinking about the options and possibilities… I hope my learning and exploring through this helps you to clarify your own journeys.

So… if you are up for the ride… stay tuned and I will endeavour to make the journey a shared one…. Unless I am too busy vomiting at some points (fingers crossed!) 

And just what does “up the duff” mean anyway??

Please click below and comment any time you like…. I welcome your input and thoughts and reactions….

Taking steps....

So I met with my potential donor... over greek salad and laksa we had a Frank and Frannie discussion... at the next table two veeeery Awshtraaalyan women slowly got tipsy on red wine and our conversation :-)
Happily my donor comes from a culture that is famous for being very direct in their manner of communicating :-) so we were able to get our cards out on the table, shuffle them around vigorously, and come up with the feeling that we did essentially agree on the principles of the thing...
We went over the differences between being a donor and being a father... explored questions of whether making a baby you take no responsiblity for is a spectacularly generous gift... or irresponsible parenting... we talked about potential future relationships.... bottom lines and pipe dreams. And we agreed that the basic premise is its a gift of sperm... I am the mother, the parent, and I have full responsiblity and all parenting rights. He gets to know he has done a great thing, and the knowledge that there is a child in the world that is part of him....And the child gets to know who and where he/she came from....anything beyond that is a bonus if it goes well....
If my son/daughter child wants contact, if I am ok with it and if he is ok with it then he can form a relationship with him/her... visit sometimes if we are in the same country...
We went over the gory details... And to all those who have asked me and all those who want to but haven't... NO WE ARE NOT PLANNING TO HAVE SEX. This is ethically and legally a whole different kettle of sperm to artificial insemination. A baby conceived by sexual intercourse is legally in a very different position to a baby conceived by artificial insemination - even the home turkey type. By the way - people don't really use turkey basters anymore... but I must admit it has a nicer ring to it than "syringe baby"... more festive, less sharp... I guess :-) So... now that is out of the way... where was I?
Oh yes... we went over bits and bobs of how, when, what.... and how we fit in with both of us going overseas in the next few months... and we talked about legal bits, contracts etc
And well... agreed that we were both interested in continuing the conversation over a plastic cup or two ... he he... well continuing the conversation anyway. So off I have gone to do research on the current state of legalities and ensure that all is in order.
Legally where do we stand? Well its pretty easy really - QLD does not have any legislation... Nothing. Nothing has been written... buuuuut there are legal precedents from the Family Law Court.... and there is some legislation in other states... and in the absence of legislation there are the good ol' Reproductive Technology Accreditation Committee Guidelines which inform fertility services practice... These are the people who so protected my rights that they prevent me from signing a waiver to allow the clinic to use fresh sperm. Thanks guys.... Anyway.... So anyone who wants to know more about it all - email me and I am happy to send you my summary sheets, just a little something I prepared earlier.... If you are keen to start learning more...Here is one discussion paper for bed-time reading :
http://www.lawreform.vic.gov.au/CA256902000FE154/Lookup/
Assisted_Reproductive_Technology_and_Adoption/$file/
ART_Surrogacy_and_Legal_Parentage.pdf) Lots of riveting reading.

Fancy a contract or two to peruse in a spare moment ? Try http://www.knowndonor.com/contract.php
Or you may prefer the step by step DIY sites? Something to cosy up with on a lie-in morning... ( eg http://www.fertilityplus.org/faq/homeinsem.html)
And I have much much more :-) Did you know that there are lots of different kinds of DIY insemination kits that you can buy with a click of a button? They come with your very own plastic cup :-)
Isn't the internet a fabulous thing????

So that is where we are up to.... we have agreed in principle... and now we are gathering the legal and technical bits... arranging tests... step by step....

Smiles to all :-)

And so the big journey begins....

Warning .... the following posting contains graphic language and really bad sperm puns... don't read on if you are sensitive....

And so it starts....
The quest for a child... the realisation of my long nurtured hopes..... the fulfillment of the inner ache that has refused to be silent all these years.... the unfathomable miracle of creating a person.... the joy of unconditional love for another..... I can give some rational reasons for being so keen on having a child...but mostly its a blind instinctual wanting....
and now I am taking steps on the path. Its terrifying and thrilling and really sad (that I am doing this alone) and so joyful all at once.
I have a potential donor and I am hoping to talk to him tonight about the idea... and yesterday I had my first appointment with a doctor at the fertility clinic.

There was bad news.
It seems that some legislation has changed. Women used to be able to sign a waiver exempting the clinic from the responsibility of ensuring that a known donor is HIV negative. This is no longer allowed. Seems reasonable... but the repercussion of this is that it is no longer possible to do medical insemination with unfrozen sperm from a known donor. Many of you will know that there is a 3-6 month window period in which HIV may not be detected following infection. So in order for a clinic to ensure that a sample is HIV free, it must be frozen and held for 6 months while the donor is tested at 3 months and again at 6 months. If they remain HIV negative then it can be assured that the sample taken 6 months ago was safe.
This may seem like a simple matter of patience... but it gets worse. Frozen sperm often just don't swim so well when defrosted... can't blame the poor dears really... must be a traumatic experience... bloody cold and for a really long time.... and then expected to suddenly do strenuous exercise?? In the word of Micky Blue Eyes... "forgedaboudid"...
Soooo given that I am OLD... and the poor shivering sperm... my chances of pregnancy in using this method are oooh, less than 20%. Apparently. Humph.
Sooooo here are my choices... wait 6 months and then take a slim chance.... (the only slim thing around here at the moment!)
or - wait 6 months and then do IVF.... which increases my chance to a chubbier 40%.... Buuuuut.... I cast no aspersions on others... but I am struggling to get my head around the idea of creating a dish full of little embryos and then flushing the unused ones..... just doesn't sit well in my heart....
or - use American sperm.... apparently they pay donors... so apparently college dudes are queuing around the block to disseminate their wee swimmers.... so there they can be really picky and only take...well... the cream of the crop.... roughly the top .9%.... only the super athletic little fellas who say "cold? pah, what's a bit of freezing between friends...lemme at that egg". Now I dunno about you... but I saw a show recently about college dudes queuing up to be in college porn too... and I gotta tell you.... it was not attractive. And sure - you get a photo, and they agree to be contactable when the child is 18... but seriously ? what is the chance of tracking down some yankie somewhere in America and saying hey... I am the fruit of your prodigious swimmers... tell me about yourself !! And of course... its expensive.... olympic swimmers don't come cheap (he he).
Or ... go the turkey baster at home.... as if I didn't feel alone enough in all this - now I don't even get to have a doctor holding my hand! Gees. And I gotta do all that oocky stuff myself... The lovely doctor was so clean and neat.... sigh.

So... Step one.... decision making.
Sigh. Never was good at them...

Stay tuned...
Feel free to comment....

Ah Dalesford....

So I escaped...
After the overwhelming over-stimulation of the big city... I ran away and had a blissful 5 days in gorgeous Dalesford... A picturesque stone cottage, surrounded by daisies and roses... over looking a little pool of water with a family of ducks piddle-paddling around... kangaroos munching across the banks... pine trees swaying in the breeze sending wafts of clean scent through the air... evenings cool enough for the deeply peaceful crackle of an open fire... good company, great food, tasty red wine, music and conversation... my idea of a heavenly moment....
And as I meditated on the grass, by the water, near the ducks and surrounded by flowers... I had a beautiful moment in which the world dissolved into energy molecules, and I realised that everything around me, from the trees to the gentle breeze that passed over my skin was the made of the same energy, just in different forms... and I was a part of everything and all was part of me...
Thank you Dalesford for helping me find inner balance again... Thank you to my lovely friend Zohar for her overflowing generosity and for making it all happen....

Eat-fest... rediscovering the joy of cooking...

So I am expanding in size remarkably...






But I have rediscovered the joy of cooking... ah the simple bliss of a supermarket! ah the ingredients! The things that are taken for granted in this civilized world of finger snapping availability... Its enough to turn a girl to pots, and into a pot!
Ah the delights... lentil and caramelised onion patties with roasted capsicum and minted yogurt.... buckwheat crepes with asparagus, goats cheese, and shakshuka... crispy tangy green salad with gooseberries and cucumber... I have been eating my way around the country.... mmmmm I think I am hungry again....

Where ever I go...there I am...

Over the last 5 weeks I have not spent more than 5 nights in one place... Its no wonder I have times of feeling dislocated, lacking a sense of belonging anywhere... but today I picked up a frangipani and put it in my hair, just like I did in Fiji... and I realised in that moment that the physical place is immaterial... I am still the same self...the same woman who wore frangipani's in her hair in the tropical heat... though the outside world keeps rapidly changing around me, all of my experiences, thoughts, strengths... the things that make me the person I am...they all come with me. Though my senses are full of difference, inside is an oasis of constancy. My past is not lost, all is stored and becomes a part of me... and I carry it forward on my journey. This was comforting to me.
(of course in a big picture sense the self is constantly changing and evolving, and in a Buddhist sense the self does not inherently exist... :-) but for this moment I am happy with a sense of the constancy of my inner world in comparison to my outer!)

The Gals Reunited...

How lovely it has been to see my AVI pals in Sydney and in Melbourne... such a fantastic link to the other world, the past... to remind me that all that was really real.
Like all memories of experiences, good and bad, things that once absorbed and filled my mind and time now start to slip and slide away into the fog of remembrance... its unstoppable, no matter how much we want to hold onto things... time moves inexorably on and the only constant is change.
A good thing to remember when the going gets tough, though almost impossible.... all things pass and when they are past they gradually, unavoidably, sneakily lose solidity, become opaque then transparent... then a gentle sense of something that once was but it no more. Such is the nature of experience... for better or worse....only the now has any real hold.
Still.... thanks for the memories wonderful women... and may we create many more nows!

We are family, I got all my.... um.... cousins... and me....

Hey Look!
I have Family! wow....
A novel experience in the life of an only child of an only child... The few family members I have are customarily spread across the western world... Family Christmases are pretty small in my world. My cousin's wedding was, hopefully, my only experience of being at the "family table"... with the exception of course of the wedding of my 81 year old Grandfather a few years ago. I'm afraid on that occasion the incredulity of the event rather dwarfed the sensation of "family-ness". Throughout my life I have listened to people gushing, moaning, disregarding, celebrating, and generally living the experience of being part of a diverse family group. As I grow older my sense of contrast grows stronger... I simply cannot imagine what it is like to have siblings, to be part of a big network, a clan.... so it was delightful to be part of my gorgeous cousin's wedding... and aren't they gorgeous... the blushing groom, the stunning bride, her brother and his child and wife, and my uncle and aunt... yep... real live family all under one roof.... wow.

welcome home mum!

Someone was very happy to see me! And how happy I was to get me some good ol' sloppy stella kisses :-)

Its "Art" Beryl...

I was happily in time for the Bondi to Bronte sculpture walk in Sydney just after I arrived.... Always a fabulous experience to combine a natural world that is art in its purest sense, I think, with the odd creations of people. Some were quirky, some were strange, some worked with the land and some...well... points for trying :-)
The one that interested me most was a set of three photos printed on glass panels... each was a photo of the exact coastline view behind the panel. It was such a deliciously obvious yet wonderfully novel comment, and I could relate strongly to the experience. I know that I often invest much more of my energy into an image of an experience than I do to directly experiencing the moment. I see something and somehow I cannot fully experience it unless I capture its image... and I look more closely at my photos of a thing than I do at the thing itself. The created image is like an intermediary that makes the enormity of real experience digestible, gives it to me in a packaged, capsuled form that is easier to swallow...easier for my mind to accept... it is framed, held, reduced, made into something that I control, store, shelve rather than something intangible that flows over and through me. We see so much of the world through a lens, its also familiarly comfortable... we sit and watch the world on TV, DVD, in a boxed format... Somehow reality is just too big and uncontrollable... we can't edit it or switch it off.... Unfortunately I didn't take a photo of the photos though :-)

Peas on Earth... he he

From shore to shining shore...

What a difference a wave makes... its such a dramatically different mood on an Australian beach compared to the shores of my tropical sojourn. The beach at my parents place is wild, wind swept... it makes you feel small and fragile against a back drop of the enormity of nature. After the gentle lap of Fiji's warm soft waters, brimming with tame fish that sparkle as they feed from your fingers, the contrast coming to the cliffs of Moffat Beach made it hard to reconcile that I stood by the same pacific waters. These water molecules that tossed themselves ruthlessly and relentlessly against the rocks til the seeming solidity gave way in acquiescence to a greater power, these were the very same drops that nurtured me as I paddled and pottered in the arm chair peace and clarity of my island retreats. Its a confusing sense of interconnectedness and contrasting juxtaposition of sensation at the same time.
In the soft still waters of Fiji it was easy to feel big, I felt welcomed and swam secure in my place in the prettiness that seemed there for my pleasure... Whereas returning to home shores reminds me again ... I'm a small puny bit of flotsam, irrelevant and transient in the greater play of nature.

phew...

So Here I Am....
As my dear friend reminded me recently... "where ever I go - there I am"
I have been greatly surprised by the level of culture shock I have experienced returning to australia this time. Before I left Fiji I joked about it, I anticipated it in a "be prepared for the worst" sort of not-really-real sort of a way. I mean after all, its not that long really since I was here last. And its not like I was living in a remote african village... Its not like I haven' t seen a car for two years or anything...
However the shock to my system from being here has stunned me.
Its been like being beaten with a rubber bat... not excruciating or bone crushing...but decidedly uncomfortable. When I have visited for holidays it has felt very different... this time I have opened my eyes wider I suppose... like landing on a different planet and looking around - trying to position myself in this new world. I look around and people are odd... ok so I have been hanging out in Newtown...so that is a reality not a perception... but people walk hunched over, they dress in colourless clothes, they don't make eye contact, and they frown ... people are so serious! I know in Fiji I complained that people lacked initiative and were too much about having a good time... but really - in Newtown most people really look like they need a few bowls of kava and some bula fabric.
In Fiji people say Hi (BULA!), they smile for no reason, they clap each other on the back and laugh with open mouths, heads thrown back and bellies swollen with joy. In Sydney people scurry... heads down.... and I am struck by the sense of "busyness"... of people who are so seriously intent on being busy, on filling their days, filling their heads... (as opposed to Fiji where people are mainly interested in filling their bellies!) People seem to work so hard at being busy! And I sit, in cafes, and I watch... and I see the same people walking past over and over again. Sometimes they are not the same people they just look alike, but sometimes they are literally the same people... walking up and down the same street...walking with purpose, with busyness...but where are they going ?? What is the purpose of all the busyness? What are they achieving? And in that moment the city collapses into one big network where everyone is working so hard to support each others busyness... and nothing is produced but activity. The filling of time... distraction...
and on that note... I'm off for some more distraction... :-)

Hello Australia!

Doing our bit from the shores of paradise....

My future in Australia hangs in the balance.... bring on the election.... :-)

So Long and Thanks for all the Fish...

leaving one lot of bright lights for another...

How lovely that Lautoka turned out its finest to farewell me on my last night :-) I sit on my bed... contemplating the reality of the fact that my cupboard is finally bare... of course unlike Mother Hubbard my inner stores are brimming to overflowing. And outside the fireworks (its Diwali of course) fill the sky, cracking and popping melodiously at times, riotously at others... and the lights flame brightly for a moment and fade away, reminding me that this is indeed the nature of life... Just as my time here as been spectacular and vivid... so too it passes into memories so quickly. Oddly I feel little... a vague sense of reminiscence, a slight tantalising sense of excitement about my mum's chocolate cake that awaits me on home shores, a tickly feeling of happiness at my dearest ones becoming nearest once again... but over-all a quiet sense of well-being, of the rightness of this next step, of moving forward. Let the carpets of life unravel before me :-)....
See you all very soon!

Seeing things my way :-)

As my days slip softly through the hour glass... I store moments in my mind... mental pictures that will be brought out in quiet moments, or when someone says "so what was Fiji like?"....
Perhaps you will sense a theme in the sights before my eyes over the last few days! This week Fe and I resort hopped our way to relaxation and saturated ourselves with luxurious surroundings... Ah Fiji... after the people - these are some of the views I will miss most :-)

The end of an era...

So its all over... including the singing :-)
With many tears and much gratuitous praise of Rhianon the Super-fabulous... I have been farewelled to within an inch of my life :-) (As well as being plied with wonderful gifts - joy!)
My farewell lunch - the official one as opposed to all of the other last morning teas and last tutorials and last days etc - was a humbling and incredible experience as 28 wonderful people stood up one by one and each told me exactly what they think of me and what I have done for them. To see grown men and women sobbing, tears rolling down and dripping off their chins onto the table, all for the sake of saying good-bye to lil ol' me was an awe inspiring experience that I will never forget.
After all of the emotion we all needed a stiff drink... and much merriment was had indeed. For the first time in 20 months I actually got to put aside my "teacher" boundaries and just hang with the gang - and it was a hoot! These kids know how to party! NOW I find out :-)
Ah well... back to the land of family and friends.... good bye life changing job, good bye fabulously friendly and now so familar faces, good bye resort life ...
HELLO HOME! SEE YOU SOON!

New Faces...

So its really happening - it is really all coming to an end...
And here are the lovely fresh faces of the new era in Pacific Counselling and Social Services. I suspect the trainees (not to mention my boss) were a wee bit scared of Polly - the up-dated, dread-locked, tattooed "cool" version of me... but her warmth and capacity for beer has won them over :-) And despite being a funky melbourne chick, polly did survive the farm experience well...but seemed somewhat happier with my afternoon's orientation agenda - the resort pools of course :-)









And Tiffany - well, if anyone can organise Fiji she can... she is a 26 year old single mum and already knows exactly how to do and find everything she wants, and who to talk to to get it! On one of her first days I called her to check if she needed help finding her way into town, only to find she was not only in town but enjoying a quick pedicure!
Sadly her piano did not fit in the shipping containers she brought with her... but everything else did :-) I am sure that as her adventures unfold (neatly) her friends will be as green with envy as her Goooorgeous son in his new Dinosaur outfit :-)

Feels like such a shame to be leaving just when the road-show has hit town, but... life moves on and so shall I. :-)