Elmien Grove's Blog, page 2

The Divine Comedy of Danté's Birth Story

02/06/2020 - 03/06/2020

I had decided to pay the midwife a final visit at 36 weeks to grill her about the risks of a natural birth after a previous cesarean.

A friend had recently told me about a friend of hers whom attempted a home birth after cesarean and had a catastrophic uterine rupture around her cs scar, consequently losing her perfect little baby and ending up in icu with an emergency hysterectomy.

This obviously scared the bejewelledness out of me. On the other hand, this particular midwife had a 98% success rate with vbacs (vaginal birth after cesarean) and has never lost a patient or seen a uterine rupture. Surely she has some special magic to add to the mix?
I also liked that she worked with soft, natural light, calming music, aromatherapy and a team of doula's.

I mean if you are going this route, might as well do the airy fairy version, right? I had no intention of attempting a vbac on the flat of my back in a private hospital where no one seems even remotely capable of communicating coherently with you about what's going on. It took me years to piece together what actually happened with my firstborn.

Either way, she examined me and everything she said and did made me more relaxed and determined to do this naturally so I decided to commit.
She told me to start using evening primrose oil, which I did. She referred me to a chiropractor (very sceptical about them but hey) and I made an appointment.

On Monday I thanked my gyne for his wonderful services and relieved him of his duty as designated birth practitioner.

On Tuesday (yesterday) I went to the chiro and had myself "unlocked", "aligned" and "kafoofled" (jk). Then I went to Irene Dairy Farm with my little girl to celebrate our new found freedom on level 3 of lockdown.

This was not a simple move because somewhere between the trip to the chiro and home my car picked up car-Rona and refused to start again when we wanted to head out. I was so determined to go show my toddler some cows and other people, though, that husband and I managed to wiggle out his little car from behind my hulking shipwreck and off we went.

Being in the open air and seeing other people with little kids running around was fantastic. We ran into friends, we hugged even though we have been told repeatedly not to by Uncle Cyril. My little girl hugged a random strange lady and I allowed it. The sun shone and the breeze wafted gently over Autumn leaves. Life was lovely.

Came home, washed off the Rona, fed the little one and went to bed (I totally just made this process sound easy, which it isn't but don't get me started on that right now). Lying in bed I started having irritating Braxton Hicks pains but the baby has been pushing down on my cervix for a few weeks already and bh contractions have been par for the course. It ended up really bothering me so I took two paracetamol and drifted off to sleep.

At 23:00 I awoke to what felt like mild contractions. Having went into labour with my firstborn at exactly 36 weeks and 5 days, I had secretly been waiting for something to happen. A bloody show or ruptured membranes, perhaps. I wasn't too hurried, however,  because it took me 21 hours to get to four centimetres with the first one so why rush it now?
I then had a bowel movement and thought maybe the pains will abate now but around half past I decided to phone the midwife just to be safe.

I could hear from her voice that she had been sleeping and was really hoping this cup will pass until morning. She said to take two paracetamol and get into a warm bath.

"When should I phone again?" I asked a bit desperately because I was convinced that I was starting to labour but felt guilty for waking her and like the polite thing to do was to be obedient to the trained professional and not to "stribbel tee".

"When contractions hurt so much you can't walk or talk and they are spaced five minutes apart and about one minute long".

Okee doke, into the bath, down with the pills. Downloaded a contraction timer on my phone and started asking questions on WhatsApp and Facebook groups.

It seemed like the whole world was asleep where normally they would be bothering me with messages and jokes when I wanted to rest.
Thanks Murphy. 'Ol Murph. Murph-Meister, how's it hangin'.

After an hour and a half of steady contractions getting more and more painful I got out of the tub and rang the midwife again.

"There is blood now", I say hopefully.
"Send a photo", she replies sceptically.

By the time she received the photos, minutes later, I was screaming.

Contractions came about every two minutes and lasted about 50 seconds and hurt like seven shits. I was no longer quiet and the toddler woke up and started demanding answers. During all this time I had been pottering around, brushing and flossing my teeth (and remember kids; if I can do it during early labour, you have no excuse not to. Oral hygiene is important dammit), and packing a few extra things.

When contractions got to noise level 6 out of 10 I could no longer focus on tasks at hand and decided to phone my mom.
I had wanted to phone her for hours but I knew that she would just worry and send me into a panic, which I was managing to do all by myself quite nicely, thank you very much.

I had to hang up the first time because I needed to scream a little bit during a contraction. Somehow in this time I ended up on the phone with both my midwife and my mom and every time I thought I was talking to the professional, going: "OOOOOOOOOW IT HURTS! WHAT SHOULD I DO?!" my poor worried mother would be on the other side going: "Oh dear...I have no idea...perhaps the hospital would be best?".

I finally decided to get the hell out of Dodge now because this was not funny or romantic or a bowel movement anymore.

"Husband!" I bark, a hair's breadth away from snapping my fingers at him, where he is busy leisurely making coffee and contemplating having a poop and a shower, "get in the car."

"What about Dita?"
"She can come along"
"What should I bring?"
*Screaming a bit and then answering breathlessly and irritatedly*
"The shit I've been trying to pack all month and also this evening"

I manage to get outside where the moon is illuminating everything in a dull white glow. The car has locked itself again and another biggie is approaching.

Not wanting to scare the scheister out of the security guard stationed right outside our house by yelling loudly into the night without warning, I limp back into the house to yell at the wall and staircase, scaring the scheister out of my little girl.

Meanwhile Tommie is lugging miscellaneous pieces of baggage into the car and I start making my way back outside. The very second I get into the backseat I feel the need to stand on my hands and knees and roar like a trained circus lion, which I do with gusto, sending all the dogs in the neighbourhood mad.

Happily this inspires my family to finally start getting a move on, I mean which part of "HOOOOOOOOOWWWWWLLLL ROOOOOOAAAAAARRRRR!" don't you understand?

Beloved husband and daughter gets into car and immediately starts asking darling little questions, like:

"Are you okay?"

*Scream-roar!*

"Mamma eina?"

*Roar roar whimper*

"What's happening?"

*Quick Roar* "THE BABY'S COMING OUT!" *gag*.

"Where are we going?"

"TAKE ME TO HOSPITAL, I AM DYING!"

"Which hospital?"

Really?

"THE CLOSEST ONE! PRETORIA EAST...DYING!" *cry and pray pitifully into the backrest*.

Car finally starts pulling away and I envision being injected with large amounts of morphine before passing away peacefully. I vaguely hear husband talking to midwife and being instructed to take me to her and not the hospital. I am too busy roaring, crying and praying to argue.

The trip to the birthing house took approximately one lifetime (later confirmed to have been 18 minutes) during which I clung to the backseat wishing for oblivion, grinding my teeth to a fine dust and pushing with all my might into an adult diaper.

There was a ladybird sitting on the  felt hatchback cover, like the tiniest little doula in existence, going: "You can do this! I'm good luck, maybe some people believe!"

On the way home I realised she was dead, though...

At some point something that felt like a water balloon shot out of me with an almost audible sploosh and another hard, t-shaped thing got stuck in its place.

When we finally stopped at the birthing house, doors opened, hands grabbed at me and people were asking me to get out of the car, which was not going to happen because I was contracting almost constantly and needed to focus all my energy on roaring.

"Elmien, time to get out of the car"

"Une momentito, mon pepito! Having a tiny spot of bother over here and what-have-you, (roar?)"

Gentle hands helped me out of the car-of-doom and into a lovely, softly lit room-of-doom where I continued my song. Three pairs of hands quickly stripped me of my outfit and ushered me into a lovely, warm bathtub-of-doom where my pain suddenly dropped about 50%, promoting the bathtub to Bathtub-of-only-tentative-mewling, which was a monumental step up, ohmywerd.

My hands and knees were grabbed and my cervix unceremoniously frisked and I was order NOT to push which threw me off for a bit but then I was ordered to PUSH and the lovely doula was telling me how amazing and powerful I was and how far I've come and how close my baby was.

"Is everything fine? Is the baby okay?" I doubtfully asked the midwife and she said, as calmly as can be: "Of course!"
Everyone looked wide awake and ready to birth about twenty babies and I felt a massive surge of gratitude to these people, leaving their lovely warm beds at 03:00 in the morning so I can roar loudly into their ears for a bit.

The pushing continued, accompanied by me still plaintively roaring (trying very hard to use my "indoor roar") and the team giving weird instructions like push out your navel, into your bum and make a seal with your mouth.

When the baby started grinding down my coccyx I tried to explain to them that I have now changed my mind and would like to close my legs and go home, please, they would have none of it and roped in my traitorous husband to help keep my knees far apart so baby can continue her coccyx destroying little dance.

"The head is coming!"

"You should see your little one's face!"
(Which little one I am still not sure, the toddler gaping into the birthing tub or the baby playing peekaboo in my special place).

"Looks like a blondie!"

BLOOP! PLONKS.

I suddenly had a tiny baby on my chest. She was covered in butter and if she had subtitles, they would read "wtf is this?".

I stared in slack-jawed amazement at this little person that ended up being alive and not killing me in her birthing process, either.

"Hallo klein Danté! Dankie dat jy uitgekom het! Jammer mamma het so gebrul. Dit was bietjie seer" I said, or at least would have said if I weren't too busy blubbering like all the ladies in all the birthing videos I have ever watched.

The midwife, who have now been elevated to status Saint, allowed the umbilical chord to pump the very last of its riches into my little child before handing hubby a pair of special scissors to cut it with.

She then approached the baby and me with a syringe and needle and thinking she meant to inject the baby I gave an indignant little squawk as she jammed it into my thigh.

"Just to bring the placenta out"

So, I had to push a little more and she ended up putting her hand back into me and manually removing a little bit of the placenta that was not detaching and this hurt again but was over quickly at least.

I had torn a little and needed four stitches that were also not fun to endure but honestly, once you've delivered a child in any way, you know that none of it is particularly pleasant or dignified.

The team spent the rest of the morning monitoring me and the baby and gently taking some colostrum from me and syringe feeding it to her when she didn't have the suckling reflex yet. I was fed mini bar ones, jelly beans and Energade and constantly asked if I need anything else.

These people earned every penny they made today and still did it with so much more care, patience and compassion than the arrogant fat cats that delivered my first born at thrice the price.

As the city headed to work and the sun climbed slowly at a winter's angle, we headed home, now the proud parents of two beautiful little princesses.

Hear us roar.

Show Me How To Live

A little over three weeks shy of my third birthday, clean and sober, I can honestly say that I don't recognise myself or my life or any of the characters in it.
Not that any of us changed, per se, all the pieces of the original picture are still there.
Except of course for the glaringly obvious and one very cute little extra that never used to be there before.

Three years ago I was stuck in such despairing circumstances that not even the most upbeat optimist would have believed me capable of clambering out of them.
And the truth is, I wasn't. Not in the least bit capable.
Now I already hear the resounding protests of loved ones wanting me to pat myself on the back but I promise you this hinders rather than helps.
My fellow addicts will understand this.

Lets start at the beginning.

It was a day just like any other. Or night like any other, rather, since I was mainly nocturnal at the time.
My vision seemed blurry from the amount of cigarette smoke drifting around in the house, me cross-legged in the middle, on a Christmas bed in front of the tv.
Judge Judy nattering on in her comforting way couldn't even lift me from my depression.
Around me lay scattered the paraphernalia I used to feel better about life being unfair in the year 2005.
In 2015 I used them to feel somewhat normal again.
My base-line had gotten so low that I needed the stuff to keep my head above water, not rocket me into the stratosphere where light was brighter and music merrier, anymore.

I contemplated my life and how I had got there.
My friends and family all knew I at some point struggled with addiction but seemed unaware of the fact that I had fallen quite spectacularly off the wagon soon after getting on it
(18 months to be exact), round about the same time I married my ex husband.
Weird how some things just go hand in hand.

I said a furtive prayer. I spoke with God philosophically albeit resignedly all throughout my years of trouble.
By now I had learned that self-flagellation, passionate promises and midnight bargaining never amounted to anything.
Probably because I still operated from the belief that I had any control over my actions, whatsoever.
The truth is I was completely out of control, powerless, and it had finally started dawning on me.

I was fucked.

"God, I believe I am, to cop a clinical term, fucked? Thinking maybe you can show me the way?"

"Go to AA my child"

"But God, I am not an alcoholic"

"..."

"Am I? Am I an alcoholic? Is being an addict not bad enough?"

"..."

"Okay, okay, I'll go already, gawsh, don't go on about it"

Off I went to AA, husband complaining bitterly because "Why can't you just drink like a normal person instead of stopping altogether?" and "Who exactly are at these meetings, it sounds like a sect, I think they are brain-washing you" and finally "Are there guys there?".
Luckily this was not my first rodeo so I was used to people protesting, often the ones who helped you get to the point where you ask for help in the first place.
Bizarre right?
Yeah, well, we're all just human.

It didn't take right away, I first tried to do things my way again and of course once again it didn't work, until finally I truly surrendered, asked a near-stranger to be my sponsor and started the steps.
The almost instant results were staggering.

Once I gave over to the higher power of my choosing, the urge to FUBAR myself lifted as if by magic from my admittedly exhausted shoulders.
This I still to this day consider a miracle.
And I am not big on miracles.
God knows not to bless me with gifts such as speaking in tongues or falling to the ground in a dead faint (if that can be considered a  gift, even?) because it will freak my out so much that I will hop right up and join the Muslims.
Do they speak in tongues and fall over?
Because if yes, I will hop over to the Buddhists. Or the Krishna's. Or whoever doesn't spend ages trying to convince other people that they are right and everyone else is wrong, so that eliminates the atheists, I'm afraid.

So anyway, long story short, I came clean, I surrendered my will and life over to a higher power (who did for me what I could not do for myself) and life went on.

The miracles kept right on coming ever since I started saying the third step prayer everyday:

1.) I did not relapse. After ten years of failure, despair and concussions, I did not relapse.
2.) I fell pregnant even though it was clinically extremely unlikely (if not impossible)
3.) I still did not relapse but I was pregnant so it would have been extremely effed-up of me to do so
4.) I delivered a healthy baby girl
5.) I still did not relapse but having a newborn and a paralysed dog and a very painful c-section cut and being unable to drive or walk upright it would have been challenging but then again I have overcome insurmountable odds before to get at my fix.
6.) I got a job
7.) I did really well at my job and felt very happy
8.) When my job got harder and I stopped making target I did not relapse. Not because I was strong and clear-minded but because my higher power was doing for me what I could not do for myself.
9.) God said: "Would you ever consider going back into Oral Hygiene and maybe opening your own practice?" Me: "Uh, are you quite mad?"
10.) I went back to Oral Hygiene and opened my own practice.

"You are very brave to have done this!" people say.
"Wasn't me, really" I say in return.
"Huh?"

Honestly, I guess it was my idea, yes, but being me, I would never EVER have actually done it, surely.
Sure, admitting you have a problem and asking for help takes a lot of courage (or sheer desperation).
Surrendering to a higher power who you are actually not sure you believe in anymore and definitely do NOT trust takes a whole lot of courage. It gets easier because the more I handed my will over, the better my life got.
I also realise that to anyone not in the program this must sound pretty strange and sect-y and that's okay. You take what you want and leave the rest.

All I know now for sure is that I am thinner, happier, richer and about a millions times more productive than ever before (notice how "thinner"somehow beat "happier" to the top of the list, go figure).
Not to say that I am not capable of relapse, oh yes I am, yes oh yes I am.
I have done it before. A lot. Easiest thing in the world, that old relapse.
But I say that third step prayer everyday.
Everyday just for today, I say my prayer, so for today, I am free.

Why did God let this happen to me in the first place?
How come He didn't swoop down and rescue me from the awful clutches of addiction and depression?
Well, it took me a while to think up an answer, and I do believe it comes down to free will.
If God swept in every time we screwed up, where would we be?
We would all be robots.
And maybe the world would be a better place. Definitely the world would be a much less horrible place.
But it would also be pretty boring and lack a certain je n'est c'est quois. Non?

Next steps: I would like another baby. Or at least, Takealot seems to want me to have another baby because everything comes in sets of four, so in order to justify the four kitchen-stools, place mats and steak knives I bought last week, I am going to have to have another baby.
Is this my higher power's will for me?
"I guess we'll just have to wait and see" she says while drinking hand fulls of StaminoGro.

To work or not to work?

So I have decided to get over the whole writing-is-impossible-with-a-kid thing. I can read, I can Facebook, I can Whatsapp. Which means I can write.

So here I am, writing on my phone's notepad with baby fast asleep at the breast. Her little eyes fluttering every few minutes as she dreams her little baby dreams.

What a journey the last year has been. I find myself not overly excited about this December holiday because I keep expecting it to be like December 2017. 
I am still constantly stopped in my tracks, thinking back to times past and realising how freaking depressed I was. How did I not see it back then? I suppose this is where "You can't see the forest for the trees" is an appropriate saying. I was obviously too busy trying to cope with a newborn to take a good hard look at my own state of mind. 

Besides, everyone warned me about the first three months and how rough it can be.But after the first three months is really actually when the depression started kicking in.

I was confused. 
Isn't a good ol' post partum depresh attributed to hormones? And aren't those out of my system good and proper by three months? 

I kind of believe what kept me going the first three months was the slow-burn adrenaline. The mild but incessant panic attack that lasted all three months of the very pretentiously named "fourth trimester".

The only trimester where you LOSE weight actively, partly because of breastfeeding and partly because the only food you're getting in are the m&m's your husband bought and that you can shove into your mouth at any time during the day or night. No reheating or refrigeration required.

After the first three months Dita, who was still just a little bundle of pooping, feeding and crying, screamed marginally less and my nipples had stopped cracking and bursting into invisible flames whenever she latched.

I had succumbed to bed-sharing even though the internet warned me profusely of its dangers.
I tiredly justified it by saying it is also really dangerous for me to stay awake for three months straight and start having acid flashbacks as a result and maybe forward-pitch my baby into oncoming traffic as an even further result.

Today I am so extremely grateful for making this fatigue-riddled decision because it is so unbelievably special sleeping with her in my arms, her baby breath tickling the fine hair on my cheek.No she did not suffocate and yes my husband and I still have a healthy sex life because we made a conscious desicion to make time for each other.

Anyway, I actually wanted to write about how I came to take a job, when I specifically meant to be a stay at home mommy for my precious first born whom I prayed into existence.

I was lounging around the house, taking brelfies, marveling at how much less depressed I felt after starting a mild antidepressant, prescribed by my friendly family psychiatrist, when an ex colleague of mine phoned me up.

I stared at the ringing phone balefully, wondering if I should pick up because it's really hard juggling a breast-feeding baby and talking on the phone and this particular girl had a tendency to talk really softly and rapidly so I constantly either had to loudly interrupt to ask what the hell she just said or pretend to know and hope "yes" is the correct response to whatever she was saying.

I ended up taking her call.
"The Dental Warehouse is hiring! They need reps for Pretoria and Johannesburg. Wanna go for an interview with me? Just think, we could be colleagues again!"

I started getting excited, her enthusiasm was catching.

"What the hell, let's do it."

They probably wouldn't hire me anyway because I can't do country trips because of my little breastfeeding snow flake.

I sent my cv through, thinking they probably won't even bother phoning me for an interview, nevermind hire me.

They phoned almost immediately.

This propelled me into my full list-making glory.

First I had to find someone to watch Dita who was by now 7 months old en relatively easy to keep busy. Maybe I should start looking at creches, just for posterity's sake? Yes, let's do that.

I asked my Pienk Voet whatsapp group for recommendations and they said Duifies, next to the church. I drove there and after sceptically eyeing the informal settlement also next to the church, decided against it.

Next up, Moreletapark Preschool. Sounded official enough. I was after all looking for a professional set up, not a nanny who might end up abusing my child (I had seen the video of the Ugandan nanny beating and kicking the little girl she was looking after and it killed all chances of me ever using a nanny in the foreseeable future).

At Moreletapark preschool a young brunette lady opened up the front gate and immediately made me feel welcome and at home. She even had the decency not to gape at my hastily scrubbed, make-up-less face, red-rimmed eyes and frizzy (but miraculously clean) hair, in open disgust.

"Let me take you to the baby class".

She lead me through a cheerful yet humble little school where I could see little kids sitting around tables, eating porridge or lining up against the wall to be measured or clustering in groups glueing things to other things or fingerpainting or playing with clay.

I was charmed.

The baby class was sunny and happy with a few babies hanging around, lazily sucking on toys or bottles and staring at themselves in the low mirrors on the walls.

"You're welcome to bring her for a half day or so to feel it out? Free of charge".

"Actually, I have an interview scheduled soon, could I maybe bring her then?"

"Of course, we will take excellent care of her". 

I prepared myself for intense heartbreak in dropping her off the morning of the interview, but the most amazing feeling of freedom and exhiliration washed over me as I drove off.

This is easy!
Why haven't I done this earlier?
Oh gosh, I am dead inside.
Am I a sociopath?
Or worse, a *shudder* bad mother?

In the interview I surprised myself by bringing out the big guns and selling myself like a champ.

"My worst attribute? I'm a perfectionist" I heard myself twinkle.

What are you doing? You're not actually trying to get hired are you? Why why why would you want to do that? You're living the dream! A wholesome (except for the m&m's), only mildly medicated stay at home mom and housewife extraodinaire (occasionally serving up a slow-cooked gruel with a bit of bread).

You're happy!

But was I happy? My sweet, dear husband did give me an allowance and helped me pay my share of the bills so I can have a little bit extra to "spend on myself" but the idea of being a "kept woman" still kind of bugged me.

I didn't want to spend up all his money but I also wanted to spend a lot of money on my little angel. The shops were overflowing with adorable outfits and accessories and whatnot for babies. High chairs, mobiles, toys and little dresses blinded me with their buy-ability.

But the fact that I was earning zero cash plagued me and guilt was my constant companion, even if I just spent a little bit on something crucial, like diapers. I also considered the feeling of freedom I experienced, leaving Dita at daycare (bad mommy) earlier.

Fudge. 

Parenthood is full of lovely moments followed by crushing shame.

I remembered in my younger years, asking a bunch of women who had had children and either stayed at home with them or went back to work, a multitude of questions, trying to discern which path is better for one's mental well-being, in the event of me finding a good man, settling down and producing offspring. I might as well have been sporting a clipboard and taking down notes as they answered, so researchy was I being.

I guiltily remembered coming to the conclusion that women who went back to work seemed more balanced and happier in the long run.

Conclusions are much easier come by in the theoretical sense than the practical.

I was not seeing the forest for the trees again.

They probably won't call for a second interview anyway...
Right?

Wrong!

"Yes, hi Elmien. They were impressed with your first interview. Can you see the Director tomorrow for your second interview?"

"But... But"

"Awesome, see you then, bye!"

Click.

What? But how? Must have been my little quip about being a perfectionist, I thought sourly but also a little excitedly.

Fine, I'll go see the Director and then I won't get the job surely. I organised with my mom to babysit as I didn't want to take advantage of the little school by "trying it out" another half day free of charge.

And off I went.

The Director didn't ask many questions. He prattled on happily about his time with the company, leaning back in his chair, relaxed and smiling. He told me about his wife and kids, his time in Oz and how South Africans stand out like sore thumbs because they are all obsessed with "north facing houses" and insist on deconstructing menu's, e.g: "I'd like the Cajun Chicken tramazini but with beef instead of chicken and olives instead of peppers, please?".

At the end of the interview I thanked him, and he looked surprised.
Was I not supposed to thank him?
Did I mispronounce his name?
Probably won't call.
Do I want them to call?
What if I get the job and abandon my little girl to a bunch of militaristic preschool teachers and then the job sucks ass and Dita ends up being a Marijuana abuser because of abandonment issues and everything is ruined and for what?
Money?
Am I trading my time with my daughter for money?

It was a Wednesday when I found out I got the job. I know this because they wanted me to start the following Monday and I was horrified at thinking I only had four more days with my baby before going back to the salt mines.

And yet I heard myself graciously accepting their offer and confirming that I will be there bright and early Monday morning.

What have I done?

Over the course of the next four days I cried and cried and cried like I haven't cried in years.

I cried everywhere. In the kitchen, in the garden, on the toilet, whilst eating m&m's, changing Dita's diaper, bathing her, feeding her.

She kind of eyed my quizzically. It was the first time she saw me like this, not that I had been a bundle of laughs before.

The day finally dawned where I had to drop off my sweet, innocent little girl and drive to Johannesburg to start my training.
It felt horrible. None of the excitement, sense of freedom or exhiliration showed up this time.

I just felt like a really shitty mommy and a really stupid woman for giving up my chance to not work and lounge around the house raising my kids and baking gluten free granola cookies.
Ah who am I kidding.
I can't bake to save my life.
And raising kids so far definitely did not involve lounging of any kind.

Training was complicated. I had a terrible feeling I was going to suck at this job and be miserable while I'm at it.
So many products.
So many customers.
Such complicated commision structures.

To top it all off, I had to express milk three times during the day because my breasts were so engorged my whole chest was on fire. The cleaning lady didn't want me pumping in the bathroom and instead led me to a weird, dusty kind of store room where a myriad of people barged in on me, blinking confusedly at the breastpump pressed to my chest and then hurrying out as realisation and embarrassment dawned.
I desperately missed my child.

What have I done?

I surprised myself by surviving my first half week.
Dita surprised the hell out of me by surviving it also.

Soon it was weekend and I was crying again. Whenever someone visited or phoned, I cried and cried and they akwardly patted my back and made soothing noises.

My parents brought Steers and I soaked my burger in tears while eating it.

"What if it's like the previous job and nobody ever buys anything from me, ever?!" I implored my husband.

"Then you quit and come back home?"

This made me want to marry him all over again but my stingy self would never permit such a gross waste of money.

"But I already serviced my car." I said as if it's a jail sentence.

"Then work six months and then quit?"

"But the guy that hired me will be so disappointed in me!" little did I know that he would be leaving the company in six months' time himself.

"Just take it baby steps. One day at a time" he told me and so I did.

Oh boy and how glad am I that I stuck it out. 

Once I started seeing customers, orders were flying in, I was fielding queries left, right and centre. I was cruising all over Pretoria, making deals, driving while talking on my cell, feeling cool with my aircon on full blast, my self-esteem rising like bile in my throat. 
But in a good way.

I got paid and the sweet, sweet nectar of receiving a salary made my head spin.

In the evenings I held my daughter close to my heart as we slept and I felt very very happy indeed.

I was a working mom, earning the good monaaay and still caring for my family while doing it.

Flirting with Post-Partum Depression

Having a baby is such a crazy experience, it can sometimes pass you by in a blur. And other times the clock freezes and everything stands still.
These are the times when boredom, self-doubt and depression can set in. Sometimes all at once, creating a muddy outlook on life as a parent, rather than the beautiful rose-tinted view,
depicted on Instagram and Facebook.

Life with Dita started as follows. She wanted to do only two things, seemingly; latch onto my increasingly painful boobs or cry whole heartedly.
This phase lasted about three months. Three quite stressful months in which sleep was scarce, worry was prevalent and nipples were raw and cracked.
She refused to sleep by herself. She slept only in my arms and wailed loudly whenever I tried putting her down, especially at night.

Worrying about my husband being tired on the road, I also tried letting him sleep as much as possible because I have a mortal fear of something happening to him and being left to fend for
myself and baba all by my lonesome.
I know this might seem like a paranoid fear but a friend of mine lost her husband in a freak accident when their little boy was but ten days old and it struck terror into my heart,
knowing that something so tragic, unlikely and unfair could happen to someone so sweet and selfless.

This was a little bit of a challenge though, I was very tired and baby seemed to be in pain a lot of the time which freaked my out constantly and trying to somehow stifle her
cries in the wee hours of the morning to spare my husband made things almost impossible.
Obviously, I mostly failed but happily my husband sleeps like the dead and woke only to the most mournful of cries, sleepily suggesting things for me to try to calm her down which just
further exasperated me.
In the vein of: "Oh, feeding/burping/changing her, OHHHHH! I didn't think of that, thank you oh wise loved one, now go back to peaceful slumber".

I must say that during those first three insane months, my boobs took on a whole new role. Dummy, food, comfort, lullaby and tranquiliser all rolled into one. The only problem was it only
offered these lovely things to my little child and not to me. To me, every time she latched it felt like someone took a steak-knife to my nipples, slashing away maniacally until she finally
fell into a kind of rhythm and the pain subsided. My toes literally curled with agony every time I put her to the breast. But believe it or not, this pain was preferable to the
utter unpleasantness of a crying infant.

Running on fumes, hustling at midnight to change diapers and pat out burps, learning tummy rubs that help with gas, toe-curling breastfeeding and a niggling fear of my husband
thinking I'm a terrible mother, adrenaline was always slowly bubbling away just underneath the surface, keeping me going.
One morning I lay in bed, feeding my child and feeling the familiar stirrings of an oncoming panic-attack. Trying to smother the alarm that always accompanies the increased heart-rate and
blurry vision that marks these episodes, I tried to talk myself down and amazingly succeeded.
This really is nothing short of a miracle and I was limp with relief as it subsided.

The days and nights passed me by like I was on a merry-go-round, spinning and spinning, feed, burp, change, rock, feed, burp, change, argue with husband, rock.
And then suddenly one day these things didn't work any longer. Baby got bored.
This marked the beginning of dark times for me.

Dita wanted to be walked around the house and garden, always in the upright position, never sitting down or standing still. It was in the middle of summer and very hot so I found myself
wandering our garden in my hideous feeding bra and granny panty, trying not to get a glimpse of my flabby body in the hallway mirror as I passed it.
Saggy ass, floppy belly, black circles around the eyes, wrinkles everywhere, spots, oily hair.
I was the very picture of misery.

Every dog-turd I encountered on the lawn grated at my already flailing sense of serenity and frustration built up inside of me at not being able to just quickly pick it all up and throw it
away so we can walk around a droppings-free lawn.
To top it all off, three massive Hadedas frequented our yard and shat giant pools of disgustingness everywhere.
These excretions were too big to ignore and too small to pick up with the poop-scoop and I had to frantically talk myself down from hysteria every time I had to side step a Hadeda bomb.
They were also attracted to the dog-food on the patio and continued in their poop-shooting ways onto the wooden deck.

And I haven't even mentioned my psychologically scarred cat that literally defecates and urinates all over the house, including to my absolute horror, the bed.
Every morning I would wake, exhausted from not really sleeping, to cat poop at the foot of the bed, cat pee at the door to the nursery and bathroom, dog turds in the living room because
he has incontinence from his spinal stroke still and sleeps in the house, dog turds on the lawn and Hadeda kak on the patio.
Shit everywhere.
Not to mention diapers, which were really the least of my frustrations since I at least got to look at adorable little baby butt cheeks while changing those.

Time stopped altogether and I found myself frozen in a kind of baby-swaying, shit-dodging limbo. Every minute felt like an eternity.
I tried watching tv shows whilst walking up and down with the baby but nothing really kept my interest.
Everything was excruciatingly, mind-bogglingly boring and tedious.
I couldn't believe I still had to brush my teeth every day and finding the time and energy to do it properly was a challenge indeed.
The bed needed to be made every day and with my OCD tendencies this was no simple task. It had to be aired very vigourously to get all the cat hair and dust from the previous night
off the duvet, sheets and head pillows. This was a small workout for me since it took some thorough shaking of everything to get this out.
I also lugged the industrial strength fan to the other side of the room to help blow all the debris coming off the bed out of the open windows and into the garden where they
can't cause allergic rhinitis to anyone in my household.

Apart from brushing teeth and shaking out the bed, I felt that I should be the perfect housewife, since I was not bringing in any money or contributing to any of the finances in any way
so cooking and cleaning became an obsession.
These things were almost impossible, though.
Having a strong-willed baby that wants to be held all day everyday meant I had to do tasks when she was napping, which almost never happened, or so it felt anyway.
She would take sporadic, five minute naps but mostly latched firmly to the breast rendering me incapable of doing anything except maybe play a soul-crushing game of Candy Crush on my phone
or scroll morbidly through my Facebook feed, wishing the ceiling fan would crash down onto my head causing momentary euphoria but somehow missing the baby.

My thoughts started becoming extremely dark very quickly. I envisioned horrible things happening to my baby and husband and myself. I even pictured myself doing hurtful things to them,
kind of like someone in a Stephen King book just suddenly snapping and tearing a love one's eyeball out.
This I found to be super alarming.
Was I losing my mind?
Was I perhaps a Dexter-like serial killer in the making?
Was I about to feature in Huisgenoot?

I started worrying about my mental well-being with gusto and tried talking to people about it without really letting on how bad it was getting.
I mean, at night when I closed my eyes, my sweet pink little tot far away in dreamland next to me, flashes of horrible events would play like a movie behind my eyelids.
To top it all off, the neighbours had thieves break into their house one day not too long ago and they tied up the poor wife that was home and took almost all their possessions.
This catapulted me into full-on crazy paranoia.
What if these evil people came into my house when I was home alone with my tiny daughter? Or what if husband were home with me and they shot him?
People are heinous creatures who do horrible things to good people.
And I was starting to think that I might not even be such a good person after all, what with all these violent thoughts running through my head all day and night.
I started losing all faith in the basic goodness of humanity.
I started believing everyone out there were somehow against me and actively coming for me.

Car accidents were rampant on the news and I worried myself sick about my husband, praying obsessively all day for his safe return from work, wondering how to best barter with God to
ensure the most favourable outcome.

Worst of all was the mind-blowing tininess of my child and the total trust in her little eyes when she looked at me.
You are Mother, they said.
You are the most important person in my life, they alluded.
You are totally in charge of what happens to my minuscule body and mind, they tittered.
How was I supposed to not go completely apeshit with this mountain of responsibility now crashing down squarely on my previously unburdened shoulders?
Not to mention the fact that she was growing very quickly (even though time stood still and nothing ever happened) and I was painfully aware of the fact that one day my little chubby-bum
was going to go out into the world and have life happen to her, where I would no longer be in full control of what happened to her.

Life didn't seem kind in the least anymore.
People were assholes, plotting against each other, living for revenge and money and selfishness.
Time was just something mercilessly driving us towards one tragedy or another.
Sooner or later someone close to us will die and we'll never recover from it.
At any point our own bodies could turn against us and pop a vital artery in our brains, killing us instantly without the chance to say goodbye or make amends or come to terms.
Every long day I hid in my house, not even going into the possibly brimming-with-burglars garden anymore, with my little girl in my arms, trying not to envision all the horribleness of it all.
Trying, trying and trying not to be crushed by the weight of all the wrongness and evil and ugly of the world, life and everything.
Where is God?
Does he even exist at all?

Thankfully, my good friend and fellow baby-mama invited me to go for breakfast at the gorgeous Irene Dairy Farm one morning and I valiantly fought through the blind panic to join her and
act like a normal person for once.
It was here she told me that she kept seeing herself accidentally reversing over her baby in the driveway and couldn't deal with anxious thoughts like this anymore so she went to the
doctor and got some antidepressants and was feeling much better.
This was God speaking directly to me.
Hello God, where have you been? But thanks, hey, message received loud and clear.

I felt a little bad about becoming that medicated person again.
I was kind of hoping to be a nice normal mommy now, a woman like all the other women, just going through life, maybe getting a bonsai tree in the process, doing dumb little things to
pass the time and chat to other chicks about.
But listen, when all meaning and joy drain out of your life you pretty much get to a point where taking one small blue pill every night doesn't seem like such a big deal anymore.

Two weeks after my nice new shrink (my beloved Polish Gypsey shrink had retired) gave me the small blue pill, I was taking my daily desperate walk around the neighbourhood,
Dita cooing away in her pram when suddenly shit seemed much more interesting than previously.
The house at the bottom of Stompdoring street seemed ominously abandoned. As I gazed at it wondering who used to live there and what happened to this mansion to make it seem so dilapidated
and forlorn, I imagined one of the curtains twitch and felt a little prickle as the hairs in the back of my neck stood up.
I should write a story about this house, I thought to myself dreamily.
This, my friend, is called inspiration.
I was struck dumb by the power of this realisation because I haven't felt the least bit inspired to even comb my hair in the mornings in at least a month, never mind writing.

I continued my little walk and found myself noticing how many cats were lounging around outside their houses. One of them even walked up to us and gave a friendly mew as it sniffed the pram.
Different dogs stared balefully from their courtyards at us as we passed, occasionally letting out varied woofs, yelps and barks. Some side-streets had teenagers playing soccer or
basketball in them. Families were braaiing in their gardens and driveways as we strolled past. A light breeze cooled the perspiration on my brow and suddenly everything was beautiful.
There were still good people out there. Normal, Joe publics, doing their thing, going to work, raising their families, eating their Simba chippies. Birds were chirping, the seasons were
changing, leaves were turning golden, brown and orange and drifting down to the streets in lazy S's.

My little child looked up at me from her pram and staring into her eyes I felt love and hope and anticipation rather than crippling fear.

"Let's go watch an episode of Rupaul's Drag Race and eat a marshmallow Easter egg, my sweetie", I murmur to her and she smiles at me as if she understood every word and thought I was
the silliest mommy on the planet.

Three Trimesters, a Paralysed Dog and a Baby (Part 2)

The Dr had massive hands with pudgy fingers. I had never noticed this before. Only now as he strapped on a latex glove and stood back in order to take a running leap at my poor cervix did I see it. The next thing I knew, it felt like he had plunged into me all the way up to the elbow.

Why had no-one ever described this feeling as really, really painful? Why did women describe such things as “uncomfortable” or “not so nice”?
Read my lips bitches; that manoeuvre hurt like seven shits.

“You’re not dilating, we’ll have to apply some gel that will help speed up the process” he says matter-of-factly.

*whimper*

He takes a few more steps back to apply the gel at a run.
But it turns out the gel thingy is much thinner and more vagina-friendly than Dr Franz Liszt here.

*Side-note; Franz Liszt was a classical pianist and composer and had extraordinarily large hands. Allegedly he would have a prop piano that would disintegrate at the end of his concerts as a little joke about his meaty paws. He is also my favourite composer. If you like piano concertos, listen to Hungarian Rhapsody #2, it’s hauntingly beautiful.
End of nerdy side-note.

When the Dr left, the little nurse on duty sniffed and said: “I don’t know why they apply the gel when a woman’s water has already broken, it just doesn’t make sense. I mean it will just wash away now wouldn’t it?”
She turned to leave and I sat there dumbfounded at my sudden lack of trust in the medical professionals looking after me in this hospital.

This, however, was really only the beginning.
By the end of this day I would be bawling my eyes out and begging three different doctors for mercy.
But I digress…

After a few hours and a few less painful but still quite sore vag-explorations by my very sweet and pro-natural birth nurse, the dilation was still not there and the Dr was once again called.

In this time I was also starting to worry about my poor paralysed dog at home. I had been away from him for twelve hours now and concerned that the cleaner might have put him on the patio where he would lay in the hot sun unable to move himself when it got too much.
A quick message to her confirmed my fear but she assured me that they would move him immediately. I don’t know it they did but I simply had to trust the process.

Husband had by now of course re-joined me at the hospital and was surveying the manhandling of my privates with narrowed, gimlet eyes.

“Excuse me, Melanie…” I began as the little nurse returned to my room.

“Yes?”

“I…*ahem*, I heard that when a person gives birth *cough* certain bodily functions happens too and I am slightly worried about it as I wouldn’t want anyone to be uncomfortable…do you think I could ask for an enema?”
Please note that when I asked for an enema I thought it would be that little bulb thingy and that only a polite amount of water would be inserted discreetly into my backside but when she returned, muttering about the previous night’s nurse being responsible for this, she was carrying something that looked like a garden hose and something that resembled a tea-kettle.
She warned me beforehand that “this will be extremely uncomfortable” and I steeled myself for the agony that awaited which turned out to be nothing compared to Dr Death-to-Vaginas’s exploration of a few hours ago.
What followed the procedure, however, could be described as verging on extremely uncomfortable.
She advised me to try as long as possible to not go to the bathroom, just to let the water do its job. I swear it wasn’t a full minute before I simply had to relieve myself.
The thing is I have always had very sensitive intestines, landing in the emergency room often with a spastic colon and such but wow nothing could quite prepare me for the cramps I started getting as I hobbled, crossed-legged to the loo.
When the nurse came back I told her about the debilitating stomach cramps I was having and she informed me that those were contractions, my dear, not cramps.
As if they weren’t bad enough, she told me about the drip I was about to get and how it contained Pitocin that would speed up my labour quite a bit.

“Okay, is that really necessary? Aren’t I in labour now? It sure feels like it”

“Doctor’s orders”

Okee dokee. The drip hurt more than the enema. She pushed it into my hand with what felt like slow deliberateness. I think I remember her starting the Pitocin at 50 somethings, which sounded high as she explained they usually start at 15 or something like that but they are really trying to get this baby out now.

“Doesn’t Pitocin usually end up making it worse and then the woman has to have an emergency c-section?” I asked uncertainly.

It seemed that way whenever I watched shows like The Midwives, One Born Every Minute and 16 and Pregnant (my girl is getting a Mirena at 13, already decided).

“I actually think it helps to avoid that outcome”

Well alright then.

In went the Pitocin and if I thought the contractions were bad before, they were now quite intense. I have read the description “the pain was exquisite” in books before and only now I saw a rare opportunity to describe my own as such.

“I want the epidural, yes please, when can I have one of those babies” I gasped between contractions which were now coming in strong and at twenty second apart. I didn’t know it was legal for them to follow each other so closely.

Okay, the anaesthesiologist is on his way, he’ll be here in about 30 minutes.
This was around 18:00 on the 7’th of November.
Of course, everyone felt the need to keep sticking their hands into me at random intervals as if the contractions weren’t bad enough already.
“3 cm”
“What?! I should be 30 cm with this pain!”
“Sorry”
*moaning loudly*

Husband was there and did everything I asked him to do in fevered whispers.

“Press my hips together quick! Okay, hold my arm! Now go jump in a lake!”

Okay that last one he didn’t do but I’m pretty sure he thought I was kidding (I wasn’t).

Finally, after what seemed like gallons of more amniotic fluid came streaming out of me with every contraction, the guy with the epidural showed up and tried explaining things to me.
It was very hard to concentrate but I tried my level best and sat in the akward, bent-over position on the bed he requested of me.
The fact that I was contracting painfully every twenty second made everything so much worse. He kept stopping whenever I had one because he said I moved, even though I thought I stayed perfectly still.
He asked me to bend even more forward which was impossible but I tried.
After twenty minutes of me moaning loudly and him expressing the fact that he “keeps hitting bone” so frequently I felt like throwing up, I was ordered to lie down on my side and as I did my legs started going numb and the pain miraculously disappeared.

Sweet, sweet relief flooded over me and I almost immediately started drifting off to sleep.
Everything was going to be okay now. Eighteen hours of painful procedures and contractions and I was finally on the home-stretch.

Uh, no.

In barged a nurse I hadn’t met and slammed the door at her back.

“I am Melody and I’ll be taking over from Melanie here, let’s see how far along you are”

Luckily, I couldn’t feel these horrible VP’s as the medical personnel referred to them, anymore because she also took a running shove at me.
When she retracted her hand, her latex glove was completely covered in blood.

“Between three and four centimeters”

She looked beadily at the monitor and barged back out, once again slamming the door loudly on her way out.
Upon re-entry she proclaimed that we are to do a C-section immediately.

“What?! Why?! I’m going to be able to do this!”

“The doctor said so. The baby’s heartbeat has dropped”

*Burst into noisy, snotty tears*

“It’s okay! It’s only a small cut, a bikini cut, you won’t even be able to see it!”

“I’m not worried about the look of the cut! I just went through hell and now I’m going to be cut anyway I mean what’s the bleeding point of it all? I knew this would happen but no one would listen to me! Can’t we wait just five more minutes?” I cried bitterly.

“The baby is tired and if we wait she will only get more tired and then when you have to start pushing she will be exhausted”

“It’s not like she has to do anything, though is it?”

But it was too late, I was already being wheeled into a cold surgical room where a new anaesthesiologist came up to me.

“Okay, so you’ve had an epidural but that is not ideal for a c-section as it numbs only partly. We could offer you a spinal, how would you feel about that?”

“That would be fine, then I can still experience the birth of my child”

“Exactly, so it’s settled then”

In storms the gynaecologist who I haven’t seen since the morning.

“Right, let’s get this baby out, can you feel this?” he asked pinching my abdomen.

“Yes”

“You’re supposed to feel pressure”

“I don’t feel pressure, I feel everything. I feel your nails on my skin”

Away he storms.
Back comes the anaesthesiologist.

“Okay, we’re doing general anaesthesia now”

“What? Why?”

“Because your doctor said so”

“Why can’t I have the spinal? You said I could have a spinal and be awake?!”

“I’m kind of stuck between a rock and a hard place now…” he trailed off and I saw that this fight was already lost.

I started getting worried that the general anaesthesia was only the back up if I really did feel when he cut me. In my mind’s eye the gynae was sharpening his scalpel on a strip of leather like an old-fashioned barber getting ready for a shave.

“Please don’t let him cut me while I am awake” I pleaded with the anaesthesiologist.

The gynae stormed back up to my bed.

“You won’t feel it, you only think you have feeling in your lower body but you don’t. Don’t worry”

“What? No! I feel everything, I FEEL EVERYTHING!” but he had already turned his back on me.

I started crying in earnest indeed because now I really did understand that I was going to be cut into live like something out of a horror movie.
Luckily the anaesthesiologist recognised my mounting hysteria and started pushing needles into my stomach to check if I could tell and I whimpered in response every time he did so.
Finally, he beckoned the gynae over and the gynae begrudgingly told him to put me under.
I mean fuck, right?!

I did the counting backward thing and when I woke up;

“You have a beautiful little girl, Mrs Grove”

I opened my eyes slowly, crusty from the tears I cried before the birth.

“Where is she?”

“She is in the maternity ward with your husband”

“Oh”

The nurse who I didn’t know from Eve was scribbling into a file and didn’t look at me once.
There wasn’t anyone else around and I decided to lay there as patient as possible.
The Patient Patient.
That’ll be the title of my novel. A story about a woman killing everyone in a hospital after giving birth to her first child via C-section.
After a while another lady was wheeled next to me. She had her baby on her chest and was lazily smirking at it as I watched.
Lucky bitch and bitchlet.

I had yet to meet my child and about half an hour had passed since I woke up.
As I scanned the room I realised there were three other nurses in the far corner of the large recovery room. They seemed to be arguing. In storms another, obviously senior nurse.

“If none of you are willing to take her up then I guess I will just have to do it!” she said loudly and picked up a nearby phone.

“I have phoned twice for someone to take Mrs Grove to the maternity ward but nobody seems willing so now I am bringing her, what room is she in?”

She listened for a while and then put down the phone.
A slow-burning rage was building deep inside my chest as I realised these bitches were arguing about whose job it is to wheel me up two floors to meet my precious child who I have carried inside me for eight and a half months and was just dying to see.
The senior sister came to get me.

“Oh, they cut your baby when they took her out by mistake”

And just like that I was off.
The words that came out of my mouth were those of a drunken sailor.
I told the nurse exactly where she could get off and that she and everyone else at Femina and their families should thank their lucky stars that I was still paralysed from the epidural because they would have not known what hit them. Only that the thing that had hit them was wearing a green hospital gown with her ass hanging out.

At long last, I was in my own room and still swearing at anybody who came near me. A tiny pink bundle was dumped unceremoniously into my arms. I was shocked to at last look into the cloudy blue eyes of my new-born daughter.
She was a beautiful little stranger.

“Pleased to meet you, little Dita” I said formally.

She gurgled in response and I decided that meant “likewise” in new-born language.

The poor nurse who was still hovering nervously just out of punching distance suggested timidly that I might like to try putting her to the breast if I am ready.
Scowling darkly at her I exposed my breast and pressed the baby to it where she suctioned onto it exactly the way a squid might stick to a slippery rock. A peculiar feeling of extreme thirst washed over me, mixed with a feeling akin to anticipation and a tinge of angst.
I frowned at the cut on the side of her head just in time to ruin the first photograph ever taken of the two of us together. Please see picture attached.

“So, what do you think?” husband asked me.

“She’s growing on me” I answered with the first smile in hours.

Unfortunately, I was also in quite a bit of pain. Nobody ever told me how sore a c-section is, although it might be because I had feeling in my abdomen and woke up with the pain, not mercifully numb and getting back feeling systematically and being able to cope with it in sections.

“Wait a minute, I read that I would be given a pain-pump? Where is my pain pump?”

A new nurse had entered the room and gave me a sour look.

“No, you should have asked for one if you wanted one, before the procedure”

“I still have the epidural thing in my back, I can feel it there”

She stopped short and stared at me.

“They were supposed to remove that under the anaesthesia”

“Oh. Well what now?”

“The doctor will remove it tomorrow. Sir, it’s time for you to go”

And so, it was at about half past ten on the night of the seventh of November 2017 that I was left alone with my sweet little child and in extreme pain.
After about half an hour of just staring at her and drooling on myself a little, yet another nurse came in and told me she was taking her to the nursery.

“Can’t she stay here with me?”

“No, not the first night. The first night we take her and you rest”.

I didn’t like the way she said it and didn’t like the way she looked at me as she did. It was like everyone on staff that night was angry with me for causing them all to fight about whose job it is to wheel patients from recovery to maternity.

“If you don’t mind me asking, why did you opt for general anaesthesia with her birth?”

“I didn’t! I had no choice whatsoever!”

She looked appropriately chastised and went away before I could formulate any further responses.
Were they all talking about the selfish bitch who just had to choose general anaesthesia just to mess with them? Again, I wished that my legs worked so I could fuck them up but they were not budging.
Another nurse came in with some pethidine and gave me a shot in the ass. She did it rather forcefully but the jokes on her because I didn’t feel a thing. Thank you Mr epidural, thank you very much.
As she left she flipped off the light-switch and I was left in the semi-dark room with only my thoughts to keep me company.

What if I died suddenly?
Didn’t my mom say something about blood-clots after abdominal surgery?
They hadn’t given me any special compression stockings or the Clexane shots I was told I would get and I was starting to worry big time.
The pain was still just barely bearable even after the pethidine and I hardly slept that night.
Morning came and my sweetie was brought back to my side. I was so happy to see her, my heart soared.

“Aw, thank you for bringing her back. I was so sad when the other nurse told me I wasn’t allowed to keep her here last night”

“Who told you that? She wasn’t allowed to say you are not allowed”

“Oh. I don’t know who it was” I stopped short of saying all nurses look the same to me.

After breakfast things really took off. A million different medical professionals came to my room where I would have to hastily cover up my exposed boob where my little girl was latched so they can examine her/me/us.
When the gynae finally showed up I was too in love with my baby to scream at him but I did ask him rather pointedly if perhaps maybe he could remove my epidural catheter now, thank you very much and why haven’t I received Clexane?

“Do you have pain in either of your legs?”

“No”

“Do you have a history of thrombosis?”

“No, but-”
“Then we don’t have to worry”.

He removed the epidural catheter, prodded at my extremely sensitive stomach and left quickly, obviously aware of the fact that he has treated me with substandard professionalism.
After about fifteen minutes a nurse came in with a Clexane shot and said he had changed his mind.
What an asshole.

Okay, what have I forgotten?
It all seems quite blurry, all of a sudden.
Oh yes, oooh weee, the first night I was left alone with my screaming child!
What a night.

The first day in the hospital after the crazy birth of my little girl passed in a blur. Husband came to visit all day, more tired than I was from working on the baby room right through the night.
My family came, doctors, audiologists, paediatricians and dietitians came. Dita sucked my nipples raw and still it seemed to me like nothing came out even though I kept reading on the La Leche League Facebook Page that I can rest assured colostrum is there and feeding my baby.
Night fell, everyone left and seemingly so did the nurses.

Dita was unceremoniously dumped in my room and I didn’t see one single nurse from sun-down until sun-up even though it felt like my baby was screaming the whole time.
I had to change five (5) diapers. Not ordinary diapers, no, no. MECONIUM diapers. Meconium is the stuff that gathers in a baby’s intestines during pregnancy. It is tar-like in consistency and very difficult to remove from a tiny little bum that you’ve only just met and are desperately afraid of injuring.
I suspect this stuff burned my little girl’s butt because she roared at me like a tiny train until I removed the offending diaper and basically washed her miniscule buttocks with a warm face-cloth before she stopped.

All this sounds easy, no doubt, but I found it extremely difficult to move around the room and get in and out of bed with my wound. It hurt like mad, stretching and stinging every time I tried anything. Functioning with a baby swearing at you in baby-language is also a mighty challenge.
Eventually she settled down after I figured out she basically constantly wants to be at the (ever-increasingly raw and sore) breast.

When the sun came out and I was brought breakfast I was happy to see the nurse, oh so happy. Amazing how lonely one can feel during a long- oh-so-long night. I was even happier when I saw the delicious Pethidine syringe she was carrying alongside my meal. Ah sweet, sweet drugs. How I long for thee.
Even though the shots had started to sting a bit because obviously the epidural had long gone, I welcomed that pinprick with open, trembling arms…and legs.
Even more people visited that day and I was so tired and zonked out from the pain-meds I think I looked severely drugged and cross-eyed to all of them, but what can you do.
Husband came again and complained bitterly about his fatigue which momentarily made me want to hit him over the head with a newborn.

The second night was better because I was moved to a bigger room with an en suite shower. Just another thing I had to fight with a bunch of nurses about. How the hell am I supposed to lower myself into a bathtub if I can barely walk? Also, the doctor said no soaking the wound, so how now brown cow?

As I gingerly stepped out of the shower I noticed with growing alarm how my feet were swelling up right in front of my unbelieving eyes.  My ankles looked like they had had their wisdom teeth out.
Apart from being disgusting, at least this new condition wasn’t painful and I managed to cope with the baby relatively well.

Unexpectedly where the previous night’s nurses didn’t give a flying hoot about me and my crying baby, this night’s nurse was overly involved, I felt. Whenever Dita cried for more than a minute she was there asking me why my baby was crying and I felt like yelling at her BECAUSE SHE IS A BABY YOU DUMB COW NOW GET OUT OF MY ROOM!

At some point in the wee hours of the morning she asked if she could take the child and let me sleep for a bit and I conceded reluctantly because I was very tired indeed.
Unfortunately, this resulted in Dita’s blood-sugar testing low the next morning and everyone trying desperately to give her formula to help stabilise it.
Now, I don’t know about you but I was led to believe that formula is basically poison and should never be given to a baby and if you do everyone you love will die and your milk will dry up immediately and Armageddon will happen, so I refused and became quite hysterical the more they tried.

“Your baby could get brain damage from low blood sugar!”

“Then bring her to me so I can feed her for Pete’s sake!”

They brought her, all sleepy and floppy and I pressed her to my breast where it felt like the cutest tiny piranha fish was chomping away at my nipple.
The next time they tested she was fine (and according to the new nurse was fine all along, anyway) and I felt like flinging my empty breakfast plate at someone’s head for creating so much drama for what turned out to be nothing.

Either way, my hospital stay came to an end and we were sent on our way, clumsily strapping our miniature person into her miniature car-seat and driving home at five kilometres an hour.

We were now parents, hear us roar.

Three Trimesters, a Paralysed Dog and a Baby (Part 1)

My little girl is taking a lovely, long mid-morning nap as I write this.

What a wonderful sentence. Could there be a more wonderful sentence than this?

I certainly don’t think so.

Let me tell you how I came to be a mother. Not the birds and the bees stuff, no no, my mom reads this blog for crying out loud.
The *shudder* birth.

*Cue sound of men leaving*

It was a long pregnancy.

Probably no longer than any other but still the fact that we had been told that we would never conceive a baby naturally meant that every day of a healthy pregnancy counted in my mind as a miracle. And as a low-level pessimist I was loath to just sit back and enjoy the “glow” of pregnancy.
No, I had to go obsessing wildly into the night.

What if something goes wrong? Lots of stuff went wrong in pregnancy, loads of horrible things have happened to other people that my friends, family and acquaintance have told me about throughout the years.
These horror stories kept flooding back into my conscious mind as I recalled every vivid detail that the storyteller offered with the misty-eyed zeal of the sensationalist.

First it was the first trimester.
There is no way of skipping this trimester, that is the name of the trimester. Numba one. First. Begin here. Do not skip and collect any money or whatever.
If you have been trying to conceive for a while and have endured all the tracking, testing, pill-popping fun of it, you probably would also find out relatively early in the pregnancy that you are in fact pregnant.
This is inevitable as some of us spend months taking fifteen pregnancy tests a day, resulting in bankruptcy, depression and water intoxication. This last one sounds like fun but is way less interesting than say alcohol intoxication.
Having done it this way, I found out I was pregnant the very second the sperm penetrated the ova.

*Sound of more men scurrying uncomfortably from the room*

This meant I was obsessing obsessively for as much of the pregnancy as is conceivably obsessable.

You see, the first trimester is the time in pregnancy when most miscarriages happen, for whatever reason. Even for no reason at all. This scared the living shit out of me. Well not literally of course, I mean I kind of wish it did because the first trimester also brings with it the backhanded reminder of how much labour will suck by giving you crippling constipation.
And the nausea. Oh the nausea! I felt like I had been on the piss for weeks and suffering from a severe babelas, which I then aptly renamed “baba-las”.

On the plus side, I dropped two kilograms in this here lovely little trimester and felt pretty good apart from all the other stuff happening.

Eventually, this first and most dreaded of the trimesters passed and I entered the proverbial “honeymoon phase” of pregnancy. The second trimester.
In this trimester I was slightly less worried about something going wrong with the baby and massively more worried about money.
Having had a bit of a melt-down and resigning from my job in a fit of hormone-encouraged rage, I was now unemployed and living off of my savings, which were not great in numbers.
This is a difficult thing for someone like me:
• trust issues; check
• emotional about money; check
• thinks money equals your worth as a person especially as a woman; check
• thinks asking a man for money is total failure to succeed in life especially as a woman; check.

Add in hormonal insanity and Bob’s your uncle.
No really, as a result of all of us originally coming from Africa, Robert Mugabe is somehow all of our uncle, removed to the whatever’th degree, of course.

Where was I?

Oh yes, I was knocking being knocked up.
Well don’t knock it til you’ve tried it, I always say, hahaha, except cocaine…don’t try cocaine. Just knock it straight out of the gate. That stuff is way too powerful to be toyed with.

Where was I again…

Okay, okay, so finally one sunny day in the third and final trimester (the one where you are allowed to complain non-stop about your back/hips/head/pick-a-body part), I was lounging in bed feeling guilty about not bringing in any finances when I heard a strange cat in the yard, terrifying my kitties.
So I got up and opened the door for the dog to chase it off, as he relishes it so much.

He scarcely touched the ground as he flew out of the house in hot pursuit of the intruder but as he rounded the corner he suddenly started wailing like a banshee. I hurried after him to see what was the matter. Well I say hurried, which was in fact quite slow for a woman in the third trimester.

Three weeks before my due date, I would have made a sloth blur in comparison.
When I got to the dog, he was paralyzed from the waist down.
What the hell happened, you ask.
Was he bit by a snake?
I glanced around but didn’t see any snakes slithering about.
Was he shot, poisoned, stabbed, kicked, run over?
None of the above, it seemed.

I didn’t know what the hell to do. My belly was so huge there was no way I could lift this Alsatian-size dog into my car.

I called Bull security, who first asked me annoying questions like was I a member. No, sir, I am an ADT subscriber but felt too bad to call them.
Of course I am a member, asshole, now get your butt over here and put my dog into my car.

Am I in any physical danger?
Yes, of having a coronary from irritation.

I sat on the ground next to my poor dog, still mewling softly and petted his big head. Bull took about five minutes to arrive but it felt like an eternity.
When the guy got out of his car and saw the state of me his eyes immediately softened and he asked me how far along I am to which I stuttered: “Three weeks”.
He looked amazed.
“Three weeks to go, I mean. Thirty seven weeks.”

And on that note promptly started crying, which he politely ignored and got on with wrestling my dog into the car.

As I backed out of my driveway I saw him still parked outside, idling his car, presumably waiting for me to safely leave the house and close the gate and what-not without getting hi-jacked or burgled or ramming my car into someone else’s car/house/child; as is the custom of my pregnant people.
Thank the good Lord for kind people in these circumstances.

At the vet I cried the whole time, without one second passing tearlessly.
The poor vet, another young guy, looked pretty uncomfortable. I was such a wreck.
I was wearing a long sundress, the first thing I found that fit my large heavily pregnant body. No makeup, hair unbrushed and crazy wild. I probably didn’t even smell very good as I hadn’t had time to brush my teeth or shower that morning when all hell broke loose.

“I’m afraid we’ll have to do an MRI if we are to make a certain diagnosis” he said.

“How much will this cost?” I brayed.

“Around R4000”

“Oh…care to warrant a guess?”

“I think it’s a slipped disc but I’ve never seen that in a large dog, only in dachshunds”

“Okay, then how do we fix it?”

“Well, in the case of a slipped disc, he will need surgery which will cost quite a bit. You’re looking at between 15 and 20 thousand”

*Drooling on myself whilst ugly-crying*

“I can see that you are very upset but I also want to suggest the possibility of euthanasia”

*Drooling on myself while crying even uglierer than a minute ago*

“Okay, I’m going to phone my husband and discuss this with him quickly before making a decision”

He left me to it so I phoned T with trembling fingers and the minute he picked up wailed loudly into the phone. I’m pretty sure he thought I was having the baby but I quickly explained the situation.
I had to run all this by him because I had no money to my name and if we were to do the MRI, he would have to fund it.

“Okay so R 4000 is a bit of money but I think let’s do the MRI and see what they say.”
I wanted to kiss him for not saying kill the dog right off the bat.

The vet called the specialists that do the MRI’s and they said to bring the dog.
After paying the vet consultation fee, and having him carry the dog to my car, off we went to the specialist vets. The specialist was actually a bit more knowledgeable and much less uncomfortable with my seeping face. Possibly because of being a woman and all.
Us girls grow up with cray-cray emotions and are usually quite happy to be in the presence of a sobbing woman. Sobbing men are a whole new ball game but other sobbing women – piece of cake.

“Okay, if I can make an informed guess; it’s either a spinal stroke embolism or a slipped disc. Most probably an embolism because of his size but we can’t know for sure unless we do the MRI which costs R7000”

“The other guy said R4000”

“Nope it’s R7000. We use Wilgers hospital’s MRI machine. But we don’t have to. I can see you are expecting a baby and I would understand if you don’t want to do the MRI, Lord knows I don’t have R7000 to spend on my dog right now and that’s just for the diagnosis. The problem is, if it is a slipped disc we need to operate asap and if we don’t he’ll just get worse and we’ll have to give him a mercy death”

That’s the phrase she used; "mercy death".

In the end after much deliberation and guilt, I decided against the MRI and to go ahead with treatment for an FCE (spinal stroke embolism) which is really no treatment whatsoever.
He stayed at the animal hospital for three days where some physiotherapist allegedly did things with him to help him walk again.
They also administered corticosteroids and vitamin E which supposedly helps nerve-regeneration.
I visited him every day and cried noisily every time.

He showed no improvement whatsoever and I was getting even more scared.
After three days my money was done and we went to go fetch our poor four-legged child from the hospital.
It was very challenging having him home because he could not walk or even crawl to go outside and do his business. In fact, he wasn’t even aware that he had business that needed to be done.
We would constantly have to move him to clean up the pool of waste he would suddenly find himself in. He seemed extremely depressed and obviously didn’t understand what was happening to him. It broke my heart into pieces seeing him like that because he has always been such a lively, active animal with a huge lust for life.

The whole incident happened on Wednesday the first of November 2017.

On Monday the 6’th I went to the bathroom and discovered blood in my underwear.

*Sound of last man scarpering*

Upon phoning the gynaecologist my suspicions were confirmed that yes it was probably a “Bloody Show” and we should expect the baby to come in the next two days or so.

Quick side-note; the baby room was in shambles. I don’t mean just “not ready” or a “bit haphazard”. No, I mean full of raw cement and building materials and paint.
You see, my dear, dear husband and soon to be baby-daddy has weighed the previously perfectly fine room and found it lacking. So, he ripped up the wooden floor, tore down the curtains and the railings and yanked out the cupboard.

I started referring to him as Shiva the Destroyer and often tried communicating my extreme displeasure by jokingly asking him to rather behave like Vishnu the Maintainer but no can do.

This happens often to people. They think; how hard can DIY projects be? I’ll lay my own perfect cement floor, stain it beautifully, seal it impeccably and then our baby will have a beautiful floor and will grow up to be rich and powerful and happy.
It was chaos. Cement everywhere. My father in law, presumably heavily prodded and poked into helping by my Mother in law, came and helped as much as he could but really it felt like just utter three-stoogery to me.
So, having taken eight months to get any real work done and still not satisfied with the quality of the cement floor he and his father has poured, “Shiva” continued to destroy and destroy and destroy. Gone were my dreams of lazily getting the room ready and beautiful and lounging around in it, maybe hanging a fluffy heart here and there, folding little clothes, while stroking my growing belly.
I had gotten tired of hinting at the fact that I needed the room finished by dropping jokes about him rather embodying Vishnu the Maintainer and not so much Shiva the destroyer, but they were falling on deaf ears, alas.

Looking into his eyes as the news that we would be parents in about two days dawned on him was a sight to see.
First, awe, then raw panic.
We made a list of everything we still needed to do and buy and divided it up.
I still had all the self-beautifying treatments I had been planning to do in the last three weeks of pregnancy and hastily made appointments for the next day.
Then I rushed into the shops and spent mounds of money on baby stuff we still needed, like a pram.

Finally, the day was done and I spent the better part of an hour doing physio exercises with my dog and watching the sun go down.
Life was good. The next day I would have my hair and toe nails done and all will be well with the world once again.
I was super exhausted so I went to bed around eight o-clock that night.
Husband, who was still in a mad dash to try and finish the baby room in two days, only came to bed at around half past eleven, at which point my water promptly broke, soaking both of us, all three our cats and the bed.

“Are you sure it’s not pee?” he pleadingly asked me with red-rimmed eyes.

“I haven’t had this kind of bladder capacity in months, it’s definitely not pee” I replied.

“Oh fuck”

Yep, fuck indeed.

So, around midnight we found ourselves driving to Femina hospital. We went there because our medical aid only covered certain hospitals and they had such a good reputation.
All the way there my mind kept boggling at the wonder of this actually happening. Of course, I was also painfully aware that pain was coming. There could be no truly painless birth no matter what you did. And I was hell bent on having a natural delivery.
Once I was checked in and everything was signed and stamped and paid, the nurse gently checked my dilation and declared that in fact I was not dilated at all and that this could still take a while, I might as well send husband home to rest.
He did go home but not to sleep, to fix the baby’s room of course.

Vishnu has finally arrived and sent Shiva packing.

I lay around trying to sleep but too excited and starting to feel tiny fluttery cramps much like period pains. At some point I did manage to sleep some and morning came.
I was served a lovely breakfast, which I ate with gusto, thinking this will be the fuel I need to push my baby out like the woman of steel I am. Little did I know that my idea of how this birth will go was so way off I am now very grateful for not being able to see into the future because I would have promptly lost that delicious breakfast into the waste basket next to the bed.
To be continued…

Mission; We Can���t Say Impossible Because What If You Fall Pregnant And Then Sue Us So We���ll Say 1% Possibility

25 weeks, what a beautiful phrase.

Inside of me a little girl punches at my belly with tiny little fists, each with four pudgy fingers and a thumb per the sonogram.

Yes, folks, it finally happened, and even though, according to The Guiness World Records, ten months is not even a remotely long enough time to conceive to even call it ���a struggle���, for me every two-week-wait (TWW) was like a lifetime.                       

Let me start at the beginning.

It was a hot day in Feb when the fertility expert informed us that a problem did show up in our bloodwork but he needs to do some more research into how much this will affect our fertility.

While he did his research, I did mine.

And I found what I thought could be a potential solution.

Because of the personal nature of this problem I will not go into details but the potential solution I found came not from the countless clinical studies or medical webpages I scoured but from one unassuming lady that posted it somewhere on a lonely thread that���s at least five years old.

For the life of me I can���t find the thread again to try to somehow thank this nameless lady for her contribution which makes it seem even more mystical to me, like Aladdin opening the forbidden cave and finding the golden lamp but being unable to locate the cave again after the fact.

Either way, after reading everything in the whole world on this topic, we met up with Dr Fertility again who informed us that this is bad, very bad.

Our particular problem basically makes it impossible for us to conceive naturally.

���Miracles have happened, of course, I cannot discredit that, but your chances are less than 1% of conceiving naturally.���, he said, a slight smile playing around his lips.

Edrssssssss.

My cat just typed the above word and I find it so apt a reaction that I am leaving it in.

Was the dr laughing at us? Was he high? Which part of what he just told us leaves any room for joviality?

���Of course, not only does it impede natural conception but also artificial insemination so we must start ICSI IVF treatment in April. I am giving you a month to quit smoking, both of you.���

Ah, there it is. The proverbial money shot.

Do you know what IVF is?

IVF is an abbreviation for In vitro fertilisation. Furthermore ICSI IVF is when they individually ram the little sperm into the egg with some kind of syringe, leaving no room for error or anyone getting confused, lost or rejected along the way.

The embrio is then implanted directly into the lady which then hopefully culminates in a squalling baby in nine months or so.

Of course, before this can happen the lady in question first needs to undergo a barrage of hormone treatments, injections, potions, lotions, powders and sacrificing a small mountain goat on a koppie at new moon.

For any non-South Africans reading this post; first of all, thank you for reading a humble boere-meisie���s ramblings. Secondly, a ���koppie��� is a very small hill in a generally flat area, usually referred to by people in Gauteng as a ���berg��� (mountain), confusing the hell out of any Capetonians (people who live in the Cape) who actually know what a ���berg��� looks like and does not see any in Gauteng.

As many eggs as possible (hopefully between eight and twenty) are then harvested from the lady in ���an uncomfortable but not otherwise painful process���.

Translation: excruciatingly, life-alteringly painful.

Costs are between R50 000 and R100 000 a shot.

Success rate: 40%.

As if this is not bad enough, the Dr (again with a smile playing about his mouth) cheerfully informed me that my ovaries are not exactly in mint condition and is in fact behaving like a chain-smoking, alcoholic, 40-year old���s would be expected to.

They absolutely refuse to produce more than three eggs per month it seems and will have to be spoken to rather harshly to get their show on the road.

He didn���t seem all that optimistic about any of this.

To make matters worse, we are not exactly swimming in dough at the moment.

We literally just found a house we wanted to buy, which we have been searching for for a year, because everyone knows you need to at least have a house before embarking on a family, right?

The Dr sent me for some more fun blood tests and off we went, me crying openly on the way to the car as per usual.

Right, we can do this. It���s at least a good excuse for both of us to quit smoking, let���s start there, I told myself soberly, because by then I had been five months sober and stumbling through life one day at a time.

As soon as we got home I started making plans, writing notes, drawing up diagrams, just about stopping short of compiling a PowerPoint presentation for myself.

Queue Mission Impossible theme song.

It would have to be Anonymous Post on Five Year old Thread���s solution.

For this ���solution���, I needed a script. I could not get this script from the fertility dude because he already informed us that this solution is really not a solution at all, and he can feed as all the meds in the world and it would not help one iota.

So, it would have to be my house doctor. A man with such fantastically slow speech that it actually, physically calms me down to have a conversation with him, even if it is a conversation about possibly never having my own children.

I decided to call him first and see if maybe I can get the script without seeing him first, because we saw him just a month ago, for a referral to the fertility dude and even paying that consultation fee without even having a cough hurt my miser���s heart.

He was busy and I had to leave a message for him with a bored-sounding and also unreliable-sounding receptionist.

I was sitting in a soapy tub, discussing my mission impossible plan with my husband while lathering his back when the Dr returned my call.

And thus, the record would say, as she paced frantically in the nude, ignoring the bubbles clinging to her ass, dripping water all over the house, Elmien finally received her script.

���I���suppose���it���can���t���hurt���to���try���it���.shall���I���.leave���it���.at (and here he paused so long that I thought maybe he had fallen asleep) reception for you?���

I carefully made my way back to the luke-warm bath to share the good news with my husband who had by now a kind of ���Yes, I���ll humour you, dear��� expression on his face.

It could also have been a ���Would she notice if I peed in the tub?��� expression but they are closely related and I was distracted and fidgety with delight at succeeding in this, the First Step to Literally Scheming a Baby into Existence.

The next morning, bright and early, I picked up the script in question from the doctor���s office. The receptionist looked scared as I beamed at her. No one has ever been this happy about a pill that has no mind- or mood-altering effects whatsoever.

I then went to Dischem where I bought all the rest of the (probably bullshit) remedies for this problem and went home with a bag bulging with supplements, leaflets and ovulation predictor kits, as well as the golden prize, the scripted pills.

Literally, the only thing I didn���t have now was a Ouija board to ask the spirits which way my bum should be pointed during love-making to favour natural conception, but I decided against going full-tilt at the last second.It was also extortionately expensive for one and I had no intention of continuing a relationship with the helpful spirits after this because I had seen all the Paranormal Activity movies and secretly still can���t put my foot over the side of the bed at night for fear of being dragged down the hallway by a demon.

Resume mission impossible theme.

Get husband to agree to take handfuls of pills every day.

Get self to remember to also take handfuls of pills every day.

Work out cycle to optimally establish best time to ���go at it like rabbits���.

Remind self rigidly to use Ovulation Predictor kit to further optimise chances of baby-making.

Stack half of Mr-Price Home���s hollow fibre pillows by side of bed to prop self up at 90-degree angle, hips in the air, after even thinking about having sex.

Right. Husband agreed to all, app successfully downloaded to sound a deafening siren whenever ovulation might be imminent and frantic copulation should commence.

This was all rather fun actually, because despite having been doing it on a schedule for almost a year, we are still technically newly-weds and not exactly averse to the idea of getting nekkid either way.

It was about a month later that the faithful fertility app told me it���s safe to test for possible pregnancy.

I hated this bit by now because I have never in my life had a positive pregnancy test despite screaming  at top volume at the test window before, during and after peeing on it.

Talk about abuse.

I had just finished my work for the day and was on my way home with fresh Burger King in the boot for dinner.

Why in the boot you ask?

Because if I had to act all helpless and change-less one more time to a beggar next to a stop-sign, with a steaming bag of expensive take-away next to me, I might give the bag in mention to the beggar and then I would have to battle the inevitable resentments that would follow, flinging me into insomnia-fueled witching-hour arguments with myself about the economic climate in the country, bringing me full-circle to a place I call ���Honey we have to Immigrate Immediately��� territory.

For any non-South Africans reading this post; first of all, again, thank you for reading. Secondly, we call the trunk of a car a ���boot��� here. I know, it���s weird. But it would be weirder if I had placed our dinner in one of my fake leather, knee-high boots to throw off a beggar.

Side-note finished.

I knew I didn���t have any pregnancy tests at home because, like with any unhealthy addiction, I would use all of them at once even if the first one didn���t yield favourable results and then cry over them, wishing I was dead, as soon as I was finished.

I honestly did not feel like stopping at Clicks to buy one and allowing my Burger King chippies to grow cold and inedible but I also didn���t want to maybe be pregnant (ya right, as if) and then smoke a pack of ciggies, drink ten cups of filter coffee and swallow an antihistamine tablet that night, accidentally aborting my, what could be, one chance at motherhood.

So, I stopped and bought one (1) cheap little test and went home, feeling depressed already.I quickly did the test to I can relax with my beloved burger and only slightly stale chips.

As I settled in front of the tv I almost forgot about the test, testing away in the bathroom.

I finished my meal pretty quickly because being the fourth child, I kinda had to, growing up, I went to the bathroom to wash my hands and casually glanced at the test.

Now if you���ve ever tried to fall pregnant and didn���t succeed immediately, you would know that if you stared at one of these little tests long enough, it could start almost looking positive.

The trick is to keep tilting the test this way and that until a shadow falls across the test-window making it look like there could be a line there. You then stand perfectly still, staring at that could-be line and fantasising away at the wondrous possibilities it might bring.

All the while knowing you���re actually just full of shit.

This was not one of those times.

No matter how I tilted the damn thing, the extremely faint line in the test window would not go away. I took to my bed, all the while Googling like a mad person.

What could possibly make a test positive, apart from pregnancy, of course, I asked the Internet with trembling fingers.

The overwhelming response was Congratulations, you are pregnant.

Of course, some sites said that it could be an evaporative line, a thing that mostly appears when you saturate the test in about a gallon of urine and then leave it in the sun for a week.

Which is funny because I have done this and never in my life have I seen an elusive ���evaporative line��� because I would be off to French kiss a nurse and have some blood tests done immediately if I did.

After scouring the internet for possible reasons for a false positive I hesitantly went to my husband.

Here is how that conversation went:

���Baby������ hovering in the doorway.

���Yes?��� said while staring distractedly at a computer screen.

���I think I might be pregnant��� said while numbly holding out faintly positive pregnancy test.

���No way��� said finally looking up lazily, with happy, laid-back smile.

This is a sign of the utmost excitement and thrilledness coming from my husband who is not the crazy clown-like exhibitionist type like I am.

I showed him the test, he tilted it every which way and agreed that yes there is definitely a faint line.

We decided to not crack the non-alcoholic champagne just yet but rather jumped into the car wearing our post-Burger King slippers and slacks and invaded Clicks again.

This time we bought two (2) tests.

One cheap and one very expensive and fancy wancy (yes it was a Clear Blue).

The teller looked scared as we beamed at him.

No one has ever been this happy about having to pay this much for a pregnancy test.

In fact, there���s a reason why home pregnancy test kits are weighed down with about a kilogram of anti-theft devices.

We decided to use the first urine of the day, the next morning, also known as FMU (first morning urine).

You see, people who struggle with infertility are so tired from having military-style, gun-enforced sex that they simply cannot abide by typing out full phrases or even words in some cases.

This means that the infertility websites are peppered with indecipherable abbreviations and acronyms, making the whole experience even more fun and exhilarating.

At 04:13 the next morning (middle of the night) I had to pee so badly (hello, first clue) that I decided to wake up my husband so he could blearily watch me take a leak on two sticks.

As we stood there, staring at the two tests, the Clear Blue taunting us with a little hour glass flipping around on the screen, millennia passed. Koppies turned to dust and oceans dried up. New species of homo-something-or-other was discovered in Krugersdorp, fifty billion new iphones were released. Adele released another album.

Finally, one word appeared.

Pregnant.

And then:

1 ��� 2 weeks.

At approximately 5 AM our families received an image on Whatsapp.

A photo of the Clear Blue test stating the most wonderful fact ever stated in the history of anything.

As long as you are not a 16-year-old crackhead with an asshole boyfriend that lives in his car with his mom, of course.

From there it really has been a blur but let me tell you, it���s been a most splendid blur.

One with lashings of bright gold and shocking pink and tiny circles of glittering confetti and then acute terror and the urge to run screaming into the nearest koppie, but then glitter again.

Mission; We Can’t Say Impossible Because What If You Fall Pregnant And Then Sue Us So We’ll Say 1% Possibility

25 weeks, what a beautiful phrase.
Inside of me a little girl punches at my belly with tiny little fists, each with four pudgy fingers and a thumb per the sonogram.
Yes, folks, it finally happened, and even though, according to The Guiness World Records, ten months is not even a remotely long enough time to conceive to even call it “a struggle”, for me every two-week-wait (TWW) was like a lifetime.                        Let me start at the beginning.
It was a hot day in Feb when the fertility expert informed us that a problem did show up in our bloodwork but he needs to do some more research into how much this will affect our fertility.While he did his research, I did mine.
And I found what I thought could be a potential solution.
Because of the personal nature of this problem I will not go into details but the potential solution I found came not from the countless clinical studies or medical webpages I scoured but from one unassuming lady that posted it somewhere on a lonely thread that’s at least five years old.
For the life of me I can’t find the thread again to try to somehow thank this nameless lady for her contribution which makes it seem even more mystical to me, like Aladdin opening the forbidden cave and finding the golden lamp but being unable to locate the cave again after the fact.
Either way, after reading everything in the whole world on this topic, we met up with Dr Fertility again who informed us that this is bad, very bad.Our particular problem basically makes it impossible for us to conceive naturally.“Miracles have happened, of course, I cannot discredit that, but your chances are less than 1% of conceiving naturally.”, he said, a slight smile playing around his lips.
Edrssssssss.
My cat just typed the above word and I find it so apt a reaction that I am leaving it in.
Was the dr laughing at us? Was he high? Which part of what he just told us leaves any room for joviality?
“Of course, not only does it impede natural conception but also artificial insemination so we must start ICSI IVF treatment in April. I am giving you a month to quit smoking, both of you.”
Ah, there it is. The proverbial money shot.
Do you know what IVF is?
IVF is an abbreviation for In vitro fertilisation. Furthermore ICSI IVF is when they individually ram the little sperm into the egg with some kind of syringe, leaving no room for error or anyone getting confused, lost or rejected along the way.
The embrio is then implanted directly into the lady which then hopefully culminates in a squalling baby in nine months or so.
Of course, before this can happen the lady in question first needs to undergo a barrage of hormone treatments, injections, potions, lotions, powders and sacrificing a small mountain goat on a koppie at new moon.
For any non-South Africans reading this post; first of all, thank you for reading a humble boere-meisie’s ramblings. Secondly, a “koppie” is a very small hill in a generally flat area, usually referred to by people in Gauteng as a “berg” (mountain), confusing the hell out of any Capetonians (people who live in the Cape) who actually know what a “berg” looks like and does not see any in Gauteng.
As many eggs as possible (hopefully between eight and twenty) are then harvested from the lady in “an uncomfortable but not otherwise painful process”.Translation: excruciatingly, life-alteringly painful. Costs are between R50 000 and R100 000 a shot. Success rate: 40%.
As if this is not bad enough, the Dr (again with a smile playing about his mouth) cheerfully informed me that my ovaries are not exactly in mint condition and is in fact behaving like a chain-smoking, alcoholic, 40-year old’s would be expected to.They absolutely refuse to produce more than three eggs per month it seems and will have to be spoken to rather harshly to get their show on the road.He didn’t seem all that optimistic about any of this.
To make matters worse, we are not exactly swimming in dough at the moment.We literally just found a house we wanted to buy, which we have been searching for for a year, because everyone knows you need to at least have a house before embarking on a family, right?
The Dr sent me for some more fun blood tests and off we went, me crying openly on the way to the car as per usual.
Right, we can do this. It’s at least a good excuse for both of us to quit smoking, let’s start there, I told myself soberly, because by then I had been five months sober and stumbling through life one day at a time.
As soon as we got home I started making plans, writing notes, drawing up diagrams, just about stopping short of compiling a PowerPoint presentation for myself.
Queue Mission Impossible theme song.
It would have to be Anonymous Post on Five Year old Thread’s solution.
For this “solution”, I needed a script. I could not get this script from the fertility dude because he already informed us that this solution is really not a solution at all, and he can feed as all the meds in the world and it would not help one iota.
So, it would have to be my house doctor. A man with such fantastically slow speech that it actually, physically calms me down to have a conversation with him, even if it is a conversation about possibly never having my own children.
I decided to call him first and see if maybe I can get the script without seeing him first, because we saw him just a month ago, for a referral to the fertility dude and even paying that consultation fee without even having a cough hurt my miser’s heart.
He was busy and I had to leave a message for him with a bored-sounding and also unreliable-sounding receptionist.
I was sitting in a soapy tub, discussing my mission impossible plan with my husband while lathering his back when the Dr returned my call.
And thus, the record would say, as she paced frantically in the nude, ignoring the bubbles clinging to her ass, dripping water all over the house, Elmien finally received her script.
“I…suppose…it…can’t…hurt…to…try…it….shall…I….leave…it….at (and here he paused so long that I thought maybe he had fallen asleep) reception for you?”
I carefully made my way back to the luke-warm bath to share the good news with my husband who had by now a kind of “Yes, I’ll humour you, dear” expression on his face.It could also have been a “Would she notice if I peed in the tub?” expression but they are closely related and I was distracted and fidgety with delight at succeeding in this, the First Step to Literally Scheming a Baby into Existence.
The next morning, bright and early, I picked up the script in question from the doctor’s office. The receptionist looked scared as I beamed at her. No one has ever been this happy about a pill that has no mind- or mood-altering effects whatsoever.
I then went to Dischem where I bought all the rest of the (probably bullshit) remedies for this problem and went home with a bag bulging with supplements, leaflets and ovulation predictor kits, as well as the golden prize, the scripted pills.
Literally, the only thing I didn’t have now was a Ouija board to ask the spirits which way my bum should be pointed during love-making to favour natural conception, but I decided against going full-tilt at the last second.It was also extortionately expensive for one and I had no intention of continuing a relationship with the helpful spirits after this because I had seen all the Paranormal Activity movies and secretly still can’t put my foot over the side of the bed at night for fear of being dragged down the hallway by a demon.
Resume mission impossible theme.
Get husband to agree to take handfuls of pills every day.
Get self to remember to also take handfuls of pills every day.
Work out cycle to optimally establish best time to “go at it like rabbits”.
Remind self rigidly to use Ovulation Predictor kit to further optimise chances of baby-making.
Stack half of Mr-Price Home’s hollow fibre pillows by side of bed to prop self up at 90-degree angle, hips in the air, after even thinking about having sex.
Right. Husband agreed to all, app successfully downloaded to sound a deafening siren whenever ovulation might be imminent and frantic copulation should commence.
This was all rather fun actually, because despite having been doing it on a schedule for almost a year, we are still technically newly-weds and not exactly averse to the idea of getting nekkid either way.
It was about a month later that the faithful fertility app told me it’s safe to test for possible pregnancy.I hated this bit by now because I have never in my life had a positive pregnancy test despite screaming  at top volume at the test window before, during and after peeing on it.Talk about abuse.
I had just finished my work for the day and was on my way home with fresh Burger King in the boot for dinner.
Why in the boot you ask?
Because if I had to act all helpless and change-less one more time to a beggar next to a stop-sign, with a steaming bag of expensive take-away next to me, I might give the bag in mention to the beggar and then I would have to battle the inevitable resentments that would follow, flinging me into insomnia-fueled witching-hour arguments with myself about the economic climate in the country, bringing me full-circle to a place I call “Honey we have to Immigrate Immediately” territory.
For any non-South Africans reading this post; first of all, again, thank you for reading. Secondly, we call the trunk of a car a “boot” here. I know, it’s weird. But it would be weirder if I had placed our dinner in one of my fake leather, knee-high boots to throw off a beggar.
Side-note finished.
I knew I didn’t have any pregnancy tests at home because, like with any unhealthy addiction, I would use all of them at once even if the first one didn’t yield favourable results and then cry over them, wishing I was dead, as soon as I was finished.
I honestly did not feel like stopping at Clicks to buy one and allowing my Burger King chippies to grow cold and inedible but I also didn’t want to maybe be pregnant (ya right, as if) and then smoke a pack of ciggies, drink ten cups of filter coffee and swallow an antihistamine tablet that night, accidentally aborting my, what could be, one chance at motherhood.
So, I stopped and bought one (1) cheap little test and went home, feeling depressed already.I quickly did the test to I can relax with my beloved burger and only slightly stale chips.
As I settled in front of the tv I almost forgot about the test, testing away in the bathroom.
I finished my meal pretty quickly because being the fourth child, I kinda had to, growing up, I went to the bathroom to wash my hands and casually glanced at the test.
Now if you’ve ever tried to fall pregnant and didn’t succeed immediately, you would know that if you stared at one of these little tests long enough, it could start almost looking positive.The trick is to keep tilting the test this way and that until a shadow falls across the test-window making it look like there could be a line there. You then stand perfectly still, staring at that could-be line and fantasising away at the wondrous possibilities it might bring.
All the while knowing you’re actually just full of shit.
This was not one of those times.No matter how I tilted the damn thing, the extremely faint line in the test window would not go away. I took to my bed, all the while Googling like a mad person.
What could possibly make a test positive, apart from pregnancy, of course, I asked the Internet with trembling fingers.
The overwhelming response was Congratulations, you are pregnant.Of course, some sites said that it could be an evaporative line, a thing that mostly appears when you saturate the test in about a gallon of urine and then leave it in the sun for a week.Which is funny because I have done this and never in my life have I seen an elusive “evaporative line” because I would be off to French kiss a nurse and have some blood tests done immediately if I did.
After scouring the internet for possible reasons for a false positive I hesitantly went to my husband.
Here is how that conversation went:
“Baby…” hovering in the doorway.
“Yes?” said while staring distractedly at a computer screen.
“I think I might be pregnant” said while numbly holding out faintly positive pregnancy test.
“No way” said finally looking up lazily, with happy, laid-back smile.
This is a sign of the utmost excitement and thrilledness coming from my husband who is not the crazy clown-like exhibitionist type like I am.
I showed him the test, he tilted it every which way and agreed that yes there is definitely a faint line.We decided to not crack the non-alcoholic champagne just yet but rather jumped into the car wearing our post-Burger King slippers and slacks and invaded Clicks again.
This time we bought two (2) tests.One cheap and one very expensive and fancy wancy (yes it was a Clear Blue).The teller looked scared as we beamed at him.No one has ever been this happy about having to pay this much for a pregnancy test.In fact, there’s a reason why home pregnancy test kits are weighed down with about a kilogram of anti-theft devices.
We decided to use the first urine of the day, the next morning, also known as FMU (first morning urine).
You see, people who struggle with infertility are so tired from having military-style, gun-enforced sex that they simply cannot abide by typing out full phrases or even words in some cases.This means that the infertility websites are peppered with indecipherable abbreviations and acronyms, making the whole experience even more fun and exhilarating.
At 04:13 the next morning (middle of the night) I had to pee so badly (hello, first clue) that I decided to wake up my husband so he could blearily watch me take a leak on two sticks.
As we stood there, staring at the two tests, the Clear Blue taunting us with a little hour glass flipping around on the screen, millennia passed. Koppies turned to dust and oceans dried up. New species of homo-something-or-other was discovered in Krugersdorp, fifty billion new iphones were released. Adele released another album.
Finally, one word appeared.
Pregnant.
And then:
1 – 2 weeks.
At approximately 5 AM our families received an image on Whatsapp.A photo of the Clear Blue test stating the most wonderful fact ever stated in the history of anything.As long as you are not a 16-year-old crackhead with an asshole boyfriend that lives in his car with his mom, of course.
From there it really has been a blur but let me tell you, it’s been a most splendid blur.

One with lashings of bright gold and shocking pink and tiny circles of glittering confetti and then acute terror and the urge to run screaming into the nearest koppie, but then glitter again.

Getting Sober; a Positive Trajectory

If you have been following my posts you would know that I am by now almost, but not quite, four months sober.
The same amount of time it takes a fetus to grow legs strong enough to start kicking its mother.
Incidentally I am also trying to get pregnant, thus the baby analogy.

I could liken my experience of getting sober with coming out of a cocoon thinking you're a worm and discovering you are a butterfly.
Not the most beautiful butterfly, not the most intelligent, talented or the best organised. Definitely not the best organised...
Close to being the worst organised butterfly in all of existence.
But still better than a worm.

Of course, this might not have the same significance to everyone.
For me it is a new life, one that I have never experienced but often witnessed (and with great jealousy and incomprehension) in others.
To completely understand this statement I will have to tell you a little bit more about my drinking habits.
If you are an avid reader of my blogs you might have suspected a teeny weensy problem but you never know for sure until
the fat lady sings.

And boy did that bitch sing...

I've always liked wine. Specifically red wine. Tassenberg was for sale at my favourite club for R20 a bottle.
It was cheap and highly effective. It even tasted okay sometimes, differing from bottle to bottle.
Black Label beer also fell into this category.
Back then I had very little money because I was a student and worked at Spur for "party money".

I was the world's worst waitress.
Customers often looked at me slack-jawed when I asked the man at the table to open the bottle of wine if it had a cork.
I could not afford cork wine, always screw top, so I did not have the expertise necessary to flawlessly execute the opening thereof.

I constantly slipped on wet spots on the floor and fell on my ass, spilling buffalo wings and lemon wedges into my hair.
I had no clue how to pronounce Quesadilla (it came out kasadia) and often brought absurdly wrong food to my tables.

Case in point, I was skint.

So I often had to make do with less than R50 on a Saturday night, depending on how wrong I got that week's orders.
So Tassies and Zamaleks did the trick quite nicely. I could get a nice buzz on and not break the bank.
This is probably something a lot of people could relate to, most students drink whenever and wherever they get the chance and I was desperate to be "a typical student".
A nice normal young person.

Of course life will have its trinkets and soon became harder.
My first real job as a hygienist gave me insight into why alcohol was invented, to the max.
Every Friday my bff and I would meet after work to lament our loveless lives and torture jobs, sometimes drinking red wine and other times Martini's. Hers with Vodka and mine with Gin.
We would cry rivers into napkins and then eat what we called "traumazini's", often throwing them back up later that same evening.

This was still okay because we were both going through terrible heartbreak and really only drank over the weekends.
We were after all, still too broke to really invest in a bright future of alcoholism.

Over the years, this changed, however.
She basically stopped drinking and I kept powering on, drinking more and more frequently until finally it was a daily habit.
I was still functional, still working and paying bills and brushing my teeth and washing my hair, but it all started becoming more and more taxing.

As the day wore on I would start thinking about that first round glass of red, still spanking and free of grubby finger marks and lipstick. What a relief it would be to take that first sip, feeling the sting and the beginning of a tiny case of heartburn. Even before that! The sound of the bottle uncorking and the wine decanting into the glass (I had mastered this art by that point).

Phwop! Gloog-gloog-gloog-gloog-gloog.

I loved it all.

Wine immediately cheered me up and the good Lord knows, I needed cheering up.
Everything was a complete disaster.
My boss had started seeing problems with everything I did, my marriage was a nightmarish soup of horrible fights and lonely nights and I had gotten down right chubby.

Wine was my friend and she could be found everywhere I went.
Except church. Not that I was exactly in the habit of going there anyway.
Everyone else went to church and I went to Cool Runnings.
That was where I healed my hurts.

I had many problems and alcohol sure as hell wasn't one of them.
It was the only thing keeping me from driving off a bridge.
Except when I was drunk, Then I tried to steer clear of bridges.

As most of us knows, especially those of use who tend to stay up all hours of the night, it is often darkest before the dawn.
The divorce drove me absolutely insane. I went out of my way to destroy myself, making incredible, mind-numbing mistakes (I am not going to go into detail here but if you want you can go ahead and cringe as if I did.) and isolating myself more and more.
It is a miracle that I am still alive.


Until one day things started looking up. Someone (now my husband) came into my life and treated me with so much kindness that I was deeply suspicious of him. Who sent him? What did he want from me? Blood?
I mean had I not bled enough?!
And just when I had made peace with the fact that this will now be my life, drinking wine, sometimes mixing it with a sleeping tablet and falling asleep watching horror movies, with my cats and laptop on top of me.
I had sworn off contact with other living beings as far as possible while not getting fired from my job.
For years my mantra was simply "Step one; don't get fired today".

I was so overwhelmed by the muchness of my life that I even made a rule that people can only ask me questions on Tuesdays.
Mondays were reserved for catatonic, drooling-on-myself, gibbering with fear of what the week will bring but on Tuesdays I sometimes came alive for a few hours and steeled myself for adversity.
On Wednesday I would come to the realisation that all that steeling myself only set me up for more disappointment and so I would go back to drooling on myself until Friday came and released me from the hell that is getting out of bed.

On Sunday I would seriously contemplate suicide but then the wine and sleeping tablet would kick in and I'd be back to
Monday. Just a few days ago I was asking my husband a bunch of senseless little questions and he replied with my standard statement of that time: "Questions on Tuesdays".
I laughed, at first more out of surprise at the reminder and then laughed harder at the silliness that was me.
Then stopped and reflected on the insurmountable gratitude I felt at not being there anymore.

How difficult must my life have been for me to not even be able to reasonably respond to a simple question like "what would you like to eat tonight?" on any other day except for Tuesdays?
The answer is, of course, very. Very hard. I know this with my mind but I can't truly remember exactly how it felt because it scares me to even try.

Just the other day I was telling someone about my latest adventures in the land of iced tee and she said: "I can't stop drinking now, not with the divorce" and I found myself wondering how I would have coped without it when I was going through that.
Where I am sitting now, I believe I would have handled it better. The wine did distract me and kept me warm at night (that and the uncontrollable sobbing, so loud the neighbours called the cops once) but did I really have a chance to just feel?
Just sit there and acknowledge that my heart was shattered and still shattering and my mind was slipping like a toddler on ice skates and that all of that is normal.
And will pass.

Maybe, maybe not. But I do know this; if ever there was a time for me to not "need" mood-alteration anymore, it was when Mr T (now husband) walked into my life and made everything bearable again.

And yet Phwop! Gloog-gloog-gloog-gloog-gloog.

I didn't think too much of it because judging from Facebook posts by my acquaintances, I was pretty normal.
Three or four glasses of red wine per night seemed okay and they were really only two because I never really finished a glass before refilling it. So actually just one.
Right?

Then one night I was lying in his arms (little birdies and bubbles would have been surrounding my head if I were a cartoon, from all the wine I had that night) and he said these words:
"Baby, I see you struggling and I want to help you but I don't know how. And you are so much better than this."

And suddenly and in stark relief I realised: I am an alcoholic.
I am Elmien, and I'm an alcoholic.

Falling Pregnant...a negative trajectory

Getting pregnant seems to be a bit of a bitch so far.

At first I thought it would happen immediately. The Mirena came out *pop* and boom I would be fertile as hell and Tommie would just walk by me and voila!
Little Grovetjie on the way.

As the months passed I started realising that this is not so.
Why not? Teenagers all swear they only did it once and fell pregnant.

Am I too old? Are my ovaries so conditioned by the fervent please-don't-let-me-be-pregnant prayers I've been saying every night for the past ten years?

Other people say it's because I am stressed. How does one tell exactly how stressed one is?
I usually know my stress levels are through the roof when my eyes start twitching and I stop going number two for weeks on end, which culminates in extreme stomach ache and moodiness.

These days whenever I feel moody I assess what time of the month it is.
Since going off my antidepressants (blog to follow) and birth control I have had insane PMS every month but only a few days before Aunt Flo visits.

This past month I had PMS-like symptoms for two weeks before hand, headaches every day, bloatedness and crazy dreams.
Thus, said my mind, I must be pregnant, finally.

And this time I felt ready.

The last time I thought I might be it scared me a little and I groped for the bottle.
Since then I stopped drinking (blog to follow).

I mean, since Feb. I have stopped my sleeping tablets, antidepressants, mood stabilisers, antihistamines and alcohol.
I am extremely sober and feel everything.

Am I not a worthy subject for a child?

This seems to be a common conclusion in women that struggle to fall pregnant. What's wrong with us? Do we have so many feelings of guilt and shame that we believe we don't
deserve a kid?
And then when the kid is there it also seems like a kind of punishment.

Then women seem to think back to all the grief they gave their own mothers and start feeling like God gave them a difficult child to get back at them.
Granted this does seem to be the cycle of life.

We are born, we give our parents hell and then we have our own children who give us hell until they in turn give us grandchildren who give them hell and so on and so forth
until the sun supernovas and kills us all.

Let's start at the beginning.

In Feb. my Mirena has done its job for five years which means it was time to have it removed.
Getting it in was such a mission that the doctor had to put me under to succeed and a 15 min operation turned into almost an hour.
He said my cervix was so small I barely needed the damn thing.
So understandably I was a bit worried when he said he'll just yank it out in the chair without any drugs of any sort.

At this point you might be wondering how a person like me is ever going to survive labour or even a c-section.

Anywho, I decided to trust the man and went to the appointment ready to be yanked. At least I was still drinking back then so I had that and a holiday we were planning
to look forward to.

When push came to shove, or rather yank came to shove, I was petrified and steeled myself for excruciating pain but before it could even start feeling like pain it was
over and I felt like a kind of Mirena birthing goddess.
A highly fertile one.

So off we went on holiday because whenever one of us quits our jobs we have to go to the coast to "wash off the misery" before starting the next one, and I had just finished
my notice month at the hell I worked at for five and a half years (blog to follow...maybe).
The first time we did it I thought we were pregnant. I mean isn't that what sex-ed taught us all? Sex leads to pregnancy?
It seems this is only true for teenagers.

I started talking to other women, customers actually, some of which went to school with me or studied with me. A lot of them had also recently started trying for kids
and had varying degrees of success.
They gave me tips about downloading apps and eating certain things and lying on your back afterward to "help the little guys" and so on and so forth.

So I downloaded an app which tells me specifically when the "window is open" and we must get down to business, so to speak.
This quickly grew tiresome.
Scheduling sex time is not supposed to have to happen in the first two years of marriage, I believe, but you know how it goes...right?
Sometimes we are busy and tired and whatever, but the "full window has to be used" according to the app.

Other sites say that every second day is fine. This is still way too much thinking and planning for me.
And why on earth did God make us so that we can only really fall pregnant one day out of the month. Is it so that we won't have millions of children running around without planning them?
Because that seems to happen anyway. To people that aren't me, anyway.

Spending time with little kids also doesn't seem to be a good idea because they look like extremely hard work and can be highly annoying (when I suspect I might be up the duff).
Other times they are adorable and beautiful and give meaning to life (when I know I am not pregnant).

This see saw is driving me crazy.

The worst part is seeing other people fall pregnant around me.

I have a friend who is planning on having a baby on her own and has started the process. We have been dreaming of falling pregnant together for three years.
What if she manages and I can't?
What will that say about me?

I have my issues and am still struggling with a few things but that can't be why, right?
I should be healthy and fertile as fuck right now but noooo.

It might be because husband and I still smoke. Now, I have been told that quitting drinking and smoking at the same time is a terrible idea and I am blindly following all instructions
I receive from people that have been sober now for over a year because they obviously know what they are doing.
Then I realise that I am 33 years old, the age my mother fell pregnant with me, her fourth child.
An unplanned "laat lammetjie".

I've quit smoking before with Mr. Carr and it wasn't hard but I don't want to screw up my sobriety, which I consider the most important thing in my life at the moment.

So we are back at square one. The square where everyone tells me to "just relax" and "stop trying so hard".
What does that even mean? Should I think about all the horrible parts of being a parent so the universe will knock me up just to be spiteful?
At some point I decided to just enjoy all the things a childless person can enjoy, which previously came down to mostly one thing: drinking.
A thing which parents actually seem to embrace with a passion once the little bundle of love is off the breast.
But I  hear other things I can add to this list are: sleeping, leaving the house and not worrying/crying all the time.

On the plus side, I am losing weight. It seems that the Mirena can increase appetite and bmi. Also, we all know alcohol is fattening.
After 30 anyway, before, it seemed to be slimming, haha.

I'm going to go read a book now...another thing I can add to the list of things children seem to take away from you.
Sigh.