I got this from Back to Me and thought a little holiday cheer seemed an excellent idea!

Eggnog or hot chocolate? Egg Nog!!!

Does Santa wrap the presents or leave them open under the tree? Of course Santa wraps presents otherwise what would be the surprise on Christmas morning!!!?!

Colored lights on a tree or white? White. No exceptions!

Do you hang mistletoe? Can’t get any in SA – otherwise we definitely would, I love kisses!

When do you put your decorations up? Not before 1 December, but as soon after that as I can make the time!

What is your favorite holiday dish? Hmmmm, is it our version of Christmas Cake (Carrot), or the trifle? No, undoubtedly it’s the gammon recipe from Aunt Chris who we miss so dealy at this time of the year.

Do you open a gift on Christmas Eve? With my mom it was always a tradition to open just one gift on Christmas Eve, but now we don’t really do gifts, and Hopelessly doesn’t believe in Christmas Eve gifts.

How do you decorate your Christmas tree? Gold and Earth tones ONLY no red, green and mixed colours allowed. This year we have added a deep red, almost burgundy to the mix, in candles, but NOT on the tree!

Snow: love it or hate it? Not really an option in SA and I HATE the fake stuff, but the real stuff on our one Christmas in Scotland, was awesome!

Can you ice skate? I can, but not really a tradition in SA, did go once in London and it was a fun night out with the work crowd.

What is your favorite holiday dessert? Hmmm Trifle, just like my granny used to make

What is your favorite holiday tradition? The present game, always gets everyone laughing (if anyone wants the rules, just let me know!)

Candy canes: yum or yuck? YUCK!

Favorite Christmas show? Hmm, not a TV fan, Christmas for us is about being with family, not about watching the box, but every year we bring out the “Love Actually” DVD from the collection and watch it AGAIN!

If you post this to your blog with your own answers come back and link in the comments. I’d love to read what you wrote!

So Sunday night the first of the family arrived, Mom, Dad and Sister. And suddenly I am so distracted that I don’t seem to have time to feel sorry for myself. Boy does my man know just what I need to feel all better! You see it was all his idea to bring my family to town for Christmas and their idea to stay for three weeks. And while I have been quite excited, I’ve had my reservations on a whole host of levels… my mom and I have our ongoing and never ending issues, my dad is great but really intense, three weeks is a VERY long time with my mom, I didn’t want to bring everyone down with me over Christmas.

Let me start with my Sister, as I mentioned on Sunday my Sister is much younger than me. She is the most awesome lovable and great sister ever. She pretends that she’s all prickly and isn’t loving, but that’s really not at all what I have experienced. She’s affectionate and kind and caring and likes to portray this tough outer layer, but I just know it’s not really true. Because of our age difference we never got to spend much time together, I was at boarding school when she was born, I went away to University and then I moved to the UK. So in some ways it seems as though we never really got to know each other until the last couple of years and somewhere since she was the most beautiful baby I have ever laid eyes on and now she turned into a beautiful person. Not just physically beautiful but stunning on the inside! So yesterday when we couldn’t decide what to do she said she felt like baking. So while the folks napped and Hopelessly fixed my laptop her and I spent some quality time in the kitchen making very delicious Christmas biscuits. Now I understand how other women feel about their sisters. I don’t think I ever got it until yesterday. There is such an awesome camaraderie about two women working side by side in the kitchen, laughing, joking and just being together. Maybe because of my relationship with my mother I’ve just never known this! WOW that’s all I can say. My sister gave me the best present ever by giving me that day to remember and carry with me always.

My Dad is sappy and sentimental and I adore him. I am totally and utterly a Daddy’s girl, no doubts about it. So despite going to bed after 2am on Monday morning when I heard my Dad up and about just before 6am yesterday, I got up to go spend some quality time with him. He and I chatted about all sorts, politics, the country, hope, the family and how awesome both my brother and sister are and how he really doesn’t have to stress about them. And then he gave me his Christmas pressie. He said to me that he thinks I am awesome too. That while the whole family really does love each other I am the glue that keeps everyone together. Wow just thinking about what that meant to me now as I write it brings the tears back to my eyes. Sometimes it really is just fabulous to see yourself through the eyes of those that love you.

And my hubby. Hopelessly you gave me the best ever pressie by making these two presents possible. I love you always… Oh and thanks for putting up with my family for three whole weeks while I get to escape the mayhem by going to work.

My sister is nearly 16 years younger than me. She has given me an opportunity to ‘practice’ some motherly stuff over the years. Being 16 when she was tiny, I loved walking around the shopping centers pushing her pram and laughing at the looks I would get from people passing by (who obviously thought I was a VERY young mother). I got to change endless nappies, bath her, feed her and play with her. And as she has grown up, I’ve gotten to practice giving advice, balanced and sensible (I like to think) yet not from her parents. You know how teenagers are they would rather listen to anyone other than their own parent… or was that just me?!?

My Dad got my sister for hos 40th birthday – literally she was born on his birthday! My poor dad would really still love to live in the 50s. He loves the music (read Elvis), he loves the fashions (read long flowing skirts on women), loves the hairstyles (read girls with long hair in pig-tails) and he loves the way he likes to remember the women (read good girls!). Lucky (in some ways) for me, my folks got divorced when I was just 5 years old, so as a teenager, I wasn’t too subjected to his antiquated beliefs and ideals. My poor sister on the other hand… all I can say is shame!

She is now 19 and still taking grief from my Dad. He loves nagging her and he drives her insane. Te net result is that she (and my brother) hides things from my Dad. She has the cutest tattoos which my dad knows nothing about, recently she started dating a new guy and has worked hard to keep my Dad from knowing too much about him. Unfortunately for her my Dad popped around to her house this morning and ‘caught’ the new guy sleeping over and my Step-Mom wasn’t home. My dad went off on one and is now not at all happy with my sister.

Now I’m not going to get too caught up in what’s right and wrong, personally I don’t like tattoos. But I can’t wait for Hopelessly and I to be figuring out the best way to handle a teenager. To be trying to walk the line between being permissive enough that your kids never hide things from you, but still giving them a good sense of what is right and wrong and some good guidelines on how to make decisions from themselves, which are sensible and aren’t going to do them any damage in the long run.

I just hope we aren’t too old when our turn finally comes, that we aren’t caught up in some antiquated ideas of our own.

Anyway only six more hours and they arrive. I can’t wait to see my family!

That is the question.

To be honest it’s not really like me to second guess whether it’s a good idea or not to open my mouth and give my opinion, but in this case I’m really not sure what to do. You see it’s complicated, but maybe it just shouldn’t be?

Hoplessly’s best friend and his wife have been TTC for about a year now. Well we have good reason to believe they have been. I overheard a conversation in early January which suggested they were working on it. They got married in Feb and made no secret of the fact that they didn’t want to wait. But then they went on honeymoon to locations exotic which required yellow fever shots and were advised to hold off the trying for a bit. But they’ve been back a while and I have no idea what they did to hold off the trying and to be honest have no idea how hard they are trying or whether they are simply not trying not to get preggers.

Anyway, I’m somewhat nosy, a bit of a voyeur as I’ve mentioned before and love to get involved in everyone’s business. Now they mentioned a few months back that she thought she might have had a miscarriage because her period was four days late and then very heavy, but she never went to the gynie until after the bleeding had stopped so she couldn’t give any steer on whether or not she had in deed had a miscarriage. And I didn’t volunteer my experience of a period which was a whole week late, but wasn’t a miscarriage.

Anyway, Hopelessly has told his friend we are trying and about the challenges we face, but being blokes, the conversation doesn’t go any further than that. His friend also mentioned that his wife had tried getting pregnant with her previous husband, but it hadn’t happened. neither of them asks any questions and neither of them volunteers any information. The crux of it is that we really don’t talk about this much between the two couples. Being the busy body that I am, I am wondering and worried that perhaps they have fertility issues and should really get some help.

The complicated part is that her and I don’t really get on very well. You see I used to date her hubby (that’s how Hopelessly ad I met) and she possibly still has some issues with this and maybe she just isn’t my kind of person, or maybe we are too similar??? I don’t know. But until very recently I think the knife to cut the deepest would have been if they had announced their pregnancy before us. But now I’m starting to soften to her and I think it has a lot to do with the fact that she hasn’t fallen pregnant straight away and I wonder if I should advise her to see an FS.

So should I mind my own business and let them figure things out for themselves and selfishly protect my heart from any pregnancy announcements from them or should I stick my nose in and give some advice that wasn’t asked for and I’m really not sure would be welcomed at all? Whatcha think?

So at last I am totally caught up on all the blogs I hadn’t got to reading in the last few weeks while I’ve been avoiding all things infertility. Wow in two weeks we go through so much in this world of IF. In two weeks one woman got her baby in her arms via adoption, in two weeks three women finally got their BFP, in two weeks one person has gone from hope of having her hubby’s child to secretly hoping he can just move on from his bio babies, in two weeks one woman lost her little bean in the belly, in two weeks one woman went from no hope to actually getting a prescription for hope form her FS! No wonder so many of us are an emotional mess, no wonder so many of us require some kind of anti-depressant or mood stabiliser, no wonder I thought I might be saner without this in my life.

But it hasn’t been like that. All that happens without the blogosphere is I get too caught up in my own brain. It’s good to share, it’s good to have ‘friends’ who help to take you out of your own self-pity party. So I’m back and hoping to stay in touch a little better, although I imagine having my family around is going to make that rather tough.

So what’s going on in this addled brain of mine?

I seem to have gone from such a high of hope that we still have hope that we can have Hopelessly’s bio baby to just being in a funk over the waiting. The bitch with IF is that every situation is different, every diagnosis requires different action and MFI has a special kind of hell. It seems that when you have female issues you keep cycling, temping, medicating and testing, every month is the hideous roller-coaster ride, the hope, the waiting. Some days I am so relieved for not having that ride, others days I wish I could be doing something because waiting and not ‘doing’ something is driving me crazy.

I know I’m mad, I mean we ARE doing something, as the slowly developing bruises on my poor man’s bum will attest to. We are taking action as our fast growing medical bills will attest to. (As an aside we have been completely unable to get Pregnyl in South Africa and as a result he is now on Ovidrel injections once a week instead of the Pregnyl. Ovidrel is 3 times the price. Yes THREE times the price! Between that and the Menopur three times a week it’s not cheap.) I’ve even tried talking to his little guys (sorry Hunny of course I mean big guys) in the hopes that lots of loving talk will encourage them into action. The FS said that he will feel ‘something’ in his balls when they start developing and I think that three weeks of the new protocol should be enough for them to be in action now! Don’t you agree?!?

Anyway every day I keep hoping that today will be the day that I get through without feeling the need to fight the tears, without needing to brace myself against the baby talk, without living in fear of pregnancy announcements, but today isn’t that day. But I really have had enough of the self-pity party already. Thanks to all of you who help to keep me sane, by getting out of my own head.

I know it’s been a while again, but there are a whole bunch of reasons. Firstly work has been crazy busy and I have been struggling to find time to just spend with my darling man when I am awake, so not much time to blog. Also I have been trying different approaches to distracting myself and top of the list has been simply staying away from Fertilicare Forum and all other Baby Making related things. It hasn’t really worked, so here I am back in Blogland.

I’m fairly sure that at least a significant part of my current state of mind is driven by being overworked and over stressed, but I am just sick and tired of feeling miserable. I’m tired of struggling not to cry, I’m tired of trying to appear cheerful… I’m just tired.

So the thing today that is bringing me down is one of those crazy IF things. One of those things that really shouldn’t matter and doesn’t make me seem the nicest person, but it’s just the way it is.

You see my folks are coming down to Cape Town for the Festive Season. The whole family is joining us for Christmas. I’m really looking forward to seeing my family, having them around and getting to share Christmas with both my and Hoplessly’s families at the same time.

But I keep picturing my mom holding my little niece and it breaks my heart. I keep picturing my dad going all coo-ey at her and it makes me angry. I keep seeing my sister holding her or my brother talking to her, or my step-mother changing her nappy and I can’t help but cry. It’s not fair. And it’s horrible to say, but I am so jealous that I don’t quite know what to do with myself. I want all of that to be for OUR child.

I could rant on and on about how this isn’t fair and how angry and frustrated and sad I am, but it’s just not going to change anything and besides I’m just too tired for all that.

Count them 1, 2, 3 (anyone else remember this dreadful song?!?).

I’m not going to go with the obvious reason you heard all about that yesterday already. I suddenly find myself with so many reasons to be cheerful this morning that I think it might be really hard to stick to just three and besides I don’t want to irritate anyone with my happiness, I know how annoying that can be.

I told you I attended a card class a few weeks ago and promised that I would report back properly with photos, so here they are. Each card represent for me a reason to be cheerful.

1st Attempt

We had such a giggle, especially with the first card I made. For those of you who don’t know me, I am super competitive and also think I’m very clever, so often don’t really listen to or follow instructions, but MUST always be the best at whatever I do or I loose interest very quickly. And so it was with this personality that I started the card class. Making the very first card, I was trying to make the paper lace stuff dividing the two colours and wasn’t paying enough attention, probably still stupidly in IF thoughts and managed to do the embossing before I actually cut the shape out and everything ended up slightly off. Before I knew it the first card was on track to disaster. I found myself really laughing at myself in a way I haven’t done in far too long and slowly started to unwind and relax. The card turned out okay, not great, but still I gave it away to a friend who’s 30th party we went to last week.

Best Friends

I learnt my lesson though and paid better attention to the next card. I found myself just letting go of all the IF thoughts that normally spin around and around in my head. And there I was really concentrating on what I was doing. The second card, I just knew as soon as I saw the paper that it was going to be for Bee (my BFF) and the whole time I was making it I found myself thinking about what an amazing friendship we have. How she doesn’t understand what Hopelessly and I are going through (and how could she when she is holding the daughter they conceived in their first month of trying!), but still she has been there and tries to relate. Yes she has said some pretty dumb things, but she is more like my sister than my friend and I love her no matter what. And there I was making this card just for her and wishing I could be there when she opens it. This is my favourite card, because I really felt that I put my love for my friend into the making of the card.

Mother-In-Law

And then onto the last one. Again the moment I saw the paper I knew who the card had to be for. My MIL loves purple, she actually had a whole purple suit and brief case which she actually used to wear in public. She really has one of the worst dress senses I have ever encountered, but I love her for it. It is just a part of her quirkiness. And so the whole time I was making this card I was thinking about her and how much she would love it. And thinking about how amazing she has been. From the moment I actually became a member of the family (I’ll tell you all about how she tried to put my off marrying her son another time) she has embraced me as part of the family. And through this tough year, she has been there. Very quietly, in the background. She doesn’t ask questions, but she manages to not ask in such a way that you still know she cares and is thinking about it. She is the one who gives me an extra tight squeeze goodbye when we’ve had people around talking about babies, or when it’s been one of those nights with our niece when I am struggling that we don’t have a baby of our own. She just seems to know and understand and be there in just the way we need her to be. And so this card will be given to her to thank her for her amazing support and love.

I am thrilled with the second two cards. In fact I was really taken back that I was capable of making anything this pretty! Bragging now I know, but really it was a great instructor. She was patient and seemed as thrilled as I was when things turned out right. Best of all I found something I could do which totally took me out of myself and helped me to laugh again and helped me to think of something other than our oneday child and was so very rewarding. So Saturday I’m off for my next class, this time it’s Christmas Cards, so watch this space.

And let out a HUGE sigh of relief!

Our new FS is great. He communicates clearly, explains things in a way I understood, let me ask questions without feeling like I was questioning his judgement or recommendations. Asked our opinion, was interested in our theories and explained why we were right or wrong

So the results weren’t great in fact it was a simple case of no change. 0 Sperm and no increase in testosterone levels. I think we had both completely convinced ourselves that the appointment would be discussing sperm donors and the dIUI process.

But Dr S said he doesn’t even want to discuss donor sperm with us as we aren’t there yet. He said we need to be patient and the new protocol WILL work! Did you read that WILL work! We are beside ourselves with hope and relief that our dreams are not dashed.

Okay to be fair there were some caveats on that. He said the injections will get Hopelessly’s testes to function, but there’s no guarantee that we will get viable sperm, but he seemed to be talking about getting pregnant from sex… I mean honestly does anyone still do that??? LOL Seriously though, he said Hopelessly should actually feel when his balls start growing and developing, he said he should feel when ‘something’ is happening in there. He called Prof Kruger (THE MFI specialist in the world – I think!) to get a second opinion on the protocol and now I feel so justified in our decision to stay at the same clinic but just find a new doc. So he and Prof agreed that we need to give it another six to nine months on the injections, but they also agreed that we should change the protocol. So enter Menopur! Hopelessly will now be on Menopur injections in the but three times a week and Pregnyl once a week and fingers crossed he starts to feel something very soon!

He explained that it is possible that the reason the Pregnyl hasn’t started working yet is because of the Testosterone injections earlier in the year. He said the testosterone injections could have basically shut his system down for fertility. Dr S did say that my man should seriously consider doing something about his weight as it could be another contributing factor on why the pregnyl hasn’t worked. So now the big decision, to join the gym, get those Boxer Puppies we’ve been talking about, do both… Anyway Hopelessly has agreed to see my dietician and see what she says and he’s weighing up the exercise options.

He also said that there are three things used to diagnose PCOS, An-ovulation, poly-cystic ovaries and high male hormone levels. I don’t have any of these, well I think I’m ovulating anyway, I get all the signs and while my cycle is unpredictable, it’s still within 10 days either way. So he doesn’t think I have PCOS!!!

So last night we had a steak braai (barbeque for those non-South Africans) and I drank wine and ate carbs and generally celebrated. Today I will try to be good again, but Silly Season (otherwise known as Christmas) has started and my first Party is tonight, so we’ll see how long that lasts.

Thank you to everyone who sent us good wishes, emails, thoughts and prayers. It’s still a long road, but at least we have hope to keep us going.

I can’t believe almost two weeks has gone by since my last blog! I have an excuse and it’s a good one, well I have a few excuses but they all add up to one thing…

Firstly work has been hectic. No really I mean crazy busy. Last week there were a few days where I was at my desk all the way in town by 5.30am. Insane I know! Big event (great success I am glad to report) and some pre-sales meetings which were also VERY successful. Both meetings led to the client signing up for BIG money projects. So while it was completely exhausting and stressful and my poor man hardly saw me at all – a very successful week.

Then I have been good at getting on top of my distractions. I will post on this separately as I even have photos to brag with, but I just have to say the card class we so awesome that I am signed up for another one next week.

Thank heavens for the distractions list, it has helped time to fly, but I fear I haven’t been the best wife ever. Normally it is Hopelessly who buries his head in something and simply avoids too much thinking. Typical male behaviour I am told. And make no mistake he has spent plenty time in his ‘man cave’ also known as his workshop and some beautiful work has come out of it (Take a look here). But I think he has been suffering while I took the opportunity to simply bury my head in the sand. I hid in my work, in my distractions, in my IF sisters from the book club and movies, in books, in TV and yes even in food!

I have avoided Fertilicare, I have avoided my blog and my blog reader (I had nearly 200 posts to read when I finally ventured into my reader this evening), I have avoided thinking about infertility, avoided thinking about Hopelessly’s test last week, avoided thinking about the results which we could have picked up today and avoided thinking about our appointment with Dr S tomorrow. And for the first time in my life I was successful at avoiding that which I didn’t want to face. But now the hour is upon us…

Tomorrow is our D Day! Another D Day I know. We thought we were facing our D Day over two months ago when Dr Shit-for-brains moved the goal posts. That day I thought the worst thing that could happen had happened, that he had told me to wait some more. Now as I face the thought of tomorrow, the thing I fear most is being told that Hopelessly can’t be the biological father of our kids. Now I am willing to face another three months and another three after that if they will just give us more hope. I will happily stick it to him every night (injections that is – you dirty people) if we can just have his nose on our baby or his blonde baby hair on our boy!

Last week Hopelessly said he wanted to have another Semen Analysis done as well as the testosterone test. We both have very little hope that the last month of injections will have made any difference to his testosterone results and if the testosterone results haven’t increased and the Doc says there’s no point in trying anything else, we want to know for sure that he didn’t have that one Lone Ranger, that swimmer that could turn out to be our baby.

I got home from work this afternoon and Hopelessly asked me to phone the clinic to get the results of the SA and the Testosterone test. I had managed to avoid even thinking about the fact that we could get the results before our appointment. When I phone the clinic it was already closed. I think I might be a little relieved that we couldn’t get the results. I’m just not ready for the bad news tonight. And I really a convinced it’s not good news… so I’ll just avoid it for a few more hours.

Oh please, pretty please let there be some good news tomorrow. PLEASE!

I’m really hoping that saying doesn’t translate for “Always a God-Mother, Never a Mother”.

Yesterday afternoon my SIL asked Hopelessly and I if we would please be guardians for her little girl if anything were to happen to her and her hubby. I was so emotional that I couldn’t really answer her properly, but without doubt the answer is a resounding “Of Course!!!”

Hopelessly and I are now the proud god-parents of three wonderful kids. One boy who is nine and two girls, one eight weeks old and one 13 weeks old!

I think there is no greater honour than someone asking you to be a god-parent. The responsibility of knowing that if something happens to them they are entrusting you to bring up their child as though it were your own. Trusting you to provide for it, teach it right from wrong and give it all the love its parents would if they were around. I am so flattered and thrilled. I’ve decided to take this as a sign that other people obviously think I am up to being a mom and will be good at it.

So now to make it a reality for us. I don’t always want to be a stand-in mom, I want to be the real thing for my own baby!