narrating kayoz

Write to Marry Day

I somehow missed this (actually it wasn't hard, I've been keeping up with almost no blogs lately including my own!), so I'm just adding this link now.

My best friend lives in California and recently she legally married her partner (and co-parent) of many years.

She married her in a non-legal ceremony the same year Chris and I married, and it wasn't until later that I felt crumby about the fact that we got married legally when she still couldn't. Of course, she was in a different country, but she couldn't have gotten married here either. She still can't.

I hope when her children and my children grow up that they will be able to marry whoever they like; that whether to include the state in their ceremonies will be about their own choices, not about the sex of the people they marry.

Next: the bad news

The bad news is that as of this morning I seem to be having a miscarriage. I was five weeks today and starting to feel pretty good about it all, but apparently that wasn't warranted.

I say 'seem' and 'apparently' only because it's not absolutely 100% clear yet. But it's probably about 99.8%, so I'm not kidding myself. I"m bleeding, it's just no where near as heavy as it would be for a normal period at this point. But I think I remember it being like that last time too. And it's not just spotting either.

I've been over analysing my feelings to death, as I am want to do. I'm upset, of course. But not exactly shocked. I knew things weren't looking quite as they should. I'm sure there should be plenty of hormone there by day 32 to make a nice strong second line. When my sister first conceived Samantha there was a similar absence of sufficient hormone, and in fact the first blood test my sister had showed the hormone levels being a little below normal for that far along - and the doctor assumed she was going to have a miscarriage. The second one showed that the levels had come up, and they continued to do so and did get into the normal range, but as we later found out, everything was not right with Samantha.

So I knew, maybe this pregnancy was not going to work out. But I got my hopes up anyway, as you do.

So how am I feeling now? I'm sad, about this pregnancy not working. I'm also upset about what it likely means, which is no baby for quite some time. The last miscarriage was followed by three or four months of wacky cycles. Normally taking my temperature in the mornings gives a clear idea of when I ovulate. There would be a clear spike in the middle of the month, and it would then stay elevated until the day of or the day before my period. For the few months following the miscarriage there was not any clear spike, or even any clear pattern. I couldn't make sense of it at all, but I assumed it probably means I didn't ovulate those cycles, and that in fact my hormones didn't sort themselves out properly until the end of that time. Which seems odd, for such an early miscarriage, but I think maybe my hormonal system is simply not all it could be. I've had other problems before.

So I'm thinking, not only has this baby not made it, but there probably won't be a pregnancy this year at all. I'd gotten quite attached to the idea of having a baby only maybe eight months younger than my sister's. And my best friend is hoping to get pregnant soon-ish (though there are some complications there), and another best friend is pregnant already. Both of them had their first babies close to mine, and the former had her second baby only 7 weeks before Mikaela. So it seemed fated, almost...

Last time I had a miscarriage it took a year to get pregnant again afterwards.

I'm beset by all these comflicting thoughts though. Last time I was crying and in shock on the day I started miscarrying. I'm not saying there've been no tears today, but I feel a lot more - well, okay, I guess. Last time I made Chris stay home from the workshop he was meant to be going to. Today I went to work myself. (I'm supposed to be out at lunch with friends now, while my Mum has the kids, but I couldn't face that, so I just came home.)

That was a little surreal. I was sitting there working, talking, saying 'fine thanks' every time someone asked how I was, all the time wondering whether the bleeding's sped up yet. Whether I should go change the pad.* I remember someone else telling me she went to work while she was miscarrying, and me saying - or at least thinking - she was crazy. But what else was there to do? There's nothing physically wrong with me. And it wasn't the shock it would have been if I'd really thought everything was fine.

Back to the conflicting thoughts. I feel sort of okay, but then - not so much. I have all these thoughts about how I should feel, how I'm entitled to feel, and how I'm not entitled to feel. I have an appointment to see my GP next week (which was meant to be to get a blood test organised to see if the hormones were as they should be), so I imagine having to tell him and then I imagine sympathy and then I start to cry. That's what happens if I imagine telling anyone actually, or anyone who I think would be all sympathetic about it.

But really, I don't feel the need to cry most of the time.

And then I imagine other people, who might think I was overdoing it. Who might say (or think) - well, it's only five weeks, and you knew this might be on the cards. And then I feel cross and defensive about the fact that I am upset, that I have cried. (Of course, probably I'm the only one who would think that anyway...)

I'm so conscious of what I should feel, what I might feel, what I am, or am not entitled to feel, that I can't actually figure out what I really do feel. When I burst into tears while I was driving home, was that just me driving myself to tears (so to speak) by feeling sorry for myself, or by imagining others giving me sympathy, or was that real? When I feel okay, is that just me distancing myself and not allowing myself to really feel what I do, or is that real?

These are rhetorical questions, BTW. I know, of course, that they are both real. But at the same time, I'm not quite sure of it.

I'm also conscious that after the last miscarriage I got quite depressed for a few weeks. It was my first brush with a form of depression that was more than just being sad, or feeling down in the dumps for a day. It seemed all out of proportion to what I'd experienced, but it  nonetheless made it hard for me to get out of bed in the morning, much less do anything once I got up. When I realised it was probably largely hormonal it was like a light bulb going on. It didn't make it go away, but it helped enormously to understand it. To know that it was real, and not just something I was somehow making happen.

But, I am definitely worried about that happening again. Not to mention the nausea. Pregnancy nausea is bad enough. Un-pregnancy nausea is just unfair.

Anyway, I'm up and down and some of the time I don't even remember. Most of all I'd like to tuck myself under my covers and go to sleep, but now I need to go pick up my children, so further self-analysis will have to wait.

________________________________
*'sanitary napkin' I think is the US term

First, some ambiguous news

I wrote this (to a friend) a few days ago, but haven't gotten around to blogging about it properly, so now I'm just going to cut and paste (with a few un-noted clarifications).

But first, a note to 'IRL' readers.

It's a weird thing, now that my blog posts are imported to facebook, that a lot of people I know 'in real life' might happen across my blog posts. Until now that hasn't made any real difference to the way I blog, but this is a blog post that I write without having talked about it to people I know IRL (aside from a couple of people).

So if you are reading this and know me in the 'real' world, just don't assume because I've blogged something that I've made it 'public' in the sense of actually talking to people about it. I know, it sounds ridiculous, but there it is.

It's like this (as Tashi would say). I haven't been paying very close attention to my cycles, because I ran out of pages in the book in which I record these things. But my period was due late last week.  It would have been due on Friday for a 28 day cycle, which is the absolute longest I ever have (though they do seem to have been getting longer since I started taking iron two months ago - one 28 and then a 27 day cycle).

So, when it hadn't started on Saturday I picked up a pack of three (cheap, but supposedly good for up to 7 days before your period is due) pregnancy tests on the way to the airport (I was on the way to visit my sister & husband and their new baby in Melbourne). I did one at the airport and it was negative at three minutes. I was in the airport toilet though, which was a bit dark, so I stuck it in my pocket (it was one of those little strips of cardboard that you dip in a cup of urine, not an in-stream test, so it fitted easily, though you might think it was a little gross). When I looked at it in the good light a few minutes later (probably within the ten minutes that counts, but possibly not) there was a very faintly detectable line, if you looked closely. But this was after it had been stuffed into my jeans pocket, not placed carefully, face-up, on a non-absorbent surface.

Now, we were trying *not* to get pregnant this month, so as not to end up with two children born on the same day (or even the same week), and also because I really was wanting to be back at work for 12 months before going on maternity leave. So even though we officially started trying in September, I wasn't planning to start really trying until November. Late November in fact. Still, I was hoping that pregnancy test would be positive.

Anyway, my period still showed no signs of coming, so I did another test the next morning. It too was negative at 3 minutes. And four minutes. I forgot to look again within the ten minutes, but at 12 minutes again there was a faintly detectable line, if it was held up to the light and squinted at just so.

At this point I started thinking maybe it was a case of the nicely termed 'blighted ovum' type situation. Or more likely blighted sperm, since the sperm would have to have been a bit old by the time I (probably) ovulated anyway. So maybe there's not enough hormone to be detectable, but there's something there to stop my period happening. So I decided that before I did the third test I'd get a better test and do them both at once. That way if the cheap one was still blank but the other one had a clear and dark second line I could be happy, or if they were both blank I could be pretty sure it wasn't happening.

So on the way home from the airport on Monday night I stopped by the chemist bought another test (which cost more than the other three put together). When I did both tests that night this is what I got: The cheap one - still blank at 4 minutes (supposed to be readable at 3). Again, a very very faint line appeared after ten minutes, but not before. The expensive one - a clear line by two minutes. But, not a  dark line. Very clear, not faint at all, but light. And that's at day 32.

So. I'm thinking - maybe I'm going to have a baby next June (due date July 3, three days before Kaely's was). Or maybe I'm going to have a miscarriage soon. Or maybe (worst case scenario) it's going to be a Samantha-type situation (Samantha was my sister's baby who was born and died at about 21 weeks last year, having not developed any kidneys). Anyway, I'm getting my hopes up, as you can imagine, and will make an appointment to see the doctor ASAP (just as soon as I get Kaely up, who is calling me now from the bedroom). I'm already booked in to the birth centre :)

That was the exciting, but ambiguous news. Unfortunately what comes next is the bad news, which is where I am now. I'm really only posting this so I can then write about that.

10,000 steps

I've join the 10,000 step challenge at work this week. I've only done four days so far, but what I've discovered is that on a normal home-with-kids day I have no trouble getting to around 10,000 steps or more, but on work days, unless I make an extra effort, I'd probably only get to 7-8000.

Of that 8000, I get about 3-3500 walking to and from the bus (so if for some reason I get picked up, there goes a good chunk of it) and about 1000 on my daily walk around the outside of the building at lunch. The rest is incidental.

By comparison, on a day when I'm home with the kids, I've done about 3000 steps before I even get out the door to take Liam to school!

Moral: I need to go for longer walks for lunch, or more evening walks with the kids. We're doing the latter a bit again, now that it's staying late for longer. But it involves getting dinner organised a little bit early and skipping the time Liam and I usually spend reading and chatting, while Chris and Kaely either look at books or - often - go for walk on their own.

Permanent agri/culture is permanent!

Liam had a playdate at a friend's house on Friday afternoon. When I got there the friend's mother was telling me some of the nice/funny things that had happened - like Liam singing the whole of 'Mean to Me' (by Crowded House) with full rock 'n' roll effects and no selfconciousness. (He's learned it by listening to and watching live versions, like the Farewell to the World concert, so he puts in all the extra bits.)

Another thing was when she asked him about permaculture - what it was. His answer? He didn't really know exactly, but he coud tell her it was permanent. And it used potting mix. And was natural.

Welcome Charlie!

Finally, after some years of trying, and the 21 week birth of Samantha last year, my sister has a baby. Charlie was born last night, just a couple of hours past his due date. We are all extremely excited. I can't wait to go down to Melbourne to meet him (and spend some time helping my sister of course). Hopefully next weekend...

Enoughness

I came across the idea of 'enoughness' recently, when talking with a colleague who studied sociology with Ian Hughes at the Australian National University (ANU) some years ago. Apparently Hughes (who was an anthropologist & sociologist - odd mix I know) did some work in Papua New Guinea, where he came across this concept.*

In a particular community he visited there, people actually lived the concept of enoughness. They had an idea of how much was enough - enough to see them through with a little extra for a slow year - and then stopped accumulating more. Instead they moved to putting their energy into cultural improvement - creating, adding to their culture.

Last year for my Blog Action Day post, I wrote about consumerism, and my efforts to avoid the indoctrination of my children with the materialist ethic of our culture. Blog Action Day last year was about the environment. This year it's about poverty, but I find myself writing about almost the same subject.

Imagine if everyone in Australia had, and practiced, the concept of enoughness. Instead of constantly wanting more, we could say, that's enough - and then give of ourselves to our community. There wouldn't be any unemployment, because people would be working less. Community organisations wouldn't be struggling for lack of volunteers, because people would have plenty of time to give back - helping out at a soup kitchen or running a protest rally or listening to kids read at school or whatever.

I struggle personally with this concept all the time. I am as materialistic as the next person, and though I try to resist it, I often fail. And I don't mean that I just fail to avoid consuming. What I mean is that I fail to avoid wanting. You may say there's nothing wrong with wanting, if you are able to avoid acting on the want. Sure - it's our actions we are responsible for, not our emotions. There's something to that, but I'd sure like to be able to overcome the emotion too. To figure out exactly what it is that drives the want, and to beat it.

But back to enoughness. How do we know when something is enough? At the moment, Chris and I both work part-time, so that one of us is (almost) always home with Mikaela (and Liam after school). Of course, we always feel that we are struggling a bit with money as a result, but really we're not. We just can't buy the things we want.

Things like a bigger hard drive so we can put all our music into iTunes and onto our iPod. We don't need that but we really want it. Things like a bike for Chris so he could ride with Liam, and maybe even work up to riding to work (we both usually take the bus at the moment). Hey, maybe even a bike for me. Of course there's also non-material consuming like dinners out or going to see a movie (either of which we can really afford to do *occasionally* anyway).

And then there's the really big one: things like a bigger house (with a bedroom for each of the (planned) kids, and maybe even a study as well), with a bigger yard. Why do we feel we need that? Because it's what most of our friends have, or at the very least expect to have within the next few years. We have bedroom for each of the kids at the moment if we give up the study. But we are hoping to have another kid (isn't two enough? I hear you ask), so then two kids will have to share *and* we'll have to give up the study.

But you know what? So what? Kids share all the time. We could put the computer in a corner of our bedroom. But I grew up with my own room from the age of six (when my Dad moved out and I got the study!), most of Liam's friends have their own rooms (or will have within a few years, base on their parents intentions), and well... it seems good. I mean, really.

For Liam and his friends to be able to go build lego in Liam's room is really good at the moment, because Mikaela wants to follow Liam everywhere, but she just is not fun for him to have around when he's trying to build lego space ships. At the moment Kaely is still in our room (and we're still in the study!), but that can't last if we have another baby. So yeah, I would love to have another bedroom so they could each have their own.

But if I gave up on that plan? I would suddenly feel immeasurably richer. And then the presure to work more would diminish a little. And if I could give up on all the other wants, the pressure to work more would diminish a whole lot.

The blog action day theme is poverty, and here I am talking about my own richness and desire for more. But what I'm really thinking is that if everyone who had as much as I do (or more), stopped, if we all said "that's enough", and started using the rest of our time and money to contribute - be it by writing a book, painting a painting, planting trees, or continuing in our seventy-hour-a-week jobs but donating our excess income to helping people who don't have enough  - well, I wonder how long it would take to eliminate poverty around the world?

_________
* A google search hasn't turned up any information, so I'm not entirely sure of my facts here, but for the purposes of this blog post it doesn't really matter.