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For the avoidance of doubt... Yes... I definitely have an opinion... |
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** Images For Use By Upgraded+ Only ** Welcome to my Blog!! About me: I'm not really a blogger... But I do like to put the world to rights and you can bet I have an opinion on most things. I'm a little Welsh dragon that left the Land of My Fathers far behind me. I've flown far and wide.... and ended up in the land down under This blog is filled with all the stuff that's going on in my life, and in my head, which can be a little cookey on times, so you have been warned!! And let's not forget my opinions and musing - I have a few of those as well. So pull up a pew, grab a hot, steaming mug of something yummy, and maybe a cake to: Life is always better with cake don't you think. And read... ** Images For Use By Upgraded+ Only ** I just starting blogging with the following groups: ** Images For Use By Upgraded+ Only ** ** Images For Use By Upgraded+ Only ** ** Images For Use By Upgraded+ Only ** ** Images For Use By Upgraded+ Only ** I also write a Xmas Blog that kicks off 1st December.... "Invalid Item"  ....tag along for elvishness and merriment
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| I love Monday - Monday nights anyway. Their my hot chocolate and The Walking Dead evening. We've five episodes in to the first half of the season, and I can't wait to see what happened next. Definitely more Daryl and Rick needed thought! And where the hell is Glenn!! So far it feels like a bit of a filler episode. It's not bad (apart from no Daryl or Glenn). There are just a lot of bitty things going on. I don't like bitty. And I'm not overly fond of episodes that split the cast up. Every so often is ok - if something dramatic happens; but this is starting to drag now. **** I've had a busy day today. Not at work - that was as dull as anything. But I managed to create two entries; one for "Daily Flash Fiction Challenge" and one for "Invalid Item" - go me!! So really I deserve my hot chocolate and Walking Dead. I worked hard for it. I'm not sure about my So Emotional entry "Invalid Entry" . I think it's ok but it may have missed the mark, more vinaigrette than story. But I like "Invalid Entry" . I'm pleased with it.It was the first day back at work after a week holiday. I'd hoped it would have picked up while I was away and it has - just not for me. Since I told my manager I'm pregnant he seems to be really limiting the amount of work that he passes over to me. I have another 18 weeks to go yet. It's going to drive me mad. I mean it's great for my writing, but not so for my career. Why men think pregnant women can't carry out their normal jobs is beyond me - especially as I just sit at a desk all day bossing people around. There are quite a few breaks for tea. Tomorrow is going to be another trying day... I'm going to have to come home for Indy at lunch time so I'm thinking I might just work from home instead. Not exactly like it matters where I do nothing I suppose. |
| I love Monday - Monday nights anyway. Their my hot chocolate and The Walking Dead evening. We've five episodes in to the first half of the season, and I can't wait to see what happened next. Definitely more Daryl and Rick needed thought! And where the hell is Glenn!! So far it feels like a bit of a filler episode. It's not bad (apart from no Daryl or Glenn). There are just a lot of bitty things going on. I don't like bitty. And I'm not overly fond of episodes that split the cast up. Every so often is ok - if something dramatic happens; but this is starting to drag now. **** I've had a busy day today. Not at work - that was as dull as anything. But I managed to create two entries; one for "Daily Flash Fiction Challenge" and one for "Invalid Item" - go me!! So really I deserve my hot chocolate and Walking Dead. I worked hard for it. I'm not sure about my So Emotional entry "Invalid Entry" . I think it's ok but it may have missed the mark, more vinaigrette than story. But I like "Invalid Entry" . I'm pleased with it.It was the first day back at work after a week holiday. I'd hoped it would have picked up while I was away and it has - just not for me. Since I told my manager I'm pregnant he seems to be really limiting the amount of work that he passes over to me. I have another 18 weeks to go yet. It's going to drive me mad. I mean it's great for my writing, but not so for my career. Why men think pregnant women can't carry out their normal jobs is beyond me - especially as I just sit at a desk all day bossing people around. There are quite a few breaks for tea. Tomorrow is going to be another trying day... I'm going to have to come home for Indy at lunch time so I'm thinking I might just work from home instead. Not exactly like it matters where I do nothing I suppose. |
| Happy Anniversary - no not the WDC kind, the wedding kind! Four years to day I married my... I hate the words "soul-mate", or "love of my life"... but for want of a better turn of phrase yes that's exactly what Guy is. It was a day where I felt no hesitation, no anxiety, no "I am doing the right thing?" - it was a day I was sure I was making the right choice. I wanted nothing more than to run down that aisle and meet him. Practically dragging my dad with me. It hasn't always been smooth sailing, but it hasn't been a struggle either. We've faced our share of tribulation from family rifts to finding out we'd need help to conceive, but through it all there was never a ripple between us, as a couple. It's something I'm truly grateful for. Don't get me wrong, it took me a long time to adjust to being called Mrs Di Stefano. I still find it strange when I open up my bank account online and see those words - "that's not me". I got use to my new name fairly quickly. I even got use to the raised eyebrows and quizzical expression at car hire companies, or when I had to formally change my name at my local building society - Stephanie Di Stefano does get a few chuckles. I managed to refrain from pointing out, not too subtly, that their behaviour was rude and customer service lacking...most of the time. The acceptance that I'm his wife, and he's my husband, also took a little bit of mind bending. Mr & Mrs is for old people surely.... and we're not old.... yet. But it's also a chapter of my life I'm willing to accept and relish. I'd turned 30 two/three weeks before the wedding. My twenties were a time of healing a past, exploring and accepting me - warts and all, and creating my foundation in life; work, love, family, friendship and self. I didn't realise until I was exiting this decade how important all the turmoil and change was, but it shaped me for my thirties. I'm no longer single - and despite what people say it does take a long time to adjust to that, at least for me. I'm now a wife and a mother (expectant and fur-baby both). It's the last decade in the UK before we emigrate to Australia (dear husband's home land). And truly a time of firsts; first dog, first baby, first steps and first day at school, and first time buying a house, maybe the first time sell we sell one to, who knows. We're four years into our first decade together as man and wife and it's been magical. I can't wait to experience the nest 12 months with Guy by my side, and then the next decades that will follow after that. To celebrate we're off to the cinema to watch Spectre (aren't we romantic), and later we'll head home for hot chocolate and Star Wars monopoly, with Indy curled around our feet and our little dragonoo doing flips in my belly. Happy Anniversary!! |
| I'm no longer a red head... Back to being a brunette. I think this will take some getting use to; even if dark chestnut is my natural colour. Isn't it funny how we associate ourselves with certain things, like as personalities are somehow personified by them. I've always thought myself more red than brown. That it suits my fiery temper. I've never seen myself as a blonde.... Always thought I'd look ridiculous; I tried I once with a bottle of SunIn, but I wnt more coppery gold than blonde... Not a good look on me. But today I decided, after two years of having a traffic light inspired, choppy, asymmetric cut, I'd even it out and go back to basics... It took three hours - graduate hairdresser - it was finished. The red is still warming through.... So it's not too cold...But it feels weird... Doesn't feel or look like me. I'm always surprised how much a haircut and pair of glasses can change your look. Maybe it really would work for superman/Clark Kent. I'm still not entirely convinced. Add this to my ever expanding belly and boobs, thank you growing child of mine, and I'm really beginning to feel separated from my identity. This must be the early stages of the transformation into a mum.... Why does it seem so much easier for the dads... Grrr |
| Turns out it's not too early for Christmas... It's perfect Christmas tree buying time. Since I'm not allowed to have a real tree - BOOOO - because Guy thinks they are too messy and will irritate the dogs paws, and our current tree is about eight years old, we thought it was time to get an nice one. A family one.... Not a make do one.... So we did. We didn't plan it. We went to the garden centre because I wanted to get out of the house and so I could have a look at the decorations and candles before the crowds set in at the end of November. Last year we went in December and it was madness. There were so many people, pushing and shoving, and all the good decorations gone. I have to confess I like tree decorations. I've a slight obsession with buying them and get some new ones every year. Last year we picked a hand painted bauble up in Rome while we were there for our anniversary, and then some more at the Bath Christmas market. It's something I want to do as a tradition. Each year we'll pick out a few new ones to at to our collection, even the little one will get to select one, once its older enough. This year is ginger bread shapes and birds. They're very cute. We have no intention to get buy a tree. It was one of those "let's just have a look" moments. The trees are at the start of the store and you have to pass them on the way to the other decorations; clever strategy... We start to talk about the types of trees we like. We both like the frost or snow covered ones, and there were some lovely ones - we decided on a snow covered, 7fter. I can't wait to see it up in a month's time. We also have our advent candles ready - hopefully Guy won't burn this one down by day 10, like last year. |
| Is it too early to be thinking about Christmas? Halloween is done and dusted for another year, and there's no Thanks Giving in the UK, which means it's next stop Christmas. There are pop-up shops appearing all over the place - fully of Christmas decoration, cards and wrapping paper, and the Bath Christmas market will be here in four weeks. And yet it's only November the 1st. I must confess I've already bought five presents and some decorations for the tree. I could spend loads of money each year - I love Christmas decorations and seem compelled to add to my collection each year. I'm going to have an enviable clutch of baubles, doves, icicles and bells by the time I'm wrinkly. And I've bought "The Night Before Christmas" to read to bump - yes I'm reading to my belly!! I probably shouldn't mention I've been cooing over cute little outfits and hats for bump for next year....or thinking of Letters to the North Pole... I've also already started researching Italian Christmas desserts - I think we're going Tuscan this year - and soon I'll be planning gingerbread cookies and mince pies; I've already found my cookie cutters and Santa sleigh chocolate mould. And this week I'll be popping off to the pet shop to buy some doggy Xmas treats for Indy...an advent calendar may well be bought. But is this too early? Should I be enjoying the last remnants of sanity before the seasonal madness ensues? Possibly... I will refrain from putting on the carols and festive songs for a while yet - I'm not that mad after all. |
| It's official - I have a baby bump.... a very small bump, but a bump none the less. A bump that make all my trouser very snug. It won't be long until I can't squeeze into them. I may be wearing my maternity jeans a lot. I've had a busy day on WDC; three reviews and a flash fiction. That's busy for me anyway. I enjoyed today's flash fiction challenge; trying to weave witch, zombie and owl into the mix. Found out some very interesting stuff about Voodoo along the way too. It's just a shame work is so quiet. Very disconcerting. Now it's off to watch The Walking Dead - my Autumn, Monday ritual - I love it. An evening with Rick and Daryl. Yes, I know.. but I can't help it I love Norman Reedus. |
| I've submitted my second flash fiction "Invalid Entry" entry into the flash fiction challenge in two days. That's a record for me. For this one I thought I'd try something completely different and used only dialogue. I've saw someone else do this when I first join WDC two years ago and always wanted to try it. I don't know how successful I was, but I did enjoy having a go. I received three reviews for my entry yesterday "Invalid Entry" ; two 4.5 stars and one 2 stars - I'd forgotten how annoying/upsetting it can be when you get a bad review (it's a boring excerpt, apparently, and not a true story). It took a few minutes to remember everyone's entitled to their opinion and to brush it off. The two 4.5 stars followed after that so perked me up afterwards anyway.Going to squeeze in a few reviews this afternoon hopefully to. |
| So most of my blogs are probably going to consist of impending baby talk.... I can't help it, its taking over my brain, body, and my life. It's like a cute version of invasion of the body snatchers. I'm 16 weeks pregnant - woohoo - with a baby currently the size of and avocado snuggled in safe and sound, who's roughly around 11.6cm long and 100g in weight. I think that's massive considering over a few weeks ago it was the size of an olive.... but apparently it will get a lot bigger - or so I'm told - lol. I have my antenatal appointment on Friday to see how things are going, I may even get the chance to hear the little ones heart beat; it won't be the first time I've heard it since we bought a home Doppler about three weeks ago, but still it's exciting. The 18/20 week scan isn't until the 11th Nov, which feeling like a life time away. We've also just found out the hospital now charges £15 (23$) for a take away scan picture and to top it off they don't except cards or cash, meaning it's cheques only; who has cheque these days? Apart from the slight ligament pain every so often, the only other symptom I have is being REALLY tired - all the time. I don't think I have ever felt this exhausted, certainly not for weeks at a time. It makes doing anything very difficult. I wanted to go to keep up with the gym, but I feel tired even thinking about the treadmill, never mind getting on the damn thing. I wanted to write more, but my head is a jumble of early baby brain and I've been struck down with a sudden inability to type what I'm thinking - very bizarre. Even the housework is taking a back seat - I need a maid. Although I did go out for a 45 minute walk with Guy with the dog last nigh - I felt like a superhero, until I sat on the sofa and fell asleep on my return. One day I may stay up past 10:00pm, but it probably won't be tonight. ** Images For Use By Upgraded+ Only ** |
| It's official we're 15+1 week pregnant. Back in January, after trying for many years and getting nowhere, we decided to talk to our doctor and start investigating the problem. We had our suspicions, but nothing concrete. We were referred to a private fertility clinic about 40 minutes from where we lived and met with our consultant about next steps in May. We were told we could go through the test one at a time to try and pin point why we were having trouble or we could accept the unexplained infertility and jump straight to the IVF. By June we'd well and truly started our IVF journey, leaving the clinic with all of my vials of medication, syringes, and needles. Even with the prospect of injecting myself - something I'd never done - I was excited. Two weeks of down regging, followed by two weeks of stims and finally the egg maturing injection and we were ready for collection. The first two weeks were ok. I was tired and had hot flushes a lot but it was manageable. In the second to weeks I got some of my energy back, but could also feel my ovaries swell and fill my eggs - I felt like an over stuffed salmon at the end. Every step I could feel my ovaries. And while I was looking forward to not feeling like a fat bottom chicken the prospect of having my ovaries harvested by inserting needles into them to suck of the eggs was scary; and it turned out painful. I was of course put under general anaesthetic, thank goodness, but the aftermath was a pain I had never experienced before. I couldn't straighten myself out and had difficulty walking for the first couple of days after the operation. Pain relief was paracetamol only, nothing stronger and as it didn't even touch the pain I decide to forgo it completely and rely on my trusty hot water bottle. My ovaries were also still swollen, not just from the collection process, but also the slight over stimulation from the medication I'd taken as part of the IVF. I'd been given tablets to try and reduce the over stimulation as this could affect if I could go through with the egg transfer; OHSS is very dangerous and is made worse with the influx of hormones that are released in pregnancy, with IVF you're also given additional hormones to support the pregnancy... double whammy... in fact I started the progesterone the day after collection). If the over stimulation didn't go down I faced the prospect of having to delay the transfer by a couple of months. Something I really didn't want to do. Unfortunately I would know until the day of the egg transfer. To add to our stress we didn't even know how many eggs had been collected, let alone how many were mature and viable. We had a idea from the scan, but we didn't know if any would be good enough to put through for IVF/ICSI. The first round of IVF is often a trial and error process. We had to wait until the day after collection (Day 1) to find out. Luckily we had 17 eggs collected that were mature enough to be ICSI'd with the sperm; ICSI is where they inject the egg with and individual sperm, and out of those 17, 11 had started to develop. Each day we got an update on how they were developing, knowing that there was still a risk that they could stop developing at any stage. Our nerves were always on edge. Day 3 we were told that 6 had been singled out and had been developing the best - 6 out of 17 - but their grades were good. We were also told that, all being well, we would be booked in for transfer on Saturday (Day 5). A five day transfer is very good, its when the cells have divided into a blastocyst and if you take a picture you will be able to see three clear parts; the inner cell mass which will potentially become a baby, the trophoblast or outer cells which will form the placenta and the blastocyst cavity. We'd already decided that we were going to go for the embryo glue (a stick substance that helps the embryo adhere to the uterus wall) to help things along - we didn't know if it would help but psychologically it made us feel better. £100 well spent. On Day 5 we arrived at the clinic at 8:00 ready to be prepped. No body lotion, shower gel, deodorant or perfume were allowed as they could interfere with the transfers success. We were led into a consultant room and told that our eggs at been placed in the Primo Vision machine which monitors the eggs development on an hourly basis, which helps the embryologist select the strongest eggs. This usually cost £600 and is something we didn't feel we could afford, but fate it turns out had other ideas and as there were space in the machine our little clutch was included. As a result we have a beautiful, if only to us, picture of our 5 day only embryo - our first glimpse of our potential child. We were also told we had a grade A:B embryo (That's very good - it means a grade A embryo and a grade B placenta) and to top that it had already started to hatch - meaning it had a good chance of hatching and embedding into the uterus wall; some embryos struggle to hatch and this can be a reason for infertility and as we had been given an unexplained infertility it could have been our reason. It was another milestone we had over come. Two hours later we were pregnant until proven otherwise after a successful transfer. All we could do now was wait and hope that our little embryo bedded in for the long haul. The next two week - also know as the dreaded two week wait - we the longest and nerve wrecking I have ever experienced. They should seriously consider using it as a form of psychological warfare. I tried to keep up beat during the first week, tried to stop my mind racing while it wondered what was going on inside and for the most part I managed to. The second week not so much. I pretty much fell apart in the second week. I had all of the symptoms of my normal period; the sore, aching back, the headaches and sharp pains in my lower abdomen... I was convinced it hadn't worked. I spend most of Monday through to Wednesday in tears, convinced we'd have to go for round two of IVF, and on Thursday morning I decided to just take the test and get some closure. It was two days before my official test date but I know that that was only a precaution and that positive result can be picked up as early as 9 days after a 5 day transfer. We were on day 12. So I took the test and waited. After 5 minutes I was staring back at two very bright blue lines with a very confused look on my face. What did the two lines mean again? Where were the instructions? Damn it they are down stairs. So off I run, stick in hand, scrambling through paperwork, speed reading as if my life depended on it. I guess in a way it did - at least life as I knew it. Two lines - we're pregnant . Queue the tears - the happy ones. That was 11 weeks ago today - making me 15 weeks and 1 day pregnant. Through the scary and trying first trimester; moved on from the morning sickness and frequent trips to the toilet, and are now settled in the belly expanding phase - though it has yet to truly pop. I doubt it will be long. We're also three scans down and have seen its heartbeat at week 7, the umbilical cord pulsing at week 9 , and the definite shape of a baby at week 12 and had the result back regarding our down syndrome risk (which is negative/low). We've even heard the heartbeat on an at home monitor. We're very happy and considerably less stressed. So much so I decided to come back here. It turns out I can't think, let alone write while I'm an emotional wreck - who knew.... |
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