We always knew that we wanted more than one child, and despite how difficult/long/expensive our journey to get to one was, we still want at least one more (preferably two). However there are a lot of realities that we have to deal with, the first being that financially it is not something that we can even try for at least another couple of years. We’re not sure how or what that trying will look like – whether K or I carry, even whether we adopt/foster if all else fails. K would like to have another one, although it’s looking pretty likely her endometriosis is back with a vengeance so probably would necessitate another operation ($4-5k) before going straight back to ivf ($10-15k). I am untested, with my own issues, so the jury’s still out on me.

Aside from that we want to buy our own house before too much more time goes past but the reality is that right now we’re only able to save a certain amount after paying off our debt and we will not be able to do both at once so that’s probably several years down the track unless something changes drastically. We also have many travel dreams with friends and family all across the world who would like us to visit (and us them) with the promise of free accomodation once we got there. This wouldn’t be so bad if we weren’t right at the bottom of the world where it costs so much to get anywhere. For example we would love to go and visit our niece in Georgia sometime in the next few years while she’s at school there but when it comes down to it the cost of the trip wouldn’t be too far off the cost of a round of ivf.

We are in this position because of choices we’ve made, for instance choosing for me to be a stay at home mum and foregoing that second income and persisting for so long (and subsequently indebting ourselves) with journey #1. But these are choices that we stand by 100%. We love Sprocket so much that it sounds a little silly to even try and type it. We know we are incredibly lucky and blessed to have him in our lives. He has made our family – as much as we love each other and always will, the dimension that this beautiful little soul has brought to our lives is unfathomable. Besides, we wouldn’t even be talking about #2 if we didn’t have him anyway.

So we’ve given ourselves til the end of the year to really decide what we are going to do, and when.

Backtracking a little I have a good, younger friend who was one of the few people irl that I really talked to about our struggles to get pregnant over the past 4 years (I mean emotionally rather than just the facts – those I was pretty free with). Only a couple of weeks after we found out for sure that Sprocket was viable, she came to me with the news that she was very unexpectedly pregnant to her relatively new boyfriend. Those of us touched by fertility struggles knows what it’s like to be kicked in the gut when you hear of other’s pregnancies and let me tell you this would have been by far the worst one for me. My overwhelming emotion was relief and my only thought was thank freaking goodness we got there first because I know I would not have been able to handle it otherwise. I was also her boss at the time so while she told me as a friend I also had to work through the work side of things with her, so avoidance was not an option. As time has gone on it’s been a blessing I guess, Sprocket and her son are only a few weeks apart which is great for all of us.

See where this is going yet?

Today I got a text from her saying she had news, and when I spoke to her she told me she’s just found out she’s pregnant again. Complete accident, complete shock. I talked through it with her on the phone well enough but as soon as I hung up and had to tell K, it hit me. The kick in the gut. I am happy that other people don’t have to go through hell and back, really I am, but for some people it is just so ridiculously easy and it hurts. We have to do so much planning, saving, soul searching and sacrificing to even being the long process of trying again and they don’t even have to think about it.

That was our dream, to have our children close together but the reality is they will be a few years apart. But the rose coloured glasses are well and truly off – without ‘borrowing trouble’ we know now that another baby is not a guarantee, nor is it be likely to be a simple process or a couple of months of trying. K and I are both the youngest in our families, with big gaps of several years between us and our youngest sibling (in my case 8 years and 18 years to the oldest). We didn’t want that for our son but circumstances seem to be heading that way and I guess this news has driven home the fact that save for a significant financial windfall we are in fact heading in that direction.

So right now I feel like I’ve been clubbed in the head from behind and am mourning that dream. Sometimes it all just sneaks up on you, you know?

Most (adult) years we have found ourselves travelling for Christmas. Most of my family Christmases have been in my home town, 6 hours away, while the years that we spend with K’s family we drive about an hour away.

It’s crazy whichever way, as I have nearly always had to work on Christmas Eve so the travel has always been last minute which just sucks for everyone. Last year I think we actually went up to K’s family the day before Christmas Eve and I drove back for work that day – much better for K and her family but not the funnest drive for me with all the traffic

When I was a child, we always stayed home for Christmas – mostly because 2 of my older siblings would be coming home, plus we were close to Mum’s family anyway. We would mostly have my Grandma staying and some yearsour close family friends would come for dinner, others my aunt, uncle and cousins would come down, and still others we’d drive out to their farm for most of the day. The farmhouse was a great place to spend the day but honestly, I hated having to get in the car and drive nearly an hour there and back in the middle of summer when all I wanted to do was stay home and play with my new toys or read my new book.

Because my Dad’s family was quite a way away (6-7 hour drive), every year when I was a child he and I would go off on a week’s trip to visit my Gran and some of the extended family about a week before Christmas. Sometime I would beg my parents to have one Christmas with that side of the family as they always seemed to be making the most interesting preparations but it was always just too far and too hard to get everyone there.

This year we’re having Christmas at our place with K’s family which is very exciting – both in that we get to play host and also that we don’t have to go anywhere at all on Christmas Day. Instead we’re looking forward to having a laid back day for Sprocket’s first Christmas and just hoping like anything the early forecasts are right and it’s sunny because if we can’t have everyone outside under the gazebo we’re going to have to sit on each other’s laps to make room inside!

As I mentioned in my last post, there’s a big age gap in my family and often when I was growing up I felt like an only child. I loved Christmas because it was a time when our family was guaranteed to all be together. Plus, being that I was so much younger, my brothers did everything they could to make it magical for me.

I want that same magic for Sprocket – yes it can be a crazy, maddening time of year but if you strip it down to basics it’s about love and connections. We are so proud of how social and friendly he is – he is always so happy to see people which just makes our families so happy too as he’s always willing to go to others for a good cuddle. Even though he’ll be just 8 1/2 months this year, I know that he’ll have a great day because K’s family is all coming to our house for the first year so he’ll have a heap of people to dote on him all day long!

I remember one year my second oldest brother filling our entire living room floor with balloons, confetti and lollies so when I came downstairs on Christmas morning he said that our house must have been an extra special stop for santa that year. He then took me outside where, sure enough, there was some leftover hay on the driveway where Santa had fed his reindeer – he told me the balloons where a thank you from Santa for letting them use our house for a feed.

I also remember catching my Grandma, every single year, underneath the tree shaking her presents to try and figure out what they were – just like a little kid except there was no way we’d be allowed to get away with it!

Now that I’m an adult, Christmas is still about getting together with family and loved ones – now we alternate year and year about with mine and K’s family.

It’s been a long time since my family were all together, just us, and it’s starting to look like we’ll never have that again in quite the same way. My second oldest brother and his wife are very close to splitting up right now. They’ve got four children and they’ve been together for as long as I can remember – I honestly cannot remember our family without my sister in law, I was that young when they met. This has utterly shocked and fairly devastated me. For all my life they have been my role models as far as family were concerned, their relationship was far more positive than that of my own parents and a lot of what I learned about being a good partner/parent I feel I’ve learned from them. Even though we had a few years where we weren’t as close as we could have been, I have still always thought of them as my surrogate parents in a way. To watch them go through this is just heartbreaking. I know that I will always have my sister in law in my life no matter what but I am just so sad – for them, for their children, for us all as a family. I was so much more shocked and upset when I heard than if you’d told me my own parents were getting divorced. I’ve spent some time in the last week with my sister in law and my nieces and nephews and it’s just so damn hard for everyone, but especially at this time of the year. The kids are a bit older now, age 14 – 21, but it’s devastating for them just the same and it hurts to see them in pain too. It just makes me want to hold on so tight to K and Sprocket and never let go.

But first, if you love Christmas but want a laugh or if you’re a little over the holiday music assaults – check this out, guaranteed to make you smile! http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=NQkF7fpw-wI

A Partridge in a Pear Tree (Trees)

The first several Christmases we had together we didn’t bother having our own tree, we would mostly be travelling to stay with family and it wasn’t something that we had a lot of money to spend on so we made do with a few decorations around the house but no actual tree.

In 2007, and no doubt after a lot of nagging by me, we bought our tree – it’s an artificial tree (hayfever anyone?) but it’s a pretty good looking one that we got cheap in the post christmas sales.

A couple of years ago we decided we would start a family tradition of putting the tree up together on December 1st, listening to Christmas songs and having a nice dinner to kick off the season. Of course what we didn’t consider at that time is that the first week of December is a crazy time for a teacher in NZ and nearly always the last week of the school year. This means on the 1st K is often away at camp/attending her school leaver’s dinner/staff night out/anynumberofthings. So far we’ve had to reschedule to the next weekend every year until now. This year K was supposed to be at a dinner, but it was during our Week From Hell so she ended up staying home.

We have tried to cater to the slightly OCD side of K’s personality and colour coordinate the main decorations to silver and gold, then red, then there were some nice purple decorations on sale one year, then we needed more red but oh dear it’s not quite the same shade as the first ones….you get the picture!

We also buy ourselves one new decoration each year, this helps us curb the desire to buy tonnes more decorations than we need but also is a nice story book of our lives to look back on. We have decorations that are gifts from friends and family, and the tree is topped by a silver star (mostly because we couldn’t find an angel that was pretty enough!).

I love it. I have always loved the Christmas tree growing up, it was always put up in the ‘people’s room’ – a room that my parents mainly used for entertaining and was nearly always off limits to kids. As my family are very wide spread age wise (my oldest brother is 18 years older than me, my youngest 8 years older) often Christmas was the only time our family would all be together and so many of those memories are tied to the tree. I still love it, and this year I love it even more because I get to hold Sprocket in my arms and explain to him what all those ornaments mean to us. My favourite is the one of a surfie santa sitting on a turtle that we got in Hawaii right before we came home and started that last IVF cycle – a memory of one of the best and most peaceful times of my life.

• K’s scan confirmed she has torn her achilles. So far she has been in and out of 4 casts  – replaced for scan, broken and then the last one put on too tight resulting in a late night trip to a&e to have it removed. She’s now in a moon boot but not able to put any weight on it at all at least until tomorrow’s scan. As she already has a back injury she’s being treated for, she can’t get around school on crutches so is relegated to a wheelchair as it’s the last 2 weeks of the school year and she can’t be away. But the geniuses at work at the national accident compensation/insurance scheme would rather pay thousands for her to stay home from work than $35 per week on wheelchair hire so that’s costing us  too (although we’re fighting to get reimbursed for that because it’s so ridiculous!)
• Our dog Tai had her operation last week, it all went well and she’s now got a whole bunch of screws and plates in her knee. The vet has been great and kept her for an extra couple of days to give us more time to get our house sorted. She’s now got a very small area where she is locked away for the next 6-8 weeks but he is really impressed at how well she is healing – well ahead of the curve he said.
• Sprocket has stopped staying still in one place and is now rolling all over the room whenever he is put down, his love affair with curtains that began when he was only a few days old is blossoming now he can roll over to the floor length ones in our lounge in just a matter of seconds. We’ve now bought a playpen which at least keeps him away from the nasties.

And the last 48 hours?

• Sprocket has an ear infection, and is now on antibiotics again (so much for avoiding them le sigh). He’s been a bit grizzly the last few days so hopefully he’s on the up now.
• Late Tuesday night Tai got really sick, vomitting a lot and looking sicker than we’ve ever seen her so at nearly midnigt I took her back to the vet (thank goodness for emergency callouts even if they do cost an arm and a leg). She refused to budge at all off the lawn and I had to carry all 33kg of her right around the outside of the house and into the car. Luckily she’s doing a lot better now and the vet thinks it’s just a stomach bug but treating her very cautiously after such a big operation so has kept her in for a couple of nights.
• The biggie though is K’s leg. On Sunday it started being really sore in the tight cast, and didn’t get better after it was removed so yesterday it was back to the doctor and a scan which revealed she has dvt (blood clot). Unbelievable. So she’s now having to take anti-coagulants for the next 3 months, as well as self injecting for the next couple of weeks which it builds up, and having blood tests daily to determine each day’s dosage. There is so much about this which is hard but the worst (other than the fact this is potentially life threatening and very, very lucky it was caught early) is that the drugs mean that she has had to stop breastfeeding immediately. I haven’t blogged much about the breastfeeding difficulties as I know K is going to do it one day, but it has been an incredibly hard road for both of them and she has done an amazing job persevering when others would have given up months ago. They were down to only two feeds a day, morning and a brief night feed, but it was very sad to have to give him a bottle this morning and for them not to have that bonding time in bed together. She was determined to do everything that she could to keep that up for as long as possible so to have this happen and have to stop without warning is pretty devastating and not the way we wanted it to end. I am so proud of her for keeping going as the problems have been out of her control – I know it’s been hard but it would have been easier for her to have given up a long time ago so I’m in awe of her strength and commitment to continue even though I know she’ll try ans disagree with me.

While this is a terrible thing to have happened, I am so grateful that it was found and as hard as the consequences are at least it is treatable and K will be okay. We have got to the point now where it is just ridiculous the number of things that are going wrong (we’re also fighting with the bank to get the loan through to pay the vet bill – it’s all approved but as K’s driver’s license is 10 years old her signature has morphed a little since then and they won’t accept it – she had to resign the docs yesterday to try and forge her own signature). You have to laugh, really.

Today however is a new month, the sucky month is behind us and it’s the first day of Summer . Later this morning we’re back to the surgeon for my biopsy results which had better be good (it’s no longer November so they surely will be) and then this afternoon we’re putting our Christmas tree up and enjoying ourselves.

Onwards and upwards!!

Right now we have:

•  a 7(!) month old son who’s just discovered the wonders of rolling all over the room
• a dog with a ruptured cruciate ligament needing surgery this week. Very expensive surgery that requires at least 6 weeks of complete rest (picture a 33kg dog confined to a 2x2m space and only allowed outside for toilet breaks on a lead (and with back end supported so she doesn’t do more damage).
• Mummy K back to cardiologist on Tuesday for results of stress test and event monitor
• Mama Tui to the surgeon on Tuesday for more investigation/biopsy on thyroid nodule
• And just to top things off because we didn’t have enough to deal with apparently, poor Mummy K is now in a cast with a suspected ruptured achilles tendon, with a scan on Tuesday to confirm.

I don’t want to keep writing negative posts but seriously, come on!!!!

And because nothing’s ever simple in our world, the universe decided to throw another health issue at us – this time it’s my turn.

A few months ago I noticed a lump on my neck, didn’t think much of it and then forgot all about it until a few weeks ago. Once I found it again, of course I couldn’t help touching it and stressing so off to the doctor I went ready to be told it was nothing. The doctor was pretty positive that it was a thyroid issue, gave me antibiotics in case it was a swollen lymph gland in a funny place and had me give half my blood for testing. The antibiotics did nothing, the blood tests came back normal so he did some more tests (also normal) and sent me for a scan. The scan showed I have several small nodules on my thyroid (not uncommon) along with the one big one that I can feel across the bridge of my trachea. Although not exactly showing anything clearly for concern the big one is different to the others, so I’ve now been referred to a surgeon for follow up and a biopsy to check it out further. Thank goodness we have full cover medical insurance as I only have to wait 2 weeks for the first appointment rather than infinite months going through the public system (no thanks to the insurance broker who nearly got us transferred to a lesser coverage plan by double talking us – thank god we caught that in time because money is pretty damn tight right now!)

According to my doctor we’re still ruling things out and not ruling them in, but  I’ve definitely been having my moments waiting for results the last couple of weeks. Now that I know for sure that it’s not quite right and they’re using the big words like biopsy, no matter how commonplace that may be, it’s a scary place to be.

Luckily I have an awesome, positive wife who is great at cheering me up even when she’s got enough of her own shit going on. Love.

We are tired.

He seems to be cross cutting too, no sign of the bottom teeth yet and it seems to be not the front two at the top but the ones either side (think fangs). Some days they seem to be coming through and feel a bit sharp and other days notsomuch. Poor little boy, it’s obviously no fun for him and he’s had a few days where he just hasn’t wanted to eat or drink anything either.

He’s growing up too fast though, some days he looks and acts like a little toddler rather than a baby and we’re not ready for that yet! He’s learning his boundaries, and how to push them, and his cheeky side is making a regular appearance (for instance he’s learnt how to squirt milk out of his bottle when he’s finished with it – the first time right into my face while I was sleeping).

All in all he’s a beautiful, loving little boy. Twice in the last couple of weeks he has willingly and enthusiastically held out his hands for a cuddle from a stranger (to him at least – one was someone we knew we ran into in town and the other someone that came to visit). He has at times shown signs of shyness but that’s when he’s been tired, otherwise he’s still a pretty social guy.

We took him to his first A&P show (agricultural and pastoral) last weekend and he was quite bemused by the whole thing really, there were lots of animals to check out but he seemed just as keen on the gates and fences lol We did get some photos taken while we were there, including one of all three of us which we don’t actually have too many of (pity we’d been walking around in the rain so K and I look a little bedraggled but nevermind!).

Other than we’ve been trucking along really, health scares and money woes notwithstanding. Hopefully we’ll have a fairly quiet weekend this weekend and be able to catch up on some sleep (in shifts of course!) – and it’s only 5 more weeks til summer holidays so yay for that!

I’ll leave you with a couple of the photos from the show, I’ve got a ton more to put up but I’ve been having dramas with wp lately and every time I try to post photos the layout gets all messed up and I end up just about throwing the laptop across the room – most of them are on fb though anyway if we’re friends there (and if we’re not, feel free to add me if you want).

It’s crazy to think we now have not a newborn, but a six month old infant already. Clothes that just seemed impossibly huge when we got home from the hospital are all of a sudden too small for him. Luckily for this stage we haven’t had to buy any ourselves, tonnes of hand me downs and newborn presents, as he’s growing so fast he doesn’t even get to wear them all before they’re having to be weeded out of his drawers again.

Speaking of size, we had another plunket check up and he’s piled on weight again in the last month (800gms) so back up to the 25th percentile which we’re very happy about. He’s now weighing 7.22kg and his length is about 70cm (they didn’t measure him this time so that’s from my untested measuring skills – we know he’s outgrown his 68cm clothes though).

He’s started solids with a vengeance now, we had been giving him some veges leading up to the holidays but as soon as they hit he decided he was starving and we’ve had to step it up to keep up with him. For now he’s having a bowl of farex (baby meusli) after his first feed in the morning, then some veges or toast during the day as well. He loves the farex, as messy as it is it’s so cool to see him eating and enjoying it. We’re still doing the BLW but bending a little on it as he has been so hungry and not satisfied with milk that we have fed him the farex ourselves so that he doesn’t have a meltdown. He’s still Mr Independent though and has his own spoon as well. This morning he dropped his spoon off the edge of the highchair straight away and opted instead to guide my spoon to his mouth – much more successful for him! In the last week we’ve tried brocolli, which wasn’t a huge hit but we will perservere, and toast which spread with avocado seems to be some kind of baby crack equivalant.

The dog loves it, as it’s veges we’re not too worried about feeding her scraps and seriously you would think cucumber was her favourite food and we’d been denying her all these years!

As of Tuesday, he has also been sleeping in his own room at night like a big boy. He’d been having his naps in there for a while and the first night was perfect. For him at least . Since then we think he’s started with a bit of separation anxiety and we’ve had a few rough patches. He’s still sleeping mostly through the night thank goodness but the days have been hard where he just doesn’t seem to know what he wants – cuddles, playtime, food – and has a few wicked meltdowns the last few days  especially if one of us leaves the room or he thinks he’s alone. It has been great having both of us home as I know I would have been struggling if I was on my own! He also seems to be having more teething issues too which I’m sure is part of it. Still no teeth yet though, wish they’d hurry up they’ve been threatening for a couple of months now.

He is definitely turning into a real little boy though and we’re having a great time getting to know his personality (yes, it’s cheeky). I love the way he now holds his hands out to be picked up and his arms wrap around us when we’re holding him. He watches everything we do and tries to copy it, you can see his brain ticking over figuring stuff out and when he has a new toy it doesn’t take long for him to figure out how it works. He has great hand eye coordination and we were told by the parents as 1st teachers person who came to visit last week that he is quite advanced for his age in how he handles things. He is learning so much, so quickly and it’s an amazing privilege to watch.

K had left early (had to be up at 5.30am) so they were well on their way, we caught up with them while the kids were mountainbiking mid afternoon and seeing as K wasn’t able to ride with them we had a nice time just relaxing on a blanket under the trees. It was so nice just to stop and chill out instead of thinking of all the million things that need to be done around the house. Sprocket loved it, he’s a big fan of trees, plus he was excited to find Mummy K in this new place! We spent the night in a pretty cool cabin at the camping grounds with an awesome view and private deck – we’re already planning many more holidays there. The next day we drove another hour or two to another town, this time Sprocket was not happy about being in the car and screamed a good portion of the trip as he had a bout of reflux and sore belly. We stayed at another campground that night which was run by a real prize of a bloke and wasn’t nearly as good. K was tied up with the kids most of the days and nights but we did get to spend a couple of hours together during the day hanging out which was nice – we saw less of each other than we would have if we’d been at home but more than if she’d gone alone. It was hard for her being split making sure that we were okay and knew what was happening while concentrating on working at the same time – there were some moments of stress but all in all it was a nice change of scenery for us all. Sprocket got to see and hear lots of things, we’re coming into summer now so this was including putting his bare feet on grass for the first time which he thought was pretty cool and nearly bent himself over double trying to check it out. We also put his feet into a big giant sandpit but at the same time we did that the big school kids started playing bull rush on the giant air pillow not far away and he freaked out with the noise. That didn’t last long though because once he was safely back in Mama’s arms he thought it was hilarious the way they were diving and tackling each other.

Friday we headed back home after lunch, another 2 hour drive, and had a few hours at home and then that night after Sprocket was asleep we headed out again to pick up K from school and continued up to K’s parents place for the night. Saturday we went to the big parent and child expo in Auckland which was awesome, we could have spent a lot more time there but we were all exhausted and it was also our nephew’s birthday so we wanted to make sure we spent time with him before coming back home that evening. Sunday we pretty much vegged out and slept!

And then on Monday, K’s heart decided it wanted to play silly beggars again and flicked back into atrial fibrillation so she spent most of monday afternoon and night in the hospital. Sprocket had a cough and wasn’t too well so luckily K’s sister was able to stay with her while she was there. It was so hard not being able to be there with K, but after the nasty tummy bug he picked up last time we were there we didn’t want to take any chances. They gave her lots of drugs to try and chemically revert it but it didn’t look like it was working so they were going to take her to the ward and then in the morning sedate her and shock her heart back into the right rhythm. Thank goodness the drugs finally worked about 11pm and at 4am she was released – and thank goodness again her sister drove back to the hospital to pick her up, we love her!

It was the first night she’s spent away since Sprocket was born and he was definitely looking for her, because of the drugs as well she wasn’t able to feed him for another 24 hours so it was a hard couple of days for them. We still don’t know anything more about why this is happening, she has more tests scheduled for the next few weeks but I don’t know whether we’ll get any more answers from those – the cardiologist didn’t seem to expect them to show anything but we’ll see.

For now it’s only 2 days to go until school holidays, we’re very much excited by this! It’s K’s birthday on Monday so Sprocket and I are going to walk to the shops soon to do some secret birthday business. Her parents are staying with us on Saturday night and are going to babysit so we get to go out to the movies for our first adult time out since he was born so we’re very excited about that too. The weather the last few days has been beautiful so hoping it holds out and we can make some trips to the beach, the gardens and the zoo as well.