I think I should be done

I said recently that I thought Mr Spouse wanted me to be done with trying to get pregnant but I realised I hadn't discussed it with him.

This came out partly from him being a bit bewildered about what exactly I am aiming for or intending: we do still have a firm commitment to completing the foster care process, and I originally suggested that we give it a maximum of five years from when we started trying (which will be up this September) before definitely pursuing adoption alone, on the one hand, but on the other hand I am pretty sure I want to fully investigate this possible uterine factor/endometrium/septum.

But it also came out from a comment by the lovely Sam, who very kindly came round to tell me how horrible my HSG could have been and take me out for gentle coffee and fun watching her daughter play, fortunately after I'd had the HSG already! We got to telling our long and boring stories (as you do, I'm glad the woman at the next table had her earphones in, I'm guessing she would have moved if she'd been bothered!). Sam said "well, it sounds like you aren't really ready to give upon the idea of having a birth child".

I guess not.

Anyway, I asked Mr Spouse whether he just wanted me to give up on the idea. Actually, he doesn't. He does want me to give up on all these investigations - I think in a way they must be hard on him too, for the same reason they are hard on me. I in particular want, but he wants too, for there to be something easily fixable wrong with us. But I don't think he believes there is. I'm not sure if I do but I'm not sure I don't, either, if you see what I mean.

I wish I was done. I wish we'd been done a couple of years ago, to be honest. I have a little girl in my head from one of the "waiting children" magazines which I saw immediately before miscarriage no 3.

Losing it: Part 2

So: about 18 months ago, I think, I realised that although I was trying pretty hard to "stick to" my calorie plan on WLR, it wasn't working. I could stick to it for a couple of weeks, and sometimes lose, sometimes not, but not really for much longer than that.

Then, one day while lazily reading the Sunday papers with a friend outside a pub, I read an article about Paul McKenna. If you don't know about him, I'm not going to repeat it here, just Google him. He has a book called "I can make you thin" (known to Mr. Spouse as "I can make myself rich") and as it is a very slim volume, the article gave pretty much all the text plus commentary. It is an idea that I had come across before, in various guises, including "Fat is a Feminist Issue" (Susie Orbach), "When you eat at the refrigerator, pull up a chair" (Geneen Roth) and "Beyond Chocolate" (Sophie & Audrey Boss). I had to some extent tried and not really understood the whole concept - which is generally known as "intuitive eating" - but somehow I knew I needed to try it again.

The main things that make me feel this approach is worth trying are that

1) Diets don't work in the long run. This is partly for physiological reasons - eating too little can make your body go "hey, starvation alert, quick, don't burn any fuel" but properly managed, this shouldn't happen - eating a reasonable amount to offset any exercise should help.
But it is also, probably mainly, for psychological reasons. Denying yourself - being a "restricted eater" - has been shown to make people eat more in the long run, more when they are no longer "denying themselves", and is probably a major cause of yoyo dieting. For the 90%* of women who have dieted and failed, it is not that YOU are a failure. It is not that you don't have the will power. You cannot possibly have that much will power. You are not designed to have that much will power.

2) This approach seems much more sustainable in the long run and also much more amenable to working with kids - especially kids who haven't had a very reliable food supply at points in the past. It's also much more home-life friendly, or at least in some respects it is - I was getting a bit fed up of telling Mr. Spouse I didn't want to eat his favourite dinner because it was too calorific.

However I have kind of half-heartedly tried this approach before and it didn't really work. And you know, I think it may be that I needed to try "proper" dieting first. First of all to appreciate the process:
- no more "I've got to eat this, it's what I planned, I've got to eat all of it too"
- no more "I'm starving but I've got no calories left for today"
- no more "ooh, how many calories in that, ooh I really really want it but I can't have it, oh I'll eat it anyway, I feel so guilty, I'm a real weak-willed ninny"

But also because I learned a lot and also I think because my physiology needed a bit of sorting out:
- I actually have a clue what portion sizes will fill me up, I have tried more recently to eat slowly, and with the WLR emphasis on eating enough fat, I know that reasonable levels of fat are also quite filling
- Losing the first chunk** of weight seems to have sorted out my blood sugar so that I actually feel hungry a lot more often
- I am much more able to exercise now - although I was quite active before, I can do much more now.
- The confidence that Mr Spouse gave me to lose the weight has also helped me think of my body more positively

So, long story a tiny bit shorter, I have lost another stone by dint of:
- Eating when I'm hungry
- Eating what I'm hungry for
- Eating slowly and mindfully
- Stopping when I'm full
- Exercising Moving my body
- Paying some lip service to meditating on body image and listening to relaxation tracks (actually, the former has been of more help - although I thought it wouldn't - I think the confidence being with Mr. Spouse has given me has helped me see something more positive in my body).

All this type of thing is pretty much proven to work - "tapping", hypnosis etc. hasn't. So, on the Beyond Chocolate principle of "be your own guru", I'm taking what works from each of the approaches.

I'm not very good at all of this and I have to remind myself to remember to focus on the positive. I'm getting better at noticing whether I'm really hungry, or thirsty or sometimes just bored. I was never a huge emotional eater - things have to be really really bad for me to need food and it's almost always chocolate on CD1.

Slowly and mindfully is generally OK, and I have a much better place to eat lunch here than back in the UK. My crunch points are 10 minutes before I leave the office for a gym visit/long route home via lots of places, and I realise I'm starving plus I have to do an emergency email; and the more prosaic sitting-on-the-sofa-can't-be-bothered-to-turn-off-the TV. That of course combines with eating only when hungry as it's usually after a meal (though sometimes early evening before we've cooked dinner/if Mr Spouse is still out).

Stopping when I'm full is better at home than when out, but my portion sizes are decreasing, definitely, and I don't always feel the need to eat all of what I bought. This does mean several days a week I really really want dessert but have no room. I should probably persuade Mr. Spouse we need to have a dessert-for-dinner day, but I do have a smoothie-plus-pastry lunch day most weeks, and unless it's a very small pastry again I don't feel the need to finish it if I'm full. So this one kind of combines with "eating what I'm hungry for".

I think, just to go on a bit, that the real confidence booster has been realising that I - and everyone else, yes really, you are NOT a fat pig who will eat chocolate till the world ends - do naturally gravitate towards a somewhat balanced diet.

Generally I want to eat more breakfast than I used to but less lunch and dinner - in particular, I don't feel I have to have sandwich plus fruit plus crisps or biscuits for lunch, I feel satisfied after most of a sandwich plus a drink some days, sandwich plus some fruit others, very much depending. I don't have to eat loads after exercising - I notice I eat a little more but not necessarily proportionately. I also notice that although some "healthy" type foods fill me up quickly (fruit in particular) I get hungry again quickly, but other things that are sometimes termed a bit less "healthy" keep me going a lot longer. I had a chunk of cheese as part of my lunch at about 2pm and it's now 6.30, I've only had a skim-milk*** latte in between and I'm not really ready to think about dinner yet.

I'm not fully there in what I do nor in what I want to look like/weigh. I'm not sure I ever will be - but I'm at a holding level and a much more healthy weight (BMI about 27-28 at the moment - I think I've gained about 3lb in 5 months in a pretty overweight culture).

Diets beckon - they are very well marketed - lose some weight quickly and go back on a healthy eating plan - but I get a reality check pretty often from some of the ladies on my favourite message boards - how many times have they yo-yoed, there are some much more long term dieters than I am, and so many women who are much thinner and have horrendous body image issues.

This has got SO long but I just wanted to get it all off my chest. If you want some real inspiration, check out everdecreasinggirdle.


*figure plucked out of hat
**term used advisedly
***I have noticed I go for skim milk when I don't want to be filled up for long or am not at all hungry, and sometimes I deliberately go for full fat when I know it's a long time till dinner.

Losing it: Part 1

Or, So Far, So Diet.

In the autumn of 2003 I was pretty sure Mr Spouse and I were getting married (we hadn't yet set a date) and I had just been offered a new job. I was getting my winter clothes out of storage and bemoaning that, as usual, the moths had got into them. However, I found that I couldn't. I remember a long and tearful phone call with me lying on my bed and him calming me down (we were in a LDR at this point). I had also recently been to the doctor who told me the cysts I kept getting were a sign of high blood sugar (which I turned out to have - only marginally - it was 7 fasting and 7 after a GTT and the normal UK range is 4-7 - the cysts were as we now know Bartholin cysts and/or abscesses).

Mr Spouse has, as you may recall, insulin-dependent diabetes. He knows all about sugar metabolism. He'd already noticed how much sugar I put on my cereal and how many sweet things I ate (probably more than him, and he needs the occasional blood-sugar rectifier). I despaired of doing anything about my weight and despaired of changing my eating. But I finally knew it was time to do something. I had never really dieted before apart from a few grapefruit efforts when at school - my mother is a chronic dieter, all food is "bad", and I had resisted getting into this when I left home.

I'd actually tried an online food diary system which I'm not afraid to publicise, Weight Loss Resources. The system emphasises calorie counting, but does all the calculating for you, including saving recipes, and calculating in meticulous detail calories expended during exercise; it encourages you to eat all your exercise calories, which for a bouncy and hungry girl like me seemed good. Plus there is pretty good evidence that just keeping a food diary makes you eat less - I like evidence.

I had done a trial for a few days at a 2lb/week rate of loss and immediately panicked as there was no way I could adjust my eating to that level. However, I decided to give it a go at a much lower rate of loss - 1/2lb per week. Between Oct 2003 and May 2004 I lost 1 1/2 stone (21lb) and my blood sugar was back to normal. Over the following 9 months or so I lost another stone and I was running, cycling, swimming and doing yoga; I cut down on sugary things, mainly through substituting fruit. I didn't feel deprived, though after I'd been using the system for about a year I started yo-yoing a bit.

My weight remained stable, or rather up and down within the same one-stone range, for about the next 2 years, 2 pregnancies. I was very unsure about keeping my eating at a reasonable level "on my own", and I even used the same system but at a no-weight-loss level, during my first pregnancy. I also begain increasingly to stick at a plateau, to yo-yo somewhat (though mainly within the same 10-15lb) and to feel a little deprived when strictly sticking to my calorie limits.

I think it was after my 2nd pregnancy that I decided to try out WW, and I'm sorry if you are a fan, but can you say "patronising"? It may seem niggly, but they have a "system" and if you appear to be ignoring the system, bad luck - not just bad luck, time to get told off. I assume it's the same at meetings, but I was doing this online. Basically they give you "points" to eat (which add up to way fewer calories than WLR suggest, but no matter, I was seduced by the "free" vegetables - and I did also try "Core", where you eat as much as you want of a limited set of foods), and you can "earn" points through exercise. Again, you don't "earn" as much to eat as you would if you calculated them using actual calories, although of course you can lie about how much exercise you do.

You are supposed to eat up to, I think, 12 points per week of your exercise calories, and then you can do 12 more and you aren't supposed to eat those (or at least, you aren't supposed to do more than 12 that you don't eat). At the time I was training for a 40 mile bike ride and regularly racking up 30+ exercise points per week.

As the online system won't "let" you eat more points, I didn't see why I should keep paying for something I wasn't using. The point of this is not that I am petty, but that evidence shows that you lose weight faster if you exercise and eat to balance it, than if you cut down on your intake severely and either don't exercise or exercise a lot. Plus I was hungry!

Anyway, sorry for the moan and I'm sure WW suits some people but really not me.

So after that exercise I was a bit despondent and then got pregnant again and then tried WLR again (not sure in what order) but eventually had to accept that I wasn't going anywhere, though I was still a lot lighter than when I started the whole thing.

Another bandwagon

Is it really good news?

No news, that is.

So my HSG was not too painful, and I am lounging around doing a little light reading and feeling relatively cramp-free (no worse than a normal period, anyway). Apparently they were looking for adenomyosis, too, which I wasn't really aware of. This may be my unrelieved optimism but I had thought that the doctor had decided this was rather unlikely.

Fortunately the HSG showed no evidence of adenomyosis and, not surprisingly, nice clear tubes, but disappointingly no nice explanatory septum either. Annoyingly I wasn't shown the x-ray and I was too keen to get dressed and leave to think of asking to see it.

So I have a feeling that where we go from here is I ask the doctor about a hysteroscopy. I'm not overly keen on having anything involving lengthy recovery time while I am over here, even if having it done in the UK would also mean going private, as we only have a couple of months left, but we should be able to squeeze this in.

I wasn't quite sure I got my point over to her about the possibility of additional suppositories (the blue triangular pills associated with male problems) so will try and remember to print off the article I found, as well maybe as what I've found on hysteroscopy versus HSG. I tend to come over all pathetic when speaking to doctors and forget everything I meant to say, or not explain myself properly, so must remember to take aide memoires with me.

What is slightly depressing about this is that I feel that Mr Spouse has more or less given up hope and is really just humouring me, and I'm not far off that myself.

Something to chew on

Mr Spouse was, as some of you may know, made redundant just over a year ago. This was a cause of much rejoicing as it was the third round of redundancies with the company, and he'd been there umpty-ump years so was in for a very large Go Away Now Please payment. We spent some of it on making our windows wind-proof (a good thing in windows) and some more on getting him teeth that you can chew on (he was previously a product of 1960s school whip-it-out dentistry). People would ask us how we were doing and I would tell them we were fine, both financially and emotionally, and would elaborate on what some of the money was going on. But he asked me not to tell people, saying it was his personal business, though myself I didn't think teeth were that personal, he thought so and I felt a bit mean.

He would never tell other people about our fertility bits unless I gave him the nod, but there are a lot of nosy people in the world, in particular, well, My Mother. She's staying at the moment but is off to see her old high school friends in Washington State on Monday (it's very sweet, they have their 50th reunion later in the year but she and her pals are having a maverick get-together now instead for those who couldn't care less what the prom queen is doing - assuming they had them in the Dark Ages). I have to have a quick pointless pregnancy test on Monday and although I will be able to conceal the HSG as it's on Tuesday I need to think up a reason to stop at the doctor's on Monday.

I can't decide whether to say "I need to run an errand" or "I need to get a test at the doctor's" (what test? what for? a blood test? ooh, do they think your blood sugar is high again? ooh, you shouldn't have made all those cookies*" or "I need to pick up a prescription" (in fact, I need the preventitive antibiotics but am picking them up elsewhere) (ooh, what for, ooh, are you sick, ooh, you'll still be on them when I come back won't you?).

Am I weird that, unless I'm actually going for an operation I will not be sharing any of what's going on with my mother?

The problem is if I do share, she expects things to happen Right Now, both treatment/investigation and, of course, pregnancy; and if I don't share, she seems to assume we've given up. I particularly don't want to share adoption/fostering-related things partly because of her negative reaction to the whole issue, to anything hinting at non-genetically-related (i.e. not "real") grandchildren, and in particular to anything relating to disability, which of course is a risk with birth children as well (though she wouldn't see it - termination can solve anything I think would be her stance) - witness two references to "half-wits" in the last three days alone. Although she did mention David Miliband** to me recently, so perhaps she is softening, but I doubt a previously-fostered four-year-old would meet her criteria.

*Sam, you don't escape so easily - I'll be packing some up for you for later in the week.

**There are many misinformed articles going around about the Miliband family adoption, incidentally, so perhaps I will try and correct them at some point.

Well, that's a dampener

If it wasn't enough that my mother is staying (and demanding to be taken to the mall every day, after having said she "didn't really want to do much while she was here". When I said "it is cold here, you will need warm clothes" you'd think she was 10 and decided a short nightdress and one sweater and cotton socks were enough), I was told on Monday three times that I was not allowed to have any sex before having my HSG next Tuesday, which will be day 11. One of the nurses said "even with a condom" though the others said condoms were OK. And I have to go in and have one of their pregnancy tests on Monday, although I was sorely tempted to ask them why mine weren't good enough.

What do they think, that I'm going to magically ovulate on day 9 and Mr Spouse's swimmers are going to magically burst through protection?

To be fair, I know some people think they have had their period and in fact they are pregnant; and I also know some people have shorter cycles than me with much earlier ovulation. But are they thinking that the dye or X-rays would make the swimmers all funky and cause a miscarriage?? Bizarre.

In other news, this will be the first year during which I didn't know I was pregnant at some point, since 2003; as that was the last year in which (barring accidents) I couldn't really have been pregnant, this is a bit depressing. It is still possible (unless of course the clinic lock me in a chastity belt for the rest of the month, too) that I'll be technically pregnant for a few days of 2008.

"En la tierra paz entre los hombres"

A bizarre, but very good, Christmas. Highlights:

gorgeous weather, just hot enough to be lovely but not so hot we were uncomfortable. The locals were of course wearing winter coats and the children wooly hats to the:

Noche Buena mass, which was a great experience - the church in the little town we were staying in was rustic and whitewashed, rather than ornate and dark as some Catholic churches are. The music was actually pleasant and well-sung, at least by the 10% of the congregation who were singing (a slightly more typical Catholic feature in my experience), apart from the Spanish version of The Little Drummer Boy, which we could have done without.

Christmas dinner on a boat after a couple of cocktails watching the sunset.

My shiny new (red) iPod nano, fully loaded by the lovely Mr Spouse.

Riding a large and friendly horse along a beach by the Pacific.

Seeing two humpback whales

Lots and lots of Mexican food, including weird goat-flavoured caramels.

Lowlights of course also intervened including:

Being tossed off a different horse (fortunately onto some very soft sand and not into a cactus).

Eating far too much Mexican food (though we reckon probably less than a normal Christmas as there were not the usual piles of leftovers at home, but we still have loads of cookies etc.).

Unsurprising negative test on the 25th which actually did not upset me and neither did

My period starting only 2 days after stopping the progesterone suppositories instead of three like last time - why do I expect consistency? - so not having enough supplies with me. Not quite sure why Mexican sanitary products are made "with camomile", but they are.

A couple of somewhat painful, er, intimate experiences while I was still using said suppositories. Now I'm hoping this is something I can get some advice on from my lovely readers. What can I do about this? I have read it is better in the evening (so 12-14 hours after putting one in rather than just 8) but both for personal timetabling reasons (I go to bed earlier) and physiological reasons (well, you can work it out) evenings are not our best time. We get a couple of days, it seems, before my period starts, but perhaps this is nature's way of making us both desperate starting from around CD5.

You do the math(s)

CD1 of this cycle was Thanksgiving (i.e. a Thursday). I'm under instructions to use my progesterone from day 17 for 12 days i.e. till day 12 and then do a test on day 29. Which is... yes, you've guessed it.

Just as well I am fairly sanguine about negative tests.

In other news, although my blood sugar was high when it was tested, as my insulin and thingy-1c (long term blood sugar wotsit) were slap bang in the middle of Fine, the doctor thought it was a blip. Mr Spouse's observation that it was awfully late to be eating cake, the night before, leads me to believe she was right.

The HSG is not too pricey so I'll be ringing them up when we get back from our hols (nice warm part of Mexico, thankyouverymuch, we are pretty cold here and actually beginning to feel like Christmas, so we are looking forward to a bit of warmth). They sound like they book it pretty precisely early enough in the cycle to mean we may not miss a cycle too. We'll see what they say but I doubt I'll be having surgery while I'm here as I have a nasty feeling that is very much not covered.

When the going gets tough...

The tough get cooking.

I had a followup appointment with the RE on Thursday. I'm still slightly puzzled as to why no-one has looked at my lining before - is it not standard in the UK, is it just good fortune that both my previous appointment and this one were about day 21, did my clinic in the UK see my pre-period but also post-miscarriage (and therefore post-pregnancy, albeit only a 5 week pregnancy) uterus and think "ah, juicy", or was it actually OK when I had my uterine biopsy/doppler study when I was being potentially entered for the NK cell trial?

It actually occurs to me that I can email and ask whether a thickness was noted at that time, since the nice specialist's nice secretary said I could ask any further questions...

Anyway, it improved a little this month but not enough (5.7 - I think it was 4.9 last month). Apparently estrogen is used with women doing IVF who have this problem but as it may prevent ovulation, we don't want that. I hadn't found anything on the little blue pills in suppository form to show the RE but now I have so will perhaps take that along to my next appointment. As well as seeming quite thin, there appears to be a gap in the lining. She described is as "a dimple" which sounds so cute. But apparently it could be a septum - though she didn't think it would be too big.

So I'm supposed to have an HSG early next cycle. Thing is, this isn't covered on our plan (or at least, not unless we stick to the expensive plan we're on now, which is going up $300, so we were going to switch to the next one down, which is $200 less than we are paying now). I keep telling myself I only have to do this ridiculous coverage dance for another 4 months, but if this is not too pricey, I'd rather get the HSG done now and then if I need surgery I can set the wheels in motion when I get home. So I'm calling tomorrow to find out the price.

I felt OK about this on Thursday but with a combination of things I felt very weepy today - recurrent miscarrier friend delivered her second baby (anti-coagulation having enabled her to stay pregnant, which makes me feel even worse if they can't make my problem better, why can't I have a fixable problem?); two other people at the party we were at last night were pregnant; so is a lady in knitting group who insisted on discussing C-sections with one of the other ladies (I got back at them made everyone depressed by telling them about my friend who died last year - she was a twin but this was pre-scans but her mother was fully aware "unless it's one baby with two heads"**); and we had the Annunciation as the Gospel today.

Anyway, I have just made pomegranate pie and roasted pumpkin for pumpkin risotto - and Mr Spouse took me on a walk along the beach and we discussed our fostering plans.

I have been thinking about it and I actually think that even if one of my previous pregnancies had worked, it seems so unlikely that we'd have managed a second (or that we would do so now) that I think I'd have been talking about this when our child reached the age of 5 or so, anyway. I have been feeling a bit stuck over adoption - why wait and do fostering when we could forge ahead with adoption - but as he has pointed out, we'll be approved as foster carers pretty quickly but adoption could take ages, and it will be good experience, and even if we just have a couple of placements and only do it for 6 months, it will look less like we can't make our minds up.

**This is one of the funnier pregnancy stories I know, or at least it was until last year. So I tend to reel it out when the conversation turns to labour. In this case, it was particularly appropriate since one of the other girls there was also a pre-scan-era twin and her mother didn't know she was having twins. My friend's mother's midwife thought it would be a nasty shock to find out there were two in there but my friend's mother was well aware of the two heads and told the midwife so.

However, I can't say "I have a friend who..." any more because this is the friend who died 18 months ago and as I still think of her as my friend, I keep forgetting this and launching into the story.

Names

Bernardeena just posted about being annoyed with her brother for choosing a name as an option for his baby, that she and her husband had named the baby they lost. I was reminded the other day that Mr. Spouse and I had discussed names for our first baby - we have not dared to do it since - but he says he has no recollection of the conversation.

I don't feel strongly enough that the names we discussed (and yes, we DID) belong to that child to not use them for another child (if, of course, we have a child that we can name - though I think we'll be giving middle names to any child not too old to object). My brother's first name is an unusual, and I think, nice name and he is the 13th in line* and has two daughters. Our uncle has two young sons but neither of them have that name, and there are no other boys with our surname; one of the cousins has Cystic Fibrosis and so there is a faint possibility the other boy will have a son and use the family name, or a slightly more imminent possibility that I will have a son and use that name plus the family name as a middle name. I can't see Mr. Spouse having any say on that, frankly.

The other boy's name (probably the one we would have used day to day) is a nice, old-fashioned name that happens to be a common name for kings of England and we have a friend who is obsessed with one of those kings. Mr Spouse says I've been listening to her too much. But it also happens to be a family name for both our families.

I was relieved that my brother did not decide to name his second girl entirely after our mother - she has our mother's middle name as her first name - I wanted our mother's first name for a girl.

I can't believe I have this all planned out, but honestly, I was not the child who planned her wedding down to the shoes - I have always known roughly what I wanted to call my children.

I know some of you have later pregnancy losses but I'm just wondering if I am the only person who is willing to recycle names? I'm assuming I'm not alone in resisting discussing names following a previous loss, though.





*Yes, you read that right.

Repeat after me

Your Persona is not a fertility meter.

Some months my Persona gives me a nice cutesy egg symbol, and then about 3 more days of "if you want to be really careful, avoid sex today". I check the sticks as they are straightforward LH (and comparison with oestrogen I think) sticks and they show a darker LH line. Other months, I get two lines of equal darkitude but it doesn't give me the dinky symbol, and usually has days and days of "get off him, you slag".

When I was told by the RE last month to use my progesterone suppositories from day 17 I asked whether I should use OPKs and she said it wasn't really worth it - if I get the peak on day 15 almost every month in living history, I should be fine, and they work out pricey (she's obviously not looked on Ebay). And I got a pretty-dark line on day 15 and a lighter one on day 16.

But now I am panicking that either I wasn't about to ovulate this month (which would be the first time EVER) or that it was set to be a bit late and the progesterone is stopping it. Also, I got loads of cramps when I started them last month on day 23, I think, but nothing so far this month, and my F-cups aren't sore either. I know I never get pre-menstrual cramps before at least day 21, and some months the soreness is later too, but I am overthinking it as usual. And after I pounced on Mr Spouse all those times, too.

Please talk me down.

What, exactly, constitutes giving a present?

If I suggest a Christmas present for Mr. Spouse to my mother and she says "oh, can't you just get it and I'll pay you back?", does that constitute her giving him a present?

Somehow, I don't think so. Since I probably have more money than her, but less time, if I'm going to think of it, and organise ordering it I may as well just pay. I already have several things for him, and we are trying not to go all out this year (one big present each plus a few little things).

Incidentally we went to a craft fair on Saturday and I was buying something for a friend when I turned round and spotted him putting a bag in his pocket surreptitiously. It was very sweet. He was a bit annoyed, though, as I know which stall it was from so have an idea of what it was. But I don't mind. I didn't see it, and I get to be reminded of how sweet he is twice.

Coming a little early...

We have your regularly scheduled Christmas meltdown.

I suspect it was a combination of a slightly, er, frustrating and, er, incomplete "session" that morning, which is extremely unusual for Mr. Spouse - we suspect the blood pressure tablets the doctor thinks he needs despite having never measured even mildly hypertensive before - a very ambiguous email exchange and some ill-advised forum reading re. adoption, and the prospect of singing round the Christmas holiday* tree at our local festival, swarming with kids.

One hopes we have that out of the way for the year, but chances are slim, especially as there is a Christmas pageant scheduled for church next weekend. That would be the church that is doing full on Advent at the moment, not Christmas. Oh well.

Interestingly one of the ill-advised adoption message boards has a lot of parents with children who, either because of prior awful Christmases (presents taken away as punishment, or sold) or hopes dashed recently (birth parents whose lives are not together enough to contact them or buy presents, or who buy unsuitable ones), or because of special needs (too much unpredictability, too many bright lights, too many people), really don't do well in the "run-up to Christmas". Melt-downs, tantrums, and occasional tactical withdrawals from school, events, and parties seem common.

Although I love Christmas, I really appreciate the space that Advent gives me to prepare not just presents and cards, but myself. We don't put up decorations (we have an Advent wreath, and we put out any cards we get) and I tend not to listen to carols (at least not voluntarily). If I'm in a carol concert I try to be in one that is very close to Christmas, and then decorate after that, or bring in the tree and have it bare till Christmas Eve. Mr. Spouse also doesn't particularly go overboard at Christmas, though he is from a working-class and non-conformist background and apparently this means he can put up his tacky Christmas tree on the 1st of December.

I guess we'll be reasonably well-placed to handle children who also don't do well around Christmas, and fuss; we would love to have children around at Christmas but that doesn't mean we have to do loads of extra stuff "for the children".


*I have no objection to wishing people happy holidays, happy Hanukkah, happy New Year instead, or as well, as happy Christmas (note - Merry is what you get after a few glasses, not what Christmas is necessarily. Though it can be) - but it really isn't a tree of another kind. It really is a Christmas tree. And it shouldn't be decorated until Christmas Eve. Bah humbug.

Birthday

It was my older niece's birthday on Thursday. She is 5. She is finally going to school most of the time (they start obscenely young where she lives - the younger one, 2.5, is also going several days a week to a large classroom style place. I think it is like in Belgium where belgianwaffle reported she was told off for not sending hers full time at an equivalent age).

We chatted on line (and my determination not to use web-chat was fully justified - appalling sound AND video - couldn't even tell which niece I was talking to half the time). But my mum then sent some really cute pictures, in little kilts, and the big one is SO BIG and the little one is also growing madly. I miss them - I hardly ever see them, and my brother is so dogmatic about everything too, so it's hard to have a conversation with any of the family when he is there.

Venice

This is a cheat as I was obviously blogged-out yesterday and forgot my final post of the month. Let me off, will you? Anyway this is where we spent our post-wedding honeymoon (we had another holiday later that year, too, because we are a dual income infertile couple and can take lots of holidays) and yes, it is not that sunny, why do you ask? Do you think perhaps I should have known to take a suitcase full of warm sweaters and boots, in May?

I think it will be better perhaps if I get back to my regular intermittent posting as I definitely have fewer comments per post this month, and possibly even fewer comments overall. More posting does not mean more comments, clearly.

Well, it's doing something...

The progesterone suppositories definitely caused a few crampings/stretchings while I was using them, and as instructed I did a pregnancy test on day 28 and then stopped taking them. Following which my period was three, count them, three days late. Or possibly 2 if I ovulated late. Completely unheard of. And now, slightly less crampy but oddly heavier than normal. Heavier I don't mind if it's less crampy.

Turkey

Ok, this is more than a slight cheat, it's a huge cheat, but I couldn't resist this one for today. I have not been to Turkey. My parents went there on their honeymoon, but I wasn't born till 2 years later. So I may have been "thought of" but I didn't exist yet in any physical sense.

My parents didn't just go to Turkey, they drove to Turkey. From England. In a VW beetle (I think - maybe a small Fiat. Something like that). And they didn't just stay in Turkey. They worked in Turkey. On the Catal Hoyuk excavation, which is very famous. They stayed in a tent. In Turkey. In the summer. I'm surprised they stayed married as long as they did.

I think that's what they call Irony

Just went for a blood glucose test this morning, really just as an "in case" which I thought would be fine, but the OB/GYN was humouring me since I was wondering if Metformin might be helpful even though I don't have PCOS, I have had mildly raised blood sugar in the past.

Although it's not in the "definitely elevated" range it's higher than it should be for fasting (117, which is 6.5 in UK units I think).

No pie for me, then.

Paris - the Marais

I stayed in the Marais on my first romantic trip to Paris, with an ex who seemed nice at the time but turned out to be obsessive and a bit of a druggie (in my defense, I had dumped him long before the latter came to light). But it was very much a penniless, walk around Paris because we can't afford to take the Metro or go in any museums, trip.

Mr. Spouse and I went back for New Year a couple of years ago, and it was nice to reclaim the concept of the Marais. I have to say, I didn't really recognise much of it, either because we didn't do as much walking, or because it's changed, or more probably because we went to a completely different part. I just hope I've actually chosen a Marais image!