A Life of Choice

I have a new blog space. 

A Life of Choice

Please come on over! 

(And it didn't take me long, did it?) 

Delicious Ambiguity

Hi All,

The last few blog posts have hinted at it, but I can finally say it with certainty -

This blog is on hiatus, and I don't know how long for. 

You see this blog had a purpose, all those years ago.

I needed to speak.

I needed to throw away the silence and tell my truth as I saw it.

I needed to explore myself, and create new truths from what I believed was right.

I needed to grow from a naive teenager into a woman.

And this blog helped me do that.

You helped me do that.

Yes, you the lurkers, the faithful commenters, the inspiring other bloggers, and the emailers.

Your support and love has been amazing, and truly added a great deal of kindness, happiness and hope to my life.

But for now, I feel like a chapter in my life is closing, and in a way, this blog as well. I am ready to move on, face up to some new challenges, and focus on all the positive, wonderful things I have been blessed with. Things with a beginning need an ending - and this feels like the right time for this blog.

My fight to protect children will always continue. My eyes have been opened now - I am aware now that monsters aren't just faceless strangers. But above all, I am no longer silent.

My hope that this blog has made at least one person more aware. Made them think, look twice at an 'iffy' situation. Made them more willing to speak up. Made them realise that those stories in the news? Are real people, with real emotions, and real long term impacts. Child abuse doesn't just finish at the end of the 2 minute news story - the repercussions ripple out, sometimes for generations.

If I come back, (and I might - I still like to write!), I will be sure to pass on my new space in the world wide web.

But, thankyou, thankyou for 4 (nearly 5!) priceless years. Blogging community, you have reached in and touched my heart, and indeed, my soul. Strangers no more.

Love,
Princess Jo.

I wanted a perfect ending. Now I've learned, the hard way, that some poems don't rhyme, and some stories don't have a clear beginning, middle, and end. Life is about not knowing, having to change, taking the moment and making the best of it, without knowing what's going to happen next. 

Delicious Ambiguity.

- Gilda Radner

Thoughts on Being a Bad Blogger and Other Things

Hi all,

Yes, I know. Another long absence. Resounding silence from someone for whom the act of writing and expression is just part of living.

A part I have put on the back burner. 

Why? For many reasons, but mostly because I was scared. I suddenly realised that my blog was becoming very well known, particularly among my friends and family. Yes, I had linked to it in my facebook, but hadn't realised the full implications of that action. Definitely naivety on my part. 

That, and I have been busy. Very busy. Life has been good. I still struggle with the PTSD - still sometimes feel like I am at the bottom of a very dark hole - but I can now glimpse flashes of the light. It is amazing what a a little hope and light can do. 

I like to tell myself that I have accepted a lot of the burdens life has thrown my way - that I can survive without children of my own. That I do not need to be bound to my father's actions and the impact it has had on my life. But like all things, I cannot run from them forever, and I get brought down to earth rather quickly sometimes. 

Some days I just want to yell and scream at how unfair it all is, only to then feel completely ashamed of those feelings when I hear about someone else's story. But as I remind myself, that does not make my emotions, struggles, and fears any less valid. My reality is still my reality. 

It is ok for me to sometimes get angry at how people can whine and bitch about fitting a child's car seat into a car when I would give anything to be needing a car seat for a child of my own. 

It is ok for me to feel like a terrible mothering fraud sometimes. It is ok to have anger that I can only act the part. Because ultimately, I know that I still have an impact. I am still changing little lives, expanding horizons, teaching the lessons that need to be taught. I may not be a mother (or their mother), but I still have a part to play. 

Hollow words perhaps, but I mean what I say. 

Or at least, I hope I do. 

Jo. 

Generous.

You can please everyone as long as you don't give a damn about yourself.

-Posted by me on facebook-

I am doer.

I love to do stuff for others.

Generous doesn't even begin to cover what I do.

Free babysitting? That is me.

Free photos (or very cheap)? That is me.

Everything provided for the kids whilst they are here? That is me.


I like to make everyone happy. Forgetting all too often about myself, my health and my limits.

So, this weekend I called cease! And desist. On myself.

This weekend has been one big Jo-fest so far. It has all been about me. Ha.

I got very drunk.

I slept during the day.

I only spent money on myself.

I recharged my batteries.

And it has totally been worth it.


I can get back to doing what I love with a smile. Because even though it is so draining - I wouldn't change it for the world. 


Some might (and do!) think me crazy for what I do - but when something is said, my reply is always - "it makes me happy - and you get out of life what you put in".

Happiness is priceless.

Brick Walls Running

Long time no write I know. 

Been busy. 

Been running again. 

And I have found the brick wall again.

My head space isn't a good place to be right now. 

But I will get there. 

Eventually. 

Maybe. 

I hope. 

And sometimes, that is all you have left.  

Just Deserves.

Hi All,

Sometimes, that little voice in my head tells me that I don't deserve children. That I DESERVE infertility because I screwed up somewhere along the line. That my life, my actions, my thoughts are so terrible that I ruined my chances. That all my attempts to be positive, generous and kind and somehow trick the universe into undoing the infertility will fail. That my overwhelming mothering/nurturing instincts were given to me as a cruel, cruel joke.

But ultimately I do 'own' this - I don't deserve to be infertile. It is cruelly unfair - and breaks my heart, again and again.

I don't deserve this.

THIS. SUCKS.

Hear me universe?

________________________

Hubby and I have given ourselves a year to tackle IVF. A year to grow, to get organised. To save. To plan. We are planning on attending the initial appointments (and have further testing) in the coming months - and then about a year from those appointments, we will (hopefully!) tackle the IVF itself.

The path ahead terrifies me. We are planning on just one treatment (or maybe 2 on the outside). We can't spend the rest of our lives throwing our money and time into something like this.

It saddens me to think that we could only end up with only one child or none. Neither options were in my "ideal" list.

It has struck me lately all the things I might miss out on if I don't have a biological child. I might never give birth. I might never get to breastfeed. I might never get to bring up a child in the way that I want - without having to double and triple check if a decision is ok with 2, 3, or even 4 other people. 

Hope is a wonderous, maddening thing. Reality bites, and it is back to the beginning again. The rollercoaster is exhausting me, terrifying me, enlightening me. 

Jo. 

The Cost for Us.

Got our information pack in the mail today.

And also found out a more definitive price too....a bit of an ouch moment!!

In order to make our dream come true, we looking at somewhere in the vicinity of $10,000 as the up front figure. Thanks to various benefits from our government, we will get about 75% back. But for us it is huge.

Don't get me wrong, I feel lucky that it isn't the amount that those in the US face to do IVF. But to us? It is a huge figure to come up with.

And we will do it, I have no doubt, but it is going to take so much longer than we expected. Sigh.

One step at a time.

One day at a time.

I know it will be worth it.

I have to believe that it will be worth it.

 

Step One - We have contact!

I called our local IVF clinic today.

And got our information pack sent out. 

I think we are finally ready to be putting our toes in the water.

And maybe, just maybe, starting the roller coaster ride. 

We both need to know what our options are, and how much it will cost.

Our marriage is doing a lot better - our recent trip to Melbourne helped us find ourselves, and our marriage. WE appreciate each other again, and we want to do this 'together' again. 

Wish us luck! And please, if any of you have any suggestions or recommendations (or things you would have done differently!), email me (princessjo(at)gmail.com) or leave a comment! 

Titles and Days

Ma.

Mom. 

Mother. 

Mama.

Mum. 

Mummy.

I have no claim over any of those titles. 

And yet. 

And yet, this year will be the second year that I will have kids with me on "Mother's day".

And yet, it doesn't stop me from feeling like a fraud. 

And yet, it doesn't stop me from the overwhelming pain this day brings.

And yet, it doesn't stop me from taking a moment, any moment, out of that day to mourn the lost. 

The lost chances. 

The lost dreams. 

The lost person I have been. 

Overflowing, Overwhelmed, Over-organised ...

I know, I know. I have been doing a terrible job of keeping on top of this blog.

But I have had three lovely children to drag me away from the computer screen into a world of school lunches, teddies and cubby houses made of sheets.

It has been an incredible few weeks.

Full of moments of deep and meaningful clarity 

Full of moments of overwhelming panic.

Full of me being more organised than I ever thought possible.

Full of me being over organised.

I can't say it was all pretty - or that I handled the tantrum throwing child as well as I should have. But we survived.

And I loved every moment of it - even when I was at the end of my patience!

I felt so fulfilled - this is what I am good at! This is what I love doing! All I could keep thinking was - "I LOVE this".

Only to realize that they weren't mine - these beautiful children were only on loan. That infertility had removed all these amazing experiences with my OWN child out of my grasp.

You know the saying - "when god closes a door, sometimes he opens a window" ? While I don't agree with the "god part", I can definitely relate to the sentiment right now. Does that mean the hurt in my heart for what I have lost is any less? No! There will always be a part of me that yearns for a child of my own - and that will do whatever it takes to experience that. BUT -  it does mean that I can still be happy with what I have. And if anything, I have more kids under my wing then I ever could if I was not infertile.

I hope I never have a child-free or child-less life. But I do live a life with infertility - a life which I would have never chosen for myself. There was a time not so long ago, where I could not have told you ONE good thing infertility has brought me - and now, I can tell you, that I have more than I could have ever expected - of both the good and the bad.

Jo