And it felt so different.....

My period was due two weeks ago.

Pre IVF I was more or less a clockwork girl. 28-29 days. I never used to keep track (I'm not the most organised person) so would still manage to get surprised each time they showed and then think "Ohhh so that's why I have been thinking my husband is the worst person in the world.....". But as you would know, when you discover all is not hunky dory you start paying alot of attention to these things.

Just to refresh your memory - I am actively NOT trying to fall pg naturally because of the high risk of having another child that will die. So i do IVF and test the embryos before they go back in.

But when my period was a week late, I started thinking...... well you know what I would have been thinking. It's ridiculous really. We don't have very much sex and we when we do we use condoms, but truley I got thinking. Not just thinking but believing. I looked up early pregnancy symptoms.... yep, I've got LOADS more zits then normal. Yep, my mood is waaay off. I did frequent bathroom runs to check my knickers and it was plain old CM...... I looked up statistics on the net of how often condoms don't work (surprisingly often I'll have you know)...... the evidence was clear. I was pregnant.

IT FELT SO GOOD.

I bought it hook line and sinker. But I didn't want to go and pee on a stick in case I really was pregnant and then I would really have to think about if it was another baby that would die .......

But the thing was, it was my ticket out of hell. I would be OK. I would fall pregnant just like everyone else. It would be different this time. It would be a miracle baby and because of that it would be OK. It wouldn't die like my last baby. It would balance all the wrongs in my life, I could cope with my sisters pregnancy, with anyones. I could enter the New Year with it being truly a New Year and not just another lap of the IVF tread mill. NO MORE IVF. Yippeeee. No more...... and a baby. I would have a baby. I would hold a little bubba that would one day look at me and say the magic word "mum".

So when my period did actually come (10 days late) i was kind of shocked. And devestated. I cried. I cried alot.

And it came on my birthday. And me and my husband fought cause J thought it was unhealthy that I had let myself believe that I was actually pregnant against all reason. He tried to bring up the time when I swore I saw a platypus in this little creek but in the end it was just a stick. It was the movement of the water that made it look like it was moving.

I was really really sad.

But because it was my birthday I had organised lunch at a beautiful pub in the country and hour or so out of Sydney. And my friends came and brought me organic offerings from their gardens, and home made truffles, and hand printed t-shirts, and a cake. They gave me kisses and laughed at my jokes.

I realised that my friends still love me. Despite the serious drops in communication that happen from time to time. They forgive me for that. They know I am still doing it tough.

So somehow I became happy again, even though I was so darn sad.

It's weird isn't it. That despite everything, their is still to much beauty, too much love to let you sink into overwhelming despair. I feel like everything in my life turns to shit, that 2007 has not a redeeming moment in it..... but it isn't the whole truth. I've just had some really tough parts to it.

So that was what my birthday showed me.

That and one more thing. How much hope I have. I knew how much pain I had - it pops it head up often enough to assert it's presence. But I never give myself space to hope (for the reason that I might be let down). So I didn't know how much I carried until I gave it a moment.

Maybe one day my hope will be in something real.

I will see the platypus, and not just the stick.

In full flight?

I got an email from a friend today...... asking me if my spirits had returned to full flight.

I love this friend. He's really more like an adopted uncle. He's been a bit of a mentor to me as someone that has worked in the community / Not for Profit sector for years. He's insanely idealistic and won't let cynicism and poor government policy or bad practice drag him down. Anyway, he took a holiday earlier this year to Alice Springs which is the town near (well nearest - it's still a couple of hundred kms away) Uluru (Ayers Rock).
Uluru.
The big red heart of this wide land.
When you are there you can understand why land is everything to our Indigenous peoples. It is their history, their law, their "dreaming". It carries their stories. It is their text - their bible.

You've never seen a sky as big as the one in the centre of Australia. If you tipped your head back as far as you could you wouldn't see the end of it. You have to turn in a circle to trace the unbroken horizon all the way round. The earth is red - not a clay red - it is almost like a blush - rust and ochre. It makes an insane contrast to the blue sky.
When you first catch sight of Uluru it almost looks fake. Like someone has stuck a fuzzy felt against the vast blue sky. But as you get closer you get more and more excited. And despite the bus loads of tourists buzzing around, you will still be taken in. In that moment it will own you.

I went to The Centre with my husband after our daughter died. A bunch of people chipped in to buy us a holiday and we flew to Alice. A friend there lent us her 4WD and a swag (it's like a made bed in a canvas casing that you roll out - no tent as it's so dry, so you fall asleep watching the desert sky). Two weeks after a c-section is probably not an ideal time to drive 700km from the nearest hospital on bumpy dirt roads and sleep out bush with not a soul around. But for me, and us, it was the best thing on earth. I could think of no better place to begin a journey of healing then in that heartland. The land was patient with me. I would cry and wail and work myself into knots..... and when I finally looked up, it would be there waiting.... offering it's stark and rather painful beauty as an answer to my many questions.

I've lost my way - I started with a friend who had visited Alice. My beautiful friend - well he got stuck there. He's just left everything ad made it his home. I knew he would. He loves being with Aboriginal people and there is plenty of work to anyone in the community sector. So he wrote me a little email just to let me know he was there and to ask after me. Asking if I had returned to "full flight". I was going to write about how far I was from full flight..... (I'm still free falling...) but my emotions carry no weight now that I have written about Uluru.

I have the feeling you get when you stare a huge starry sky. You feel small and yet not insignificant. Somehow the proportions work out and you see your place in the world.

Instead I'll leave you with some photos from our trip there.

I'll write about me another time.

Enjoy.