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.