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Beta 10 yesterday and going down.

Little embie didn't keep growing.

?

Beta 45. (9 days post 6 day transfer)

Not looking good, have to have another test on Monday.

blah.

A visit with the Queen

I had a dream last night.

I took the school kids to a function so I had 3 kids with autism in the back of the car. One of the mums needed a lift home so she jumped in the front. A person approached me to let me know The Queen needed to get home and could I drive her, which of course I could, so I abandoned my charges and somehow found myself driving a London taxi cab with The Queen in it.

Of course I don't know how to drive in London or how to drive a London taxi cab and within seconds I had turned the wrong way up an enormous Boulevard, realised my mistake, jerked the car onto the foot path where it hit a Narnia style lamp post and started hissing. The Queen and I got out, she was very polite and told me she knew a back way on foot.

It was dark by now, and the Queen was showing me the way through an unlit dingy park beside a river. She was striding on foot and I was, dear reader, keeping pace on a pogo stick.We had a lovely conversation it went something like this

Queen (thoughtful, satisfied): Appearing at public ceremonies or other occasions is where I really come into my own.

Me (very intelligently, pogo-ing beside): You're very good at it. Everyone in Australia knows who you are. Should I tell her I voted for Australia to become a Republic?

Me: Are you able to walk through places like this on your own?

Queen (politely ignoring the very stupidity of the question): No

Stupid stupid me. Do you think she would be walking beside my pogo-ing if she had a choice?

We arrived at the back door of Buckingham Palace. The Queen nodded to a footman and said a polite goodbye. I could see a long low table with a lot of kids having a rowdy dinner party all wearing home made costumes and masks.

The butler came to thank me for my troubles and presented me with four pewter dishes with the ER insignia. The back door of Buckingham Palace was closed on me. I realised the butler had forgotten to order me a cab back to my car. I had to pogo my way back with four pewter dishes in hand.

So. Tell me dear internettes, what does it mean? Am I pregnant?

Just to let you know

We've been doing a cycle and we had a healthy embryo. Transfer was yesterday. I'm officially in the wait.

And the last post - it wasn't really to do with this cycle. It was to do with what I have been doing between the last cycle and this one. Making myself stand and face all possible outcomes without running or even turning away. Just looking straight at all the different paths that could lie ahead. Some of those options are unsettling.... to say the least.

It was something I think I had to do before this cycle. Self protection? Maybe?

Rage

PJ gave an excellent interview and has linked the podcast from the interview to her blog. Go over and check it out here. Thanks Pamela Jeanne for your continued insight and thoughtfulness, and for leaving some lights on a dark road.

She mentioned the word rage. It hasn't left me since I heard it.

Rage.

The pit itself is bad. Dire.

It leads a woman or man to desperation. Clawing. Begging.

But there is no way out.

But what I really can't stand is seeing you all. You stand on the edge of that pit from time to time, jigging your baby on your hip, poke your head over and see me in it.

It ruins your day. It confuses you. She is not the type of woman to be in a pit. She used to be like me.

Yet there I am and that feeling of discomfort, dis-ease lingers in you. It's hard to know what to do with that feeling. So you pray for me, that I will be blessed in my pit. That I will feel the comfort of His hand while I claw the walls of my pit.

Prayer said, you walk away and get back to the business of your life. Glad once more that the pit is out of view. And I am glad that you're gone. I can't stand you looking at me. I despise your sweetly whispered blessings. They are redundant down here and their intent - to make you feel more at ease about me being in a pit - makes me boil.

I realise how rare empathy is. That almost all are incapable of it.

I am no better than others at giving it. My rage is selfish. I stand for no-one but myself when I demand an audience with God and scream "No. Not me" to his deaf ears.

I rage at you too, but in silence. I pretend I don't. I'm so ashamed. I try to take it elsewhere where I hope it can't be seen but it is crippling non-the-less. Who'd have thought that the werewolf was in me?

* * * * * *

...... Because, once alone, it is impossible to believe that one could ever have been otherwise. Loneliness is an absolute discovery. When one looks from inside at a lighted window, or looks from above at a lake, one sees the image of oneself in a lighted room, the image of oneself among trees and sky - the deception is obvious, but flattering all he same. When one looks from darkness into light, however, one sees all the difference between here and there, this and that. Perhaps all unsheltered people are angry in their hearts, and would like to break the roof, spine, and ribs, and smash the windows and flood the floor and spindle the curtains and bloat the couch.

Marilynne Robinson

Housekeeping

edited to add - When I say "you" I am not talking about you, dear readers, or any one person necessarily.