Good Weekend

Finally I have found some time to blog. The Company launched a new product on Friday and it is experiencing some teething problems to say the least. Of course I am working in the department that deals with the customer complaints for this specific product. I'm overjoyed. Not.

Other than that, life while not TTC (trying to conceive) is a happy time. I really feel much better and I find I am enjoying life much more without having to constrain myself all the time. Just going out and attending parties/braais (BBQ's), not stressing about drinking a glass of wine. It truly is great. Perhaps that is why my mood is beginning to improve. May I also just say...sexy time...WOW. I forgot what that was like. I forgot how much fun it can be! OK...I didn't *really* forget, it had just faded to the edges of my memory.

I went to go and see that girl...the one who gave birth on James' due date. Apparently she didn't realize. She is so nice and so sweet really. I feel bad for feeling resentful sometimes. Although, there are other aspects of her life that I am definitely not jealous of. Therein lies the balance I guess. I had to steel myself to go and see her and nearly started crying at some point during our conversation. She admits that having a newborn is extremely hard work, it all seems so overwhelming! I left her to go back to Sarah's housewarming to further drown my sorrows (a perk of being neither pregnant nor parent)

Speaking of which...what a P.A.R.T.Y! The housewarming was awesome! Despite the fact that I was surrounded by skinny girls the whole night (really, almost all of them looked the same!) I really had a good time. Nothing like a couple of bottles of red wine and some vodka shots to throw your inhibitions out the window. Shame, Rudi was shattered. At some point he went to go sleep in the car. Poowa bebe.

We had a Chief Apostle service on Sunday morning. Our Chief Apostle serves communion for the departed souls. As I've mentioned before, in our religion we believe there is grace for those who have gone before us. I prayed that James would partake of communion with the other souls. It was quite emotional for me. After the communion for the departed souls was served, a young girl sang a solo. The name of the hymn was 'I have a home'. It brought me to tears. I couldn't help feel like it was a message for me from James. A small something to make me feel better. I'm sure there were many other people that could relate and felt comforted by this.

Nellie will be giving birth next week Tuesday. Time has flown so quickly and she's nervous and excited. Nellie and I are both religious people. Sometimes we seem to have experiences of faith on behalf of each other. The opening hymn for our Chief Apostle service was 'Dare to be a Daniel' (obviously relating to the story of Daniel in the lion's den). Nellie is naming her son Daniel. The hymns for such a service are *very* carefully selected and it seemed so apt. She was touched when I conveyed this to her. She gets it.

All in all I had a good weekend. I am so glad that I didn't have to work with all the problems this new product has caused. Can't wait for the long weekend!

No Pressure Over Cappucino

Enough is enough. I've had it with all of this.

No more ovulation calendars, microscopes and calculators. No more avoiding certain medication for weeks because I *might* be pregnant. No more nervous anticipation of my cycle. No more plotting, planning and having lack lustre sexy time. No more cutting back on drinking or having fun because there is a miniscule chance of me being pregnant. No more resenting other pregnant women. No more jealousy. Who am I to be jealous? I have very little idea of what these people have been through to have their child. Who am I to feel like I deserve it more than anyone else? No more.

I am putting way too much pressure on myself (and Rudi) to get pregnant. Sure it feels like there is a hole in our life now that was meant to be filled. Sure my grandfather is out of his skin with excitement and prays every day that we get pregnant. There are many people hoping and praying for us (thank you), but the pressure is soul crushing. The expectations are high and the disappointment is shattering.

It hit me very hard this month. I really thought this was our month. I even thought I had symptoms, but alas. It was not so.

Through all this drama and struggle I have at least discovered that I feel ready to have a baby. That is something I never thought I would be ready for. Now I don't need to try and prevent pregnancy because it will be a joyous occasion when it happens, like it should have been the first time.

If I am not pregnant by the end of the year I'll make an appointment with my gynae and ask him if he has something to help me along, but until then, no pressure.

Now all of this is easy to say, I just need to stick to it and put it out of my mind. My life cannot stop until I am pregnant. My life cannot revolve around getting pregnant. I don't think it should be so difficult. I'm not saying I don't want a baby. I do, I really do. I just don't want this stress, pressure and these expectations making me feel like a failure month after month.

I'm sad that things had to turn out this way. I'm disappointed that I didn't fall pregnant before I reached this point, but so be it.

I don't want to hear 'It will happen when the time is right' or 'It will happen when it is meant to be'. It will happen, I know this. When it will happen is something I clearly have no control over.

So right now I can still live my life with much less responsibility than a parent has and that isn't too bad, now is it?

I need to love me. I need to keep reminding myself to love me, because I forget.

Needles and things...

Sorry I didn’t get around to blogging yesterday. I was super busy at work and didn’t get a moment. I then got home very late from church and couldn’t log on to the internet so I couldn’t even blog last night.

On Tuesday I felt so incredibly good after our walk. I felt energized and ‘happy’. I even managed to walk faster uphill and recovered more quickly afterwards! I never ever believed people telling me that exercise makes you ‘happy’ and you feel good afterwards. What hogwash! All that exercise did for me was made me tired! Not anymore. I’m really looking forward to our walk tonight again.

Last night before we went our separate ways I tried to impress the importance of having some sexy time with Rudi, although on a Wednesday with him going to darts and me to church there is no time after we get home. He then gets home very late from darts usually and I am asleep. He told me that it was very unlikely that it was going to happen and I just got over myself and left it at that. He woke me up when he got home (after 23:30), but I was so groggy and miserable I told him to take a hike! LOL. I HATE being woken up! He gets extra brownie points for trying though.

Other than that we’ve just been informed of our final bonus scores and I am happy with the result. I’ll be able to pay off at least 1 credit card and pay a hefty sum towards that horrible doctor’s bill I have.

I jabbed a colleague with a needle today. She needs to have injections every day, but can’t see very well where she needs to put the needle. She asked me if I could do it for her and I reluctantly agreed, but it wasn’t too bad! I told her I’d do it for her every day if she wanted. She’s happy about that and I’m happy to help someone in need. Everyone else is too scared to do it! I am a brave chick!

I have a gynae appointment on Monday and I am not looking forward to it. Not only because he is probably going to scratch around in the last place I want him to, but I’m afraid of things he might say. I’m probably stressing myself out for nothing.

Updates

So in case you were wondering...I did go and walk again last night :) We walked before we cooked supper so it was quite a bit warmer than when we walked after 19:00 on Tuesday. The heat aided in us working up quite a sweat. Still felt good! We took the same route as the last walk and it wasn't necessarily less strenious, but I didn't get a stitch this time so there is already improvement. On Saturday we are going through to Tableview to visit my great aunt and going for a walk on the beach afterwards, no matter how strong the wind is! (I've used that as an excuse not to walk on the beach before) The sand offers nice resistance and should make it a good workout. We've also started looking at taking other routes to keep it interesting. There are quite a few nice houses in our area so it will be nice to walk around and look at all of them.

The eating plan is still going well, although I'm curious to see how it will turn out on the weekend. I just know Rudi will fall off the wagon with the 'no drinking' part of it. In fact, he already has when he went to darts on Wednesday. He's already made plans to have a snoek (fish) braai (BBQ) with Crack Head tonight and told him to buy a six pack or a bottle of brandy. I told him he can really do whatever he likes as long as he doesn't expect to get the best results. He's never been on a diet or eating plan in his life before and I don't think he realizes just how difficult it can be sometimes. I hope he is inspired by my diligence and the results I hope to obtain. I suddenly can't wait to get onto the scale on Tuesday to see the fruits of my labour!

I was so busy at work yesterday I completely forgot to blog about the hilarious thing that happened at home on Wednesday! We were cooking supper and I needed to have a shower before going to church. After getting undressed Rudi decided to take advantage of my lack of clothing. One thing led to another and I guess we got a bit carried away...only to realize afterwards that we had burnt our food! Luckily the damage wasn't too bad and we managed to eat it. We're still having a good chuckle about it though.

I'm trying my best to just enjoy the sexy time Rudi and I are having together without thinking of babies or whether the time together will result in a pregnancy. It's craziness! I'm still charting my temperatures and monitoring how my body feels. We're still trying at the 'right' times, but I'm not going to stress about it too much. It will come. Eventually! (read: I hope it happens this month)

I'm looking forward to the weekend. Tonight I'm going to watch Bride Wards with Leebeesa. Just a diet coke this time, no popcorn. It's going to be fun! Let us hope the rest of the weekend doesn't turn out to be as disastrous as last weekend was.

Waiting

I feel like crap today. I'm having a bad hair day and I feel nauseous. Unfortunately I don't think the nausea has anything to do with pregnancy, but rather with the tension and frustration caused by coming back to work. Not least of all, Jubba. He hasn't shouted at me today yet, but sometimes he likes to leave you hanging for a while. It's torturous.

Other than that the pimple on my face is making me feel very unpretty and I still have cramps. My cycle hasn't started yet, but I feel it is inevitable that it will. Feeling quite hopeless about it today. I don't look forward to another month of trying. Don't get me wrong, I enjoy sexy time with Rudi...but working on a schedule is so unromantic.

I feel really horrible. I hate this. Maybe it's just hormones.