Inexplicably Missing

I  was heading somewhere, at least I thought I was. Yes, I’m sure.   I had an idea of where I was going. There was a journey I was on. I was heading somewhere. But I have discovered that the trail just petered out and kind of… led to… nowhere. I am nowhere. I can’t see where to go next. Sometimes I think I could go back to the start and try a totally new path. But that’s too far now. I need to figure out a way forward from here. I’m lost. I don’t know where I am. I don’t even know how to get on a path because I don’t even know what the path should look like or where it should head. ---- NB...So we have had a rough few weeks. Facco's father has been moved into a nursing home. We tried our last attempt fertility-wise- a frozen embryo that they said was highly likely to have chromosomal abnormalities -- and well, it didn't work out. Amidst this, I feel I am having somewhat of a mid life career crisis. Overall feeling? Lost... hence m...

I've had a very looping thought headspace of late. And, probably no coincidence, I have had the desire to "bunker down". And I'm going to just look at those phrases for a sec.... Does the word "loopy" - as in "feeling a bit crazy"-  come from the experience of thoughts looping around? My thoughts are going round and round on repeat lately. And it's not a nice repeat. I've lost a lot of confidence in myself, and my inner critic is loud. Then there's the bunkering down phrase. I realised the other day that the term is actually hunkering down. Huh. I have always said bunkering. Maybe it's the influence of unbreakable Kimmy Schmidt?? (love that show). I think it's capturing something about the social isolation and cutting off the world effect of being in a bunker. Facco and I very much "bunker down" when we are trying out fertility stuff. So that's me at the moment - a loopy bunker-er.

Europe was a blast... once every couple of year catch ups with verrrry old friends in England, tear-to- the eye art in Paris, Bike rides through burgundy, the most amazing tomatoes of my life in Lyon, street party craziness and sophisticated eats in Barcelona, soul-soothing architecture in Granada, unexpected beauty in Seville, and delights too many to pinpoint of sunny Lisbon! I was going to write more on how I'm back and how it's been hard to be back. But then, trying to sum up my trip with a thought for each location has brightened my outlook... so I'm going to stop this post here!

It seems rather fitting that this week, Involuntary Childlessness Week, is the week that we are counting down our trip to Europe. We leave on Friday! Yes I think the two: infertility and spontaneous travel, are a bit linked. You know, our fertility dr had asked us where we were going and he offered to give us some contacts for embryo and egg donation clinics in Europe to check out while we were there. But we were like... No. no... this is not going to be that kind of trip. But I am aware that I am still on that overall journey too. I just need a scenic diversion.

I should have taken a photo of the size of this. A whole lot of fridge space has been taken up with packets and packets of hormones for IVF. So every time I'm getting stuff ready for dinner, searching for a snack, or getting a cold bottle of water the bloody IVF reality of life is... just... there... nagging... annoying...  and it takes up space... Space that could otherwise be used for DELICIOUS LIFE GIVING FOOD. So today I had enough. I got my lovely little chiller bags (like the drugs themselves, these cooler bags are in over-supply due to the number of pharmacy visits I've had) and freezer packs (also, in over-supply) and carted the drugs back to my IVF clinic. The nurse had a slightly pitiful look on her face as I handed them over. I didn't engage in conversation as I only had a 10 minute parking space that I had to rush out to, but I can tell you that I definitely thought in my head "... no need to feel worried about me lovely nurse, this time next week...

I'm going to refer to my partner as "facco" here. It is a kind of cheeky phrase we came up with as a way of referring to him being my de facto partner. It's my replacement word for "hubby", a word oft used by the correctly married. Well i think for microblog Monday I will give a little run down of father's day yesterday... I let facco know I'm proud of him for being a good dad to our dog and cats... And we shed some tears about our failed embryos... And we shed more tears...because facco's dad is these days riddled with dementia and is soon to go into a nursing home as he's recently become unsafe to manage for facco's mum... And... I saw my dad, and my perpetual- bachelor brother who has recently become a dad to a cat, and my other brother who is conventionally married with kids (although unconventionally living on an island, that we visited) ... And well,  i guess we all enjoyed and celebrated their dad-i-ness. And I was super hap...

This is a bit off the topic of this blog but I really feel it would be remiss of me not to make some kind of comment on the state of my country at the moment. On Friday we had a change of our prime minister. The guy, Peter, who challenged the PM for leadership is actually a MP in my city and he is a big advocate for putting refugees who try to get to Australia by boat into off-shore detention. It's an unfathomably cruel practice which sadly everyone turns a blind eye to. Coincidentally, these last few weeks children in those same detention centres have been self harming and hunger striking. Fortunately, in the end Peter didn't win the challenge. Some other guy, called Scott did get voted to lead by his party... Scott... who, by the way, no one in the general public until this point even knew of or cared about. But he's now our Prime minister. Oh and just another note, there was a woman in the group of 4, Julie, who was a potential for leadership. She was actually, in my opi...