A Thank You from the Dark Side of the Moon

See! That is what happens when I decide to just let rip and let out my inner Pamplemousse to play on this blog. Ugly, ain't she?

She is back locked in her closet again but the loathing and self-hatred are never too far away, usually just under the skin. Truly, I have felt this way since I was about 10 years old. Normally I can jolly things along but there are times when it erupts. That last post was an eruption and yet a peeling away of the polite veneer.

I guess that everyone is like that, to a lesser or greater degree. Whatever pushes your buttons. I am only human and can only endure so much pain. Lots of times I self-censor and hide my feelings and I know that last post was difficult to read. Heck, I cringe when I read it. Welcome to my world.

Of course, the truth about the human condition is that when we are hurt, we want to lash out.

The other day, I could not lash out and hurt the person I wanted to inflict pain upon so the most easy, convenient target was myself. Hence the Great Kitkat Caper of 2006 and the resulting bloodsugar mayhem I wrought upon my body.

Who was my original target, you may ask? Oh, guess who?

Here, in my alternate universe, SiLs are beautiful and divine and it is the IVF co-ordinator who deserves my wrath and vitriol. She dangled before me the tantalising prospect of an early March start to simultaneous downregging with my donor. My donor possesses that wonderful quality that eludes me....a regular cycle so a prospective CD1 of March 1st for my donor could then be used to construct a military fashion timetable of dates for starting suppression, stims, retrieval, etc. Fantastic, you cry.

Not fantastic, I cry back. This timetable set us on a collision course with the moveable feast of Easter and the mandatory closedown of my clinic for 2 weeks at the beginning of April.

The 2 weeks where we would be stimming and retrieving. Yep, I call it Pamplemousse's Law. Whatever can go wrong with IVF cycle timing, will do so. It's a law, people!! There should be tablets of stone.

Well-grounded, even-hormoned individuals may well be saying to themselves right this moment...Jeez, what is the problem? So you have to wait another 4 weeks for the next CD1 to roll around! What is wrong with that?

Nothing, nothing...I mutter, sullenly kicking at the ground with the toe of my pointy boots. I am used to it. It's the law.

To Love is to Bury

Warning...Self-loathing ahead. It ain't pretty.

Feel free to skip on past to a happy blog. I recommend it today.


It has been pelting down hail all day today. It matches my mood......black and bitter. I know the days are slowly lengthening and I can see a difference when I leave work but it is so slow! Come on springtime! Please, I beg you.

I am trying to do my best to stave off the blahs but they come round, regular as clockwork. It has a lot to do with the time of year but also the perennial "why can't I have what she's got"? This covers the gamut from pregnancy and children to success on diets to people just being plain happy.

I am in a binge cycle and I cannot gain control. Each day I start off thinking "Not today. I am going to eat right. I do have will-power".

I start off great with some wholegrain cereal or yoghurt and fruit. Sometimes I even make it to lunch without cracking. Today I barely made it past breakfast. I went shopping before work and a packet of 6 chunky Kitkats fell in my basket unnoticed. Can you spot the lie there?

I have eaten them all, one by one. I have added to the heaping disgust by noting that there are 264 calories, 14.6g fat and 25.6g of sugars in each Kitkat. Multiply that by 6.

I feel disgusting and disgusted with myself. I am on my own today in the office so I can indulge in solitary greed without restraint. Of course, I also ate my packed lunch and fruit too. No sense in wasting good food, hmm? The very, very worst thing is that sometimes I even wish I was bulimic so at least I could purge. I truly am sick, sick, sick in the head.

Of course, tomorrow morning when I am lamenting that my trousers do not fit me any longer, I will want to rend my flesh with my own fingernails. This is the time, when I am waiting to start DE treatment, that I should be focusing all my efforts on healthy eating and the loss of 50lbs to get me back to normal. I have put on 15 lbs alone just since Xmas. Why can I not do it? Why do I always have to sabotage myself?

I feel weak and loathsome and disgusting and deep, deep down in my core, I know it is because I will never be normal. I do not feel that I deserve to be normal. I belong in the freak show where the normal people can gawp at me.

I know the endless waiting for treatment and the frustrations are pushing me over the edge.

Some days I am not sure if I am being pushed or if I am jumping.

The Detritus of my Kitchen Laid Bare

Oh Manuela, the sausages were so, so scrummy and I would have thought you would have loved them with your Teutonic background. However, I loved them and they were to cheer up Katie anyway! Sheesh, everyone's a critic.

However, moving on from the sausages, here are some more pics from the soon-to-be-demolished kitchen.

It looks awfy tidy and clean but as you can see from the things that sit on every available inch of surface, storage space is at a premium.

I am swithering towards a cream kitchen as that is what I have at the moment. Amy is completely correct in that during the winter, it is unmitigated gloom here. However, even in spring and summer, my kitchen faces north-east so gets full sun only at the end of the day. Light and bright is what is needed.







I just have so. much. stuff. The room is like 10 feet by 14 feet so positively bijou. It is closed off from the rest of the house as small enclosed rooms here in the UK = easy to keep warm.

I don't think the previous owners had any collections of china or teacups so decided that wall cupboards were a step too far! Just too progressive.

Reasons to Celebrate, be they ever so Tiny

Drum roll please.

Today is CD1 again.

Right in the middle of a meeting in Braveheart country, it arrived. I feel like painting my face blue in celebration though as this was a 38 day cycle. Only 10 days longer than a normal one!!

I know, as a pre-menopausal old crone, it means nothing really but what the heck. I am sure we will be back to normal with 54 or 84 days next time haha!

Katie at Maybe Expectant is hopefully on bedrest after her 2nd IVF transfer. These photos from my kitchen are for her inspiration. I like to call it "Triptych of Tea and Sausages".

More "before" kitchen pics will follow to demonstrate the shocking conditions I am forced to cook in.

Kitchenalia

I am now in a kitchen frenzy. The only thing that I am lamenting is that I can not have a groovy island. Not enough space in my standard U shaped kitchen.

I could have named it Infertility Island (thanks to Mare). A barren wasteland of teeth-chipping, unrelenting, cold granite. Probably just as well I am not having one. I so wanted one though but this is where the knocking down of wall or building of house extension would have to come into play. Sometimes you just have to accept that everything is not possible.

If it is to be Ikea, I have narrowed it down to 4 door choices. The pics are a bit small but you can get the full kitchen dealio here.



Birch adel





White Stat





Oak Tidaholm






Yellow white Adel





The basic carcass is the same for all and it is only the doors and hardware that have to be chosen. Ha! I almost made it sound so easy there for an unfettered Libran who hates to make decisions. You wonderful internets are going to be called upon to assist me. I hope you are up to the task.

Of course, the resident kitchen queens Julianna and Millie and Amy are already the experts. I bow to the kitchen goddesses. I will need all their queenly help, just as per usual haha!

You Will Alway Find Me in the Kitchen at Parties

because I adore looking at other people's kitchens and fantasising about what I will do to mine someday.

Well, that day has come. No, I do not have enough cash to necessarily knock through the wall or add the extension or have the sexy granite counters. But by jove, I am having a new kitchen!!!!!

I am not waiting around any more for the kitchen dream. It may be Ike* fittings and a tad budget-conscious but it will be mine, all mine hahaha! I have waited 6 years to do this and I am going to be a madwoman unleashed.