Sonny Moe and I will soon be heading off on a great adventure! We're going to see Grandpa in Spain for Christmas. Sonny will meet all our Spanish friends and family for the first time which I'm really looking forward to. Then we head off to Thailand for a beach break for over a month. Yipee! I'm so looking forward to spending that time uninterrupted and unencumbered with my shortie. To be present with him from moment to moment with no where that we have to be and nothing that we have to do. We're hoping to build sandcastles, learn to swim, say goodbye to napppies, collect shells, play in the dirt, make new friends, sing very loud and dance often. When we get back he's off to pre-school already. Time flies.

MORAL MAZE Babies from a test tube? In Vitro Fertilisation, more commonly known as IVF, is a process that has been around for over 30 years with the first successful pregnancy and birth of a “test tube baby” being in 1978 by Robert G. Edwards, who was later awarded the Nobel Prize in Physiology and Medicine in 2010. As well as the amazing things that IVF can do for a family there are still many ethical issues surrounding this medical wonder. I’m sure many of you have heard about IVF and other new methods of falling pregnant but do you actually know what it involves and what the risks are? The process of IVF happens when an egg is fertilised by sperm outside of the body. The fertilised egg (zygote) is then transferred back into the uterus of the patient, hopefully resulting in a successful pregnancy. This process can help many infertile couples when other methods of assisted reproductive technology have failed. IVF can also be used with donor eggs to assist same sex couples and single individuals. During the process of IVF the freezing and often discarding of unused embryos is usually included. This raises many issues for individual, cultural or religious reasons. For many, an embryo constitutes a life and the freezing or discarding of any life, if it it is seen as such, is obviously controversial, if not considered downright wrong, a sin even. Another topic highly debated is the chance of multiple pregnancies when using IVF and what results because of this. When multiple births are an option, many people choose to have a partial abortion so as to only have one child. Even if you don’t have to choose or don’t have a partial abortion the process of embryo freezing most likely results in some discarded embryos. This could be argued to be complete disregard for and abuse of the miracle of life. Another issue is the chance of a laboratory mix-up, including mislabeled gametes or the transferring of the wrong embryos to a woman’s womb. This happened to a woman in California who received the embryo of another couple and was only notified of this mistake after the birth of her son. This case did, however, lead to many authorities and individual clinics implementing procedures to minimise the risk of such mix-ups. The HFEA (Human Fertilisation and Embryology Authority), for example, requires clinics to use a double witnessing system, where the identity of a specimen must be checked by two people at each point in the specimen’s transferal. The ethical question however is, if this is not an absolutely failsafe process, how can it be allowed? The chances of a mix up, if at all possible, lead to the most complicated of situations - a woman carrying another couple’s child. It is understandable that toying with nature in this way can raise serious dilemmas for many people. An error such as the above is indeed frightening to contemplate and so, many do feel that it is not the place of medicine to play God, especially in the field of reproduction. There are also many risks concerned with IVF treatment that can result in abnormalities and life long illnesses. In 2000 Keeden was born following IVF treatment and shortly after suffered a massive stroke resulting in loosing the ability to ever walk, talk or go to the toilet. Keeden suffers from a rare blood clotting condition knows as antithrombin deficiency and his parents were not told that there was a 50 per cent chance that their child could have this defective gene. Keeden’s mother says about this: ''We love Keeden now that he's here, but if we had the right information and the right options we wouldn't have gone ahead with the birth, not in the way we did,'' Although this process can positively change someone’s life it can also dramatically change someone’s life not always for the better. A major ethical issue is the concern that people will try to change the traits of their unborn children using pre-implantation genetic diagnosis. Many people object to the argument that the doctors and parents are trying to ‘play God’ but in effect, toying with Nature in this way does suggest that the argument has some truth. Even setting to one side the process of picking the traits of the un-born child there is the process of finding the embryos that are most likely to succeed to this end, that results in the discarding of “bad” embryos. Should humans really be allowed to choose the ‘type’ of life produced? Another frequent objection is against women who are healthy and able to naturally conceive who freeze their embryos and delay pregnancy until a more convenient time. This process is usually used for when someone is about to undergo a treatment for a serious illness, for example, chemotherapy. But this treatment has been abused in the past as some people believe that the younger the embryo the more successful it will be, allowing a person to see through their career for example, until it is convenient for them to have a child conceived when they were younger and healthier. I think that IVF is an extraordinary process, which has allowed thousands of people all across the world to achieve things that otherwise would never be possible. Knowing someone who has gone through the process of IVF, I couldn’t imagine the world without the person who came from this process. My auntie underwent the process of IVF as a single mother with donor sperm and now has a two-year-old son. He hangs off me as I write this very article and it makes me think about how many people across the globe are blessed with this gift of life from this amazing technology. While there are questions raised by the procedure and issues that should be controlled very carefully in my opinion, there are also plenty of people in the world who get pregnant without thinking or caring that much about what they are doing. It seems to me that the processes and journey a person has to go through to have a child by IVF (my own auntie filled in a huge number of forms and underwent psychological testing before she was allowed to undertake the process) makes IVF less of an issue in many ways than unconsidered or badly motivated natural pregnancies. My niece wrote this piece for her Religious Education Assignment - needless to say I am so proud of her fantastic intelligent and eloquent pros and then I cried and cried and cried at her beautiful words about Sonny and I.

We can have conversations now..... thats so exciting! To listen to him string words together, to tell me about his day, things that happened, things that made him laugh. What a god damn delight it is. He is by far the greatest company I've had the pleasure of living with. His morning cuddles and innocent 'Hi Mum' the moment his eyes open. Hi personal jibber jabber when he's playing in his cot or with his toys. He's just such a bloody delight. He is also precocious and determined and stubborn and dilly dally's ALL the time but that comes with the toddler turf. Deep breaths help in that department. I'm so lucky, so blessed, so thrilled to be his mum.

That's How Much.

I am aware of how incredibly lucky I am to get to be a mum to this marvellous little boy. Just saying, I'm not taking it for granted. I love him so much my heart feels tight and swollen and on the verge of happy tears at least twice a day. You know that moment when you are in bed after a long day, you put down your book cause your eyes are getting heavy with the promise of sleep, you turn off the light and then turn over spreading yourself out across the bed (one of the upsides to being single - the whole bed). That moment when you realise the pillowed mattress, wool skin protector, 1000 thread count white cotton sheets and thick cosy softness of your goose feathered duvet and pillows were worth every single expensive penny your mother spent on them. That moment when your body feels heavy and your breath is slow and deep and sleep is about to engulf you. In that moment, instead of surrendering myself to the delicious lure of slumber, I'll thrust myself out of bed, kickstarting my whole body in one lurch, pad across the cold floor shivering to make sure my little one is warm enough, remove all objects so he doesn't have a train or giraffe digging into his side or face during the night and pull up the blanket that he'll inevitably kick off again seconds later....... You go back to bed but can't recapture that moment again, your hearts pumping too hard from the split second exertion, the pillows just aren't quite right so you toss and turn punching and puffing them, you tick through all the other things you should or could got done now that he's asleep, you've busied your mind and your body that aches for sleep can't get back to that blissful moment............ Thats how much you love them. Sure there are alternative solutions to this - forward thinking and careful planning would mean I didn't have to ruin this blissful moment by securing his sate of sleep before I'm in that moment but thats parenting for you. There's rarely enough space and time for forward thinking and careful planning. You're brain doesn't actually work at full capacity anymore for starters. You grab every second of downtime with careless abandon (collapsing on your bed the minute he's in his cot). Whats more you'll happily sacrifice a thousand great moments for the safety, security and comfort of your child.

Danger, Danger, High Voltage!

Sometimes it feel dangerous to be too alive, to feel so alive that your nerves zing and your senses are heightened. Everything feels possible and overexciting and almost too much for your heart to bare. This is where drinking, smoking, meaningless sex and drugs come into play. Wild abandon, giving in, loosing yourself in the moment, no restraint, no control, no containment. Throwing yourself down a slippery slope cause you are unable to express the extent of your heightened and enormous feelings. Like the feelings are too big to fit in your body and need to find a way out. This is where I advocate the artist, we all have one in us, the writer, the poet, the painter, the dancer, the singer, the need to express yourself without talking. This need is great - it certainly is for me anyway. I'm thinking maybe exercise comes into play here too actually...... One day I will have a room - a room I can lock from the inside and no one can see inside. In this room I will dance with wild abandon, I will punch the air and writhe on the floor and kick my legs up. I will sing to my hearts content to the music of my choosing. I will express myself through movement. This process will release me, will release tension, will release the zing in my nerves. One day I will have a partner, I will love him and he will love me and we will make love. We will kiss and fuck and hug and smooch and spoon and this too will release tension and calm the zing in my nerves.

Grumble Grumble

I've been avoiding this blog. Partly because we are so busy with our fun filled lives but also because I know what I have to write about. I'd best just say it and be done with it..... I did an interview with the Good Weekend about Sperm Donation. I was very excited to contribute to a positive and empowering piece on what is an important and worthy subject. It has thus far been the greatest thing I've ever done and my beautiful boy is a daily reminder of what a great path it was to follow. Its something I'm incredibly proud of and feel that there are many women out there who might benefit from hearing stories about the reality of it..... Alas I was a little disappointed in the piece and a little in myself too. I didn't find the piece as positive and inspiring as I'd hoped, I feel it stood with one foot either side of a thin line and didn't take a stance one way or the other, I feel it used quotes that were questionable or provocative when it should have used the quotes that were proud, decisive and strong. I came off best from all the other women interviewed frankly but I still feel it was a bit meh with a topic that simply isn't meh at all. I feel it further marginalised an already marginalised bunch and well, frankly I'd hoped for more. BUT as my sister rightly pointed out Australian journalism isn't all that at the best of times so what did I expect. My disappointment in myself stemmed from my failure to do right by us when push came to shove. At the out start of the interview I made it very clear that I would like to check the copy that related to me only, so that I could be assured that there were no quotes in there that could be mis interpreted or in any way mis represented by my little man once he's big enough to read. By the time the article was about to be released (almost 6 months later) I felt over excited and if I'm honest a bit afraid to ask the journalist if I could please check my copy as discussed prior. So I let it go to print without checking it and there is a sentence in there that could hurt his feelings when he's older. Although that same sentence is also available to read on this blog, its in context here where it isn't in context in the article. He is/was/will always be my priority and I'm peeved at myself for letting that one slip through to avoid hassle in the short term. I will have had many conversations with my bub about all these things as he grows so I know this little wrinkle will have been ironed out by the time he reads this blog or that article but I'm still a little disappointed. A good lesson learnt in both instances. In other news.... on the eve of his 2nd birthday mr man is a chatty, active, funny dude. A real boy and a little bit accident prone (a few too many bumps and bruises already!) as he masters this walking, running, jumping malarki! We're planning a long break together early next year to hang out with one another before he's off to pre-school. he fills me with joy joy joy every day. Love it!

Its a new dawn, its a new day and I'm feelin........

We had a lovely Christmas holiday in Hardy's Bay with our friends and family.  You were a bloody champ and I fell in love with you all over again - I loved spending all that time with you Sonny - you're very fun.
Back to daycare today and that was a bit sad for us both  :-(
Its times like these that I wish I was a stay home mum. That I wish we had the financial security to go on holiday for longer and for me to be home with you all the time. I'm pretty sure its times like these (the end of the summer holidays) that everyone in the world wishes the same thing - longer holidays and more time at home with their families.....
Ce'st la vie and we're doing just great - we really have nothing to complain about.
Look forward to another great year with you bub.
Mum xx