Baby Acronyms

The title of this post made me crack up because acronyms are of course, a big word covering up for a mix of letters standing for another big word - or several big words.

After visiting a few forums, websites, blogs and message boards, I feel the need to compile some of the acronyms I've come across in these strange uncharted waters.

Now a small elaboration - I love acronyms and in the case of one of my previous jobs even had to make up several new ones because the manager was super paranoid about other stores using our techniques to boost their own success. (This guy was a bit of an insensitive wanker at the best of time, and a miserable bully at the worst) the point is - I like and use acronyms. A lot.

My new job is basically jargon, jargon and translating what people are saying in real time into even more jargon.
It makes my job easier, in a way that defies logic and often makes me wonder if the next person can even read my notes or if they make their own acronyms up and misunderstand me.

In this day and age though, it must be impossible to avoid this kind of short hand writing.
Besides, anyone who's ever been on a chatroom or spoken to a lazy texter will pick up some of the basic ones easily.






Pregnancy acronyms are a bit different. Some of them are in place of some seriously complicated medical terms and others inject a bit of space or a bit of humour between what could be a painful or stressful term. For the rest - it could simply be a way of cutting down typing time.



So there you have it. Before you can say:

Check out my handy dandy list of acronyms to help you survive and keep your sanity!*

India Uniform India

This cycle we were almost set to go to to egg pick up next week. I had been on a new drug - Menupur and then Orgalutran. However my egg numbers were still pretty low, so my ob/gyn recommended IUI - Inter-uterine insemination. Yesterday I took my trigger shot of Ovidrel, a humongous needle in which the solution inside was actually quite a small amount considering. Today, we were up at the crack on dawn to get down to the fertility centre to deposit some brogurt, which they then tested and sorted out, cleaning it and putting into two tubes. We came back after about an hour to collect this and then ran across the block to see my ob/gyn to actually carry out the procedure.

 This took all of ten minutes, if that. He used a speculum, much like a Pap smear. I won't say it was comfortable but I was too nervous to think about it much, so I only felt a strange cramp like pain when the catheter was inserted. I had been warned about cramping afterwards so I hadn't expected it straight away or during the procedure. It wasn't very bad though, nothing debilitating. I would describe it as period-lite.

That's how we did AIH (artificial insemination by husband) - so if all the sperm deposited directly into my cervix give us a child, a slight discomfort is perfectly fine with me! 

I had to stay prone for a while, which is understandable but annoying because I'd had to drink lots of water prior to the procedure and my bladder was cursing me. Honestly, it wasn't as much or as bad as an ultrasound but when you're nervous... Yeah, it doesn't help. 

So the three of us were sitting there (well, two of us were, I was lying down covering my butt with a sheet.) discussing next steps for either way. 

Telling you now, never thought I'd be this comfortable with general pantslessness outside of the home or even with injecting a million needles but look at me go! 

To Shower, or not to Shower?

This blog is because I don't know what to do.

My sister - due in about two months time - has seemingly cancelled the casual family baby shower/BBQ. I'm not even sure why, as I've only heard about it in passing.

So now I'm conflicted because it's her choice and I'll stand by that - no question. On the other hand though - it's the first child on our particular side of the family and it does carry certain obligations. Thirdly.. I was looking forward to it.

I know baby showers are like small weddings these days - seemingly expecting you to hire out a small room, get caterers and decorators.. give mementos to guests... severe theming issues...
which bothers me. You hear jokes about baby showers being so extravagant because there isn't going to be a wedding ha-ha-ha but it seems like you're expected to have a shower, a gender reveal party, a babymoon and all sorts of things that are just blowing it out of proportion.

Yes, it's a big event but it doesn't need to be so big and expensive that it misses the point of relaxing with friends and family in anticipation of your impending birth.
It really does make it seem like we're going back into the whole 'women's lives revolve around babies and nothing else' mentality.

"It's just a casual get together...AT THE RITZ."

Deadly Dreaming Dexter Daddy

Last time we looked at a mother in the media.. now we'll take a look at a father in his various mediums.

If you're unfamiliar with this series, it began as a series of books by Jeff Lindsay and then spread into primarily a TV series but then also to a series of virtual games and comic books etc.

Please be warned there may be spoilers for both the TV show and the book series in this post.

There are always some differences between TV and book adaptions - some work out well like how Deborah (books) is meant to be blonde, busty and voluptuous while Debra (TV) could not be skinnier or more of a brunette however, she was clearly meant to play the foul mouthed ass kicking detective.

Rita and her kids - Cody and Astor are a hell of a lot more likeable in the TV show and TV Lundy replacing Book Only Chutsky was fine by me, even though I'm a fan of Chutsky. The Dark Passenger element was a bit hit and miss with the books... sometimes going off on tangents and involving a sort of mystical element and constant descriptions of dark things rearing up. Brian has more than a one cameo deal with the books and I love it because he's a great character, but I understand why the show couldn't do that.

Other differences like literally every character on the show banging literally every other character on the show is a TV drama thing for ratings and thank heavens for that because I'd like to think my local cops are doing more than just being impossibly incompetent at crime scenes, having forced arguments and banging all the time.

My husband and I have just re-watched the entire run of Dexter TV and I've been re-reading the novels as well. As well as stark differences in the quality of some of the characters I've come to notice that the writers of the show are terrible when it comes to writing the women. I know there was some sort of time lapse where the show basically follows the first book (more or less) but then deviates harder than The Walking Dead from that point on so I don't know if it was just meant to be loosely based off the book or if the writers said we can't wait until the sequel, let's just run with something else that we come up with!

What I wanted to focus on today was the Daddy Dexter aspect and how it differs from book to show.

Marvellous Mummy Mortisha

When people think about what kind of mother/parent they want to be, I'm pretty sure that they immediately think of their own parents and whether or not they did good a good enough job to be emulated. Besides that though, the media has a definite say in who we idolise or what we should aim to be like through stereotypes, subversion and certain imprinted tropes.

 There are plenty of what I personally would consider bad parenting examples in the media at the moment - the Kartrashians, Yummy Mummys, and well... basically any reality show scripted or unscripted that simply thrives on 'drama' and financial status or awkward situations. Hell, I once watched a show about different mothers giving birth and it was so painful I felt like I was going through it myself. This was when we had a Foxtel free trial. Lots of channels.. lots of.. weird.. shows.

In ordinary programmed television shows they more often than not pigeon hole mothers into a behind the scenes sort of role, usually in the home and being more of a support role to her family. Nothing wrong with that but thankfully these days it's a lot more diverse with different family types and more working mothers, single mothers etc.

The one mother I want to talk about today began life as part of a sort of anti-nuclear family newspaper cartoon that exploded into a successful television series, several movies, a cartoon series, multiple Super Nintendo/Gameboy games, a Pinball machine, figurines and dolls, various books and most recently a musical.

Sabbatical Piratical

So after basically being a sook for a few days, I've taken some time to get back to basics, or rather I'm pulling myself up by my strange, mismatched pirate themed socks.

That's not to say having emotions is bad.. seeing as how I don't normally have anything in me besides confusing rage, deadly rage, hilarious weird and blank kill-bot it was kinda nice to go through the right emotional spectrums and be human for once.

So yeah, have been getting back to basics - trying to reduce stress, keeping up with the vitamins (I've found a remarkable improvement in my hair and nail quality alone since starting to take all of these vitamins, so that's great) watching what I eat and started a new exercise regime.

Stress has been the biggest concern so far. The last few days I've found myself switching between severely agoraphobic times and then once outside my house - aggressive bouts of confidence.
That.. I don't know what's going on with.

I got my car serviced today and when the service assistant tried to up-sell me additional options I gave him a look. I'm not saying it withered anything, but it was definitely up there because I ended up getting the extras anyway at no charge and the guy nearly apologised to me.

Mopey update and sad gorilla gifs

Another day, another appointment, another scan.

Yeah, I successfully surfed my crimson tide and dismounted for a egg check-up. The numbers weren't great - in fact, despite all the additional crap I went through this cycle it didn't do a damn thing. I had to come back for an extra check this week because we weren't sure if one of the eggs was completely right or not because it was a lot larger than the others.

That was today, and we couldn't even find this extra large edition anywhere so we don't even know what the hell that was. We think it might have been a fluid sack that popped. Ob/gyn asked me if anything had hurt recently and I just sat there thinking because I'd felt a twinge the previous day but didn't worry about it as I hadn't wanted to stress too much.

I had felt so positive about this second scan because it had looked like we were going forward with egg pick up but again I went home empty handed so to speak. I'd had a week of holidays and I'm glad because I had about two to three days of sitting around listlessly planned now instead of all the home improvements and chores I had lined up. 

It's funny because you know it does no good to get depressed but apart from that second day when it really sort of hit home.. I've just felt kind of hollow. I wanted so badly to conceive but have yet again been told in polite, clinical terms that I'm a failure.

So we're having a month breather from the intense treatment I was doing. I'm to keep up the vitamins though. I'm also embarking on a fitness campaign not only to help my body but to distract myself.

My gym membership has long expired but I've taken to running around outside at work during my breaks and using their outdoor gym equipment which is pretty basic but does the job. 

I'm enjoying it more than I thought I would. I have more energy, I can see a difference in my body shape even though my weight hasn't changed dramatically. My endurance is growing and so is my confidence. A bunch of guys at work even cheered me on the other day.

Another plus is that because I'm working out at work, I get to spend more time with my partner after work and don't have to wait for dinner or go outside in the dark/early morning. 

In other news, my sister brought some ultra sound photos around the other day and she's been happier than usual. My friend's baby has just taken his first steps. We went to visit some of my husband's relatives over the weekend and got asked twice about when we were going to have a family. 

It wasn't invasive or aggressive. One asked about us and our intentions when the pre-dinner conversation turned to nephews and nieces, the other dropped subtle hints that my partner's new car would be the kind of car you'd want to have when looking to start a family. 

Both times left me feeling like shit.