Back to Life

Spasibo, Santa

2012-01-04T15:42:00.000-08:00

In the 21^st Century world we live in, there are anumber of different ways to build family. Most couples manage to do it the old fashioned way that has kept thehuman race going for millions of years. For other people, who are infertile due to either social circumstancesof not meeting the right partner at the right time, or medical reasons whichprevent them conceiving or carrying a baby to full term, it’s not sosimple. Reproductive technology,adoption or fostering, or choosing to live a childfree life are some of the possible ways forward for them. We are one couple who could conceive but notcarry a pregnancy to term. ThisChristmas we have found a different way of forging familial ties. For the past two weeks we have been host Mamaand Papa to two little seven year old girls from Belarus, and they have changedour lives in a way I would never have thought possible.

As I am sure most people reading this are aware, the largestnuclear meltdown in the history of Europe happened in Chernobyl, Ukraine inApril 1986. The story of the disasterand its ongoing consequences for the countries of Belarus, Ukraine and WesternRussia can be read about here. Thestories of the liquidators, who saved Europe from a potential explosion whichcould have killed hundreds of thousands and left Europe a wasteland. Everybody remembers the brave heroes of 9/11,but how many remember the heroes of Chernobyl?

In 1991, an Irish woman called Adi Roche was working as afull-time volunteer for the Irish Campaign for Nuclear Disarmament, when shereceived a fax from Belarus with the simple message ‘SOS Appeal. For God’ssake help us to get the children out.’ So began her life’s work, to form Chernobyl Children International,which since its establishment in 1991 as a nonprofit charity organisation, hasdelivered over €90 million in humanitarian aid to the Chernobyl region.

As well as large organisations like CCI, there arehundreds of smaller Chernobyl Support organisations all over the world, particularlyin Ireland, who are ploughing their own smaller scale furrows, helping thechildren of Chernobyl in small but very significant ways. One such organisation is Chernobyl LifelineIreland, based in the town of Roscrea, County Tipperary. They have been working with people in thetown of Mikashevichi, in the Brest region of Belarus for the past sixteenyears. This is a town into which a largenumber of evacuees were resettled from the regions which were so contaminated following the disaster;they were rendered no-go areas, to be deserted for thousands of years. We were told that when rural areas were beingevacuated, priority was given to the cattle and other farm animals over thepeople. Mikashevichi continues to thisday to bear the social scars of a displaced people, uprooted from their homesand placed in urban high-rise buildings with little or no financialcompensation for their lost homes and livelihoods.

The people of Chernobyl Lifeline Ireland work on anentirely voluntary basis, some travelling to Mikashevichi to bring seriouslyill children to Ireland for medical treatment and recuperation. Others open their homes to children indisadvantaged circumstances for recuperation vacations. While these children may show no obvioussigns of illness, the long-term legacy of Chernobyl has left them breathingcontaminated air and eating from a contaminated food chain for their entirelives. It is estimated that for everyvacation of three to four weeks these children take outside of their owncountry, up to two years is added to their long-term life expectancy. Recurrent vacations to countries like Irelandcan literally help them to live for decades longer than expected.

By far CLI’s greatest success story is that of atwenty two year old young woman called Ella. Ella was found by a member of CLI in Mikashevichi at the age of nineyears old. She had spent the previousyear of her life in hospital, and had been sent home to die. Her mother, a twenty seven year old single motherat the time, was told that her only daughter was suffering liver failure. With her mother’s permission, Ella wasbrought to Ireland for a second opinion. She was unable to walk when she arrived and had to be carried off theaeroplane. Their first port of call was toa paediatrician in Roscrea, who said she was the most ill child she had everseen in her life. Ella was placed with ahost family, and remained in Ireland for six months. Within a few weeks, she was up and outplaying with other children. After sixmonths she was healthy enough to return to her mother. Her host family sponsored her through hereducation, and she is now a college graduate, working as a schoolteacher inBelarus. This Christmas she returned toRoscrea as the group’s interpreter. Shevisits Roscrea twice a year and speaks warmly of her Irish family. We met her for the first time this Christmasand she is an amazing young woman, someone I am proud to call a new friend inour lives.

We decided to sign up as volunteers with CLI afterhaving attended an information session on international adoption thissummer. We were advised to get as muchpractical experience with children as possible before embarking on the adoptionprocess. That night we went home andwracked our brains for ideas on how to achieve this. Then I started to Google volunteering and children’scharities, and up popped the answer. Volunteer as a host family this Christmas and take in children fromBelarus. As it happened, a formercolleague of mine is the son in law of one of the founders of CLI inRoscrea. The next day I made a phonecall to him, he passed on my details to his father in law, and the wheels werein motion. After some amount of communicationback and forth over the months, we managed to get forms and paperwork sortedfor police clearance, and my former colleague was happy enough to supply apersonal reference for us. We were thenasked for our preference in terms of girls or boys, and age group. We decided on little girls in the 7 to 8 agegroup, the youngest children accepted on the programme. So the call went out the other side of Europein the town of Mikashevichi, and two beautiful little ladies, Lera and Dashawere ushered into our lives.

We attended a meeting of CLI just a week before thegroup arrived from Belarus. We were theyoungest host family in the room, and one of only two newbie hostfamilies. Most of the others had beendoing it for years, and stories of family bonds forged were incredible. One couple, in their late fifties told us oftheir Belarusian “son”, a 21 year old who phones them every Sunday night. Another family, pub owners in the area, saidtheir 18 year old lad arrives to their house every Christmas, throws off hiscoat, declares himself home, and is out working in the bar in no time. Of course we all teased them that they weretoo mean to pay a lounge boy to collect the glasses in the pub and this was whythey were hosting! All joking asidethough, the warmth of stories was inspirational. The organisers smiled at us and told us thatwe might not realise it yet, but from now on we would be affiliated to CLI forlife. I was inclined to believe them.

We were due to get holidays from work on the 23^rdof December, and the children arrived on the 18^th, so another hostfamily had to step in and host them for the first five days. We finished up a very full on week at work onthe Friday afternoon, then collected Ella, our interpreter, in Roscrea andheaded up to the Offaly-Galway border to collect our girls. Driving into our cul de sac that night, weboth suddenly were hit with the enormity of what we had taken on. Here we were, pulling up to our house withtwo seven year olds asleep in the back of our car, children who would be oursole responsibility for the next sixteen days. They did not speak English and we did not speak Russian. It felt as if we were imposters, who hadstolen someone else’s children. What theheck had we signed ourselves up for? Ourthree cats were even more alarmed at the new arrivals. We might as well have let a pair of rabidlittle terrier dogs into the house with the way they reacted to theirentrance. It was the first time in mylife I have seen two cats try to exit one cat-flap at the same time.

The next day was Christmas Eve. I stole out of the house first thing, and didthe run down town to collect last minute groceries and the turkey and ham. We had breakfast, and then took the girls fora drive out to Lough Derg to a playground. After that we took them shopping. Dasha being a very girlie girl begged us to buy her a pink DisneyCinderella dress, teamed with a pair of bubblegum pink Doc Marten styleboots. Carrie Bradshaw, eat your heartout. Even better, she insisted onwearing the ensemble to mass on Christmas Eve. Who were we to refuse? Walkinginto mass to the strains of Away in a Manger in our local church, hand in handwith these two gorgeous little girls, was one of many magical moments thisChristmas.

In the past twelve days I think I have laughed morethan I had in the previous six months. From the girls parading around our house dressed head to toe in elfsuits, complete with pointy ears; to tickle attacks, to marathon games oftwister or “tveester” as it will always be known to me, to blow drying theirBarbie dolls’ hair after she went swimming in the bathroom sink, to Dashahaving a hissy fit over bedtime and stamping her feet whilst wearing John’senormous furry monster feet slippers, to hurtling down the water slide in thelocal leisure centre, to shouting “Spasibo, Santa” (Thank you, Santa inRussian) up the chimney on Christmas Day, it has been fantastic fun. There have been really special days, likewhen we brought them to see the sea for the first time in their lives. The Atlantic Ocean at Lahinch is impressiveon any ordinary day, but to two seven year olds seeing the sea for the veryfirst time in their lives; it was nothing short of awesome. Playing chicken with the waves on the beach ramp at high tide wasamazing fun for all of us.

Even the mundane jobs that every Mammy has to do dayin, day out have felt great. Packing theenormous bag of towels, goggles and swimming gear for the whole family to go tothe pool. Negotiating the sulks andtantrums over daily brushing of teeth and changing of underwear. Thank you, Google translator for giving methe Russian for the sentence “if you do not put on clean underwear, we will notgo to the playground”. Doing theirlaundry, brushing the tangles out of their beautiful long hair. Cooking family sized dinners. Making pancakes for breakfast. Breaking up fights over broken hair clips andstolen fancy writing pens. Trying to getthem to eat a reasonable amount of healthy food before breaking out thetreats. All the stuff that makes me feellike a Mammy.

Most of all though, it is seeing the joy in mylovely husband’s eyes that these two little mischief makers have broughtus. When they arrived, Lera was a veryserious little girl, and as quiet as a mouse, to the point of being painfullyshy, whilst Dasha was the louder, more dominant child. Now Lera is well able to hold her own, andhas blossomed into a really sociable little one with a great sense of fun. We found out that neither girl has a Dad intheir lives, and so they have latched on to John in a major way. They adore him, constantly competing for hisattention. They hang out of him, gettingpiggy backs all over the house, snuggling up to him watching movies. I might not have been able to make him a Dadin the conventional sense, but if Lera and Dasha return to our home on anongoing basis, he now has the next best thing.

This Christmas we gave ourselves the greatest giftsever. The gifts of joy, laughter andlove. Of seeing our house in the way wehad intended, full of shrieks and noise and play, sometimes like the Waltons,more often like the Simpsons. And for allthat we say, in the little Russian we know, Spasibo, Santa.

Plan B

2011-11-12T15:20:00.000-08:00

2011 has been quite a year. Some ups, a long period of feeling down, but now I feel like I am getting my mojo back to some extent and beginning to reclaim my life. The long and the short of it is, although we are still to some extent trying to conceive, I am beginning to come to terms with the fact that our chances are between slim and nil at this stage. Most days I am OK with that, some days I am a weeping, snot dripping wreck.

And so to plan B. We have decided to explore the avenue of adoption. To be honest I'm not 100% sure that it will be the right thing for us, but we have decided to give it a shot and see how we go for now. We attended an information session during the Summer, got our application pack and have started the ball rolling to some extent. The biggest obstacle holding us up at the moment is waiting for U.K. police and social services clearance. Like many Irish people our age, John lived in and around London for ten years between the 80's and 90's, at around 14 different addresses. Even finding these addresses was a challenge in itself, but luckily his mother kept an address book during that time which survived until now. He filled out the relevant forms, wrote letters to a number of borough councils all over the greater metropolitan area, and we are still waiting to hear back from them.

In the meantime, we've been hatching plan C, a more short term plan. The idea came to me after the adoption information session. The speakers at the session advised us to get as much time and experience with children as we can. Now I have years of experience with kids and babysitting. I became an auntie at the age of 19, and served my time as a nappy changing baby sitting aunt in my late teens and twenties. John hasn't so much experience, as he only became an uncle ten years ago, and only two of his nieces live in Ireland, the other three are in Australia.

Anyway an idea came to me out of the blue. An ex colleague of mine has a family member who is hugely involved with the Chernobyl Children's Project in our area. Part of the work they do is organising respite holidays to Ireland for children from disadvantaged backgrounds in countries like Belarus, during the summer and at Christmas. After thinking about it for a short while we decided to take the plunge and make enquiries about volunteering with them. As it turns out, they are always on the lookout for host families, and were delighted with our expression of interest. So we applied for Garda (Irish police) clearance, and supplied references, all of which came back spick and span. So the plan for this Christmas is that there will be a group of children ranging in age from 7 to 14 arriving from Belarus in mid December. We will be hosting two of them, from the day we start our Christmas holidays on December 23rd, until January 4th.

We were given the option of saying what our preference was in terms of boys/girls and ages, so we have decided to go with the younger end of the age spectrum (hopefully true believers in Santa!) and girls, as I have a few young nieces in the same age group, with whom we can hopefully arrange a day's visiting/play date. We are both apprehensive and excited at the thoughts of it all. I can imagine there could be difficulties getting them to settle in a house with no other children, but I am hoping we will be able to establish a support network with the other host families in the area. Mostly though we are really looking forward to it. If nothing else it will give us a dose of reality. And we certainly won't have a quiet house this Christmas.

Days like this

2011-05-27T07:38:00.000-07:00

Last weekend we went out for dinner with one of the few couples we know outside of cyberspace who are also experiencing fertility difficulties. The husband is a long standing friend/in law of John's, in that he was originally married into John's family, but sadly his wife passed away at a young age some years ago. Happily, he met his second wife, a lovely vivacious lady, a few years later and they married four years ago. Since then, they have been trying to conceive, and like us, have been through the mill in a huge way. They are currently coming to terms with their third failed IVF attempt.

Every so often we get together for a good old natter and a catch up. With us women, the conversation always turns to how we are faring in the infertility stakes, how we are coping with it, how very few people get what we are going through, and how crappy the whole deal is. The wife and I are both youngest daughters of large families, so we have a fair bit in common when it comes to family dynamics. We both are aunts several times over. We were discussing general life things the other night, when I mentioned that I had been at a christening the previous weekend. "How was that?" she asked, meaning "Did you get through it ok?". "Not bad actually, but then it wasn't a family one, so that's slightly easier". "I know what you mean, it's harder when it's family". A breath of fresh air, not having to explain the emotions behind steeling yourself for the attendance of a family celebration centred around young children. "How about you, any communion or confirmations in your lot this year?". "Yeah", she sighed, "one two weeks ago and another next weekend".

Ah the joys of being part of a large Catholic family. The annual Spring run of communions and confirmations. Back in the 70's, when there was very little money around and my parents had seven mouths to feed besides their own, these occasions involved dressing up in your frock (usually a hand-me-down) or suit, going to mass to receive your sacrament, coming home for a nice family lunch and then visiting your Granny in the afternoon to show off your finery. Nowdays it's a different story. Now in fairness to my family, the communion dresses are still passed on from cousin to cousin to younger sister, and they go in for a lot less fanfare than some of the Momzillas in the town where we live. But it usually involves a get together of aunties, uncles and cousins, with a buffet lunch back in the house, bouncy castle and a cake. (By the way, where does it say in the bible that the twelve apostles finished up the last supper, then bounced for two or three hours on a temporary inflatable structure? Or did this come in with Vatican Two?)

While it is lovely to get together with our families for these occasions, it's still painful when you are the only couple rocking up to the gaff with no kiddies in tow. A couple of smallies run by me, stuffed with rice crispie buns and making for the garden hand in hand, and I think that our little one should be running with them. I join a conversation between my sister and sisters in law, discussing how alike two of their little girls are, and I wonder what ours would have looked like (long curly dark hair, chubby cheeks and pale blue eyes like her mother, I tend to imagine). I hear parents comparing notes on the different stages, like "well if you think the sleepless nights were bad, the teenage years bring a whole different challenge". Sometimes I get through these days fine. Sometimes I dive into a vat of white wine to ease the sting, and end up weeping to myself in the bathroom. Sometimes I just want to scream "I'm an infertile, get me out of here!" John knows if I say it's time to go home now, it really is time to go home, and we make a hasty exit. The overwhelming feeling I always get though is that we will probably never host days like this in our house. And that is the most painful thought of all.

Updated link to John's surfing thang

2011-05-15T13:36:00.000-07:00

John finally got around to putting his TV appearance on youtube, so here he is, in all his rubberclad glory.

John's TV debut

2011-03-31T14:42:00.000-07:00

As I mentioned last month, John made his debut on live TV today extolling the virtues of surfing on RTE's Daily Show. Here's the link, John's bit starts around 1.54. We had a really enjoyable day, and we got to meet not only the Daily Show team (Dáithi O Sé being a not so secret crush of mine!), but also the presenter of our favourite morning radio show, Ian Dempsey. John was a wee bit nervous, since the show was going out live, but all in all he did really well and I was very proud of him.

A mother of none

2011-03-26T11:47:00.000-07:00

Something has been bugging me for quite some time now, and I have been trying to find the words to blog about it. It's the way adults are defined in the news in terms of their parental status. A father of four was stabbed in Limerick. A mother of two was killed in a car crash. Mention of their number of children always thrown in to further compound the tragic effect.

A number of months ago, two women and two children were stabbed to death in a town in County Limerick. One of the women was the mother of the two children, the assailant was her ex partner. The other deceased woman was a friend of hers. I can't remember the names of the victims, but as I was driving home one evening, the tragic events were reported like this on the radio. "Jane Bloggs, aged 25, her two children John and Conor, and her friend were stabbed to death in the house in the town in County Limerick". Yes you read correctly, the mother and two children were named in the report, but the other victim, a twenty year old woman, didn't warrant being mentioned by name, it would seem because she was neither a mother nor a child. What the fuck is that all about?

If I was killed in a pile up on my way to work the news would read "A forty one year old woman was killed this morning on the M7". But if it was one of my friends who happens to be a mammy it would be "A forty two year old mother of three was killed this morning on the N17". Not nearly as tragic for the loss of a non mom. It wouldn't take account that I am a wife of one (an ex wife of another, but we won't go there!), a daughter of two, a sister of six, a sister in law of nine, an aunt of nineteen (or 23 if you count in the four on John's side), a niece of four, a cousin of too many to count, a colleague and friend of many. But a mother of none, so hey, it wouldn't really count as a tragic loss, would it?

My husband lost his sister to a brain tumour ten years ago. She passed away at the age of thirty six, an indescribably huge loss to the family she left behind. She was married, but didn't have any children, due to infertility. She left behind a husband, two parents, three brothers, a sister, parents in law, sisters and brothers in law, cousins, colleagues, pupils and countless friends. People who still feel her loss acutely to this day. When her name comes up in conversation, most people ask me was she married and did she have kids? When I say no, she didn't have kids, people don't quite know what to say then, but the implication is that her passing was somehow less of a tragedy than if she had children. Tell that to an eighty year old woman who stands at her beloved daughter's grave, a woman who will never get over that loss until the day she dies. Now that's heartbreaking.

Huh?

2011-03-16T13:31:00.000-07:00

I happened to come across this story last week on the net. Further googling yielded much the same story, a plethora of headlines proclaiming "Lesbian couple conceive quintuplets without IVF", with further text claiming that the chances of this happening without IVF were one in sixty million. The article I linked to here claims that the couple conceived quintuplets without using fertility treatment. So did a bright star guide three wise dudes to the maternity hospital where they rocked up weighed down with enough gold, frankincense and myrrh for the five new arrivals?

Is everyone missing something obvious here? The couple had IUI to conceive their babies, which carries just as much, if not more risk of multiple births, if managed poorly. It appears that the babies are all non identical, which would point to super ovulation, often an occurrence in IUI. Why didn't their fertility specialist spot that the mother had five or more ripe follicles before he carried out the insemination? Was this treatment of the pee on a stick, inseminate and fingers crossed school of IUI?

Am I the only one who thinks that there is a huge amount of misinformation regarding fertility treatment in the way this story has been reported? Surely IVF quintuplets are an extreme rarity these days. It really pisses me off the way IVF and high order multiple births are seen to go hand in hand.

Celebrity Surfing

2011-02-26T12:40:00.000-08:00

Around six weeks ago, I had a missed call on my phone, followed by a text from one of the instructors from Lahinch Surf School. She was looking for John and only had a phone number for me. We kept playing phone tennis, missing each other's calls for days until she finally caught up with me at work a couple of days later. Dying to know what it was all about, I had to ask her. They had got a call from RTE (our national broadcaster, for my non Irish readers) the week before. They are doing a feature on one of their daytime shows about people who have taken up hobbies later in life than usual, and were looking for someone who has recently taken up surfing, preferably in their 40's, who is really enthusiastic about the sport. Needless to say John ticked all those boxes, so they got in contact with us.

John has been surfing several times a week ever since in all weathers, and today was the day for filming. So we arose at 6.30 this morning, packed up the car with surf boards and gimpsuit to head for Lahinch for 9am to meet with the show's director and cameraman. We were in the presence of greatness in terms of the Irish surf world, as John got to surf with this dude. Needless to say he was chuffed to bits, particularly as John Mc said afterwards that it was obvious that John had put in the time with his surfing. So on Tuesday 8th March we're heading up to Dublin for the show. It's going out live (Live TV! My husband on Live TV! How mad is that?!) at 4.50pm. I will put up a link to the RTE player after the event.

Just to bring him back to earth, I made him clean out the cat shit out of the litter trays when we got home. Can't have him getting too big for his surf boots, can we?

No ordinary kitty

2011-01-23T13:44:00.000-08:00

It was love at first sight, for me at least, the first time I clapped eyes on him. A roundy little bundle of fluff, he scampered across the yard, a few paces behind the rest of the feline tribe that live in my mother in law's shed. John had been trying to talk me into getting a kitten for a couple of months. I was so far resisting the idea. I wasn't really a cat person, or so I thought. I used to be one, when I was a kid. The last cat I had been really attached to, a gentle tabby by the unlikely name of Elizabeth Purrin, had died in the big freeze of 1982, when I was twelve years old. No other kitty had captured my heart since then. My dad had a number of extremely spoilt moggies over the years, but none of them endeared themselves to me. Nah, not a cat person, me.

Until that day in 2005. And there he was, a stripey little tabby with white socks. So fluffy he seemed clumsier than the rest of them. I picked him up for a cuddle, but never having being handled by a human before, he wasn't all that keen, but he didn't claw or hiss. So I set him down on the ground and he scampered away. My mother in law, who had been watching us through the kitchen window, smiled and said she would keep him for me. So the deal was sealed. "He has to be a Tigger, hasn't he?" I asked John. "Definitely a Tigger".

So a few weeks later, John went over to the homestead to bring Tigger back to his new home and human slaves. In the meantime, he talked me around to taking two kittens, so that they would be company for each other. "Ok" I said, "but try to get a male, I don't want the place overrun with kitty incest". John decided to select the second candidate on the basis of friendliness. And so Tigger arrived back, with his sister Elizabeth Purrin the Second in tow. They quickly settled in on our sofa and our family unit became four.

If I hadn't been a cat person for years, these two converted me instantly. Straight away they knew what a litter tray was for. They instantly purred and cuddled us. Lizzie liked to keep her distance, sitting on the edge of our laps, while Tigger would climb on my shoulder, walk a few times around my neck and then drape himself around my shoulders like a little fluffy stole. When I came home from work in the evenings, he would follow me around the house miaowing until I sat down in the armchair, then he would jump into my lap, purring furiously and demanding cuddles. If John and I were sitting together on the sofa, Tigs would do his best to divide himself between us to evenly distribute his affections. John called him the politician. He used to lie back on my lap on his back, with his head supported in my hands. I have never before, or since, seen any animal display that sense of trust in a human. He was my little furry homie.

When we moved to our new house, he didn't welcome the change. He looked for reassurance constantly in the first few weeks after we moved in. Every time I sat down he gave me this look that said "Are you sitting for a while? Can I have a cuddle?" I remember one night John and I were grouting the tiles on the bathroom wall, when Tigger came in yowling at us. He leaped into my lap, and no matter how many times I put him back on the floor, he kept jumping back up. He just wanted a reassurance snuggle. So I had to sit on the edge of the bath, grouting with one hand while he burrowed into the crook of my elbow.

Tigger converted the most hardened of cat haters who darkened our door. He grew up to resemble the Norwegian Forest Cat breed, although not as physically big as them, he had all the other characteristics. The ruff of fur around the neck, the long tufts of fur in his ears, the snow shoes for paws, and above all the big bushy tail. Every time a new visitor was in the house, they did a double take when Tigs sashayed into the kitchen, his bushy tail floating behind him. Most people couldn't believe that he wasn't some sort of pedigree, that he was a humble moggie from John's mum's backyard. All our neighbours, especially the young kids who live in our cul de sac, knew him. I'd regularly hear cries of little voices shouting "LOOK!!! CAT!!!" when he would appear over the neighbour's wall.

Once they were used to going outside in our new house, we got the cats into a routine of night curfew. Every evening before nightfall we would call them into the house, and every night without fail for five years, they came home. Until one night last September. We were away for the night in Clare, and had left the two cats happily breakfasting on Saturday morning. What we didn't realise was that our new fangled catflap had had a technical glitch, and that when we had changed the timing settings on it, it was actually locking the cats out.

The day that Tigs was last seen, our neighbours saw a strange cat hanging around. There had been a few scraps with other cats going on, so there was obviously a turf war of sorts happening. Anyway we think the upshot of it was that Tigs got locked out of the house, lost the fight for territory and he ran off to find shelter. He hasn't been seen since. We searched the whole town up and down. We put posters everywhere we could think of - vets, shops, the post office, the library, everywhere. We put ads in the local paper, local radio stations, websites, friends of the animals. We put leaflets through every letterbox of every housing estate in this town. We got plenty of calls from people who had found stray cats, but none of them were our beloved Tigger.

What broke our hearts more was how much Lizzie missed him. She literally pined for him. She went all over the house calling with the most piteous miaow. Her littermate, her constant companion for the past five years had disappeared. All of a sudden she had nobody to play with, nobody to fight with, or chase up and down the stairs. All three of us were gutted. The worst thing of all is not knowing what became of him. If he is still alive, and there were multiple unconfirmed reports of him with the same square two mile area, we are pretty sure somebody took him in, as he is the kind of cat who would charm his way into any house.

If he's not, I'm sure he has a very special place in kitty heaven. I'm sure he sits at the right paw of the Great Ceiling Cat, for Tigger was truly a righteous kitteh.

Go mbeirimid beo ar an am seo arís

2010-12-31T05:59:00.000-08:00

Another Irish language title for a blog post, this one means may we be alive and well this time next year. My Dad says that at certain events during the year, like when he sits down to his Christmas dinner, when he rings in the New Year, or when he hears a cuckoo for the first time in the Spring. As I packed away the Christmas decorations last year, I said it to myself. My only wish for the coming year would be that John and I would have our health and our happiness. Anything else would be a bonus.

I know 2010 was a very tough year for many, particularly in this country, with job losses, house repossessions happening all sides. For us it was the best year we have had in a very long time. We both adopted the attitude of focusing on the positives and enjoying the life we do have, rather than grieving for the life we don't.

So the highlights of the past year were as follows:

Losing weight and getting healthy again. We both lost around two stone (28 lbs each), although I must admit I have gained back around seven of those pounds. I will get back on the wagon next week and get that weight back down.

Celebrating my mother's 80th birthday with my family in May. I'm very lucky to be able to say that my Mam is in great form for a lady her age and a great hoolie was enjoyed by all, young and old. A very special day and a great memory.

Surfing. 2010 was the summer of surf for us. We rented a flat up in Clare for four months, hit the water every weekend, and made some great new friends. Our social life took a dramatic jump start, and we had such fun. We intend doing the same thing again this Summer, as long as the flat is free for us to rent.

After fourteen months of unemployment for me, I got back into the workforce, on a better salary than I left my previous job on. Work is going well, and I have made some great new friends among my new colleagues. The coming months are going to be crazy busy, but that's not a bad complaint. It's a good distraction, and I'm enjoying the challenge of it.

FINALLY finding out the cause of my miscarriages. I posted on this back in August. One set of blood tests in an IVF clinic in Dublin threw up some positive answers. I have an off the scale level of anti thyroid antibodies, however the upside is that it's a treatable condition. Also, my AMH result came back at 11.9. Not stellar, but not at all bad for a woman of 41. So basically I have as much of a chance as any woman my age. So we are going to give it one last try in 2011.

The biggest downer of 2010 was that we lost one of our kitties, my beloved Tigger. That is a whole other post in itself, which I have been trying to bring myself to write for the past few weeks. Suffice to say, I was heartbroken. The upside was that we managed to adopt two new kittens six weeks ago, who are the biological baby brother and sister of our original two cats, the latest litter from John's mother's cat. Their names are Dougie and Speedy, and we have fallen in kitty love all over again. Again, they deserve a post all of their own, which I will do soon. Dougie is shaping up to be such a cuddle puss that I am literally fighting him to type this one handed as he demands snuggles on the sofa. Their big sister Lizzie was none too pleased in the beginning, but she's getting used to the new arrivals now and we can all sit in front of the front of the fire with minimal hissing and spitting. A contented family of five.

So again as we prepare to don the glad rags (I have a killer little black Ted Baker number lined up) and head out to Limerick for the annual black tie do, I will once more make my new year wish. May we be healthy and happy this time next year. I wish you all the same thing.

Aithníonn ciaróg ciaróg eile

2010-09-13T14:04:00.000-07:00

Aithníonn ciaróg ciaróg eile is an Irish seanfhocail or old saying, which literally translated means "one beetle recognises another beetle", but it roughly translates as "like sees like". It's a phrase that has come to mind a lot to me lately, since I made a new friend this Summer.

Debbie, like me, is in her forties. We met through a common interest in surfing early last May. I bought a wetsuit in her shop, we started talking about a social group she was trying to get off the ground for ladies our age who were interested in a combination of yoga and surf lessons (although not at the same time, the tree pose might prove to be something more of a challenge when attempted on top of a six foot wave) and soon recognised some commonality in each other. She told me that now that her daughters are in their twenties and have left home, she and her husband are now empty nesters, albeit very young ones. I told her that I was over forty and childless, and was finding it hard to relate to a lot of women my age group, who are caught up in the whirlwind of life that is child rearing.

I never did get around to those yoga or surf lessons, but over the Summer, John and I began to hang out with Deb and her husband almost every weekend. Over a bottle of wine one night, she told me the story of how she got together with her husband. Like me, Deb is on her second marriage. She met her first husband at the age of 21. Coincidentally, I met my first husband when I was aged 21. Bizarrely, our ex husbands share the same first name. Hers was also a control freak, who had an extra marital affair (yep, sounds familiar). She met her second husband, a really lovely, kind guy, shortly after she left her first husband (same here). The only difference so far was that she had two children with her first husband, and was able to divorce him within a year of their marriage breaking up, whereas I had no children in my first marriage, and had to wait four years to be granted a divorce.

The similarities in life experiences don't end there though. Deb found great happiness with her new man, but unfortunately their lives were touched by one great sadness: infertility. They tried in vain for years to have children together, but sadly it wasn't to be. They went through years of medical investigations, fertility drugs and sheer and utter grief. Deb told me that once she had come to the realisation that it was never going to happen for them, she went through two years of deep grief. She said she literally could not look at anyone else's baby, such was her feeling of loss. This might seem melodramatic to someone whose life has never been touched by infertility, but as someone who has waded through the trenches, and is still plodding on, I found this totally understandable. The happy ending for this lovely couple didn't come in the form of another child, but in the form of acceptance.

Ten years ago, they stuck a pin in a map of Ireland, came over from the UK in their van for a recce, and decided to move their family to the west coast, to set up their own business. They're still in business, ten years on. They work seven day weeks, for not a huge return, but they are happy in life. They have their surfing, they play in a band, they live in their house in the country with four dogs and a geriatric cat. This summer, Deb dyed her hair bright pink. She reckons if she's going to be the lead singer in a punk/rock group she might as well look the part. A forty six year old punk rocker surf chick, living in the arse end of County Clare. She's my hero.

Back to life and back to work

2010-08-19T11:41:00.000-07:00

Four days in, and I am a walking zombie. I have driven 84 miles per day for four days in a row. I'm not even doing a huge amount at work yet, just getting set up with various systems access and trying to make sense of training manuals explaining the company's accounting model which is totally complex compared to anywhere else I have worked. The people in the office are lovely. I'm sure already that I will make some very good friends there. Already I have been to a colleague's leaving dinner. They are a really nice inclusive crowd. One of the girls told me her boyfriend works in the same company as John in Limerick, and he is learning to surf. So we're going to set up a play date for the boys in our lives soon.

I get paid tomorrow - yay! Money is coming into my account after months of a hemorrhaging bank balance. Even if I hardy know my own name I'm so tired, it's still been a good week. My alter ego surf chick will ditch the work suit for the wetsuit on Saturday as I take to the waves once more. I haven't looked forward to a weekend this much in ages.

A great big chink of light

2010-08-03T23:29:00.000-07:00

Remember this job that I didn't get, and how gutted I was when I found out two weeks ago? Well, guess what? I got an email from one of the directors of the company yesterday, looking to speak to me. Now last week I managed to track down one of the people who interviewed me, and he was kind enough to take the time for a chat on the phone and gave me some very helpful feedback. Basically he said my CV was impressive, and I had interviewed really well, but that I had been up against other candidates who had previously worked for their parent group, so they had the competitive advantage in terms of having experience of their accounting systems and general way of doing things. That made me feel a bit better. So I emailed him a quick thank you a couple of days after I spoke to him, in the hopes that if another vacancy came up in the near future, I might be kept in mind.

And feck me pink, if that's not what happened. I phoned back the lady who emailed me, to be told that one of the team who they had previously been recruiting for had decided to hand in her notice and move back to the UK, where she was originally from. So they now have another vacancy, which they want to offer to me. And it gets better. The salary is almost nine thousand euro more than my finishing salary in my last job. As you can imagine, when I hung up the phone I danced around my kitchen. My next door neighbour must have been wondering what the fuck was up with me, I was squealing so loudly!

So that's it. They want me to start whenever I can. I think I'm going take another week and a half just to get organised, get my house spick and span and go shopping for a new work wardrobe. AND.................I'm going to get a new car! I'm sooooo excited about this. I'm still driving the first car I ever bought, which I have had for six years now. I bought it off my sister in law when I moved down here, with the intention of learning to drive in it and hanging on to it for two or three years maximum. It's now fourteen years old, and has served me well. So I'm looking at doing a scrappage deal and getting myself a shiny new set of wheels.

In ten days time I'm going to be a Finance Analyst. Hi ho, hi ho, it's back to work I go.

A small chink of light?

2010-08-03T03:22:00.000-07:00

Thanks to you all for your support and comments on my last post. It was one of the lowest points I had hit in quite a while. Sorry I didn't reply to your comments, but as you can imagine I wasn't my most communicative for a while there. But I'm back with some good news.

I got a call last week, from our RE in Dublin. My autoimmune bloods results were back, and they threw out what may be the answer to the last four years of shite we have been wading through. My level of antithyroid antobodies are off the scale. A normal range would be 0-4. Mine is over 300, which is more than likely the explanation for four of my pregnancy losses. I just wish we had gotten this information years ago, but we have it now and that's the main thing.

The better news is that it's an autoimmune disorder that's treatable with steroids and injectable anticlotting agents. So it might make me as hairy and burly as a German shotputter, but it just might be the treatment that helps me carry a pregnancy to term. I'm still waiting on my AMH results, which I should have in the next day or two. Once we get an idea of how many eggs are left in the basket, we should be able to start formulating our next plan of action.

Double Whammy

2010-07-17T07:05:00.001-07:00

Well we went to the new fertility clinic in Dublin yesterday, and met with our RE. He's not a man for sugar coating his message. Basically, he said that IUI was totally inappropriate treatment for a patient my age with one blocked tube. So forget that. He said even if we went down the IVF road, our chances of success with using my eggs were between slim and nil. Should we beat the odds and attain success on that very slim chance, our risk of having a baby with chromosomal obnormalities is quite significant, as we knew. I think I was in denial of that fact until yesterday. The other option is donor eggs, but that is fraught with so many issues and questions for us. I would really welcome anyone who has used donor eggs to leave comment on their experiences. Anyway the next step for me is having blood tests for autoimmune issues, and an AMH test to check my ovarian reserve, which I am going back up to Dublin to do on Tuesday morning. So much to take in though. I feel as though if we do have to go down the donor egg road, I will first have to grieve the loss of the biological child which I will never have, before I can think about having any child as a result of egg donation. So the mini me I always imagined having might never be. This just fills me with so much sadness.

And as if I hadn't had a crappy enough day yesterday, when I got home there was an email waiting in my inbox from the financial services company I had interviewed with five weeks ago. I didn't get the job. And this was the job with the dream spec. I couldn't have written a more relevant job spec to match my qualifications and experience. Which makes me think if I couldn't get that job, how the hell will I get any job in the future? What did the successful candidate have that I didn't? I have asked for feedback, so I'm hoping I'll get some kind of answer which might help me learn from the process, but it came as some kick in the teeth after being brought down to infertile ground zero with a very stark bang a few hours earlier.

I have cried so much in the past 22 hours. I just wish I could get the sadness to just go away.

If you go down to the woods today.....

2010-07-14T15:18:00.000-07:00

At present, between John and me, our niece and nephew count stands at twenty three. Yes, you read correctly. Ten nephews, all on my side, and thirteen nieces, nine of mine and four of John's. We don't get to spend a lot of time with them unfortunately, as the nearest ones to us live about sixty miles away. The teenage and twenty somethings we are now getting to know as young adults, which is fun as we get to be the cool Auntie and Uncle. I fully intend getting some of them to visit us in Clare for weekends this Summer so that we can get them an introduction to surfing.

The younger ones are a bit more tricky to get to know. As their Mums and Dads lead busy lives, juggling work commitments with the full on demands of raising little ones, we don't get to see them as often as we should. I remember as a kid having more associations with Aunts and Uncles who were parents to cousins my age, and I can see this happening with my nieces and nephews. They get to spend time in their cousins houses, having sleepovers and what are now termed "staycations" (ie the annual holiday where you get farmed out to Auntie Mary up the country, who in turn sends a couple of her brood down to your house for a week). So when you're a childless Auntie and Uncle like us, little ones aren't particularly interested in extended stays in houses where there are no other kids to play with, hence they don't get to know you as well as their other Aunties and Uncles.

A couple of weeks ago, I was visiting my sister in law, who is Mammy to my youngest niece and nephew. Aoife, who at three going on four is the most adorable little munchkin girlie on the planet (and I'm not being biased, she really is!) and Darragh, her bouncing baby brother, five months old. She told me that she never remembered being in my house, which made me feel quite ashamed that it had been so long since they had visited us that she didn't remember being there. So I invited her and her Mammy and baby brother down to visit the following week, and promised her a teddy bears' picnic. I figured that if she was going to come for a visit, I was going to have to give her something to make the day memorable in her three-going-on-four year old mind.

So the following week I unearthed an ecosystem of teddy bears (don't ask why there are so many in this house, I am a sad individual and I will admit to the fact) from under the bed, and set about putting a welcoming committee in place for Aoife and Darragh. Aoife, as guest of honour, brought a few of her own critters, and soon they were all picnicing happily together on my sunroom floor (the weather has gone to poo here again, so outdoor picnics were out of the question). When lunch was over, we selected a few furry candidates to accompany us to a local lakeside spot which has a little playground. After Aoife and the furries had a few goes on the slide and swings, we hung out by the lake and fed the ducks.

Such a fun day for me and I hope for Aoife too. And now that she remembers visiting Auntie Jane's house, I'm hoping she'll want to return again before too long. Here's a photo of Aoife, Darragh and me surrounded by the other delegates to the conference.

Costa del Clare

2010-06-21T13:10:00.000-07:00

Once again we took advantage of the good weather and headed to our little flat in Clare for the weekend. We were up bright and early on Saturday to catch those lovely atlantic waves at 9.30. After two hours or so in the water, we went home for lunch and then back for another surf in the afternoon. Then we went home and fired up a little foil barbeque and cooked some dinner. We asked our landlords, who live downstairs, if they fancied joining us for a drink. When Stuart rocked up to the flat with a six pack of guinness cans under his oxter, I knew we were in for a long night. And it was.

Feeling ropey the next morning, we set ourselves up with a good feed of rashers and sausages, and made for Lahinch hoping for a cold ocean cure. It didn't totally cure me, but I did feel better for it. Afterwards we headed back to base, collected food and barbeque and hit for South Clare. We settled for a lovely sandy beach just outside Quilty, where we bbqed and chilled out for the afternoon. We went back to Lahinch in the evening because John wanted one last surf. I walked on the beach and watched the sun go down, and as I strolled along, a guy on horseback came galloping along the beach. A real Discover Ireland tourism advert moment. After sunset, we packed up and headed back for home. Another blissful weekend. I like this new fun manifesto of ours.

The waiting game

2010-06-18T04:48:00.000-07:00

Well I did the on site interview last Friday, a week ago, and I thought it went very well. That evening I had another phone interview, this time with the intercompany funding controller, which I also thought went very well. I came away from both thinking that this is the type of role with which I am very familiar, and I could easily imagine myself working with these people. I was told that the next stage would be an onsite HR interview, and after that there was a possibility that the Irish M.D.'s boss in the US might want to talk to the successful candidate.

So it's been a week, and I have heard nothing from them since. Diddly squat. I really don't know what to do now, and the waiting is just driving me insane. If I was going through an agency, I would be ringing the agency now to get them to chase it up. Would it be very forward of me to call them at this stage to try and get an update? If they had six candidates to interview, and even if I was the first one a week ago, shouldn't they have come to some decision by now? Patience really is not a virtue of mine.

Fingers crossed....

2010-06-08T04:57:00.000-07:00

I got an email from HR in the financial services company asking me to come in for an interview tomorrow or Thursday. I said I would prefer Thursday. That gives me a little more time to prepare, and also my car is in the garage getting serviced and there's a better chance I will get it back by Thursday. So I am delighted and crapping myself in equal measures. I really really really want this job. I want so badly to get back to work at this stage, and the job spec fits in perfectly with my experience from my last role. It couldn't be any more perfect.

We spent the weekend up at our little flat in Clare. The car was loaded to bursting point on Saturday morning with all our gear. Luckily our landlords run their own surf shop and hire out wetsuits and boards, so they have a wet room in their house to which they gave us a key. So we were able to offload our suits and boards in there. Saturday and Sunday were gorgeous, so we spent a good few hours in the water in Lahinch. The seafront was packed, but the atmosphere was great. John is getting very handy at the surfing at this point. I'm still keeping with the boogie boarding. My arms and upper abdominal muscles were aching by Sunday, but that's a good sign. If I keep this up I should have a flat belly and arms as toned as Mrs Obama by the end of the Summer!

So the next couple of days will be spent in interview preparation. As this job is all about capital markets and treasury management, I'm going to get my financial strategy textbooks down out of the attic tonight to swot up on financial instruments and the like, in the hopes that I will sound like I vaguely know what I am talking about on Thursday.

Good things happen in threes

2010-06-04T14:24:00.000-07:00

1) We're getting the keys of our summer apartment tomorrow. Yay! The hallway of our house is packed with surf boards, boogie boards, wetsuits, surfing boots, camping gear and various household paraphenalia to load into the car and bring to Clare tomorrow. Then it's a weekend of meeting up with friends in Doolin and Fanore, for surf, food and most likely a few libations along the way. Weather is good and the surf forecast for tomorrow is looking good.

2) My phone interview happened on Wednesday, and went quite well I thought. Quite a few technical questions on cashpooling operations and associated issues, which I think I answered reasonably well. I expect to hear by the middle of next week, so we'll see.

3) We've got an appointment for July 16th for the fertility clinic in Dublin, rather a lot quicker than I expected to get one. So we'll see what happens with that. I'm more than a little apprehensive about the idea of heading into fertility treatment when I could be starting a quite demanding job, but we'll cross that bridge when we get to it. For now it's all good.

Happy birthday to me

2010-05-31T07:23:00.001-07:00

41 today. And I am very hungover. John brought me out to dinner last night, since all the restaurants in our town seem to close on a Monday. So half a bottle of wine and two cocktails later, we came home, hit the baileys and brandy, and had a drunk dancing session in the sunroom. Oh my poor sore head. But it was fun. At least I didn't have to get up for work today.

Speaking of work, I applied for a job in a financial services company a couple of weeks back. The role appears to be extremely similar to my last job, and these kind of roles are as scarce as hen's teeth around here. I'm hoping that candidates with my type of work experience will be scarce on the ground too. Anyway, I got an email from one of their HR people today wanting to arrange a time for a phone conversation about the role. Yay! So please keep fingers, toes and anything else that is crossable crossed. I am sooo due a break.

We have moved to more optimistic premises

2010-05-26T13:51:00.000-07:00

Hello all, and welcome to my new blog. I felt like it was time for a change. The title "Lacking Expectations" had started sound too much like negativity, and I'm trying to adopt an attitude that's all about the positive.

Since the start of this year, I embarked on a weight loss programme. Over the course of twenty weeks, I have slowly but surely managed to shed 24 pounds. I'm going to keep going until I lose another six pounds or so, and then I will work on maintaining a BMI of 23. Getting back in shape has had a hugely positive effect on me both mentally and physically. I am wearing size 12 jeans for the first time in my adult life. That's not to say I can fit into every size 12 I try on, but the ones I am wearing right now are 12s and they are fitting me very comfortably.

Every few years we get a summer that really stands out in our memories. A lot of this has to do with the weather. The last three summers will go down as the summers that never really happened. In addition to absolutely woeful pissy wet weather, 2007, 2008 and 2009 for me were about recovery from consecutive miscarriages, large doses of clomid that nearly sent me off with the men in white coats, surgery and, last summer, losing my job and turning 40. So this summer, we have decided that hail, rain or shine, we will make it a summer to remember.

At the end of last month, we booked a weekend away in Co Clare for our anniversary. The package included a surf lesson for John. The following weekend he booked another one, and I went along for the trip. I've only tried surfing once, and that was years ago in Australia. Let's just say I quickly realised that surfing is a skillful pastime, and that bodyboarding is much easier and more my bag. So a few years back John bought me a little boogie board. I hadn't used it in about four years, mainly due to my self consciousness and horror at the thoughts of having to squeeze into a wetsuit. Well now that I'm 10 kg plus lighter, I decided it was time to bite the bullet and buy a new wetsuit.

So off I trotted to the nearest surf shop on the seafront where I purchased a particularly fetching little black and pink rubber number. I'll spare you a photo of me in it. I'm not *that* confident about my shape yet to be posting those photos. Anyway I grabbed my little boogie board and spent a fun filled hour or two in the water catching wave after wave. The sun was splitting the stones, and the waves were nothing like I have ever seen this side of Australia. Years ago my granny used to comment that anything new fangled or fancy was "like America at home". Well this was like Byron Bay at home.

Each time I caught a wave that brought me into the beach, I just screeched with excitement like a six year old. The only way I could describe the feeling of being propelled through the water is like when playing Mario Karts and you catch the rocket that sends you zooming around the race track. Just pure speed and fun.

When I was paying for my wetsuit, I noticed an ad posted at the counter for a studio apartment to let nine miles away from the town where we were surfing. John and I went back after our surf to get the phone number, and it turned out that the flat belonged to the people who run the surf shop. They live in the downstairs part of the house, which also has a recording studio. So basically these people are a couple of English hippies in their forties, whose kids are grown up and have left home, and they spend their time between surfing, teaching surfing, running a surf shop and a recording studio. They also own three dogs and a cat. My kind of people. So we decided to take a lease on the flat for the summer, so that we can be nearer to the sea and the outdoor life for the next three months. We figure for what it will cost us in rent for three months, we would easily spend in a week's off season sun holiday. So this way we will see far more benefit for our money.

So that's the plan for the Summer. Sea, surf and hopefully sunshine. And very little sitting around moping about our childless life. I hope. Ok, I'll probably have the odd wobbly day, but who doesn't. But for now, we are concentrating on getting back the fun in our lives. Getting back to life. So tune in next time to read about our first ever camping trip, to the campsite in Fanore, Co Clare made famous by that Fr Ted episode with Fr Noel Furlong (Graham Norton) and the St Luke's youth group doing Riverdance in a two berth caravan. And the tent we bought which could house a medium sized family. And the yummy yummy crab which our good friend Paul caught and we devoured on the campsite. And.........! We've taken up salsa dancing again, after a break of over five years. It's all go in the Jane and John house this year.