My wife & a whore

My wife:

She is recovering well, my little drama queen.

No nasty side effects other than maybe going hoarse from all the 'Ohhhh's and 'Ahhhh's and 'bring me tea, gimp boy'.

She is lying in bed with every electronic gadget known to man surrounding her.

The skype handset, mobile phone, land line phone, laptop, TV, and DVD player all form her little nest of recuperation.

Ironically, they are probably frying her newly serviced shiny innards with radiation and undoing all the good that her recent oil change did.

She is also ovulating.

Knowing that, and not doing anything, is a bit of a headwreck. It's like not buying a raffle ticket but being forced to watch the draw anyway.

As lousy as I am at any kind of DIY efforts, I'm tempted to buy a turkey baster but I'm afraid I would never be able to face Christmas dinner again.

So, unfortunately we'll just have to wait until cycle twenty-one, sit on our hands for this one and be patient.

Basically, just suck it up instead. So to speak....

A whore:

You lot have been pretty decent so far, some of you have even been around for most of these twenty cycles. That's not bloody bad at all. We don't know where all this will end up, but just in case we need to ask for a donor egg, or for an extra testicle, or a replacement for a worn out vagina, I want to keep you all onside by letting you in on a secret.

Angie, at the aptly named A whole lot of nothing, has an online store Good For The Kids, there are loads of useful and cuddly infant toy type things there. They don't make your kid's explode or break out in a dodgy rash or anything, she tests them all on her own ginuea pig daughters. (Although one of them is missing teeth, hmmm).

Anyway, she previously, along with Lyssa, did a very nice thing for us, and also for a children's hospital in their native Florida. It seems the blood has gone to her head again and she has offered 2 online vouchers code for you scrumptious people.

Go to her shop here, if you see anything you like, order it and get 15% off if you use the code 15xbox, or 20% with 20xbox if you order more than $100 worth. Simple.

Trust me, the only benefit I get from this shameless, and frankly humiliating, whoring, is peace and quiet from her constant nagging me to do it. Also, I think her kids regularly go hungry and her carpet really needs a good cleaning. Plus I think she has a crack habit, and that stuffs not cheap.

Now if you'll excuse me, gimp boy must make tea.

ET goes to bed

Thor is my current deity of choice.

Why so you ask? You pretty much know where you stand with him, and he woke us this morning at 3am with the loudest belt of thunder I've ever heard.

I'm saying it was a 'thumbs up' anyway.

At 6:10am we were sitting into the car and driving the 3 minutes to the hospital car park.

At 6:13am we were walking the 15 minutes from the hospital car park to the hospital.

By 6:30 we were ringing approximately 14 different buzzers in the hope of actually being let in to the gynecology department.
As my chubby finger hovered over buzzer number 15, the doors swung open and we were greeted by someone who was so bright, and chirpy, and shiny, and new, I nearly went blind from the glare off her piano teeth.

My corneas, however, melted and withered into raisins at the sight of her footwear. Neon orange crocs.

Having never had any type of surgery before, ET was by this point in time, a bit on the nervous side. By 'bit' I mean 'deathly' and by 'on the nervous side' I mean 'had to be held tight or she'd have legged it down the fire escape'.

The nurse ran us through the basics once more, and ET chose a stunning blue button-up-the-back arseless smock with which to wow the judges.

Incidentally, you can not get them in the hospital gift shop and nurses don't find it particularly funny when you ask.

So I sit with ET for the last few minutes before she gets taken away, and with every bad joke I make, with every silly reassurance I offer, and with every line of 'the first cut is the deepest' I hum, she gets more and more nervous.

The nurse instructs her to take her sedative, it's time to go.

Remember those scenes in hospital dramas where the loved one walks briskly alongside the bed being wheeled into the operating room? Fake I tell you, fake.

I rapped my knuckles trying to fit through the door frame at the same time as the bed, and spent the next few seconds chasing the bugger down the narrow corridors of the gynecology wards.

I caught up with ET and her runaway bed at the preparation room doors. I couldn't go any further. She took one look at me and the tears that had been threatening, finally came.

My wife was a scared little girl, and there was nothing I could do to help.

Useless.

In a feeble attempt at wiping a tear from her face, and squeezing her hand in reassurance, and kissing her forehead, I think I may have bitten her.

I try to tell her how proud I am of her, and that in just a few hours she'll be back home with me annoying her, I think what actually came out was something about the cost of parking.

Useless.

I tried to remind myself that everyone there would be gentle and kind to her and I wonder, yet again, why does it take moments like these to remember how much someone means to you?

** ** ** ** **

Flash forward almost 4 hours and I'm sitting in an embarrassingly squeaky chair squeezing that hand again.

Almost incredibly, she is fine, sore in the tummy of course, but no nausea, no cramps, no drowsiness, and no shoulder or arm pains, but very much relieved.

Fast forward another 5 hours which included too much tea to be healthy, a close encounter of flashing a porter, and muchos urine that seemed to be showing it's support for Gay Pride (or skittles, who knows), and we are chatting to the specialist, before coming home.

There will be no more tests.

I am quoting the doctor when I say that ET's uterus is 'beautiful', her fallopian tubes are 'lovely, clear and long', and there isn't even the slightest hint of endometriosis.

The diagnosis, is official and clear; Unexplained Infertility.

This is not the anti-climax we may have thought in the past, our new doctor is very personable and realistic. Pregnancy rates tend to increase after laparoscopies, so she is giving us three months to work our magic in ET's new freshly serviced tubes, after which she suggests we try an IUI.

To have a doctor say that to us after all these months, a real plan, is simply huge, and I am very, very pleased.

To have ET steal the limelight of this, my 200th real post, like she stole the limelight of my 100th, is something I'm less pleased with, but I'm willing to forgive because to have a wife as brave as that daft cow, I am very lucky, and very, very proud.

Sleeping with the enema

The countdown is on.

In just over 9 hours ET will arrive at the hospital, freshly topiarytasticly trimmed and ready to party.

That is if getting your gut slit open is a party.

Either way, thanks to the wonders of modern medicine, and western indoor plumbing, she will go there with her body truly in temple state. A very empty temple.

Also, seeing as she can't eat anymore until the grand opening, I have to fend for myself.

I am lowered to levels normally reserved for street urchins in the lane ways of Rio, and I have to...

...sorry, it's making me emotional...

I have to....

...get my own dinner.

What a selfish cow.

Though, if you are as big hearted a person as I am, you will forgive her these self absorbed insanities and wish her well.

On, off, on again

So.

Where were we?

Oh yes. A whole baby creation type effort was underway, not going so well, yada, yada, yada, 19 months, yada, yada, yada, and we finally get surgery scheduled to have a wee poke around inside the wee wifey.

Up to speed? Good.

Due to their own bollox up at the hospital, the delightful folk there decided to cancel the laparoscopy yesterday.

Cue blood pouring from ET's eyes and ears and the occasional expletive from her lips.

Ever the optimist, I looked on the bright side, bumping uglies was back on the menu, so I ran into town to pick a new tiger print thong.

Rawr.

No sooner was I back at my desk when ET informed me that the hospital had rang, apologised, and un-cancelled the laparoscopy for Tuesday, but only if she could come in Friday for all the preparation.

Cue another 4 pints of blood gushing from ET's eyes and ears, and a couple more colourful phrases questioning the doctor's parentage.

Having been utterly messed around in the space of an hour or two, she was left kind of like a condom on a drunkard, not really sure if she was inside out or not.

As disappointed as I was that I wouldn't get to try out my Tarzan thong, it's for the best, even if I am worried my groin may spontaneously combust in the coming weeks.

In the blog world it's popular to give days of the week a theme name, Wordless Wednesdays, Topless Thursdays, Feet Fetish Fridays and all the rest.

Therefore, now that it's probably, almost certain, very likely, mostly feasible that the surgery will go ahead, I'd like to present to you:

"Hack your wife's guts open & get a day off work Tuesdays".

Admit it, it's catchy isn't it?

Don't listen to me

Many life altering words of wisdom have been spilled from brain, to lips and fingertips and onwards, out into the internet.

1s and 0s, bits and bytes, combining in pixelated perfection to inspire, uplift, and encourage the readers of the world, accidental stumble upon-ers and deliberate seekers of solace alike.

A few well chosen words, combined and delivered with charm, timing, wit, or emotion can make the observer hold their breath in anticipation of the plunging sword of punctuation, and elevate the author to demi-God status.

Chosen from this very blog, concocted by my very own Dr. House defying neurological mass, and presented in literal form to you by the power of my personal chunky appendages, these are a few not good examples.

"So far so good. This should be a piece of piss. "

Yes, it should have been, shouldn't it. A sinch, a doddle, a walk in the park. Christ almighty boy, you showed yourself up to be a prize idiot pretty fast.

"I have a week to swot up on how I can become a prime hunk of impregnating manhood."

A week eh? I think you might need a little bit of an extension on that deadline there sonny. How about we make it, ooh say... 76 weeks? For starters anyway, come back then and we'll talk some more.

"My scrambled egg brain is already creating stressful situations, like what if we are not successful this month? How much would that dent our hope and confidence? "

Or the following month, or the following month, or the following month... see the pattern, emerging yet monkey man?

"People have even commented to me that it's taken them 18 months. Frankly, I could not last that long, my sanity certainly couldn't."

A-ha! Finally. Never a truer word has leaked from your septic brain, your sanity didn't quite make the 18 months, you chubby fingered, sub witted, sub fertile, human equivalent to chewing gum.

If you've quite finished sniggerng into your sleeves and would grant me a moment of your attention, I will admit that yes indeed, I did come up with those beauties. All within the first 5 weeks of this blog.

Naevity, stupidity, innocence, and foolishness, all beautifully wrapped up and presented to you with a big blue ignorance bow on top.

Never let it be said that I don't share the limelight with you out there, those who put up with my over use of the comma, run-on sentencing, and semi valid vocabulary which lies too close to Europe for Americans, and too close to America for self respecting Europeans, my 'Atlantis ramblings' if you wish.

No sir-ee, I've opened my arms, eyes, and ears and I give to you the most wonderous of all comments received here from one of YOU in that same fledgling five week period.

"try not to have a baby and it might happen that way."

Eureka!

So, to ensure I follow this advice to it's fabulous fullest, I'm just about to attend to ET's carnal cavern of contentment with a needle and thread, before myself fornicating with the lawnmower.

Never again shall we wreck our parental prospects with imprudent imbecilic intercourse.

On a side note, do you think this month of not humping is having an affect on me?

Keeping it surreal

Stop.

Stop right where you are and have a really good look around you.

I bet you any amount of our rapidly decreasing in value cash money that you are not in a place, metaphorical or literal, as bizarre as I am.

We all know that there are aspects of life that are wholesome, and some that are somewhat more sinister.

Generally, these remain separated. Separated by social sensibilities and physical environment.

Here, in Holland, that is not always so.

I'm currently working for a customer in a large city. One of the largest companies in the Netherlands, at their plush head office.

Should I fancy a breath of fresh air at lunch time, it would take me about 15 seconds to be standing in the heart of one of the seediest areas you'll find anywhere.

Scores of prostitutes flaunt their asses and assets in the lighted windows.
These same windows that were being freshly washed clean of only God knows what substances as I passed just before 9am, are already being pawed and knocked on by passing lunchtime trade.

By 5pm and home-time, you would be lucky to make your way through the vice seeking crowds in time to catch your train home.

Right now I've just done what I find myself doing more and more lately, stopping and chuckling at the bizarre world I'm stuck in.

A world where the youngest member of the most fertile family this side of the Kununurra Falls, uncle to 17 nieces and nephews, can't get his Irish Catholic wife knocked up for love nor money, where their failings are available for the entire world to see, yet one where I could pop out at lunch in my suit and tie for a French baguette and a blow job, or a ham sandwich and a hand shandy, and be back in time to discuss invoices with the finance director.

'Hold the mayo'

Pick a card, any card

Any time I see or hear that line, I always think of Paul Daniels, the irritating little English magician with the nice bit of totty for a wife.

I'm not sure he ever did it, but I always enjoyed watching magicians twirling their assistants around 360 degrees, in a box on wheels, before attempting to hack them in half.

Classic entertainment, don't ya think?

We enjoy it so much we've decided to try it ourselves, hack open the wife, and see if we can't eventually pull a dead rabbit out of a hat.

One week from Tuesday, ET will undergo a laparoscopy.

For once the hospital seem to have moved swiftly and arranged this between yesterday and today.

It's been a thoroughly shitty week, and so it's really with a sigh of relief that we accept the appointment. Something is being done.

While on the subject of the week that was, I really can't say how much we appreciate the comments and e-mails. Your collective self submersion into a pool of vulgarity in the name of sympathy is honestly appreciated.

It's nice to find you are not left totally on your own at a time like that.

Weirdly, the appointment falls on what will be cycle day fourteen, and basically rules out us being able to try ourselves this cycle.

It seems then, that I'll be in the market for some good pornography this month, all reasonable offers will be considered.

So for now, project 'hump n'hope' is on hold.

Well....just one half.

You know I can be found

"There's something there".

Mmmm. Sleep.

"There's something there".

Fuck, what now? spider? mouse? herd of cattle? Half awake now.

"There's definitely something there..." she repeated, flopping down beside me and shoving it in my face.

"...look".

Shit. There is too.

No way.

Impossible.

Squinting through my sleep glued eyes and sure enough, faint, but obvious.

A pink line.

I'm not sure what we did for the next half an hour, I started it out telling her not to get carried away, it was impossible due to the temperature drop, but I finished it trying to convince her it could be, as faint as it was, it counted as a positive.

Not even 40 minutes after my rude awakening, it had vanished.

3 hours later it was over. Finished, along with cycle nineteen. A false positive.

The red menace sailed into port before lunch and I really don't know what to say now.

I feel like I should use an "At least..." line in here somewhere, but I can't think of one.

An ill wind?

Day twenty seven in the big brother house and the house mates are climbing the feckin' walls.

Hourly emails and calls between our respective workplaces, and constant badgering, have left ET wishing I were a fingerless mute.

Good news and bad news is rampant, and the very fact you haven't seen me running screaming through your streets should tell you what the good news isn't.

No red menace, no Aunt Flo, no painters, no monthly visitor, no yokes.

Absolutemente nada.

This of course, is good news.

Not so good was, that following another great high temperature yesterday, we had a hefty dip in basal body temperature this morning.

Seemingly, instead of hell freezing over, Lucifer directed the cold front right up into the wife's innards.

The reproductive equivalent of knowing you don't have enough in the tank to get you to the next petrol station.

Such a big dip is bad news, and barring some reproductive anomaly, the end of this cycle is imminent.

Then again, an as eternal optimist, (read: idiot), no news is good news, right?

...right?

The writing is on the wall. Both sides.

Day 25 in the big brother house, and the house mates await the result of this month's challenge: knock up the wee Irish woman.

Easier said than done, but they did their best.

The last two cycles have been 25 days, so on that pattern we expect the red menace tomorrow, or by Wednesday at a stretch.

To make the 'end of days' more fun, we can always look at the symptoms we have.

Go-goo. Or at least what seems to be go-goo. Could be a good sign at this stage of the cycle, or could be, er, how can I sensitively put this, er... 'leftovers'.

Sore boobies. While I'd love to claim that it's just a result of some manly mammary mauling, it's more likely to be the oncoming red menace, or....

Temperature. In previous cycles, ET's temperature dropped towards the end of the cycle, this one has been a bit different. 7 days after O-fest we had a drop, but it's climbed again.
The drop could be the 'normal' tail off of a non pregnant cycle, with the increase a 'blip', or, it could have been an implantation dip and the unspeakable is happening.

I think the only symptoms of pregnancy that are not exactly the same as the impending red menace are the bowling ball gut and craving for coal.

I'm trying to be a bit cool about it all, but there's a teeny weeny bit of me (not that bit, smartarse) excited at the moment.

A teeny weeny bit.

No brakes

There's no holding back this beast.

Oh relax; I'm not going all Jackie Collins with tales of rippling torsos, love swords, and other such non-existant fictional manliness.

I mean the beast of 'time', ooh the imagery eh?

The creature is thrashing his way through the jungle, mercilessly, maybe even unknowingly, trodding on and flattening all the days and weeks and months in his way. Leaving a distinct, but winding trail, leading back for nineteen cycles.

(I picture a rhino, if that helps.)

We're now in the tail end of number nineteen, cycle day 21. The last two cycles have been 25 days each, with the average being about 27.

You can hang from the gutter by your ankles but whatever way you look at it, we are in the last week again.

One week from now I'll either be a wobbly, stuttery, gibbering mess or, well,... a wobbly, stuttery, gibbering mess, but one as happy as if he were standing up to a pair of porcine testes in excrement.

That's what's fascinating me today, the simpleton that I am.

One minute we could be two grumpy, frustrated, sad, repeatedly disappointed, 19 months ridden raw, humiliated, poked & prodded redundant shaggers, and the next we could be higher than Robert Downey Jr. on an average Friday night.

Just like that, with a little push of a sphincter, instant bliss from a piss.

Assuming we can harness that Downey Jr. spirit constructively, and stay out of the neighbour's swimming pool, we could be expecting.

All that is just a scandalous waste of my time and yours, just so I could say that out loud, 'we could be expecting'.

Sounds nice doesn't it?

Much nicer than 'shut up you intellectual and emotional dwarf, and don't be making yourself look like a bigger dope than you already are' which I'm sure is what's being hissed at me right now.

In my defence, this is my head and I can say what I like, it was just only for a minute, and it passed some time, and I don't really think it's likely anyway.

Nice thought though, if only briefly.

...aaaaaand we're right back to saddo.

Quod erat demonstrandum

Having proven myself to be an utter saddo, I'm going to redeem myself by applying logic, to a standard never before witnessed by man, to a conundrum which must have kept entire civilisations awake at night.

A few comments regarding pregnancy announcements got me thinking.

Why do we want it so badly?

'We', being most people, and 'it', being having children.

It's a very simple question, but funnily enough, I don't think I've seen too much in the way of answers.

In fact, the question is rarely even asked.

We seem to usually just accept that the need/desire/longing/wish exists, and it's origins or motives are never questioned.

Is it the 'need to leave something behind'?
I don't think so, I have no great desire to see my genes or bloodline carry on for all eternity.

Maybe for some people it's a bigger issue, but as shocking as this may sound to you, I'm not particularly that great a specimen of the human race, and I don't think the world would suffer as a result of me or my offspring not being around.

Is it a 'need to have dependants'?
Surely not.

I mean, if you think about it, no one in their right mind would actually desire having their freedom, patience, finances, sex lives, sleep, identity, and sanity bled dry for close to 20 years would they?

Baby bottoms might be cute on TV ads, but wiping excrement from someone else's anus can't ever be made seem appealing enough to make people want to jump through hoops to do it.

Is it the 'human need to procreate'?
Nature is pretty bloody smart.

Creatures evolve to survive, plants spread their seed across oceans stuck to the ass of seagulls, species that no longer serve a purpose die out. Nature, when left to itself, adapts and dictates how the planet continues.

Humans on the other hand, are hell bent on buggering the whole thing up. We do not need any more humans, we can't feed half the ones we have, and the other half are hell bent on destroying the place for the sake of a few bucks.

We are supposedly intelligent creatures, yet almost everything we do is another step towards Armageddon.

Needing more humans is not part of nature's plan, I reckon.

So what does it leave us with? Why is it so important to us?

When you first make the decision as a couple to have a child, it's an exciting, bubbly, giddy time. Two adults acting like kids. You want to tell anyone who will listen.

You go through all kinds of mini battles.

You see people spending a fortune to achieve it. You see people put their bodies through all kinds of strain and abuse to get there. You see people willing to have their most intimate details exposed and discussed in the most sterile, clinical manner. You see people writing all sorts of drivel and making fools of themselves, just to get through the waiting.

Obviously, as the ever observant among you will have noticed, we haven't gotten that far, but when you succeed, I can only imagine the excitement to be verging on a threat to one's continence.

I think you look on more in envy at people who are expecting a child, than those who have them, so is the longing rooted more in the hope than the end result?

At risk of having my cynical head start to spin and fly right off my chubby body into the night, I'm inclined to think that the desire to have a child is not driven by anything tangible, but rather, simply by hope.

The hope for what might become, hope for shared excitement, hope for more happiness, hope more smiles, hope for a squeeze or hug. Hope for a little love.

Q.E.D. ?

(Fading out to the tune of John and Yoko, If anyone should find my head, I'd appreciate it back, cheers.)

Sniffing out someone's lap

We are meeting two friends of ours this evening.

We are going to have a bite to eat, and a few drinks.

They suggested it.

Normal behaviour, you might think?

A year ago I would have thought the same, but now, I have the nose of a bloodhound, and the overactive suspicious anxiety of an ex-bomb disposal expert being held hostage in a clock factory.

Rightly or wrongly, I must have this on record as a validation of my heightened sense of babyishness, or as a message that I need to chill out and try yoga, or mountain climbing, or cow painting, or something.

I think they are going to 'announce'.

They have had one child since we started trying, and I'm convinced they will announce that they are about to lap us.

I might feign a stroke at the dinner table. Then again, I may not need to feign, if I'm right.

So, by this time tomorrow, I'll either be distraught, depressed, yet strangely smug at my mutating sense of all matters reproductive, or I'll be distraught, depressed and a bit of a saddo.

Which will it be, I wonder?

I can't wait to find out, it's like the Pop Idol final, with my sanity and ego as finalists.

While you were sleeping

I'm not writing this for another 6 hours.

Or maybe I wrote it 6 hours ago.

I'm not so sure, but I know I'm jetlagged, and in the wrong time zone.

My poor carcass is day dreaming that it's still spread out on the grass on the Toronto waterfront, trying to avoid eye contact with the crazy guy with the fake (and frankly, poor) Scottish accent on the mountain bike claiming to have cycled from Vancouver.

If the smell is anything to go by the reality is he cycled no further than from the public toilets he unfortunately has to call home.

The reality also is that I'm actually back in Holland, and totally, and utterly knackered.

Never fear though, as there is always an upside. Namely, humping.

Can sperm get jetlag? Man-milk mono?

Do eggs get thrown off schedule by multiple transatlantic flights?

I'll be buggered if I know, all I know is that all of a sudden it's episode 19 of the OC. That's 'Ovulation Central', not the cheap angst ridden teen drama. Although it has it's similarities I suppose.

This is all well and good if you can stay awake during the day and asleep at night, which is proving difficult.

Although maybe the 4:30am squelchy session is just what's needed to catch all things 'reproductively obstructive' off guard. We could try to sneak one (or 20 million, whatever works) past security, if you like.

Wait until that eggy tease is snoring her outer layer off and dreaming about the 'look who's talking' sperm, before creeping up on her, gagging her and letting her have it. Goooood.

Lord, have I just turned Spencer into a sexual predator?

I need a holiday.