Week 9, Day 5 (Stormclouds clearing)

Can you make a pattern out of two occurrences, or do you need three? If the three "coincidences" occur in sequence, is that the end of it, or the beginning?

We don't get out much. Our deliberately seclusive lifestyle and annoying habit of preferring each other's company 99% of the time to interaction with others means that it's not often we decide to accept invitations of good times elsewhere. The upheavals of this (admittedly young) year meant that we've gone out to play precisely twice. After a wonderful night in January with Chris and Carl, the next day we were greeted with the news of a death in the family.

This Saturday just past we spent the whole day out visiting, enjoying a particularly wonderful barbeque in the lush garden of some friends. Glorious night - we returned home with recharged batteries after a whole day of pleasant interactions with two sets of incredibly nice people.

... and found two messages on the answerphone alerting us to deaths in the family. To be fair, one we hardly knew, but the other was someone I admired for their honesty and open-handedness. A bit of a role model for your outspoken correspondent, if you like. It's a bummer to come down with a crash after a great day out. It kind of makes you nervous about going out for another day of fun, doesn't it. At this rate we're going to run out of relations!

But here we are on Tuesday 8th March, and I'm not feeling quite as pitiful as usual, and only passably half-dead. That's a marked improvement on the last couple of weeks, so I'm going to see if I can manage perhaps 60% of full power and maybe catch up on the work (office and house), and if things go okay, maybe do some ironing later. As a treat... (yeah RIGHT!!)

I'm afraid I'm going to have to succumb to having the verandah mauled about and fitted for a more fitting contraption. I hate hate hate bra fittings. I bet there's not a woman alive who hasn't been made to feel freakish by a professional fitting. It's the pursed lips, the frowns of puzzlement and the inevitable conclusion of a beige, white or black study in extreme ugliness that you just know is going to make you the poster child for Torpedo Tits of the Year.

Why oh WHY can't bra manufacturers accept that well-endowed women are not all over 90, and like pretty colours, soft materials (is satin too much to ask for?), and somewhat sexy apparatus? Starched and stiff fibres that never relax no matter how ruthlessly you wash them, underwires that develop a mind of their own, and straps so nastily appointed that even the most generous shirt fall victim to flashing.

The reason for this tooth-gnashing, gentle reader, is that yesterday I bought a new crop top in the largest size possible, and was pretty sure it would buy me another month or so.

PAH! I tried it on today and nearly suffocated. So my much adored crop tops are now out of the question until after Tadpole's arrival, and this kills me. There's nothing for it - granny bras beckon and that more than any health professional's reminder about my age makes me feel old and decrepit.

The only consolation is that Wayne will find them sexy, but then, if I wore a rusty 44 gallon drum he'd find it enchanting. I don't know whether to be delighted about that or just weary. The wretch was sniggering his fool head off yesterday and when I asked him to share the joke he said "Just caught a look at you in profile ...." and made some expressive hand movements to indicate just how horrendously I stick out in front now. You have to laugh, I suppose ;-)

At least the boobs jutt out further than the baby factory, for which I am grateful.

Bubs and her apartment complex are getting to be a bit tricky at night. Sometimes I roll over and gasp in shock as a stitch slices through my abdomen. It gave me a nasty moment the first time it happened, then I pushed through the panic and realised it wasn't a crampy type pain that might signal a miscarriage, but instead a deep over-exertion type stitch like you get when running. (Hey I remember running. It may have been 30 years ago but I wasn't a bad wee sprinter in my teens. Forget anything over 200 metres though - flat feet made sure of that).

Just when you think you're immune to horror stories, you watch a cop show drama and learn about something called a 'stone baby'. Apparently it's rare, but happens when the baby dies inside you then the body calcifies it instead of aborting it. Afflicted women can and have gone through the rest of their lives as walking coffins. Suddenly I find I am desperately looking forward to the scan next week to reassure me that Tadpole is thriving. I'm pretty sure she is - certainly the indications are good, but I'll feel much better when I see her arms and legs waving about, and her heart beating.