Sunday photos

I had a perfect Sunday.
With my beloved H.
With my beloved Wolf.
Trekking in our only national park (do you see the sign - yes, we have bears!).
Picking up mushrooms.
Picking up blueberries & forest berries.
Eating porcini risotto & drinking red wine.
Eating blueberries & forest berries with vanilla ice cream.
Life is good :)

Lesley Brown

When I was having all my IVFs I thought frequently of Lesley Brown. How courageous she was (and how desperately wishing a child) that she was willing to take all the drugs and knowing, that no child before was born through that completely new technique.

I read some weeks ago: http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-england-bristol-18524232
that she died, aged 64.  I was said for her. 64 is far too young to die!!!

I do not know why she died. But I am sure that all the infertility drugs did not help her to live longer.

Sometimes I worry about all the drugs that I took during my 10 treatments. I wish I had the courage to stop earlier!

***

I am in my pyjamas today, with high temperature :(
I had to go on one day business trip with a coworker of mine yesterday. And it was so hot outside and our aircondition in the car was too cold.... my body just doesn't deal well with aircondition. 

This coworker knows about all my IVFs and I already told her that we decided to live childfree. But she asked me again yesterday if we changed our mind. And I said no. I do not know why mothers of small children are not able to keep their mouth shut up sometimes. She had to comment further: "You never know, it might happen. I know a case where..." And then I had to stop her. I just asked to never ever tell me this sentence again. Since I am without  fallopian tubes, it is not possible. And that her sentence not only gives false hope, but also hurts me.

Family tree

I had always wanted to build my own family tree. But somehow as years passed,  I never got to it.   Later I decided, that this was something I would start doing when I was pregnant. It seemed so great - when our baby was born, we would write his/her name into empty square.

Now - even thinking of our family tree makes me sad. I know I will never ever build it. It would be too depressing to see it end with me.

I know my genes will end with me and I am OK with that (at least most of the time). But I do not want to see my family tree where it is so obvious that nothing is continuing from my name on...

Just a thought: if you adopt a child, how do you put him/her into the family tree? 

So many stories to tell...

When I was a little girl I loved one story that my granny used to tell me. A real story.

My granny was the youngest child in the family of 11. When the WW II started she was 6 years old. When Germany took over our country, there was a German soldier that really liked my granny (he saw her once playing in the field). He and his wife couldn't have their children, so he asked my great grandmother and great grandfather if they could give him the little girl. They refused. But the German soldier didn't give up - he visited the family many times, he always brought great toys and sweets from Germany. And he kept asking again and again. Once he brought with him his wife and she also liked my granny a lot. 

The years went by and the German soldier accepted the fact that he would not get the little girl he wanted... so he just visited from time to time, always with gifts.

Isn't it a beautiful & sad story? 

And it makes me sad that I will never have a daughter & granddaughter to pass the story on...

The good stuff

I just returned from the movies with my DH. We watched the movie The Best Exotic Marigold Hotel and just loved it.

I loved this conversation from the movie:

Evelyn: Nothing here has worked out quite as I expected.
Muriel: Most things don't. But sometimes what happens instead is the good stuff.



So - I am really really looking forward to all the good stuff that is waiting for me / for us! 

photos for Kellie

Dear Kellie,
I wanted to post some photos of beautiful Dalmatian coast,  but I realized that I have only beach photos. Since we visited Dalmatia for our summer / beach holidays. I did travel once outside peak season (when it is not that hot & crowdy) around, the most of all I loved Dubrovnik:

Photo is taken from Internet... since I hadn't had digital camera 10 years ago.


***

I had a nice week. Especially the concert of Buena vista social club with my sister was nice.
My sister's youngest baby is 2 months old and obviously I am quite OK. Even when she talked about nursing her son, it did not hurt me. I was actually really really happy for her happiness without feeling sorry for myself.

I know I still have a long way to walk until I am healed. But small steps like that show me that I am on the right way.

I wish you all a beautiful weekend!

Do it now!

I am back!

Island Brač was beautiful, as always. We were lucky with the weather.  It was sunny, hot and the sea was warm. I did quite of travelling and I can say that nowhere on the whole world air smells so beautiful as on the islands of Dalmatia. It is a mixture of sea & pine trees. Smells like heaven!

The main beach was quite overcrowded, as always, especially with families with small kids & kids & big kids & teenagers. But luckily we discovered (already 7 years ago) a smaller beach not far away that is reserved for nudists. It is great on that beach - it is a not-written rule on this beach that children are not allowed. Heaven for us, childless / childfree couple!  One of the best things that I know is swimming naked in crystal clear sea.

I had lots of time to read books (one of the things that I love to do, but normally I do not have enough time). The books that I read this week:

1. Orhan Pamuk: The Museum of Innocence
2. Salinger: The Catcher in the Rye (I loved this book! But somehow it made me think how lucky am I not having to deal with rebellious 16-year-old :)
3. Mark Haddon: The Curious Incident of a Dog in the Night-time
4. Emma Donoghue: Room
5. the book does not deserve to be mentioned (Goddammit! I would rather puke!)

I enjoyed reading all the 4 books. The fifth one that I started was Elin Hilderbrand: Barefoot. I literally threw the book away when I got to the page number 4.  Here is the quote:

"Melanie and her husband had been trying "forever" to get pregnant; they had, in the past calendar year, endured seven failed rounds of in vitro fertilization."

Goddammit, Elin Hilderbrand - are you stupid or what? No one can have 7 IVF in one calendar year. My maximum were 2. I know some women that had 3 per year, but 3 in a year it is really maximum. A body (not to speak about mind) can not take more then 3 per year.

This book REALLY made me angry. Can literally every damn moron write a book? On the book cover there is an author's photo - fake blond with large teeth and there is written: EH lives on Nantucket with her husband and their three young children. So - here it is the fact - woman with three young children can not know anyhing about infertility. So - she shouldn't be allowed to write nor comment anything about it.

***
Back to the beautiful Dalmatia. We stayed (as always) in a cozy little apartment that has a view on island of Hvar. So island of Hvar was the first thing that we saw when opening our eyes in the morning. We literally saw sea from our bed. Great!

The owners are already a bit older, we have been their regular clients so they are always very nice to us.   We actually see them only when we arrive and then on the night before departure, when we pay. We sat down a bit with them to have some small talk with them. And done suddenly a lady pops out the question: "Do you have a little baby?" (at that moment the rest of us had the other topic: political relationship between Croatia - Slovenia - Europe). So I just quickly answered: "No". And then returned to political topic. But the lady did not give it up. She commented further: "But I thought that you had a little baby." (probably since we did not come for two years in between). And I just answered again: "No" and returned again to safe political topic.  Owner (they are both around 70) is wiser - he knows well which topic are safe to discuss with guests and which not.

Anyway, the question did not make me sad. I just answered twice No and I was done with baby-topic. How simple is that?

How to go.... my beloved Wolf is already ready for a long walk through the forest with me! I missed him so much!

Finally!

I was counting how many times on average per week do I hear one particular phrase that ends the sentence. Example.

A coworker that had just returned from holidays with two small kids was complaining how stressful everything was. And she ended some sentences - quote "but you know how it is with small kids".

All I wanted to scream: No, I do not know!!! And I will never know!!! So please shut the f*** up!!!!

But - as a typical introverted childless woman that does not want to attract any unwanted attention I just waited for a first chance to escape.

So: number of times that I hear this particular sentence: too many!

***

And now to the beautiful part of today's post. I am saying goodbye for some days.... we are going to Adriatic tonight. Can't wait! I am attaching one of our photos from previous years - we love Dalmatia so much!

Highlights of our sea-holidays:
- lying on the beach (in the shadow) all day
- swimming, swimming, swimming
- reading tons of books
- eating fresh fruits
- and more :)



PS: and nobody will ever hear me complaining that my holidays on the sea were stressful!