Lotus Unfolding

I've had a productive day, Michael asked me if I could make sausage rolls, so I set about making that, and had enough meat leftover to make a meatloaf for dinner. While that was all cooking I was back and forth between the kitchen and my craft area trying to tidy that up a little. It's slow going, been very neglected, but I need to create some space to finish up some projects. Hopefully tomorrow I can start work finishing my West Healing Shield - which really needs to be completed before the Equinox when the North energy will really kick in.

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The thought of sitting through a 3-hr quality planning meeting with the organisation-wide Quality Committee today is like - *pulling hair*

The only two people who really know me that well as being on that committee aren't even going to be there, this is the first meeting for the new Risk Management Coordinator and I'm wondering if I could just go home and neglect to tell anyone. Like, everyone here will think I'm at a meeting, and everyone at the meeting probably won't even miss me. Yeah. How nice would that be? Gah. 3 fricking hours talking about how we're going to try and get this organisation to toe the line when it comes to risk management and quality service. Joy. I'm almost falling asleep now, how the hell I'm supposed to make it through three hours of that is beyond me. I think I feel a headache coming on...

I'm seeing my Doctor at 12noon Friday to get the results of the Nuchal Fold test and bloodwork. Going to also get a referral to the Box Hill maternity program, even though there really isn't a lot of point because I'll probably be having the baby in East Gippsland barring any major catastrophe or Michael's mother pulling the plug on the house (or us pulling the plug). But, just in case it all goes to Hell in a handbasket, best to get my ducks in a row I think. I'm also going to be asking for a referral to see a therapist (you get 6 free sessions from Medicare) just to try and get some perspective and clear my head over the MIL situation. I really don't know what I'll get out of only 6 sessions, but it occurred to me a few nights ago when I was up at 3am and bawling my eyes out over our situation that maybe, just maybe, I should get a bit of external help to process things.

I have a family sized white chocolate kit kat in my drawer at work, which I really just want to scoff down at the moment (yay for emotional eating) but, I'm trying to be restrained. I did eat a pineapple freddo frog from the fundraising box at reception. Chicken and Salad sandwich for lunch, was very very good. Now chewing on gum to stave off the kit kat! Waiting on a call back from Michael who is talking to his mother about getting a contract sorted with a solicitor, and then I'm going down the street to get cold sore cream. I think I'll drive, it's bloody cold outside for Summer and I'm only wearing a short sleeved dress and open toed sandals, it's bloody FREEZING in the office!

While last night obviously didn't go so well, the afternoon actually was very nice :)

We had our first ultrasound (13 weeks) yesterday. We got to see that tiny little life growing inside of me, and it was gorgeous. You didn't see a lot, how other people's photos are clear and obvious are beyond me, all I saw was a lot of light and shadow, the occasional hand wave at us. If the radiographer hadn't been explaining what I was seeing, I wouldn't have recognised much at all. The "head" looks terrifying, with big black eye sockets - I was like "omg... THAT's the face?" It was a bit freaky. The baby was being uncooperative and hard to get it on it's back to get a look at the nuchal fold at the back of the neck, but it did roll over (after a lot of prodding and pushing on the uterus) eventually and I got the traditional view of the head and body curling out like a prawn. The most incredible part was hearing the heartbeat, it was soooooo beautiful, and pumping away at 136 beats per minute. The baby is all normal, two arms, two legs, etc. etc. I have a couple of printed out scans, but they're not very clear and you can't see the baby so well. I can't wait for another 8 weeks when we get to see it again AND find out the sex!

I also had to take Rom to the Vet for a check-up. He's doing really well, the Vet is very happy with his progress and he seems to be recovering from his infection without too much worry. He HATES his medicine, I thought it was the yellow medicine I was having to give him, which he no longer has to be on, but the other one tastes just as nasty, and he's going to be on that for another couple of weeks. He just hates it, and after taking it he doesn't even want a yoghurt drop, he just rolls around on his blankie, rubbing his mouth against it, trying to get the taste of the medicine off his lips or something. Poor baby. But, without it he'd be a lot worse off, maybe even dead, so I console myself with that whenever I have to force it down his throat.

He's in for another visit to the Vet on Friday and a refill of the medication, I'll be taking Raf with us as well. Yesterday I just took Rom, because there's nothing wrong with Raf, and apparently they both freaked out. I was with Rom who was storming around the little transport cage, throwing his little hay bale hidey-hole around, and climbing the bars, trying to escape. Michael said Raf at home went into a big depression and hid in one of the igloos refusing to come out, he was super emo. It's really funny how inseparable these two have become since Spooks passed away, they are so anxious when separated, so going to have to avoid doing that to them. In all likelihood they're thinking that every time they get separated one is going to die since that's what happened to Spooks when I took him on his own to the Vet, and then when I took Raf on his own he was pretty sick too. Silly little boys.

( We're calling a solicitor over the MIL situation, under here is why )

I feel so sick this morning I just want to go home and crawl into bed.

( Morning Sickness Alert )

I've come into work, but I think that was a mistake, I'm just sitting here, freezing my butt off and feeling bad for myself.

Only three hours to put in though, I'm out of here at 12:30pm, picking Michael up and then we're going to our first ultrasound. It's the 12.5 week nuchal fold scan, which is what they combine with the blood tests I got a week or so ago to diagnose whether your baby is likely to have down syndrome, spina bifida, etc. etc. We probably didn't need to do it, especially since these tests are "optional" and therefore out-of-pocket for us (to the tune of about $250-300 all up for the bloods and scan), but Michael wanted to be safe about it all. I have no idea what I'd want to do even if I was told my child had down syndrome...... I'm not 100% sure I'd want to have an abortion, but what a hard decision......... blah.

Anyway, not worried about anything being wrong anyway, I'm more excited just about seeing the baby, making sure it's still alive (yes, I stress about that when my brother's fiancee had a miscarriage at 14 weeks), and getting a more precise due date.

I'm a bit over the whole house saga. We've decided to go with the house that Michael's Mum preferred. There's a couple of reasons for this. While we would have bought the other house in a heartbeat if it had just been the two of us (it was just ideal for us) - Friday's hysterics from his mother showed me exactly what I needed to see. And that was that we need to be completely separated from her energy and drama. The house we're putting an offer on this week is a three bedroom, brand new (3 yrs old holiday house, hardly been lived in) place with a 2 bedroom unit out the back. Which is where the MIL is getting put.

We went back for another look yesterday before coming back, and the backyard is a lot bigger than I first recalled. There might even be room (if we can afford it) to put in a swim spa, so we'd have a sort of spa pool, as well as plant trees and a vegie garden. I may even put a chook pen down the side of our house as there's a long space down the entire side of the house between the wall and the fence which is pretty much dead space. This might be an option, especially since it would be away from the MIL too. But, there's also the downside that it's right near our house then and the noise of chooks might drive us nuts too - heh. We'll see.

I got to thinking about how much better it would be to be completely separate from her (as opposed to her having a couple of rooms down one end of the same house - even if it was fairly separate); I'll be able to drum in my house, smudge, play music, listen to a loud TV and watch whatever I choose, leave it messy if I want, allow the baby to cry if it's upset, and not have to worry about whether or not she can hear us having sex. Michael is much happier with this choice as well as much as he liked the other place.

We put the "guilt" on her, a bit of a manipulation tactic but I figured well she's tried it on us, two can play that game. Michael told her that it's not my first choice (well, that's actually true) but we're conceding that this house will actually be better for her (again, not really a lie, we're just not accenting that it's also a better option for us by having her out of our space).

She was all apologetic Saturday night about her behaviour and the things she said about me. There's a couple of reasons I think this has happened.

1. Is that I blocked all the Facebook games I'd been playing around with just because she needed a neighbour and someone to send her things. This was because I jump on it for like 30mins morning and night to mess around with it and send her the gifts or whatever she wants for her game. I had actually stopped playing these games like 6+ months ago, but when she discovered FB and started playing them, I started up again because she didn't have anyone to send her stuff. Then I got hooked like I always do, and started to enjoy it. But I was hardly playing them all bloody day - I do work you know. When she basically accused me of being on FB all day and doing nothing else, I was like "Fine, you want to see just how little I'm on FB, you got it." So I blocked everything including the ability for any of the games to post to my Profile - she would have received a message saying "Not allowed to post to this user's Wall" and that would have got her thinking.

2. I didn't send her any email. I haven't since Friday and I don't intend to any time soon either. If all she is going to do is twist my words to try and turn Michael against me, I don't need that crap and frankly she can shove it up her ass. She has the gall to treat me like that and then tell Michael not to stress me out because of the pregnancy. She is very unstable and totally self-absorbed and selfish.

So yes, she did apologise to Michael for being a "mad woman" but I've yet to receive an apology from her either via email or any other form, so I'm stepping back and withdrawing my energy from it for now. Two days of crying, stressing, worrying and debating over what is the right thing to do was enough for me, I'm done for now. That'll change when we're all living together, but the less I have to do with her until then, the better, I don't need the added stress, I'm worried enough about my job, the baby, and how everything is going to turn out.

Last night she tried to turn it around like it was our preferred house, and make herself the martyr but Michael was having none of it. He's fed up with her as well, and he was like "Well, no Mum, this was your preferred house, we would have chosen the other one... BUT we do all agree that this is the better option  for you." It was classic, there is no way in the world he's letting her take on the martyr role here, that is reserved for me!

While I'm eternally grateful that I don't live in North Queensland, or well, Queensland in general, it still feels like I've been through the ringer in other areas.

Michael's mum's ability to take one or two quibbles from a massive email and find fault with it is absolutely astounding. She completely ignored my appeal to her more ... compassionate?...side and instead went the route of Michael must be telilng complete and utter lies about everything to do with her, and I need to sit down with him and get the truth. Uh yeah, ok. It was difficult even for ME to read the email, and he read through it first. It must be so heartbreaking to give up 15+ years of your life caring for someone who is so unbelievably ungrateful. He said to me last night "I've never heard her say one nice thing to me."

Gah.

I didn't really know what to respond to. Really. According to her she never came up with the idea to move in with us - as far as she's concerned she mentioned to Michael that she'd like a little more family support, and that led to the idea of moving to Victoria. But she was always apparently going to move into her own place, and have us just visit; she did initially start with that idea, but changed her tune when Michael said he wouldn't be around there every day waiting on her hand and foot. Then she came up with the idea of buying a place together, yet apparently that was Michael's idea and he made the suggestion.

She picked up on the one thing about Lodge that she can pick on (drumming) and said she was concerned about that as she can't have percussion around her because it exacerbates her condition. I know that. I even took my drum with me to Perth when I visited them a couple of Christmases ago.

But anyway. It's frustrating but I'm starting to really see the underlying energy here, which is she is feeling completely out of control and has no say in where we're going to live etc. So I spent some time placating through email talking about the houses and saying I think we'll find something really good in the right area, etc. etc.  She went and picked up on the one possible thing you could get "bad" out of that, which was certain areas of Lakes you don't want to live in because of them being rough areas etc. and now is like "Are you sure you want to move here?"

My answer. "Yes, it doesn't really matter where you go there's always going to be a part of town you avoid - but it's certainly a lot safer and less drug ridden than the city". Then I planted the idea that the best idea is getting the little 5 acre property where we won't have neighbours! heh. So we're leaving this afternoon to Lakes, I'm really looking forward to just getting away. I hope it warms up a bit so I can go swimming!

Feeling sick as right now, yoghurt didn't settle my stomach at all. I wanted BREAD but didn't have time to stop and pick up some on my way to work because school is back today and I didn't compensate for the extra 10-15mins it takes me to get to work because of the sheer volume of cars and buses back on the road for schools (parents taking kids to school, parents going back to work now holidays are over, etc etc) and it took me 20 minutes to drive about 1km once I got to Lilydale. Unfreakingbelievable. I love school holidays, it cuts like 10mins minimum off my drive.

A few random things today, because I want to get them down to recall what's going on at this time in my life but don't really feel like making some insightful interesting entry.....

1. Michael is joining his co-workers in a "protest" today and basically going on strike for the day. The entire morning sales team isn't going in to work, and at least 5 out of the usual 8-10 workers in the evening are not going in to work either. This is because their employer hasn't paid their bonuses in over two weeks (Michael uses most of his bonuses for living costs and saves his regular pay, so he's not been happy about that) and some of the employees haven't even been paid their base pays.

Michael's Boss said to the Supervisor last week that she wasn't worth a pay rise.  This is the same supervisor who is currently working 10+ hour days - 6 days a week for him at $15/hr.........she runs the place, pretty much literally. She is now quitting on Thursday and going to work for her Dad. He's not going to know what hit him come next week.

Michael's Boss has a daughter in hospital at the moment undergoing cancer treatment (poor little thing is only 1yr old and it's bad, it's unlikely she will live) and his wife is catatonic, she just sits in the chair by the little girl's bed rocking back and forth. And the Boss instead of worrying about his daughter instead tells the Supervisor that all he does is sit in the hospital day in and day out trying to work out how to make more money. The man runs a million-dollar business and he's worried about money?!  My thought was, maybe he should worry about PAYING his employees before they all walk out and then he has no business at all? Hrm.

2. I think actual morning sickness might have hit me. I've been up and down with the nausea (but rarely actual wanting to throw up). Yesterday morning I took a sip of cold water on an empty stomach when I got to work, and three minutes later I was throwing up all over the bathroom floor because I didn't quite make it to the toilet stall in time. Lovely. This morning I had something to eat (one bite!) on the way to work, and immediately felt I had to throw up, I pulled over to the road, opened the door, and .... yeah, lovely. I hope this is a very fast passing thing because I'm almost at the 12-week mark so this is meant to go away now.

3. I'm writing letters to the baby. I bought a 2011 diary and have been writing a one-page letter to the baby as often as I can. I'm aiming for daily, and so far have been "ok" with that, but miss a few days here and there when I'm tired or stressed. I write about the things I want to share with them when they're born and about the move and how important it is to follow your na'au (gut) and your joy. I share with them little phrases and things that cross my path on the day and which I like and want them to think about. It's my hope that when they're old enough to read this journal, they'll get a lot of insight into their mum and the spiritual side of things that I share with them. I'd actually like (whether it's realistic or not, I don't know) to continue doing this every year for them - imagine how incredible it would be to get a yearly account of their life through daily letters from their mother??? I should get Michael to write a few as well, perhaps I can have all kinds of people - aunts, uncles, grandparents, Lodge sisters - contribute.... now that would be awesome! I could use those letters to fill in the days that I don't write!

4. Last night I couldn't get a particular property we've been considering out of my head. It made it impossible to fall asleep. It's probably 1 of only about 2-3 properties that Michael's Mum and I both think looks really good. Down side is there's no pool, and I don't think it has an orchard either (bummer!) BUT it is so much cheaper than other properties we're looking at that we could borrow enough (without going over budget) to put in a pool, and start our own orchard and vegie garden. It has 5 acres of land as well, some of it with natural bushland / rain forest.

The photo looking from the house into the forest is what has captured my attention because several years ago I journeyed with the held of my Kumu to visit my death. I saw myself incredibly old (I have this understanding/belief that I'm going to live to 100+ years old) and looking down on a piece of land. People were walking toward me to pay their respects and say their farewells as I was getting ready to pass into the West. When I look at this photo it is remarkably similar to what I saw in that vision, I also see potential for a Medicine Wheel there, and a very strong pull for that. There's a Medicine wheel waiting to be grounded in the physical world on one of these properties. Tonight I'm going to start the work to connect in to the totems and land that is calling to us, so hopefully I'll be much more intune when I'm actually on the land visiting these properties on Saturday. I'm excited!

5. My rat Rommel was really really sick yesterday morning. I rushed him to the Vet who said he either has an infection (he's very congested) or he may have a lung tumour. He and Raf are both reaching about 2 yrs old and this is old age for them, and also an age when it gets harder for them to fight off things like tumours, which rats are very susceptible to. The Vet gave him an injection of antibiotics, and two different medications to give him over the next 10 days, and wants to see him again on Friday. By then we'll know whether it's an infection because he's getting better or whether it's something worse. Rom HATES getting medicine, he fights me until I'm scratched beyond words or I have to wrap him in a tea towel to keep his little claws out of the way. He's in particular annoyance with me right now because of the amount of medicine he has to get... BUT he was doing SO MUCH better this morning, he practically bounded out of bed to say hi this morning, and he was looking so good compared to the lethargic rat who didn't even want to look at his yoghurt drop treat yesterday. I have hope for a good recovery - well worth the $120 it cost to take him to the Vet.

6. We've gotten a deal at a motel for Friday and Saturday night, so we're splurging while we're in Lakes. Basically it means we're not going to buy groceries next fortnight (except for fresh fruit and veg) and live off what's in the cupboard and freezer. Easy done as we have quite a bit of food there, yes, that is how we're funding our weekend away house-hunting. heh. We're taking the rats and sneaking them into the motel room because Rom will need his medication. Usually, when leaving really late afternoon and only going away for another night we could leave them alone with a big stash of food, but medication can't be stopped, so they're coming with us.

7. The motel has a pool - I so want to go in the pool. I'm not sure I can find any of my swimsuits though. I'll find one, never fear, I just hope it fits. I don't think I've put on any weight yet, but my tummy is shifting now my uterus is getting bigger, it's not totally protruding like a pregnant tummy yet (not that far enough along) but I am unable to put tight clothing against it and certainly can't "suck in my gut" like I used to do being a robust, curvy, plus size woman that I am already *grin* So the swimsuits should still fit, if I can ever find them. Of course, it'll probably be cold by the weekend when we catch the after effects of the Cyclone from Hell that's currently hitting North Queensland. *sigh* That would be fine if I could go in the hot tub... but, alas, I cannot until after the baby is born.

8. I have so much work to do right now, but I couldn't be bothered doing any of it. Meh.

Michael's mum is being a challenge at the moment. The woman herself doesn't stress me out directly, because I just ignore her when she's being a drama queen, but when it starts to stress Michael out to the point that he is so wound up he's about to snap... then I get pissed off.

I nearly grabbed the phone off him last night and told her, "You know what, don't worry about it, take your house off the market, and let's call the whole thing off - WE don't need to put up with this SHIT!"

She's convinced herself that by moving in with us, Michael going back on the carer's pension, and having us all own a house together that she is doing us a favour. This is our life for the next however many years that she manages to live.

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