And we are off!

Tomorrow at 9.50 we'll fly to London and then at about 2pm we will be on the long flight to SFO. I am not sure about our plans once we are over there but I will contact all the cyber-friends in the area who said were happy to meet up!

I'll be thinking of all of you, not sure if I'l be able to post (I'm just bringing my iphone, no laptop and no ipad) but I'll definitely try to check on you.

Much love and wish us all a safe trip!

It's June! (FET dates, updated!)

..which means it's ages I haven't posted, and also that in a week time we'll be packing our last few bits before leaving for Cali!! Whoohoo!

But I have to first congratulate my dear cyber-friend Misfit on the safe arrival of her baby girl. What a journey she had, my heart is bursting with joy! And just as I shifted her to the parenting blogroll, I am so happy to have moved two more from the "we can do it" list to the "we have done it" list! I'm making progress in my project of having all the girls still in the trenches moving to pregnancy and parenting. I know it will happen. One way or another, it will.

Work has quietened down, exams and marking are over, I have had some nice results in my research and so I'm concentrating in finishing off research papers before leaving. I don't talk to much about work on my blog, but after 4 years of hiring freeze and no promotion rounds, there is going to be a promotion round opening in October. You can imagine the amount of people at my same level that have accumulated in 4 years so I don't think I'll be among the Chosen Ones, but I still have to try. This and a big grant application I'm going to put in for European funding will keep me busy as soon as I come back. Oh and I'm about to call the Favourite Doctor to schedule our FET!! I'll update this post as soon as I have dates, stay tuned!

Update
The Fab Doctor called and I'm going to start the pill on my next period, will be on the nasal spray from the 12th of July (already on East Coast time, so not much of a problem) and transfer should be scheduled for the 9th of August! I can't believe it! Hopefully there will be a little brother or sister for Oliver among our five penguins!!

Still here!

Though the teaching term is over, I have now a MOUNTAIN of exam papers to correct. Thank you so much for al your comments and suggestions and I still have not booked my flight to Boston or the hotel there!
We are planning a few days in Yosemite with the help of Mike's cousin, but after an initial wave of info things are at a stand still. Of course the time difference doesn't help when you want to set up a call, and we have no idea how the booking works, which are the best place to stay etc. The cousin mention it'll be very busy and probably booked up, and to look for a cancellation list...she may as well have spoken Chinese...it's not like we know how it works...anyway, I'm sure we'll have more info at the weekend.

As for you my fantastic friends, send me an email to let me know which dates suits you better for a meet up! Also how do we contact each other? Email? I'll have my iPhone but I don't think I'll have data cover (is free wireless common?) I'm sure I'll have internet access in the house anyway.

4 weeks to go!!

Back to holiday planning

6 weeks till we leave for the holiday of a lifetime! I am so excited! Mike's cousin has been amazing, she has offered us all the things we were looking for so we can travel quite light for what concerns Oliver's stuff at least!  She also has offered their third car (do you guys not trade in a car when you buy a new one? Where do you keep all these spare cars??) which sounds fantastic. I'm currently looking at making sure our health insurance will cover us in the States also, just in case. And I cannot wait to do a bit more serious planning.

One question I still don't have an answer for is if there are mosquitoes in San Francisco. Italy would be a nightmare from that point of view, while Ireland on the other hand is mosquitoes free! Let me know.

And I'm also deciding on my trip East after Mike and Oliver have gone back to Ireland. Here's what I'm thinking. I will fly into Boston probably on the 6th of July, I can take a night flight which will mean I'll be in Boston early morning (and jet-lagged!) of the saturday and spend the day looking around. I think I may be better staying at one of the hotels at the airport and then just travel into the city, what do you think? I will be picked up at the airport on sunday morning by a shuttle bus to go to the conference. Or I can get an afternoon flight to Boston and stay 2 nights. Also, any of you happy to meet up let me know, I'd love to catch up with you but I'm afraid I don't know anyone in that area and I am not sure how feasible would be for the New Yorkers (or others!) to make a day trip to Boston. If you have been there or you have advices, I'm all ears! I'll be travelling on my own of course and I will have about a day.

Oh another thing on the internal flight. I definitely want to fly direct and for some reason SFO-BOS seems to have only two company that do so? JetBlue and UA? Is this correct or am I looking at the wrong airport?? I could fly out of Oakland also (suggestion of the Ultimate Vet Hero) as I'll be at that side of SF, but from there the only flight I can see was with JetBlue at about midnight of the 6th, landing in Boston at 8.30am. Also, I never heard of JetBlue of course, but I suspect it's ok. I look forward to hearing from you all and don't be shy!

Quite a bit

So sorry for the radio silence. Would you believe it, as soon as I posted my post last week the therapist called! We had a proper session over the phone and I felt so much better afterwards. In a nutshell the problem is of course that my past came back hunting me and that I must work through it and overcome what had been. She said the main problem, a part from what happened when I was young which we can't change, is that if I don't come to term with it (try first to understand/accept why/that it happen and maybe eventually forgive my parents)  I may never forgive myself should I once snap with Oliver and that will cause of course a lot of problems as he'll be a teenager. She said the fact that the past came so violently back was of course caused by my dad saying what he said in the way that he said it, but that there is this subconscious mechanism that makes you think "he loves me more than his life, and yet he wasn't at all perfect, so I can do the exact same with Oliver". Of course the point is not to be a perfect parent, but to be better than you parents, it's normal in evolution, we have to do a little bit better, in whichever field we choose to do so. Anyway, I have started processing everything and already I can feel it's recessing in my mind. Try to understand why my dad would have snapped occasionally is not so easy. He's a well educated person, full of friends, very generous and very happy in is job and at home. But the key is that he just didn't know how to handle the feelings that my behaviour (whatever that was at the time) would bring up. It is and it was one of his limitation and a weakness, and so that was it, he would snap. And then the damage is done. Much more difficult is to comprehend why my mother let it happen. Right, if it was one slap, what could she do, but when she was there and it wasn't just one slap? I'm still not there yet but I feel I have the tools to get over this. Thank you all so much for the kind words of support as always.

Also, I got the vomiting bug too in the end. Initially I thought it was food poisoning but the doc thinks it was the virus. Getting better now but it's been rough. One positive thing: I'm one kg over my pre-baby weight! I mean before the steroids and all that shit! Wohooo!

And finally, we have tooth number 7 (not a bother on him, really)! I know I know, at this pace he'll be 3 by the time he  has them all LOL what can you do? He's the best boy ever, and so so sweet all the time. Not long now and we'll go again...oh my...

Not much to say

I don't really have an update on the family situation yet, I decided to write a letter to the therapist explaining the situation which I thought was beneficial so that our conversation could be more productive. Hopefully she'll let me know when we can chat. I am still definitely not over this and though they skype me almost every day (to see Oliver) my conversation is kept to the minimum and I have decided I'm always going to say that Oliver is well, that he had a great day, regardless. I just don't want to prompt any comments.

In other news Oliver is great, despite a vomiting bug he got at the beginning of last week and that lasted a few days, his nights were uneventful and if he woke he would go back to sleep on his own. Again, just sayin' and recording it for the future.

Time-travelling (part two)

I'm at the airport in Graz on my way back home.

I will be talking to my therapist on monday night and I look forward to it. These couple of days away did wonders to my spirit, I still found it almost impossible to sleep the first night, but I had a very good day yesterday with newly met people and so I felt much better going to bed and had a good night sleep. So did Oliver at home I am being told. No fussing having dinner, no fussing going to bed, no fussing in general. He did wake up the first night I was gone (and my parents were gone too), but not in a state like the previous nights, Mike realised after an hour or so of on and off sleep, that his gums were bothering him, gave him the soothing gel and he went straight back to sleep till the morning. Last night he gave him teething granules before going to bed (a homeopathic remedy) and he slept through the night. Made a couple of noises, but Mike never had to get up as he settled back on his own. Just saying.

Back to my memories.

When I was a teenager and then more so in my early twenties, I started being very uncomfortable at home. Really thinking of leaving some how. I am quite sure this influenced my studies when I went to college. I wanted to do medicine, but the thought of the number of years I would have had to be economically supported by my parents was unpleasant. Note that my parents never had issues in giving me money, still I really wanted to work a bit here and there so I didn't have to ask. I baby-sat, taught swimming classes, worked in a perfume shop (all this was met with hostility by my father who did not understand why I wanted to work instead of just focussing on my studies). I had a first "serious" boyfriend when I was about 17. I knew perfectly well everything about safe sex by then and certainly not thanks to my parents who never ever felt comfortable in talking about these things. Also, the thought I may be having sex never crossed their minds, I'm sure. In fact a year later or so, we all went skiing and the boyfriend came along (though he was staying in a different hotel which made everything all the more exciting). My mother saw some pics if us making out on the slopes (remember when we all used film cameras?) and got all worked up and said something like "I hope we are not there yet" ehhrr yes we are mom for a while now, but no worries you can keep your head in the sand, thank God I can look after myself. Of course I didn't say this, I just let it be. This one boyfriend happened to be a right ass, but you know the way your first love seems so unmatchable you really don't want to break it up. We did break up several times and every time my parents interfered. They were only delighted to get rid of him and seriously opposed resuming the relationship, which of course had the opposite effect on me and made it last much longer than needed. The next boyfriend came along and oh boy was this one even worse in my parents eyes. Again, it turned out to be wrong too, 13 years my senior (my father started saying I was going out with someone who could have been his brother), didn't go to college and in general had a very different character from mine. But sure he looked perfect to me. He had a solid job, he was very kind, had a fast motorbike and looked so hot in his leather gear. Sex was amazing and he really could get me out of my parents' house. By this time I was also going to therapy, my parents thought I had completely lost my mind, and our relationship was at its worse. Firstly I was feeling guilty (with a huge help from my parents) at the fact that I was so uncomfortable at home. How could it be? I had everything I wanted, a car, holidays, money. And yet. My therapist helped me greatly. It was normal that I wanted my independence, it was normal that I felt my parents' house was not my house. She said it actually meant I was a mature adult wanting to live life in my own way. That's good right? But I suppose you can get to that point in a right way or in a wrong one. Not sure it was the right way in my case. You know, when I was off on holidays with friends or boyfriends (these were of course other battles I had to fight) I never really felt the need to call home. I was just fine on my own. I would never talk about my feelings and how things were in a more personal sphere. Of course I would happily talk about college, exams and research in the lab during my PhD. Safe stuff. Then I got married. My mother the night before my wedding said "should things go wrong, know that we are here". Not the most encouraging talk at the time, though it became true a few years later. They helped us buying a place, gave me my half of the money, which I didn't have, to match what my husband had saved over the years, and we had a mortgage together to pay the rest.  But oh boy the freedom of having my own place! Closing the door and do what the hell I wanted with my time, going out, staying in, without having to report to anybody! I was a new person. And our honeymoon period lasted about a year or so. Then the differences were just so apparent it was impossible to make it work on great sex alone. But sure, it wasn't that simple to break up. Going back to my parents? oh my God, any other options? Anyone? Seriously, give me any other option. I was about to finish my PhD and thought I can just leave then. I mean leave Italy, not just my husband. When our relationship started braking up (about 18 months into the marriage), it was complicated by the fact that my father-in-law become very ill. I mean, I wasn't cruel and my husband did nothing to make me hate him, he needed me and I was there for him. I few more months went by where the topic of breaking up was not brought up again. We all new, including my parents, this was probably not going to last much longer, but it wasn't for them to call the shots and there were far more serious things going on. On the day of the funeral of my father-in-law, I remember holding my husband's hand throughout the ceremony and my father outside the church must have got quite worried I had changed my mind, so decided to bring up the separation subject that very day. I told you already he believes he can speak his mind whenever he wants, apparently oblivious to other people's feelings. Anyway I reassured him I had not changed my mind but that this was not the time.
Another couple of months and my husband and I started working out how to split everything up and agreed we would share the house till I was leaving at the end of my PhD (I had found a post doc in Ireland already). That was so difficult. Packing everything up, dismantling what we had put together, it was the hardest bit. We put the house up for sale, we went to a lawyer (colleague of my father) who explained the process of a consensual separation and clarified for us rules on goods and money. On the day of my birthday (September 2001) I went out for lunch with my parents and somehow my father thought it was the perfect moment to upset me over what we had decided about splitting furnitures and the like. Of course he decided it wasn't right and that I was letting my husband having more than he was entitled too. Which wasn't true of course. I had to explain to my mother the maths and why everything was ok so that she could go back to her house and tell my father (who never brought up the topic again). We sold the house for exactly what we wanted to realise, we didn't loose a cent, gave back the money to my parents, split the furniture and shook hands. I left at the end of October of that year and never moved back to Italy. The relationship with my ex-husband is fine (though lately we are not in touch much) we got together a good few times after our separation, you know, just for sex and for the good ol' times. Till I met Mike and everything turned out to be just perfect.

Living away from my family was the best thing I have ever done. We were able to rebuild a relationship which benefited of short periods of close contact, enough for love and happy moments and just right to avoid frictions. For the past eight to ten years I don't remember a bad time with my family. They liked Mike immediately, celebrated genuinely our engagement, loved our wedding and rooted for us to be successful in making a family. Our relationship had changed so much they knew everything about our treatments, often mentioned if we needed money to just ask. They cried with me when I had the first ectopic. They were the first to know we had a positive test. My mother flew over when I had the second ectopic to offer support and help. We cried some more. They were over the moon when I was finally properly pregnant. Though I went back to my old self in not sharing my fears with them. And started feeling a bit annoyed when my mother insisted to be with us when Oliver was about to be born. I really wanted that to be a moment for me and Mike, but my mother (armed with the best intentions) booked a flight on the 31st of December when it was clear I was getting induced that very day. When I went home from the hospital and I had all those sad days I always had a mask on around my mother (who was a fantastic help with managing the house and keeping us fed) and wanted some space.
It seems that the arrival of Oliver is impacting negatively on my relationship with my parents. Again they feel entitled to give unsolicited advices which have escalated in the last week. Let's hope I can find my happy place soon.

Thank you for listening. Boarding shortly, I finished typing just in time.