For the sake of our gorgeous new design

Let's make girl troubles glamorouse, shall we?

For instance, instead of talking about icky old Adenomyosis, lets replace it with this funny (funny funny) Wardrobe Malfunction.

And let's not think about how many of these risk factors I chose, deliberately and yet unaware of this particular consequence.

Which is, in any case, not the end of the world. Nor likely to make me scurry for some foul survivor group - ee-yew!

mtc
bec

just wondering

if the unsightly red and OH MY GOD THE ITCHYNESS rash on my bikini line, my ankles, behind my knees and sporadic other outbreaks on my legs is actually better than the hair that was there before.

Issues with boobage

I realise much of my recent posts at Glam about mastitis and general boob malaise should have been posted here, but hey, there was a level of brain malfunction attached to having AGONISINGLY sore breasts, a temperature, a relentless program of ice packs/heat packs/ expressing/sterilising breast pump and engorgement we all only want to see at Warragamba Dam.

(June 18 2004. An aerial shot of Warragamba Dam showing low water levels.

Photo: Bob Pearce, SMH)

The thing is, the boob thing followed hot on the heels of the butt thing and really, that doesn't make for fun reading. Needless to say, apart from me, Ms I'm So Regular, suddenly not being and then when going - Oh DEAR GOD the pain - and basically wondering if when repairing the damage down there they got a bit ambitious with the stitching and went too far, even I have my limits as to what will be openly discussed on this, our vetting pen.

So just as I seem to resolve issues at that end (a diet of meusli and stewed prunes for brekkie, LOTS of water and only eating 5 seed bread if eating bread) the mammory glands checked out.

They had been sore for weeks - this has been engorgement not known (or at least remembered, which is an important point because I'm sure your brain just MAKES YOU FORGET) with the other boys - so they finally hit the wall or floodgates or whatever metaphor you can think of that works better.

Needless to say, Den Mother Janine's advice and program seems to have worked. I've stopped expressing, because apparently if I do it for more than 24 hours it does fuck with your supply so we'll see how the next couple of feeds go...

This sure makes for entertaining reading...

phew

well, as good as phew.

benign is such an almost comforting word, n'est pas?

mtc
a very relieved, almost,
bec

I have to write this somewhere ...

One of the scariest sentences you can utter in a doctor's office must be: I have a lump.

Scarier still when your mother died of breast cancer at 58, having developed it when she was probably only five or six years older than you are now.

Mammogram and ultrasound next Tuesday and everything will probably be fine. Certainly. Everything will be Fine.

But.

I keep thinking, why didn't I have my babies 20 years ago? When I'm 58 my littlies will only be 23. They'll barely have driving licences. I won't get grandchildren. Can I make them have teenage pregnancies or is that too - ick?

You see how random these thoughts get.

Here's what I do when I start imagining the demons of motherless children coming to get me. I look at the things I really can see and I say to myself, I don't believe in demons. And I say to myself, I only believe in what is real: I believe in ugly floral shower tiles, I believe in this beach towel, I believe in the radio, I believe in oranges, I believe in chipped nail polish, I believe in soap.

And the demons? What a pack of wimps. They go away.

Bec

Down there at 39 weeks...

After enduring months of dodgy pelvic floor muscles due to the chronic cough that arrived at about the 12 week mark, left at 36 weeks to return a week and a half later, I have been a Tena Lady for quite some time. Albeit with maternity pads which psychologically makes a HUGE difference. Felix asking "Mummy, why are you wearing nappies" and Chef walking by singing "Tena Lady" under his breath did little to help that psychological state, but hey, I'm the one incubating so back off.

Anyways... last week things obviously shifted a gear in the baby-comes-out-here area. This was the first marked change since the whole vulval varicose vein threat of 2005. Mainly - and there's no nice word for it - the mucus, oh God the mucus. So much and so all.the.time. At first I thought - "oh goody, there goes my mucus plug!" - and really, how many times do you get to say that in one lifetime? But of course, I had forgotten the plug part should be 'pinkish' ie, have blood in it. Do you know how exciting this makes each and every trip to the toilet? Seriously, it's like waiting for the Powerball number.

Anyway, then there's the 'loose stools' and I don't mean the Ikea kind. This has been going on for the better part of a week.

Then there is the appetite change - more depressing (in that I just don't feel like Arnott's Potato Thins or Dorito's Nacho Cheese Cornchips) than worrying.

Then there are the ever present but not-hanging-around period pains. I know what's going to happen - the midwife will be able to manually stretch my cervix to 4cm, but will my waters break? no. Will the kid decide to come on its own accord? no. Will this be over by next Sunday when incubus is due? no.

That my friends, is called the art of positive thinking.

Please take a seat, we'll be with you shortly...

Now here's what I'm thinking.

There are things that need to be said, and said freely and without euphemism or restraint. But saying them on Glamorouse means we may never get another male visitor, and that if we do they will either be a) freaky psycho Norwegian guy or b) someone near and dear who may never look at us the same way ever again. And while I'm ok with that in some ways, I've always been partial to the openness that comes with a 100% female environment.

I'm thinking we need this, the Obgynorama Office: a place with decent magazines in the waiting room, with air conditioning freely heated up as clothing is removed, with big comfy stirrups and a pre-warmed speculum.

SO I thought that when things were heating up, like thrush in summer, or getting all sticky like a mucus plug, we could link over here. And maybe find some other folk who need the candidness of candida, too.

What do you reckon? Can we sustain two blogs?

Bec