How can it be the end of March already?!
It’s not just me, is it? Easter felt infeasibly early this year. I happened before the clocks went forward (from GMT to BST). In fact, it happened before it had even stopped snowing!
And now that Easter is passed, Jesus has risen again (Alleluia!) and in a strange way I feel as though I’m emerging back into the sunshine. Have I been hibernating for the last few months?
I’ve certainly been fighting more bugs than is healthy in the first three months of any year. I don’t remember any other year when I’ve been inundated with so many illness bugs, and viruses and the like. Just as soon as I’m getting over one the next wave of attack hits me. It’s not funny … I want it to stop. Please!
In many ways the last couple of months have been a whirlwind of activity and emotion, which has largely been responsible for the dearth of blog posts here this year.
I’ve pretty much been doing the following:
- Waiting
- Coding
- Reading
Waiting
When the calendar clicked over to 2008, a couple of months ago, and we got (another) green light from the hospital to say that our IVF treatment would begin (again) this year a strange thing happened: I felt a though I began to retreat into myself.
I’m not entirely sure why, except that I guess I wanted to protect myself and from the relative safety of my ‘inner cave’ examine how I felt about this enormous step we were about to embark on (again!). It’s not an all-together bad thing to do, all things considered. In some ways, quite responsible. (Perhaps this means that I must be a grown-up now.)
One of the hardest things about the whole IVF programme (so far) is the waiting.
There’s a lot of waiting.
And unlike many of the procedures involved in the In Vitro Fertilisation process it’s something that the man can do equally well as the woman. In fact, it’s something that they can do together … since they can’t do any of the other things that are normally involved in trying to start a family!
So we’ve been waiting. And waiting some more. And in between the waiting … well, actually it’s mostly been waiting if I’m honest.
At times it’s been quite unbearable. We just want to know. One way or the other.
Coding
For the last few weeks I’ve hardly known what to do with myself. I’ve felt like a kid waiting for Christmas.
Jane started on the IVF drugs in July 2007 and it dragged on and on and on. One more month, another month after that … and then in December it was cancelled. Brought to an abrupt halt.
We could have had a child in that time!!
So in order to distract myself I’ve been bringing work home with me. I’m currently working on a recoding of the University’s website. And with the recoding a bit of a design tweak here and there.
Bringing it home has given me something to focus on. Something consistent. Something that has a beginning and an end. Something that I have been able to create.
I’ve been really enjoying it too, which has been the important thing.
Reading
And when I’ve not been sitting in front of my monitors I’ve been reading. Sometimes curled up in bed, other times on the sofa keeping Jane company.
Here are a few of the books I’ve been waiting through.
- Eric Clapton: The Autobiography by Eric Clapton
- jQuery in Action by Bear Bibeault and Yehuda Katz
- Simplicity: The Freedom of Letting Go by Richard Rohr
- DOM Scripting: Web Design with JavaScript and the Document Object Model by Jeremy Keith
So I’m still alive and well, just keeping my head low just now.
