I didn’t call Miss Consultant’s non-answering service today. I had a !@£$ing bastard son of a bastard’s barstard bastard migraine instead. Welcome back, hormonal sleep-deprived skull-crusher moments. What did I ever do without you? Why, get up and go to work, of course.
Naturally, today was a day at work I didn’t want to miss because I have Too Much To Do and Not Enough Week To Do It In. And I will no doubt have massively inconvenienced my colleagues and made extra work for them as well. Tomorrow will be horrible.
Bugger.
It’s all my fault for cheerfully announcing to my boss that I don’t seem to get migraines any more, isn’t that cool?
Hahahaha.
Last night, I had a sulk, and a cry, and a talk with H, and a temper-tantrum, and a row with H, and another cry, and didn’t get to sleep until after 2am (no idea how long after 2am – I was refusing to put my glasses back on and look at the clock at this point). H tells me that it was round about then that he thought ‘May is almost certainly going to have a migraine after this. I must remind her to take the soluble ibuprofen tabs with her tomorrow.’ Alas, eheu, he forgot to remind me, and then I was stuck on a very crowded broken-down train for 40 minutes, unable to see anything on my right properly, with everyone’s scritching head-phone leakage feeling like someone scraping the lining of my skull with a tooth-pick. I still let the pregnant lady have my seat. Yes, I do want a freakin’ medal.
At least I wasn’t sick on British Rail property. For once.
While I was lying down with a pillow over my face with the radio on extremely quietly (to distract me from the whole eye-socket-on-verge-of-shattering thing. It sort-of works. It’s better than total silence. In total silence, I can hear the blood pulsing in the ear on the worst side, and it drives me frantic), H was having coffee with an acquaintance who has just adopted a toddler.
They shared a few ‘yeah, spending your 30s trying to get/stay pregnant sucks arse‘ anecdotes, and then this kind person passed on all sorts of tips, advice, insights and things-to-note about adopting from social services in this country.
It was useful. It was interesting. Yes, we are thinking about adoption, more and more often. In Britain, you can’t adopt while still pursuing biological children – this makes perfect sense to me. Adoption should be THE goal in its own right, not the consolation prize for failing your nth IVF cycle – so H and I are not quite there yet. Or we may decide it’s not for us, and remain childless (and I would totally get five cats and a pet raven (oh, come on! What’s not to love about a pet raven? I promise I won’t call it ‘Quoth’)). But possibilities always seem more possible once you know someone else in your own city who has already done it.
Did that make sense? No? Well, don’t blame me. I had a migraine earlier today and I am entitled to be muddled for the next 36 hours.
Yes, it made perfect sense indeed. All the best x
Ta!
Is Nevermore an acceptable raven name? Our household would probably opt for Beaky or Pecky because I am not going to mention Quoth, in case the other half decides we *need* a raven
Hope the head is feeling less fragile.
‘Nevermore’ is great. Oh, bother, now I want a raven more than ever. I shall train it to put the kettle on and everything.
What’s wrong with a raven as a pet? Oh, I don’t know – the thought that they might get peckish (ha! I don’t get enough opportunities to make bad puns in my life) and decide that my eyeballs would be a delicious treat. (Hey, speaking of bad puns, would you like to know how deranged law enforcement personnel are? Today, we all fell about laughing because the hit-and-run victim was named Harry Walker. We are just not right.)
Hmmm – maybe I should try that music thing. I have, several times this week, woken up and been unable to go back to sleep because the sound of my pulse in my ear is driving me insane.
Hope your head is feeling better.
Ravens peck, cats scratch, dogs bite, rabbits kick (don’t laugh until you’ve been clawed to shreddles by a frantically kicking rabbit you need to pick up), fish eat each other. Yea verily, the pet world is a world of pain. (I still want a raven).
Law enforcement, like medical, are to be commended for their senses of humour, because I like warped, bleak, surreal, silly, bad-pun humour myself immensely.
Sometimes I listen to talk radio (we have rather good talk radio in Blighty God I love the BBC) because music is too MUSICKY DAMN IT instead. Very quietly (I get terrible phonophobia). Someone soothingly telling me about 19th century European revolutions works well. Fascinating blood-shed and riot, in genteel and placid tones, at the volume known as mouse-fart. Perfect.
I was so convinced my migraines had stopped when I went on the implant, but they hadn’t either. Irritating.
So pleased you are asking questions about adoption. Obviously I think it is a good thing!
Obviously you do! Congratulations, again and again! SO happy for you.
The Migraine is Always With Us. Damn it.
Sorry about the migraine and hope you are feeling better. While a raven is a cool pet, I’m not sure about a 5 cat/raven combo. It could get very messy. Trying to think of suitable raven names. Does the one in Terry Prachcett have a name? Or Edgar; that sounds kind of raven-y.
And if we are going on the subject of funny names, I give you the name of a spokesman for our local council. Now he is Dutch, so it kind of explains it, but still seeing a statement given by a one “Tits Bongers” is enough to brighten anyone’s day! Now THATS a name to give a pet raven!
The Terry Pratchett raven IS called ‘Quoth’, and he’s not amused by it.
“Tits Bongers” Bwahahahahahahaha ohhhh dear. That makes me happy. Bless the man, bringing joy to juvenile English-speakers world-wide.
Makes sense to me. Not sure the cats will love the raven though…
Adoption is a funny thing. It’s good to know someone who’s done it in real life, makes it seem more… possible. Not quite as easy as “just adopting” though, is it?! For what it’s worth, if you decide at some point to do it, I think you’ll be amazing adoptive parents. If not, there are worse things than having 5 cats and an interestingly-named raven…
If it was ‘just’ adopting, I’d've done it already. *sigh*
Thank you for the vote of confidence on my parenting skills. That cheers me up.
“Nevermore” makes a positively amazing name for the pet raven. I love it.
As for adoption – baby steps in thinking, which I know you and H are doing. On the plus side adoption (if you’re making a list which you undoubtedly need no help whatsoever from random people on) includes items such as “no more having to do the horizontal mambo when we’re arguing and I hate the sight of your face”, “no more anti-dairy diets”, and to say nothing of the biggie of “adoption would ultimately end with a child! A loveable squishable one!” and then comes the golden ring called a Mirena Coil, whereby May has periods so light they’re like a sneeze.
I thought that one might be one to savour on really rough days.
The trick is, to name one of the cats ‘Lenore’. And buy a bust of Pallas Athena for the library. Goth trifecta!
Oh, we’re – well, I am (H? Are you doing this?) – making pro-and-con lists about adoption. NO MORE TTC!!!! is rather a large pro. Which is tragic, but that’s infertility/RPL world for you. TRAGIC.
One thought, a friend who has happily and successfully adopted in the UK system said one thing they did was to do the ‘intro to adoption’ seminar while they were still in treatment (it’s privately run and so does not ask yuo any awkward questions) which then allowed them to say they’d been in adoption prep for X years rather than X-1 years which helped with the whole molasses problem.
That is a GOOD idea. Thanks.
I have this wild fantasy that one day May’s reproductive and medical dramas will magically disappear, and she’ll find herself mothering a little boy or girl, adopted or otherwise.
Yo, universe! Enough of this crap! Did you hear me?
Ooh, look, we have the same wild fantasy! Universe! Listen to this lady!
I am sacrificing fluffy goats to the altar of this particular fanstasy.
May, I award you many, many medals.You are festooned with them, in my mind’s eye. Above and beyond, and to infinity, and a Victoria Cross, if that’s what it’s called. A Purple Heart.
You poor girl.
I think I might make Purple Heart mittens. What do you think? Mittens? As awards for Courage And Endurance On Public Transport?
yay, we are migraine buddies! wait, that actually sucks. let’s be not-migraine buddies instead.
for the record: no matter what you named your putative raven, i would call him Quoth. it would be his stable name, like horses have so that they don’t have to get called “mrs. schneider’s rot and pestilence” all the time.
YAY buddies! I’ll stop having migraines if you do, eh? One, two, three… GO! What do you mean it doesn’t work like that? DAMN.
I now want a pet called ‘Mrs Schneider’s Rot and Pestilence’. BADLY.
I have family who own horses, and the horses are all stable-called things like Sam and Jo and Fred and Maisie, and it’s only on gymkhana days you actually realise they’re called Mrs Schneider’s Rot and Pestilence and you have no idea which horse they mean by it either.
You cannot tempt fate in that way. Migraines are not just !@£$ing bastard sons of a bastard’s barstard bastard but they hover threateningly just out of sight waiting and watching for the slightest sliver of an opening to enter your head and mess with your brain using the mechanism of pain, sensitivity to stimuli and unrelenting persistence. Like fat homing pigeons they return home with monotonous regularity. They are capable of morphing from the traditional head explosion into a rarer and even more vicious version of themselves called atypical migraine. I’m not going any further…you’ve suffered enough and I’m depressing myself. Sumatriptin via nasal spray works for me although I have been offered large pointy thing to administer via stomach fat (of which there is a disgustingly generous excess) and am hoping it never comes to that.
You and H will be magnificent parents to your children no matter which way they arrive in your life.
Australia has both ravens and crows but I really think you should consider the Spangled Drongo. It’s my personal favourite.
We’re all a bit too well-acquainted with crippling pain round here. *HUGE sigh* *Group hug*
I have googled the Spangled Drongo. It’s absolutely charming. And spangled. And ‘Drongo’ always makes me think of Hex the magical computer in Pratchett, and its pet nerd Big Mad Drongo, born Adrian Turnipseed, who achieved his nickname through drinking A WHOLE PINT OF SHANDY.
I had totally forgotten the Pratchett connection to Drongo. Thanks for the reminder…it’s a very Australian insult usually preceded by the words “Ya great…” or “Bloody…” or exactly as Sir Terry used it. And more than pints or shandies would normally be involved.
Hmm ravens not so much but owls on the other hand that would be fab. If you and H do go down the adoption route then I hope that the Govt’s proposed speeding up of the system does indeed come to pass. You’d pass any assessment with flying colours I’m sure.
Unfortunately, beautiful as they are, owls are not very bright and are very hard to train. I’d like an owl too, mind you. I want a Little Owl. Too cute.
I’m basking in all this praise as to our putative parenting skills. It’s really heart-warming.
Little owl is deffo the way forward. We have a Barn owl that persists in nesting in the ash tree outside our house; when we first heard the noises emanating from the darkness, we thought we had taken tenancy of a pterodactyl. Barn owls emit a sort of throttled hybrid of Cruella deVille’s screech and a particularly brutal strangulation. Beautiful, though, certainly. I am currently considering the taxidermied variety, and cannot quite work out if I am fascinated or repulsed…
A taxidermied raven would tick all the Goth boxes without the eyeball/landlord/tenancy problem…?
Migraines, in addition to EVERYthing else, are bloody well Not On. I would like to have someone to complain to about this outrage, because, HELL, they would receive SUCH an earbending.