woohooo..!

Dear Researchers,This is to advise that the Standing Committee on Ethics in
Research involving Humans (SCERH) has approved the above project. Please find
attached your approval letter for this study and ensure you comply with the
Terms of Approval outlined in the letter.

wooohooo! And so now onto the research, scary, scary stuff!

I also got my marks today - I've dropped a bit in average - but I guess that has to do with the extra pressures of the honours component (which is was graded as PGO anyway!!) - anyway I got a credit for community work (68 - not all that happy with it - but it is due to only getting a credit for my essay worth 80 per cent) and distinction for cross cultural sw (76). Unfortunately this might bring my average down which could affect my honours mark. I had been sitting on a 79 average. Oh well, this thesis better kick arse.

Our heater isn't working here atm. My god, it is so freezing - we are waiting for the clock to tick 9am before we ring our real estate agents, why do things always break down when you most need them? Dead of winter - ducted heating decides to fail.

a day in the lives...

of a student couple sharing their last child-free day together for six months.

9am - take children to day care.

9.30 - go back to bed.

12.30 - make pizza, and read, read, read trashy novels (me) and serious academic/religious texts (him)

2.30 - drive to Footscray - go to the library and slowly peruse the collection - come away laden with books, cds and dvds

3.30 - go to savers just for a look-see - and see that it is buy 3 pairs of paints for $10!! Buy them and another 2 dresses as well ( all up $27)

4.30 - pick up children - make cup of tea and watch husband cook dinner - open mail to find a Distinction for that awful role play that I mentioned in a previous post....

A luxuriously lazy day. I love holidays. I love holidays. I love holidays.

p.s - I have also been neglecting the gym again this week. What is with me? Am I being self destructive on purpose??

dreaming

Let me just start off by saying that I don't actually have memorable dreams much. I've had a handful of recurring dreams, especially when I was younger - but maybe once every couple of months I will wake up and remember a dream from the night before. Generally they are sad and I wake myself crying.

But not last night. Last night I had a beautiful, beautiful dream. I was pregnant - nobody was around and I remember feeling a pressure, uncomfortable and that labour might be soon. I stood up and walked outside and felt immense pressure - pressure like the baby was starting to descend into the birth canal. I sat down, leaning back upon my feet and looked down and saw that my baby was about to crown so I put my hands down and helped to guide the babies head out. The babies eyes were wide open facing me and its neck was flexed trying to see what was going on. It was very quickly born and I looked down and saw it was a little girl. My heart lept with joy. I stood up carefully, aware of the unbilical cord and waddled off to get some assistance with the placenta. But there was nobody around, I felt crampy and knew the placenta was coming so put my baby girl to my breast to help it along.

I woke and told James about this very vivid dream. He was disappointed that he didn't feature and was very interested in the finer details of what she looked like (she was big and had no hair!! - but had the same massive eyes as her brothers). Then he told me about his dream of the night - in which I admitted to him that I would most likely cheat on him! Just a dream James, just a dream!

In other news, our house is pretty sick at the moment. I've woken up with a very sore throat, so looks like I'm next dammit! James and I are enjoying our last week of holidays together - he has been asked to work for one week at the old school he was employed at last year. So the poor thing will be losing on of his uni holiday weeks. He will using the weeks employment to network and find out about the possiblity of securing a graduate position there for next year. Also in other news regarding James... he has been advised of next semesters placement. He has been placed in one of the top state schools in Victoria! I wonder how different it will be to where he was placed during the first six months of the year (a school in a very low socio-economic area).

Also as you can see from my previous entry - placement selection is also upon me. Negotiations are still taking place for my much wanted placement at RWH - but I have to face facts that I am not likely to get it. I have decided though that above all, I want to be placed at a hospital. So I'm also looking at a Cancer hospital, neuropsychiatry and a private hospital. I want the hospital experience above all. Applications are due next week and by the end of this month, I will know where I am going. Very, very exciting!

placements...

I've just received an excel spreadsheet detailing all the possible offers for my final placement this year. Is it terrible to admit that none of them really interest me?

I want the RWH. I want the RWH. Why does it have to be a Melbourne uni hospital?

if you can't tell...

I'm on holidays - 3 posts in 24 hours lol.

I just wanted to quickly add that I have my first comments back from my supervisor and this is what she had to say;

Hi, I have just had a quick scan of this (I find it much easier to mark in
hard copy - allows the reader to get a sense of the whole document). But my
initial thoughts are that it is an excellent beginning - more than a draft! You
will need to work out summarising some of your ideas and perhaps the discussion
of invisibility might be better placed in the introduction.

I'm pretty chuffed - it means I can relax that little bit more. The end is in sight, the end is in sight.

This photo

Does any one photo make you ache for another baby? I'm going to add in two of Noah that just make me want another... I dare you not to have the same feeling.

and just in the spirit of fairness - here are some of Jude that also make my heart sing.

I'm so NOT done yet.

op-shop roundup

Here are the pictures of some of the more recent clothes I have found from my most favourite op-shop - http://www.savers.com.au/

The first outfit I bought last year actually - it has been one of the best bargains I have ever achieved there. I bought it for $4

The next outfit I bought this year and spoke about earlier in my blog - my handy friend unpicked the unsightly front part of it - I love the colour. Agai5n another steal at around $5

The next are some pants I managed to pick up on saturday - they looked almost brand new, sportsgirl brand - $4

Lastly this beautiful dress that I bought on saturday for $5.99 - I love, love, love it.

Lastly I thought I would add in a picture of my sleeping children, all 3 of them. As you can see our cat Bastian sleeps with the boys (who are demanding to sleep together atm) so it can get squeezy in there.

Noah is toilet training - for the last 3 days he has been doing all of his toileting on a potty, with no accidents whatsoever, he wants no help - he needs no reminding, just off he goes. Today he went to Childcare and only had one accident , my little one is growing up.

bugger, bum. Pictures aren't working, will upload later.

40 things before I'm 40

I wrote this list about a year ago when aged 30 and I thought I would add it here.

1. Graduate from university
2. Find fufilling employment
3. buy a house
4. Have my mother and stepfather live with us on the property
5. have another child (and have me a homebirth)
6. Be 65kg
7. Be 61kg
8. Travel to Canada to see my SIL, BIL and my little niece
9. Travel to England to see my Dad and travel to Slovenia to meet my stepfathers family (as well as the obligatory trips throughout Europe
10. Travel to Japan
11. Travel to Hong Kong
12. Live in another state
13. Live in another country
14. Go on a romantic catch up holiday with James and James alone
15. Learn how to ride a horse
16. Overcome my fears
17. Go on a holiday with my mum
18. Bush camp
19. Learn how to sew
20. Enjoy a weekend away with my best friend
21. Watch someone birth a baby
22. Take my children overseas
23. Ride a motorbike
24. Run 5kms
25. Upgrade from the bogon mobil
26. Buy a new bicycle
27. Own a new couch
28. Not be reliant on Centrelink
29. Have a 'no holds barred' shopping trip
30. Learn about interior decorating
31. Learn about the stockmarket and trading
32. Learn how to successfuly garden
33. Attempt to become self sufficient
34. Learn to love and appreciate myself
35. Attempt a second language
36. Holiday on a houseboat
37. Tattoo my body again
38. Face a great fear (like skydiving - I hate flying and heights)
39. Enjoy my 10 year wedding anniversary
40. Enjoy my 15 year wedding anniversary

I'll be back with my latest update from Savers, when I can get the stoopid camera to work.

Just a short note..

To say I've finished my lit review (finally! I know I've been whinging about it for ages) and it has given me a push to start talking about something that is continuing to interest me the intersection between abortion and miscarriage. I have just finished combing through a number of critical texts devoted to women's health and do you think I could find much information about miscarriage? Pages (and sometimes chapters) devoted to the analysis of abortion politics/medicalisation of pregnancy/use of ultrasound to hide the mother in abortion politics etc, but nothing more than cursory mentions about "spontaneous abortions".

One position put forward by Linda Layne in an article she wrote in "Feminist studies" in 2006 was due to the difficulty of the fight to give women access to safe and legal abortions, a side effect has been;

[that]..it has been difficult to acknowledge that many women experience a pregnancy loss as the loss of a "baby" without apparently concurring with anti-abortion advoctates regarding the status of embryos and fetuses. This puts feminists in a bind, and as a consequence, feminists have been inclined to ignore the issues.

Reading that gave me my 'ah-ha' moment. I couldn't understand as I read through my pile of books just why, when contraception, assisted conception, childbirth and especially abortion had whole essays dedicated to them - why miscarriage remained still hidden. And this is indicative of the wider invisibility by society and how they process about what makes a baby, when a baby is alive. And I am not immune from that. I am a very avid supporter of Australia providing access to safe and legal abortions, so perhaps this is why it struck such a chord with me - I am being challenged, by this research to critically analyse my own position.

Whats clear from the research about miscarriage, is that ambiguity and inconsistency revolve around what it is, how to define and what even to call it. Medically it is described as 'abortions' when clearly that terminology for women could be offensive to say the least. One piece of medical writing suggested that the term 'miscarriage' be replaced by 'early pregnancy FAILURE', (Bourne & Condous, 2006 - Handbook of early pregnancy care) handbook of early pregnancy care, yeah nice sensitive suggestion there - how is that terminology more useful? So, now I'm ready. I'm ready to find out from the women themselves, this is going to be very interesting.

Anyway - off again - Jude invited one of his most favourite people over tonight - Em and she wants us to go out, just James and I, for a catch up. So I need to rest (I was up till 3.30AM this morning writing furiously) and I am actually also heartily SICK of looking at the computer.

I'll chat again soon. I hope my discussion of this topic has not caused any hurt or pain to any of the readers here. I know the subject matter can be distressing, so I try not to talk about it too much - but I really did want to share that as I think it is vital to the understanding of where my research wants to go.

Take care xx

p.s - Sue - no hard feelings, thanks for apologising (I had no idea you read this blog lol) - I'm sorry too.

9 days...

Since I have been to the gym. I'm flabbing up, I can just feel it.