To heal, first and foremost, you have to want to heal. It sounds trite, and more than a little dismissive, as if everyone hurting is doing it on purpose for the attention, or perhaps to annoy. The thing is, some of the time we are doing it on purpose, but usually for a different reason. We carry our grief, our anger, and our resentment for further than is necessary when we haven't yet decided what to do with it. We have, after all, paid dearly for our pain. It's not reasonable to expect us to part with it easily, even though it is ugly and burdensome. Tossing it aside - "letting go" or "moving on" - is not our goal. Instead, we seek a transformation; a suitably valuable exchange.

A friend asked me this week to talk with her about IVF, as it has just been recommended to her as a course of treatment. How does she feel? I haven't met up with her yet, but from initial accounts, not great. She tells me I don't have to agree to the discussion - perhaps I'd rather not go over that period of my life again. Perhaps I am trying to put it behind me, to forget. I tell her that is not the case. I want her to understand that if I can transform any part of my sorrows into something that helps her along her path, we can both end up closer to healed.

And the truth is, I am ready to be healed. It took a long time after the birth of The Prata Baby for the process to start - I had to consciously set the task aside for a while in order to focus on caring for a newborn, and I think I underestimated the amount of damage I'd sustained. I was going well, you see, I was coping ok with our infertility in the leadup to his conception. I mistook that for being able to, afterwards, listen to conversations on gender disappointment or ideal age gaps without wanting to snap people's heads off, either figuratively or literally, and I was wrong. These days, however, it almost warms me to hear such naivety, as if I'm reassured by the notion that some parts of the world, at least, are running as we'd like them to run. And there is a practical sense in which infertility has lost its hold on me. Yes, we still have to go back for those frozen embryos, but since Surprise Baby's birth I have been feeling fully content with our lot and willing to surrender the rest to the will of the unknown*.

But I'm worried about this meeting, all the same. My friend already has a honeymoon baby, and is experiencing secondary infertility, which I have never really known. Second time around, I found it far, far easier to front up to the fertility specialist and set the wheels in motion, and everything fell into place a short time later. I am trying, in advance, not to shrug her off because of that. I am trying to remember that she isn't pre-adjusted to her membership in the infertility club like I was when we started trying for number two, that it's the first time around for her on this crazy, sometimes terrifying ride. And that anyway, she's not me, and can't be expected to react in exactly the same way as me at all times.

So I'm trying to figure out what I can possibly say - if, indeed, I am called upon to say anything at all other than, "Hmm... oohhh... gosh... dear me..." which, I suppose I mustn't forget, is entirely possible. Does she want practical information about medications or procedures? Does she need help deciding which path to take? Is she expecting me to give her some magic balm to make the confusion go away, because honestly, I don't have one, despite my prior experience and a great deal of wishing one into existence for the benefit of myself and others. All I have is the belief that she will, on a day too far away into the future, find herself smiling to hear fertile folk talk of trivial concerns, her heart warming with the reassurance that some part of the world, at least, is running as she'd like it to run. A belief that someday, she will find herself ready and willing to transform the pain she is now feeling into something better, to exchange it for something equally valuable, but much more gratifying.

Your input is appreciated.

--
*This may change. We'll see.

I am putting the final touches on our moving arrangements - we are due to reunite with Mr Bea in Singapore next week - and today, I gave away my boots.

I have to explain to you that these are great boots. I bought them a smidge before IVF Jul/Aug '07 - the one which resulted in our first live birth - and I have continued to like them ever since. They are just so me. Whenever I look at them... sorry, looked at them... it hurts a fraction to speak of them in past tense but I should start doing so... Whenever I looked at them I wondered where they'd been all my life. As someone whose wardrobe has long been plagued by well-meant gifts, hand-me-downs, regrettable shopping choices and Things My Mother Would Like To See Me In, it was refreshing to have something that was so seamlessly connected to the person I believe I really am. I mean, I loved these boots. I just couldn't keep them anymore.

We're moving to Singapore, for one thing. I don't know if you know much about Singapore, but if you know anything at all, what you probably know is that it's stifling, sticky hot. Not really boot-scootin' terrain. More like mould-growing terrain, in fact - with leather goods being a prime target for said mould, as I found out during our first stay before getting rid of almost all of our leather goods. If I'd taken those boots to Singapore they would have done nothing but sit in the cupboard creating housework for me, and I'm too busy for that. Anyone's too busy for that.

"But you could keep them here in case you want to wear them on a visit," MIL kindly offered, as I took them from the cupboard and held them in a sad and lingering gaze. But no. The stiletto heels are not the kind that will allow me to carry my infant or chase my toddler with the necessary ease. It will be several years before I am able to wear such things again, and who knows where I'll be or what may happen in the meantime. I can't hang on to them any longer. They suit me, but not this phase of my life.

I put them in the car and drove them around with me all day on my errands, looking at them whenever I had the chance, wondering if I was really going to do it. Eventually my errands took me to the house of a friend, to whom I explained my situation.

"Show me these boots," he said, and I did. "Wow. They are great boots, and in really good nick, too. I'm actually kind of sorry they're not in my size. Are you really going to give them away?" And I explained my reasoning, the move to Singapore, the kids, and he nodded and agreed that it all made sense. Then he said, "You know where they sell a lot of this kind of thing? The Vinnies at West End." Aha. A charity thrift shop in a trendy suburb where lots of young student and arty types hang out. He offered to come with me.

When we arrived it was raining and Surprise Baby had fallen asleep in her seat, so I gave my friend the boots and let him off whilst I circled the block. Afterwards, he relayed that the shop had had a run on boots lately with the onset of winter, and had completely sold out earlier that day. The girl at the counter had seemed very pleased for the donation and had assured him that they would quickly find a good owner.

I'm not really writing this post for the boots, of course. When I got home, there was a bill for me in the mail, from the fertility clinic, for the next six months' worth of semen storage. We had it stored the first time we moved to Singapore, to help solve any logistical problems with long-distance cycling, and also - secretly - to allay my fear that Mr Bea's sperm count was on a one-way expedition to Zerodom, and we were fast running out of chances. We have never used it. Now that we have two children and a bit more confidence in our sperm count I have to ask myself - why are we holding on to something that is doing nothing but sitting around, unused, creating work (to the tune of $450/year) for us? Are we really so committed to having a third child that we will pay that money over just in case we want to do another IVF cycle and Mr Bea's count drops to zero - both of which, frankly, seem unlikely? The answer - I'm pretty sure the answer - is no. It has always been yes up til now. Up til now, I have always been the kind of person who will spend $450 on that kind of insurance against not having the fullest possible range of family-building options.

I still am that kind of person, really. Just in a different phase of my life.

Even when the answer is obvious, it's hard to let go. I sit here gazing at the bill with the same sad, lingering look I gave to my favourite boots only earlier today, not quite ready to take the final plunge. Maybe I just need to drop in on an old friend who will give me the confidence to go through with my plans. Will you come with me when I phone the clinic?

First of all, I would like to thank the collective artists of nineties' grunge for making a vast array of music that reliably puts newborn babies to sleep within the first couple of verses - if not bars - of each song, and keeps them that way. Then, I would like to curse the collective artists of nineties' grunge for adding so many swear words and adult themes to their music that I can't play it in front of my toddler for fear that he will start singing his great-grandmother rather colourful pieces about masturbation.

**

I would like to say that Surprise Baby is more settled than The Prata Baby was at the same age, and to some extent I think that's genuinely true. Number of times she has screamed as if having a limb amputated whilst preparing to dirty her nappy: zero, just to choose one example. But undoubtedly part of it is the benefit of experience, that is, mine. It works in two ways. Most directly, I have learned a trick or two. PB was - what? - six or perhaps even eight weeks old before we discovered the magic of grunge, whereas this time we have enjoyed its benefits from the very beginning, even if we have had to scramble to clean up the playlist a little. Or a lot. But even where things are unfolding much the same as before and there's little I can do to alter them, I find myself better off. For instance, when the Prata Baby was three weeks old, I suffered constant frustration due to my unfulfilled expectations of daytime naps. This time I have no such expectations. I am, therefore, experiencing a relatively benign sense of resignation as I walk continuously around the house wearing SB in a sling, wishing I'd bought the for-radio version of International Superhits! by Green Day. As if "bleep masturbation" is really a more suitable serenade for Great Grandma.

**

So far, PB is adjusting well. I have heard a lot of people advocate age gaps of less than two years because you don't want your eldest to "get used to" being an only child. I have concluded that this is bollocks. There are good reasons in favour of small age gaps, and perhaps the above is a fair reason for not wanting an unusually large gap, and at the end of the day I find the whole "ideal spacing" discussion kind of tiresome and irrelevant on account of the infertility and the being glad to have subsequent children at all, but I distinctly remember PB screaming in anguish when, at fifteen months, he saw me holding someone else's baby, whereas these days he seems more or less fine with it. At less than two years, PB desired my exclusive attention in a way he just doesn't anymore. These days, he is Mr Independent, Mr Helpful, and Mr Sociable all rolled into one. His catch phrases are, "I want to do it by myself!" and "I want to help!" and "Hello! Come play with me!" Far from being "used to" having the household to himself and peeved that this is no longer the case, he is, instead, at an age where he is developmentally ready to share life with a younger sibling. Or at least one who spends a large part of the day sleeping, and who doesn't try to play with his toys. I'll let you know how this pans out over the medium term. If things deteriorate, an unedited grunge playlist may not be the biggest threat to our social interactions with Great Grandma.

**

We are fine here, if busy. There's only a few weeks left before Mr Bea and all our household goods leave for Singapore, and the rest of us leave for my parents' house. We'll be following in early May, the idea being that Mr will have organised a house and unpacked at least the more vital of our possessions by then. I'm already behind on blog news, I'm likely to get even further out of touch over the next few months, and for both those things I apologise. This community has meant a lot to me, especially the continued friendship and support I've received during this too-good-to-be-true journey to our second child, and particularly considering what some of you have been through over that same period of time. I'll do my best, and we'll catch up properly sooner or later, though I hope it's sooner. In the meantime... you know, there should be a reference to a nineties grunge song here, but they're all so angry, and these days, I don't have a reason to be.

There's a new post up at Prata Baby, too.

Almost a week ago, I was waiting for someone to call me about an induction date, whilst trying to figure out how to negotiate my way through our various options with BOB. My deliberations, however, soon became moot - like many parts of this surprising journey. The carefully-laid plans for an FET. The alternative birth options we researched and living arrangements we put in place when floods overtook our city, leaving us to evacuate our house in the eighth month of this pregnancy. The backup sleeping spots I organised in case the bassinet mattress failed to arrive in time. All moot, to name but a few.

Because the FET never had to happen, and the floods subsided, leaving our house high and dry and pregnancy intact, and the bassinet mattress turned up more than half a week past our estimated due date but days before the baby arrived. And in the case of my ponderings over the induction, they were moot because labour started later that night, and by the morning our little girl was safely in our arms.

Let me tell that bit to you from the start.

In Monday's report, I mentioned that I was having haphazard cramps, kind of like period pains. And that I had become so irritable and fed up with The Prata Baby, who wasn't really misbehaving, that I had called Mr Bea home from work an hour early to give me a break. Around ten pm, whilst watching TV, I noticed that the cramps were becoming more intense. I found myself closing my eyes until they passed, but they were irregular, and I was still able to keep one ear on the program in front of me. I decided, however, that things were starting to get underway, and that it was a good time to catch some sleep before I lost the chance. I had a shower and went to bed. I ordered Mr Bea to bed, too. Ordered, apparently. He said that, in hindsight, it was a sign he should have heeded more seriously. I may not have been doubled over with pain or breaking my waters throughout the house, but I was irritable and bossy and that should have been a warning. He's probably right.

Somewhere around midnight, having dozed on and off for nearly two hours, I started absent-mindedly counting contractions. When I woke up properly, around one, to go to the toilet, I calculated that they were probably coming around ten minutes apart. Or not, depending on how reliable you thought my counting had been, given that I was three-quarters asleep. Then I lost the mucous plug, and I decided to tell the entire internet about it before going back to bed, and sleep. But my plans were never carried through, because when I stood up I had a succession of rather intense contractions quite close together, which I rode out in various positions in the living room. When things quietened down a little, I decided to wake Mr Bea.

Mr Bea was quite reluctant to be woken. I got extremely frustrated with him and started bossing him around forcefully, which didn't work either. He was wandering around in a daze, taking ten minutes to complete simple requests that should have taken one, whining and arguing the point every step of the way. At about 1:30 I asked him to bring me the cordless phone and after I wheedled the action out of him (it took maybe ten minutes), I rung the hospital to speak with someone about when, possibly, I should come in. Mr Bea's attitude changed slightly at this point - apparently he had not realised that I was in labour. He must have thought I was waking him in the middle of the night and asking him to gather hospital supplies for kicks or... look, the guy was half asleep, let's not judge. We can all be really, alarmingly dense between one and two in the morning.

As soon as somebody answered the phone on the other end, the contractions started to ease off. I spoke to the midwife for a while, as she timed the duration and frequency of a few contractions, and tried to assess their intensity from my tone of voice over the phone. I could still speak through most of them, and through the others I was taking deep, slow breaths or producing softly audible sighs. She told me I should get my parents around to take over care of The Prata Baby, and maybe have a snack to eat whilst I waited for their arrival. She suggested toast. I thought toast sounded great, so I asked Mr Bea to make me some and this time, he got right onto it. I was to call them back when we were ready to start in.

On my way to the kitchen, things picked up. I dropped onto my hands and knees twice before I reached the end of the hallway, and one contraction was so strong it sent shudders through my body. I used the hypnobirthing techniques I'd gleaned from the book - deep breathing and visualisation. In my mind, I pictured my cervix as a big, shiny ribbon, gently unravelling before my eyes. I pictured my body dissolving, leaving only the sensations of labour, then I focussed on causing the sensations of labour to dissolve away, too.

When I got to the kitchen, toast sounded less appealing than a cool shower to take the sweat off my suddenly-heated body, so I made my way to the bathroom and hopped in. I worried briefly about how I would look to my parents when they arrived, and then a new series of contractions sent me to my knees in the tub. These ones were powerful enough to make me switch to the vocalisation techniques we'd gone through in yoga class. I opened my mouth and produced a low "aaaahhh" sound, sliding it down through the scale like a trombone. I remember feeling compelled to press forcefully against the bathtub with my arms, and I knew I should head for the hospital, but I wasn't really sure how to get out of the tub. I tried to plan a sequence of movements in my head, but it was hard to concentrate with the contractions coming one of top of each other as they were.

Then all of a sudden - it didn't seem like more than a few minutes later - I felt a change. And all at once, I knew these concerns were moot, too.

Mr Bea was hovering uncertainly by the bath, bringing me the news that my toast was ready. "I feel like pushing," I said simply. He made some sort of alarmed noise, but I didn't hear what he said, because I was having another contraction. I fought my instinct to push upwards with my arms and say "aaaahhh" and instead lowered my chest and puffed, to slow things down. When I could talk again, I said, "It's alright. It's fine. Everything's ok."

It's always amazed me how well that technique works. If you ever feel like taking charge of a situation that has everyone in a tizz, follow this advice: appear calm, authoritative and reassuring. Tell everyone firmly that things are under control, no matter what the truth may be. They will instantly decide - although decide isn't quite the word; the reaction is less deliberative than that - to follow your every instruction. Immediately, and without fuss or question. Try it and see.

I assured Mr Bea that everything was okay, then after a short pause (to allow this hard-wired human reaction to take effect) I went on to say, "I want you to go into the living room and get the cordless phone and bring it straight back in here." He left. Immediately, and without fuss or question. I had another contraction. This time, I felt the baby moving down the birth canal and knew we didn't have much time.

"Can you see anything?" I asked when he got back. He told me he couldn't see much - just some blood. "Okay. I want you to remove the redback spider from the wall in front of me."

"The what?"

"The redback spider. There is a redback spider crawling around in our bathtub in front of me. Please get it out." After a moment of stunned disbelief, he did this, whilst I had another contraction. Puff, puff, puff. Soon I could speak again.

"I want you to call triple O and ask for an ambulance," I told him.

He started dialling. I heard him give our address as I fought my instinct to bear down during the next contraction. Then I heard him say he could see the head. This seemed to alarm him somewhat, and he started shouting in exasperation at the person on the other end of the line, who was obviously still going through the initial, routine questions. "What? How old is my wife? I can see the baby's head! It's happening really fast!" he was saying.

A new contraction started, and I knew there was no way I could keep her inside any longer. "The head is coming," I said to Mr Bea, and I eased her out as gently as I could.

"The head is out!" he shouted down the phone.

And I asked him, "Are you ready to catch the baby?" I think I asked him several times, and I never really listened to the answer, but I heard him get into the bathtub behind me and I saw him under my armpit, ready and waiting with arms outstretched.

There was one more contraction and Surprise Baby was born. "Have you got her? Is she pink? How's her breathing?" I asked Mr Bea. I heard muffled infant noises.

"The cord's around her neck," he said urgently, and I turned to look and saw that it wasn't, really, it was going over her shoulder and around the back of her neck, well away from her windpipe.

"It's fine, it's not obstructing her airway," I assured him, but I had to say it several times. "Give her to me and grab that towel." He did. I unwound the cord in order to bring her to my chest and bundled her up, wiping her mouth and nose with the towel as she stared up at me in wide-eyed disbelief. Mr Bea was talking down the phone again.

"She's making soft noises. Yes, my wife's doing that. Yes, she's doing that, she's doing that. Um, I don't know, we haven't checked yet..." I checked... "A girl, it's a girl. Thanks. Yes. Ha!" He was babbling with relief, and grinning wildly. Then, "I have to go and let the ambulance guys in," he said to me, and he took off up the hallway to the front door.

There's not too much more to tell. The ambulance guys came in, they clamped the cord, they checked us both over, placed the very Adam and Eve of all maternity pads under me and escorted us to the ambulance waiting outside. They suggested they snap us a quick picture. Then Surprise Baby - how aptly named! - and I took off for the hospital whilst Mr Bea made a cup of tea to go with my uneaten - but still slightly warm - toast, and waited for my parents to arrive.

The Prata Baby, bless his tender little heart, slept through the whole thing.

Thus endeth the tale.

Baby girl, born early Tuesday morning, all is well with everyone. Full details to come - but didn't want to leave you hanging any longer!