Are we going to have another baby?

Hi friends!

Sorry about the lack of blog posts last week, life has been super hectic these past 2 weeks! As I’m typing this, I’m struggling to keep my eyes open and it’s only 6.30pm – so please forgive any spelling errors etc. I thought I would finally update on our TTC plans seeing as I haven’t talked about it since around this time last year.

If you followed my pregnancy journey with Hunter, you will know it was difficult to get pregnant and then it was difficult to stay pregnant. At 20 weeks I was diagnosed with an incompetent cervix and had to have emergency surgery at 21 weeks to place a cerclage. Long story short, Hunter was born at just 33+6 weeks and spent 3 weeks in the NICU/SCN.

Fast forward to this time last year when we decided we were ready to have another baby. By this point I had done just about all the research I possibly could on an incompetent cervix and the options for a future pregnancy. My best option looked to be a TAC which is a Trans-abdominal Cerclage which is placed before you get pregnant – via a laparoscopy. So we went and saw a specialist Doctor in Brisbane to discuss my options. Long story short, I had an MRI and an internal and the doctor said my cervix was measuring 2.5cm which is half the length it should be when you aren’t pregnant. It is also far shorter than is safe during pregnancy. I would have absolutely no chance of carrying a pregnancy to term with my cervix that short and would struggle to even make it to viability, let alone to 28 weeks where bub would actually have a decent chance at life. So my only option would be to have the TAC placed. We went ahead and booked the surgery in for the following month, however, about 2 weeks before the surgery I called my doctor just to make sure this was the right decision – and he expressed his concerns of me living rurally during pregnancy and explained that he would constantly feel nervous during any pregnancy I have whilst I live here as we don’t have the best health care services locally (the closest hospital that can deliver premmie babies is 2 hours away and even then they don’t deliver before 32 weeks) and urged me to have money put aside in case I had to move into a city again. Due to this we decided to cancel the surgery until we had at least $10,000 saved up just for that.

About 8 months ago, Jamie and I looked into surrogacy – as I have so many issues falling pregnant and during pregnancy, we thought we’d explore all of our options. However, we came to discover how difficult and expensive it is to have a baby via surrogacy in Australia. Medicare does not cover any of the associated costs (IVF etc) and including legal fees and medical bills, we would need to have between 60k-100k put away for it. After a lot of discussions, we decided that seeing as we already have one amazing little man, it would be selfish and wasteful to spend that amount of money trying to have another baby – with no guarentee of it actually working.

So after a lot of conversations and thinking about what we want, we have decided not to have any more children. Now, if we have a “whoopsie” then obviously we will have another baby or if we miraculously win the lottery then we might consider surrogacy again. But in reality, its probably never going to happen for us. We are both content with our little family and I am focusing on my career and my studies for now.

I know that was super long-winded, but I wanted to explain how we came to our decision and the fact that there still is a very, very small chance that we may have another baby some day – but it’s not currently in our plans whatsoever.

If you’ve had complicated pregnancies, how do you feel about having more children? Or do you know someone who has been through surrogacy? I’d love to hear your thoughts!

Thanks for taking the time to read yet another long-winded blog! Your support is always appreciated.

I just wanted to sneak in here that I may have a super exciting announcement within the next few months. It’s all very new at the moment, however if everything goes to plan I will have something amazing to share with you all soon – so watch this space!

Hope you all have a wonderful weekend!

Kimberly XO

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Spring is Coming & Finding Inspiration!

Hi friends!

Can you believe we are already a week into August (seriously, where did the year go)?! Which means we are only a few short weeks away from Spring! I only realised this yesterday when Jamie came inside and told me our Mulberry tree is covered in green mulberries. I didn’t believe him so went out there last night with a torch and sure enough, we have mulberries! And not just a few, we have literally HUNDREDS growing!

Our whole tree is covered in these beautiful little berries – there are far more here than what we will be able to eat so once they are ripe I’m going to try making jam for the first time. I always had Mulberry jam at my Grannie’s house when I was little and absolutely loved it. So if I manage to make some and it tastes decent, I’ll share the recipe on here.

If you grow any sort of fruit or vegetables I’d love to see photos! I really love having fruit trees – we only have our Mulberry tree (which we’ve only had for 2 years) and a kumquat tree which was here when we bought the house. It’s kind of a useless tree though, because kumquat’s are too sour to eat so the only thing you can do with them is make marmalade and no one in our house eats it – so we’ve just kept it for a shade tree for Shadow. Eventually I’d love to grow mandarins and oranges too. Oh and we also have a passionfruit vine that we planted in April – so far it isn’t growing overly well so fingers crossed it hangs in there and we get some decent fruit from it next year especially seeing how expensive passionfruit are these days.

So the other day I was listening to one of Jenna and Julien’s old podcasts (I like to listen to podcasts instead of music whenever I get ready for work in the mornings or when doing mundane tasks like the dishes etc.) and they were discussing who inspires them the most and it got me thinking. If you’ve read my recent blog posts, you will know that I have some pretty intense confidence and self-esteem issues and often what comes with that is envy and jealousy. I always found myself scrolling through Instagram and seeing people with seemingly perfect lives or with things I wish I had – whether that be bigger boobs, a fancier house or just seemed to be a perfect wife or parent – and I would find myself feeling extremely jealous and envious. Now, this isn’t something I like to admit because it sounds incredibly immature, but if you’ve ever dealt with confidence or self-esteem issues you will be able to relate. You always feel as though others have it better than you and a natural emotion that comes along with that is jealousy and often times – at least for me – resentment. I found myself having to unfollow some people because I would look at the photos and literally roll my eyes and scoff at them because they’re “perfectness” pissed me off so much. I think some of it comes down to the fact that I can’t stand fake people or people who portray their lives as perfect – I just don’t think it’s good for anyone’s self esteem – whether you have issues or not. The younger generation are basically growing up on Social media and frankly I personally believe that all of these “influencers” posting heavily photo-shopped pictures is a joke. No one has blurred, pore-less skin in real life, it provides teenagers with impossible to reach standards and puts more pressure on them to grow up before they need to. Anyway, as I was saying, Jenna and Julien were discussing who inspires them the most and it made me realize how much I have progressed in the past few months. I’ve unfollowed anyone who comes across as completely fake and have started following people who inspire me more. Instead of wishing I could keep my house clean like other mums, I got my shit together and deep cleaned my house. I can honestly say my house has never stayed this clean for this long. I can guarantee you it doesn’t look as nice as the houses of the bloggers I follow, but it is finally at a standard of cleanliness and tidiness that I’m happy with. Instead of feeling jealous of other’s achievements, I have chosen to change my way of thinking and be inspired by these people instead of wallowing in self-pity.

I had a really good think after listening to that podcast about who inspires me to be the best version of myself and I hope this blog encourages you to do the same. The biggest inspiration in my life has always been my Grannie. She is the most selfless, kind and caring person I have ever encountered. She made my childhood infinitely better by always providing a fun and loving environment for us on school holidays and has made my life as a mother so much better too. I often call her for advice, whether it be regarding parenting, cleaning, baking or just general life stuff, she always has great suggestions that I hadn’t thought of and always reminds me to give myself some grace when I’m being too hard on myself. I inherited my love of baking from my Grannie and her chocolate slice is still something I bake to this day. She is always incredibly patient, understanding and wise and I always hope that I will grow to become at least half as great of a person as she is. Anytime I ever decide to improve anything in my life, I always think of her – she is just one of those people who makes you a better person just by being in their presence. I feel incredibly lucky to have someone so wonderful to look up to.

Grannie & Hunter reading together during a visit last year ❤

Another person who inspires me is one of my best friends, Laura. She is one of the most chilled out, relaxed and funny people I’ve ever met. She inspires me to go with the flow more and just have fun – and she looks like a damn supermodel so she makes me want to actually put effort in and work out. I’m not quite there yet, but if I ever consider working out, it’s because of Laura haha. We share a lot of the same interests, which I’ve never really found in a friend before. The only problem we have is the fact that we both share a love of makeup so whenever I ask whether I should buy something or not, the answer is almost always yes – she’s a bad influence when it comes to that haha.

Myself & Laura before a beach party earlier this year.

Of course the next 2 people who inspire me are my husband, Jamie and my son Hunter. They inspire me every single day to be a better wife and mother. Jamie inspires me to do more of what I love and Hunter inspires me to find the fun in every situation and to find the joy in the little things.

Jamie & his mini me Hunter ❤

Last but not least, the last 2 people who inspire me are Jenna Marbles and Julien Solomita. Obviously, I don’t know them personally, but they have changed my life substantially. Whenever I feel stressed or anxious I watch one of Julien’s vlogs or Jenna’s ridiculously stupid and hilarious videos and I listen to their podcast religiously every single week. Jenna inspires me to be exactly who I am and not to be ashamed of being kind of weird – as long as you’re a kind person that’s all that matters. Julien inspires me to work for what I want in life and to follow my dreams. They both seem like genuinely kind and caring people and they both manage to always put a smile on my face. They are by far the coolest people on the internet. If by some miracle you haven’t heard of them or haven’t seen their content, you can find Jenna’s videos here and Julien’s videos here.

So that’s it for this incredibly long winded blog, I hope this encourages you to look for those who can inspire you and tell them what an inspiration they are to you!

Who are you inspired by? If there’s anyone you think I should follow, link them in the comments! I’m always looking for new inspiration.

As always, thanks for reading and if you ever need anything, feel free to send me a message – all of my social media is listed below. Have a great week everyone!

Love,

Kimberly Xo

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