Whoever said..

..life wasn't meant to be easy, sure knew his shit.

I've wanted a nicer smile ever since about a month after my parents asked me if I wanted bands, and I said no.

Hindsight is a bitch and stuff, but Mum, Dad? I was eleven.

Criminy.

My smile isn't horrific or anything, it's just that it's not a wide smile.

My dentist told me I needed bands when I was just a young 'un. My parents didn't act upon the need though and instead, several healthy, albeit unruly, teeth were removed and the illusion of order was created.

(Sorry? What was that? Well yes, I am still bitter. Why do you ask?)

Being a geriatric old crone with a penchant for free stuff, and with a health fund who will cover the cost, I went along to an orthodontist to get me some straight teeth, yo. He sent me to an oral surgeon though, and he, after consulting with my orthodontist and looking at my four hundred million x-rays, told me my teeth can't be satisfactorily straightened at present.

Then he explained why my smile is less that Hollywood movie star-esque.

Apparently my upper jaw that never grew properly. ( !) Removing so many teeth at a young age also removes the need for jaw to grow to accomodate a full set of pearly whites in adulthood, and that results in the whole mid face region not growing to accomodate a growing jaw.

The best bit? This inbalance in size gets worse with time. It was oddly reassuring to know that I'm not imagining my cheekbones are getting flatter as I get older. They really are, so I'm not insane.

Now that's good news, isn't it? More good news is that, uncorrected and with enough time, I could end up looking like Grover.

At this point, I'd like to point out that I don't look like some kind of muppet freak.

Not yet anyway.

But if I want a nice smile, I need surgery to pull my upper jaw forward, my palate split to create more width, and my bottom jaw pulled back to correct my bite.

More good news is that as this surgery would also prevent the occurence of Adult Onset Muppet Freak Syndrome, it would all be funded by our national health scheme. The bad news is that this is not what I had in mind when it came to free shit.

in which there are a lot of segues

TV is supposed to not make you want to throw yourself under a truck, so rather than get depressed about not being a rich and pretty young thing living in Orange County, I've avoided switching on to watch the hijinks of those who are. More recently though, I developed either a death wish or a sense of self that goes beyond being validated by having a late model Mustang parked in my driveway, because while the rest of the world is watching this season's OC, I've been busy plowing through the first series on DVD. My review? As much as I'm enjoying it, and I am, I'm hating Mischa Barton. What in the name of giddy fuck is she so famous for? Bland looks? Wooden acting? What?

Inquiring minds need to know.

*****

I'm going to the dentist for the seventy billionth time today. This should be the last of the excessive number of dental appointments I've had so far to get a simple crown fitted. Two actually, given that the simple crown from November last year was so simple that it's one of the two muthafuckers being cemented into mouth today. They were supposed to be fitted last week but as I was dripping with enough cold germs to fell a small nation, I gave them a reprieve and rescheduled for this week. Then the temporary crown broke, leaving behind what amounted to a Gilette GII and several sharp knives in the back teethular region of my cake hole. So I ended up in the dentist's chair anyway, having the fucking thing puttied up so it would last until today, which it didn't, but rather than put myself in that damn chair another time, I dealt. And, I might add, I've done a stellar job of avoiding severing my tongue, a la Children of the Corn ("gaaah, gaaah!").

Having mentioned my teeth, let's talk about my smile. Now that I've had the boy, I'm potentially able to undergo the surgical equivilant of a punch in the face some time next year. I thought it prudent to follow up the first opinion with a second, and lo! the diagnosis of Adult Onset Muppet Freak Syndrome has been confirmed. I don't look like nature intended me to, and it bothers me that Daniel will probably resemble what I was meant to look like, so he'll end up not looking like me at all.

Second Opinion Surgeon is internationally known for his achievements in cranio-facial surgery, to the point that googling his very common name spits him out as the first result. Point being that if he thinks I could benefit form getting my stupid face fixed, then I'm seriously going to consider it.

Having taken that line break to serious consider it, I'm now in the process of following this up with his team because as much as I once wanted a nice smile, what I really want now is a chance to look like my son.

*****

Next on the agenda: Stef extracted his head from his arse long enough for Legal Services to arrange genetic testing to confirm his, uh, contribution.

I'm hoping the results confirm 'immaculate' so that Daniel and I can forget all about this pesky Father Of Child stuff, and get on with the serious business of preparing for his career as The New Messiah. In the meantime, I'll be conferring with PayPal about installing a 'donate' button for all the gifts of frankinsense and myrrh.

*****

Speaking of the boy: he's still cute, but good GOD, what is up with him today? Dude is being a major grizzlehead. Teething? Probably, in which case, consider this another segue.

teeth 'n sheet

Just in case you were interested.

My Adult Onset Muppet Freak Syndrome isn't nearly as dramatic as Colleen's, but the procedure is essentially the same, and it's what needs to be done if I want to get my Hollywood smile and also, to stop my stupid jaw from aching.

the baby thing

While I was pregnant, the idea of having more than the one child I couldn't believe I already had (what?) never crossed my mind. As my new son was handed to me though, right smack bang on the tail of The Lightening Bolt of Love that came with him, was the absolute knowing that while this purple faced, screaming infant was my entire universe, I wanted more. Kind of like, in keeping with the universe theme, how it reaches to infinity but is growing. Into what? I ask, and in much the same way I ask, what kind of bullshit analogy am I trying to use anyway.

Point being! Daniel means the world to me and he is absolutely enough, and wanting more children doesn't make him any less so of those things, but I do want more children. Or more to the point, I want to know I tried.

It echoes why I set about doing IVF Daniel's lifetime ago. Back then, I wasn't yet aching for a baby and back then, I also didn't actually think I'd get pregnant. In fact, I knew I'd always be childless (Ha HA). Mostly I was doing it because I didn't want to regret never having tried. I didn't want to regret throwing so much of my life away, first with anorexia and then with someone I grew to realise I didn't want to spend the rest of my life with.


So yes, I'd had Daniel and I'd barely come back from theatre before I started making plans for my next production, and I'd been home a week when I contacted my reproductive endocrinologist's rooms to make the appointment.

I figured that at the very least, I'd get that husky voiced, gin soaked fallopian tube fixed. At my age though, even if I wanted to, I don't have time to get that bitch fixed, then find someone to fall in love with before trying to get knocked up the good old fashioned way, so when my appointment arrived, I went along hoping against hope that I still qualified as being medically infertile, despite the three month old in my arms suggesting otherwise.

Time for revisiting the legal educational: if we forget about ol' crusty, I'm also what's known as socially infertile, which in my case means that I've got no partner to knock me up. Legislation doesn't allow fertility treatment for someone living the sex life of a cloistered nun (hello!), or who is getting down with someone with boobs and without a block and tackle in her pants. However! On the list of qualifying questions, the one asking "are you medically infertile?" comes before the one asking you're socially so. Check that first box and *bam* it's as if the second doesn't exist. To put it in real terms, a lesbian couple with no medical reason causing their infertility wouldn't qualify for any reproductive help, while a lesbian couple with one or both women having medical reasons why they can't get pregnant, would. In summary then, treatment isn't available to anyone who walks in wanting medical intervention to get knocked up. You have to need it.

So yes, based on appearance only, having Daniel was an obstacle to my desire to shoot up drugs that would make me ovulate like a sow.

Which is why I followed the endocrinologist, not the practice.

*taps forehead*

Smart. See?

The last practice was privately owned and beautifully appointed, this new one is situated in a public hospital and at mealtimes, smells of reheated food and congealed gravy. Private or public though, our government still subsidises the treatment, and because I'm subsidised finacially, there's not much difference between the out-of-pocket expenses after Medicare costs are met. Choosing a clinic then is really just a matter of which decor and aromas you prefer.

I prefer neither but I do prefer my doctor. He was a real brick before and he totally was this time too. The last time he'd seen him, Daniel was a blobby thing with nubs for arms and legs, so he was particularly chuffed to see him now, all chubby and round and complete. I told him that I want a family not just for me, but for Daniel too. I'm all he has and more to the point, he's all I have - and that's a big responsibility for not just a little boy, but for a grown man he will be too, the one trying to make a life for himself without worrying what's going to happen to his poor old ma. I told him too that when I was growing up all I wanted to do was get married and have a big, ol' family, the cat and the dog and the white picket fence. I told him that I still wanted that dream but that I don't have the luxury of achieving it in that order.

Marc took my case to the ethics committee who predictably wondered why I didn't wait to get pregnant the old fashioned way. Firstly and obviously, unless I start to channel Mother Mary some time soon, I need to start going out at night fuelled by loads of alcohol with only a few ancient condoms in my purse, it being the lack of mechanically actions conducive to getting knocked up that they are referring to. The drawbacks to that plan working are, one, reliable baby sitting and two, time, people, TIME! I could get in touch with my inner slutty aibee and keep getting smashed and then laid, but it'd all end up the same. Three years would pass and then I'd be back saying "See? I really DO have fertility issues, you bunch of legislative windbags. Also! Crabs. Thanks a bunch." I don't think that's the argument he presented, but he must have presented a good one because when I saw him again, he told me that I'd been accepted into their IVF program.

Getting things rolling since then has been a balancing act and while I'd wanted to wean Daniel at his pace, I needed to wean him after a year because with each month, my egg quality reduces. Then there was the muppet face syndrome. What if this fool plan worked and I actually conceived a brother or sister for Daniel? So that got pencilled into the diary for after a year when Daniel was weaned, and before IVF, which is when conceivably I would come a fishwife with several children hanging onto my skirt with another bun in the proverbial oven and absolutely no chance of having my weird face issues addressed. The surgery got delayed so weaning Daniel did too, and the original plan of getting back up on that ol' fertility horse has been pushed back some more, but for the last year and a half I've been aiming at this. Obstacles have come along and I've taken them in my stride and I've always kept my eye on the ball. Which sounds kind of icky when talking conception. But! There's only one more bridge to cross and at the end of the month I'm seeing my craniofacial surgeon as there may be more surgery. Once that's done, I'll at the reproductive unit and leaping on the table with my legs in the air, ready, able and more than willing to give this a go, faster than you can light up a cigarette and ask "was it as good for you too, darlin'?".

I want this to work, but don't think I'll be devastated if it doesn't because while it will be sad to not succeed, I'll still have Daniel, and I'll also have the knowledge that I gave it my best.

In the meantime, I'm maximising my chances of conceiving. I'm selling all my baby items on ebay because Murphey's law being what it is, by the time I've sold the last damn thing, I'll probably need them all back again.