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By Mark Nethercote, September 14, 2011 10:00 am

Sunday 12th September 2010

One year ago.

The fucking candle went out.

We were up to the fourth one.

The first one, as I said, was from the two-dollar shop.  In fact, that’s not true, it was from ‘Cheap Prices’ in Station Street.  $3.50 for that one.  It burnt well, nicely, cleanly, for four days.

The next one was from ‘Ishka’.  It was a proper candle – you know, a scented one that was handcrafted in Australia for five times the price.  It even came with instructions on the base, in case we didn’t know what to do with one of these new-fangled contraptions.  They implored that we keep the wick trimmed and never leave it unattended, like it’s a pet or something.  It filled the house with the stink of vanilla for days, and burnt all the way to the bottom, outlasting it’s expected life by thirty-six hours after lighting the third, giving us a double glow for all of that time – and increasingly questioning our risk of twins.

Eventually it burnt out, but not before I’d whipped back to ‘Cheap Prices’ and bought them out of their unscented, six-inch variety.  A total of seven candles is what we’ll need to make it through to judgement day – the pregnancy test in just over a week.

“Should we light a new one?” Suse asks in the middle of the afternoon.

I look at it for a while, as it burns high and bright, the lake of wax growing deep.

“Nah, we’ll do it tonight,” I say, “It’s still got a couple of centimetres to go.  We don’t want to give anymore encouragement for twins.”  She smiles.

We potter around.  Suse cooks while I construct Ikea products.  It’s a typical Sunday afternoon.  Having screwed and tapped and rivoted for just over an hour, I emerge from the study, walking back into the dining room.  Immediately I notice an anaemic hue to the room, the warm, jaundiced light having gone.  As I round the corner, I look at the table.  I see the candle is out, the flame dead.  A brand new one, the resuscitation device, sits three centimetres to its left.  I let out a gasp.

“What?” Suse asks from the stove.  I hear the clang of a saucepan lid.  “I knew it, I fucking knew it!” she yells, grabbing at the matches from the cupboard.

She runs over, lighting a match as she does, touching it to the new candle.

“No, no, no!  Not that way!  Re-light the old one.”

“There’s no wick left!  It drowned, just like I new it was going to,” she mumbles, slightly desperate.

We stand still for a moment, frozen in shock, like parents having just found their child blue.  I grab the lit match from her hand, trying to revive the submerged wick, burning my finger on the growing flame.

“I said that’s not going to work!” Suse says.  I drop it.  I pick up a pen and dig it into the setting resin, trying to unveil the wick.  Still no luck.

The barbeque match lies on the top of the deadened candle, curling up, lighting the length of the tinder bright.  A pool of wax forms around it, next to the drowned wick.

I take the new one.  “Hold it!” I say to Suse.  She grips it in her palm and we tip it, lighting the virgin candle from the flame.

We put it down.

A candle has been burning continuously for ten days.  From before the reimplantation.  Each new wick has been diligently lit from the one before, all from the original flame.  Until now.

“Do you think it means something?” Suse asks.

“No,” I say with irritation, images of asphyxiated, brain damaged infants floating through my mind.  “Of course not.”

“Do you think it means our embryo didn’t make it?”

“No!” I say, even more forcefully.

We both stand there, staring at the innocent candle.  I feel sick to my stomach. Six minutes is all it takes for brain death.  Six minutes.  How long was this candle out for?

Two rational humans stand side by side, both lost for words, wondering on the fate of an unborn child.

Based on a candle.

* * * * *

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By Mark Nethercote, July 20, 2011 10:00 am

Saturday 17th July 2010

One year ago.

“Did you say that Western medicine has done fuck-all for you?”

I look across at Pete.

And I’m a bit pissed.

* * * * *

It’s a Saturday night.  Suse and I don’t get out much anymore. And neither do our friends.  We’re like a Harry Connick Junior remake of a once-great song.

And yet, we find ourselves, at this swanky French restaurant in Drummond Street, Carlton.  Pete and Cath have got babysitters for the night.  Elle has left Dave at home to look after their sick child, and Carrie is over from Tasmania for the weekend.  They’re all friends from Uni.  And they’re all doctors.

I look at Suse.

Here we go.

“Yeah, that’s what I said.”  I say it with a bit too much animosity.

“I’m just clarifying,” he counters.

“I mean, I know it might sound hypocritical when we’re about to start IVF.  But to this point Western medicine has done fuck-all for us.”

I look around at the table, this table of Western medical doctors that I trained with.  Each face sits somewhere between offended and amused.

“So that’s why you bought the candles and the salt?” asks Carrie.

“Yep.  I mean, on the day we moved into our new house, Suse started bleeding from her ectopic.  And since that time we’ve had – I don’t know – maybe ten, fifteen things that have gone wrong with her health.”

“So you really believe that there was a curse put on your house?”  She can’t stop herself from letting out a laugh.

“I don’t know.  But, like I said, everything that we understand, everything that makes sense to us, everything that science has shown us, has not been able to help us out.”  I hesitate for a moment.  “I actually think we’ve lost some of our wisdom.  In the last three hundred years, we’ve come to think that science has the ultimate answers.  And like all people falling into any trap throughout time, we think we’ve got it all sussed.  We think we understand it all.  I actually think we know less now than we did two thousand years ago.”

I look around the room, at this table of highly-trained, highly-intelligent human beings.  I don’t know how open they are to left-field shit like this, as I’ve never asked.  But I’m on a roll.

Shit, I’m on a roll.

“So is that the same as religion?” Carrie continues.  She’s the only one more pissed than me, and therefore the only one willing to walk into this conversation;  the rest of the table sees the warning signs.

“No,” I say, again with more venom than I mean, “don’t get me started on religion.  This is about spirituality.  There are people in this world who think that ‘The Power of Now’ is the best book in the world, and there are people in this world who think it’s a crock of shit.”  I look around, getting the distinct feeling that ‘shit’ is the group consensus.  “I just think that there is a whole lot of stuff that we don’t understand, I think that the way we practice is different to the way we will in thirty years, and I think that in thirty years, we’ll look back on ourselves and say, ‘Fuck, why did we not think more about Eastern Philosophies?  Why did we think we knew everything?  Why did we work so strongly to the evidence-based doctrine?  Why did we have to prove something to think that it was possible?’ ”

I look around the room.  Everyone is silent.

“I was just clarifying what you said,” says Pete, slightly bemused.

“Yeah, well, maybe I misread it.  I guess that this last year has really shaken everything we believe in.  And I guess – given the fact that Western Medicine hasn’t given us the answers – that we’re more than happy to whip out and buy a three-buck candle and some salt and burn it, if it gets us pregnant.  Shit, I’ll do it every day if it works.”

“So this is about faith?” Carrie asks, still wanting to understand.  I can almost hear the held breath of the table, hoping my rant is done.

“Yeah, I guess it is,” I say.  I smile.  “So, not bad weather we’re having, is it?”

I hear the table exhale in unison.

I take a piece of bread.  I take a bite, looking over at Suse.

She gives me a wink.

* * * * *

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By Mark Nethercote, July 14, 2011 10:00 am

Wednesday 7th July 2010

One year ago.

I’ve been meditating.

For the last few nights, I’ve been sitting in a room, with my eyes closed.

Trying to go blank.

I don’t really know what I’m doing, but that’s okay.  I’ll just keep going.

* * * * *

I started last week.  Suse has been meditating intermittently for years.  And then with increasing frequency over the last few weeks.  I’ve noticed a considerable improvement in her mood;  more relaxed, less easily upset.

So I figured I’d give it a go.  I’ve been blessed with something Buddhists describe as Monkey Mind – a restlessness and, at times, indecisive nature.  I feel most comfortable when in lost in my thoughts, when I’m buried in busyness.  It wasn’t until a few weeks back that I even understood that my consciousness is separate from what I think.

“There are people out there,” my coach said to me, laughing slightly, “who don’t even realise that they are more than their thoughts.”

“What do you mean?” I replied.

I wasn’t even trying to be funny.

If you don’t get it, that’s okay.  Just quietly, I think I may have forgotten by now too.  Just go and buy a copy of ‘The Power of Now’.  It may make you more earth-aware, and if not, it’ll send you to sleep in under a minute.

* * * * *

Letting go of my ego, of the belief that I am what I think, is a huge leap.  Consequently, the concept of stilling my mind until there are no thoughts left pretty damn confronting.

What will be there if there aren’t thoughts?  Do I even want to find out?

The answer is yes.  It always is.  If I have resistance to something, then undoubtedly I should try it.  It mightn’t be for everyone, but for me, if I don’t want to do something, it’s the first sign that I should.

Just like the time I shot up heroin and killed those forty innocent goats.

Did I just say that?

I must be tired.

* * * * *

“I think I should meditate with you tonight,” I said, sighing as I looked at Suse.

Her face filled with joy.

So we retired to the bedroom.  She sat on her buckwheat pillow, legs folded in Lotus position.

I sat on a chair.

I’ve never been any good at crossing my legs.  I vividly remember being in Grade One, sitting on the floor, looking around at all of the other kids and thinking, “Why are you all doing this to yourselves?  How can you even concentrate on the story while your legs are folded in this excruciating way?”

So I shot up heroin and killed those goats.

This time, I just sat on a chair.

“You just have to keep your back straight, for a free flow of energy,” Suse said.  “Any time you notice a thought, just return to your breathing.”

I looked across, not really understanding.

“How long do we do it for?”

“Twenty minutes.”

“How do we know when we’re done?”

“You just know.”

“Do you set an alarm?”

She laughed, before stopping herself.  “No, you don’t set an alarm.”

She closed her eyes, and turned away.  So I did the same.  I sat there, and I kept my back straight, and I concentrated on my breathing.  Each time a thought came into my head, I returned to my breathing.  I got restless legs, and an itch on my arm, but I tried to ignore them.  And I returned to my breathing.  I noticed myself thinking about the washing, and the next-door neighbour’s gate, and I returned to my breathing.

At about the fifteen-minute mark, I felt a strange heaviness behind my eyes.  I noticed my breathing rate rise, and I felt a buzzing in my torso.  It kind of ascended, gradually entering my head.  And then I started wondering what it was, and it disappeared in an instant.  As if swatted away by thought.  It disappeared much quicker than it came, my Monkey Mind acting like DDT.

The following night, we did the same.  This time, my legs ached.  My feet wanted to move.  I found that I was focusing so much on not moving my right leg that I felt like, well, shooting up heroin and killing some goats.  My leg was there, just there, attached to my body, screaming out to me:  “Move, me!  Move me, just a little bit!  Just fucking move me a skerrick!”

There was no buzz.

There was no rising up.

There was nothing.

* * * * *

Same thing the next night.  This time, when it was over, I was mighty relieved.  Like it was the end of a long sentence.

In the days since that first time, I’ve not got the buzz back.  But I just keep going.  Most of the time it sucks, and I don’t want to do it.  But that’s okay.

I don’t want to eats my greens either, but I do.

And that’s the main thing.

* * * * *

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By Mark Nethercote, June 27, 2011 10:00 am

Friday 25th June 2010

Gestation: 39 weeks

One year ago.

Tonight is a full moon.

Well, that’s not entirely true.  Technically, the moon is full between 8.10am and 3.30pm tomorrow.   But unless we want to perform our ‘Ritual for Fertility’ under the searing sun in the middle of the day, we need to do it tonight or tomorrow.  And tonight is our last night on the island.

So we decide to do it tonight.

After dinner, we head back to our beachfront bure and get the things ready.  The ritual came packed in a cardboard box with a curved lid;  like a disposable coffin for a rat.  Inside it sit two candles, a small bottle of oil, a sewing needle, a bell, some horsetail herb, some stallion hair, and a piece of rose quartz.  All on a cushion of hay bale.

There is no way this little baby is getting back in through customs.

Suse picks up the box and turns to me.

“Do you think I’m crazy for bringing this?”

“Not for bringing this,” I reply, by now my standard answer.  She smiles.  “Honestly, I’m happy to give it a go, honey.  After everything that’s happened, I’m happy to give anything a go.”

* * * * *

We prepare in silence.  Suse finds a plate for the oil, setting everything out just right, while I visit reception for a lighter.  We take our little rat coffin, and a sarong, and we head out into the evening air.

Malolo Lalai is the closest of a chain of islands known as the Mamanucas, which sit to the east of Viti Levu, the main island of Fiji.  A number of films have been made in the area, including ‘Castaway’ and ‘The Blue Lagoon’.  It is the epitome of a tropical oasis.  As we walk along the beach tonight, I can’t help but feel like we are in a sound stage.  There air utterly still, the water laps quietly at our feet as if the ocean motor has been turned down to low, and the lone palm tree – the one from my runs – leans out at an impossibly sweeping angle, appearing to be too perfect, too flawless, as if made of papier-mâché.  This evening it is very warm;  the heater has been left on high.  As I look up, I realise that there is a thick cloud covering the entire sky, blanketing us in.

“I can’t see the moon, honey.”

“That’s okay,” Suse says, slinging an arm over my shoulder, “it’ll arrive just in time for the ceremony.”

I keep looking up.

“It’s dense,” I say frowning, “there’s no break in sight.

She grabs me by the hands, swinging me so I face her.

“There will be,” she says.

And I believe her.

* * * * *

We sit in the sand, just beneath the palm.  Its leaves sway softly, a hint of air now beginning to move.  We plant the candles in the sand, and sit cross-legged, opposite each other.

I take the piece of paper and unfold it, happy to be in charge of the instructions, feeling comfortable in this role.

I can do instructions.  They’ve never freaked me out.

So I take my place, looking down at the piece of paper.  I squint hard.

“It’s too dark under that thick cloud,” I say frustratedly.

“Have you got your phone?”

“Yep.”

“Use it as a torch.”

As I fish around in my pocket, suddenly the words light up.  I look above to see realise that the moon has crept out into a clearing;  the only clearing in the entire sky.

I just nod, as I clear my throat.

I no longer question my wife’s intuition.

“Circle of divine light be around me,” I say.

“Circle of divine light be around me,” Suse repeats.

“Spirits of the air whisper to the sky.”

“Spirits of the air whisper to the sky,” she repeats.

“And to all that bears fruit.”

“And to all that bears fruit.”

“Ask Mother Earth to hear me.”

“Ask Mother Earth to hear me.”

We take the oil and pour it into the bowl.  In turn, we inhale the aroma.  We strip off our top halves.  I take the bowl, dipping my fingers in the oil, anointing Suse below her belly button, over her heart, on her throat, across her forehead, and on her crown.  She repeats the process with me.

She then takes the green candle, carving a star into it, symbolising surrender to the spiritual realm.  She draws a ring of oil around its centre, and then she replants it in the sand.  She goes to light it, but as she does, a gust of breeze comes up, blowing out the flame.  She closes her eyes for a moment, and tries again.  From this point on, the air is still.

Just like that, the sound stage fans are off.

* * * * *

Suse rings the bell.  The overhead lights are dialled up, as the moon emerges into full view, illuminating all below.

She then takes the orange candle.  Into it, she carves the symbol of Ceres, the Greek Goddess of harvest.  She also covers this in oil, and lights it, before again planting it in the sand.

The wind remains off.

I hand her the horsetail hair and the stallion hair. She takes the first in one hand, and the second in the other.

And then we complete the incantation.

Call me superstitious, call me weird, call me whatever you want – but it feels to me like transcribing what we said in the final part of the incantation ain’t that smart.  I’m not sure exactly what we’re dealing with here.   And, as we’re not pregnant as I write this, I’m simply not going to jinx it.

Suffice to say that we both said that we’re ready and waiting.

Which we are.

And like I said, call me weird all you want.

I just want a kid.

* * * * *

As we finish, at the exact moment that we are complete, the wind picks up, blowing both candles out.  And just a few second later, the moon falls back in behind the clouds, completely blanketed once more.

“Look at that,” I say.

“Just like I said,” says my bride.

She strips off her bottom half, and walks slowly towards the water.  I follow her, taking her hand as we walk happily into the shallows.

And there we ablute, in the bath-warm water, on this perfect sound stage in the South Pacific.

* * * * *

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By Mark Nethercote, June 23, 2011 10:00 am

Wednesday 23rd June 2010

Gestation: 38 weeks, 5 days

One year ago.

So again today, I run.  After realising yesterday how much I am reading into things, I try to drop it.  I try to stop reading into things, but it’s hard.  Because one thing remains constant.

Each day I run, each day in the parching, drenching afternoon sun, I run along the beach, each day clocking a time slower than the day before, each day feeling more and more sapped by the dropping sun.

And one thing remains constant.

As I double back, sprinting home through the spongy sand, my feet sinking in quicksand, I look out at the horizon.  And each day, each and every day, I see a solitary boat – a different one each time, and yet a solitary boat – directly under the light of the sun, infallibly dissected in half by the sun’s ray, slicing vertically through the water, spreading it’s shimmering beam into the azure waters below.

A singleton ship.  Out on the horizon.  Every single day.

In those same waters that our pink and blue boats sailed.

And only the pink boat floating on.

Continuing on, well after we left.

One thing remains constant.

* * * * *

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By Mark Nethercote, June 22, 2011 10:00 am

Tuesday 22nd June 2010

Gestation: 38 weeks, 4 days

One year ago.

Each day, I run.  And as I do, I make a choice.  I make a choice about my family, and what it will be.  It goes like this:

‘I choose the end result of a healthy, loving happy family.’

Running is my form of meditation.  I’m not like other people who can be still in meditation.  I get my meditation – my sense of centredness and presence – only when my brain is oxygen-deprived enough that I can no longer think at a million miles an hour.  It’s as if strangling me is the most effective way to slow me down;  hypoxia is quickest way to send me into alpha waves.

Sweating it out as I churn along the beach, I concentrate on my breathing, and I concentrate on my choice.

I choose the end result of a healthy, loving, happy family.

There is a school of thought that says the universe is there for the taking, for each of us, wholly ready to provide.  That in essence, our lives are already mapped out, all the major steps already predefined;  like a massive dot to dot of life.

And, let’s say, if this is the case, that there are only about fifteen to twenty dots in total.  The rest of it – all the bits in between – is ours to choose.  We can get as creative as we want with the path.  We can do whatever we want with that line from point to point.

But understand that these points are predestined.

No point sweating them.

I choose the end result of a healthy, loving, happy family.

However, there is a caveat to this.  And that is, that we can move the dots.  We can shift them around the page like a set of counters.  So in essence, we can move everything.  We can change everything.  Nothing is set in stone, other than birth and death.  Everything else, everything in between, is fluid.  If we can move the dot that makes the neck look crooked, we can change the complexion of the whole picture.

We can move the dots by changing the nature of our thinking.  Physics dictates that all energy will flow along the path of least resistance.  If the things that are most important to us are along a well-worn path that runs downhill – then the universe can’t help but to let it flow to you.

And me.

I choose the end result of a healthy, loving, happy family.

So I choose my family every day.  I choose it every time I run this beach in Fiji.  I choose it every time I run around the Botanic Gardens in Melbourne, every cold winter’s day when my breath is steamy and the air hurts on its way down, every time I deprive my brain of enough oxygen that it becomes as ingrained as a pathway in my consciousness.

I choose the end result of a healthy, loving, happy family.

I make that choice, I burn that thought, I repeat it.  I stretch the creative tension like wires in my brain, connected by neurotransmitters, by dopamine firing off.  Each and every day, I do the same.

Bang, bang, bang.

As a synapse of belief, and of thought, that is constant and unchanging and there – physically there – a physical thought, that once started as a belief, but through conditioning, through thinking, through visioning that thought and imagining my family on a daily basis, has actually become as a neuronal connection in my white matter, it has become a fixed synapse.

In doing that, it becomes more true than not.

A fixed truth.

How can it not?

* * * * *

Today, as I run along the beach, I repeat my mantra.

I choose the end result of a healthy, loving, happy family.

On this day, today, I struggle with this logic, my artistic brain at the tender mercies of my scientific mind.  It sits there in a headlock, a vicious half-Nelson that leaves my weak little pansy artistic mind panting.  Today, it is at the mercy of my brutal, beefed-up, loved-up, greased-up scientific thoughts, obliterating this philosophical waif of consciousness into a million smashed up thoughts.

And yet I continue.  I root for the underdog.  I cheer for the pansy.  I keep thinking about my family.

I choose the end result of a healthy, loving, happy family.

As I run, I take in the world around.  I look at the beach, the children in the surf, and then I start to see it differently.  As I head along the coast, I see a plane, a solitary aeroplane, perched at the edge of the landing strip.

A singleton.

But then I notice its twin engines.  They start up, flicking over;  once, twice, and then whirring to life.  As I watch it, I see in the distance a second plane, a second twin-engine plane, coming in low and fast, flying in from out of the glare of the sun.  It is close, less than twenty metres ahead, on this island, the brother to its twin sister, already whirring, already fired up, already ready to take off in flight.

It’s twins.

The plane lands with a jolt, a puff of dusty air spewing up behind it’s wheel, on this strip – uncordoned – that I am to run over to get to the next part of the island.  As I go, the sister slows to a stop, and the brother continues in an arc, following his bigger sister’s path in, disappearing to a dot;  the same size as she was when I first spotted her, back out towards the sun.

As I continue, all I can see is twins.  Another couple, walking towards me.  Hands linked, twins.  Then a family, with two boys the same height, the same sandy hair.  Twins.

My scientific brain threatens to go into overdrive, yet the sweat of the day saps me of cogent thought, and my dream starts to grow.

I choose the end result of a healthy, loving, happy family.

I follow the crest of the beach out.  As I go, the story changes.  This time, as I reach the rocky outcrop, the place we sailed the boats from four days ago, I again note the lone palm.

A singleton.

There it sits, all on it’s own, reaching out over the water, threatening to lean down and scoop it up and drink it in.

I turn and look, the light of the day fading.  There in the distance is the sun, shimmering on the deep still water, and on it, right on the brim of the horizon, right on the edge where it threatens to tip off the edge of the world, is a boat, sailing along, like a ridiculously beautiful postcard.

Another singleton.

I turn and head back, picking up speed.  There again I see one half of a couple I’ve seen from earlier in our travels.

Singleton.

And out of the bushes comes her partner, to join her, to grab at his hand and cup him in her arms.

Twins.

I look back out at the lone sailing boat, the lone sun above it, only to notice, up to its right, balancing, almost laughing at me, subtle in comparison, is the moon – bright and pale in this early evening light.

Twins.

I pick up my speed, the sun diving lower, the light starting to fade, the sweat coming harder, pooling in my eyes.  I cross the landing strip, my limbs getting heavy, the sand getting softer, the blood failing in its quest to provide oxygen, and in doing so, the clarity of the message, the choice I have made coming ever closer.

I choose the end result of a healthy, loving, happy family.

I sprint the last berth, past another singleton, another set of twins, yet another set of twins, then a singleton.  And then in the distance, I can see it, my target, my finish line;  the end of my run.  I pick it up even faster, the sting of the sweat in my eyes, my calves cramping, and I push even further, pull even deeper, and I sprint, hard up the sand, to my finishing post, to my point, hanging there, like a bird perched on the edge of a branch.

I touch it as I arrive, panting, an outstretched hand.  It is Suse.

I choose the end result of a healthy, loving, happy family.

Twins.  Singleton.  Who cares?

I choose the end result of a healthy, loving, happy family.

I’ve already got one.  My wife, the second half of my self;  my own twin, my own singleton.

And so I realise:  fuck the symbolism.

It doesn’t matter.

What matters is this:

The other day we released the spirits – two spirits – in a ceremony in the ocean, to let them know that we are now ready.

We are ready.

* * * * *

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By Mark Nethercote, June 16, 2011 10:00 am

Wednesday 16th June 2010

Gestation: 37 weeks, 5 days

One year ago.

“You’ve got to be joking,” I hear Suse say from the other room.

“What is it, love?”

I listen for an answer.  Instead, I hear the flick of a page, a rough folding of it on itself.  Thirty seconds pass.

“What is it?” I say again.

I hear loud footsteps approaching;  louder than normal.  For a petite woman, Suse has a deafening step, and it is often a meter for her mood.

She walks through the doorway and holds out a piece of paper.  It take it, and then she turns, and walks back out.

It is a letter from Dr Fleischer.  I’d noticed it when I brought the mail in, but hadn’t thought twice about what it might say.

This is what it said:

‘Dear Susan,

The routine testing of your urine test has returned, demonstrating the presence of Ureaplasma DNA.  This is a minor bacterium that has historically been of uncertain significance, but in recent times has been implicated with respect to fertility, and in particular there is now clear evidence indicating an increased risk of premature delivery.  Furthermore, it is one of those bacteria that tend to be shared.  In view of all of this, we advise you and your partner have a course of antibiotics running concurrently.  It is also recommended that you use condoms to avoid cross-infection whilst on the antibiotics.’

I flip the page to find two scripts for antibiotics, each lasting fourteen days.

Two weeks.  Two more weeks.

I feel my heat rising in rebellion against this.  I read it again, this time trying see the medical angle, rather than the out-and-out attack on my quest for a family.

Suse storms back in.

“What do you think?” she asks.

“I don’t know,” I say, without looking up.

“I say fuck it,” she declares.

I turn to her, and see that there is a slight smirk on her face.  “I mean, seriously!  The timing it’s just comical!  I’m not going to Fiji and using condoms!  What a fucking joke!”  She clucks her tongue, and walks back out of the room again.  “We’ll be boring old fucks when we get home.  What a joke!” she yells down the empty house.

I return to reading it for a third time.  Within moments, she is back.

“I mean what do you think?”

“Well…”

“…I mean, the letter says,” she snatches it from my hand, “we’ve found a bug – no a bug’s DNA in your wizz.  Two years ago we didn’t know the significance of it,” she continues, a finger running over the page like she’s reading verbatim, “but now it means you have to delay having your family for two more weeks.”

She looks up, before reading the final sentence:

“Do not take antibiotics if allergic, pregnant, breast feeding or pissed off.”

She walks out of the room again.

“I’m sick of these fucking hoops!” she announces to the walls.  “What a fucking joke.”

I sit there for a moment, waiting.  A second later, she is back.

“If I did what all of these people said, I’d have had another chicken pox vaccine today.  Firstly, I’d probably pretty much get chicken pox again, and secondly, I’d be told we can’t try for another two weeks.  And then with this, I’m told I can’t try again.”

“Maybe they could both happen at the same time,” I offer.

“That’s not the fucking point, Mark!  If I listen to everything every one of these people tells me, I’ll turn fifty before I’m okay to try.  I’m pissed off!”  She’s still smiling, but only just.  “If I have to wait until everything is perfect, I…”  Her face falls, and the weather changes.  “It’s never going to be perfect with me…”

She turns, and I follow.  Her head is bowed, her shoulders slumped.  She lets her legs give way, her bottom falling heavily onto the edge of the bed.  I look at her in the reflection, her face low, the last shadows of the day spilling onto her face.

She looks like Whistler’s mother.

“Why do I have to have this, Mark?”

“I don’t know, Suse.”  I stand there, at the edge of the bed, watching her reflection as she pulls off her shoes.  I try to think of something to say.  “It could be worse,” I say.  “At least you don’t have HIV.”

“Oh, fuck that,” Suse says.  Fuck that!  I’m sick of all this shit!  Not a week goes by when something else doesn’t happen!  Not a week goes by when there isn’t another medical condition that I’m diagnosed with!”  She’s yelling.  “Why does every other bitch out there just get to have kids, while I don’t?  Why is every other bitch healthy?  I used to be healthy.  So why do I have to go through all this?  Why do I have to have everything!”  She’s screaming.  “Why do I have to have everything,” she says, almost breathlessly.  “Every day I have a good day, every… single… day – something else lumps on top of me.”

She stops dead, and the room falls silent.  Two people walk on by outside.  I hear them talking in muffled tones through the window, in the winter world beyond.  I stand there, looking at Suse in the mirror, the shadows having now fallen.  Her face is now dark, her head buried into the edge of my leg.

And I say nothing.

* * * * *

That night, she lies there still.

I walk to the kitchen, and I pick it up.  I move to our stove, and hear the familiar clicking sound, then the hiss, and then I see the blue glow.  I turn it upside down and the white stem touches the glow, pink drops landing on the silver stove as it lights.  I turn it right-side-up, and walk back through the black house to the bedroom.

“You lit it,” she says softly.

“We’ve been meaning to,” I say.

“This pink one is for our baby.”

“I know.  That’s why I did it.  White ones were for cleansing the house, and then…”

“…the pink one is for the baby,” she completes.  She stares at it for a moment.  “I think we should say something,” she whispers.

I carefully get into bed, holding this candle on a plate.  We sit it between us.

“This is a candle,” she begins, “as an intention for our unborn children.  As a symbol, to signify that we are ready, we are both ready, to receive her spirit and for her to come down to us in bodily form.”

“And when this candle is burnt through,” I say, “we will have completed this process, understanding that once that happens, this house – our house – will have been cleansed.  And with this candle, we signify that we are ready to begin our family.”

Suse looks at me over the yellow glow of the flame and smiles.  I lean over it and kiss her, holding myself there, against her lips, feeling the energy that is there.

“Now where should I put it?”

“Over on the bureau,” she says, “where we can see it.”

I take the candle over to the French polished piece, something owned by her grandparents;  something from another time.  I place it there carefully, lovingly, and return to bed.

The candle burns brightly, the reflection from the vanity mirror making it doubly so.  It bathes the room in an auburn flare.

And it is in that light that we commit to this intention.  We forget about ureaplasma, and Chicken Pox, and condoms, and anything with even a skerrick of Western Medicine.

And as a couple, we commit to our family.

* * * * *

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By Mark Nethercote, March 30, 2011 10:00 am

Friday 26th March 2010

Gestation: 26 weeks

One year ago.

“Have a look at this,” Suse says, as I walk through the door.

I follow her into the bathroom, where she stands before the mirror.  She slips the sleeves of her top down, revealing brandings on both shoulders.  Bruises the size of a cup, with clearly defined edges.  Two manufactured hickeys, one for each shoulder blade.

She then takes the hem of her top and pulls it over her head, revealing five more petechial couplets;  body art dotted up her spine.  There are track-lined markings tracing up between them, like she’s been run over Thomas the Tank Engine.  With that she turns to show me her front.  There are further lines of bruising tracing along her clavicles, with two more polka dots just below.

“You’ve been to see Steve?”

“Yep.”

“And you had cupping done,” I say, pointing to the dots.  She nods.  “But what’s with the train tracks?” I ask, pointing at her clavicles.

“Spooning.  Done with a spoon.”

“Spooning?  To go along with the cupping?”

“Yep.”

“Cupping and spooning.”

“Yep.”

“Sounds like an orgy where they serve tea.”  I pause, spinning her around like a model.  “How does it feel?”

“Bloody sore.”

Suse lifts her arms with a wince, and then takes me into a ginger hug.

Cupping is a process that comes from traditional Chinese medicine.  It is many thousands of years old, and works by creating a vacuum within the cup, sucking into it part of the skin and muscle, thereby creating a massive hickey.  They are placed on the body’s meridians, or acupressure points, to open them up, removing stagnation and allowing the energy to flow more freely.  Spooning, from what I can gather, is a variant of the same theory, but is done with a ceramic spoon and oil.

I had cupping on my upper back when I last visited Hong Kong.  It was my first experience of Chinese Medicine.  And while it felt unnerving while it was happening, the increased blood flow to the knots in my back muscles was far more effective than the five massages I’d had before it.

“How was the session otherwise?”

“Full on.”

“Good?”

“Really good.  Really, really good.  I’ll tell you all about it later.  But I’m absolutely knackered now.”

We stand there hugging.  In the mirror I examine my wife’s back;  her lithe arms around my neck, the dots all up and down, joined by markings, like a bruised game of snakes and ladders.

“Can I ask something, love?”

“Sure.”

“The next time another man cups and spoons you in the same day, can you at least put some foundation over the hickeys?”

She lets out a tired chuckle.  “Okay.  I’ll remember that next time.”

* * * * *

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By Mark Nethercote, March 18, 2011 10:00 am

Thursday 11th March 2010

Gestation: 23 weeks, 6 days

One year ago.

Today, Suse has her session with our coach.

Yep, we’ve got the same coach.

I really feel for him sometimes.

Poor sucker.

And after this, she heads off to see Steve, another friend.

An intuitive healer.

* * * * *

This is the bit where I write about alternative therapies, and the dichotomy within me.  Of my fascination with differing treatment modalities.  And my default distrust of them.

As I’ve already said, Suse has tried many alternative therapies.  She’s seen Chinese medical specialists, an acupuncturist and has tried moxibustion.  She has previously seen a hypnotherapist, and another woman for pregnancy related healings.  And while I have a healthy scepticism for these, there is something in the unknown.  Together, Suse and I completed a two-year, self-help training course based around the ancient art of alchemy, and accessing our intuitive selves.

Through this, I’ve fostered an increasing interest in intuitive health.

Steve is an intuitive healer.

And today, Suse goes to see him.

* * * * *

It’s Friday night.  We sit there in the bath, sharing a beer.

“So?”

“So what?”

“Tell me all about it.”

Suse lets out a sigh, like she’s lost for words.  My wife is never lost for words.  “It was really full on,” she says finally, shaking her head.  “Such a full on session.”

She begins to explain.  From her descriptions, I interpret that Scott uses techniques where, through a process of meditation, he gradually releases memories.  He facilitates an understanding, working through a process, through guidance, of where things are for that person.

“So, he took me on this journey, where I found myself in another realm,” she continues, “and I realised that, at one stage, I had died in child birth.  That my child died before me, and then I died.  And I’ve been carrying grief about that, unresolved grief.  I haven’t moved passed this, I haven’t resolved any of it.  I’ve just been carrying it.”

She stops for a moment, contemplating.

“And then I moved into this space where I met all these grey souls.  So weird, and so hard to describe.  But when I saw it, I realised that it was okay.  That I would be able to have a child.  That we would be able to have a child.”  She grips at my hand.

“And I’ve just been carrying all of this fear around, this fear of not being adequate.  This whole… thing…” she says, waving her hands in front of her, as if trying to make it concrete, “is around that.  And I’ve been holding onto it, carrying it, right here.”

She says it without frustration, without anger.

She simply states it as fact.

And she points to her belly, anatomically, exactly where her fallopian tubes are.

“Man they’re so sore.  He moved so much energy from there today.”

I watch her as I listen.  And as I do, I feel the hairs rise on the back of my neck.  I realise that her voice is different, the quality of it.  It’s deeper and more mellifluous.  And I sense something deep inside me, or around me.  Despite all of my rational beliefs otherwise, I know that this is true.

“And, after that,” she continues, “I saw – very clearly – another vision.  One where I was giving birth.  And you were there.  And then you had this little argument with the doctor over who was going to cut the cord.”  I smile at the idea of it, at the accuracy of this likely outcome.  “And then we had the baby.  We had our baby.  And it’s all going to be okay.”

The hairs stay standing.  They’re all at attention.  This resonates.  Despite my distrust.

“This is what I was talking about,” I say.

“What?”

“This is what you needed,” I continue.  “In fact, I didn’t say this to you, but two nights ago, I was sitting there, while you were in the car, on the edge of the seat, wracking my brains.  Trying to come up with an answer.  With something to do.”  I pause.  “And I got a feeling, I realised that it was nothing that Western Medicine could provide.  It wasn’t something that I could fix.”  I stop again.  “This was it.”

“He’s the real deal, man,” she says.

“I know he is.”

She takes a deep breath, absently touching at her belly.  “I mean, this was so full on.  And it’s dug up some shit that no one has even come near.”  She stops for a second.  “I mean, I’ve been so down over the last couple of weeks, that I didn’t even want to be here any more.”

“I know, hon,” I say, softly.

“And now I can see where this has come from now.  For the first time.  What this weight has been about.”

We sit quiet for a moment.  We both take a swig of beer.

“When are you seeing him next?”

“Two weeks, on Friday.”

“Maybe I’ll come along and have a session too.”

“You should.”

* * * * *

Like I said, I’ve been trained to think in a certain way.  In a western medical model.  In an allopathic medical model.  As much as I am fascinated by alternative therapies, I can turn on them in a dime, casting them off as emotional quackery.

But I know enough, to know that my wife is deeply in tune with herself, more so than me.  And that, as such, she experiences things on a different level, on a more intuitive level, than me;  by default, deeply set in my masculine mind.

But as I lie here, in a bath, opposite her, relaxed and calm, I see a whole different being from the crying mess that was there in the car two days ago.

I get that sense.  I know it intuitively.  I’m with her.

There was something deeply spiritual in Steve’s healing.

There is some deep shit that happened there today.

As I look at Suse, I know that.

There’s more to healing than we understand.

You just have to look and you’ll see.

* * * * *

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By Mark Nethercote, February 17, 2011 10:00 am

Monday 15th February 2010

Gestation: 20 weeks, 3 days

One year ago.

Tonight, Suse and I try something new.

Tonight, we trial the Deposit Method.

* * * * *

It’s a variation on a time-honoured technique.  Except that, unlike the Withdrawal Method, our aim is the exact opposite.

I don’t know that there’s much need for definition here.  But, for point of interest, I will.

Just a bit.

The Withdrawal Method – more formally known as Coitus Interruptus – has been in use for thousands of years.  The earliest known record comes from the story of Onan, in the Torah.  In the Book of Genesis, Judah orders his son to have sex with his dead brother’s wife in order to continue the family line.  Onan readily agrees, but as he does, withdraws before climax, ‘spillling his seed on the ground.’  Several times.

For his wickedness, Onan is sentenced to death.

Encouraged by this story, Coitus Interruptus became all the rage through the Greek and Roman Empires.  By the eighteenth century, it was one of the most popular methods of birth control throughout Europe and America.  And by 1991, thirty-eight million couples around the world were regularly being very wicked indeed.

The success rate of the Withdrawal Method is, unsurprisingly, entirely user-dependent.  The failure rate in ‘perfect use’ is quoted at 4% per year, and in ‘typical use’ at 15-28% per year.

The aim is to not get pregnant.

But it’s the aim that also causes the problem.

* * * * *

Our aim is the exact opposite.

It’s day eighteen of Suse’s cycle.  An egg must have been released.  But with all of our recent activity, along with phantom pains since the ectopic, it’s hard to tell.  Suse internal ovulation meter has gone on the blink.

But it’s our sixth night in a row.  We want to make sure we’ve got a greeting party for the egg.  We want to give ourselves every chance.

So, by mirroring the process above, we come up with something new.

Literally.

I call it the Deposit Method.

Or, more scientifically: Coitus Quickus Enterus Completus.

Forthwith to be known as the Nethercote Method.

* * * * *

I get myself warmed up, while Suse reads a book.

There are certain pivotal moments in a marriage when you realise that this is the person you will grow old with.

This is one of them.

Not to be distracted, I concentrate.  And, in our very first attempt, at our very own technique, we are successful.

It is a brief, comfortable interlude.

Which barely ruffles a hair.

She doesn’t even need to put down her book.

* * * * *