Author’s Note: This entry was actually written back in March just after we found out that Yolanda was pregnant; there was so much fear and hand-wringing on our part going on, I needed to write down the things that were going through my head at the time, and a blog entry seemed appropriate. Of course, part of that problem was that we hadn’t yet told anyone about the pregnancy, so I had to keep it unpublished. That’s no longer an issue, so here it is.

We found out yesterday that what we had suspected for some time was reality and as far as we know so far, you exist and are off and running down the long and busy road to being constructed inside your mummy. This is going to be a time of a lot of apprehension and waiting, I have a feeling.

You see, we’re more reserved this time, as we don’t know if we’re supposed to be excited or not yet. The last time we tried this, we had one or two other children started and something went wrong — horribly wrong — and they didn’t make it very far. While reserved, we had already gotten our hopes up and started down the path of being excited, only to spend several days and weeks in pain and heartache over it not sticking.

The other problem right now surrounds the fact that we’re still in your mummy’s homeland of Australia and, while we could get this checked out, getting something medically examined here that isn’t an emergency isn’t all that easy, and calls to get a blood test have been returned rather rudely. We’re hoping that Auntie Mel can do some good for us once we get to Adelaide and at least get an HCG level, so we can tell if you’re doing well or not.

This was supposed to be technically held off until we got back to the States, but as things go, it didn’t happen that way. I think the nice holiday finally let us relax and unwind and let our stomachs stop cramping about life for a few minutes. We really needed the break. Perhaps in some ways, it’s appropriate for you to be conceived on Australian soil, as you’re half of this land anyway.

Now, while we finish off the rest of our holiday, we’re starting to form plans in our minds — what car seat to get, what stroller to buy — while we’re both still very, very reserved and aren’t telling many people yet, we both have the longer view of looking ahead in case this works out like we both desperately want it to. We have both learned that life consists of a lot of taking care of the present moment while having the foresight to anticipate the future. It’s not always easy, but it behooves us to try.

Despite our efforts to hold our enthusiasm in check, please don’t ever take that as a feeling that we don’t want you to happen. We do, both, from the bottom of our hearts, hope that this is right, that you’re ok and will continue to be ok, and we will get to see you sometime in October or November. It’s just we’re scared and scarred from the last time and we are cautiously optimistic towards the success of this mission.

Here’s hoping everything continues to be smoother than we anticipate and quicker than we think.

This rant today is brought to you by this incredible news story. (Same story, different reports here, here, and here). A lesbian couple goes to the doctor, borrows some sperm, gets them fertilized in-vitro, and then has the embryos implanted to try to give them a child.

The procedure works. In fact, it works so well, the couple now has two healthy, baby girls. And they don’t want one of them, so they’re suing the doctor over it.

An Australian lesbian couple who underwent embryo implantation is currently suing Canberrian Dr. Sydney Robert Armellin for destroying the couple’s social life with children.  You hateful, terrible person — how dare you give this couple children when they went in for treatment?

Here’s some reasons why this couple of women should be taken out into the streets and hit over the head with a garden rake repeatedly for being selfish, ignorant, whiny, immature, disgusting human beings:

Reason #1: They don’t want one of the girls.

This is just awful. You underwent a procedure that has risks just like any other treatment, and not only did you get one healthy child, you got TWO! But, instead of being unbelievably happy and feeling blessed when so many other parents can’t even have one child, you turn around and sue them for giving you too many. I can’t imagine the thoughts that will go through the girls’ heads when they find out that one of them wasn’t wanted. Good job, Mum & Mum. That’ll be $3,000 in therapy to fix later, assholes.

Reason #2: They want almost A$400,000 in compensation for raising one of the girls.

I don’t know what the going rate for children is these days, but can you really quantify this and, if so, I think you’re spending far too much time worrying about money instead of raising your child. And they want this much money to help pay for a private, non-traditional Steiner school for the girl in question as well. So, not only do we want compensation, we want primo monies.

Did I mention that they make A$120,000 combined already? Yeah — does this greed make my butt look fat?

Reason #3: They want $15,000 to compensate for having to take time off work.

WAAAAH. Waaaaah. Do you want me to call the waaaambulance? You utter cretin. That’s part of the job of being a parent, taking care of your kids. I’m so glad that you feel like your time was wasted on your childrens’ well-being.

Reason #4: The women act as if their lives shouldn’t change by having children.

Quote: “She said the pair lost their lives functioning as a couple, becoming mired in everyday tasks associated with raising two children.” I’m sorry, but what did you expect to happen when you had kids, that you could go out every night, boozing it up with your airhead fag-hags, and crawling home at 3am to bump beavers until dawn? Did you not realize that having children involves being up to your elbows in poopy and saying, ‘hi, who are you?’ to your partner on a regular basis? How utterly shallow can a person be?

The one woman reports her partner as having “lost the capacity to love”. Fine. I’ve lost the capacity to avoid popping a cap in your ass. Twit.

Thankfully, the doctor’s lawyer sounds 300 times smarter than the plantiffs and has said that this is a pretty common occurrence experienced by most parents when they have children, and although they might feel unique, they’re not. I would have felt a lot better if she had said, “Suck it up, bitches.” Somehow, I think that was probably in her mind anyway.

To be honest, I’m a little surprised that the case has gotten this far in the Australian courts, as they usually tend to throw out this trite bullshit with judges laughing all the way, but I suppose they’re attempting to make a case based on the “medical malpractice” part of the entire episode, not the fact that the parents are complete and total flakes.

This just…astounds me, and it should make you shake your head, too. We’re going into the whole parenting game with as realistic viewpoint as we can, that it won’t be all smiles and giggles, but the benefits will far outweigh the trials and tribulations of the experience. To see other parents treating their children like mere commodities or inconveniences pains us to no end and we’d love to beat them senseless given the chance. In lieu of that, we’ll simply strive to love the dickens out of our children and raise them so they don’t turn into asshats like these jerks.

One of the suggestions I received was to write a bit about what I think in regard to Australian politics.

I am here to officially announce that I have no freaking clue.

But, in true Internet blogging fashion, I’ll happily open up my mouth and resemble the south end of a horse facing north in talking about something I have no knowledge of, if nothing else, to the amusement of my Australian compatriots.

I know that Australians once “lost” a prime minister by, supposedly, drowning, although it’s really hard to say given the country’s penchant for overly-poisonous animals that enjoy human a la stick.

I know that John Howard has mostly been a lapdog of the Bush administration and, despite most Australians I know thinking that Bush is nuttier than a squirrel pantry, the government still seems to back most things the US is doing in the world.

I know that they have a Labor party that does very little baby-squirting but has a lot of people involved with it that do things like dig rock out of caves in the ground. They also have a Liberal party which, contrary to popular belief, is actually conservative. Leave it up to Aussies to figure that one out.

I also know that Australian Parliament, much like the English equivalent, is a much more relaxed legislative body than any of the ones in the United States. Watching Congress on C-SPAN here in the U.S. is a great anti-insomnia therapy, but catching a session of Aussie or English Parliament is somewhat like watching a celebrity roast but using nice words. More than once has a news story come out about some politician or another calling another one a jackass or similar.

Or, as you can see in this clip on YouTube, a slip of the tongue may very well set back the entire legislative process while everyone quits rolling on the floor. Everyone in the world knows the Aussies are more relaxed than most, and this most definitely doesn’t depart from that notion.

I think that the Australian policy of compulsory voting is both wonderful and idiotic in the same glance. Living in a country where the “voting public” is usually a measly 35 to 40% of qualified individuals, its heartening to think that everyone in Oz is getting out and voicing their opinion.

However, requiring people to vote means you will end up with a vast majority of folks simply trying to “get it out of the way” and not giving a wet slap what they mark on the ballot, just as long as they get it done and nobody hauls them in for not doing so. This, I imagine, would mean that media exposure and making your name a household word works even better in Australia than in the U.S. — if you are looking at a ballot and you’ve heard of the one guy but not the other, who are you going to vote for? Not that this doesn’t happen in the U.S.; I fully expect McCain, Giuliani, Clinton, and Obama to receive a bunch of their votes simply due to exposure and not because of merit. But I’d imagine that there are a fair whack of people that simply don’t vote in the USA that, if they were forced to, would add to this pool, further diluting it.

Perhaps Aussies are just more astute.

I am trying to think if I know of any particular points of interest in Australian politics that I’d care to comment on, but when I’m still trying to figure out cultural differences (although I’ve come a long way), historical and cultural references (many of these still elude me), and attitudes, Australian Politics takes a pretty far back seat in the theatre of my mind (and is probably having a good time making out with Aussie Economics). That being said, even from my very limited exposure to anything, I have a few comments to make about things that Aussie politicians should perhaps concentrate on:

• Technology – Always a big one, and one close to my heart. Although Aussies have come a very, very long way in technology and in many ways have exceeded the US, it is something that politicians should keep at the forefront of their minds and their policies if they want Australia to continue to grow and expand in the world. Oz is a long freaking distance away from — well, most anything — but technology can and will close that gap and make it viable to conduct business from or to Australia without a huge expenditure. (plus, if it keeps expanding, I have job opportunities. yay!)
• Regulation - This comes on the heels of Technology and relates a lot to Australian telecoms (Hello, Telstra?) and similar businesses that, in the past, pretty much seemed to squelch any sort of competitive behavior. Not that the FCC or similar policymakers here in the US have done a perfect job, but on the whole we’ve recognized that a little correct regulation of monopolistic behaviors and corrections for the market promote expansion, competition, and innovation. There is a gigantic startup cost to almost any physical infrastructure in Australia, given the geography and population distribution, but that doesn’t necessarily mean that any one business has the right to disallow competitive behavior, especially when the economy could really use it. Plus, they’re going to have to start, like the US is, taking a look at VoIP and its impact on services in the country.
• Immigration – Actually, given the US’s procedure for immigration, the Australian equivalent is a walk in a park. I think the “points” system is brilliant. I just want politicians to keep this subject in their heads so it gets evaluated regularly and as many good, beneficial opportunities as possible are kept open for people willing to make the jump and live there.

Past these three things, I really can’t comment on other aspects. I’m not up on the Australian economy, I don’t know what civil rights are being debated, I’m unsure of the tax or social welfare issues at hand, and I haven’t kept up much on the national healthcare initiatives. I’m pretty sorely uneducated on most of it, as you can tell. If I move there, I’m going to be doing a LOT of reading and watching of news programs to catch up.

Anywho….this is my general, foot-in-mouth, completely unjustified look at Australian politics from the viewpoint of an almost complete outsider. If nothing else, if you are an American, I hope you learned something — if you are an Aussie, I hope you had a good laugh.