I can't really explain it well, but I feel like I'm reaching a turning point in our infertility journey.

We are far from being done, we have many miles left in us yet - we're strong enough to keep trying new things and hang in there, so it's not that. It's just.. something feels different.

Maybe I'm more resigned to the journey now. Maybe the comparisons between how we finally managed to get Georgia in our arms & the goal of bringing home a new baby are finally starting to dissipate. Maybe it's that I've realised that I won't be one of those people you hear about, who get a random miracle happen their first go, or before their next cycle starts, or without any medical intervention whatsoever. Maybe it's just that changing clinics and getting ready to start again has left me with a little bit of fresh hope. Maybe it's a combination of all of those things put together.

It's about acceptance. Accepting the good, the bad, the ugly. The happy, the sad, and the jealousy. The highs, the lows, the numbness. The positive days, and the days where I don't feel like there is an end in sight. The times where I feel hopeful that we've got this, we can do this... and the times where it feels like nearly everyone around me has what we both want so desperately, and all we can do is watch on.

It's also about perspective. Losing my Nan, watching my Pop fall apart without her there, and seeing family try to hold it all together has really hit home for me this past week. Reading about friends, and friends of friends, who are going through illness & being so brave and so strong. We're all fighters. We may be fighting different battles, but we're fighting.

Infertility is our battle, and it sucks. Not being able to give your child a sibling, watching due dates of lost babies come & go with no little ones to hold, it's a special kind of sadness. But we're all healthy. We have each other, we have our girl, we have a roof over our heads, we have help here when we need it.

And I know, somehow, that our story isn't over. Our family isn't done yet. We have so much more love to give.

Ah, June. My favourite month of the year! It's cold, it's wintery - and it's our wedding anniversary.

Four years ago today, we were married on a windy and rainy overcast Saturday. In some ways it feels like yesterday, in others, it could be a million years ago.

We've been together for 13 years now, so the marriage part is only small in the grand scheme of things. We've travelled together, we've loved and laughed together, we've gone through the best times & we've struggled through the worst times.

In the past twelve months, I have relied on him so much. Going through infertility, and then losing our two pregnancies, and then having disappointment after disappointment - it's not for the faint of heart. I'm so grateful to have him there holding my hand and picking me up when I'm down. I am so lucky.

Happy anniversary, hubby. We love you!

We've been overwhelmed by the love and generosity of our friends and family members over the last few weeks. From the day we found out that we had lost the baby, the messages of support just kept flying in.

It's so hard to say much other than 'thank you' - but I've tried hard to make sure people know how grateful I am, we both are. Little tokens were left on our doorstep, cards were posted to us so that we can read in private - it was beautiful, and showed us how loved we are - even in our darkest moments.

It's not only the physical things that mean so much though - it's the words, the text messages, the support I've received from other amazing women online. I wouldn't be healing without you... so thank you, so so much.

This time last year, it was Good Friday and I was 36+4 weeks pregnant.

I was a ridiculously cheerful pregnant lady for the most part, but not that night - I was cranky & irritable and declared 7.30pm to be bedtime as I was NOT feeling good.

Turns out I wouldn't get any rest at all... not for the next 24 hours, anyway.

{For all those people who said that if it was labour, I'd know it - I say phooey! I was in complete denial for a few hours at least, until I started timing those 'cramps' which were actually contractions... and even then, I was sure it was too early to be labour starting, so I protested the whole way to the hospital!}

Tomorrow, my baby is 1.

Every night before bed, we follow a similar routine with Georgia.

If hubby is home, he starts it off with a bath - otherwise, it's all me. After the bath, we have a massage on the change table, get her dressed, and read her a book. Then we nurse & follow up with a top up bottle of expressed milk.

And before I put her into bed, while rocking her to get her drowsy, I tell her a few things - I love you, time for bed, night night - and this:

I'm having a little break from your regular 'up-the-duff' style posts today, because today is a pretty special day.

This time, 10 years ago, I was 18 years old. I was in my first year of university, I was in the process of getting my licence and becoming more independent, and I was in love with music - lots of music. It was through music that I met my {now} husband.

The first time we met was at a movie theatre. He was already inside, and I arrived with my mum. I remember walking in and seeing him sitting at a table, and oh, he was the cutest thing ever. So handsome, and so tall - and the most lovely freckles I've ever seen. I was smitten, from day one.

Here we are, 10 years later. Married - finally! Well travelled - and so lucky to be back here in Sydney with our home and our fur babies. And now, expecting a baby - I almost can't even believe it.

I'm so lucky to have spent a decade, a third of my life, with this wonderful man. Happy anniversary, Jase! x

Today marks our first wedding anniversary. It feels strange going back to celebrating one, when we're coming up to our decade anniversary in just a few short months. It's been one heck of a year! Let me backtrack to June 11, 2011.

Married life is lovely. 

AAAAH!

So it's been a mere 10 days since our wedding, and our super amazing videographer Amy Nelson-Blaine {Wedding Cinematography} has already created a snapshot of our wedding day on film.

Highlights? Oh yeah, there are plenty:

Aly & Jason - Wedding Film from Amy Nelson-Blain on Vimeo.

…That still sounds so weird to say!

Well, it’s official. We’re hitched! You know how everyone says to take time to slow down and enjoy your wedding day, because it will be over before you know it? They are not lying. I think someone hit the fast forward button, because our day flew by. Like, seriously flew.

It was awesome. It was hilarious. It was full of moments that you can’t possibly prepare for. (Bride falling off her chair a the beginning of the reception, anyone?) <– Oh yes, that happened! But wow. The feelings we have had over the past few days are unlike any I’ve ever had before.

We are married. Huzzah!

Here’s one of my favourite pictures to tide you over while the wait for professional ones begins, taken on Hipstamatic by my beautiful maid of honour, Miss K.

See you in a week or so, after our time in Vanuatu comes to an end.

I'm writing this post a mere day before my wedding. Can you even believe it?

Today is going to be pretty busy. There are nails to be done, airport pick-ups to be arranged, missing sparkler packages to be hunted down, and hotels to be checked in to. I've got everything packed for my trip to the hotel tonight, and I'm really, really freaking excited. I'm planning on journaling tomorrow morning too, just so I can remember how I felt on the morning of our wedding.

This past week I've had three 'problems' weighing me down about our wedding. One: the weather, which is forecast to rain. Two: Our venue being sneaky with us. Three: Having a certain monthly visitor arrive on the big day. I'll admit, my first instinct was to panic about it.. but I'm okay. I've learned that whatever happens, it's still going to be okay. (I'm going to go ahead and assume that alternating from fits of extreme giddiness to bouts of gut-churning nervousness is a normal part of the whole process.)

It feels like this post is bringing closure. It's bringing closure to our entire engagement. All of the months of wishing, planning, budgeting.. that would eventually lead up to me being lucky enough to marry my best friend. While I could have dome some things differently, I have no regrets. Tomorrow is going to be amazing.

To my almost-husband,

I can't even begin to describe how much I am counting down the moments to be your wife. We've had ups, downs, in betweens, lows and incredible highs. We moved overseas together, we travelled our butts off, and we adopted our beautiful Oscar-kitty. We're building our dream home, and we're doing it all together. Thank you for being my rock, for being the logic to my emotion, the McDreamy to my Meredith. You're awesome.

Last night, Jason & I attended an engagement party - thrown for two of our bridal party members. While it'd be cool to imagine two strangers being thrown together in wedding preparation, falling in love & deciding to get hitched themselves, it wasn't quite like that!

My brother Ajay is one of the groomsmen, and Hayley is one of my girls - they've been dating for a couple of years now. They announced their engagement just a few weeks ago and there's been loads of wedding-related excitement in the air ever since. They're a gorgeous couple, both physically and personality-wise, and I'm thrilled to be (finally!) getting the sister I always wanted.

Their engagement party was 'red carpet' themed, and everyone looked awesome in their suits & ball gowns.

Needless to say, the night was filled with lots of mingling between the two families. And the question for Jason & I that was on everybody's lips? Are you ready yet?

It's funny, because you can take this in a few ways. In a literal sense, no. We're so not ready. We have oodles of things we haven't done yet, I'm doing my best to get things done in the right priority order, and we're both working full-time. I think props have to go to anyone planning a wedding and working at the same time, because finding the time to do everything is no easy feat, especially in the final weeks. The next few weeks are filled with little bits & pieces that need to get done - and it's amazing how quickly time is flying. Sometimes I really do wonder how on Earth I'm going to get everything done.

But then, I'm oh so ready. I've been ready for this for years. It's a little cliché to admit it, but I knew I would marry Jason very early on in our relationship. And whether you've been with someone six months, for two years, three, six, eight, nine... you just know when its the right person. All these countdowns, all the waiting during our long engagement, waiting for the 'right time', yep, I'm ready. I'm so ready. And best of all, he's ready too.

One of the hardest things to deal with in our waiting phase was not being on the same page. I was ready, he wasn't. I nagged, cried, drowned in a sea of other people's engagements, and he waited. It hurts when you're ready, but they aren't - it makes you doubt yourself, makes you think you're the one who cares more in the relationship, or that your partner doesn't feel the same way you do. Looking back, I know now that he still loved me and wanted to the same things that I did - it was just the timing wasn't right. Now that we're so close, hearing Jason tell me that he's looking forward to being married, well, it gives me the warm and fuzzies.

So are we ready yet? We're as ready as we'll ever be. And even if we scrap a few projects, or cut a few corners, or just plain turn up on the wedding day in a dress and a suit, we'll be ready.

So... remember that pre-wedding photo session we had a few weeks ago? The one that I was feeling super self conscious about, and how I was terrified that it would turn out awful?

Well, the pictures are back and the verdict is in.

I officially spent so much time freaking out about it for nothing. We were in a beautiful location, we did our best to mellow out and enjoy the experience, and our super-awesome-fantastic photographer, Andrew, captured some really beautiful shots, if I may say so myself.

Enough rambling from me, here are some of my favourites!

It was a perfect afternoon & I love how beautifully all the photos came out.

I am so incredibly excited to see what wonderful things the Follans come up with for our wedding day pictures: just think, only a couple more weeks now and we'll be back in front of that camera again, hamming it up!

The next step is wondering how to sneak my tiny Jaguar figurines into our wedding day, mwahahaha. And yes, Weddingbee reference, ftw! Can you believe I've been blogging over there as Miss Jaguar for seven months now?

Now comes the hard part: we have to choose one of our favourite shots to be enlarged as part of our package - which one should we pick? Your advice would be very much welcomed!!

So... have I mentioned that I'm marrying the love of my life in oh, around four months time?  Can I just say how happy that makes me? So, so happy. Except that now, everywhere I go I see things I want to use in the wedding. I have bookmarks and photo files coming out of the wazoo. Everything is pretty! adaptable! would look perfect! Yep, I'm obsessed. And so without any further ado, let's get busy with the looooove.

And as for people? Well, I have loads that I loooove:

My family: they drive me crazy, but they also keep me sane. I was so happy to be able to spend Christmas at home with them this year, for the first time in the three years we were away. They helped us move into our new apartment, they provided us generously with spare furniture and cookware, they've made our transition into life back home that little bit easier.

My two boys: Jase & Oscar-cat. There are two things that make my heart melt: men with their babies & men with their pets. Obviously there are no babies here yet, but watching Jase fawning all over the cat is one of the most adorable things and I'll never get tired of watching them together.

So it's about time I caught this here blog up with everything wedding related, I think. I've been a busy little bee (excuse the pun) writing as Miss Jaguar at the Weddingbee blog, but I realise I've completely neglected to keep YOU, my lovely blog friends, up to date with all things wedding.

Along with travel recaps & general life happenings, expect to be seeing a whole lot of wedding related goodness popping up in your readers over the coming weeks. It's time to get this blog moving again, so let's get to it!

So. Wedding stuff. One of the hardest things that I've learned to come to grips with when it comes our ceremony, is the lack of freedom. A Catholic ceremony, while beautiful and traditional in its own right, is very rigid in terms of how it works. It's still a wedding celebration, and it's still about the couple, but it's based on the principles of the church - so you work within their guidelines to enjoy your ceremony.

There are still a whole stack of ceremony details we haven't gotten into yet & won't be tackling for a few months yet. You'll hear me talk about more in depth ceremony details later on down the line, but for now? It's all about the music. Now that's something I can research without being there in person.. fabulous!

I would've loved to walk down the aisle to something I picked myself - a church appropriate song, of course.. no busting it out to Akon's 'Sexy Chick' as one of my bridesmaids is longing to do! All of our music choices need to be approved by the church though, so we're not left with a great deal of choice. That means that my dreams of walking down the aisle to 'Everything' by Lifehouse, aka: the band that brought us together, was out the window.

One option, if the church & priest agree, is to find an instrumental version of a modern song that we love and see how that goes. I've been scouring You Tube and online for covers of songs, whether by piano or by guitar/strings, and there are loads out there. Unfortunately, none has jumped up and screamed 'I'm the one!' - except I did find a guitar instrumental of 'Everything' that is a pretty big contender.

The more common option is to go with classical music, which is what I'm leaning towards right now. I'm pretty sure I'm going to choose 'Canon in D'. {Click for link} It's classical, but not quite so obvious as Wagner's 'Bridal Chorus'. Also, I could listen to it for hours on repeat, it's just so beautiful, so that's a good sign. I love how it builds up - from soft at the beginning, to more pronounced as it goes on. I think that would work really well with our Catholic ceremony, since the church I'm using prefers you to use only one piece of music for the entire procession.

The next step is to try and figure out how we'll get the music played on the day: if my budgeting goes well, my dream would be to have a string trio playing in person before, during and after our ceremony. I'm already swooning at the thought of how beautiful that would sound in our cosy little church. That's not a necessity though, as much as I'd love it to be one, so next up will be getting everything onto audio copy and seeing how that works in the church's facilities.

Any other church-friendly music suggestions out there? Spill the beans!

You know, I always thought I was a pro when it came to moving house.

Moving to the UK doesn't really count, since I left most belongings at home & focused on packing my humble little suitcase. The first real move that we went through was the switch from East London to West London, halfway through our time overseas. I loved packing our things and getting everything sorted and labelled. {Though I didn't love the cleaning that came along with it, I'll admit.} I loved being able to unpack at our leisure, to be able to choose where I wanted things to go: which drawer, which cupboard, where to put the furniture? Call me obsessive compulsive, but I loved it.

We packed up ready for our move back to Sydney too, of course - but I can't comment on that just yet, since our boxes are currently somewhere in a port waiting to be examined by quarantine: if we get them back sometime in the next year, I'll be happy.

Also, a brief side-note: I feel like I've paid more than my due's to the Australian quarantine sector, first the obscene amount of money needed to get the cat brought over, and now for our boxes - I'm just going to put it out there and say NO, we have not smuggled in any exotic birds, wood products or seeds, and I'd really, really like it if you sent our boxes to us soon because I'm tiring of wearing the same four summer outfits over and over again. Phew, epic sentence right there. Sorry about that.

Moving right along: this is the first time either Jase or myself have moved house here at home. I found the perfect rental apartment before the holidays, but the move-in date wasn't until Friday gone by - so we had plenty of time to prepare. After researching removal vans & nearly dying at the insane cost of hiring one for a few hours, my dad offered to drive a rented van for the day, and he, Jase & future-fil spent the day loading and unloading box after box.

We were lucky. Our flat came unfurnished, but we had hand-me-down furniture from both of our families, and we had lots of accumulated gifts {mostly kitchen related - like fry pans, kettles, cookware} that made it super easy to move. Add in a crazy trip to Ikea with Miss K a few weeks ago, where I picked up a trusty dining table, bookshelf and side table, and we ended up moving a lot of stuff.

The apartment is gorgeous. It's brand new, never been lived in before - done up in very neutral colours and has a lot of space. We even upgraded to two bedrooms, a good decision because of the amount of belongings we have now. I can't show you a picture yet, because it stills look a little like a war zone, but it's fabulous. The only downside is that it's upstairs: the boys were completely stuffed after hiking up and down carrying furniture and boxes. We couldn't have done it without them! There have been a few minor problems so far: we only got one key for the front door instead of two, our intercom doesn't seem to work, and it turns out there is no phone line connected in the place.. but they're things we can work with.

The hardest thing we're dealing with right now is keeping Oscar-cat a secret. We smuggled him in on our first night with no problems, but we have to keep him hidden for the whole time we are here. It doesn't help that for the last two nights, he's cried. all. night. I've hardly slept for fear that someone is going to knock on our door and complain, though I'm sure the walls are thicker than I'm imagining.

Pictures to come soon, but in the meantime - tell me what's the favourite room in your current place? Maybe it's because this room is the most 'finished', but I don't want to leave our new lounge/diner area. Like, ever.

This past week, Jase and I got to do something that I never thought we would be lucky enough to experience - twice! We saw not one, but two concerts put on by our favourite band. Now this isn't just any old band that we like: this is the band that brought us together. Speaking of that story, I recapped it for my blog over at Weddingbee the other day, so if you want some of the juicier details, click here to read it. But back to the story at hand...

WE GOT TO SEE LIFEHOUSE TOGETHER!

{I took approximately 5,000 photos just like this one, only blurrier.}
This was a pretty big deal for us - bands don't tend to make their way down to Australia because it is simply too far for them to travel - so for us to get to see them twice in our last few weeks of living in London, well, it felt like the fates were speaking to us once again. Jase was in charge of booking the tickets, got excited while doing so and ended up purchasing a second batch as well, which ended up being their final show in London.

I can't even begin to tell you what an experience this was for us. The band are amazing live, they had so much energy and so much personality - and they sing better live than they do on albums. Jase has been listening to recaps of the concert on his iPhone pretty much every day since the concert, they are just that good.

{I am totally about to bust out of my chair with excitement.}
We've been undecided on choosing a song for our first dance for all these months, but we always agreed that it's only fitting it be a Lifehouse number. (And, you know, if the guys wanted to schedule a Sydney visit in June in order to make a live cameo appearance, I'm sure we could loan them a few sofa beds to put them up for the night!) But since I'm being realistic and all, we're playing it safe and deciding between audio versions instead.

Our top choice, and the song that we call 'ours' is Everything. We're not using it for a few reasons, though: it's too long, and I refuse to ruin the song by chopping it into pieces for a few minutes of awkward shuffling, and also because a cousin of mine used it at his own wedding and I don't want to repeat it. Instead, we're torn between a few other alternatives - and luckily, they played a few of them at their concerts. We still haven't made a decision yet, but I think we're a lot closer now.

It's funny how seeing the band live has made me feel like I'm eighteen years old all over again. I'll admit, over the years I started to lose interest in them - but watching them rock out in person brought everything flooding back. I'm always going to be in debt to the band that led me to my best friend, and to my soul mate.