to talk about immune deficiency

and the need for blood donors.

Blood donation is so simple and so important to kids like Ivy, who need ongoing therapy

and yet, so few people do it.

I know that Australia has strict guidelines and for many that will exclude them

but for others in the healthy population it’s an easy way to help someone else.

So, when the opportunity came up to talk about it, I said yes

and yesterday was the big day.

Filming was in the city so we had to be up and ready to go early.

Ivy chose her outfit very carefully.

Oh, yes.

My little mini fashionista.

It was just under zero degrees when we left

but we soon warmed up.

We drove and then caught a train.

The big girls came too.

The boys chose to stay behind, with Dave.

It was an adventure in itself.

When we arrived at Town hall,  we met with the wonderful Jemma from the Australian Red Cross Blood Service and with the crew from Today,

who were all really lovely too.

The blood donor centre at Town Hall is massive and very busy

but as with all of the donor centres I have had the privilege to visit, all of the people were very kind.

Some of the volunteers offered the girls milkshakes and brought food too, while we waited for everything to be set up.

We met Emma, the journalist, who is this amazing little pocket rocket and is very passionate about blood donation.

I knew I would like her straight away.

Ivy was not so sure.

I’d love to say that the small girl has confidence and happily slides into each new situation

but it’s not like that for her.

Ivy is very shy to begin with

and I think having so many doctors poke and prod at her of late has left her wary of most people

and to top it off she was still not feeling great

but Emma, like anyone who wants to get to know Ivy, started trying to break down the barriers

and it worked.

Emma wanted to donate while the cameras were rolling and Ivy watched as they placed the needle.

The girl  thought that was pretty cool.

When asked, she decided Emma looked brave and wouldn’t cry

and she was right.

Emma was very brave.

The donation itself only took about ten minutes.

Once that part was filmed Ivy presented Emma with some flowers to say ‘thank you’.

Emma grabbed a milkshake to go and we started walking up to Hyde park for the second part of the filming.

Did you know that people like Jemma from The Australian Blood Service work hard every day,

asking people in high profile positions to lend some of their time to promote blood donation

and of  all of the celebrities asked only very few will lend their time.

Emma is one of those amazing people who believes that community service is a vital part of their businees

and I will always be thankful to her and others like her

who try to encourage awareness.

Glenn Wheeler is another and Carol Duncan (who is my secret girl crush) too.

The Today Show is a very high profile  television show in Australia

and I really hope that by telling Ivy’s story we can help too.

I feel lucky to be a part of something that is important to, not only Ivy and I

but  many other people as well.

Having a child with immune deficiency is a hard thing -

watching and worrying over Ivy because of it can be exhausting, stressful

and lonely.

It would be really easy to get caught up in that.

(Sometimes I do)

but through Ivy’s need for immunoglobulin we have met some wonderful people,

made lovely friends

and had some brilliant opportunities as well

and I love that by letting others know about my special girl,

we are hopefully giving something back.

After I waffled on and they’d finished with my interview Emma and the crew set about getting some footage of the girl.

She was quite happy to be with Emma but as soon as the camera was there and the big fluffy microphone

Ivy clammed up and began to look frightened.

She wouldn’t talk and she wouldn’t  look at Emma.

I could tell she was starting to feel tired and ordinary too.

So, Maddy was sent in to the rescue and soon the girl was talking about her rabbits happily.

The best part was when the girl was encouraged to chase the birds.

She had alot of fun

and Emma and Maddy were swinging her between them, high into the air

which is one of Ivy’s most favourite things in the world.

It will be a sad day when she grows too big for that.

They wanted Ivy to say something at the end of the filming and with the bribe of a new Barbie

(just as any talent would expect payment for endorsement – she’s learning fast)

she did.

We said our thank yous and goodbyes (Emma is also the face for David Jones and she needed to go there next, she’s also interviewing Nicole Ritchie on the weekend)

the girls, Jemma and I went to lunch

and then made our way back to the train station.

Ivy was exhausted and once we were back in the car for the final leg, she slept.

World Blood Donors Day is on the 14th of June (coincidentally, Imogen and Madeline’s 16th birthday and their first that they are able to donate blood themselves. They have big plans for that day)

and it looks as though the interview will go to air around that time.

Hopefully channel nine will let us know.

I’m just about to start Ivy’s infusion for this afternoon, a medicine that would not be possible

if not for the blood and plasma that donors give.

We really are very lucky indeed.

It wasn’t that my mother was cruel, it’s just that she wanted us to learn to soldier on

because in real life – adult life, you couldn’t just take days off when you felt a little under the weather.

As a mother, she was still expected to carry on, regardless.

I hated it

and I resented that other kids would take time off for a sniffle

when I was made to attend class, with what I considered to be the most awful lurgy that could possibly end in the loss of a limb

or even death.

Of course, that didn’t happen

and for the most part I was okay at school because I wasn’t thinking about how I felt

and Mum was right.

In the real world everyone keeps on keeping on.

There is nobody to wrap you up and feed you soup

and what I’ve found is that people expect that you will keep going to work,

keep being the mum,

keep up with all of your commitments

no matter how lousy you feel.

With no regard for the spread of infection at all

because it’s inevitable, right?

Humans go through the seasons where they just expect they will catch something.

As a mother of my own brood though, I am soft.

I could say it’s because of Ivy’s illness and I know sending a child to school sick promotes transmission of infection that made me that way

but honestly,

I was a push over right from Immy and Maddy’s first day on this earth.

If any of them are sick and they are even slightly unwell,

if they ask for time off to recover, I give it to them.

Most of the time they are all stoic and go because they have work to complete or important social connections to make

but sometimes they have lounge days -

with blankets pulled up to chins

and comfort food at the ready.

Sometimes just for a day and other times longer.

I’m not sure why I have adopted that stance.

Since our arrival home the kids and Dave (and I) have all been lurgied with some disgusting cold

and there have been days off.

When I took Noah back to school and guiltily explained he had the lurgy but had energy to burn and was not sick enough to stay under the covers

the teacher nodded sagely and smiled.

“It’s  going around”, she said.

I still felt guilty though.

Today, Ivy is all coldy

and I really really want to wrap her up and keep her warm and feed her all kinds of soup that she doesn’t even like

but she wants to go.

It’s news day, you see and she wants to take the growth hormone in and tell everyone she has grown.

She’s dressed and ready to go

but I am sitting here, in my jammies,

listing all the reasons why she shouldn’t.

My biggest thing is that sending her makes me a hypocrite.

I implore people to keep their kids home if they are sick to prevent the spread of disease

and yet another part of me thinks;

it’s just a cold and she caught it from someone at school anyway

and in the real (adult) world nobody would stay home.

It’s hard to let go of the sicky girl and accept that she knows in herself

whether she is up for the day

but I think I’m going to have to.

How about you?

Did you stay home as a child, when you had a lurgy or did you soldier on

and what are you like as a parent now?

Just to clarify: Noah did not return to school when he was acutely unwell. He went on the tail end of the cold.

If any of the kids have a temperature or anything that I thought was infectious (such as gastro) in any way

they would be kept home.

You might see a badly taken, blurry instagram shot.

You might see the negative space, the bad lighting, the end of the oil painting hanging in our lounge room.

What I see is a very excited and happy girl, who for the first time in her six and a half years

can finally (all be it on her tippiest of tippy toes)

reach the light switch – she can actually touch it enough to switch it on and off

and

behind that blurry, imperfect photo

is an equally excited mummy, who has grabbed the first thing that can capture this moment.

She feels proud and happy and the sudden tears confuse her a little.

Her hands are shaking

and both of them – the little pixie girl and her mummy

are laughing

great big whoops of mirth escape into that negative space

that is no longer negative at all

because in that instant they both know that the girl has grown (2 whole centimetres in fact).

The growth hormone, which was started just on three months ago is working

and see those shoes, dangling by her side -

they’re new

and they are a whole size bigger.

and the boy has been busy growing and changing and such.

“Do you know what is coming very soon?” he asks as he slips his arms around my belly.

I play along;

“no,” I say

“is it my birthday?”

He shakes his head and looks at me as if I am silly

but he doesn’t speak it.

Instead he asks me for some paper and with all the confidence of a first grader he fashions a card with two people (he and I)

holding hands and smiling into the universe.

Inside the cover he has written some words, strung together -

“hape mumvis ba” it announces.

“It says happy mother’s day” he proclaims proudly.

Of course it does.

It does but it doesn’t

and it kind of sums up how I feel about celebrating my motherhood this year.

I am but I’m not.

At home I feel a little out of place.

My things are not where they usually are

and the kids are having to relearn who to defer to when they need things.

I have to relearn too.

It’s been hard to slip into the family again after so long away.

I feel like a ghost of sorts

or perhaps an almost mother -

you know,

the woman who is on the cusp of something big,

huge changes

a steep learning curve -

all of that multi tasking goodness that comes with being responsible for others.

The cook, the cleaner, the driver.

The peace keeper, the adjudicator, the judge.

The bedtime rangler and fixer of all things sad.

I’m not that, right now.

I am here and I am catching up.

Catching my breath.

I look at the white folded paper, the penciled in features of a mum and her son (he and I)

and the early attempts of  his spelling.

I want to laugh and I want to cry.

Everything is so mixed up, disheveled and not the life I left almost ten weeks ago now

but his love and his enthusiasm for me is steadfast.

“Hape mumvis ba,” I repeat,

all of the kids now gathered in the kitchen, observing our interaction

and he looks at me a little embarrassed because he thinks I am picking out his mistakes.

“Hape mumvis ba, I love it !” I tell him and give him the biggest cuddle I can muster.

I love it because it’s him at this age, in all of its beautiful imperfection

but I love it more because it’s me in all of mine.

So, to all of you – mothers in the making, mothers of one or many, mothers of little ones, big ones, angels lost.

Grandmothers, great grandmothers, mothers to others:

Hape Mumvis Ba !

Whether you celebrate or not, I hope your day is lovely

and may we all accept the person we are right now   – our perfectly imperfect selves.