The Story Of My First Name

A long long time ago, in a galaxy far far away...

Well, 1970 in fact. Here on earth. The  other way just sounds more mysterious. Shut up.

Oh okay, I'll start again.

Picture it. Sydney. 1970. (Kudos to Sophia from the Golden Girls...)

There was a lovely young pregnant lady. That magnificent woman was, of course, my very own mother. She had the important task, along with my father, of bestowing upon me ( the sprog percolating in her womb), the name that I would be known as for the duration of my life. 

They were already the proud parents of a son (my brother - Captain Obvious...) they had named Mark David. This was supposedly due to my mother's aversion to names that could be abbreviated. A short and punchy Mark seemed just right. 

At first, Mum was keen to name me either Rebecca or Rachel. Perhaps she hadn't considered the potential abbreviations of these very fine names. A big hello to all the Bec's, Becca's and Becky's out there. The Rach's, too. I could have been one of you.

It turned out to be a moot point, since my dad wasn't enamoured with either of these suggestions. More pondering ensued as I floated contentedly in the cocoon of my mother's womb. 

Incidentally, I have been told that Mum was quite convinced I was a girl. Of course there was no way to find out the sex of a baby back in those times. The only way was to give birth and clap eyes on it. I mean him. Or her. Mum just had a strong feeling I'd be a girl. And of course, she was right. Consequently, she says she did not give any serious thought to boys names. However, there is slight possibility I may have been a Craig had I developed a Y chromosome. 

Craig. Can you IMAGINE?  I guess it was 1970, so Craig's and Kylie's and Sharon's were all the thing back then. Hard to imagine they were ever babies though, isn't it?

So, yes. Mum was certain I was a girl. Rebecca and Rachel were rejected. Another name was very briefly agreed upon: 

Monique. 

Still. It just wasn't quite right. I was due to make my arrival into this dark and dangerous bright and beautiful world in early 1971. 

Apparently it was around this time that Mum happened to see the 1967 film Camelot, starring Richard Harris as King Arthur, Vanessa Redgrave as Guenevere,  and Franco Nero as Lancelot. 

You can see where this is going, can't you? 

Mum thought Vanessa Redgrave was lovely. Moreover, she was quite taken with her name. "What a beautiful name," she thought. This time, Dad agreed.

Side note: I'm glad she didn't go with Guenevere, because I would have spent my entire life spelling my name to people. It sometimes happens with Vanessa, but not TOO often...

My reluctant arrival into the world occurred on January 15th, 1971. Mum endured an epic and traumatic labour.  I didn't want to be born and kept swimming back the wrong way to stay where I was. Look, it was all warm and floaty in there. Who'd want to come out? Eventually, I did. Around 6pm. Just in time for dinner. Prophetic. 

And it was settled.  My crumpled little yellow and jaundiced features looked like a Vanessa. For a middle name I was given Faye, with a rogue E on the end. Simply because that's Mum's middle name (Alison Faye), so she gave me the same one as hers. I mention the rogue E because I'm quite proud of it. It reminds me of Anne Shirley insisting her name be spelled with an E in Anne of Green Gables. 

Again, it would appear that Mum was oblivious to the potential abbreviations of Vanessa. These days I'm often known as Ness or Nessie (hence the name of this blog). Mum, Dad and Mick always call me Vanessa, but everyone else (mostly) calls me Ness.

Shout out to all my fellow Vanessa's and Ness's out there. I imagine you've also been called Vanessa the Professor, Vanessa the Undresser (useful if your career is stripping), or Messy Nessy in your life time. The latter being particularly apt for me. Ahem.

Oh, and my brother? Who was named a short and to the point Mark? In primary school he was nicknamed "Jaffa" due to his red hair resembling the lollies. It's stuck ever since. Even my boys call him Uncle 'Jaf'. Names are a funny old thing, aren't they? 

And just for another interesting anecdote, I noticed a curious coincidence. For three generations in my husband's family, dudes have married ladies with names beginning with a V.

Mick's Grandmother's name was Violet and his mum's name was Verna. Then he married me, a Vanessa! Just a funny coincidence. But it will be interesting to see if one of our boys ends up with a partner whose name begins with a V... We'll have to wait and see. 

I'm pretty cool with my name. Vanessa Redgrave  is a pretty rad namesake. These days she's known as the narrator on Call The Midwife, among other things. 

And  while I was born here on earth (surprising, since I feel like a creature from the planet Zorg...), 1971 is certainly a long, LONG time ago. Just like Craig, there aren't many babies named Vanessa now. Or at least, I don't hear of any. It's becoming a middle aged/old lady name. Sniff.

But a very good one. Thanks, Mum and Dad. 

And  that is the story of my first name. 

What is the story of your first name? 

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Hospital Tales

Time for another round of tedious titillating tales from the bogan extraordinaire! This week we are telling our hospital tales.

I must admit I am extremely fortunate in that I have never been in hospital for any serious life threatening reason. Unless you count the time 15 years ago when I was admitted into hospital for suspected appendicitis which actually turned out to be the wrong diagnosis. In fact, what I had was ovarian hyer-stimulation or some such thing (I forget what the technical term is) - a nasty and potentially dangerous side effect from the fertility drugs I was taking at the time.

There is nothing quite like being wheeled into surgery looking and feeling like utter crap only to have your High School nemesis suddenly appear as one of the theatre staff beaming at you in the same utterly patronising way you remember from years gone by.

"You've lost all your hair!" she exclaimed as if I was bald instead of just having short hair. Luckily they knocked me out with the anaesthetic shortly after that and ended the pain of that reunion as well as the ovarian pain.

Other than that incident I've only been in hospital for day procedures to have wisdom teeth extracted and to investigate my fertility issues during my 20's. Can you believe I ever had fertility issues? Yeah, I can't either! I've also had a tubal ligation a few years ago so I don't have to think about contraception anymore. In spite of this, I STILL worry that I may fall pregnant. Everything about pregnancy has been completely bizarre for me so I worry that I would be that one in a billion bizzarro person who couldn't fall pregnant for love nor money while I was still young and in my 20's even with fertility drugs but might fall pregnant now in my 40's despite having had a tubal ligation. I'm not paranoid AT ALL.

My only other trips to hospital were when I had my babies. The worst of them was when I had a still-birth experience in 2007. I've never really written about it because it's hard to find the words to describe something like that.  The birth had to be induced and I was awake for it and felt all the pain of a normal birth. When I changed my mind after declining the pethidene shot for several hours, the midwife, who was obviously due to finish her shift, got all huffy and slammed the door when she went out to get it. I know nurses and midwives are over worked and underpaid but I imagine that if it was a contest as to who was having the worst day that day I would have won. A bit of empathy, please. The only consolation was seeing the baby and being able to say goodbye to him.

Another memorable hospital experience was when Micky Blue Eyes was diagnosed with Cancer. He had to have a blood transfusion immediately as he was severely anaemic and losing blood. He was joking around and saying that maybe he should become a vampire and drink it because it would be quicker! Meanwhile, I had to leave my squeamishness at the door and get over myself very quickly. Then the surgeon came in to describe what he was going to do and it all sounded rather gruesome  It seemed that he was going to slice the bejesus out of him. Long story but we ended up changing surgeons and he had a specialist colo-rectal surgeon and I'm SO GLAD we did. Nine years later he's still here to tell the tale.

Me and Mr 5 when he was brand new.

Fortunately, after the still birth in 2007 I was pregnant again the following year. I had decided to change obstetricians because I was slightly uncomfortable with my former female obstetrician's rather blunt and straight forward beside manner. She was no Nina Proudman. Although that's possibly a good thing when you think about it. Isn't Nina just a little too neurotic to be a obstetrician? And doesn't she have rather too many complicated daydreams about her love life when she's supposed to be delivering babies? But this post isn't supposed to be about Offspring. Oops. Back to my point...

When the day rolled around and it was decided that I had to have an emergency c-section due to my alarmingly high blood pressure my obstetrician was away and the back up one was also away that day - so who did I end up with? You guessed it. Ms Blunt who expertly cut me open and delivered my baby (now Mr 5), tiny but breathing. That was all I was concerned with. Then, with her usual bluntness she cornered me, which wasn't very difficult considering I was completely numb from the waist down from the epidural thingy. I certainly wasn't going anywhere.

"How many more babies are you going to have? she barked.

"None," I replied "this is it."

"GOOD!" was her emphatic response "You were just lucky this time."

Thanks for the information, love.

I have to admit I did feel lucky. And I still do every day when I look at my boys.

Linking up with Kirsty from My Home Truths for I Must Confess. 

                                                    What are your hospital tales?

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The Best Thing I've Ever Done

What is the best thing I've ever done?  I have NO IDEA.  Ask me what I've never done. That would be easier to answer. The list of things I've never done and will never do is rather long and detailed. The list of things I will never do if I live to be a hundred and one, even longer.

I've never:

• Travelled to far away, exotic places, unless you count Dubbo. And I certainly don't.
• Had a thriving, successful career, or even any sort of average job that I've been remotely good at.
• Made a five year plan. Or even a five minute one.
• Known what I wanted to do when I grow up. Still don't.
• Made friends easily and consequently had millions of the things coming out of my arse. Or, you know, I've just never had millions of friends. Forget about the arse thing.
• Been adventurous. I've never wanted to do anything heart racing such as bridge climbs, white water rafting or bungee jumping. I'm a two feet planted firmly on the ground kind of girl. 
• Been the owner of one of those sleek and blindingly white homes seen in magazines and on the telly.
• Been stylish, elegant and effortlessly chic. Instead I've always be the one wearing too much eye make-up and a dodgy, at home dye job teamed with bargain, sales rack clothes from not very classy stores. 
• Been one of those competitive 'Tiger' Mums, bragging about my kids  and how brilliant they are to anyone and everyone.
• Been competitive, period. I can't win the race, because I'm never in it.

Anyway, I could go on for days with this list. Instead I'm supposed to be telling you the best thing  that I've actually DONE.  The truth is, I really don't know. Or maybe I do. It's just that it's not the things I think I should have acheived.

I will never have a home that looks like THIS.

I've stumbled through life, feeling like an alien. Along the way I managed to have the odd job, (even if I thought I was never very good at any of them), make a few friends, get married and pop out a few sprogs. Nothing remarkable. Nothing remarkable at all. Seemingly.

Also, before all of that I managed to survive through several years of infertility. The fact that I ended up conceiving at all was all because of the shit I did to help myself. Actually exercising like a demon and being *gasp*, healthy. Then, after we had our first two boys, Micky Blue Eyes was diagnosed with bowel cancer. Surprisingly, that wasn't very much fun. Okay, not surprisingly, but we got through it. Just when we had picked ourselves back up of the floor from that little shock, we had another shock. I was up the duff again. But this pregnancy ended in tragedy, when I lost the little man at 19 weeks, and, to make matters worse, still had to go through birthing him. That was actually the WORST thing I've ever done. I'm  supposed to be telling you the BEST thing. I'm getting to that. I think. I hope. Maybe. Whatever. You've probably stopped reading by now, anyway. Sigh.

I think the point I am trying to make is that sometimes the best thing you can do, the biggest achievement, is to survive all the worst things. Does that even make sense?

I've survived all of the above and am still relatively sane (okay, it's debatable), as well as bumbling along through life without the diagnosis of Asperger's until I was 40. Did I mention that? That was a fairly big deal for me and a gigantic yawn for everyone else. Which is what this post is turning into.  Sorry!

Plus, the fact that I've survived all of this and went on to become a Professional Bogan, boring everyone with this bogan themed blog is quite a stunning achievement in itself. Whether it's stunning in a good way or bad way- well, draw your own conclusions. I think you know what mine is. I'm a very proud bogan blogger. So ner.

Now I am also facing one of my biggest challenges yet. Potentially giving up cakies. I know. Heartbreaking. If I survive this, it could possibly be my biggest achievement to date. I am having a Glucose Tolerance Test on Monday. I get to carb load for the next few days before finding out if my cakie addiction has caught up with me. This should be interesting. Or boring as batshit, really. Stay tuned. Or tune out. Or whatever.

Linking up with The Lounge. which is being hosted by Tegan from Musings Of The Misguided.

What is the best thing you've ever done? It may not be what you think...

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