About January

 January wasn't a very good month, especially the latter part, but a little bit about that later.  I haven't been in the mood to do a lot but right after Christmas I started a little crochet blanket for Bonnies new dolly that Santa left, she also requested a hat with pompoms.  Both were easy to pick up and work on and I also found a little dress in a charity shop that fitted her dolly perfectly.  She was happy, especially with the hat. 

One of my birthday gifts from Jo in December was a skein of Yarnsmiths merino sock yarn.

I'd seen lots of people saying how lovely it was to work with and had been wanting to try it out for myself, so I was really happy when I unwrapped a skein, I cast on a pair of socks on right away.

The yarn is so lovely and soft, really nice to kit with and I can see me buying of it in the future. Thank you again Jo.

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So, about the bad start to the year, and why Christmas was not the joyous one we were looking forward to.  It started back in the Summer, my youngest daughter, Stevie-Leigh and her husband Darren have been trying for a baby for around seven years.  Last Summer they were finally able to have their one round of IVF that our NHS offer.  Sadly this failed, obviously they, and we, were very disappointed.  It did however result in one remaining frozen embryo.  

The NHS in our area only offer one free round of IVF, some areas may offer more rounds but that depends on many things, basically it's a postcode lottery.  They were ready to try again in the Autumn and transferred their one remaining embryo to a private clinic.  All went well with the visits, Stevie didn't have any problems with the drugs and the transfer went really well, it was a much better experience than the one she had in the Summer.  Three weeks later they got that longed for positive pregnancy result.

An early scan is given at six weeks for IVF pregnancies and it was at this scan, the day before Christmas Eve, that they found out that although there was an amniotic sac the baby had stopped growing.  It's called a silent miscarriage.  You can imagine how we all felt, Stevie and Darren were devastated.

Of course things have to be double checked and another scan was booked for New Years Eve but sadly they were given the same answer.  They were given options, wait for a natural miscarriage, which could take up to three weeks, a tablet could be given and the third option was surgery.  Stevie opted for the natural way, not liking the thought of surgery and thinking the tablet would be more painful.  

Things didn't go to plan, it was right at the end of the three weeks that things began and it was on the fourth day that things got worse.  In brief she was admitted to hospital because she was hemorrhaging and ended up having surgery anyway.  She was discharged the next day but ended up back at the hospital in the early hours and was admitted again, her HB levels had dropped and she ended up being given two units of blood.  While she was on the ward she started to feel like she had a fever but was told there was no infection detected and discharged the next day, still not feeling quite right.  On the Monday she had a pain in her shoulder and called her GP who saw her right away and said considering what she had been through wanted to rule out a blood clot.  Darren was at work at this point so I took her to hospital.  Fourteen hours we were sat in A&E!  Thankfully after blood tests and a CT scan she was told that she did not have a blood clot, but she did have an infection!    

It's all been very stressful, on top of everything there have been many sleepless nights spent in the hospital and A&E but things are settling down now.  She is on the mend, antibiotics for seven days should sort the infection out and she is taking iron tablets for two months before another check on that, and has been signed off work for another couple of weeks yet.   Of course there are emotional scars and it will take time for them both to heal from this.  Life is very unfair at times isn't it and it's hard to see your children suffer when you know that the one thing they have always wanted seems out of their reach.  It's all still very raw at the moment but sometime in the future I'm sure they will be ready to talk about trying again.

I did worry and keep putting off talking about this on my blog but I felt as though I needed to say something. Posting about days out and what I've been making didn't feel right somehow until I'd talked about why Christmas and New Year were not so full of festive cheer for us, I hope you don't mind.

-X-

My year in books

I've used Goodreads for keeping track of the books I read for years and at the start of each New Year I set myself a reading challenge.  I set the challenge for 50 books last year and achieved that, some books were better than others, but that's the way it goes.  This year I've set my challenge to read 60 books over the year, If I make it, great, If I don't that's ok too.  

I know some people see the Goodreads reading challenge as competition, people trying to read more than someone else.  Well that might be the case for some but for me It's a bit of fun, I set myself challenges and goals for many things in life so why should reading be any different.

My challenge, my rules. Some might choose not to include short stories or Audible books in their challenge, I include both, If I listen to an audio book I'm as invested as I would be holding the book version, in fact I would argue that there are certain books that are better in audio, of course it helps if you get a good narrator.

  

I love the stats that Goodreads give you at the end of the year, this is my year in Books 2024.

My 50 books equates to 18,428 pages

My shortest book was When We Were Friends by Jane Green (44 pages)

My longest book was 11.22.63 by Steven King (740 pages)

Average book length was 368 pages

Of the books I read -

Reminders of Him by Coleen Hover was the most shelved book, 2,730,722 people also shelved it.

Glide by Alison Jean Lester was the least shelved book, 61 also people shelved it

My average star rating was 3.2

The Women, by Kristin Hannah was the highest rated book (4.60) 

I've been a member of a book group held at our local library for the past couple of years and the books are really very hit and miss.  This year I only read five of our choices, the best one by far was Mix Tape by Jane Sanderson, everyone enjoyed it and there was a good discussion afterwards.  Everyone agreed that Glide was an awful book, started off well and then went nowhere.  I inwardly groaned when we were given the Dawn French book, I've only ever read one of her's before and it was terrible, Because of You was very slightly better but so unbelievable and forced, we were in agreement that it was full of holes. 

In Memoriam, A Terrible Kindness, That Bonesetter Woman and The Women were by far the best books I read in 2024 and well worth reading if you haven't already.

Some years ago I started to read Jodi Taylor's The Chronicles of St Mary's series, she has added more books since then so this year I decided I wanted to re-read the series so I ended my year of reading with the short story of how it all began.

I've already picked a few titles to start my reading year off and in the latter months of 2024 I re-discovered my kindle so some of my reading will be books I've downloaded, although my preference is still for a physical book.  

What about you?  how did your reading year look?  Do you set yourself challenges or is that not your thing.

-X-