here's a bigger version of my avatar... it's little Liam from a story I'm writing

amazing! it's almost like seeing a really good science fiction series on the tv! and the pics are brilliant!

these two are from a family I'm writing a story about. their names are Thomas and Jenna and they are brother and sister. They love to play with each other.
(click for better picture)
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I'm going to post the story as soon as it is finished. it's not really about these two, but about some of their other siblings... won't say anymore...

these two are from a family I'm writing a story about. their names are Thomas and Jenna and they are brother and sister. They love to play with each other.
(click for better picture)
[ATTACH]109030[/ATTACH]

how's that possible? they're supposed to turn better.
are you sure you did the right things? like turn everything on high or maximum (you don't need to do that with shadows and so on, only the graphics)? and it's in graphics. and camera settings (for c-button) has to be on biggest picture size.

if you download gadwin printscreen, the printscreen pictures saves themselves somewhere on your computer (you have to modify the settings to your liking first - you can even choose the "printscreen" button yourself).
remember to download the free version, and not the pro version.
and everything goes better of you have photoshop/paintshop or another picture editing programme. if you only have paint that comes with windows, you'll not get good results whatever you do.

and yes, you have to be ingame to use the button if you're taking photos ingame, but you can use it whenever you want to take a picture of whatever is at your screen at the time. remember that everything that is on your screen - menus, ingame menus and so on will be captured on the picture, so for best results, you should use the tab-button when you're taking ingame shots.

here's a tutorial that gives you all the info you need

This is the final chapter - the epilogue, really - in Anna’s story (which I’m posting today so I can put my mind to the pile of schoolwork waiting for me…). I hope you’ll like it.
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This last chapter is dedicated to the memory of my beloved brother that went away far too soon, and my grandmother that died of cancer this summer. I will always miss you.

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Chapter 14: EPILOGUE
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Hello, I’m Ian, Anna’s husband. You’ve probably heard about me, since Anna told me she’d written about me and our children.

Anna died six months ago. She’d been fighting her disease hard, and had her hopes up all the time, but her body gave up before her. The doctors tried everything they could to make her well again, but the cancer spread too fast for them to do anything. They found Anna dead in her bed, looking peaceful and asleep, with a smile on her face.
Her funeral was beautiful. Angela sang one of her own songs and I don’t think there was one dry eye left in the church. Alice cried all the time and I was unable to calm her down.  
   
I’ve been out of myself lately. I loved Anna, and I still love her, even though she’s gone. Life’s hard without her, both for me and the children. Little Liam, now almost two years old, cries for “mommy” everytime he sees a photo of her, just like Alice, and I had to take Angela and Brian out of school for a while, because they couldn’t concentrate and cried all the time. Me myself, I haven’t been able to go to work at all. Like I said, life without Anna is hard. But there’s nothing we can do about it, no matter how much we wish her back. Life isn’t fair, and our family knows that better than anyone.


“Daddy?” little Liam looked up at me.
 
He was sitting at the floor next to my feet, chewing on the leg of his teddybear.
“What is it, dear?” I picked him up from the floor.

“Daddy sad?” He said, and touched my cheek. “Daddy crying.”

“I’m just thinking about mommy. You remember her, don’t you?”
 “Mommy?” he said, and looked around. “Mommy here?”

“No, mommy is not here, Liam. Mommy is gone.”
“No, Mommy not here. Mommy angel. Flying in sky!” he threw his arms up to demonstrate.
 
“Yes, mommy is flying in the sky with all the other angels, and right now, she’s looking down at us.”
Liam looked towards the window, and studied the sky for a few minutes. “Liam not see her. Mommy play hide and seek?”

I smiled, and gave Liam a big hug.
 
“Maybe she is, Liam. Maybe she is…”


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I might continue the story from some of the children’s point of view (when I come up with something to continue it with), but for now, Anna’s story is finished.
And I really hope you liked it!
(I love getting comments, so if there’s anything you’d like to say about my story – say it! )

Dear diary
I know the doctors have tried everything, and that they say I may not have much time left, but I know that this time everything will be all right. This time I have someone to live for, and someone to really love – Ian and our children. I’m trying my best to stay alive for them, even though I feel weak and really sick most of the time. They’ve just been here. The children are allowed to visit me now, as long as they’re not sick themselves.
Liam’s about fifteen months now and can say words like “mama” and “dadda” and even “Angla”, “Alis” and “Bran”. Ian is so proud of him, and teaches him new words every day..

He’s soo cute when he’s running around, babbling in his own weird language and playing with Alice, although – according to Ian – he’s starting to show the same behaviour that Angela and Brian had at his age, like ripping down flowerpots and such. Ian is running around in the house nowadays, trying to keep Liam away from everything that can break and everything that is climbable – and trying to find him when he hides.


 
Little Alice is a little over two years old, and talks like mad about everything that has happened to her in the day care, where Liam also goes. She watches out for Liam, and keeps him busy, so he doesn’t get himself into too much trouble.

Angela writes a lot of songs, and at school, she usually gets good grades, mostly A’s and B’s – just like Brian. And thanks to him, my laptop finally works again after I managed to spill a cup of coffee on it.
 
Both of them are really good with the little ones, and Ian says it’s a really good help having them there. They’re having dinner in the cafeteria now, and Ian said they were going to come back afterwards. But I’m a bit tired, so I think I have to say good bye before I fall asleep sitting up, so bye for now.

I put the laptop on the table next to my bed. My eyes felt really heavy. I hadn’t slept well lately, because my body was hurting a lot, so now I almost couldn’t keep my eyes open. Maybe I should close them. Just for a moment. Only until Ian came back. The bed was so soft that I couldn’t resist.

I lay my head down on the pillow, and covered myself with the blanket. The bed was so comfortable it almost felt like I was floating in the sky, among the couds.

And who knows? Maybe I was…

The treatment was even worse this time, since I wasn’t allowed to see my children. I got really weak, and even a small cold could be really dangerous to me. I just lay there in my bed, day in and day out, waiting to get well again, and crying a lot.

I knew, this time, that I had something to really live for – my children, and Ian. I knew I was going to get well again. I just knew. I wanted to see my children grow up, and I wanted to get old with Ian, getting grandchildren and great-grandchildren.
This time I didn’t cry when I started to lose my hair. I just sighed, and stopped looking myself in the mirror.

Like Ian said, looks wasn’t everything. I knew he loved me no matter how I looked – even though I felt I looked like a zombie.
I used the internet diary a lot. I let out all of my worrying thoughts into writing, and I got only positive responses, which spirited me up.

Ian comforted me when the treatment made me ill, and he could sit for hours just holding around me when I cried, which I did a lot, especially from missing our children. My body ached almost all the time, so the doctors often had to give me strong painkillers just so I could sleep.

Ian told me everything that happened with the children, and gave me things they’d made for me, like the cd with a beautiful self-written song from Angela, the self-drawn get-well-card Alice had made (it was only a folded paper with a big blob of colors at the front, and a drawing inside, but I knew that all her love for me was in it), and from Brian a picture of everyone in our family – including little Liam – saying ‘we all miss you’. I hated being isolated from everyone. Especially my family.

I saw only doctors and Ian for four whole months. When I finally got a break in the treatment, and was allowed to go home for a short visit, the first thing I did, was to hold around my children, hugging them for a long time.

Liam was also allowed to come home together with me. He was still a bit weak, and had had both colic and a bad pneumonia at the hospital, but now he was better.

To be together with my children and husband lifted my spirits, and I felt really happy just being with my loved ones, and I enjoyed every second. After a week, I had to go back to the hospital. I felt weak, but at the same time, I felt stronger, more ready for the hard time in front of me.
But the happiness I had felt earlier quickly came to an end. My body ached worse than ever, and I had troubles just standing straight.
“The cancer has spread to your skeleton, I’m afraid. That’s why you’re having these pains,” the doctor said.

 “The treatment isn’t working as it should, and the cancer has gotten a too good hold in your body. It’s not much else we can do other than hope for the best, and ease your pains with stronger painkillers than the ones you’re using at the moment. The treatment might still work, but we have to change the medication to something stronger, too.”
They did. This new medication was a lot stronger, and I felt even sicker than before. I couldn’t stand on my feet without support, and only a visit to the toilet was like climbing Mount Everest, only a lot harder. Every day was harder to come through than the day before. But whatever the doctors tried, nothing seemed to work. I just got worse...
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When my counciousness finally returned, I was in my bed again. I felt my belly. It was completely flat. Instead of the bump that had been there, a bandage was in its place. I panicked. Where was my baby? Was it even alive? I opened my eyes, and looked straight into Ian’s worried face.
 
“You really gave me a fright, there, Honey. I’ve been so worried I almost couldn’t sleep.” He tried to smile, but I could see from the strained look in his face it wasn’t easy.
 
“Where’s the baby? Please tell me it’s all right!” I swallowed.
 
“Calm down, Anna. He’s ok. They had to put him in an incubator, because his heartbeat was a bit slow, and he needs a bit of help to breathe – but the doctors say he’s going to be all right.”
“It’s a boy?” I smiled.
“Yes, a beautiful little boy, as beautiful as all the other children we’ve got.”
I relaxed, and my panicky breathing slowly got back to normal.
 
“Do you know what happened?”
“The doctor I talked with said that your body for some reason tried to reject the baby. They had to get the baby out before he – or you – died. They also had to operate him right after getting him out – something about him having a small heart failure – but he’s fine now.”

“That’s good.” I could see tears in the corner of his eye, and he looked really tired.
“Are you all right, Ian?”
“Yes. It’s just that I’ve been sitting here with you all the time since you came out of the surgery room, almost two days ago. The children are with the neighbour, if you wonder.” He stroked my cheek.
 
“I love you. Don’t ever give me a fright like that again.”
“I’ll try not.” I hugged him. “Can we go see the baby now?”

We went to the maternity ward together, and then found a nurse there that directed us to the intensive care nursery. We were almost afraid to go in. We just stood there, looking at the little ones in the incubators through the window. I wondered which one was ours.

“Looking for someone?” a nurse said, walking up behind us. She smiled. “You must be Anna. Come, I’ll show you the little wonder.”

She directed us towards an incubator standing against the wall. A tiny baby wrapped up in a blue blanket lay inside it.

“Here’s your little boy. He’s a real fighter, that one.”


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We stood there watching him for a little while. It was weird to think that he was really here. He’d been in my belly, and when I woke up, he was suddenly not there anymore, but in an incubator.
 
“Do you want to hold him?” the nurse asked.
I nodded, unable to speak right then. She sat me down in a soft blue chair, which looked oddly misplaced in the otherwise sterile room. After a few minutes, she handed me the little one, and rearranged the tubes and wires that were connected to his tiny body.

He looked so helpless and frail under all of it, that I was almost afraid of touching him.
“It’s good for premature babies to be touched and talked to, especially from their parents. Don’t be afraid. He’s stronger than it seems.” The nurse went over to another incubator.

Ian kneeled down next to us, and touched the baby’s cheek. “Hello, little one. I’m your daddy, and this,” he pointed towards me, “is your mother.”

I smiled. Ian had to be the perfect father. I looked closer at the little boy in my arms. He didn’t have much hair, but the little of it I could see, was brown like Ian’s. His eyes had the exact same shade of blue as Ian’s, too.

He was a perfect little copy of Ian, just like our girls were like small copies of me when I was little. Ian was right. The boy was beautiful. It suddenly striked me we hadn’t decided his name yet. Everything had gone so quickly, and now, almost two months too early, he was suddenly here.
“What do you think we should name him, Ian? We can’t call him ‘boy’ or ‘baby’ forever, you know.”

We sat there for a while, trying to figure out a good name for him, while we admired our little wonder, talked to him and cuddled him. “Tom?” “No, I don’t think so. What about Ulric?” “Definitely not. Jeremy?” “Nah, I don’t like it. Darren?”
In the end, Ian came up with the perfect name. “What about Liam, then?”
I thought about it. “It’s a cute name. I like it. Liam it is, then?”
“Liam it is. Hello, little Liam!”
The boy, who had been sleeping, opened his eyes, and I could almost swear I saw a little smile on his mouth when he heard his name. “See, he likes it, too!”

I sang a little song for him then – the one Angela had made for Alice. Our time together with him was wonderful – until the doctor came in.
 
“I see you’ve finally met your baby. He’s a really cute boy, that one. But I’m afraid I’ve come to get you, Anna. We have to start the treatment at once. We discovered when we got the baby out that the cancer has spread to other parts of your body. We thought that a bone merrow transplant would be the best treatment, but because of the spreading, we can’t do that anymore. Now it’s down to medication and radiation therapy like the last time.”
The happiness about meeting little Liam, faded quickly with the doctor’s words.

“Isolation, too?” I said, almost afraid to ask.
“Yes. Ian can visit you, but I’m afraid your children can’t. Especially this one,” he indicated Liam, “because the medication we have to give you makes your touch sort of poisonous to him, and since he’s both weak from the surgery, and premature, he gets infections even easier than you right now.”
I hugged Liam one last time, before I gave him back to the nurse, who carefully put him back into the incubator again.



After a tear-wet farewell with little Liam, I sat down in the wheelchair the doctor had brought with him, and it was back into the isolation room.

Steeling myself up for the time ahead, I tried to think positive thoughts. Liam was safe, and that was the most important to me right then. I also knew the doctors were afraid it might be too late to start the treatment, but I tried to keep my hopes up.

I had to stay at the hospital until the baby was born. When I got well again from the pheunomenia, two weeks later, the children were allowed to visit me briefly. I almost cried with joy. I hadn’t seen them since I got to the hospital, and they were of course really happy to see me too.

“Mommy ill?” little Alice asked, tears flowing down her cheeks.
“Yes, dear, Mommy is ill. Mommy has to stay at the hospital a little while longer. You understand?”

 “Want Mommy home!” she cried, and threw her little arms around me. It wasn’t easy for her to understand, since she was only sixteen months old, and not used to me being away from her.

I hugged all of them, and told them I would come home when I was well again. I hoped I was right.

Days went past. Weeks. Months. I felt worse every day, and not only because of the pregnancy.

I could almost feel the cancer spreading in my body, and I think my wild fantasy got a bit out of hands. Sometimes, the baby kicked like mad, but I calmed down when it did. Then I knew it was still alive. When I couldn’t feel the baby move inside me, I worried.

What if it got sick in there? What if I had done the wrong choice? What if…? There was a whole list of what-if’s. A whole list of them that repeated in my head over and over again every time I was alone. But luckily, Ian was with me most of the time.

Then the diary from when I was younger came to my mind. I asked if I could borrow a lap-top, and sat down in front of it. I tried opening the page I’d been using before, but it didn’t excist anylonger. Well, it was a long time ago since I’d used it the last time, so I understood why. I started searching for a site where I could let out my inner thoughts again, and found one not long after. I signed up, and started looking at what other people had written.

I remembered the last time I had written something in the first diary. It was the day after Ian had proposed. I’d been so happy and filled with joy that I’d forgotten to write anything since. Now was the time to do something about it. I started writing. I told my story, from beginning to end, from the day I got sick last time, and up until this day. About my disease, my husband, my children and my situation right now. It felt good to finally let it all out, and to tell someone other than my family about my thoughts. I got a lot of responses. They all wished the best for me, and every answer I got lifted my mood a bit. When I stopped reading, I was smiling. I told Ian about the site, and also gave him my password, just in case. I wanted him to share the site with me, and told him that he also could use it if he wanted to.

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part 2: S.O.S
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I was sitting by one of the windows, looking out on the moon. I couldn’t sleep. I felt really sick, and the little one in my belly was being awfully quiet.

He’d been kicking like mad for two whole days, now – but all of a sudden, I didn’t feel anything. Tears were running down my cheeks.

 “Why aren’t you moving?” I whispered. “Come on… just a little bit? To calm down mommy?” the baby didn’t respond. Suddenly, I felt a sharp pain in my belly, and it was not the baby kicking.

I tried to stand up, but when I moved, I felt it again, only stronger. I tried to get to my bed, but the pain was suddenly so intense that my sight blurred with coloured spots, and I couldn’t see anything at all.

 “Help… me… some…one…” it came out in a hoarse whisper. I fumbled for the button that would call for the doctors, but my hand found only air.

It finally hit a vase of flowers that crashed onto the floor. A wave of nausea hit me, but I didn’t manage to get anything up.  

I could feel it in my throat, slowly suffocating me. I tried to draw a breath, but it felt impossible.

My legs turned to jelly, and I fell on the floor.

I heard a careful knock on the door, and a soft creak when someone opened it.  

“Everything all right in here? I heard the noise, and… Oh my...!” someone in a hospital pajama came running towards me.

Whoever it was, turned me on my side, and I could finally breathe again, but only barely. He pressed the emergency button, and seconds later, several doctors came running into the room.

“I found her like this,” the man said.
The doctors tried asking me questions, but my lungs were in a bad state for me to say anything. My vision darkened by the loss of oxygen.
“I think it’s the baby,” I heard a doctor say, while another pressed an oxygen mask to my face.  

“It looks like she’s near to loosing it. She's bleeding, and the baby's heartbeat is weakening. We need to get it out now!”
I tried to say something, but suddenly, I couldn’t hold on to my counciousness any longer, and it all went dark.

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I was delirious for three whole days, and had bad nightmares and fever fantasies all the time. The doctors worried about me, and ran a lot of tests. When I finally came to myself again, I found Ian sleeping in a chair next to my bed.

I didn’t want to wake him, so I just lay there, thinking. To be back at the hospital brought back bad memories. Those bad memories from twelve years back, when the hospital was like my second home.
The door opened, and Ian almost jumped when he woke up. “Anna. You’re awake!” He turned around.

The doctor I knew so well now was standing in the door, looking solemn, and for all the world like he didn’t want to say whatever he’d come to say.
“I’m afraid I’ve got bad news. I wish I could say anything else, but I can’t. The leukemia is back.”
I wanted to scream. I wanted to say he was wrong. I wanted to throw something across the room in frustration. But I just lay there. A tear ran down my cheek.

“Are you sure?” I managed to say, in spite of the big lump in my throat.
“I’m afraid so. You’re immune system is working at a minimum again, and the flu you’ve got is magnified by ten from what is normal – and now you’ve got phneumonia. We can’t risk anything, so I’m afraid we have to isolate you. No visitors, except your husband. We have to discuss the treatments afterwards.”
I cried for over an hour.

It couldn’t be happening again. Not now, when my life was so perfect. It just couldn’t. But no matter how much I wanted this to be just another bad nightmare; I knew it was for real. Not being able to see my children was the worst of it. They were with one of our neighbors – a good friend of ours that also had kids – when Ian was at the hospital. I felt my belly. At least one of them was there with me in the isolation room. The doctor had insured the baby was just fine. I was four months pregnant now.
Ian sat there with me all the time while we waited for the doctor to come back. He tried to comfort me, but it didn’t help. I felt worse than ever. Then the doctor came in. He didn’t look happy.

“I’m afraid we have to start the treatment as soon as possible. Well, you know what you have to go through, and you obviously know how hard it will be, so I’m not going to tell you that once more.”
“What about the baby? Will it be hurt?”
His almost pained expression told me everything.

“NO!” I couldn’t hold back the scream. “My baby…” I stroked my belly. They couldn’t. They just couldn’t! “I’m not going to do anything that will hurt the baby, do you hear me? Nothing!” The tears flowed down my cheeks.

“Can’t the treatment wait? Just until the baby is born?”
“I’m afraid that might be difficult. You need treatment right now. We can’t wait much longer. You’ll only get sicker, and when the baby is out, it might be too late. The cancer might have spread too much.”
“You can at least try!”

The doctor stood silent for a long time. Finally, he sighed, and said: “We can try. If you’re absolutely sure, that is. You’re in the fourth month already, and the baby at least needs three, maybe four more months more to grow. But I can’t guarantee anything. I just want you to be aware of that if we wait with the treatment until after the baby is out, it might be too late for you to get well again. It can also be dangerous for the baby. Just think it through, will you?” He left.
Ian tried to talk sense with me, but I didn’t listen.

This baby deserved a chance of life, and as far as we knew, nothing was wrong with him, or her. Ian finally gave up, and admitted that he, too, of course wanted the baby to live. But he also said he wanted the children to keep their mother. I didn’t say anything. I wanted that, too.

The years went past, and the children grew. At the ages of seven and eight, Brian and Angela had a lot of hobbies. Angela got really good in playing the piano, and even wrote her own songs. To Brian’s annoyance, she insisted singing them, too – but luckily, she had a beautiful voice. She also looked almost like a copy of me when I was at her age.

Brian, on the other hand, turned out to be some kind of a genius with computers. His first one, he opened up two days after he got it, to see what was inside. After putting it together again, it was upgraded and worked much faster. He could fix any computer problems, and learned all the advanced programs really quickly. He also read a lot, and could read a 500 page book in a day if he wanted to – which he did often. They both got really good grades at school, and had a lot of friends there.

Then I got pregnant again. Luckily, we hadn’t done anything with the room we had used for Angela and Brian when they were babies, so everything was ready for the little one when it came.

The children got really worked up about it, and often wanted to feel the baby kick inside my belly. Angela wrote a good-night song to the little baby, and Brian made a beautiful picture on his computer that we hung on the wall in the baby-room.

I was asleep when I felt the contractions start this time. We got dressed in a hurry (not easy when it hurts) and woke the children, since calling a nanny would’ve taken too long.

Ian drove us to the hospital, and when we got there, he asked the kids to stay outside the door with a nurse. Both of them wanted to come in to watch, and Ian didn’t know what to say – but the nurse saved him, and told them that only Ian was allowed to come in.

When little Alice was finally born, the kids almost stumbled over each other, running inside to see her.

“She looks just like me!” Angela said, and she was right; Alice looked a lot like her. She had the same eyes and the exact same hair color, and if I’d not known better, I would’ve sworn it was a little baby Angela I was looking at.
Angela and Brian were wonderful helpers with the little baby.

They helped change her diapers, and almost fought over being the one to feed her, or sing for her when we put her to bed for the night.

Alice loved when Angela sang for her, and she always fell asleep faster if she heard the soft tones of Angela’s voice – especially if Angela sang the song she had written for her.
All in all, we were a happy family for a long time.

Until I started feeling sick again. I knew I always felt a bit sick the first weeks or months when I was pregnant, so I took a test, and of course it was positive. I showed the test to Ian, and he smiled at me.

“If we’re going to have even more children than this one, we must soon be looking for a bigger house,” he said with a smile. “I don’t say I don’t want to have more babies, because I really do, but we only have one spare bedroom left when Alice moves out of the baby-room.”
“I know,” I said, ”but I think four children are almost more than we can handle. More babies and we almost have our own football team.” We both laughed.

Alice, crawling around at the floor, looked up at us with a puzzled face, wondering what her parents might be laughing about, and the weird look in her face made us laugh even more.

But after two months, the morning sickness had gotten out of hand. I wasn’t hungry at all, and I just lay on the couch or in my bed all the time, feeling really ill.
I’d felt sick when I went with Alice, but not this sick. Ian started worrying, but I just told him it was nothing to worry about, that it was just the morning sickness, and probably the flu, too. Alice had come home from the day care with a bad flu the week before, and, well, the flu wasn’t something to worry about.

But it only got worse. Four days later, Ian found me unconscious on the floor with a high fever, and was unable to wake me up. He called for an ambulance, and they got me to the hospital in a hurry.

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We both had to finish our studies, of course, and we continued living in Ian’s apartment after we both graduated. After that, I got a job as a teacher at the local elementary school, while Ian started working at a lawyer’s office. We married not long after, and had an amazing wedding, where everybody we knew was invited.



We spent our honeymoon in Paris. We had a really good time, and came home even more in love than when we left – if that was possible.

Our life together was almost dreamlike, and everything was just perfect. But then I started to feel sick. I was really afraid it might be leukemia again, because the doctors had warned me that it was possible it could come back.

“You should really go to the doctor, Anna,” Ian said after the third time I came out from the bathroom one morning. “I’m worried about you.”
I’d been feeling queasy for a few weeks, and had lost some of my appetite. “I know. I’m worried it might be…you know…it.”

“I know you’re afraid, but you can’t walk around here all day worrying. Let’s just take the day off, and I’ll drive you to the hospital.” I protested at first, but in the end, I agreed. I called my doctor, and asked to get an appointment that day. He said we could come at once. The doctor ran a few tests, and then asked us to wait a bit outside his office. I was really nervous about what the answer might be, but having Ian there, helped a lot. The door opened, and the doctor came out. He was smiling.
“I actually think I’ve got good news this time. You’re perfectly healthy; well, perhaps in spite of the morning sickness you’ve been having lately. You’re pregnant.”

I was so relieved I almost jumped out of the chair and started cheering.
”We’re going to be parents!” Ian smiled, and gave me a big hug. The doctor asked if we wanted to see the baby, and of course we said yes.
The ultrasound pictures showed enough that we could see a little something on the screen, although it didn’t look like a baby just yet.

We were so happy we couldn’t think about anything else than the little one that would be born in less than seven months. We started looking around for a new place to live, since Ian’s apartment was too small for three (or more) people, and because we of course hoped for more children than just this one in the future. We finally found the perfect house. It had a big garden, and was located in a calm and quiet place with very little traffic – perfect for families with young children, especially since several of the neighbours had children of their own.


We moved in, with a lot of help from our friends and family. They also helped us redecorate some of the rooms, the baby’s room included.

I and Ian could go around in shops for hours looking for things to the baby. We didn’t know if we were going to have a girl or a boy yet, so we bought whatever we could that fit both, and decided to finish the decorating after the baby was born.

When my belly started to show, Ian could sit for hours just feeling my belly and talking to the baby together with me. We were both really looking forwards to becoming parents.


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Then the big day finally came. I’d gotten maternity leave from work, and was home watching TV when the water broke.

I called Ian, who was still at work. ”The baby… is coming! Get home… now!” I was a bit panicky, because it hurt so much, and even after all those breathing excersises I’d practised, I couldn’t remember a single one. Ian drove home as fast as he could, grabbed the bag with my things that stood beside the door, and helped me into the car. I think we broke a couple of speed limits on our way to the hospital, but we got there in time.

I had a hard time getting birth to the baby, so after four hours when the doctor announced: “It’s a girl!” I was completely exhausted.

But when I got the little wailing baby into my hands, and she looked into my eyes and suddenly stopped crying, I knew it was worth it, and the exhaustion was completely forgotten.  

Ian sat down next to me, and the rest of the day, all we did was admire our little wonder. She was really beautiful, and had red hair and green eyes like me. Ian finished the decorating of her room, and three days after her birth, we could finally take her home.

We decided to call her Angela, because in our eyes, she looked like a little angel, and she surely acted like one. She cried little, and all she did was eat and sleep.

Friends and family visited us a lot the first weeks. It was a wonder Angela got any sleep at all with all the people that wanted to hold her, feed her and play with her. Especially my mother was really thrilled when she met her little granddaughter the first time. My sister, now a teenager, played peek-a-boo with Angela until she fell asleep (my sister really did look a lot like me – it seemed like almost all the girls and also a lot of boys in dad’s family-line got red hair, and Angela was no exception).




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Angela grew fast, and at the time she was almost one year old, I was already pregnant with number two. Since Angela’s room was quite big, we put in another bed, and redecorated the other corner for the next baby, since having them in the same room seemed practical. This time, we knew we were going to have a boy. Angela was really excited and yelled “bibi-bother” all the time.

Angela learned to walk when she was ten months, and was running around in the house causing trouble when I, in the middle of running after her – which was not easy because of my big belly – all of a sudden, felt the water breaking again, and the contractions felt almost worse than the last time.

Luckily Ian was at home, since it was Saturday. He scooped up Angela – who was in the middle of throwing the tv-remote control and my favourite book in the toilet – grabbed my bag, and supported me to the car. We drove to the hospital with a really annoyed Angela in the back seat (she didn’t like it when she was stopped in the middle of having fun running around and throwing things in the toilet – her favourite hobby at the time).

This time the birthing went faster, and after just an hour, a healthy and beautiful little boy saw the world for the first time in his life.

He had blonde hair, probably from my mother – she had blonde hair before she coloured it brown – and blue eyes just like Ian. We decided to name him Brian.

We learned fast that having a baby and a toddler in the house was a whole lot more difficult and tiring than just having Angela.

Brian cried a lot more than Angela had, and with Angela messing around, ripping down flowerpots and having tantrums, we were really exhausted at the end of every day. After a year, when Brian also had taken his first steps, we quickly learned that having two toddlers were even harder.

But no matter the mess they were causing, and no matter how many tantrums a day (and there were a lot of them), we loved them more than anything else in the world.

The days went past. I talked a lot with Ian. Everytime I saw him, I brightened, and felt that my life finally was worth living.

I watched while Ian took his first (not wobbly) steps after the accident, and he comforted me when the treatment made me sick. He met my family, and they all liked him a lot. And when Ian’s family came to visit, he introduced me to them as ‘his girlfriend’, which made me really happy. I often smiled at the thought about us getting better together. In the nights, he sneaked into my room, and we talked (and kissed) half the night.


Dear diary
I love my life! I’ve met the man I love, and I’m really enjoying my life right now. Well, not the fact that I’m still sick with leukemia, but I’m getting better all the time. Yesterday, Ian proposed to me! I got really shocked, and was unable to say a word. I think he even was a bit afraid I would say no, but I was only speechless with joy. My dream finally came true!  

When were both out of the hospital, we’re going to be married! I can’t wait. Well, I’ve got one of my (hopefully) last radiation treatments tomorrow, and Ian can now walk steady (if not yet run) and doesn’t need the wheelchair anymore, so he’s almost ready to go home. He said he really wanted me to move in with him. He’s got an apartment big enough for both of us, so I don’t have to live in that tiny room that I shared with Tiffany. I have to retake my studies, of course, and she’s now in the year above me, since I’ve been at the hospital for almost ten months. But I don’t care. My life is wonderful, and I’m happy! Bye, bye for now!

I looked at what I’d been writing, and smiled. Nothing could ruin my life now, because everything was perfect.
“There you are, Anna. I’ve been looking for you.” The doctor said.
“Yup, I’m here. Is something wrong?”

“No, quite the opposite. I’ve been looking at your test results, and they shows that the cancer is almost gone from your body, so it seems we must say goodbye soon. But I came to tell you that your radiation therapy has been moved from tomorrow morning to this evening.”
“Thanks for telling me,” I said. The doctor left.
I put my laptop on the table next to me, and lay down in the bed. I was really tired, since, well, obviously I hadn’t gotten much sleep the night before. I slept until the doctor came to take me to the therapy.

Ian met me on my way there. He was going home in about a week, and hopefully, I would be out of the hospital a week after him. I was really looking forward to moving in with him. He was there all the time, watching me, and after the therapy, he followed me back to my room.  

I have to say I didn’t get much sleep that night, either.
Finally, after two weeks, it was time for me to go home. I packed my things in a hurry, and Ian picked me up in his new car.

The old one was a wreck, of course, so he had had to buy a new one. We drove to his apartment. It was quite small, but it also had a welcoming atmosphere, so I liked it at once.

He helped me unpack, and when finished, we called for pizza, and had a really good time our first evening (and night) together, all alone.



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note to observant readers
(just have to say that Anna was wearing a wig in two of the last pictures... just so you know... forgot she was supposed to be bald in that scene, and my computer messed up before I could fix it, if I remember it correctly)