I suffer, currently daily, with an issue that is so easy to solve, but I can't.
I want a baby. It seems like such a simple statement but the reality of it is not.
Many people, including health professionals, have told me I should simply have a baby. But there are a couple of flaws with that argument:
1. I'm not the only one involved in the process, just because I'm ready doesn't mean my other half is.
2. I am at a crucial point in my career, if I don't complete the next year in full I would have to re-train.
The truth is I could live without the job, but I won't do this with out my other half's support. I'm simply not able to do that to him. So until he is ready, I have to wait.
So what is life like living with constant, and often-times overwhelming, broodiness?
In simple terms - horrible. But that doesn't really tell you much. So I'll let you in on a few of the "symptoms" (for want of a better word).
1. Dreams - oddly vivid dreams of hearing, holding, playing with and feeding babies. Those kinds of dreams are actually fairly easy to deal with - you wake up, reality comes back fairly quickly. Then there are the other dreams - feeling a child move inside you, feeling the beginnings of a bump, dreams of that first moment when you *know*. Those are harder to wake up from. The feelings linger. Too many times I've woken up and had to put my hands on my stomach just to make sure...
2. Hearing them - I'm sure you've caught a glimpse of something in the corner of your eye and when you've turned around it's not there. Now imagine that same sensation except with something you've heard. A child's cry, sometimes a child's laugh. It's not always a baby, sometimes a toddler, occasionally older - and I can hear them. As though they were just in the next room. I always know it's not real (how could it be), but sometimes, I admit, it makes me smile and I allow myself to indulge, just for a moment.
3. Imagining them - I *see* them (my children) in many different places. In the back of the car is a fairly common one, in the garden, in playgrounds.
4. Issues with other people's children - This is an interesting one. For many years I could go and babysit or visit friends with children and I'd come away happier, sated almost, for a little while. But as the years have passed it is becoming harder and harder to cope with. I don't feel any inclination to keep the child for myself, it's not my child so why would I? My problem is the green eyed monster - why do these people get to have the one thing I want more than anything else? It is especially hard when I know they did not want the child initially, or appear to have little or no maternal or paternal instincts. I think I'll actually give this issue it's own post as I have a number of additional issues that have developed from it.
5. Menstrual depression - This is depression of mood (not clinical depression) due to actually seeing and experiencing your period. Seeing that blood each month gives me a sense of failure - failure as a woman and failure to have given life. I have never experienced a miscarriage and I know that what I experience cannot compare to it, but I will admit that in my darkest moments I have felt bereft and broken from the mere act of having my period and in my own mind I have compared it to a miscarriage. I am not proud of that fact, and each month I feel incredibly guilty for feeling that way.
So those are some of the issues I face, there are others I'm sure, but I can't think of them at the moment! I'll add to the list if I do.
I hope that helps to explain some of the issues that broodiness can create when essentially "left untreated". It really can become debilitating.
1. I'm not the only one involved in the process, just because I'm ready doesn't mean my other half is.
2. I am at a crucial point in my career, if I don't complete the next year in full I would have to re-train.
The truth is I could live without the job, but I won't do this with out my other half's support. I'm simply not able to do that to him. So until he is ready, I have to wait.
So what is life like living with constant, and often-times overwhelming, broodiness?
In simple terms - horrible. But that doesn't really tell you much. So I'll let you in on a few of the "symptoms" (for want of a better word).
1. Dreams - oddly vivid dreams of hearing, holding, playing with and feeding babies. Those kinds of dreams are actually fairly easy to deal with - you wake up, reality comes back fairly quickly. Then there are the other dreams - feeling a child move inside you, feeling the beginnings of a bump, dreams of that first moment when you *know*. Those are harder to wake up from. The feelings linger. Too many times I've woken up and had to put my hands on my stomach just to make sure...
2. Hearing them - I'm sure you've caught a glimpse of something in the corner of your eye and when you've turned around it's not there. Now imagine that same sensation except with something you've heard. A child's cry, sometimes a child's laugh. It's not always a baby, sometimes a toddler, occasionally older - and I can hear them. As though they were just in the next room. I always know it's not real (how could it be), but sometimes, I admit, it makes me smile and I allow myself to indulge, just for a moment.
3. Imagining them - I *see* them (my children) in many different places. In the back of the car is a fairly common one, in the garden, in playgrounds.
4. Issues with other people's children - This is an interesting one. For many years I could go and babysit or visit friends with children and I'd come away happier, sated almost, for a little while. But as the years have passed it is becoming harder and harder to cope with. I don't feel any inclination to keep the child for myself, it's not my child so why would I? My problem is the green eyed monster - why do these people get to have the one thing I want more than anything else? It is especially hard when I know they did not want the child initially, or appear to have little or no maternal or paternal instincts. I think I'll actually give this issue it's own post as I have a number of additional issues that have developed from it.
5. Menstrual depression - This is depression of mood (not clinical depression) due to actually seeing and experiencing your period. Seeing that blood each month gives me a sense of failure - failure as a woman and failure to have given life. I have never experienced a miscarriage and I know that what I experience cannot compare to it, but I will admit that in my darkest moments I have felt bereft and broken from the mere act of having my period and in my own mind I have compared it to a miscarriage. I am not proud of that fact, and each month I feel incredibly guilty for feeling that way.
So those are some of the issues I face, there are others I'm sure, but I can't think of them at the moment! I'll add to the list if I do.
I hope that helps to explain some of the issues that broodiness can create when essentially "left untreated". It really can become debilitating.
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