Conversations with my husband

There's been lots of baby-centric conversations recently. Our timeline still hasn't changed (we have a friend on a similar but less concrete timeline who when they visit asks if anything has changed. Every. Single. Time.. I think I need to get M to ask them to stop as it only serves to rub it in my face...), everything is still looking as it has been, although that deadline is slowly creeping closer. But we seem to talk about it more.

I'm not entirely sure if it helps or not.

We know three toddlers, all born within a few months of each other, who we interact with on a regular basis (plus the children of not-quite-so-close friends who we see occasionally), but the three toddlers are the focus here. Two boys and a girl, all close in age, with three very different parenting styles. And while our social commentary on those parenting styles is a conversations for another day, every time we spend some time with any of them (or in the case of my niece, we skype with her) we end up talking about said child, their behaviour, their milestones, and the associated parenting. We dissect what we like and what we'd like to replicate, and talk over the things we're not so keen on

Aside from the fact that it just reminds me that I'm being forced to wait, and I have several years until any child of ours is hitting those milestones, I do like that we're talking about it and making sure that we're on approximately the same page with things that we want to make sure that we do.

As you may have heard me mention on other social-media there is a law a hair's breadth from passing that will let us take our business to farmers markets. It'll go into effect in September with some luck. It led to a very long conversation (that started while wandering around the supermarket and carried on in the equivalent of B&Q!) about how we want the business to proceed and how we envision everything coming together. I had to be very vehement that I will sacrifice my business for starting a family, and to not even consider the opposite. I think he was a little surprised, by how strongly I felt about it if nothing else. But it was ultimately a good conversation and with some luck everything will come together in some semblance of how we would like it to.. we shall see!

Starting a family has also been mentioned a few times in conversations regarding us trying to improve our lifestyles. As previously mentioned we're going the old fashioned move more eat less route, with slow but steady progress and some mini goals and long term goals set. We want to create these habits now - having a balanced diet, eating sensibly, eating reasonable portions and not boredom or comfort eating, along with being more active - so that we can properly model them to our children, and hopefully have kids with less body image and food hang-ups than we both have.

I do like that we talk about these things, starting a family, how we want to parent and the like. It makes it more real, and that's a double edged sword. On the one hand the fact that it means it's getting closer and it is going to happen is wonderful. But it fills me with hope. Hope that gets broken and deadened with this wait, with the ups and downs of every day life, with staring at the calendar willing it to read a year and a half from now. How can I take joy in every day life, in passing events, when I'm just want them to fly by so our deadline is closer?

On a slightly random aside, I've been off the pill now for seven months. I'm very happy I chose to come off when I did as this much later my cycle is showing vague hints that it might just be starting to settle down and regulate, but that's as close as it gets. I've been a lot more emotionally stable (which doesn't really say a whole lot given my usual emotional state) and things just seem to go a little better.

Bad days

Warning: This is an unedited ramble

I'm having a bad day. The problem with bad days is that there is always someone who suffers worse than you and has more going on and who is more deserving of support than you. Therefore, your bad day is not *really* a bad.

But bad days are relative.

My bad day is a bad day for me, and I decided that was allowed. I'm not going to post on facebook, or G+ or anywhere else because, firstly, it's not something I want the world to know, and secondly, I don't want to have to explain why I feel like this and justify why this need makes me feel this bad.

So what does a "Baby day" look like. I can't speak for all, but this is my day.

Usually it starts just like every other day, but I usually have a particular stress such as being overly tired or stressed (both of which were true this morning). Sometimes, there are no stresses, and it's just there. I have nothing on the calendar that should mean I have to be around babies, but every conversation today seems* to have included babies. I got up at 11 - having had a late night - and logged on to fb. The first status was a mother posing about her kids, the fourth was a father discussing his kids. Nothing else in my feed registered. I felt like I was being bombarded with updates on kids. I logged off.

This afternoon I went to a BBQ - no babies, all good. But then conversations ranged from motherhood, 'When you own a dog they become your children', baptism and motherhood. Of course they weren't all like that, but I don't remember the others. My brain won't let me. Or I won't let me. The problem being that there is a masochistic part of me that wants to hold on to and replay these conversations so I can feel *something* or some kind of connection with motherhood. I want to engage in these conversations, even though they hurt so much, because at least then I have a line or link to those who have what I most desperately want.

However, a side effect of these conversations, as well as the initial pain they cause, is the deeper, longer-lasting jealousy which develops into guilt over said jealousy. Why jealously? I'm having these conversations with people who are parents. And the question my mind supplies, every TIME, is "What did you do right to get to have a family?" "Why do you get to have a family and I don't?". I hope it should be obvious how that quickly develops into guilt over that line of thought.

I managed to survive the BBQ, I was even "charming" by all accounts. I don't feel like I was. I feel washed out and edgy. I feel like I was trying to hold myself together just long enough. I'm still trying to hold myself together. I'm a little better her, at the end of the day, looking at a screen, trying to distract myself and focus on other things.

So what are the other things you can focus on when you're having a bad day? These will differ for every person, but for me: Chatting on facebook, reading news articles on education, and watching T.V. programmes like criminal minds - engaging, bloody and violent. Comedy doesn't help me, nor do cartoons or fantasy usually, I need gritty and uncompromising to get my head away from broody thoughts.

This has been quite a ramble. I'm not sure how helpful or even relevant it is. But I wanted to share my bad day. Reading over it, it doesn't even sound that bad. What you can't convey in writing is the constant struggle, the draining ache that takes your energy and makes everything so hard to do, that utter sinking feeling when you come home and realise you're alone with your thoughts again, or simply expending the energy required not to cry in front of your significant other.

*****

*I know this is not true, but when like this my mind makes connections and everything comes back to pregnancy, birth, babies and motherhood. You'd be amazed at how many things we do in everyday life link to those themes.

Babyless Visit

At the start of March I got a phone call asking when I had been anticipating visiting next. Honestly, while I didn't have a time in mind, I hadn't anticipated another visit until we had a child. I made a deal (only semi-joking) with my Mum that when we had a child we would spend the first Christmas with them.

And then the phonecall. With a choice. Grandad isn't getting any better. Either scramble for the money and visit within a month or so. Or hold out, save up and have the money to hand ready for the funeral. Not much of a choice, even though only I'm able to come.

I've been keeping the visit pretty quiet, not many people outside of family know I'm going to be in the country. But the entire purpose of the visit is to spend time with my family. It'll probably be a couple more years before I'm back on a social trip again. But at least then I'll have the husband with me.

There's lots of mixed emotions churning around my head right now.  As is usual to us here, lots of them baby related.

The reality really hit me yesterday that barring some impressive odds this is the last time I'll see my Grandad. Chances are I'll never be able to share a pregnancy and the growth of my family with the man who was my Father-figure throughout my childhood. I'll never see him holding my baby, his great-grandchild.

At least I'll get to spend some time with my niece.

Back again; living through the good times too.

I've been away from here for a while. There's been a lot going on and it hasn't been things I could share, and it hasn't been directly relevant to the baby crazies. However, they never went away. This was really brought home to me over the holidays.

I've had a brilliant holiday. I've relaxed, enjoyed myself and had a great deal of fun. On New Years day, after a long night partying and drinking, I and several others, rocked up at a local restaurant to spend a pleasant afternoon re-hydrating and eating. We ate and drank (non-alcoholic beverages I can assure you!) and continued to enjoy each others company.

Half-way through the afternoon a friend with small children turned up with his youngest, a beautiful little girl. She held on to her Daddy whilst we talked to him and said hello to her too. They didn't stay long. But that's probably what started it.

I was fed, I was watered, and I was coming down after a good night. Alcohol is, after all , a depressant and that effect is usually felt as it leaves your system. I started to feel down. Nothing bad, I just put it down to being tired. That's not unusual. The father and daughter left and I continued to chat, but quieter.

Then another couple showed up... with their baby. A beautiful, engaged, 9 month old baby girl. I couldn't resist. I knew I had to go say hi to them, and she was there, so I asked for a cuddle. I bounced her on my knee, I made silly noises, I even put her coat back on - her mother complimented my baby dressing abilities - I held her. Then I couldn't.

It crashed over me. It was painful. Luckily I was sat next to a friend who was aware of my "issues". I looked at her and said "take her". She did and I ran to the loo. I just couldn't hold back the tears.

It's been so long, there have been so many other things to cry over that I thought this one had run it's course, that maybe I was over it. That I could live without. I'm not sure when I deluded myself to that extent but somewhere, I think, I had hoped - given everything else that's going on I know I'm further than ever from where I had hoped.

I don't think anyone else noticed. I'm quite good at crying without rubbing my eyes so they don't go red. (When did life become about knowing how to hide the evidence rather than living without pain? I think it's called "being a grown-up"). When I came back out they were leaving. I was able to say a swift goodbye, she was already strapped tight to her father's chest in a carrier, so I didn't need to look directly at her again. Instead I smiled, said I'd visit (knowing that I couldn't) and said good bye.

Through everything, there is this constant. I know that now. No matter what, no matter how good the day, the holiday, the friendships and the laughter, it's there.