A good year.

Hi bloggers and blog appreciators!


Well today marks one year exactly since Welsh and I crashed in to each other and began this journey together.

Here's a photo of us from our first date. We went ice skating for some strange reason but it turned out to be the most fun ever. Especially because the usually coordinated Welsh was TERRIBLE at it and my dress was wayyyy too short to be doing things like falling over in. Welsh wrote a poem about it the next day but i can't remember how it went. It got lost in those giddy first few months of falling in love.




Since then, we have been doing things like getting married:



And these days, my stomach looks more like this:




What a year it has been. No wonder i am so tired.

My brave and wonderful friend Kate has posted a piece about the loss of her mother on mamamia.com.au this weekend.

I say "brave" because to talk honestly about loss and grief takes courage. To open up your soul and show the world you private pain takes strength. To speak up about suicide to people who may not understand, to people you don't know the context, is indeed very, very brave.

I've written on here before about how much Kate helped me through my own grief-following the suicide of my mother in law and subsequent demise of my marriage. She has inspired me again to speak truthfully with myself and with others, about grief, about suicide, about loss and mental health, my own and others.
Grief can make people close up because everything hurts so much, it's easier sometimes to just put it in a box and bury it. Yet Kate always, always, always made time to sit with me, hear me, see all the uglyness of loss echoed on my face. She was not scared of the crying, never rolled her eyes at the here-we-go-again moments of fear and confusion and what ifs and year long shock.

She was, and is, amazing.

Here's to Kate. i never knew her mum, but I would bet my bottom dollar she would be incredibly proud of her daughter.

This time of year in Wales is seriously beautiful. I say that as though I have experienced the turn of many seasons here, over many years, which i have not, but I still feel as though i can say with authority that this time of year in Wales, is beautiful.
It's the light you see. It's different here than to Australia. It's softer and more gentle and it changes the hills from green to green. Strawberries are having a second season, thanks to the sun and last night, the rain was supposed to freeze in the moonless sky, but the warmth of the day turned it into tiny pin pricks of chill as we stood faces towards the sky. In the village, there are no street lights. Once you get used to a neighbours dog licking your hand in the pitch black and the wobbling torch beams as people search the hillsides for mushrooms, the nights are spectacular. More stars than you could count in a million light years.
As I drove through the forest yesterday, the naked trees reached towards each other like arteries, each branch twisting towards another. The sunlight broke through the trunks in perfect pulses like well timed silence between one note and the next.
The snow is coming. The grass is frosty in the mornings now and I hear Welshy's car struggle to start as I curl down further into my bed. The baby kicks and I can't wait to meet her. I want to show her the country that produced her father. A man who stops his car by the side of the road just to watch the patchwork across the fields change colours at dusk.
I want to give her everything, but I will start with the sunlight.

Hi everyone!

I have six official weeks left of carrying this person inside of my skin. Probably more like 5 weeks though as she has gone breech again in what I can only conclude is an attempt to try and kill me.
I was in agony for three days because her head was wedged under my rib cage (I'm sure it wasn't a barrel of laughs for her either) so now with bruises on one side of me and the whole "don't sleep on your back or you will die" issue AND this rather large lump preventing me from sleeping on my stomach, I have ONE position to sleep in. And this position means facing Welsh on the bed and having him breath on me/snore 5 cm from my face or generally just EXIST which is enough to make me want to scream ROLL THE EFF OVER which I do often and at varying volume levels.
I think I am just over it. Is it too soon to be over it? I can't sit on the couch, I can't sit in the rocking chair, I am writing this standing up because it is the only thing that stops a baseball sized head from being naughty. It hurtssss and I want a massage and some new clothes and some sort of baby coach to tell me if i need more than two pairs of tiny socks and also do I need bottles? And if so, how does that even work with the milk and my boob and everything?

As a balance to the agony and whinge festival that has been taking place this weekend, I have also spent time with my eldest niece. She is a wonderful reminder that they do grow up and become actual people, with actual opinions. And they also say things like "do you need help hanging out the washing?" and can makes cups of tea on their own.
It's pretty awesome.

I was watching The Real Housewives of New York the other day (okay, every day) and the ladies were talking about how biologically, we are attracted to certain people to breed with. Yes, yes, yes, I know it's hardly Descartes but it really resonated with me. That we meet and love the people we meet and love so that certain people can be born.
Our baby has not been born yet, but I know we are going to be great parents.
We have not even met her, yet we both love her.
I've never seen Welsh be a dad, but i know in my heart that he is going to make an amazing dad.
This is how I know:
He never misses an appointment. He asks the consultant questions about scans and dates and stuck our first ultrasound photo on the dashboard of his work van, even though at eight weeks, she looked like a bean.
He speaks to her through my stomach and has conversations that I am not supposed to be a part of. If I pipe up with something he glares at me like "excuse me, private conversation here." Usually I just watch TV while he chats and sometimes I zone back in while he is saying things like "and you just come out whenever you are ready" and I have to have a private conversation with her of my own about staying in there for a few more weeks at least.
When i complain about being kicked 24/7 he defends her and says she is just a baby and that she is not doing it on purpose. When i ask him whose side he is on, he says "duh...the baby's."
And i've seen him with his nieces and how he makes up stories about what we are naming the baby. And how he cuddles them and how they tease him and he pretends to take the bait and sends them screaming down the hallway. I've also seen him when enough is enough and he tells them to go to bed NOW GIRLS but once they've settled, he goes in to kiss them goodnight.
I've also seen him practice doing up a nappy and hand stitching a bit of the pram that i tore within 5 minutes of owning it. I've seen him go gah-gah over a tiny pair of shoes and bring home a baby bath and a change mat and a million things I had not thought of.

Mostly though, I know he will be a good dad because there's something about his broad hands and capable mind, his sense of humor and sense of fun, his big heart and short temper that reminds me of the best dad I know. My own.

xxxx

Wedded bliss.

Good Lord.


Can someone remind me NOT to plan a wedding EVER again? I am so pregnant right now I just want to sleep and complain about my sore ribs and most definitely not traipse around wedding venues and ring shops and listen to seven hundred different opinions. I mean, we are having 20 guests.

I just want to focus on doing yoga and preparing my mind and body for this little girl. Just be calm and not all shouty in the car because WEDDINGS STRESS ME OUT.

The worm has turned.

So guess what? You know how i have a heart shaped uterus and i'm 32 weeks pregnant? Well the stats on her turning from her weirdo sitting upright position was something like 15%. I had accepted that i was going to have a c-section. I was thinking in terms of having her in 6 weeks and not having to wait until my actual due date or beyond.
And then the other night, I felt my stomach shifting like the tide. This swelling and falling and lurching around. I had a suspicion that she was doing something dramatic in there.
Then yesterday, i went to the midwife and she had a bit of a palpitate as they like to do. She took my hands and shoved them, quite deeply, low down on my belly.
"What is that?" I asked
"That's her head!" she exclaimed.

The little wriggled worm has gone head down. I have to wait until next thursday to confirm it by scan and she might still go breech again, but it's a really good sign that she is acting like a regular baby. This is good because if i go in to preterm labour and she comes really quickly, it is much better than coming early and being backwards (which was my biggest fear.) And it just gives us that added option.

We were a bit elated yesterday after that appointment. i said she was the smartest baby ever. Welsh said she's not necessarily smart but she is special. We did agree that she is really cute. And that we can't wait to meet her. Then Welsh said "I think you are going to have her tomorrow." And I said "based on what?" and he said "I am just in the mood to have a baby."
We'd been babysitting in the afternoon and the novelty of having a really cute little boy digging in the backyard with him had sent him in to fantasy land where our baby will come out being able to walk and operate gardening tools. And then be picked up by someone so we can watch Big Brother in peace.

I don't think she is going to come early. I've had no contractions or anything like that. I've stopped running. The midwife said that 37 weeks is considered full term. I think that's what she said anyway. Maybe she said anything less than 37 weeks is prem. I don't know but either way, that is only 5 weeks away which is hardly anything.

I just think she's so cute.

Jane Eyre, pregnancy hormones and long, lost trauma.

I saw Jane Eyre last night. God, it was so beautiful. It was like reading the book, only less effort and more malteasers. Is that how malteasers is really spelt? Malt. Teasers. What a clever name. Well I'll be.
I bawled at the end of the movie and was about to blame my reckless hormones when i realised my two companions were also bawling. What is it with love that makes us cry? They didn't even seem that particularly happy in the end. i don't even know if they are REALLY a good couple. But I cried anyway.

Then i had dinner with a few friends and we sat outside because it is boiling hot at the moment even though it is Wales, and we talked about our first marriages. God. Talk about depressing. I didn't really talk much about my first marriage. I don't know how to describe it to strangers. I don't hate him, we didn't divorce because of mental abuse, there was no cheating, no putting work before me, no stress because of the kids. I can't really explain who we were as a couple. Who I was back then. And i certainly can't talk about his mum dying. I can to friends. Not to people I have only known for a few months though. I get all breathless if I am put on the spot. I claim the baby is sitting on my lungs. But she's not. I just can't share something like that with people who might be careless with it.
It was her birthday last week. I didn't tell anyone. Not even Welsh. This is not moving on. It is burying. But it feels wrong to move grief into this house with us. I am not even sure that it is still grief i am feeling. It's just planning this wedding and having phone calls from my mother in law to be and watching Jane Eyre and becoming a mother myself in 6-8 weeks.

Because she died on our wedding anniversary, everything to do with our marriage became tainted. I don't know if she meant it or not. i don't know if she knew the impact it would have on our lives. I don't know if she secretly resented all the time i stole away from her with my husband. i don't know if he secretly resented me for marrying him and giving her a date on which to do it. I don't know if we'd still be married had she not died. I don't know if she'd be my ex mother in law rather than my mother in law. Who is dead. Who is about to be replaced with another women who can still call me early on a Sunday morning and chat about flower girl dresses. I don't know if there is a heaven or hell or if she can see us both now and what on Earth she would make of the lives me now lead. I have this feeling that she would be horrified. She would say "Oh my goodness, did you really think I killed myself to hurt you? Of course you must know I love you both, of course I would never deliberately break your hearts. I died because i was depressed and I thought you two would look after one another."

All this guessing. All these questions. They amount to nothing really. You make your peace or you go crazy.
Or you run halfway across the world and try to start again.