It’s been a year of much writing, but not so much on my blog. Gone are the days of churning out one post a week. Partly because time is scarce, partly because there’s less emotional turmoil to digest and spit out in black and white. It’s a cliche to talk about my journey as a single…
Pregnancy
What Pregnant Women Really Need To Know
Trigger warning – this post talks about baby loss. With so many advice posts, pregnancy columns and antenatal classes out there you’d assume that all the ‘need to know’ points for pregnant women are covered. The thing is though, they often stick to the fluffy bits, or the stuff that ‘sells’, with a light touch…
14 Real Life Tips For Bonding with Baby
Trigger warning: traumatic birth and baby bonding. It’s rare that I write an advice peace, I’m no expert after all. However, there’s a few experiences I’ve gone through which, when I’ve turned to google or others, I’ve found the advice severely lacking, or unhelpful. Experts who haven’t experienced the challenges they write about, often don’t…
My Writing In Review: 2018
2018 hasn’t been quite as busy writing wise as 2017 was; thirty posts, not including this one. I did make a baby though, so it’s not too bad going. The year started with a post about new years resolutions – a promise to myself to be a little more selfish when it came to who…
A Family of Three: Six Months On
Somehow, my baby is six months already. Six months. Six months of parenting two and I’m not sure what to say. I read other posts about such milestones. They focus on the ups and downs of the baby and child bonding, of the conflicts of loving two littles, and of the exhaustion of doing it…
Birth – the untold story
Content warning. This post talks openly about a traumatic birth and some readers may find this triggering. There are some support links at the end of the post. I want to talk about birth. Not the airbrushed, publicised, perfect birth. The un-sanitised, unspoken, unseen. I want to unleash the truth of my son’s birth; expel it…
Gestational Diabetes and Induction
It’s less than a week ago that the midwife called to tell me I had gestational diabetes. I was shocked. I hadn’t expected the test to come back positive. I suddenly remembered an article I’d seen about gestational diabetes which had mentioned stillbirth. I mentally decided I wouldn’t google anything incase it was scare mongering.…
The Third Trimester: Pregnancy as a Solo Mum By Choice
I can’t believe I’m already finally here. It’s been a long old journey; a year or two of contemplating whether I should and could go down this route, about ten months of trying, and (almost!) nine months of actually doing it. And still, I’m yet to meet the baby it’s all been about. I’ve got through trimester one and…
Preparing to Share My Love: Expecting A Second Child
I used to scoff at people who wrote about how they didn’t know how they could love another child. How ridiculous I thought. Perhaps – being the last of four – meant I didn’t want to acknowledge that my own parents might have had the same thoughts before my arrival. Now, I’m shitting my pants.…
Second Trimester Pregnancy As a Solo Mum By Choice
After the nausea and dizziness of the first trimester, I was really holding out for the second trimester to be easier. I remember it being physically pretty easy first time round – it was the emotional side that was a real struggle then. I didn’t relax with my son until I was about 27 weeks…