Sad news

The last few days are a crazy blur. On Friday we found out our baby had died and that there were some other complications. We had to wait till Monday for me to have surgery and I am now recovering at home. I can't believe how everything has changed in such a short time.

Our friends and family have been amazing and I have been overwhelmed by the love people have shown. I have also been so grateful to God for how he has prepared me for this. In a weird way lots of things have happened in the last few weeks that are helping me to accept this and to see hope, even in the midst of deep sadness.

My husband and I are so grateful for each other and the relationship God has built between us. We were both so excited to be beginning our family, but we are making plans to make the most of the time we have just as a couple.

There is such a loss of innocense with the loss of a baby. I had had such a sense of peace and we hadn't had any scans until the one on Friday. Now I need to say goodbye to that and accept the reassurance that medical intervetion can give.

I feel tired by the journey we are only just beginning as we deal with this, but I know we are no alone.

Who am I?

I have been thinking a lot about how my identity is going to change once the baby arrives and I am actually really looking forward to it. I have had creeping dissatisfaction with working for the last couple of years and even though I love lots about my work I am looking forward to the change of pace and focus of being at home. Apparently teachers have the highest rates of post natal depression. I think probably because we love people contact and control, which often disappear for Mums at home. I know that I will have to protect myself from that but I am also excited about learning a new craft, the craft of being a Mum.

I have learnt a lot about myself over the last year or so and the changes that I have seen in myself give me a lot more confidence about managing such a massive change in my identity. I used to have my worth so wrapped up in what I did and what I managed to achieve. Now I think I have a more balanced view and no my worth remains constant no matter what I strive for or the failures or mistakes I make. I think I also have stopped taking life and myself so seriously. I don't want to be too intense now and especially when the baby arrives. Hopefully I can still laugh despite sleep deprivation and inconsolable crying.

One thing I find problematic is how much my identity is already changing in my own mind and the fact that my workmates cannot see those changes because they are not part of our work life. It is difficult to deal with the gap between the way I am perceived and how I see myself. But I am learning to let it go and also to revel in the quiet changes that are only observable to me as I move towards a totally new job!

The Hibernation is Over!

I have been absent from cyberspace for the last few months. I haven't been feeling my usual purky self. Actually I have been feeling awful. But I am starting to feel better so I am back online.
Thankfully there is a very logical reason for me to be feeling so under the weather. I am 14 weeks pregnant!
I am very happy and excited about this new phase of my life. Now that the morning sickness seems to be diminishing I am starting to actually get excited! We have wanted to start a family for a while but have been waiting for the right time. So here it is.

It is quite a bizarre experience to think there is a little person growing inside me. It has taken a lot to get my head around it all and I don't think I am quite there yet. This week I will hear the heartbeat for the first time. I have no idea how I will react but I hope it helps me to bond a little more with the bean, actually more like an orange now.

I am not very good at keeping secrets so the first few weeks when we didn't want everyone knowing were quite bizarre. We told our close family and friends, knowing we would want their support if things didn't go well. But here we are and the cat is now really out of the bag. Work knows and slowly the gossip mill is working its magic. I am a teacher so at some point I will have to tell the kids. But for now I think I will wait till one of them says "You're looking pretty fat miss!". Gotta love the directness of teenagers.

At the moment there is not much to show for the all action going on inside me and I am really looking forward to my bump appearing. I am sure the time will come when I wish it wasn't there but I love the way your body reveals the miracle happening inside.

The baby is due on February 3rd 2008 and between now and then there feels like there is a lot to do. Especially a lot of thinking to do about parenting and the family by husband and I want to create. One of the best things at the moment is talking to my Mum and Mother in Law about their experiences and what it was like for them to be at home with kids. It makes the whole process seem more normal and the nostalgia and softness they use to describe it really makes me look forward to it all. I also really appreciate their candour about the awful days and the struggles. It helps to know that ordinary women can do the extraordinary job of being Mums, so maybe I can too!

Do you find it hard to know what you think? To know who you are and what you are about?
I am really struggling with this and I am only just realising what a profound impact it has on my life. Anyone who knows me will tell you I am a rather opinionated woman. But having opinions about non-personal issues and ideas is pretty straight forward for me.
What I find hard is knowing my own mind, hearing myself think above the racket of comparing myself with others. I really struggle at times to remember what I used to think or feel, especially after being around someone who as a very appealing or strong approch to life.

An example of this is the process we just went through in buying our new car. We wanted lots of input cause we are just not car people. So we asked lots of people, some expert and some not so expert and pooled their advice. Overall there was not a lot of agreement. They were all just their opinions based on their own experience or priorities and in the end we had to make the decision ourselves and carry the risk of that. It was amazing to realise that apart from the obvious, common sense views, everyone makes their own decisions and what one person does can be very different from the next person.

Even deeper than that is knowing your own thoughts. I know it may sound a bit like I am losing it, but when I am around people who seem to have it all sorted I latch onto the decisions they have made and find it hard to remember I am not them. And that I might need to walk a different path. I like the security that a tried and tested way of being offers. Stepping out and making my own way is really scary. The apparent certainty of others is very attractive when I feel so unsure.

I am a details person so even the tiny details of someone elses life seems to affect me. How they organise their day, what food they eat, what pen they use...
When I write it like that it seems pretty pathetic to be influenced so easily!

I think for me the scariest thing I have realised recently is that by not having good boundaries between my mind and other people, I also sabotage my relationship with God. That is a relationship where no-one else is there to copy or filter myself through. So there is this sense of being very vulnerable and also it has highlighted how out of touch with myself I can be. I trully believe I will only know myself really, through relationship with Jesus. But it is scary to be alone before God, with no answers and no excuses. But what freedom I can glimpse in that. I hope one day it will not just be a glimpse...

I am a teacher so you would think I would love learning, not so much today though.

I have begun a distance course in tutoring kids with Learning Difficulties. It is through an organisation called SPELD. There is a link to their website in the Links I Like. I am excited about learning something new and something which will be so useful for me in my job. But I am having a little trouble getting my assignment done. I have one per month as well as the theory I need to learn. It has been a long time since I have done any study and I am lacking the discipline required. Even planning how to go about completing the assignment has thrown me for a loop.

When I think back about being at Uni it seems like it was just coffees with friends and maybe a few essays but now I am remembering how hard it was. I have new respect for my husband and the work that went into him completing his thesis.

I am excited about all I will learn through the course, I just have to get over the mental block about actually getting the work done. So this week I think there will be a few late nights. Oh well, I can't escape the consquences of my procrastination and hopefully by next month I will have myself into a good routine for completing the next one. Somehow I think this may be quite character building, not sure if I really want my character built but it is a bit late now!

I think I am one of the most impatient people in the world! I am not exagerating. Once I can see that something might happen I just cannot wait for it.

For example today. We went car shopping. My husband reminded me frequently throughout the day that we probably wouldn't buy a car. But it didn't quite sink in. We went to the auctions and decided not to buy anything. We went to a heap of dealerships and decided not to buy. All the while I am congratulating myself on my wisdom and patience and how clinical and business like I am being about the whole thing. But then the wheels came off, so to speak.

We saw two cars which were exactly what we wanted, except for the price. They were double what we were prepared to pay. But the salesman thought we should still put in an offer. So we had a good look at it and went for a test drive. That was my fatal mistake. As we drove I imagined myself driving it and doing my life with this fantastic car. From then on I was a gonna. As we put the offer in it didn't even occur to me that it wouldn't be accepted, despite the mathmatical improbability of it all. So when they came back and asked if we could pay more I was so disappointed when my husband wisely stuck to the price we had agreed.

Since then I have been in the throws of irrational, impulse buying impatience. I have been trying all the possible combinations we have to be able to afford that car. The car is good, but it is more about having it, having the "problem of the car" sorted. I am someone who likes things to be secure and sorted and I find having uncertainty in my life really scary. To the point where I will make very silly decisions just so I know what is happening.

There have been a few things in my life recently which require patience and though I would like to believe I am getting more patient and trusting God to act in his time, I really want to fast forward.

Hmmm I have a funny feeling that no matter how fast life goes it will never be quite as fast as my planning nature requires and in the process I don't enjoy anything much at all. Instead of being excited about the journey of buying a car today, I just wanted to get it done. I just hope I don't have to buy a car very often in my life! It is not good for me!

And still we do not have a new car.
Sigh...

I just read an interesting article about mental health at different stages of life. I have been wondering a bit about my mental health!
One of the points they make is that the 20s are a really hard decade to live through. You are working out how you want your life to be and deciding whether the values you thought you would live by when you grew up, are the values you still want to uphold. I think it is also a decade of navel gazing because you don't have anyone much who is dependent on you so there is plenty of time for thinking about your identity and your life.
This can be a blessing and a curse.

I am finding it scary to now reach an age where I am living out the adult life I used to day dream about, and it is not exactly how I planned it. I know that my teenage and even early 20s ideas of what being this age would be like were pretty unrealistic, but realising that the world is not quite my oyster has been a bit of a shock.

The other thing which I am noticing is that at Uni I felt as if I was very similar to my friends and that we all wanted similar things for our futures. But now the differences are becoming apparent. Not necessarily in the deep things but in the order we choose to do things in life or the different priorities we hold. It feels a bit lonely and scary to making some life decisions which are very different to my friends who I am used to think are the same.

But I am also excited. This is when my true identity begins and I get to write my own story, to work out what makes me and my husband different from the other couples we know. I don't mean it to sound as if I think it is a comparison excercise or competition. Just that you have to start going it alone and knowing you are okay with your choices, even if others don't agree or choose differently.

One thing I am pondering is the sneaky suspision that there is more to me that I had thought. That the identity I have built up so far is not the full picture and that my life could go in directions I had not dreamed were possible even 5 years ago. I like that. I like that my life is not a path to follow but something I am discovering along the way.