Posts

Posted on

Seven.

This time seven years ago, I woke up in a London hospital after a couple of hours of fitful sleep, feeling like I had been hit by a bus. In some ways I had.

Sure, the bus was metaphorical, but nonetheless I was sore, bruised and covered in last night’s blood. There was no charge on my phone and I was all alone, feeling dazed and anxious.

p1010645
A few hours old, being cooled to stop further brain damage

I’d had a baby. My first. But he was at a different hospital. For those early hours of Monday 8th October, I couldn’t even be sure he was still alive. The hatred I felt towards the Bounty woman who burst through my cubicle curtains with her shitty newborn pack, calling out her congratulations, was visceral. But I didn’t have it in me to do more than nod and then burst into tears when she left. At that point I had no idea it was the midwives I should be angry at.

Happily, that baby was still alive. We had to take it day by day, minute by minute at times, but he was hanging on. Thanks to several poor decisions by the midwives who were supposed to be keeping him safe, he had suffered a catastrophic brain injury that altered the course of all our lives. Continue reading “Seven.”

Posted on

Mummy doesn’t need wine

IMG_1368

I’ve spent a good chunk of the past year following my curiosity about ditching drinking.

I am sober curious and I’m not alone.

The past few years has seen a big surge in people choosing not to drink. I’ve noticed it increasingly among women, but that could just be down to my particular social media echo chamber. Some women who I really admire (list at the end) are on this journey too and I am keen to properly commit to joining them on this path.

Like many people who are sober or mindful drinkers, I don’t have a drinking problem.

That’s not to say I haven’t had a questionable relationship with alcohol in the past, I really have. In the days of being young and single, living in London, working on magazines I fully bought into the hard-partying culture.

I’ve been to those places where I think I am a more interesting person after a drink. Or that I need a drink to be funny or courageous or to ease social anxiety. I have felt free, empowered, fun, inspired and grown-up with a glass in my hand and cocktails in my belly.

On the flip side I have had crippling anxiety, low self-esteem, self-loathing and utter despair at my behaviour because I have drunk too much the night before. It’s affected relationships, work, my physical and mental health. Not for long, I might add, but it leaves its mark. Continue reading “Mummy doesn’t need wine”

Posted on

And… action!

IMG_0016

This is the kind of chat you tend to see a lot of around New Year, but do you pick an intention or word to live by? I prefer it to making resolutions as it gives me a kind of anchor to my life and a theme to return to.

My word of the year this year was ACTION and let me tell you, life has far from stood still.  While you may not have seen much of me doing anything in the digital space, IRL I have been living life in all its messiness and lurching ups and downs. Including…

Continue reading “And… action!”

Posted on

The trouble with my three-year-old

The trouble with my three year old is me. 

That sounds harsh but it’s the truth. Not always, of course, but sometimes. Often times at the moment.

I’ve read enough and experienced enough to know that when a child plays up, they are communicating with you. I know when she is squeezing out T’s expensive therapy gel in the bath, purposefully weeing on the carpet (she NEVER usually does this), kicking things around the room… she is telling me she needs me. Continue reading “The trouble with my three-year-old”

Posted on

Just what is ‘The Otherhood’?

 

IMG_9176
My little gang

One of the recurring themes of my journey through motherhood is of being different.

Parenting a child with a disability (cerebral palsy) and a neurotypical child, I am caught between two worlds. Thanks to these two tiny teachers, I have a complete experience of motherhood from the difficult to the sublime. But treading this path means I don’t always feel like I belong.

I very much feel ‘other’. Continue reading “Just what is ‘The Otherhood’?”