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The 3am's 😴

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How different my 3am' s are this year, from the last four. Instead of dealing with the cries from my first born, I’ve been dealing with my own wailing.  It’s my heart, it feels like a fire pit, my chest heavy and my arms ache to have a hug from the baby I didn't get to bring home. Sometimes my stomach feels like it’s on an endless roller coaster drop, It makes me breathless and weak.  I’m left with keepsakes, and a body that shows wounds that didnt do its job. Sometimes I can’t look at my stomach not because it’s shape has changed but because it’s shape had changed in vain.  I have nights that are spent wondering who can understand me. How I longed to be sleep deprived from looking after my first born and not wake to grieving her, with my new baby in my arms. I wake to wish her to be here, to have changed her nappies and to hold her, to smell her.  I used to lay staring at the ceiling having flashbacks and nightmares. Hearing cries from the baby next door…Thinking I ...
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Motherless

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  It’s okay to let go of those who couldn’t love you. Those who didn’t know how to. Those who failed to even try.  I was taught to love my family and to just accept the love they give. With the passage of time and the dawning of maturity, I began to doubt this kind of unquestioning love. The chronic emotional and mental stress of the relationship with my mother came into a new light after the birth of my daughter. I could no longer avoid and just accept a toxic relationship that was void of emotion and affection. I began to look at the dysfunctional familial relationship with her through the eyes of a me - a new parent, and started to see things differently. I started asking myself questions like “Would I ever purposely treat my child with such indifference and disregard them so callously?” So many more questions I asked myself were met with “no.”  So, why would I just accept this behavior? Why was I allowing this constant stress to take up so much energy in my life? I ca...
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Blended

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  I watched my life come full circle, when  our due date was almost exactly a year from the date of the loss of our daughter Frances.  Seeing the storm end with new life is a beautiful reminder of just how precious children are. I gained an amazing appreciation of the delicacy of both pregnancy and life itself.  One year after experiencing our loss there I was holding the most precious gift of all, our fearfully and wonderfully made rainbow  baby. We named her  Fearne Frances June Dodd.  Of course, habitually, we called her Frances for the first month - which stung a bit.  And as predicted the arrival of Fearne triggered thoughts of Frances. It was only fair that we honoured the name we loved, that we had spoken of so fondly and then so painfully for the previous years.  Thrown in amongst all those raging hormones for good measure.  Damn those hormones…. I’d be lying if they weren’t there in the background, Submissively waiting.  Th...
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Not keeping mum 🤫

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When I was very pregnant everyone was determined to make sure I knew how terrible it would be to have a new baby. Forget swollen feet and heartburn, morning sicknesss that made me vomit, they all swore I didn’t know how bad it was going to be until I had a newborn around to ruin my life.  As if it were a secret, they told me I would never truly sleep again, would age overnight and lose my identity, my body would sag, I would hate my partner, life would transform into drudgery and red wine, with everything covered in poop. The relentless low-grade negativity sent me running to the internet to search “best things about parenting a newborn.”  The discouraging results warned me of Top Things You’ll do Wrong as a New Parent, How to Survive Having a Newborn, and Biggest Mistakes New Parents Make. Not a single one was positive, and I really needed some reassurance around then. So here I am, safely on the other side of the first twelve weeks of newborn parenting and I can proclaim tha...
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