Guest Post: Why am I a Christian when there is so much suffering in the world?

Bleak Beach image provided by Shutterstock

Today I am really happy to share this guest post with you, written by my friend Liz who is a kind and generous soul.

You may have seen the tragic and heartrending picture going round the newspapers and social media of the 3 year old boy from Syria, whose body was washed up on a beach in Greece. The picture is trending under the #KiyiyaVuranInsanlik ("humanity washed ashore") hashtag on Twitter. The little boy came from a group of Syrians fleeing the Islamic State group. His name was Aylan.

Why, if there is a God, would God allow this suffering? Why did Aylan, his brother and his mummy, and countless thousands of others have to die in this terrible tragedy of our times?

I am a Christian. I firmly and passionately believe that there is a God, and that God is good. You may ask me why I am convinced of this, when evidence appears to point so much to the contrary. The first thing that I would say is that there are times I ask this as well, ask God why, but time after time I become assured once again of God's overarching love for every human being.

Dear So and So - The General Election

Dear UK residents,

I'm really proud to live in a free country. A country where we can speak out about the things that are important to us. Where I can shout it from the rooftops that I'm a Christian and that my relationship with Jesus is the most important thing in my life.

I understand that after last weeks election some of you are dismayed and upset with the result but I refuse to be dictated to by you. Yes there are things that need fixing in our country but money is finite and tough decisions have to be made and someone has to do it.

Democracy means that we all choose who we vote for and then I believe we should respect each others opinions and agree to not agree if that is the case. We each make choices based on our realities, and what it real to me is not real to you and vice versa. Just because one person votes Conservative, UKIP, Green, Labour, Lib Dem or something else entirely does not make them evil or mis-informed it just makes them different to you.

I'm so pleased that most people I'm friends with are completely reasonable and see the logic in this, even if they vote differently to me.

Thanks, Mich x
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Reasons to be Cheerful - time for a change?

How can you stay down for long, when you live here?
This is the view from my front door a couple of nights ago.

Hello all,

How are things going with you? I'm in a bit of a flux at the moment, I don't know whether I am coming or going much of the time. The worlds most organised person seems to have lost some of her skills. I keep having moments of feeling sad, unsettled and turbulent. If you saw my post from yesterday you'll know that I'm in a state of discontent.

Nothing is wrong really, just the realities of living in a new place and having to make new friends, establish where my purpose is right now and come to terms with not being in paid work any more. Lots has changed in the last three months and I think I have stayed strong whilst I made sure the kids and my husband got settled and now I've remembered I've got to take care of myself too.

My instant response is that I need to take the pressure off and have a break from blogging, I know this is always a good thing for me, I've done it many times before.  I'm not imposing any rules on myself, I'm just going to go with the flow and blog if I want to but free myself to not have to be pressured to post for anything. Therefore I won't be running Reasons to be Cheerful for the foreseeable future. If any of you reading this want to host it then leave me a comment below and we can chat but I'm wondering if it is just time for a change. Maybe no more #R2BC.

So this is supposed to be Reasons to be Cheerful and I don't want it just to be me moaning, so my main reason to be grateful this week is the supportive blogging community.  I shared with some blogging friends a couple of days ago how I was feeling and I had such an amazing and overwhelming response. People said really encouraging things and I felt so built-up and good about myself and my blog. Thank you ladies for being awesome, you know who you are.

Then talking of blogging mates, I am also super grateful that I get to see Seasider Clare this weekend for Mumsnet Blogfest. We plan to have a fab time with loads of bloggy friends and some catch up time alone too, it is too long since we last got together in June.

You never know Blogfest might even recapture my love for blogging and I might feel enthused to get straight back on the horse - we will see.....

Wishing you all a fabulous week. Do link up with me for a last time with your Reasons to be Cheerful and I'll be over to visit you (probably after the weekend).

Bless you, Mich x

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Hi, I am Mich and I'm Unhappy

It's true, I have known for a while but I have been stuffing it down, eating to stifle my feelings.  Not wanting to deal with it but how long can that go on for?

Forever some may say, but I am not prepared to keep on going through life living it half-heartedly.  I want to feel joy every day and to know I am fulfilling my potential and doing what I can.  It is not fair on those around me that I am only present half the time and the other half buried in my addictions.

This sadness has been going on too long now.

Image Credit

I truly believe I have a pretty blessed life, there are no major problems I have to deal with.  I have a good family, a husband, my children, a stable job with good hours, a nice home and enough money to buy the essentials we need.  So why do I not feel fulfilled and happy?

I don't believe I am depressed, I expect a number of people will read this and tell me to get myself off to the doctor and get checked out but I do not think there is a need for that.  I think the root of my problem is my addiction.  My addiction to food that is.  I have known for such a long time that I have a problem with food, the years of yo-yo dieting are testament to that.  It is not a lack of willpower, I am not weak.  I am ill, I do not have the mental triggers that tell me I have had enough to eat and for some strange reason when I feel any kind of emotion in my life, be it good or bad my instant reaction is to eat.  I even get a headache and the first thought I have is that chocolate may make it better.

Last night I went to my eating disorder meeting, it is one of the anon fellowships and as such I am not supposed to talk about it in a public place where my identity is known and I was so grateful to be there and to be anongst people who understand how difficult life is as an addict.  Being addicted to food is no easier than being an alcoholic or drug addict but the difference is that I cannot go cold turkey with food, I have to keep eating and that makes it feel very difficult to tackle.  It means I have to learn the art of moderation and limiting myself.  To do this all the anon fellowships advise that you must admit that your life has become unmanageable and that you must give up your control and allow a power greater than yourself to solve the problem for you.  Big stuff, big and scary.

But I feel like I am ready.  I am not willing to walk this half-death march anymore.  I want to fall in love with my husband again, I want to engage with my children and I want to love my body. Inside I feel bitter and twisted, like I am so hard done by and that others have it so much easier than me and I know this is not the truth but it sure feels like it right now.

So I made a decision last night to take a break from blogging.  To give myself some space to have time to read, pray, meditate and concentrate on sorting out the most important part of my life - what is inside me and what is negatively effecting those in a close relationship with me.  I am going to be starting my diet again very soon and using @Slimavite and just focusing on me and who I am and what I like about myself.  Only when I re-find that can I come back and blog again.

I realise that I have been cross-addicting.  Blogging and social media has become my secondary addcition, sometimes at the moment I sit in front of the laptop and wonder why I am there and feel really unhappy and unloved and I just know I am searching for something that a computer can never give me, so I give-in and I will stop.

I will really miss everyone, I have the jitters already.  I know this will be hard but I am going to really try to stay away.  I have made some review commitments and I will still fulfil those, so you may see the odd post go up but the 5 or 6 hours I spend at least 4 nights a week will now be channeled into me and learning to love and respect myself again and whilst I would love to blog that journey, I know that blogging would suck all my time away. So I am giving myself a break and hope to see you all again in December....

I will set up some guest hosts for Reasons to be Cheerful and will post about that soon.

Love you all,  Mich xx

Sadly So Many Of Us Have Miscarried, Let's Call For Better Care...

Mumsnet have started a campaign for better miscarriage care and this is a fabulous thing and I am totally behind them.  Sadly I am a bit late and should have been joining in with this last week but let's be honest, it does not matter what week I post as long as I post and ask you all to try and do your bit to help as well.

Statistics say that 1 in 3 women will miscarry at some point, I am one of them. Last year I miscarried my fourth child. Samuel Noah he was to be called and he would have been one this November but instead of crawling round my feet he is safe with Jesus and even though I am comforted by that thought it does not take away the angst and longing for my missing baby. A devastation and pain caused by a miscarriage should never be underestimated.

Before I had children I always prayed that I would not have to suffer a miscarriage, I just knew this would be such a terrible thing to experience.  I remember saying 'Please Lord, it is one thing to not get pregnant but quite another to miscarry'.  It may seem strange to say but I am glad that if I had to suffer a miscarriage it was after I had my children.  Of course having other children does not make it OK but for me it certainly made it more bearable, I had to focus on my family and keep going and that really helped my healing.

When I read some posts around miscarriage I know that I was lucky in the care I received.  Yes I waited 3 hours for my scan, the one that confirmed my babe had died inside me 4 weeks before but all the people I came into contact with at the hospital were friendly and professional.  The sonographer was lovely, she spoke sympathetically to me and the doctor I saw afterwards explained everything thoroughly and sent me away with my choice to make. When I came back in to be checked after the actual miscarriage took place they saw me immediately and kept me separate to the still pregnant mothers.  I was offered a post-mortem and a funeral for my babe.  My hospital did good for me and for that I am very thankful.

Many women do not receive any kind of acceptable level of care when they miscarry, they are pushed aside and sometimes denied access to scans and appointments.  From what I saw when I gave birth to my children maternity care is not highly regarded and wards are short-staffed and those there are overworked, this does not make for a satisfactory birth experience.  This is why Mumsnet have started their campaign.

You do not need to be a blogger to support this campaign, you just need to believe that good care is important for any woman that is going through the awful experience of miscarriage.

If you want to read my story of miscarriage then take a look here, I blogged a lot about my miscarriage and how I dealt with my grief, I feel it is very important to show other women that miscarriage happens to so many of us and it is nothing to be ashamed of.

If this sensitive topic is affecting you or those you know right now then my prayers are with you.

I hate this feeling!

Gosh, something needs to be done.  When I am at home with my children at the moment I am a bundle of nerves, I am so tightly wound up that it is untrue.  You can just visuliase me as a bomb about to explode! There is no nice comfortable house anymore, not unless Miss M is sat with me, playing with me or in my line of sight.

The child will send me to an early grave.  I do not know what to do with her and it is really getting me down. Today I also feel ill and I just want to go to bed and hide. That's not good is it?

I posted a while back that Miss M was a bit of a pickle and I did not know what to do with her sometimes, she just seems to be so full of mischief.  Now, do not think I am exaggerating, I have 3 kids, this isn't my first.  I am pretty tolerant, I know children test boundaries and get into trouble but I never knew how demanding and troublesome they could be ALL of the time (well OK perhaps the majority of the time).

This time last year... I was very sad!

This is a post about miscarriage, if it will upset you, best not to read.  I feel it is very important to remove the stigma around miscarriage and thus I am talking about this and blogging about it too.

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Today I am thinking back to last year.  I had returned from Spring Harvest a very happy girl and I had just announced to the world that I was pregnant with my fourth child and then on this very day, 26th April 2010 I went to the doctors as I had some spotting.  Never did I imagine anything particularly bad, I thought it might have been a sign I was having another set of twins as I had spotting with the girls too.  The doctor could not find a heartbeat with the handheld and this did not phase me, there is a lot of flab to get through and I was only 11 weeks gone. 

He sent me over to the hospital for a scan just to be sure that all was well.  I sat there for about 3 hours before I was seen as they had to fit me in around the booked appointments.  Still I felt OK drinking my gallons of water and then having to pee, wasting all that preparation drinking!  I always thought that if anything was amiss in my life I would know it, I would have a feeling.  I am normally very intuitive and can sense that something is happening.  Not this time, my radar was off.

When I finally saw the radiographer, she asked if I wanted to see the screen, 'oh yes' I said  and I looked and I could see that it was all wrong.  After having so many scans with the girls I knew what I was looking for.  At 11 weeks there should have been a visible baby shape, a flashing heart beat, some movement but all I could see was a small blob, a very still blob.  Slow tears started to roll down my face, I knew even before she told me.

A missed miscarriage is what they called it.  For some unknown reason my baby had not thrived inside me and had died around 6 or 7 weeks.  It was strange to think I had been carrying a dead foetus around for over a month and loving it and making plans for how our future might turn out.  I got packed off home with lots of leaflets and questions of what I wanted to do next.  What I wanted was to cuddle my hubbie and to have my babe back.  Sadly the latter was not one of my options.

Dh was fabulous and I got the cuddle very quickly as he came straight home.  I made the decision that I would book in for a operation to have the babe removed as it was tearing me up knowing that the baby inside me was not mine but was now with Jesus. I had a few very sad days where I waited for the day of the operation, each moment wondering if the miscarriage would occur naturally before I got to that time.  The night before the operation it all kicked off and I had the most horrendous few hours.  Never have I felt pain like it or seen as much blood.  Thankfully within about 24 hours it appeared to be over and I did not have to make it to the operating table. Never would I have thought that miscarrying a 7 week foetus would be like this, it just shows that we are all different.  I know friends who have commented that they literally had a heavy bleed and a little cramping at the same sort of stage. I know I am not a woss when it comes to pain but this was devastating, perhaps because it had all been inside me longer?  Who knows?

I had a funny few months after the miscarriage, one day far more traumatic than others.  On the one hand I was fine, I knew my babe was in the best place and I realised it was not meant to be.  Dh and I are completely blessed with our three children and on the other I could not help mourning that little life that I had never got to know.

So now it is a year on and I feel alright, honestly I do.  Of course I remember and I will always treasure my memories of my fourth child, Samuel Noah  but for today I know that my life is just as it is meant to be and I will kiss those babes at home more fervently tonight than ever!

If you, yourself have been through a miscarriage or heaven forbid multiple miscarriages then I am praying for you and hope that your hurt is able to heal a little with time and love from those around you.

Mich x

What Could Your Child Be Trying To Tell You?

I know I am guilty of saying 'just one minute', 'hang on JJ', 'yes be with you soon', 'just let me finish peeling the potatoes' or doing the hoovering or a number of other totally unimportant tasks! Are you? I expect so. I think most of us Mums hear the word Mummy so much that it is hard to instantly respond every time and we should not have to, right? We do not want to end up with pampered and spoilt kids, used to us being at their beck and call.

But are there times when we really ought to stop and listen to our kids? Not only listen but hear and see what they are saying? Most definitely.

When a child tries to talk to you a number of times and you always fob them off, what will they learn? They will learn that Mummy does not have time to chat with them and inadvertently they may form the opinion that Mummy does not love them enough to take that time. So why bother? If the answer is always the same,'in a minute'then why would they keep bothering?

So why am I harping on about this? Yes it is an important lesson for me and one I will do well to remember but the trigger was Waterloo Road last night. The drama that is shown on BBC1. Have you seen it? (For those who have not or the non Brits it is a drama based on a gritty Northern secondary school and it tackles real life issues. I think I have heard that real teachers cringe at it but I enjoy it!).

The story line last night made me so sad. A little lad was being bullied (I assume he is supposed to be about 12) and he kept trying to talk to people and they kept brushing him off. So what did he do - he stuffed his face and made himself sick. This small boy already had full blown Bulimia. Making himself sick 4 or 5 times a day. His immature little brain told him that if you are hurting and don't like your emotions then the answer is to stuff your face and to sooth the pain. I know that feeling very well. Luckily I am old enough to realise this now and I am trying to do something about it. I have never been down the bulimia route but all eating disorders share similarities in the fact that we all turn to food instead of dealing with the emotion or pain we should actually be feeling.

So yet again I urge you, listen to your child. Stop cooking and take 5 minutes to really concentrate on what they are saying. They might be trying to tell you they are being bullied or they feel angry. Help them to learn to deal with their emotions. In my opinion one of the greatest lessons we can teach a child is how to deal with their own anger in a positive manner and not to just brush it under the carpet.

I am very pleased to see awareness being raised - bulimia is a very real problem, even in male teenagers but I worry about it being on at 8pm at night and passing ideas to impressionable young adolescents.

There is so much to worry about as a parent. We can not protect our kids from everything but we can give them some love and attention and try to help them grow up to be well-rounded adults.

Have I given you some food for thought?

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Parenting Hurts! Detentions for 6 year olds???

I have had a good cry this morning! I felt so sad and I did not know what to do about it. I wanted to submit and eat and try to stifle my emotions and not to feel but I knew that would solve nothing and I had prayed for the ability to be strong today and to remain abstinent. I have not eaten on this, that is a minor miracle. Thank you Lord.

What made me cry? My little man, or maybe not him directly but circumstances surrounding him. I am not even sure why it made me cry, I think it might of been the release after the rubbish assessment last week. The one I took so calmly. I know one thing for sure, being a parent really does hurt. Every little thing our kids go through, we go through with them and with our added years of life experience it hurts us far more than it hurts them.

At school yesterday lunchtime there was an incident in the playground, one involving my JJ. I picked him up from school and saw nothing of the teacher, I was not asked to come into class or anything. JJ has a chart each day which monitors his behaviour (he has a tendency to call out and monopolise lessons, so this helps him to focus and to be able to understand what is reasonable and acceptable behaviour in the classroom). He told me he had 2 sad faces on his chart that day. He said he did not want to tell me why, so I probed and he said he had been crying (he does this fairly often at school nowadays, it is as if he has no control over how his emotions wash over him). He had cried as he had hurt a little girl C at lunchtime when they were playing. He was swinging a hoop making noise and it had hit her. He told me it was an accident and he had apologised. We talked about being careful and having our own space and then I thought nothing more of it, these kind of clumsy accidents happen a lot in World JJ.

We went to Wild Wednesday, a lovely outreach initiative at a local church and one of JJ's teachers was there. She is a great lady and has a real love for all children. I said to her I had heard JJ was upset and we talked a little about him and she told me he had a good day in the classroom it was just the lunch incident and he would go to lunch club the next day. She said this was a positive initiative to help him understand that his behaviour has consequences. It was busy there, I was looking after the three kids doing craft etc so I moved on. It was only when I was at home talking to dh later that we thought about this lunch club and realised it sounded a lot like detention. Can that be right? A detention for a 6 year old who hurt someone by accident and then I had not even been informed of it by school. This seemed strange to us so I decided to investigate it this morning.

At school I briefly spoke to JJ's teacher who had been absent yesterday and he confirmed JJ would go to the lunch club with the Deputy Head but as he was not there he did not know much of the incident. I then saw C's Mum and apologised to her that C had been hurt. She tells me that the girls had been playing a game and JJ had been trying to wake one of them and hit C with the hoop as he tried to wake the other little girl. Nasty and hurtful but still sounds like an accident to me. I agree JJ needs to understand that he is a big boy for his age and that his actions have consequences but more and more I want to cry. I start to feel that my boy is being misjudged, misunderstood and being penalised for an accident. Is it really right for a 6 year old to lose his playtime and to have to eat with a teacher?

By the time I am home I am really sad and hurting for my boy. So I call the school and they agree yesterdays teacher will call me and explain. She explains that JJ has to have lunch with the teacher and discuss appropriate playground behaviour, then he is to draw a picture of good behaviour and he can go out and play. I am pleased to hear that he will get playtime but I still feel I should of been informed if an incident was this serious that it required him spending time with a teacher for lunch. I ask her if they consider that it was an accident or not. I am told JJ hurt C on purpose. I explain that is not what I have been told. We agree to speak later after she investigates more with the children and lunchtime supervisor.

I come off the phone hardly able to say goodbye and I have a good cry. My baby, what to do with him? So full of complexities. I truly do not believe he is just naughty, there is never any malicious intent with him, no smirks and no backchat. I want to be there on the playground each day to protect him and help him to learn to play like everyone else. I think his lack of social skills hurts me more than it hurts him. I need to know what I can do to help him. I need people to think the best of him.

Every fear that a mother has is coming out, I worry so much about my boy having friends to play with. That report from the school referring Jacob for assessment has really stabbed my heart and worried me, when it talks about JJ having no real friends as he tries to have his own way and control the games too much. He is a part of me, I love him so much. I know I need to give this worry away, it is not productive for me to keep it inside and let it eat at me. Please Lord release me from this and let me know what is best for JJ and to act in his best interests.

I have used Josie's prompt 5 from this weeks writing workshop to write this post. That prompt is imperfection, because truly that is what I am! but as long as I keep trying, that is what counts....

Help, Has anyone seen my Joy?

Posted on a tree somewhere in Hertfordshire by a lonesome blond:

Missing

Have you spotted my joy?

Lost sometime in the last couple of weeks.

Can be spotted by the warm glow or big smile on my face.

Reward offered, as much loved by my kids.

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That's right, I seem to have lost my Joy, very careless of me. I can not really start to explain to you what joy is and why it is different to happiness. I will try though. For me joy is a positive state of being, I might not be happy at that very moment but I can see the good in the situation and I know that God is in the midst and that I am being taken care of.

Right now I am not feeling that, I feel overwhelmed. Nothing too major is happening in my life but you know sometimes lots of little bits of crap come together and they make you feel pretty stressed? Well that is right here, right now for me.

I have seen glimpses of my joy in the last few days, out at the theatre with my Mum, at the Zoo with my family for the girls birthday and kissing my babes goodnight as they snoozed earlier on but that is it - just glimpses. It comes and moments later I feel blue and despondent again. I did not really realise this until today. Work is awful at the moment, we are bogged down and understaffed and I feel we are offering a much worse than normal service and in truth I feel compromised. I do so hate that, being the perfectionist that I am, only the best service will do and it is hard for me to tell people there is about a 2 week wait currently for my team to process their work.

I am glad I have had this realisation that I am feeling down, I can keep an eye on this and ensure it does not get any worse. The only word I could think of to describe how I felt earlier was despondent. I walked outside my house to take the bin bags out and looked at the pile of rubbish that needs to go to the dump, the front lawn full of weeds that needs a mow and the driveway which needs de-weeding and I wondered how things had got quite so messy. Then stepping back in my house I viewed the cream carpet that just makes me want to cry, the hire washer just does not cut it anymore but where will the money come from to replace it?

Oh woe is me! That is how I feel reading this back. My worries are very thin compared to many people's. Ultimately I know I am blessed and lucky, I am also just a little greedy and want more but that is part of being a flawed human. This rollercoaster of emotions that us women go through each month can be a real trial........ but tomorrow is another day and I am determined it will be a much better one.

This is all just 'a storm in a teacup' afterall!

This post was written for Josie's writing workshop. I used the one word prompt 'storm'.

Scared & Embarassed: Making a Breakthrough..

This post has been written as part of Josie's writing workshop. It has been a while since I last joined in and I have missed it. The prompt I choose this week was one word 'Running'. Here is how I have been running from a situation over the last few weeks...

It was about 6 weeks ago that I last went swimming in the pool at work. It was a Tuesday morning about 7am, my normal time and I was looking forward to gliding through the water (yeah right, more like lumping) and having 30 minutes of 'me' thinking time. I adore my time in the pool (when I get there, not when I have to get out of bed at 6.20am and everyone else is still asleep!) and this day was no different to any other. At first the water was easing my period pains and the calm swooshing of the water was clearing my mind. I happily chatted to God and thought about what my week ahead would entail. It had been a rough month for me, what with my miscarriage and I was enjoying this precious peaceful time.

About 40 minutes later it was time to get out and get lively, off to work I needed to go. I had to be there for 8.30am made up and looking presentable. I got out of the pool and walked to the changing room to collect my towel and toiletries and then onto the shower. At that point I looked down and I did not know whether to cry, scream, hide or just die with embarrassment. I am sure the blood drained from my face and I felt such shame. I slowly opened the door and looked around, was anyone else there? No, sneak out and look round the corner, 'oh my goodness'. There from the pool right to everywhere I had walked was a trail of blood, my blood. Day two of my period, I was using the highest absorbency tampon you can, only recently inserted and it has failed me. I assume I bled so hard due to the miscarriage the month before as I have always swam at this time of the month and been heavy for a few years now but this was beyond heavy. This looked like someone had been murdered.

I quickly took my towel and swished it around the floor directly by the shower so that no trail led to me. Closing the door I died as the shower washed away the cause of my shame and then realised it was one of those awful things that I was in the last shower and the red washed down 2 or 3 showers more before reaching the drain. I stayed in that shower for 40 minutes that morning in the hope that I might just disappear.

When I finally found the courage and strength inside to re-emerge I saw that the blood was still there. How could this be? The staff are normally fab and these are probably the cleanest showers I have ever seen. I sneaked into one of the toilets and again shut myself away from the world, hoping no-one would see the guilt written over my face - 'it was me, I am the unclean person!'. Consoling myself I wondered if people might think I had cut my foot and that was it but realistically with that amount of blood it would have to of been an amputation. I could hear the speculation of people in the changing rooms, what had happened, who was it, why had it not been cleared up?

As I sat there praying I heard the lady come in and clear it all up and in my heart I was profusely thanking her. Over an hour after leaving the pool I came out and got dressed. I did go to work, although the urge to go home and hide was very great. It was a busy time at work and I am not one who likes to let her colleagues down. So in I went and felt terrible all day. Each time I remembered what had happened I relieved that embarrassment.

I have been so scared to go swimming or do aqua ever since. Normally I go twice a week and I have missed it but the thought of THAT happening again was just too much. Having had a coil fitted about 3 weeks ago this means my bleeding has been unpredictable but pretty low considering my norm, so this morning I felt I had the courage to take those steps into the pool and I am so glad I did.

Have I overreacted to this incident in staying away for such a long time - maybe? but I think much of my reaction has been tainted by the miscarriage and my hidden sadness at losing my baby. As said before realistically I know that it was not ideal to have another baby but from my heart it would of been lovely to have one.

NOTE: (Mum, do not worry when you read this. Fundamentally I am fine, it was just good for me to get this out and let go)

My Poppet Keeps Scaring Me!

Dear Miss E,

Darling, do you not realise that you keep giving Mummy heart attacks? Thank goodness your Daddy has been here when you have been doing these things.

Come on, explain to Mummy. Do you have a very low pain threshold? Is this something Mummy should be worried about? Do I need to take you to the Doctors? Are you just a bit of a drama queen? (we all thought Miss M had that base covered).

Let me tell you that when you hurt yourself and then cry so hard that you hold your breath and then either pass out or fit it really terrifies me. You are my little poppet and Mummy hates to see you in pain. At least tonight you did not go not shock like last time, it was awful to see you white as a sheet but with red blotches across your body, cold sweaty head and eyes rolling behind your closed lids as you came in and out of consciousness.

It has now been 3 times that you have done these things and I must say I am temped to be a needy Mummy and to take you to the doctors later in the week when I am off work. Can it be normal for a little person to hurt themselves and to have such an adverse reaction?

I love you so much my babe, please stay well and stop doing this.

Mummy xxx

Anyone have experience of their little one passing out, fitting, going into shock when they hurt themselves and not particularly seriously? The kind of thing that just makes other kids cry. I would love to hear from you.

Cheers Mich x

Getting it off my chest in a stolen moment!

That title really could mean something quite exciting couldn't it? If you popped over here hoping that I might be going topless and baring all then I have led you astray.

What I need to get off my chest is a grrr rather than my bra. Today it is just the girls and me and I have to say that life is infinitely easier with 2 kids than 3. Do not get me wrong I would not give up any one of my gorgeous babes but some days less is more, if you know what I mean?

We ventured into town to do some banking, birthday shopping and have a spot of lunch at John Lewis, well you know when the boys are away the girls will play! We had the chat in the car about how mummy needs the girls to stay close to her and not run away and how happy that will make mummy so happy. We then had the more effective conversation about how the girls could have an ice cream if they behaved whilst in town. No, I am not adverse to a bit of bribery.

There we were in John Lewis after our lunch and I thought I would browse the handbags, it must be that time of year again when I need a nice new bag. I was modelling a gorgeous hot pink one to myself in the mirror, when I turned to check where Miss E was and as I did Miss M took a handbag off the shelf and copied Mummy, having a look in the mirror. At that point, frosty old bi*ch assistant came over and asked me to kindly stop my children removing the bags from the shelf. I apologised and took the bag off Miss M to put back and the lady sternly told me 'I'll take that!'. I was so hurt by her tone and accusatory voice that I forgot to ask her if she thought shopping and parenting toddler twins was an easy task. We promptly left JL with me muttering about how we were not welcome. If only I had the energy to complain about her. The lovely £100 pink bag is back on the shelf in JL and they missed out on that purchase. I would not mind but at this point my girls were being angels.

I did learn today as well that even though they are female and my daughters there is only so much shopping that 2 year old girls want to partake in before they start playing hide and seek under the dress rails. Embarrassed in Monsoon - who me? never. I can not wait for the time when my babes want to have a girlie shopping day and we do it until we drop like I do with my Mum - bliss.

In all, for being out for about 4 1/2 hours the girls did really well. I got everything that I needed to, we had minimal whinging from Miss E, Miss M listened extremely well and we all enjoyed ourselves. I think the highlight for the girls was sitting on the lawn having their ice lolly, notice I said they had a lolly. I did not even feel deprived and I stayed away. At the moment I am feeling a real freedom from food obsession and it is wonderful, thank you Lord, long may it last.


So now I better end this stolen moment, I am tapping away in the front of my car on my driveway as the girls have fallen asleep in the car on our drive back from town. I do hope this does not put their bedtime out too much as my friend is coming over tonight for an Indian, DVD and general catch up - a perfect end to a good day.

It is hitting me today

A message to those who know me, this is not a particularly cheerful post, if it will upset you do not read it but it is helping me to write things down and get them out so I will continue to post about sad stuff as well as good stuff. Fundamentally I will be fine, I am sad but all will be well so no need for you to be sad too. Mich x

I have dropped JJ to breakfast club, dh to the station and the girls off to nursery and now I have the day to myself. My op is not until tomorrow now and the way things are going (slowly) I assume I will make it in there to have the operation.

Things are sinking in today - on the way back from nursery I stopped at Asda to fill up the car and buy some sanitary pads. I think that set me off, how sad to have to buy maternity pads when there is no baby to come home. I went to buy the girls a new cup each and some tangle free shampoo for Miss E and of course this was all in the baby section so there I was looking at things for babes and realising I do not need those. I walked around Asda with a massive lump in my throat and feeling sick and thinking it is just not fair to have morning sickness and not actually be carrying a live baby anymore. Luckily I caught myself having this kind of unhelpful thought and reminded myself that grieving is fine but irrational self-pity will get me nowhere. All that was running through my mind though was 'I want my baby'. Sadly, that is not to be.

I had a good old cry on the drive home from the shops, I suppose being alone today gives me time to think and to feel free to express myself. It is hard to be sad in front of your kids or at work so this may have kept me going the last couple of days. On the drive home I drove past the hospital (probably a silly mistake) and realised I would be in there tomorrow and would again probably be very sad.

I realised I am now grieving for the loss of this baby, I had really wanted the babe and had planned out in my mind the next year or so and was looking forward to time off work and my girls starting nursery school and me being there for their half days. A glorious couple of hours to myself each day with my babe, feeding and cuddling. I don't think dh and I will actually try for another baby because as I have said before logically and financially 3 is enough for us really and I also keep wondering if I ought to give up work and be at home with the children more. Would they develop into better young children if I was here to give them more time and guidance? It is not necessarily what I want but I think it may be what God is calling me too. If only we could wave a magic wand and dh would earn £10K more but I know that as Christians we have to be willing to walk in faith and that if me giving up work is the right thing then we should trust that God will provide and do the scary thing first and watch things turn out just fine - as that is often the way it works with God.

So I am off now to hang out the washing and do some cleaning I expect I may be back later.

2pm update, just had a fish finger sandwich and feeling quite a lot better. Upstairs all cleaned, tided, beds changed and floors hoovered and now going to have an hour to myself until I pick up my gorgeous little man from school.

My Sad Day

I am feeling sad today and kind of empty inside but technically that is not true as I still have a babe inside me but just not a living one to be born into our family.

I had some bleeding over the weekend and pain this morning and my cervix just did not feel right. I expect many people have no idea what their cervix should feel like but after charting my ovulation symptoms for a couple of years before the girls I got good at knowing my bodily changes. Anyway after about 3 hours at the doctors and then at the hospital in the early pregnancy unit I had a scan and found out my babe passed at 7+5. I should of been near 11 weeks today, so this was a little while back. It feels completely strange as I was just getting used to this babe becoming part of our family and thinking about all the changes that would come about.

At the moment I am in the painful place of waiting to see if I will miscarry naturally and scared about how much this might hurt and whether anything I pass will be recognisable (I am sorry if this is too gory for you). If nothing has happened within the next couple of days I am booked in for an operation under general anesthetic to have the babe removed. I am not looking forward to that but the prospect of just leaving this to go on for potentially weeks is just too much for me to shoulder.

Dh has been a wonderful support and came straight home from work to be with me, of course this is his loss too and I must be mindful of that. I think to be honest the biggest thing on his mind at the moment is ensuring I am well. I was over the moon to pick JJ up from school today and give him a massive hug and then to collect the girls too for a squeeze and nose kiss. We all went into town for tea and to enjoy an hour together.

I have not really cried much, I expect I will at some point. Just when I do not want to the urge will hit me and embarrass me in public I expect. I do not suppose there is a way you are supposed to feel when something like this happens but I am not as mortified as I would expect. Yes I am mourning the loss of my babe that I will never meet, the one I hoped would be a boy called Samuel Noah. The can did reveal it was just one babe I was carrying, that had been my biggest fear until today, having twins. Now of course I realise my biggest fear should of been something quite different.

Logically dh and I know that three kids really is enough for us and that it is just the right amount of children for us to be really great parents to. When out and about one parent has JJ and one has the girls and everyone feels included and we have time to spend alone with each of them. Another child may of upset this balance and someone could of ended up being marginalised, of course this would not of been on purpose but I could have foreseen it happening to some extent.

I think that is enough wittering for today, I am sure I will be back to pour out some more of my heart when it hits me further.

My own advice to my self-pitying self today!

I came onto the PC this morning as I have nothing much planned today and as Mum is here to supervise the kids, I thought what better time than now to catch up with some of my favourite blogs and to think about my 10 most surreal mummy moments. An hour of mummy time - bliss.

However, I am now feeling all sad. This happens to me sometimes, I am on a high and feeling good about the world (dh and I had a wonderful time at our marriage course last night. I'll post about it another time) and then one tiny thing can make it feel like it has all come tumbling down. I know it is crazy and illogical but I suppose you just can not tell what will affect you. For someone who appears so robust to the outside world I am a fragile little flower inside. Shall I let you into a secret? and it is not one I am proud of - I want to be liked and I want to be part of the gang. Anyone else suffer from this affliction?

Logically I have no idea why. I have lots of good real life friends, loads of fab virtual friends, great parents, a hubby I love, super kids etc but still I want to be liked and to fit in. I remember how hard I found the playground mummy gangs at first when JJ started going to school 3 years ago. I would worry they were meeting without me and yes occasionally people were. Why? because they knew each other pre-school or because I was at work. It took me about 2 years to realise that I actually did not have the time to become part of their gang and do all the things they did. That would mean I would not see my other friends, the ones I actually have loads in common with the enjoy spending time with. So now I have a great balance, I get invited to things and sometimes I go and sometimes I don't but we are always friendly.

But today...............I am feeling like the unpopular girl at school. This blogging world is still all new to me, I am just getting into twitter, BMB, commenting on others blogs, doing meme's, getting awards and recently entering my first carnivals. On the one hand it is thoroughly exciting and on the other I feel as if I am setting myself up to get hurt.

Now, this post is by no means on the theme of cliques or bloggers not being nice to me. Let me be clear everyone has been very nice to me (see my thank you post), not one bad word has been muttered in my direction. Loads of encouragement has been received and already I feel as if I have made a couple of friends. I know that this sadness I have today is internal, it is only generated by me. It is from that slushy emotional self that I can not seem to control. If I spoke to anyone in my ED group they would probably tell me it is because I am not working my program and that the addict in me is on self-destruct mode, that if I can get abstinent and refrain from compulsive over-eating that my perspective will return. Then I might have Christian friends telling me this is spiritual attack, that the devil wants to steal my joy and crush the good in my life so I turn to the bad. Both groups might have a point but ultimately I know that I just need to turn things over to God and get a grip! You are only as unhappy as you chose to be. Wake up and smile and choose to be happy and do not dwell on the crap. That is my own advice to my self-pitying self today!

Shall I tell you now, why I feel sad? It is because I did not make it into the current Mummy Bloggers Carnival. I know - life shattering stuff hey! I feel as if I put myself out there and submitted my first post for a carnival and then I did not get a mention. Some of the problem is that I do not really know the way they work. I saw Insomniac Mummy's great carnival and it had nearly 60 posts and was really inclusive and I thought 'ohh, I would like to be part of that'. So I submitted a post for this one and just 25 are in this one (I have no idea how many were submitted or what the norm is) and mine is not one of them and that is fine as I know I do not write anywhere near as well as many, many other bloggers but I just wonder how they were chosen. Does the host choose to their own criteria - the posts they like best, those with the most comments, those that fit a theme, pot luck?

So what did I expect? I suppose as a minimum I would just expect an email back saying 'sorry you did not make it into this carnival, try again next time'....... but maybe I am just being a whiny baby and should get a life and forget it. This post is not meant as a dig to the current host it is just me getting it off my chest.

So I leave you feeling much better that I have got all this out. After all that was the reason I started this blog initially to ensure that I did not internalise too much and dwell on it. I can now enjoy the last day of my 'at home holiday'.

I'd love to hear your thoughts on this. Go on be honest with me - have I taken this too personally?