To my rainbow baby, Rainbow baby – I only learnt the term after your birth and it felt so apt. I smiled to picture you as a rainbow. That is exactly what you are – a colourful beam of joy, appearing at the end of a dark and dismal time. I’ve talked about my miscarriage before. Finding…
Loneliness
Some Non-Expert Tips For Suicide Prevention
On Thursday night I learned that we are coming to the end of suicide prevention, as well as pre- and post-natal depression awareness, week. I wanted – no needed – to write something. I had to share my thoughts on this topic. A topic which I never imagined I would have any insight into, but have somehow…
Keeping Mum: Why Do We Shush Mums?
It’s a strange thing isn’t it? That mum means, well, to be a mum, but to keep mum means being silent. How does that work? Mums are supposed to be silent? Granted, the origins of the two ‘mums’ are different, but it seems like a pretty neat coincident considering mums are being shushed wherever we go.…
Mental Health Campaigns are Missing the Point
Mental health campaigns are all around us. In principle it seems like a great idea – raise awareness, lessen discrimination and increase support for those with mental health issues, right? But is that what’s happening? It might be controversial, but I don’t think so. There isn’t the equivalent campaign for ‘physical health’. Instead there are specific…
Craving My Ex
I’m craving my ex. Not the ex I divorced, I don’t crave him. I mean the other ex. Everyone has one right? Maybe it was your first love from high school, college, or university. Or perhaps an ex from your more recent past. The long-term ex who you nearly made it through with, but in reality…
Life and Toddlers: It’s Just a Phase
Alongside ‘I don’t know how you cope‘, the other most annoying phrase I hear as a mum is, ‘it’s just a phase‘. What, you mean my son won’t be taking three hours to fall asleep when he’s 15 years old? What about when he’s 37? You mean he won’t be jumping on my head in the…
Missing in Action: Mental Health and My Son’s First Years
Trigger warning – this post talks quite openly about mental health and thoughts of self-harming, if you are yourself struggling with similar issues there are links to support groups at the bottom. The first two years of my son’s life have been incredibly hard. It’s not been the parenting parts per se (though they have…
Co-Sleeping With My Toddler
I was co-sleeping with my son until he was about 13 months old, then, out of sheer desperation for a decent night’s sleep following my return to work, I reluctantly put him in his own room. To my surprise he bloody loved it. He loved the independence and instantly started to sleep (slightly) better. It was…
5 Ways Blogging Saved My Life
Blogging save my life. It sounds dramatic right, but it’s true. I always dabbled in writing but a cruel twist of fate meant that my treasured writings and journals that I had hand written from the age of nine were destroyed around the same time as I ‘lost’ my husband and became a single mum. Those…
Human Connection: That Moment in the Swimming Pool
No matter how long this* goes on for, I am still struck by those moments where I crave human connection more than all else. Those moments when I’m so amazed and astounded by something my son has done that my yearning to share it boils out of me. I turn, scanning the vicinity for another face,…