I remember when I started this blog, and why. Seven years ago, we had been trying to have a baby for years, then found out we’d need to do IVF, and I realised I needed somewhere to pour out my thoughts and feelings, somewhere to empty my brain without needing to explain or apologise, no…
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There’s a drive I take a couple of times a week along the same route. On that route there’s a little cottage just off the main road, where an elderly man lives. Every morning, he places two or three vases on the ground just past his front gate, full of the most beautiful flowers which…
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“What would you do if you weren’t afraid?” -Sheryl Sandberg Maybe it’s just me, or maybe it’s not me but just a phase I’m going through right now. Whatever ‘it’ is, it has me feeling very uncertain about things in my life at the moment. Maybe it’s because 40 is hurtling down the road at…
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As an eldest child myself with three younger sisters, I often noticed the frustrating unfairness that sometimes came with being the eldest. Often getting blamed for stuff just because I was older ‘and should know better’, and often finding that rules that had once applied to me, suddenly no longer applied to the youngest child.…
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“Fuck off with your ‘Relaxed’!” {Also features on The M Word } Recently I wrote a post about Living With Infertility, and I focused on what the direct impact of it was like at the time. But although it discusses infertility itself, what isn’t often discussed is the effect of that, and how it affects…
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I feel a bit sorry for January, it kind of got the short straw when the fun months were being dished out. I mean, each of the other months have something nice in them really don’t they? February for example, apart from being thought of as the romantic month, produced me….does it get much better…
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“The obligation for working mothers is a very precise one: the feeling that one ought to work as if one did not have children, while raising one’s children as if one did not have a job.” -Annabel Crabb, Policital Journalist {Also features on The M Word } I’m very sure there are lots of us…
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{Also features on The M Word } It was in the news this week that Keira Knightly has decided to ban her three year old daughter from watching some Disney movies because of the message they send to young girls. Naturally, as we see with most parenting-related news items along these lines it causes a…
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{Also published on The M Word } I’ll be clear from the start: Most of the time, I’ve NO IDEA how to handle this situation. But now that we’ve established our three-year-olds are essentially walking bundles of emotional confusion, what can we do to help them – and ourselves – get through it? Well, here’s…
Read MoreToday, I turned 37. T H I R T Y S E V E N. It’s not that I feel old. I remember turning 27 and for some reason, to me that age seemed like a milestone kind of age to reach. At that time, I thought I was positively heading for the proverbial hill, I…
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The Scenic Route 