Still Pregnant

So I am currently waking up every morning, looking down at my bulging belly and feeling like it's groundhog day! How can I still be pregnant?!  In fairness, I am not yet 40 weeks, but Biscuit was born two weeks before his due date so I was fully expecting this little one to be here by now.
I am feeling pretty fed up, I am uncomfortable, have a lot of pain in my hips and lower abdomen and have awful indigestion!  Everything is a massive amount of effort from picking up a sock from the floor to getting the children in and out of the car and I am TIRED!!  My patience is wearing very thin and my feet have swelled up and look like giant marshmallows! Parenting two under 5's whilst 39 weeks pregnant is bloody hard work. Oh and it was my birthday on Tuesday and it was rubbish! I thought I would be cradling a new born baby in my arms, watching box sets, instead, I was parenting two pre-schoolers with cabin fever on the wettest day in weeks with a  trapped nerve in my hip. There were tears, mostly mine.

But I am not supposed to moan and complain am I?!  I am not supposed to say how fucking hard it is, because I brought it on myself.  I wanted a baby therefore I have to put up with the consequences.  Also I am a full-time-mother so should be over the moon about not having to go to work.  Oh and choosing to home educate...another "rod for my back".

So my own choices have made my life harder.  This is true, but does that mean I shouldn't get to moan about it from time to time?  No one would think badly of someone moaning about their PAID job, even though they chose that, so why do I feel I have to put up and shut up? And why is it so damn hard to ask for help?  It's my choice, why should I expect help?

I don't have an answer.

So that's the bad news,

but here is the wonderful news.  I have the most amazing friends.
They know who they are and I couldn't be more grateful for them.  They are the best listeners, they don't mind hearing me complain about how hard it all is, they don't jump in to say "well you should have done such-and-such" and "here is the obvious but totally impractical/unachievable/impossible solution to your problem", they don't ignore me altogether because I bring them down, or because my problems are too big for them, or because they think I don't deserve help, or because they are too busy, they are just there, present in my misery, holding my hand.

And do you know what else?  They OFFER help!  They don't wait for me to ask (hard), they go ahead and offer.  I don't always take it because that's hard too, especially when I know that they have their own children to look after, their own pregnancies, jobs, sick parents, etc etc, but the fact that they offer to help, and mean it, means the absolute world to me, it makes me feel so loved and cared for and seen.

Just today for example a pregnant friend (just a few weeks behind me) is looking after my two boys so I can have a rest.  A couple of weeks ago another friend paid for me to have an hour of reflexology, while she looked after my boys so I could relax and have some time to myself, another friend had us over for the morning so I could just sit whilst the children were being amused, another friend offered to baby sit for an evening, text messages to let me know I am being though of,  yet another friend text me today just to see how I am doing.  I could go on, telling you about the small and big acts of kindness I have received from my friends, it is so incredibly heart warming and I am so thankful, so incredibly grateful. It's something I will treasure forever.

So friends, thank you for your kindness, not given through some sense of obligation, or because you owe it to me or because you feel guilty, but because you are kind, wonderful people who see need and want to help. How amazing is that?

I hope you know how much I appreciate you all and how loved you have made me feel.

And one other thing whilst we are on the thank you's.  I am incredibly thankful that all the pain and discomfort I am experiencing will disappear almost the moment this baby is born, I will have my body back.  My heart goes out to those who through no fault of their own experience chronic pain, are morbidly obese or are suffering in any way with out an end in sight.

My Mother Blessing

Original water colour painting 5" x 8" available in my shop

Hello my lovelies, sorry I haven't blogged for a while, my brain is fried by this pregnancy and my two little ones, it hasn't been for a lack of trying to write, but the words just haven't flowed.  Lots has been happening and I will try and update on it all soon, I am feeling very inspired and creative at the moment, (which is deeply ironic considering the lack of time available to pursue my ideas), but I will share them with you soon.

My partially painted belly cast.

In the mean time, isn't this time of year wonderful?  Everything is just bursting into life, it really is a wonderful time of year to be pregnant and about to give birth.

I have about 3 weeks left of this pregnancy and trying to savor every moment.  It's easy to wish the time away, I am uncomfortable, sore, tired and I can't sneeze without peeing myself a bit!  But as I approach the end I am trying to record everything with as much joy as possible.  There is much to complain about but I don't want to look back and regret not making those memories.

Today I had the most wonderful mother blessing, organised by my lovely friend Vicki (visit her at her blog here) It was such a wonderful way to honor my pregnancy and I felt so special and loved.

We wrote down our fears about motherhood, I wrote my fears about childbirth and we went outside and burned them, my friends wrote beautiful birth affirmations for me and left messages for me to open after the baby is born. I was anointed with scented oil and Vicki read a beautiful poem, I had a beautiful henna mandala painted onto my tummy, and we enjoyed a delicious lunch together, it was a really special afternoon which I will treasure forever.

I was slightly skeptical about having a Mother Blessing before.  I had had a baby shower for my first pregnancy and didn't feel like I should be making a big deal about my third pregnancy, but I am so so glad I did, because pregnancy and childbirth is a sacred time that should be treasured, and I felt so supported by the wonderful women who came, all also full time mothers like me, and women I will be able to call upon if I need help during labor.  

So if you are pregnant and wondering if this is the sort of thing you would like to do, then I would say to go for it.  In fact do everything you can think of to treasure the memories of carrying life inside you, it's so precious and important. 

Men do it better

Not often you would hear me say that a man could do something better than a woman, I don't mean this is any competitive sense, there are plenty of things that my husband is better at than me - changing the car engine oil, map reading, anything related to numbers,  but we all know that women generally can do all these things as well as men.  But there is this one thing that I think men trump us women on.  I am not exactly sure what it is called, maybe it's self-care, or getting me-time, or time for themselves.  Whatever you want to call it, men seem to be able to get it, and get it without feeling guilty about it.

Let me give you some examples.
My husband recently bought himself a new exhaust for his car.  (This in itself is an example of him not feeling bad about putting his interests as a priority.  His car is his hobby and he was happy to  spend a not insignificant amount of money on it.  I on the other hand have not felt able to spend an equal amount of money on the Leonie Dawson Academy that I have been thinking about joining for months because it feels self-indulgent, not a priority, even though it could potentially benefit the whole family.) When the exhaust arrived he decided he would spend a Saturday morning fitting it.  He didn't ask me if that was ok, if I minded looking after the boys while he did it (I didn't mind) He just did it.  It was something he wanted to do, something he enjoyed doing so he just did it.  I never for a second thought he was being selfish or self-indulgent in doing this.

Me on the other hand, when I wanted to spend a couple of hours making some art (for my business) I felt like I had to gravel and grovel with my begging bowl to him to ask for a couple of hours to myself, feeling immensely guilty for even asking.  Not because he would have had any objection but because of my own personal feelings on it. Why?

Here is another example a friend of mine's husband loves mountain biking, he regularly goes to mountain biking events and even takes days of annual leave from work to go and do his hobby.  Does he feel guilty about it?  Does he feel like he is being self indulgent?  I doubt it, because he knows that taking time for himself and his interests is important.
Why don't I feel like this when needing a few hours to myself, when he had no qualms what so ever?

A final third example, we were going on a walk round a lake near us recently and got chatting to a man who was stood with his friend who had stayed over night at the lake in a tent to do his hobby - fishing. We were asking his friend questions about the competitions his friend takes part in and what he was hoping to catch that day.  The man amused us for a while, answering our questions but then confessed that the real reason his friend was camping over and spending the day fishing was to get away from it all and have some time to himself.  I couldn't help thinking that this man had the right idea. But still for me to do something like; going away for a night by myself to do something I enjoy that would not only take a great amount of courage and decisiveness, but also a shed load of guilt. WHY??

I have really been puzzling over the answer to this, I am not sure I am there yet, maybe it's because historically us women have traditionally been the ones to look after the house and children whilst the men go to work and didn't take part much in the child rearing and house keeping and this feeling of responsibility has been hard to shake over the years.  Like some sort of ancient garment we insist on carrying around on our shoulders, or perhaps that society still places on our shoulders; we just haven't been able to shed this relic.

Maybe men are just better at fulfilling those needs than we are.  Maybe through some sort of masochism we insist on pushing and pushing ourselves without taking a break or a rest to prove something to ourselves, our partners, society?  We CAN do it all we insist, and we can do it without a break.  Whereas men don't feel the need to prove themselves in this way because they already receive the recognition through their paid employment.  (Which leads me to wonder if women who are in paid employment as opposed to unpaid (as in the full-time-mother- role) also feel guilty when taking time to themselves or if they are able to acknowledge it as a necessity not a luxury?)  I am thinking out loud now, and possibly rambling a bit.

I am sure there is plenty of studies out there which have asked these same questions, all that I can say with absolute certainty is that we NEED to take time to ourselves, it's absolutely essential, parenting is highly intense work.  And just to clarify I don't think it is the fault of men that we sometimes feel guilty in taking time to ourselves, I think it is something we ourselves need to take responsibility for.  I still haven't worked out how to do this without the guilt, so it anyone has the answer I would welcome it with open arms.  It's something I need to make more of a priority in the coming weeks with the impending birth of our third child, but I am sure some of you will agree with me that's it's really hard to do.

I do have planned another Gentle Parenting Retreat on 22nd of May for this exact reason, so please get in touch if you are interested.