Where we're at now

Ever since Taters was referred for the Autism assessment I’ve been talking and talking and talking about it to anyone who will listen. And it’s really helped to hear everyone else’s experiences of the condition. I’m far from an expert but I’ve had my eyes opened and now realise there is so much about autism that I don’t know, so much I’ve yet to learn. I get what they mean when they say the spectrum is very wide. It really is.

On hearing the term "autism" I'd immediately envisioned special schools, a lonely existence with no hope of ever forming a relationship. Now I've heard so many varied stories, so many different experiences, I know that even if he is diagnosed, his future is not set in stone, in fact it's as unpredictable yet full of possibilities as anyone elses.

The Bombshell

We had a review meeting last week at the nursery, led by the specialist speech therapist and the early years intervention team to discuss their assessments of Taters, what action to take next etc. It ended with me blubbing my eyes out and walking back home with tears streaming down my face. So no, it didn’t go well.

The upshot of it all was that he’s doing so well with his talking that he no longer needs the specialist speech therapist, but as a parting gesture she’s referring him for an autism assessment. Unable to ignore his repetitive behaviour and fear of new situations, she feels she has to.

Remembering

I’m the only person who knows the significance of today, no one else has remembered. I guess why would they? It’s a highly personal anniversary.

You see it’s a year today that Peanut and I went our separate ways, that she left my body and was no longer a part of me. Even now as I feel this new baby wiggle inside of me, it doesn’t take away the heartache I feel for Peanut, this baby doesn’t replace her in any way whatsoever and it doesn’t make everything ok. I am over the moon to be expecting again and I already love this new baby with all my heart, but I haven’t forgotten Peanut, or stopped loving her, or missing her, I never will.

I feel weird when people ask me if this one is my second baby, I don’t say “No, it’s actually my fourth” because I don’t want the awkward situation that would arise from elaborating on that. But the little girl I carry now is my fourth child. I may have never met two of them, but they were real, they existed, albeit for a short while, and they will always be a significant part of me.

I have two little crystal angels that hang in my dining room window, when the sun hits them in the morning they fill the room with beautiful rainbow coloured lights that dance around the walls. It’s a sight I love to see and it always makes me stop for a moment and remember, before the chaos of the day swallows me up again.

Law of Attraction - the gist of it all

I’ve been reading about the “Law of Attraction” recently– a topic I seem to be stumbling upon left, right and centre, in fact it keeps throwing itself into my path demanding to be read. Who was I to argue with that?

The Law of Attraction is basically the principle of "like attracting like" That's it in a nutshell. If you're negative you attract bad things, if you're positive you attract good things...

To a certain degree I can get on board with this since it sounds similar to the self-fulfilling prophecy theory I studied in A-Level psychology. And in my own life I’ve regularly talked about feeling like a shit magnet, or being trapped in a shit vortex - which is essentially the Law of Attraction working in it's negative form.

Breastfeeding benefits may or may not be overstated... another study into Breastfeeding

There is currently yet another piece of Breastfeeding v Bottle Feeding research making headlines in the media, this time a study of siblings, one breastfed, one bottle fed, that concludes that on 11 different measures no difference was found between the two in the long term.

Formula feeders are celebrating, breastfeeders are complaining. Me, well I’m thrilled to bits that it suggests my first combination-fed child is probably going to be ok, but I’m still 100% committed to breastfeeding the new baby anyway. It doesn’t change my opinion of anything.

Pregnancy: Week 25. Time to Celebrate

One thing that went through my mind when I lost Peanut was that I was never going to enjoy being pregnant. I had Taters after losing my first, so that time was fraught with anxiety. Then obviously it went wrong again in my third pregnancy. I thought that if I was lucky enough to get pregnant and stay pregnant again, then inevitably my fourth pregnancy would be full of worry and dread also.

So here I am, 25 weeks pregnant with a baby girl. I want this to be my last pregnancy, I really don’t want to go through another first trimester ever again in my life, and more so I don’t want to risk ever going through another miscarriage again in my life. I want to consign all that to history.

Dinner with an old foe

I am a firm believer in surrounding yourself with the right people, and gently removing people from your life who don’t support you, cause you pain, drain you, turn you into a raving lunatic who wants to explode at the mere mention of their name… I believe in forgiveness, but I also believe you have to let those people go for the sake of your health.

But how do you do that when said person is the wife of one of your husband’s closest friends, and who has ingratiated herself into your circle of friends? That’s the part I’m struggling with.

I had a rant about the person in question here.

I wish her no harm, in fact I wish her well. Genuinely. But I don’t want her in my life. There have been too many lies. Too many times she has driven me half insane with her behaviour. And believe me, I have tried for years to make things work; to find common ground, to focus on the good, to understand her and put myself in her shoes. Literally years. But I can’t do anymore. When I see her on a regular basis it turns me into someone I don’t like, I dwell on things she does, I moan about her, I bitch behind her back. It eats me up. It poisons me.