My Mother-To-Be Friend

My beautiful friend is four months' pregnant and she is glowing. The midwife says her bump is impressively big, the sign of a healthy baby. She has reached the stage of needing to wear maternity clothes, trousers with large elasticated waistbands. Her husband is working on 'the porch' - an extension to the house which will allow a bit of extra room for when Baby is here. There is plenty to do.

Still, we all find time to go for a walk in the woods past a huge variety of dogs (cocker spaniel, golden retriever, sausage dog, dalmatian, plus some like small bears, sporting long strings of saliva) and their owners.

We plough through a catalogue and look at the paraphenalia of motherhood - breast pumps, breast pads and special clothes that allow easy, discreet breast-feeding (though some of them just look wrong - fleeces with velcro nipple flaps, rugby-style shirts with nipple buttons).

She has decided to buy terry towel nappies and other washable nappies rather than contribute to the landfill with more rubbish. She thinks she will need 30 nappies, and has 10 so far. I said that I would buy her a few really nice cloth nappies which her baby could use on special occasions perhaps. I want her to know that I'm there for her and will help as much as I can. She is lucky that both her parents and her husband's parents live nearby and will all help out in their own way. She points out that she has joined the 'mummies' club' - other mothers have welcomed her into the clan. She will be someone new to share experiences with.

I hear the news that the family from my friends' wedding have a new addition. Mum had a third baby girl and all seems well.

So how do I feel? Well, I am genuinely happy for my beautiful friend - she is happily married and I love them both very much. Each new stage she reaches will bring out my love for her, curiosity about her life experience and, no doubt, plenty more self-reflection.

I See Pregnant Women

When there's something on your mind, you see it everywhere. It haunts you.

Maybe you know what I mean - when your heart is in tatters, every song on the radio is a sad one, every advert makes you bawl.

I see pregnant women everywhere. I see couples with wedding rings, going on honeymoons, signing up for mortgages, taking their kids to school.

It was so hard being at my friends' wedding last Saturday watching these two beautiful little girls, the younger one hopping around on the dance floor with a helium balloon, while Mum and Dad looked on. Now I know it's just a snapshot and it's all quite idealised, but I loved watching them. I don't know the parents that well, but they seemed to really love their girls. They were keeping a good distance - they were there in case they were needed, but not interfering. Mum was heavily pregnant again with their third child.

Before I might have thought: "one day that might be me" and smiled, wondering how I'd cope and what my experience would be. Instead, I thought: "I don't know if that will ever be me". I felt tremendously sad. I found myself sobbing (only two glasses of wine, so it wasn't just the booze). Zarah (now 3 months pregnant) put her arm around me and then Ciarin came to see if I was okay. I told him why I was crying. I then made a swift exit to the car, because I couldn't face being so sad in front of everyone. I didn't want to ruin the celebrations. He came and he sat with me while I cried, talked and cried some more. He was patient and I felt no pressure to pretend or to change how I was feeling. Nor did he didn't try to distract me or 'fix' what was wrong. He was just there for me. One of many things I love dearly about him.

Ciarin is really well suited to me: he's extremely kind, thoughtful, relaxed, insightful, easy to be around, great company. But that's what makes it so hard when I think about our future together. I don't want to give him up.

It's easy for people to say that I should split up with him to avoid the heartache a few years down the line. "I know it's hard, but why couldn't he stay in your life as a good friend instead?" I could split up with him and look for someone else to settle with. I know I could find someone if I wanted to, but I don't want anyone else. I don't want to be without him. I would be missing out on a very special, honest and warm connection, not to mention the promise of good company on a grand adventure. I know I can't do everything in my life, that I have to make choices about what I want most - career, family or adventure - but I'm not ready to throw anything away just yet, not until I'm sure.

Unless he changes his mind, it seems like I have a choice to make. But I'm not ready to make it. Until I know clearly what to do, I will just be carrying on. I feel sure that the right answer will become clear before long. Life has a way of forcing an answer when things are uncertain. I just hope that it's not unbearably painful when it comes.

Coffee Beans and Sailing Dreams

So, Ciarin and I are back together and things are going well. I love him so much. It's been a year now since we first started seeing each other.

There is a nagging thought about how it's all going to fit together, but I am letting go for now. So long as we keep working towards our respective goals and so long as we want to be together, we will find a way forward. I have faith.

More and more, I dream about adventuring and being on the sea with him. More and more, it seems possible. I can see the sails leaning into the wind. I hold my head up high so that my hair is pulled off my face and trails behind me. The air is salty and my cheeks are windwhipped. I can feel the boat swaying and nudging its way along. We are going somewhere. The journey is in progress. I dream I have found my sea legs, no longer sickened by the movement.

When I last visited his boat, it was as if I'd seen it for the first time. Not just an awkward place to live, but somewhere with the potential for movement, grace and power.

I gave him a gift for his birthday that makes him smile - a baseball cap that says CAPTAIN. Cheesy, I know, but it suits him. He is currently growing a Bluto-like beard that seems fitting. Perhaps he is feeling more like the Captain of his own 34-foot sailing ketch.

My own, more immediate, dream of being a counsellor is also just about ripe for the picking after years of time, effort, energy and process. Later this week, I will have my first on-line advertisement and I'm proud of that. Soon, too, there will be a website. I am lucky to have plenty of help. Ciarin will be making the site with help from his mentor, Mark.

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Last Saturday I helped on a stall at the Devon County Show promoting Fair Trade, something I feel quite strongly about. I enjoyed giving out free Fair Trade chocolate samples. I put a lot of smiles on people's faces! It was good fun, though I was exhausted by the end.

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Last night, I watched the docu-film, Black Gold. It really doesn't seem fair that coffee producers get such a raw deal, while their coffee is sold in the West for so much. Why should the farmers and other labourers go without basic food, shoes and schoolteachers, while coffee companies in the West make an absolute fortune? Why has the amount paid for coffee to growers gone down in the last thirty years while the cost of coffee in the West has gone up? It feels so disrespectful, so wrong.

Well, the coffee beans looked beautiful in the film, being grown, picked, sorted, roasted, ground and tasted. I found myself going to my local Co-op today and buying some Fair Trade coffee - even though I don't normally drink the stuff!

Childhood Ponderings

I've been thinking a lot about my childhood. It's something that I've thought about a lot over the years. My perspective has changed over time. The reason it's been on my mind recently is because Ciarin has said he is uncertain about being a Dad because there are certain things he wouldn't want to repeat.

Well, I certainly understand where he's coming from.

I'm very happy with my life now and have good relationships with my family, but it hasn't always been that way.

The last years at home were the worst. As a family, we had been through a lot – three bereavements and moving back to the UK after years away. We went through all the symptoms of culture shock returning to our home country. We had a lot to get used to. This was a time of transition, where I was supposed to be to gaining independence. This appeared to be in opposition to my parents, who seemed to feel that the teenage world I was exploring was threatening/ dangerous.

In reality, I was far more sensible than many of my peers. Perhaps I didn't convey this very well to my parents, who seemed very fearful about what would become of me. I felt misunderstood. We argued a lot and no one was willing to back down. I grew tired of hearing about my mother’s sleepless nights, where she was tossing and turning in worry for me.

I was depressed and had no idea what to do to make things better. Some people make suicide pacts. I made pacts with myself to keep living, just three more days and after that, just three more days. My approach for improving the situation was just to wait it out. I had no idea how I’d ended up feeling like this, so it was hard to know what could help. I was cutting my wrists with knives and scissors. This seemed to help my frustration and ‘cut through’ my feelings of dread and numbness. I was quite unable to focus on my studies and despite having a history as an excellent student, I failed my A’levels and spent a miserable year doing them again.

When I left home at 18, I wasn't ready. Although there was a sense of relief that I'd made it out of home, I was numb and terrified, too. I had little idea how to look after myself. I had a lot of learning to do. Some of this learning was practical - how to cook, how to pay bills, how to drive. But there was other things too.

I needed to heal, release lingering self-doubts, and unlearn ways of being in the world that no longer helped me. I wasn’t sure how to begin, but I read a lot of self-help books! I wrote down my thoughts. I got counselling. I befriended people who had qualities that I admired and studied them hard, trying to adopt their ways of being. I read books on Parenting, Psychology, Sociology, Progressive Education. It isn’t so surprising that this led on to training to be a counsellor myself, since this gave me the opportunity to discuss theory, undertake more counselling, begin journal-writing and group therapy. I was honouring a pledge I had made to myself when I was still at home: If I ever make it out of here, I’ve got to get better.

And things did get better. I learnt to relax and play. I learnt how to get my needs met and to be real with people. I healed and then I blossomed. Several times, I worked on problem areas, got knee-deep into the pain and allowed things to fall apart so they could settle down in a new formation. I learnt how to trust people. I developed firm, intimate friendships rather than rotating a circle of acquaintances. I began to trust myself and trust the people I cared about. I learnt how to ask for help and get my needs met.

I wanted to get better for myself, but also because I knew I wanted kids one day. I wanted to pass on this emotional learning onto my children. My parents wanted me to grow up to be a morally sound person and I think they achieved that. I want to do that and something else too: I want my children to know how to manage their feelings. There is always a risk that I could repeat the unconscious experiences of childhood, but I hope that I have reduced this risk as much as possible through the work I have done.

I think my parents really wanted my sister and I to have a much warmer, more supportive experience than they themselves had, but they lacked the tools to do this. When they became stressed and anxious, they naturally reverted back to their old ways of being - the more punishing, more emotionally deprived experience of their own upbringing.

I’ve thought long and hard about what sort of parent I would hope to be. The following ideas feel important:

• I don’t want to hit my kids. (Really, what do we teach children if we hit them - that it's okay to be aggressive/ that you can’t trust people?)

• I would like my children to feel that they can trust me and themselves.

• I want my children to be able to think for themselves as much as possible. I would like to help them come to their own opinions.

• I would like my children to have plenty of choice about the things that matter to them, but for these choices to be informed by their thoughts/ research/ discussions with us. I would intervene if I thought they were at undue risk.

• I would want my children to feel safe.

• I would like my children to feel that they could ask for help and know that they could get it.

• I would like my children to feel a sense of belonging and acceptance.

• I would like my children to develop a feeling of pride and self-worth.

• I would like my children to feel loved.

• I would like my children to feel that it’s okay to be themselves.

• I would like my children to know that we all make mistakes sometimes and the important thing is what you do after you've made the mistake - taking steps to put things right if appropriate and learn from what has happened.
  

I now have a pretty balanced, happy relationship with both of my parents these days, which is brilliant. We've come a long way.

Lost Dreams

This has been the worst day in a long, long time. I have just split up with someone I love completely.

Everyone who knows the two of us says we're great together, that we seem really happy. He's respectful, kind, generous, warm, loyal. He is uncomplicated; no strange undercurrents. Genuine. What You See Is What You Get. Someone you could rely on in a storm. A good guy, would help someone out if he could. He has old school values, in that he would urge people to do the right thing in any given situation and he looks for a solution that benefits everyone.

He is a man with a dream. He wants to sail a boat around the world. He's already got the boat. He is still paying it off and except for this Winter when he spent most of his time at mine, he was living in it. In a boatyard. In dry dock.

I would have gone on that adventure with him when he left. We'd have cracked a bottle of champagne at the launch party and played lots of songs like 'Sailing Away' and 'Ship to Shore' and 'Message in a Bottle' and lots of pirate songs. Then we'd have sailed off together and explored the world. It would be the trip of a lifetime, stopping at all sorts of strange ports and inlets, meeting people, tasting strange food and seeing strange sights. We'd have drifted along happily, tanning well and searching the world for a place to explore and settle. Then, we would have had many children and they would all grow up to be tanned and tall and we would all be very happy together.

Well, at least, that's how I saw it. But of course, it's his dream and although he was pleased to have a lovely lady like myself in his life, he hadn't envisioned any sprogs. Ok, so I'm 30 this year and I hope I've got perhaps ten childbearing years left. So how long will the boat adventure take? We're looking at 4-8 years before we can set sail and who knows how long the adventure itself will take? I suddenly realised that I had to know if he was prepared to even consider kids. After 3 days of hell, he said, clearly, calmly and reasonably: no, he would not have children with me.

He says that he's wanted to sail around the world for as long as he can remember. I wouldn't dream of trying to stop that. In fact, I would actively encourage for him to pursure that, if that's what makes him happy. I would have come along for the adventure just because I love him and I think we'd make a great team.

But then I have my own dream - and it's fairly ordinary. I always knew I'd be a mother one day. I knew that as a woman, I was capable of being pregnant and giving birth. The human body is amazing. The woman's internal organs shift up to make room for the baby to grow inside her womb. The baby grows inside, unseen yet slowly making its presence known. The baby's head squishes up to make its way out of the birth canal. After birth, the placenta is born too and some people eat this - perhaps the only semi-acceptable opportunity to be a cannibal. The mother produces milk for the baby and it provides everything the baby needs nutritionally and even contains antibodies that protects the baby from disease.

I have always known the importance of a man in such a relationship, who's duty is to love and protect his family when the baby is small and as the child gets older and is ready to be introduced to the wider world, he can lead the way.

I could never imagine being a single mum. I could never imagine being a career woman who choses work over family. In nearly a decade of care work and counselling, I have spent time looking after people and meeting their needs. I want to put those skills to good work on someone I really care about. I want to create a new family. It's common enough, but still one of the greatest adventures. I can't accept the idea of not having that. It was with huge sadness that I have to speak my truth - that without the possibility of children, it's over.

4 Kinds of Cloud

It's been a long night.

Technically, it's daytime now, but my body clock has gone into another dimension. For me, the sight of bright sunshine is surreal. Earlier, coming back from the hospital, I nearly swerved into a parked car, but I felt calm and peaceful. I had one of those peak moments where I felt like I'd really been present to something special. I wondered if anyone else in the city had seen what I had: that there were four types of cloud in the sky.

One was airy cirrhus, a horse-tail flick so high up that no one could touch it. Below that was a neat, light formation of clouds that looked like the ridge and furrows of a freshly ploughed field. Below that, were cumulous clouds, fat cauliflower heads, looked full and comfortable. And last of all , there was a fine, even, unformed cloud like a breath that appeared to be gaining strength, bit by bit.

The weather recently has been strange: where I live had experienced the lowest air pressure for 50 years which drew in some mighty storms - 80 m.p.h winds, flooding and wild waves along coastal areas. Somehow, looking at those clouds, I felt as though I was seeing the aftermath to all that - the breakthrough that comes after stormy times.

You've got to understand that before the glory of the clouds, I'd had a terrible night's work. It's a Sleep In, so you're supposed to be able to sleep - though ,occasionally if someone is anxious or unwell, you might need to work for a bit of the night.

The client I was supporting had the worst kind of diarrhoea - pure liquid shit - and it was splattered on carpet, floor, round the toilet, in clothing, down her leg and back, in her bedding and on the sofa. The foul stench thickened the air and made me heave.

The worst thing was that we didn't have enough gloves (one red rubber left-handed glove and some ancient vinyl gloves that split as we tried to put them on). Also, she'd used up a whole roll of toilet tissue, so had nothing left to wipe herself. It was 3am and I had no idea where might be open to sell us rubber gloves and toilet paper. Even with this, she would have nothing to wear and no bed linen.

Eventually, after a few heated phone calls, we were able to get some help.

With the right tools, we could set to work on getting her and anywhere she'd come near cleaned up. Windows were opened and the smell was disguised with air freshener, the sweetness of vanilla making the job bearable. The only thing we couldn't manage was to scrub the carpets, but I tried not to think about that. My boss could figure something out in the next day or so. I'd done my share.

I was shattered.

I went home to learn that my housemate had suffered 2 seizures, gone into hospital and had one more. She needed a change of clothes, so I headed up to the hospital. I was relieved to see that she was doing okay. It was on the way back that I noticed the bright sky and four kinds of cloud; the sorts of clouds that come after a storm.

Funny how after the darkest hour, we can still be struck by beauty and light and promise of new things.