Ring

Isla and I walked home today just the two of us. My sister took Grace and Poppy and we went to Boots to buy face wash. She clutched the bottle like a trophy and carefully extracted the receipt from the self service till.

She held my hand as we walked through the shopping centre and my ring rubbed against the palm of her hand. She asked if she could wear it when we got home.

Now I have a lot of cheap jewellery, rings bought in the sale, long necklaces that I used to wear to work to make my all black uniform less boring and earrings I wear occasionally as they make my ears feel weird. But my ring is different.

It is a simple silver band, an irregular shape as if it has been buried or bashed somehow. It looks nothing at all, I wear it on my ring finger but on my right hand. But inside, it has my big girls names and the year of their birth.

I have taken it off once and that was when I was wheeled into the operating theatre to have Poppy.

I said no, she couldn’t wear it and she asked me why. I explained that one day, it would be left to her sister and her and that they could decide what to do with it then.

She listened and then told me she was really good at climbing walls, she had listened politely but her brain had moved on. Mine hadn’t. Today has been the third day in a very tough week. I feel like a terrible mother, a terrible pseudo wife, a terrible person. I’m anxious and worried, tense and feel sick, I want to sleep but it eludes me. There is more to say, I wrote a post that I might publish.

Or I might not.

I don’t know yet.

Mother’s Day

Five years ago, I went out for a meal with J and his family. His sister-in-law bought her mum and grandma and I can remember almost all of it. Presents were given to all the Mum’s in the group and I can remember sitting there, Ruby (our then two year old niece) in my lap and feeling as miserable as I can remember ever feeling. Of course, a year later, I was about to have my girls, but I didn’t know that then, how could I, we were months off even trying, and the feeling of isolation was utterly devastating.

I always knew I wanted to be a mother. I was probably the most maternal of all of us three sisters, I did some child minding in my early twenties while I was (briefly) at University but then I discovered a career and that was that. I was resolutely single for a long time, worked stupidly hard, there was a lot going on as well during that time, and my thoughts about being a mother were pushed firmly to one side. Both my sisters had all of their children before I had mine and their children are the light of my life, particularly my oldest nephew as I lived with him and my sister for a while.

I know full well that I would not have children if I had stayed with my ex. I probably knew that then, but pretended that I didn’t. I can barely imagine how I’d feel if I was with him now, very nearly 38, and no children. No prospect of children. A career, yes but just the two of us. It chills me, if I’m honest.

Ironically, I could imagine having a life without kids with J. We have huge fun together, have lots of plans for after our girls are grown and I sometimes crave time with him, just the two of us. Having said that, I am so glad that I do have children with him. He’s a wonderful father, and he makes me a better mother. We’re very different in our parenting styles but on the same page where we need to be, in the way we are raising our girls morally, ethically, and to be the people we would love them to be.

So Mother’s Day. In the UK, it was today and I received a handmade card that each of my girls made me at nursery. Nothing else. No gift, no shop bought card. I had a lie-in until 8.20am (a serious luxury) and the girls went to their grandparents for a couple of hours so we could have some lunch. And it was the best day. I watched the girls play in the garden for a bit in just t-shirts, a sign that we might actually get some nice weather at some point and I made them laugh in the car by singing songs from Beauty and the Beast. No commercialisation. No money spent. The best.

I dislike Mother’s Day anyway. It strikes me as a holiday that makes people feel awful. People who want to be mothers and can’t, people who have lost children, people who have lost mothers. I hate the way that Instagram becomes one big ad in the week or so running up to the day itself and then the way that the vast majority of instagrammers spend the day showing us what they have been gifted. There is the odd beautiful post within all that, the lovely posts where people talk about their feelings about being a mother, a daughter, a niece or nephew, about being someone who doesn’t have children on this day of all days, they are poignant and heartfelt and not at all curated. I have enjoyed those very much, but I have not posted about it today. I didn’t post on Valentines Day. Or International Women’s Day. I have posted around these days, my girls as normal and my instastories are the usual mix of moaning about how little sleep I get and watching my girls say silly things in my messy house. And soft play. Lots and lots of soft play!

Tomorrow will be Monday. No different to today but for a huge number of people, it will come as a blessed relief, and I will leave this with that. I hope that you all had a wonderful Sunday, a Mother’s Day if you are in the UK, and that you snuggled with your babies.

 

Away

We were away this weekend. We went to Windsor on Sunday for two nights to celebrate our sixth anniversary and it was a sort of baby moon, not that that is really a thing in this country. It was wonderful, absolutely freezing, there is a big freeze here at the moment but that sort of enhanced it all, it made it utterly memorable. Walking around Windsor Castle in the snow was almost magical. And cold. Magically cold.

It’s less magical at home with a wind chill of -12.

Anyway. Six years. This is nothing, I do get that, not when people have been married for years and years, or with someone since their teens. But for me, this is something quite significant. I never imagined, when I went on a blind date six years ago, that we would be where we are now. About to have our third child, two beautiful girls and we’re really good. Things are hard sometimes, boring grown up things but then we go away and we are just good. Happy to be together, having fun, he makes me laugh so much and we talk a lot about our future, it’s one of those truly lovely things to talk about the future with someone you love.

I thought about writing a lot while we were away. I read a whole book during the two nights (there were some issues with the pillows…) and it made me think about my own book and my own writing future. The book was good and the writing too, it was confident writing, the type of writing that shows someone totally at home with their own style. I don’t assume that I have a style, but it made me think about passages of my own writing. There are bits that I reread and I love, and I can see a writer that is confident and happy with what she is writing and there are bits that I read where the writing is tentative and nervous and I can just tell that I wrote it in a completely different head space.

Driving home, I wanted desperately to write. Wanted to sit in the chair where I wrote my book and edit the beginning to send it off again. To continue on with the second book that I’ve started. And then I actually got home, to the madness, to my girls and the urge just disappeared. No, the urge is there. It’s always there. But the confidence to do it. I am almost set now on finding a job in October, when the baby is six months old. The thought of this is truly awful to me. The girls have had me all of the time for almost four years and this baby will get six months. That doesn’t seem fair. To me. To her. I envy and respect all working mums, I’d love to be one, but it didn’t work for me, for us and for our family.

Anyway, this is a stream of consciousness. I didn’t sit down knowing what I’d write about and I’m sorry if that shows. I wanted to write about J and to talk about our six years, I wanted to talk about writing but further than that, I didn’t know.

Right, enough rambling.

See you all tomorrow.

No Stories To Tell

My sister sent me a DM on twitter this week. It was a tweet that she’d seen from a literary agent who was accepting submissions on novels and she thought I might be interested. My initial thought was that this was excellent, an agent actually wanting people to submit their work, rather than the usual line on websites that it can take blah blah time and it needs to fit the guidelines exactly or won’t even be looked at, and then I thought: I can’t.

I sent my book off to 43 agents last year. Forty three. That probably isn’t nearly enough but it seemed a lot as the rejections came in. I had one tentative yes, which I think became a no as I never heard from them again. But it seemed never ending. A constant flow of emails that ranged from an automatic response to some kind words about my writing but ultimately saying that my story was not strong enough.

I don’t think I have it in me to do it again.

I think that I need to rewrite the first three chapters, the ones that agents read, I think that the book is too long, I think that I need to put it on forums but that seems big and daunting. I think that I’ve picked the worst possible potential job for someone with no self esteem, no confidence in their ability but it’s the thing that I love the most. It’s the only thing that I imagine myself doing at 40, at 50, forever really.

I have vague ideas about a second book, ideas that come to me in the middle of the night and I’m excited about them and I wake up and get the girls to nursery and I sit down in front of my computer, write two or three paragraphs and dismiss the whole thing. It reads like something I’ve read before, it’s in the style of some author I like or it’s just boring. So I leave it and then we go again. Sometimes twice a week. Lately I’ve not even bothered to start the writing process at all. Why waste my time when I can watch documentaries on Netflix about Queen Victoria.

Maybe it’s the baby, maybe now that it seems so close, there simply isn’t room in my head for anything else. I find, though, that I am struggling to prepare for the baby, she doesn’t have a name, doesn’t have a car seat, I haven’t packed a hospital bag. I still can’t imagine her actually being here, being in our lives, and I’m not being deliberately fatalistic, I just can’t. I look at the girls and I freak out that their lives are about to change and we should be doing more to prepare them, talking to them more about when and how, rather than an abstract thing that they don’t really understand.

I think further ahead and think that I should dust off my CV, update it and prepare for finding a job in October when she is six months old. But the idea of leaving this little one when I was with her sisters for their whole lives seems abhorrent to me. But we can’t continue living with money worries hanging over us, we can’t stay living in this flat, there’s so much we want to do with our children that we simply cannot do.

Anyway, there are no stories at the moment. Just worry and fear and sleepless nights. And a lot of feeling not good, but that’s a pregnancy thing. I need to slow down, I need to breathe in the scent of my little girls’ hair and I need to relax. Everything happens as it should. Even if the path to get there is bumpy.

Other People’s Lives

Yesterday, I had a sad hour or so. We’d had a lovely morning, the girls had stayed at their grandparents for the night, their regular fortnightly Saturday night, and we had decided on a whim to go to Brighton for the morning. It was an almost sunny day, the kind of day we rejoice about as Brits in February and we didn’t want to spend another morning in the town where we live. It was a really nice morning, we didn’t do very much, just walked around, talking about our girls mostly, those parent moments where you can talk to the other person in the world who reveres your children as much as you do. J bought the new baby some little suede pumps and we ended our visit by popping into Mothercare.

Everything for a new baby is so expensive. And it made me immeasurably sad. When we started trying to conceive, and even when we did, we absolutely could afford to have a baby. For reasons, political and otherwise that don’t need going in to, we are struggling. J has a better job, we are on a much better path than we were, but things are harder financially. We also got rid of a lot as the girls were growing up, we just don’t have anywhere to store anything, my parents kindly kept all of the clothes so apart from those, we need everything. Oh, we have a cot. It needs a new mattress but we have a cot.

I don’t want a nursery (ha, like she won’t sleep in an alcove in our bedroom) full of new things. It definitely doesn’t matter if the pram is second hand, it doesn’t matter if 95% of her wardrobe belonged to her sisters first. It doesn’t matter but it makes me feel like a failure. I’d like the option of buying it, I think, the option of buying a new pram, the option of buying new clothes or a bouncer or whatever it might be.

I make the mistake of watching YouTube videos about people, very privileged people, who get a LOT of baby things delivered to them. The latest buggy, a snuzzpod (which I covet but definitely do not need), thing after thing that they can probably afford themselves. It isn’t jealousy, more envy. Yes, I am envious of the things that money can afford but I have no desire for their lives.

In the last few years, since becoming pregnant with the girls, I honestly have not coveted anyone else’s life. I can feel envious, I can be frustrated by the opportunities that some get that we don’t, without wanting to live anyone else’s life but my own. I love my life, I have the family that I have always wanted and I am happy. Sad moments can occur within happiness without altering that overall happiness.

Once the baby is here, looking adorable in clothes that I’m sentimental about because her big sisters wore them, riding in a pram bought off eBay, I won’t care. It won’t matter. But it kind of does at the moment.

It just kind of sucks.

Enough

We conceived our twins the first time that we ever tried to conceive. We had been together eighteen months, were very happy and went to a birthday party. J had a few drinks and I drove home and said that we had to make a change while we were still young (ish), either travel, you know, leave our jobs for six months and see some of the world or start a family. You can be brave, I find, if you think that the other person is only half listening, or deny it in the morning. Children were, at that point, a theoretical conversation, something we knew the other wanted but there were absolutely no time scales involved.

That night, I whispered to ask him if he was sure and the girls were made.

We didn’t know that there were two until the November, a day that I will remember for the rest of my life, and without doubt, the most life changing day that I will ever have.

The plan was for four, we talked about it a little, we liked the idea of four, a big happy family, with lots of kids and cats and just noise, sports being played at the weekend, films being watched in the evening, that sort of thing. But twins are absolutely exhausting and they were over two, just slightly, before it was even a consideration to have any more. I must admit that I thought that it would be fairly quick, yes, I was over 35, but I had been 33 the first time and I didn’t feel any different, certainly not any older. I read quite a bit on conceiving when you’re older and I felt quite prepared for there to be a wait.

I wasn’t at all prepared. The months stacked up and I felt more and more like a failure. I tracked my cycle and found myself getting more and more cross if we didn’t try enough during my fertile period. I went to the doctors and was told, in no uncertain terms, that any fertility, and I mean any, would have to be funded privately as we had children already. I was told to try until Christmas, that there was no need to panic and to not panic, as panic would make me stressed and that wouldn’t help at all.

J and I talked about it a lot, of course and his biggest question was along the lines of why I felt that the girls weren’t enough for me. I  don’t blame him for this question at all, it seems perfectly sensible to ask, we have two amazing little girls and surely that should be enough. What I couldn’t quite articulate, and probably still can’t, is that it wasn’t about them. If we never had conceived again, then it would have been, in time, just fine. I would have got over not having any more children and they would have been more than enough. But this was about me. Having twins is an entirely medical thing, you have scans and appointments almost all the time, you are reminded constantly as to your high risk pregnancy, you know that the birth itself will be a medical one, no water birth, monitored the whole time, the midwife not leaving the room at any point. And I wanted to experience something more holistic almost. I wanted to just enjoy a pregnancy, a “normal” birth, enjoying just one baby in the hospital afterwards. There is a whole blog post needed for the after birth care in the hospital but suffice to say, it wasn’t the best.

The question is now, will this feel like enough? I have read many blog posts and articles that suggest that you know when it is your last pregnancy, your last baby, a feeling of calm almost that accompanies you throughout the whole thing. That your family feels complete almost as soon as the baby is born. Maybe that will happen, but this hasn’t felt at all as if this will be my last pregnancy. It’s strange, I expected it to, but I still find myself drawn to baby boy clothes, feel myself wanting a neutral pram just in case a little boy has to go in it after our daughter.

If she is our last child, then so be it, I am a huge believer in life turning out as it should. That, generally speaking, things happen as they are meant to. But sitting here now, eight and a half weeks before she is due, I still think that I’ll do this again. She will definitely be enough, just as her big sisters were and my word, three daughters, what a joy, what an absolute honour that would be.

How lucky would we be?

Worth

Before I had my girls, I could not cook. I could put things in the oven, of course, and I could put together a salad if all the things were pre-prepared but actual cooking was a no go. J would cook as he worked less hours than me and I would wash up, that was the deal. I would do the housework on my day off during the week, but it was easy then, there wasn’t anyone in the house during the day so it never really got dirty. I did the washing and the ironing I did in front of the telly in the evening. There was loads of time then. Eons of time. I really don’t know what I did with it all.

Now, I can cook. I can cook pasta sauces from scratch, make pies, stir fries, I can use spices and recipes don’t phase me, I own a selection of cook books and use them fairly regularly. I can bake and I do, I bake cookies with the girls and bread sometimes. I’ve made fairly elaborate birthday cakes in the past, cakes that have been talked about since. I can even poach an egg.

I have very little time now. Yes, the girls go to nursery fifteen hours a week but that disappears in the cleaning and the organising and in trying to write. The evenings are spent cooking, ironically, and washing up and doing bits and bobs that didn’t get done during the days. The school holidays are hardest obviously, the fifteen hours isn’t there and there’s even more time to fill with the girls. I love the time woth them, of course, but I really do struggle with sitting in the lounge and seeing dust or clutter or things that need doing.

When I worked, my worth was determined by how much money I earned, how my store did, my own performance, and as long as the house was vaguely clean, it was fine. We spent our days off mooching, breakfast out and long walks, naps in the afternoon and lazy evenings watching films. Can you even imagine?!

Now, my worth, and I appreciate this is my own perception, is determined by how I raise my children and how much I contribute. I am a good mother, my children are polite, happy little girls who have so many people in their lives to adore them. They are bright and funny and they love each other to absolute distraction. I cannot count the amount of times a day when they come to me and say ‘I love you Mummy,’ and every single time, I am glad that I took that chance to be with them.

And how much I contribute. Financially, nothing so I try to keep a nice house. This is doing nothing for feminism, I know, and I do believe fervently in feminism and equality but I find myself slipping into a caricature of a fifties housewife with alarming regularity. J will offer to do something in the evening, something entirely reasonable and I’ll shoot him down, telling him to relax, that he’s had a hard day at work. I’m moments away from offering him a glass of brandy sometimes. I even suggested this week that because we are only having one baby, that he needn’t get up in the night with her, that I’d do it all. To his credit, he looked at me aghast and said that he wanted to get up and do his bit, that she was his daughter too.

Sometimes, when I have moments of utter clarity, I realise that I’m ridiculous. My worth is determined by me. Just me. Yes, of course, it matters what people think of me, of course it does, I think people who say that it doesn’t are deluded at best and liars at worst. But maybe that is the crux of it, maybe that is the problem. Maybe I need to just work on that, this interlinked puzzle of worth and self esteem.

And maybe take a nap occasionally.

Success

I’m loathe to divide my life into pre and post kids but it does sometimes feel like the easiest distinction. It is slightly easier in my case, as I didn’t return to my job after my girls were born, so the division could very easily be before and after work. Not that what I do now isn’t work of course, but the perception of my life is and I think you’ll understand what I mean.

In my work life, I was averagely successful. I made a lifestyle choice when I met J, I could have continued on with my career as a retail manager, running bigger and more successful stores but all of those stores were much further away and, truth be told, I liked finishing work and hopping on the train, knowing that I had a good three or four hours each evening to relax and enjoy my home and my relationship. There were times within my career when I could have really gone places, really developed and there were times when things were really quite ropey, so I think, on the whole, it all balances out.

I loved my last job. I worked for a well known lingerie company that sold other bits and bobs,which I won’t name but you don’t need to be Agatha Christie to work it out. I had a fantastic team of people that I genuinely considered to be friends and it was a challenge. My job was added to and enhanced and I felt supported and excited by my bosses, it was a fun job, not different every day but different enough that I nearly always wanted to go to work. Telling my friends there that I was pregnant and then that there were two babies is genuinely one of the highlights of my life.

I regret often not going back. Not because I have ever regretted being with my girls, not at all, but because there is no barometer to success when you don’t work outside of the house. Nobody cares if your toddler is potty trained or when, there’s no performance related bonus, there’s far too much time and not enough time in equal measure, time spent staring at the walls in silence wondering if your babies are deeply enough asleep to risk turning the telly on, while you’re pushing your children in the pram along the seafront in an attempt to pass even a little time in an interminable day, the days when you realise that it’s two o’clock in the afternoon and you’ve not only missed breakfast, but lunch too.

The idea of talking to a stranger now fills me with dread now. I ramble to strangers if I d find myself needing to talk to someone, yet i crave having a conversation with someone new. I’d love to have just a little of my old self back for a few minutes, I’d like to briefly remember what it feels like to be respected and listened to. I wonder how I’ll feel next year, after the baby is born and old enough to go to my sister and to nursery and I do have to return to work, what will I say in an interview, that for four years, I have loved my children beyond measure, that I am more patient and grounded than I have ever been, that I will bring a level of maturity to a role that I simply did not have before.

Most likely I’ll say the wrong words and get laughed at.

Hey ho!