Ah Gong Ah Ma

I miss them. I miss the sense of safety and love. I don’t even care that they’re probably romanticised in my head. I just wish they were alive and would care for me like they did when I was 18 months old and every time we returned when I was a child till the last time I saw them. 

This is how hard I try

I try so hard to be healthy. I try to get inspired by new meals, healthy recipes, I open up my tastebuds and palate for the sake of baby. I try to stay healthy, I try exercise classes in a new part of the city, I go for walks even when I’m exhausted, I say yes to bushwalks that fatigue me. I go to work, Imake an income, I get out of the house for the sake of baby. I keep in contact with people, I try to reconnect with my parents even though they are very often still are a negative trigger for my mental health, but Do it for baby. I go to the beach, I get out in the sun, I take naps. I try so hard every single day from the first thing in the morning till the last moment of the day when I collapse in bed at night. I psyche myself up for every single task. I am trying to avoid feeling depressed or being depressed or depression in so many ways. 

Grieving

For the lost normality

For the lost face to face check ups I would have had in the first few weeks of pregnancy 

For not having Anthony there to support me at the ultrasounds and midwife appointments

Just chucking this out there in the universe

It’s really hard becoming a first time mum during a pandemic. I’m sure it’s hard enough without a pandemic going on but the anxieties of simply grocery shopping and being out and avoiding any chance of catching corona, for the sake of my health and baby’s health. Not having friends to see as easily as pre-pandemic for normal social interactions. Not being able to celebrate the journey in person with many people you otherwise would. I know I’m lucky to have a roof over my head and a supportive partner but it’s hard for the both of us in different ways. I feel so isolated some days. 

Mother figures

Something that I’ve realised this past week, I am always subconsciously looking for that older sister or mother figure in my life. Whether it’s in the mums of be kids I work with or colleagues, other older therapists, I spot traits that I admire and want to model and learn from because I don’t think I had the strongest mother figure growing up. Yes my mum loved me. In her own way. Yes both my mum and dad did. But it was in their own way in the only way they knew how. And the last five months of living with them was absolute hell because you realise a lot more when you’re older. You realise that their method of parenting fucked you up in so many ways and look, despite most or all being unintentional, there were moments where you go, for fucks sake you should have known better. You should have tried harder. You shouldn’t have done that so your kid suffered so much. You should have stood up had a backbone looked your kid in the eye about certain things because you’re the fucking adult in the situation. So there are many things I can no longer respect or accept about them. And I still haven’t told them I’m pregnant. And each time someone asks me how my parents react it kills me a bit. Because the ones who are asking are the ones who will never understand. Because they have mums and dads who loved them in ways that met their needs as kids. And that is what hurts me at 5am on Saturdays because I finally have time to slow down from the week and process all that has happened. I get more of a mother figure from my fucking accountant than my own mother for fucks sake. 

Parenting before they’re even born

I can’t wait to chill out on a lounge again. Our lounge that we picked up from Anthony’s old work mate and drove all the way up the mountain in a hired Bunnings Ute. The lounge that is super soft but good for naps and less good for pelvic posture in sitting. But see, living with my mum and dad has been good in this sense that it has shown us what we take for granted. Personal space. Privacy. Lounges. And much much more. 

I can’t wait to have space that is my own. To walk around naked because that’s what my soul and body yearns for. Life has been so restrictive these past few months and we didn’t realise how unhealthy it would be for the two of us. Like yes free rent is fantastic but freedom and a life and mental sanity is so much more important. These are the lessons we’ll have to pass on to our kiddos one day. Life is hard enough without inventing the wheel every time life throws hardships at you. And life will always do that but I wanna be able to prepare my kiddos as much as possible. I don’t want them to be debilitated by my struggles but more so empowered and able to learn from my mistakes I guess, just a bit more worldly than what my parents gave me which is simply fear. 

Raising beautiful humans

I can’t sleep. It’s 4:31am and again I am up because lying in bed makes me feel sick, the smell of the blankets make me feel sick, the headache I had since midday yesterday is still raging and yes that also makes me feel sick.

But funnily enough I feel stronger than ever. Growing a little human is not easy. When the fatigue began about six weeks ago during walks around the block and the slightest incline was a struggle I was taken back. Had my cardiovascular system declined so much overnight that I felt breathless for no reason ? And then the morning sickness began and trying to figure out if crackers or lemon water or grapefruit or McMuffins were the cure. Nothing is a permanent cure, all temporary lasting a few days before it makes me feel sick again. And then the crazy vivid dreams about tracking a train that went from Melbourne to Bellingen to Iceland that held our wedding rings which turned into a campervanning adventure and many more. And then the waking up at anywhere between 2am to 5am daily. So much fun. The headaches are probably newer. I read somewhere that it’s due to increased blood volume in the body and that makes sense to me so it’s less scary and more just annoying.

This isn’t the first mum blog and it won’t be the last. Here’s the thing, people used to document their lives all the bloody time, heck literate historians so well educated white males in Britain probably did it all the fucking time. But nobody made fun of them. Their work is studied for years to come. I blogged and documented my life and all the angst that came with it from year 10 till I don’t know, before I left for England. And it’s been a bit of a void since. Life’s too busy I said. I’ve grown up and grown past that stage. And maybe it’s time I come back to it so that one day when my kids are teenagers or twenty something thirty something year olds I can come back and read this and go holy shit, I made it. I made it past the endless nights and crappy sleep and nausea and raised a few beautiful humans.