And so another infant and pregnancy loss awareness week/month comes and goes. This was my sixth one now as someone all too ‘aware’. This year, I felt increasingly disconnected from it all. Not least because I was away on a busy trip for the annual wave of light – the lighting of candles in memory […]
A guest post by Katie @withoutottilie Me and my womb aren’t exactly the best of friends. I love being a woman. And yet the one physical organ that defines my womanhood, has caused me nothing but pain. Our difficult relationship started on 28th February 1989, my Mum’s birthday, when I was 11. I knew about periods because […]
A guest post by Michelle (@a_tale_of_three_duckies) We have been on the so-called ‘baby train’ for almost three years now. I’m inching ever closer to being 36 whole years old. I’m married to a slightly ginger ex-Marine called Jon. We live in Nottingham and we have a slobbery but beautiful Boxer dog called Lola. We are […]
Now that the schools have gone back, the café feels like neutral territory again. She reclaims her usual spot in the corner, takes out her book, waits for her coffee. In the holidays, it gets too loud for her here; the presence of everyone else’s children oppresses, the noise and sudden movements of so many […]
As some of you may have seen from my social media posts, last week I was made this year’s winner of the Tommy’s Mum’s Voice Award. (If you don’t already know about the work that Tommy’s does as a charity, you can read more about it here ). It is a huge honour. Though it […]
All the leaflets they give you after a miscarriage or other kind of baby loss tend to tell you sympathetic but vague things. A soup of words such as ‘profound emotional impact’, ‘bereavement period’ and ‘time to recover’ swim and muddle themselves on the page, while you’re still trying to comprehend what has happened. Just […]
‘Isn’t she beautiful?’ the advert asks. The subject of its question smiles out at me. Luminously lit in black bra and leggings, she holds her tiny baby close to her face, hands circled firmly around its back, as one pudgy leg dandles down, nudging the soft camber of her stomach, which is rippled with purple […]
It’s an internet truth universally acknowledged that a person in possession of a womb must be in want of a pregnancy test. Or an ovulation stick. Or perhaps some adorable matching mama-and-baby leggings. The internet knows when you’re pregnant. Or, at least, it has very strong ideas about when you should be pregnant. I got my […]
I have a set of candlesticks that have moved with me everywhere I’ve lived as an adult. A trio of white, glossy ceramic with long stems and Hygge pretensions (meaning: I bought them from Ikea as a student). The other weekend my mum was round and as we sat at my dining table drinking coffee she […]
The Uterus Monologues: Miscarriage, motherhood and me 