Now you might read that opening gambit and assume I’ve exaggerated the story for comedic effect but sadly this is all true. This article is about my own baffling stupidity and just the latest example of ‘what the actual f*ckery’ moments I seem to drift between.

I was due to be attending a funeral. One of my best friends lost her mum a couple of weeks ago and whilst I didn’t know her mum very well, I felt I’d like to pay my respects and show up in support of my friend. I got myself all dressed up, put Jemima in a pretty dress, packed a bag with snacks and little toys and set off.

It was 30 degrees so I knew I didn’t want to be too early standing around in the heat with a toddler so I parked up and sat in the air con with her for 10 minutes before making my way across to the entrance. The thing about funerals for people you don’t know very well, is there’s a good chance you won’t know many faces when you arrive either. I couldn’t see anyone I recognised but I was in the right place at the right time so I stood quietly amongst the congregation as people were crying and thanking others for turning up. Then a police car arrived with armed guards (cuffed to a prisoner) and I thought it was a bit strange but no one seemed too phased by their presence so I decided not to be either. Who am I to judge?! Indeed. That will become very clear later.

It was a couple of minutes before the service was about to start so I thought I’d step into the crematorium out of the sun and bag myself a seat at the back - in hopes that if Jemima wasn’t able to stay quiet, at least I could nip out without disturbing any of the eulogies. Everyone started to file in and an older lady came and sat at the back a few seats away from me.

She kept looking at me with a strange expression on her face and it was making me uncomfortable so I did what any people-pleaser will do in a socially awkward situation - I started a conversation…

‘I’m Grace by the way, this is Jemima.’

She nodded.

I grinned and said, ‘for a moment I thought I was at the wrong funeral haha!’

Silence.

‘That would be embarrassing wouldn’t it! Haha’

Nothing.

‘This is Bev’s funeral isn’t it?!’

She looked at me in absolute disgust. Like I’d just vomited on her lap and stared straight ahead as I could hear the doors opening with the pal bearers about to make their entrance CARRYING THE DEAD BODY.

And yes you’re right. I realised at EXACTLY that moment, I was at the wrong fucking funeral.

What did I do? Well ask yourself, what would you do in that situation?

Unfortunately, and I’m not proud of myself for this, but I was immediately struck with the most appalling and uncontrollably strong fit of the giggles. I’ve never felt the urge to laugh hysterically so much in all my 33 years. I was going to blow, I knew it and I knew that it would have been downright disturbing (and very upsetting for the other members of the congregation) if I’d done so. So I felt I had no choice but to dash out. Thank goodness I was seated near the back. Sadly, my timing coincided with the actual coffin entering the room. Tear-strewn faces making their way slowly up the aisle carrying the remains of their deceased loved one, and then a woman nobody recognises RUNNING towards them with a pram, laughing. I need you to picture the terribleness of it!

Luckily my laughter wasn’t fully hysterical until I’d got about 20 metres away from the doors of the crematorium but I was still running whilst bent double, pushing a pram and sweating profusely. Quite a sight! Of course, as there often is, the crematorium is surrounded by a mass graveyard with people from earlier funerals still milling about and people waiting for later funerals huddled together exchanging tissues. And then then there was me. Laughing. Sweating. Running. And obviously mental.

I chucked Jemima into the car, flung the pram into the boot and got into the drivers seat before letting out the full extent of my mad-person laughing. There was a groundskeeper sitting on a bench nearby who’d witnessed and watched with some interest, my progress out of the building and into the car and heck only knows what he must have thought. ‘That sick woman has a weird way of getting her kicks..’

I drove home still wiping tears of laughter away from my face and realised with quite a jolt, that I hadn’t answered a very important question yet. Where WAS the blinking funeral because I was clearly at the wrong place?! I pulled over and checked my phone. I was in exactly the right place, just 5 hours early… so that meant I’d have to go through the whole thing again in a few hours.

I was (as I always am) in constant voice note exchanges with my agent, Summer, and separately with the ever so tolerant Victoria - whom I do the travel business with. I told them both I was at a funeral so would be MIA for a bit, then I informed them of the horror I’d caused when I was back in ‘working mode.’ And do you want to know the most depressing thing? Neither were particularly shocked by this dreadful misjudgement of mine.

Anyway. I got home, got Jemima down for a nap, screamed inwardly for a bit, did some tidying (the house viewing onslaught continues), and then repacked the nappy bag to ‘go again.’

It’s funny what they say about things coming in three’s isn’t it. My mum always says it, I usually dismiss it. But so far I’d laughed out loud at the entrance of a coffin, attended an entirely random persons funeral and as fate would have it - my misfortune wasn’t going to let me get away with this little series of misdemeanours. I was heading for a hat trick.. Fate clearly enjoys my embarrassment and she wasn’t done with me yet.

I rang Tom to tell him I’d been to the wrong funeral. He nearly crashed his car laughing and Tom knows me, ie - he knows what to expect and therefore my silliness is almost boring to him. But this made him laugh.

‘You’ll be home by 3 though won’t you? I need to leave at 10 past?’

‘Nope sorry, stuck in traffic..’

‘You’re kidding! I can’t attend the wrong funeral and miss the right one! Who’ll be home for Harry?’

‘What do you want me to do? I’m stuck on the M25!’

I contacted my friend Rachel and told her I needed a spot of temporary help and again, dressed up for my second funeral of the day along with Jemima and headed off.

I’m never late. I’m just never late. It’s not a thing I am. I’ve let decent friendships slide into nothingness on the basis of timekeeping (being stranded waiting for someone repeatedly genuinely feels neglectful and rude to me) so when I tell you I drove like a nutter to get there early, please know I tried to break a land speed record, ok? I arrived at the exact right time but the blinking pram wheels were having a moment and the car park was like a festival, double-parking like you’ve never seen. Therefore, I arrived exactly 90 seconds after the allotted time for the CORRECT funeral. Appalled with myself, I ran up to the open doors and being sure not to attend another strangers funeral, I asked a gentleman stood outside if it was Bev’s funeral. He nodded and waved a hand towards the door. I thought, yes mate I’ve been here and I know my way, second one in 5 hours if you can believe it! But I stayed mute and pushed Jemima inside.

Now look, what happened next was terrible but I blame myself, the heat and Bev (the deceased) for being such a pillar of the community and deeply beloved person because this funeral was PACKED. Everyone in the world was there to show the family just how much she meant to them, a very, VERY special person, indeed. I’ve never seen anything like it. And don’t forget, I’d seen the room only a few hours prior. Of course I marched in to a boiling hot crematorium with standing room only - smack bang in the middle of the opening eulogy. THE LOOKS I got would frighten a professional boxer into retirement. Unsure what to do and worried about obscuring the view for close family members, I marched (with a pram) right through the room alllllllllllll the way to the back and apparently (because there wasn’t even any room there) all the way OUT of the crematorium. I looked like a lunatic who fancied a cat walk moment in the most inappropriate room at the most inappropriate time. As I got to the doors (and oh good grief I’m squirming as I write this because we’re so not done yet), there was a young gentleman in a wheelchair blocking the exit. In my haste and stress and embarrassment, I accidentally rammed the pram past his foot which hurt him. He shouted, ‘OOWWWWWWW’ much like a wounded animal, it was very visceral, and of course everyone turned around to see what the noise was about. It was me, accidentally assaulting a poor disabled man in a wheelchair in the middle of a eulogy in a packed crematorium in a heatwave in front of 400 people. It was my fault. Again. Of course it was. Second funeral ruined, tick.

I eventually managed (after profusely apologising) to get out the back and basically into the graveyard along with 3/4’s of the funeral goers for this particular service, who were listening via speakers (which had caught the howl apparently) in silence. And again, the looks of disgust nearly caused me to carry on marching straight through them and back to my car. I’d ruined not one, but two funerals. Superb effort. Oh and injured an innocent disabled man paying his respects in the process. Such a dreadful day.

I stayed to listen to my friend’s beautiful eulogy and then made a swift exit because my presence was clearly not very welcome.

I whizzed back to the car, got myself and Jemima strapped in and decided I just needed to leave. The crematorium is a funny sort of place layout wise - you have to basically do a figure of eight to get away from it. I got to the exit and there was a car parked in the middle of the road with no one doing anything and no one seemingly around. But they were blocking me in! I could see cars coming up behind me and obviously I wasn’t about to drive across some graves to get away (though I briefly considered it given my cloud of shame) so I did what I almost never do - I beeped my horn.

And of course, at that exact moment, I realised there was another car in front of the car I was stuck behind and they were removing the coffin to carry it to its’ final resting place… I feel sick even writing it. There was only about 9 people watching this poor soul make his or her last physical journey in life and I beeped my horn right in the middle of that careful, quiet and deeply sad moment. If I hadn’t had a screaming toddler in the back who was panting with the heat of my black car that had been parked in the sun for 25 minutes, I’d have probably gotten out and followed the deceased into the earth….. but I did the ‘apology hand’ signal and drove away trying to contain my third bout of bubbling, boiling and long-lasting shame of the day.

So when I say I ruined 2 funerals that day. What I actually mean is that I ruined 2 funerals and one burial - because that’s how dreadful I am..

And when I told my mum about it, she laughed and told me how she’d missed her own grandmothers funeral because she followed the wrong hearse and her mother (my granny) never forgave her for it. Apparently this particular brand of madness runs in my family.

When I told my friend (Bev’s daughter) about it, she also laughed and told me a friend of hers flew over from Ireland FOR THIS funeral a week early!

And she herself had gone to a strangers funeral instead of her aunts.

All of this didn’t make me feel hugely better but it made me realise I can’t be the only one to have done it. I’ve had precisely 3 conversations about that day and 2 out of the 3 sympathised and had stories to tell.

So I think I might amend my will and add in some funeral directions as follows. Instead of listing roughly what I’d like, I’ll insist the funeral instructions come in the form a cryptic clue. Some will work it out, others won’t. Some will make it, others will accidentally populate complete stranger’s funerals and everyone can reconvene at the wake to compare notes. It’ll bring the crowd together and hopefully make them laugh. ‘Grace was a ridiculous person - even the funeral arrangements didn’t make sense, we went to the wrong one!’ ‘Oh so did we! Which burial did you end up at?!’ ‘We attended Ken’s! Nice family - but confused as to why we were there.’ ‘Aha, we went to Audrey’s along with a few others. We’re going to that wake after this one, seemed like a raucous bunch - wanna come?’ And so on. I kind of like that idea.

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A few sentences I didn’t expect to say on 5-star family holiday but here we are:

“If we contract rabies, how long until it takes hold?”

“Don’t eat the the f*cking ice cream Harry, it’s poisoned!”

“Did you see that member of staff just punch a guest?!”

“And how many nights have you been camping in reception?”

“We can’t go out for dinner because no one has washed for 4 days..”

“Tom please steer the boat because apparently no one is and we’re heading for those f*cking rocks!”

All the usual stuff no? Well, no not really, I don’t happen to think so anyway.

This had to be one of the worst holidays I’ve ever been on. Interesting for lots of reasons, sure, but overall - a bit of a disaster to put it mildly. We had beautiful sunshine, we met lots of lovely local people, we tried seafood we’ve never even heard of before (a hugely exciting thing for a couple of foodies) and we returned with an excellent tan and some incredible memories.

What’s the problem then? What in god’s name have you got to complain about woman?! You’d be right to ask that question and I’d be lying if I said that writing this article fills me with not a little trepidation because it’s going to stink of privilege if you don’t read to the end. But I’m going to write it anyway because sometimes things are just so bad, they become almost funny and given some of what you’re about to read hit the national press over the weekend, I won’t be telling you anything that isn’t already in the public eye, this is just my account of what happened.

For the Easter holidays, we had planned to travel to Mauritius. A place I’ve never been but always wanted to go and the income I earn from being a travel agent goes into a holiday fund meaning we could just about afford it. Just about. Which was excellent.

Except it wasn’t.

Because Donald Trump b*ggared the whole thing up and whilst we might have made it to the beautiful East African island we were heading for, also, we might not. And that didn’t fill with me with excitement. So, we looked at the Caribbean. Another place I’ve never been but always wanted to. However, it seemed that every other Brit had had the exact same idea, and the prices went through the roof, above the clouds and somewhere beyond the stratosphere. If we were rich, we’d probably have said ‘oh go on then,’ but we’re not and it wasn’t a case of trying to justify the cost, we simply didn’t have the funds available to us.

So, I got thinking about African islands on the OTHER side. Crucially nowhere that needed to refuel in the Middle East, and I alighted on Cape Verde. It had never occurred to me to visit but after a little research, I figured it was warm, easy to get to, perfectly safe and probably quite interesting once you head away from the gargantuan hotel complexes. It was definitely all of those things on the whole and after a reasonably trouble-free 6-hour flight (a tall order for Jemima at the age she is), we stepped off the plane in Sal to be greeted with 25-degree heat, blue skies and the smoothest departure from an airport I’ve ever experienced. From disembarking the aeroplane to standing outside arrivals with all our cases - took just 15 minutes. THIS felt like a good omen and Tom was saying things like, ‘perhaps this our new favourite place, so efficient and easy to get to.’ All was well.

Until it really, really wasn’t.

As you’d expect, I’d booked the whole thing myself separately. I’d emailed the hotel twice in the preceding weeks to enquire about a cot for Jemima but heard nothing and figured, it was a very big hotel, so we’d probably just sort it out when we got there.

Shortly thereafter, we pulled up outside our hotel in a taxi and tried to check in. We were told it would be 20 minutes until our 2-bedroom apartment was ready. Fine. Not a problem. We were given our dreadful wristbands and told we could go to the bar to wait. Again fine. Except that initial 20 minutes became a mere 2 HOURS, and after 6 trips to reception we were finally told our room was ready.

‘And there is a cot in there already?’

‘Yes.’

We walked the 1.2km from reception to our room – no, really! And then up a flight of stairs with the pram and bags. Not ideal but hey, a small inconvenience in the grand scheme of things. We walked into our “luxury 2 bed apartment” to discover a list of issues. No cot, no bins, no towels, no remotes for the tv or aircon, and a smell so unpleasant I’m not sure how to describe it (and I’m good at such things) but let’s go with ‘the urinals in a nightclub’ as the key tasting notes. Long black hairs EVERYWHERE, broken door frames and enormous greasy handprints on everything. A dark and dirty space. I sat down on one of the beds and the wooden slats fell out from underneath it. Welcome to your home for the next 10 days - I thought.

I won’t take you through a blow-by-blow account of everything that happened over the space of those 10 days because honestly, I spent most of it on the toilet or waiting outside the toilet because either Tom or Harry was already occupying it being ill themselves. Jemima went on a total hunger strike after about day 3 and we all came back weighing less than when we left.

It turns out there’s currently a water shortage on the island which has had all sorts of knock-on effects re cleanliness, food preparation, laundry, staff and general sanitation. And boy, did we feel the effects of that! Everyone around the hotel became ashen faced as the holiday wore on so it was clear that it wasn’t just us suffering. Unsurprisingly, this led to all the guests and staff becoming quite bad tempered. Towards each other and amongst themselves. Tom and I were no different. We had at least one (five) medium to large arguments every day. And the reception area became a genuine conflict zone. I felt sorry for the staff, it wasn’t their fault. But you could tell their ability to listen to complaint after complaint whilst remaining professional, was wearing thin and they just started walking off mid conversation, unable to deal with the constant onslaught. I don’t blame them. But I don’t blame the guests for needing to direct their anger somewhere either. After all, people were paying hard earned money for a lovely holiday and to have no towels, filthy rooms, no running water, or no drinking water in some cases, is also inexcusable.

The cash points around the resort ran out of money, we didn’t have towels AT ALL for the last 6 days of our holiday, the à la carte restaurants on site were basically unbookable because they were only able to manage a small number of covers each night which meant most of us had to resort to the buffet. And the buffet - well, it was dreadful to be honest and better yet, most of the options came with a side helping of horrific food poisoning for good measure...

You can’t drink the tap water. There are no rivers or natural bodies of water on the island of Sal - so there is a large desalination plant which filters sea water for mains fed water. Therefore, the hotels provide bottled water for all their guests. A brand I’d not heard of but it turned out to be native to the island. It tasted dreadful (and I really mean it) but I’ve always presumed bottled water to be safe. However, here was something I noticed. If you opened a bottle of water and replaced the lid, within hours it developed a really unpleasant smell. A sulphurous, gassy odour. We all noticed it. And it was at this point, I realised we were a bit in the sh*t. Both figuratively and quite literally. Jemima is still breastfeeding, but she will drink water and it was hot. Plus, she wasn’t really eating much, so breast milk was really our only option. I wasn’t sure this water was safe enough for her to be honest. Which meant of course, I had to drink galleons of the foul-smelling stuff to sustain her and hope beyond hope that nothing truly unpleasant was being passed into her via my milk. I realised it was definitely having a very troubling effect on my stomach because the more I drank, the worse I felt. But what was the alternative? All other brands of bottled water were basically impossible to get hold of and it surely had to be better than the tap alternative (and I did taste a small mouthful of it for comparison and it tasted suspiciously similar to the bottled variety). I’m not suggesting there was a ‘Peckham Springs’ type arrangement going on, but I did briefly entertain the idea and realised I couldn’t dwell on it too much for my own sanity. Towards the end of the trip, the staff abandoned their housekeeping responsibilities altogether and even the bottled water stopped being replenished.

We ate out as much as we could, in the lovely town of Santa Maria. The locals were delightful, and the food was excellent but sadly the loveliness of it all was somewhat wasted on us because we weren’t well enough to stomach much of the food in the first place and some nights, we didn’t make it out to eat at all. Plus, on one such evening, one of the stray dogs (of which there are literally hundreds everywhere) went for Harry and then me. I love dogs, I also love my children and I’m sorry to say - but I was holding Jemima at the time, and I whacked it in the face with the nappy bag to get it to leave us alone. It went for my ankles again and bit my sandal. We checked my feet over multiple times and couldn’t see so much as a scratch but most of the evening was then spent discussing rabies - so not an altogether relaxing meal as I worked myself into a panic about it.

We decided to book some excursions to distract ourselves and hopefully salvage some nice moments from a pretty dreadful trip otherwise.

Tom went scuba diving and nearly got swept away in the currents 34m underwater whilst visiting a shipwreck he’d been excited to see. Even the guide was visibly frightened by the strength of them, and it turns out, had done considerably less diving than Tom.

We booked for Harry and Tom to go jet skiing because they’d enjoyed it so much in the Maldives and it was cheap to do in Cape Verde by comparison. The French man that turned up to take them was extremely rude and arrived by way of shouting out of the car window that Tom hadn’t paid a deposit. Something he knew nothing about! If Harry hadn’t been with him, I’ve no doubt that Tom would have told him to go f*ck himself but that would have ended in a very sad little boy, so Tom managed to restrain himself and off they went. The waves were so rough, they fell off and the isolation kill switch key thing came free (as it should) turning the engine off. Unfortunately the key then sank to the bottom of the Atlantic and the already irate jet ski owner once again lost it with Tom who did then let rip, which resulted in them both being abandoned on a beach having to make their own way back to the hotel via taxi..

Harry and I went horse riding. This was reasonably successful, and we both largely enjoyed it. I explained that I’d been riding horses all my life, so I’d like to gallop along the sand (an option they offer in their brochure). They said that was fine and put me on a very excitable 5-year-old gelding who reared twice, tried to buck me off for most of it and bolted when I went for my ‘gallop.’ It bolted (this is where a horse puts the bit between their teeth, puts their head down and there’s not much you can do except cling on for dear life and wait for it to tire itself out or deposit you somewhere) right up to Harry’s horse and then kicked it. Nearly throwing Harry off. Mine then reared and nearly killed the man holding onto Harry’s horse and the leader of the whole group then shouted at me to control my horse. Nice. Anyway, no one fell off and it was quite satisfying to realise I still know how to stay on a broncho when they’ve grown tired of being ridden! At the end of it, the man in charge apologised for shouting at me - so that was something.

We did a 4x4 excursion around the island, which was great and went off without a hitch.

And on our penultimate day we booked a catamaran trip out to a nearby rocky outcrop called the ‘Sleeping lion’ to do snorkelling and swimming which included drinks and lunch. This was quite eventful. When we booked it, we were told there would be a group of 12 of us. When we arrived, we realised there was closer to 30. And we all had to board the catamaran by taking a small wooden boat no bigger than a pedalo. It would have been a squash for 4 people and how the blinking thing didn’t sink under the weight of so many of us, I’ll never know. But we made it. And the catamaran itself was perfectly nice. It seemed we were sharing it with a Spanish stag do amongst other people and these blokes immediately hijacked the sound system and started playing their own music - which definitely annoyed the captain. But I figured they’re probably used to this sort of thing; people are here to enjoy themselves after all and perhaps things would settle once everyone had had a nice swim and a bit of lunch. The Spanish contingent drank a lot of alcohol, which is standard protocol for a stag do, but within half an hour of setting sail, things were starting to get a bit messy. One of them bashed into the lady who was serving drinks on the boat and without blinking, she wheeled around and punched him. She had lightening quick reflexes and I think she shocked herself more than anyone else. She immediately apologised profusely, and I thought perhaps the Spanish guy seemed to have accepted it but then he went into a sulk and started crying. One of his other friends, equally drunk, then slipped over in the galley and smashed his head. By this point, the captain was getting pretty annoyed and just walked off, leaving his station behind the wheel and into one of the cabins below deck. I saw him take a bottle of grogue (the local rum) with him and when he emerged, he seemed neither interested in regaining control of the boat or in anyone at all EXCEPT the female employee who’d thrown the punch. He started drunkenly dancing with her and it became clear that literally no one was watching the boat’s path. Now perhaps he was such an experienced skipper, he knew exactly what he was doing, and I was just being a bit panicky, but we came alarmingly close to the rocks, and he’d occasionally yank the wheel before going back to dancing for a bit. I guessed he makes this trip at least once a day and knew exactly when the boat was fine to steer itself and when his intervention was required, but the half empty bottle of rum hanging casually at his side did make we wonder..

As I’m sure you’ve undoubtedly worked out, we made it back onto dry land safely. So, there was probably no need to be frightened. But I’m a nervous sailor at the best of times and none of this was helped by the constant vomiting around me. Basically everyone was hurling into sick bags or over the sides because of the waves (except me interestingly) and the lunch laid out for us was left virtually untouched. That’s not totally true, Jemima ate 2 ritz crackers and I had a piece of watermelon. But at £150 for the 4 of us, it certainly felt like an expensive way to not quite enjoy yourself...

And on returning to the hotel, we were met with another stand-off in reception, but this one was getting quite nasty. A woman, we shall call her Karen (that was not her name) had really lost her rag with the hotel. She was apoplectic with rage about the fact that no one in her family had been able to wash for 3 days. There were no towels, the shower flooded the entire apartment every time it was switched on, the smell of drains made it impossible to sleep, the aircon didn’t work, the safe had malfunctioned with their passports inside it and no one had cleaned the room in the 5 days they’d been there. I didn’t want to mention we’d had no towels for 6 days and I doubted very much she’d be getting any for the rest of her holiday, but she was already shaking with exertion, and I didn’t want to exacerbate the situation any further. She then camped in reception. All night. Along with others! Whole families sprawled on sofas occasionally rousing themselves to pick a fight with the newest member of staff to cross their paths. Arriving guests looking to check in were told to leave whilst they still had their health by this vigil staging a coup in the lobby and the whole thing got out of hand. I saw the exhausted manager in floods of tears on more than one occasion and when we finally checked out, the nice lady who dealt with us looked as though she might pass out with the exhaustion of spending 8 hours in the blazing heat being shouted at by angry guest after angry guest with no possible tools at her disposal to rectify the situation.

On our final evening, we found ourselves yet again in the buffet. I say ‘we’; Tom was too unwell to join us, so it was just myself and the children. I was literally just passing blood by this point (sorry to add that detail but it hopefully demonstrates just how ill we were, that I was the healthier of the two of us by day 10).. when I heard a woman on a nearby table explain very clearly to her young children that under no circumstances could they have any ice cream because it would make them all sick. I did a quick google and sure enough, lots of people on Trip Advisor echoed this sentiment. Neither Tom nor I had eaten any whatsoever, so it wasn’t just the ice cream making people ill. But I looked up to see Harry returning from the buffet with a little cup of chocolate ice cream. Perhaps it was the exhaustion or delirium of it all, but I screamed (far too loudly on reflection), ‘don’t eat the f*cking ice cream Harry, it’s poisonous!’ This was quite a stupid thing to do I realise for a number of reasons. Firstly, it was quite embarrassing. Secondly, I looked deranged and could visibly see people around me putting down the ice cream they’d been happily eating only moments before. And thirdly, the worst of all, was that this caused Harry to panic as he’d been eating ice cream all holiday. I quickly flung Jemima (now crying) into the pram and frog-marched them both out of the restaurant, past the disgruntled and ever-growing encampment in reception and back to our ‘luxury 2 bed apartment’ to explain myself to him. We worked it out and I spent my final night sleeping on the floor outside the toilet so as not to disturb Tom (who’d finally gone to sleep after rocking on all fours for most of the day) or keep Harry up with constant trips to the loo myself. A fitting end.

I’ve never been so glad to see the back of a place. The hotel was the Melia Dunas if you’re interested. I’ve subsequently discovered there have been 8 DEATHS linked to it, the sister hotel next door and one further down the road… The water and sanitation issue is clearly a bad one and I’m sorry to say it, but I won’t be returning. The people are kind, honest, good and try their best for all the visitors who arrive on their island, but given just how bad our holiday was - I don’t think I’d risk another visit. I hope they manage to resolve the problem, I really do, for the sake of the economy and all those who rely on tourism for work. I think sadly, the hotels are too big for an island so small and unless the Melia group itself is going to stump up to improve the infrastructure they’ve completely exhausted with these vast complexes they’ve erected - I don’t see how the local government will be able to afford it themselves. There is a brand-new hospital right around the corner from the hotel we stayed in and according to the locals, there isn’t enough money to open it! It stands there like a bleak monument to everything that’s gone wrong. I know that my writing this and bringing even more awareness to the situation (even to my small audience) will add to that problem and I’m sorry that knowing this, I still went ahead and published it. But I genuinely couldn’t recommend it and I think it’s probably better to be honest about these things. I wish I’d done a bit more research myself! I’d have saved quite a lot of money and a hell of a lot of time in the bathroom… thankfully I think we’re all more or less ok, we’re a bit thinner than we were a couple of weeks ago (including Jemima worryingly) but we did have some nice moments and as Tom and I kept reminding each other, I’m sure it’ll pass into the stuff of legend eventually. These trials and tribulations usually do.

On the day we left, and quite by chance, the Sunday Times and the Daily Mirror did an expose on the hotels themselves. Documenting the shigella outbreak caused by contaminated water, there have been hundreds of cases and as I mentioned - unfortunately 8 people have died as a result, including a retired nurse who passed away on her return flight. My thoughts go out to those families and whilst we were extremely unwell, we survived the ordeal when sadly, some weren’t so lucky.

During the process of writing this, two things have happened this morning. Firstly, I’ve had to stop typing on three separate occasions to run to the loo and vomit. Secondly, my post lady knocked on the door to drop a parcel for Tom. She remarked that I looked brown and asked me where I’d been so I told her. She replied and I kid you not, ‘Oh we’re going there in a couple of weeks!’ This left me with a momentary dilemma… She then asked, ‘what was the hotel like?’ And I’m afraid I had to be honest. She told me she was incredibly grateful, and we were clearly supposed to meet this morning and have this conversation because, she was due to be travelling with her elderly mother who is immunocompromised in a variety of different ways. I said I was so sorry to be the one to break it to her. She told me she’s going to get on the phone to Tui as soon as her shift ends and ask to change the holiday. So, there you have it. I’m sure they’d have been fine, I’m sure if you have a holiday booked there, you’ll also be absolutely fine, especially since the press has got hold of this story so I have no doubt that Melia will be taking even more stringent measures to sanitise the resort and make it safer. I don’t want to scare monger – I’m just giving you my account because we didn’t have a great time and whilst we’re absolutely fine (if a little disappointed and queasy), I don’t think it’s the place to take someone with any kind of vulnerability or existing health issue. Anyway, back to the sick bowl and electrolytes for me and I hope you had a more relaxing Easter than we did!

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The first was in a shower of vomit.

The second was by an intruder.

The third was with an apology note from my son.

Tom was due to be away golfing with friends over the weekend so I thought I’d take Harry away for the night and treat Jemima to her first camping trip! I was a little dubious about how she’d cope and had visions of myself sweaty-browed, fighting with tent poles, juggling a baby and driving home the following morning muttering, ‘never ever again’ under my breath. The latter definitely happened but the initial part of our first camping excursion together went far better than expected.

We start this story in a field in deepest Somerset looking across towards the Glastonbury Tor surrounded by sheep fields on an off-grid campsite amidst the late afternoon sunshine. No electricity, no caravans, no motorhomes, no paths evens. Perfect. It was a ‘pitch up wherever you fancy, text us when you leave’ situation. I love an unfussy campsite, a place that relies on the vista and silence for good reviews. It’s a confident business plan and it usually works. This was no different.

The lady who runs it drove across the meadow to welcome me, we had a nice chat about the place and she offered me a campfire for £10 including a bag of logs and kindling. I said I’d love one but didn’t have a lighter so she shouted over to a gentleman who was working on the field to give us his and we were away. Left in peace, £27 spent it total on an idyllic campsite, a campfire and everything to make a blaze. Just before the owner left she said, as she probably did to everyone, ‘there are no rules here, have a lovely time, there’s just no loud music if that’s ok.’ Fine with me!

Our evening was perfect, we ate burgers, played I-spy and eventually I just watched my gorgeous kids enjoying the great outdoors. Harry went bug hunting, Jemima watched the birds on the fence, Gilbert ate some grass and threw up - dogs will be dogs!! It was so peaceful. I planted my toes firmly in the grass whilst feeding Jemima and read Raynor Winn’s latest novel feeling something like the earth mother I’ll never be but enjoying the novelty all the same. Jemima eventually fell asleep and I popped her down in her bassinet in the tent and sat with Harry chatting quietly over the campfire watching the sun set. Gilbert’s nose on my knee. All was right with the world, Tom sent me a photo of the steak he’d ordered which was cooked to his liking (a rare occurrence - he likes it basically raw and restaurants usually overcook it), I sent photos of the kids camping to grandparents and relaxed in a way I haven’t for a long time.

Roll on 10pm. Harry and I were just watching the embers of the fire die down to nothing, discussing birds we’ve caught on my Merlin app across the evening. When we hear shouting and a drunken couple fall into the campsite and pitch up 30 feet away. Goodness knows how they got there, it’s a mystery, this campsite was seriously remote and they were battered. But who am I to judge, they’re entitled to their fun. Or so I thought…

Now. For reference and any of my friends will tell you, if you get into a ‘bit of a pickle’ I’m the person that’ll tell you not to worry about it the next morning when you’re worried you might have been a bit drunk and made a fool of yourself. I’m the stranger to offer you a bottle of water and have a chat with you in the loo if your night didn’t go to plan. I really am. However. Me with my small children? On my own? My loyalties lie with them and this got very weird.

By 11pm, not only were they playing loud music (Kings of Leon, not a bad choice, just wasn’t my preference noise-wise given the timing), but the conversation became UNHINGED.

*Loudly*:

“You are still gonna f*ck me aren’t you?”

“Yeah. Course!”

“I’m on my period though?”

“Yeah I’ll f*ck you anyway.”

“We can throw away the sleeping bag after.”

“Yeah, f*ck it. You can do me up the *rse if you like?”

“Let’s do that. Burn the whole f*cking tent babe.”

….

I’m sat 30 feet away with my children. Hoping beyond hope that Harry hadn’t heard it but they were full on; loud music, shouting and swearing, keep the engine running, throw our rubbish on the floor - people. I hated them. I texted my mum, ‘should I approach these idiots?’ And she told me not to, best not get into ‘it’ with strangers. Fine. Undoubtedly sensible advice. But shortly followed all the adults acts they’d discussed, loudly. And I mean really, really loudly. It wasn’t erotic, it sounded horrible actually. I remember at university we had a fox that used to get into the garden and scream when it couldn’t get into our bins, it was genuinely cross and desperate for food so it cried like a child. THIS was similar, almost disturbing. The howling alone might have given me cause for concern but the frequent yells of ‘f*ck me harder’ coming from the female participant in this bizarre exchange left me feeling less worried and more annoyed with the pair.

Now you won’t believe this but it’s true. Halfway through ‘the act’, I hear a phone ring. His phone. And worst of all, he only blinking answers it!! And weirder still, it’s either on loud speaker or it’s a video call?! I know this because I can hear the other person talking.

The conversation is futile. Clearly a friend and it’s a ‘hey how are you? Yeah good you?’ chat about where the other is and whether they’re having a good Saturday night. It doesn’t last long but it’s followed, and not unreasonably in my opinion, with a ‘why the f*ck did the you answer the phone?!’ retort. Then comes the crying, screaming, shouting and general loud drunken argument that wouldn’t be out of place on an Eastenders Christmas Special. I really really hate these two by this point but eventually they stop fighting and fall asleep. Just after half midnight I hear a final, ‘f* k you’ and they go quiet. I can sleep and I do.

1am: I hear a groan and suddenly I’m wet.

Another groan and everything around me is wet.

Another groan and someone is sitting on my knees vomiting on my actual face.

Harry.

The less said about this, the better. He has a strange neuroses about becoming dehydrated when we’re away from home (just ask his grandparents) and will drink water excessively before bed, then be horribly, dreadfully sick. I should have seen it coming but I didn’t. And now I am lying in a pool of vomit. I turn to Jemima who is drenched, Harry also covered and even the dog is coated. Horrific. If you’ve seen the last episode of the inbetweeners then that’s what happened but it was less comical, more awful and less brightly lit. I staggered out onto the grass in a daze after fighting with the zip and just thought, what on earth do I do here? I don’t know if it was the smell or the fact I had a baby with me - I decided we simply couldn’t stay.

I stripped Jemima (who was fast asleep), popped her in her car seat and began the process of taking down a tent, a bbq, disconnecting gas bottles, a camping table with storage underneath containing all our food, camping chairs, and all the other paraphernalia - with the help of Harry IN THE DARK, in relative silence. The dog ran off, obviously. I couldn’t call him back because I didn’t want to wake the nearby campers who had undoubtedly only just got to sleep themselves after the Only Fans duo had f*cked themselves to sleep. It was hell. My car was caked in sick, my kids and my dog were also caked in sick and everything was just rammed hopelessly into the back of my car.

It was nearly 1.30 in the morning by this point, I had no real idea of where we were, my phone had dead after using the torch to dissemble our sleeping arrangements and I figured we just needed to get somewhere with signal to take stock. I turned onto an A-road and immediately nearly died. 2 boy racers, I can only assume drunk-driving were playing cat and mouse having a side-by-side race at breakneck speed towards me. I pulled out onto a clear road, rounded the first corner and there they were. The one on the wrong side of the road got in front of the other within actual feet of me! I heard a squeal of tires, the roar of an engine and they were gone. It was a total blur and left me shell-shocked, dazed, having had to emergency stop and wondering whether we should have just spent the night snorkelling in vomit. What was I doing here?!

I carried on, slightly tearful and drove at 40mph along the lanes until we hit the M5. It was deserted and I finally relaxed. I knew where I was going, I knew we’d all be home soon so I sat in the slow lane at 75mph and took some deep breaths (of sick-stenched air). Suddenly out of nowhere I see some headlights on full-beam coming up behind me so fast, it was almost biblical. A white van. This person, at 2am, chose to drive behind me so close that I could no longer see his headlights because they’d disappeared under my bumper. Now, I have recently upgraded my car from a 3 door Fiat 500 to a black 4x4. I don’t know if this guy wanted ‘to play’ in Tom’s words or what but he suddenly undertook me on the HARD SHOULDER! An odd move on a deserted motorway and certainly one which would catch the attention of an unmarked police car had one witnessed it but sadly, I was the only other car on the road. He then attempted to play cat and mouse with me. For 27 miles. This lunatic was trying to drive me off the road, I’m not kidding and I don’t exaggerate for effect, our wing mirrors touched at 80mph. I tried my best to slow down, to let the nutter past, or speed up and get ahead of them - nothing worked, he was hellbent on ‘playing’. Whatever that means. I have no idea if it was driven by a man, I’m perhaps wrongly assuming but I couldn’t see the driver and they couldn’t have seen me. Little did he know, I wasn’t some cool young guy in a black 4x4 with nothing better to do, he was frightening a frazzled mother covered in sick with 2 young children in the car. I tried my best to put some distance between myself and Colin McRae by breaking quite suddenly and I hear a crash, slide, a scream and a suffocating sound. Something in my hastily packed car, had fallen onto Jemima and she couldn’t breathe. It was the ground sheet of the tent and we think - the cool bag on top. Nutcase in a van also breaks and I look on the sat nav to see it’s 3 miles until the next turning… I was genuinely frightened that if I pulled into the hard shoulder, this person would reverse into us and who would be there to help us? We hadn’t seen another car for miles except the odd lorry and none were about.

This might have been a panicked and terrible decision but I had seconds to make it so I told Harry to unbuckle his seatbelt and help Jemima. Unsafe? Sure. Desperate? Definitely. He pulled whatever it was that was obstructing her breathing into the front and away from her face giving me even less visibility, an even stronger stench to deal with but this was nothing because Jemima was fine and we didn’t have far to go. A few minutes later, I saw that we had less than a mile until our turn off the motorway so I ignored all Highway Code recommendations and drove as fast as I could before sharply turning without indicating across the hashed lines and ducking off the M5 to give ‘our friend in the white van’ absolutely no chance of following. It worked. He’d gone ahead and to where I don’t care.

Frazzled and frayed I drove slowly home and pulled up outside our house, thank goodness. After wretching into the flowerpot on the way inside (the smell of the car), I told Harry to get straight to bed and took Jemima upstairs into our room, home at last.

Unfortunately, dear reader, our torrid tale does not end there. I wish it did. Jemima, perhaps sensing the adrenaline coursing through my veins, decided quite reasonably, that this was not the time for sleep. She lay next to me attempting her best Irish dancing (I assume, the legs were thrashing) and what could have been a wonderful aria vocally (again, not sure, not my area but she was trying many interesting vocal experiments)… so it was nearly 4am before she finally latched on and thought about sleep.

Again, dear reader, sadly this still isn’t the end of an awful night. It should have been. I reckoned I’d been asleep for less than half an hour, my fitful dreams awash with violent naked people throwing pieces of burning quilt in my direction but I was stuck in wet mud and couldn’t move out the way and Jemima was sinking but I couldn’t reach her - when I heard the front door open. The dog didn’t bark and I thought I’d imagined it. I lay there, thinking what a silly goose I must be, of course no one was in the house! I was tired and being mad. But then I heard footsteps downstairs. Time does a very strange thing in these circumstances, what was probably 10 seconds, felt like half an hour. Was there someone in the house? Do I have a weapon? Is Harry going to get up? What if he does? What time is it? Did I lock the front door? Hopefully this is a chancer and not an armed burglar? What do I own that costs money? Are they after my car? They can have the bl**dy thing, it stinks of sick! And WHY THE F*CK isn’t the dog barking?

A sudden, sickening realisation came over me. Have I left the poor thing IN the car?! Is that why he’s not barking? I was in such a daze as I came through the front door, did I actually forget to pop the boot and let poor Gilbert out? I couldn’t remember. I tried but I couldn’t remember. I heard the person try a door downstairs and still no barking, so I KNOW at this point - that poor Labrador is still in the car. He woofs if Tom drops a pen in the office upstairs and we’re sat in the living room downstairs. Oh. My. Gosh. He IS my alarm. He makes me feel safe and he’s not even in the house! I must have left him in the car and forgotten to lock the front door.

This person very, very slowly ascends the stairs. I didn’t know what to do. My thought process, if you’re interested, was this; I don’t have a weapon, I have a baby with my actual nipple in her mouth! If I jump up, she’ll cry. And then what? It’s obvious we’re awake and this person might be armed and panic. If I play ‘dead’ then there’s a chance, this person might come in, see I’m no threat and just take whatever the heck they want and go. In the few seconds that lapsed between me hearing the front door and me hearing this person at the top of the stairs - I opted (against all prior instincts) to play dead. And of course, the bedroom door opened. Slowly. I knew this wasn’t Tom. Tom crashes around, bursts through doors, marches purposefully up stairs - I’ve lived with him for nearly 12 years. We’ve had approximately 20 days apart in that time (rough guess), I know every sound he makes without being able to describe it - it’s just something I know. I know the sun rises at 5ish and it’s still dark so this is before 5. This person is a stranger. I watch the door slowly open and being near enough clinically blind without my lenses in, I know I can’t really do anything. A head moves round the door and just stays there. Through the darkness, I can just about make out the shape of a person watching me and aware that they must be able to see myself and Jemima. What feels like minutes pass and then the door opens a little further. This person walks into the room really slowly and stands next to the bed. Then Tom whispers, ‘what the f*ck are you doing here?!’ I’m so relieved I just whimper and cry. Tom = confused. I babble something about the dog, Tom tells me he’s asleep on the sofa. I tell him about the sick. Tom says I stink of it. I ask what he’s doing. He says he woke up early and thought he’d drive back. He tells me he’s going to let me sleep and retreats to the sofa with Gilbert. I lie there in our bed with vomit soaked hair and a sleeping baby hoping I’ll sleep but cannot. What a night I’ve just had. I must have drifted off at some point because I next wake to a door bursting open (Tom’s usual style) and Harry silently handing me a piece of paper saying he’s very sorry he ruined the camping trip. I tell him I wasn’t cross with him, I was cross with the situation. We spent most of Sunday unpacking the night before and then made a start on unpacking the hellish jumble in my car. The inner lining of the tent had to be thrown away, there was sick in the zips and in my haste to heave the thing off the ground and get moving - I’d torn it. The sleeping bags had to be washed four times EACH (they’re huge) and my car, well let’s not talk about it.. It wasn’t the idyllic night under canvas I’d envisioned to put it mildly.

But on the positive side, Jemima was good as gold and I do think camping with a baby isn’t something to be frightened of trying again. The fresh air made her sleep so deeply she barely stirred throughout all the horrors of the night, of which there were plenty. I apologise for all the swearing in this account of our trip, it felt justified as I typed it up, it really did. I don’t know what the takeaway point here should be, it feels as though there ought to be one, that I’d have some wonderful piece of advice to save someone from going through a similar experience but I’ve racked my brains and I’m not sure there is. It was largely out of my control and unfortunate. I will try camping again (once I’ve purchased another tent) and I’m sure it’ll be better. Well, it can’t be much worse can it?!

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‘Yes she’s alive.’

‘Are you sure? Is my baby ok?’

‘She’s fine. I promise you, she’s ok.’

What followed was crying, lots and lots of crying. From everyone.

That was the first few seconds of Jemima’s life outside the womb by the way. She had the umbilical cord wrapped around her neck and I genuinely didn’t know if she was alive, she was bright blue and didn’t cry straight away. The midwives were cool as cucumbers, they see it every day and they’d been monitoring her very closely throughout labour so they weren’t worried – they swiftly unwound it and let me hold her for a few moments before doing their own checks. That first cry is a sound I will never ever forget. The relief was truly indescribable, I genuinely don’t know how to articulate it – I wish I could. Thankfully, I have a photo to evidence that feeling, which does so better than words ever could. The midwife asked me if I’d like any photos of labour, it wasn’t something I’d even considered asking for but I agreed and I’m so glad I did.

I was due to be induced on Monday 16^th December. There were a few reasons for this decision. My consultant saw how anxious I’d been throughout my entire pregnancy waiting for it all to go wrong, and asked me if it would be helpful to ‘have a date.’ This is something they don’t usually offer but given how many losses we’ve had, he said they’d be happy to induce me. It was also thought that given how much bleeding I’ve had during the last 9 months, I’ve had way more than the recommended dose of Anti-D (an injection I have to have to stop my blood fighting off her blood - I’m rhesus negative and she’s positive) which would likely result in her being born with jaundice and needing to stay in hospital for light treatment. I also have a heart condition, so close and constant monitoring was always going to be necessary. For these reasons, we agreed on a date and worked towards it. A lot, and I mean A LOT, of people decided to tell me this was a terrible decision when I shared it on Instagram without knowing any of this background. Whilst I didn’t pay a huge amount of attention to the ‘no don’t do it, I had a terrible experience’ messages (of which there were many) – I did start to wonder if the sheer volume of them should make me question myself.

The night before we were due to go in, I did have a conversation with Tom about whether we were doing the right thing. Something told me my instincts were off and perhaps I should just let nature take its’ path, cancel the induction and let her decide when she’d like to be born. Tom suggested I was probably just nervous and that I shouldn’t let strangers on the internet make me doubt myself but ultimately, it was up to me. I decided to sleep on it.

We were told we could except a phone call at 10am on the 16^th to let us know when to come in. 10am came and went, then 11, then 12 and by 1pm I was tearing my hair out with anxiety. I rang the ward and asked what was happening, they confirmed that I would be called in shortly and to hang on. So we did. Finally at 8pm, we got the call. We headed into hospital with all the things we’d need and at 11.20pm, they gave me the prostaglandin pessary. I told Tom to go home because I doubted anything drastic was going to happen any time soon so he might as well get some sleep. I was right. Nothing happened, a few mild cramps and a dreadful nights’ sleep because the ward was hot, noisy and there were some very distressed women around me pressing the emergency buzzers all night. Doors banging, loud conversations, lots of beeping and crying and phones going off alerting loved ones etc – it wasn’t great. But I woke up feeling optimistic that as the pessary clearly wasn’t doing much, this would surely mean we could move onto the next stage and hopefully start making some progress. Luckily, my friend is a Maternity Care Assistant at the hospital I was staying in and she popped up a couple of times to keep me company when Tom wasn’t there and tried her best to keep me abreast of how things were down on delivery suite. It’s safe to say, if you read my last substack, the moon may well have worked its’ magic. Delivery suite was operating above maximum capacity and things were frantic downstairs – I wouldn’t be going down any time soon unless I went into spontaneous labour myself and became a priority of my own volition. There were a record number of babies being born downstairs and rightly so, my induction was not going to take precedence.

Instead of moving onto the next stage of induction, nothing happened. And I mean NOTHING. No drugs, no conversations, no intervention of any sort. I just waited. By midnight, a very experienced midwife came in to do my obs and she could tell I was quite upset. She agreed to give me ‘an aggressive sweep and stretch’ (her words not mine). It was uncomfortable but it must have done something because suddenly I started getting contractions! I got no sleep, they were coming every five minutes and I decided to walk around the ward to keep things moving. I walked 10 kilometres during the night until, exhausted, I figured I should get a couple of hours sleep before the main event. Unfortunately, everything stopped and I woke up feeling exactly the same as I had every other day throughout pregnancy – frustrated, anxious and like I’d never get to see my baby. I called Tom after breakfast and told him to come in and take me home – I couldn’t handle it anymore. I’d made a mistake asking for an induction, I just wanted to sleep and to be in my own surroundings. He came in and suggested we should have a frank discussion with the midwife about next steps before self-discharging. She was very understanding but was clearly having a tricky shift herself so it took hours to nail her down. She suggested that we should have one last set of monitoring before disappearing and agreed to ask the consultant if I could be sent home on the proviso that if a slot became available downstairs – perhaps I could be contacted by phone to come in. Eventually, she brought in the Toco machine which monitors the baby’s heartrate and activity levels. This is where it all started to go a bit wrong. Jemima was in distress and whilst I wasn’t in labour, I was bleeding and my own blood pressure was through the roof. I needed to remain on the monitor until things had calmed down enough before I could be allowed home. It was 6pm by this time and I hadn’t slept for 3 days – I was hyperventilating and completely and utterly overwhelmed. After 2 hours on the monitor, I just snapped. I’m not proud of myself but I lost it. I tore all the monitors off, threw them across the room and had a full-blown panic attack in the middle of a busy ward. I was literally chucking things at Tom telling him to take me home. The machines all started beeping because I’d stopped them midway through and suddenly there was lots of people in the room trying to calm down this wild-eyed, sweaty maniac wearing a nightie, bleeding all over the place and generally looking a bit deranged. A wonderful midwife called Hettie (who I’d met on Monday) came in and took control. Like an angel! She told me she’d run me a bath and that I needed to get in it NOW, she instructed Tom to order a takeaway and told him to go out to collect it (she thought some fresh air would do him some good, it was an order not a suggestion, gawd love her! I love a straight-talking woman) and most importantly, that she’d found a slot for me at 10pm to go down and have my waters broken. I don’t know how she arranged it and it’s a shame I had to reach breaking point for things to progress but Hettie was true to her word and just after 10pm, a midwife called Jo came and collected me.

She did a check on my cervix and I could tell something was wrong straight away. She said she just needed to pop out and get a second opinion. It turns out my waters were bulging which, I’ve since discovered is extremely dangerous. If your waters go when the baby’s head isn’t pressing down on the cervix, the umbilical cord can come with them and then it’s a serious emergency – a life and death one (for the baby). The midwife said she needed a consultant to be present for the next step ‘just in case.’ Now, if you’ve ever had lots of people fiddling around with you ‘down there’ and there’s a chance you might be rushed at breakneck speed into an operating theatre, it’s very hard to relax. Annoyingly, relax you must otherwise the procedure can’t take place. Eventually, we got the deed done and thankfully my umbilical cord didn’t come through at the same time but my nerves were frayed by this point and I kept thinking to myself, ‘we’ve not even got to the difficult bit yet! How am I going to cope when the time comes?’ It was 3.30am and my overwhelming thought was – this induction had been a terrible idea. I’d make a shocking decision on behalf of my baby and she hadn’t even taken her first breath yet! I was trying to remember all my hypnobirthing tools to stay calm but I could barely remember how to spell my own name! Tom nipped out and bought me a mountain dew, I don’t know what the heck it even is but boy did it do the trick! It’s a concoction of vile artificial chemicals combined with an unholy amount of sugar and caffeine no doubt, but I suddenly felt like superman with laser focus and bizarre amounts of energy. Thank you Mountain Dew – whatever you are!

Finally we’d got to the bit I was dreading most, the syntocin drip. Now, this is the bit that I’d hoped I might be able to avoid. Unlike oxytocin, the body’s natural hormone which induces labour and is responsible for lots of ‘feel good’ sensations in the body; orgasms, massage, laughter etc – the synthetic version, syntocin, does induce labour in much the same way but unfortunately it doesn’t make you feel ‘good.’ It doesn’t dull the pain, it doesn’t make you feel euphoric, it just does the job and everyone on the internet had warned me that the contractions go from 0-100 and that the pain is like an out of body experience in its’ intensity. Well, the strangers on the internet were sort of right. It was ‘intense’ and at times I forgot where I was, who I was, what I was even doing and once I genuinely wondered if I’d died and my spirit had left my body because I was actually watching myself from above (somehow) and remember feeling quite sorry for the lady who looked like me and was clearly in some sort of pain. BUT, I’ve given birth before and would I say it was more painful than spontaneous natural labour? Yes. But it was quick, unlike my labour with Harry. The whole thing was over in just under 6 hours and I only really struggled with the pain for about half an hour of that. I refused all pain relief because I didn’t want to slow things down, I just wanted to see my baby and I was worried that any sort of intervention might delay her further and I just couldn’t let that happen. I laboured on the floor on my knees with my elbows on the bed and at some point I overheard one of the midwives behind me saying to Tom, ‘we’re nearly there now’ and I remember thinking, ‘are we?!’ She wasn’t wrong, three pushes and I pulled her out with my own hands. It was kind of amazing! For all the artifice of the process, the last bit was quite natural and beautiful and then there she was. This tiny little perfect human, so perfect I could hardly believe she was real. After a couple of stitches, 3 litres of water and a quick bath – we were walking out of the hospital with our beautiful little Jemima strapped into her car seat fast asleep ready to go home and introduce her to Harry and my mum.

I cried all the way home from the hospital, I cried all evening, I cried most of the night. I was completely overcome with emotions I’d refused to acknowledge for 9 months – how it would feel if everything went right. I hadn’t let myself fully entertain the idea. I spent more time picturing a trip home from the hospital without a baby, one where I was going to have to tell Harry that sadly his little sister hadn’t made it and somehow deal with his grief and confusion whilst nursing my own broken heart. I hadn’t given much mental energy to the version of events we were so lucky to have been dealt. For all the nesting I shared on Instagram over the last couple of months, I think a part of me was mentally preparing to deal with hell, not a baby. Somewhere deep down, a voice inside my head kept saying, ‘this is all going a bit too well for you, don’t you think?’ I couldn’t shut it off so I just kept myself busy. I’ve never worked as hard as I have this past year, I’ve got A LOT done and that hasn’t been all bad. But honestly I think it was just a coping mechanism for dealing with crippling anxiety because I did expect the worst, experience has scarred me and as much as every doctor has assured me, ‘your baby is fine’ at every juncture throughout this pregnancy – my instinct was to retort, ‘yes but for how long’ internally. Excitement wasn’t really an option, it felt like a fool’s errand.

Yet here we are! Jemima made it, I don’t know how but she did. To me she is, and probably always will be, an actual miracle. I’m still very anxious (more on that in my next substack) but having stared at her quite literally without a break for over a week now – it’s becoming clear to me that whilst she needs me for sustenance and comfort, I needed her a lot more. She has mended the very troubled and damaged relationship I have had with my own body. I carried a little person for 9 months and my body didn’t let me (or her) down. I don’t know what the difference was this time, I have some ideas but I don’t think I’ll ever truly know - there’s too many variables at play and I’m not a doctor. I’m just so blinking grateful that I was able to grow her safely inside me. Whilst we’ve had a seriously turbulent and sad journey to get here – she’s perfect and in many ways, this past 9 months have healed me as much as they’ve drained me. I got my rainbow baby - and I’ll be forever in awe of her. My little miracle. Jemima.

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An exhaustive list (if you’re interested);

· Raspberry leaf tea – which tastes of actual nothing at all and I don’t like tea but 6 cups a day for the last 2 weeks is showing willing at the very least.

· 6 dates a day – I like dates, I eat dates, this has been fine.

· Curb Walking – One leg on the pavement, the other on the road, off you go. You feel slightly insane doing it but at this point, who cares! This can also be replicated within the confines of your own home by wearing one high-heeled shoe.. Tom was amused by that one!

· Clary Sage Oil – recommended to me by so many women online and most said they loved it, it worked and the smell brings back happy memories for them. Well. I hated the aroma from the moment I opened the bottle and it has NOT grown on me whatsoever. I’ve been adding it to my bath each evening and the only memories it will evoke are probably panic-inducing ones, as I’ve struggled to heave myself out of the bath each evening and called Tom (on the phone) twice to help, having exhausted myself. Oil is slippery, I am round, the bath is small – it’s not a good combination.

· Spicy Curries – I have chilli sauce with the majority of my meals so this hasn’t been a problem to consume, rather, I think it hasn’t worked because my constitution is entirely used to it. Oh well.

· Nipple Stimulation – this definitely does something but I’m still pregnant so deduce from that what you will.. It does bring on contractions, I can’t deny that but they fade away to nothing shortly afterwards and that’s almost more annoying.

· Try the thing that got them there in the first place – Yes fine, tried it, didn’t work, got cramp, less said the better.

· Reflexology – Now this was lovely and I’d absolutely recommend it as a way to relax and treat yourself to something nice. I was very hopeful about this one but alas, it didn’t work although I’d 100% have it again and it was definitely money well spent.

· Walking – I walk a lot anyway (Gilbert is an enormously energetic dog who drives us all up the wall if he doesn’t get a proper walk), it’s becoming increasingly more difficult to walk long distances as the weeks have progressed but I’ve continued as best I can because it’s beneficial for all parties concerned. It keeps me sane, it keeps the dog happy and fit and it probably helps to keep moving either way. Plus if Gilbert doesn’t get a decent walk he does all sorts of weird things like chew on the cats ears and tail (no really, and even more bizarrely, the cat doesn’t seem to care), he forgets he’s NOT allowed upstairs and will start removing cushions off the sofa and throw them around the room at will.

· Using a birthing ball – I never want to see my birthing ball ever again I’ve spent that much time on it! It’s great really, it definitely helps alleviate back and hip discomfort but has it brought on labour? No. It has not. And I usually have to wait my turn to use it because Harry seems to enjoy sitting on it, as does Tom and even Gilbert seems to think it’s his to chase around the living room (how it hasn’t popped I don’t know).

· Pineapple – I’m somewhat allergic to pineapple but yes I tried it anyway. One small chunk of it causes my tongue to erupt into blisters but I ate 500g just to see and hugely regretted it. Not only did it not work, it hurt and it gave me ferocious heart burn…

· Shaking the apples – this is so hard to explain, you’ll just have to google it but it was quite fun to try and Tom enjoyed it! It didn’t work but it did make us laugh so it was no bad thing.

· The camel walk – this was recommended to me on Instagram and I watched a youtube tutorial about it. It is hysterically funny and I imagine doubles as a great leg workout but it didn’t work. However, laughter is good and it definitely induces that!

· Talking to the baby – I’ve done this lots and it’s been nice. Although she’s not listening clearly (and Gilbert seems to think I’m talking to him anyway when I do this) so we’ll have to have a word about this when she arrives!

· The Miles Circuit – another one to google, it’s not difficult but it didn’t work for me sadly.

· Reverse Psychology – Lots of people recommended this because it worked for them. Much like the old, ‘right well I give up trying to get pregnant, oh look I’m now pregnant’ thing that people tell you when you’re trying to conceive and is possibly the most frustrating thing to hear, this can apparently work when you want to induce yourself. I made a point of wearing pale leggings in a very public shopping centre the other day as a small act of defiance against my waters breaking (pathetic attempt I know) and it didn’t do anything except give me anxiety about my waters breaking in pale leggings in a very public place!

It's been a frustrating but not altogether bad series of attempts to induce myself into labour although I have now run out of ideas and crucially, time, to try any more. Beyond stripping off all my clothes and screaming at the moon, I think I’ve given them all a good go and nothing has yet worked.

And speaking of the moon, I attended an online workshop run by my local maternity ward last week explaining the process and managing the expectations of women who were booked in for the following week. The workshop was great and really informative, I learnt lots of things I didn’t know and feel much better prepared for what’s in store. But the midwife who was running it ended it by saying, ‘and lots of inductions get delayed if we’re busy on the ward which I know is very disappointing but we can’t control when everyone else’s babies will come and sometimes we simply don’t have enough beds, especially around a full moon.’ Then she moved onto questions and people were asking all the normal things about drugs, timescales, hospital bags etc and I thought, ‘no hang on, I’m not letting that one slip!’ So I asked her what she meant by the full moon comment. She laughed and said that sometimes they notice an unusual influx of women coming into the ward at night around a full moon but there was probably nothing in it. Interesting. Whilst I don’t want to disappear off into Pagan Conspiracy Theorist mode, I actually DO think there’s something in the moon thing. My sister-in-law is a psychiatrist practising in Denmark. She works in an acute inpatient facility and she (a scientifically-minded, highly intelligent, pragmatic and empirical person) has confirmed that they do in fact, add additional staff onto the roster around full moons. Experience has taught them they’ll need a few extra pairs of hands on the ward to maintain order and patient care. Now, I don’t know the science and to be honest, if someone explained it to me I’d probably break into a sweat trying to understand it, but if the moon can move actual oceans (as I, an idiot, understand it does) then it could well affect the waters in our bodies couldn’t it? Who knows. Anyway, following the online workshop, I naturally went away and googled when the next full moon is. Sods law, it’s actually tonight if you can believe it! So contrary to what the title of this article might indicate, for all I know the moon might well interfere… In that case therefore, I might go and scream at it for good measure. Why not!

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I think I’ve been in false labour for about 2 weeks. I’m having sets of contractions (not Braxton Hicks, I know the difference) that build for an hour and then disappear for 8 or more hours altogether. I’m 2cm dilated and feel like I might go into established labour at any given moment. Except I haven’t. It’s beyond frustrating! I had the exact same with Harry and then with him, my waters finally broke – I was elated and realised something was eventually happening. Although when I got to the hospital later that evening, I was told my waters hadn’t broken. What the heck was all that about then, I wondered. Sadly, the midwife who checked me had somehow got it wrong and I was sent home mistakenly… They had gone. After a night of screaming into a pillow, we returned to the hospital to be rechecked and it was confirmed. Unfortunately for me, labour then stopped. It was a shambles to be honest. Harry was born 72 hours after my waters had gone having spent 3 days not surrounded by amniotic fluid (which isn’t really supposed to happen) and as a result, I had to spend a further 48 hours in hospital after his birth to monitor his risk of infection. When I left hospital, I hadn’t slept for 5 days straight which was not the best start for us as a family, especially because Harry was an extremely colicky baby it turned out. The labour itself was fine but due to my heart condition, which hadn’t been resolved when I fell pregnant, it meant I had to be constantly monitored and there were more doctors in the room at any given time than you’d expect to find attending a medical conference! It wasn’t relaxing or magical or calm. It was very clinical and chaotic. And coming home, I felt flat, exhausted and completely daunted by the task ahead.

On reflection, I think this might have been the first flap of the butterfly’s wings that crescendoed into post-natal depression. I wasn’t well and worst of all, I didn’t know I wasn’t well. There was so much noise, I couldn’t really hear myself. Tom started a new job 10 days after Harry was born. And 5 days after he was born, Tom was pushing the rubbish down into the outdoor bin to fit another bag load into it when he sliced his hand open on a broken mug and severed the tendons. Which meant emergency surgery in Bristol, months of physio and he couldn’t do a lot of things (like change a nappy or bath a baby) I really needed his help with. We’d moved house only a few weeks before my due date so we were living out of boxes and Harry had colic which meant we were lucky if he slept for over an hour in one go for the first 3 months. This gradually increased to 2 and 3 hour blocks at about 12 weeks but he wouldn’t just doze back off to sleep like I’m told some babies do, he’d scream and scream and scream for hours. And sometimes, so would I.

Thinking back, I don’t really remember a lot of those first 6 months. I remember that I had a very strange grip on reality and became increasingly less alarmed by things that really should have alarmed me. I would often wake Harry up by gently brushing his cheeks with the back of my hand and once Tom caught me doing this and asked me what I was doing. I replied, ‘I’m trying to get rid of these little spiders, I don’t know why they’re always on him, maybe they like the smell of milk.’ He told me there were no spiders.. I remember giving Harry a bath one morning and crawling out of the bathroom with him clutched to my chest, I was convinced there was a man with a musket in the front garden wearing full 18^th century military regalia! But worst of all, I once drove all the way home from Morrisons on the wrong side of the road. Thank GOODNESS I didn’t meet another car but it only dawned on me later when we were watching some detective drama on the TV that evening and they were of course, driving on left (as they should have been) and I was almost paralysed with shock at what I’d done only a few hours previously. Harry had been in the car with me, I couldn’t get over what danger I’d unwittingly placed us both in and I couldn’t help wondering – have I done this more than once?

I’ve never taken hallucinogenic drugs but I think I’ve got some insight into what they might do to you, having gone through those first 6 months with a newborn. I know sleep deprivation is par for the course, I’m hardly unique and lots of friends I’ve shared this with have also experienced this bizarre ‘dreaming whilst awake’ blur of reality. I remember learning about the Russian sleep experiments during my psychology A level and whilst I don’t encourage you to go away and google this – there was a particular study carried out by the Soviets during the Second World War, which showed in extreme cases, what happens when the human brain is completely unwired by lack of sleep. I’m not comparing myself to those poor lost souls, but sleep deprivation is quite a serious thing. It’s something that lots of new mothers laugh off in satirical social media posts but whenever I see those videos, I get a horrible sinking feeling. I don’t think they’re at all funny. I feel extremely triggered by them. They remind me of a time I was left at home to look after a newborn and I wasn’t coping. I wasn’t well and I’m still overwhelmed with the guilt. Guilt of how mad I was, how mad some of the things I did were and worse, what could have happened if Tom hadn’t stepped in.

When Harry was a few days shy of 6 months, Tom said, ‘right I’m sorry to have to do this, but we’re giving Harry a bottle of formula and a rusk and I’m not having any arguments.’ I was so upset with him, so angry with him, so outraged I felt almost violated. I’d become a martyr to breastfeeding, so worried I’d somehow failed if we gave him a bottle and so consumed by the mumsnet rhetoric of ‘formula and a rusk’ is lazy parenting. In some spaces, it’s basically seen as cheating. How wrong I was. After hours and hours of nasty arguments, me threatening to leave Tom for good and eventually keeling over and falling asleep on our bedroom floor (no idea why) with a bag packed (so dramatic!) Tom gave Harry a bottle of formula and a rusk. He slept for 14 hours straight. I had a slightly less restful night, feeling the need to check that he was still breathing a few times but eventually conceded he was fine and by 10am the following morning – I went in to find a lovely smiley baby snuffling happily in his cot, sucking his thumb and gazing up at me without a care in the world. Not every night that followed was quite so blissful and I didn’t pack in the breastfeeding there and then, but it made me realise I needed help and that I really, really needed more sleep if I was going to be a functioning parent. Tom said he feels guilt for not stepping in sooner, I feel guilt for mostly everything that happened in those first 6 months and sadly, once I’d regained my sanity, the guilt became too much. I fell into an all-consuming bout of post-natal depression. I couldn’t forgive myself for being so blind to how crackers I’d become! I remember getting to the front door most days with Harry in my arms, having spent hours convincing myself to go to a mums group or even just go for a walk and nearly crossing the threshold. Before realising I couldn’t do it and retreating to the safety of the sofa. Another attempt failed, another day wasted, another day spent alone and another day sinking deeper into something I didn’t quite understand at the time but now see it for what it was. Post-natal depression. It was miserable and so was I.

Why am I sharing all this? Well, there’s a few reasons. Firstly, to openly admit, I am terrified about having a newborn and all that comes with it. Something that feels awful to admit and at odds with the version of me that’s spent 8 years wanting to do it all over again! I also want to highlight the fact that I’m putting steps in place now to hopefully safeguard myself from repeating history. And lastly, for anyone who is deep in the trenches of newborn sleep deprivation or post-natal depression or both, to say that you can come out the other side of it but you must accept help or find some if none is offered.

On Wednesday, I spent the evening with friends. Something I haven’t done much of I realised, because Tom pointed it out. I’ve become a bit of a hermit these past 9 months, feeling slightly consumed by anxiety, work and preparations for this baby. I told my friends the story I’ve just told you and then I said, ‘can you check on me please. If you’re making plans, I might not be able to come but can you still invite me. And if I don’t seem ok, please don’t hesitate to tell me I don’t seem ok – I might be offended but you need to tell me because I might not know.’ This is a big ask. But they all smiled and said of course they would and we made some loose plans for the new year which included me (and the baby). It felt good and I feel really proud of myself for having this conversation. I’ve told Tom not to sustain any injuries and therefore put himself out of action for the first few months! I’ve told him I want to breastfeed, but I need sleep and if it looks like I’m going off the deep end again, he must step in as he did before. What’s good for me is good for the baby, be it a bottle of formula or some time alone. Tom and I are a team after all, we’re in it together. I’ve got to keep reminding myself of that! I’ve found all the mum’s groups I want to attend and will plan my days accordingly. Plus I’m going to try them all more than once just in case I was having a bad day the first time. I’m also going to attempt to be accountable in some small way here. I might not be able to write every week but I’m going to aim to keep writing my thoughts down anyway because it always helps and it might prove useful or at least comforting for anyone else going through something similar. I don’t plan to turn these articles into an account of my weeks – that would be inanely dull, but if anything crops up, good or bad, it feels like the place to share it.

And finally, to anyone who might be reading this and thinking, ‘this is me, I’m living this right now’ – please do accept help if help is offered. Ask for it if not. You’re not failing, you’re not doing anything wrong, we all have lapses of judgement when we’re not firing on all cylinders and I’m sure we’ve all done things as parents (or just people) we struggle to forgive ourselves for. But the point is, it’s everyone - not just you. I could have killed myself and my son driving on the wrong side of the road because I was so exhausted I didn’t notice my mistake. Thankfully that didn’t happen but the fact it could have done will always haunt me in the waking hours of the night. And it could have been avoided if I’d accepted Tom’s earlier offers of help, my mums or frankly anyone’s! I was supported and I ignored that support, feeling that all new mums are exhausted so there must be something wrong with me if I’m not coping. I must do more, try harder, be better etc. It was wrong. I was wrong. And I spent a year taking medication to help me to address the guilt of being so blinking wrong! But actually, that was the first of many good decisions I made as a parent. The pills worked, life got back to normal, I repaid my sleep debt and I weaned myself off the pills. I coped, I managed, I parented and slowly became a functioning human again. It taught me some valuable lessons; ones I wish I’d learnt in a slightly less dramatic fashion but I accrued them all the same. I’m calling this my final stage of nesting. The cupboards are done, the Christmas decorations are up – the last part for me at least, has been about having difficult conversations with people. Conversations about where I went wrong last time and asking for help in advance, or at least warning people I might need it. It’s not easy but the right things very rarely are. I didn’t fail with Harry, he’s an incredible little boy and I’m so proud of him. But I didn’t manage well and so this final stage of ‘mental health nesting’ is all about just that – trying to put measures in place to ensure I can be there for BOTH of my children in the coming months, as fragile as I might sometimes be. Lean on those I trust even if it feels like failure – because it’s not failure, it’s sensible. That reframing is going to take some work but work on it I must. You won’t find me posting any jokey stories on Instagram about inevitable exhaustion. I don’t want to add to the narrative, ‘it’s normal to feel this unhinged and alone,’ as I’ve seen so many others do, I’m sure without intending to. I needed to hear someone say, ‘I’m struggling too’ and sadly I never saw it. So I’ll pre-empt and create that space if I have to.

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Why am I angry? Truthfully, it’s not down to one thing but rather a culmination of the past 9 months and especially the last 2 weeks. I’m angry with myself over and above anyone or anything. What it boils down to, quite sadly, is that I’m angry because I haven’t enjoyed this incredible pregnancy I’ve waited 8 years to experience. I’ve almost hated it. And that’s so difficult to admit. Especially because I’ve connected with so many wonderfully open, strong and courageous women on the subject of miscarriage and infertility over the years and I feel like an ungrateful little cow sitting here only a few days away from having my rainbow baby and admitting that I’ve not particularly loved the experience of growing her. When I know so many others would hack off their own legs to be in my position.. But it’s true. I’ve spent 9 months preoccupied by ‘what if’s’, feeling disconnected from my body and what’s happening inside it and feeling resentful of other pregnant women who are seemingly loving the journey. I thought the resentment towards other pregnant women would subside once I fell pregnant but if anything, it’s increased. It isn’t them as people, it isn’t the fact they’re pregnant, it’s simply that I’d love to live in someone else’s untroubled mind for a while to see what that feels like and obviously, I can’t.

I’m worried I’ve wasted this experience. I could have tried harder to enjoy it, I know I could. I could have tried harder to make peace with the past but I didn’t. I could have tried to find those days where it all felt a bit easier and clung on to them but I didn’t. I just existed in those moments, which seems like such a criminal waste! So I’m angry with myself and that’s coming out in the most unpleasant way – I’m not very nice to be around at the moment! Just ask Tom..

He found me crying in the office this morning and asked me what was wrong. I let rip. It wasn’t pretty and it wasn’t at all fair. He stormed off for a few moments and then came back and did the most wonderful thing a person could possibly have done – he located a notepad and a pen and said, ‘say that again, I’m going to write it down and see if I can help with any of it.’ Which made me cry even more. But that’s what we did, I babbled away about all the things that are making me angry and all the things I can’t stay on top of, all the things I feel I can’t control (because ultimately that’s what this all boils down to I suspect) and he put them into 4 lists:

A) Priority, just get them done – plus a rough idea of how long they’ll take. The hard, ‘I can’t face it’ list but concentrate on how good it’ll feel to tick those off.

B) After a well-earned break, once you’ve lifted the weight and pressure off, what would be good to get done and would make you feel good for finishing?

C) What is niggling at you? Can we work through any of those? Perhaps any small jobs someone else could help with.

D) What doesn’t have a time limit but you feel better having shared it and maybe there’s something we could do to help in time? Or maybe not but we’ll make a note of it in any case.

Can I recommend now, if you ever experience a full melt-down and feel you can’t see the wood for the trees – refer back to this way of listing things! It’s very helpful and even better if someone else can help you compile it. I feel so much better already. Tom and I will argue about who used the last egg, who didn’t put the garage key back in the allocated pot, spend 3 days in a ridiculous huff with each other over the correct way to load the dishwasher BUT when sh*t really hits the fan and one (or both) of us are in the thick of something, we got into quite a stealthy mode of being which is just as well. He needs space and then communication. I need communication then space. It’s quite simple really but something we only annoyingly reserve for our very worst moments! C’est la vie.

Writing this article was third on the list for lots of reasons but primarily because writing actually helps me feel sane. I have a slightly bonkers internal monologue I can’t seem to switch off so writing things down is usually helpful. I’m also 2 weeks behind and my failed attempt at writing something useful and authentic was annoying me in the waking hours of the night. I’d start something, delete it, start again, and so on. But today I feel like I can’t type quick enough so it’s clearly something I need to make space for.

Being angry with myself won’t solve anything and it might deeply offend a group of people I’ve tried so hard to be gentle with (as mentioned above) but I always respect people who voice their slightly controversial feelings. It’s not always easy to read, sometimes it’s annoying and other times, it can actually make you question whether you like them – how dare they?! But I’m not going to lie and pretend any more, it’s probably one of the reasons I’ve got so much pent-up anger in the first place. I Should be enjoying this, I Should be sitting here with nothing but gratitude. I should, I should, I should. Well, what if I’m not? What if I’m angry? What if I’m resentful still? What if I’m sad? What then? Yes it might come across badly but it's honest and who knows, I might not be the only person who’s been through something similar and felt all these things?! So here it is. I’m desperately trying to make sense of the anger and this is where I’ve landed. I’m desperate for this baby to arrive safely into the world and to regain some control over myself. And I’m desperate for people to stop telling me to ‘just enjoy the last little bit, you’ll regret it if you don’t.’ If only they knew just how hard (albeit well-meaning) that comment can be to hear. Because they’re right and that’s even worse! I fully anticipate being awake with a grizzling newborn in a few weeks time, so tired I can barely remember our names and wishing so badly I’d ‘just enjoyed that last little bit….’ But try as I might, it’s not proving enjoyable. I welcome the pain of labour, the exhaustion of breast-feeding, chaos undoing all the frantic ‘nesting’ I’ve undertaken. Because she’ll be here where I can see her, where I can touch her and where I can finally say, ‘I grew a baby and despite the odds, it didn’t go wrong and break my heart again.’ I doubt I’ll be able to relax (having a newborn isn’t conducive to such things let’s be honest) but I doubt I’ll be angry any more. And who knows, I might even be able to reflect and allow myself some grace for these slightly controversial feelings I’ve been having. Maybe I’m not a total lunatic, perhaps I’ve just never seen someone say they felt angry whilst pregnant when it’s been so longed for. Only time will tell. I really don’t know how this will read, it might come across badly and if it upsets you then I’m truly sorry. I certainly haven’t set out with that intention, far from it. It’s impossible to take everyone’s feelings into consideration when sharing your own and so for once, I’m just listening to my own and this is how they sound.

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‘Oh f*ck.’

‘Yeah.’

‘I don’t know what to say.’

‘No.. Neither do I.’

‘Will you ring Laura?’

‘Not yet. Let’s wait.’

‘Ok. Are you alright?’

‘Yeah I think so..’

‘What should we do?’

‘Pretend we haven’t seen this and wait.’

‘Fine.’

This was the conversation between Tom and I when I handed him yet another positive pregnancy test back in April this year. It’s like Deja-vu. I hand him a positive pregnancy test, neither of us knows what to say, we carry on like nothing’s happened and when I can’t stand the waiting anymore, I ring Laura. Laura is the early pregnancy nurse at my local hospital and she’s the person who arranges a scan at the drop of a hat for us. She’s an actual angel sent from heaven and has held my hand through lots of very, very upsetting moments. In fact, they’ve largely ALL been upsetting but she’s calm, understanding and says the right things. I waited ten days, rang Laura and went for a scan.

‘I’m sorry, we can’t detect a heartbeat. When was your last period?’

‘Urm just over seven weeks ago.’

‘Ok well I can see a yolk sac but unfortunately on this occasion, it looks like gestation stopped at about five weeks. If you don’t experience any bleeding within a fortnight, we’ll get you back in for another scan to see what’s happening.’

‘Ok.’

‘I’m very sorry.’

‘It’s ok, I’m quite used to this.’

Tom was at work so he hadn’t been able to attend the emergency, ‘we can see you if you come right now’ scan. I rang him, I rang my mum, I drove home and I cried. There was lots of ‘well it could have been worse, at least it was only early this time’ conversations and then Tom suggested we invite our friends over for a big BBQ, get drunk and pretend like the last two weeks hadn’t happened. I was more than game for that! We spent the weekend sitting in the garden, drinking gin, laughing with friends, wild swimming and generally pretending to be happy, normal and functional. I think we did a good job of it to be honest. But once Monday came, Harry went back to school and work inboxes started filling up – the really tricky bit started because all that was left to do ultimately, was wait for blood.

One excruciating week passed, then another and all the while my pregnancy tests were still showing strong positives. How cruel, I thought. Can’t this just be over? Do I really have to get the hospital involved? Apparently I did. So yet again, I rang Laura and sure enough – she agreed to squeeze me into an appointment but could I come right now. Tom was actually working from home so he came along. It’s always horrible for me when they dim the lights in the ultrasound room, it’s only ever been a dark place in more ways than one. But lo and behold, what should appear but a little heartbeat!

‘Ok we’ve got a heartbeat and I think we’re looking at about seven weeks gestation here.’

*Silence*

‘You seem surprised?’

‘Well yes we are! We thought we’d lost this one.’

‘No everything looks ok, perhaps you just got your dates confused – it happens.’

So we left in stunned silence. For the record, I don’t get my dates confused. When you’ve been trying for a baby for as long as we have and with as many problems as we’ve had, you tend to be quite clued up about your own menstrual cycle. To this day, I still don’t understand what happened. I’m STILL confused and may always be so. But what mattered was that we had a heartbeat, I was pregnant and everything looked ok for the time being.

Sadly I’ve experienced most of my losses at around eight weeks so this was hardly a cause for celebration, it was good news of course but a torturous waiting game I was only too well acquainted with. Thankfully May, it turned out, was the most stressful month of my life workwise and I remember saying to Tom on a few occasions, ‘I’m going to have a breakdown.’ I didn’t but it felt like it. I worked 42 days straight without a day off or even a lunchbreak! I won’t bore you with the details but two of the biggest opportunities I’ve ever been offered since I started my page, landed in my inbox on the same day and like an idiot, I agreed to both. One came off, one didn’t and it wasn’t me that ended up in hospital – it was Tom. He’s fine by the way but he had a truly terrifying health scare and ‘mental May’ as it was afterwards coined, came and went with very little thought of pregnancy or babies. Which on reflection, was somehow helpful.

But then along came June and with it, lots of blood. I went straight to hospital and was yet again sent to the dreaded ultrasound room waiting for the ‘I’m sorry’ that was surely coming. It didn’t.

‘You have a lesion on your womb and it’s bleeding.’

‘Oh. What does that mean?’

‘It happens, it’s not of huge concern at the moment but we’ll keep an eye on it.’

‘But the baby’s ok?’

‘Yes the baby’s fine. I’m measuring you here at about 10 weeks plus 4 days.’

‘Right. We thought we were about 11 plus 2?’

‘That’s not what I’m seeing today but we’ll get a better idea at your 12 week dating scan.’

Yet again, we left the hospital in stunned silence but not before I was injected with AntiD due to my blood group (which, if you’ve ever had it, you’ll empathise – is akin to being stung by a jellyfish and yes I have been). We drove home and then had another conversation about the dates. What the heck was going on?! Once more, dear reader, I can’t tell you because I’m just as confused as you are but at the time it felt like we were still very much in the ‘red zone’ danger-wise and sure enough, a new letter came through with our dating scan which had been pushed back by nearly two weeks! More waiting.

The twelve week scan happened, the dates seemed to be stuck where they were and whilst this should have been a figurative sigh of relief (and it’s definitely a hurdle I was glad to reach) unfortunately, we’ve had a second trimester loss. A deeply traumatic one. If you struggle with graphic details of pregnancy loss, please skip this next paragraph for your own sake.

In October 2020, we were happily over the 12 week hump for the first time since I’d been pregnant with Harry. It was during the 14^th week, I found myself reading an article online about ‘missed miscarriage,’ something I never knew existed until then. It frightened me and for whatever reason, I rang Laura and she got me in for a reassurance scan. This was peak Covid and partners weren’t allowed to come to the scans. I had indeed had a missed miscarriage and thanks to the presence of progesterone (a drug prescribed to pregnant women who’ve experienced multiple losses), my body didn’t know anything was wrong and was ‘holding on’ to the pregnancy. A few days later I had to return to hospital to deliver the miscarriage and not only did I see the foetus whole, perfectly formed but dead. I also lost so much blood, I couldn’t even crawl out the room I was in to get the attention of someone in the middle of the night because I’d collapsed for the third time in the bathroom and couldn’t reach the red emergency cord to get help. Eventually a male hospital porter found me face down, in a puddle of my own blood in the corridor. To say that this was up there with one of the worst experiences of my life, would be an understatement. It took nearly three months to recover physically and a lot longer mentally. All miscarriages are extremely upsetting and the effects long-lasting, but this one in particular gave me deep mental scars which even therapy, unfortunately, seems unable to alleviate.

Back to the present and sure enough, around the fourteen week mark, I was in the middle of serving up Sunday lunch for Tom’s family and I nipped to the loo before we sat down to eat. Blood. Not much, but enough to send me into a spin. I called Tom into the loo, told him I was heading to hospital and to make up some excuse for my sudden and quite mysterious departure. However, everything was fine and the blood was a mystery. More AntiD, breathing exercises, home for dessert. This pregnancy it seemed, was going to be full of surprises and put me through the ringer mentally – I was resigned to it.

I won’t take you through a week-by-week account of the last eight months but needless to say, there have been more complications, more trips to maternity triage, more sleepless nights than I can remember and lots of dazed drives home from our local hospital. This little lady, whoever she turns out to be, is nothing if not stubborn. She must take after Tom……

But now I’m near the end of this difficult season of my life and about to embark on the next, I’m still full of worry. By rights I’m not a hypochondriac, far from it. I was practically forced by my family to go and see the consultant about the heart problems I experienced in my twenties – which were very serious and my casual attitude towards it was both foolish and selfish I now realise on reflection. But when it comes to pregnancy, I’m hyper aware of everything. It’s exhausting. I’m so on edge all the time that part of me is worried I’ll be mentally spent by the time this baby actually arrives. Being in fight or flight for the better part of a year is tiring and unhealthy, I’m drained by it. I have good days (generally when I’m busy and staying on top of everything) and I have bad days. Days where I’m paralysed by the anxiety of birth and the guilt of how diminished I’ve been since I found out I was pregnant. I can’t focus, I can’t show enthusiasm, I can’t finish simple tasks and I can’t always vocalise how I’m feeling – I’m sure I’ve not been the best I could be this year and that’s hard to sit with because life is so very short.

I wrote this not to depress you or garner sympathy, I’m sorry if it comes across that way. I wrote this because social media gives you such a tiny insight into a person and what’s really going on behind the phone. For all my upbeat posting, there has definitely been a darker side. Not all the time, but I feel like I’ve lied. Or perhaps not lied, but certainly kept the truth under shadow and polished the brighter aspects for show. The reason being, it was easier. It was easier to pretend to be fine than to spend my days boring you with the minutiae of my particular neuroses. Who on earth would want to follow someone expressing every dark thought or feeling they had in real time?! It would be awful! Another part of me feels I should have been more honest because there’s something about opening up on the subject which makes people feel less alone if they’ve been through or are going through it. But truthfully, I took the easier option and shut down a bit emotionally. My closest friends call me the ‘Titanic’ – when I’m in the midst of something difficult, I sink in the middle of the ocean and then all the story-telling and feelings come afterwards, never during. Usually accompanied with plenty of, ‘why didn’t you tell me? You know you can always talk to me,’ kindness. But I am the way I am and the fact that I’m writing this all down and sharing it with you should tell you something positive about my mental state at least! I think the ship has sunk but I’ve survived. We’re not over the final and most terrifying hurdle but I can see it and whilst I’m exhausted and it’s been messy, uncomfortable and fraught with worry – I feel as though I’m through the worst. I’ve got to spend these last few weeks being kinder and more gentle with myself, get enough rest, be more myself than I have been and hopefully heal a bit. So that’s what this is. That’s why I’ve written it all down and shared the turbulent truth of pregnancy after loss here. I’m afraid I don’t have any wisdom to impart in terms of managing it, I don’t think I’ve covered myself in glory on that front despite what Instagram might have you believe. I really haven’t. But I’ve survived and sometimes that’s all you can do.

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It's quite a nice process once you get cracking and the results are well worth the frustration and time taken BUT there is an inevitable stage you get to, I’d say about a third of the way through, where you wish you hadn’t started and feel like crying. Tom arrived in the kitchen at exactly this point and asked oh-so-helpfully, ‘what the hell are you doing?’ You know in the old cartoons when the face of the enraged character turns red and steam starts pouring out of their ears accompanied by the whistling kettle sound effect. Well. I didn’t make a sound, I didn’t even move for that matter, but he quietly retreated, and I heard him muttering to himself as he went back up the stairs. Probably something along the lines of, ‘ok she’s lost it,’ or ‘don’t poke the bear’ – I don’t know, I never asked. But I was clearly giving off, ‘pick your next words extremely carefully’ energy and he did the sensible thing by leaving me to it. A few hours later I was done. Sweaty, tired and a bit dishevelled but I was done and feeling infinitely better for it. Sadly, two drawers and two cupboards didn’t exactly constitute sorting the whole kitchen out so the following day I tackled two more and so on until I was satisfied I knew where everything was and had a bit of a system to work with moving forwards.

But that’s not it is it. A house has more than a kitchen and I’m suddenly seeing areas that bring me instant and overwhelming rage and it’s the rage that has most taken me by surprise! I’m not generally someone who experiences rage – if someone takes advantage of me for instance, my initial response is almost always sadness, not anger. If something goes horribly wrong I don’t tend to get cross, I usually burst into tears and feel a bit down or despondent for a while. But rage? That’s kind of new to me. Tom always says I have an extremely high boiling point and it’s one of the reasons our relationship works. It takes a lot, and I mean A LOT to make me lose my temper. The flip side of that is that once I go, I’m completely flipping bonkers but in general, I don’t really feel anger. Until now! I imagine it’s a bit like how the Hulk feels when he transforms! It’s strangely liberating to have so much energy, albeit negatively ignited, to channel into something.

I put a few before and afters on Instagram along with some hellish, ‘I’m halfway through and overwhelmed’ stories and the response surprised me. Everyone, and I mean everyone, replied telling me that I was nesting. Naively, I hadn’t even stopped to question why I suddenly felt so angry with the house – I just assumed it had got to that point where it needed sorting and I was behaving quite reasonably. I generally pride myself on being acutely self-aware and somehow I’d missed this gargantuan clue that I felt different and there was probably a reason. Women were sending me their nesting rage stories and it was both hilarious and strangely reassuring. One lady decided to lay a new kitchen floor whilst she was IN labour! Another ordered a skip on her due date and starting clearing the garage - her waters broke just as she finished putting up a bike rack! It’s insane when you picture it but it’s very common apparently and if we don’t think too much about the advisability of it – it’s quite blinking remarkable.

Naturally I did a little research, not into the science of it but more the psychology. It follows quite a logical path of reasoning even if the acts themselves might be deemed illogical. No, the baby doesn’t care about the clutter in the understairs cupboard, they won’t be checking the skirting boards for dust and whilst regrouting the shower looks fabulous – it’s not of any particular concern to a newborn. BUT if we imagine the baby represents a complete and immediate lack of control in our lives, because that’s exactly what they do bring and it’s not short-lived either, the need to get all the little niggling jobs done and out the way makes perfect sense. The calm before the storm if you like. And instead of sitting there staring at the storm and worrying about just tricky it might be to negotiate, we do the most natural thing in the world – we seek to control the things we have autonomy over right now. In this case, it’s quite often the home. This makes me feel a lot better actually. Not only am I behaving as millions of women have done before me (rationally or irrationally, you decide), but I’m being quite productive and not shying away from doing rubbish little jobs I normally find excuses not to start. I sort of wish this ‘energy’ for want of a better word, would hang around a bit longer! I’m a prolific procrastinator in general but not at the moment! Like the TFL announcements on the London Underground referencing safety concerns, I see it, say it and currently – I sort it! Wonderful.

Now, you might be wondering why this is all new to me because yes, I do have an eight year old – I’ve experienced the third trimester once before. Interestingly I didn’t have a whiff of nesting with Harry. I didn’t even pack a hospital bag until I was in labour and even then, I forgot to pack the nappies! I was working full time for a high-pressured FTSE100 company and I paid little to no attention to myself during the pregnancy because my job left me no capacity for it. That was great in some ways, maternity leave came as a very welcome break from the treadmill of corporate life and all its’ bureaucracy. I was quite happy to spend my days breastfeeding a newborn watching ‘four in a bed’ repeats on the sofa waiting for Tom to come home. But life is very different now. I have a child to look after, I’m self-employed, there’s no maternity leave available, I know how debilitating true sleep deprivation can be and I’ve got a mammoth juggle to look forward to. And I am looking forward to it! That all sounds quite negative but I’m looking forward to the imminent recalibration, I know I’ll figure it out some way or other. But the nesting makes more sense to me when viewed through this lens. The chaos is coming and I’m trying my best to get ready for it! After all, my spice rack is now in order so I’m basically sorted!

Better still, I’ve managed to infect Tom with my nesting rage. He too is fuelled by something and is asking for lists of things I’d like him to do. We can’t do jobs around the house together – we’d simply kill each other. So we’ve worked out that we need a sort of working document in place. I give him specific jobs, he works through them, I don’t ask him to get on with any of them (he has ADHD and can’t be coerced into doing something he's not mentally prepared himself for) and he adds things to my list. We never do two jobs in the same room at the same time or all hell breaks loose. This is all a little ‘ideal world’ – yes of course, we forget our own rules and things go wrong, shouting happens, but we’ve had to learn this bizarre way of working around/with each other the hard way! He occasionally likes to offer ‘encouragement’ ie hassling me to finish something quickly which causes me to panic and make mistakes and I like to give ‘constructive criticism about his working methods - ie tell him I wouldn’t have done it his way, could he be a bit tidier and other such expertise… We’re excellent hindrances towards each other when we’re not careful. But the lists are in place and so far, we’re doing ok. He’s currently tiling the kitchen downstairs and I’m about to work my way through the linen/cleaning products in the cupboard on the upstairs landing. A floor apart, different sections, no checking on the others’ progress – we’re solitary worker bees in a way.

Not that you were, but if you were wondering why my nesting was instigated by a whisk on a Tuesday morning. I think it might have had something to do with the consultant appointment on the Monday preceding it – where I was told that I’m being induced early.. I only made that link a few days afterwards, it seems so obvious now! We’ve got a little bit less time than we thought so we’re on a deadline. A very, very magical deadline…

Now I’m going to say something controversial, take a deep breath and clutch your pearls please. I don’t think it’s a good idea to discuss potential name ideas with anyone apart from your partner. There I’ve said it. I have good reason for thinking this and you’re absolutely welcome to disagree with me but this is how I feel and in a bid to be more ‘myself’ – heaven fordbid, I’m saying something which everyone might not like but I’ll give you my justification for it and let’s see what you think.

I had a friend who was pregnant with her little girl a few years ago and when we got onto the subject of names, she suddenly went all coy and tried to move the conversation on. So I asked her outright, ‘have you settled on a name for her yet?’ She waited a beat, colour flushing slightly in her cheeks, and replied, ‘well yes we have actually but don’t ask me what it is because I’m not going to tell you.’ At first I felt a little taken aback, like this was somehow directed at me personally, ie ‘I’ll tell others but not you.’ I asked her why not and she gave me a very comprehensive and convincing response which I couldn’t find fault with.

She said that with her first daughter, she hadn’t really thought too much about discussing names with other people and had told quite a few people what name she and her husband had shortlisted. The responses from her friends and family had varied from, ‘oh that’s nice’ to ‘oh christ.. really?!’ and left her feeling unsure about how much she liked the name herself! Convinced she’d somehow made a mistake, she and her husband had another long hard think and came up with another name they both liked. They discussed it with a smaller circle this time and the response was even more varied. ‘Oh that’s a beautiful name!’ to ‘give the poor little thing a chance, she’ll be eaten alive at secondary school with a name like that.’ On and on this went until said child was actually born and not only did she not have a name, she had a list of ‘black listed’ names! Eventually, after a month of being referred to as ‘the baby’  they went with their second name idea. Then came the really awkward bit. From mildly awkward, with those who’d liked the second name best, the child was met with, ‘oh I’m so glad you went with that name, I TOLD you it was going to suit her,’ as though these people somehow had insight into the future and had named the child themselves! To the really difficult introductions, ie those that had outwardly slammed the name and were now holding the child with said name and having to pretend it was an excellent choice and hoping her parents had forgotten the dreadful things they’d said. The worst, she said, was from her own mother. Who’d hated the first name and loved the second suggestion, it was actually one of the reasons they’d eventually opted for it. On finding out the name of her first granddaughter, she told them she was disappointed they hadn’t gone with the first name. Dumbfounded, my friend, her daughter, quite reasonably repeated their previous conversations to her and told her that she was one of the reasons they’d gone with name number two! The mother seemed to have no memory of saying this frustratingly and what followed was a blazing row between the two of them over the top of a newborn baby sleeping in the moses basket in the lounge. ‘Name-gate’ as it was subsequently known, became the elephant in the room. It was never brought up again but both knew how the other felt and both had different recollections of the preceding conversations! Worst of all, my friend still says (6 years later) that both she and her husband wish they’d gone with the original name, they STILL prefer it and should have just told no one about it. It would have saved a lot of bother and having had two children since, have opted to shut down all conversations around potential names with, ‘you’ll have to wait and see.’ This, to my mind, is sensible.

Now onto my experience, if you’re still reading this! 8 years ago, ie long before the above conversation with my friend took place, I did have some conversations with friends about potential name ideas. Most were positive, some were pretending to like my suggestions, I could tell, and a few were hellbent on coming up with reasons why the list of names I’d mentioned were bad ideas (as though this was helpful). ‘Oh that’s one of those names people always misspell, I don’t even know how you spell that come to think of it.’ Or, ‘Oh gosh I knew a guy called XYZ, he should have been called Red Flag!’ Or, ‘Oh xyz, like the famous xyz? Hasn’t he recently been in the news about something? Part of an online paedophile ring I think it was, hang on I’ll google it 2 seconds.’ And so on. You get the picture. Everyone has a bad experience or knows someone who’s had a bad experience with a person who has the same name as your potential unborn child. And for some reason they feel it’s extremely helpful, nay it’s their DUTY, to tell you these things. Spoiler alert – it’s not. A name is a name. Fred is the name of a cartoon character (Flintstone), the lead singer of the Band, Queen (Mercury, well Freddie) and also that of one of Britain’s most infamous serial killers and paedophiles (Fred West). The point is, there’s a lot of Fred’s. There’s bound to be a range of associations with that name and it’s not necessarily a good idea to tell a pregnant friend who’s just informed you she’d really like to call her little boy Fred, about the worst Fred who ever lived. You’re not doing her a favour.

I temporarily forgot about my own rule some weeks ago and accidentally let slip a name idea (which we’ve since scrapped) to a friend. It was a wonderful reminder of why I should stick to my own rule. She said, ‘oh that’s nice, how do you spell it?’ It hadn’t occurred to me there was actually two ways to spell it because I’d only ever seen it spelt one way. But after some research, it turns out there’s at least four and now I’ve been put off the name because she then went on to tell me about a friend of hers who had a micropig with that name. It was really cute apparently, but they had to get rid of it because it kept being sick. I glazed over at this point, imagining myself looking down at a newborn baby who’d just puked up some milk and wondered whether I’d mutter to myself, ‘just like the pig…’ This association proved too much and now the name has gone from shortlist to blacklist. Which is just as well because the micropig turned out not to be a micropig at all. It was in fact a regular sized pig, which, once fully grown had to be rehomed again by some sort of pig rescue (I’m thinking abattoir, but didn’t want to mention it).

So you see, I am going to refrain from telling anyone any further name suggestions for these reasons. Once our baby is born, everyone will be told and they’ll have to hide their expressions if they think we’ve lost the plot on the naming front. A persons name is usually the very first thing others will know about them, ‘this is Jim from accounts’, ‘this is my girlfriend, Claire,’ etc. It’s one of the very few things we, on the whole, take with us from the moment just after we’re born to our gravestones, it’s how people will refer to us when we die. Therefore, when it comes to naming our own children, it feels like we should be able to pick a name we love rather than because it had the least negative associations when put in front of an enquiry panel made up of family and friends. And if that means spending a few months being a bit coy in the company of said loved ones, then so be it.

I don’t know who I am on social media these days. I’m certainly not the version of me you’d meet in real life, I’m not a different person altogether but I definitely water myself down. Why? Because it’s easier. Now, I had been thinking, ‘well, that’s true of all jobs. You wouldn’t walk into an office job and start dishing out your unsolicited opinions to anyone who’d listen, why should social media be any different?’ But actually I’m starting to realise, that’s not a very helpful comparison. I can’t share ANYTHING at all without attracting quite hurtful criticism. If I share a picture of my delightfully dopey labrador Gilbert, guaranteed someone (lots of people) will tell me he’s underfed (and not that I should have to justify it, but he’s an athletic pooch who gets walked three times a day – oh dear, this new habit of explaining myself is perhaps deeper entrenched than I realise). Or if I share a food shop, I get accused of being ‘tone deaf’ because some people are living on the bread line and can’t afford to buy food at will. And that’s before you even get onto the slightly trickier stuff like miscarriage, pregnancy, parenting etc. It’s got to the point where I don’t share much and that comes with its’ own criticism! If there’s a big event in the world that seems to be doing the rounds on social media, I get told I’m not using my platform to promote reason and good causes! All in all, I can’t flippin’ win!

A simple response would be, ‘well don’t read it or don’t let it get to you.’ Sure. This is a tactic I have used and it works to safeguard my own mental health to some extent but like a infected wound, eventually something dreadful seeps through and it’s almost worse knowing you’ve only seen the tip of the iceberg! I don’t actively seek those messages out in my inbox but occasionally you just come across them, it can’t be helped. Meta claim that they’re ‘doing all they can’ in terms of protecting users from harmful messages, but these trolls – you have to hand it to them, they’re pretty savvy and they know exactly how to hurt you without flagging any sort of safeguarding detection measure. So then, you might suggest I try to find a way to just not let it get to me. Which is reasonable and I do. But unlike a Kardashian, who no doubt receives a tidal wave of abuse, vitriol and offensive backlash every time they post something online – I sense the blow is slightly cushioned when they log out of Instagram and go to check their bank balances. For the average creator like myself, well.. Let’s just say, checking my Barclays app doesn’t have quite the same effect, if anything, it’s more depressing still!

What’s the answer then? Honestly I’m not sure. It feels endemic of the industry, people get cancelled all the time and you only have to misword something, accidentally share fake news, reshare a meme, endorse a product or brand that turns out to be a scam or worse - to expose yourself to the possibility. I’ve had a woman call the RSPCA on me before because I shared a photo of Gilbert in the field behind our house on a hot day, she told me she was going to do this and somehow knew where I lived but worded her message in such a way that I think she genuinely believed she was doing me, or at least Gilbert, a favour! I’ve had another woman who knew exactly where I lived and would regularly message me asking where Tom was (because his car was gone, he was at work) and if I needed anything. She kept making strange references to the fact I was home alone and how hard that must be for me. When I finally messaged her saying I found it rather uncomfortable knowing that she was essentially keeping tabs on our comings and goings as a family, she did exactly what I knew she was going to and she turned on me. I won’t go into it (she’ll probably read this) but rest assured, she tried to get my instagram account removed altogether under the guise I was exhibiting ‘bullying or harassment behaviour.’ Thankfully Meta paid no heed and shortly afterwards I paid to protect my account by becoming blue tick verified but she did cause some problems for me and my account was under the illusive ‘shadow ban’ for quite some time as a result. These are some of the weirder examples but I think they make a point. It’s not even what I share, it’s simply the fact I DO that riles some people.

If you’ve ever read the comments section under a Daily Mail online article about a female celebrity who’s partner has cheated on them (and I actively encourage you NOT to do this), you’ll get a good idea of the type of nasty messages. The tone of them at least. Now I’m not comparing myself to a celebrity, far from it, but I’ve been featured in online print media (that’s an oxymoron if ever I saw one) a few times and stupidly glanced over the comments section. It was like looking into my DM’s on a bad day, in fact it may well have been the same people, it probably was! References to my weight, my face, my skin, my outfit, my home, my accent and unfortunately also, my son. I’m not sure what possesses a person to comment on a child’s appearance or behaviour negatively but I can only deduce they must have been emotionally under-nourished as children themselves which is deeply sad. But not an excuse. I do find myself occasionally wondering about these trolls, who they are, what their lives look and feel like, why they come into my little corner of the internet to make trouble. Especially since I’ve spent the last 2 years trying to remain as neutral and non-combative as it’s possible to be online. But they must sense the recovering people-pleaser within me (and yes recovering, it’s something I am forever trying to work on) and decide to ping off something anyway in the hope I might see it. I sometimes do sadly.

So that’s why I find myself here. Taking a back road into being more authentic for my own sanity I think. I’m not sure if anyone will read it and that’s ok, perhaps I’m doing this for selfish reasons, an outlet for me if you like. I used to write like I’d speak – with a certain freedom, and now I write like a curated social media personality and the latter is so inanely dull and cumbersome. But I fear, for the sake of my bank balance and my own mental health, I may have to continue being as such, on Instagram anyway. I’m not a unicorn, I can’t have it all and that’s how it should be I suppose. I think reigniting this substack is a mini rebellion against the monster I seem to have created! Let’s see how it pans out…

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How much is ‘too much’ when it comes to presents for our children? And is this calculated by volume or expense or both? Personally, I think it’s volume. 

For the past 3 years myself, Tom and our son Harry, have taken ourselves off to a remote Scottish island to spend Christmas on our own as a family. We take food, warm clothes, some books and a very small bag of presents. One for me from Tom, one for Tom from me and 4 presents for Harry. That’s his lot. Now there are people that may well criticize this approach and tell us we’re mean, frugal or being tight. But for us, we’ve decided we would rather spend our money on the experience of Christmas and gift him both of our undivided attention in a beautiful place along with a few choice things to unwrap on the day itself. We follow the rule; something he wants, something he needs, something to play with and something to read. So on Christmas morning 2022, in a beautiful cottage overlooking a deserted beach on the Isle of Bute - Harry opened a car puzzle, some new trainers, a pogo stick and some books. Was he happy? He was delighted. Did he feel hard done by? Not in the slightest. He said it was the best Christmas Day he’d ever had. The real icing on the metaphorical Christmas cake for us that year, was during our walk we spotted some seals bobbing around in the shallow water. The low point was the oven exploded at exactly 1pm just as were ready to put the blinking bird in for our Christmas lunch. But actually, we laughed, drank some fizz and moved onto plan B which I won’t bore you with!

Back to birthdays.. 

Tom and I decided to buy Harry one present this year. An amazon tablet which we got in the sale from Argos for £80. This is something he really wanted and given that most of his homework is now done online, for lots of reasons it made sense to gift our 7 year old a ‘screen.’ This is an expensive present, a much sought after present and we knew he’d be absolutely ecstatic about it. So why buy more? I found myself in Argos thinking I should probably buy him a few ‘little bits to open’.. I resisted and thank goodness I did because they would have been tossed aside, probably unopened or unplayed with, and I wouldn’t have been buying them for him. Not really. I’d have bought them to assuage my own guilt about giving my son just one present on his special day.

I pondered why I felt like this. I think the answer has a lot to do with social media and the way the retails industry sells us ‘gifting’ as a concept. Around Christmas, we find ourselves absolutely saturated with influencers and advertisements showing piles upon piles of expertly wrapped gifts under the tree. This, they tell us, is the ‘perfect’ Christmas. Well to me, I look at these images and the first thing that comes to mind is expense and excess. If we follow suit, I’m not sure what that teaches our children but honestly I think we might be setting them up for disappointment. With money as tight as it is for most of us at the moment, is it really the best thing we can do for them to get ourselves into debt so that they can have more to unwrap? I’m happy to listen to anybody who believes it is and I’ll remain open-minded on the subject but I think leading with the example of living within your means lays the foundation for a much healthier relationship towards money and material items. 

I made the point of sharing Harry’s one wrapped gift on social media. I fully expected criticism or judgement but instead I got a figurative sigh of relief from everyone who engaged with me about it. I’m not encouraging parents to be mean about birthdays, I’m not suggesting they should change their behaviour even remotely but what I would like to do – is to restore some balance. Because we certainly see a lot of the opposite! For all those who can’t afford to buy the piles of presents or for those that feel guilty if they DON’T buy the piles of presents. ‘Enough’ looks different to everybody and for us, I don’t think we’re doing our son any harm whatsoever by demonstrating from an early age that ‘enough’ might well be one special, perhaps expensive thing he’d really like but that it might come in one box and that still means he’s extremely lucky and loved. 

I cannot muster up enough fake enthusiasm to love monster trucks and lego to satisfy him, so he inevitably turns towards Tom for such things. Whilst this is lovely that they can play together and bond, the saddest thing for me is that he doesn’t really want to play with me anymore. I totally understand it by the way, it would be like me trying to talk to someone about how much I love ‘The Real Housewives of New Jersey’ when they’ve never seen it, have no interest in seeing it and think that reality TV in general is complete trash (which it probably is but we’ve all got a vice..) SO I get it, I do. But it still bothers me and what’s worse – I don’t think this drift is temporary. I think I might be in for the long haul here.

I spent quite a lot of time reflecting after mother’s day last week (read last weeks article for my thoughts on that) and I decided to be more strategic and proactive. I worry endlessly about memories. Neurotic amounts actually. My own, I worry about the opportunities to make good ones for Harry, the situations that could trigger bad ones for him and most importantly I’m on the hunt to instigate THE memories. The ones that he’ll carry into adulthood that imprint. That shape him in some way. We do have some serious skin in the game as parents, when it comes to our children’s favourite things, especially when they’re little. So this led me to consider what I could expose my son to that he might potentially love and in turn we could share.

Last September, I ran from my house in Gloucester to Mount Snowdon to raise money for The Samaritans. It was 243 miles in total and at the end I summited the glorious Snowdon on International Suicide Prevention Day. Having been battling poor visibility and cloud cover nearly all the way to the top – as I took the final 10 steps, the clouds parted, the sun shone through and I got the most spectacular view of Snowdonia just as the wind dropped and everyone at the summit, including me, stood in collective silence for 30 seconds gaping in awe at the vista. It will forever be, one of my most important memories.

When I returned from my challenge, I must have spoken about that moment quite a lot at home because Harry started asking me about it. About Snowdon, about mountains, and about the wonderful sense of achievement that comes with climbing to the top of something huge and looking down. I’ve always thought humans have an instinct to climb things, for safety, for pleasure, whatever the reason I think it’s inbuilt. So this got me thinking, could Harry climb a mountain? Could we climb a mountain together? Would he enjoy it? What happens if we don’t get to the top, will he decide it’s not for him therefore? I realised it was worth a shot. Probably.

I floated the idea on my instagram page and had lots of responses from people saying that little children can most definitely climb mountains and if you get the snack/stop ratio correct – they can often learn to absolutely love it. It’s an adventure.

Never one to sit on an idea for too long, I told Harry on Friday night that he needed to go to bed early because tomorrow we’d be getting up first thing to climb a mountain. He looked at me with baffled disbelief. I’m not sure if it was the early night or the mountain itself but he didn’t seem convinced. Blast, I thought. I’ve not sold this to him at all. I then went with the ‘we’re going to have a picnic at the top and there will be loads of cool rocks’ angle, which seemed to ingratiate him towards it but he still went to bed a little bit unsure.

We left Gloucester at 6.30am the following morning, drove to the Brecon Beacons and parked up in the Pont ar Daf carpark which lies at the foot of Pen Y Fan (886m). Without too much conversation, we put our coats on and starting walking. It was driving wind and diagonal rain for the first 10 minutes and Harry said he was cold. Great, we were 200m from the car and I wasn’t at all sure we could do this. I wanted to be an outdoorsy mum, but actually I may have crossed over into drill-sergeant.. I broke into the jelly babies and just as I popped them away in my backpack – the sun came out. Nature really does specialise in putting you through the ringer on mountains, but perhaps she’d come through for me again and give us a view worth talking about, so we pushed on. We’d taken the dog with us so Harry decided to race him up the rest of the mountain to keep warm if nothing else. When I say race, I mean he practically RAN up Pen Y Fan, leaving me puffing along behind shouting, ‘don’t go too far ahead!’ Jelly babies must have some magical properties.

Within an hour of parking the car, we were standing on the summit of Pen Y Fan. The cloud, which was hiding the peak from us all the way to the top, lifted in the last few minutes and we made it to the summit to be welcomed with epic views of the Brecon Beacons and brilliant sunshine. I told Harry to take a little stone from the top of the mountain and when we got home we’d write the name of the mountain and his age on it, as a keepsake but also to start a new collection. He was very excited by this idea! He loves rocks and collecting things so I was genuinely delighted with my impromptu genius as we were stood up there, what a great idea of mine. As I cracked into the picnic (which we didn’t get to finish by the way because it started raining again) I found a rock in the bottom of my bag. This was the bag I took with me on my charity run last year. It was the stone I’d picked up from the top of Snowdon and completely forgotten about! So that’s where the idea came from! Exhausted me from 6 months ago.

When we got home, he immediately set to work on his rock, started asking me about other mountains we could climb and regaling stories of his latest achievement to anyone who would listen. Amazing, I thought, I’ve shown him something that I love doing and if today is anything to go by, this is something we could genuinely share!

So although we’re only peak in, we’re planning to add to that rock collection. So that some day he may look back and say, ‘me and my mummy climbed all those together.’

We’ve made a pact, my son and me.

And that feels pretty special

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A bit of background on me.

I said from the age of 13, as an only child, I wanted lots of children. As many as I could possibly have! On the 19th of February this year, I turned 30 and I have one child (aged 6). 12 miscarriages coupled with unexplained secondary infertility has truly shaped the last 6 years of my life and naturally, the size of our family.

Back to Mothers day.

This year I felt flat. Not sad or angry or upset. Just a bit flat. I spent the morning trying to put my finger on why – I’d been presented with a handmade card, one of those candles that lights up when the flame ignites (oh how cool are they by the way?!), I saw my own mum to give her gifts and a card, a freezing cold dog walk followed by an even more freezing cold pint of cider in a quaint little pub then home for roast beef – this should have been my idea of Mother’s Day sent from heaven! And yet, I couldn’t quite bring myself to completely enjoy it. It wasn’t until the evening that I got to grips with my own discontent. Tom came upstairs and said, ‘what’s up, you don’t seem yourself?’ I took a deep breath and simply said, ‘I thought I’d be mummy to more children..’ He understood, we’ve lost so many little ones at varying stages but I think as the mother, the one who allows herself time and time again to imagine the future beyond those two lines – you grieve the babies you never met in the deepest way and the timing of which is completely out of your control.

OH and if you’re already a parent, there’s that little niggling voice at the back of your head which suggests you should be overwhelmed with gratitude because you have a child already. This is your day to appreciate that at least? Isn’t it? The quandary of being grateful and of feeling hard done by in the same breath isn’t easy to articulate or seek comfort from. It’s difficult to sit with. Especially in a world where social media (or mine at least) is filled with polarising narratives – the ‘let’s be honest about motherhood, it sucks at times, just be REAL!’ movement and the ones who compel you into appreciating every second of being a parent because it’s all over in a flash so treasure it, there’s not a moment to waste!

Can we be okay with feeling both simultaneously? I struggle with it. I’m not sure who to be at times. So I do what most of us probably do, I put on a brave face and fail miserably to pull it off..

‘Grief is love with nowhere to go.’ I heard that on a podcast recently and it really helped me to reframe the process from being a largely negative, albeit necessary one, to something better, something softer. What it is exactly - I’m not sure, I’m still swimming through it but Mothers Day brought me up against a big wave I hadn’t foreseen and forgot to take a breath. Being angry with myself, or feeling guilt isn’t going to help. I know that. I’ve played that hand too many times to know. So being uncharacteristically quiet was my weapon of choice and even I wasn’t sure why to begin with. I don’t always subscribe to the idea that you have to be completely in control of your own feelings at all times, ideally you would be, but soul-searching is as exhausting as parenting itself. One is easier with snacks whilst the other demands them!