Tag Archives: children

Post Trip September Babyland Depression Begins

Posted by What It Takes To Be Me in Depression, Family, Family Dynamics, Psychotherapy with A, Sadness and tagged with , , , , , , , , , , , , , ,

I’m back!
Not just here on my blog, but in the country.
Got back on Monday. Feels like I’ve never been away; you know how it goes.

Except, of course, this trip does appear to have had an effect on me..

The main reason for going on this trip was so that I could meet my two newest nephews. Nope, not twins. My youngest brother and his wife had a little boy in mid-July, and my sister gave birth to another little fella on the same day I flew out there.

It’s been a good but challenging trip, once again coming face to face with the fear of never getting to have children of my own and wanting them so very desperately. The first week and a half I spent at my sister’s, with the rest of her family. As I mentioned, her little boy was born on the same day I got there, so he was only a few hours old when I met him. [My sister gave birth at 4 am, and checked herself out of hospital at noon(!)]

There is something very special about newborn babies. I mean, all babies are special, but with someone who is completely new in this world, well, it’s just different. They are so tiny – even the big ones – and so terribly fragile. So completely dependent on those around them. And holding my nephew that first day brought out all sorts of feelings, most of which I am still processing.

I spent many hours holding my nephew during my stay there. I’d just sit with him and look at him. Feel the weight and warmth of his little body, his special baby smell.. I also played with his older brother a lot – don’t worry, he was in no way neglected – and while I was still there it was pretty darn fantastic. [The older one has only just got into role/script-playing, so there was a lot of pretend play, which I absolutely love!]

But, as great as it was, when the time came for me to leave [I was flying across to stay at my father’s, to meet my other new nephew].. well.. it was hard. Really really hard. I don’t think I can quite put it into words just how hard it was. All I know is that when I arrived at my father’s, all I was feeling was that I was missing my sister’s little boys. Wanted to be back with them.

Prior to going, I had been worried about what it might be like to meet my new nephews, and had predicted that it would be, in many ways, harder to be with my brother’s little boy than to spend time with my sister’s kids, because, with my sister – even if it had felt really difficult to be around the boys – well, our relationship is such that I could have talked about it. With my brother, and – by extension – my family – that’s not really the case, and I knew even before going that there was a definite risk that, should it feel very hard to be there, I would fall back on old patterns of pretending to be OK, no matter what.

As it turns out, while I was there, it was actually fairly OK. Being with the baby, I mean. I always feel like something of an outsider around my family, like I don’t quite belong, but at least with the baby it was OK. I guess it’s that sort of thing where, with the kids in the family, well.. it’s not their fault that they were born into what is an exceptionally complex situation, is it?

But now that I’m back here, back at my place.. well, those feelings that were surely already bubbling under the surface are beginning to come out in a big way. And it’s hard. Really really hard. I’ve talked a little about it in therapy [only had one session since being back], but in these last few days, it feels like it’s starting to push through more and more. It’s nothing to do with the actual kids; I still love them to bits. But that doesn’t meant that the feelings they bring out can’t still be incredibly difficult and painful to deal with.

As much as I love being an auntie.. I just really want to be a mother. It’s the only thing I want.

So, post-trip, the truth is that I’m not doing too good right now.
Spent most of this week in bed, most of last night on the phone with the Samaritans, feeling frighteningly low and increasingly desperate.

It’s not a nice place to be.
Nor is it a safe place.

xx

The Greatest Joy & The Biggest Sorrow

Posted by What It Takes To Be Me in Being Alive, Family, Friends, Loss & Mourning, Psychotherapy with A, Suicidal Ideation and tagged with , , , , , , , , , , , , , ,

They say that the greatest joy in life is having children. The flip-side of that is, of course, that the biggest sorrow is not having them. And I suppose this is a large part of what I find myself dealing with right now. I am not saying that the meaning of life is to have children, but it has always felt like that is the meaning of my life; it has always been what I have wanted more than anything for myself. Yes, I would love the husband, the lovely house, the great job, the riches to be able to choose leading a humble life-style, but all of those things have always been secondary to the deep desire to have children. Nothing compares to that.

So, finding myself here, at thirty-five, having none of the above things, it’s a pretty painful place to be, and none causes me more pain than the lack of children..

I trained in childcare, it was a natural choice, I have a lot of experience in caring for children from well before I ever made that choice; my mother was a childminder, so growing up I was always surrounded by children – there was always someone to look after. Then came my sisters, who – at least I’d like to think – I’ve had a fair part in helping shape. Their father died when they were very young, back when I was 11, and I have spent a lot of time looking after them. Next came my nephews, the two oldest ones – the first when I was 12, the second about when I was 15, both of whom I would regularly be taking care of.

They are all grown up now, my sisters have finished their studies, and are now working in their chosen fields. I’m still as close to them as ever and see them as often as I can, even though this is not nearly as often as I would like. I sometimes forget that they are adults now, one of them already a mother herself; it’s kind of hard to not think of them as ‘little’ when you so vividly remember them at one or four or toothless six.. Every once in a while I slip [especially in therapy, I’ve noticed], and I will call them The Kids, rather than My Sisters. I guess it tells you something of how I feel about them..

But, in reality, I have no children of my own. Every single day my biological clock ticks louder and louder, sometimes it feels completely deafening, and even if I try – even for a minute – to get away from it, I can’t. It’s always there, ticking away in the background.

I was recently diagnosed with polycystic ovary syndrome [PCOS], something which I had suspected for some time. This is not great news when it comes to the possibility of having children. It is also not the end of the world. PCOS is fairly common, and many women with PCOS will be able to conceive and carry to term healthy and hopefully happy babies. But it is also one of the most common explanations for infertility, since it often means either irregular ovulation or even completely missed ovulation. One of two critical parts in the conception of a child [the other, of course, being a healthy sperm reaching the egg]. No ovulation means no children. That’s the basic science.

Ever since I was officially diagnosed I have been more than ever aware of how badly I want to have children of my own, and by cruel chance there just happen to be women around me falling pregnant left, right and diagonally. [Cruel for me, happy for them, I should say.] Aside from A. being pregnant, there are a number of other women in my life who are also expecting.  And that is one of the hardest things to deal with, because you have to deal with mixed emotions to an extreme degree. On the one hand I am genuinely happy for them,  I really am – I don’t wish to take anything away from their happiness,  but is also always tainted by jealousy, by wishing it could be me, and by the increasing realisation that it may never be me.

I have always said that if I am told, categorically, that I cannot have children, that will be the end of me. That is how I have always felt about it, or at least for as long as I can remember. There are other things in my life which are at times excruciatingly painful to live with; the flashbacks, the nightmares, the memories of what happened to me as a child, which have more than once pushed me to try to end my life. I work really hard to not get back to that place, and the thought of one day having children has always been my motivation for holding on to the hope that things can change, things can be different.

If that hope were to be taken away, I know I could not go on. Sadly, that’s not just in a manner of speaking, it’s a fact.

I’m not naïve, or at least I’d like to think that I’m not. I realise that having children does not change what has happened before, and I would never ever choose to have children based on the hope of that happening; it would be a terrible and impossible burden to place on the child’s shoulders. But I do believe, and you can ask almost anyone who has ever had a child to confirm this, having a child changes you, changes the way you view things, shifts the focus from yourself at the centre of your life to them. Not perhaps every single second of every singe minute, but as a life perspective.

It has always been my view, and I stand by it still, that people should only have children if they want to be parents. Not because The Time Was Right, or because All Of My Friends Are Having Children or because That’s What You Do, Isn’t It? or because Oops!. You have children because you want to be a parent to them. To responsibly raise the next generation, to experience love in a different way and to pass that love on to your children. And then your children’s children. And if you’re really lucky, your children’s children’s children. You get the idea.

As you can imagine this is something I have spent a lot of time thinking about throughout my life, and the thought that there is an ever growing likelihood with each passing month that I will never get to experience or share that love, it’s really getting to me, in a big way.

So, things are rough right now. Very very rough. To the point where I wonder if I can get through this, or if I even want to. If, maybe, I’m getting to the end of the line here? I just don’t know. I’m trying to hold on, but it feels like my grip is slipping, and I’m not sure I’ve got what it takes to not let go.

Not the happiest of notes to end a post on, but – hey – this is an honesty-focused blog, and there is a warning that things on this blog may not always be nice..

xx

Thinking Of Children

Posted by What It Takes To Be Me in Attachment, Creativity, Drawing, Expression Through Art, Identity, Memories, Psychotherapy with A, Self-Image and tagged with , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , ,

 

Little S - Pretty In Pink

Little S – Pretty In Pink

So much of this year has been spent thinking about children, about having children of my own, about my therapist having a child, about myself as a child. It seems only appropriate that my final post – my final drawing – of this year be one of Little S.

To help me not forget that that small and innocent child still lives inside of Adult Me, and hurting Adult Me, also means hurting that very precious little child. So that I can remember to be kind to myself.

I wish you all the very best for the new year.

xx

Help! My Therapist Is Pregnant

Posted by What It Takes To Be Me in Abandonment Issues, Attachment, Boundaries, Family, Inner Conflict, Music, Panic, Psychotherapy, Psychotherapy Breaks, Psychotherapy with A, Sadness, Sef-Awareness, Self-Disclosure, Separation-Anxiety, The Therapeutic Relationship, Video and tagged with , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , ,

Ever since I began seeing A. about two and a half years ago the fact that she is very obviously of child bearing age and would thus in all likelihood at some point want to have children has been brewing at the back of my mind. It’s one of those worries that has been there from the get go, and on more than one occasion I have actually talked myself into believing A. was pregnant when she wasn’t. Rather unsurprisingly, this has usually been at times when I myself have been particularly worried about the possibility that I may never get to experience motherhood.

The one thing I’ve always said is that when it does happens, well, I won’t deal well with it. I will hate it.

Now that it has happened, it feels very different to how I imagined it would. I can’t really say whether I’m dealing with it in a good or a bad way, I’m simply dealing with it on a day-to-day, session-to-session basis. Some days it all feels very OK, and on other days not at all. Sometimes the way I feel about A.’s pregnancy will even shift within a single session! And whether my feelings are positive or negative is definitely more random than cyclic.

As I mentioned in my previous post, prior to A. actually telling me she’s pregnant, I had already somehow worked it out, but decided to push it aside. Even though I on almost all levels knew this wasn’t the case, I tried very hard to convince myself that it was just another one of those false alarms, that it was all in my head, all to do with me, nothing to do with reality. I was working very hard at pushing myself into denial, until A. burst the bubble.

The way she broke it to me was something along the lines of “There’s something I need to talk to you about. I think you may already know..” at the very beginning of a session. She then told me she wasn’t exactly sure how it was going to work, in terms of her having time off, but that she thought she’d have three months off. My instant reaction to that was “That’s not very long” failing to explain that by that I meant that it wasn’t very long for the baby. For me, any break longer than a week is an absolute eternity, and fills me with out-of this-world anxiety.

Child-related themes have always been fairly frequent in my therapy, as having children has been my number one dream since I was a kid myself, so it’s hard to say if A. being pregnant has pushed those issues more to the forefront or not – it’s never particularly far off my mind – but I can say one thing for sure: having someone sitting across from you looking very pregnant will inevitably be a bit in your face; it’s not exactly something which can be readily ignored. [Although I have read case studies of clients apparently doing just that right up until the baby was born].

There are so many different aspects to all of this. There’s the outrageously jealous she’s having what I want most of all aspect, there’s the classic but I want to be your baby aspect, the I don’t want to share you with anyone sibling-rivalry perspective and – of course – the I really don’t want to think about it but you’ve been having sex borderline Oedipal side to it. There is also feelings of wow I’m so unbelievably happy for you and the somewhat odd I feel really sad that I won’t get to know this child I see growing before me.

There are moments when I really wish A. wasn’t pregnant, and other times I’m genuinely panicking at the thought of anything going wrong with the pregnancy.

I guess in a way you could say that A.’s being pregnant is one of those boundary blurrings that can’t really be avoided, and as I have said to A. more than once, I have a feeling that the next few months will be a bit of a roller coaster in terms of how I’ll respond to it all. Some days I feel completely freaked out by the huge unknowable factor which comes naturally with something like this: there is no way of knowing exactly from when A. will need to be off, there is no way of knowing when she’ll be back [in my mind I am mentally preparing for a much longer break than three months], there is also no knowing where I’ll be at when the break does happen, and there is no knowing where I’ll be at the end of it. What if things just plummet? What do I do? And, oddly just as frightening; what if I deal really well with the break, cope in a way I hadn’t expected? What would that say about the work we have been doing? About our relationship?

Scary stuff, all of it, let me tell you.

So.. watch this space and brace yourself for more than one serious freak-out.

All the very best and more,

xx

Massive Attack – Teardrop