Thank you

Thank you so much to everyone for all your support over the last week. I am so very, very grateful. Beyond words. Thank you.

I struggled more than I had imagined that I would, all the events of this time last year seemed to come flooding back.

My stiff upper lip only quivered once at the wedding. When the beautiful, young bride told me how much she was looking forward to having children. She loved holding Jessica, who was fascinated by her sparkly tiara.

I hope that she falls pregnant quickly and easily.
I hope that she has a healthy pregnancy of at least thirty eight, or preferably forty, weeks every single time she conceives.
I hope that her babies are born alive, alert and healthy.
I hope that they are in her arms within minutes of birth, rather than weeks.

All I could see for a brief moment was her and her new husband arriving in the NICU, with that bewildered expression on their faces that all 'new' parents have, that I have worn myself. Luckily this vision disappeared with a quick shake of my head. I hope it never, ever comes to pass for this lovely young couple. So full of love and hope.

I wish that I could be like the fairies at Sleeping Beauty's christening and have a 'gift' to give. A real gift. Not money, ornaments or towels. That I could wave my magic wand and say 'Kazaam, no fertility problems, dead babies, problematic pregnancies or NICU stays for you.'

Hah, take that fortune or fate or random biology or God or whatever. Whatever you were planning for this couple, I got in there first with my trusty magic wand. Put that in your pipe and smoke it.

If only.

Thank you so much for the Honest Scrap award.
It means so much that it comes from others within this community. I admire you all so very much.
Your writing. Your honesty. Your generosity. Your compassion.

If I am a follower of your blog, consider yourself nominated. I love all the blogs I read. I've loved reading all the other Honest Scrap lists. I wish that mine were more interesting but they are honest and a reflection of the (honest) fact that I'm pretty boring.

Ten honest things about me . . .

1. I love food. I am a very greedy eater, particularly crusty bread and sweet things. I used to save my weekly money at university to spend at the pick'n'mix sweet cart in Euston station. I looked forward to these sweets more than I would readily (or happily) admit to in real life.

2. I used to smoke. Mainly to keep my weight down (see 1) during my late teens and early twenties when I was always dieting. Which made the massive difference of all of two dress sizes, why did I even bother? It really wasn't worth all the agonising.
Although I haven't had one for over six years, I STILL miss cigarettes. I really miss them, not the smell or the cost or the trouble with what to do with the ends but that quiet moment. That smoke time. I have had an occasional craving since the girls were born but I don't think I will ever smoke again. I can't be trusted to stick to the odd one or two.

3. I love music. I must own at least four hundred CDs, in conjunction with my husband. I have spent more money than I ever want to admit to on going to see bands and festivals. I don't regret a single penny of it.

4. I find it really difficult to watch television or a film without doing something else. I get twitchy hands. I need to do the ironing or sewing or something. If I don't, I pull a face, the face known to my nearest and dearest as 'Catherine's television face'. It must be hysterically funny but I don't know how I look because I've never seen it. I know that I am really enjoying a film if I am not furiously calculating the minutes until it ends. It doesn't happen often.

5. I have a degree in neuroscience. So I was thinking about brains when I wasn't obsessing about pick'n'mix sweets whilst at university. Good times. This means that I have dissected a human brain, taken frozen sections of brain, peered at brain down an electron microscope. Eeeewww. Prompted by a quick move into the field of applied statistics which doesn't require dissection as a skill. Phew.

6. My mother is South African. I sometimes blame my lack of stiff upper lippiness on my Afrikaans heritage. When I was learning to speak as a child I had more Afrikaans words than English. I wish I had kept it up. I always suspect my mother is a slightly different person in Afrikaans, a person I will never really know.

7. I can do loads of things one handed (brush teeth, apply make-up, eat cereal, make tea) as I need a hand free to hold the book that I am reading. I used to live a couple of miles walk away from the library and the librarian used to laugh at how many books I would attempt to cram into my rucksack and toil away with up the hill. Like an ant with a massive leaf.
Perhaps it is escapism? I exclusively (nearly) read fiction (unless it is for work but I shouldn't imagine anyone reads books about statistics for recreation) but I will read anything. Backs of cereal packets, newspapers, Heat magazine. I was always late for school as I would be wrapped around the heater, reading. I used to read on the way to school. I love books, everything about them. I feel sick if I don't have one to hand.

8. Despite being the sort of child that read on the way to school, I was never bullied. Most people were kind to me or didn't realise I was there (I was very quiet at school). This seems to have given me some sort of weird survivor's guilt.

9. I love my children. I love my husband. I love my family. My nieces and nephews. My in-laws. My cousins. My second cousins once removed. If they are some sort of relation, no matter how distant, I will claim them. Possibly to their annoyance. Be warned, if you ever find yourself to be some distant relation you may find yourself adopted into 'THE FAMILY W'. And you'll never leave once you're in. I'll be sending you Christmas cards into your 80s.

10. I really thought I might be pregnant by Jessica and Georgina's first birthday. I wanted to be. I didn't want to be. I don't know. But what I wanted was irrelevant because I wasn't. Perhaps the girls were a fluke, a lucky chance. Who knows?

And as you might have guessed. I didn't succumb to temptation to make my list more interesting. Boring but honest.