So what’s been happening

I wanted to do a brief summary of what the last few years have been for me & us

So after my 3rd miscarriage my world just fell apart. I had no idea who I was anymore. I wasn’t a mother with a live baby in her arms and I wasn’t someone who wasn’t having babies and concentrating on her career. I LONGED for a baby, it consumed my every thought but so did the fear of having a 4th miscarriage. I looked into every option available, adoption, surrogacy, you name it and I’ve looked into it.

I was looking at friends and figuring out if they’d carry a baby for us. Actual surrogacy is incredibly expensive, like thousands and thousands of pounds. Also the law surrounding it in Scotland is crap! There is a 6 week period after the baby is born that the birth mother can change their mind and take the baby back. You then have to get into the whole court situation. Adoption is a long drawn out process, it takes 12+ months and they get into every aspect of your life. I totally understand that they need to properly vet people, I really do and I agree that they should. There are people out there who are unfit to be adoptive parents. I wasn't happy about a couple of points that the social worker raised including that my job (not nursing, the admin job that I got after it) was too stressful & required long working hours and I let a lot of stuff that I'd been holding onto come out of my mouth to express how annoyed I was.

I used the next few weeks/months/years to come to terms with what had happened but as it transpired, although I thought I'd done it, I've never gotten over my babies. Earlier this year, it came to light that I hadn't dealt with the deaths of any of my babies and was infact actively blaming myself for the deaths of my 2nd & 3rd baby. During a counselling session, I remembered that after my 1st miscarriage, I had said that I thought it was a blessing in disguise. Let me be clear though, my 1st baby (had I gone to term) would have be so loved & cared for. At the time, Matt & I were shaky and hadn't been together very long. That's why I said what I did. However, we have since discovered that I think that the reason that I can't carry to terms is some sort of karma for saying it. I write that in the present tense because I do still think it. I'm working really hard to not think it but it does creep back in. I can safety say that I hit my rock bottom. But when you're at the bottom, the only way to go is back up and that's what I'm in the process of doing now.  

The last few years haven't all been doom & gloom though :-)

I've mentioned it before, I got another job after I left nursing that I quickly took to. It also happened to be the place that I would meet 2 of the most amazing girls that I've ever met (Hopefully they read this and realise who they are). I learnt so much from the business and got to experience some amazing things whilst I was there. 

In 2017, Matt & I celebrated 10 years of marriage and renewed our vows to mark the occasion. It was an amazing day and we had all our favourite people there. Whilst on the subject of weddings, my sister & her fiancé eventually got married in 2018 in Mauritius. It was just the 4 of us there and it was such a beautiful day. It's such a gorgeous place and I'm glad to have ticked it off my list of places to go. She looked beautiful in her dress and he looked v.handsome in his kilt. 

I'm not sure if I've spoken about her on here before but I have a friend who has had many miscarriages. Like so many that I look at her and admire her so much for all the pain that she's had to get through. She's amazing and like the superwoman she is, she's never stopped trying for her baby. And she got it, well she actually got 2 of them. A set of twins and they are adorable. She's an amazing mum (as I knew she would be) and she just took to motherhood like it was the most natural thing in the world.

I want to finish this entry on something that I got into by surprise. I hadn't been keeping well with my mental health and I just wasn't able to keep focussed. Reading didn't help, this wasn't helping so I turned to something else. CLEANING!!!! I discovered Mrs Hinch (everyone and their brother has heard of her now) and she was this woman who cleaned her house and had the most show home looking house I'd ever seen. So I started cleaning and cleaning and cleaning. I went nuts!! I started my own cleaning instagram account and documented everything that I did. I had a ridiculous amount of cleaning products but it soothed my soul and focussed my mind again. I loved cleaning and how it made me feel. I got wrapped up in the Hinch craze. However me being me wanted to educate myself about cleaning (chemicals, surfaces, reactions etc) and I quickly realised that unfortunately the Hinch way of cleaning wasn't for me. For example, Hinchers do a lot with Zoflora. BREAKING NEWS!! ZOFLORA DOESN'T CLEAN ANYTHING. To clean a product needs to have surfactants in it and Zoflora doesn't have any. The Hinch Army are huge force now and I say good luck to them but I'm not one of them anymore. I take my hat off to Mrs Hinch though because let's be honest, we'd all like to earn like she's done from doing not a lot more than cleaning our houses.  

I then discovered that cleaning products are tested on animals. WHY????? If you get cleaning product in your eye or you ingest it, it should be common sense that your eye will hurt and you might be sick. We don't need to test that on rabbits. I discovered other cleaning accounts who introduced me to animal cruelty free cleaning and eco cleaning and it was this ethos that I applied to my own cleaning company when I started it. I only used products that were animal cruelty free, I still do that in the house as well. If you follow me on Instagram, you'll know what products I use but if not head to Astonish's website and have a look. The company is based in Yorkshire and they can be found in loads of shops across the UK for really really good prices. I normally get mine from Home Bargains or B&M.

So this post has turned out longer than I expect it to be...... if you're still reading, thanks. I suppose what I want people to take away from this post is that the last few years have been mostly alright. The decline in my mental health has been more recent. I'm getting better and every day I feel better about something else.

Until next time...…..