Well, That Was Clever,

There are decisions that people make that from the outside, other people can't help but look at and think, how does that work? Or how does that make sense? And honestly, most of the time it's because the reasons for something are completely different because we all have different perspectives and it can take a while for these things to be visible. Obviously, I have an example. 

Next year I will have been vegetarian for around twenty years, so we're past the point it's been over half of my life and a few other significant milestones. With everything with the pregnancy I've also been confronting a lot of my issues around food and the fact that even if I don't have an "eating disorder" in the classic sense of anorexia or bulimia, I definitely struggle with disordered eating and it's most likely connected to the fact I have ADHD, or possibly the fact that several of my mental health team have stated it's highly likely I'm also autistic.

It would be completely untrue to say that I didn't have symptoms of this prior to going vegetarian, but most of them were seen as me just being a fussy eater, but I'm not sure if the problems got better or worse when I went veggie. 

The thing is, I'm not good with change. Quorn and other meat replacements are pretty good because they are consistent and being consistent and reliable is a good thing for me. Knowing what to expect and being able to expect that every time eases some of the anxiety around food. The problem is over the last twenty years a lot of different brands have come into the UK market and released products that have been varying degrees of awful or incredible, but these products don't often stick around. I could write an ode of love to the faux prawn sandwich that Aldi brought out a few years ago; that thing was beautiful. They also previously made a faux smoked salmon that I adored, which came back for Veganuary and then seemed to stay, but I haven't seen it in a little while (but we're on the eve of Veganuary again so hopefully it'll be back in soon...) but equally there was a tuna replacement that I tried once that made me gag and Linda MacCartney sausages taste like rubbish to me because they're too dry and gross. I'm also not big on their freezer mock duck, but the tinned stuff in gravy by Granovita was just incredible, and even that has disappeared. There was the Like Meat Schnitzel, too, there one day and then gone the next... 

I understand that this is because these products get launched and there will be others like me that are reluctant to try them, or that are priced out of some of them because some veggie products are expensive and then there's the really annoying one of products being developed using egg whites, because apparently they're an industry byproduct, so products can be made more cheaply, but then vegans can't/ won't have them, and when it's something like Quorn Fishes Fingers or the other parts of their fish range that died a dead, pescatarians won't eat them either, because they'd just eat the fish... 

Within all of this you've also got the group of vegetarians who don't use meat replacements for various reasons (not liking the taste or the texture of meat, the dishes that they typically cook for themselves not 'requiring' a meat substitute etc) and those who go vegetarian for health reasons, who look on a lot of meat replacement products as they would chicken nuggets - too processed and too beige, so making a new product work in the vegetarian market is HARD. There are some places that do it incredibly well and some that try and fall on their asses, but even the really good ones aren't guaranteed to last. I don't think it's that many years ago (but my ability to timeline isn't brilliant) that Temple of Seitan in Camden was potentially going to shut, and that would have been a total shame because they are beyond incredible!! 

So, what does this have to do with me? Honestly, it's mostly the fact that even when I try new products, which can be a pain to make myself do, then there's no point getting overly attached to something brand new, because the likelihood of it serving long term is... well, it's not great. Though if people avoid it so as not to get attached to it in case it disappears, it definitely will...

Being vegetarian limits my food choices and when I struggle with food anyway, it was probably not the best decision, but it's a decision I made because of loving animals as opposed to hating meat, so the lack of logic between all the change in the vegetarian food market/ scene and my ND brain not coping with change and remembering how good LikeSchnitzel was however many years later wasn't even a little bit of a consideration back then. Now it's just annoying... 

Give Me What I Want,

Originally, I wanted to title this Gimme What I Want, but then I second guessed myself on the band for the song I was referencing and realised that Gimme What I Want is a Miley Cyrus song and Kids in Glass Houses (knew it was them, should never have second guessed myself) titled their song as Give Me What I Want, even though I would swear that they sing it more as Gimme rather than the Queen's English (King's English now?) Give Me... 

And after that brief tangent, let's dive in. A couple of people have asked me, in relation to the impending birth of my little one, when I'm going to have a baby shower, and it has always been a bit of a when are you having one rather than are you planning one, which I guess is to be expected because they are a pretty common occurrence now (as are the dreaded gender reveals!!) but honestly, I never  actually intended to have one, for a few reasons and the biggest one is most of my favourite people like a car ride, train ride or even plane ride away and it wasn't going to be possible to get them all assembled into one room to come and celebrate me and my little guy, sadly. 

Now, I would have loved to pull them all together and do some of the crazy traditions from different countries baby showers, I can't remember if the tasting baby food one was Canadian or American (taste it and guess the flavours, not just taste it for the hell of it, although if you want to, you do you...) but I think the sniffing the diaper (translation: nappy) and guessing what the fake baby poop was made out of was an American one. Apparently a couple of favourites are spread out Nutella in one and green mushy peas in another. Yuck!! But even things like having a guess the baby's weight, or whose eyes or hair or whatever they will have seems like quite a nice way of celebrating with friends before bringing this tiny human into the world, because it helps people think about what's beyond the bump and actually having the little person in their lives as well as the lives of their parents.

Except that very often, baby showers are seen as a bit of a gift grab and it does slightly drive me mad when there is a gender reveal and presents are expected and then a baby shower, and another gift expected, and then some people do something which the Americans have dubbed a 'Sip and See' (sorry, but not everything needs a damn name...) and some people expect presents at that as well, though I believe that's not the norm... Some people will genuinely use these events, and particularly the invitations to these events as an excuse to circulate their gift registry and honestly, I find it tacky for one thing, but also find the idea of doing it kind of knocks my autistic funny bone.

There are just some things that, whilst normal to other people, make me squirm and the best way I can describe them is knocking my autistic funny bone, because it's that same weird sensation you get when you. bang your funny bone that goes along with the pain, but also just makes your legs feel like jelly and your stomach feel like you're going to throw up. It makes me cringe but it's more than that. 

But then again, the NHS advertising screens in the antenatal clinic really encourage you to make an Amazon Wishlist so I did, like a good little soldier doing as I'm told, but then when people started asking me about it, I got the total ick with it. At first it was because I really didn't want any more STUFF to move with, even if it was STUFF I picked out and STUFF I knew that we needed. As it was, we had a VERY BIG truck and it was damn near full to bursting, so God knows what we would have done if there was more, but the bigger challenge of it now is, a, how to go back to those people and say, oh yeah, we've moved now - here's my list - or even sending it to people who are asking me for it now, I'm kind of embarrassed by it, as though I'm either asking for gifts or because I think people are going to judge me for things that are on the list or things that aren't.

Let's face it, the second part of that is really ridiculous, because the reason a lot of things aren't on the list isn't because we simply forgot them or because it hasn't occurred to us to get them for the baby - who needs a car seat for the bub? Just bungee strap him to the roof... - but because we already have them and sometimes, we already have multiples, but I worry that people will look at it and judge my choices. I think the high chair is on there - something I fully intend to buy myself but since the dinning room is currently a cluttered mess still from moving, I'm not doing it yet - but it's specifically a wooden one, and we've had a few friends offer us their old ones and I've declined because it's a plastic one and that's really not my preference. I worry that sometimes it comes across as very ungrateful, but it's not about that, it's about the choices we are making as parents and we really do want to limit his exposure to plastic or microplastics in his food. 

I have a love hate relationship with gift registries for this reason, because at least you know that no one is spending money on things you may or may not like, need or want, but I slightly feel like it does ruin gift giving, because the act of giving a gift should be something from the heart - here's something that I love and I hope you will love, too, or here's something which made me think of you... You don't get that when someone has sent you instructions on what to buy, but you also avoid the awfully awkward interaction when someone gets you something you hate and you have to smile awkwardly, control your face (I suck at controlling my face - it broadcasts every feeling I ever have and the bad ones are on loud speaker) and say thank you, but even worse with a baby, particularly when it's clothes, you're expected to USE the thing, make the kid WEAR the thing, and share a photo of the kid in the thing as evidence or something cute in lieu of a thank you card... And if you don't, you're ungrateful...  And that's even when there are some vile sloganed items in the world like a bib that says "Daddy only wanted a BJ and now he has me..." And yes, I have seen something like that, but no, thankfully it wasn't gifted to me. Hopefully people know me better than that, because that would not be going near my child.

Now, there is the possibility of the fact that Reddit is actually stressing me out a bit because there are so many stories on there of people being called ungrateful for not accepting certain gifts or wanting certain things etc and it's always a bit of a divide between people who think you should graciously accept everything you're offered and others who think you should be able to be very specific, but with the market flooded with baby products, some of which aren't even considered to be safe, it's surely understandable that parents want some element of choice in what they do want and what they will use? If we had had a baby shower and someone had brought a nappy cake, they might have been sorely disappointed to find out that we're actually planning on using reusables so I'm hoping we only need disposables in a total emergency and for baby swimming lessons, so a lot of those would end up going to waste, or being put onto the local Facebook Free group. In terms of clothes, honestly, we have hundreds which we have been lovingly gifted, but babies grow so quickly that I won't be surprised if he shoots through them so quickly that he doesn't have the chance to wear half of what he has for the first year, so doesn't it make sense to look at a list of things that includes books we want to read to him, or bath toys for a little bit down the line or Tonies figures, because as much as I want to be able to read him to sleep every night, I know that there is still a lot of value in having something like that, particularly when he's a bit older and he can just set it up and use it by himself? 

If this sounds like I've talked myself into a love of wish lists, you're sadly mistaken, because I still find them incredibly difficult in terms of sharing them etc, but this is just a bit of a peek into the internal struggle I have with them... 

Where Did My Buffer Go?,

I wrote a post recently about having utilised one of the features of Blogger to time posts to come out on a more consistent basis, partly because I have been struggling with my ADHD and partly because I have been struggling with some of the symptoms of pregnancy. One of the great parts of that is that it means when I have a "good" day with the ADHD and hyper focus on writing, I can get quite a few blog posts written and scheduled and then I have a buffer zone for the days when I either don't want to write, or can't look at a computer screen because it's going to give me a headache either from the medications I'm on to because I'm actually too tired to look at the screen and I need an all day nap.

When I came onto Blogger today, feeling the urge to write one of the posts on here after it had been bubbling and whizzing around my head for the last few days I couldn't help but think, where has my buffer gone? And the truth is, I had eaten through it from a few days, or more than a few days, of inactivity and bad symptoms etc, and the fact I have four of these queued up per week was probably a bit ambitious. I have missed writing so much, but when I'm overly ambitious I tend to burn out and then disappear for months on end so it would be nice to actually stick to writing this consistently for a bit, and I think in order to do that I probably need to drop the number being posted per week, and I think the most sensible one to drop is the weekend post, or posts, unfortunately.

To be perfectly honest, the weekend post was probably more of an ode to the past, particularly when I was a student, because I worked in the evenings, I was at university during the day and the only unscheduled time I could schedule for writing, or meeting up with writing buddies etc was at the weekend, and I loved writing about what I did or posting what I was up to or what the group was up to on Instagram, but these days my weekends are full of doing all sorts of things and pretty soon I'm going to have someone relying on me for not only his life, but his very existence, so having any form of consistent writing time is likely out of the window for at least a month or so (probably a few more than that if we're being honest with ourselves) and to me it just makes sense to have the three spaced out during the week, but I don't know. I will likely decide later on. 

I might take after my mother and not do Mondays, and no, my mother isn't a large ginger cat, but she does like lasagna. I think.

The most important thing though, she says looking at a clock that is saying it's quarter to midnight on a 'school' night, is going to be striking a balance between what I want to do and what I have the capacity to do, particularly whilst getting into the swing of things, and without being one of those people who think every little thing that their child does is revolutionary. Whether it's a smile in their earliest days or it's gas, it doesn't really matter, because no one else finds it as fascinating as the parents or immediate family of the kid and sometimes even that is asking too much, so I'm really going to try and avoid being like that, because there is life outside of being a Mum and I don't want to lose sight of that.

This Is The Problem With Scheduling,

I had this whole little system set up and had this whole plan to make my life a little bit easier and I even wrote a whole post about it and how it was helping, and then I felt the need to write the post about Girlguiding (I only didn't touch on the WI because it's not something I have direct experience of so I didn't want to wade into something and make a load of assumptions, though I understand that they made the same decision for the same reasons) and then over today (Saturday) I have beeb wanting to write an extended version of what's been on my social media stories. 

Wes Streeting is launching an enquiry into whether there is over diagnosis of ND and mental health conditions and where there are gaps in the services. Half of that sounds like a really great thing because the simple fact of the matter is that the services are insufficient. Now, I do believe that there is not a quick fix with that, because training any form of medical professional takes time and money, so it's not like there are a bunch of nurses just sitting home that we can say, cool, you now have a job and it's working in an ADHD clinic supervising the medication of hundreds of people, partly because if they've no experience in that sort of clinical setting it's going to take a while to get used to the meds, the side effects, the symptoms that people have and the patients and how they behave, and ADHD is particularly tricky because the drugs that are used to manage symptoms are a controlled substance with a very specific set of rules around them. Another big thing which is becoming more of an issue at the moment is that the rate of underdiagnosis for ADHD predominantly affected women, because ADHD presents differently in girls than boys. The generation that are now realising they have this are of child bearing and child rearing age, so there's a lot of us having babies and breast feeding etc, which adds another layer of complication.

But I'm getting ahead of myself here.

I can't remember if I've previously written about my experience of getting to the point of an ADHD diagnosis so I'm going to put a brief summary of it below. When I was sixteen, I knew I had struggled with spellings for a lot of years, I misread things a lot and it caused confusion and one of the things that made it easier was coloured paper. All of those things are classic dyslexia symptoms, but when I was assessed at sixteen, by a member of staff at my college, I was told I couldn't possibly be dyslexic because I could learn. I think she had foot-in-mouth disease along with the health minister, but I would point out that even if she meant that dyslexic people couldn't learn to make less errors in spelling or other things they struggled with, she was wrong, because it is possible, it's just hard. It's mentally exhausting trying to do it with no support. 

When I was twenty I was really struggling at university, and I made the decision to repeat a year because it was the best thing for me by the point that I realised how much I was struggling. I was diagnosed with Generalised Anxiety Disorder, given medication and therapy and CBT and things got a little better, but there was always this undercurrent of this is making things easier, but it's still not right.

I was twenty five when I was assessed for bipolar disorder, mainly in connection with the cycling moods and struggles with depression that I was still experiencing even when my doctors had tried a lot of different medications with me. I was told it definitely wasn't bipolar, and was relieved, but still knew that there was something and it seemed like no one wanted to help me find out what that was. 

I was about twenty eight when I spoke to a GP and said I think I'm autistic, and the doctor told me I couldn't be because I can make eye contact and hold a conversation. It took me a couple of months to go back and see another doctor, and say I know that that's a perspective, but I think it's wrong and I still think I might be autistic. And he thankfully was a lot more informed about ND conditions, said that was a load of rubbish but also said he thought that the issues I had were less to do with autism and more to do with ADHD. At the time, I was so in the dark about ADHD, so I spent the next few months whilst I was waiting, and waiting, and waiting, and waiting some more, learning about what it was, what it meant, how people dealt with symptoms and honestly, it was like a lightbulb coming on and I could see, because things just made sense! I was really lucky because, when I had been on the waiting list for about nine months, and was told that I was likely to be waiting another nine months before I was seen for an assessment, HR at my workplace paid for me to have an assessment, where they told me I did have traits of autism, dyslexia and dyspraxia, but I also definitely had ADHD, and honestly, it was one of the most difficult experiences of my life, but also one of the best. 

Now that I'm pregnant and under the perinatal mental health team (I just tried to call them perimental natal team and I'm not sure if that's an ND thing or a baby brain thing) the doctor has said whilst I don't have a formal diagnosis for autism, they're going to put everything in place for me as though I do, because it's clear that that is the case, and again, it explains a lot, but I will admit that conversation, though not a formal diagnosis, didn't hit me anything like as hard as the ADHD did, but I guess that's because I've known I was somewhere on that ND spectrum for a while and that essentially, the traits you have of each bit is kind of decided but using a sawn off shotgun to fire buckshot at said spectrum and see where the holes get punched. (I normally just call it the sh*t pick and mix, but either works.)

I know that I am really, really lucky because my workplace were able to cut the time I was waiting for diagnosis significantly by paying to have that done privately, and I'm not even one of the unlucky ones who is in one of the higher waiting time areas. Some clinics have so many referrals to get through that their waiting lists for first appointments and diagnoses are around the eight year mark. Whether you're in education - be it primary, secondary or higher education - or a workplace or whatever you are doing with your life, the likelihood is that referral has not been made on a whim. These referrals are made because people are genuinely struggling, and the majority of people aren't reaching out for that diagnosis so they can be signed off, or 'written off' as the minister said, but so that they can try and figure themselves out and understand themselves better. It's all well and good having a market full of products which are there to offer something to people with anxiety or neurodiversities, but it feels like self-prescribing in a way to get these things without first having a diagnosis. Also, products like compression hoodies and blankets, fidget spinners and all that sort of thing can only do so much to help people with their issues. I needed help with mornings, and coffee only does so much. 

There are some people who think there is too much focus on the label, but sometimes 'labels' are important. Many people waiting for autism diagnoses worry that they're not going to be diagnosed and that actually, they're just blunt AHs. I worried that I wasn't going to be diagnosed with ADHD and it was more that I couldn't shut up because I was trying to cover up how boring I am. Those intrusive thoughts are really damaging, and the 'label' is just an acknowledgement of things being a little bit different in your head to the vast majority of people's, and it's an acknowledgement that the way that the world is structured isn't geared towards you exactly. Knowing that is powerful, because it gives you the ability to understand what can be different, what can feel different and potentially why certain things might be uncomfortable, but it also gives you a vocabulary to speak about that with other people and try and make things better. 

For me, despite the fact that I got so much better on medication, and then got so much worse when I had to come off of meds to avoid the risks to my little guy, I still feel a sense of imposter syndrome with the ADHD and I still struggle to battle against it at times in ways that are exhausting and frustrating and down right tedious. This is also in spite of the fact that I have a wonderfully supportive partner that does what he can to help me, even when it means me waking him up and asking if he's mad at me for something I did that he's already forgotten about but I've held onto for hours or days or weeks at a time. Pregnancy hormones and ADHD has been something else entirely as well, and without a diagnosis, without medication and without the right support from the mental health team, I don't know how I would have got through it, or how we would have got through it. 

I know the minister has now said that he misspoke when he started talking about this issue, and the inquiry is, in part, to look to see if over diagnosis is a problem, but I don't know if he realises how damaging that in itself is. The narrative around neurodiversity and the conversations some people have are still often not positive. People say some really awful things trying to be nice and people say really awful things trying to be awful. People weaponise autism for their own agendas, like being against vaccines, and whilst they might not say it in those terms there are some antivaxxers that will go so far as to say they would rather have a dead kid than an autistic kid. Some people say everyone is a bit autistic or everyone's a bit *insert neurodiversity here* as to why there doesn't need to be specific diagnoses for things like dyspraxia, dyscalcular etc and some people will see something like fidget spinners and decide they need one for their kid, too, and they shouldn't only be for the kids with a diagnosis or whatever. Where these things are scarce, it annoys me as much as people using diabetes drugs to be able to lose weight, because need should come before want. If there was an abundance of everything and something makes you feel better or you enjoy it, cool, but otherwise, leave it alone unless it is a need.

We are still battling with the language around autism, particularly to do with high and low functioning and the use of the term Asperges', and in ADHD there are still people using the term ADD even though that is now outdated, too. People may think this only matters inside of a clinic setting, but it doesn't, and I would argue it matters much more outside of the clinical setting. ADD was particularly applied to women and girls because the hyperactivity is primarily internal (until I start Tigger bouncing through sheer excitement or anger, but that's not the point) and less on display. It's things like overthinking and anxiety etc as opposed to a lowered impulse control, though lowered impulse control is still a factor, but it again presents differently. Low and high functioning seems to ascribe a value to people, which is gross, but also commonly refers only to the person's capacity to verbally communicate with other people. Someone can hold down a job, be able to take care of themselves independently and have good emotional control etc, but because they're none verbal or have limited verbal communication skills, they're considered low functioning. Similarly, you can have university professors that can't iron their own shirts or remember to feed themselves, but because they can hold a conversation - as long as it's about a subject they're interested in - and they're intelligent, they're considered "high functioning". And Asperger was a literal Nazi.

I really hope that this inquiry doesn't start to feel like a witch hunt, but if they're looking for evidence of overdiagnosis, it does feel worrying and the rhetoric around the inquiry already feels quite worrying. People "other" that which they don't know or don't understand and that's something that happens a lot to ND people, and my worry is that this is going to do the same thing on a bigger scale. I know that a lot of people are going to see it as confirmation of their own biases and there's little that can be done about that, but it is concerning and it is upsetting.

I was going to put this blog to go out on Monday and then rejig everything for next week, but it's past one in the morning and I'm actually tired so I'm just putting it out now so I can post the link to it, and barring anything else "exciting" happening, there's a schedule for three blogs to be published this week at lunchtime on Monday, Wednesday and Friday.

Decisions No One Wants To Make,

Right, I am well aware of the fact that this could be a whole can of worms and it might be something that I regret touching with a barge pole, but it's all over Facebook, it's making me mad and I would rather put all my thoughts down into one place and it not be somewhere that I'm going to get into arguments with keyboard warriors and internet Karens because it just adds to the fact that I sometimes feel highly triggered by the notification sound on my phone which is why it spends much of it's time on silent, much to the annoyance of basically everyone around me.

One thing I want to preface this with is that I'm not claiming to be an expert in any of it, and I'm happy to be proven wrong on many aspects of that, but when I say proven, I don't mean other people being satisfied by their own argument that their right, and that they don't need to think about it any longer.

Girlguiding. It's an organisation I was part of from when I was five, in Rainbows, and I left when I was about nine or ten, because it wasn't for me. My particular groups didn't really do pack holidays - no shade, they take a lot of work, they take a lot of planning time and time being away and most Girlguiding leaders are mothers with their own families, and taking that time away just isn't a possibility for everyone - and that contrasted so much with my brother's experience of Cubs and Scouts, and I wanted to go and join that instead, because they went camping and they did adventurous things and from my perspective, I was just sitting around doing craft things and though I am a crafter now - I've always enjoyed cross stitching and knitting but had varying degrees of engagement with them over the years - I was never a fan of paper and glue kind of crafts unless it was papermache (sorry, I can't spell that) and getting dirty.

I joined Scouts into a group that had about two or three other girls, from memory, and a lot of boys, and most of them were boys from my school. And I loved it. I loved it so much. We went camping, we stayed in tents, we lit fires, went on rope swings, and we ran through Boggy Wood nearly falling over every step because it was soooo boggy (hence the name) and I just loved it. I was around nine and a half, ten ish when I joined which was why I went straight into Scouts instead of Cubs and I stayed throughout Scouts, into Explorers, though only as a young leader, and when I was finally living somewhere that I was stable - i.e. not moving every twelve months and possibly going to a whole new area - I went back as an adult volunteer and I had always intended to do that.

Now, I will admit that I knew leaders as a child that would say things like "Brownies get badges for blowing their noses" and the expected camradery between the two organisations that exists elsewhere and that you might expect from the significant shared history we have wasn't something I really saw as much, and by my own experience it was something where Girlguiding was more for girl-y girls and Scouts was for lads and "Tom-boys", but that is something different across units depending on all of the people involved. I'm including all of this because I think everyone involved in this debate/ conversation has their own personal biases and I don't want to be accused of hiding mine or trying to deny it. It's there and I know that. My view was less limited than some people's where it's Scouts is boys, Guides is girls and that is a very definite line in between. I've had this said to me recently about Scouting and our charter was changed 30-40 years ago at least to say that girls were to be allowed into every section (solely talking about the UK and TSA here as that's my experience). 

I believe it was in 2017 that Girlguiding admitted their first trans female member, and this whole "controversy" has kicked off from there, and honestly, I both get and don't get why. In this time a lot of other things have changed, including reducing the age for starting Rainbows to four years old, the Supreme Court decision that has informed the current decision and many, many other things and the trans rights debate has rumbled on with very vocal and emotive arguments on both sides, and honestly, when it comes to youth organisations, it's crap. 

Scouting is not immune from this. We are really lucky in some ways, because we aren't limited by our charter into being a single sex organisation and the guidance we are being given is we are open to everyone, as I believe we should be, but does that prevent issues at a local level? No, it doesn't. Does it mean leaders feel prepared when they encounter a child who is trans, or curious, or queer? No, it doesn't, and to my knowledge there are no specific and overarching policies other than that we are inclusive. As a Cub leader (eight to ten and a half year olds), I have had a couple of children in the group who wouldn't all necessarily say they identify as trans, but who are expressing that they aren't comfortable in the gender of the sex they were born into. That's the best way I can say it. For that age group, it's slightly less difficult, because there are times when camping that they're all in together, because of numbers, because of tent sizes, because of space, because of a multitude of reasons and the only thing to be managed in that is safe and private spaces for changing (which actually needs to be managed appropriately even in  single sex spaces) and the reactions of the parents, and it's about that dialogue.  I think the biggest difference we have there though is that parents of girls bring them into an organisation where they know there will be boys, and so they've hopped that mental harder before they start.

The two things that Girlguiding have had to contend with, in the first instance, is the language of their charter (not sure if they call it that, but the document where they set out who they are and what they do) and they specify that they are an organisation for girls, and the language of the Supreme Court ruling in April 2025 which sought to clarify the Equalities Act of 2010 in it's definition of women and girls. The clearest thing for me is that Girlguiding as an organisation has been forced into making this decision and it's a decision that doesn't sit right with everyone, but because of those documents and rulings, one of three things had to change and that was either the policy on trans girls, the constitution/ defining document or the decision by the Supreme Court. I would think it's obvious that the last one of those is going nowhere, but it's also something outside of the sphere of control of Girlguiding, so they were left with two decisions: policy or constitution. Honestly, I understand the decision to change policy at that moment, because I think changing the constitution would have been far too inflammatory at this stage, but also would have opened up way too many cans of worms.

Honestly, this new policy does not make sense, because it's saying that trans girls, who present as girls and want to be involved in girls activities etc cannot be admitted, but trans boys, who present as boys and would presumably want to be involved in a community of boys, can be admitted. Maybe I'm looking at it from a retro-normative perspective and assuming these kids are wanting to conform to the gender they identify with, but that's my view of it, and it does not make sense at all, but like I said, I don't think this decision is one that has been made willingly, so maybe the lack of sense in it makes sense in a way.

The other big thing that Girlguiding has had to contend with is the attitude of parents and volunteers and this is something which is really hard. I've written before about the divides between parents, particularly mothers, on the strangest of battle lines, but it really is a people thing and the arguments inside of Girlguidings parents and volunteers simply reflect the ideas, concerns and arguments of people in the wider trans rights debate, but in a more inflamed way because we're primarily talking about children. It's about what children are "exposed to" and who children are around. Girlguiding has specified that this ruling doesn't change things for their volunteers as these are open roles, so if we're talking about girls being "exposed to" trans people, it can and will still happen, because trans women and trans men can still volunteer (as far as I understand it).

If people's concerns are that trans women (or trans men) are volunteering in Girlguiding to be close to young girls, they really need to be more assured that Safeguarding practices and vetting processes are robust, and they are constantly being checked and developed. Safeguarding policy is something that has been questioned in Scouting as well, and it's always developing. You can question whether training keeps up with these developments fully and whether more can be done in this area, but that doesn't mean you need to exclude trans women and girls.

I've seen a good number of people questioning how children at "such a young age" can know they are trans, to which I would say they might not have the language to express it, but they do express feeling different, and they express their personalities and their feelings. The choice as to whether to put a label onto that isn't much about a label, but giving them a vocabulary that expresses what they are or may be thinking and feeling, but that doesn't mean you need to exclude trans women and girls.

Additional to that, people like to misgender to force the idea that people are either a boy or a girl, ignoring that it's something like 1% of the population are intersex and that might be expressed heavily in traditionally masculine or feminine features, body types etc, but what qualifies that person to agree or disagree on what or who a person feels that they are? There is a structure by which people can change their gender and they have to, as I understand it, satisfy professionals that they are trans and not coached or abused etc, but that is a process available to adults and not, or at least not typically, to children, so that doesn't mean you need to exclude trans women and girls, particularly when you're talking about youth sections.

Parents demonise other children, because they think a trans girl is only saying she's a trans girl to get access to their daughters, which is just gross anyway, but particularly when we're talking about the younger sections that feels more like adults sexualising children and their actions and their motives than anything else, and honestly, it suggests that things like abuse and bullying don't happen in single sex environments, which they absolutely do, and organisations like Girlguiding have policies in place to be aware of it and address it, no matter where it's coming from, so again, it doesn't mean you need to exclude trans women and trans girls. This whole thing is just further marginalising a marginalised group and removing them from positive social experiences in childhood. It shouldn't matter if a young child who initially expresses that they "want to be a girl" later realises that they were just confused and they actually just like pink, or like fashion design, or whatever it is that made them think that, because at least we haven't made a child who is potentially really struggling with something, or could be really struggling if you constantly force them to be something they feel that they aren't feel more isolated and more ignored than they would if we just accept it at face value and let that guide the decisions we make for them. Just let kids be kids, and let them have the positive interactions and social development that these youth organisations bring rather than focusing on something that shouldn't be other people's business. 

I am gutted for Girlguiding having to make this decision, because I realise there will be backlash from it, and they don't deserve that, but they've been getting backlash for this policy since it came into effect, and they didn't deserve that either, and the simple fact is they're sitting in an impossible position having to deal with a problem that couldn't have been anticipated when they were created over 100 years ago and they're trying to deal with it the best way that they can. Obviously I don't agree with every decision they ever make or have made - I think the decision to sell their activity centres was a bad one - but with this one I can't say anything about other than it's disappointing but I can see where it came from.

I mentioned before that this is in part because of Girlguiding's charter or constitution or whatever it is that they call it, I'm not sure, and I want to clarify that I'm not saying that that can't be changed because it can, obviously, but the fundamentals of who we are in organisations (whether Scouting or Guiding) are in those documents and though Scouting has changed many many times over our lifespan, we've also lost factions because of those changes, so I can see why there would be significant reluctance to change in a way that could essentially tear the organisation in two. There are regular debates online about whether modern Scouting is too soft or whether leaders are expecting too much when we say that camps are a tech free weekend. 

There are some who expect that they can set a menu including cuppa soups and spaghetti bolognese and kids that are hungry will eat and the picky kids will eat when they get hungry enough, even though that doesn't fit with the variety of dietary requirements we have, might not suit the religious needs of some in the group or might even go against a number of allergies, particularly because of the number of cuppa soups that have gluten in them. Some kids need to have their phone because of their Dexcoms to treat their diabetes. Society and parenting look very different now than they did in 1907 when BP did the first Scout camp that was pretty much the catalyst for who and what we are now, so there is a clear need to be able to adapt and change to things that weren't an issue then or things that no one expected to come down the line, but there are no easy answers to any of it, and I personally think it's really important that we try and stay as united as possible as organisations as we navigate those challenges, but I also realise that issues such as trans rights can make that feel really difficult because of how polarised people are on the subject. 

I only decided to write this after today's blog was already published and it's the first one in a while that I've written and wanted to post on the same day, so I will, but I'm going to knock everything else back a bit, partly because it'll help me in building a buffer for days I'm exhausted and also when I do eventually end up in hospital. I'm saying that as though changing the ones currently scheduled isn't going to be a pain in the butt, but I would like this post to be the latest one for at least a little while, because I do think it's important. 

The Importance of Being Honest,

I would say I'm sorry about the play on words for the title, but I'm not because I love things like that. 

Since the start of this pregnancy, one of the things I have really tried to do is be honest, with myself, with my partner and with family and friends around me. That might make it sound like my general approach is deception, which it's not, but I know a lot of people struggle with the instruction or suggestion of not telling people outside of your immediate circle until you are twelve weeks pregnant. It's a balance of risk thing and the first trimester is considered the riskiest for miscarriage because losses happen at that stage for seemingly no reason, and very often it's difficult or impossible to know why. I've known people who've had recurrent miscarriages and it's both horrific to experience but also to not have answers of why this happened, particularly when the process of trying to get pregnant has not been easy.

We didn't really talk to anyone about the fact we were trying, partly because it is a bit of a strange conversation to have, but also because we didn't feel the need to invite outside commentary of whether it was too soon, or anything like that, but when we actually got pregnant, we shared the news with our parents very early on. I think can't remember if we told my partners close friends before or after we got engaged, but it was a decision we made because we saw them regularly to go out for food and an activity, and I was concerned that they wouldn't understand my increasing fussiness around food or might get a bit annoyed by it, so it was easier to say, hey guys, I'm struggling around food because I'm pregnant and morning sickness sucks.

We've shared with friends and family the highs and lows of buying the new house and going through this process whilst also being pregnant, how stressful it's been, how frustrating it's been, but also how having the baby made us more sure we chose the right house. Even before we knew that he was a boy we knew that the ability to play in the garden, to have the wild animals around and to hopefully be getting some birds again in a couple of years (maybe chickens, probably ducks, maybe geese) and raising our child to understand where their food comes from and things about eco systems and looking after the land and the trees and the river, all of those things were important to us as people and as parents so this really was the house and the dream if it could just all come together.

When we found out we were pregnant, there was no question around whether we were having a gender reveal (it was a no!) but we wanted to share that we were having a boy, because although we didn't want to have a big party to reveal it, we didn't see a reason to hide it from anyone, because we had the certainty that he was a boy. (Granted, at my first growth scan I had a bit of anxiety about that, but they were soon able to set that right!) I should point out that I hate that they're called gender reveals because it's not gender, it's the baby's sex, so I guess I should say we know he's going to be born with a penis as opposed to we know he's a boy.

The only thing we've not shared with anyone really, or not many people, has been his name, and that's for a couple of reasons. 

Firstly, I don't want to hear what people have to say about it. I know most people say nice things or try to, but there's a lot of people who have a lot of opinions about names, whether they're unique names, classic names, Irish names or names spelt in the Irish way, or whatever. I am one of those people, and I'm glad that most of the time I see name announcements on Facebook because I am not good at controlling my facial expressions. At the end of the day, I can think what I want about people's name for their child and they can think what they like about my son's name, but it doesn't mean I want to hear it, and generally people will be more vocal before the birth because they see it as they have time to change your mind.

Secondly, I reserve the right to change my mind, or should I say, we reserve the right to change our minds. We've discussed his name many times, and we check in with each other that we're both still happy with what we've picked, and we're still muddling through trying to choose the right middle name, but when he comes out, it's possible that we look at him and go, oh, no, that's not right at all, or we think, he looks like a _____ instead of what we've chosen. I don't want to be stuck in a situation where we've told a lot of people the name, and then when he's here they're like, oh little X_____, and we're like, oh no, we actually decided to call him Y_____.

Lastly, and this is sort of connected to number two, but also sort of not... I don't really want things that are personalised to say X____ on them. Part of that is because we might want to change our minds, you never know, but another part of it is that babies are in things for such short spaces of time, they're growing and developing so fast that most things are going to be lasting them weeks or months, not years and whilst some of those items are going to be sentimental, we don't have the space to keep a load of items just because they have his name on them, and I would much rather either store them to be used for future siblings or pass them on to another parent who can make use of them, both of which can be slightly ruined by having a name or an initial marked or sewn in. It's personal preference, but I prefer things to be plainer, and some of the things we've chosen ourselves have been deliberately unisex, partly because we didn't know he was a he and partly because we know that we intend to have another one at some stage, and we don't know until that happens who or what they are going to be.

Obviously, there are risks with whether or not you share things or how much you share as you go along. Losses happen and then people have to go back and say, loss has happened, and that can be really hard to share. Errors can happen, so the girl or boy you celebrated and planned for can turn out to be the opposite at birth, and then it's explaining to people that whilst you thought you were having something, reality had a different thought, and people can change their minds about names for all sorts of reasons, whether it be positive or negative experiences with a person of that name, or someone close to you choosing the same or similar, but we all have to make our own choices based on what we're comfortable with, and sometimes we just need to accept that that might be something different than what we thought it might be. 

Does Nesting Look Different?,

I'm going to be a total hypocrite for a minute here, and I know that. I hate the way mum's get divided, or the whole idea of competition, whether it's between who's child did something first, or the various debates between c-section and vaginal birth, bottle vs breast, pumping and not pumping, cloth and disposable nappies, vaccinating and not vaccinating etc. Actually, that last one is a bit different, but anyway, I hate the way it feels like battle lines are drawn and you have to pick a team in each one and it just seems to make your circle smaller and smaller, or your section of the circles smaller and smaller like it's some Venn diagram. It drives me mad. But... 

There are times when I really want to reach out to other ADHD mamas who experienced antenatal anxiety (I think that's the term but I could be wrong - it's not anxiety towards the pregnancy and birth just a heightened anxiety because of the hormones whilst pregnant) and ask them if something is normal, or ask if something is because of the pregnancy or the ADHD. I mean, obviously that's based on the assumption that they would know the answer and there is a high chance that they wouldn't, because whilst we may all have experienced pregnancy differently the one thing we've not experienced is being pregnant without having ADHD. Even if your pregnancy was prior to diagnosis, you still had it when you were going through that and it would still have had an impact.

I've mentioned before that I have been struggling with pain. Apparently having ADHD comes with a little side quest of hypermobility and that generally means a pre-disposition towards Pelvic Girdle Pain, so this condition was a bit like Thanos; it's inevitable. It's also wholly maddening, but apparently that's where we're at. 

The pain that I'm in means I've spent a lot of time either on the sofa or the bed and every chair in between, because paracetamol does basically nothing and doctors are reluctant, for good reasons, to use or prescribe other painkillers. Today though, I excelled myself. Even though I know I haven't taken paracetamol or anything to reduce the pain, and I know I'm feeling it because moving around is still a struggle, it's like I went into either ADHD sorting hyper focus mode or pregnancy nesting mode and I don't know which. 

You may be thinking, is it important? Well, no, it's not, because as long as I use it, stuff is getting done so why question where it came from? But also, yes, it's important, because if it's just an ADHD thing, it's just an ADHD thing, but if it's a pregnancy thing, it's progress in the pregnancy, another symptom and another step towards the point when my son arrives. Maybe it's because of the pain, maybe it's because I've always been impatient, or maybe it's my slight obsession with the idea that certain birthdays in December kind of suck because they're too close to Christmas for you to have a birthday party when you're still a kid, but anything that looks like progress makes me really excited and really happy, because I do just want him here and I just want a cuddle, and to some extent I want my body to feel like my own again. Whether it is or isn't nesting really changes nothing, but if I knew it was nesting that would be encouraging, mentally, and I feel like neurotypical people can't understand the confusion between the two things as well having not experienced it. Generally, of course.

What I do understand of it though is the nesting is going to look different at the moment anyway, because there is still so much unorganised STUFF all over our house. What sort of stuff? All sorts. There are boxes, there are crates, there are bags, there is furniture, because I can only do so much and my partner has been working some pretty long hours. Although his friends have been a delightful support, there is still quite a bit to be done, but then there always is when you move house, and moving house at 30 something weeks pregnant isn't exactly ideal. So nesting is going to feel more like organising, unpacking boxes and all that jazz, rather than bleaching the skirting boards, because your house is already clean, but you're feeling the urge to make it MORE clean.

I keep having to remind myself that making a house a home is very much like trying to be happy. It's not a singular point in time or a destination, it's very much a process and a journey, appreciating the things that make it happen and trying to not hold on too tightly to the things that get in the way.

Do You Love Your Body?,

This is going to be one of those blog posts I write with no idea of whether I'm going to post it or not, because it's a bit of a touchy subject for me and I'm not a hundred percent sure that I'm comfortable writing about it for myself, let alone posting it on an open forum, but if you never try you never know. God, I hate quoting Coldplay!!

At the moment I am VERY pregnant and there are times where I genuinely appreciate that through no fault or intention of myself and my partner, all of the mirrors in the house are high up, face level sort of mirrors, and so I have spent the last few weeks we have lived in the new house not having to look in a full length mirror at all. There are times when I think I should more often, or have taken more pictures showing the bump's growth, but processing the size and shape of my body has been something I have struggled with in this pregnancy, though not as much as I ever thought I might have. 

Over the past decade, well, just a bit more than a decade, my size has crept up from starting uni around a size 6 to 8, to pre-pregnancy being a size 14 to 16. I realise that that is a natural thing with "getting older", a bit of COVID thrown in for good measure because I was not as active during that, and a myriad of things in between which have contributed, including my love of sweets. Mostly, I haven't minded too much, other than carting around clothes that I still love and occasionally try and convince myself I will one day get back into (I won't) and I can't bare to part with. Thankfully before the house move, partly due to the realities of moving two houses into one, and being pregnant and Vinted being relatively easy to use, I started getting rid of a bit of the clothing clutter in my life, sending some things to the charity shop and selling others, but generally trying to come to a more ordered and sensible wardrobe. It's still a process and likely will be another significant process when I see what fits my no longer pregnant body, but that's another matter. 

I had to think about what size clothing I wear this morning (the morning of when I'm writing this as opposed to the morning of when I'm posting it) and the question popped into my head, likely because I saw myself in a full length mirror whilst I was at the hospital for a growth scan and as it's been a few weeks it was a bit of a confronting moment, do you love your body? Particularly, do you love your body right now? 

(Before anyone panics, because I was 'overweight' in terms of BMI at the beginning of the pregnancy, I'm having growth scans as a precaution, not because of anything nefarious or concerning. The midwife who booked them described it as 'ladies who have a bit of extra padding like us', I loved her, they can't get an accurate measurement from measuring your belly, so growth scans are done to make sure that baby is gaining weight like they should, and to some extent, not getting too big!) 

So, do I love my body right now? Yes, absolutely, but also no, not really. Were I this size and shape at any other time in my life than growing a baby, well, firstly I would be quite concerned, because it's a strange shape for me, but also I don't think I would be particularly comfortable with it; I'm not particularly comfortable now as it happens!! My muscles ache, I waddle when I try to walk and the bottom of my belly hurts, which I think is partly because little man has "dropped" and I'm "carrying low" whatever that means... (Don't worry, I know what it means, I just don't particularly engage with the language.) The strange this is that I'm pretty much exactly the same weight as I was before I was pregnant, despite the fact I'm toting around an extra organ (placenta), amniotic fluid, extra blood, an increased in size uterus, bigger breasts and a whole baby who is not small!! I've mentioned before that parts of this pregnancy have been difficult, and a lot of it has been to do with nausea and vomiting, which has effectively meant that even though I was told not to and I tried not to, I've lost weight by being pregnant. Thankfully, the consultants keep assuring me that it's not a problem and the baby is still healthy and happy. Even though I know that to be true, I still struggle with the size that my body is, partly because of the aches, partly because of the things I can't do being this size and partly because every time I try to get into the spare room in the house and I have to think about how to get my bump past the boxes to get in there and do some sorting. I feel significantly larger than I actually am and that's something I really struggle with. 

But, and when I forget this my partner does a beautiful job of reminding me, this is temporary, whilst I'm growing our family. This is temporary, because my body is currently putting together and keeping safe our son. All the stretch marks and flattening of my belly button - no idea why this one freaks me out the way it does - are just evidence - along with the bump of course - that he's there and he's growing. Although it's frustrating that the maternity jeans I bought at the beginning of my pregnancy are supremely uncomfortable now - the way that the bump has dropped mean that they're too tight around the bottom of the bump which is already uncomfortable - and I've had to order a few pairs of leggings from Amazon just so I have something "decent" to wear, as opposed to the indent PJ shorts that were the only thing that fit me for a spell, I can't help but love the function of my body in the way that it's changing my life at the moment. I know there are other ways to build a family, but even when it hurts because the way he's stretching makes me feel like I'm going to pop, or him kicking my ribs makes me lose my breath from shock rather than awe, this little person is going to be a part of me and a part of my partner and he's been there with me for months. 

I asked someone to get a photo of myself and my partner at the Women's World Cup Final, because I want to be able to tell the little guy that he was there when we won. He had the worst seat in the house because he couldn't see anything, but he was there, and when I was screaming for Ellie Kildunne he was kicking like crazy. (I really do hope he liked rugby.) He was with us when we went to see Bruce Springsteen, but from all of the estimates I don't think he could hear then, but he could when we went to see Imagine Dragons and when we went to see The Summer Set. He and I missed Feeder, because I couldn't stand up for long enough and there were no accessibility tickets available, but there is so much that he has been there through, he just didn't know it yet, and that's because he's in there, and that makes me love this body and this journey, because even though I know we'll spend the rest of his life getting to know him and getting to love him, it does feel like we do that already.

It's hard, in a way, because part of my self image, even when I was getting bigger, was still that idea of younger me when I was a skinny teenager, before my hips filled out and before I had particularly had noticeable breasts, so it can feel alarming and confronting, but in a world where a lot of people and a lot of businesses are accused of being fat phobic I should point out that being small wasn't easy and it was something I was bullied for, and it was something that people often felt the need to comment on in really unhelpful ways, and it caused a large amount of physical effects that impacted my health as well.

I know this is a common area of struggle for people in pregnancy and postpartum, and given that your belly button can be distorted, your stretch marks are unlikely to go anywhere really, your belly can be pudgier or saggy, your boobs are affected even if you don't breastfeed, and if you do breastfeed then your body reacts differently to that in order to have fat stores for your milk. It's not an easy transition to go through at all, and there are times when it feels awful, and there are times when it feels joyous and there are times when it doesn't feel particularly positive or negative. 

So do I love my body? Yes. And a bit no. 

How Are You Suddenly So Consistent?,

 For anyone who has been reading this blog for a while, you'll know I'm shockingly inconsistent about posting, and it probably seems like a really odd time to suddenly be so consistent with posting, given that the clock to when I give birth to my son is ticking down very, very quickly right now. There are a couple of things that have contributed to it though. 

For one thing, I really wanted to get back into writing and the relief that came with certain changes in NaNo this year has really helped with that. I hate when I stop writing because it really affects my mental health because it's been a big part of my life for a very long time. 

The second thing is I am utilising the scheduling function and not feeling guilty about it, for two reasons. I don't want to just drop off the map when I have the baby, partly because I don't want it to be completely obvious when we go into the hospital; it's something I want to be very deliberate in sharing, and have control over when we share it. The other reason is accepting that ADHD has an impact and tools like this mean that it doesn't have to have as big of an impact.

Over the last few days, (in literal terms I think it's been about three days) I have written about twelve different blog posts and scheduled them for a few days apart, partly to create some consistency and a bit of routine on here, but also because I figure if I can get a bit ahead of myself in that on the days where the motivation and inspiration takes me, then on the days where it doesn't I have a bit of a buffer. 

It's one of those sorts of tools or tricks that actually really can help, but I underutilise it because I'm used to the whole thing of coping with the symptoms and effects of my ADHD that I shy away from using things that will help, because I was always told that there was nothing wrong with me, that I was basically lazy and it was my own fault that I couldn't do the things that I needed to do. The whole process of getting my diagnosis and getting onto medication, having to come off of medication due to the pregnancy and then eventually getting back onto the medication has been such a learning curve, because I've had to learn to adapt and also unlearn about the different things where I have been masking my symptoms for a very long time.

We Are Wild,

 Okay, I know we're not really. My partner is too into his computers and networks and I basically think I'm going to melt when it's raining, but we are both into camping (though I'm not sure about his definition of camping as compared with mine!) and paddle boarding and wild swimming. Well, kind of. I like wild swimming but swimming isn't something I'm particularly good at and I'm a bit stressed out by deep water, so I don't tend to do it a lot, and I don't tend to go very far, and I only tend to do it when I'm in a wetsuit because otherwise I get too cold... but I am a total water baby. I love being in the water or on the water or generally around the water. 

When we started looking at buying a new house together there were a few things which were priorities. We wanted something that would be at least a little bit of a project, we wanted something within a certain geographical area so that we were closer to my partners family and we wanted some outdoor space. 

We found a beautiful place that was on the edge of a canal and I could have hated everything else about that house and I would probably have still wanted it, but we decided that the inside space was too cramped and the space outside didn't work for the cars that we have or the way that we use them (in a rotation, because we have a couple of toy cars...) so sadly it would have needed to come down in price a significant amount before we would have considered it, because the only way to "fix" the issues inside would have been to build a big extension.

We saw quite a few different houses, though not as many as most people tend to go and see before they find that one, but then we were driving somewhere and went past the house we finally bought and I remember saying 'What's that?' and my partner thought I meant a bungalow that we had seen and that didn't really fit the bill. It took a little bit of searching to find it, but when we found it, I think we knew that it was potentially lucky, because the advert did not do it justice. The house is incredible, and the garden is just breathtaking. At the very back of the garden there is access onto a river, there are fruit trees all down it and there are lots of other trees, too, like silver birches, sycamores, a couple of conifers and a beautiful oak tree. 

The first time we walked down there, snow was sitting on the ground, and there were wild rabbits hopping about everywhere. There was something ultimately magical about it and we completely fell in love. Since moving in we've been able to put up our CCTV cameras, and because of the type of cameras we have, they've basically become wildlife cameras, so I can keep an eye on the dog in the garden without having to go out with her (which is great considering how terrible I am at being on my feet at the moment), watch the adorable number of cats who are knocking around, but we've also seen rabbits, a squirrel, a fox, a hedgehog, robins, magpies, blackbirds and more. It's glorious, because the place is so wild and so incredible. Honestly, everything about it makes me feel like this was always meant to be our home. 

No, I'm Not Calling Him Donald,

 Let's take a break from all the writing about pregnancy to write about the new house, because I'm in love with this place, even though everything is still messy and complicated and there is a job list of things we want to do that I daren't even try to write down, because I might run out of ink... 

Way back when we first came to see the house, one of the things we loved about it was the land and one of the things I loved about it was that there were chickens and there was a duck. I'm not sure if this has only happened since I turned thirty or so, but I LOVE ducks. Despite the fact I was bitten by a duck I was feeding in the park when I was little, I still LOVE them, and the idea of getting to keep a duck was just too exciting. 

On that first visit, the duck was in part of the enclosure where we couldn't see her, and I did the silly thing of getting excited like she was going to be the pure white runner duck I have dreamt of that I really want to call... Graham. I don't know why. 

I know that the "logical" thing is to go with Donald Duck, but Trump makes me not want to do that, and I know that if I have an egg laying duck, it's a female duck, and so it would make more sense to have Daisy the duck, or Jemima Puddleduck, or plenty of other names that make more sense, but I will not be persuaded! I desperately want a little white runner duck and I want to call her Graham... 

Other than this mad little dream about wanting this duck, there are other reasons I want a duck, or rather, a number of ducks. One of the great things about the land that we have, and one of the things I want to do with it, is use it for growing things like strawberries, tomatoes, maybe chilli but probably not since I don't eat them... but given that I love the nature of the garden, given my love of it's wildness and the character that gives it, and given the proximity to the river, the last thing I want to do is be covering it in chemical pesticides to keep slugs off my strawberries and aphids off my tomato plants.

Whilst I know that ducks don't eat aphids - far too small and faffy - they do eat slugs and other crop destroying bugs. They are little foragers, so they waddle about looking adorable, keeping the bugs and slugs at bay and as they're waddling around doing their thing (and yes, chickens do this too, but they're not anything like as cute doing it) they also do their business which is brilliant for the soil.

Essentially one thing I would love to do is create an enclosure over my strawberry plants that I can let the ducks into, let them do their foraging periodically, but making sure they're not taking all of my strawberries, and then let them back into their run and their predator proof house at night, and use it as that fabulous recycling system. 

As things stand, I have a composter, and I feel like I'm forever fighting with it (it's only been a few weeks since we moved in, but I do sometimes love a flair for the dramatic) because we were inundated by too many apples and I can't make a composter big enough or to go fast enough to try and get on top of the amount of them that there are, particularly along the path down to the river that means I can't go walking down there at the moment for fear of slipping. (It's not just an irrational fear, I tried it on bonfire night and nearly ended up in a heap on my bottom.) As we have the number of apple trees that we do, the birds would be amazing at helping keep on top of this as well, even if they do need a bit of pampering when it comes to apples with the way they need them chopping down, but I also have another plan for the apples for this year and I'm hoping it's not too long before I can put that into motion. 

Something I Didn't Know,

Okay, I realise this blog has become a big of a pregnancy obsessed space at the moment and for that I slightly apologise, and the reason it's only slight is because it's the biggest thing in my life right now, and I have always processed things with writing, so I think it's pretty natural for this space to become somewhere that I think about, talk about, write about, the many issues surrounding pregnancy, even when I'm not a hundred percent comfortable discussing all of the details of my specific pregnancy. The below may be TMI for some of you, though.

Before getting pregnant, I knew there was a period of time after birth where it's recommended that you refrain from having sex. I think most women know this one, and whether men are just never told or never taught until the last possible moment I'm not sure, because there are far too many stories of it coming as a shock, or something which they alone need to endure.

What I didn't know is that this applies whichever way you gave birth - I honestly thought it was more to do with vaginal trauma than anything so I thought a C-section would be different - and it's got nothing to do with the trauma of the birth itself. I've been following a few different midwives, postpartum care specialists etc and one of them did a video where she talked about why this is the case and explained about the detaching of the placenta leaving a dinner plate sized wound that takes approximately six weeks to heal. I'm not going to lie, after watching that video I felt really stupid, because it seems obvious now, but I don't think I had acknowledged the size of this extra organ that the body grows or that it doesn't just fall out cleanly and leave what's underneath perfectly fine. Obviously there is a wound. Obviously it's something significant. 

What also shocked me was that during that period (literally) where you are still lose blood and blood clots etc and you most likely just want to go back to your old reliable period products, depending on what you use, that might now be possible or advisable. The instruction isn't 'don't have sex' it's don't put anything in there for six weeks. No tampons, no moon cups, no toys or anything else like that, because it creates an infection risk in that large internal wound. 

I've mentioned before about our intention to use reusable nappies as opposed to disposable ones, because it just fits better with my views (hate plastic, hate waste) but the question surrounding that postpartum period for me becomes a lot more complicated, particularly because I'm going to be primarily focused on caring for the little man, getting into a feeding routine and also adjusting to having a lot more washing to do in a week... Also, wearing things like period pants is complicated by the fact that my bump is sore at the moment, but it's likely to be more sore as everything tries to shift back to it's normal position and normal sizes and shapes, so just because something fit me before I was pregnant and worked for me then doesn't mean it's going to work for me post baby. I've never been a reusable pads sort of person - honestly I couldn't get my head around changing them and having to keep the dirty one in my bag, partly because women's clothes are crap for pockets and I feel like walking into the ladies room at work with your bag screams "I'm menstruating" in a way that I just don't want to, thanks - so I don't even know what type I would have used pre-baby, but even if I did, the likelihood that they would be able to keep up with everything in those first postpartum weeks is... questionable.

This has also become a thing I've been thinking about because although I've been to a birthing class and they have explained that the cinematic gush of amniotic fluid is so unlikely, I am somewhat terrified of making a mess when I go into labour. One of the reasons I've never been fond of the idea of a home birth is because I've never been inclined to want to clean up the mess or have family or my partner have to do it, but even the idea of my waters breaking, particularly if I'm asleep, makes me feel pretty anxious, but I don't really know what the right answer is. If I had to go into the hospital for something like a membrane sweep then it would be somewhat obvious that post that, we'd be expecting something to happen, but other than that, it's a long time where the baby may or may not decide tonight is the night or today is the day, and given how exhausted I have been I'm spending most of my time either in bed or on the sofa, so it's reasonable to expect one of them is going to take the hit... 

I've said a few times during this pregnancy - actually, no, it's been many, many times - there is no dignity in pregnancy and I feel like this is another area where I want to say the same thing. At some stage, I'm going to spring a leak and there's nothing I can do about it, no way to predict it, and trying to 'be prepared' for it at all times makes me feel like I'm treating myself like a giant toddler, but if feeling like a giant toddler helps me reduce the anxiety of the mess it could all create then I think I just need to learn to accept that and move on. 

What Do You Plan To Do?,

I've genuinely seen a couple of articles recently and had a few different feelings about them, but they're talking about what to do when you're on Maternity Leave and honestly, I don't know whether people are being serious when they write stuff like this. 

Whilst I know they're probably written with the best of intentions, particularly when they talk about attending antenatal classes before you have the baby and going to baby classes when the baby arrives because a common condition of maternity leave is mothers feeling incredibly lonely, and obviously that isn't great, but then these articles go on to talk about things like side hustles, and that's where I start tearing my hair out.

Now I know that there are a lot of conversations happening at the moment around statutory pay, the costs of raising a newborn and also paternity leave entitlement, so when people are talking about a side hustle it's understandable as to why they might want to earn extra money, or why they might need to earn some money, or want to start a business which means that a parent can stay at home with the baby and reduce the amount they need to pay out in nursery fees, but there can be pressure sometimes to do something productive, meaningful or income generating at a time when the priority should be healing and looking after the baby. Maternity leave and shared parental leave is the time to be getting used to the new normal of life with a little person in it, or an extra little person than you had before, so why do we need to have a plan for doing more?

At the moment, one of my biggest plans is to get used to the routine of using washable nappies, getting them and the wet bags we're going to be using for nursery washed up, dried and ready to go again. I'm planning on getting into the routine that nursery will be so it's not as much of as shock to either me or the little guy when he goes, and I'm planning on getting out for a walk every day, or as close to every day as I can, partly because of the whole thing of 'exercise is good for you' but also because having only just moved here, I don't know the area as well as I might want to and because I'm directionally challenged it's the best way of me understanding where things are.

I've seen other people manage to pick up new skills when they're on Maternity leave, but I've seen others start to do that and be posting it on social media, then give up, and that's completely valid. To me it goes back to COVID and lockdown: some people were learning to bake sourdough, and some people were just struggling to keep their heads together. All babies are different, and they go through so much rapid change in the first six to twelve months, so whilst you might have a super sleepy baby who feeds really well in the first few weeks or months, that can change so quickly. Maybe it's sentimental and comes from a position of being privileged enough to take a decent amount of time off with my son, but given how quickly they change and how quickly they grow, I can also understand parents that want to spend all of their leave spending time with their child and just soaking in every moment with their little one and anything more than that is a bonus. 

What makes you want to keep writing?,

After everything that happened with NaNoWriMo, the original, there have been a few of us who have been pretty vocal about the impact it has had on both our mental health and also our ability or motivation to write. Personally I have really struggled with motivation to keep writing, because it all felt a little too emotional. Some things over the last few months have made it a lot easier, but writing novels has remained at least a little challenging. I've struggled with the sharing of blog posts even when I have been able to write them, but I am trying to get past that, and there is a big reason for that.

One of the biggest fears I have now, one of the biggest fears I think most parents have, is not being there for my boy. It may be partly because of all of the stories we have from my grandparents that are only half remembered, and the fact we can't just go back and ask them now. The little details like who people in photographs they left us are, the stories behind hierlooms like the Austrian hat with all the pin badges, or even just things like what was my great grandpa actually like. I know little things, like he had a false leg because he was shot in World War One, but I can't remember if she said he was funny or he was musical. I know he could darn his own socks... or actually that might have been my grandpa because he was in the Navy during the Second World War... 

There are so many more ways now to record the stories we want to pass on to our children, and whilst I'm sure there will be things on this blog that my child or children might not be interested in, or there might be things that make them think certain things about me, as well as it not containing a lot of things like how I met their dad, how we became the couple that we became, how we found our house and everything that happened as we waited to move... there's a lot that's not in here, but there is a lot that is here and it's a side of me that I would like them to be able to see one day, even if it's solely as a reminder that I haven't always been Mum. 

Don't get me wrong, I am a big believer in that parents are whole people who need time to be more than just Mum or Dad or whatever name they go by. Parents need time to be a couple (if they are in a couple) as well as be themselves, and have their interests and their passions outside of just being parents. Being parents is important, of course, and being there for your child or children, but I think there is something problematic in losing yourself completely in your children, partly because it's what then contributes to empty nest syndrome when they have grown up and are doing their own thing, because then it becomes a thing of trying to build yourself a whole new life, with new hobbies and new friends and new passions. Reddit is full of horror stories of when parents are too wrapped up in their kids, and the sort of parents that resent when their kids becomes their own person and has their own life and later their own family. I fully intend to keep writing, maybe get back into running and parkrun, and stay in Scouting, but I'm also aware of the fact that these are things my son most likely will want to get involved in (or at least the last two) so it'll be less of a me thing and more of a we thing...

I guess the important bit for me is that my son would get the chance to read things I wrote, if he wanted to, and that's one of the things that keeps me writing, because even though we are starting a new chapter by becoming parents, it's all part of the stories that we have both been writing all of our lives, and this is the best window into mine. And I'm sure I'll find another way to make sure he has the stories about me and his dad, even if I have to hand write them in a book or something ridiculous like that... 

How To Say This (Part Two),

 Back in July I posted that my partner and I are expecting a baby, and after that I went a bit quiet. I posted a few days ago that there were things that I was finding difficult and I wasn't ready to talk about it, but this blog is to share a little bit more about what has been going on. 

So first things first, morning sickness was awful and to some extend still is awful. It's no longer as constant as it was, but it is still difficult to manage, I still need to take medication for it occasionally and it's still horrible when it happens. With it comes exhaustion, because I was throwing up what I had eaten, everything I would typically eat made me feel sick or I just had an aversion to food because I felt like everything was going to make feel sick and I just wanted to not feel sick. There was a point where the only thing I could reliably consume was slushies and Quorn Chicken nuggets.

Everyone told me that once I got to a certain point (and this point changed so many times depending who I was speaking to and when) morning sickness would stop, and I think it stopped for about three or four weeks before it decided to come back, but I think that was partly the stress of trying to move when I could see the countdown to the baby coming was ticking away super quickly.

At twenty weeks we went for another scan and everything was all good, and that's when we were told we were having a little boy. We were both happy, but we had also discussed it and we were going to be happy as long as they had ten fingers, ten toes and weren't born in Burnley. To be fair, we could have got over missing fingers or missing toes... (It's a joke; my partner's from Blackburn. It's a thing.)

I'm not good with timelines because of the ADHD, but some time after the morning sickness paused and then came back I started struggling with pains from the growing bump that were later confirmed as pelvic girdle pain, so getting around has been pretty painful and I have to plan what I'm doing over the course of a week to make sure I have the energy and ability to get through all of the plans. Yes, I've been to physio, yes, I've tried resting, yes, I have a support belt, and no, none of these things have made it completely better. I'm managing, but that takes planning.

Recently I've been struggling more with anxiety and symptoms of ADHD, likely because of the amount of time I was off of ADHD meds. There is a lack of consensus between different areas of care in maternity, ADHD care and perinatal mental health care as to whether certain meds are safe and also whether it's better to have a certain level of risk to ensure the mother is doing okay. Thankfully everyone seems a bit better aligned for me at the moment, but it took a lot of time, a lot of appointments and a lot of messing about to get here, and there was a lot of other things going on at the same time that complicated matters. 

Since we did this last time. A boy! Yay! Do you know what you're going to name him?

We've got a good idea, yes, but it's something we don't want to share until we've met him. We're still debating over a middle name, but both agree he should have one, but I think we're pretty set on his first name. He already has a couple of nicknames too, one of which is just Little Man. I call him that a lot when I'm talking to him.

*Insert name here* is a good name...

I feel like this is what 90% of my male friends have said to me, and not only does it get old, I really don't know why my male friends think I'm going to name my son after them... People have made a lot of suggestions, and I'm sure we'll come to something that we like and that other people disagree with, but it will be our decision. 

When's your due date?

Late December and that's as specific as I'm being on the Internet, partly because babies are considered to be full term at 37 weeks, due dates are 40 weeks but first babies are known to go over and can be up to 2 weeks late, so there's a long stretch of time when he could arrive, even if he goes to term. 

Ooooh, Christmas Baby!! 

Yes, he's probably going to be born very close to Christmas and Christmas Day and Christmas Eve and Boxing Day are all in the mix for when he might arrive. Is it what I would choose? No. I think birthdays that are too close to Christmas are a bit disappointing because they get overshadowed, but we'll see what happens.

Have you looked at nurseries yet?

Urgh, this one is so depressing, but yes, I have. It felt strange to be booking him in at a nursery when he's not even here yet, but at the same time we knew where we wanted him to be going, so we had to get a move on getting him booked in. I'm really thankful for the additional provision that's been brought in, but it has meant that "competition" (I hate calling it that, but it's what it gets referred to as...) for places is ridiculous, so booking him in early was necessary. 

Oh, you're carrying *big *small *high *low etc.

Comments on my body have tended to be things like "oh, you're blooming" and I can't help but say something like "yeah, blooming huge..." but there have been a number of people who have told me I'm carrying in a certain way, and mostly they didn't even know me before I was pregnant, or previously in my pregnancy, so I really want to ask how they know or why they need to say anything about it. Honestly, the weather getting colder has been something of a blessing because I can just wear big hoodies and hide my body shape a bit/a lot.

Congratulations, You've Been Influenced,

I wrote in my last blog that there is a lot that I don' t know in this pregnancy, and I think it's somewhat obvious that it's been causing me a bit of anxiety and a bit of stress, but it's not just about all of the physical changes and everything that happens when labour turns a bump from a baby. One of the biggest influences in mental health, particularly poor mental health is social media. Whilst it can be a great source of information, and it has been great for me for being able to learn things about labour and post-partum that I didn't know before, it's also true to say that there are a lot of things out there that, whether they are made to do this purposely or not, there is so much content on the internet that promotes anxiety or the feeling of people not being good enough and I think this is amplified for parents. This might just be a situational thing because becoming a parent is both what is on my mind and on all of my feeds, but there is so much about everything you should be doing for you baby and their development, even before they have arrived and it's like there is a desire to instil Mum Guilt early.

Before I got pregnant I had read up about a Snoo, and it's the one thing that I feel like I wasn't "influenced" into feeling a certain way about. I read a lot of reviews about it, watched videos about what it is and how it works and why it works, and it's something that only appeared on my socials feeds very recently; months after we bought it. There are other things like nappies where I've relied on the advice of friends who are parents, but there has been a lot where we've had to make decisions despite feeling like we're in information overload with conflicting information that really amounts to nothing more than just people's opinions on products. There are so many things on the market and so many opinions about them, and whilst I understand that people parent in different ways and parenting fits into people's lifestyles in different ways I've always felt like there needs to be a 'right' answer for things, and that is really not the case with things like this. Some people swear by the Tommy Tippee nappy bin with the cassettes of bin liners in it, and other people say that they all smell so you might as well save yourself some money and just buy a cheap bin and scented liners. There are some people who think wipe warmers are vital, so the shock of a cold wipe doesn't startle their poor baby, but then there are others that roll their eyes at the mere mention of them, and other people still that suggest using a cold wipe to swipe across the baby's tummy before a nappy change to make sure that if they were holding in a pee, they do it before you change them to save that experience of them wetting a fresh on nappy and needing to start the whole process all over again. There are some who create a whole nursery, and others who suggest that changing tables are just not worth the money that you spend on them. 

I was ready for the idea that mothers were split into the camps of breast is best and fed is best, as in some people are evangelical about breast feeding and think that even when there are struggles, difficulties and such like, everyone should try to breastfeed and when it feels impossible, they should keep trying, and others who think the way that a baby is fed is more important, and somehow these two sets of people are pitted against each other. Worse still there are then camps for parents believing in vaccines and then so called anti-vaxxers, and they get pitted against each other, too, and whilst there is a lot of commonality if you plotted the two on a venn diagram then they wouldn't perfectly overlap, and the more things you add in the worse it becomes. It almost feels as though there is a need to split mums and parents into factions, and honestly, that feels scarier than anything. 

It feels like staying out of the debate isn't an option, but it also feels like trying to get information on anything is harder than ever because whilst there is so much out there 'content' wise, there's always a question of ulterior motives. People are either being paid by companies, or given freebies by companies, or they had expectations of one thing and it wasn't met and they want to go scorched earth on a company. People who are already parents will tell you something is brilliant because they're looking to sell their old things on, whilst I understand that, because a lot of these things are really expensive, it makes the task of 'finding the right answer' even more difficult. In the end, it's about making decisions you can live with and making the best decisions that you can.

I bought a pram that I knew was too big for my car, partly because I knew I wanted to change the car anyway, and partly because I wasn't overly convinced by the hype around the only sorts of prams that would fit into my car, let alone the price tags on them. Every time someone tells me that it's too big, too cumbersome, too heavy and I will regret it, I have to remind myself of how much I love it, both the design and the colours and everything. Every time someone tries pushing a different brand of nappies than we decided to go for, I'm trying to just smile, nod and just let it roll off of me. And every time I hear someone complain about types of wipes, types of nappies or types of bath products I try and remind myself that every parent is different and every baby is different. Some of these things are going to come down to generational differences, like how particularly since COVID new parents don't want people that don't live with their babies to kiss them, and don't want strangers to touch their babies whereas my grandparents generation just want to show love to all tiny humans, because it brings them joy. Some will be different priorities, things like disposable nappies being more convenient and reusables are more environmentally friendly, or some people choosing to not have photos of their children on social media and others posting something of a digital record for their child. People are bound to take advice from influencers and podcasts and such like, and unfortunately social media very often shows you content which either reinforces a view you already have, or similar types of posts and videos to what you have seen or engaged with before, but as long as we know it is an echo chamber and we can look for alternative information, it's not too much of a worry, but I guess I still worry about whether I have enough information, or too much, or who to believe, and there is always a temptation to turn my social media profiles off for a while to stop me from looking at them, because honestly, I think more often than not they just make me feel worse, but I probably won't.