Moments of Sadness

They keep jumping up at me out of nowhere, and I'm sick of it.

Depression is something I stopped suffering from in any serious sense many years ago, and it's really pissing me off that it's back in my life. It's only mild compared to what many people experience - I'm not clinically depressed or anything - but I keep getting sad and tearful, and it seems to be all about the hormonal / procreation thing.

According to CBT, which I'm always extolling the virtues of and used so successfully against debilitating anxiety (and anxiety and depression are very similar in many ways) I should just tell it to go away, not give in to it, counter the catastrophic thoughts. I'm just not in the habit of doing that in relation to depression. So time to try changing my habits, I guess.

This whole making-babies thing is a pain in the arse. Well, apart from the actual making-babies thing - that part is nice - it's all the peripheral stuff that's the problem. Disappointments every 28 days, then pregnancies that go wrong. I just want to get it all out of the way, move on.

But the book stuff is great. Actually that's partly what's pissing me off: I want to be all excited about the book, and I am, but it keeps being tainted by all this lingering miscarriage sadness and monthly menstrual merry-go-round.

Pah.


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Big Stretched Sighs (and Thighs)

Some snapshots:

1. Felix is eating his tea on his own in the kitchen. I am in the room next door, sobbing in a silent hiding-it-from-the-innocent kind of way, dabbing at tears with bog roll, hoping my eyes won't be too red when I emerge, hoping I won't snap and wince and cringe.

2. Felix is chattering away in the back of the car, and I am getting that stretching feeling of despair, as the inside of my face elongates desperately with the contrast of His Happy Chat and How I Am Feeling.

3. Yoga, tonight. Not able to do it, and this is a first. I can always do yoga. It's good for me. It makes me feel better. But tonight the can't-be-bothered don't-care want-to-hide-in-a-hole me was obstinate and sulky and refused to find the energy or motivation. Would only move slowly. Stiffly. Couldn't relax and breathe.

4. Big Sighs. All the time. And eyes with sagging lids, and a downward-pointing chin.

So, I'm acknowledging that I'm maybe, probably, you know, a bit depressed.

And it makes me grumpy and vague and fucking hell, but looking after a young child is hard when you feel like this.

The other weekend I couldn't work out why I was so vague, so confused, so forgetful, so clumsy. So terribly-terribly tired. So tearful. So unable to make basic decisions. I, experienced hypochondriac that I am, had a list of possible causes: 'Flu, perhaps, or pregnancy. And then I thought, well, these are all symptoms of depression. But nah, I wasn't depressed. I mean, I knew I collapsed the week before in tears so extreme I couldn't walk or talk and had to run away in the middle of cooking tea so that I could sob for an hour in my study, but... well, that was a one-off.

And then last weekend I went camping, and complained about how stressed out I was, how difficult I was finding everything, and my friends said yes, Clare, you're depressed. Go easy on yourself.

And that's all very well, and I keep trying to do that, pull back on the demands, relax the schedule, give myself a break.

I have a schedule, you see. Things I must do to make a living from writing. It's got a lot of stuff on it, and I expect to be able to do it all in a short space of time, and it's terrifying me. And I can't prioritise, can't decide which things are most important, which ones really matter. It all really matters. And I keep coming up with an order of priorities, and then changing my mind, and changing my mind again...

And then I decide on Ways Of Coping. Like when I said I was going to sack all the admin and Just Write, because that would make me happy. But I didn't do it. I kept coming up with excuses. Because one of my many fuck-ups is a collapse in confidence. And when I don't think I can write, I can't write.

So then I decided the answer was to take all those timing estimates and double them. And then I thought maybe I should chuck them out the window, just Do Stuff, then time it and see how long it takes. And then I thought, fuck it, it's the summer, I'll just do stuff that makes me happy and worry about the serious stuff in the autumn. But nothing makes me happy. And, goal-driven future-living woman that I am, the one thing more guaranteed to make me more miserable than anything else is Being Idle. And everyone keeps telling me off for living in the future, and telling me I need to learn how to live in the present, and that I should be happy because this redundancy is bound to be a good thing, and objectively everything is fine, and really there's nothing to worry about...

...except that I lost a baby, and a job, and my book still isn't published.

New Year's Eve, 2007: My Grand Plan, to have a baby, to publish my book. I failed. It doesn't matter that I can still get pregnant, that I might still find a publisher. I failed. And the only other thing in my life that was certain, the job, the career in IT... that's gone too. And all I'm left with is maybes and possiblys that I can't believe in. And I don't know what the future holds and I feel like I should be sorting it out, like I always do, except I don't have the faintest clue how. Don't want to. Want to hide.

And I say to myself things like Be Nice To Yourself, and Get On With It, and Just Do Your Best, cos that's all you can do, but how do I decide between Taking It Easy and Being Productive? How do I know whether to Stop Wallowing or Stop Denying My Emotions? How do I know whether I'm only depressed because I'm constantly examining myself for signs? What if it's a self-fulfilling prophecy? What if I wasn't depressed until people told me I was depressed?

People say to me, of course you feel sad, you lost a baby. And I think, but that was three months ago, I should be over it by now, I'm sick of it, I want to be over it, and anyway I don't think it's as simple as that. Yes, I lost a baby, and it hurt, and it still hurts. But I also lost a book, and a job, and a future, and all my fucking certainty. And I still don't know whether I'm denying the feelings of baby-loss because I don't believe it should be a big deal. Because it was never a baby, because I can still have another.

And I can't relax, because the sums don't add up. The redundancy money isn't enough to cover a float for the late-paying clients and the start-up months and sick leave during pregnancy and maternity leave.

And then there's my body. Fat, refusing to get any thinner, and I want to comfort-eat but I can't cos I'm on a diet which is doing no fucking good and I'm not losing any weight, and I'm knackered just climbing the stairs, and I'm not getting enough exercise, and if I were to wait until my mind and body were ready I'd never have another child.

And what about babies? What about illness? What about the devil (60% chance of debilitating illness for months during pregnancy) and the deep blue sea (miscarriage)? What about the fact that NOT being ill can be a sign of a pregnancy gone wrong (as it probably was last time)? What about the fact that stress is bad for pregnancy, bad for babies, bad for mums? What about the fact that the day before I was offered redundancy my plan was to go back to work, put everything else aside, keep my head down, live a simple life and recuperate? What about the fact that every plan I've made this year has fallen through spectacularly?

And I'm wandering through life like a zombie, the tears hovering constantly, my concentration shot, my worries constant, my brain full of pain and cotton wool, telling myself no, don't succomb, it doesn't have to be like this, it'll go away, it always does, you can do it, you always do, ignore it, tell it to go away, keep going and sometimes I catch a glimpse of beautiful sky or an earful of saturating chords and the loveliness makes me ache and only hurt the more.

And now I've let it out, so maybe I can make it go away. Or should I just give in, let the tears have their way? Purge or wipe?

Pah, harumph and oh bloody hell.

That's all.


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silly things

Stupid little things set me off. Browsing goodness direct and seeing "New MOther Maternity Pads," I wonder whether I should get some in. Because I need tons of them, a few weeks ago.

My head goes on one side and suddenly I forget what I'm doing, and the little sad part bobs up to the top again.

Push it back down, carry on.


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Dry

I'm a bit... drained.

We went to Scotland for the weekend, and it was lovely, but... well, it was North East Scotland, which is significantly far away from Manchester, and a long way to go for a weekend, and my mind, or my body, or my soul, or all three, were playing up.

All this New Life Stuff (I think I'll be allowed to let the cat out of the bag soon, don't worry) is a bit scary, and a bit difficult, and a bit Totally Different, and apparently all Big Life Change is stressful, whether technically Good or Bad or Indifferent. I mean, like, according to clever Psychological Sciencey types wot do experiments and like to be empirical and all that, winning the lottery is just as stressful as going bust, and christenings are as hard as funerals, and I may well have mentioned this before, and yadda yadda yadda.

And then I find myself having massive mood swings, and my head going all fuzzy and bussy and my insides wound tight like a tightly wound thing, and the obvious conclusion is PMT, or maybe stress, or pregnancy... and then I start getting headaches, and waking up in the middle of the night with bile in my mouth or nausea and raging hunger, and getting REALLY ANNOYED about nothing in particular, or crying for no reason, and having intense heartburn, and again, it might be pregnancy, or it might be stress... or PMT...

And if it IS pregnancy, I might get ill, really ill, and if I don't get ill that might be because there's something wrong like last time, and then I might have another miscarriage (and how fucked up is THAT - that the surest sign of a healthy pregnancy would be vomiting to the point of life-threatening dehydration - fun, I don't think), and I've only ever been pregnant twice before, and both experiences were utterly horrendous for totally different reasons, and anyway I might NOT be pregnant and that too would make me sad, which makes me utterly fucked whichever way up you look at it...

...and then there's the Big Life Stuff...

But it's not healthy in the least for me to stress and obsess, so I have to breathe deeply and skoosh the negative thoughts away and tell myself everything will be fine, and stop fixating on the future and enjoy the present, but that's hard cos I keep bursting into tears or having my head threaten to explode, and I don't know whether that's because I'm stressing and obsessing and not thinking the right way about things, or if it's hormones (either she's-pregnant hormones or she's-not-pregnant hormones - again, fucked from each end and sideways) and therefore outside my control...

But fuck all that. I refuse to worry. Que sera. Everything changes. And I'm sure there's a whole bucket of cliches just waiting to be mined for all of it.

And anyway, it rained all day today, all the way from NE Scotland to NW England, and this was a VERY GOOD THING, because as I explained to everyone when they kept tutting over the weather forecasts, I would far rather drive in rain than in hot sun. Seriously though, why would anyone, even a sun-loving person (which I am not) want to sit in a small tin box in early July sunshine? Rain just means you have to drive a bit slower sometimes. It doesn't affect your whole body. It doesn't give you cancer. It doesn't turn an already-grumpy woman into a seething mood-boil of unlanced anger pus.

So, there you go. Hurrah for rain.


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Unexpected Tears

In the dark of the cinema, unexpected tears come. Afterwards, I sit in the Cornerhouse cafe, where I should be happy but I am sad. I like cafes. I like coffee, and “tarte au chocolate” (an extraneous E there, surely?) and watching the view, and reading a book, and suddenly sensation is all I have, as my eyes wander from the text and my fingers discover the texture of coarse cream paper and my hand stretches out, amazed, happy to find itself the focus of my attention, five-starred-perfect, warm, bodily, bodyesque. And my sister had her baby yesterday, and I am a sad old aunty with a stretched warm hand, and I remember how I folded and stretched, folded and stretched in the cinema seat.

My shoes came off, my legs parted wide and I sat like a man, one foot in the aisle, then not in the aisle but crossed on one knee, then the satisfying thigh-pull of a cack-handed lotus, restricted by seat arms but testing muscles, like “good pain”, like yoga, and I remembered. How simple and base my body is, lacking in potions, flabby, hirsute, comfortable, holding me instead of me holding it.

That’s how a body should be: A hand, a leg, then a finger, smoothing the grease on a forehead and liking it.

Even the tears.

Liking it.


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In Search of Pain

I'm not sure I can write a straightforward review of Caroline Smailes' book In Search of Adam. I can't write a dispassionate impartial account, because I didn't read it that way.

I just finished reading it yesterday morning, and like everyone else who's read it, it made me cry. And cry, and cry.

But I can't talk about that purely in reference to Caroline's book, because most of the crying I did was for me.

I started reading it on the bus, on the way home from the launch of the book, last Thursday. It's terribly-terribly sad from the very first paragraph, but that's OK, I was prepared for that. I'd already read that first chapter on Caroline's website, many months ago.

But after that, it gets even sadder. And so I found myself on Saturday morning, sitting in a deli in Chorlton (procuring hangover food after a massage), reading Caroline's book... and I reached a point where I had to put it down and push it away from me.

And this is where the personal stuff comes in, because I was still reverse-packing for my week off, and at that point I'd forgotten about the crying bit. I mean, I'd forgotten that a few weeks ago I said that after I'd sent my book off to dozens more agents, I was going to schedule time to sit down and have a good cry. All I knew was that loads of stuff had been going on in my life and I was tired and hungover and emotional, and I just couldn't cope with Caroline's book on top of everything else. I pushed it away and even thought about leaving it behind in the shop. An impromptu Book Crossing moment. And then I thought that it wasn't the kind of book you wanted someone to read without some warning about the content, so that wouldn't work either.

And then the curiosity kicked in. I even thought about throwing it away, but I couldn't because I had to know what happened to Jude.

Jude is a six-year-old girl, and terrible things happen to her. Heartbreaking, unbearable things.

I've never been much good at coping with other people's pain. I feel it too readily. But I also want to write about it. I understand that urge.

OK, another digression. A few months ago... well OK, I can be exact about the date. I can be exact about the date because it happened two days before I discovered I was miscarrying. I probably already was miscarrying - I just didn't know it - and this may explain the extremeness of my reaction. I was surfing the net and I chanced across some porn. This happens. I'm sure I'm not the only person it happens to, so I'm not going to try and explain myself. I thought it was the ordinary kind of porn, but it wasn't. It was a video of a woman. Well, a teenager. Apparently. She had a school uniform on. I think she was probably older than she looked. I hope she was. Anyway, she got raped. I stopped watching before it reached that part, because I saw it coming. But I couldn't help myself. I had to be sure. I fast forwarded to that point. I only watched that bit for the second that it took to click on the STOP button again, but it was enough. I was devastated. I cried and cried and cried. I gulped, I sobbed, I couldn't breathe. I ended up ringing the Samaritans because there was nobody else around I could talk to. It was just a film, just designed for twisted titillation, they were almost certainly actors. But what if they weren't? And even if they were, how could anybody want to watch that, let alone make it? I was destroyed all day. I couldn't function properly, could barely walk. I had that post-shock clumsiness of heavy don't-want-to-play limbs. I've been accused of being naive about it. OK then, it's true. I'm naive. I'm naive about pain and suffering and porn and manipulation and I'm quite happy to stay that way.

And no, I've never been raped. Or abused, in any way at all. Nobody's ever hit me. Barely even shouted at me. Maybe that's why I find it so hard to take, to hear, to understand, but maybe that's why I'm also intrigued. Horribly fascinated. Hating myself for wanting to know more. Hating the woman that fast-forwarded that video. Just to check.

But that's the woman that took this book home with me - didn't leave it behind or throw it away. Wanted to know more. And wanted to check that Jude was all right.

And I want to let you know that it didn't keep going, that the pain and suffering lessened, a little. Only a little, but it wasn't relentless. And really that is my only reservation about this wonderful book. It's so well written, so beautifully expressed, so empathetic and unflinching and Jude is still in my head and will probably stay there for quite some time. But. I did wonder if the pain, the unending repeating no-not-more-again pain at the beginning of the book was a little... gratuitous? Unnecessary? I don't know how you measure these things, but it's certainly hard to read.

So I'm warning you, but also reassuring you, it doesn't stay that way. Not permanently. There are some happy bits too. There is some relief. And it's an incredible book, and I'm glad I continued. It was definitely worth it.

And I wrote most of this post, and the one called "Butterfly Soul", immediately after finishing it, and Caroline's writing style has clearly leaked into my own, and that too is testament to its power.

And back to me again. The book kept poking me. And it reminded me, that I needed some time to cry. And it reminded me as well, in so many small oblique ways, as well as one very big specific one (which I didn't see coming until I was almost on top of it) that I am sad, and that something sad has happened to me, and that only in January I was looking at a small white strip with two significant pink stripes - one paler than the other.

It's been cathartic, reading Caroline's book. It's let a lot of stuff out. It's letting a lot of stuff out. It's not easy to read, but it's sublime nonetheless, and it explains a lot about some of the things people do, as well as raising a lot of questions. If you have some spare Kleenex and any pain to let out, I recommend it. She's a very talented woman.


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Second Thought

OK, bored of crying now. And anyway - even though repression and denial are bad, wallowing ain't much good either. And I refuse to worry about hyperemesis. And why do I always have to go from one extreme to the other? Why can't I just be somewhere in the middle? And I can't believe I scheduled the grieving in - that's just typical. As though I could spend a week crying and then never have to cry again... idiot.

Oh, and I know suffering shouldn't be competitive, but really. There are an awful lot of people have it much worse.

So, what shall I do for the rest of the week? I'm torn between hot baths and good books versus day trips and picnic blankets, or maybe I should just spend the week blogging.


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Butterfly Soul

I was describing the miscarriage to a friend at the weekend, and - put baldly - it sounded pretty horrific.

I find out I'm miscarrying. I get sent home from hospital, and told that it might happen at any time. It does. In the toilets at Asda. I hold my dead foetus in my hand. In the toilets at Asda. I see a tiny webbed hand. I flush it down the toilet. On my own. At Asda. I drive home again, on my own. We go away to Wales, two days later. To escape. We stay in a freezing cold caravan. I bleed a lot, and am in a lot of pain, and sit on a tiny toilet where your legs have to scrimp sideways at a funny angle because there is no room to sit straight, and I bleed. I come home again, and it still isn't over, and it drags out for another week or two.

Horrible. Sorry. Not sure why I made you read it all again. Bit gratuitous, really. Maybe because I'm trying to make it real. Back then I just sort of floated through it all. I didn't cry much, I waved the horror away, I was matter-of-fact, I told myself it didn't matter, not really, I was fine really.

When I described all this to my friend, I felt the tears edge in. But I had things to do, I didn't want to start crying.

That's how it's been since it happened. I've been busy-busy-busy. No time to cry, apart from in short bursts, every now and then. Just to prove myself that I'm not repressing anything.

Even when I had four weeks off sick for "nervous debility". Even then, I pushed myself forwards, became obsessed with my book.

Because I needed a tomorrow, and I had it already planned, and that future contained a baby and a book deal, and the day after the miscarriage an agent rejected my book, and I couldn't make the baby come back and I wasn't ready for another pregnancy...

That's another thing, which I talked about to my friend, which sounds horrific, which made me want to cry, which brought that painful lump that sits there in your throat when you refuse to dissolve it with tears.

I thought I'd escaped. I was only a bit ill with this pregnancy. Nothing compared to how it was last time. I was so proud of myself, that my obsessions paid off. I did everything I could think of to prevent the illness returning. I only drank filtered water, only ate organic food, took supplements, took rest, did exercises, did meditation, replaced all our household products with rubbish eco versions that cost twice as much and don't do the job but don't (supposedly) contain nasty chemicals... and I wasn't so ill. But the foetus died, and the pregnancy was wrong, and that's probably why I wasn't ill, and now if I want another baby I have to face the same statistics, the same 60% probability of debilitating life-threatening illness all over again...

...so. I couldn't make a baby, not yet, not ready, so I had to make the book happen instead. I had to do another edit, on the whole book. I had to find and research the details of 30 agents, in great detail. I had to write and edit and rewrite again a synopsis, a covering letter, a CV. I told myself that once I had done these things, I would stop. And cry.

But then there were other things that needed doing. Urgent jobs, housework, forms to fill in, a child to look after, no time to cry.

But I've finally cleared the decks. I've booked a week off work, no commitments, no bags to pack, no rush-rush-rush to run around a foreign city or distant rolling hills...

Indeed, I did reverse packing. We've been away a lot recently, and there were half-unpacked bags and piles of unpacked-but-not-put-away stuff all over the house, as well as uncleaned rooms and untidied-away day-to-day detritus from all that going away and being busy and never having time and

And so I reverse-packed for my week's holiday. I put everything neatly away, and created a calm cool space for me to rest in. For me to cry in. It felt a bit like nest-building.

I used to get really angry when people told me I was nest-building. When I was pregnant with Felix. I hated the idea of being labelled as an animal, of being told that my behaviour was so simple, that I was so simple, that I could be defined by a few random chemicals swilling through my veins. I said it was just part of who I am. I love to plan, love to prepare, love to be ready for any eventuality and obviously if a baby is coming into a house, that house needs to be ready. Just common sense and good planning. Not hormones.

I didn't nest-build this last time. Just like I didn't buy anything except a packet containing two pairs of tiny mitts.

Tiny mitts with a picture of a zebra on. One pound, from Boots.

I bought them to distract myself from the hyperemesis. To remind me it was all worth it. I didn't get hyperemesis. It wasn't worth it.

I didn't book a place at a nursery or tell my colleagues I was pregnant or buy any maternity clothes or plan the birth, either. Just in case. I'm not stupid. I know you can't be sure until you reach twelve weeks. But I still didn't think it would happen to us. Not even when the nice nurse told us, bleeding isn't good, not at this stage. Prepare yourselves for bad news, she told us, and she sent us down to sit in the long long queue for a scan, and we sat there and I refused to think that it might be bad news, because that was silly, because it was only a tiny bit of blood and the pains in my stomach were only constipation and how irresponsible of her to say things like that to people, things that might make you panic, but I wasn't panicking because I knew better.

But anyway. I've cleared the decks of responsibility, I've built myself a nest to cry in, and here I am. Finally acknowledging that something bad has happened, and it hurts, and giving myself space to cry.

And after this week, I have a big future waiting for me, and I will get on with it, and it will be all right because I let the tears out and flushed them away.

My friend told me I'll never get over it. Other people have said this, too. But I still don't believe it. I still can't accept that anything that major happened, I still don't have an identity, a person, to remember or grieve for, so how can it last? How can it not be replaced by a new person, a real person, a proper squalling baby?

My friend said I mustn't get pregnant again until I feel I could cope with another miscarriage. I don't see how anyone can ever say, "I am ready for another miscarriage." I refuse to think like that. How can I? How will it help?

My masseuse said the soul of the missing baby is still here. She fluttered her hands around her head, and I imagined the soul flitting around my ears, waiting for a new hole to open up in my stomach, and then it will leap in through my mouth, down through my innards, snuggle up in my womb, safe and happy.

I don't believe in souls, or reincarnation, or heaven and hell. I don't believe it was a person, not yet.

But I don't think that matters. I like the idea of that butterfly soul.

It's helpful, so I'm keeping it.


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Fantasy Thinking

I sent the book out last week, to some new literary agents. And I got a really good response. Many asked to see more, and within days I had an email from someone who said she was reading and enjoying it and would get in touch this week... this is A Big Thing.

I guess I assume everyone knows about literary agents and what they mean, but there's no reason you should. It's often said that it's harder to get a literary agent than it is to get a publisher. They only take people on if they LOVE your work and are very optimistic about the chances of their selling it to a publisher, for enough money to make their 15% cut worthwhile. And they get hundreds of submissions each week, and the last thing they want to do is encourage people. So, the fact that I'm getting such positive responses is, indeed, A Big Thing.

But.

I've had a bit of a year. The last time I sent the book out, it got rejected. They were nice rejections, friendly rejections, encouraging rejections, but rejections nevertheless. And the first one came the day after I found out I was miscarrying. And that has had subtle repercussions that I'm still discovering. One of which is... self confidence. I don't like or believe in myself as much as I did. Not a logically valid conclusion, but true nonetheless. And then there's the optimism.

I used to fantasise about good things happening. My name in glittering lights. My book, in bestseller lists. And when I got two emails, last Friday, saying two agents with great reputations were reading and enjoying my book... I thought, that's nice. But they'll change their minds before they get to the end.

That night, I tried to do what I used to do. I tried to construct a fantasy. What if... I stumbled at the very beginning. What if... they liked it? What if just one of them emailed me to say "Yes, I like it, I want to represent you"?

Nah. Wouldn't happen. Stupid fantasy. Think about something else.

Because optimistic plans don't come to fruition, not any more. You can't count on things, there's no point setting yourself up for a fall.

No. Come on. You can do it. What if... what if she likes it, she wants to be my agent, and I say, "Well, that's brilliant... but I'll just check what these other guys think; give myself maximum choice..." and then I email all the other agents saying "Ooh! Look! So-and-so wants to be my agent! What about you?" and then, oh, I dunno, maybe ten of them email me back and say...

No! Stop it, you ludicrous person! None of this stuff is going to happen! You are an idiot! Desist!

Bit I drank another can of beer, and I kept going. Right up to the point where I was auditioning literary agents within a week, and a weeek after that The Best Agent In The World had secured me the most amazing contract with The Best Publisher In The World and I lived happily ever after.

And it felt good, and some of the optimism came back. Some. Just a little.

Other nice stuff has happened, too. The woman who interviewed me for Albion Magazine has submitted her review of my other book to a magazine dedicated to "overlooked gems" published by small and indie publishers. And my blog has been chosen as a candidate for Blogsday 2007. Oh hang on a minute, apparently that happened last night. Anyone know if I was on it? I don't have speakers on this PC. I'll go listen in a bit. What else? There was something else, I'm sure...

Oh yes. Tomorrow, Manchester University Union (Oxford Rd), 5.30pm to 7pm, me and Jenny Roberts will be doing readings from our books. It's open to the public, I think. Come along. I'm doing the First Ever Reading from my new book. Which might be as public as it ever gets.

I went to Caroline's book launch last night. It was great.

The optimism's seeping back. There is Big Stuff going on in my life at the mo. I'm sworn to secrecy for now, but I'm working from home at the mo, and this morning I played great music Really Really Loud, closed my eyes and swayed to it. And it felt good. Things can feel good. And scary. But good.

Maybe things will be all right after all.


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Gay Paris

Oh flippin' 'eck, why is there always so much to do??

Well, the good news is that I'm sort-of-maybe-almost feeling a bit normal again, although as a good friend pointed out, there's no such thing as normal. Everything changes. But I've been off sick from work for the past few weeks, and that's affected my blogging.

I went back to work after the miscarriage, but I didn't last longer than a few days. I just couldn't cope. With anything. And then the doctor signed me off for stress, and then I felt all awkward about blogging. I didn't really want to go on about the stress, but I didn't feel much like writing about anything else, and anyway what if Someone Important read the blog and said "Ner ner, she's not sick, or how could she blog?" Which is obviously ridiculous - just because I'm ill, doesn't mean I can't blog - but still, it just feels kinda... argh, whatever, I'm going back to work tomorrow anyway.

We went to Paris at the weekend, which is another of those things you think maybe you should keep quiet about if you're Officially Ill, but it was of course very therapeutic. We were Manic Tourists on the Saturday and ran around Paris with a map in our hands going "let's go there! And then there! And then there!" We walked everywhere and didn't set foot in or on a single piece of transport until the evening, when we finally gave up and got the Metro to Montmartre. We didn't go in anything much, in fact - we just looked at things. We went in a few churches though, cos you can nip in for free, walk round the whole thing and back out again in double-quick time. There's something to be said for only having one floor and not bothering with internal walls. But we're both atheists, and Ally got a bit freaked out by all the churches - particularly when we got caught in the middle of a gigantic Catholic mass. Personally I just like the buildings.

Actually, that was interesting. We were in St Sulpice, and a mass was just coming to an end. Everyone was dressed in their best, and there were tons of kids and laughter and chatter, and I was thinking how much better a church felt when it was full of humanity having a fun day out. I was also admiring the stunning architecture and liking the combination of the two. Then Ally tugged on my sleeve and asked if we could leave, because he was getting freaked out. I thought it was all that demonically-Godful iconography that was getting his goat (I've always thought it all pretty scarily demonic, particularly when it's Catholic; it never feels particularly soft or loving or good). But anyway, it turned out it was the happy people that were doing his head in. Churches should be filled with quietly reverent miserable people, apparently. Anything else just isn't right. He was brought up in Calvinist Sunday schools in Scotland, that's his problem. For myself I just find it reassuring that most churchgoers just see it as an excuse to get dressed up and see the family, which is much better than some of the alternatives.

So anyway, we did the following, in super-fast order: Belleville, Les Halles, St Eustache, the Louvre, paddling in the fountains outside the Louvre, Jardin des Tuileries, Place de la Concorde, government buildings (can't remember the name - something like Assemblee Nationale?), Hotel des Invalides, Montparnasse, La Closerie des Lilas (a shockingly expensive bar where Trotsky used to drink - very beautiful, but not the best choice as one of the few places we went inside), Palais de Luxembourg and its lovely gardens, and a free art expo in one of its buildings (rather good), St Sulpice, Sorbonne, Notre Dame, Sacre Coeur, Montmartre, Pigalle, Moulin Rouge (outside not in), Belleville.

Walking a lot is very good for your calf muscles, but not so great if you've put weight on and are wearing a skirt. Two words: Chafing thighs. Ouch.

Then on Sunday we were hungover after drinking tons of wine in Montmartre, so we trugged desultorily around one floor of the Pompidou, then went and played Backgammon in Parc de Belleville and ate in a great little cafe/bar in Belleville. Oh, and we lost each other whilst searching for Pont des Suicides (Suicide Bridge, which is apparently where people have been known to kill themselves even when they weren't planning to) and I thought Ally had been seized with an uncharacteristic nihilism. But he hadn't. So that was all right.

Oh arse, it's time to pick Felix up already. Many thanks to Petite for letting us use her studio - Belleville is a great place to stay. Oh, and Tadpole is even more adorable than you'd think she would be, and a joy to read bedtime stories to.

Loss

Right at the start I was all logical and saying how I was fine, it was all right, no big deal. Miscarriages happen all the time, we can try again, it doesn’t mean anything’s wrong.

And right at the start that felt true. It was no big deal, I thought. I would get over it quickly and get on with my life.

Maybe the logic comes first and the emotion comes after, I don’t know.

I mean, of course it’s a big deal. But still I deny myself any grief. I tell myself to shut up, I wait impatiently for the day when everything is all right again, and mostly I won’t let myself cry.

I just found a message on our answering machine, from yesterday afternoon. It was the midwife, wondering why I hadn’t turned up for my appointment. So I rang them, very calmly, and was told it was the wrong number, so had to ring a different one, but they’re not there on Wednesdays, so I had to ring someone else, and finally I got through to someone, and told them, and they said “oh dear,” and asked me whether I wanted one of the midwives to ring me (what for??) and I said no, and I put the phone down, and it was all fine, except that I felt agitated.

The man who delivers the organic veg was shocked by my haircut (it used to be very-long and grey, but for the last week it’s been very-short and orange). He didn’t recognise me; thought he’d come to the wrong house.

“Was there any particular reason?” he said.

Yes, I thought. I got pregnant and fat and then I had a miscarriage and it made me miserable, so I had a hair-do to cheer me up.

“No reason,” I said. “I just fancied a change.”

I think my problem is the acknowledgement of loss. What did I lose? It wasn’t a baby. I hadn’t started thinking of it as a baby. I didn’t, wouldn’t, couldn’t think of Felix as a baby until he was there in my arms, and even then I wasn’t sure. It’s a protection mechanism, I think. Because deep down we all know, that it might not work out.

So, no. I never thought of my swelling tummy as a baby, not really. And the thing that I held in my hand in Asda’s disabled toilet, that wasn’t a baby either. And that’s why I feel as though it should be all right. Because I didn’t lose an actual thing, or a person, or a child. Just... something. Something intangible. Something I should have stopped going on about by now, because it’s getting boring.

But something which hurts, nonetheless.


___

Still Here

I've several times read the annoyed words of people who are exasperated to have read yet another blogger apologising for not posting anything. Who are they to assume people are hanging on their words? And they have a point.

But I know people keep coming here, and they keep finding nothing to read. And part of the reason for that is - paradoxically - that I know there are so many of you out there, waiting for something, and that paralyses me.

There never used to be so many of you before I had the miscarriage. There are three or four times as many of you now. That's pretty daunting all on its own.

I'm not someone who gets all depressed about the human race when confronted with evidence that we are interested in each other's misery. I slow down to look at car crashes, just like most other people. I don't think writers should be ashamed of themselves for finding their first impulse, when facing tragedy in their own lives, is to fish out a pen and document it.

It's a natural humnan response. We care about each other, and even when we don't, we're fascinated. We wonder how we would react in similar circumstances. We thank our lucky stars and not-so-lucky Gods that we're free of whatever misfortune we're witnessing, or we remember the times we weren't. That's fine, it's part of how we cope, what we are; it's confirmation of the connections we all share. It's better than ignoring one another. I've visited blogs several times a day when the blogger was experiencing something tragic or dramatic - been drawn to it all.

So anyway, I keep thinking things are, or should be better, but then I keep finding they're not. Physically I'm out of shape after months of increased eating and decreased exercise, and mentally I'm, well, unstable I suppose. I don't feel in control of my life.

But I'm muddling through, and don't seem to have much to say about it, or maybe just the energy to say it. I'm still here, and there are still plenty of smiles in my life.

Um. I wasn't intending to post anything - this just sort of snuck its way out of my fingertips when they were reaching for the "Shutdown" button, and now I'm taking them to bed.

Good night.


___

Weight

Money, future, work, novel, writing, babies, health... these are all things that are getting me down, but one of the big things is my weight.

I'm a woman, and a cliched one at that, so I have that relationship with my body that so many of us have. I get fat, something or somebody (a doctor, a friend, a mirror) brings it to my attention, I do something about it, I get thin again, I get fat again... blah blah.

I hate the fashion industry, the slimming industry, the fatty-haha culture that makes people hate themselves and have unreasonable ideas of what could or should be possible. I have militantly hairy armpits and when I diet I refuse to weigh myself, count calories or punish myself if I don't lose six stone in a nanosecond, but still I fall prey to all the shit...

OK, enough already with the excuses. Here's how it is: I was a virtuous exercising yoga-ing fatty-treats-are-rationed-for-weekends-ing kind of a gal, had even managed to fit into the first size 10 jeans for a decade... but then procreation beckoned, and I thought fuck it. Not only is a bit of cushioning good for unborn children, but I was fully expecting to vomit until I bled for weeks on end, lose two stone and end up on a drip, like last time. So I reasoned that Pregnancy Hunger was my body giving me a message: Eat Everything In Sight, Because This Meal Might Be Your Last For A Long Time.

And I was "showing" weeks before my womb had even parted from the small of my back, and proudly parading my bump wherever I went, my bump which I knew full well was nothing to do with pregnancy and everything to do with fat, but I Didn't Care, and anyway biscuits are nice.

And now, and now...

None of my clothes fit. I get out of breath climbing short flights of stairs. My knees are playing me up again, and I am fat fat fat fat fat. I look rubbish, not least because none of my clothes fit so I am stuck wearing the same old tired old maternity dungarees week in week out, and I refuse to even think about finding something else to wear because every time I open my wardrobe and find yet another old favourite piece of clothing which doesn't fucking fit I feel a little more crap, so I pretend I'm not even thinking about it. Until I get drunk and break down and sob about it all.

And now I'm having a crap day and I feel down and today I ate two Expensive Organic Chocolate Biscuits and they were yummy and I cracked in the biscuit shop and bought two boxes of even-yummier triple-chocolate cereal with flakes of real Belgian chocolate and oh my God it's just about the best stuff I ever tasted, and I said I would only allow myself to eat it on Saturday mornings but who the hell am I kidding

and I want some and it would make me feel better and so would the beer except that it fucking won't because I know it'll make me even fatter and more unfit and my knees will hurt even more and fewer clothes will fit and I will be even horribler to look at than I am already and

the spam keeps arriving in my email inbox you're fat, buy this product and your fat friends will envy you, God you're so fat and I watched the Super-Skinny-Me program and it just made me want to diet

but I'm desperate for chocolate because it will make me feel better

but it won't

but it will

oh fuck.


___

More Reactions

I'm gradually returning to the world, and as I do I encounter people. And their reactions.

There are so many taboos. As soon as I mention it, people flounder. And their responses bounce back, making me stumble too.

The friends we haven't seen for a while, and me getting drunk, and doing that thing I do, over-enthusiastic, over-talkative on whatever is happening in my life. And the thing that is happening in my life is the miscarriage, and so I talk about it, and people look awkward, and conversation dries up. They don't know how to cope with the way that I'm coping.

Thomas Truax, who we only see every few months, when he plays a gig in Manchester and we put him up for the night. I assume I will tell him, but I don't. He didn't even know I was pregnant. What would be the point?

And the fellow parents. The mother of Felix's schoolfriend, who asks after the pregnancy, so I have to tell her. She is horrified. She wants to know what happened. Who is my doctor? It must be the doctor's fault. The doctor must have done something to me. No, I say. It's normal. It happens all the time. It's nobody's fault. She entreats me to lie down more next time, sit down, take it easy. She doesn't notice the implication: that I caused it. And I know that I didn't make our baby die, but still our exchange rattles me, unsettles me, makes me morose.

And straight from there to a children's party, and all those mothers, and fathers, that I rarely see and barely know. And one of them knows about it, and I don't know whether the others do. And I hate these things anyway, and this one is particularly bad. Felix only knows two children, one of whom is busy fighting every boy he meets, and the other is coy, and she runs away from him when he tries to play. He is lonely and self-conscious. He feels out of place, and so do I. We have nobody to talk to, so we cling to each other. And then he goes off to eat the birthday tea, and I am left with the mums, who have loud conversations that make me feel left out. I want to tell them, for some reason. But I don't want them to ask. Which of course, they don't. I read a discarded tabloid, and try not to cry.

I'm not crying much any more though. I'm feeling a whole lot better.

But I'm back at work on Thursday. More awkward conversations, more taboos.

I bet you know tons of women who have had miscarriages, and you never had a clue. I bet I do, too. I keep looking at all those women, and wondering. What pain are they carrying around, unannounced and unappreciated?

It's sad.


___

Our Day Out

The sign on the door says “Equipment Room” but it contains a bed of sorts, and a separate toilet with a tap that doesn’t work, and shelf upon shelf of medical supplies. We are intrigued. We read the labels while we wait for the nurse.

“Semen analysis pots”

“We don’t normally put people in here,” says the nurse. “But we’re a bit busy today. We’ve had a lot of emergencies. Sorry about the bed.”

The bed is hard and narrow, and is really an examination couch. But I don’t mind. I’m not planning on sleeping.

The nurse has come to insert the pessaries. She asks if Ally should leave the room. That’s silly; he’s seen it all before. He can stay. So I remove my knickers and part my legs, and Ally is there on his chair by the bed, and I am thinking, “But surely there should be a screen?”

“Non breath masks”

The pessaries will give me contractions, which will expel the remains of the gunk. A 96% success rate.

She explains the cardboard pots. There’s a way of propping them under the seat. And then I must ring the bell.

“You will be asked to use a bed pan every time you need the toilet so that the nurse can check for blood loss and tissue. Diarrhoea can sometimes be a side effect of the pessaries, but please do not be embarrassed.”

“Blood bottles”

I don’t like bothering them. I keep urinating. There is no blood. But still I must ring the bell.

I want cups of tea, constantly. I don’t like being a pain. I make Ally ask them instead. They’re very nice. They don’t seem to mind.

But still I don’t give them my Red Bush teabags.

“Urine bags”

What do they make of us? When they walk in, we are laughing. At the date (Friday 13th, and we have only just noticed), or the cannulas (the what?) that come in green, blue, grey and pink.

I adjust the bed, so I can sit up and read. It creaks and bounces each time I lean back. I prop pillows behind me, which slide down again. Ally’s chair is hard and uncomfortable.

“Nasel cannula”

The nurse says someone has been discharged, and I can have her bed. I tell her not to worry. I am fine.

I don’t want to be a nuisance.

“Transwabs”

That spaced-out feeling of a heavy period. Even before the painkillers, I am floaty and distant.

I read some poetry my mum sent me. Walter de la Mare, and she has taped dried flowers into the back of the book:



The nurses are nice. The nurses are always nice, but these ones are also jolly.

What did she think, the one that came to fetch supplies and found me standing there, pen and paper in hand, copying down labels?

“Catheters”

There are many sizes of syringe, all the way up to 30ml, which are enormous. It worries me to imagine so much stuff going into someone’s vein. But it’s all right - they’re for pulling, not pushing. Suck, not blow.

“Specimen pots”

What can we steal?

Nothing much is happening. Should I help it along? Move around, as though I were in labour? Squat on the floor?

“CLINICAL WASTE FOR INCINERATION EXCLUDING AEROSOLS AND GLASSWEAR”

What kind of glass can you wear, I wonder. Contact lenses? Spectacles?

I eat high-cocoa chocolate from my Thornton’s easter egg.

“Mouthpieces”

This makes me think of wind instruments, which makes me think of medical supplies.

My phone rings. Our friend Debs, ringing about a gig tomorrow night. I explain I’m in hospital. She assumes our night out will be cancelled. Oh no, I say. We’re still going.

“Sani-cloth sterets”

I want to know the connection between periods, contractions, labour. Why doesn’t it feel muscular, if a cramp is a contraction? If orgasms cure period pains (they do), is it because they squeeze sperm up your tubes? Is an orgasm a contraction in the opposite direction? Do they cancel each other out?

“Stockings”

Do nurses often find couples shagging in hospital rooms? Yes, says Ally. On Friday nights when they’ve been waiting, drunk, bored, for hours on end. But no, says Ally, not us.

I didn’t mean us. That would be weird.

“Vac needles”

Large sloppy poos on small cardboard pots are no fun. I ring the bell. When the nurse catches sight of the present I have left her, she flinches. She carries the steaming pile away, at arm’s length. The smell lingers.

"Please do not be embarrassed." But I am, I am.

“Needles: green, blue, orange and cream”

Words, words, everywhere. Labels, signs, notices, packaging, anatomical diagrams.

I have had a lot of painkillers now. The pain was bearable, but what the hell. Free drugs!

“Alcowipes” (for dirty alcoholics?)

A diagram on the wall:

“Perimetrium”
“Endometrium”
“Pubic bone”
“Anterior fornix”
“Clitoris”
“Recto-uterine pouch” (for keeping your recto-uterine money in)
“Labium majora”
“Cavity of cervix” (like an air lock, and I never knew it existed)

We play Scrabble. I am off my face on high-strength medication. I excuse my verbal incompetence in advance. It will not be my fault. He doesn’t make allowances though. That would be no fun.

Still I win, with 377 points. Ally sulks, so we play Backgammon to cheer him up. The idea of cheering him up, cheers him up.

“Blue nitrile gloves” in red, blue and green boxes.

Another phone call, from my friend Saira. She is having a hysterectomy today. In the same hospital, the same department, only yards away.

“Hello, I’m in pain!”

“So am I!”

It’s time to go home. But I haven’t been here long. Have I? And I didn’t bleed; just a million wees and one ginormous turd. And the contractions are really strong now - just like being in labour.

But where’s the blood?

“Nebulisers”

They say they will get my pain under control, before they let me go. They give me more pills. Bargain.

Yet another phone call, this time from the babysitter, who is standing outside our house, with our son, and wondering where we are. A misunderstanding. An urgent phone call to the next door neighbour. Speaking normally, despite the codeine and the everything happening and not happening.

“Plug, stopper and bung” (a firm of dodgy solicitors)

I tell Ally he must make sure I don’t get in the driving seat, as I am too off my face to remember not to drive the car.

“Tuberculocidal” (like homicidal)

We go home.

It was a fun day out.


___

Over

I'm just back from the hospital, where they announced that my womb lining has mysteriously, rather magically, disappeared. Or reduced. Something that was 22mm is now 13mm. There's been no bleeding since the last scan, so it's all a bit intriguing.

But, whatever. No D&C, and it has officially been declared over. And I have to go back to work next week. Oh, bum.

Still, life can get back to to some vague semblancy of normality now. That's good.


___

My Head

It's hard to describe how I am at the moment.

A bit madder than normal, I guess.

I keep bursting into tears at little things. Like when I ran out of milk. Or when ther was someone holding a baby on ER. Or when a doctor saved a girl's life in a shop, and...

OK, so that one requires some explanation. A few weeks ago, Felix started choking on a sweet. I hit him on the back, tried (and failed) to do the Heimlich manoeuvre, and between us we would each other within seconds to joint panic pitch. Somewhere in the midst of it all I managed to squeak out an anguished "Ally!" and Ally, who was in the next room, came in, threw Felix over his shoulder and gave him a good thump on the back, which seemed to do the trick.

We were all a bit shocked, but that's the weird thing about choking: it all happens so fast, and when it's over, it's over. Either way.

Anyway, I'd pretty much forgotten about it until Mark Green, the doctor on ER, did the same thing to a girl in a shop. And I burst out sobbing. Because the thought of losing Felix, on top of everything else...

And it is a bit like losing a child. Even though on a logical level I think that's ridiculous. It was never a child. It never had a personality. But thoughts keep popping into my head.

I was pregnant, and now I'm not.

In the first couple of weeks, it was all about the logic. I was all rational, and full of reasons why it didn't really matter.

But I guess that was a holding pattern. It took time for the emotional stuff to sink in. And then there are the hormones, which mean you're never quite sure what's "genuine" emotion and what's chemical. But of course, it doesn't really matter. It's all here in my head, in my heart, no matter where it came from.

Sometimes I'm tearful. Sometimes I'm just paralysed. Sometimes I'm numb, and staring at things from afar.

I keep thinking of things I could be doing with all this spare time, but I never manage to do any of them. I could be working on my book. I could be doing another edit, getting it ready to send out to agents again. But I'm not.

I could be reading books, or watching films, or eating chocolate, or writing short stories, or singing songs... God, the list of things I have been wanting to do, if only I had the spare time. Well, it's a long list. But am I doing any of it? Am I fuck.

Still, at least it proves I'm not skiving. There's no way I could do any work right now. Indeed, the thought fills me with dread.

And my middle is hurty. Sometimes my front-middle, sometimes my side-middle, sometimes my back-middle. Sometimes shooting pains, sometimes soreness, sometimes acheyness, my middles are offering a veritable smorgasbord of suffering. And sometimes it moves out, into my legs, my wrists, even my head. Except that none of it is actually that bad. I've stopped taking painkillers, and it's not constant. It wafts in and out, like a bored person looking for somewhere to read.

Sometimes I just feel raw all over, like the slightest gust of wind could cause agony to several exposed nerve endings.

But I've gone cold turkey on chocolate and alcohol. I'm restricting myself to weekends only. Trying to make it a treat, instead of a habit. And reverse my exploding waistline.

We've decided to wait a bit. Until I'm more stable. Try and enjoy the rest. For the last two years I've leapt from one life mission to the next: loft conversion, novel, pregnancy. It'd be nice to just live for a little while. Gather the scattered troops and throw them a party before sending them out again. We've booked tickets to Paris in June, for a very-short very-cheap break.

So. There you go. Can't think of a good cadence for this one. Even my urge to write is sporadic, half-hearted, desultory.

But I think I should stop watching ER.


___

Boring Update With Details and Stuff

I've been posting a lot of guff lately, little twiddly posts between great long Important Ones, and the page turnover is very fast, and some of you are new here, and some of you don't visit very often (don't feel guilty, I do that too). So here is a rundown of Where I'm At:

I was pregnant, and then I wasn't. Every time we visit the hospital, they give us three options: (1) Let well alone, and That Nature Thing will sort it all out. Maybe. Probably. (2) Take drugs to force my body into a sort-of-almost laboury-type thing. (3) Have a D&C, which is where they scrape out the inside of your womb under general anaesthetic.

At first we chose option 2 (take drugs), but then Nature stuck her oar in before we had a chance, so we decided to go for option 1 (leave it be). But then Nature got bored and fell asleep, so we went for option 2 again (on Friday 13th, which I thought was pretty hilarious), but it didn't work. Currently I'm having period pains / cramps / contractions / labour pains (I'm very confused about all these terms, and could write a whole bloody post about it, and probably will, but I think they're all basically the same thing) most of the time, and barely notice them any more (they're quite mild), but it means I'm not really my normal self. Oh, and my hormones are all over the place. And I'm sleeping a lot. And I'm getting strange pains in my left hip. But apart from that, I'm fine.

There's still a load of gunk in my womb though, and we're going in for yet another scan on Friday, so unless I start bleeding between now and then, I think we'll finally opt for option 3 (womb scrape under general anaesthetic). I'll be glad when it's over.

In other areas of my life, or rather the other area of my life, I wrote another book, I sent it to four agents, three of them said No, one of them hasn't got back to me yet.

A literary agent is like an estate agent. They take responsibility for finding a buyer for your book, and if they find one they get a cut of the proceeds. Selling books is a complex business, and a LOT easier if you have an agent on your side. They're much nicer than the house-selling kind. I'll probably have to send the synopsis out to a whole load of new agents, and hope one bites. And then I'll have to find a publisher. It's all a bit of a pain.

To be honest, I was rather hoping I'd be well on my way to a second baby and a second book deal by now, but hey ho. Life is never simple.

And now I'm all sleepy again, so I may go back to bed.

Sorry for raking over old ground like this - I just realised it was hard for the casual reader to work out what the hell was going on in my life.


___

See, I told you... Rubbish!

Oh, for fuck's sake.

So they said we could do drugs or operations or nothing, and we decided to do drugs, but then my body beat us to it so we decided not to do drugs after all, except that my womb was having a good old larf and took the opportunity to shut down and do absolutely fuck all for a week or so, so we plumped for the drugs option again, and stuffed me full of this-actols and that-exes and the-other-ums but STILL nothing happened and now here I am...

Here I am. Having had contractions all day and nurses examining every squirt, splodge or gromit that issued forth from my nether regions, no matter how smelly or vile, but none of it NONE of it has been blood or guts or womb linings, and they say it'll probably happen over the weekend but the contractions stopped hours ago and I just know that next Friday when they scan me again they'll tell me it's STILL not over, and after over three weeks of blood and gore and pain they're going to tell me that it was all for nothing and I'll have to have a fucking D&C* which is what I was trying to avoid all along and may as well have had in the first place.

Or not.

I mean, this may well be what is known in the trade as A Catastrophic Thought, or Several Disastrous And Utterly Paranoid Ramblings, but, well, you know.

Pah.



*Surgical procedure. Apparently quick and simple, but many risks involved.


___

Dinna Fash Y'Sen

Don't worry, I'm really not the type.

Because if you, like me, are prone to being convinced that your nearest and dearest are surely on the brink of becoming alcoholics / have caught some kind of rare cancer / are about to announce their allegiance to The God Of Snarfoo, then my previous post, and various other things I've said recently, will have you angsting about some kind of horrible addiction I'm about to catch cos of Being Bereaved or something.

But in fact I seem almost incapable of becoming addicted to anything. Despite being ever-so-slightly-mad and generally unhinged, I've never developed a habit for anything worse than Red Bush tea. My heart simply isn't it.

But I can't deny that just now, just for a few days...

I'm enjoying my beer.


___

Hedonism

I've always felt rather in awe / jealous of people who can get really off their faces and want to / can go on drinking for hours and hours and hours...

I've always been both mentally and physically incapable of it. And yet, now, suddenly, I'm one of them.

And why? Because I desperately want to escape, to anaesthetise myself. Which is such a cliched explanation for this type of behaviour, I can barely bring myself to type it out.

But in my case it's true.

But also fun. Great fun, in fact.

Hmmm.


___

Brave and Strong

Many thoughts, I have been having, about courage and all that. About how I'm Trying To Be Brave, and about whether this is good or bad, and which is the most important to avoid: Wallowing or Repression? and about how good I am at accelerating my own depressions, and if I can find myself a Something In The Middle.

But I like it when people tell me I'm brave, snd strong. I guess if I'm honest that's partly why I'm blogging this in the way that I am. I want you all to stoke my ego and tell me how ace I am.

And the best part is, when it all falls apart and I stop being B & S, and collapse in a puddle of grief instead, as long as I tell you all about it, you still call me S & B, for being so honest. Bargain!


___

BBC Radio Thing

I was on t' radio yesterday afternoon, talking about blogging about the miscarriage. I now have a permanent link to that interview, for those who want to listen again. It's here.

I'm just back from the hospital and am off my head on a cocktail of hospital-prescribed painkillers, so will not attempt to write anything in detail just now.

It hasn't worked yet - no bleeding today, just lots of contractions. Still getting the latter, so apparently it's likely to happen at some point over the weekend, during which I will also be spending some time with my son, then nipping over to Sheffield for a Seasick Steve gig, then spending the night, then bombing over to Crosby to see the Gormley sculptures with Looby. May sound a bit mad, but I figure that if I'm going to be in pain I may as well be doing nice stuff at the same time. And anyway, this weekend's entertainments were planned weeks ago.

So, next time you heart from me may well be Monday... either that or you'll get drunken / painkiller-induced ramblings at odd points throughout the weekend. Who knows? All part of life's adventure, innit...


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Behind the Scenes at the Museum

Well, that was a bit bizarre.

I've just been interviewed by Richard Fair on BBC Radio Manchester, about the miscarriage and my blogging of it. But the radio show is an out-and-about-in-Manchester type of show, which comes daily from a different part of the city, and today the presenter was set up behind a desk in the foyer of Manchetser Museum. Which meant that people kept coming up and asking where the dinosaurs were.

I suspect it would have been strange wherever we were - it's an odd experience to be talking about dead babies on the radio, no matter what the cirumstance. At first I tried to avoid any graphic descriptions, but as things went on I realised he wasn't worried about it, and I remembered that part of his interest in me was how honestly I've blogged all this, and in how much detail. So I stopped pussyfooting around.

It wasn't an unpleasant or painful experience, and anyone who listens will realise I don't find it difficult to talk about such things, but I walked away feeling a little... I dunno. Bewildered?

You can listen again here. Apologies if I spoke too fast - I tend to do that.

I have no idea what any passing museum visitors thought of it all. I do know where the dinosaurs are though: Go up the stairs, turn left at the top and follow the signs.


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[she laughs so hysterically she falls off her chair]

More Than a Feeling! By Boston!

The man is a genius.


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Cried Off

I'm downstairs, and the scanner is in my study up two flights of stairs, and I'm pissed, so you won't be getting to see it any time soon...

OK, we have an interruption to the service at this point: I was about to post a melancholy post about misery and self pity and self loathing and tears and sobbing and cold rationalism and how awful it is to stay dry-eyed when people are crying at my words...

But then the two bongs kicked in and it suddenly came into my head that I should switch Film4 off and play some music instead, and I was going to play Rocky Mountain Way by Joe Walsh but I got distracted and played Rockin' All Over The World by Status Quo instead, and had to turn the volume up really loud, and then Ally walked in the door fro the pub and he thought he was going to find Depressed Crying Clare (so did I, to be honest) and instead he got Laughing Hysterically Clare to a Status Quo soundtrack, and we are now smoking more and having a Who Can Find The Most Ridiculous Songs play-off, and maybe life's not so bad after all.


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Silver Linings

You want to know what the best thing about all this is?

It's material. I'm scribbling constantly in notebooks. It's a fiction goldmine.

And the alcohol, I don't normally do this: Keep drinking with the aim of passing out.

Yes, I'm drunk.

And I hate myself.


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Brief Update

Warning: This post is only of interest to people like me who love medical detail. Otherwise, best to avoid.

We're just back from the hospital. Thanks to the miracle of modern technology, we now know that there's a whole load more gunk left to come. I'd been hoping it was over, but apparently not. We're going into hospital for the day on Friday, for "medical management of miscarriage" which involves shoving a load of drugs you-know-where. It's actually the same procedure as is used to induce labour. Well, technically that's exactly what it is (although also-technically I have already given birth).

Anyway, by Friday the majority of it will be over, although there could still be bleeding and pain for a week or two afterwards.

This is the third time we've been offered three choices:

(a) "Conservative management," i.e. leave well alone and let nature take its course,
(b) "Medical management," i.e. shove some drugs up your wotsit,
(c) "Surgical management," i.e. general anaesthetic and an internal scrape.

We originally chose the second option, but nature beat us to it, so the second time we were asked we chose the first option, but in the intervening week nature has gone all bone-idle so we're going for the second option again.

At any point we could have opted for surgical management, which would have been the quickest and cleanest choice - but also the most risky. General anaesthetic always carries a risk, but there is also infection to think about, as well as possible perforation of either bladder or uterus. Not good! That's why we're avoiding it. And, messy though it is, I like to trust my body to sort itself out wherever possible, although granted I've now run out of patience and am giving it a helping hand.


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21 Reasons Why a Miscarriage is A Bit Rubbish

It is, just a bit. Here's why:

(1) Despite the fact that your insides are babyless, they are still Sticking Out. Which may or may not have something to do with the fact that you thought you could get away with eating Whatever The Hell You Liked for two months, because you were pregnant. You were pregnant. Now you are just fat. Which is rubbish.

(2) It makes you want to get drunk all the time. Which would be fine if alcohol weren't a depressant and didn't make you hungover, as well as even more fat. Which is bobbins.

(3) It makes you want to eat chocolate all the time. Which also makes you fat. And stops being a cheer-you-up treat when you eat several tons of the stuff every hour. Which is a big pile of poo. Not literally though. That would just be weird.

(4) If the alcohol, the fat tummy and the baby-losing thing weren't making you depressed enough already, you are also not allowed to do strenuous exercise. For several weeks. Which makes you even fatter and even more depressed.

(5) The blood. It keeps coming out. Which leads to various problems, such as:

(6) Clothes. You can only wear dark colours. Add to that fact the Enormously Large Tummy which can no longer be explained away by pregnancy, and all you are left with is dark blue maternity dungarees. Every day. Which is a bit pants.

(7) Tampons. You're not allowed to use them. They can cause infection, apparently. So what the fuck are you supposed to do if you want...

(8) A bath? Which you do, because you are bleeding everywhere, and...

(9) It smells. Like a particularly smelly and drawn-out period. This stinks.

(10) It hurts. I was in serious pain most days last week. Which was crap.

(11) It goes on forever. I think most people assume (I certainly did) that you collapse in a big pile of blood for a few hours, and then it's all over. But no. It takes days, sometimes weeks, for it all to come out. And modern scanning techniques mean you often know (as we did) it's going to happen before it actually happens. So first you get the waiting. Then the bleeding. Then more waiting. More scans. More bleeding. And so on. It's rather tiresome.

(12) You don't get anything proper to grieve over, so you feel you have to gloss over it all the time. Unfortunately, your hormones don't agree.

(13) Hormones. They make you angry, sad, confused and FUCKING GRUMPY, without warning and in no particular order and please will you all just FUCK OFF RIGHT NOW but not before I've cried all over your jumpers. [sniff]

(14) Babies and pregnancies and all related matters are fucking everywhere. You will not escape.

(15) It's a very common complaint. It doesn't even make you special. At least if I'd given birth to a half-horse-half-hippopotamous it would have given us something to talk about.

(16) Breasts. Still enormous, still sore, still smelly. My boobs and I are not on the best of terms right now.

(17) Painkillers. How many? How often? What type? Can I last a little longer without taking any? Have I pooed yet today? Will they make me constipated, or give me a headache, and have I remembered to put some in my handbag / by my bed / down my throat?

(18) It's a rubbish name. Should it be used in noun form (I have had a miscarriage) or verb (I am miscarrying)? Does it describe a state or an event? Is it still happening until it's all come out? Am I still miscarrying? And to miscarry sounds like you held the baby a bit wrong, and if you just hitched it up under your left armpit / over your right hip you'd be fine.

(19) People's faces. Ally said last week he didn't want to go into work cos he couldn't be arsed arranging his face. People are either too sympathetic or not sympathetic enough. I don't want people to act like nothing's happened, but I don't want them fawning all over me either. Sorry folks, you're best avoiding me for a bit. I don't have an Etiquette Guide for this one, and I'll change my mind from one moment to the next.

(20) Sick leave. The pain and the bleeding come and go. The tears come and go. Sometimes I'm fine. I feel crap for taking all this time off work. But I really don't want to go to work. But I still feel guilty.

(21) Sex. I'm not squeamish, generally. I'm not one of those who abstains once a month. But... aaargh. You can imagine.

So. There you go. It's official: miscarriages are rubbish.


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