November 17th (the day I'm hitting publish on this blog, because, DUH, I'm just sooo co-ordinated) is World Prematurity Day. Learn how you can support the care of premature babies through Bliss, the charity for babies born premature or sick. I had my son five weeks early, which, in the grand scheme of things, isn't very early at all. Premature pregnancies can be delivered from 24 weeks,...
Being a parent is a role that comes with a lot of 'on-the-job' learning, and there's a whole host of things you have no idea how to deal with until they come up. Everyone's parenting experience is different, but it can be difficult to get others to understand that. I've written a couple of blogs now on experiences I've had as a Mum and I've shared them amongst others in order to raise some...
My experience giving birth seemed to fly by in a blur of hyper-emotion, dull physical pain and still-scenes from my hospital bed playing back in my mind. Looking back on it afterward, I had questions, so I attended Birth Reflections counselling to try and fill in the blanks. Please note this is my personal experience and the info given on the practicalities of the counselling was correct when I...
For me, the initials 'PTSD' conjure up mental images of injured servicemen and older people who have been through vastly traumatic historical experiences needing help to work through them mentally at a later date. I'm neither of those things, so somehow I'd never expected to be diagnosed with it myself. Yet, here we are, and I've just finished my first (and hey, hopefully only, right?) course of...
"Well, we always did it like that... and my kids turned out OK" The second you tell people you’re pregnant, or have a visible baby bump, it seems like everyone loves to give you advice on pregnancy and parenting; often unsolicited. My finding out that I was pregnant so late meant that I was pretty open-minded to any advice shared with me – after all, I knew nothing about babies and felt...