older

profile

guestbook

notes

diaryland

bumpwatch

Mon 8th August – Thurs 11th August 2005

As soon as I woke up on Monday morning I felt wrong. I did not want to get out of bed, I did not want to go to work. All I wanted to do was lie on the sofa in my flat watching meaningless television and shutting out the world. Anything outside of my flat in the real world seemed too difficult and scary to deal with. It took every ounce of energy I could muster to get me out of the front door, and I felt like invisible bungee ropes were pulling me back with every step. I got through the day at work in a daze, I don't know how I managed it.

I had to head to Kent in the evening to see my homeopath, who is treating me for my active ulcerative colitis. I told him about all the fear and anxiety I was suffering and he is going to treat that, try to calm me down, he said to give me a break from myself. I also have to meditate and concentrate every day on breathing deeply and purposefully. He also recommended I get myself some Rescue Remedy. After my visit with the homeopath I went to my mum's for dinner, then I broke down completely. Everything just hit me like a ton of bricks and it was all too much for me to deal with. A baby? Oh my God. We can't afford a baby. We can barely afford to eat. We have debts up to our ears and I'll have to go back to work after my maternity leave which means we'll have to pay for disgustingly expensive childcare and, because we're not overweight chavs sponging off benefits, dragging up our kids to be yobs and generally contributing to the demise of society, we will get minimal help from the government. Childcare is going to cost us about the same as our rent each month - where the hell are we going to find that kind of money? And of course it means our little one will spend more time with paid carers than with us, and that depresses me so much I could cry forever.

When I finally got back home that night I was exhausted with hormones and crying and I felt as though my life was coming to an end and from now on it's going to be one long battle against finances.

On Tuesday things didn't get better. I woke with the same gnawing depressed feeling and had to drag myself into work. I spent all day going over and over and over in my head how we are going to afford all this. I came up with a million solutions and discarded a million solutions. When I got home I explained to Hubby that I thought our best bet was to chuck all the money we could at our debts and just get rid of as much as possible, even if we're living off omlettes and never going out EVER, at least by the time the baby is born we will have done something to put ourselves in a better situation and free up some monthly cash to help with childcare. Don't ask me how but this resulted in an enormous argument. I walked out and went and sat by the lake in the forest behind our flat for half an hour, just looking at the water and feeling utterly utterly miserable.

We resolved it in the end but once again I went to bed exhausted from crying and worrying.

Right now the world just seems like a horrible evil place, there's crime and war and terrorism everywhere. Why would we want to bring an innocent child into it? Why would we want to send an innocent child out into the world amongst the murderers and bombers, the ignorant and the evil? Hubby says it's because good people have to have good children to even it out otherwise everyone would be bad. But all I felt was that I couldn't remember what it was like to feel happy and relaxed and at ease with life and the world.

Thankfully the deep depression that had been surrounding me in the earlier part of the week seemed to have lifted when I woke up on Wednesday and I didn't feel quite as sad. It was still a huge struggle to force myself out of the front door when all I wanted to do was crack open a packet of jaffa cakes and watch Location Location Location on Discovery all day, but I managed it somehow.

It was a quiet day at work and I actually felt quite productive for the first time in ages and I got quite a lot done. By Wednesday evening I was feeling generally better, yes we're going to be poor for some time but in three years we'll be debt free, hopefully homeowners and we'll have a beautiful three-year-old nearly ready to start school. Hubby and I fed the ducks in the lake behind our flat and sat in the sunshine for a while, and for the first time in a long time I breathed out a bit.

On Thursday morning I could not get out of bed. We had got to bed by 11pm the night before and I was out like a light, but eight hours later I could not get my limbs to lift me out of my bed. I had had weird dreams all night about bugs stuck in my hair. Once again I used all the willpower I could muster to exit the safe confines of our flat and head to work. Once there I couldn't concentrate at all and, although my anxieties seemed to have calmed down slightly (possibly down to my newly acquired Rescue Remedy?), I quite happily watched the little piles of work on my desk grow around me and did nothing about them…until around 2pm when I had a sudden spurt of enthusiasm and cleared everything but the bits I most enjoy, I saved those for tomorrow so I could have a relaxing Friday.

Every month I volunteer as a street rescue worker with our street rescue team. We go out onto the streets of London’s outer boroughs helping homeless people. Tonight was supposed to my shift but as the clock approached 3pm it was becoming steadily clear that I would not be awake by the start of my shift at 6pm, let alone by midnight at the end of it. I had to cancel – I felt terrible letting them down last minute but all I could think about was my duvet, a hot cup of Ovaltine and a caramel biscuit. With all the emotional turmoil I’ve been through this week I reckon I deserve a bit of selfishness.

last five:
Five Months Old - Friday 1st September 2006
10 Weeks and 3 Days Old - 2006-06-12
Lillia Charlotte arrives - 31st March 2006
Week 39-Monday-Wednesday - Monday 20th March-Wednesday 22nd March 2006
Week 38 - Wednesday-Sunday - Wednesday 15th March-Sunday 19th March 2006

| * * | bumpsadaisy 2005 | * * |

www.bumpsadaisy.diaryland.com