I feel like a coward. I keep teetering on the edge of ‘Coming Out’ at work, but then I keep finding that the opportunity doesn’t present itself. Even when it does, I sidestep it. I don’t think I’ve been ready. Over the last couple of weeks, however, I’ve started to feel differently. It’s coming, I … Continue reading Out of the Box
I hate that I feel self conscious about this. But I do. I have kids from not one, but two split families. There, I've said it. The first, as I have spoken about before, couldn’t be more amicable. We have a united front, and negotiate the shared parenting waters with ease. The children always come … Continue reading Decisions
Five minutes back from holidays and it’s like I never had them. The bustling environment of a school is always busy and loud – the atmosphere one of excitement mixed with both a healthy dose of terror and loathing. Once I’m there, I love it. It’s just the coming back after a delightful two weeks … Continue reading In the Blood
I’m often asked if how I feel about my eight year old Master M is any ‘different’ to how I feel about my biological kids. The answer is a resounding no. I carried him but he isn’t my child biologically. My partner at the time went through IVF and had her eggs removed, fertilised with … Continue reading The ‘Oven’
“When it comes to generating writing material, teenagers are gold. Their world is a narcissistic, anarchic, paranoid hell of anxieties and stresses about how they look; how popular they are or aren’t; and how fast or slowly, big or small their private parts are growing […] Lifts and pocket money aside, teenagers crave privacy – … Continue reading So Many Baskets
Now here is a contentious one for you... I write this entry with as much care and sensitivity as I can muster, having already experienced a taste of the polarising and colourful reactions to this ‘land mine’ of a discussion. I stumbled into this issue for the first time about fourteen years ago, completely by … Continue reading Donor ‘Siblings’
It’s a sign of growing old, I am sure, but I regularly think about my younger self and wish that I could go back and give myself a few timely words of advice. I also wish that my younger self would listen. Growing up, I hated my body. Forget that it was the only one … Continue reading Russian Roulette
It was one of the best, but also one of the worst years of my life in 2003 when Master Z made his way into our world. I was 36 weeks and 4 days pregnant and had suffered lower back pain all day. Thinking I needed to lie down, I went into the bedroom to … Continue reading Earlymark
Parenting is a drug. The highs are amazing, euphoric even. The lows: the worst come down ever. Nothing makes you confront your own feelings of inadequacy and fractures your sense of self-worth like a teenager with a bee in his (or her) bonnet. That same being you held to your breast and nurtured, that you … Continue reading Drug of Choice
Our excitement at being pregnant for the first time in 2002 was short-lived. Tragically, our first pregnancy ended in miscarriage at 8 weeks. It was three days after the Bali bombing in 2002 that we lost our first little one. We were actually supposed to be in Bali with my ‘in-laws’, T’s parents, at the time, … Continue reading Rocky Road
