25 May 2014

My Love My Life 5/12 - I want to Be


I want to be RICH!  How many of us say that.  There's probably hundreds of things I would like to be, but I guess the important ones usually fall into three categories.  Happiness, Health and Wealth

If you and your family had all three your life would be sorted right?  Lets talk about the least important one, money.  Now, some may think hey, wait a minute that’s the most important.  Reality check, if you are a sad Susan and your general health is not great, no amount of money is going to fix that. You may think it would, but deep down you are who you are.

Take a handful of lotto jackpot winners, do any of them still have most of their winnings. How many are still together with their spouse or partner.  How many have totally screwed up and made an arse of it.  Probably quite a few!  They say money doesn't bring you happiness, but what it does bring is choice.  Imagine being able to choose what you do everyday instead of having to get up and go to work.  If you want to have money, the thing you must actually master is good decision making because without that you will likely fail.  

I think you'll find that most people that do have lots of money are very ruthless. Probably the reason they have it in the first instance.  Money is a dangerous commodity; it can change people.  Some it may enhance their lives, other it will ruin theirs.

If you are a person, whose main focus in life is to be rich, you are an equally ruthless character.  Blinded by the pursuit of perceived wealth, they will do whatever they see necessary to get their hands on some cash.  Like, the duplicitous women that bait married men in the hope of getting a cut of the family fortune.  Yes it happens.  We read about it all the time and it’s not just a problem for the rich and famous.  For some, money and success is so important they dismiss the feelings of others.  They forget to be grateful for what they have.  

It would be nice to not have to think about money, but the reality is most people work for years hoping to get to that position.   Sadly, as you earn more, you want more and you'll never get to the point where you don't have to work.  It is easy to say money can't buy happiness.  For some people struggling financially it can seem like that is the missing part of the jigsaw.  I get that.  I think most people believe it’s the answer to their problems.  Most people want to be rich.  Guess what, it's not going happen.  Sorry to be blunt.  
If you take one thing from this blog post it should be this.  Be thankful for the air that you breathe because you know what, some people struggle doing that.  Be thankful we live in a fairly civilised country.  People around the world don’t have enough to eat.  Some are living in war zones, others are drinking sewage water exposing themselves to serious health issues.  Look around you at things you have which money can't buy.  That's what makes you truly rich.  And, as my mother would say “there are people a lot worse off than yourself.”

Please pop over to my good friend Evy's blog, where she talks about her hopes and dreams for her two beautiful girls. Click here


03 May 2014

The Second Trimester



So much happened in the second trimester, some great, some extremely stressful and scary.  Turkey was good for me, just the break I needed and lets face it, I probably wasn’t going to get another for a few years.  This blog is a direct follow on from The twelve week scan

My mum has friends in Turkey, they live on a farm way up in the hills far away from the regular tourists.  It’s pretty basic, almost like Roma villages you see on television.  We stayed for the night and I was really cautious I didn’t eat anything.  There’s all these lists in the western world about what you can and can't eat while pregnant, but in places like Turkey you eat what you have and milk comes straight from the cow.  I slept on the only bed they had in the house, under a mosquito net that my mum had purchased for them a few years earlier.   I lay on the bed listening to bugs flying about and it made me feel really grateful for the life style we sometimes take for granted here in the UK. 

Once home the hospital appointments started up again.  I was seen frequently, usually every two weeks. We were a little upset that my husband missed the twelve-week scan but being seen and scanned again at fourteen weeks made us feel happy.  I actually felt really good in this trimester.  I had loads of energy, no morning sickness and I was out buying or looking at baby bits and bobs every chance I had.  I started a Pilates class early in my pregnancy and when my stomach started to grow too big I found a pregnancy yoga class.  I wanted to be in the best possible shape for what lay ahead.  I also had to think about parting with my beloved pink smart car. My favourite car ever!  We planned a little holiday to Cornwall, driving about and exploring was just the thing we loved doing.  My cousin who lives down that way was seven months pregnant and I thought it would be nice to go visit her, you know so we could compare bumps.  It‘s somewhere I’d always wanted to visit and it was scorching hot, just like being abroad.   My husband was a bit of a Rick Stein fan so we were definitely going to visit Padstow.  It was so lovely, we knew we’d return one day with Daisy in tow.  I bought her first toys in a Rick Stein boutique; at £40 each for some crochet rabbits Daddy Bear needed a little persuasion.  I will treasure the memories of that grumpy face, so to make him feel even better; I bought a bloody cake stand too!

I was really looking forward to starting my first antenatal classes but unfortunately, my dreams of a “normal” delivery were shattered when I was diagnosed with Placenta Praevia.  It can correct itself as the pregnancy develops and plans can change right through pregnancy from one week to the next.  I soon needed another course of IV antibiotics, as my body wasn’t coping.  My CF team were voicing concerns about a vaginal delivery knowing I was struggling to breathe and I resigned myself to the reality that I was going to have a planned caesarean section.  There were a lot of mixed emotions around this time because of the worry surrounding the various tests that are carried out to determine major birth defects.  This included the 20-week scan, which we were looking forward to, but there is always that worry we would find out there was something wrong.  By this time you look pregnant, you have accepted you are going to have a baby.  I could not imagine finding out there was some serious birth defect at this point.  How would we deal with that.  I remember my mum trying to explain years ago that your thought process is completely different when the baby is inside you.  I had casually said in my teens that I wouldn’t keep a baby it if had something major wrong with it.  I used to think a cleft lip was major defect and that I’d never keep a baby with that.  I guess our beliefs change with time as we mature.  We came home with another handful of scan photos and there was a really cool one showing her curled up in a ball showing all of her spine.  The lady said that was the best possible picture you could get to check the spine was normal.  

Even though I was clearly unwell at times, I loved being pregnant and our happiest times as a couple since the early years of marriage were around this pregnancy.  As I started to get bigger I suffered from leg cramps and foot cramps.  I think it’s pretty normal, but it was scary at the time.  So many changes is happening in your body and being ill I worried if it was normal or was it just something that was happening to me.  I had a good run of weeks feeling well so we organised a family meal with my late father in law and his parents.  I even went out and bought a new maternity dresses for the occasion.  I was feeling really good.  I wasn’t that close to my extended family.  Relationships were somewhat strained, but I was slowly trying to accept that not all families are like your own.  My husband was supportive of my beliefs and I was going meet him halfway in being more tolerant of the situation for the sake of our little family.