Diary of a Mama to be

This diary is dedicated to Grace Arnold, our baby in heaven, thanks to whom I am starting to believe I can be the kind of Mama I have always wished to be.

It's 2.45am and it seems to be the trend in this pregnancy that my body wants to do everything but sleep at this time of night. Things like pray, eat peanut butter and oatcakes  (this is the only time I can get away with peanut butter as there are few things hubby detests more!) and write. I won't mention the hundreds of trips to the loo or alternating between sweating buckets and trying to hog the blanket back from Daniel and Dorka,  who sometimes occupy 95% of the bed!

So if I'm not going to get any sleeping done, I might as well share some of the million thoughts whizzing through my hormonal brain.
My only experiences with motherhood have not been the easiest so far, so it's no surprise that sleeping at night has somewhat gone out the window. I go to bed with the best intentions,  whispering positive affirmations to tiny bump, uttering my childhood prayer I learned from my sweet great grandma asking God to watch over all my loved ones, sometimes I even spoil myself with a foot massage or yoga breathing and or lemon balm tea. Nevertheless,  I wake up in the night checking whether I still feel nauseous,  still have tender everything and hoping so much that everything is going to plan in there.  It takes a lot of trust to hand all those worries over after having had a missed miscarriage,  where you have every sign of pregnancy only to find out that baby is no longer with you.

The other night I came downstairs to have melon,  as you do in the middle of the night when you're growing another human inside you, sat on the sofa enjoying the stillness of the night, when the words 'natural mama' popped in my head. So I googled it or shall I say I 'Ecosia-d' it, a new search engine I use to help support the planting of trees. And I found a beautifully inspiring family who share videos and have written a week by week guide about natural pregnancy,  which I cannot wait to receive in the post! I listened to a very moving interview with Genevieve Howland, the mama who started this project, and found so inspirational the honesty with which she shared her journey through 3 miscarriages and her reconnecting with Faith, quite literally,  for she named the rainbow baby they had after the losses Faith. You can listen to the interview here if you feel called to

https://youtu.be/Ezq3FJxR0-A

I also found reassuring and uplifting the ease with which she talks about her faith and her struggles with it in the midst of all the miscarriages.

Signing off with gratitude for this Godsend reassurance and will go back and try to reclaim my 5% of the bed! 💞