Baby Brain!

Well, I've been feeling a little better, and so I should be doing my work... But I'll let you in on a secret: I haven't been doing much work at all. (Normal people would probably be ok with this, having been under the weather... Not me! I tell myself off a lot!)

I have baby brain already. I try to work, but I get distracted and look at baby things instead. Pictures of babies and pregnant friends on facebook. Baby blogs. Birth stories. Pregnancy and birth advice. Where to give birth. What to buy for a baby... The list goes on!

I felt quite silly doing this. Until yesterday, when I realised something. I began to plan for getting married a year before darling hubby and I got engaged. I knew we would do, somewhere deep inside (even though my rational brain often doubted, as now), and so I began to prepare. I had a lot of preparing to do. I had a lot of baggage and fears about marriage.

And now the situation is the same. I have a lot of baggage about birth, babies and parenting. I coped with the wedding baggage by really focusing on the planning, and especially on my relationship with God, and with addressing the fears that came up and finding ways of coping with the stresses and anxieties.

All I'm doing is putting the same coping mechanisms in place for baby.

When I'm pregnant, I'll feel as prepared as can be. When I give birth, I'll be as prepared as I can be. And when we bring baby home, the same again.

Preparing for the wedding meant I had a better day than I could possibly have dared hope.

But so much more than that, I felt so ready to get married. And that's something I didn't expect or hope to feel.

You know what? If this baby planning stuff doesn't make much sense to me now, and even less sense to other people (my counsellor seemed concerned! after 18 months there are still things she doesn't understand about my brain), that's ok. In the future, why I am doing this now will make sense. I will look back and see what this preparatory work helped create.

There's a lot going on in my life at the moment. I have huge anxieties around work, studying, parenting, IVF, and birth. Plus I'm changing my diet, and am walking the dog less because of the tiredness and busyness, and with my food and self-image issues that puts quite a large amount of stress on. (Pleased with how my diet's going though - it's great! I'm doing so well! More about that another time maybe. Couldn't have believed I could do this even a year ago.)

Ultimately, I guess I have to navigate my way through these challenges - and what exciting challenges! - as I do everything else: by muddling along, following my instincts, trusting my instincts (or at least trying to!), and trusting that a pattern will become clear afterwards.

The Lord doesn't do things without reason - that I have seen so far. I remember planning my wedding - obsessing over it, even - before engagement (I am not a girl who grew up doing this! it was a new experience!), and feeling so silly. What if it all went wrong? But you know what - it didn't; it went perfectly; I have a dream of a husband and a dream of a life... And that time preparing beforehand helped me so much in not feeling overwhelmed and swept away.

This is how I am. It's how I roll. I'm cool with that. And pleased to have learnt something new about who I am and how fine and dandy it is!