The first Pictures of Baby Goob are in...

Yes! Its true! We had a doctor's appointment today with the lovely Doctor T! He was very kind, very gentle and just all around awesome. I love his nurse, A as well - she's such a sweetie! Anyway, of course my blood pressure was elevated because I felt so nervous, but we all had a bit of a laugh about that.

I got into the ultrasound room practically praying that we'd find a heartbeat. We'd already been rescheduled from 2.20pm to 4pm, and then because of Doctor T's busy schedule, we waited another good fifteen minutes - me sitting on the ultrasound table with my heart falling out of my chest.

But soon he was there along with his nurse, introducing himself kindly and taking my hand. He found out about Josie and put his head in his hands, telling us it was a terrible thing, and that he would do everything he could to make sure we had a great level of intensive care so that we would notice if the placenta began to abrupt again. He took my hand and said he wanted to make sure we got a baby who would keep us up all night! Really, so nice. I liked that. He has "good energy" as my wonderful friend and midwife, R, would say.

Soon we were underway and looking about. The first thing Dr T sad was "well, you're certainly pregnant". Then I saw out bean and said "Oh! Look! There it is! God, I hope it has a heartbeat! Please have a heartbeat..." to which he replied "Oh yes, it's got a heartbeat".

Of course, he'd already seen what I was suspecting. another lovely great bit corpus luteum cyst. I must be prone to them, because this one is as big as the one with Josie...

Anyhow. We zoomed in a bit on the bean, and sure enough, there was the beat, flickering away...


He explained all about the yolk sac - said it was lovely and round and that they'd be worried if it were crescent shaped.

Then we took measurements of the bean...1.3cm and right on 7 weeks, 3 days! Growing away!


The best part of the whole visit was, by far, seeing that magical little heartbeat on screen and listening to the steady "whauff, whauff, whauff". I told both Dr T and Nurse A that the last time I'd seen an ultrasound there hadn't been a heartbeat on it. To see a heart beating inside me was just incredible. I love to see life perservering like this. It just does continue, it does, if you let it...


I would do anything...ANYTHING for this tiny little precious thing. This tiny little new piece of life with it's little heart beating away strongly. I love you, little Goob.

Say it with plastic flowers...

It's Memorial Day, and I am upset.

And a bit pissed off.

I don't get it anyway - I'm from England. I remember my daughter every day, and it just got under my skin today when people were asking if we'd decorated the grave yet, because it was my responsibility as a mother (or H's as a father) to do it in time for Memorial Day.

I had some flowers for Josie, and I went and put them in the ground at her grave site. It just made me mad though, because in England we would have been able to dig into the earth at her grave and plant living flowers. You can't do that here because "the flowers will get mown over". Headstones, plastic flowers and if you're lucky, a metal thing to stick in the ground in which you are allowed to place one pot of real flowers, because the wonderful gardeners can't steer around planted areas. Amazing how they can in the UK - obviously they have different lawn-mowers.

Talking about metal things, H made a lovely one from scratch, but it's not quite ready yet.

Anyway so here we are, I'm decorating her grave with these plastic flowers because I'm obliged to do so because it's what everyone else is doing, and I sit there at the grave feeling angry. Plastic is not indicative of how I feel for her. Plastic is not a natural material. I'm not "into" silk flowers - not even these ones, which are so pretty, because they don't have any life force within them.

But whatever. It's done now. I sat there and put my hands on her little patch, and tried not to cry. I'm glad I was by myself.

Memorial Day. Every day is Memorial Day when you're me.

The first day of the rest of my life...

...is today.

I am twenty-seven years old.

I had a lady say to me the other day "oh, but you're just a baby!" and you know, I felt grateful to hear her say that because though I am not yet thirty years old, I know how fragile life is. I know a lot, and I know I know a lot - not to be a know-it-all, but to speak the truth. To know a lot comes with a catch - it then falls to you to use the information that you've gleaned, or that has been thrust upon you to make the lives of those around you better - to change the world in a small way.

Ah, I hear people saying: you are idealistic. But hey, I've always heard that from people - yes - for years - but I think the best thing to do about people who tell you your standards are too high is to ignore them! I say to people who's standards are high: go for it - because people set their standards far too low most of the time and don't do anything decent at all with the time they're given, claiming it was "too hard" or "too expensive" or "too impossible".

But here's my opinion about that: you know in your heart what is right. You know what the right way to go is. At the end of your life, which could feasibly be just around the corner, can you say to those cuddling around your bedside "I am sorry, I had to do my life's work because someone told me to do it - if I hadn't, I would have lost my job..."

I wonder often how the average bailiff really feels, aged eighty-five, when they look back at their lives of work - of bullying people, threatening people, making people cry...all over money. "It's not a nice job, but someone's got to do it!" they say - but are they right? I don't know. Do you really have to have a job you know is crushing people and ruining people's happiness every day? Why does that person have to be you? It doesn't, you know.

In the company I just left, there were recently two other incidences where stress had a hand (as admitted by the mothers themselves) in stopping life. One of them, a miscarriage which, while early, had a really awful effect on the young lady who went through it. Additionally there was a rather dramatic birth just a week ago or so, which matched what I went through so uncannily that I was very relieved when the baby was out and fine and beautiful, though little. Coincidence? Well, statistically, a scientist would say not - not if you take into consideration all the pregnant women in the company, and companies like that one, and have a little study of the complications that result.

Why are we all so hellbent on this "working for the man" thing anyway? Why is it that as countries grow, we are all forced to think that the only way to exist is to operate as bands of termites in termite hills instead of as individuals with unique things to offer? When did it become the norm to discard people along the way like trash because they were not operating on company principles? Is it okay to do that? Why? Are there just an overabundance of human beings now, so that we can trim off the excess like a societal haircut and throw the unwanted parts in the waste paper basket of America (or Britain, or France, or Russia, or Japan, or wherever else)? Seems funny that we can basically compare some of the human race to the leftover bits of plastic on a production line that are left once the bottle caps are punched out.

You know though, the really strange thing is that when you look at someone in the waste paper basket - someone homeless, you might find they're a really talented singer, or a writer. Someone with a whole ton to contribute, when the person living in the apartment building they're camping outside is the bailiff, knocking on people's doors to reclaim something as worthless as money.

Money really is worthless. We all know that inside.

Anyway. Here I am, self employed. It's my first day. Nice to meet you! Would I like some coffee? Actually I prefer tea.

I am kicking off my shoes and taking off the black shirt I've been wearing my whole working life. It's time to be a real, live human being. The kind of human an alien would be interested in kidnapping. Time to contribute something worthwhile to the world instead of taking everything I can from her. Time to ignore all the voices of the society we've created and step outside the boundaries and become a giant - not an ant. Time to grow up. Time to live the way nature intended.

You know the feeling when you...

...take a turn in the road, and suddenly, the sun comes out from behind a cloud, illuminating the glorious spring landscape and suddenly you realize you've been focusing on the road so much that you didn't notice everything was getting greener?

...find your eyes lift up and the frown between them that you didn't realize you had accumulated flattens out and your entire body just breathes, having held it's breath for months?

...find yourself smiling without realizing you wanted to and feel good about that very fact?

...feel unafraid of a potentially enormous decision you just made, because you know it was the right one?

...feel yourself just becoming lighter because the meaning of life has hit you right in the face like a dandelion seed, and the world becomes bigger and clearer as a result, with a beautiful horizon formerly so obviously close drawing so much further away?

I feel so good. Hormonal, yes, it's true. It's a terribly busy time right now - someone new is occupying the space Josie once held, and that is a joyous feeling but boy, so interesting to think I am now a mother of two biological children and not just one. I've done this before, now. Still, nine months seems like so far away... I cannot wait to feel the downy, soft head of my little one, warm and close, just like Josie, who was also so warm and soft.

Of course, like so many others in my position, I am hoping beyond hope that everything goes well. I am going to be hanging by a thread, I know, until the end of the first trimester.

But still, this pregnancy feels "right". It feels strong! I am experiencing the same symptoms as Josie for the most part - some of them sooner. Right now, since my cycle was due to renew itself, I am feeling odd and crampy and the ligaments in my mama belly are stretching out a little sooner. Hormones have made my tummy pooch out. I've missed my big tummy.

It sounds so funny to say this, but when I was in hospital after having Josie my body was almost screaming "No! I want a re-do! Give me a mulligan! Please! Now!" - now I am almost back there again, and my body is remembering and saying "Ah yes...this is how I was before - let's go back to that again. We liked that."

It was over six months ago now - I had to get used to a dark world after that - one where the colors were faded. I think that's what it was - not getting past death, but instead getting used to the less beautiful life and learning to cope with it being like that until something new had taken over again.

Now, there are a whole host of colors in my life again. It's a little bit like lighting an oil lamp behind a stained glass window - all of a sudden, they shine out again and you'd forgotten they were there at all, because it was dark before, and you couldn't see.

I am looking forward so much to being at home and being creative. Just two weeks left now. Less than two weeks. I will step on the stained glass of the window like the tiniest fairy and dive into every color, and blaze with the creativity of me. This is what I was born to do. I am so excited! It's you and me, little baby. Neither of us are alone any more.

Seeing double...and giving in my notice...

I just did it. Well if you want to be precise, WE did it, and then I did it. Two separate incidents. The first one is below (this picture is the latest, from this morning - I've been getting positive results for three days:


The second is that I gave my notice in about 20 minutes ago. It's my birthday in two weeks, and that day will be my last day. The next year of my life will be a very different year...