Rain face

Ooh, just what I need!

Today I finally accepted what my body has been telling me for weeks: I am clinically depressed. Last night I had a panic attack (which has never happened to me before) and was sat in bed, shivering with fear - terror - that something awful was happening/going to happen to me/the baby.

I have been very emotional with this pregnancy and experienced terrible mood swings, but had assumed (talked myself into thinking) that my symptoms were no worse than with either of my previous pregnancies, especially now I have two under-fives to care for. However, usually I've found that the second trimester is the eye of the storm for me, the time when I can really enjoy the idea of the baby in my body growing and changing every day, and make contact with her, by touch or thought.

Not this time. Every time I think of her, a flutter of anxiety starts in my belly, and if I continue to think about her - even positive, warm thoughts, the anxiety turns into a quaking loss of gravity when I start to panic that at any moment her precious hold on life - through me - is going to slip and I'll lose her.

Nonsense, of course - I know she's healthy and that I've carried two girls full-term before and have no (physical) health problems of my own - but that fear is very real.

So, the manic tidying, sorting, cleaning and clothes-washing can finally be put aside now I've stopped avoiding the problem and have started the process of getting help. As I'm back to having no transport now Jude's working, I emailed an NCT advisor and also got in touch with a midwife, who hopefully will drop by tomorrow morning for a chat. The advisor has offered to put me in touch with any support groups she can find in the area, or even just other mums to talk to, which in itself will no doubt help.

And just by acknowledging that I have a problem, already I'm calmer with the girls and more able to cope with the day, knowing I've made a positive step forward for myself and for the baby.

Coping with emotional children and broken gadgets

I read a great article this morning which made a load of sense to me, as right now Jess is really pushing us both all the time, and Jude and I find it really hard to stay calm with her. She fights with Milly all the time, over anything at all, and unless one of us sits with them both to act as mediator and go-between, it can go on all day. So, if I'm cooking or trying to do anything else, all I hear is screaming from them - "Mine, mine!" "No, Mil, NOOOOO!!!! MINE!" etc, which just makes me roar at both of them, which then results in Jess bursting into tears. Clearly we can't go on like this, as it's not teaching them how to control their emotions if all they see is Mummy losing it whenever they're cross....

She also hits Jude a lot, and laughs at him if he reacts to it in any way, especially if he's really hurt. Even when I've tried to talk to her about her behaviour when she's calm, it doesn't change, and she is often quite hysterically abusive, hitting and laughing, then crying if she's stopped. It's really hard to understand her at the moment.

So, I'm glad to have found the article and I'm hoping to put it into practice so I can be calmer and help Jess, in particular, deal with her own feelings.

My camera is busted, I foolishly left it in the funbus and little fingers got into the lens yesterday and well, that's it for the Coolpix.... luckily I have a back-up which seems to be working OK. Phew. Unfortunately on the same day Jude sat on his phone and cracked the screen, so now we both have broken phones as well. Not a good day for gadgets.

The white project is proceeding in it's own fashion: I've now got going on the fourth section, which has a big satiny moon on it, and is slightly more landscape inspired. I'm starting to get more of a sense of how it will look as a whole, though I'm still not totally confident about stitching it all together.... I kind of like how it's all a little wonky, I'm glad straight lines defeat me so easily, it makes it look a little richer somehow.

Some wildflowers collected a couple of days ago from the fields around us: I picked them knowing that the farmer will be killing them all on the next rotation when he sows the next crop and adds weedkiller.

The ones I've identified so far are tufted vetch (you can see the pretty paired leaves in the bottom pic), along with two I didn't know before: charlock (the yellow flower above right) and common fumitory on the left. The seeds and young shoots of charlock are both edible, but it is detested by farmers as the seeds can survive for half a century.

:-)