Crunchy ‘Nanas

I woke up this morning thinking about my mom and my grandma. I have no idea why, as I don’t think I was dreaming about them, but I was just thinking about how wonderful a caregiver my mom was to my grandma for the last 15 years of her life, and how important it is to be close to family.

When I first met with my midwife in August, buried within the “do you smoke?,” “when was your last period?” and other various medical questions, she asked me, “do you have support?” Without hesitation, I replied, “oh yeah.” And she looked at me, and I thought a moment more and said, “it’s all about 5,000 miles away, though.” And then I started making the excuses, the provisions on why that didn’t matter: my parents will be coming around the time of the birth, my husband’s great, we’ve wanted this for so long…All true, yes, but still don’t necessarily mean that support is not needed. Yet, it was silence that needed filling, and I didn’t really expect her to magically build me a community.

But, the fact still remains that community is lacking. Web cams are awesome, amazing even, but they are no substitute for being in the same room.  Not when video calls are the norm and actual physical closeness is the rarity.

I am not whining or complaining, or I should say, I don’t mean to.  I take full responsibility for every choice I’ve made in my life that’s led me to this point, and I don’t regret a thing. I can’t wait to have a child, I don’t care where in the world, and am looking forward to the rest of my life. But, it doesn’t mean it’s easy.  Crunchy husband’s been great, outstanding, the poor guy has had to deal with the fact that I am having so much difficulty functioning, but sometimes I need someone else to call and hug when the sight of a left-hand drive minivan sets the tears streaming (oh, if only I were making that up).  I want to share and celebrate with people too.  This should all be so fun, so exciting and yet it’s lonely as ever, and it’d be nice if we were able to share it with people who care.

I know that on top of exhaustion from pregnancy, the crazy hormones (I mean, minivan?! I don’t even like minivans!) and a lot on at work, I am coming up on my wall. It’s the wall I hit whenever it’s been longer than about 5-6 months since I have seen my family and girl friends. I am hoping that wall will be surmounted with ease or distraction by the fact that my parents are coming for Christmas (!) and also it’s really only 20 more weeks till baby (!), but only time will tell. As will how all this pans out. I keep telling myself that we will not be in England forever, and that tends to keep the crazies down, but I need to get better at accepting the uncertainties. This child will be born in England, after that, who knows how long we’ll be here. Just not forever.

This entry was posted on Wednesday, 4th November 2009 at  15:04 and is filed under Family and friends. You can follow responses to this entry using the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.